We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
In 1811, William Robinson, a purser's steward in the royal navy, deserted, having served six long and brutal years at sea. Years later, he wrote his memoirs, under the colorful title of Jack Nastyface. In it he recorded the many indignities inflicted on the sailors of his day. He did so in terms designed to horrify polite men and women, toward which end he dwelled at considerable length on floggings, keel-haulings, and the like. He was, however, perfectly prepared to tolerate the indignities that sailors inflicted on a group even more marginal than themselves: the Jews who made an uncertain living peddling slops and trinkets outside the royal dockyards. In one passage, Robinson fondly remembered how a sailor had avenged himself on one such peddler, known disparagingly as “Moses.” The sailor, assisted by several of the crew, succeeded in appropriating a new suit of clothes; “Moses,” sputtering with rage, was forced to leave the ship “amidst the grins and jeers of the whole crew, who were much diverted and pleased to think that any of their shipmates had tact enough to retaliate so nicely on a Jew.”
The incident, at first blush, bears all the marks of anti-Semitism. It suggests that “Moses” was singled out precisely because he was Jewish; as such, it fits nicely with the claims of a new and very pessimistic generation of scholars. These scholars, in true academic tradition, have expressed a great deal of disappointment over the work of their predecessors.
Funding was provided by grant 410-2000-0467 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The author is profoundly grateful to the gracious and highly capable staff of Portsmouth's Museums and Records Service, most notably, Michael Gunton, Diana Gregg, Donna Malcolmson, and Sarah Speller. Special thanks also go to the volunteers who transcribed the town's sessions: Kate Beatty, Barbara Gower, Ursula Heinrich, Pam Honeysett, George Hothersall, Marjorie Hothersall, Una Lowe, Betty Richardson, Marjorie Ripper, and Brenda Whorton. There was one other volunteer: an inmate at the Kingston Prison just outside Portsmouth. Back in Toronto, several more people assisted in entering the records into a database: Joanne Cordingley, James Hewitson, Allyson Lunny, Yvonne Pelletier, and Victoria Vaag.
1 Robinson, William, Jack Nastyface. Memoirs of a Seaman (London, 1973), p. 100Google Scholar.
2 See, for example, Williams, Bill, The Making of Manchester Jewry, 1740–1875 (Manchester, 1976)Google Scholar, and Katz, David S., “The Marginalization of Early Modern Anglo-Jewish History,” in The Jewish Heritage in British History. Englishness and Jewishness, ed. Kushner, Tony (London, 1992), pp. 60–77Google Scholar. Also see Cesarani, David, “Joynson-Hicks and the Radical Right in England after the First World War,” in Traditions of Intolerance. Historical Perspectives on Fascism and Race Discourse in Britain, ed. Kushner, Tony and Lunn, Kenneth (Manchester, 1989), pp. 118–39Google Scholar; Tony Kushner, “The Paradox of Prejudice: the Impact of Organised Antisemitism in Britain during an anti-Nazi War,” in ibid., pp. 72–90; Kushner, Tony, “The Impact of British Anti-semitism, 1918–1945,” in The Making of Modern Anglo-Jewry, ed. Cesarini, David (Oxford, 1990), pp. 191–208Google Scholar; and Holmes, Colin, “A Tolerant Country? Immigrants, Refugees and Minorities,” in Britain, ed. Offer, Avner and Thompson, F. M. L., (London, 1991), pp. 33–34Google ScholarPubMed.
3 Duffy, Michael, “The Noisie, Empty, Fluttering French. English Images of the French, 1689–1815,” History Today 32 (September 1982): 26Google Scholar; Mullett, Michael, “Popular Culture and Popular Politics: Some Regional Case Studies,” in Britain in the First Age of Party 1680–1750. Essays Presented to Geoffrey Holmes, ed. Jones, Clyve (London, 1987), pp. 129–50Google Scholar.
4 Stone, Lawrence, “Interpersonal Violence in English Society 1300–1980,” Past and Present 101 (1983): 22–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Idem., “A Rejoinder,” Past and Present 108 (1985):216–24; Beattie, John M., Crime and the Courts in England 1660–1800 (Princeton, 1986), p. 139Google Scholar.
5 See, for example, Roth, Cecil, A History of the Jews in England (Oxford, 1941)Google Scholar; Perry, Thomas W., Public Opinion, Propaganda, and Politics in Eighteenth-century England. A Study of the Jew Bill of 1753 (Cambridge, Mass., 1962)Google Scholar; and Endelman, Todd M., The Jews of Georgian England 1714–1830. Tradition and Change in a Liberal Society (Philadelphia, 1979)Google Scholar.
6 Susser, Bernard, The Jews of South-west England. The Rise and Decline of their Medieval and Modern Communities (Exeter, 1993), pp. 221–22Google Scholar.
7 Barnett, R. D., “Anglo-Jewry in the Eighteenth Century,” in Three Centuries of Anglo-Jewish History, ed. Lipman, Vivian David (Cambridge, 1961), p. 58Google Scholar.
8 van Muyden, , ed., A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I. and George II. The Letters of Monsieur Cesar de Saussure to his Family (London, 1902), pp. 328–29Google Scholar.
9 Rumney, J., “Anglo-Jewry as Seen through Foreign Eyes (1730–1840),” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society 13 (1932–1935): 329–30Google Scholar.
10 Roth, , A History of the Jews in England, p. 196Google Scholar; Endelman, Todd M., Radical Assimilation in English Jewish History 1656–1945 (Bloomington, 1990), p. 35Google Scholar.
11 Perry, , A Study of the Jew Bill of 1753, pp. 13–14Google Scholar.
12 Statt, Daniel, Foreigners and Englishmen. The Controversy over Immigration and Population, 1660–1760 (Newark, Delaware, 1995), pp. 25–27Google Scholar.
13 Wrigley, E. Anthony, “A Simple Model of London's Importance in Changing English Society and Economy 1650–1750,” in Past and Present, ed. Abrams, Philip and Wrigley, E. Anthony, Past and Present Publications (Cambridge, 1978), p. 215Google Scholar.
14 Pollins, Harold, Economic History of the Jews in England, in The Liftman Library of Jewish Civilization, ed. Goldstein, David, Jacobs, Louis, and Lipman, V. D. (London and Toronto, 1982), p. 43Google Scholar.
15 Colquhuon, writing in 1795, estimated that there were 20,000 Jews living in London, and another 5,000 to 6,000 in the provinces. See Colquhoun, Patrick, A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis (4th ed.; London, 1797), p. 159Google Scholar. The same figure appears in Susser, , The Jews of South-west England, p. 26Google Scholar. The lower number comes from Endelman, , The Jews of Georgian England 1714–1830, p. 32Google Scholar.
16 Wrigley, E. Anthony and Schofield, Roger S., The Population History of England, 1541–1871. A Reconstruction (London, 1981), p. 534Google Scholar.
17 There are four such studies: Meisels, I. S., “The Jewish Congregation of Portsmouth (1766–1842),” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society 6 (1908–1910): 111–27Google Scholar; Cecil Roth, “The Portsmouth Community and its Historical Background,” ibid., 13 (1932–1935): 157–87; Eugene Newman, “Some New Facts about the Portsmouth Jewish Community,” ibid., 17 (1951–1952): 251–68; and Weinberg, Aubrey, Portsmouth Jewry, vol. 41, The Portsmouth Papers (Portsmouth, 1985)Google Scholar.
18 Innes, Joanna and Styles, John, “The Crime Wave: Recent Writing on Crime and Criminal Justice in Eighteenth-century England,” in Rethinking Social History. English Society 1570–1920 and its Interpretation, ed. Wilson, A. (Manchester, 1993), p. 211Google Scholar; King, Peter, Crime, Justice, and Discretion in England 1740–1820 (Oxford, 2000), pp. 11–12Google Scholar.
19 Portsmouth Museum and Records Service (hereafter cited as PMRS), S3/70/33, 8 April 1718.
20 PMRS, S3/96/112, 21 June 1731; PMRS, S3/96/96, 10 July 1731; PMRS, S3/99/65, 8 June 1733.
21 Roth, Cecil, “The Jew Peddler-an 18th-century Rural Character,” in Essays and Portraits in Anglo-Jewish History, ed. Roth, Cecil (Philadelphia, 1962), p. 137Google Scholar; Pollins, , Economic History of the Jews in England, p. 80Google Scholar; Susser, , The Jews of South-west England, p. 93Google Scholar.
22 Derrick, Charles, Memoirs of the Rise and Progress of the Royal Navy (London, 1806), pp. 235–36Google Scholar.
23 Weinberg, , Portsmouth Jewry, 41: 7Google Scholar.
24 Newman, , “Some New Facts about the Portsmouth Jewish Community,”, p. 257Google Scholar.
25 PMRS, S3/170/2, 22 April 1774.
26 Susser, , The Jews of South-west England, pp. 231–32Google Scholar.
27 PMRS, Index to the Twelfth Rate of 1775 for Portsmouth Common in the Parish of Portsea, as Compiled by E. Edwards in 1982, 1775.
28 Christie, Peter Stuart, “Occupations in Portsmouth 1550–1851” (M.Phil., Portsmouth Polytechnic, 1976), p. 142Google Scholar.
29 The first was located on White's Row (now Curzon Howe Road), and the second on Daniel's Row.
30 Roth, Cecil, “The Portsmouth Community and its Historical Background,” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society 13 (1932–1935): 166Google Scholar.
31 Stapleton, Barry, “The Population of the Portsmouth Region,” in The Portsmouth Region, ed. Stapleton, Barry and Thomas, James H. (Portsmouth, 1989), p. 91Google Scholar.
32 Christie, , “Occupations in Portsmouth 1550–1851,” p. 182Google Scholar. The number is inflated to the extent that it includes the sailors and soldiers then serving in the garrison at Portsmouth.
33 Newman, , “Some New Facts about the Portsmouth Jewish Community,” pp. 263–68Google Scholar.
34 Endelman, , Radical Assimilation in English Jewish History 1656–1945, p. 57Google Scholar.
35 PMRS, S3/167/84, 15 March 1773; PMRS, S3/167/88, 20 March 1773; PMRS, S3/169/19, 17 November 1773.
36 PMRS, S3/123/62, 12 March 1746.
37 PMRS, S3/183/42, 31 August 1781.
38 PMRS, S3/156/35, 4 February 1767.
39 PMRS, S3/111/20, 4 January 1740.
40 PMRS, S3/103/27A, 14 November 1735; PMRS, S3/104/7, 5 May 1736; PMRS, S3/106/14, 14 May 1737; PMRS, S3/125/99, 28 January 1747; PMRS, S3/125/100, 30 January 1747.
41 Weinberg, , Portsmouth Jewry 41: 15Google Scholar.
42 Newman, , “Some New Facts about the Portsmouth Jewish Community,” p. 253Google Scholar.
43 PMRS, S3/96/112, 21 June 1731.
44 Every year there were two general sessions, each covering approximately six months. Spring sessions included the last two or so months of the preceding year plus the first four or so months of the current year; fall sessions always fell within the current year. Within the series dating from 1718 to 1781, there are several gaps: 27 October 1726 to 21 April 1727; 9 October 1732 to 3 April 1733; 11 October 1750 to 18 October 1751; 18 October 1763 to 1 May 1764; 25 April 1765 to 19 April 1766; 5 May 1767 to 23 October 1767; and 14 May 1778 to 26 October 1778.
45 PMRS, S3/154/38A, 30 January 1765.
46 PMRS, S3/154/16, 19 November 1764; PMRS, S3/170/7, 19 May 1779.
47 George, M. Dorothy, London Life in the Eighteenth Century, (2nd ed.; New York, 1964), pp. 127–31Google Scholar.
48 Colquhoun, , A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis, pp. 47, 75Google Scholar.
49 Solomons, Israel, “Satirical and Political Prints on the Jews' Naturalisation Bill, 1753,” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society 6 (1908–1910): 205–33Google Scholar; Perry, A Study of the Jew Bill of 1753.
50 George, , London Life in the Eighteenth Century, p. 132Google Scholar; Roth, , A History of the Jews in England, p. 233Google Scholar; Williams, , The Making of Manchester Jewry, 1740–1875, p. 7Google Scholar; Pollins, , Economic History of the Jews in England, p. 65Google Scholar.
51 PMRS, S3/172/40, 11 July 1775.
52 PMRS, S3/17799, 20 April 1778. For whatever reason, both attacks targeted the breakaway syna-gogue on Daniel's Row, and not the older, more established synagogue on White's Row.
53 Pigs figure prominently in the anti-Semitic literature of the time. See Glassman, Bernard, Protean Prejudice: Anti-Semitism in England's Age of Reason (Atlanta, 1998), p. 177Google Scholar.
54 PMRS, S3/182/29, 18 April 1781.
55 PMRS, S3/128/163, 14 August 1748.
56 Green, Geoffrey L., The Royal Navy and Anglo-Jewry 1740–1820. Traders and those who Served (London, 1989), pp. 152–53Google Scholar.
57 There may have been some basis to the claim, as an earlier document, probably in January 1798, mentions two Jews apprehended “for treasonable practices, having papers containing soundings, marks of the harbour, Spithead, &c. in their possession.” See Roth, , “The Portsmouth Community and its Historical Background,” pp. 178–79Google Scholar.
58 Green, , The Royal Navy and Anglo-Jewry 1740–1820, p. 63Google Scholar.
59 Portsmouth's congregation forbade the practice in 1766, and Plymouth's forbade it in 1779. See Meisels, , “The Jewish Congregation of Portsmouth (1766–1842),” 111–27Google Scholar, and Susser, , The Jews of South-west England, p. 142Google Scholar.
60 Green, , The Royal Navy and Anglo-Jewry 1740–1820, pp. 32–34Google Scholar. See, among others, Robinson, , Jack Nastyface. Memoirs of a Seaman, pp. 96–100Google Scholar, and Marryat, Frederick, Peter Simple (London, 1904), pp. 60–63Google Scholar.
61 PMRS, S3/123/42, 30 December 1745.
62 PMRS, S3/98/78, 6 July 1732.
63 Dewar, Alfred, ed., The Voyages and Travels of Captain Nathaniel Uring (London, 1928), p. 176Google Scholar; Lavery, Brian, ed., Shipboard Life and Organisation, 1731–1815, vol. 138, Publications of the Navy Record Society (Aldershot, 1998), p. 374Google Scholar; Lowe, J. A., ed., Records of the Portsmouth Division of Marines 1764–1800, vol. 7, Portsmouth Record Series (Portsmouth, 1990), p. xlixGoogle Scholar.
64 King, Peter, “Punishing Assault: the Transformation of Attitudes in the English Courts,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 27, 1 (1996): 43–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
65 PMRS, S3/172/16, 2 June 1775.
66 This appears, for example, to have been the case in eighteenth-century Falmouth. See Jacob, Alex M., “The Jews of Falmouth—1740–1860,” in The Lost Jews of Cornwall. From the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century, ed. Pearce, Keith and Fry, Helen (Bristol, 2000), p. 54Google Scholar.
67 Roth, , “The Portsmouth Community and its Historical Background,” p. 181Google Scholar.
68 PMRS, S3/183/42, 31 August 1781.
69 PMRS, S3/175/5, 4 November 1776.
70 PMRS, S3/174/59, 11 July 1776. Five years later, in 1781, Huish was again publicly harassed in the playhouse, this time by a raucous coterie of the town's prostitutes. According to Huish, they “behaved themselves in the most immodest and indecent Manner and made a great Noise & Disturbance, and some of them uttered several profane Oaths.” See PMRS, S3/182/29, 18 April 1781.
71 Egan, Pierce, Boxiana; or, Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism, ed. Noble, Scott, 3 vols. (Toronto, 1997), 1: 208–23Google Scholar; Endelman, , The Jews of Georgian England 1714–1830, pp. 219–20Google Scholar.
72 Magriel, Paul, ed., The Memoirs of the Life of Daniel Mendoza, The Modern Jewish Experience (New York, 1975), pp. 14–15Google Scholar.
73 PMRS, S3/104/7, 5 May 1736; PMRS, S3/106/47, 11 July 1737.
74 PMRS, S3/130/82, 8 June 1749; PMRS, S3/151/66, 1 March 1763; PMRS, S3/168/72, 26 August 1773.
75 PMRS, S3/170/72, 7 October 1774.
76 PMRS, S3/174/66, 24 July 1776.
77 PMRS, S3/122/5, 22 April 1745.
78 PMRS, S3/156/45, 5 March 1767; PMRS, S3/156/46, 5 March 1767.
79 PMRS, S3/164/78, 7 October 1771.
80 PMRS, S3/157/70, 19 April 1768.
81 Pollins, , Economic History of the Jews in England, p. 76Google Scholar; Williams, , The Making of Manchester Jewry, 1740–1875, p. 2Google Scholar.
82 PMRS, S3/168/72, 26 August 1773.
83 PMRS, S3/179/61, 26 October 1779.
84 PMRS, S3/163/4, 31 October 1770; PMRS, S3/163/6, 6 November 1770.
85 PMRS, S3/125/100, 30 January 1747.
86 Endelman, , “The Jews of Britain, 1656–2000,” in Jewish Communities in the Modern World, ed. Sorkin, David (Berkeley, 2002), p. 58Google Scholar.
87 PMRS, S3/135/72, 7 March 1753.
88 Susser, , The Jews of South-west England, p. 237Google Scholar.
89 Newman, , “Some New Facts about the Portsmouth Jewish Community,” pp. 253–54Google Scholar.
