JEWISH
EAST END OF LONDON PHOTO GALLERY & COMMENTARY
London's East End Synagogues, cemeteries and more......
My personal journey through the Jewish East End of London
Bancroft Road burial ground and a serious assault in 1826
Those of you who read the previous
edition of the Cable were treated to the fascinating history of
Maiden Lane synagogue’s Bancroft Road burial ground in Mile End and
its sad decline to the present neglected condition. Subsequent to
this, one of my website correspondents wrote to ask if I could throw
any light on a serious assault at the burial ground in 1826 that his
great great great great grandfather Isaac Alexander was involved
in.
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Modern Signpost in Bancroft
Road pointing the way to The Jewish burial ground - scene of dastardly
deeds in 1826!
The story is this: a violent dispute
at Globe Fields burial ground (Now Bancroft Road) was reported in
the Times newspaper of the day. The fight involved Isaac Alexander,
Alexander senior, Henry Moss, Mr Woolf, Hyam Hyams, Simon Solomon,
Asher Sampson and their victim Isaac Lazarus. Arrests were made and
the court reported that following the fight, Isaac Lazarus was in a
very serious condition and too ill to attend the court. It seems
Isaac Lazarus was some sort of guard/watchman for the cemetery.
Woolf and Alexander were brought before Lambeth Street court and,
due to the seriousness of Lazarus’s condition, were refused bail.
Isaac Lazarus made the following statement from his infirmary bed:
“I saw Alexander first and he said he
would have admittance, which I refused, as I said I was put there by
my employers and I would not open for no one. Alexander said if I
would not open by fair means I should by foul, after which Moss got
up on the wall and called out ‘Come along my boys, it is alright,
there is only one boy here.’ and he would do for him. He then threw
a piece of glass bottle at me. The next who got on the wall was
Woolf. Moss and Woolf came down together. Moss made an attempt to
go up stairs, and I tried to prevent him, but he passed me. Woolf
came up next, and then he struck me on my mouth and head. Woolf
then called out for assistance, which brought down Moss. While
endeavouring to defend myself, Mr Moss opened the door and let in
seven or eight men. After they all came in, I received a violent
blow on my head. I was seized by my shoulders and thrown out of the
gate into the road. I was taken over into a neighbour’s house,
which man will state how he found me. The persons there to the best
of my recollection were Woolf, Moss, Alexander, Hyams, Solomon,
Alexander the father and Sampson. Hyams assisted Woolf – both on me
at once. The blow I received felt as if from an iron bar”
Following submission of the above
evidence, arrest warrants were issued for Asher Sampson, Isaac
Alexander, Hyam Hyams, Simon Solomons and Henry Moss. An Abraham
Collis was reported as giving evidence against Mr Woolf and
Alexander senior. Alexander’s son Isaac Alexander was described in
the court report as a synagogue leader and was in fact the reader of
Queen Street synagogue, the synagogue which had founded the Globe
Fields burial ground. Queen Street became insolvent in the same
year as the assault and its assets were auctioned to pay its debts.
Three years later this community reappeared at 21 Maiden Lane and it
inherited responsibility for the burial ground. Arthur Barnett’s
book ‘The Western Synagogue Through Two Centuries’ reports that
Abraham Collis was secretary of Maiden Lane synagogue from 1837 to
1844. He died aged 83 in1860 and is buried in Bancroft Road.
Arthur Barnet goes on to say that Hyam Hyams lived in Dean Street
and was on the 1820 founding committee of Westminster Jews Free
School.
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Facade of Westminster Jews
Free School, Hanway Place, London. Hyam Hyams was one of the
founders...and a criminal!
Who knows what rivalries may have
played out between the 1826 insolvency of Queen Street and the
community’s reappearance at Maiden Lane in 1829, and did rivalry
drive seemingly respectable men to violently break into the burial
ground that their community had originally founded? I guess we will
never know the answer.
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