German Churches & German Sugar Refiners

German Churches ~ German Sugar Refiners

GERMAN CHURCHES

The first wave of German settlers in London were merchants. The second wave brought artisans, mainly in sugar-refining, confectionery and later the meat trade, but there were also bookbinders and sellers. Many settled in East London, remaining until the First World War: at one time there were 16,000 Germans in the area. Most were Protestants (Lutheran and Reformed), but some were Roman Catholics (for whom the church of St Boniface was provided) and later, of course, Jews fleeing poverty and persecution.

German Lutheran Church: St George's

Georgenkirche (St George's) Alie Street is the the oldest surviving centre of German worship, but was the fifth London congregation to be founded. The first was the Hamburg Church (Hamburger Lutherische Kirche), granted a royal charter by Charles II in 1669 (when non-Anglican churches were still banned), which met in Trinity Lane in the City until 1874, when it moved to Dalston. The second was Marienkirche, the church of St Mary-le-Savoy, meeting by William III's permission from 1694 at his chapel in the Savoy Palace in the Strand (near the site of the Savoy Hotel), and eventually moving to Bloomsbury as part of a student centre. The third was the Reformed congregation of St Paul, which also met at the Savoy from 1696: see below. And in 1700 the Deutsche Hofkapelle, the German Court Chapel, was founded in St James' Palace by Prince George of Denmark, the husband of the future Queen Anne. When George I, who spoke little English, came over from Hanover in 1714, he installed his court preacher as incumbent, and this continued with George II. Thus it served mainly the royal household; it was subject to the Bishop of London and used parts of the Book of Common Prayer in German. This odd tradition continued until the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, when a successor congregation was established in South Kensington.

There were few links between these congregations, which were 'little republics', though the two Savoy congregations exchanged preachers and had an annual church feast in which followers of Luther and Calvin joined together so peacefully and cheerfully that you would think they were one congregation.

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St George's was founded in 1762 by Dietrich Beckmann, a wealthy sugar refiner. His workers formed most of the original congregation, together with East End merchants from the Hamburg church. Most of the original interior of the Alie Street church survives, including the ground floor and gallery box pews and the double-decker pulpit and sounding board. On the wall above hangs a pre-1801 coat of arms of King George III and two carved timber Commandment Boards in German. The Royal Arms, obligatory at the time in Anglican churches and adopted by others as a mark of loyalty, recall the connection with Queen Victoria's mother, the Duchess of Kent, who was patron of the schools from 1819 (see below).

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The first pastor (1763-99) was Gustav Anton Wachsel, Beckmann's cousin, appointed at the age of 26. He was born in Halberstadt in East Frisia, on the eastern edge of the Harz (in former East Germany) around 1735. His father was a partisan against the 'French invaders' of the area and was shot by them in 1761. At the conclusion of the Seven Years War (1756-63), a committee in London petitioned Waschel's alma mater, the Georg August University of Göttingen, for a recognition of the help he had given to escaping refugees:

It was he who provided not only for their physical needs but also for their spiritual, to the best of his ability. He accommodated, exhorted, taught and consoled these people and on their behalf, inserted articles about their plight in the London newspapers. These left a deep impression on the population who strove to help. It was therefore Herr Wachsel who had the good fortune and pleasure to be the major instigator in the alleviation of their misery.

In the summer of 1764 Pastor Wachsel appealed in the press for help for a group of 600 Germans from the Palatines and Würzburg who were attempting to make their way to the islands of St John and St Croix in the Virgin Islands, had been abandoned in London without money or resources, and could not speak English; 200 were confined on their ship, unable to pay for their passage, and the rest were camping out in Goodman's Fields by St George's Church (sketch drawings of the campsite are extant). The Tower of London provided 200 tents to protect them from the heavy rains and a collection of £4000 was raised from 1200 donors. King George III intervened and enabled them to travel, in October of that year, to South Carolina (at that time British territory) instead, setting sail from Gravesend on three ships: the Dragon, the Union and the Planters Adventure. The Committee Minute booklet of 1765, printed by Haberkron, along with many contempoary newspaper articles, give more details. Family websites of descendants, now spread across the USA, chronicle the help they were given by the relief committee, led by Wachsel. See here and here for examples, relating to the group's time in London. The University of Göttingen granted him an honorary doctorate in 1765.

During his time, a 'curious custom' arose of having the beadle stand with his mace outside the altar rails during the reading and prayers - no-one knew why, unless it was to quieten the children.

Wachsel published an edition of Luther's Shorter Catechism in German and English. In 1767 the church had 430 members. A school was established in 1765, aiming to populate the congregation in the future; it became St. George's German and English Elementary School in 1805, offering a full range of subjects, and supported by voluntary contributions. There was a tension here: many German settlers assimilated quickly, marrying English wives and generally becoming 'British'. When Wachsel attempted to introduce English services for second generation and 'mixed' families (as did the other German congregations) there were protests: his wages were stopped, he was locked out, and a 25-year battle ensued, ending with a court verdict that he could only hold services in German. There were also struggles about the church constitution: he was conservative and autocratic, but his north German members wanted rules and participation. And they also objected to music in worship, fearing that the church might become a 'playhouse' [see GOODMANS FIELDS]. So numbers fell.

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His successor, from 1799 until his death in 1843, was Dr Christian A.E. Schwabe, who rebuilt the congregation, to between 400 and 500. He was Queen Victoria's German tutor. In 1806 a Society of Friends of Foreigners in Distress was established. There was also a Ladies' Clothing Society, providing clothing for nearly a hundred poor German children a year.

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Louis Cappel was the next pastor. In his time the churchyard and crypt were closed (1853) and there were no further burials. In 1864 he ministered to Franz Müller [right], a tailor who was convicted of the murder of Mr Briggs on the North London Railway. The trial, and public execution, aroused great public interest. He denied the charge, and a 'German Protection Society' was created to plead for clemency. Cappel was with him on his last day when he went to the scaffold, at which point he confessed; reports say that a fuller confession would have followed if the hangman had not been so anxious to proceed. See further George H. Knott Trial of Franz Müller (Read Books 2006).

School numbers swelled in this period, and a new building [above] was opened in 1877, financially supported by Wilhelm Heinrich Göschen, and others such as George Frederick Vorwerg whose will created a charitable trust (and who also left an engraved picture of the creation of the world, and £5 for a mourning ring, to Louis Cappel). It was the only German school with a nursery, for children over the age of two, to enable poor mothers to work. Relying on donations from wealthier members, it survived until 1917.

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A new, and characteristically German, organ was installed the the firm of Walcker in 1886, using the 1794 case by John England. It was rebuilt in 1937, and restored in 2004, and is used for regular recitals.

Goerg Mätzold was the pastor from 1891 to 1930. He brought nurses from Germany in 1903 (when the church claimed 166 members), and founded Ostdiakonieverein, a social welfare organisation for the East End. The school canteen provided meals for pupils and also some parents. Julius Rieger followed him (1930-53); during the Nazi period he set up a relief centre for Jewish refugees from Germany who were provided with references to travel to England. He founded the church magazine Der Londoner Bote.

Sunday worship was transferred to St Mary's in Bloomsbury in 1996, though there is a monthly midweek service and special events - including a 2006 BBC Songs of Praise to mark the centanery of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's birth, and the premiere of Richard van Schoor's Mass, on texts by Bonhoeffer.

The church is now the base of the Historic Chapels Trust, for the conservation of non-Anglican places of worship. Following a break-in in 1995, the library of Gustav von Anton (750 volumes, kept in the vestry) was transferred to the British Museum. The building was restored at a cost of £900,000 (including the organ) and re-opened by the Duke of Gloucester in 2004.

Here are pictures of Alie Street in the mid-1930s and 1949, and of Half Moon Passage, an alley leading to Braham Street. The Half Moon Theatre Company began life in an adjacent former synagogue.

German Reformed Church: St Paul's

The third German congregation in London, meeting at the Savoy Palace (see above) was formed of immigrants from the Palatinate who were of the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition. In 1715 there were only 20 paying members, and 60 others; the pastor's stipend was provided by their patron, King Friedrich I of Prussia. Numbers increased, to between three and four hundred, under Dr Carl Gottfried Woide (1768-90): he was an eminent orientalist, on the staff of the British Musuem, and also chaplain of the Dutch Court Chapel.

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When the Savoy Palace was vacated for the building of Waterloo Bridge, the congregation built a new church in Hooper Square, on the edge of Goodman's Fields, in 1819. [see recently-restored Pump House, Hooper Street] This brought them into the heart of the German working class colony - artisans, tailors, butchers and cobblers from Westphalia, the Rhineland, Hessen and Frisia: the businessman disappears, and German craftsmen, living under difficult conditions in the East, arrive. This move, plus attachment in 1822 to the Prussian church union, merging the Calvinist and Lutheran traditions, ended its purely Reformed tradition.

The pastor from 1822 to 1858 was Johann Gerhard Tiarks (1794-1858), who published A Practical Grammar of the German Language (1834). He came from a large and distinguished family and studied at the University of Heidelburg, and married an English wife; several of his descendants became Anglican clergy, and Captain Mark Philipps was his great-great-grandson. In his time schools for boys (1832) and girls (1852) were established. Sunday worship was advertised for 10.45am and 6pm, with the Lord's Supper at Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday and the first Sunday in October - seats to be had in the vestry.

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During Theodor Kübler's time (1858-75) butchers, from the Würtemberg area, predominated in the congregation. In 1887, railway works forced another move, when the bridge over Leman Street into Fenchurch Street was constructed, and the congregation moved to Goulston Street. German assimilation proceeded apace, and the schools were closed in 1896, and sold to the Jewish Missionary Society.

Heinrich Deicke was pastor from 1905-??. The sugar factories had closed, and their workers moved away, but continued to 'commute' back to church; in his time St Paul's claimed 175 members. From 1933-35 the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer [right] was pastor at St Paul's [see above]. The church was bombed in 1941, and it merged with St George's.

German Wesleyan Church

A congregation was formed at Grosvenor Street Stepney, which then moved to Coopers' Hall, before acquiring its own premises at 262 Commercial Road. Initially it was served by English preachers who spoke some German, but from 1874 Paul Schweikher was its minister, and there were over 100 members. The emphasis was on simple gospel preaching. As with the other churches, members continued to support the church even though they had moved away.

SUGAR REFINING

Alderman P.M. Martineau JP, Eastern Post 7 September 1901

also printed in H.C. Dimsdale Sixty Years' History of an East End Parish (Henry Bailey 1901)

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Sugar refining was the leading industry in St George's in the East fifty years ago. Many of the refineries have been pulled down, others are now warehouses. The 'waning' began about 25 years ago. Year by year these refineries were closed; not one is now left; the last was closed about 1885. But old inhabitants will remember the old names: Hall and Boyd, J. and C. Bowman, John Davis, Dames, Wackerbarth, Goodhard, Kück, Schröder, Wainwright and Gadesden, David Martineau and Sons. A splendid Board School has just been built in Christian Street where the largest refinery stood, and which boasted the tallest chimney in London.

Sugar refining was for years the thriving business in S. George's. Very many hundreds of tons of sugar were manufactured weekly by the local refiners. These sugars were made from 'cane', and they were known to the trade as 'Titlers' (i.e. loaf), 'crushed', 'pieces', 'Bastard's Treacle'. Many allied trades flourished side by side with the refineries: coopers, carmen, charcoal burners, engineers, string and poaper merchants, 'spice' men ['spice' was the euphemism for bullocks blood, used in the clarifying process]. S. George's streets were full of life in those days from very early morning till dark and after. Waggons delivering hogsheads and bags of raw sugar; strings of carmen and carriers fetching away the refined; and from 9 to noon buyers from Mincing Lance walked briskly around the parish with samples in purple paper under their arms, calling at the many counting houses to bargain. It was a queer sight after dark to peer through the areas of the refineries and to see the half naked sugar bakers (as the 'hands' were called) scuttling about the basement and pouring the boiling sugar, from pans which they carried, into sugar moulds.

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The sugar bakers lived in the refineries; it was thought right to have them on the spot in case of fire. A fire meant havoc indeed! Twice in thirty years Martineau's in Christian Street was burnt down, each time with a loss of more than £50,000. The sugar bakers in those days were all Germans, chiefly Hanoverians. It was said that Germans stood the heat better than English. The temperature in a refinery was high throughout, in the stoves which men had to work in daily it was 140 degrees Fahr. More probably the reason for German labour was that the industry was originally German, managed by a German ('Boiler' was his technical name), who liked to have his own little colony about him.

Beyond question the sugar bakers were good fellows, hard working, cheery, loyal and steady. They came to England as lads and saved their money. In due time they went into the 'Public' line in our Parish, or returned to Hanover to marry an old sweetheart and to farm. The work in a refinery was long and hard and hot. The wages were good, and there was unlimited beer. The beer was a local 'sixpenny', and the average consumption was two gallons a day per head. If one walked about our streets then one often saw at the open door or window half naked well-fed Germans joking and laughing in the pauses of the work. They mostly ate beefsteaks.

These were the 'good old days' of the trade. Presently beet sugar crept in, and the conditions of the manufacture were no longer the same. The East End refiners struggled manfully with the change, but when 'bounty-fed' loaf sugar from France and Belgium flooded the home market, one after another they succumbed. They could not make a living when Paris loaf sugar was being sold in Paris - apart from the question of duty - a good deal dearer than the same Paris sugar was being sold in London.

It is often asked how, in the teeth of this, did Henry Tate [of Tate & Lyle], the London refiner, become a millionaire? Among other reasons three are suggested. (1) His refinery was not in S. George's, but on the riverside; (2) He secured a valuable patent, that of making loaf sugar into cubes; (3) He was an exceptionally able business man, and had previously been very successful in Liverpool.

The German names still to be seen over some of the taverns and shops, and that excellent charity 'The Society of United Friends', still survive. [This probably refers to an Amicable Society established in Greenwich in 1834, rather than to the Owenite splinter group of the same name.] There is little else left now of S. George's palmy sugar refining days.

A close shave for St George-in-the-East

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As mentioned above, fire was always a risk. One Sunday morning in 1846 Grant & Baldwin's refinery at 17½ St. George's Place, Back Road (close by the church on the south and west side) caught fire and was entirely consumed, with the loss of £20,000-worth of stock. Fortunately the wind was light, and blowing in a south-westerly direction; otherwise, the church and adjacent houses would have been caught in the conflagration.

More details here - part of Bryan Mawer's fascinating and comprehensive site Sugar Refiners and Sugarbakers (with thanks for his help with this page).

Pictured on the left is a 'fireproof' refinery in Leman Street, c1850 [original in Guildhall Library]; by way of contrast, 12o Leman Street (right) is an office development.

In 1854 Gerd Jacob Benson of Christian Street was granted a patent for refining, or 'blowing up', sugar at lower temperatures by using perforated pipes.

See also this 1876 account of the trade.

Charles Dickens mentions the sugar refinery between Dock Street and Well Street in The Uncommerial Traveller.

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