London’s Huguenot History: How 50,000 French Refugees Changed the East End

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In October 1685, Louis XIV of France cancelled the law that had protected French Protestants for nearly 90 years. Within weeks, tens of thousands of Huguenots began leaving France. Thousands of them headed for London. They brought silk looms, goldsmithing tools, and a fierce determination to rebuild their lives. The East End has never been the same since.

Did you know? Paul Revere — the American patriot famous for his midnight ride in 1775 — was the grandson of a Huguenot refugee. His grandfather Apollos Rivoire fled France as a boy and rebuilt his life in Boston as a goldsmith. The family anglicised their name, as so many Huguenot families did.

Why They Left France

The Huguenots were French Protestants. They followed the teachings of John Calvin and had practised their faith openly since the late 1500s. The Edict of Nantes, signed by King Henry IV in 1598, gave them the right to worship freely. For nearly a century, this uneasy peace held.

Louis XIV wanted a unified Catholic France. In October 1685, he revoked the Edict of Nantes. Overnight, Huguenot churches closed. Protestant ministers faced prison or forced conversion. Huguenot children faced compulsory Catholic baptism. Anyone caught trying to leave the country faced the death penalty.

Hundreds of thousands left anyway. Between 1685 and 1700, around 400,000 Huguenots fled France. They went to England, the Dutch Republic, Prussia, South Africa, and the American colonies. England welcomed them. The English government paid a royal bounty to encourage Huguenot refugees to settle in Britain, seeing them as skilled craftsmen and merchants who could strengthen the English economy.

Where They Settled in London

Most Huguenots who came to London settled in Spitalfields.

Spitalfields sits just east of the City of London, beyond Bishopsgate. In the 1680s, it was a semi-rural area on the edge of the city — cheap to rent, close to London’s markets, and free from the guilds that might block skilled Huguenot craftsmen from trading. As refugees flooded in, the streets filled with French speakers. French became the common language of the neighbourhood. Local tradesmen learned to conduct business in two languages.

By 1700, around 23,000 Huguenots lived in Spitalfields and the surrounding streets. Entire blocks had French-speaking populations. The community built their own churches, schools, and a French hospital (which still exists today as the French Hospital in Rochester). They published French-language newspapers.

Other groups settled in Soho, Wandsworth, and Canterbury. A small community established itself in Greenwich. But Spitalfields became the heart of Huguenot life in Britain.

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What They Built — and What Still Stands

The Huguenots were skilled craftsmen. Many had worked in the silk and textile trade in France, an industry that required technical skill and artistic talent. They brought that expertise to Spitalfields.

Within a generation, Spitalfields silk became famous across England. Huguenot weavers produced brocades, velvets, and damasks that filled the wardrobes of the British aristocracy. By the mid-1700s, the silk-weaving trade employed thousands of people in the East End and had made a handful of Huguenot families extraordinarily wealthy.

Walk down Fournier Street and Elder Street today, and you will find some of the best-preserved early Georgian townhouses in London. These were the homes of successful Huguenot merchants and master weavers. Look at the upper floors: the wide windows — unusually large for their time — let in maximum light for silk weaving. Many of these houses survive from the 1720s and 1730s.

At the top of Fournier Street stands Christ Church Spitalfields. Nicholas Hawksmoor designed and built it between 1714 and 1729. The English government funded the construction specifically to serve the Huguenot community. Its white Portland stone tower has dominated the East End skyline for three centuries. Today it ranks among the finest baroque churches in England.

Directly opposite the church stands a smaller building with an extraordinary history. Huguenots built it as a chapel in 1743. When the community grew prosperous enough to move to wealthier parts of London, they sold it. A Methodist congregation took it over next. Then a wave of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe converted it into a synagogue. Today it serves London’s Bangladeshi community as the Jamme Masjid mosque. One building on Fournier Street has sheltered four separate refugee communities across three centuries.

Famous Huguenot Surnames You Might Recognise

If your family carries a French-sounding surname — or a name that seems slightly “off” compared to its French spelling — there is a real chance your ancestors were Huguenot refugees.

Many Huguenot families anglicised their names over time. Rivoire became Revere. Latrobe stayed Latrobe but ended up in Virginia. Garric gained an extra ‘k’ and became Garrick.

Some of the most recognisable names in British and American history trace back to Huguenot refugees:

• Paul Revere — American patriot, grandson of Apollos Rivoire, a Huguenot goldsmith who emigrated to Boston
• David Garrick — the most celebrated British actor of the 18th century, grandson of a Huguenot refugee who had settled in Hereford
• Benjamin Henry Latrobe — the architect who designed key sections of the United States Capitol building, with Huguenot roots through his father
• Samuel Courtauld — founder of the Courtauld textile empire, descended from Huguenot weavers who came to Spitalfields in the 1680s. His descendant endowed the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.
• John Romilly — 18th-century legal reformer and MP, from a prominent Huguenot family that had fled to England in 1685

Common Huguenot surnames that spread through Britain and America include: Bosanquet, Bray, Courtauld, Dubois, Martineau, Millais, Romilly, Thorogood, and Wyeth. Many French surnames changed spelling as they moved through English parishes and census records over the generations.

How to Trace Your Huguenot Ancestry

The Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland has kept records since 1885. Their archive holds registers from Huguenot churches across England, baptism and burial records, denization papers (the early equivalent of citizenship certificates), and membership rolls of Huguenot-founded craft guilds.

University College London now holds the Huguenot Library. Much of the archive is searchable online. If you suspect Huguenot ancestry, the Society’s published registers are the best starting point.

Key records to search:

• Denization records (1681–1710) — these list the names of refugees who applied for the right to live and work in England. Many Huguenots appear in these rolls.
• Church registers — Huguenot congregations kept careful records of baptisms, marriages, and burials. These are often more complete than English parish records of the same period.
• Quarter sessions records — local court records that document Huguenot craftsmen applying to trade in English towns, particularly useful for tracing where specific families settled.

The National Huguenot Museum in Rochester, Kent opened in 2024. It holds artefacts, documents, and genealogical resources for Huguenot descendants and is the first museum in England dedicated entirely to this community.

For researchers with American Huguenot ancestry, the Huguenot Historical Society in New Paltz, New York holds extensive records. Huguenot refugees founded New Paltz in 1678 — seven years before the mass exodus from France — making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited European settlements in North America.

How to Visit Huguenot London Today

You can walk through three centuries of Huguenot history in a single afternoon in the East End.

Start at Christ Church Spitalfields on Commercial Street (E1 6LY). Step inside and take in the scale of the building — Hawksmoor designed it to impress. The congregation wanted to show London that the Huguenot community had arrived and thrived. The church has undergone careful restoration and is open to visitors most weekdays.

Walk south down Fournier Street. The Georgian houses at numbers 2–14 date from the 1720s and 1730s. Notice the wide upper-floor windows — the telltale sign of a weaving house. At number 19, the four-religion building now operates as the Jamme Masjid mosque. It does not advertise its history, but it represents something remarkable: a single building that has served as a place of worship for French Protestants, Welsh Methodists, Eastern European Jews, and Bangladeshi Muslims.

Around the corner, Elder Street has more Georgian houses. Many are remarkably intact. A short walk away, Dennis Severs’ House at 18 Folgate Street offers one of London’s most unusual visitor experiences. The artist Dennis Severs transformed the house into a living installation representing a fictional Huguenot silk-weaving family across three centuries. You walk through the rooms as if the family has just stepped out.

Spitalfields Market on Commercial Street has traded on the same site since 1638. The Victorian market building dates from 1887. On Sundays it fills with antiques, vintage clothing, and food stalls — a fitting descendant of the original market that Huguenot traders helped build into one of London’s busiest commercial hubs.

The Huguenots came to London with nothing but their skills and their faith. Within two generations, they had transformed the East End, supplied the British aristocracy with fine silk, and put down roots so deep that their surnames still appear in telephone directories across Britain and America today. For anyone with Huguenot blood — and there are millions of you on both sides of the Atlantic — walking down Fournier Street feels like coming home.

Frequently Asked Questions About London’s Huguenots

Who were the Huguenots?

The Huguenots were French Protestants who followed the Calvinist tradition. France persecuted them for their faith, and after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, around 400,000 Huguenots fled to Protestant countries across Europe and the Americas.

Where did the Huguenots settle in London?

The largest concentration of Huguenots in London settled in Spitalfields in the East End. Around 23,000 Huguenots lived in Spitalfields by 1700. Significant communities also established themselves in Soho, Wandsworth, and Canterbury.

How can I find out if I have Huguenot ancestry?

Start with the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland, which holds church registers, denization records, and other documents from the 1680s onwards. University College London now houses the Huguenot Library, and much of the archive is searchable online. Common Huguenot surnames include Courtauld, Romilly, Garrick, Bosanquet, and Martineau, though many families anglicised their French names over time.

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