Over the centuries, East London has been home to a bustling textiles industry, known as the rag trade. First centred in the Spitalfields area, but later spreading along the River Lea into Newham, many Newham locals and their relatives were a part of this.

The Rag Trade

Explore the timeline below to see the evolution of the rag trade and learn about some of the different groups that traded their craft here.

In the late 17th and early 18th Centuries, 25,000 Huguenots fled France to Britain, with a large proportion settling in the Spitalfields area of the East End. Huguenots were French Protestants facing persecution for their religion - they have been called England's 'first refugees' as this word was first used at this time. They brought with them their silk weaving skills and the area soon boomed with textiles industries. And so the Rag Trade began!

1600s - 1700s

Huguenot Silk Weavers move into the East End

1719

4,000 Spitalfields weavers riot against imported fabrics

The East India Company imported fabric from Asia to Britain, throughout the 18th century. The East End's silk-weavers struggled to compete with the price of the imported fabric, which was cheaper due to the Company's exploitation of Indian workers.

In June 1719, 4,000 Spitalfields silk-weavers riotted in the City against the importation of Indian fabrics. In the following years, laws were instated to limit importation of cotton, but their trade continued to decline.

1600s - 1700s

click on the tabs below to find stories from the rag trade

May from Canning town remembers her first job in the 1930s

"We was only 14 when we left school. I went to work in my ankle socks!

I first went to work cos my mother used to say to me if you can work a sewing machine you’ll never want, you can always do a little job, a machining job, alterations for people, make curtains for them. She drummed into me that she wanted me to be a machinist."

"Well, I had to go and find a job as a machinist as a learner and the only job I could find was in do you know Green Street? Well there used to be a castle there (...) Bolinium Castle it used to be called. Well, that was turned into a factory which made men’s overalls, men’s overalls denim. You know, the denim trousers what they wear now as everyday-wear - well, it was that. (...)And I got a job in there. (...) Six shillings a week and when I took that six shillings home to my mum she used to give me sort of sixpence back (...) I thought that was wonderful!"

Irene from Forest Gate worked as a machinist in the 1940s

"I worked at Salisbury’s at Manor Park, that’s where we done all the shirts for the soldiers and sailors. It was piecework, but it was section work. Used to come up on a conveyor belt and you all had your own bit to do you know, I was, what, on the post machine, like a feet machine. Used to put the sleeves in down there in towels, put it on the conveyor and it’d go to the next person. See that’s how it worked in them days."

"They just had to keep on going you know, the conveyor belt just, the woman at the end she’d put the stuff on and you’d have to do it. If you had to go to the toilet you sort of, your bit sort of piled up a bit, so you had to get cracking when you come back because the person that used to be waiting for her bit, so you had to hurry up and do your bit so she could do her bit."

This participant from Forest Gate's parents worked in hat-making

This participant's parents met working in a hat factory in the 1960s, before moving to Forest Gate. Listen to the sound clip to hear her memories of her parents.

Press Play to hear her story!

A collage of the participant's father David Dean, milliner, (born 13.11.1919 - died 27.08.1993), photocopied and assembled on antique newspaper sheets by the participant.