Jewish coffee houses and the Great Synagogue. An important record of Jewish settlement in the City of London at the turn of the nineteenth century, bearing testament to a thriving community involved in the administration of local government in the parish of St. James Duke's Place, Aldgate.

Under the Poor Relief Act 1601, each parish became responsible for the provision of basic food, shelter, and clothing to the 'impotent poor' (those who could not work owing to infirmity or illness). The relief was funded by a compulsory tax, the poor rate, charged on the value of the property of local residents. The rate, in this instance nine-pence in the pound, was set by officials, to be assessed and collected by a committee of local parishioners.

The ledger, signed and sealed by the Lord Mayor of London, John Garrett, serves as the official record of this collection, offering an invaluable insight into the make-up of the local community. It notes the names of the parish's inhabitants, the nature and rental value of their properties, and the amount of tax collected.

Of the 164 individuals assessed, roughly half of the local inhabitants appear to be Jewish, with 'A. Solomon' named as one of the three parish officials — the 'Overseers of the Poor' — responsible for the organisation and collection of the relief, whilst 'Jo. Isaacs', 'Henry Levi', 'J. Joseph', 'Levy Lyon' and 'J. M. Jacobs' all appear on the list of ordinary parishioner members of the committee.

The ledger further reveals that many of the most valuable properties in the parish such as H. Levy's dwelling on Duke Street (rent of £54) and Isaac Josephs' coffee-house on King Street (rent of £68) were leased by Jewish residents. Indeed, the synagogue at St. James's Place occupied by 'Messrs. Cohen & Josephs' far out-values any other property in the local area, with an impressive annual rent recorded of £350. This was the Great Synagogue founded by Ashkenazi refugees at the end of the seventeenth century, and which remained an important centre for Jewish life in London up until 1941 when it was destroyed in the Blitz.

Manuscript ledger; 8vo (23 x 14.5 cm); 21ff. in pen in a neat and easily legible hand, including MS title, ruled in red, original printed receipt stubs to rear, 4 receipts loose in pocket, MS notes to rear pastedown; original dark blue roan, MS paper label pasted to upper panel, very minor wear to extremities, a little offsetting to endpaper else internally clean, a fine example of its type.