Immigration

The designations ‘alien’ and ‘stranger’ were used in the early modern period to refer to foreign-born individuals residing in the realm, but with none of the franchises of native Englishmen. The term ‘immigrant’ was rarely used at the time and belongs to later ages of concern. As a legal term, the word alien refers to a person who is in a country, but not a resident of that country. There were four types of persons known to the law: natural born subject; denisen; alien friend; and alien enemy. The Crown possessed absolute power over alien enemies. Alien friends (Protestant refugees) were protected by law and were granted limited rights. Immigrants were not allowed to own property; they were not entitled to vote or hold office; they were required to pay double the rates of taxation; and in times of war or political conflict the authorities reserved the right of immediate expulsion.
An alien could become an adopted subject with the acquisition of a letter of patent. There was a financial cost involved, but the most valued aspects of the letter of denisation were its grant of permanent residency and protection from expulsion. The letter of naturalisation from Parliament offered full security and rights. Naturalised aliens were able to trade freely, purchase (and bequeath) property and enjoy the same tax status as natural born subjects. Few aliens were able to acquire this status as acquisition of the letter was costly. During Elizabeth’s reign only twelve acts were granted.
The rise of the cloth industry in the fourteenth century gave the country her first considerable manufacturing base. It is noteworthy that the initial influx of foreigners into England during that period was by Royal invitation when, in 1331, Edward III asked a group of Flemish weavers to revive a decaying local industry.
Early immigration was economically determined, strangers were invited because of their superior skills, although strict conditions were imposed which was an early attempt at formulating an ‘immigration policy’. At a time that the potentialities of government action were limited, the encouragement of a refugee influx was a significant act of state in the socio-economic sphere.
In the course of the sixteenth century an increasing number of religious refugees found asylum in England. Most of them moved to London and settled outside the City walls. They brought with them new skills and techniques which gave them the edge over local Londoners in trades as diverse as weaving, silver and gold-smithing, tailoring, clock-making or brewing. In addition, there were printers, basket makers, joiners and caterers.
Initially, immigrant businesses offered employment to local Londoners who were able to adopt the new techniques for their own advancement. The recession of the early 1500s hit the capital hard. Foreigners were blamed for hunger and poverty. In 1517, provoked by a racist speech by Doctor Beal [Bele] at St Paul’s Cross, several hundred of hungry artisans and apprentices took to the streets in Stepney in search of foreigners and, in the process, killing many immigrants.
The riot is known as Evil May Day and has entered popular mythology as a gruesome occasion. The punishment meted out to the rioters was ferocious. Fifteen Londoners were hung, drawn and quartered for their part in the anti-alien fury. The surviving prisoners were charged with the offence of ‘breaking the peace of Christendom’, another capital crime. This harsh treatment was an attempt by the authorities to stamp out extreme hostilities against immigrants. Yet, xenophobia persisted. The landscape of sixteenth century urban history is dotted with outbursts of anti-alien sentiment.
The first major arrival of refugees during the reign of Elizabeth I coincided with a period of considerable instability. An economic slump, an unsettled religious situation and the hostility of Catholic nations, made Elizabeth’s seat of power unsteady. In 1558, she appointed William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, as her Secretary of State. By 1572 he was named Lord High Treasurer and became chief Royal advisor.
Cecil was a prominent defender of the concept of asylum. He sympathised with Continental migrants as fellow Protestants, but also sensed that the settling of skilled workers could be useful to develop the nation’s backward economy. In his policy making there was an attempt to balance the protection of natural born subjects with the aspirations of refugees and immigrants.
Religious instability was one of the concerns about the mass arrival of aliens. Protestantism was more readily embraced in the South and East of England (Essex and Kent stood in the vanguard) than elsewhere in the country. London became the centre where all books and pamphlets from the Continent were smuggled to (by 1518 Martin Luther tracts were easily available in the City — printing had become a formidable power) and where all heretics and ‘evangelical brethren’ gathered. It was feared that an increasing number of foreigners would constitute a possible ‘fifth column’ in the struggle against the Catholic Church. From the beginning, asylum has been accompanied by varying degrees of xenophobia and resentment.
There was also disquiet about the non-integration of refugees. Settling in ‘foreign quarters’ and being supported by their (stranger) churches, it was feared that refugees barely needed to accommodate themselves to the local way of life. The inability of Dutch or Flemish characters to speak English became a standard joke in Tudor comedy.
The feeling that strangers deliberately excluded Englishmen from their business relations was one of the grievances behind the simmering agitation of native craftsmen. In 1570 thirty immigrants from the Low Countries made enquiries if they could settle in Rye (Sussex). Seeking advice from the Privy Council, local authorities received a directive that reads like a summary of sixteenth century immigration policy. These were the criteria for settlement laid down in this document: refugee settlements had to be composed of Protestants; immigrants must possess skills that would benefit the economy and teach those skills to local citizens; the number of strangers had to be controlled; in order to minimise local hostility, settlers had to be distributed around the country in groups of limited size. If the first requirement was not fulfilled, the others did not matter. In 1574, some 1.500 strangers in London who could not show Protestant credentials were ordered to leave.
The era is typified by a dichotomy of attitudes. Many Elizabethans, whatever their ‘class’ or position, did not trust immigrants whilst others supported the concept of limited asylum. Guildford-born George Abbot, later Archbishop of Canterbury, commented in one of his morning lectures in Oxford (1572) upon the many conspiracies in London ‘intended against outlandish folks’. He was ashamed of the fact that they were treated ‘no better than French dogs’. Godly people, he insisted, treat ‘aliens as brethren’.
Grievances were mainly of an economic nature. In September 1571, the ‘Citizens of London’ sent a petition to the Queen outlining seven complaints directed against foreigners, six of which dealt with alien merchants. Early migration shows that where immigrants sprang from an economically progressive background, they contributed to the extension of technical enterprise. The stranger from a developed community proved a unique vehicle for economic enterprise able to manage the affairs of its hosts as he was not bound to their ethical standards or business conventions.
When Daniel Defoe somewhat unkindly said that the Englishman had invented nothing and improved everything, he may have been hinting at the nation’s ability to ignore ideas in the abstract, but quickly adopt new propositions when practical exposition was provided. Many of the skills and techniques brought in from the Continent became part of the socio-industrial fabric of the nation. Entrepreneurial activity and economic prosperity were kick-started by immigrants.

This is the first chapter of European Londoners. If you like it: you can get the complete book for free, as a PDF. Mail [email protected]

The Enlightenment (‘siècle des lumières’) was the age of European Union proper. Enlightenment was an outlook and an attitude: rational, inclusive, and outward-looking. Geography was its preferred science. Travel, travel-writing, and remote explorations excited the curiosity of the eighteenth century. From dangerous journeys to unexplored parts of the world to the ‘civilised’ passage of Grand Tourists, the age was on the move, both physically and intellectually. The ‘other’ was treated as an intriguing figure, not as a threat or risk. The ambition was to create an open and diverse society by bringing down barriers and borders that obstruct individuals to progress. Enlightenment was both a movement and a state of mind: an intellectual and psychological alliance, not an economic one. Economics alone will not built a community of minds. Instead, it tends to divide and destroy any sense of common purpose or perspective.

Refugees played a crucial role in the spread of Enlightenment ideas. The Rainbow Coffee House Group was a circle of mainly Huguenot intellectuals who met informally at the Rainbow Coffee House in Lancaster Court, off St Martin’s Lane, where they exchanged books and ideas, and engaged in discussion on philosophical and theological topics associated with the growth of scepticism in early eighteenth century Europe. With links to Paris and the Low Countries, its members formed part of an international web for the free flow of ideas and views. Convention was the enemy. The driving force behind the group was the journalist and biographer Pierre Des Maizeaux. He promoted the circulation of English scientific and philosophical ideas on the Continent through his contributions to French-language periodicals published in the Netherlands, and maintained an impressive network of contacts. Pierre Coste was a close friend of Des Maizeaux and his translations of John Locke and Newton facilitated the spread of their work throughout Europe. Michael de la Roche was a journalist and translator who worked on the first English translation of Bayle’s Dictionnaire critique. He played a major role in the dissemination of English science and philosophy abroad, and conducted a campaign in favour of religious toleration. The unorthodox bias of the Rainbow group extended to its English members which included Richard Mead, a leading figure in the Royal Society, and the freethinking philosopher Anthony Collins.

Cartographer and author Jean [John] Palairet was born in 1697 in Montauban, near Toulouse, into a Huguenot household. The family was forced into exile and settled in The Hague where Jean’s father worked as a (wine?) merchant. Jean was educated in the Netherlands. At some time he entered the Dutch diplomatic service and was sent to London as an agent for the States General. He was in London by 1727 when he married his first wife Elizabeth Dawson. Having published Nouvelle introduction à la géographie modern in 1754, he created an Atlas méthodique on behalf of William, Prince of Orange (son of Princess Anne, daughter of George II) in 1755. The work offered him an entrance in English Royal circles and he acted as French teacher to three of the children of George II at Leicester House. He remained in Royal service under George III and, at the same time, represented the private interests of the Dutch diplomat, garden designer, and Anglophile Jacob Boreel. Another influential publication, also in 1755, was his Carte des possessions angloises et françoises d’Amérique septentrionale. His brother Elias Palairet, a classical and biblical philologist who had studied at Leiden University, also settled in London and preached at the Dutch Chapel at St James’s Palace, Westminster.

Palairet’s maps had drawn the attention of author and educationist Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont. Born in April 1711 in Rouen she had been engaged as governess at the court of Lunéville, residence of Duke Leopold, nephew of Louis XIV by marriage. Her duties were primarily with Elisabeth-Thérèse, oldest of the daughters (who, two years later, would marry Charles-Emmanuel III, King of Sardinia). Presence at court brought her in direct contact with many prominent figures, including Voltaire who became a regular contributor to her Nouveau magasin français (1750/2). Having separated from her husband in 1748, she left France for London. That same year she published her first novel Le triomphe de la vérité. She is remembered for her abridged version of La belle et la bête (better known as Beauty and the Beast), adapted from Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve’s original and published in her Magasin des Enfants (1756), which has been hailed as the best female fiction published during the eighteenth century. To what extent the Enlightenment advanced female emancipation remains a topic of debate, but there can be no doubt that Mme De Beaumont played a significant role in the process.

In London, Beaumont was close to Henrietta Louisa Fermor, Lady Pomfret, who provided her with numerous introductions. Beaumont’s ideas on education (the use of interactive teaching tools) influenced Pomfret’s daughter, the future Lady Charlotte Finch, who from 1762 to 1793 was governess to the fifteen children of George III and Queen Charlotte. The urge to discover and explore the world was reflected in teaching. Practical map-making was an integral part of (aristocratic) male schooling, but young girls were introduced to geography as well. One of Beamont’s suggestions was that Jean Palairet’s maps should be used in the classroom. Finch took up that idea, possibly in consultation with Queen Charlotte who herself was an avid reader of books on the latest developments in child education. But how to teach map-reading to young brains in a playful manner?

The history of jigsaws started with the production of so-called ‘dissected maps’. Virtually all of the oldest surviving puzzles are made of engraved maps which were hand-cut with a fret (bow) saw into irregularly shaped pieces. They were created as educational tools. Beaumont made part of her income by running private classes which were advertised. Her teaching fee included a cost item for the use of wooden maps. An early commercial publisher of these puzzles was John Spilsbury who was based at Russel Court, off Drury Lane. A former apprentice of Thomas Jefferys, Geographer to the King, he is presented in the 1763 Universal Director as an ‘Engraver and Map Dissector in Wood’. His first puzzle map was called ‘Europe Divided into its Kingdoms’ and featured pieces cut along national boundaries. Charlotte Finch acquired such puzzles on behalf of the Royal family. These were (and remained) costly items. In Jane Austen’s novel Mansfield Park (1814), the poverty-struck heroine Fanny Price is mocked by two privileged cousins for her inability to ‘put the map of Europe together’ using one of those expensive puzzles. Such was the appeal of the new educational tool that by the end of century London was home to nearly twenty engravers who specialised in puzzle making. As the nineteenth century progressed and new colouring and cutting methods streamlined the manufacturing process, puzzle maps declined in cost and became accessible to a wider public. The use of the term jigsaw itself originates from the later nineteenth century (after 1870).

Charlotte Finch commissioned a mahogany cabinet to hold several dissected map puzzles which she had acquired for the Royal children (the cabinet has been preserved and is held at the V&A’s Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green). Eight of the maps in her puzzle cabinet were produced from Palairet’s Atlas méthodique and, most likely, dissected to her direction. In a project of Anglo-French participation, promoted by Dutch and Hanoverian Royalty, the map of Europe was cut into a multitude of pieces which were presented to young pupils to be put together again into a unified geographical entity. In our age of division and disintegration, this is a striking metaphor.

On Books, Streets & Migrant Footprints

by Jaap Harskamp and Paul Dijstelberge

Refugees & Migrants: St Paul’s Cross (City of London)

Puzzled Europe | St Martin’s Lane (Covent Garden)