INDUSTRIES 



as the Royal Bounty. A lay French com- 

 mittee composed of the chiefs of the immigra- 

 tion was entrusted with the annual distribu- 

 tion of a sum of 16,000 amongst the poor 

 refugees and their descendants. A second 

 committee composed of ecclesiastics under the 

 direction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 

 the Bishop of London, and the Lord Chan- 

 cellor, was formed for dividing amongst the 

 distressed pastors and their churches an annual 

 sum of 1,718 drawn from the public 

 treasury. 1 



From the first report of the French com- 

 mittee, dated December 1687 and published 

 in the following year, it appears that 13,050 

 French refugees were settled in London, the 

 greater part of whom were probably located 

 in Spitalfields. The editor of Stow's Survey 

 of London pays a high tribute to the character 

 and industry of the refugees. Speaking of 

 Spitalfields he writes : 2 ' Here they have found 

 quiet and security, and settled themselves in 

 their several trades and occupations ; weavers 

 especially. Whereby God's blessing surely is 

 not only brought upon the parish by receiving 

 poor strangers, but also a great advantage 

 hath accrued to the whole nation by the rich 

 manufactures of weaving silks and stuffs and 

 camlets, which art they brought along with 

 them. And this benefit also to the neigh- 

 bourhood, that these strangers may serve for 

 patterns of thrift, honesty, industry, and sobriety 

 as well.' 



The principal source of information as to 

 the Spitalfields weavers themselves is contained 

 in the registers of the various Huguenot 

 churches to which they belonged. A cluster 

 of eleven of these congregations existed 3 from 

 the latter part of the I7th century to the 

 beginning of the igth, in Spitalfields, Shore- 

 ditch, Petticoat Lane, and Wapping. 



The registers of one of these churches, that 

 known as ' La Patente,' which after various 

 migrations settled in Brown's Lane near 

 Spitalfields Market, have been printed by the 

 Huguenot Society. 4 They extend from 1689 

 to 1786, when the congregation was merged 

 in the London Walloon Church, and show 

 that the French population of the district con- 

 sisted very largely of silk weavers and their 

 allied trades. A great preponderance of 



1 For an exhaustive account of the sums raised 

 for the relief of foreign Protestant refugees and 

 the distribution of the amount, see an article by 

 W. A. Shaw, in Engl. Hut. Rev. (1894), ix, 

 662-83. 



'Stow, Surv. of Lund. bk. iv, 48. 



* Burn, Hiit. Protestant Refugees in Engl. (1846), 

 159-80. 



4 PMcationi, xi (1898). 



weavers over those engaged in other trades is 

 found in the settlements of foreign refugees ; 

 and the editor, Mr. William Minet, 5 suggests 

 in explanation that the new religion may 

 have spread specially among the men of this 

 trade. 



The strangers were skilled weavers from 

 Lyons and Tours, who set up their looms in 

 Spitalfields and there manufactured in large 

 quantities lustrings, velvets, brocades, satins, 

 very strong silks known as paduasoys, watered 

 silks, black and coloured mantuas, ducapes, 

 watered rabies, and stuffs of mingled silk and 

 cotton all of the highest excellence, which 

 previously could only be procured from the 

 famous looms of France. The refugees soon 

 taught the people of Spitalfields to produce 

 these and other goods of the finest quality 

 for themselves, and their pupils soon equalled 

 and even excelled their teachers. Weiss says 6 

 that the figured silks which proceeded from 

 the London manufactories were due almost 

 exclusively to the skill and industry of three 

 refugees, Lauson, Mariscot, and Monceaux. 



The artist who supplied the designs was 

 another refugee named Beaudoin. A common 

 workman named Mongeorge brought them 

 the secret recently discovered at Lyons, of 

 giving lustre to silk taffeta : this enabled 

 Spitalfields to obtain a large share of the trade 

 for which Lyons had long been famous. Up 

 to that time large quantities of black lustrings 

 specially made for English use, and known 

 as English taffetas, had been annually 

 imported from France. The manufacture 

 of lustrings and alamode silks, then 

 articles in general use, was rapidly brought 

 by the Spitalfield weavers to a state of great 

 excellence, and the persons engaged in this 

 industry were, in 1692, incorporated by char- 

 ter under the name of the Royal Lustring 

 Company. 7 The company then procured the 

 passing of an Act prohibiting the importation 

 of foreign lustrings and alamodes, alleging as a 

 ground for passing such a restriction in their 

 favour that the manufacture of these articles 

 in England had now reached a greater degree 

 of perfection than was obtained by foreigners. 



An anonymous writer in 1695,* who de- 

 claims against the tricks of stock-jobbers and 

 the great number of joint-stock trading 

 companies, makes exception in favour of 

 (among other undertakings) the Royal Lus- 

 tring Company, which he says has ' throve, 



1 Ibid. p. xx. 



* Charles Weiss, Hist, of French Protestant 

 Refugees (1854), 253. 



7 G. R. Porter, ' Treatise on the Silk Manu- 

 facture,' Lardner 1 ! Cab. Cycl. (1831), 60-1. 



* Angliae Tutamen, or the safety of Engl. 31. 



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