Spitalfields () is an area in London, England, and is located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is in East London and situated in the East End. Spitalfields is formed around Commercial Street and Brick Lane. It has several markets, including Spitalfields Market, the historic Old Spitalfields Market, Brick Lane Market and Petticoat Lane Market.
The area has long attracted migrants from overseas. In the 19th century this included many Jews, whose presence gained for the area at that time the nickname of Little Jerusalem.Brewer's Dictionary of London Phrase and Fable, Russ Willey, 2010, p. 292, ISBN 978 0550 100313 Since the second half of the 20th century it has been home to a large Bangladeshi community.
Spitalfields lies just outside the City of London; it was a hamlet (autonomous area) of the large ancient parish of Stepney in Middlesex, and became an independent parish in 1729. It formed part of the County of London from 1889 and was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney from 1900. It was abolished as a civil parish in 1921.
Origin and administration Toponymy The name Spitalfields appears in the form Spittellond in 1399; as The spitel Fyeld on the "Woodcut" map of London of ; and as Spyttlefeildes, also in 1561. The land belonged to St Mary Spital, a priory or hospital (a lodging for travellers run by a religious order) erected on the east side of the Bishopsgate thoroughfare in 1197, from which its name is thought to derive ("spital" being a corruption of the word "hospital".) An alternative, and possibly earlier, name for the area was Lolsworth.
Administrative history The area was a part of the manor and ancient parish of Stepney before the Domesday Book of 1086.
Parish areas originally had only ecclesiastical (church) functions. The monasteries which had provided extensive charitable work on a voluntary basis, were dissolved by Henry VIII, creating increased hardship. The government responded by making parish areas take on civil functions, primarily a new Poor Law intended to fill the gap left by monasteries.
Stepney was a very large and populous parish, and by the late 17th century it had devolved its civil parish functions to autonomous areas called Hamlets, in this context meaning territorial sub-divisions, rather than small villages, of which Spitalfields was one.
In 1729, the Hamlet of Spitalfields became an independent daughter parish. The area's parish church was Christ Church, Spitalfields, with St Stephen Spitalfields, demolished in 1930, added later.
In 1855, the parish became part of the Whitechapel District within the Metropolitan Board of Works area. Spitalfields Vestry nominated twelve members to the Whitechapel District Board of Works. The Board of Works was an unelected body, responsible for certain infrastructure functions.
Spitalfields became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney in 1900, and on 1 April 1921 the civil parish was abolished and merged with Whitechapel. At the 1911 census, one of the last before the abolition of the parish, Spitalfields had a population of 19,811. It became part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in 1965.
The area was part of the historic (or ancient) county of Middlesex, but military and most (or all) civil county functions were managed more locally, by the Tower Division (also known as the Tower Hamlets), a historic ‘county within a county’, under the leadership of the Lord-Lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets (the post was always filled by the Constable of the Tower of London). The military loyalty to the Tower meant local men served in the Tower garrison and Tower Hamlets Militia, rather than the Middlesex Militia.The London Encyclopaedia, 4th Edition, 1983, Weinreb and HibbertEast London Papers, Volume 8, Number 2, The Name 'Tower Hamlets'. M.J. Power, December 1965
The role of the Tower Division ended when Spitalfields became part of the new County of London in 1889. The County of London was replaced by Greater London in 1965.
Representation
Nearly all, except a tiny area north of the railway, in Weaver's Ward, of the district is part of the Spitalfields & Banglatown ward, which elects two councillors to Tower Hamlets Borough Council. Spitalfields is in the Bethnal Green and Stepney constituency, with the area represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Rushanara Ali of the Labour Party.
The Spitalfields Neighbourhood Planning Forum, which is constituted of Spitalfields residents, business operators, community organisations and other local interests, is intended to help local people influence neighbourhood planning policies.
History Roman era The Romans had a cemetery to the east of the Bishopsgate thoroughfare, which roughly follows the line of Ermine Street: the main highway to the north from Londinium. The cemetery was noticed by the antiquarian John Stow in 1576 and was the focus of a major archaeological excavation in the 1990s, following the redevelopment of Spitalfields Market.
In 2013, Janet Montgomery of Durham University undertook lead isotope analysis of tooth enamel, identifying the first person from Rome known to have been buried in Britain. She was a 25-year-old woman, buried in a lead-lined stone sarcophagus around the middle of the 4th century AD, and accompanied by grave goods of jet and glass.
St Mary Spital
In 1197, a priory, The New Hospital of St Mary without Bishopsgate, latterly known as St Mary Spital, was founded by Walter Brunus and his wife Roisia, and built on the site of the cemetery.Thomas, Sloane and Phillpotts (1997) Excavations at the Priory and Hospital of St Mary Spital, London. Museum of London: London: 19–20 It was one of the biggest hospitals in medieval England and had a large cemetery with a mortuary chapel and stone charnel house. The chapel has been uncovered by archaeologists and preserved for public viewing. The priory and hospital were dissolved in 1539 under Henry VIII. At the time of the dissolution, the hospital had beds for 180 sick poor.The Blackest Streets, Sarah Wise, The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum, Vintage Publishing 2009
The inner precinct of priory hospital was adjacent to the area that later became the Hamlet and parish of Spitalfields, in the tiny extra-parochial area called the Liberty of Norton Folgate. Although the chapel and monastic buildings were mostly demolished in the time of Henry VIII, the Liberty remained an autonomous area outside of any parish. The adjacent outer precincts, to the south, were re-used for artillery practice by the gunners of the Tower of London. The area, known as the Old Artillery Ground was placed under the special jurisdiction of the Tower of London as one of its Tower Liberties.Thomas: pp. 30–75
Other parts of the priory area were used for residential purposes by London dwellers seeking a rural retreat and by the mid-17th century further development extended eastward into the erstwhile open farmland of the Spital Field.Fiona Rule (2008) The Worst Street in London, pp. 18-26, Hersham, Ian Allan.
Huguenots
Spitalfields consisted mainly of fields and nursery gardens until its development in the late 17th century. BHO British History Online (british-history.ac.uk) The main local industry at that time was weaving, and many of the weavers were Huguenot refugees from France. Spitalfields' historic association with the silk industry was established by French Protestant (Huguenot) refugees who settled in the area after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. By settling outside the bounds of the City of London, they hoped to avoid the restrictive legislation of the City guilds.
The Huguenots brought with them little, apart from their skills, and an Order in Council of 16 April 1687 raised £200,000 to relieve their poverty. In December 1687, the first report of the committee set up to administer the funds reported that 13,050 French refugees were settled in London, primarily around Spitalfields, but also in the nearby settlements of Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, Whitechapel and Mile End New Town.Industries: Silk-weaving, A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 2: General; Ashford, East Bedfont with Hatton, Feltham, Hampton with Hampton Wick, Hanworth, Laleham, Littleton (1911), pp. 132–137. Date accessed: 4 March 2009
The late 17th and 18th centuries saw an estate of well-appointed terraced houses, built to accommodate the master weavers controlling the silk industry, and grand urban mansions built around the newly created Bishops Square which adjoins the short section of the main east–west street known as Spital Square. Christ Church, Spitalfields on Fournier Street, designed by the architect Nicholas Hawksmoor, was built during the reign of Queen Anne to demonstrate the power of the established church to the dissenting Huguenots, who had built ten chapels in the area.Fiona Rule (2008) The Worst Street in London. Hersham, Ian Allan: 28 More humble weavers dwellings were congregated in the Tenterground.Thomas: pp. 76–95 The Spitalfields Mathematical Society was established in 1717. In 1846, it merged with the Royal Astronomical Society.
Spitalfields Market was established in 1638 when Charles I gave a licence for flesh, fowl and roots to be sold in what was then known as Spittle Fields.Old Spitalfields Market Published 2008. Retrieved 17 June 2009. The market currently receives around 25,000 visitors every week.
Huguenots of Spitalfields is a registered charity promoting public understanding of the Huguenot heritage and culture in Spitalfields, the City of London and beyond. They arrange tours, talks, events and schools programmes to raise the Huguenot profile in Spitalfields and to raise funds for a permanent memorial to the Huguenots.
From the 1730s Irish weavers came, after a decline in the Irish linen industry, to take up work in the silk trade. The 18th century saw periodic crises in the silk industry, brought on by imports of French silk – in a lull between the wars between the two rivals; and imports of printed calicos. The depression in the trade and the prices paid to weavers led to protests. In 1769, the Spitalfield riots occurred when attempts were made to disperse protest meetings by weavers during the downturn in the market for silk. The riots ended in an Irish and a Huguenot weaver being hanged in front of the Salmon and Ball public house at Bethnal Green.
Price controls on amounts master weavers could pay journeymen for each piece were established, removing incentives to pay higher wages during good times. During bad times workers had no work. As the price was per piece, there was no incentive for using machinery, as the master would have to pay for the machine and still pay the same price per piece to journeymen. By 1822 labour rates were so above market labour rates, that much of the employment in silk manufacture had moved away. Remaining manufacture focussed on expensive fashion items, which required proximity to court and had higher margins.Observations on the ruinous tendency of the Spitalfields Act to the silk manufacture, books.google.com
In 1729, Spitalfields was detached from the parish of Stepney, and became an independent parish; by this time parish areas had both civil and ecclesiastical (church) functions. The area's parish church was Christ Church, Spitalfields, with St Stephen Spitalfields added later. The church of St Stephen Spitalfields was built in 1860 by public subscription but was demolished in 1930. The adjacent vicarage is all that remains.
Victorian era
By the Victorian era, the silk industry had entered a long decline and the old merchant dwellings had degenerated into multi-occupied slums. Spitalfields became a by-word for urban deprivation, and, by 1832, concern about a London cholera epidemic led The Poor Man's Guardian (18 February 1832) to write of Spitalfields: