Place Name
Thought to be named after its Jewish inhabitants. It was one of several Jew’s Rows that appeared around London in the 18thCentury, which the National Anglo-Jewish heritage trail website says came at a time “when the presence of a local Jew in an otherwise Christian area might have been deemed noteworthy”. It adds: “North west of the junction of Jew’s Row with York Road, stood the Jew’s House occupied by Jacob and Rachel Da Costa in the 18th century. They purchased it in 1729, they died in 1760. Their presence was probably cause of the appellation Jew’s Row. The house, later called Bridgefield House, was once property of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough and was said to have been designed by Sir Cristopher Wren and was demolished in c. 1865.” The da Costa brothers are said to have committed joint suicide after business losses, but “this account may be apocryphal”. The name more generally is particularly significant because it reveals a change of attitudes among the general population, which had for centuries been fiercely hostile to Jews. Although permitted to live in England openly since the Commonwealth, there was still a lot of anti-Semitic feeling. The Jewish Naturalisation Act 1753 received royal assent from George II on July 7, 1753, for example, but it was repealed the following year due to widespread opposition to its provisions. Thus the average Jewish resident remained largely an outsider. That view began to slowly change in the following century primarily, as far as the establishment were concerned, by big business. The Rothschilds, a Jewish banking family, helped financed the British government during the Napoleonic Wars and the purchase of Egypt’s interest in the Suez Canal among other projects. Perhaps more significantly, at least for the wider population, was the earlier rise and popularity of Daniel Mendoza, a prizefighter of Portuguese Jewish descent, in the late 18thCentury. His bouts attracted huge crowds and won much popular support.
