Murder in Chelsea, 1771
Outrage and Danger for London’s Jews
In 1741 Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice was revived on the London stage. The last known performance of the play had been in 1605, though a stripped-down, comical adaptation called The Jew of Venice had been staged in 1701. The 1741 production however was the real thing, the play as Shakespeare had written it.
Charles Macklin played the part of Shylock and researched his part thoroughly. He studied the mannerisms and behaviours of the Jews in London, visited their places of work, researched the costumes they had worn in 16th century Venice and devoured Josephus’s History of the Jews (the fact that it had been written some 1,500 years before Shakespeare wrote the play didn’t matter to him).
The Shylock that Macklin played was fearsome and intense, passionate and unyielding. It was not a sympathetic portrayal but it was a performance that struck terror into the hearts of the audience. One critic wrote that “there was such an iron-visaged look, such a relentless, savage cast of manners, that the audience seemed to shrink from the character”. King George II, who could not sleep after watching Macklin’s performance, suggested to Prime Minister Robert Walpole that he should use Macklin whenever he wanted to frighten Parliament. The character of Shylock came to define Macklin. He continued to play the part in the same style for fifty years and only retired when he could no longer remember his lines, at the age of 89 .
Macklin’s portrayal of the avaricious, heartless Shylock reinforced the negative image of Jews in the minds of ordinary English people. Jews had been living legally in the country for nearly a century but there were still popularly regarded with a mixture of suspicion and contempt. A bill allowing them to become British subjects had been passed by Parliament in 1709 but the public outcry was so fierce that it was repealed three years later. Various attempts were made to revive the bill during the following decades and in 1753 a Jewish banker named Joseph Salvador petitioned Parliament to allow Jews to be naturalised. The government agreed and in April of that year Parliament passed the Jewish Naturalisation Act with little fuss.
In the streets however feelings were very different. Opposition to what they called the ‘Jew Bill’ was fierce and clamorous. The newspapers railed against it, angry sermons were preached in the churches, public meetings disintegrated into anarchy. By November the government realised that the mood in the country was firmly against them. Once again they repealed the bill.
On the evening of 11th June 1771 Elizabeth Hutchins was sitting in the parlour of her farmhouse in Chelsea, in those days still a village on the outskirts of London. Hearing her dog bark she called to her maid to find out what was agitating him. Before the maid could reply, Mrs Hutchins heard a noise from inside the house. She jumped up to see what was going on and found three men attacking her maid. There was no doubt, from their appearance and their accents that they were Jews. She tried to go to the maid’s assistance but one of the men pushed her into a chair and pulled her robe over her head. When she tried to pull it down again one of the men told her that if she valued her life she would keep it over her head. Then she heard her cook cry out and a man’s voice telling her that if she didn’t keep quiet he would cut her throat.
Then all went quiet. She remained on her chair with her garment over her head. Her maid and cook were in the room with her; they were all terrified. They heard the men go upstairs. Someone cried ‘Fire!’ and they heard the sound of a pistol shot. She dashed to the back door to escape but ran into two men waiting outside. They threatened to shoot her. She turned back to see another of her servants, Joseph Slew, staggering down the stairs. There was blood running down his legs and his shirt was singed at the shoulder. He fell at her feet, groaning and complaining of feeling cold. He died the next day.
Meanwhile the intruders were ransacking the house. They got away with 64 guineas, a purse containing about ten pounds, some silver, a watch and a few trinkets. Another of Mrs Hutchins’s manservants, a man named William Stone, said that he had counted nine intruders in total.
The murder in Chelsea led to the biggest manhunt Britain had ever seen. The government announced that a £50 reward would be paid for information. Suspicious looking Jews were arrested in Oxford, Truro and Falmouth. They were all released. Eventually one of the gang turned informer, giving all the names of his erstwhile colleagues to the authorities. They sent printed descriptions of the suspects to every postmaster in England, to Edinburgh and to Dublin.
Then manhunt was coordinated by the magistrate Sir John Fielding, from the Bow Street Court. As reports of possible suspects came in he sent men to Dover, Birmingham and Harwich. On November 8th he reported that one of his clerks, Mr Bond, had “this minute returned from a pursuit to Birmingham and has brought up with him three of the offenders…”. With them was with a fourth man who had been trying to warn the others of their impending arrest.
Six months later Levi Weil, Asher Weil, Marcus Hartogh, Jacob Lazarus, Solomon Porter and Lazarus Harry went on trial at the Old Bailey for the murder of Joseph Slew. As their names suggest they were all Jewish. Levi Weil was a doctor. Two of the six, Hartogh and Lazarus Harry, were acquitted. The others were sentenced to death.
The death sentences were passed on a Friday. Reports at the time say that the next day the guilty men were ‘anathematised’ in the synagogue. It is not certain what this means; there doesn’t seem to be a record of what happened that day in the synagogue. They were probably put under a herem, a form of excommunication enforced upon wrongdoers. But since the anathema was imposed on shabbat key elements of the herem ceremony, the blowing of the shofar and extinguishing of black candles, could not have been performed.
The murderers were hung at Tyburn on the following Monday, in front of the largest crowd in living memory. Outraged at what they had done, the rabbi appointed to spend their last moments with them refused to pray with them or accompany them to the gallows. Although the culprits had been Dutch Jews the Elders of the community told Sir John Fielding that the problem of Jewish crime was mainly caused by immigrants trying to escape persecution and poverty in Poland. Large numbers of impoverished Polish Jews were coming to England to seek better lives, or to live off communal charity. Among them, the Elders said, were bound to be rogues fleeing justice or hoping to enrich themselves at somebody else’s expense. The Elders recommended a visa system, so that only those Polish Jews who had valid reasons to come to the country would be admitted.
When he had passed sentence on the murderers the Judge noted the cooperation of the leaders of the Jewish community and those who had given evidence against the accused. He hoped that “no person would ignorantly stigmatize a whole nation for the villainies of a few, whom they had done everything they consistently could to bring to punishment.”
The Judge’s words had little impact. The anti-Jewish feeling that had persisted since the days of the jew Bill, was not about to go away now. Even before the accused were caught and brought to trial mobs were baying against the Jews. One observer reported seeing Jews “hunted, cuffed, pulled by the beard, spat upon and barbarously assaulted in the streets,” without the police or members of the public coming to their aid. Many Jews left the country, fleeing mainly to Amsterdam from where they or their families had originally come. Half a century later the xenophobic social reformer William Cobbett recalled baiting Jews “with a cry of ‘Chelsea’ at their heels”.
It took around twenty years for Jews to feel safe in the streets of London again. Partly it was due to the success of those in the upper reaches of society who were beginning to make a name for themselves in in business and banking. More pertinently though it was the result of what was happening in the working class streets of London’s East End, where a new generation were not prepared to put up with the indignities that their parents suffered. Nor indeed would they tolerate villains giving their community a bad name. They were prepared to defend themselves and learnt how to box in order to do so.
One young man among them rose to become the most significant figure in the history of boxing up until that time. His achievements and fame did more than anything else to raise the standing of East London’s Jews in the eyes of their neighbours. His name was Daniel Mendoza. Stay in touch, to read about him next week.
To be continued……