Originally given a limited distribution in 2013, and now updated and revised, this work is a general examination of the origins and development of the early silk weaving industry in Tudor and Stuart London, interweaved with personal stories of the individuals and families involved. It concentrates particularly on the Huguenot and Walloon refugees who fled religious persecution in mainland Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, to make new homes for themselves and their families in the parish of St Dunstan's, Stepney, in the Hamlet of Spitalfields, an area which by the mid-18th century, through their industry and enterprise, had risen to occupy a premier position in Europe's silk trade.