The Jews of Essex before 1900

<plain_text><page sequence="1">The Jews of Essex before 1900* MALCOLM BROWN At 10.45 a-m- on *5 September 1897, a special train steamed out of Fenchurch Street Station. On board were 500 East End men, women and children bour^d for South Benfleet, where Messrs Protheroe and Morris were to auction, for the fourth time that summer, small freehold plots that would fetch a few pounds apiece, payable on the instalment system. 'The Jews as Agriculturists', ran a headline in the Essex Chronicle. 'A Colony of Israelites in Essex. Extraordinary Scene'.1 Extraordinary it certainly was, but it is an uncharacteristically upbeat note on which to begin this paper, for the story of post-Resettlement Jewish involvement in Essex actually starts in a rather darker key and over a century before the railway age. History, we are often told, is a sceptical science, and members of this Society have long grown accustomed to modifying received ideas about notabilities of past generations to accommodate such findings as emerge from research. Perhaps we should not be unduly surprised to learn that in the last few years of his life, Moses Hart, founder of the Great Synagogue, received a summons to attend the Court of Chancery. He was charged with having concealed from the creditors of his nephew, Isaac Helbut, his ownership of over 1000 acres of Essex farmland. Helbut, a feckless spendthrift, had paid an inflated price for this property just before the South Sea Bubble burst. Eighteen months later and deep in debt, he persuaded his uncle to become the mortgagee. Hart showed great reluctance to do so.2 Unsure of his rights of entitlement, he may have consulted Philip Carteret Webb or another of the solicitors often called on at this period to advise senior members of the community. Whether any advice was given is not known, but it does happen that the act permitting Jewish landowners to take the Oath of Abjuration in its non-Christological form went through Parliament at this very moment.3 So far as Essex is concerned, we need only add that Helbut's estate remained in family possession for ninety years, and that for much of the 19th century it was owned by a gentleman named Samuel Sampson, who, although he is listed in the directories as a tea broker, stoutly denied the fact in correspondence with the Registrar of Stamps over a tax demand.4 While the immediate consequences of Helbut's profligacy may have made little impact on anyone apart from his creditors, the case of Henry Simons, a peddlar charged with perjury but acquitted after a second trial at Chelmsford, was * Paper presented to the Society on 15 April 1993. 125</page><page sequence="2">Malcolm Brown undoubtedly responsible for inflaming ill-feeling towards the community of that day.5 'The people of Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex', stated the Norwich Mercury in September 1753, 'will not let the Jews into any of their houses, either public or private, to sell any of their wares, nor suffer them to lie in any part of their outhouses ... so they are forced to lie in huts and forsaken dwellings by them? selves hired for that purpose'. We move on to a happier story at Chestnut Walk, Leyton, which Assur Keyser chose for his retirement in the 1810s.6 His corres? pondence refers to at least five friendly Jewish households in Leyton, but it was from Chestnut Walk that cousin Eliezer of Hampstead received a supply of delic? acies, hartshorn jelly, hothouse grapes and those puddings whose secrets Mr Assur's chef, Mr Finkheim, understood so well. Surrounded on one side by woodland and meadows, Keyser's estate must have seemed particularly inviting on that day in July 1813 when Solomon Herschell came to visit the family and heard one of the daughters recite her Hebrew lesson. Jews had begun to migrate to this area over eighty years earlier, the first of them being Alvaro Lopes Suasso who took a brief tenancy of Ray House, Woodford, in 173 2.7 Next came Abraham Prado, the commissary, at the White House, Leyton, from 1756 to 1761.8 The Clock House at Whipp's Cross, one of the few surviving Georgian buildings in the neighbourhood, was occupied for nearly a decade by Henry Isaac, the diamond merchant and pillar of the Hambro Synagogue. Here, perhaps, hung his collection of Dutch old masters, among them two well-known schoolpieces by Rembrandt.9 Isaac paid the rates on another house four doors away, occupied by a Mr Solo? mons, and by 1778 Aaron and Judith Norden had established themselves at The Poplars, Leyton.10 From this date onwards, Jewish settlement in the area seems to have been continuous. Among some noteworthy inhabitants were Samuel Gom pertz, from 1780 at the Water House, Walthamstow (now the William Morris Museum),11 and the armigerous Zaccaria Levy, the head of a family whose reli? gious affiliation seems somewhat equivocal.12 A similar ambivalence is evident in several other such families. The marriage of Sara Almeida of Hampstead to John Prujean of Hornchurch in 1768 seems largely overshadowed by a land deal invol? ving the Bernals.13 And a branch of the Francias, who were seldom known for their orthodoxy, moved out to Stifford.14 These instances cannot fairly be said to be representative of Jewish settlement as a whole, heavily biased as it always was towards town life. Chelmsford, briefly mentioned already, did not welcome its earliest Jewish inhabitants. The settlers were conspicuously poor, and many arrived during the period of the Chelsea murder case.15 In 1776 we find a Chelmsford goldsmith issuing a public caution against Jewish itinerants who were passing off cheap tableware and trinkets as genuine silver.16 The record of the early years here is as deplorable as it is understandable, given the link between poverty and petty crime. The proximity of the East End discouraged long-term settlement, and for the constantly increasing number who failed to make headway in Essex, retreat to communal charity in London was always a possibility. 126</page><page sequence="3">The Jews of Essex before 1900 One of the handful who succeeded in Chelmsford was Wolf Myers, who started there as a pawnbroker in partnership with his brother Lawrence in 1823. Ten years later he had premises next to the Stone Bridge at the bottom of the High Street. The firm eventually absorbed several neighbouring properties, and although menswear remained the core business, Myers also sold carpets, fabrics and furniture. He was sufficiently popular for his fellow tradesmen to choose him to steward the odd social event; and his son Walter, who helped his mother at the shop when his father died in 1843, enhanced the goodwill that the firm enjoyed.17 In 1849 one ?f the staff, Jane Dawson, was caught stealing clothes from the shop. Hannah Myers had no alternative but to prosecute, and at the next Quarter Session the poor woman, a labourer's wife with seven children, was convicted of the offence. Thanks to a 'strong recommendation' from Walter Myers, her sentence was much reduced.18 The Myers' main competitor in both the menswear and furnishing trades was Moses Moses, son of Israel Moses who seems to have started business at Maldon in 1826. How or whether these were related to the London Moses families of clothiers is not known. The very few other successful Jews in 19th-century Chelmsford include an auctioneer and general dealer, Jacob Cohen, based from at least 1823 until 1846 in Conduit Street and the suburb of Springfield. More typical was H. L. Samson, a Houndsditch silversmith who in November 1840 opened a High Street shop that stocked German wools, silks, patterns and furniture. Competition with the increasing range of goods available at Myers's may have hastened his departure just fifteen months later. And no description of an early mid-Victorian town would be complete without briefly referring to the itinerant Jewish dentists, fancy-goods dealers, opticians, chiropodists and performing artists whose activities so enliven the pages of the provincial press. Chelmsford children could even enjoy an annual day at the circus on Bell Mead, when 'equestrian and gymnastic artists and witty clowns', together with trained animals, went through their paces under the watch? ful management of Mr I. A. Van Amburgh.19 In and around Leigh-on-Sea, a small settlement developed alongside one of the most flourishing Jewish business enterprises of its day. The capital necessary to establish a distillery here is likely to have been provided by Moses Lazarus, resident at Rochford from the 1770s.20 By 1801 affairs were being managed by Wolf Benjamin, who entered into articles of partnership in 1812 with Moses Lazarus and Abraham Lyon Moses, whereby the three agreed to carry on for twelve years the trade of rectifiers, wine and spirit merchants and soap manufacturers.21 The office quarters of the firm were situated on the north side of Leigh Hill, in a building later named Eden House, and the spring that supplied water to the distillery had the reputation of never failing even in the driest season. During the Napoleonic blockade the enterprise prospered considerably.22 Only in the year before Waterloo did the Excise Office realize that some ?1200 was owing to the Crown from duties that Benjamin had neglected to pay on the firm's activities as soap manufacturers.23 127</page><page sequence="4">Malcolm Brown An action in the Court of Exchequer was stopped when the Lords Commis sioners^were faced with a testimonial in support of Benjamin from no less than eighty local gentry and a dozen clergymen. Nothing quite so momentous ever happened again in the annals of the firm. After 1815 it traded as Lazarus and Co., and a one-third share in the property seems to have been divided between Abraham Levy, a slopseller of Nightingale Lane, East Smithfield; Abraham Abrahams of Sheerness, another slopseller; and Hyam Hyam of Ipswich. Abraham Abrahams' father had been one of the founders of the Sheerness community in 1790 and Hyam Hyam we are due to meet in Colchester; for the moment it should be noted only that his father Simon Hyam hailed, as did Moses Lazarus, from Worms.24 Neither Abrahams nor Hyam seems to have played much active part in the business. Lawrence and Edward Lazarus succeeded Wolf Benjamin as managing partners, until they in turn were succeedeed by Myer Henry Myer, who was living with his wife, five children and his father Hirsch, at Leigh in 1841, according to the census. By this date the firm had diversified into corn and coal,25 and soon afterwards it disappears from the Leigh records.26 As a matter of curious, although irrelevant fact, Eden House became from 1844 the home of Isabella Thackeray, who spent the last fifty years of her sadly clouded life here in the care of the church organist and his wife. If it is true generally that the provinces reflect metropolitan trends, Colches? ter seems a good case in point. For apart from the pedlars at the bottom of the social scale and the respectable traders in the middle, a handful of wealthy Sephardim can be traced as residents. The first post-Resettlement name seems to be that of Judah Alexander, whose son Levi, born in All Saints' parish in 1747, traded as a watchmaker and silversmith for thirty years from 1775.27 Hyman Wagg, a lapidary, apprenticed his son to himself here in 1763.28 Twenty years earlier Samuel Moses, Aaron Seleit and Michael Juda, all en route for a coastal port, were arrested at Colchester and committed to the Castle gaol on charges of theft from a London goldsmith.29 The Petty Sessions books show a number of similar names from the 1780s onwards, although it is pleasant to record that the vestry of St Michael at Mile End, Colchester, appointed a certain Chapman Jacobs as overseer of the poor in 1779.30 The best-known Jewish native (but of assimilated parents) was Ralph Bernal, born in the town in 1783 and destined to become Chairman of Committees in Parliament.31 It is difficult, admittedly, to imagine much contact between the Bernals and the pedlars who settled from the 1790s in St Martin's, once the Dutch weavers' quarter. Here, in a house off Stockwell Street, a synagogue survived for a few years until 1795.32 In 1796, when land was bought in Ipswich for a cemetery, only two Colcestrians were named among the parties to the transaction.33 Before then, Colchester burials may have taken place somewhere in the suburbs, since gravestones with Hebrew inscriptions are 128</page><page sequence="5">The Jews of Essex before 1900 said to have been used as paving slabs in the garden behind 88 East Hill, to which access at present is unfortunately not possible.34 Although 19th-century Colchester lacked a community, one surname still remembered by some townspeople appears in the directories as early as 1823.35 Hyam Hyam married a daughter of Moses Lazarus of Rochford and set up as a clothes dealer in St Botolph Street before 1826. The Hyam family has long been recognized as one of a handful of those who are said to have pioneered multiple ready-made tailoring for both the home and overseas markets.36 This trade, dependent on high turnover, an ample supply of cheap semi-skilled labour and a complicated system of piecework, attracted a great deal of adverse publicity concerning wages and conditions of employment. Employment, however, was what the Hyams provided. At Colchester in 1844 between 1000 and 1500 of their employees took work out for as many more.37 Many piecemakers were farmers' womenfolk, and certainly others were Colchester garrison wives. In 1852 Lawrence Hyam had ten branches and claimed to employ on average 8000 people, adding that a further 30,000 depended for support on those the firm employed.38 Even allowing for some exaggeration, these are impressive figures. The Colchester premises were expanded in 1845 and relocated twenty years later at Abbeygate in Whitewell Road, where the building still stands.39 Like Myers in Chelmsford, the Hyams' earliest competitor seems to have been Moses Moses, who was manufacturing in partnership with H. E. Moses at Priory Street from about 1855.40 Where Moses had the edge over both firms was as an advertiser. The rhyming doggerel that puffed his wares occupied so many paragraphs in the local press that it is only fair to give one example, this from the Chelmsford Chronicle of 6 April 1849 being entitled 'A New Cure': The papers are teeming with recommendations Of pills, salves and blisters and embrocations To cure every ill and all humours disperse But you never yet saw a cure for the purse. The one who to you this remedy discloses Is one you know well, your old friend Moses. He'll save you ten pounds in a year if you choose When he tells you the terms you will not refuse. He'll sell you a suit of good black for two pound Which for four you can't match in the country around For six shillings he'll put you a good French hat in As sleek and as soft as the best French satin As to quality, colour, size, price or shape If you take but a look, there'll be no escape No cure no pay is the great recommendation And all articles changed that don't meet approbation. One trial is asked, an inspection requested As the goods but require the quality tested. 129</page><page sequence="6">Malcolm Brown It should be added that however successful this firm eventually became, it was Hyam to whom the Nathans, another firm of Maldon-based clothiers, assigned their residuary property in trust for their creditors when they ceased trading. There is a little more to report about Colchester. In 1839 the Petty Sessions heard a case of aggravated assault against a hawker, Moses Grou, who had been plying his trade at West Bergholt.41 The cottager to whom he had displayed his wares man? handled him, and together with two others carried him around the village green. At least one watch-chain was lost. The Chairman of Sessions imposed the heaviest sentence possible and persuaded his fellow-magistrates to subscribe a sum sufficient to defray the constable's expenses. The clerk to the magistrates declined his fees. Grou left the court a happy man, having expressed his thanks publicly. Nearly sixty years later, in 1897, the Lord Mayor of London made an official visit to Colchester.42 Sir George Faudel-Phillips was the son of the second Jewish Lord Mayor of London, Sir Benjamin Phillips. While Sir George was receiving the honor? ary freedom of the borough, his wife had an appointment with the celebrated firm of millers, Messrs Marriage &amp; Co. From 1894, Marriages produced the flour needed for Passover baking, and although they had new machinery, a space in the building was kept apart for this flour since the shomerim preferred that it be ground by stone. The Jewish Chronicle included in the list of those present on this occasion Mr J. Bonn, and a benefactor of Colchester who was also a member of the Court of Common Council, Emanuel Barnett of Great Horkesley. Relationships between the conversionists of the last century and the Jews of Essex seem to fit no particular pattern. Bishop Alexander of Jerusalem once served as shochet and possibly reader at Norwich, but as a very young man his first employment took him to Colchester as a tutor.43 The activities of the London Society, as reported in the local press, made little impression on the small number here. An independent minister was responsible for two conversions at Bocking, and the schoolmistress at Maldon in 1851 had been a pupil herself at Palestine Place.44 No record survives of a meeting between any of the handful at Leigh-on Sea in the 1830s and the minister charged with the spiritual welfare of the local fisherfolk, the Revd Ridley Herschell.45 It is much to be hoped that they did not mistake the worthy clergyman for a representative of an evangelical sect once prominent in these parts, known as the Peculiar People. Turning to individual names located throughout the county, Harwich, in the early part of this period perhaps second only to London as a point of arrival, never had more than a very few resident at any one time. The most prominent was the silversmith Jacob Levy, a trustee of the Ipswich cemetery, whose daughter married the eldest son of Joel Myers of Maldon.46 Resident in Maldon since the 1780s, Myers eventually owned properties there the total value of which was estimated to be about ?300 a year.47 He used to let these out at a high rent, much of which was paid out of the poor rates. The Maldon overseers, to quote from a parliamentary paper in 1834, preferred to settle any rent arrears rather than allow 130</page><page sequence="7">The Jews of Essex before 1900 a family to be broken up - a state of affairs that surely reflected as much credit to their humanity as it did to Myers's bank balance. Most individuals dwelling or at least working outside the larger towns were considerably less wealthy than Joel Myers or Jacob Levy. Of the handful at Romford before 1866, one named Wilkes was a fishmonger who had evidently not succeeded as a broker in Petticoat Lane.48 There are many such instances in the records, for example Moses Benjamin, a dealer and chapman at Halstead, who claimed to have lent money to a fellow itinerant, Benjamin 'Tunbridg', then also of Halstead, in 1761; or Judah Phillip son, in 1774 innkeeper of the Lion at Stambourne, where he also owned a wind? mill; or Joseph Cohen, a pawnbroker of Coggeshall Lane, Braintree in 1821; or Israel Sida, a Dagenham shoemaker bankrupt in 1836.49 The mid-Victorian trade directories show that many, if not most of the names of interest to us were either watch or clockmakers, the most noticeable being Nathaniel and Michael Moss, from 1826 to 1855 at Barking and Ilford.50 Kelly's Directory for 1870 shows others at Brentwood, Halstead and Plaistow. To what extent these rather isolated figures can be seen in the context of later settlement remains a matter for speculation. The first congregation formed at Bow dates from 1883, an^ that at Poplar from 1890.51 Poplar became the first associate synagogue of the United Synagogue under a scheme designed to encour? age dispersion by assisting the 'industrial classes' to run self-supporting commu? nities. The scheme was drawn up partly in the light of the difficulties experienced during the 'colonization movement' referred to at the beginning of this paper. Colchester, despite its clothing factories, attracted none of the recent immigrants who were leaving the East End for homes nearer the new factories situated along the Lea Valley. Those who attended the land auctions in southeast Essex came for a number of reasons. Some went for a day in the country; some pined for the simple life (these were 'greeners' exhausted by sweatshop hours but quite pre? pared to till the earth); some believed that industry and employers would follow them. Everybody thought that a small-holding must be a hedge against the future. When a Jewish farmer reported that milk and honey, as it were, flowed at Pitsea, 200 East Enders came down and saw for themsleves.52 General Booth's Home Farm Colony at Hadleigh, begun in 1890 and manned by many East Enders, was thriving on sound commercial principles.53 General Booth's mother's family had been Jewish.54 Why should the newcomers not be just as successful? Before answering this question, consider the economic background to Essex land sales in the 1890s. Cheap American wheat had begun to swamp the grain market a decade earlier; a succession of poor harvests further depressed profits and rents. As land values declined, a crop of speculative developers arose.55 One of them, Robert Varty of Jarvis Hall, Benfleet, had an office in the City. Realizing how much easier it might be to bring sales to the notice of East Enders rather than for instance to Scots Lowland farmers (then the poorest of all agricultural workers), he bought the Thundersley Manor estate and put it into the hands of 131</page><page sequence="8">Malcolm Brown a capable auctioneer. Cheap day returns from London were refunded if the pas? senger was also a purchaser, and en route from South Benfleet station to a free vegetarian lunch before the auction, handbills printed in Yiddish and recom? mending East End builders, were displayed in the windows of the few houses standing in the neighbourhood. Thundersley House itself, according to a report in the Jewish Chronicle, was to be converted into a synagogue in the middle of the proposed development.56 Opinion about the Thundersley sales in the communal press veered between caution and approbation. One editorial in the Jewish World went so far as to quote (from Yebamot 63 a) 'a man without land is no proper man' and reminded readers that the new movement was to be run on lines frequently advocated by Sir Samuel Montagu. It was said that the scheme had the backing of Hermann Landau, and the chairman of one Federation synagogue was reported as having bought several smallholdings. Another 27 acres were bought by a syndicate of familiar names for development as brick-and-tile works and factory sites. Competition for shop plots drove prices far beyond expectations, although the headlines of handbills circulated to potential first-time Essex house-builders sometimes read 'three plots for a shilling'. One factory owner, a wholesale clothier based in Stepney, let it be known that he intended expanding into southeast Essex. The truth was that he already had a sizeable property there and did not realize that to exploit this as a commercial proposition would have meant paying East End rather than Colchester wage rates. Even when he decided not to proceed, land at Thundersley and neighbouring estates continued to be sold. A secondary market in Essex plot futures gained ground in London, initiated by a few who had bought heavily in the early sales and then, sustained by speculative puffs, off-loaded to those totally inexperienced in such matters but anxious not to miss their turn. A number of non-Jewish East Enders were paying for their Thundersley plots, also by instal? ments - one of them remarked that 'all the Jews wouldn't be buying if there wasn't something in it' - and a few Italians had bid at auctions held in South Benfleet. Mr Marini, a Charlotte Street hotelier, announced that he would bring another 400 or 500 to see the estate, near which he planned to build a hotel. Whether or not the excursion materialized, most of those dwelling in cramped quarters at Saffron Hill or Soho would have welcomed a glimpse of possibilities elsewhere. But at this point questions (hitherto insufficiently urgent) about the costs of roadbuilding, water supply and sanitation (to say nothing of providing for Hebrew education) became the burden of the leader-writers. A committee of purchasers was formed and a solicitor was hired. What the movement had lacked was any sense of organization. Neither the Industrial Committee of the Board of Guardians nor the Russo-Jewish Committee had endorsed the scheme. The one point on which it seems purchasers had sought assurance from auctioneers con? cerned their legal status as freeholders, since many had not received their natural? ization pepers. It has to be said that the activities of the Thundersley committee 132</page><page sequence="9">The Jews of Essex before 1900 proved mostly futile. At a crowded meeting that they held in Goulston Street Hall, Aldgate, in January 1898, Varty was accused of reneging on his promise to find three-quarters of the money needed for immediate building operations, but no one denied his right to sell. Perhaps some buyers tucked their title deeds away, leaving their heirs to make enquiries from local authorities about sites on roads which, if they ever existed, disappeared long ago.57 Possibly others decided to stay, and became members of the Southend synagogue, built in 1910.58 The only Essex synagogue consecrated in the 19th century was that at East Ham and Manor Park. A nucleus of the congregation, consisting of East Londoners in search of better living conditions at Ilford, formed early in 1898. Services were held at Aaron Alexander's house in Carlyle Road, Manor Park, until the rector of St Saviour's, which stood opposite, sold the church at a nominal price. The rector himself contributed 15 guineas towards the new congregation, and a number of his parishioners helped with the cost of refurbishing the interior of the building. The consecration report of September 1900 put the number of Jewish families recently settled in the neighbourhood at 200, adding that sixty children were attending religion classes. As the founding members listened to the comforting oratory of the Chief Rabbi's sermon, they must have felt that their future was assured. So far, at least, history has not proved them wrong. 'Essex Man', declared a journalist in 1991, 'is wealthy but poorly educated, shows conspicuous bad taste and has few, if any, cultural interests.'59 Philologists may even? tually explain how this fictitious creature came to enter the dictionary as a once fashionable phrase. Had my terms of reference been wider, mention would have been made of another and a very different Essex man, the author S. L. Bensusan.60 A gifted Sephardi, Samuel Bensusan began his career as editor of the Jewish World. Later in life his essays and stories gained a wide circulation. Both Hardy and Wells admired his work, and Kipling so valued the stories that he once wrote to tell Bensu san that they would stand as a record 'when all agriculture is run by gentlemen and ladies out of London offices'. Many other Essex people await attention. But the detailed study of Jewish social topography in the Home Counties generally has hardly started, and until a research group as competent as that at Edmonton is formed, progress is likely to be slow. May this paper encourage readers attracted towards more contemporary local history, not to delay in setting to work. NOTES 1 Essex Record Office (hereafter ERO) T/P 181/2/1-2; D. Hardy and C. Ward, Arcadia for All: The Legacy of a Makeshifi Landscape (London and New York 1984) 194. 2 PRO, C/104/155; Feet of Fines, Hilary 9 George I; C/54/5174; C/i 2/2405/31; C/54/ 5967. The first item (a Chancery Exhibit) contains manorial court rolls missing from two series at ERO, D/DO/M 17-26 and D/DU/558/ 5-6. The Court of Exchequer gave judgement against Hart in another case involving South Sea stock: Fog's Weekly Journal, 6 June 1730. 3 A. S. Diamond in Trans JHSE XXI (1968) 41-3. On the circumstances of the Act (10 133</page><page sequence="10">Malcolm Brown George I, c.4) see E. Duffy in S. Mews (ed.) Religion and National Identity (Oxford 1982) 345-65. 4 Sampson's trade circular for January 1847, on the back of which is the letter referred to here, is at BL (Colindale) Burney 36. 5 The case is described by N. Bentwich in Trans JHSE XVI (1952) 149-51; see also Sir Gurney Benham in Essex Review XLIX-94 (April 1940) 65-70. 6 C. Roth (ed.) Essays and Portraits in Anglo-Jewish History (Philadelphia 1962) 242-9; Jewish Museum MSS 43 and 226. 7 Victoria County History of Essex (hereafter VCH Essex) VI (London 1973) 348; Benjamin Nunes occupied the house from 1827 to 1831. 8 Vestry House Museum (hereafter VHM), Walthamstow, abstracts of the Pardoe Papers. 9 VHM, C 25, 49 and 78; G. F. Bosworth, Some Walthamstow Houses (Walthamstow Antiq. Soc. 1924) 33-4. The two Rembrandt schoolpieces are 'Young Man holding a Sword' (now in the museum of Bowdoin College of Art, Brunswick, Maine) and 'The Lord of the Vineyard' (St?delsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt); see J. Charrington, A Catalogue of Mezzotints .. . after Rembrandt (Cambridge 1923) nos 72 and 122. 10 VHM, Walthamstow ratebooks 1768-74; 1778-94; sale advertisement of The Poplars, L 72.2. 11 S. J. Barns, Calendar of Deeds . . . (Walthamstow Antiq. Soc. 1929) 1; ERO, Land Tax Assessments (hereafter LT As) 1780-1810 and Hair Powder Duty lists Q/RTp/1-2; VHM, Deeds BRA 333 55 12 A. M. Hyamson (ed.) Anglo-Jewish Notabilities ... (JHSE 1949) 104; VHM, D/DU 101/3. 13 Gentleman's Magazine (1768) 590; PRO, C/ 54/6414; M. J. Hartharn in Essex Recusant 18?i (1976) 37 14 ERO, Dagenham LT As 1780-99; D/DC/ 23/616 and 617. 15 Ipswich Journal 29 Nov. 1771. In 1811 and 1841 Essex spent more even than Norfolk and Suffolk on per capita poor relief: D. C. Coleman in Scandinavian Economic Hist. Review X-2 (1962) 118. For Chelsea, see T. M. Endelman, The Jews of Georgian England 1714-1830 (Philadelphia 1979) 198-202. 16 Ipswich Journal 30 Nov. 1776. 17 Chelmsford Chronicle (hereafter CQ 20 Feb. 1835 and 6 July 1849. 18 CC 16 May 1845. 19 CC 28 Aug. 1846. Ratebooks show that Cohen first occupied a house in Moulsham (the original area of Jewish settlement) in 1799. CC 13 Nov. 1840 and 1 April 1842 (Samson); CC 20 Sept. 1844 (circus). 20 ERO, Rochford LTAs. Two Jewish families are recorded at Rochford in 1778: Guildhall MS. 9558, f. 287. 21 ERO (Southend) D/DB/T 1830/1, 2. 22 P. Benton, The History of Rochford Hundred (Rochford 1867) 375-6; J. F. Bundock, Old Leigh (Chichester 1978) 34. 23 P. P. i8i6.xviii (152). 24 I am grateful to a descendant of Hyam, Mr Timothy Halford, for this information; Cecil Roth believed that Hyam was a Hamburger. 25 W. S. Samuel, 'Lord Meyor's' Show-Day (Jewish Museum 1950) 1; Jewish Museum MS. 123/1-4, but as late as 1849 (CC 15 June 1849) 'Messrs Lazarus, brewers of Southend', were the trade assignees of a publican who failed at Rayleigh. 26 Directories of London give the firm's trade address there in 1811 as 65 Minories. 27 B. Mason, Clock and Watchmaking in Colchester (London 1969) 390. 28 A. Arnold in Trans JHSE XXV (1970) 155. 29 Ipswich Journal 26 Nov. 1743. 30 ERO (Colchester) P/COR.10-1 ia. 31 'BennaP, however, has been misread as 'BernaP in the ratebooks. 32 ERO (Colchester) D/P 342/11. 33 C. Roth in AJA Quarterly III?2 (1957) 22. 34 I am most grateful to Mr John Bensusan-Butt for information about Colchester. 35 VCH Essex II (London 1907) 484. When Hyam retired in favour of his sons Moses and Simon he stated that he had lived in Colchester since 1817: Essex Standard 21 Jan. 1842. 36 H. Pollins, Economic History of the Jews in England (London and Toronto 1982) 99-101; S. Chapman in Textile History 24-1 (Spring 1993) 10-25. 37 Northern Star 24 Feb. 1844, cited with other references to the firm in A. F. J. Brown, Chartism in Essex and Suffolk (ERO 1982). 38 L. Hyam and Co., The Quarterly Mirror 2 [1852] 3. 39 I am grateful to the present owners, Stanley Bragg Partnership Ltd, for permission to view the interior. The pedestrian footpath at the southern end of Whitewell Road is named Hyam's Walk. The family sold their interest in Hyam &amp; Co. in 1898; the firm ceased trading at Colchester in 1976. 40 Colchester Public Library (Local Studies Section), typescript history (sub Hyam), by S. A. Pettit-Clark. 134</page><page sequence="11">The Jews of Essex before 1900 41 CC 18 Oct. 1839. 42 Jewish Chronicle (hereafter JQ 22 Oct. 1897; Essex Standard 23 Oct. 1897. 43 W. T. Gidney, History of the London Society . . . (London 1908) 207; B. Taylor in Studies in Church History 29 (1992) 363-71. 44 CC 16 Nov. 1850 and 22 Aug. 1851. 45 H. N. Bride in Trans. Southend Antiq. and Hist. Soc. II?1 (1930) 18-19. 46 Ipswich Journal 1 April 1826. Two letters in the Rothschild Archives, London (XI/38/81A, T 53; XI/109/1, T 29/216) concern a consignment of bullion expected in Harwich in 1814. 47 CC 30 June 1836; P. P. i834.xxviii (234A); 31 lots of Myers' property and 1000 ozs of his plate were sold by auction in 1838: CC 8 June 1838 and Essex Herald 26 June 1838. 48 I am grateful to Mr George Rigal for this information. 49 CLRO, DS 15/6; Ipswich Journal 30 April 1774; ERO, T/P 146/12; CC 7 Oct. 1836. 50 C. Osborne, Essex Clocks and Watchmakers (Billericay 1979) and ERO, T/Z 64. 51 V. D. Lipman, Social History of the Jews in England (London 1954) 101 and 158-9. 52 Jewish World 20 Aug. 1897. 53 Report on Salvation Army Colonies [Cd. 2562] RC.1905.liii (359), 64-9. 54 DNB and references therein. 55 H. J. Gayler in Urban Studies VII-i (1970) 23-3I 56 JfC 20 Aug. and 3 Sept. 1897; Daily News 9 Sept. 1897. 57 D. Hardy and C. Ward (see n. 1) 195. For the Essex press of this period, see the extracts at ERO, T/P 181/2/1-6; for comments on 'fleecing', see E. C. Black, The Social Politics of Anglo-Jewry i88o-ig20 (Oxford 1988) 289 and Cecil Bloom's paper (with details of further Essex projects) in the forthcoming JHSE Centenary Conference volume. 58 Before 1910 services were occasionally held at 'Rose Lawn', Warrior Square, a kosher boarding house kept by Mr and Mrs S. Shmith: JfC 12 Oct. 1900. 59 Brewer's Dictionary of Twentieth Century Phrase and Fable (London 1991) 180. 60 See ZangwilPs generous comments in his foreword to Bensusan's Village Idylls (London 1926) and the author's A Marshland Omnibus (London 1954) [i]. Mr Bensusan-Butt tells me that a study of his uncle, based on archives at the University of Essex, may be forthcoming. i35</page></plain_text>