Schools Learning Zone
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Diversity Through Time, Bristol (Multiethnic)
Overview
Making an Example
King John ruled from 1199-1216 while his brother King Richard was away
at the Crusades.
He had all the rich Jews in England sent to Bristol Castle in 1210 to force
them to pay him money for their release.
To show he meant business one rich Jewish Londoner was hanged and
another had his eyes plucked out!
Counting the Aliens
In Bristol in 1440/1, the alien subsidy tax list shows that around 800, or
eight per cent, of Bristol's population of 10,000 were born outside England
and Wales. Most of these were Irish citizens, and Aliens from outside the
British Isles made up less than one per cent of the population. Today
about 12.9% of the city is from ethnic minorities- but some of these
citizens will have been born in the UK.
The Name Game
Toponymic (or place-related) surnames found in the thirteenth century
usually relate to a place of birth, but by the fourteenth century may have
become family names regardless of birthplace, for example the surname le
Fraunceys originally meant ‘the French (man)’ and although 13 separate
individuals bearing the name have been found in fourteenth century
records this might represent a family name.
Trading in Slaves
From the 1430s to the 1470s Bristol was heavily involved in trade with
Iceland, selling goods to Icelanders and buying or kidnapping children as
cheap labour.
The 1440-41 Alien Subsidy Returns shows that the single largest group of
Aliens in Bristol was Icelanders, all of whom only have first names listed,
for example: 'Snorry Iseland', 'Helgy Iseland', 'Haraldus Iseland'. They
were probably servants and bonded workers (low paid with few rights).
The Alien Return of 1484 lists 49 Icelandic servants.
In 1462 the Bristol Weavers' Guild complained that many weavers:
“… daily receive and put in occupation of the said craft strangers, aliens,
and others … and for their singular profit, provoke and stir diverse
merchants and others to bring into this town of Bristol people of diverse
countries not born under the king’s allegiance but rebellious, which be sold
to them as it were heathen people, and through the continuance thereof in
default of correction it has caused that such strangers and aliens be
greatly multiplied and increased within the town of Bristol, and that the
king’s liege people born within this said town and other parts of this his
realm be vagrants and unoccupied, and may not have their labour for their
living …”
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DID YOU KNOW?
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Diversity Through Time, Bristol (Multiethnic)
Overview
The Value of an English Life
We know that there were differences in the Welsh and English lifestyle
from surviving records.
During a 1530s court case Thomas Jones of Bristol gave evidence under
oath during the reading of his brother, William Jones of Newport’s will.
Thomas claimed that William wanted his children brought to Bristol to be
‘brought up according to the manner and conditions of the nurture of
England’. This is surprising, as Newport has usually been seen as very
English in nature. So, if this Welshman thought it was very different to
Bristol it raises two interesting questions:
1. How different, and in what way, was Wales to England?
2. What benefits did William see for the children in getting a
Bristol/English upbringing?
Being a Burgess
Not all apprentices finished their term and ‘entered the freedom’ as
independent craftsmen or traders and became a Burgess - a freeman or
citizen. Most Welsh apprentices left Bristol after finishing their
apprenticeship. Some stayed and did rather well!
In 1611, Edward Sandy of Cadoxton, near Cardiff, apprenticed his son
Walter to the Bristol merchant William Challoner. The boy ‘entered the
freedom’ of the guild in 1627 and married into his former master’s family.
He was a member of the Common Council from 1640, treasurer of the
powerful Merchant Venturers in 1645-6, sheriff in 1646-7, and alderman
for St Stephen’s ward from 1656.
A Lack of Empathy
During the famine of the 1620s the government banned exports of English
and Welsh grain to Ireland.
Bristol Corporation paid one shilling per person to ship more than a
thousand Irish refugees back to Ireland.
The King ordered Bristol’s Mayor to take bonds (signed agreements) from
the Masters of Bristol ships not to transport refugees from Ireland.
In 1629 the Mayor of Bristol successfully petitioned the Privy Council for
Bristol merchants to be allowed to restart grain sales to Ireland.
The Privilege of Power
By 1600 ship owners allowed the captain of a slaving or trading voyage to
Africa, the Americas or Caribbean to buy one or two kidnapped Africans or
enslaved black people as a captain’s bonus. These people could then be
used as personal slaves or servants, or be sold as a bonus on top of the
Captain’s wages or profit. A small number of the Black community in Tudor
and Stuart Britain arrived as ‘Privilege Negroes’ before escaping, being
returned to the colonies, freed or buying their own freedom.
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Diversity Through Time, Bristol (Multiethnic)
Overview
The Disappearance of Joachim Gaunse
We know of only two Jewish families in Bristol in the Tudor and early
Stuart period.
In 1581 the Royal Mining Company invited a Jewish metallurgist and
mining engineer called Joachim Gaunse to come to England from
Bohemia (the modern Czech Republic).
Gaunse helped to transform the English copper smelting industry, and
accompanied Sir Walter Raleigh’s 1584 expedition to Virginia, by 1589 he
had retired to Bristol, and gave Hebrew lessons to wealthy people so they
could read the Old Testament in its original language. The Reverend
Richard Curteys caught Joachim out by getting him to say that he did not
believe Jesus Christ was God’s son. Joachim was arrested and taken to
the Mayor who then passed him on to the Privy Council, when disappears
from the historical record.
What do you think happened to Joachim Gaunse?
We Are NOT French!
Mr Dominique, the leader of the players, made a public appeal in the local
newspaper to persuade people that his group were not French. He said …
“being sensible that he has suffered greatly in the opinion of the Town this
Winter, by being supposed to be the Master of a French Company at a
Time when an unnatural Rebellion is supported by France against his
Majesty’s Crown and Dignity [he assures]…the Publick that not one
person of his whole company is of that Nation; that he himself is born in
Switzerland, Madam Garman of Amsterdam, Mr Jonno of Milan and that
all the rest are natives of Great Britain.”
Money in the Bank
Bristol Huguenots were important in the development of the banking
system in England. The records of Hoare's of London, an early private
bank, show the Huguenots, Daniel and Lewis Casamajor, involvement in
business transactions. Goisin and Son had a Hoare’s account by 1721
which shows links to a range of Bristol and wider ventures, and an annual
turnover in the account of £13,000.
Huguenots
Wealthy members of the Huguenot community in Bristol were heavily
involved in the Transatlantic Slave Trade, either as slavers, suppliers or
merchants trading in slave-grown products. John Cruger’s family fled from
France to the Netherlands, moved to New York, and kept an office in
Bristol related to his West India trade. Bristol-based Huguenots Louis
Casamajor, Jacob Peloquin and Daniel Goizin, were sugar merchants and
owned property in Bristol.
Slaves
Very few enslaved Africans were brought to Bristol. The Bristol street
names Blackboy Hill and Whiteladies Road are NOT related to the slave
trade. Enslaved peoples were NOT kept chained up in the Redcliffe caves.
However, there was a very small and dispersed free black community in
17th and 18th century Bristol, mostly working in shipping and the port, as
well as some black servants.
Victorian orphanage
Müller’s orphanage in Bristol was modelled on an 18th century German
building which Müller had visited in Halle as a student. When Charles
Dickens visited he felt that the way the orphanage was run was too strict!
www.EnglandsPastForEveryone.org.uk/Schools
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