by Rule, Fiona
Once committed, convicts were held in the cells of a local gaol before being handed over to a ‘convict merchant’ who would transport his human cargo to the colonies in return for a fee paid by the Government. When the ship docked at its destination, the convicts were sold on contract as servants to local colonists, who in turn sold produce from their tobacco plantations and arable farms to the convict merchant who would then sail back to Britain with a ship full of a very different sort of cargo.
During the early years of criminal transportation the majority of convicts were sent to either the West Indies or the east coast of America (usually Maryland or Virginia). The journey to these far-flung destinations was both arduous and treacherous. Many of the convicts were not in the best of health when they embarked and consequently, outbreaks of disease were rife. Others found the prospect of servitude in a foreign land too much to bear and, sadly, suicides were not uncommon. According to contemporary landing certificates, mortality rates for convicts during the early years of transportation ran at between 11% and 16%. However, conditions gradually improved and by the 1770s, transporting agents were reporting just 2-3% fatalities per voyage.
The length of sentence received by transported convicts largely depended on the seriousness of the crime. Prisoners convicted of Clergyable offences were sent away for seven years while felons who had secured conditional pardons for capital crimes were transported for a period of anything from 14 years to life.
The vast majority of transported convicts were male. Women were generally considered to be less of a threat to the public and therefore were often given corporal punishment for non-capital offences rather than being sentenced to transportation. Historian A. Roger Ekirch studied the Maryland census return for 1755 and found that 79.5% of all transported convicts living there were either men or boys, most of whom were between the ages of 15 and 29 years. Their social status and professional backgrounds were surprisingly diverse. Ekirch noted that the prisoners ranged ‘from soldiers to silversmiths to coopers and chimney sweeps, including a former cook for the Duke of Northumberland. One Irish convict styled himself a metal refiner, chemist and doctor while another jack-of-all-trades was reputedly “handy at any business”’. Other felons found by Ekirch include a former barrister who supplemented his income by smuggling rare books out of university libraries to be sold on the black market and a gentleman who despite being independently wealthy got his kicks from stealing silver cutlery.
Although the majority of transported convicts were not dangerous and many provided useful, cheap labour for the local plantation owners and farmers, many colonists found the concept of transportation insulting in the extreme. This is unsurprising considering it was patently obvious that the courts on the British mainland viewed their North American and West Indian colonies as perfect dumping grounds for the members of society they had rejected. Some colonies attempted to halt the process of transportation by levying taxes on the convict ships but the British Government soon stopped this practice. It was only at the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1775 that transportation to America finally ground to a halt. In total, around 30,000 prisoners were transported to America between 1718 and 1775 representing up to a quarter of all British immigrants to America during the 18th century.
When America declared independence from Britain in 1776, the courts were left with the dilemma of what to do with felons sentenced to transportation. Although the practice had proved unpopular in the colonies receiving the prisoners, transportation had proved to be hugely successful as a means of disposing of criminals on the British mainland and the courts were reluctant to dispense with the punishment. Various proposals were discussed and ultimately dismissed until the authorities finally realised that the answer to their problem lay many thousands of miles away in a land that had only been visited by a handful of Englishmen.
Earlier in the decade, Royal Navy Lieutenant James Cook had returned to Britain after a long expedition to the South Pacific announcing that he had claimed a new territory for the Crown named New South Wales. Cook and his crew reported that despite its remote location, the land and climate were very favourable for settlement. The courts reviewed Cook’s reports of the land, came to the conclusion that New South Wales would be a perfect destination for transported criminals and on 26 January 1788, the ‘First Fleet’ of ships docked at Port Jackson, Sydney, with a human cargo of around 700 convicts. British colonisation of Australia had begun.
Life was exceptionally hard for Australia’s first colonists. Due to the sheer number of convicts on board the first fleet, the ships could only be loaded with a relatively small amount of provisions, meaning that on arrival at Sydney, the convicts and accompanying marines had to become self-sufficient very quickly. The voyage itself was far longer than any previous convict transportations and by the time the ships reached port, many of the passengers were in very poor physical health and unable to work. The absence of any established farms or plantations exacerbated the problem and many people, convicts and free settlers alike, starved to death. The arrival of a second fleet in 1790 only made the situation worse as the starving colonists had to deal with an influx of yet more people who had to be fed.
At this point, the successful establishment of a penal colony in New South Wales seemed an almost impossible task and the venture may have failed completely were it not for the vision and enthusiasm of the colony’s first Governor, Arthur Philip. On accepting the post, Philip envisaged the development of a colony that comprised a mix of convicts and free settlers. British citizens looking to begin a new life overseas were to be encouraged to come to New South Wales by the offer of a generous financial relocation package from the Government.
Once they had arrived, they would be given assistance in setting up their chosen business and would have a large workforce at their disposal in the form of convicts. In reality, the Government showed little interest in developing the fortunes of its new colony. Financial incentives for those wishing to emigrate were much lower than Philip had hoped and to cap it all, stories of the appalling conditions in New South Wales began to filter through to the homeland. Between 1788 and 1792, just 13 people decided to emigrate to Australia. In contrast, over 4,000 convicts arrived.
The almost total absence of new, free settlers combined with the arrival of a never-ending stream of convicts presented Philip with a problem that seemed almost insurmountable. He had to find a way to deal with an ever-expanding population of convicts, many of whom were either unable or unwilling to work. In addition to this, a sizeable proportion of the convicts were professional criminals who were constantly looking for ways to abscond or cause trouble. Some were dangerously violent; others suffered from mental illness. None of them wanted to be in Australia. Philip met the challenge with a mixture of prudence and authority. Provisions were constantly in short supply and so he took great care to ensure that they were shared amongst the population equally, regardless of status. The condition in which prisoners were received in New South Wales was significantly improved by the introduction of hygiene and care standards on the convict ships. Convicts that displayed exemplary behaviour were rewarded with better-paid, more responsible jobs and any crimes committed were dealt with in a fair but firm manner.
Gradually, the situation began to improve. New businesses were set up by convicts who had served their sentences but could not afford the passage home. Marriages were conducted and children born, thus strengthening community bonds. Convicts and settlers became less homesick as they slowly adjusted to their new surroundings. On arriving in New South Wales, Major Robert Ross had summed up the opinion of virtually everyone present by describing the place as the ‘outcast of God’s works’. By the time Philip finished his term as Governor in 1792, the colony was beginning to become a fully functioning community, though it would be nearly 60 years before the Gold Rush of the 1850s enticed any significant numbers of free settlers to build a new life in Australia. By then, most of the pioneers were dead but their refusal to quit
in the face of adversity left an enduring legacy that helped shape the former penal colony into one of the 21st century’s wealthiest nations.
Despite the undeniably harsh conditions faced by transported convicts, there is little evidence to suggest that the threat of exile deterred the populace from breaking the law. Just two years after the passing of the Transportation Act, the East India Company infuriated the Spitalfields weavers for a second time when it began importing cheap printed calico from India. When made up into a garment, printed calico took on the look of woven silk, but cost a fraction of the price. Therefore it became very popular throughout the City, much to the silk weavers’ disgust. The weavers referred to women who wore dresses of this printed cloth as ‘calico madams’ and were known to attack them in the street. One poor unsuspecting woman was assaulted by a crowd of weavers who ‘tore, cut, pulled off her gown and petticoat by violence, threatened her with vile language and left her naked in the fields’. The printed calico problem came to a head when a group of weavers tried to march to Lewisham to destroy some calico printing presses but were met by troops, who shot one of the weavers dead. As a result, the Government passed the Calico Act in 1721, which banned the use and wear of all printed calicos.
Chapter 6
A New Parish and a Gradual Descent
By the 1720s, Spitalfields had become so densely populated that the old chapels and churches could not accommodate enough people. The Huguenots were well-served by their own chapels, but many Spitalfields residents were not French Protestants and needed their own place of worship. There was an old chapel on Wheler Street and a Friends Meeting House in the aptly-named Quaker Street, but both these places were far too small to serve the burgeoning population. The decision was made in 1728 to create a new parish in the area. This parish was named Christ Church and its church was built by the great ecclesiastical architect Nicholas Hawksmoor on Red Lion Street (now Commercial Street), almost opposite the market. Christ Church was consecrated on 5th July 1729 and is distinguished by its exceptionally tall spire, which measures 225 feet.
By the 1740s, Spitalfields was at the height of its prosperity. The parish clerk, John Walker, noted that there were at the time 2,190 houses in Spitalfields, not counting those in Norton Folgate, the Old Artillery Ground or Spital Square. The properties along the major thoroughfares were occupied by master weavers and silk merchants, while the artisans and journeymen lived in the side turnings, such as Dorset Street and Fashion Street. In the Ten Bells pub on Commercial Street, a 19th century tiled frieze depicts a Spitalfields street scene in the mid-18th century. The picture shows a busy, cheerful community of craftsmen and merchants, doing business with one another and evidently taking great pride in their work. However, the good times were not destined to last for long and by the 1760s, cracks began to show in the hitherto closely-knit weaving community that by now formed the backbone of the area.
For some time, journeymen silk weavers had been unhappy about the level of wages they received. An article from the Gentleman’s Magazine dated November 1763 illustrates how this dissatisfaction sometimes descended into violence: ‘in a riotous manner (the journeymen weavers) broke into the house of one of their masters, destroyed his looms and cut a great quantity of silk to pieces, after which they placed his effigy in a cart, with a halter round its neck, an executioner on one side, and a coffin on the other; and after drawing it through the streets, they hanged it on a gibbet, then burnt it to ashes and afterwards dispersed.’
This particular act of aggression against an employer was by no means an isolated incident. By 1768, these outbreaks of violence had become so widespread that an act of Parliament was passed making it punishable by death to break into any house or shop with the intention of maliciously damaging or destroying silk goods in the process of manufacture. The fiery-tempered journeymen were undeterred by the act and continued to loot the homes and workplaces of employers who they felt had treated them unfairly.
As time went on, the attacks on the master weavers’ homes became more organised and it soon became clear that the journeymen were becoming a cohesive unit, capable of severely damaging the local industry. As a result, troops were employed to break up meetings of journeymen whenever and wherever they took place. In 1769, a meeting at the Dolphin pub in Spitalfields was raided by troops, who opened fire on the journeymen, killing two and forcing the ringleaders to beat a hasty retreat from the area. Two of them were subsequently caught and hanged at the crossroads at Bethnal Green (also a weaving area) as a warning to others.
The Government realised that while force could be employed to calm the journeymen weavers’ tempers, the silk weaving industry was facing problems of a much more far-reaching nature. As news of Spitalfields’ burgeoning silk weaving industry spread throughout the 18th century, the area experienced a dramatic influx of poor from all over the British Isles looking for work. At first, the master weavers welcomed this state of affairs because it meant they could buy cheap labour, but by the middle of the century, there were simply too few jobs to go round.
In 1773, the Government passed the Spitalfields Acts and attempted to remedy the situation by restricting the number of people entering the industry and having independent local Justices set the journeymen’s wages. However, this external control of wages and restricted employment meant that the master weavers found it difficult to operate their businesses day to day. This, coupled with the introduction of mechanised looms and the fact that woven silks were gradually slipping out of fashion, meant that the master weavers began to move out of the area to towns in Essex, where they had the freedom to run their businesses as they pleased, with lower overheads. The Spitalfields silk industry was in decline.
Despite the exodus of master weavers to the Essex countryside, the influx of poor coming to Spitalfields looking for work continued unabated. Soon the cheaper accommodation in the alleys and courts became overrun with people. Disease spread quickly in such a claustrophobic atmosphere and the more desperate residents resorted to petty crime in order to make ends meet.
However, all was not doom and gloom just yet. Many weaving businesses continued to employ journeymen weavers and throwsters from the area and other businesses, such as Truman’s Brewery, which had stood in Black Lion Street since 1669, were also major employers. Dorset Street and Spitalfields in general was also considered an attractive location for manufacturers’ London showrooms due to its proximity to the City. In the early 1820s, Thomas Wedgwood opened a showroom for his family’s world famous china at number 40 Dorset Street. The Wedgwood family had been potters for generations, however, it was the creative vision and sound business acumen of Thomas’ great, great uncle, Josiah Wedgwood, that brought the pottery international success. Josiah was responsible for the creation of the pottery’s signature Queen’s Ware, a simple, classical design with a plain cream glaze, which is still available today.
Queen’s Ware is named after Queen Charlotte, a regular Wedgwood customer who appointed the firm ‘Queen’s Potter’ in 1762. Ironically, Josiah Wedgwood was an active campaigner for social reform and led the way for improved living conditions for the poor by building model dwellings for his workers in Stoke on Trent. It is a pity he was not alive to see the overrun and dilapidated courts and alleyways that surrounded his company’s London showroom in the early 19th century. Despite its good location, Thomas Wedgwood left the Dorset Street property in the mid-1840s, no doubt realising the area was in slow but unstoppable decline. He retired soon after and lived out his days in rural Bengeo, Hertfordshire, where he died in 1864.
Another business that had grown to dominate the area was Spitalfields Market. The market had been gradually improved and enlarged throughout the latter part of the 18th century and by 1800 was a major supplier of fruit and vegetables (mainly potatoes) to the masses. The market offered a wide variety of job opportunities from administrative positions for those who could read and write, to portering and selling for workers who had not benefited from a formal education (
or preferred more physical work). Freelance opportunities were also available for costermongers who took produce from the market on their barrows and wheeled it round the streets looking for buyers. Workers from all around the London area and beyond travelled to the market to do business.
Many men who travelled some distance to the market found it easier to stay in the area overnight rather than face a long journey home after a hard days work. Consequently cheap lodgings and an evening’s entertainment became widely sought. Public houses sprang up on any available land within a short walk from the market. One of the earliest market pubs was the Blue Coat Boy at 32 Dorset Street. Situated a mere two minutes away from the market gates, this pub was certainly in existence by 1825 and had probably stood on the site for much longer. Although fairly small, it provided an opportunity to relax with colleagues before the next day’s hard work began. Some pubs offered rooms to let above the bar but it soon became clear that a significantly larger amount of accommodation was required to satisfy the rapidly increasing demand from itinerant workers. Thus, one of the major forces in the downfall of Spitalfields arrived – the common lodging house.
Chapter 7
The Rise of the Common Lodging House
The Spitalfields common lodging houses evolved purely in response to demand. If the residents had known what they would do to the area, there is little doubt they would have banned them on the spot. However, as more itinerant workers arrived, locals realised that good money could be earned by letting out spare rooms on a nightly basis. When it transpired that the spare rooms could be let virtually all year round, empty properties were sought, which could be turned into yet more sleeping quarters, yielding more cash.