David Carnegie Andrew Agnew

“ One very remarkable inventor is rather a descendant of a refugee than a refugee — I mean Lewis Paul. His father, a refugee druggist and medical practitioner, left him a competency, his guardians being the Earl of Shaftesbury and Hon. Maurice Ashley Cooper. But not till he had squandered away his property did his genius appear. Mr Smiles describes his invention for spinning wool and cotton by rollers, of which Sir Richard Arkwright’s spinning machines were practical improvements, or adaptations on a gigantic scale. ”

“ Thousands of the Huguenot refugees made their way to London, and settled in fields near London called Spitalfields, belonging to St. Austin’s Spital (or Hospital) . For a century they preserved their French habits, both social and religious, and they had mathematical, historical, and floricultural societies; Simpson and Edwards, the Woolwich mathematical professors, came to their chairs from the silk looms of Spitalfields. Huguenot weavers also went to Manchester. Dr. Aikin reckoned that before 1690, the manufacturers in Manchester earned no more than their livelihood. ”

“ Many of their windows are a perfect flower show. The first refugees were often skilful gardeners. They introduced their craft at Rye and Sandwich, and there it still survives. The Rye flower-shows are in high repute in Kent and Sussex. One of the earliest flower-shows ever held in England was the annual weavers’ show in Spitalfields. Twenty or thirty carefully trained plants may sometimes be seen in a single room, and their flower-shows are now being re-organized. [4] The History of Dublin states that the resident Huguenot refugees founded the Dublin Florists’ Club in the reign of George I. ”

“ Taylor picturesquely describes the weavers and weaving processes, as now existent. He informs us that a silk-weaver, requiring a broad and full light, must live in the upper portion of a house, and having a window extending across the whole breadth of his room; such houses, having their upper stories with long rows of broad weavers’ windows glazed with small diamond panes, may be seen in street after street in Spitalfields and Bethnal Green. ”

“ The first person who contrived a machine moved by steam in England was Savary, the best maker of telescopes was Dollond, and the most famous biscuit-baker was Le Mann, near the Royal Exchange, London.” In 1845 a Christian Society of Operative Silk-Weavers in Spitalfields erected a Tablet, “as a public declaration of their faith, that of late the sufferings of the Silk-Weavers have been greatly aggravated through a departure from those principles of piety which enabled their forefathers, the French Refugees, who planted the silk trade in Spitalfields, to endure the loss of all things ”

“ It is very likely that the workmen at this late date would, to a large extent, be Huguenots. But the man who enticed some of them into England was a French Capuchin Friar, named Nobert, who came here with the Pope’s blessing, though he afterwards took the name of Monsieur Parisot. He swindled both the English subscribers who enabled him to set up a manufactory at Fulham, and also the French workmen, and absconded. A French Protestant, Jean Ulric Passavant, went to the sale by auction at the Fulham manufactory, and bought the looms and implements for a small sum. ”

“ The refugees had no English settlement, and consequently no claim upon the poor-rate. Self-reliant by nature, they started friendly and provident societies to provide for the necessities of sickness and old age. ”

“ From carefully-prepared statistics, compiled from a series of observations and enquiries made about the year 1810, it appears that at that date there were above 10,000 silk looms in Spitalfields and its neighbourhood. About the same period 2852 of these looms were unemployed, and the members of the families dependent upon those unemployed looms amounted to 9700. About 3000 looms are only half employed, implying half subsistence for nearly 10,000 other persons. ”