The history of Whitechapel has long been one of migration: of waves of the poor and dispossessed fleeing political and religious persecution, pogroms and poverty. In turn, French Huguenots, Jews, the Irish and Bangladeshis have colonised this area.
Whitechapel has a place in so many family histories. My own connection is a common one. Two families of Huguenot silk weavers – the Bemis and the Couchois – escaped persecution in France to settle here and prosper, for a time, until the silk trade died out. They came together through marriage and two members – an uncle and a nephew – went to Australia, one transported as a convict, the other to seek his fortune in the gold mines.
The convict prospered, becoming a skilled cartographer and creating the first map of New South Wales, the nephew died in a mine explosion, but his son made good, establishing a print works in suburban Brisbane and building a house that is now on the National Register.
So many others got their foothold in England – their sanctuary – in Whitechapel, and many will have prospered and moved on, as my family did. Many others, of course, perished here, through poverty, disease or neglect.
Each tide of immigrants had one thing in common: they were poor, and came to better themselves. Today there is a new wave, and they are very different. They come not from poverty but from wealth. They are the hip young titans of the new online economy. This latest wave is driving out its predecessors; pricing them out of their homes. A great cliff-face of tower blocks is edging north from the city, obliterating the past as it does so.
This book, then, seeks to be a celebration of all that is remarkable about Whitechapel and, where necessary, to memorialise what has been lost.