The construction of home in a spitalfields landscape

Abstract

For hundreds of years Spitalfields, the 250 acres that border the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and the City of London, has been a first point of settlement for immigrants. Its tradition of political and religious non‐conformity and its proximity to the City of London and the docks have acted as a unique beacon to those seeking refuge and economic opportunity in a capital city. Spitalfields has provided a landscape upon which the incomers have engraved a ‘home away from home’, for themselves and their families. Using the ‘Spitalfields experience’ as a focal point, the concept and construction of home by migrants in the diaspora is explored, and some of the cultural tools that the Huguenots, eastern European Jews and Bangladeshis—the protagonist subject groups of this essay—have used to construct their homes in the elsewhere are examined. Due to the spatial limitations of this work, language, diet and religion have been selected as the topics under the microscope. All three facilitated the maintenance of links with the sending societies whilst, in some, though not in every instance, creating a bridge to assimilation. The usage and effectiveness of these tools is compared and contrasted and the role played by Spitalfields over the past four centuries in the creation of homes by those in an alien environment is assessed.