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Violence Against and Amongst Jews in An Early Modern Town: Tolerance and its Limits in Portsmouth, 1718–1781*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Jessica Warner
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Extract

In 1811, William Robinson, a purser's steward in the royal navy, deserted, having served six long and brutal years at sea. Years later, he wrote his memoirs, under the colorful title of Jack Nastyface. In it he recorded the many indignities inflicted on the sailors of his day. He did so in terms designed to horrify polite men and women, toward which end he dwelled at considerable length on floggings, keel-haulings, and the like. He was, however, perfectly prepared to tolerate the indignities that sailors inflicted on a group even more marginal than themselves: the Jews who made an uncertain living peddling slops and trinkets outside the royal dockyards. In one passage, Robinson fondly remembered how a sailor had avenged himself on one such peddler, known disparagingly as “Moses.” The sailor, assisted by several of the crew, succeeded in appropriating a new suit of clothes; “Moses,” sputtering with rage, was forced to leave the ship “amidst the grins and jeers of the whole crew, who were much diverted and pleased to think that any of their shipmates had tact enough to retaliate so nicely on a Jew.”

The incident, at first blush, bears all the marks of anti-Semitism. It suggests that “Moses” was singled out precisely because he was Jewish; as such, it fits nicely with the claims of a new and very pessimistic generation of scholars. These scholars, in true academic tradition, have expressed a great deal of disappointment over the work of their predecessors.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , Fall 2003 , pp. 428 - 448
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 2003

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Footnotes

*

Funding was provided by grant 410-2000-0467 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The author is profoundly grateful to the gracious and highly capable staff of Portsmouth's Museums and Records Service, most notably, Michael Gunton, Diana Gregg, Donna Malcolmson, and Sarah Speller. Special thanks also go to the volunteers who transcribed the town's sessions: Kate Beatty, Barbara Gower, Ursula Heinrich, Pam Honeysett, George Hothersall, Marjorie Hothersall, Una Lowe, Betty Richardson, Marjorie Ripper, and Brenda Whorton. There was one other volunteer: an inmate at the Kingston Prison just outside Portsmouth. Back in Toronto, several more people assisted in entering the records into a database: Joanne Cordingley, James Hewitson, Allyson Lunny, Yvonne Pelletier, and Victoria Vaag.

References

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40 PMRS, S3/103/27A, 14 November 1735; PMRS, S3/104/7, 5 May 1736; PMRS, S3/106/14, 14 May 1737; PMRS, S3/125/99, 28 January 1747; PMRS, S3/125/100, 30 January 1747.

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