The Hampshire Family Historian | Volume 51 No.4 | March 2025

Local Group Programmes

sadly is now disused. The return to our start was through houses which were part of the 1920s Swaythling Housing Society Mansbridge estate designed by Herbert Collins, a promoter of garden towns. (September) Strangers and Aliens: French Nick, Mrs Read the Saracen and Mrs Holmes's Blackamoor – Dr Cheryl Butler It is a truth universally acknowledged that Cheryl Butler will produce a talk to the Fair Oak group on Southampton that is resonant of current times and shows us that nothing is new. Previously she spoke to us on medieval plagues just after Covid. This talk reflected how concerns about immigration in Southampton went back as far as 1066 when the Norman invaders built a castle and hospital in Southampton. The Anglo-Saxons were confined to English Street now the High Street. Over the years since the Norman invasion there have been several times when different nationalities sought trade or refuge in Southampton. The underlying message from Cheryl was that the incomers were at first mistrusted but were tolerated providing they brought money and new skills to the city. Southampton was the main port for the export of wool and this was traded for Italian luxury goods such as glassware and pottery together with oranges, lemons and marzipan. The merchants were Lombards or ‘Janaways’ (a corruption of Genoese) who stayed for 3 months each year. They brought in fine clothes, shoes and ran barber shops and became well thought of. They stopped coming when Italian banks lost money and King Henry VIII banned the export of wool. They were replaced by the Flemish who brought skills in making beer, gunpowder and cheap glass. In the mid 1550s, Portugal expelled Jews (even those who converted to Christianity) most of whom went to Antwerp but some stopped in Southampton. They brought skills in cloth making and dyeing. In the 1570s French protestants fled to England and the population of Southampton doubled from 2,000 to 4,200 in a few years. The influx was so great that Queen Elizabeth I was concerned it might cause a war with France. They brought in knowledge of paper making but tended to trade from their own homes. Rules were brought in that the newcomers must have English apprentices so that the new skills would spread to the wider population. In late medieval times Southampton ‘Blackamoors’ arrived having been removed from west Africa as slaves, taken to America and then brought to England. As slaves were not allowed, they were recorded as servants and to have one was fashionable. Egyptians (Saracens) also came to Southampton. Thomas Cromwell unsuccessfully tried to expel them. St Michaels church has a plate with camel dating from this time. Cheryl’s talk was illustrated with characters taken from the Southampton records, many of whom became anglicised and prominent citizens within the city. The various nationalities have introduced us to potatoes, almonds, damask, cedar, tobacco and beer. (October) Members Interests Evening John and Hazel Lankaster, as members of Eastleigh History Society offered to bring along old

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