Old Jewry is a one-way street in the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

, the historic and financial centre of

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. It is located within Coleman Street ward and links

Poultry Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for their eggs, their meat or their feathers. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens, quail ...

Gresham Street Gresham Street in the City of London is named after the English merchant and financier Thomas Gresham. It runs from the junction of Lothbury and Moorgate at its eastern end, to St. Martin's Le Grand in the west. Gresham Street was created in ...

. The street now contains mainly offices for financial companies. The nearest

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The U ...

station is

Bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Becau ...

and the closest mainline railway station is Cannon Street.

Early history

Soon after the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conq ...

William the Conqueror William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England The monarchy of the United Kingdom, ...

encouraged Jews to come to England. Some settled in cities throughout his new domain, including in London. According to Reverend

Moses Margoliouth Moses Margoliouth (1820–1881) was a Polish-born British scholar and Jewish convert to Christianity. He became a minister in the Church of England. Alongside Elieser Bassin, he was also one of the first proponents of British Israelism to be of Jew ...

, Old Jewry was a

ghetto A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished ...

. Ghettos, areas of a city mainly or exclusively populated by Jews, were common across Europe. In 2001, archaeologists discovered a

mikveh Mikveh or mikvah (, ''mikva'ot'', ''mikvoth'', ''mikvot'', or ( Yiddish) ''mikves'', lit., "a collection") is a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve ritual purity. Most forms of ritual impurity can be purif ...

(ritual bath) near to Old Jewry, on the corner of Gresham Street and Milk Street, under what is now the

State Bank of India State Bank of India (SBI) is an Indian multinational public sector bank and financial services statutory body headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. SBI is the 49th largest bank in the world by total assets and ranked 221st in the '' Fort ...

. It would have fallen into disuse after 1290, when the Jews were expelled from England. On the west side of Old Jewry is

St Olave Old Jewry St Olave's Church, Old Jewry, sometimes known as ''Upwell Old Jewry'', was a church in the City of London located between the street called Old Jewry and Ironmonger Lane. Destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, the church was rebuilt by t ...

; only the tower of this church survives. When it was destroyed in 1887, a Roman pavement and vases were discovered. Jewen Street, not far away, off

Aldersgate Aldersgate is a Ward of the City of London, named after one of the northern gates in the London Wall which once enclosed the City. The Ward of Aldersgate is traditionally divided into Aldersgate Within and Aldersgate Without, the suffix den ...

, still existed in 1722. According to Ephraim Chambers' ''

Cyclopaedia Cyclopedia, cyclopaedia or cyclopedien is an archaic term for encyclopedia. The term may specifically refer to: *''Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences'', 1728, edited by Ephraim Chambers *''Rees's Cyclopædia'', 1802– ...

'', this was the only permitted burial ground for Jews. Also nearby is

St Lawrence Jewry St Lawrence Jewry next Guildhall is a Church of England guild church in the City of London on Gresham Street, next to Guildhall. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, and rebuilt to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren. It is th ...

, a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

guild church on Gresham Street, next to the

Guildhall A guildhall, also known as a "guild hall" or "guild house", is a historical building originally used for tax collecting by municipalities or merchants in Great Britain and the Low Countries. These buildings commonly become town halls and in som ...

Thomas Rowlandson Thomas Rowlandson (; 13 July 175721 April 1827) was an English artist and caricaturist of the Georgian Era, noted for his political satire and social observation. A prolific artist and printmaker, Rowlandson produced both individual social an ...

was born on Old Jewry in 1756. For many years, the headquarters of the

City of London Police The City of London Police is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the City of London, including the Middle and Inner Temples. The force responsible for law enforcement within the remainder of the London region, o ...

was in Old Jewry.

Meeting-house

There was a Dissenting chapel in Old Jewry in the 1700s.

Richard Price Richard Price (23 February 1723 – 19 April 1791) was a British moral philosopher, Nonconformist minister and mathematician. He was also a political reformer, pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the French ...

, minister of Newington Green Chapel, was also the afternoon preacher here from 1763.

Joseph Fawcett Joseph Fawcett (c. 1758 – 24 January 1804) was an 18th-century English Presbyterian minister and poet. Fawcett began his education at Reverend French's school in Ware, Hertfordshire and in 1774 entered the dissenting academy at Daventry. At t ...

spoke there from 1785, when he began a series of Sunday evening lectures which drew "the largest and most genteel London audience that ever assembled in a dissenting place of worship".'' Monthly Repository'' (1817), 90.

References

External links

Medieval Old Jewry

Roman pavement

Chambers Encyclopedia

{{coord, 51.5143, -0.0909, type:landmark_region:GB-LND, display=title Jewish English history Jewish ghettos in Europe Jews and Judaism in London Odonyms referring to religion Streets in the City of London

Early history

Meeting-house

See also

References

External links