Bristol and its Jewish community exerted a very powerful economic, social and religious influence on Jews in the town. Bath, was from early times, an informal satellite community of Bristol. Bristol had a vibrant and broad economic base as a major port that Bath could not match. Bath was connected to the railways and London from very early on, from 1841, and while this could bring in customers, in most cases connection to the railway was the death-knell to provincial Jewish communities, as local economic opportunities were opened to wider competition and Jews were lured to London. Overall, the eventual decline of the Bath community had a depressing inevitability about it.
By 1845, the community consisted of 50 souls, of whom half were children. They had, by 1841, acquired a second, new, synagogue in Corn Street. However, the fortunes of the Jewry are suggested by the fact that their new synagogue was situated in what was regarded as a rather socially 'low' neighbourhood that was prone to flooding from the river.
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