Fleeing persecution and poverty: European migration to Hull in the late 19th century

Been looking at where people in Bulmer’s Directory for Hull (1892) came from as a window on where Hull traded with at the time. Certainly there were a number of merchants living in Hull who originated in places like Hamburg, Holland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway (along with several Italian icecream sellers!) But what I also discovered told a much more unhappy story. Alongside the wealthy European merchants who had based themselves in Hull there were large numbers of more humble tradespeople. A quick survey of the names told that the majority of these were Jewish people of Eastern European or German origin. Comparison with earlier trade directories shows that most of these people came to Hull in the second half of the 19^th century. Cross-referencing with 1891 census confirmed that they were mostly from Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and other parts of what was the Russian empire at the time, as well as from Prussia. They seem to have practiced a small number of similar trades, mainly jewellers/watchmakers/silversmiths, tailors, cabinet makers, footwear manufacturers and tobacconists. Many of the jewellers doubled up as pawnbrokers of which there were a huge number in Hull at the time. (A crown on the statue of King Billy in Market Place was made in 1788 by Jewish immigrant silversmiths and presented to the town by the Jewish community.)

Whilst the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis in the 20^th century is well-known, the wave of persecution by the Russian Empire in the 19^th century is less familiar. This reached a peak in the 1880s. The Russian empire implemented increasingly harsh restrictions on Jewish people, pushing them out of eastern parts of the empire and restricting them to the so-called ‘Pale of Settlement’. Forbidden from living in the large cities or the rural areas, they lived together in  predominantly Jewish settlements known as shtetlech. In the 1880s life became difficult for Jews even in the shtetlech. As a result many Jews to flee the countries of their birth for Western parts of Europe like France, Germany and Britain. The places of birth mentioned in the 1891 census include many of the shtetlech - Lvov (Ukraine), Kovna (Lithiuania), Wilna (Poland), Mariampol (Lithuania) and Kelm (Lithiuania) for example.

The Jewish immigrants integrated quickly into the life of the city, developing some of the city’s most well know businesses and being influential in local politics. Apparently three mayors are buried in the Delhi Street Jewish cemetery, which is remarkable considering that at its height the Hull Jewish community only numbered a couple of thousand. However, world history shows this people - who the Nazis sought to wipe off the face of the earth - have made a contribution out of all proportion to their numbers in almost every area of life – whether medicine, scientific discoveries, politics, literature or music. This was certainly true of the Jewish immigrants who settled across Yorkshire in the 19^th century.