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Full text of "London, past and present; its history, associations, and traditions"

LON DON 

PAST AND PRESENT 






LONDON 

PAST AND PRESENT 

ITS HISTORY, ASSOCIATIONS, AND 
TRADITIONS 

BY 

HENRY B. WHEATLEY, F.S.A. 

BASED UPON 

THE HANDBOOK OF LONDON 

BY THE LATE 

PETER CUNNINGHAM 



IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. Ill 



\ 



LONDON 

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 

1891 



LONDON: 

PAST AND PRESENT. 



Paddington, formerly a village at the west end of London, con- 
taining, in 1801, 357 houses; now a large and increasing parish, and 
part of the great metropolis, having in 1881 a population of 107,098. 

Pitt is to Addington 

As London is to Paddington. CANNING. 

King Edgar gave the manor of Paddington to Westminster Abbey ; the grant was 
confirmed by Henry I., King Stephen, and Henry II. At the Dissolution it was 
made part of the revenues of the Bishopric of Westminster ; and when that see was 
abolished soon after its establishment, Edward VI. gave it to Ridley, Bishop of 
London, and his successors. Newcourt's Repertormm, vol. i. p. 703. 

Dodsley, writing in 1761, has nothing further to say of Paddington 
than that it is " a village in Middlesex situated on the north side of 
Hyde Park," and long after that artists used to come to it to sketch 
rural scenes and rustic figures. George Barrett, R.A. (d. 1784), one of 
the old school of English landscape painters, " resided in a most 
delightful spot, at the upper end of a field adjacent to old Paddington 
Canal." 

Paddington was then a rural village. There were a few old houses on each side 
of the Edgware Road, together with some ale-houses of veiy picturesque appearance, 
being screened by high elms, with long troughs for watering the teams of the hay 
waggons on their way to and from market ; each, too, had its large straddling sign- 
post stretching across the road. Paddington Green was then a complete street ; and 
the group of magnificent elms thereon, now fast going to decay, were studies for all 
the landscape painters in the metropolis. The diagonal path led to the church, which 
was a little Gothic building, overgrown with ivy, and as completely sequestered as 
any village church a hundred miles from London. Angdo, p. 229. 
Hilts. Where is thy Master ? 
Pup. Marry he is gone 
With the picture of despair to Paddington. 
Hilts. Prithee run after 'un, and tell 'un he shall 
Find out my Captain lodged at the Red Lion 
In Paddington ; that's the inn. 

Ben Jonson, Tale of a Tub, Act ii. Sc. i. 

VOL. Ill B 



PADDINGTON 



Morland laid the scene of his popular picture of the Wearied 
Sportsman in an inn at Paddington ; and Wilkie found in one of them 
materials for his Village Festival. 

"At Paddington," wrote Leigh Hunt in 1843, "begins the ground 
of my affections, continuing through mead and green lane till it reaches 
beyond Hampstead." 

Sequestered church and rustic ale-houses (the last of them the 
Horse and Sacks, removed in 1876, for the Harrow Road improve- 
ments), mead and green lane have alike disappeared, and Paddington 
is as town-like and uninteresting as any other London suburb. The 
old church (taken down in 1791) was built by Sir Joseph Sheldon and 
Daniel Sheldon, to whom the manor was leased by Dr. Gilbert Sheldon, 
successively Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury in the 
reign of Charles II. The present church of St. Mary stands about 100 
feet south of the old church. The architect was John Plaw, its 
builder Thomas Wapshott ; the cost about ;6ooo ; the dimensions 
about 50 feet each way. The first stone was laid October 20, 1 788, and 
the church consecrated April 27, 1791. Eminent Persons interred in. 
John Bushnell, the sculptor of the figures on Temple Bar (d. 1701). 
Matthew Dubourg, the famous player on the violin (d. 1767). Francis 
Vivares, the engraver (d. 1780); in the churchyard (there was a tomb 
to his memory when Lysons wrote). George Barrett, the painter (d. 
1784). Thomas Banks, R.A., the sculptor (d. 1805); in the church- 
yard on the south side. John Hall, the engraver (d: 1797). Dr. 
Alexander Geddes, Roman Catholic translator of the Historical Books 
of the Old Testament (d. 1802). Lewis Schiavonetti, the engraver 
(d. 1 8 1 o) ; in the churchyard. Caleb Whitefoord (d. 1 8 1 o), wine 
merchant, the Papyrius Cursor of the newspaper press, and the hero of 
Wilkie's Letter of Introduction. 

Here Whitefoord reclines, and deny it who can, 
Though he merrily liv'd, he is now a grave man ! 

Ye newspaper witlings ! ye pert scribbling folks ! 
Who copied his squibs, and re-echoed his jokes ; 
Ye tame imitators, ye servile herd, come, 
Still follow your master and visit his tomb : 
To deck it bring with you festoons of the Vine, 
And copious libations bestow on his shrine ; 
Then strew all around it (you can do no less) 
Cross- Readings, Ship News, and Mistakes of the Press. 

Goldsmith's Retaliation. 

John Philpot Curran, the Irish orator, was buried here in 1817, but 
in 1840 his remains were removed to Glasnevin Cemetery near Dublin. 
Michael Bryan, author of the Dictionary of Painters and Engravers 
(d. 1821). Joseph Nollekens, the sculptor (d. 1823); and his father 
Joseph Francis, ' Old Nollekens," the painter (d. 1747). Mrs. Siddons, 
the celebrated actress (d. 1831). Mrs. Siddons lived for many years 
at Westbourne Farm, in this parish, but the Great Western Railway 



PAINTED 



has destroyed all trace of her pretty grounds; and next her, Benjamin 
R. Ihiyclon, the painter (d. June 22, 1846). William Collins, R.A. 
(d. 1847), distinguished for his seashore scenes; his grave is marked 
by a marble cross. Observe. In the chancel of the church, tablet to 
Nollekens the sculptor (d. 1823), by Behnes ; tablet to Mrs. Siddons ; 
also in the body of the church, tablet to Richard Twiss (d. 1810), 
author of Travels through Portugal and Spain. The marriage register 
contains the following interesting entry : " William Hogarth, Esq., and 
Jane Thornhill, of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, married March 23, 
1729." And on December 1796 Martin Archer Shee (the future 
fourth President of the Royal Academy) to Mary, daughter of Mr. 
James Power of Youghal. Besides the old church, Paddington parish 
contains about twenty churches, among which are St. James's, now 
the parish church, at the end of Oxford and Cambridge Terraces ; St. 
John's, in S.outhwick Crescent, possessing a good stained glass window ; 
Holy Trinity (Thomas Cundy, architect), at the end of Westbourne 
Terrace; St. Mary's, 1845 ; Christ Church, 1855 ; St. Saviour's, 1856 ; 
St. Stephen, Westbourne Park, 1856; St. Matthew, Bayswater, 1858; 
St. Mary Magdalene, 1861 ; St. Peter's, Harrow Road, 1870; St. 
Michael and All Angels, Praed Street ; St. Luke's, and one or two 
more. St. Mary's Hospital, a large and costly structure, was erected in 
1850, but has since been altered and enlarged, and the internal arrange- 
ments greatly improved. The Great Western Railway Terminus and 
Hotel forms one of the chief architectural features of the place, but 
many other buildings of more or less architectural pretension have 
been erected of late years. The Paddington Canal, 13^ miles in 
length, was made pursuant to an Act passed in 1795, and opened 
July 10, 1 80 1 ; it is a branch of the Grand Junction Canal. 

There would be nothing to make the Canal of Venice more poetical than that of 
Paddington, were it not for its artificial adjuncts. Lord Byron. 

Paddington Street, HIGH STREET, MARYLEBONE. Here are two 
cemeteries appertaining to the parish of St. Marylebone. The cemetery 
on the south side was consecrated in 1733, that on the north in I772. 1 
Baretti, author of the Italian Dictionary which bears his name, is buried 
in the north cemetery. In that on the south side lies Archibald Bower, 
author of the History of the Popes (d. 1766), and Joseph Bonomi, 
architect (d. March 9, 1808). 

Paget Place, in the STRAND, formerly Exeter Place, or House, 
afterwards Leicester House, and finally Essex House, was so called after 
William Paget, first Lord Paget, who bequeathed it by will, bearing 
date November 4, 1560, to his son and heir Sir Henry Paget, second 
Lord Paget. [See Essex House.] 

Painted Chamber, or ST. EDWARD'S CHAMBER, a celebrated 
apartment in the old palace of the Kings of England at Westminster. 
It was of early or pre-Norman date, and there was a tradition that 

1 Lysons, vol. ii. p. 547. 



PAINTED. CHAMBER 



Edward the Confessor died in it. 1 The chamber was 80 feet in length, 
20 in breadth, and 50 in height; receiving its principal light from four 
windows, two at the east and two at the north. Until 1800 it was 
hung with tapestry, representing the Siege of Troy, when, in consequence 
of the Union of Great Britain and Ireland and the increased accommo- 
dation required in the House of Commons, alterations being necessary, 
the tapestry and wainscoting were taken down, and the interesting 
discovery made that the interior had been originally painted with single 
figures, and historical subjects from the Wars of the Maccabees and the 
legend of the Confessor, arranged around the chamber in a succession of 
subjects on six bands, somewhat similar to the Bayeux Tapestry, and on 
the splays and reverts of the windows. Careful drawings were made at 
the time by J. T. Smith, for his book on Westminster ; and still more 
careful drawings in 1819, by Charles Stothard, since engraved in vol. vi. 
of the VeMsta Monumenta, with accompanying letterpress by John Gage 
Rokewoode. In very early times it was the Council Chamber of the 
sovereign ; and in it for 800 years were held the Conferences between 
the two Houses of Parliament. Here, " at a conference of both Houses, 
July 6, 1641," Waller made his celebrated speech in Parliament upon 
delivering the impeachment against Mr. Justice Crawley in the matter 
of Ship-money. Here were held, a few years later, the private sittings 
of the High Court of Justice for bringing Charles I. to a public trial in 
Westminster Hall ; 2 here the death-warrant of the King was signed by 
Cromwell, Dick Ingoldsby, and the rest of the regicides ; and here the 
body of the unfortunate King rested till it was removed to Windsor. 
Here also the bodies of Lord Chatham and of William Pitt lay in state. 
After the destruction of the Houses of Parliament by fire in 1834 this 
place was fitted up by Sir Robert Smirke as a temporary House of 
Lords. 

Painter-Stainers' Hall, No. 9 LITTLE TRINITY LANE. The 
Painter-Stainers' Company (the forerunners of the Royal Academy) 
existed as a licensed guild or fraternity as early as the i4th century, 
but they received their first Charter of Incorporation from Queen 
Elizabeth, July 19, 1580. The minutes of the Company commence in 
the early part of the reign of James I. ; some of the entries are curious. 
Orders are made to compel the foreign painters then resident in London, 
Gentileschi, Steenwyck, etc., to pay certain fines for following their art 
without being free of the Painter-Stainers' Company. The fines, 
however, were never paid, the Court painters setting the Painter- 
Stainers in the City at defiance. Cornelius Jansen was a member, and 
Inigo Jones and Van Dyck occasional guests at their annual feasts. 

John Browne, created Serjeant Painter to Henry VIII. by a patent 
dated Eltham, December 20, 1511, at a salary of 2d. a day, and four 
ells of cloth annually at Christmas, of the value of 6s. 8d. an ell, and 
elected Alderman of London, May 7, 1522, by his will dated September 

1 Walcott, Memorials of Westminster, p. 210. - Wkitelocke, ed. 1732, pp. 367, 372. 



PALACE YARD 



ir (proved December 2, 1532) conveyed to the Guild of 
I'uyntur Suiyncrs, of which he was a member, his house in Trinity Lane, 
which after his death became the hall of the Company, and so 
continued till it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. l The present 
hall was designed by Sir C. Wren. It is large and well-proportioned, but 
ill lighted. The ceiling is ornamented with allegorical paintings by Isaac 

r of Pallas or the Triumph of the Arts, and on the walls are many 
paintings. Observe. No. 21, The Fire of London, by Waggoner; 

\cd in Pennant's London. No. 31, Full-length of Charles II., 
by John Baptist Caspars. No. 37, Full-length of the Queen of 
Charles II., by Huysman. No. 33, Full-length of William III., by 
Sir Godfrey Kneller; presented by Sir Godfrey. No. 28, Full-length 
of Queen Anne, by Dahl. No. 41, Magdalen, by Sebastian Franck, 
(small, on copper). No. 42, Camden in his dress as Clarencieux; 
presented to the Company by Mr. Morgan, master in 1676. Camden 
left ,16 by will to the Painter- Stainers, to buy them a cup, upon 
which he directed this inscription to be put : " Gul. Camdenus, 
Clarencieux, films Sampsonis, Pictoris Londinensis, dono dedit." This 
loving cup of the great antiquary is produced every St. Luke's Day at 
the annual feast of the Company. Charles Catton, one of the original 
members of the Royal Academy, was master of the Company, and on 
October 18 (St. Luke's Day), 1784, Sir Joshua Reynolds attended and 
was presented with the freedom of the Company. 

Palace Yard (Old), an open space between the Houses of 
Parliament and Henry VII.'s Chapel, and so called from the Palace of 
our Kings at Westminster. [See Westminster.] It has been the scene 
of many public executions. Here, January 31, 1605-1606, Guy 
Fawkes, T. Winter, Rookwood, and Keyes were executed for the 
Gunpowder Plot. Here, on Thursday, October 29, 1618 

A great and very strange scene the last scene in the Life of Walter Raleigh. 
Raleigh was beheaded in Old Palace Yard : he appeared on the scaffold there about 
eight o'clock that morning : an immense crowd, all London, and in a sense all 
England looking on. A cold hoar-frosty morning. Earl of Arundel, now known to 
us by his Greek marbles ; Earl of Doncaster (" Sardanapalus " Hay, afterwards Earl 
of Carlisle) : these, with other Earls and dignitaries sat looking through windows 
near by ; to whom Raleigh in his last brief, manful speech appealed, with response 
from them. ... A very tragic scene. Such a man with his head grown grey, with 
his strong heart "breaking" still strength enough in it to break with dignity. 
Somewhat proudly he laid his old grey head on the block ; as if saying in better than 
words "There then!" Carlyle's Cromwell,^ 

Here too was enacted an equally strange scene. 

On the 3Oth of June, 1637, in Old Palace Yard, three men, gentlemen of 
education, of good quality, a Barrister, a Physician, and a Parish Clergyman of 
London, were set on three Pillories : stood openly as the scum of malefactors, for 
certain hours there ; and then had their ears cut off, bare knives, hot branding 
irons and their cheeks stamped S.L., Seditious Libeller; in the sight of a great 

1 The will is printed in the Arcfutologia, vol. Monarchy of Man, quoted in Forster's JT/tttf , vol. 
xxxix. i. p. 34. 

2 See also the account by Sir John Eliot, in his 



PALACE YARD 



crowd, "silent" mainly, and looking "pale." The men were . . . William 
Prynne, Barrister : Dr. John Bastwick : and the Rev. Henry Burton, Minister of 
Friday Street Church. Their sin was against Laud and his surplices at Allhallowtide, 
not against any other man or thing. . . . Bastwick's wife on the scaffold, received 
his ears in her lap, and kissed him. Prynne's ears the executioner "rather sawed 
than cut." "Cut me, tear me," cried Prynne, "I fear thee not. I fear the fire of 
Hell, not thee !" The June sun had shone hot on their faces. Burton, who had 
discoursed eloquent religion all the while, said, when they carried him, near fainting 
into a house in King Street, " It is too hot to last long." Too hot indeed. Carlyle's 
Cromwell, vol. i. p. 135. 

Edmund Calamy died at his house in Old Palace Yard in 1732. 
The landing-place by which communication was kept up with the 
Thames was called Old Palace or Parliament Stairs. 

Thus all the Way they row'd by Water, 
My Eyes were still directed a'ter, 
'Till they arriv'd at Palace Stairs, 
The Place of Landing for our May'rs. Hudibras Redivivus. 

Palace Yard (New), the open space before the north entrance to 
Westminster Hall, so called from being the great court of the new palace 
begun by William II., of which Westminster Hall was the chief feature 
completed. The Clock-tower, long the distinguishing feature of New 
Palace Yard, was originally built, temp. Edward L, out of the fine 
imposed on Ralph de Hingham, Chief Justice of England. There is a 
capital view of it by Hollar. The great bell of the tower (Westminster 
Tom) was given by William III. to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's; 
and the metal of which it was made forms a part of the great bell of 
the Cathedral. 

Before the Great Hall there is a large Court called the new Palace, where there 
is a strong tower of stone, containing a clock, which striketh on a great Bell [Great 
Tom of Westminster] every hour, to give notice to the Judges how the time passeth ; 
when the wind is south-south-west, it may be heard unto any part of London, and 
commonly it presageth wet weather. HowelFs Londinopolis, fol. 1657, p. 378 ; and 
see Ned Ward, The London Spy, pt. 8. 

The New Palace Yard being anciently inclosed with a wall, there were four gates 
therein ; the only one at present remaining is that on the east which leads to West- 
minster stairs ; and the three others that are demolished were that on the north which 
led to the Woolstaple ; that on the west called Highgate (a very beautiful and stately 
edifice) was situate at the east end of Union Street ; but it having occasioned great 
obstruction to the members of Parliament in their passage to and from their respective 
Houses, the same was taken down in the year 1 706, as was also the third at the 
north end of St. Margaret's Lane, anno 1731, on the same account. Maittand, ed. 
1739, P- 729- 

That ingeniose tractat [Harrington's Oceana], together with his and H. Nevill's 
smart discourses and inculcations, dayly at Coffee-houses made many Proselytes. 
Insomuch, that A. 1659, the beginning of Michaelmas time, he [Harrington] had 
every night a meeting at the (then) Turk's Head in the New Palace Yard, where they 
take water, the next house to the stairs at one Miles's, where was made purposely a 
large ovall-table, with a passage in the middle for Miles to deliver his coffee. About 
it sate his disciples, and the virtuosi. The discourses in this kind were the most 
ingeniose and smart that ever I heard or expect to hear, and lauded with great 
eagernesse : the arguments in the Parl 1 . House were but flatt to it. Here we had 
(very formally) a ballotting box, and ballotted how things should be carried by way 
of Tentamens. The room was every evening full as it could be crammed. Mr. 



PALACE YARD 



Cyriack Skinner, an ingcniose young gent., scholar to John Milton, was chaire-man. 
--Aulnry's f.ctters, vol. iii. p. 371. 

The Club, called the Rota, lasted little more than a year, Harrington 
having been arrested and sent to the Tower in 1661. Pepys records a 
visit he paid to it, January 10, 1660. "To the Coffee-house, where 
were a great confluence of gentlemen : viz., Mr. Harrington [Sir 
William] Poultny, chairman, Gold, Dr. Petty [Sir William Petty, 
ancestor of the Marquis of Lansdowne], etc., where admirable discourse 
till 9 at night." 

The sturdy Puritan, John Stubbs of Lincoln's Inn, and his servant 
Robert Page, had their right hands cut off in New Palace Yard, 
December 3, 1580, for a seditious libel against the Queen [Elizabeth] 
concerning her projected marriage with the Duke of Anjou. On 
March 2, 1585, William Parry, convicted of high treason, was 
brought from the Tower to the Palace Court, and there hanged and 
quartered; and in February 1587, Thomas Lovelace, condemned 
by the Star Chamber for libellous charges, was carried about West- 
minster Hall and Palace Yard, set in the pillory and had one of his ears 
cut off. On St. Peter's Day, 1612, Robert Creighton Lord Sanquhar 
was hanged in front of Westminster Hall for hiring two ruffians to 
murder Turner, a fencing-master, by whom he had accidentally lost 
an eye. Dr. Alexander Leighton, the father of Archbishop Leighton, was 
here publicly whipped, his ears cut off, his nose slit, branded on the 
face with the letters S.S. (Sower of Sedition), and afterwards made to 
stand in the pillory, at the instigation of Laud, November 26, 1630, 
for a libel on the Bishops. 1 Here, March 9, 1649, the Duke of 
Hamilton and Lord Capel were beheaded; and here in May 1685 
Titus Gates stood in the pillory and was nearly stoned to death. The 
last who stood in the pillory, in New Palace Yard, February 14, 1765, 
was Mr. John Williams, bookseller of Fleet Street, for republishing the 
obnoxious North Briton, but with him the exposure was rather a triumph 
than a punishment, he holding a sprig of laurel all the while in his 
hand, and receiving the acclamations of the assembled multitude, whilst 
opposite the pillory was suspended a jack-boot, a Scotch cap and an 
axe. At the expiration of the sentence the boot and cap were con- 
signed to a bonfire that had been prepared for the purpose, and Williams 
was carried home in triumph in the hackney-coach " No. 45." 

His Majesty fully authorises his most excellent Lord Eklon to give his consent to 
the House of Lords proceeding with these Bills, and in particular approves of the one 
for laying open Westminster Abbey to Palace Yard. Whatever makes the people 
more accustomed to view cathedrals must raise their veneration for the Established 
Church. The King will with equal pleasure consent, when it is proposed, to the 
purchasing and pulling do'on the 'vest [south] side of Bridge Street, and the houses 
fronting Westminster Hall ; as it will be opening to the traveller that ancient pile, 
which is the seat of administration of the best laws, and the most uprightly adminis- 
tered ; and if the people really valued the religion and laws of this blessed country, 

1 Only half the whipping and cutting was being completed eight days later at the pillory in 
performed in New Palace Yard, the sentence Cheapside. 



8 PALACE. YARD 



we should stand on a rock that no time could destroy. King George III. to Lord 
Chancellor Eldon, June 8, 1 804. 

Sixty years were to pass away before the improvement suggested by 
the good old king was effected. In 1865, as a part of the scheme of 
Sir Charles Barry for the completion of the Houses of Parliament the 
area of New Palace Yard was cleared and laid out as an open place ; a 
covered way, or cloister, for the use of members of the two Houses, 
was constructed along its eastern side, and the houses on the south 
side of Bridge Street removed, and the whole enclosed with an iron 
railing, the handiwork of Skidmore of Coventry, with handsome gates 
by Hardman of Birmingham ; the whole under the directions of Sir C. 
Barry, R.A. A part of the design was to decorate the enclosure with 
bronze statues of distinguished statesmen, but the statues of Peel, 
Palmerston, Derby, and Beaconsfield, are at the sides of the garden 
plot opposite to it, called Parliament Square. Westmacott's statue of 
Canning, which formerly stood there, has been removed farther west. 
In the residence attached to the sinecure office of Yeoman-Usher of 
the Exchequer, in New Palace Yard, William Godwin spent the last 
three years of his life, and there died, April 7, 1836, at the age of 
eighty years. 

Pall Mall, a spacious street extending from the foot of ST. JAMES'S 
STREET to the foot of the HAYMARKET, and so called from a game of 
that name, somewhat similar to croquet, introduced into England in the 
reign of Charles I., perhaps earlier. King James I., in his Basilicon 
Doron, recommends it as a game that Prince Henry should use. The 
name (Italian palamaglio, French paille maille), is given to avenues and 
walks in other countries, as at Utrecht in Holland. The Malls at 
Blois, Tours, and Lyons are mentioned by Evelyn in his Memoirs, 
under the year 1644. 

A paille-mall is a wooden hammer set to the end of a long staffe to strike a boule 
with, at which game noblemen and gentlemen in France doe play much. The 
French Garden for English Ladies, 8vo, 1621 ; and see Cotgrave, 1632. 

Among all the exercises of France, I prefere none before the Paille-Maille, both 
because it is a gentleman-like sport, not violent, and yields good occasion and oppor- 
tunity of discourse, as they walke from the one marke to the other. I marvell among 
many more apish and foolish toys which we have brought out of France, that we have 
not brought this sport also into England. Sir Robert Dallington, A R let hod for 
Travel, 410, 1598. 

Pale Maille (Fr.) a game wherein a round bowle is with a mallet struck through 
a high arch of iron (standing at either end of an alley), which he that can do at the 
fewest blows, or at the number agreed on, wins. This game was heretofore used in 
the long alley near St. James's, and vulgarly called Pell-Mell. Blount's Glossographia, 
ed. 1670. 

It is usual to ascribe the introduction of the game, and the first 
formation of the Mall, to Charles II., but this is only a vulgar error. 
" The Pall of London " is mentioned by John King, Bishop of London, 
in I6I3, 1 and Pall Mall but whether the game or the place is not 
quite clear, though it was probably the latter by Garrard in 1637. 

1 Bishop King to Carleton, February 27, 1613, Cal. State Pap., 1611-1618, p. 173. 



PALL MALL 



November 9, 1637. There fell out a quarrel betwixt my Lord Philip Herbert, 
son of the Chamberlain, and the Lord Carr, son to the Earl of Koxborough, at /'all 
Mail, young youths both. Upon sonic words my Lord Philip struck him, so they 
fell to cuffs. It passed no further, my Lord had notice of it who made thciii friends. 
Carrard to Wcntworth (Strafford Letters, vol. ii. p. 131). 

In September 1635 a grant w as made to Archibald Lumsden "for 
sole purchasing of all the malls, bowls, scoops, and other necessaries 
for the game of Pall mall, within his grounds in St. James's Fields, and 
that such as resort there shall pay him such sums of money as are 
according to the ancient order of the game." * A piece or parcel of 
pasture ground called "Pell Mell Close," part of which was planted 
with apple trees (Apple Tree Yard, St. James's Square, still exists), is 
described by the Commissioners for the Survey of the Crown Lands, in 
1650, and the close must have taken its name from the particular 
locality where the game was played. And that this was the case is 
proved by the same Survey, the Commissioners valuing at ^70 "All 
those Elm Trees standing in Pall Mall walk, in a very decent and 
regular manner on both sides the walk, being in number 140." In the 
Rate-books of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, under the year 1656, eight 
names of persons are entered as living " in the Pall Mall ; " and in 
1657 occurs a heading, "Down the Haymarket and in the Pall Mall." 
Pepys (June 10, 1666), relating the dismissal of my Lady Castlemaine 
from the Court for some impertinent language in presence of the Queen, 
says that she left " presently, and went to a lodging in the Pell Mell." 
The Mall in the present street certainly existed as early as the reign of 
Charles I., and probably in that of his predecessor. The Mall in St. 
James's Park was made by Charles II. [See The Mall.] 

September 16, 1 660. To the Park, where I saw how far they had proceeded in 
the Pell-mell, and in making a river through the Park, which I had never seen before 
since it was begun. Pepys. 

An attempt was made to compliment the Queen of Charles II. by 
giving the name of Catherine Street to the thoroughfare which led past 
the residence of Nell Gwynne to the palace of Lady Castlemaine. In 
the Statute of 1685 the parish of St. James is said to begin "at the 
Picture shop having an iron balcony at the south side of the end of 
Catherine Street, alias Pall Mall." But in the latter part of the same 
Act this name is dropped and Pall Mall only used. Nor does it ever 
appear to have come into common acceptation. In descriptions and 
advertisements, memoirs and letters from this time forward, the street 
is as far as we have been able to discover invariably called Pall 'Mall, 
with one exception. In Letters and Miscellaneous Papers, by Barre C. 
Roberts, Student of Christ Church, Oxford (410, 1814), is a letter to 
Roberts, dated February 1808, from his father, who says 

I do not remember old Fribourg : he had kept a shop in the narrow part of Pall 
Mall, formerly called Catherine Street, in which he was succeeded by Pontet, a 
Frenchman, who told me he had married Fribourg's daughter. The shop was three 

1 Col. State Pap., 1631-1633, p. 286. 



io PALL MALL 



or four doors from the Haymarket on the right hand : I was often sent to buy snuff 
for my father full fifty years ago. 

From which it would seem that the name of Catherine Street was 
occasionally used, or at least remembered, as late as the middle of the 
i8th century. But on the other hand Dodsley (London, 1761), whose 
shop was in Pall Mall, makes no reference to its having ever been so 
called, either under " Pall Mall " or " Catherine Street." Even in 
1685, although so named in the Act of that year, it was not an 
accepted name. 

A tauny more with short bushy hair, very well shaped, in a grey livery lined with 
yellow, about seventeen or eighteen years of age, with a silver collar about his neck, 
with these directions, ' ' Captain George Hastings' Boy, Brigadier in the King's Horse 
Guards." Whoever will bring him to the Sugar Loaf in the Pall Mall shall have 403. 
reward. London Gazette, March 23, 1685. 

One of the scenes in Wycherley's Love in a Wood, or St. James's 
Park, is laid in the Old Pall Mall. This is what we now call the 
street ; for the first time that Pepys mentions Pell Mell is under July 
26, 1660, where he says, "We went to Wood's at the Pell Mell (our 
old house for clubbing), and there we spent till ten at night." This is 
not only one of the earliest references to Pall Mall, as an inhabited 
locality, but one of the earliest uses of the word "clubbing" in its 
modern signification of a Club, and additionally interesting, seeing- that 
the street still maintains what Johnson would have called its "clubbable" 
character. 

The 'writing of that play [Love in a Wood} was the occasion of his [Wycherley's] 
becoming acquainted with one of King Charles's mistresses after a very particular 
manner. As Mr. Wycherley was going thro' Pall Mall, towards St. James's, in 
his chariot, he met the foresaid lady [the Duchess of Cleveland] in hers, who 
thrusting half her body out of her chariot, cry'd out aloud to him, " You, Wycherley, 
you are a son of a whore," at the same time laughing aloud and heartily. Perhaps, 
sir, if you never heard of this passage before, you may be surprised at so strange a 
greeting from one of the most beautiful and best bred ladies in the world. Mr. 
Wycherley was very much surpris'd at it, yet not so much but he soon apprehended 
it was spoke with allusion to the latter end of a song in the fore-mentioned play : 

When parents are slaves 
Their brats cannot be any other ; 

Great Wits and great Braves 
Have always a Punk to their Mother. 

Dennis's Letters, 8vo, 1721, p. 215. 

The Pail Mail, a fine long street. The houses on the south side have a pleasant 
prospect into the King's Garden ; and besides they have small gardens behind them, 
which reach to the wall, and to many of them are raised Mounts, which give them 
the prospect of the said Garden and of the Park. Strype, B. vi. p. 81. 

Eminent Inhabitants. Dr. Sydenham, the celebrated physician. 
He was living in the Pavement [on the south side of St. James's Square, 
and overlooking Pall Mall] in 1658, and in Pall Mall from 1664 till 
his death there, December 29, 1689. He is .buried in St. James's 
Church. Mr. Fox told Mr. Rogers that Sydenham was sitting at his 
window looking on the Mall, with his pipe in his mouth and a silver 
tankard before him, when a fellow made a snatch at the tankard and 



PALL MALL 



ran off with it. Nor was he overtaken, said Fox, before he got among 
the bushes in Bond Street, and there they lost him. 1 Sydenham's 
itor was Thomas Malthus, afterwards apothecary to Queen Anne, 
and also a resident in this street. Thomas Robert Malthus, the 
writer on Population, was his great-grandson. Nell Gwynne, in 1670, 
on the "east end, north side," next to Lady Mary Howard; from 
1671 to her death in 1687 in a house on the "south side," with a 
garden towards the Park now No. 79; but the house has been twice 
rebuilt since Nell inhabited it. The "south side, west end," was 
inhabited in 1671 as follows : 

Mrs. Mary Knight [Madam Knight the Singer the King's mistress], 

Edward Griffin, Esq. [Treasurer of the Chamber], 

Maddam Elinor Gwyn, 

The Countess of Portland, 

The Lady Reynelogh, 

Doctor Barrow. 2 

March 5, 1671. I thence walk'd with him [Charles II.] thro' St. James's Parke 
to the gardens, where I both saw and heard a very familiar discourse between [the 
King] and Mrs. Nellie, as they cal'd an impudent Comedian, she looking out of her 
garden on a terrace at the top of the wall, 3 and [the King] standing on y e greene walke 
under it. I was heartily sorry at this scene. Thence the King walk'd to the 
Duchess of Cleaveland, another lady of pleasure and curse of our nation. . 

My friend Dr. Heberden has built a fine house in Pall Mall, on the Palace side ; 
he told me it was the only freehold house on that side ; that it was given by a long 
lease by Charles II. to Nell Gwyn, and upon her discovering it to be only a lease 
under the Crown, she returned him the lease and conveyances, saying she had 
always conveyed free under the Crown, and always would ; and would not accept it 
till it was conveyed free to her by an act of Parliament made on and for that purpose. 
Upon Nell's death it was sold, and has been conveyed free ever since. I think Dr. 
Heberden purchased it of the Waldegrave family. W. F. Ewin to Rev. James 
Granger (Granger's Letters^ p. 308). 

Henry Oldenburg, first Secretary of the Royal Society, in a house 
for which he paid little more than ^40 a year. Sir Isaac Newton 
directed a letter to him (March 16, 1671-1672), "At his house about 
the middle of Old Pell Mail in Westminster, London." Mary Beale, 
portrait painter (d. December 28, 1697). Sir William Temple, in 
1 68 1, two doors eastward of Nell Gwynne. Hon. Robert Boyle, 
about 1668, " settled himself for life in London" in the house of his 
sister, Lady Ranelagh, in Pall Mall, next door to Sir William Temple, 
and three from Nell Gwynne. He wrote from here to Hooke in 1680, 
declining to be made President of the Royal Society. He died here, 
December 31, 1691, within a week of the sister, with whom he had lived 
many years, and was buried near her on the south side of the chancel of 
St. Martin's Church. Countess of Southesk, on the south side, in 1671. 
This is the celebrated Countess of De Grammont's Memoirs. Duke 

1 The story is told with fuller particulars in glimpse of this locality : " One, two, or three 
Seward's Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 52. houses, about the middle of the Pall Mall, on the 

2 Rate-books of St. Martin's. Park side, with Gardens and Mounts adjoining 

3 Nell stood on a mount to speak to the King. to the Royal Garden, to be sold or let by long 
The following advertisement from the Postman lease. Enquire at the 2 Golden Balls, in the 
newspaper of April 1703 affords an interesting Pall Mall over against St. James's Square." 



12 PALL MALL 



of Schomberg (d. 1690), in the large brick house known as Schomberg 
House, now occupied by Nos. 8 1 and 8 2 as part of the War Office. 
\_See Schomberg House.] The great Duke of Marlborough, who built 
Marlborough House. George Psalmanazar had lodgings here on his 
first arrival, and here he was visited as an inhabitant of Formosa. 
Swift writes, October 1720, to the Hon. Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart, 
at his house in Pall Mall. Lord Bolingbroke was living here in 1726. 

October 22, 1726. I hear that Lord Bolingbroke will be in town, at his house 
in Pall Mall, next week. Gay to Swift. 

June 4, 1727. You will find me just returning to Crauford from the Pall Mall. 
Bolingbroke to Swift. 

Bubb Dodington, Lord Melcombe, the Bubo of Pope. " Mr. Dod- 
ington " wrote Horace Walpole, " built the house in Pall Mall which 
is now in front of Carlton House." 

Dodington's house in Pall Mall stood close to the garden the Prince had bought 
there of Lord Chesterfield ; and during Dodington's favour the Prince had suffered 
him to make a door out of his house into his garden, which, upon the first decay of 
his interest, the Prince shut up building and planting before Dodington's house, 
and changing every lock in his own to which he had formerly given Dodington 
keys. Lord Hervey's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 434. 

He flattered Walpole at Whitehall 

And damned him at Pall Mall. 

Sir Robert Walpole had a freehold house in Pall Mall, which he 
gave to his son Edward. 1 In it lived Lady Waldegrave and Sir 
Edward Walpole. 

Robert Dodsley, the bookseller, opened his shop in Pall Mall in 
1735, under the patronage of Pope, with the sign of "Tully's Head," 
and dying in 1764 was buried at Durham. 

To be spoke with every Thursday at Tully's head in Pall Mall, Adam Fitz- 
Adam. The World, No. I. 

William Hunter, on his first arrival in London in 1741, took up his 
residence with Dr. Smellie in Pall Mall, but soon left it for the house 
of Dr. Douglas, the Horatian enthusiast, and owner of the "soft 
obstetric hand" celebrated by Pope. Smellie and Douglas were rival 
man-midwives, and in a paper war which arose between them the 
former was accused of degrading the profession by hanging out from 
his house in Pall Mall a paper lantern inscribed " Midwifery taught 
here for five shillings." The young Pretender, on his furtive visit to 
London in September 1750, held a secret meeting with about fifty of 
his friends at his lodging in Pall Mall. 2 William, Duke of Cumberland, 
the hero of Culloden, in Schomberg House in 1760. 

October 1%, 1760. The Duke of Cumberland has taken Lord Sandwich's [house] 
in Pall Mall. Walpole to Montagu (Letters, vol. iii. p. 353). 

In Sir Joshua Reynolds's pocket-book for 1762 is noted an 
appointment, " July 1 7, at six with Miss Nelly O'Brien in Pall Mall, 
next door this side the Star and Garter," which is represented by the 

1 Horace Walpole, Account of my Conduct. 2 Lord Stanhope's Hist, of England, vol. iv. 
(Letters, vol. i. p. Ixxix.) p. 8. 



PALL MALL 13 



present 43 A. Gibbon wrote to Holroyd, Pall Mall, December 25, 
1769; and again in December 1772 immediately before he took 
his house in Bentinck Street. On his brief visit to England in 1787 
he once more took lodgings here, and wrote to Lord Sheffield, " Virtue 
should never be made too difficult. I feel that a man has more friends 
in Pall Mall than in Bentinck Street." Sir John Pringle (President of 
the Royal Society, 1772-1778) frequently received the Fellows of that 
Society at his house until his death in 1781. Thomas Gainsborough, 
the painter, in the western wing of Schomberg House, from 1777 to 
1783. A tablet has been placed by the Society of Arts in the house 
to commemorate Gainsborough's residence. David Astley, the painter, 
divided Schomberg House into three, and fitted up the centre in a 
fantastic manner for his own use, and after his death, in 1787, it was 
occupied by Cosway the miniature painter, whose pretty wife gave 
parties that were for a while extremely fashionable. In 1779, when 
Admiral Keppel was acquitted, and all London was illuminated, his 
prosecutor, Palliser, was living in Pall Mall. 

February 12, 1779. My servants, who have been out this morning, tell me that 
about 3 o'clock the mob found their way into Palliser's house in spite of the guards 
and demolished every thing in it. ... P.S. The mob entirely gutted Sir Hugh 
Palliser's house, but the furniture had been removed. Walpole to Sir H. Mann 
(Letters, vol. vii. p. 176). 

In 1782 Lord Rodney's prisoner, the Count de Grasse, took up his 
abode in the Royal Hotel, Pall Mall. Lord Chancellor Erskine dates 
a codicil of his will from "Carleton Hotel, Pall Mall, October 2, 
1786." Mr. Angerstein lived at No. 10-2. Five doors east of it died 
the Right Hon. William Windham, June 3, 1810. 

Windham is a Moloch among the fallen ambassadors, I was at his house on the 
day when the Peace procession passed in Pall Mall, and was highly gratified with his 
grotesque affectation of laughing at the triumph of his enemies. He laughed, but it 
was a laugh of agony. Thomas Campbell to J. Richardson, 1802. 

Lord Brougham has portrayed him under a different aspect. 

His manners were the most polished and noble and courteous, without the least 
approach to pride, or affectation, or condescension ; his spirits were, in advanced life, 
so gay that he was always younger than the youngest ; his relish of conversation was 
such that, after lingering to the latest moment he joined whatever party a sultry 
evening (or morning as it might chance to prove) tempted to haunt the streets before 
retiring to rest. How often have we accompanied him to the door of his own 
mansion, and then been attended by him to our own, while the streets rang with the 
peals of his hearty merriment, or echoed the accents of his refined and universal wit. 
Brougham, in Edinbtirgh Revie^v, October 1838, p. 237. 

November 18, 1805. Wasn't you sorry for Lord Nelson? I have followed him 
in fancy ever since I saw him walking in Pall Mall (I was prejudiced against him 
before) looking just as a hero should look. Charles Lamb to Hazlitt. 

David Wilkie opened at No. 87, on May i, 1812, an exhibition 
of his pictures and finished studies, twenty-nine in number. He lost 
money by it, and did not repeat the experiment, but it helped to extend 
his reputation. The witty, wilful Mrs. Abington died, March 4, 1815, 
" at her apartments in Pall Mall." Sir Charles Bunbury died at his 



14 PALL MALL 



house in Pall Mall, 1821. Sir Walter Scott, on his visit to London 
1826-1827, stayed at the house of his son-in-law, Lockhart, No. 25 
Pall Mall. Many entries in his Diary are dated from this house, but 
the whole frontage has since been altered. 

Among the events which Pall Mall has witnessed, one of the most 
remarkable was the murder of Mr. Thynne, February 12, 1682, by 
Colonel Vratz and Lieutenant Stern, the hired agents of Count 
Konigsmark. These mean villains were hanged in Pall Mall on 
March 10, but the greater assassin was allowed to escape. At the 
Star and Garter Tavern, William, fifth Lord Byron (d. 1798), killed 
(1765) his neighbour and friend, Mr. Chaworth, in what was rather a 
broil than a duel. 

June 13, 1782. As Lady Chewton and her sisters came from the Opera, they 
saw two officers fighting in Pall Mall, next to Dr. Graham's and the mob trying to 
part them. Lord Chewton and some other young men went into the house and 
found a Captain Lucas of the Guards bleeding on a couch. It was a quarrel about 
an E. O. table : I don't know what. This officer had been struck in the face with 
a red-hot poker by a drawer, and this morning is dead. Walpole to Lady Ossory 
{Letters, vol. viii. p. 232). 

These quarrels and duels were not the only strange scenes Pall Mall 
beheld a century ago. 

January 8, 1786. The mail from France was robbed last night in Pall Mall, 1 
at half an hour after 8. The chaise had stopped, the harness was cut, and the 
portmanteau was taken out of the chaise itself. A courier is gone to Paris for a 
copy of the despatch. What think you of banditti in the heart of such a capital ? 
Walpole to Mann (Letters, vol. ix. p. 35). 

It was in Dalton's print warehouse, Pall Mall, in a building erected 
for Lamb the auctioneer, and having therefore the advantage of a 
" great room," that the Royal Academy had its original home. The 
building adjoined Old Carlton House on the east. It was here that, 
at the formal opening of the Academy, January 2, 1769, Sir Joshua 
Reynolds delivered the first of his fifteen Presidential Discourses. Here 
the first of the annual exhibitions was opened on April 26, 1769 ; and 
here the Academy met and the exhibitions were held till January 14, 
1771, when the Academy met for the first time in their new apartments 
in Somerset House. The building was afterwards occupied by Christie, 
the picture auctioneer. At the King's Arms in Pall Mall met in 
1734 the Liberty or Rump Steak Club, consisting exclusively of peers 
in eager opposition to Sir Robert Walpole ; there is a list of the club 
in the Marchmont Papers, vol. ii. p. 20. 

There was a club held at the King's Head in Pall Mall, that arrogantly called 
itself The World. Lord Stanhope ithen (now Lord Chesterfield), Lord Herbert, 
etc. etc., were members. Epigrams were proposed to be written on the glasses, by 
each member after dinner ; once when Dr. Young was invited thither, the doctor 
would have declined writing because he had no diamond ; Lord Stanhope lent him 
his, and he wrote immediately : 

Accept a miracle instead of wit ; 

See two dull lines, with Stanhope's pencil writ. 

Spence's Anecdotes, by Singer, p. 377. 

1 The foreign Post-Office was at this time in Albemarle Street. 



PALMER'S VILLAGE 



At the Star and Garter (1760-1 770) used to meet the Thursday Night 
Clul>, of which the George Selwyn and Lord March set were members, 
as was also Sir Joshua Reynolds. Sir Joshua was regular in his 
attendance, although his bad whist playing, and manners the reverse of 
fast, caused him to be less highly appreciated here than he was at the 
Turk's Head. Another noted house was the Smyrna Coffee-house 
[which see]. 

O bear me to the paths of fair Pell Mell, 

Safe are thy pavements, grateful is thy smell ! 

At distance rolls along the gilded coach, 

No sturdy carmen on thy walks encroach ; 

Shops breathe perfumes : thro' sashes ribbons glow 

The mutual arms of ladies, and the beau. 

Gay's Trivia^ B. ii. p. 257. 

Yet who the footman's arrogance can quell, 

Whose flambeau gilds the sashes of Pell Mell, 

When in long rank a train of torches flame, 

To light the midnight visits of the dame ? 

Ibid., B. iii. p. 156. 

Pell Mell, it will be seen, was the genteel pronunciation of the name 
in the days of Queen Anne, and so it has continued to be down to 
the present day. 

If we must have a villa in summer to dwell, 
O give me the sweet shady side of Pell Mell. 

Captain Morris, The Contrast. 

This celebrated street was, January 28, 1807, the first street in 
London lighted with gas, by a German named Winsor. The second 
was Bishopsgate Street. Observe. On the south side, Maryborough 
House, now the residence of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales ; 69, the 
London Joint-Stock Bank ; 70, the Guards' Club ; 71 to 76, the Oxford 
and Cambridge Club; 86, the War Office; 94, Carlton Club; 104, 
Reform Club ; 106, Travellers' Club ; 107, Athenaeum Club ; 116-117, 
United Service Club. On the north side, 52, the Marlborough Club 
(formerly the British Instititution, founded 1805); 36-39, the Army 
and Navy Club; 29, Royal Exchange Assurance, rebuilt 1884-1885, 
by George Aitchison, A.R.A. ; 30-35, Junior Carlton Club; and refer 
to each for particular descriptions. In Pall Mall East, Observe, on 
north side United University Club; Royal Society of Painters in 
Water Colours ; and on the south, the Royal College of Physicians, 
and next to it Colnaghi's famous print-shop. Here, too, is the bronze 
equestrian statue of George III. by Mathew Coates Wyatt. 

Palmer's Village, WESTMINSTER, the name given so late as 1831 
(Elmes) to some scattered houses between the grounds of Elliot's 
brewery and Little James Street. Palmer's Almshouscs, founded by 
James Palmer, B.D., in 1654, "at Tothill Side, Westminster," are on 
the north side of Victoria Street. Maitland, writing in 1739, says 
(p. 675), "Here is a chapel for the use of the scholars and pensioners, 
wherein the Founder himself, for some time, prcach'd and pray'd 



1 6 PALSGRAVE COURT 

twice a day to them." These almshouses were handsomely rebuilt in 
1881. 

Palsgrave Court, originally PALSGRAVE'S HEAD COURT, afterwards 
PALSGRAVE PLACE, in the STRAND, near Temple Bar, was so called 
from a tavern having for its sign the head of the Palsgrave Frederick, 
the husband of the Princess Elizabeth, only daughter of James I. 
There was also a Palatine Head in Soho. William Faithorne, the 
engraver, lived " at the sign of the Ship, next to the Drake, opposite to 
the Palsgrave Head Tavern, without Temple Bar." Here Prior and 
Montague make the Country Mouse and the City Mouse bilk the 
hackney coachman : 

But now at Piccadilly they arrive, 
And taking coach, t'wards Temple-Bar they drive, 
But at St. Clement's Church, eat out the back ; 
And slipping through the Palsgrave, bilkt poor hack. 

Prior and Montague, The Hind and Panther Transfers' d. 

When, 1691, Archbishop San croft had to quit Lambeth Palace, he 
took boat at Lambeth Bridge and went to "the Palgrave's Head, near 
Temple Bar," where he remained from June 23 to August 5, when he 
retired to Fressingfield in Suffolk, his native place. Tokens of the 
tavern are extant. This court was abolished when the large building 
called the Outer Temple was built partly on its site. 

Pancras Lane, CITY, runs on the south and parallel to Cheap- 
side, from Queen Street to Bucklersbury. It seems to have been 
so called after the Great Fire, to perpetuate the memory of the 
ancient church of St. Pancras, which stood on the north side of it and 
was not rebuilt. Previously the portion to the west of Size Lane had 
been called Needelers 1 Lane, and to the east Pencritch [Pancras] Street, 
(Stow, p. 98). Here are still the cemeteries of the two churches of St. 
Pancras and St. Benet Sherehog ; the latter is nearest to Bucklersbury. 

Pancras (St.) In the Fields, a prebendal manor in Middlesex, 
belonging to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, containing the old 
parish church, now made a district church, situated on the north side 
of the road leading from King's Cross to Kentish Town ; and a new 
church, the present parish church, described in a succeeding article. 

St. Pancras is so called in the Domesday Survey \Sm. Pancratium~\. 
The manor of Pancras belonged to the Dean and Canons or Chapter 
of St. Paul's ; as also did the prebendal manors of Totenhall (Tottenham 
Court), and Cantelows, now Kentish Town. Ruggemere, or Rugmere, 
was another prebend in this parish, but the site of the prebendal estate 
is now unknown. The parish is of great extent, reaching from St. 
Andrew's, Holborn, and St. George's, Bloomsbury, to Hampstead, 
Highgate, and Finchley, and including the Gray's Inn, Tottenham 
Court, Euston and Harripstead Roads, Somers Town, Camden Town, 
and Kentish Town, Ken (or Caen) Wood, and part of Highgate, a 
portion of the Regent's Park, and the whole of the extensive London 



ST. PANCRAS IN THE FIELDS 17 

and North -Western, Midland, and Great Northern Railway termini. 
In 1801 there were 31,779 inhabitants in the parish; in 1881 there 
were nearly a quarter of a million (236,209). 

Pancras Church standeth all alone, as utterly forsaken, old and weather-beaten, 
which, for the antiquity thereof, is thought not to yield to Paules in London. About 
this church have bin many buildings now decayed, leaving poor Pancras without 
companie or comfort, yet it is now and then visited with Kentishtowne and Highgate, 
which are members thereof; but they seldom come there, for they have chapels of 
ease within themselves ; but when there is a corpse to be interred, they are forced 
to leave the same within this forsaken church or churchyard, where (no doubt) it 
resteth as secure against the day of resurrection, as if it laie in stately Paule's. 
Norden, Spec. Brit., 410, 1593. 

This interesting little church, partly of Norman, but in the main of 
Early English date, had in the course of time been greatly altered and 
covered with plaster. It consisted of a nave and chancel, and at the 
west end a tower, on which in 1750, when Chatelain's view was taken, 
was a short shingled spire, but which somewhat later was superseded 
by an odd sort of dome. In 1847-1848 the church was almost entirely 
rebuilt in the Norman style (Messrs. Gough and Roumieu, architects), 
and enlarged, with a tower on the south side at the east end of the 
nave. It was reopened for divine service, July 5, 1848. Whatever 
was of interest in the church has passed away, but the monuments 
deserve examination. The church was restored internally in 1888, 
when a chancel-screen and choir stalls were added. The old sedilia 
were discovered on removing the plaster from the walls. The appear- 
ance of the interior was somewhat improved, but it is still very heavy 
in consequence of a gallery which runs round three sides of the nave 
portion. Observe. Against the north wall of the nave a monument, 
much defaced (circ. 1500), but without name or inscription; recesses 
for brasses alone remaining. In the south-east corner of the nave at 
the entrance to the chancel is a tablet, surmounted by a palette and 
pencils, to Samuel Cooper, the miniature painter (d. 1672) : the arms 
are those of Sir Edward Turner, Speaker of the House of Commons in 
the reign of Charles II., at whose expense it is probable the monument 
was erected. And on the south wall of the church a monument, with 
two busts, to William Platt (d. 1637), the founder of an important charity, 
and wife, repaired at the expense of St. John's College, Cambridge, in 
1743, and removed hither from the chapel at Highgate in 1833. In 
the churchyard have been interred an unusual number of remarkable 
persons. This has been in a great measure owing to its having been for a 
long series of years the chief burial-place for Roman Catholics resident 
in London, though the eminent persons buried here are by no means 
confined to the professors of that faith. " Of late," says Strype, writing 
at the beginning of the i8th century, "those of the Roman Catholic 
religion have affected to be buried here." l Till the churchyard was 
closed for interments, it continued to be a favourite Roman Catholic 
cemetery. For this preference various reasons have been assigned. A 

1 Strype, App., p. 136. 
VOL. Ill C 



1 8 ST. PANCRAS IN THE FIELDS 

popular tradition was that it was the last London church in which mass 
was performed. Roman Catholics, said Dr. Johnson, " chose St. Pancras 
for their burying-place because some Catholics in Queen Elizabeth's 
time had been burnt there." Lysons was told that it was because 
" masses were said in a church in the south of France, dedicated to the 
same saint, for the souls of the deceased interred at St. Pancras in 
England." Mr. Markland dismisses all these reasons without ceremony. 
" I learn," he says, "from unquestionable authority, that it rests upon no 
foundation ; " but is " mere prejudice." x This may be ; but even the 
prejudice must have had an origin. The probable explanation is, that 
it having been, from accident of residence, chosen as the burial-place 
of some distinguished member of the church, others of a like faith 
wished to be laid near him, and there being no recognised Roman 
Catholic burial-ground in London the prejudice would every year 
extend and strengthen, as more and more of those who were regarded 
with veneration came to be laid there. These interments include many 
prelates and priests, members of old Catholic families, Howards and 
Arundels, Cliffords, Blounts, Tichbornes, Doughtys, Constables, Honars, 
many Jacobites and Nonjurors, and a large number of French emigres, 
victims of the first French Revolution, who took up their residence in 
Somers Town. 

The French Revolution tended materially to fill St. Pancras 
churchyard. Writing in 1811, Lysons says that "about thirty of the 
French clergy have on an average been buried annually at Pancras for 
some years past; in 1801 there were forty-one; in 1802 thirty-two." 2 
Among them were several prelates and other dignitaries of the church : 
Angelus Franciscus de Talaru de Calmazel, Bishop of Coutance 
(d. 1798). Augustinus Renatus Ludovicus Le Mintier, Bishop and 
Count of Treguier (d. 1801). Louis Andre Grimaldi, Bishop of 
Noyon (d. 1804). Arthur Richard Dillon, Archbishop of Narbonne 
(d. 1806). Jean FranQois Comte de la Marche, Bishop of St. Pol de 
Leon (d. 1806). The Rev. Arthur ["Father"] O'Leary (d. 1802). 
Father Nicholas Pisani, of the Order of St. Anthony (d. 1803). 
Louis Charles, Comte D'Hervilly, Field -Marshal of France, Major- 
General in the Russian, and Colonel in the British army, died of a 
wound received at Quiberon (1795). Lieut.- General Comte Mont- 
boissier (d. 1797). Francois Claude Amour, Marquis de Bouille, 
Governor and Commander -in -Chief of the French islands in the 
West Indies (d. 1800). Louis Charles Bigot de St. Croix, "dernier 
Ministre de Louis," as the now illegible inscription on his monument 
recorded (d. 1803). Marie Louisa d'Esparbes de Lussan, Comtesse de 
Palastron, "Dame de Palais de la Reine de France" (d. 1804). 
Antonio Moriano Domenico Mortellari, the musical composer, "pensioner 
of Louis XVI., whom he served eighteen years." Henry Marquis de 
Lostange, " Grand Seneschal de Quercy, Mareschal des Camps et Armees 
de Roi de France" (d. 1807). Claude Joseph Gabriel, Viscomte de 

1 Note to Croker's Boswell, p. 840. 2 Lysons, vol. ii. p. 619, note 40. 



ST. PANCRAS IN THE FIELDS 19 

Vaulx, Field- Marshal of France and Governor of Valence in Dauphiny 
(d. 1809). Baroness de Montalembert (d. 1808). L. F. E. Camus, 
Seigneur de Pontcarre", " premier President du Parlement de Normandie, 
Conseiller du Roi en tous ses conseils" (d. 1810). 

Against the exterior of the church, at the south-west end of the 
nave, is a headstone to William Woollett the engraver (d. 1785) and his 
widow (d. 1819). In a part of the ground now taken by the Midland 
Railway Company was a pedestal -like altar-tomb to William Godwin, 
author of Political Justice and Caleb Williams (d. 1836), and his two 
wives ; Mary Wolstonecraft Godwin, author of A Vindication of the 
Rights of Women, the mother of Mrs. Shelley (d. 1797); and Mary 
Jane (d. 1841), in whose name the "Juvenile Library" in Skinner 
Street was carried on. At this grave, in 1813, when it only contained 
the body of Mary Wolstonecraft, a remarkable scene took place : 

Shelley's anguish, his isolation, his difference from other men, his gifts of genius, 
and eloquent enthusiasm, made a deep impression on Godwin's daughter Mary, now 
a girl of sixteen, who had been accustomed to hear Shelley spoken of as something 
rare and strange. To her, as they met one eventful day in St. Pancras churchyard, 
by her Mother's grave, Bysshe, in burning words, poured forth the tale of his wild 
past how he had suffered, how he had been misled, and how, if supported by her 
love, he hoped in future years to enrol his name with the wise and good who had 
done battle for their fellow men, and been true through all adverse storms, to the 
cause of humanity. Unhesitatingly she placed her hand in his, and linked her 
fortunes with his own. Lady Shelley's Memorials, p. 57. 

The remains of Godwin and his first wife, Mary Wolstonecraft, were 
removed in 1851 and laid beside those of their daughter, Mrs. Shelley, 
in Bournemouth churchyard. It was in Old St. Pancras Church that 
Godwin and Mary Wolstonecraft were married, March 29, 1797, 
" Marshal and the clerk of the church being the witnesses. Godwin 
takes no notice whatever of it in his Diary." 1 

Among the stones was one to " Daniel Tullum, gent., page of the 
Backstairs to the Queen of the late King James the Second," "and 
was abroad with them many years in all their troubles," and also with 
" the King's daughter Lewisa, who died in France." He died, October 
14, 1730, in his seventy-seventh year. Others were those of Amy, wife 
of Cuthbert Constable and daughter of Hugh Lord Clifford (d. 1731) ; 
Sir James Tobin (d. 1735); Elizabeth, Countess of Castlehaven, and 
a few more. The plain headstone to John Walker, author of the 
Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language and other works (d. 
1807), has been replaced by a larger and more conspicuous one erected 
by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. The St. Giles's portion of the ground 
is comparatively modern, having been consecrated in 1803. Here is 
the large and elaborate tomb of Sir John Soane, R.A., the architect of 
the Bank of England (d. June 30, 1837), his wife and son; another is 
that of Sir John Gurney, Baron of the Exchequer (d. March i, 1845). 

The register of burials includes those of Abraham Woodhead (d. 
May 4, 1678), in his day the stoutest champion of Roman Catholicism. 

1 Kegan Paul's William Godwin, vol. i. p. 234. 



20 ST. PANCRAS IN THE FIELDS 

Wood gives a long account of him, and adds " that he was buried in 
the churchyard of St. Pancras, about 22 paces from the chancel, on 
the south side. Afterwards a raised altar-monument, built of brick, 
covered with a thick plank of blue marble, was put over his grave." l 
Obadiah Walker (d. 1699). He was buried near his friend, Abraham 
Woodhead, with this short inscription : 

@ 

PER BONAM FAMAM ET INFAMIAM 
OB. JAN. 31, A.D. 1699, ;ET. 86. 

The interment of these prominent Catholics might be thought to have 
induced or favoured the preference shown for St. Pancras churchyard 
by others of the creed, but it is pretty certain, despite of Strype, that 
the practice had been for some time in existence. 

I told 'em of Pancras church where their scholars 
(When they have killed one another in duel) 
Have a churchyard to themselves for their dead. 

Davenant, Playhotise to be Lett, 1663 [printed 1673], 

John Ernest Grabe, D.D. (d. 1711), Orientalist and editor of a valuable 
edition of the Septuagint. There is a monument to his memory in 
Westminster Abbey. 

Poor Dr. Grabe's receiving the absolution from Dr. Smalridge, the communion 
from Dr. Hicks, and being buried in St. Pancras church (where the Roman Catholics 
dying in or near this city have been commonly interred) occasions talk. White 
Kennet, MSS., Life of Robert Nelson, p. 221. 

'Thomas Dungan, Earl of Limerick (d. 1715). Hon. Esme 
Howard, son of Henry, Earl of Arundel (d. 1728). Edward Walpole 
of Dunston, Lincolnshire (d. 1740). Elizabeth, Countess of Castle- 
haven (d. 1743). Sir Thomas Mackworth, Bart. (d. 1744). Jeremy 
Collier (d. 1726), the writer against the immorality of the stage in the 
time of Dryden. Ned Ward (d. 1731), author of the London Spy. 
He kept a punch-house in Fulwood's Rents in Holborn. His hearse 
was attended by a single mourning coach, containing only his wife and 
daughter, as he had directed it should be in his poetical will, written 
six years before he died. Bevil Higgons (d. 1735); he wrote against 
Burnet's History. Lewis Theobald (d. 1744), the hero of the early 
editions of the Dunciad, and the editor of Shakespeare. 2 Lady 
Henrietta Beard, daughter of an Earl of Waldegrave, widow of Lord 
Edward Herbert, and wife of Beard, the singer (d. 1753). Pope's 
Martha Blount (d. January 12, 1763, aged seventy-three) and Theresa 
Blount (d. October 7, 1759, aged seventy). Henry Racket (d. 1775) and 
Robert Racket (d. 1779), Pope's nephews, and mentioned in his will. 
S. F. Ravenet, the engraver (d. 176 4). In this church (February 13, 1718- 
1 7 x 9)> Jonathan Wild was married to his third wife ; in this church- 
yard he was buried in 1725. 

After his execution his body was carried off in a coach and four to the sign of the 
Adam and Eve near Pancras Church, in order to be interred in the churchyard there, 
where one of his former wives was buried. Defoe, vol. iii. p. 392. 

1 Ath. Ox., ed. 1721, vol. ii. p. 618. " Nichols's Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 745. 



ST. PANCRAS IN THE FIELDS 21 

A few nights afterwards the coffin was dug up and flung in the road- 
side near Kentish Town. James Leoni, the architect and editor of 
Palladia and Alberti (d. 1746). The Hon. Thomas Arundell, Count 
of the Holy Roman Empire and son of Henry, fifth Lord Arundell of 
Wardour (d. 1752). Peter Van Bleek, the portrait painter (d. 1764). 
Peter Pasqualino, a famous player on the violoncello, who first brought 
that instrument into fashion (d. 1766). Robert Paxton, the noted 
English player on that instrument (d. 1787). Thomas Mazzinghi, 
unrivalled in his day as a violinist (d. 1776). Maria Teresa, Duchess 
of Wharton (d. 1777), widow of the famous Philip, Duke of 
Wharton. Baron de Wenzel, the eminent oculist (d. 1790). Count 
Ferdinand Lucchese, Neapolitan Ambassador (d. 1790). The Duke 
of Sicigniano, Neapolitan Ambassador, who committed suicide at 
Gregnier's Hotel, May 31, 1793, shortly after his arrival in England. 
Count Filippo Nupumecceno Fontana, formerly Ambassador from the 
Court of Sardinia to that of Spain. Peter Henry Treyssac de Vergy, 
the opponent of the Chevalier D'Eon, died October i, 1774, but not 
buried till March 3, 1775; and that anomalous personage himself, 
"Charles Genevieve Louis Auguste Andre Timothe"e D'Eon de 
Beaumont, died May 21, buried May 28, 1810, aged eighty-three 
years," for so the entry stands in the parish register. The French 
Revolution having deprived him of his pension, D'Eon's last years were 
spent in extreme penury. 

General Pasquale de Paoli, "died February 5, 1807, aged eighty- 
two years, buried i3th." His remains were exhumed on August 31, 
1889, and conveyed to Corsica, Edward Edwards (d. 1806), Professor 
of Perspective in the Royal Academy, and author of the dull but 
useful Anecdotes of Painters, which he wrote as a continuation of 
Horace Walpole's lively work with a nearly similar title. Henry F. 
J. De Cort, the landscape painter (d. 1810). Thomas Scheemakers, 
sculptor, the junior of that name (d. 1808). Mrs. Isabella Mills, as 
Miss Burchell, a famous vocalist (d. 1802). John Hayman Packer 
(d. 1806), an actor of celebrity in genteel comedy. Peter Woulfe, an 
eminent chemist (d. 1803). Tiberius Cavallo, F.R.S., a distinguished 
writer on physics (d. 1809). James Peller Malcolm, F.S.A., author 
of Londinium Redivivum (d. 1815). 

It is greatly to be regretted that when the churchyard was 
converted into a garden, means were not taken to indicate the 
graves of the more remarkable of the persons interred here, and to 
renew, while renewal was possible, the inscriptions on the tombs 
and headstones. A memorial was erected by the Baroness Burdett- 
Coutts in the St. Giles's portion of the ground, on which a list of such 
names is inscribed but too high and in too small characters to be 
read by ordinary eyes. It forms, however, a pleasing object in the 
garden. St. Pancras has long ceased to be " in the Fields." " Brother 
Kemp," says Nash in Queen Elizabeth's time to Kemp the actor, " as 
many alhailes to thy person as there be haicocks in luly at Pan- 



22 ST. PA NCR AS IN THE FIELDS 

credge : }>1 and Norden has left a description of the St. Pancras in 
1593, which De Foe has confirmed, more than a century after, in his 
History of Colonel Jack. 

And although this place be as it were forsaken of all, and true men seldom 
frequent the same but upon devyne occasions, yet it is visyted and usuall haunted 
of roages, vagabondes, harlettes, and theeves, who assemble not ther to pray, but to 
wayte for praye, and manie fall into their hands clothed, that are glad when they 
are escaped naked. Walk not ther too late. Norden (in 1593), " MS. Account of 
Middlesex," quoted by Ellis, in Norden's Essex, p. xiii. 

Bishop Burnet, describing the locality in which Sir Edmond Berry 
Godfrey's body was discovered, tells us it was found " in a ditch, about 
a mile out of the town, near St. Pancras Church." The exact locality, as 
we should now describe it, was the field beyond Primrose Hill. When 
Burnet wrote, near St. Pancras was the best description he could give. 
In his lines to " Inigo Marquis Would be," Ben Jonson recommends 
the great architect to 

Content thee to be Pancredge Earl the while, 

An earl of show. 

It were to be hoped St. Peter would let them dwell in the suburbs of heaven ; 
whereas, otherwise, they must keep aloofe at Pancridge, and not come neer the 
liberties by five leagues and above. Nash, Pierce Penilesse, 1592, 

No churchyard in London possessed so much interest as that of 
St. Pancras, and none has been subjected to greater outrage. After 
having been closed for interments it was grievously neglected. In 
July 1863 the Midland Railway Company, who were then planning 
their London extension, obtained an Act of Parliament authorising 
them to construct piers for carrying a viaduct across the churchyard. 
Further powers were granted in July 1864 enabling them to construct 
a tunnel underneath to join the Metropolitan Railway at King's Cross, 
and notwithstanding a clause in the Act restraining them from coming 
within 12 feet of the surface, an enormous trench about 50 feet 
wide was cut through a crowded portion of the ground and the tunnel 
built within it. In 1874 the Company sought to obtain powers to 
acquire the whole of the ground, including the church as well as the 
St. Giles's cemetery. Public indignation was thoroughly aroused, and 
the Bill was thrown out. Subsequently the Vestry of St. Pancras 
acquired the ground for the purpose of a public garden and recreation 
ground, and it was formally opened by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts on 
June 28, 1877. The St. Giles's portion was encroached upon in 1887 
for the erection of a range of buildings connected with the St. Pancras 
Workhouse, including a -mortuary and rooms for post mortems. To 
complete the story the Midland Railway Company, in 1889, acquired 
a large portion of the St. Pancras ground lying in the south-east corner, 
the boundary of the churchyard in that direction being the iron viaduct 
already mentioned. For this they paid ; 12,000, and in addition 
agreed to purchase a row of houses fronting St. Pancras Road, includ- 

1 Almond for a Parrot, 



PANNIER, OR PANYER ALLEY 23 

ing the site of the old Adam and Eve Tavern, to be laid out and 
added to the recreation ground. 

Neglect and a London atmosphere have done their work in 
obliterating the inscriptions, and in a few years none will be legible. 
Fortunately many have been preserved by Mr. Cansick, in a book 
which he published when the graveyards were taken over by the 
Vestry of St. Pancras. But notwithstanding this the period is rapidly 
approaching when the ancient burial-ground will become a mere "open 
space," with a few decaying stones here and there to remind the 
spectator of what it once was. All the registers were transferred to 
the new church in the Euston Road when it became the parish church. 
The prebend of Pancras was held by Lancelot Andrews in the time of 
James I., and by Archdeacon Paley in the reign of George III. 

Pancras (St.) New Church, EUSTON ROAD and EUSTON SQUARE, 
was designed by William Inwood, with the assistance of his son, Henry 
William, the Greek traveller. The foundation stone was laid by the 
Duke of York, July i, 1819, and the church consecrated by the Bishop 
of London, April 7, 1822. The exterior is an adaptation of the Ionic 
temple of the Erectheion on the Acropolis at Athens, the tower being 
modelled from the Horologium, or Temple of the Winds, in that city. 
The projecting building, with the caryatides on each side of the church, 
and which were intended to form covered entrances to the catacombs, 
are adaptations of the south portico of the Pandroseion at Athens. 
The church is built of Portland stone, and the ornaments are chiefly 
of terra cotta, by C. and H. Rossi. Messrs. Inwood's model for the 
interior body of the church was the Erectheion. The whole structure 
was erected at a cost of ,76,679 : 7 : 8. The pulpit and reading-desk 
are made of the celebrated Fairlop oak, which stood in Hainault Forest, 
in Essex, and gave its name to the fair long held under its branches. 
It was blown down in 1820. Messrs. Inwood took the greatest 
possible pains to make the several parts of the church accurate repro- 
ductions of the originals, as far as the difference of the materials 
allowed. The present elaborate chromatic decoration of the interior 
was carried out by Mr. J. G. Grace in 1866. 

Pancras (St.),SoPER LANE, a church in the ward of Cheap, destroyed 
in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt. Stow describes it as "a proper 
small church." The name is preserved in Pancras Lane, The living 
is united with that of St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside. Abraham Fleming 
(d. 1607), the earliest translator into English verse of the Bucolics and 
Georgics of Virgil, was rector of this church. 

Pannier, or Panyer Alley, NEWGATE STREET to PATERNOSTER 
Row. 

Panyer Alley, a passage out of Paternoster Row, and is called of such a sign 
Panyar Alley. Stow, p. 128. 

From a passage in Ben Jonson's Bartholomnv fair, Pannier Alley 
would seem to have been in his day inhabited by tripe-sellers ; at an 



24 PANNIER, OR PANYER ALLEY 

earlier period it was the standing-place for bakers with their bread 
panniers. Observe. In the middle of the alley, against the east wall, 
a figure of a pannier or baker's basket (or perhaps a loaf) with a boy 
with a bunch of grapes sitting upon it, and this inscription : 

When you have sought the City round, 

Yet still this is the highest ground. 
August 26, 1688. 

Panorama, LEICESTER SQUARE. [See Burford's Panorama.] 

Pantheon, No. 359, on the south side of OXFORD STREET, origin- 
ally a theatre and public promenade, designed by James Wyatt, R.A., 
and opened for the first time in January 1772.! As at Ranelagh, the 
room devoted to the promenade was a rotunda, but there were fourteen 
other rooms. The building was Italian in style, and the decoration 
of the interior was intended to correspond in character. Noorthouck 
described it as "a superb building . . . dedicated to the nocturnal 
revels of the British nobility." 2 Dr. Johnson visited it in company 
with Bos well, and both agreed in thinking it inferior to Ranelagh. 
The masquerades for which the Pantheon soon became celebrated, 
were on a more splendid scale than those at Chelsea. 

What do you think of a winter Ranelagh, erecting in Oxford Road, at the expense 
of sixty thousand pounds? Walpole to Mann, May 6, 1770. 

The new winter Ranelagh in Oxford Road is almost finished. It amazed me 
myself. Imagine Balbec in all its glory ! The pillars are of artificial giallo antico. 
The ceilings, even of the passages, are of the most beautiful stuccos in the best taste 
of grotesque. The ceilings of the ball-rooms and the panels painted like Raphael's 
loggias in the Vatican. A dome like the Pantheon glazed. It is to cost fifty 
thousand pounds. Walpole to Mann, April 26, 1771. 

February 7, 1774. Wednesday your two sisters, Molly Cambridge, and I went 
to the Pantheon. It is undoubtedly the finest and most complete thing ever seen 
in England ; such mixture of company never assembled before under the same roof. 
Lord Mansfield, Mrs. Baddeley, Lord Chief Baron Parker, Mrs. Abington, Sir 
James Porter, Mademoiselle Himell, Lords Hyde and Camden, with many other 
serious men, and most of the gay ladies in town, and ladies of the best rank and 
character ; and, by appearance, some very low people. Louisa is thought very like 
Mrs. Baddeley [a notorious gay lady] ; Gertrude and I had our doubts whether our 
characters might not suffer by walking with her ; but had they offered to turn her 
out we depended on Mrs. Hanger's protection. None of any fashion dance country 
dances or minuets in the great room, though there were a number of minuets and a 
large set of dancers. I saw Miss Wilkes dance a minuet, and that was the only 
name I knew ; some young ladies danced cotillons in the Cotillon Gallery. I met a 
great many of my acquaintances, and every one complained of being tired after they 
had been there an hour. Mrs. Harris to her son, the Earl of Malmesbury (Letters, 
vol. i. p. 247). 

Mrs. Hardcastle. I'm in love with the town . . . but who can have a manner, 
that has never seen the Pantheon, the Grotto Gardens, the Borough, and such places, 
where the nobility chiefly resort. Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, 1773, Act ii. 

When Gibbon was writing the first portion of his Decline and Fall 
he was a frequent visitor to the Pantheon. His plan of early rising 
gave him command of time, and he tells us that he never found his 

1 There is a large and good interior view Earlom in 1772. There is also a view in the 
(with figures) of the Pantheon, engraved by European Magazine for May 1784. 
2 Hist, of London, 4to, 1773, p. 732. 



PANTON STREET AND PANTON SQUARE 25 

mind more vigorous, nor his composition more happy than in the 
winter hurry of society and parliament. In February 1774 he writes 
to Holroyd, " Don't you remember that in our Pantheon walks we 
admired the modest beauty of Mrs. Horneck ? Eh bien, alas ! She is," 
etc. This was the wife of Goldsmith's " Captain-in-lace," one of the 
most abandoned women of her time, who eloped with her husband's 
brother officer, Captain Scawen. In the following April Gibbon speaks 
of himself as " a very fine gentleman, a subscriber to the masquerade, 
. . . and now writing at Boodle's in a fine velvet coat, with ruffles of 
my lady's choosing." Of this entertainment he says in another letter : 

May 4, 1774. Last night was the triumph of Boodle's. Our masquerade cost 
two thousand guineas ; a sum that might have fertilized a province (I speak in your 
own style), vanished in a few hours, but not without leaving behind it the fame of the 
most splendid and elegant fete that was perhaps ever given in a seat of the arts and 
opulence. It would be as difficult to describe the magnificence of the scene, as it 
would be easy to record the humour of the night. The one was above, the other 
below all relation. I left the Pantheon about five this morning. Gibbon to Holroyd. 

Masquerades lost their attraction Fashion turned her back on the 
Pantheon. When the Opera House was burnt down, 1789, the Pantheon 
was secured as a temporary home, and opened early in 1791. 

February 1 8, 1791. The Pantheon has opened, and is small, they say, but pretty 
and simple ; all the rest ill-conducted and, from the singers to the scene-shifters, 
imperfect : the dances long and bad, and the whole performance so dilatory and 
tedious that it lasted from eight to half-past twelve. H. Walpole to Agnes Berry, 

As an opera house its existence was brief. It was entirely destroyed 
by fire, January 14, 1792. 

It is a remarkable fact that Mr. Wyatt, who was travelling to town from the west 
in a post chaise with the ingenious Dixon, his clerk, saw the glare of this memorable 
fire illuminating the sky while crossing Salisbury Plain. Angela, p. 96. 

A second but less brilliant Pantheon soon rose from the ashes of 
the first. The management was not successful. Theatrical perform- 
ances, concerts, lectures, and miscellaneous exhibitions were successively 
essayed. The building was taken down in 1812, and a third Pantheon 
opened the following year. It was no more successful than its pre- 
decessor, and after being closed for some years it was reconstructed 
in 1834, and fitted, with then unusual splendour, as a bazaar and 
picture gallery. Mr. Sidney Smirke, R.A., was the architect, the cost 
over ^30,000. The Oxford Street front is a part of Wyatt's original 
building, but the portico was remodelled by Mr. Smirke. After the 
fluctuations usual to such places it was finally closed on March 2, 
1867, and is now the wine warehouse of Messrs. Gilbey. 

At the Pantheon Miss Stephens, afterwards Countess of Essex, 
made her first appearance on the stage in the character of Barbarina. 

Panton Street, HAYMARKET, and Panton Square, PICCADILLY, 
were so called after Colonel Thomas Panton, a celebrated gamester, 
who in one night, it is said, won as many thousands as purchased him 
an estate of above ^1500 a year. "After this good fortune," says 



26 P ANTON STREET AND P ANTON SQUARE 

Lucas, " he had such an aversion against all manner of games that he 
would never handle cards or dice again ; but lived very handsomely on 
his winnings to his dying day, which was in the year I68I." 1 Colonel 
Panton was the last proprietor of the gaming-house called Piccadilly 
Hall [see Piccadilly], and was in possession of land on the site of the 
streets and buildings which bear his name as early as the year 1664. 
A few years later he was busy building. Sir Christopher Wren, 
" Surveighor Generall," had been directed to report on Colonel Panton's 
operations in 1671. 

May it please your Majesty, in obedience to your Majesty's order of May 24, 
1671, upon the petition of Thomas Panton, Esq., setting forth that he having 
purchased with design to build, at Piccadilly, and the two bowling greens fronting 
the Haymarket, and on the north of the Tennis Court, upon which several old houses 
were standing, which the said Thomas Panton demolished to improve the same, and 
make the plan more uniform : in reference to which he let out the ground, laid 
several foundations, and built part thereof, before his Majesty's late Proclamation ; 
and praying his Majesty's permission, under the broad seal, to proceed in the said 
buildings. Upon which your Majesty ordered the Surveighor Generall to examine 
the truth of the allegations, and report whether the buildings will cure the noysome- 
ness of the place ; accordingly I have viewed the said place, and find the petitioner's 
allegations, as far as I can judge, to be true, and that the design of building shown 
to me may be very useful to the public, especially by opening a new street from the 
Haymarket into Leicester Fields, which will ease, in some measure, the great passage 
of the Strand, and will cure the noisomeness of that part : and I presume may not be 
unfit for your Majesty's licence, provided the said Thomas Panton build regularly, 
according to direction and according to a design to which his said licence may refer ; 
and that he be obliged to build with brick, with party walls, with sufficient scantlings, 
good paving in the streets, and sufficient sewers and conveighances for the water ; and 
that the buildings expressed in his patent be registered before the foundations are laid. 
All which is most humbly submitted to your Majesty's wisdom and farther order 
hereupon. Christopher Wren. 

A few months after this Colonel Panton made his formal application 
to erect a " fair street of good buildings " between the Haymarket and 
Hedge Lane, marked in the manuscript to be called Panton Street, and 
other " fair buildings fronting the Haymarket upon the said ground." 
" Colonel Panton's Tenements " are rated for the first time in St. 
Martin's poor-books under the year 1672 ; "Panton Street North" for 
the first time in 1674; and "Panton Street by the Laystall" for the 
first time in 1675. "Madame Panton," the widow, lived in a capital 
mansion on the east side of the Haymarket as late as 1725. Henry, 
fifth Lord Arundel of Wardour (d. 1726), from whom Wardour Street 
derives its name, was married to Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Panton, 
of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, Esquire. In Panton Street, on the south 
side, was Hickford's Auction Rooms, the Christie and Manson's Rooms 
of the reign of George I. The great room was used also as a ballroom. 
On February 2, 1720-1721, the Westminster scholars performed 
Otway's Orphan at " Hickford's Dancing- Room, in Panton Street, near 
Leicester Fields." Prior, an old Westminster, wrote the prologue, and 
makes allusion to the use to which the room was ordinarily put. 

1 Lucas's Lives of the Gamesters, iamo, 1714, p. 68. 



PAPER BUILDINGS 27 

We hired this room, but none of us can dance, 
In cutting capers we shall never please ; 
Our learning does not lie below our knees. 

Prior's Poems, 1733, vol. iii. p. 50. 

The following curious advertisement is from the Sale Catalogue 
of a capital collection of pictures, sold by Hickford, March 5, 1728- 
1729. 

N.fi. Such persons as design to be brought in chairs, are desired to come in at 
the back door of Mr. Hickford's Great Room (which is on a ground floor), facing 
the Tennis Court in St. James's Street in the Haymarket ; which is so large and 
convenient, that, without going up or down steps, the Chair may be carried in to the 
very room where the Pictures, etc., are shewed. 

William Hogarth engraved a " Midnight scene, in the style of the 
Modern Conversation," as a shop bill for "Richard Lee, at the Golden 
Tobacco Roll, in Panton Street, near Leicester Fields." 

Panton Square, in Strype's Map (1720) is called Panton Yard, and 
is described as " a very large place for stabling and coach-houses, there 
being one large yard within another. This place is designed to be built 
into streets, taking up a large piece of ground, and according to 
probability will turn to better advantage than at present." l 

1762. The Morocco Ambassador lived in Panton Square, near Coventry Street. 
One of his attendants happened to displease him : he had him brought up to the 
garret, and there sliced his head off. It was made no secret : he and his servants 
thought it was very proper, but the London people, who had somewhat of Christianity 
were of another opinion. I saw a violent party gather before the house : they broke 
into it, demolished the furniture, threw everything they could lay their hands on out 
of the windows, and thrashed and beat the grand Moor and his retinue down the 
Haymarket, and afterwards attacked them wherever they found them. O'Keefe's 
Recollections, vol. i. p. 81. 

In 1868 the name Panton Square was abolished, and the name 
Arundel Street given to it as a portion of the street of that name leading 
into Coventry Street. 

Paper Buildings, TEMPLE, first built "6th James I. (1609), by 
Mr. Edward Heyward and others." Dugdale describes them as "east- 
wards from the garden, 88 feet in length, 20 feet in breadth, and 4 
stories high." This Edward Heyward was Selden's chamber-fellow, 
and Selden dedicates his Titles of Honour to him. 

His [Selden's] chamber was in the Paper buildings which looke towards the 
gardens . . . staircase, uppermost story, where he had a little gallery to walke in. 
Aubrey's Anecdotes, vol. iii. p. 531. 

In one of the pleasantest papers of the Table Talk Selden relates the 
device by which he got rid of a lunatic "person of quality who came 
to my chambers in the Temple and told me he had two devils in his 
head." 

The Paper Buildings, in which Selden lived, were consumed in the 
Great Fire, and the tenements erected (1685) in their stead destroyed, 
March 6, 1838, in the fire which broke out in Mr. (afterwards Justice) 
Maule's chambers. 

1 Stryfe, B. vi. p. 84. 



28 PAPER BUILDINGS 

Lord Campbell, when growing into practice, took chambers at 
No. 14 Paper Buildings : first floor, four excellent rooms, view up the river to 
Westminster Abbey, with the Surrey Hills in the distance, equally adapted for health 
and convenience, for pleasure and for business. The attorneys as they pass by will 
say : " Ah ! he is getting on. He must know something about it. We will try him." 
Campbell to his father, August 8, 1810 (Life, vol. i. p. 261). 

Lord (then Sir John) Campbell's chambers were immediately over 
Maule's, and everything he had in them was consumed. 

My chambers in Paper Buildings have been burned to the ground, and not an 
atom of anything belonging to me saved furniture, books, briefs, MSS., Attorney- 
General's official documents, letters, all consumed. . . . The fire broke out in 
Maule's chambers. . . . He had gone to bed leaving a candle burning by his 
bedside.- Life of Lord Campbell, vol. ii. p. 107. 

George Canning had chambers in Paper Buildings in 1792 when 
studying for the law and preparing for Parliament. Samuel Rogers 
lodged in Paper Buildings before removing to St. James's Place. Lord 
Ellenborough was the previous occupant of the chambers. 

I once dined in the chambers Mr. Rogers occupied in the Temple, before he took 
the house in St. James's Place. The dining-room was a large and cheerful one, on 
the ground-floor, in Paper Buildings, and commanded a fine view of the river. He 
had faced the window-shutters with looking-glass, so that from every part of the 
room there were to be seen views of the river, up and down. Atitob. Recollections, 
by C. R. Leslie, R.A., vol. i. p. 242. 

The buildings in the Elizabethan style towards the Thames were 
designed (1848) by Sydney Smirke, R.A., and recall " the bricky towers " 
of the temple of Spenser's Prothalamion, though among Templar wits 
they passed by the name of "Blotting-Paper Buildings." 

Papey (The), a house for poor and impotent priests, by London 
Wall, in Aldgate Ward. 

Then come you to the Papey, a proper house, wherein sometime was kept a 
fraternity or brotherhood of St. Charity and St. John the Evangelist called the 
,Papey, for poor impotent priests (for in some language priests are called papes), 
founded in the year 1430, by William Oliver, William Barnabie, and John Stafford, 
chaplains or chantry priests in London, for a master, two wardens, etc., chaplains, 
chantry priests, conducts (unendowed chaplains), and other brethren and sisters, that 
should be admitted into the church of St. Augustine Papey in the Wall. The 
brethren of this house becoming lame, or otherwise into great poverty, were here 
relieved, as to have chambers, with certain allowance of bread, drink, and coal, and 
one old man and his wife to see them served, and keep the house clean. This 
brotherhood, among others, was suppressed in the reign of Edward VI. ; since the 
which time, in this house hath been lodged Master Moris of Essex ; Sir Francis 
Walsingham, principal secretary to her Majesty ; Master Barret of Essex, etc. Stow, 
P- 55- 

Parade (The), in ST. JAMES'S PARK. The open space before the 
Horse Guards; part of the old Tilt Yard of Whitehall. [See Tilt 
Yard.] 

Paradise, HATTON GARDEN, an exhibition, popular in the latter 
part of the i yth century, in which by mechanical contrivances figures 
of birds and other animals imitated the movements and sounds natural 
to them. John Locke in his paper of directions for a friend visiting 



PARIS GARDEN 29 



England sets down "Paradise by Hatton Garden " as one of the places 
he should visit. 

September 23, 1673. I went to see Paradise, a room in Hatton Garden furnished 
with the representations of all sorts of animals handsomely painted on boards or cloth, 
and so cut out, and made to stand, move, fly, crawl, roar, and make their several 
cries. The man who showed it made us laugh heartily at his formal poetry. Evelyn. 

Pardon Church and Churchyard, on the north side of OLD 
ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 

There was also one great cloister, on the north side of this church, environing a 
plot of gronnd, of old time called Pardon Churchyard ; whereof Thomas More, Dean 
of Paules, was either the first builder, or a most especial benefactor, and was buried 
there. About this cloister was artificially and richly painted the Dance of Machabray, 
or Dance of Death, commonly called the Dance of Paul's. . . . The metres, or poetry 
of this dance, were translated out of French into English by John Lydgate, monk of 
Bury (1430), and with the picture of Death leading all estates, painted about the 
Cloister, at the special request and at the dispence of Jenken Carpenter, in the reign 
of Henry VI. In this cloister were buried many persons, some of worship, and 
others of honour ; the monuments of whom, in number and curious workmanship, 
passed all other that were in that church. Stow, p. 122. 

Over the east quadrant of the cloister was a "fair library," built by 
Walter Sherrington, and "well furnished with fair written books in 
vellum ; " but of these few were left when Stow wrote. In the midst 
of Pardon Churchyard was the fair chapel, " first founded by Gilbert 
Becket, portgrave and principal magistrate in this City in the reign 
of King Stephen," and father of the famous English St. Thomas. The 
chapel was rebuilt by Dean More in the reign of Henry V. "In the 
year 1549, on the roth of April," the chapel and the whole cloister, 
with the Dance of Death, the tombs and monuments, were begun to be 
pulled down by command of the Protector Somerset ; so that, says 
Stow, " nothing thereof was left but the bare plot of ground, which is 
since converted into a garden for the petty canons." x The materials 
were used by Somerset in building his new house in the Strand. 

There was also a Pardon Churchyard by the Charterhouse, formed 
by Ralph Stratford, Bishop of London, who on occasion of the great 
plague of 1348 "bought a piece of ground called No Man's Land, 
which he enclosed with a wall of brick and dedicated for burial of the 
dead," for whom there was not room in the churchyard. " In this plot 
of ground there was, in that year, more than 50,000 persons buried, as 
I have read in the charters of Edward the Third." The chapel built 
by the bishop was in Strype's day used as a dwelling, "and the 
burying plot is become a fair garden, retaining the old name of Pardon 
Churchyard." 2 As late as 1831 the memory of Pardon Churchyard 
was preserved in Pardon Passage and Pardon Court, St. John Street, 
Clerkenwell, " about a quarter of a mile on the right-hand side, going 
from Smithfield," 3 but these have since disappeared. 

Paris Garden, a manor or liberty west of the Clink on the Bank- 

1 Stow, p. 122 ; Dugdale, p. 132 ; Greyfriars' Chronicle, pp. 40, 58. 
2 Strype, B. iv. p. 62. 3 Elmes, p. 329. 



30 PARIS GARDEN 



side in Southwark. This manor was in 1113 given by Robert 
Marmion to the monastery of Bermondsey, whose property it remained 
till 1537, when -it was conveyed to Henry VIII. It was subsequently 
held, by Queen Jane Seymour, by Lord Hunsdon, and by Thomas 
Cure, founder of the almshouses in Southwark which bore his name. 
[See Cure's College.] It is almost if not quite identical with the parish 
of Christ Church. 

The private Act 22 and 23 Charles II. (1670-1671), c. 28, is an 
"Act for making the Manor of Paris Garden a parish, and to enable 
the parishioners of St. Saviour's, Southwark, to raise a Maintenance for 
Ministers and for repairs of their church." 

The earliest known name is Parish Garden, later on Parish or Paris 
Garden indifferently. Taylor the Water Poet gives a classical origin 
for the name : 

How it the name of Paris Garden gained 
The name it was from a Royall Boy, 
Brave Ilion's firebrand . . . 
From Paris, Paris Garden hath the name. 

The garden was covered with trees, and was full of hiding-places 
with the convenience of river-side landing-places. It was therefore a 
suitable place for plots and conspiracies. Mr. Recorder Fleetwood, 
writing to the Vice-Chamberlain, July 12, 1578, describes Paris Garden 
as notorious for secret meetings of foreign ambassadors and their agents, 
and mentions instances. On the previous night, he says, the French 
ambassador was discovered in the company of Sir Warham St. Leger and 
Sir William Morgan. When questioned they resisted. " The ambassador 
swore great oathes that he would do many things," but the watch told 
him plainly that " they knewe not his dignitie," and that he and his 
companions were " night walkers contrary to the law." l To Burghley 
Fleetwood writes the same day that he had endeavoured to get into 
St. Leger's house at Chandos Place, and afterwards went on to Paris 
Garden, but the place there is so dark with trees that one man cannot 
see another, "except they have lynceos oculos, or els cattes eys." He 
repeats what he wrote to the Vice-Chamberlain as to the secret meetings 
of the French ambassador with Sir Warham St. Leger and Sir William 
Morgan, and warns Burghley that Paris Garden "is the very bower of 
conspiracy." 2 In consequence Burghley took examinations in person 
regarding these meetings. 

; In 1657 it was in the hands of William Angell for building purposes ; 
much objected to by certain influential petitioners as excessive building 
and injurious to them. On appeal made to the Protector Cromwell he 
writes with his own hand, " We refer the petition to the consideration 
of our Counsell desiringe the petitioners may be speedilye heard there- 
upon," May 22, 1657. 

In 1670, when the Act was passed constituting the parish of 
Christ Church, three-fourths of it consisted of fields, the population a 

1 Cal. State PaJ., 1547-1580, p. 595. 2 Ibid., 1547-1580, p. 595. 



PARIS GARDEN THP2ATRE 31 

thousand or so. The parish of the same extent now contains 13,000 
people. 

Paris Garden Theatre. A circus in the manor of Paris Garden, 
in Southwark, erected for bull and bear baitings as early as the i;th of 
Henry VIII., when the Earl of Northumberland is said (in the 
Household Book of the family) to have gone to Paris Garden to behold 
the bear-baiting there. Ralph and Edward Bowes were successively 
Masters of the Game of Paris Garden in the reign of Elizabeth. 1 The 
office was subsequently held and the Paris Garden leased by Henslowe 
and Alleyn, and under their management (when plays were all popular 
in the reign of James I.) occasionally converted into a theatre. 

Tucca. Thou hast been in Paris Garden, hast not ? 

Horace. Yes, Captain, I ha' playd Zulziman there ? 

Dekker, The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet. 

March 20, 1611. Warrant to pay Phil: Henslow and Edw: Allen, Masters of 
the Game at Paris Garden, 42 IDS. and I2d. per diem in future for keeping two 
white bears and a young lion. Cal. State Pap., 1611-1618, p. 17. 

Sunday was the day of exhibition in the reigns of Henry VIII., 2 Mary 
and Elizabeth. John Bradford the martyr, preaching before Edward 
VI., showed 

The tokens of God's judgment at hand for the contempt of the Gospel, as that 
certain gentlemen upon the Sabbath day going in a wherry to Paris Garden, to the 
bear baiting, were drowned ; and that a dog was met at Ludgate carrying a piece of 
a dead child in his mouth. Two Notable Sermons, etc., 1574. 

A terrible accident which occurred on Sunday, January 13, 1583, 
gave occasion for much similar comment : 

On Sunday the stage at Paris Garden fell down all at ones, being full of people, 
beholding the bear baiting. Many being killed thereby, more hurt, and all amazed. 
The godly expownd it as a due plage of God for the wickedness there usid and the 
Sabbath dayes profanely spent. D'Ewes's Diary, p. 18. 

The names and addresses of many persons killed and hurt on this 
occasion are given in a rare black-letter volume entitled "J. Field's 
Godly Exhortation, by occasion of the late Judgment of God, shewed 
in Paris Garden, the 13 day of January, where were assembled above 1000 
persons, whereof some were slain, and one-third maimed and hurt, given 
to all estates for their instruction to keep the Sabbath Day " (8vo, 
Waldegrave, 1583). The Exhortation is dedicated to the Lord Mayor 
of London, the Recorder, Serjeant Fleetwood, etc. James I. prohibited 
performances on Sundays, and Henslowe and Alleyn represent their loss 
as very great in consequence. The sports not unfrequently were of 
a cruel character : on one occasion we hear of a pony baited with dogs 
with a monkey on his back ; and on another of a sport called " whipping 
the blind bear" tying a bear to a stake, and whipping him till the 
blood ran down his shoulders. Some of the bears were very famous. 
Harry Hunks is often referred to by our Elizabethan writers, and the 
name of Sackerson is known to every reader of The Merry Wives of 
Windsor. 

1 Malone's Shakespeare, by Boswcll, vol. iii. p. 844. 2 Strypz, B. iv. p. 6. 



32 PARIS GARDEN THEATRE 

Publius, student at the common law, 

Oft leaves his books, and for his recreation, 

To Paris Garden cloth himself withdraw, 

Where he is ravisht with such delectation, 

As down amongst the bears and dogs he goes, 

Where, whilst he skipping cries, "To Head ! To Head !" 

His satin doublet and his velvet hose, 

Are all with spittle from above be-spread : 

Then is he like his father's country hall, 

Stinking of dogges, and muted all with hawks. 

And rightly too on him this filth doth fall 

Which for such filthy sports his books forsakes, 

Leaving old Plowden, Dyer, and Brooke alone, 

To see old Harry Hunks and Sacarson. 

Sir John Davies's Epigrams (In Publitim}. 

The meat-boat of Bears'-college, Paris Garden, 
Stunk not so ill. 
Ben Jonson, Epigram, p. 133 ; and see his Execration upon Vulcan. 

How wonderfully is the world altered ! And no marvel, for it has lain sick almost 
five thousand years ; so that it is no more like the old Theatre du Monde than old 
Paris Garden is like the King's Garden at Paris. The Gull's Hornbook (1609), p. 8. 

Here [Paris Garden] come few that either regard their credit or loss of time : 
the swaggering Roarer, the Cunning Cheater, the rotten Bawd, the swearing Drunkard, 
and the bloody Butcher have their rendezvous here, and are of chief place and respect. 
London and the Country Carbonadoed, by T. Lupton, 1632, I2mo. 

Butler makes his " brave Orsin " to have been 
Bred up where discipline most rare is 
In Military Garden Paris. Htidibras, vol. i. p. 2, 1. 171. 

" Military Garden " refers to an association instituted by James I. for 
training soldiers, who used to practise in Paris Garden. 

The Bear Garden was closed by the Parliament at the beginning of 
1642, and five years later the ground was sold. It was, however, 
reopened after the Restoration, and though but partially successful, the 
performances were continued till 1687, when the bears were sent to 
Hockley-in-the-Hole, and the doors of Paris Garden Theatre finally 
closed. The name survived for many years in "Parish Garden Stairs." 

The Swan Theatre, built about 1596, was in Paris Garden [see 
Swan], and probably some of the references to the Paris Garden 
Theatre belong to it. 

Parish Clerks' Hall, No. 24 SILVER STREET, FALCON SQUARE, 
the hall of the master, wardens, and fellows of the fellowship of parish 
clerks "of London, Westminster, Borough of Southwark, and fifteen 
out-parishes." The Company was licensed as a guild in 1233, by the 
name of the Fraternity of St. Nicholas. It was dissolved and re- 
incorporated by patent 24th of Henry VIII. The actual charter was 
granted by James I., December 31, 1611. It directs that "each parish 
clerk shall bring to the Clerks' Hall weekly, a note of all christenings 
and burials," and that only such shall be admitted to be clerks as are 
" able to sing the Psalms of David, and to write." The direction as to 
the " note of all christenings and burials " had reference to the Bills (or 



PARK PLACE 33 



tables) of Mortality which the guild commenced keeping from the great 
plague year of 1593, and were issued as weekly bills from 1603, when 
London had a similar but heavier visitation. Charles I. in 1636 granted 
permission to the Parish Clerks to have a printing-press and employ a 
printer in their hall, for the purpose of printing their weekly bills. 

The first hall of the Fraternity was at the sign of the Angel in 
Bishopsgate, and by it was an almshouse for seven poor widows of 
deceased members. The second hall was in Broad Lane, in Vintry 
Ward, and was consumed in the Great Fire of 1666, when a third 
hall was erected between Silver Street and Wood Street, Cheapside ; 
this was damaged about 1844 in a fire which destroyed several great 
warehouses. It was restored or rebuilt in a more ornamental style, and 
a new entrance made in Silver Street. 

Park Crescent, REGENT'S PARK. Joseph Bonaparte, the ex-king 
of Spain, lived at No. 23 when in London in 1833. Here is a statue 
of the Duke of Kent (father of the Queen) by George Gahagan. 

Park Lane, HYDE PARK, runs from Piccadilly to Oxford Street, 
by where stood Tyburn Turnpike, and was originally called Tyburn 
Lane. Londonderry (formerly Holdernesse) House, the residence of 
the Marquis of Londonderry (S. and B. Wyatt, architects), is one of 
the finest of the London mansions, and contains many noble pictures 
and other works of art. In Dorchester House (bought in 1848 
by R. S. Holford, Esq., and pulled down) died the Marquis of Hert- 
ford, the favourite of George IV. The present Dorchester House, 
designed for Mr. Holford by Lewis Vulliamy, 1852-1853, is of superior 
design externally and very splendid inside. Besides many admirable 
pictures by Claude Lorraine, Velasquez, Hobbema, Cuyp, Ostade, 
Vandyck, Greuze, Wilkie (the Columbus), etc., it contains a choice 
collection of rare and valuable books. Dudley House, the residence of 
Earl Dudley, is another noble mansion rich in paintings by Raphael 
and the earlier Italian masters. Brook House, on the other side of 
Upper Brook Street (T. H. Wyatt, architect), is the residence of Lord 
Tweedmouth ; and Gloucester House of H. R. H. the Duke of Cam- 
bridge. Camelford House (at the Oxford Street end of the lane) was 
the town residence of Prince Leopold and the Princess Charlotte of 
Wales. Mrs. Fitzherbert lived in Park Lane, and it was in her drawing- 
room that the ceremony of her marriage with the Prince of Wales 
(George IV.) was performed, December 21, lySs. 1 

Park Place, ST. JAMES'S STREET. Built 1683.2 The north side 
is in the parish of St. George's, Hanover Square; the south in St. James' '5-, 
Westminster. The Countess of Orrery was one of the first inhabitants. 
No. 9 was Sir William Musgrave's, the great print-collector. William 
Pitt retired to No. 12 in 1801. "Old Coke of Norfolk" at No. 14. 
The "Mother Needham " of the Harlot's Progress the "Pious 
Needham " of the Dunciad? lived in Park Place. 

1 Langdale, Mem. of Mrs. Fitzherbert. ~ Rate-books of St. Martin's. 

3 See Duncidd, B. i. 1. 324 and note. 

VOL. Ill D 



34 PARK PLACE 



The noted Mother Needham, convicted (April 29, 1731) for keeping a disorderly 
house in Park Place, St. James's, was fined is., to stand twice in the Pillory, viz. 
once in St. James's Street over against the End of Park Place, and once in the New 
Palace Yard, Westminster, and to find sureties for her Good Behaviour for three 
years. Fog's Weekly Journal, Saturday, May I, 1731- 

Yesterday [May 6, 1731] the noted Mother Needham stood in the Pillory in 
Park Place, near St. James's Street, and was roughly handled by the populace. She 
was so very ill that she lay along on her face, and so evaded the law which requires 
that her face should be exposed. Grub Street Journal (Nichols's Hogarth, p. 190). 

She died before she could be exposed the second time. 

Park Street, BOROUGH. [See Deadman's Lane.] 

Park Street, GROSVENOR SQUARE, from South Street to Oxford 
Street. At No. 113 died (1827) Miss Lydia White, celebrated for 
her lively wit and for her blue-stocking parties, unrivalled, it is said, in 
the soft realm of blue May Fair. 

At one of Miss Lydia White's small and most agreeable dinners in Park Street, 
the company (most of them, except the hostess, being Whigs) were discussing in 
rather a querulous strain, the desperate prospects of their party. " Yes," said 
Sydney Smith, "we are in a most deplorable condition ; we must do something to 
help ourselves ; I think we had better sacrifice a tory virgin." This was pointedly 
addressed to Lydia White, who, at once catching and applying the allusion to 
Iphigenia, answered, " I believe there is nothing the whigs would not do to raise the 
wind." Rev. W. Harness to Rev. A. Dyce (Remains, p. 70, notes,}. 

November 13, 1826. Went to poor Lydia White's and found her extended on a 
couch, frightfully swelled, unable to stir, rouged, jesting and dying. She has a good 
heart, and is really a clever creature, but unhappily, or rather happily, she has set up 
the whole staff of her rest in keeping literary society about her. ' The world has not 
neglected her. She can always make up her circle, and generally has some people 
of real talent and distinction. Sir Walter Scott, Diary. 

Miss Nelly O'Brien, the original of three of Sir Joshua's most 
brilliant portraits, died here in 1768, when one of the three pictures, 
tradition says, was sold for three pounds, instead of the thousands 
it would now fetch. No. 123 was the residence of Richard Ford, 
author of the Handbook for Spain. Sir Humphry Davy lived at No. 
26 from 1825 until his death. Sir William Stirling Maxwell, M.P., lived 
for some years at No. 7. 

Park Street, WESTMINSTER, now with Queen Square renamed 
Queen Anne's Gate. Eminent Inhabitants. The learned Stillingfleet, 
Bishop of Worcester, died here March 27, 1699; the equally learned 
Dr. Bentley. Bentley was Stillingfleet's chaplain and was residing here 
with him (1690) when his first publication, the Epistle to Dr. Mill, saw 
the light. These continued to be his London quarters till the 
beginning of 1696, when he obtained apartments in St. James's Palace. 1 
William Windham, the statesman, was living at No. 5 in 1796. At 
No. 5 Miss Lydia White resided in 1814, and till her removal to Park 
Street, Grosvenor Square [which see]. At No. 6 William Smith, 
M.P. for Norwich, the champion of the Dissenters. His dinners were 
famous. On March 19, 1796, Samuel Rogers describes himself as 
meeting here Fox, Parr, Tierney, Mackintosh and Francis. "Sheridan 

1 Monk's Bentley, 410, p. 55. 



PARLIAMENT STREET 35 

sent an excuse." 1 "William Wordsworth, No. 6 Park Street, 
Westminster," appears on an autograph visiting card of about 1835. 
The Rev. H. F. Gary, the translator of Dante, went to live at No. 10 
in 1837, when he left the British Museum on the appointment of 
I'nni/zi as keeper of the printed books. No. 7 was the house of 
Charles Townley, collector of the Townley marbles, now in the 
British Museum; he died here January 3, 1805. Every room of Mr. 
Townley's house was filled with statues, bust, relievi, votive altars, 
sepulchral urns, inscriptions, and terra cottas ; his visitors comprised a 
large proportion of those eminent for their rank or attainments, and his 
Sunday dinners, " principally for professors of the Arts, when Sir Joshua 
Reynolds and Zoffany generally enlivened the circle," were in their way 
famous. A View of Mr. Townley's Gallery was one of Zoffany's most 
successful pictures. The house was afterwards the residence of Spring 
Rice (Lord Monteagle). "The late Royal Cockpit . . . remained a next- 
door nuisance to Mr. Townley for many years." 2 

Parker Street, DRURY LANE to LITTLE QUEEN STREET, formerly 
called Parker's Lane. Mr. Philip Parker had a house here in 1623. In 
1661 Mr. William Shelton purchased for .^458, IDS. certain tenements 
on the south side of this lane, described as having been " lately in 
possession of the Dutch Ambassador." Here he founded a school for 
fifty poor boys, which continued till 1763, when the funds were 
declared to be inadequate to its support and the school was closed. 
The funds were allowed to accumulate till 1815, when a new school 
house was erected in Lloyd's Court, and the charity revived after a 
slumber of fifty-two years. The schools are abolished, and the charity 
was amalgamated with others in 1886. 

Parker Street, PRINCES STREET, WESTMINSTER, was formerly called 
Benet Street, as the adjacent property belonged to Benet or Corpus 
Christi College, Cambridge. The old name was changed when a 
number of disorderly occupants were ejected about fifty years ago, 
and the new one was given in compliment to Archbishop Parker, who 
bequeathed his valuable library to Corpus Christi College. 

Parliament Stairs, the landing-place for OLD PALACE YARD. 
In the earliest maps the name is Old Palace Bridge. 

Parliament Street, WESTMINSTER, an open and important street, 
between Whitehall and the Houses of Parliament, made pursuant to 
29 George II., c. 38 (1756), previously to which King Street was the 
only highway between Whitehall and Westminster Abbey. The spies 
employed to watch Wilkes reported on November 12, 1762, that "he 
went to Woodfall's the printers at Charing Cross ; from thence to Mr. 
Churchill's in Parliament Street, but did not stay; from thence he 
went home to dinner." 3 The Right Hon. Henry Grattan was resident 
at No. 4 in 1807. [See King Street] 

1 Sharpe, p. 17 ; and see Dyce's Rogers, p. 81. 2 Smith s Nollekens, vol. i. pp. 256-267. 

3 Grcm'ille Papers, vol. ii. p. 160. 



36 PARSON'S COURT 



Parson's Court, BRIDE LANE, FLEET STREET. In 1657 the build- 
ings of brick betwixt the Inner Temple Lane and Hare Court were set ; 
and in 1662 those in Parson's Court, near the east end of the church. 1 

Before the Great Fire there was a parsonage house in Bride's Lane, long since 
leased out by the Church of Westminster, which hath the impropriation and 
parsonage. It is now divided into several tenements. That place is now called 
Parson's Court. Sttype (1720), B. iii. p. 267. 

Patent Office, 25 SOUTHAMPTON BUILDINGS, CHANCERY LANE. 
The terms Patent Office, Patent Bill Office, Great Seal Patent Office, 
have been applied at various periods to different offices connected with 
the Court of Chancery to denote one of the many offices through 
which letters patent under the Great Seal had to pass before the grant 
was complete. In 1852 the procedure in connection with grants of 
letters patent for inventions was greatly simplified, a body of Patent 
Commissioners being appointed, who were put into possession of 
the building erected in accordance with an Act of Parliament for build- 
ing an office for the Masters in Chancery (32 George III., c. 42, 1792), 
who were abolished in the year above mentioned. The Patent Law 
Amendment Act 1852, provided amongst other things that all the speci- 
fications of letters patent should be printed and published, and should 
be open to free inspection. This necessitated the formation of a 
library, and it occurred to the late Mr. Richard Prosser, of Birming- 
ham, who took a prominent part in the question of patent law reform, 
that a collection of scientific works would be a valuable adjunct to the 
printed specifications. Accordingly he placed at the disposal of the 
Commissioners of Patents a very large portion of his private library, 
which, with a smaller collection belonging to Mr. Bennet Woodcroft, 
for many years the energetic head of the office, formed the nucleus 
of what is now the finest library of scientific and technical works in 
the kingdom. It was first opened to the public in April 1855 in a 
very humble way, and for many years there were constant com- 
plaints of the want of proper accommodation for readers. Its value 
was at a very early period acknowledged by the Government, and an 
annual grant is voted by Parliament for its maintenance. At length 
a new storey was added to the building, a spacious reading-room being 
included in the design, but the library is rapidly growing. It is open 
free daily from 10 A.M. to 10 P.M., and for many years it enjoyed 
the distinction of being the only really free library in London. In 
1883 an Act was passed transferring the granting of patents to the 
Board of Trade, the registration of trademarks and designs being also 
added to the work of the Patent Office. Of late years the business of 
the office has increased enormously, the number of applications for 
patents amounting to nearly 20,000 annually. The Patent Office 
Museum consisted of a collection of historical relics and models 
connected with the history of invention, and was for many years located 
in one of the " Brompton Boilers," as the corrugated iron sheds which 

1 Origines Juridicales. 



PATERNOSTER ROW 37 

originally formed the South Kensington Museum were irreverently 
nicknamed. The collection was handed over to the Science and Art 
Department in 1883, and is now incorporated with the Science 
Collection. [See Science and Art Department] 

Samuel Pepys mentions in his Diary a " Patent Office in Chancery 
Lane" under date March 12, 1668-1669, which was probably at the 
Rolls Office. 

Paternoster Row, a narrow street immediately north of St. Paul's 
Churchyard, long inhabited by stationers, afterwards by mercers, and 
now chiefly by booksellers. It is familiarly known as The Row. Stow 
says (p. 126) : 

Paternoster Row so called, because of stationers or text writers that dwelt there, 
who wrote and sold all sorts of books then in use, namely A. B.C., with the Pater 
Noster, Ave, Creed, Graces, etc. 

Should you feel any touch of poetical glow 

We've a scheme to suggest ; Mr. Scott you must know, 

Who (we're sorry to say it) now works for " the Row." 

TOM MOORE. 

But Paternoster Row was so named in the i$th century, long 
before any stationer settled in it. There can be no doubt that it was 
called Paternoster Row, as Mr. Riley observes, " from its being the 
residence of the trade of Paternostrers, or makers of paternosters, or 
prayer-beads, for the use probably, more especially, of the worshippers 
at St. Paul's." 1 " Paternostrer " often occurs as a designation in City 
archives of the i3th and i4th centuries, and there is a record in 1374 
of a devise of his premises in Paternoster Row, by " Richard Russell, 
paternostrer." 

This street, before the Fire of London, was taken up by Eminent Mercers, 
Silkmen and Lacemen ; and their shops were so resorted unto by the nobility and 
gentry in their coaches, that oft times the street was so stop'd up that there was no 
passage for Foot Passengers. . But since the said Fire, those Eminent Tradesmen 
have settled themselves in several other parts ; especially in Covent Garden, in 
Bedford Street, Henrietta Street and King Street. And the inhabitants in this 
street are now [1720] a mixture of Trades People, and chiefly Tire- Women, for the 
sale of commodes, top-knots, and the like dressings for the females. There are also 
many shops of Mercers and Silkmen ; and at the upper end some stationers, and 
large Warehouses for Booksellers ; well situated for learned and studious men's 
access thither; being more retired and private. Strype, B. iii. p. 195. 

Let any man, whose years and strength of head will allow it, look back and 
recollect how things stood in London about fifty years ago, with respect to some 
particular trades, and compare it with what it is now ; and he will be struck with 
surprise at the changes made in the time. The mercers, particularly, were few in 
number but great dealers ; Paternoster Row was the centre of their trade ; the 
street was built for them ; the spacious shops, back-warehouses, skylights, and other 
conveniences, made on purpose for their trade are still to be seen : and their stocks 
were prodigiously great. The street was wont to be thronged with customers ; the 
coaches were obliged to stand in two rows, one side to go in, the other to go out, 
for there was no turning a coach in it ; and the mercers kept two beadles to keep 
the order of the street ; about fifty principal shops took up the whole ; the rest were 
dependents upon that trade, as about the middle of Ivy Lane, the lacemen ; about 

1 kiley, Memorials, vol. x.x. 



3 8 PATERNOSTER ROW 

the end of the street- next Cheapside, the button-shops ; and near at hand in 
Blowbladder Street, the crewel shops, silkmen, and fringe shops. They held it 
.here in this figure, about twenty years after the Fire ; and even in that line the 
number increasing as the gay humour came on, we saw outlying mercers set-up 
about Aldgate, the east-end of Lombard Street, and Covent Garden ; in a few years 
more Covent Garden began to get a name, and at length, by degrees, intercepted 
the quality so much, the streets also being large and commodious for coaches, 
that the Court came no more into the City to buy clothes ; but on the contrary 
the Citizens ran to the east and west ; Paternoster Row began to be deserted 
and abandoned of its trade ; and in less than two years the mercers had well 
nigh forsook the place, to follow the trade, seeing that the trade would not follow 
them. . . . The Paternoster mercers, as I remember, went all away to Covent 
Garden ; and there for some years was the centre of trade. . . . Within about ten 
years more the trade shifted again ; Covent Garden began to decline, and the 
mercers, increasing prodigiously, went back into the City ; there, like bees unhived, 
they hovered about awhile, not knowing where to fix ; but at last, as if they would 
come back to the old hive in Paternoster Row, but could not be admitted, the 
swarm settled on Ludgate Hill. Defoe's Complete Tradesman (i745) chap. li. 

November 21, 1660. My wife and I went to Paternoster Row, and there we 
bought some green watered moyre for a morning waistcoat. Pepys. 

May 17, 1662. After dinner my Lady [Sandwich] and she [Mrs. Sanderson], 
and I on foot to Paternoster Row, to buy a petticoat against the Queen's coming for 
my lady, of plain satin. Pepys. 

January 8, 1665-1666. To Bennett's in Paternoster Row, few shops there 
being yet open [after the plague], and there bought velvet for a coat, and camelott 
for a cloak for myself ; and thence to a place to look over some fine counterfeit 
damasks to hang my wife's closet, and pitched upon one. Pepys. 

Pepys records other visits, but even then there were other traders 
than mercers there, for on one occasion he notes how, "seeing and 
saluting Mrs. Stokes, my little goldsmith's wife in Paternoster Row," he 
"there bespoke a silver chafing-dish for warming plates." 

Here in 1757 lived Griffiths the bookseller, when he took in 
Goldsmith to bed and board, and to write criticisms for his Monthly 
Review. In a garret here Goldsmith wrote reviews of Home's Douglas, 
Wilkie's Epigoniad, Smollett's History, Burke's Sublime and Beautiful, 
and Gray's Odes. Griffiths's sign was the Dunciad, and Smollett speaks 
of " those significant emblems, the owl and long-eared animal, which 
Mr. Griffiths so sagely displays for the mirth and information of 
mankind." The Letters of Junius were addressed to " Mr. Printer 
Woodfall in Paternoster Row." The house was at the corner of Ivy 
Lane, the office door, at which the Junius letters were sometimes 
thrown in, was in the latter street. The Woodfalls afterwards removed 
into Salisbury Square. Near where Dolly's Chop House afterwards 
stood, Tarlton (d. 1588), the celebrated clown of Queen Elizabeth's 
reign, kept an ordinary called The Castle. 1 The house was destroyed 
in the Great Fire, and rebuilt on a larger scale ; the great room, which 
was decorated in an expensive manner, being used for the concerts of 
the Castle Musical Society. Later the Castle was closed and the great 
room became the Oxford Bible warehouse. It was again burnt down, 
January 8, 1770. [See Dolly's Chop House; Chapter Coffee-house.] 
In Paternoster Row lived Mrs. Anne Turner, the inventor of yellow 

1 Tarlton s Jests, by Halliwell, p. 21. 



ST. PAUL'S 39 

starch, and a principal in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury. 1 The 
famous booksellers Awnsham and John Churchill were located at the 
Black Swan in this Row in 1700. Nos. 38-41 are the premises of 
Messrs. Longman and Co., the eminent publishers. Thomas Longman, 
the founder of the house, died June 1 8, 1755. An edition ot Rowe's 
Dramatic Works, 2 vols., 121110, 1725^ was printed for T. Longman, at 
the Ship and Black Swan, 1725. The present handsome building 
(Griffith and Dawson, architects) was erected in 1863. Observe. The 
carvings of the Ship and Black Swan, the old sign of the house. No. 
47 is Messrs. Chambers's publishing house and warehouse. This was 
formerly Baldwin and Cradock's. It was here, by " R. Baldwin at the 
Rose in Paternoster Row," that Smollett's Critical Review was 
originally published. No. 56, a spacious recent building, is the 
Religious Tract Society. 

Paternoster Square occupies the site of Newgate Market, which 
see. 

Patten-Makers Company, the seventy-sixth in order of the City 
Companies, was incorporated by letters patent of 22 Charles II. 
(1670). The Company have a small livery but no hall. 

Paulet House. [See Winchester Street.] 

Paul's (St.), the Old Cathedral of London, destroyed in the 
Great Fire, was begun to be built by Bishop Maurice, A.D. 1087, on 
the site of a church to the same saint, founded about A.D. 610, by 
Ethelbert, King of Kent, of which church Mellitus was the first, and 
Erkenwald (whose shrine stood at the back of the high altar) the fourth 
bishop. According to a tradition of the time the first church was 
erected on the site of a temple dedicated to Diana. Bishop Maurice's 
cathedral was built in part from the ruins of the Palatine Tower, or 
castle, which stood by the Fleet river, where afterwards was placed the 
monastery of the Black Friars. The ruins of the Palatine Tower were 
the Conqueror's contribution towards the cost of the new cathedral. 
The progress of the works was necessarily slow, and the church was 
far from being completed when, 1136, it was seriously damaged 
(Mathew Paris says destroyed) by fire. When resumed the works 
appear to have been continually carried forward, but in their progress 
great alterations were made in the scale and character of the several 
parts. The steeple is reported as finished in 1221, and a new choir 
in a similar style in 1240; then again it was lengthened eastward in 
1255, and "nearly completed" in 1283, nearly two centuries after 
its commencement. It exhibited therefore examples of the Norman, 
of the whole period of the Early English, and of the opening years of 
the Decorated style. Subsequent repairs and additions carried it 
through the whole of the Decorated and Perpendicular periods, but the 
portions executed in these latter styles were unimportant : essentially 
the church was Norman, Early English and Early Decorated. The 

1 D'Ewes's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 71. 



40 ST. PAUL'S 

dimensions, according to the careful investigations of Mr. E. B. Ferrey, 1 
were, length, from east to west, 596 feet; breadth, 104 feet; height to 
outer ridge of nave roof, 130 feet; of choir, 142 feet; internal height 
to ridge of vaulting of nave, 93 feet; of choir, 101 feet; Lady Chapel, 
height of tower, 285 feet; of spire, 208 feet. Dugdale, following Stow, 
makes the total length 690 feet, and in breadth 130. There was a 
Lady Chapel at the east end, with a chapel on the north of it, dedicated 
to St. George, and one on the south, dedicated to St. Dunstan. In 
the crypt below the choir was the parish church of St. Faith, and at 
the Ludgate corner (towards the Thames) the parish church of St. 
Gregory. " St. Paul's," says Fuller, " may be called the mother church 
indeed, having one babe in her body [St. FaitJi\ and another in her 
arms [St. Gregory]." The nave of twelve bays was very long and very 
noble, the central tower appears to have been open as a lantern 
internally, the choir windows of unusual length and height, and at the 
east was a rich circular window. At the west end were two massive 
angle towers " made for bell towers," 2 but used also as prisons. On 
the west side of the south transept were small cloisters, in which was 
painted the celebrated Dance of Death, and in the centre of the cloister 
garth was the Chapter House, built in 1332, " a beautiful piece of work," 
as Stow says, but small, its internal diameter being only 3 2 feet 6 inches. 
Next the cloisters was a charnel-house, with a chapel over it. [See 
Pardon Churchyard.] The church of St. Gregory was at the south- 
west angle of the cathedral. The bishop's palace was at the north-west 
corner of the churchyard. At the north-east end of the cathedral, 
" about the midst of the churchyard," 3 stood the celebrated Cross of 
St. Paul's, from which sermons were regularly preached and occasionally 
political addresses delivered. The cathedral and precincts were en- 
compassed by a stone wall, in which for entrance and exit were six 
gate-houses. [See St. Paul's Cross ; St. Paul's Churchyard.] 

Old St. Paul's was so severely injured by fire in 1561 that it was 
necessary to take the steeple down and roof the church anew with 
boards and lead. Several attempts were made to restore it, and money 
for the new building of the steeple was, it is said, collected. 4 James I. 
countenanced a sermon at Paul's Cross in favour of so pious an 
undertaking, but nothing was done till 1633, when reparations com- 
menced with some activity, and Inigo Jones designed, at the expense 
of Charles I., a classic portico to a Gothic church. This portico (of 
itself a noble structure) was 200 feet long, 40 feet high, and 50 feet 
deep. It was without a pediment, Inigo intending to have it surmounted 
by ten statues of kings, benefactors to the church. 5 Charles designed 
to have built the church anew (of which Inigo's portico was only an 
instalment), but his thoughts were soon drawn in another direction, and 
Old St. Paul's, under Cromwell, was made a horse- quarter for soldiers. 

1 Longman's Three Cathedrals of St. Paul, 4 Stow, p. 124. 

p. 29, etc. 5 There is a large engraving of it by H. 

2 Stow, p. 138. Hulsbergh, executed at the expense of the Earl 

3 lbid.,\>. 123. of Burlington. 



ST. rAUL's 4 i 



The Restoration witnessed another attempt to restore the church a 
commission was appointed and a subscription opened, 1 but before a 
sufficient fund was raised the whole structure was destroyed in the 
Fire of London. 

The daring (lames pcep'd in, and saw from far 

The awful beauties of the sacred quire : 

Hut since it was profan'd by Civil War, 

Heaven thought it fit to have it purg'd by fire. DRYDEN. 

On the north side of the choir, " on whose monument hung his 
proper helmet and spear, as also his target, covered with horn," 2 stood 
the stately tomb of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (d. 1399), with 
recumbent effigies of the old knight and of Constance of Castile, his 
second wife. In St. Dunstan's Chapel was the fine old tomb of 
Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln (d. 1310), from whom Lincoln's Inn 
derives its name. In the middle aisle of the nave, on the right 
hand, approaching the altar, stood the tomb of Sir John Beauchamp, 
(d. 1358), constable of Dover Castle, and son to Guy Beauchamp, 
Earl of Warwick. This Sir John Beauchamp lived in great state in 
the ward of Castle Baynard, and his house after his death was bought 
by Edward III., for the purposes of the royal wardrobe. [See Wardrobe 
Place.] His tomb was commonly called Duke Humphrey's Tomb, 
and the nave of the church, from this circumstance, Duke Humphrey's 
Walk. At the upper end of the nave was the mortuary chapel of 
Thomas Kemp, Bishop of London, who built Paul's Cross pulpit, and 
here and elsewhere in the nave and choir were monuments of various 
degrees of richness the tombs of many other bishops of London. 3 
Between the choir and south aisle was a noble monument to Sir 
Nicholas Bacon (d. 1578), the father of Lord Chancellor Bacon ; and 
higher than the host and altar for so Bishop Corbet describes it 
Nor needs the Chancellor boast whose pyramids 
Above the host and altar reared is Bishop Corbet, p. 8. 

Hentzner (1598) calls it a "magnificent monument, ornamented with 
pyramids of marble and alabaster." Here stood (between two of the 
columns of the choir) the sumptuous monument of Sir Christopher 
Hatton, Lord Chancellor (d. 1591). Near Hatton's tomb was a tablet to 
Sir Philip Sydney, and another of the same unpretending description 
to his father-in-law, Sir Francis Walsingham. The stately appearance 
of Hatton's monument, and the humble nature of Walsingham's and 
Sidney's, occasioned the following epigram, of which, by the bye, John 
Stow was himself the author : 

Philip and Francis have no tomb, 

For great Christopher takes all the room. 

In the south aisle of the choir stood the tombs of two of the deans 
Colet, founder of St. Paul's School, and Dr. Donne, the poet Colet 

o 1 arL ^?' i 941 : . Comm [ ssion dated A P ril 2 Dngdale, ed. ,658, p. 47. 
18, 1003. All subscriptions to be paid to Sir John 

Cutler ("His Grace's fate sage Cutler could 3 Milman, Annals of St. Pants Cathedral, p. 

foresee "). 3?6- 



42 ST. PAUL'S 

represented as a recumbent skeleton, Donne standing in his shroud. 
Dean Nowell, who played so prominent a part in the controversies 
throughout the reign of Elizabeth, was also buried here. So also were 
Lily, the grammarian, the second master of St. Paul's School, and 
Linacre the physician, " the friend of Colet and Erasmus." Here, too, 
in a vault on the north side of the choir, near the tomb of John of 
Gaunt, was Vandyck buried (d. 1641); but the outbreak of the wars 
under Charles I. prevented the erection of any monument to his 
memory. 

The " Pervyse of Paul's," or the middle aisle of the church, commonly 
called " Duke Humphrey's Walk " or " Paul's Walk " (a piece of naked 
architecture, unenriched by any other piece of sculpture than the 
so-called Duke Humphrey's tomb), was for a century and more (1550 
to 1650) the common news-room of London, the resort of the wits 
and gallants about town. 

It was the fashion of those times, and did so continue till these, for the principal 
gentry, lords and courtiers, and men of all professions not merely mechanic, to meet 
in St. Paul's Church by eleven, and walk in the Middle Aisle till twelve ; and after 
dinner from three to six ; during which time some discoursed of business, others of 
news. Now, in regard of the universal commerce there happened little that did not 
first or last arrive here. And I being young did associate myself at those hours with 
the choicest company I could pick out. Works of Francis Osborn, ed. 1701, p. 403. 

Here lawyers stood at their pillars (like merchants on 'Change) and 
received their clients. 1 Here masterless men, at the Si gut's door, as it 
was called, set up their bills for service. 2 Here the rood loft, tombs 
and font were used as counters for payments. 

If A pay B on the feast of St. Michael the Archangel next coming, in the 
Cathedral Church of St. Paul's in London ... at the rood loft of the rood of the 
north door within the same church ; or tomb of St. Erkenwald ; or at the door of 
such a chapel, or at such a pillar within the same church, etc. Littleton's Tenures, 
B. iii. c. v. 342. 

Here Falstaff bought Bardolph (" I bought him in. Paul's "). Here 
the young gallant took " four turns," as Dekker prescribes, and gratified 
his vanity by strutting about in the most fashionable attire. Here 
assignations were made. 

Mrs. Honeysuckle. I'll come. The hour ? 

Justiniamis. Two : the way through Paul's ; every wench take a pillar ; there 

1 "There is a tradition that in times past there p. 142. "The xvij day of October [1552] was 

was one Inne of Court at Dowgate, called made vii. serjants of the coyffe : and after dener 

Johnson's Inn ; another in Fetter Lane ; and they went unto Powlls and so went up the stepes 

another in Paternoster Row : which last they and so round the qwere and ther dyd they ther 

would prove because it was next to St. Paul's homage, and so [to] the north-syd of Powlles and 

Church where each Lawyer and Serjeant at his stod a-pone the stepes ontil iiij old serjantes came 

Pillar heard his client's cause, and took notes to-gether and feytchyd iiij [new] and brought 

thereof upon his knee as they do in Guildhall at them unto certen pelers and left them, and then 

this day. And that after the Serjeants' Feast did feyched the residue unto the pelers." Diary 

ended they do still go to Paul's in their habits, of a Resident in London, 410, 1848, p. 26. 

and there choose their Pillar whereat to hear their 2 Pierce Penniless, p. 42. Every Man out of 

client's cause (if any come) in memory of that his Humour, Act iii. Sc. i. Hall's Satires, B. 

old custom." Dugdale's Orig. Jurid., ed. 1680, ii. Sat. 5. 



ST. /'A i 43 

t-hip on your masks : your men will be behind you ; and before your prayers are half 
done be before you, and man you out at several doors. You'll be there. Westward 
//. (410, 1607), Act ii. Sc. I ; and see Act ii. Sc. 2. 

Here the penniless man dined with Duke Humphrey. Here spur 
money was demanded by the choristers from any person entering the 
cathedral during divine service with spurs on. 

Never be seen to mount the steps into the quire, but upon a high festival day, to 
prefer the fashion of your doublet ; and especially if the singing-boys seem to take 
note of you ; for they are able to buzz your praises above their anthems, if their 
voices have not lost their maidenheads : but be sure your silver spurs dog your heels, 
and then the boys will swarm about you like so many white butterflies ; when you 
in the open quire shall draw forth a perfumed embroidered purse, the glorious sight 
of which will entice many countrymen from their devotion to wondering : and quoit 
silver into the boys' hands, that it may be heard above the first lesson, although it be 
read in a voice as big as one of the great organs. Dekker, Gulfs Horn-book, pp. 99, 
100. 

Hither Fleetwood, the Recorder of London, came " to learn some 
news " to convey by letter to Lord Burghley. Here Ben Jonson has 
laid a scene in Every Man out of Ms Humour, and here he found his 
Captain Bobadil, "a Paul's man," as he is called in the dramatis 
personce before Every Man in his Humour. The noise was very great, 
and Inigo Jones's portico was built, says Dugdale, 1 "as an ambulatory 
for such as usually walking in the body of the church disturbed the 
solemn service in the choir." All this was unseemly enough in a place 
set apart for public worship, but the nuisance was formerly of a still 
greater magnitude. From the Reformation to the ist and 2d of 
Philip and Mary, the nave was a common thoroughfare for people 
with vessels of ale and beer, baskets of bread, fish, flesh, and fruit, men 
leading mules, horses, and other beasts. So great, indeed, would the 
nuisance appear to have become, that the Mayor and Common Council, 
on and after August i, 1554, prohibited the use of the church for such 
" unreverent " purposes, and inflicted a succession of fines on all who 
should offend in future. 2 

The old cathedral suffered more "unreverent" treatment under 
the Commonwealth. The work of reparation was at once stopped, and 
the funds which had been subscribed for the purpose, over ^17,000, 
seized and appropriated to other uses. The order for the removal of 
.crucified and superstitious images from churches was followed by a 
destructive clearance of the interior of St. Paul's, and in 1650 a special 
order was issued for casting down the statues of James I. and Charles 
I. from Inigo Jones's portico. 

That the statues of King James and the late King, standing now at the west end 
of Paule's bee throwne downe, and broken to pieces, and the inscription in the stone 
worke under them be deleted ; And that a letter bee written to the Lord Mayor and 
Court of Aldermen to see this putt in execution. Orders of Council of State, July 31, 
1650. 

To utilise the now disused cathedral the porch was let for conversion 
into shops for sempstresses and hucksters and other mean traders the 

1 l-'.d. 1658, p. 160. - Strype's Lond., B. iii. p. 169. 



44 ST. PAUL'S 

east end of the choir was appropriated as a meeting-house for the 
congregation of Dr. Burgess ; and the rest of the church was made 
into a cavalry barrack, the horses being stabled within the sacred 
edifice. 

The Saints in Pauls were the last weeke teaching their Horses to ride up the 
great Steps that lead into the Quire, where (as they derided) they might perhaps 
learne to Chaunt an Antheme ; but one of them fell, and broke both his Leg and the 
Neck of his Rider, which hath spoiled his Chanting, for he was buried on Saturday 
night last. A }ust Judgement of God on such a prophane and Sacrilegious wretch. 
Mcrcurius Elencticus, from Tuesday, January 2, till Tuesday, January 9, 1648. 

With the restoration of monarchy came the resolve to restore the 
ruined cathedral. Much was done in the way of discussion, but no 
real progress was made till Wren was called in, and he after a careful 
survey proposed such extensive alterations in the fabric including the 
formation of a spacious central rotunda, " a very proper place for a 
large auditory," to be covered with "a cupola, and then end in a 
lantern," that the debates were renewed and continued till the Great 
Fire put an end to the discussion b'y the destruction of the building. 
The fire broke out on September 2, 1666. On the 7th Pepys 
"saw all the town burned;" and had "a miserable sight of Paul's 
church, with all the roofs fallen, and the body of the choir fallen into 
St. Faith's." With the church perished all the monuments. The 
tower and as much of the walls as withstood the fire were removed by 
Wren to make way for the cathedral which "rose, phoenix-like," out of 
the ashes of the old. The architectural arrangement of this celebrated 
church has been preserved to us by the joint labours of Dugdale and 
Hollar. Hollar's drawings were made in September 1641, and 
Dugdale's book, for which they were engraved, was first published in 
1658. These engravings and descriptions, and all other available 
sources of information, have been carefully collated, and the results 
presented in a clear and compact form and illustrated with many 
excellent engravings in Mr. William Longman's History of the Three 
Cathedrals Dedicated to St. Paul (1873), while the general history of 
the cathedrals is treated with a masterly hand in the Annals of St. 
Paul's Cathedral, by the late Dean of St. Paul's, the Rev. Henry Hart 
Milman, D.D. In these two volumes will be found ample and trust- 
worthy information on all matters relating to the old and the present 
cathedrals. Dr. Sparrow Simpson's volumes on Old St. Paul's may be 
consulted with advantage. There is an incident connected with Old 
St. Paul's, remarkable in itself, but made still more so by the many 
celebrated writers who allude to it. In the year 1600 "a middle- 
sized bay English gelding," the property of Bankes, a servant to the 
Earl of Essex, and a vintner in Cheapside, ascended to the top of 
St. Paul's, to the delight, it is said by Dekker, of a "number of asses," 
who brayed below. Bankes had taught his horse, which went by 
the name of Marocco, to count and perform a variety of feats. 
" Certainly," says Walter Raleigh in his History, " if Bankes had 



ST. PAUDS CATHEDK.U 45 

lived in elder times he would have shamed all the enchanters of 
the world ; for whosoever was most famous among them could never 
master or instruct any beast as he did his horse." When the 
novelty had somewhat lessened in London, Bankes took his wonderful 
beast first to Paris and afterwards to Rome. He had better have 
stayed at home, for both he and his horse (which was shod with 
silver) were burnt for witchcraft. 1 Shakespeare alludes to " the 
dancing horse ; " 2 and in a tract called " Maroccus Extaticus," 410, 
1595, there is a rude woodcut of the unfortunate juggler and his 
famous gelding. 

Paul's (St.) Cathedral. After the almost entire destruction of Old 
St. Paul's Cathedral in the Great Fire of 1666, Dr. Christopher Wren 
was called upon to survey and report upon its condition. There was 
a strong desire on the part of the authorities to restore the old building, 
but Wren pronounced the remaining walls unsafe, and recommended 
their removal with a view to the construction of a new cathedral. A 
committee was appointed, who decided against Wren's advice to attempt 
to patch up the old walls, and with the result he had predicted. 
Writing to Wren, April 25, 1668, Dean Sancroft says: "What you 
whispered in my ear at your last coming hither is come to pass. Our 
work at the west end of St. Paul's is fallen about our ears." On July 
25 a royal warrant was issued for taking down the walls, removing the 
tower and choir, and clearing the ground to the foundation of the east 
end, with a view to the construction of a new choir for temporary use, 
and which might ultimately form part of a new cathedral. At Dean 
Sancroft's request Wren prepared a design for a cathedral, "a plan 
handsome and noble," which was approved by the King but objected to 
by the Chapter as "not sufficiently of a cathedral form." This is the 
design of which the model exists in the South Kensington Museum. 
In plan it is a Greek cross, with a spacious circular auditory at the 
intersection of the arms, surmounted by a dome, and at the west end 
a stately portico. This form Wren conceived would combine the 
most convenient for the Protestant ritual and service with grandeur of 
architectural effect ; but the clergy insisted that the form should be 
that of a Latin cross, and that there should be both nave and aisles, and 
also a lofty spire. Wren therefore produced another design, in which 
the nave was lengthened and a curious spire placed upon the dome. 
This was accepted, and on May 14, 1675, a r y a ^ warrant was issued 
appointing Wren the architect, and authorising him to begin the work, 
"with the east end or quire," according to the design, " because we found 
it very artificial, proper, and useful." Happily, however, a clause gave 
the architect "liberty in the prosecution of his work to make some 
variations rather ornamental than essential, as from time to time he 
should see proper," and Wren went beyond his license in his " varia- 
tions," for he produced what was in fact an entirely different and 
infinitely superior design. The ground was already begun to be 

1 Ben Jonson's Epigrams, No. cxxxiii. z Love's Labour's Lost. 



46 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL 

cleared, and the first stone of the new building was laid, June 21, 1675. 
Divine service was performed for the first time, December 2, 1697, 
on the day of thanksgiving for the peace of Ryswick. The King 
was present ; the civic authorities attended in full state ; and Bishop 
Burnet preached the sermon. The last stone was laid in 1710, thirty- 
five years after the first. It is frequently stated that the whole 
cathedral was begun and completed under one architect, Sir Christopher 
Wren ; one master mason, Mr. Thomas Strong ; and while one bishop, 
Dr. Henry Compton, presided over the diocese ; but the latter part of 
the statement is not correct. Dr. Hinchman was bishop when the first 
stone was laid, and died the same year. Dr. Compton succeeded and 
was alive at the completion. Thomas Strong, mason, laid the founda- 
tion stone, June 21, 1675, an d, dying 1681, was succeeded by his 
brother Edward, who continued and completed the work. The total 
cost of the building was ,747,661 : ios., which, with the exception of 
^"68,341 in subscriptions, arrears of impropriations, and small sums 
coming under the head of royal gifts, fines, and forfeitures, and the 
sale of old materials, was defrayed by a tax on every chaldron of coal 
brought into the port of London, and the cathedral, it is said, deserves 
to wear, as it does, a smoky coat in consequence. 

Exterior. The general form or ground-plan is that of a Latin 
cross, with lateral projections at the west end of the nave, which give 
width and importance to the west front. Length from east to west, 
including the portico, 500 feet; breadth of the nave, 118 feet; across 
the transepts, 250 feet; at west end, including the Morning Chapel 
and that which contains the Wellington Monument, 190 feet ; campanile 
towers at the west end, each 222 feet in height ; and the height of the 
whole structure, from the pavement in the street to top of the cross, 
404 feet. The outer diameter of the dome is 145 feet, the inner 108 
feet. The outer dome is of wood, covered with lead, and does not 
support the lantern on the top, which rests on a cone of brick raised 
between the inner cupola and outer dome. The course of balustrade 
at the top was forced on Wren by the Commissioners for the building. 
"I never designed a balustrade," he says; "ladies think nothing well 
without an edging." The heavy railing was also erected in opposition 
to his opinion. The sculpture on the entablature (the Conversion of 
St. Paul), the statues on the pediment (St. Paul, with St. Peter and 
St. James on either side), and the unfortunate statue of Queen Anne, 
in front of the building, with the four figures at the angles, were all 
by F. Bird. The statue of Queen Anne was taken away and a copy 
set up in 1886. The phoenix over the south door was the work of 
Gibber. The heavy iron railing, of more than 2500 palisades, against 
which Wren protested, was cast at Lamberhurst, in Kent, at a cost of 
;n,202 : o : 6, and encloses upwards of 2 acres of ground. It is a 
good example of cast-iron work, but its removal from the west end of 
the cathedral in 1873 has shown the soundness of Wren's objection to 
its erection. Owing to the undue proximity of houses no good near 



57: PAUL'S CATHEDRAL 47 

view of the cathedral as a whole is to be had. The best distant view 
is from the Thames, just below Blackfriars Bridge. An excellent view 
of it, on the whole the best obtainable, was from the bridge itself, but 
this was destroyed by the erection of the ugly railway viaduct, and the 
lofty river-side granaries and warehouses. Observe. From Ludgate 
Hill the magnificent effect of the west front, with the dome rising above 
it ; the double portico and grand flanking campaniles at the west end ; 
the beautiful semicircular porticoes, north and south ; the use of two 
orders of architecture (Composite above, Corinthian below) ; the 
exquisite outline of the dome and lantern ; and the general breadth and 
harmony of the whole building. The circular columns at the base of 
the stone gallery are, it is said, too tall for the length of the pilasters 
in the body of the building, but they are certainly not too tall for the 
place they occupy. The acute observer will not fail to notice that the 
north and south walls are carried up exteriorly to the height of the 
nave roof, but on entering the cathedral it will be immediately seen 
that the height of the aisles bears about the same proportion to the 
height of the nave as is usual in Gothic edifices. On ascending the 
clock tower and looking towards the dome the spectator will see that 
the upper portion of. the wall is a mere screen to hide the flying 
buttresses constructed to resist the thrust of the nave roof. These 
buttresses are also apparent in the corridor leading to the clock and 
bells. 

Interior. The cupola, with the paintings upon it, is of brick, two 
bricks thick, with stone bandings at every rise of 5 feet, and a girdle 
of Portland stone at the base, containing a double chain of iron strongly 
linked together at every 10 feet, and weighing 95 cwts. 3 qrs. 23 Ibs. 
Wren had the inside all painted one colour to get rid of the diversity 
of coloured stones. The paint has now been cleaned off, and the 
colours are painfully apparent. A defect of the interior was forced on 
the architect by the Duke of York, afterwards James II. 

The side oratories at St. Paul's were added to Sir Christopher Wren's original 
design, by order of the Duke of York [afterwards James II.], who was willing to 
have them ready for the popish service, when there should be occasion. It narrowed 
the building, and broke in very much upon the beauty of the design. Sir Christopher 
insisted so strongly on the prejudice they would be of, that he actually shed some 
tears in speaking of it ; but it was all in vain. The Duke absolutely insisted upon 
their being inserted and he was obliged to comply. Mr. Harding, in Spence's 
Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 256. 

The paintings, eight in number (by Sir James Thornhill), represent the 
principal events in the life of St. Paul. They were never worth much, 
and the little interest that attached to them as Thornhill's works was 
destroyed when they were repainted in 1853. Wren was opposed 
from the first to painting the cupola with these heavy masses of 
monochrome. It was his wish to have decorated the cupola with the 
more durable ornament of mosaic work, but in this he was overruled. 
Observe. In the choir the beautiful foliage, carved by Grinling 
Gibbons, and the inscription to Wren, originally over the entrance 



48 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL 

to the choir, but now on the inner porch of the north transept, ending 
with the line, " Si monumentum requiris, circumspice." It was first set 
up by Robert Mylne, architect to the Cathedral. The organ (1694) 
was constructed by Bernard Schmydt, the successful candidate against 
Harris at the Temple. It originally stood on the screen at the entrance 
to the choir, but is now divided and placed on each side over the 
stalls. The rails of the golden gallery were gilt at the expense of the 
Earl of Lanesborough, the "sober Lanesborough dancing with the 
gout " of Pope. 

The chief monuments in the Cathedral are as follows : Statue of 
John Howard, the philanthropist, by Bacon, R.A. (cost 1300 guineas, 
and was the first monument erected in St. Paul's) ; statue of Dr. 
Johnson, by Bacon, R.A. ; statue of Sir Joshua Reynolds, by Flaxman, 
R.A. ; Turner, our greatest landscape painter, by Baily, R.A. ; kneeling 
figure of Bishop Heber, by Chantrey, R.A. ; monument to Nelson, by 
Flaxman, R.A. (the hero's lost arm concealed by the Union Jack of 
England); monument to Lord Cornwallis, opposite, by Rossi, R.A. (the 
Indian river-gods much admired) ; monument to Sir Ralph Abercrombie, 
by Sir R. Westmacott, R.A. ; General Sir Charles Napier, the conqueror 
of Scinde, and not far from him his brother Sir William, the author of 
the History of the Peninsular War ; Sir Henry Lawrence, of Lucknow 
fame ; Lord Melbourne the minister, and his brother the diplomatist, by 
Baron Marochetti ; and Hallam the historian ; monument to Sir John 
Moore, who fell at Corunna (Marshal Sotilt stood before this monument 
and wept) ; statue of Lord Heathfield, the gallant defender of Gibraltar ; 
monuments to Howe and Rodney, two of our great naval heroes ; 
monument to Nelson's favourite, the brave and pious Lord Colling- 
wood ; statue of Earl St Vincent, the hero of the battle of Cape St. 
Vincent; Lord Duncan, the victor of Camperdown, and Captain 
Burges, who fell in that fight ; Captain Mosse and " the gallant good 
Riou," who fell at Copenhagen, and many other of our naval heroes ; 
monuments to Picton and Ponsonby, who fell at Waterloo ; statues of 
Sir William Jones, the Oriental scholar ; Sir Astley Cooper, the surgeon ; 
Dr. Babington, the physician ; and Lord Lyons. The monument to the 
Duke of Wellington, by A. Stevens, in the chapel at the west end of 
the south aisle, a most elaborate renaissance structure, was more than 
twenty years in hand, partly owing to the ill-health and mental idiosyn- 
crasy of the artist, but also largely to the complex and difficult character 
of the work. It is a remarkable and beautiful production, but is seen 
with difficulty and at a great disadvantage in its present very unsuitable 
position. There are fine tombs with recumbent effigies of Bishops 
Blomfield and Jackson, Dean Milman and General Gordon. The 
monument of Dr. Donne, saved from the old cathedral an effigy of 
the form of Donne, wrapped in his sepulchral shroud, has been (1873) 
removed from the crypt and placed in an alcove in the south-east 
aisle. 

The crypt of St. Paul's, unlike the crypts of most other cathedrals, 



ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL 49 

extends under the entire building, and is one of the most extensive 
and massive in structure extant. A portion of it was fitted up in 
1877 as a chapel for the early morning service. In the crypt, Observe. 
Grave of Sir Christopher Wren (d. 1723, aged ninety-one). Grave 
of Lord Nelson (d. 1805). The sarcophagus which contains Nelson's 
coffin was made at the expense of Cardinal Wolsey, for the burial of 
Henry VIII. in the tomb-house at Windsor ; and the coffin which 
contains the body (made of part of the mainmast of the ship Z' Orient], 
was a present to Nelson after the battle of the Nile, from his friend Ben 
Hallowell, captain of the Swiftsure. " I send it," says Hallowell, " that 
when you are tired of this life you may be buried in one of your own 
trophies." Nelson appreciated the present, and for some time had it 
placed upright, with the lid on, against the bulk-head of his cabin, 
behind the chair on which he sat at dinner. In a neighbouring 
alcove the sarcophagus which contains the remains of Wellington. 
The sarcophagus, grand in its simplicity, was wrought with infinite 
patience from a matchless block of Cornish porphyry. Grave of Sir 
John Collingwood (d. 1810), commander of the larboard division at 
the battle of Trafalgar. Graves of the following celebrated English 
painters Sir Joshua Reynolds (d. 1792); Sir Thomas Lawrence 
(d. 1830); James Barry (d. 1806); John Opie (d. 1807); Benjamin 
West (d. 1820); Henry Fuseli (d. 1825); Joseph Mallord William 
Turner (d. 1851). Graves of the following eminent engineers 
Robert Mylne, who built Blackfriars Bridge (d. 1811); John Rennie, 
who built Waterloo Bridge (d. 1821). Monuments from Old St. Paul's, 
preserved in the crypt of the present building Dean Colet, founder 
of St. Paul's School ; Sir Nicholas Bacon, father of the great Francis 
Bacon ; and Sir Christopher Hatton, Queen Elizabeth's Lord 
Chancellor. 

Ascent. The ascent to the ball is by 616 steps, of which the first 
260 are easy, and well lighted. Here the Whispering Gallery will give 
the visitor breath ; but the rest of the ascent is a somewhat fatiguing 
task. Clock Room. In the south-western tower is the clock, and 
the great bell on which it strikes. The length of the minute hand 
of the clock is 8 feet, and its weight 75 Ibs. ; the length of the hour 
hand is 5 feet 5 inches, and its weight 44 Ibs. The diameter of the 
bell is about 10 feet, and its weight is generally stated at 4^ tons. It 
is inscribed, "Richard Phelps made me, 1716," and is never used 
except for the striking of the hour, and for tolling at the deaths and 
funerals of any of the royal family, the Bishops of London, the Deans 
of St. Paul's, and should he die in his mayoralty, the Lord Mayor. 
The larger part of the metal of which it is made formed " Great Tom 
of Westminster," once in the Clock Tower at Westminster. It had long 
been a matter of regret and complaint that the Cathedral should be 
without a peal of bells, and in 1877 several of the City Companies, in 
conjunction with the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, determined to provide it 
with a complete peal of twelve bells. They were cast by Messrs. Taylor 

VOL. Ill E 



So ST. PAUL'S CATtfEDXAL 

of Loughborough, weighed together about 1 1 tons, and cost ^6000. 
The ist and 2d bells were presented by the Drapers' Company ; the 3d, 
4th, 5th and 6th by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts and the Turners' 
Company; the 7th by the Salters'; the 8th by the Merchant Taylors'; 
the Qth by the Fishmongers' ; the loth by the Cloth workers' ; the nth 
by the Grocers' Company ; and the 1 2th and largest by the Corporation. 
Each bell is inscribed with the motto of the donors, and with the arms 
of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's. They are hung in the north- 
west campanile, and ring out a full sweet peal. A new bell (Great 
Paul), weighing 1 7 tons, cast by Messrs. Taylor of Loughborough, was 
safely hauled into its place in the south-west campanile in May 1882. 

The Library is not very valuable. TJie Whispering Gallery is so called 
because the slightest whisper is transmitted from one side of the gallery 
to the other with great rapidity and distinctness. The Stone Gallery is 
an outer gallery, and affords a fine view of London on a clear day. 
The Inner Golden Gallery is at the apex of the cupola and base of the 
lantern. The Oiiter Golden Gallery is at the apex of the dome. Here 
a noble view of London may be obtained if the ascent is made early in 
the morning, and on a clear day. The Ball and Cross stand on a cone 
between the cupola and dome. The construction is very interesting, 
and will well repay attention. The ball is 6 feet 2 inches in diameter, 
and will contain eight persons, " without," it is said, " particular incon- 
venience." This, however, may well be doubted. The weight of the 
ball is stated to be 5600 Ibs., and that of the cross (to which there is 
no entrance), 3360 Ibs. 

The unadorned condition of the interior of St. Paul's, so different 
from the intention of the architect, who wished to line the .cupola with 
mosaics by the best artists of Italy, and to place in compartments 
below "bas-reliefs and suchlike decorations," and complained that 
through insufficient funds " his wings were dipt, and the Church was 
deprived of its ornaments," had frequently forced itself on those 
interested in the worthy appearance of the fabric and its adequate 
employment as a great central church for public worship. Nothing 
practical was done, however, till the beginning of 1858, when the 
Bishop of London addressed a letter to the Dean and Chapter 
urging upon them "the advisability of instituting a series of special 
evening services for the benefit of those large masses of the people 
whom it might be impossible to attract in any other way." To this 
Dean Milman promptly replied, expressing for himself and the Chapter 
their "earnest, unanimous, and sincere desire to co-operate to the 
utmost of their power " in the proposed object, but showing that " the 
scantiness of the funds at their disposal" rendered them unable to 
accomplish it without extraneous help. But he further avowed the 
desire that " instead of the dull, cold, unedifying, unseemly appearance 
of the interior, the Cathedral should be made within worthy of its 
exterior grandeur and beauty." An appeal was made to the public, 
and sufficient funds obtained to fit the space under the dome for 



ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL 



public service, to provide a magnificent organ for these special services 
and ceremonials, and to warm the cathedral throughout, with the result 
that " immense congregations of earnest and devout worshippers throng 
to the Cathedral, throughout even the wildest, coldest, nights of the 
winter months." 1 On these improvements about ^"10,000 were 
expended. A like sum was spent on ornamental alterations and 
decorations, but with a less satisfactory result. In 1871 an "icono- 
graphic scheme " by Burgcs was laid before the Executive Committee, 
and made public, for the complete and systematic decoration of 
the interior; but it proposed to overlay every part with a profusion 
of seraphim and cherubim with wings and bodies " fiery red " or 
celestial blue, princedoms, thrones and powers, archangels in armour, 
and angels "dressed as deacons," saints and confessors. The designs 
are in the Chapter House. This, in common with some other schemes 
of decoration, did not meet with general approval. Nothing more was 
formally done till June 1877, when the Executive Committee met and 
passed a resolution 

That it is desirable, with the funds now in hand, about ,40,000, to carry into 
effect as far as possible the wishes of Sir Christopher Wren, by decorating the dome 
of St. Paul's with mosaic, in a similar style to the dome of St. Peter's at Rome. 

A sub-committee was appointed to devise the best means of giving 
effect to this resolution : but little has since been done. 

The elaborate reredos, which cost ^37,000, and took eighteen 
months to erect, was unveiled on January 25, 1888. 

The space within the railings on the north and east sides of the 
cathedral has been planted and laid out as a public garden, and from 
it some picturesque views of portions of the fabric may be obtained. 
When the ground was being dug over for the formation of the garden, 
Mr. F. C. Penrose, the architect to the Dean and Chapter, seized the 
opportunity to institute a careful search for any traces of the old 
cathedral. He came upon walls and buttresses of the cloisters and 
chapter-house, and was able to make out the general direction of the 
main structure, the central line of which, though not due east and 
west, inclined much less to the north-east than that of the present 
cathedral. He also discovered the foundations of the famous St. Paul's 
Cross, the site of which and the outline of its base he has marked by 
a stone pavement at the north-east angle of the cathedral. In the 
public procession to St. Paul's on occasion of the general thanksgiving 
for peace, Thursday, July 7, 1814, the Duke of Wellington carried 
the sword of state before the Prince Regent. The next public 
procession to St. Paul's was when the Duke of Wellington was himself 
carried to his grave, November 18, 1852. The latest was on February 
27, 1872, when the Queen attended in state to join in the general 
public thanksgiving for the recovery of the Prince of Wales. 

Services. On Sundays, Good Friday, Ascension Day, and Christ- 
mas Day : Holy Communion (north-west chapel) 8 ; Morning Service, 

1 Dean Milman's Annals of St. Paul's, p. 497. 



52 ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL 

with Holy Communion, choral, 10.30; Evening Service, 3.15 and 7. 
On week days, except Good Friday, Ascension Day, and Christmas 
Day: Holy Communion (north-west chapel) 8; Morning Prayer 
(crypt chapel) 8 ; Morning Prayer, choral, i o ; Short Service (north- 
west chapel) 1.15. Evening Prayer, choral, 4; Short Service (north- 
west chapel) 8. Unless otherwise stated the services are held in the 
choir, the entire area of the cathedral being available for worshippers. 
On St. Paul's Day, January 25, a selection from Mendelssohn's oratorio 
of St. Paul is performed with a full orchestra and a largely augmented 
choir, and on Tuesday in Holy Week Bach's Passion Music is given in 
like manner. During Lent the mid-day service is held in the choir, 
when a course of sermons, each course lasting a week, are given by eminent 
preachers. The services are always well-attended, about 800 persons 
being generally present at the daily evensong. Under Sir John Stainer, 
who was organist for several years, the services attained a high degree 
of musical excellence. On the Fridays in Lent the service is sung 
without the organ, and is well worth hearing. The annual meeting of 
the children of the Charity Schools of London has been discontinued 
since 1867, in consequence of the interruption to the service, rendered 
necessary by the erection of a huge gallery round the dome area. 
Haydn said that the most powerful impression he ever received from 
music was from their singing of the " Old Hundredth." 

Paul's Bake-House Court, on the west side of GODLIMAN STREET, 
PAUL'S CHAIN, was so called from the bakehouse " employed in baking 
of bread for the Church of Paul's." 1 

On the west side of the street now called Godliman Street stood the bakehouse : 
it was a large building, and its place is still identified by Paul's Bakehouse Yard. 
The brewery probably adjoined it. There was a mill for grinding the corn, worked 
by horses. There were four servants in the bakehouse, three in the brewery, and 
two at the mill, besides a clerk of the receipts. The brewery and the bakehouse 
were under the charge of an officer, the Gustos Bracini. Domesday of St. Paul's, 
1222 : eel. Archdeacon Hale (Camden Society, 1858, p. 48). 

Here was the office of the Registrar of the High Court of Admiralty, 
now transferred to the Royal Courts of Justice, Somerset House. The 
brewhouse attached to the Cathedral was converted into the Paul's 
Head Tavern. 2 

Paul's Chain, south side of ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD to CARTER 
LANE, a street so called from a chain or barrier drawn across the 
carriage-way of St. Paul's Churchyard, to preserve silence in the 
Cathedral during the hours of public worship. Stow (p. 137) refers 
to the " south chain of Paul's." The north chain is a barrier of wood. 
Edward Cocker ("according to Cocker") taught the arts of writing and 
arithmetic, "in an extraordinary manner," at "his dwelling on the 
south side of St. Paul's Church, over against Paul's Chain ; " and 
here, in 1660, he wrote The Pen's Transcendancy, an interesting 
illustration of his extraordinary skill in the art of writing well. 

1 Stow, p. 137. 2 Ibid., p. 137. 



ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD 53 

So [they] going downe by Paules chainc, left the gentlemen going up toward 
Fleet Street. R. Greene, Cony-catching. 

The Faculties Office for granting Licenses (by Act of Parliament) to eat flesh in 
any part of England, is still kept at St. Paul's Chain, near St. Paul's Churchyard. 
The Kii; : .' Join's I>!t>!l(-,'nccr, No. 8, February 23, 1663. 

Paul's (St.) Churchyard, the irregular area, lined with houses, 
encircling St. Paul's Cathedral and burial-ground, of which the side 
towards the Thames is commonly called the bow, and the side towards 
Paternoster Row the string. The original statue of Queen Anne, 
before the west front of the church, was the work (1712) of Francis 
Bird, a poor sculptor, whose best work is his monument to Dr. Busby, 
in Westminster Abbey. It was the subject of an indifferent copy of 
verses, by a poet who could write better things, Sir Samuel Garth, 
author of the Dispensary. A couplet will suffice as a specimen of the 
whole : 

With grace divine great Anna's seen to rise 

An awful form that glads a Nation's eyes. 

In the area of St. Paul's Church is a noble statue erected of the late Queen in 
marble, though I cannot say it's extremely like Her Majesty, yet it is very masterly 
done, with her Crown on her head, her sceptre and globe in her hands, and adorned 
with her Royal Robes and ensigns of the garter. Round her Pedestal are four 
fine figures, also in marble, representing Great Britain, France, Ireland, and America. 
Macky, A Journey through England, 8vo, 1722, vol. i. p. 280. 

The old statue, which was worn out, has been replaced by a copy in 
Sicilian marble by Messrs. Mowlem, Burt, and Freeman. This was 
unveiled in December 1886. 

At the east end of the Cathedral was St. Paul's School, and on the 
string or northern side is the Chapter-house of the Cathedral. St. 
Paul's Churchyard was one of the places examined for lodgings for the 
retinue of Charles V. previous to his coming to London in 1522, and 
we learn from the return the kind of houses occupied by one or two 
noted residents : 

Maister Lylly, scole maister : i hall, iiij chambers, iiij feather beddes, i kitchin, 
and other necessaries. 

Poloderus [Polydore Vergil] in Paules Churche Yarde : hall, parlour, iiij chambers, 
iiij beddes with all necessaries. 

Before the .Fire, which destroyed the old Cathedral, St. Paul's 
Churchyard was chiefly inhabited by stationers, whose shops were 
then, and till the year 1760, distinguished by signs. The Crony cle of 
England, folio, 1515, was printed by Julian Notary, "dwellynge in 
powles chyrche yarde besyde y e weste dore by my lordes palyes." His 
sign was The Three Kinges. At the sign of the White Greyhound, in 
St. Paul's Churchyard, the first editions of Shakespeare's Venus and 
Adonis and Rape of Lucrece were published by John Harrison ; at the 
Flower de Luce and the Crown appeared the first edition of the Merry 
Wives of Windsor ; at the Green Dragon the first edition of the 
Merchant of Venice ; at the Fox the first edition of Richard II. ; at 
the Angel the first edition of Richard III. ; at the Spread Eagle the 
first edition of Troilus and Cressida ; at the Gun the first edition of 



54 ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD 

Titus Andronicus ; and at the Red Bull the first edition of Lear. 
Ben Jonson makes a reference to Purfoote the printer's sign, the 
Lucretia, in Paul's Churchyard : 

He makes a face like a stabbed Lucretia. 1 

Lucretia, "with the dagger at her breast and a ridiculous expression of 
agony in her face, formed a vignette to most of his books," and was 
stamped on their covers. The earliest English book of glees and 
catches, Pammelia : Musicke's Miscellanie of Pleasant Roundelays and 
Catches, was published in 1609 by William Burley, at the sign of the 
Spread Eagle, at the north door of St. Paul's. 

March 29, 1617. Warrant to pay John Bill, Bookseller in St. Paul's Church- 
yard, ^469 : II : o for books. Cal. State Pap., 1611-1618, p. 454. 

It also appears to have been famed thus early for trunkmakers : 
And coffin makers are well paid their rent 
For many a woefull wooden tenement 
For which the trunk makers in Paul's Church yard 
A large revenue this sad year have shared. 
Their living customers for trunks were fled 
They now made chests or coffins for the dead. 
Taylor (the Water Poet), The Fearfiil Summer, or London's Calamitie. 

After the Fire the majority of the stationers removed to Little 
Britain and Paternoster Row ; but the Yard was not wholly deserted. 
At the " Bible and Sun," or No. 65 on the north side of St. Paul's 
Churchyard, one door west of Canon Alley, lived John Newbery, 
"the philanthropic bookseller," Goldsmith's "good-natured man, with 
the red-pimpled face," 2 to whose kind catering for the public we are 
indebted for the entertaining histories of Mr. Thomas Trip, Giles 
Gingerbread, and Little Goody Two Shoes. Here, for 60 guineas, 
Johnson (as agent for Goldsmith) sold the Vicar of Wakefield to New- 
bery's nephew. The site of Newbery's shop is now occupied by the 
publishing office of the Religious Tract Society. No. 81, the corner 
of Ludgate Hill, was the shop of Mr. Harris, another clever provider 
for the public entertainment in the same way, and, until 1889, occupied 
by Messrs. Griffiths and Farran. At No. 72 lived J. Johnson, the 
bookseller; and here in 1784 was published The Task, a poem by 
William Cowper. No. 62, one door east of Canon Alley, was F. and 
C. Rivingtons, as chronicled by Peter Pindar : 

In Paul's Churchyard, the Bible and the Key 
This wondrous pair is always to be seen, 

Somewhat the worse for wear a little grey 
One like a Saint, and one with Caesar's mien. 

In January 1757 Mrs. Carter was lodging at the house of Mr. 
Wallis, cabinetmaker, St. Paul's Churchyard. The house was " known 
as ' The Elephant,' and was situated opposite to the south door of the 
Cathedral." It was in St. Paul's Churchyard that Rowland Hill met 
William Huntington, S.S. (Sinner Saved), and ran away from him. 

1 Cynthia's Revels, Act v. Sc. 2 ; and Gifford's note to the passage. 
2 Vicar of Wakefield, chap, xviii. 



ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD 55 

His dislike to the S.S. was so great that, as Southey tells us, he took 
up one of Huntington's books with a pair of tongs, and gave it in 
that manner to a servant to take downstairs and use it for lighting 
the fire. Campbell, the poet. 

June 2, 1819. [At Longmans'] met Campbell and walked with him to a little 
bedroom he has taken in St. Paul's Churchyard, in order to consult medical advice 
about a complaint he has. Moore's Diary. 

The following curious picture of St. Paul's Churchyard in the time 
of Cromwell is from a single half-sheet in the British Museum, dated 
May 27, 1651 : 

Forasmuch as the Inhabitants of Paul's Churchyard are much disturbed by the 
souldiers and others, calling out to passingers, and examining them (though they 
goe peaceably and civilly along), and by playing at nine pinnes at unseasonable 
houres ; These are therefore to command all souldiers and others whom it may con- 
cern, that hereafter there shall be no examining and calling out to persons that go 
peaceably on their way, unlesse they do approach their Guards, and likewise to 
forbeare playing at nine pinnes and other sports, from the houre of nine of the 
clocke in the evening till six in the morning, that so persons that are weake and indis- 
posed to rest, may not be disturbed. Given under our hands the day and yeare 
above written, IOHN BARKESTEAD. 

BENJAMIN BLUNDELL. 

This yard, it would appear, was famous for its trees. 

We have had here on Saturday night last and Sunday morning an exceeding 
high wind, such as seldom hath happened in any country. It hath blown down 
many houses in the country and many chimneys in this towne, the greatest Elme in 
Paul's Churchyard, and diverse Trees about the Charter-House and Westminster. 
Sir John More to Sir Ralph Winwood, London, June 18, 1611. 

In the Chapter-house of St. Paul's (on the north side of the yard) was 
performed, in the reign of James II., the mock ceremony of degrading 
Samuel Johnson, chaplain to William, Lord Russell. The divines 
present purposely omitted to strip him of his cassock, which rendered 
his degradation imperfect, and afterwards saved him his benefice. The 
churchyard was occasionally chosen as a place of execution for con- 
spicuous offenders, for exposure in the pillory, and for the burning of 
heretical books. Major William, the loyalist, was on Friday, December 
29, 1648, shot by order of the Council of the Army, "against the door 
that leadeth into St. Faith's Church." 1 

The Goose and Gridiron, London Yard (so called from London 
House, the residence of the Bishops of London), on the north side of 
St. Paul's, was a noted coaching inn, and the place where one of the 
first lodges of Freemasons was held from before 1716. Before the 
Great Fire the site was occupied by the Mitre Inn, a " musick house," 
famed for its concerts and musical parties. When rebuilt the new 
landlord gave it its present strange title, perverting according to Mr. 
Burn, " the Swan and Lyre, the crest and charge on the arms of the 
Company of Musicians, into the silly Goose and Gridiron." 2 

The erection of warehouses on the site of St. Paul's School has 

1 Mtrcurius Elcntkus, December 26 -January 2, 1648-1649. 
" Burn, London Traders' Tokens, p. 187. 



56 ST. PAUL'S COFFEE-HOUSE 

considerably altered the appearance of the east side of St. Paul's 
Churchyard. In 1888 considerable alterations were also made at the 
north-western corner. [See Queen's Arms Tavern ; St. Paul's School.] 

Paul's (St.) Coffee-house stood at the corner of the entrance 
from St. Paul's Churchyard to Doctors' Commons, on the site of Paul's 
Brewhouse and the Paul's Head Tavern. Here, in 1721, Dr. Rawlin- 
son's books were sold. " They sold," says Thoresby, " at a prodigious 
rate." l The sale took place in the evening, after dinner. 

On Tuesday I will wait on you, by one o'clock, at St. Paul's Coffee House, by 
Doctors' Commons gate, from whence we may go down together at the tavern next 
door [which was Truby's]. Aaron Hill to David Mallet, June 2, 1743. 

Paul's (St.), COVENT GARDEN, a parish church on the west side 
of the market, the design of which is attributed to Inigo Jones, begun 
1631 2 at the expense of the ground landlord, Francis, Earl of Bedford, 
and consecrated by Juxon, Bishop of London, September 27, 1638. 
The great delay between the period of erection and the period of 
consecration was owing to a dispute between the Earl of Bedford 
and the Rev. William Bray, Vicar of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, on the 
right of presentation ; the earl claiming it as his own, because he had 
built it at his own expense, and the vicar claiming it as his, because, not 
being then parochial, it was nothing more than a chapel of ease to St. 
Martin's. The matter was heard by the King in council, on April 6, 
1638. 

May 10, 1638. The new church in the Covent Garden is now at length to be 
consecrated. The King, upon a petition preferred unto his Majesty by the in- 
habitants thereof, put an end to the long dispute which hath been betwixt the Earl 
of Bedford and Mr. Bray, curate or Vicar of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. It must be 
a Chapel of Ease until a Parliament settle it a district parish. Mr. Bray must put 
in an under curate to serve the place. My Lord Bedford's ;ioo a year, and an 
house he builded for the minister in cure he presented will not be accepted. 
Garrardto Wentworth (Strafford Letters, vol. ii. p. 1 68). 

In 1645 tne precinct of Covent Garden was constituted a separate 
parish. In consideration of the building and endowment of this 
church Oliver Cromwell remitted the sum of ^7000 to the sons of 
the Earl of Bedford, out of the fines to which they were liable under 
the Act to prevent the multiplicity of buildings in and about London. 3 

The church was repaired in 1688, and the exterior is thus described 
in Hatton's New View of London (1708): "The walls are of brick 
rendered over, but the coins are stone, rustic work." The portico, 
which had been altered and defaced by the parishioners, was restored by 
the Earl of Burlington in 1727, at a cost of between three and four 
hundred pounds : " it had cost the inhabitants about twice as much to 
spoil it." 4 In 1788 the parish expended ,11,000 in improving the 
building. An ashlering of Portland stone was added to the walls in 

1 Thoresby's Diary, vol. ii. p. 365. Howes, ed. 1631, p. 1049. 

2 " In Covent Garden there is a particular 3 Noortliouck, p. 733 note. 

parcel of ground laid out, in the which they in- * Parker's Penny Post, Wednesday, April 19, 
tend to build a church or a chapel of ease." 1727. 



ST. PAUL'S 57 

lieu of the plaster which had previously covered them, and the rustic 
gateways imitated by Jones from Palladio, which, like the church, were 
of brick and plaster, were rebuilt in stone. This work was carried out 
under the superintendence of Thomas Hardwick. The church was 
totally destroyed by fire, September 17, 1795, and rebuilt (Thomas 
Hardwick, architect) on the plan and in the proportions of the original 
building. When first erected the church was greatly admired for its 
classic simplicity of form and outline, and especially for its "noble 
Tuscan portico," exactly in accordance, as was said, with one described 
by Vitruvius. Gay, in his Trivia (1716), speaks of it as the "famous 
temple, with columns of plain magnificence " 

That boast the work of Jones' immortal hand. 

Walpole, however, who could " see no beauty " in it, called the build- 
ing a barn, and a barn it has been called ever since, and the portico 
"a sham." 

The barn roof over the portico of the church strikes my eyes with as little idea 
of dignity or beauty as it could do if it covered nothing but a barn. In justice to 
Inigo, one must own that the defect is not in the architect, but in the order ; who 
ever saw a beautiful Tuscan building ? Would the Romans have chosen that order 
for a temple ? Mr. Onslow, the late Speaker, told me an anecdote that corroborates 
my opinion of this building. When the Earl of Bedford sent for Inigo, he told him 
he wanted a chapel for the parishioners of Covent Garden, but added he would not 
go to any considerable expense ; " In short," said he, " I would not have it much 
better than a barn." "Well ! then," replied Jones, " you shall have the handsomest 
barn in England." The expense of building was ^4500. Horace Walpole, 
Anecdotes of Painting, ed. 1786, vol. ii. p. 274, and note. 

For the portico being a sham, the true entrance being elsewhere, the 
defect is not in the architect The architect intended it for a real 
entrance, but when it was decided that, for ecclesiastical reasons, the 
altar must occupy the usual position at the east end, the entrance at 
that end had of necessity to be given up. There were two small doors 
which were sometimes opened in the summer time. 

Of the old church there is a view by Hollar, and a part of it is to 
be seen in Hogarth's print of " Morning." It was built of brick, with 
stone columns to the portico, and the roof covered with red tiles. The 
apex of the pediment was originally ornamented with a stone cross, 
preserved in Hollar's engraving, and commemorated in an old play. 

Come, Sir, what do you gape and shake the head at there ? I'll lay my life he 
has spied the little crosse upon the new church yond', and is at defiance with it. 
R. Brome's Covent Garden Weeded, or the Middlesex Justice of Peace, 1659. 

The roadway in front of the church has been widened and the footway 
has been carried beneath the portico. In 1888 the stone casing was 
cleared away and the red brick walls were exposed to view. At the 
same time the small bell turret at the west end was pulled down. The 
clock was the first long pendulum clock in Europe, and was invented 
and made, as an inscription in the vestry records, by Richard Harris, 
of London, in 1641. 

The interior was rearranged, and the galleries cleared away under 
the superintendence of Mr. Butterfield in 1872. 



58 ST. PAUL'S 

Mrs. Saintly. Of what church are you ? 

Woodall. Why, of Covent Garden church, I think. 

Gervase. How lewdly and ignorantly he answers ! She means of what religion 
are you? Dryden's Limberham, 4to, 1678. 

Maggot. At your similes again ! O you incorrigible wit ! let me see what poetry 
you have about you. What's here? a Poem called a " Posie for the Ladies' 
Delight," "Distichs to write upon Ladies' Busks," " Epigram written in a Lady's 
Bible in Covent Garden Church." A Tnw Widow, by T. Shadwell, 4to, 1679 ; 
and see his Miser, 1672. 

The parish register records the baptism of Lady Mary Wortley 
Montagu : 

26 May 1689. Mary daughter of Evelyn Peirpoint, Esq., by the Lady Mary, 
his wife. 

Also the marriage (1764) of Lady Susan Strangways to O'Brien, the 
handsome actor. It records also the marriage, August 29, 1773, of 
William Turner, of Maiden Lane, to Mary Marshall, also of the parish 
of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and the baptism, May 14, 1775, of their 
son, Joseph Mallord William Turner, the great landscape painter. 
The elder Turner was buried here, 1830, and a tablet (the inscription 
written by the painter) records that " In the vault beneath and near 
this place, were deposited the remains of William Turner, many years 
an inhabitant of this parish." Eminent Persons buried in. The 
notorious Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset (d. 1645). Sir Henry 
Herbert (d. 1673), whose "office book" as "Master of the Revels" 
throws so much light on the history of our stage and drama in the 
time of Charles I. (He was brother to Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 
and George Herbert.) Samuel Butler (d. 1680), author of Hudibras. 
He died in Rose Street. 

He [Butler] dyed of a consumption, Septemb. 25 (Anno D ni 1680), and buried 27, 
according to his owne appointment in the church-yard of Covent Garden ; sc. in the 
north part next the church at the east end. His feet touch the wall. His grave, 2 
yards distant from the pilaster of the dore (by his desire), 6 foot deepe. About 25 
of his old acquaintance at his funerall : I myself being one. Aubrey's Lives, vol. 
ii. 263. 

Sir Peter Lely, the painter. He died (1680) in the Piazza. His 
monument, with his bust by Gibbons and his epitaph by Flatman, 
shared the fate of the church when destroyed by fire in 1795 ; and Sir 
Dudley North, the great merchant and political economist, afterwards 
occupied Lely's house, and died there, December 31, 1691. He was 
buried near the altar in this church, but twenty-five years afterwards 
his body was removed to Glemham in Suffolk. Dick Estcourt (d. 
1711-1712), the actor and wit. Edward Kynaston (d. 1712), the 
celebrated actor of female parts at the Restoration ; a complete female 
stage beauty, " that it has since been disputable among the judicious, 
whether any woman that succeeded him so sensibly touched the 
audience as he." 1 William Wycherley (d. 1715), the dramatist. He 
died in Bow Street. Pierce Tempest (d. 171 7), who drew the Cries 
of London, known as Tempest's Cries. Grinling Gibbons (d. 1721), 

1 Downes's Roscius Anglicanus, 8vo, 1708. 



PAUL'S CROSS 59 



the sculptor and carver in wood. Susannah Centlivre (d. 1723), 
author of The Busy Body and TJie Wonder. Robert Wilks (d. 1732), 
the original $ir Harry Wildair, celebrated by Steele for acting with the 
easy frankness of a gentleman. James Worsdale, the painter (d. 1767). 
He carried Pope's letters to Curll ; and was buried in the churchyard, 
with an inscription (removed 1848) of his own composing: 

Eager to get, but not to keep the pelf, 

A friend to all mankind except himself. 

Dr. Thomas Arne (d. 1778), composer of " Rule Britannia." Dr. John 
Armstrong, author of the " Art of Preserving Health," a poem (d 1779), 
in the vault under the communion table. Tom Davies, the bookseller 
(d. 1785), and his "very pretty wife" (d. 1801). Sir Robert Strange, 
the engraver (d. 1792), in the churchyard. He lived in Henrietta 
Street, at the sign of "The Golden Head." Thomas Girtin, the father 
of the school of English water-colour painting, died " at his lodgings in 
the Strand, November 9, 1802, at the early age of twenty-seven years ; 
but intemperance and irregularity have no claim to longevity." l Charles 
Macklin, the actor (d. 1797), at the age of 107, buried in the vault 
under the communion table. There is a tablet to his memory in the 
church. John Wolcot (Peter Pindar), died 1819, "in a very appro- 
priate position," says his biographer, " for it was so contrived, at his 
own request, that the coffin of the author of the Lousiad should be so 
near as to touch that of the bard who had produced Hudibras, whose 
genius and originality he greatly admired." 2 Fielding's "Inimitable 
Betty Careless," the " charming Betty Careless " of the mad scene in the 
Rak<?s Progress, was buried here from the parish poorhouse. William 
Linley (d. 1835), tne celebrated musician, and father of Mrs. Sheridan. 
The whole of the churchyard has been levelled and all the gravestones 
cleared away. In front of this church the hustings were raised for the 
general elections of Westminster. Here, before the Reform Bill, raged 
those fierce contests of many days' duration in which Fox, Sir Francis 
Burdett, and others were popular candidates. 3 Archbishop Usher is 
said to have been preaching in this church when sent for by Charles I. 
to resolve his scruples respecting the signing of Strafford's death- 
warrant. The learned Simon Patrick, Bishop of Ely, was many years 
rector of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and his name, in his own hand- 
writing, is still to be seen affixed to the pages of the parish register. 

Paul's Cross, a pulpit Cross of timber, mounted upon steps of 
stone and covered with a conical roof of lead, from which sermons 
were preached by learned divines every Sunday in the forenoon. " The 
very antiquity," says Stow, "is to me unknown." "It stood," says 
Dugdale, "on the north side of St. Paul's Churchyard, towards the 
east end." What was traditionally said to be the site was, within the 
last fifty years, distinguished by a lofty elm ; but the exact spot was 
ascertained by Mr. F. C. Penrose, architect for the Cathedral, when the 

1 Edwards, Anecdotes of Painting, p. 280. s In the Microcosm of London is a good view 

2 Ann. Biog., 1820. of the election hustings in front of the portico. 



60 PAUL'S CROSS 



burial-ground was being dug over preparatory to converting it into a 
garden. [See St. Paul's Cathedral.] At a depth of about 6 feet below 
the surface he came upon the octagonal stone basement, and judiciously 
marked the site by a pavement level with the surface, as a permanent 
memorial of a structure unique in its historical associations. The 
north-east (Cheapside) angle of the present cathedral cuts one side of the 
octagon. The choir of the old cathedral was a short distance from it. 
In early times the three great annual Folkmotes of the Londoners 
were held at Paul's Cross. In the i3th century (temp. Henry III. and 
Edward I.) it was ordered that "if any man of London neglects to 
attend at one of these three folkmotes, he is to forfeit forty shillings to 
the King," and the sheriff is to see that such attendance is given or to 
enforce the fine, the ringing " of the great bell for the folkmote at St. 
Paul's," to be held a sufficient summons. 1 Later it was more especi- 
ally employed for sermons, the promulgation of papal bulls, royal 
proclamations and explanations, the publication of state information, 
excommunications, and the public penance of important offenders, 
becoming, as Dean Milman observes, "the pulpit not only of the 
Cathedral, but almost of the Church in England," and also, in Carlyle's 
quaint phraseology, "a kind of Times newspaper." 2 At special 
sermons, or important announcements, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen 
attended in state, and on some occasions the Sovereign and Court 
were present. The congregation sat in the open air. For the King 
and his retinue a covered gallery was built against the wall of the 
Cathedral. In foul and rainy weather the sermons were preached in 
The Shrowds, or "The Crowds, according to the vulgar expression," 
says Dugdale. What these Shrowds were has been differently explained. 
Strype suggested that they were " by the side of the Cathedral church, 
where was covering and shelter," others have absurdly said they were 
the triforium ; they were beyond doubt the " crypt," where was already 
the church of " St. Faith in the Shrowds." Shrowds is a term often 
used for the crypt of a church. 

I read that in the year 1259 King Henry III. commanded a general assembly to 
be made at this Cross, where he in proper person commanded the Mayor, that on 
the next day following, he should cause to be sworn before the aldermen, every 
stripling of twelve years of age, or upward, to be true to the King and his heirs, 
Kings of England. Stow, p. 123. 

The Cross before which this assembly was brought, being defaced 
by a tempest of lightning in 1382, was rebuilt by Thomas Kemp, 
Bishop of London from 1448 to 1449, Milman says as "a more 
splendid stone cross with a pulpit. It became one of the buildings of 
which, from its grace and beauty, the City of London was most proud." 
This, however, is hardly borne out by contemporary statements. The 
platform was of stone, but the superstructure was certainly of wood. 
Stow says that Kemp "new built it in form as it now standeth," and 
he describes it as " a pulpit cross of timber, mounted upon steps of 

1 Liber Albus, pp. 72, 92, 105. 
2 Milman's Annals of St. Paiils, p. 61 ; Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. p. 93. 



PAUL'S CROSS 6 1 



stone, and covered with lead," l which agrees exactly with the con- 
temporary painting of it in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries. 
At this Cross- the whole battle of the Reformation in England was 
fought over, and the controversy between the Reformed Church and 
Papacy on the one hand, and Puritanism on the other, was submitted 
to public consideration by a succession of prelates so memorable, 
however different, as Ridley, Latimer, Farrar, Gardiner, Bonner, 
Coverdale, Sandys, Jewel, Grindal, Pilkington, and Laud, as well as by 
a host of divines conspicuous by their learning and oratorical and 
controversial powers. Before this Cross Tindall's translation of the 
Bible was publicly burnt, by order of Bishop Stokesley ; the Pope's 
sentence on Martin Luther was pronounced from it, in a sermon 
preached by Bishop Fisher, Wolsey being present as the Pope's legate. 
" For the whole seven years during which the question of the King's 
divorce was in agitation . . . the pulpit of S. Paul's Cross rang more 
or less loudly with the arguments and invectives of the disputants on 
either side." 2 When Henry consummated his revolt from the Pope, a 
royal edict was issued that " Orders be taken that such as preach at 
Paul's Cross shall henceforth continually, Sunday after Sunday, teach 
and declare unto the people, that he that now calleth himself Pope, 
and any of his predecessors, is and were only Bishops of Rome, and 
have no more authority or jurisdiction, by God's laws, within this realm, 
than any other Bishop had, which is nothing at all." 3 The " Holy 
Maid of Kent " knelt in shame and silence, with her confederates the 
Dean of Bocking and the parson of Aldermanbury beside her, whilst 
her confession was read aloud ; the Bishop of Bangor set forth in his 
sermon the heinousness of the imposture. Here four years later the 
famous miraculous Boxley Rood was exhibited, and all the hidden 
machinery exposed wherewith it had been made to bow its head and 
open its eyes and lips and seem to speak. Here in the reign of Mary 
the Protestants were anathematised, King Philip lauded by Gardiner as 
" the most perfect Prince," and a few years later the Perfect Prince was 
held up to public execration as a merciless persecutor, and the people 
exhorted to give thanks to God for his discomfiture in the overthrow of 
the " Invincible Armada," while a gaudy streamer taken from one of 
the ships waved over the head of the preacher. Here the Maypole, 
from which the church of St. Andrew Undershaft derives its name, was 
denounced as an idol by the curate of St. Catherine Cree, and its fate 
sealed. Recantations were made here; royal marriages and public 
victories proclaimed. It was used for other purposes : a certain Dr. 
Shaw, in a sermon preached here, sounded the feeling of the people 
in favour of the Duke of Gloucester before the ambitious Richard 
assumed the crown ; and the memory of the Earl of Essex in Elizabeth's 
reign was blackened by command in a Sunday's sermon. When the 
Stuarts came to the crown the preachers at the Cross had royal 
listeners : King James, on one occasion, to countenance a sermon on 

1 Stow, pp. J2i, 122. 2 Milinan, p. 192. 3 Strype, Memorials, vol. i. p. 196. 



62 PAUL'S CROSS 



the reparation of the Cathedral ; and King Charles I. on the occasion 
of the birth of his son, afterwards Charles II. Jane Shore did penance 
here when accused by Richard of witchcraft ; and here, in the reign of 
James I. (1617), Lady Markham, the wife of Sir Griffin Markham, 
stood in a white sheet (and was amerced in a penalty of ^1000), for 
marrying one of her servants, her husband being still alive. A house 
for lodging and entertaining the preachers who came from a distance 
was provided in Watling Street. [See Shunamite's House.] 

This celebrated Cross, 1 with the rest of the crosses in London and 
Westminster, was pulled down in 1643, by order of Parliament, Isaac 
Pennington being then Lord Mayor. Sermons still continued to be 
preached and distinguished as Paul's Cross sermons. The following 
document is among Archbishop Sheldon's papers in the British Museum ; 
it was written between 1685 and 1691, and merits preservation : 

Whereas the sermon which for time immemorial hath been preach'd at St. Paul's 
Cross, upon pulling downe that Crosse in the time of the Rebellion was removed to 
St. Paul's Church, and upon the burning of that church in 1666 was by order and 
appointment of the Lord Bishop of London removed to St. Catherine Cree Church, 
and upon good reason hath since been removed by the appointment of the Lord 
Bishop of London aioresayd to Guild Hall Chappell ; and is now thought fit by 
Nathaniel, Lord Bp of Duresme, Thomas Lord Bishop of Rochester, and Thomas, 
Lord Bishop of Peterborough, Corn 15 for the exercise of Episcopal Jurisdiction within 
the city and diocess of London, during the suspension of the present Bp of the same, 
to be remov'd againe to some other church, and they judging that St. Mary Le Bow 
(one of our Peculiars) will be the most convenient for that use at present, have 
besought us, that our leave and license be granted thereto : Wee taking their humble 
request into consideracon, doe hereby give our full consent and license that the 
sermon commonly called the Paul's Cross Sermon be for the future preach'd at St. 
Mary Le Bow in Cheapside, so long as it shall be thought meet by the say'd Com rs . 
In witness whereof wee have hereunto set our hand and scale this day of 

.Harkian MS. 3788, fol. 69. 

At the Restoration the Paul's Cross Sermons, with their endowments, were 
removed into the Cathedral itself ; and they still belong to the Sunday morning 
preachers, now chiefly the honorary Prebendaries of the Church. Milman's History 
of St. Paul's, p. 354. 

Paul's (St.), GREAT PORTLAND STREET, or PORTLAND CHAPEL, a 
chapel of ease to the parish of St. Marylebone, designed by S. Lead- 
better, architect, and built 1765-1766 at a cost of ^5000, but not 
consecrated (by some unaccountable neglect) till 1831. It was restored 
in 1883 under the superintendence of Sir Arthur Blom field. 

At the end of Union Street, Middlesex Hospital, stood two magnificent rows of 
elms, one on each side of a rope walk ; and beneath their shade have I frequently 
seen Joseph Baretti and Richard Wilson [the painter] perambulate, until Portland 
Chapel clock announced "five," the hour of Joseph Wilton's dinner. They both 
wore cocked hats and walked with canes. J. T. Smith, Nollekens, vol. ii. p. 174. 

Paul's (St.), KNIGHTSBRIDGE, WILTON PLACE, a Gothic edifice, 
surmounted by a stately tower (Thomas Cundy, architect), consecrated 

1 There are several very excellent views of this Paul's, p. 19), from a picture in the possession of 

Cross, but the best (representing the preaching the Society of Antiquaries : a second, very good, 

before King James) is engraved in Wilkinson is in Henry Farley's St. Paufs Church, her Bill 

(Londina Illustrata, and very well copied as a for the Parliament, 410, 1621. 
woodcut in Longmans' Three Cathedrals of St. 



ST. PAUL'S SCHOOL 63 

May 30, 1843. The church cost ;i 5,000. This was the church of 
the Rev. W. J. E. Bennett, during whose incumbency it was more talked 
about than any other church in London. It obtained its notoriety 
owing to the lawsuits (Westerton z>. Liddell) which were brought about 
the ritual. The Hon. and Rev. R. Liddell was Mr. Bennett's suc- 
cessor. 

Paul's (St.) School, a celebrated school formerly on the east side of 
St. Paul's Churchyard, founded in 1512 for 153 poor men's children, 
by Dr. John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, the friend of Erasmus, and son 
of Sir Henry Colet, mercer, and Mayor of London in 1486 and 1495. 
The boys were to be admitted without restriction of kin, country, or 
station ; to be taught, free of expense, by a master, sur-master, and 
chaplain ; and the oversight of the school was committed by the founder 
to the Mercers' Company. The number (153) was chosen in allusion 
to the number of fishes taken by St. Peter. The school was dedicated 
by Colet to the Child Jesus, but the saint, as Strype remarks, has 
robbed his master of his title. The lands left by Colet to support his 
school were estimated by Stow in 1598 at the yearly value of ,120 
and better. 1 Their present value is upwards of ;i 3,000. The educa- 
tion is classical, but there is now a modern side as well, and the 
presentations to the school are in the gift of the Master of the Mercers' 
Company for the time being. There are now (1890) 1000 boys in 
the school. Lilly, the grammarian, and friend of Erasmus, was the 
first master, and the grammar which he compiled, Lilly's Grammar, is 
still used in the school. Eminent Scholars. John Leland, our earliest 
English antiquary ; Sir Anthony Denny, the friend of Henry VIII. ; 
William Whitaker, a famous master of St. John's College, Cambridge ; 
William Camden, the great antiquary, after having been for a time at 
Christ's Hospital ; John Milton, when Alexander Gill was master ; the 
great Duke of Marlborough ; Robert Nelson, author of Fasts and 
Festivals; Edmund Halley, the astronomer; Knight, the biographer 
of Colet ; Samuel Pepys, the diarist ; John Strype, the ecclesiastical 
historian ; Sir Philip Francis (supposed to be Junius) ; Chief Baron 
Sir Frederick Pollock; Lord Chancellor Truro, who founded (1851) 
the Truro Prize "in grateful acknowledgment of the benefits derived 
by him from his education in St. Paul's School." Strype has left 
an interesting account of this school in his annotations upon Stow. 
The late school was built in 1823, from a design by George Smith, 
architect to the Mercers' Company, and was the third building erected 
on the same site. Colet's school was destroyed in the Great Fire, " but 
built up again," says Strype, " much after the same manner and pro- 
portion it was before." 2 The school was removed in 1880 to West 
Kensington, near Addison Road Station, where the Mercers' Company 
had purchased 1 6 acres and erected a new school from the designs of 
Mr. Barnes Williams, architect. The building in St. Paul's Churchyard 
has been pulled down and warehouses built on the site. 

1 St<nu, p. 123. " Strype, B. i. p. 167. 



64 ST. PAUL'S 

Paul's (St.), SHADWELL, HIGH STREET, a parish so called, as 
belonging to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, who are patrons 
thereof, 1 and separated from Stepney by an Act passed March 17, 
1669-1670. The church was consecrated March 12, 1670-1671 ; taken 
down in 1817; and the present church designed by James Walters 
(d. 1821); consecrated April 5, 1821. Of the old church there are 
views in Wilkinson's Londina. Bishop Butler, as Dean of St. Paul's, 
nominated his nephew and namesake, Joseph Butler, to the rectory of 
this parish. He liked it so little that he chose for the text of his first 
sermon, " Woe is me that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents 
of Kedar." A canonry in St. Paul's and permission to reside in Norfolk 
Street, Strand, so far reconciled him to his fate that he managed to 
hold the rectory fifty-seven years. 

Paul's Walk, a vulgar name for the middle aisle of Old St. Paul's. 
[See St. Paul's Cathedral (Old).] 

Paul's Walk is the land's epitome, or you may call it the lesser aisle of Great 
Britain. . . . The noise in it is like that of bees, a strange humming or buzz, mixed 
of walking tongues and feet : it is a kind of still roar, or loud whisper. It is the 
great exchange of all discourse, and no business whatsoever but is here stirring and 
afoot. ... It is the general mint of all famous lies, which are here, like the 
legends of popery, first coined and stamped in the church. All inventions are 
emptied here, and not a few pockets. The best sign of a temple in it is, that it is 
the thieves' sanctuary. ... It is the other expence of the day, after plays, tavern, 
and a bawdy house ; and men have still some oaths left to swear here. . . . Some 
make it a preface to their dinner, and travel for a stomach ; but thriftier men 
make it their ordinary, and board here very cheap. Earle's Microcosmography, 
8vo, 1628. 

When I past Paule's, and travell'd in that Walke 

Where all oure Brittaine-sinners sweare and talk. BP. CORBET. 

Bishop Pilkington, writing in 1560 of the abuses at St. Paul's, mentions 
" The south alley for Popery and usury, the north for simony, and the 
horse-fair in the midst for all kinds of bargains, meetings, brawlings, 
murders, conspiracies, and the font for ordinary payments of money, 
as well-known to all men as the beggar knows his bush." 2 In The 
Gull's Hornbook, by Dekker, is a chapter entitled, " How a gallant 
should behave himself in Powle's Walkes ; " and Ben Jonson lays the 
first scene of the third act of Every Man out of his Humour in " the 
Middle Aisle of St. Paul's." Weever (Ancient Funeral Monuments, 
1631, p. 373) complains of the abuse, and adds, "it could be wished 
that walking in the middle aisle of Paules might be forborne in the 
time of divine service." [See Duke Humphrey's.] 

Paul's Wharf. 

Paul's Wharf is a large landing place with a common stair upon the river Thames, 
at the end of a street called Paul's Wharf Hill, which runneth down from Paul's 
Chain. Stow, p. 136. 

On with your riding suit, and cry Northward Ho ! as the boy at Paul's says. 
Northward Ho, by Thomas Dekker and John Webster, 4to, 1607. 

1 Strype, Circuit Walk, p. 105. 2 Pilkington, Works, p. 210. 



nun. DINGS 65 



Sir Walter Mildmay had his house here in isyo. 1 Francis Throg- 
morton, the Catholic conspirator, whose revelations under the rack had 
such important consequences in the history of Europe, had a house at 
Paul's Wharf in 1583 known as the lodging of the young Lord 
Glenvarloch, and it was there that his papers and himself were seized. 2 

Paved Alley Chapel, LIME STRKF.T. Paved Alley was situated 
at the upper end of Lime Street, by Leadenhall Street, and here the 
chapel with its three capacious galleries was built in 1672. The 
congregation first met in Anchor Lane, Lower Thames Street, and 
the pastor was Dr. Thomas Goodwin, chaplain to Oliver Cromwell. 
In 1755 the East India Company purchased a large piece of ground 
in the neighbourhood of Paved Alley, and the chapel was pulled down. 
The congregation divided into two parts one went to Artillery Street, 
Finsbury, where Mr. Richardson the pastor resumed his ministry, and 
the other branch removed to Miles Lane, choosing the Rev. William 
Porter as minister. The latter congregation removed ten years later 
to Camomile Street, and afterwards to the Poultry. The City Temple, 
Holborn Viaduct, is the successor of the Poultry Chapel. 

Pavilion. (The), CHELSEA, a pleasant residence, surrounded by 
pretty gardens occupying about 20 acres of land, built by Henry 
Holland for his own occupation when he planned Hans Town [which 
see] at the end of the last century. After his death it was purchased 
by Mr. Peter Denys, after whose death it was inhabited for some years 
by his widow, Lady Charlotte Denys. The approach to the house was 
from Hans Place through an avenue of elms. Before the south front 
was a beautifully planted lawn and an artificial lake ; on the west side 
of the lawn stood an imitation of the ruins of an ancient priory. The 
house and gardens were cleared away, and Cadogan Square was built 
on the site in 1882-1883. 

Pavilion Road, CHELSEA. In 1870 New Road, Alfred Place, 
Chapel Row, and Taylor's Cottages were renamed Pavilion Road. 

Paymaster-General's Office, WHITEHALL, next the Horse Guards, 
the office of her Majesty's Paymaster- General for the payment of 
army, navy, ordnance, civil service, and exchequer bills. The office is 
managed by the paymaster, the assistant -paymaster, and a staff of 
clerks. It was originally the office of the Paymaster- General of the 
Forces, and was not permanently enlarged till 1836. 

Peabody Buildings. Mr. George Peabody, an American mer- 
chant resident in London, in a letter dated March 12, 1862, addressed 
to the United States Minister and four gentlemen named by him as 
trustees, expressed his desire "in pursuance of a long cherished de- 
termination, to attest his gratitude and attachment to the people of 
London, among whom he had spent the last twenty-five years of his 

1 Burghley's Diary, in Mnrtfen, p. 771. 

- Fronde, vol. xi. p. 612 ; and see Fortunes of Nigel, vol. i. p. 44. 
VOL. Ill I 



66 PEABODY BUILDINGS 

life," by devoting a sum of ^150,000 "to ameliorate the condition 
of the poor and needy of this great metropolis, and to promote their 
comfort and happiness." As regarded the expenditure, Mr. Peabody 
imposed " but three conditions " on the trustees who were to administer 
the fund, but these were " fundamental principles, from which it was 
his solemn injunction that those intrusted with the application of the 
Fund shall never under any circumstances depart." These were, 
" First and foremost, the limitation of its uses absolutely and exclusively 
to such purposes as may be calculated directly to ameliorate the con- 
dition and augment the comfort of the poor, who either by birth or 
established residence form a recognised portion of the population of 
London." Secondly, that there shall be " a rigid exclusion from the 
management of the Fund of any influences calculated to impart to it 
a character either sectarian as regards religion, or exclusive in relation 
to local or party politics." And thirdly, that "the sole qualification 
for a participation in the benefits of the Fund shall be an ascertained 
and continued condition of life, such as brings the individual within 
the description (in the ordinary sense of the word) of the poor of 
London ; combined with moral character and good conduct as a 
member of society." 

The trustees, of whom Lord Stanley (now Earl of Derby) was 
elected chairman, acting on the suggestion of Mr. Peabody, to consider 
whether it might not be found conducive to the realisation of the 
principles laid down "to apply the fund or a portion of it in the 
construction of such improved dwellings for the poor as may combine, 
in the utmost possible degree, the essentials of healthfulness, comfort, 
social enjoyment, and economy," decided, after careful inquiry, to erect 
dwellings of the kind recommended, and to " confine their attention in 
the first instance to that section of the labouring poor who occupy 
a position above the pauper." The first plot of ground obtained was 
in Commercial Street, Spitalfields, and on this was erected a block of 
dwellings affording accommodation for upwards of 200 persons. Other 
sites were purchased and buildings erected, which were eagerly sought 
for by suitable tenants, and so well satisfied was Mr. Peabody with the 
operations of the trustees that at different times he made additions to 
his first munificent gift, viz., ^100,000 in 1866, ^100,000 in 1868, 
and in 1873 ^ I 5) 00 j making a total of .500,000, to which has 
been added money received for rent and interest ^465,182 : 7 : 9, 
making the total fund on December 31, 1888, .965,182 : 7 : 9. In 
1888 the trustees expended on land and buildings ,13,064:3:4, 
making the total expenditure to the end of the year .1,23 2, 283: 19:11. 
The trustees have borrowed ^3 00,000, a portion of which amount 
has been paid back, so that their total indebtedness at the end of the 
year was .271,333:6:8. Besides those already mentioned, the 
trustees have erected other blocks of dwellings, several of great extent, 
in Shadwell, Chelsea, Islington, Bermondsey, Westminster, Blackfriars 
Road, Stamford Street, Southwark Street, Pimlico, Whitechapel, 



PECKHAM 67 



Bedfordbury, Great Wild Street, Orchard Street, Whitecross Street, 
Clerkenwell and Little Coram Street. The trustees have provided for 
the artisan and labouring poor of London 11,275 rooms, besides bath- 
rooms, laundries, and warehouses occupied by 20,413 persons. These 
rooms comprise 5071 separate dwellings, say 76 of four rooms, 1789 
of three rooms, 2398 of two rooms, and 808 of one room. The 
average weekly earnings of the head of each family in residence at the 
close of 1888 was i : 3 : 9. The average rent of each dwelling was 
43. 9^d. per week, and of each room 23. 2d. The rent in all cases 
includes the free use of water, laundries, sculleries, and bath-rooms. 

A seated Statue of George Peabody\ executed in bronze by Storey, the 
American sculptor, and regarded as an admirable likeness, was erected 
by public subscription at the back of the Royal Exchange in 1869. 

Peckham, SURREY, a hamlet of Camberwell, now a part of the 
outer fringe of London. The manor of Pecheham is recorded in 
Domesday as held by the Bishop of Lisieux of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, 
to whom it had been granted by King William. In the time of the 
Confessor it was owned by Harold and held by Alfled, and was a part 
of Patricesy [ = Battersea, though from its proximity it would rather seem 
that Bermondsey must have been meant]. The manor is mentioned 
as late as the reign of Elizabeth, but no event of importance is con- 
nected with it. As late as the early years of the present century it was a 
district of market gardens, interspersed with citizens' villas. It is now 
a populous neighbourhood with many large manufactories of different 
kinds. In 1881 it contained 71,065 inhabitants. In place of a single 
chapel of ease there are half a dozen churches, mostly with ecclesiastical 
districts attached, numerous chapels, and several large schools. Here 
are the Licensed Victuallers' Asylum, an extensive pile erected in 
1827, and comprising upwards of a hundred separate dwellings; and 
the Girdlers' Company's Almshouses, removed here in 1852 from Pest 
House Row, St. Luke's. Peckham House, in Camberwell, is one of 
the oldest and largest lunatic asylums near London. Peckham Rye is 
a large triangular common, now secured for public use as a recreation 
ground. To the east of it is the Nunhead Cemetery of the London 
Cemetery Company. At a boarding school in Meeting House Lane, 
kept by the Rev. John Milner, minister of the old Presbyterian Chapel 
close by, Oliver Goldsmith was usher in his early London days, about 
1756, and though he did not get on very well there, it was through 
Milner he was introduced to Griffiths and commenced his literary 
career. The house, which had long been known as Goldsmith's house, 
was with the rest of the estate purchased about 1875 by "the 
Sanitary Dwellings Company," who have since erected a large number 
of artisans' dwellings there, which they have named the Goldsmith 
Residences. Part of the grounds of Goldsmith House have been 
preserved as a recreation ground. The main Street is named Gold- 
smith Road. 



68 PEDLAR'S ACRE 



Pedlar's Acre, the old name of the southern portion of what is 
now BELVEDERE ROAD, LAMBETH. 

On Lambeth Wall is a spot of ground containing an Acre and nineteen poles, 
denominated Pedlar's Acre, which has belonged to the Parish time immemorial ; 
'tis said to have been given by a Pedlar, upon condition that his portrait and that of 
his dog be perpetually preserved in painted glass in one of the windows of the 
Church [St. Mary's, Lambeth], which the parishioners carefully perform in the 
south-east window of the middle aisle. Maitland, ed. 1739, P- 79 J - 

1607. For mending the windows where the picture of the Pedlar stands. 
Churchwarden? Accounts of St. Mary's, Lambeth (Lysons, vol. i. p. 314). 

It is first entered in the Churchwardens' books of Lambeth parish in 1504, as an 
ozier bed named the Church Hoppys or Hope. In 1623 it is termed " the Church 
Oziers." In 1690 it appears for the first time as Pedlar's Acre. Nichols's History 
of Lambeth. 

[See St. Mary's, Lambeth.] 

Peerless Pool, BALDWIN STREET, CITY ROAD, at the back of St. 
Luke's Hospital. A spacious public bath, formerly a spring that, 
overflowing its banks, caused a very dangerous pond, and which, from 
the number of persons who lost their lives, obtained the name of 
Perilous Pond, a name that seems to have been common to dangerous 
bathing- places ; thus Stow applies the term to the Ducking Pond, 
Clerkenwell, the site of the Spa Road Tabernacle. The present name 
of "Peerless Pool" was given by Kemp, the proprietor, in 1743, when 
the bottom was raised and the pond enclosed. Kemp also formed a 
bowling green, an open fish-pond 300 feet, and bordered by a bank 
planted with shrubs and trees, and otherwise endeavoured to make the 
place attractive as a pleasure-ground. The pond and pool long 
remained in favour with London anglers and swimmers, but about 
1805 the lease was purchased by Mr. Joseph Watts (father of Thomas 
Watts, the great linguist and librarian, Keeper of the Printed Books in 
the British Museum), who drained the fish-pond and built over a large 
part of the grounds. The whole is now covered with streets. 

And not far from it [St. Agnes le Clair] is also one other clear water called 
Perillous pond, because divers youths by swimming therein have been drowned. 
Stow, p. 7. 

Gallipot. Push ! let your boy lead his water-spanial along, and we'll show you the 
bravest sport at Parlous Pond. T. Middleton, The Roaring Girl, 4to, 1611. Act 2 
Sc. i. 

Hone, in his Every-Day Book (vol. i. pp. 970, 976), gives views of 
Peerless Pool and the fish-pond. The pool was 170 feet long and 
over 100 feet wide. The fish-pond was 320 feet long. There was 
also a cold bath, "the largest in England," 40 feet long and 20 wide. 

Peerpool Lane, GRAY'S INN LANE. A corruption of Portpoole 
from the manor of Portpoole, or Gray's Inn. [See Gray's Inn.] There 
is a token dated 1644 with the name Peerpool Lane inscribed upon it. 

Pelham Crescent, BROMPTON. M. Guizot resided at No. 21 
after the French Revolution of 1848 till July 1849. His account of 
the house, " almost in the country," reads rather curiously now. He 
writes, March 13, 1848, "I shall set to work again. I have found, 



/'AVV/VK POST 69 



close to London, at Brompton a little house, which is almost in the 
country; it is good enough for us and not expensive. I shall be able 
to go into London easily every day." 1 Here, on March 31, 1848, his 
mother, Madame Guizot, died at the age of eighty-four. In the same 
house afterwards lived a politician of a very different school, Mr. Ledru 
Rollin. At No. i o, where he had resided many years, Robert Keeley, 
the comedian, died February 3, 1869, in his seventy-fifth year. He made 
his first appearance on the stage in 1818 as Leporello in Giovanni 
in London. 

Pelham Street, BRICK LANE, SPITALFIELDS. Milton's grand- 
daughter, Mrs. Foster, kept a chandler's shop in this street. 2 [See 
Cock Lane, Shoreditch.] 

Pembridge Square, BAYSWATER. Field-Marshal Sir John Fox 
Burgoyne, "the Moltke of England," died at No. 25, October 7, 1871, 
aged ninety. He was buried in the church of St. Peter ad Vincula, 
within the precinct of the Tower, of which he was Constable. 

Penitentiary, MILLBANK. [See Millbank Prison.] 

Penny Fields, POPLAR, between the West India Road and the 
High Street, of which latter it is the extension westwards. Since the 
construction of the West India Docks the fields have existed in name 
only. 

Penny Post (The). A London footpost, with seven sorting houses, 
between four and five hundred receiving houses, and with four deliveries 
a day, established 1680, by Robert Murray, a clerk in the Excise, and 
William Dockwra, a sub-searcher in the Customs. 

The Penny Post was set up on our Lady-Day (being Friday), A D ni 1680; a 
most ingenious and useful project, invented by Mr. Robert Murray first, and then 
Mr. Dockwra joined with him. The Duke of York seized on it in 1682. Mr. 
Murray was a citizen of London, a millener, of the company of Clothworkers ; his 
father a Scotchman, his mother English; born in the Strand, December 12, 1633. 
Aubrey's MS. (Malone's ftii/tnry, p. 387). 

Murray and Dockwra were to have entered into partnership, but 
both laying claim to the idea, they quarrelled and set up rival offices. 
Robert Murray, " the inventor and first proposer," as he called himself, 
received letters at Mr. Hall's Coffee-house, in Wood Street ; and " Mr. 
Dockwra and the rest of the undertakers at the Penny Post House in 
Lime Street " Dockwra's own house, formerly the mansion house of 
Sir Robert Abdy. Roger North assigns the merit of the invention to 
Dockwra, "who put it," he says, "in complete order, and used it to 
the satisfaction of all London, for a considerable time." The Duke of 
York (afterwards James II.), to whom the profits of the post-office had 
been assigned by the King, exhibited an information against him, for 
infraction of his monopoly, and the courts decided in the Duke's 
favour. Dockwra was afterwards appointed Comptroller, but was 

1 Madame de Witts's M. Guizot in Private Life, p. 254, Eng. trans. 
" Granger, vol. v. p. 235, ed. 1824. 



70 THE PENNY POST 

dismissed by the Lords of the Treasury for mismanagement in 1698. 
He died, September 25, 1716, aged near 100 years. See his "Case," 
in Harl. MS. 5954, and further particulars in Delaune's Present State 
of London, 12 mo, 1681. Dockwra was the first to stamp letters with 
the hour at which they left his office for delivery. An additional 
penny was put on in 1801. [See Post Office.] 

Penny's Gate is the name given (in an excellent map in Lockie's 
Topography of London, 1813) to the entrance from St. James's Park to 
the Green Park. 

Pennyrich Street. 

Then Offering, he, with his dish and his tree, 

That in every great house keepeth, 
Is by my son, young Little-worth, done, 

And in Penny-rich Street he sleepeth. 

Ben Jonson, Christmas his Masque, 1616. 

Pentecost Lane, on the north side of NEWGATE STREET, 
subsequently corrupted into " Pincock Lane." Stow describes it as 
"containing divers slaughter-houses for the butchers," and Hatton 
(1708) as "leading to the Bagnio," 1 now Roman Bath Street. 

Pentonville is the name given to a populous district in the parish 
of St. James's, Clerkenwell, which arose about the year 1773, after the 
formation of the New Road (now Pentonville Road) which passed 
through certain fields belonging to Henry Penton, Esq. 2 The first 
buildings were erected at Penton Villa by the New Road and in 
Queen's Row, Pentonville Hill, in 1773, and Dr. de Valangin, the 
eccentric physician, built a mansion called Hermes House, which has 
given its name to Hermes Street, Pentonville Road. The name of 
Pentonville, which, till the last twenty years, was strictly applicable to 
the houses built upon the property of Mr. Penton lying within the parish 
of Clerkenwell, has since been extended to buildings in the adjoining 
parish of Islington, so that it is difficult to say what is the extent of 
Pentonville. What was known as the Model Prison, which stands in 
the Caledonian Road, Islington, is styled the Pentonville Prison, 
although half a mile removed from the district to which the name 
properly belongs. 

Pentonville proper belonged to Geoffrey de Mandeville, a Norman 
knight, afterwards passed to the Foliots, and by Gilbert Foliot was 
conveyed in the reign of Henry II. to the Knights Hospitallers of St. 
John of Jerusalem, at Clerkenwell. It is described by Gerard, the 
herbalist, as the great field called the Mantells, at the back of Islington, 
Mandeville being corrupted into Mantell. In St. James's Chapel, on the 
north side of the New Road, R. P. Bonington, one of the most promising 
of English landscape painters is buried ; he died in 1828, in his twenty- 
seventh year. Joseph Grimaldi, clown (d. 1837). Here also were 

1 Stow, p. 118 ; Hatton, p. 64. 
2 See Maps and Plans published in the year 1735 in relation to the New Road. 



STREET i\ 



interred the two Storers, father and son (d. 1853 and 1837), the 
engravers of the Cathedrals of Great Britain, and of many antiquarian 
and topographical views. 

J'cnlonville Prison was built from the designs of Major R. Jebb, and 
cost over ,84,000, but has since been enlarged and altered at a cost 
of ^5903, making a total cost of ,90,071 : 155. The first stone was 
laid April 10, 1840, and the building completed in 1842. It is con- 
structed on the radiating principle, so as to permit thorough inspection, 
and contains accommodation for 520 prisoners. Here prisoners con- 
demned to penal servitude undergo the first part of their sentence. 
The treatment is designed to "enforce strict separation, with industrial 
employment and moral training." The system of imprisonment at home 
in place of transportation, of which this forms a part, was introduced 
by the Penal Servitude Act of 1853, and the amending Act of 1857. 
The Report of the Directors of Convict Prisons for the year 1887-1888 
contains a memorandum on separate confinement by the Medical 
Inspector, in which extracts are made from successive reports of 
Pentonville Prison. 

Pepper Alley Stairs, SOUTHWARK, leading from Pepper Alley 
to the Thames, the first landing-place west of Old London Bridge. 
The site is covered by the present bridge. 

January u, 1559. The same night about 8 of the clock the Queen's Grace 
took her barge at Whyt Hall, and mony mo barges, and rowed along by the bank 
side, by my Lord of Winchester's Place, and so to Peper Alley, and so crossed over 
to London side with drums and trumpets playing hard beside, and so to Whyt hall 
again to her palace. Machyn's Diary, p. 200. 

July 2, 1763. We set out this morning from Whitehall Stairs in a common 
wherry, landed at Pepper Alley Stairs [this was to avoid shooting the bridge] and 
at the other side of the bridge embarked in the Admiralty barge. . . . We got back 
to Greenwich to dine. We had the smallest fish I ever saw, called white-bait. 
Mrs. Harris to her Son (the Earl of Malmesbury), Letters of the first Earl of 
Malmesbury, vol. i. p. 92. 

Though Dr. Johnson owed his very life to air and exercise, yet he ever persisted 
in the notion that neither of them had anything to do with health. " People live as 
long," said he, " in Pepper Alley as on Salisbury Plain ; and they live so much happier 
than an inhabitant of the first would if he turned cottager, starve his understanding 
for want of conversation, and perish in a state of mental inferiority. Piozzi Anecdotes, 
p. 207. 

Percy Chapel, CHARLOTTE STREET, RATHBONE PLACE. This 
Episcopal Chapel, well known in its day, was built about 1790 for the 
Rev. Henry Mathew, the friend of Flaxman and Blake, and well known 
in the artistic and social circles of his time. It was pulled down in 
1867 and its site "secularized." William Wilberforce worshipped in 
this chapel for some years while his daughters were at school in 
Bedford Square. Robert Montgomery, "the epic poet," was for several 
years, from 1843, tne minister. It was situated opposite Windmill 
Street. 

Percy Street, RATHBONE PLACE. At his son's house (No. 6) in 
this street died, in 1805, aged seventy-six, William Buchan, M.D., author 



72 PERCY STREET 



of Domestic Medicine, of which the first edition appeared in 1769. 
Samuel Rose, the friend of Cowper, lived at No. 2 3, and here on the 
way back from Hayley's at Eartham the author of The Task visited him 
on September 19, 1792; Mrs. Unwin was with him. In a letter to 
Hayley Cowper says, " exactly at ten we reached Mr. Rose's door ; we 
drank a dish of chocolate with him, and proceeded, Mr. Rose riding 
with us, as far as St. Albans." Edward Williams, the Welsh Bard, had 
been asked to meet him, but, says Southey, " Cowper's spirits, as might 
have been expected, failed him when he felt himself in London; 
he sate at the corner of the fire place in total silence, and manifested 
no other interest in the conversation than occasionally raising his eyes 
towards the speaker." He never saw London again. Henry Bone, 
R.A., the celebrated enamel painter (d. 1834), lived for some years in 
a house on the south side. 

Pest House Field, CARNABY STREET, CARNABY MARKET, thirty- 
six small houses and a cemetery, founded by William, first Earl of 
Craven, after the Great Plague of 1665. There is a Craven Pest 
House Charity administered by trustees connected with the parishes 
of St. Clement's Danes, St. James's, Westminster, St. George's, Hanover 
Square, St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and St. Paul's, Covent Garden. The 
income, which in 1888 was ^849:17:4, is divided, after payment 
of expenses, between King's College and Charing Cross Hospitals. 
[See Carnaby Street.] 

Pest House Row, immediately west of St. Luke's Hospital, OLD 
STREET, now BATH STREET ; the old footway to Islington. 

The Pest House beyond Bunhill Fields in the way to Islington. Defoe's Plague 
Year, ed. Brayley, p. 63. 

In Pest House Row, till the year 1737, stood the City Pest House (consisting of 
divers tenements), which was erected as a Lazaretto, for the reception of distressed 
and miserable objects, that were infected by the dreadful Plague in the year 1665. 
Maitland, ed. 1739, p. 776. 

Peter's (St.) at Paul's Wharf, a church in the ward of Queen- 
hithe, destroyed in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt. The bury ing- 
ground at the bottom of Peter's Hill, in Thames Street, still remains. 

March 2$, 1649. I heard the Common Prayer (a rare thing in these days) in 
St. Peter's, at Paul's Wharf, London. Evelyn. 

Peter's (St.) at the Cross in Cheap, a church in the ward of 
Farringdon Within, destroyed in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt. The 
open plot of ground, with a tree in it, at the corner of Wood Street, 
Cheapside, is part of the old churchyard. In this tree a pair of rooks 
built a nest in 1836, and two nests were built in I845. 1 The church 
of the parish is St. Matthew's, Friday Street. Thomas Goodrich, after- 
wards Bishop of Ely (1534) and Lord Chancellor (1552), was rector of 
St. Peter's at the Cross. 

1 Harting's Birds of Middlesex, p. 99. 



i '/://: irs COURT 73 



Peter's (St.), CORNHILI,, at the east end, south side, a parish 
church in CornMU \\'ard, destroyed in the Great Fire, and rebuilt from 
the designs of Sir C. Wren, and the interior of the church has been 
considered as among the best of his works. 

There remaineth in this church a table whereon it is written, I know not by 
what authority, but of a late hand, that King Lucius founded the same church to be 
an archbishop's see metropolitan and chief church of his kingdom, and that it so 
endured the space of four hundred years, unto the coming of Augustin the Monk. 
Stow, p. 73. 

The tablet was formerly suspended in the church ; but is now pre- 
served in the vestry-room. There is an engraving of it in Wilkinson's 
Londina. Bishop Beveridge was rector, 1672-1704. The rood- 
screen dividing the chancel from the nave was set up by his express 
direction, and is mentioned by him in the sermon preached at the 
opening of the church, November 27, 1681. Allhallows the Great is the 
only other City church possessing a rood-screen. There is a touching 
.inscription to the memory of seven children, the "whole offspring of 
James and Mary Woodmason," burnt to death on the night of January 
1 8, 1782. The living is in the gift of the Corporation of London. There 
is extant a letter, dated 1609, from James I. to the Lord Mayor and 
Aldermen, requesting them to present his chaplain, Mr. Theophilus 
Field (brother of Nat. Field), to the living of St. Peter's, Cornhill. Field 
got the living and afterwards rose to be Bishop of Hereford. The 
entry of the burial (February 16, 1722) of Sir Thomas Abney, Lord 
Mayor in 1700, one of the founders of the Bank of England and 
M.P. for the City of London, is to be found in the register. The 
church was extensively repaired, cleansed and redecorated in 1889, 
under the direction of Mr. Ernest Flint, architect. 

Peter's Court, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, west side, between Nos. no 
and in. In 1710 the goods of Mrs. Selby, sword cutler, were 
advertised to be sold "at the Dancing School in Peter's Court, against 
Tom's Coffee-house in S. Martin's Lane." This dancing school was 
afterwards the first studio of Roubiliac the sculptor. On his quitting it, 
it was converted into a drawing academy the precursor of the Royal 
Academy of Arts. Hogarth may tell the story of its foundation : 

Sir James [Thornhill] dying (1734) I became possessed of his neglected apparatus ; 
and thinking that an academy, if conducted on moderate principles would be useful, 
I proposed that a number of artists should enter into a subscription for the hire of a 
place large enough to admit of thirty or forty persons drawing after a naked figure. 
This proposition having been agreed to, a room was taken in [Peter's Court] St. 
Martin's Lane. I lent to the society the furniture that had belonged to Sir James's 
Academy, and attributing the failure of the previous academies to the leading 
members having assumed a superiority which their fellow-students could not brook, 
I proposed that every member should contribute an equal sum towards the support 
ot the establishment, and have an equal right to vote on every question relative to 
its affairs. By these regulations the Academy has now existed nearly thirty years, 
and is, for every useful purpose, equal to that in France, or any other. Hogarth, in 
Siipp. Vol. to Ireland's Hogarth. 

In a pamphlet published by the Incorporated Society of Artists in 



74 PETER'S COURT 



1771 it is stated that most of the artists of the reign of George II. 
and the early years of George III. were trained in this academy. It 
continued, in fact, to be the usual place of study for artists till the 
establishment of the Royal Academy in 1768. Michael Moser, keeper 
and treasurer of the St. Martin's Lane Academy, was appointed first 
keeper of the Royal Academy, and he persuaded his fellow-members to 
dissolve their private school and present the " anatomical figures, busts, 
statues, lamps," and other apparatus to the Royal Academy, to the 
schools of which they would have free access. 

Peter's (St.), EATON SQUARE. The church was built 1824-1826, 
from the designs of Henry Hakewell, architect, and cost ^21,515 ; it 
was nearly burnt down in 1837, and was rebuilt by Mr. Gerrard. The 
altar-piece, " Christ crowned with Thorns," by W. Hilton, R.A., was 
bought by the Royal Academy out of the Chantrey bequest, and is now 
deposited in the South Kensington Museum. It was purchased of the 
artist for 1000 guineas by the Directors of the Royal Institution, and 
presented by them to St. Peter's Church in 1828. On February 26, 
1877, a faculty was obtained for its removal. In 1872 a new chancel 
and transepts in the Byzantine style were added to the nave from the 
designs of Mr. (now Sir) Arthur Blomfield, and they were consecrated 
on St. Peter's eve, 1873. Two years later the whole of the interior 
of the nave was remodelled under the direction of the same architect. 
Here was buried Admiral Sir Edward Codrington (d. 1851). 

Peter's Hill, DOCTORS' COMMONS, extended from Knightrider 
Street to Upper Thames Street, but the southern end was cut off by 
the formation of Queen Victoria Street, and Peter's Hill now possesses 
no houses of its own, those which appear to belong to it being parts 
of the large and deep buildings in Queen Victoria and Knightrider 
Streets. 

Touching lanes ascending out of Thames Street to Knightriders' Street, the first 
is Peter's Hill, wherein I find no matter of note, more than certain almshouses lately 
founded on the west side thereof by David Smith, embroiderer, for six poor widows, 
whereof each to have twenty shillings by the year. Stow, p. 137. 

Here the Master of the Revels had his office from 1 6 1 1 till the 
time of the Civil War, and the consequent closing of the public 
theatres. {See St. Peter's at Paul's Wharf.] 

Peter (St.) Le Poor, OLD BROAD STREET, a church in Broad 
Street Ward, of which Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Winchester 
(d. 1761), was rector from 1704 to 1720. In 1709 the House of 
Commons voted an address to Queen Anne, "that she would be 
graciously pleased to confer some dignity in the Church upon him 
[Hoadly] for his eminent services both to the Church and State." This 
unusual appeal had no effect, but Mrs. Howland, a rich widow, 
presented him to the rectory of Streatham, "to show that she was 
neither afraid nor ashamed to give him that mark of regard at that 



57: I'KTKK'S An VINCULA 75 

critical time." Promotion cumc with the next reign, but he continued 
to hold both these livings after he was Bishop of Bangor. 

: unto Pawlet House is the parish church of St. Peter the Poor, so called for 
,i difference from other of that name, sometime pcradventure a poor parish, but at 
this present there be many fair houses, possessed by rich merchants and other. 
Stow, p. 67. 

The church (existing in 1540), described by Stow, escaped the fire of 
1666, but projected so far into the street that in 1788, when extensive 
repairs had become necessary, an Act of Parliament was obtained for 
taking it down and rebuilding it farther back, taking in the site of a court 
behind. The present church (a very poor one indeed) was designed 
by Jesse Gibson, and consecrated November 19, 1792, by Beilby 
Porteus, Bishop of London. It serves as well for the parish of St. 
Benet Fink, and the tablets were removed here when that church was 
pulled down in 1845. Here were buried the Rev. Edmund Gunter 
(d. 1626), one of the earliest and ablest of English mathematicians, and 
the Rev. Henry Gellibrand (d. 1636), Professor of Astronomy at 
Gresham College. 

Peter Street, CLARE MARKET. Denzell Street was originally so 
called, and there is extant a token of " John Gray at Mother Shipton 
Peter Street in New Market, 1667." 

Peter Street (Great), WESTMINSTER, between Wood Street and 
Rochester Row. On the front of a house facing Leg Court was 
recently the following inscription : "This is Saint Peter Street. 1624. 
R. [a heart] W." 

Peter's (St.) Ad Vincula, a chapel within the precinct and liberty 
of the Tower, at the north end of the Tower Green, the north-west 
angle of the Inner Ward. Prior to 1862 the chapel was singularly 
mean and unsightly, 1 the result of successive alterations and additions 
made for the accommodation of the soldiers of the garrison. An ugly 
brick and plaster porch and wooden staircase leading to the soldiers' 
gallery disfigured the exterior ; a flat ceiling, projecting galleries and tall 
pews the interior. All that testified to the antiquity of the church 
were the Early English columns in the nave, a Decorated window in the 
north aisle, and a five-light Perpendicular window at the east end. In 
1862 the exterior porch and staircase were removed, the galleries and 
the plaster ceiling cleared away, and the original timber roof opened to 
view and some other improvements made ; but all this only served to 
show that more was required, and in 1876-1877 the whole was 
thoroughly restored and renovated under the direction of Anthony 
Salvin, architect (d. 1863), and John Taylor, architect to Government 
Office of Works. The interest attaching to the chapel lies, however, 
less in the fabric than in the persons who have been interred within it. 

1 I cannot refrain from expressing my disgust ness of a meeting-house in a manufacturing 
at the barbarous stupidity which has transformed town. Macaulay, Hist, of England, note to 
this most interesting little church into the like- chap. v. 



76 .sy. PETER'S AD VINCULA 

In truth, there is no sadder spot on earth than this little cemetery. Death is 
there associated, not, as in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, with genius and 
virtue, with public veneration and with imperishable renown ; not, as in our humblest 
churches and churchyards, with everything that is most endearing in social and 
domestic charities ; but with whatever is darkest in human nature and in human 
destiny, with the savage triumph of implacable enemies, with the inconstancy, the 
ingratitude, the cowardice of friends, with all the miseries of fallen greatness and of 
blighted fame. Macaulay's History of England, chap. v. 

Eminent Persons interred in. Queen Anne Boleyn (beheaded 
I536)- 1 

Her body was thrown into a common chest of elm-tree, that was made to put 
arrows in, and was buried in the chapel within the Tower before twelve o'clock. 
Bishop Burnet. 

Queen Katherine Howard (beheaded 1542). Sir Thomas More (be- 
headed 1535). 

His head was put upon London Bridge ; his body was buried in the chapel of 
St. Peter in the Tower, in the belfry, or as some say, as one entereth into the vestry, 
near unto the body of the holy martyr Bishop Fisher. Cresacre More's Life of Sir 
Thomas More, p. 288. 

Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex (beheaded 1540). Gerald, ninth 
Earl of Kildare, Lord Deputy of Ireland (d. 1534). Margaret, 
Countess of Salisbury (beheaded 1541). Thomas, Lord Seymour of 
Sudley, the Lord Admiral (beheaded 1549), by order of his brother, 
the Protector Somerset. The Protector Somerset (beheaded 1552). 
John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland (beheaded 

I553)- 

There lyeth before the High Altar, in St. Peter's Church, two Dukes between 
two Queenes, to wit, the Duke of Somerset and the Duke of Northumberland, 
between Queen Anne and Queen Katherine, all four beheaded. Stow, by Howes, 
p. 615. 

Lady Jane Grey and her husband, the Lord Guilford Dudley (beheaded 
1553-1554). Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (beheaded 1600). Sir 
Thomas Overbury, poisoned in the Tower, and buried, according to 
the register, September 15, 1613. Sir Walter Raleigh (beheaded 
1618). Sir John Eliot died a prisoner in the Tower, November 27, 
1632 ; his son petitioned the King (Charles I.) that he would permit 
his father's body to be conveyed to Cornwall for interment, but the 
King's answer at the foot of the petition was, " Let Sir John Eliot's 
body be buried in the church of that parish where he died." Okey, 
the regicide (executed i662). 2 Sir Jonas Moore, mathematician (d. 
1679). Duke of Monmouth (beheaded 1685), buried beneath the 
communion table. John Rotier (d. 1703), the eminent medallist, 
the rival of Simon, and father of James and Norbert Rotier, also 
medallists of great merit. 3 Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino (beheaded 

1 In Mr. Doyne Bell's Notices oj Historic 2 Ludlow, vol. iii. p. 103. 

Persons buried in the Chapel of St. Peter ad 3 When the second Lord Clarendon was a 

Vincula. is an interesting account of the dis- prisoner in the Tower, Rotier requested an inter- 

covery of the supposed remains of Anne Boleyn view with him, but the authorities refused because 

during the restorations of 1877. he was a Jesuit. Clarendon's Diary. 



PETTICOAT LAKE 77 



1746), Simon, Lord Lovat (beheaded April 9, 1747); their coffin-plates 
are kept in the vestry, and a stone with a cross on it marks the spot 
where they were buried. Colonel Gurwood, editor of the Wellington 
Despatches (d. 1845). Field-Marshal Lord Combermere (d 1865). 
Field-Marshal Sir John Fox Burgoyne, G.C.B., Constable of the Tower 
(d. 1871). Observe. Altar-tomb, with effigies of Sir Richard Chol- 
mondeley (Lieutenant of the Tower, temp. Henry VII.) and his wife. 
Monument, with kneeling figures, to Sir Richard Blount, Lieutenant of 
the Tower (d. 1564), and his son, Sir Michael Blount, his successor in 
the office. Monument in chancel to Sir Allen Apsley, Lieutenant of 
the Tower (d 1630), the father of Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson. Inscribed 
stone, against south wall, over the remains of Talbot Edwards (d 1674), 
Keeper of the Regalia in the Tower when Blood stole the crown. 
Here, in the lieutenancy of Alderman Pennington (the regicide Lord 
Mayor of London), one Kem, Vicar of Low Leyton, in Essex, preached 
in a gown over a buff coat and scarf. Archbishop Laud, who was a 
prisoner in the Tower at the time, records the circumstance, with 
becoming horror, in the History of his Troubles. 

Peter's (St.), WALWORTH ROAD, a church semi-classic in style, 
designed by Sir John Soane, of which the first stone was laid June 2, 
1823, by Archbishop Sutton, and the church consecrated by him 
February 24, 1825. It cost nearly ^20,000. There is a good peal 
of eight bells. 

Peter's (St.), WESTMINSTER. [See Westminster Abbey.] 

Peterborough Court, FLEET STREET, on the north side, the first 
passage west from Shoe Lane, derives its name from the Bishops of 
Peterborough, who, in early times, had their town house here, and 
whose interest in it did not expire till 1863, when the Ecclesiastical 
Commissioners sold the reversion of the property to the proprietors of 
the Daily Telegraph, whose printing office occupies the whole of the 
Court. Here was a printing office of some note a century and a half 
before. "Andrew Hind, living in Peterborough Court, near Fleet 
Street," was declared by a committee of the House of Lords in 1711 
to be the real printer of Swift's " false and scandalous " lines, beginning 

An Orator dismal of Nottinghamshire. 1 
Peterborough House, MILLBANK. [See Millbank.] 
Petre House, ALDERSGATE STREET. [See Aldersgate Street.] 
Petticoat Lane, now MIDDLESEX STREET, WHITECHAPEL. 

Petticoat Lane, formerly called Hog Lane, is near unto " Whitechapel Bars," 
and runs northward towards St. Mary Spittle. In ancient times, on both sides of 
this lane, were hedge rows and elm trees, with pleasant fields to walk in. Insomuch 
that some gentlemen of the Court and city built their houses here for air. Here 
was an House on the west side, a good way in the lane, which, when I was a boy, 
was commonly called the Spanish Ambassador's House, who in King James I.'s 

Stanhope's Queen Anne, p. 552. 



78 PETTICOAT LANE 



reign dwelt here : and he (I think) was the famous Gondomar. And a little way off 
this on the east side of the way, down a paved alley (now called Strype's Court, from 
my father who inhabited here), was a fair large house, with a good garden before it, 
built and inhabited by Hans Jacobson, the said King James's Jeweller, wherein I 
was born. But after French Protestants, that in the said King's reign, and before, 
fled their country for their religion, many planted themselves here, viz., in that part 
of the lane nearest Spittlefields, to follow their trades, being generally Broad 
Weavers of Silk, it soon became a contiguous row of buildings on both sides of the 
way. Strype, B. ii. p. 28. 

This Hog Lane stretcheth north toward St. Mary Spittle without Bishopgate, 
and within these forty years had on both sides fair hedge rows of elm trees, with 
bridges and easy stiles to pass over into the pleasant fields, very commodious for 
citizens therein to walk, shoot, and otherwise to recreate and refresh their dull spirits 
in the sweet and wholesome air, which is now within a few years made a continual 
building throughout of garden houses and small cottages ; and the fields on either 
side be turned into garden plots, tenter-yards, bowling alleys, and such like. 
Stow, p. 48. 

Gherardt Van Strype (the ancestor of the ecclesiastical antiquary) was 
a member of the Dutch Church in London in I567. 1 [Sec Ink Horn 
Court.] 

Ben Jonson makes Iniquity say : 

We will survey the suburbs, and make forth our sallies 

Down Petticoat Lane and up the Smock-Alleys, 

To Shoreditch, Whitechapel, and so to St. Kathern's, 

To drink with the Dutch there, and take forth their patterns. 

The Devil is an Ass, Act i. Sc. I. 

As the weavers receded from Petticoat Lane it was occupied by 
Jews ; and for a long series of years its inhabitants have been Jews of 
the least respectable class, and the houses and shops receptacles for 
second-hand clothes and stolen goods. It is perhaps not so bad as it 
was a few years ago, but it is still one of the most disreputable quarters 
of the Metropolis. On a Saturday the Sabbath quiet as a City lane 
on a Sunday ; on Sunday morning and on the afternoon of every other 
day it is noisy and crowded with clamorous buyers and sellers of old 
clothes, old jewellery, and old wares of all kinds. 

Petty Burgundy, TOOLEY STREET, SOUTHWARK. This place 
appears in the map of 1542 reproduced in Rendle's Old Southwark 
as The Berghene. According to G. R. Corner, the Southwark antiquary, 
it took the name from alien inhabitants (as in the cases of Petty France, 
Petty Wales, etc.), so many of whom lived in St. Olave's parish. A 
special burial-ground for Flemings and others in this very locality implies 
as much. Corner considers that the Duke of Burgundy or his repre- 
sentatives tesided here, temp. Edward IV. When the Greenwich railway 
was constructed extensive brick vaults of handsome and solid construc- 
tion and of ancient date were discovered, the substructure of some 
important mansion on this spot. In forming a new churchyard, 1582, 
certain godly-disposed parishioners who assisted at the work are noted 
as living in the " Borgyney." It is likely that this was a petty manor, a 

1 Strype, B. v. p. 300. 



PETTY FRANCE 79 



place of punishment, cage and pillory being shown in the map referred 
to (Old Southward p. 271). 

Petty Calais, WESTMINSTER, was the place where the woolstaplers 
of Westminster dwelt. " A certain great messuage or tenement, 
commonly called Pety Caleys" is mentioned in an Act of interchange 
between Henry VIII. and the Abbot of Westminster. It adjoined a 
piece of land called Rosamundys. 

Petty France, in BISHOPSGATE WARD, immediately without the 
City wall, and so called of Frenchmen dwelling there. 1 In " the new 
Church-yard in Petty France, given by the City, and consecrated June 
4, 1617," John Lilburne (Free-born John) was interred in 1657 in the 
presence of 4000 persons. 2 . Petty France was rebuilt in 1730, and 
called New Broad Street. 

Petty France, in WESTMINSTER, now YORK STREET (from the 
London residence, during the early part of the last century, of the 
Archbishops of York). 

From the entry into Totehill field the street [Tothill Street] is called Petty France, 
in which, and upon St. Hermit's Hill, on the south side thereof, Cornelius Van Dun 
(a Brabander born, yeoman of the Guard to King Henry VIII., King Edward VI., 
Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth) built twenty houses for poor women to dwell 
rent free ; and near hereunto was a chapel of Mary Magdalen, now wholly ruinated. 
Stow, p. 176. 

He [Milton soon after took a pretty Garden-house in Petty France in Westminster, 
next door to the Lord Scudamore's, and opening into St. James's Park ; here he 
remained no less than eight years, namely, from the year 1652 till within a few 
weeks of King Charles the 2d's Restoration. In this house, his first wife dying in 
childbed, he married a second, who, after a year's time, died in childbed also. 
Philips 's Life of Milton, I2mo, 1694, p. xxxiii. 

Milton left his house in Petty France the first week in May 1660, 
and was for the next three months in " abscondance," at a friend's in 
Bartholomew Close. On the parapet of No. 1 9 William Hazlitt, who 
rented the house in 1811, placed a stone tablet with the inscription, 
" Sacred to Milton, Prince of Poets." 

L l .-Gen. The horse I rais'd in Petty France 

Shall try their chance, 
And scow'r the meadows overgrown with grass. 

The Rehearsal, Act iv. 

January 6, 1709. Walked to Westminster, and from thence to Petty France, 
to wait on his Grace my Lord Archbishop of York [John Sharp]. Thoresby's Diary, 
vol. ii. p. 17. 

At a Tallow-Chandler's in Petty France, half-way under the blind arch : Ask for 
the Historian. Instructions to a Porter how to find Mr. CurlPs Authors (Pope and 
Swift's Miscellanies, vol. iv. p. 32). 

The Bishop of Norwich was living here in i7o8. 3 Aaron Hill had 
a house here, with a garden reaching to the park, and a grotto in it, 
described in his Letters at some length. John Cleland, son of the 
Spectator's Will Honeycomb, died in this street, aged eighty-two, in 1789. 

1 Stoic, p. (>->. 2 litirton's Diary, vol. iii. p. 507. :t Ilntton, p. 628. 



8o PETTY FRANCE 



He wrote a book of such pernicious tendency that when summoned 
before the Privy Council to answer for it, and pleading poverty, the 
President of the Council gave him an annuity of ;ioo, on his 
engaging to write nothing more of the same description. 

Petty Wales, the east end of THAMES STREET, by the Tower. 

On the north side as well as on the south of this Thames Street, are many fair 
houses large for stowage, built for merchants ; but towards the east end thereof, 
namely, over-against Galley-Key, Wool-Key and the Custom House, there have 
been of old time some large buildings of stone, the ruins whereof do yet remain, but 
the first builders and owners of them are worn out of memory, wherefore the common 
people affirm Julius Ccesar to be the builder thereof, as also of the Tower itself. 
Some are of another opinion, and that a more likely, that this great stone building 
was sometime the lodging appointed for the Princes of Wales, when they repaired to 
this City, and that therefore the street in that part is called Petty Wales, which name 
remaineth there most commonly until this day, even as where Kings of Scotland were 
used to be lodged betwixt Charing Cross and Whitehall, it is likewise called Scotland 
[Yard], and where the Earls of Britons were lodged without Aldersgate, the street is 
called Britain Street, etc. [Little Britain]. Stow, p. 52. 

Pewterers' Hall, No. 1 5 LIME STREET. In the court-room is a 
portrait of William Smallwood, who was master of the Company in the 
second year of Henry VII., and gave them their hall, with a garden and 
six tenements adjoining. Small wood's Hall was burnt in the Great 
Fire. It was replaced in 1678 by a hall which was destroyed by fire 
in 1840, and the present convenient but unpretending building then 
erected. The Pewterers' is the sixteenth in rotation of the City Com- 
panies, and was first incorporated in 1474. 

Snea/t. What, is Peter Primmer a candidate ? 

Heeltap. He is, Master Sneak. 

Sneak. Lord, I know him, mun, as well as my mother : why I used to go to his 
Lectures to Pewterers' Hall, 'long with Deputy Firkin. Foote's Mayor of Gai'ratt, 
1764. 

Macklin, the actor, delivered his lectures on Elocution in this hall 
whence Churchill's lines : 

No more in Pewterers' Hall was heard 
The proper force of every word, 
Those seats were desolate become, 
And hapless Elocution dumb. 

Churchill, The Ghost, B. iii. 

Philip's (St.) Chapel, REGENT STREET, near Waterloo Place. 
Built from the designs of J. S. Repton, at the cost of about ^15,000. 
The first stone was laid May 15, 1819, and the chapel consecrated 
July 4, 1820 (St. Philip and St. James's day). The tower is an imita- 
tion of the well-known (so called) lantern of Demosthenes at Athens. 

Philip Lane, LONDON WALL, to ADDLE STREET. Felipeslane, London 
Wall, occurs in the City records as early as 1291; again, as Phelippeslane 
in 1306, and often later. (Riley, Memorials, xi.) Edward, twelfth and 
last Lord Zouch, was living in Philip Lane from 1609 to 1615. In 
the Calendar of State Papers, 1603-1610, pp. 207-209, are two letters 



STREET 8 1 



from him to Cecil, dated Philip Lane, while he held the office of 
President of Wales ; and a long correspondence afterwards, similarly 
dated, when he was Warden of the Cinque Ports, a busy post when, as 
in May 1616, pirate vessels were "captured between Broadstairs and 
tte." (Cal. State Pap., 1611-1618, p. 369.) On April 18, 1619, 
John Hayward, the owner of the house, offers to sell it to Lord Zouch, 
and if he will not buy it requests him to relinquish it. (Cal. State 
Pap., 1619-1623, p. 37.) Sion College formerly stood at the corner 
of Philip Lane and London Wall. 

Philpot Lane, FENCHURCH STREET, to EASTCHEAP, " So called," 
says Stow, " of Sir John Philpot that dwelt there, and was owner thereof." x 
He was mayor in 1378. Here lived Peter Thellusson (d. 1797), 
whose ambition to found a colossal fortune proved a fortune to the 
lawyers. In 1623, when the fleet was fitting out to bring Prince 
Charles and the Infanta from Spain, the Commissioners of the Navy 
dated their numerous letters from Philpot Lane. 

This Carol plays, and has been in his days 

A chirping boy and a kill-pot : 
Kit cobbler it is, I'm a father of his, 

And he dwells in the lane called Fill-pot. 

Ben Jonson, Christmas his Masque. 

Phoenix Alley, LONG ACRE now HANOVER COURT, the passage 
next west of Bow Street, built circ. 1637, in which year it is mentioned 
for the first time in the Rate-books of St. Martin's. John Taylor, the 
Water Poet, kept a tavern in this alley. One of his last works (his 
Journey into Wales, 1652) he describes as "performed by John Taylor, 
dwelling at the sign of the Poet's Head, in Phenix Alley, near the 
middle of Long Aker, or Covent Garden." He supplied his own 
portrait and inscription : 

There's many a head stands for a sign, 
Then, gentle Reader, why not mine ? 

His first sign was a " Mourning Crown," but this was too marked 
to be allowed. He came in 1652, and dying here in 1653, was 
buried, December 5, in the churchyard of St. Martiris-in-tht-Fields. 
It should be noted, however, that Mr. Collier quotes a book called 
Sportive Wit the Muses Merriment, 8vo, 1656, which contains an 
" Epitaph on John Taylor, who was born in the City of Gloucester, died 
in Phoenix Alley in the 75 yere of his age : you may find him, if the 
worms have not devoured him, in Covent Garden Church-yard." '* His 
widow, it appears from the Rate-books of St. Martin's, continued in the 
house, under the name of "widow Taylor," five years after his death. 
In 1658 "Wid[ow] Taylor" is scored out, and " Mons. Lero" written 
at the side. The rate they paid was 23. 2d. a year. 

Phcenix Street, SEVEN DIALS. 

When William Wood obtained in 1723 his patent for coining hall-pence for 
Ireland (which created so much dissatisfaction in that country and caused Swift to 

1 Sttnv, p. 77. 'ii-moirof Taylor, note. 

VOL. Ill <; 



82 PHCENIX STREET 



write his Drapier's Letters} he built a suitable factory " in Phoenix Street Seven 
Dials, and began the work of coining there on Monday the twenty-first of January 
1723. '' Freeholders' Journal for J anuary 23, 1723. 

Phoenix Theatre. [See Cockpit Theatre.] 
Physic Garden, CHELSEA. [Ste Botanic Garden.] 

Physicians, Royal College Of, in PALL MALL EAST, corner of 
TRAFALGAR SQUARE, was designed by Sir R. Smirke, cost ^30,000, and 
was opened (June 25, 1825) with a Latin oration by Sir Henry Halford. 
The College was founded by Linacre, physician to Henry VIII., and 
incorporated in 1518. By this charter and the Confirmatory Act 14 
Henry VIII., it was enacted that no person, graduates of Oxford and 
Cambridge excepted, should practice medicine without licence from the 
College. This continued to be the law till 1858, when, by the Medical 
Act of that year, licence to practice medicine in any part of the United 
Kingdom was conferred on all those whose course of study and 
examination by either of the Universities or other special corporation 
entitled them to registration on the General Medical Register created 
by that Act. 

The members, at its first institution, met in the founder's house in 
Knightrider Street on the site of No. 5, still (by Linacre's bequest) in 
the possession of the College. Here they continued till 1560, when 
it was taken down to make room for the new Probate Court. They 
then moved to Amen Corner (where Harvey read his lectures on 
the discovery of the circulation of the blood); from thence (1674), 
after the Great Fire, to Warwick Lane (this building was pulled 
down 1866), and from Warwick Lane to the present college. 
Observe. In the gallery above the library seven preparations by 
Harvey, discoverer of the circulation of the blood, and a very large 
number by Dr. Matthew Baillie. The engraved portrait of Harvey, by 
Jansen ; head of Sir Thomas Browne, author of Religio Medici ; Sir 
Theodore Mayerne, physician to James I. ; Sir Edmund King, the 
physician who bled King Charles II. in a fit, on his own responsibility ; 
head of Dr. Sydenham, by Mary Beale ; Dr. Radcliffe, by Kneller ; Sir 
Hans Sloane, by Richardson ; Sir Samuel Garth, by Kneller ; Dr. 
Freind ; Dr. Mead ; Dr. Warren, by Gainsborough ; William Hunter ; 
Dr. Heberden. Busts. George IV., by Chantrey (one of his finest) ; 
Dr. Mead, by Roubiliac ; Dr. Sydenham, by Wilton (from the picture) ; 
Harvey, by Scheemakers (from the picture) ; Dr. Baillie, by Chantrey 
(from a model by Nollekens); Dr. Babington, by Behnes. Dr. 
Radcliffe's gold-headed cane, successively carried by Drs. Radcliffe, 
Mead, Askew, Pitcairn, and Matthew Baillie (presented to the College 
by Mrs. Baillie) ; and a clever picture, by Zoffany, of Hunter delivering 
a lecture on anatomy before the members of the Royal Academy all 
portraits. The long vacant niches were in 1876 filled with statues 
from the chisel of Mr. Henry Weekes, R.A. ; in the centre (over the 
doorway) that of Linacre, the founder and first president ; on one side 



TIIK I'lAZZA 83 



Harvey, on the other Sydenham. Mode of Admission. Order from a 
fellow. Almost every physician of eminence in London is a fellow. 1 

Piazza (The), in COVENT GARDEN, an open arcade on the north 
and east sides of Covent Garden Market place ; built by Inigo Jones, 
circ. 1633-1634, and very fashionable when first erected, and much 
admired. The northern side was called the Great Piazza, the eastern 
side the Little Piazza. It occurs for the first time in the Rate-books 
of St. Martin's under the year 1634; and the leases of the two houses 
at the south end, next Great Russell Street (exhibited at the Society 
of Antiquaries in 1853), granted to Sir Edmund Verney, were dated 
1634. That half of the east side of the Piazza south of Russell Street, 
on which the Hummums stands, was destroyed by fire in March 1769, 
and rebuilt without the arcade. It was again rebuilt in 1888; the 
northern half of the east side (including the Bedford Hotel) was pulled 
down in 1889 for an enlargement of the market into Bow Street. The 
western half of the north side (west of James Street) was pulled down 
about 1880, and rebuilt by Messrs. Cubitt. 

1'iazza a Market place or chief street ; such is that in Covent Garden, which 
the vulgar corruptly call the P. H., or I know not what. Blount's Glossogi-aphia, 
121110, 1656. 

But who should I meet at the corner of the Piazza, but Joseph Taylor ; 2 he tells 
me, there's a new play at the Friars to-day, and I have bespoke a box for Mr. Wild 
and his bride. The Parson's Wedding, by T. Killigrew, fol. 1663. 

"In the arcade," says Walpole, "there is nothing very remarkable; the 
pilasters are as errant and homely stripes as any plasterer would make." 
This is true now, though hardly true in Walpole's time, when the 
arcade remained as Inigo had built it, with stone pilasters on a red 
brick frontage. The pilasters, as we now see them, are lost in a mass 
of compo and white paint ; the red bricks have been stuccoed over, 
and the pitched roofs of red tile replaced with flat slate. The rebuilt 
portion to the west of James Street exhibits the red bricks. 

Cockayne. Ay, Marry Sir ! This is something like ! These appear like buildings ! 
Here's architecture exprest indeed ! It is a most sightly situation, and fit for gentry 
and nobility. 

Rookesbill. When it is all finished doubtless it will be handsome. 

Cockayne. It will be glorious ; and yond magnificent peece the Piazza will excel 
that at Venice, by hearsay (I ne'er travelled). Brome's Covent Garden Weeded, 1659. 

Walking thence together to the Piazza they parted there ; Eugenius and Lisideius 
to some pleasant appointment they had made, and Crites and Neander to their 
several lodgings. Dryden, Essay on Dramatick Poesy, 4to, 1668. 

Puh, this is nothing ; why I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns and 
the Tityre Tu's ; they were brave fellows indeed ; in those days a man could not 
go from the Rose Tavern to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my 
dear Sir Willy. The Sccnvrers, by T. Shadwell, 410, 1691. 

London is really dangerous at this time ; the pickpockets, formerly content with 
mere filching, make no scruple to knock people down with bludgeons in Fleet Street 
and the Strand, and that at no later hour than eight o'clock at night : but in the 

1 See the Roll o/the Royal College of rhysicians 2 An actor in Shakespeare's plays as originally 
ff 'London , by W. Munk, M.D., Fellow of the Col- brought out, and one of the best, 
lege, etc. ; and Quarterly Kcnieiu, October 1879. 



84 THE PIAZZA 



Piazzas, Covent Garden, they come in large bodies, armed with couteaus, and attack 
whole parties, so that the danger of coming out of the play-houses is of some weight 
in the opposite scale, when I am disposed to go to them oftener than I ought. 
Shenstone tojago, March 1744. 

Unfortunately for the fishmongers of London the Dory resides only in the Devon- 
shire Seas ; for could any of this company but convey one to the Temple of Luxury 
under the Piazza, 1 where Macklin the high priest daily serves up his rich offerings to 
the goddess, great would be the reward of that fishmonger. Fielding, A Voyage to 
Lisbon, 1754. 

Otway has laid a scene in The Soldier's Fortune in Covent Garden 
Piazza; and Wycherley a scene in TJie Country Wife. In Cocks's 
auction-rooms (afterwards Langford's, then George Robins's) Hogarth 
exhibited his " Marriage-a-la-Mode " gratis to the public ; and " in the 
front apartments, now (1828) used as breakfast-rooms by the proprietor 
of the Tavistock Hotel," lived Richard Wilson, the landscape painter. 2 
He had a model made of a portion of the Piazza, the whole measuring 
about 6 feet from the floor, which he used as a receptace for his paint- 
ing implements. "The rustic work of the piers was divided into 
drawers, and the openings of the arches were filled with pencils and 
oil bottles." 3 It appears, from the baptismal register of the parish of 
St. Paul, Covent Garden, during the reigns of Charles II., James II., 
William III., and even later, that " Piazza " was a favourite name for 
parish children. The baptismal registers are rife with Peter and Mary 
Piazza, John Piazza, Paul Piazza, etc. The reason may be well 
imagined : 

For, bating Covent Garden, I can hit on 

No place that's called Piazza in Great Britain. Byron's Beppo. 

Eminent Inhabitants? Sir William Alexander, 'Earl of Stirling, the 
poet; he was living here, in the north-west angle, in 1637. Thomas 
Killigrew, the wit; he was living in the north-west angle, between 1637 
and 1643, and in the north-east angle, 1660-1662. Denzill Holies, in 
1644, under the name of "Colonel Hollis;" and in 1666 and after 
in a house on the site of Evans's Hotel, afterwards inhabited by Sir 
Harry Vane, the younger (1647), and by Sir Kenelm Digby (1662). 

Since the restauration of Ch. II. he [Sir Kenelm Digby] lived in the last faire 
house westward in the north portico of Covent Garden, where my L d - Denzill Holies 
lived since. He had a laboratory there. I think he dyed in this house. Sed qu. 
Aubrey's Lives, vol. ii. p. 327. 

Nathaniel Crew, third and last Lord Crew, and Bishop of Durham 
from 1 68 1 to 1689, in the same house. It appears, from the books 
of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, that almost all the foundlings of the 
parish were laid at the door of the house of the Bishop of Durham. 
Aubrey de Vere, the twentieth and last Earl of Oxford ; in the north- 
east angle, from 1663 to 1676; he lived in what was Killigrew's 
house. Sir Peter Lely, from 1662 to his death in 1680; at the 
north-east, where Robins's auction-room afterwards was; the house 

1 "The Great Piazza Coffee-room in Covent s Ibid., vol. i. p. 142. 

Garden, late Macklin's." Advertisement in the 4 From the Rate-books of St. Martin's and St. 

Public Advertiser, March 6, 1756. Paul's, Covent Garden, and other sources. 

" Smith's Nolhkcns, vol. ii. p. 213. 



PICCADILLY 85 



was inhabited by Roger North, the executor of Lcly, 1 and by his 
eminent brother, Sir Dudley North, who died in it, December 31, 
1691. It is now a portion of the Tavistock Hotel. Viscountess 
Muskerry, in 1676; in the north-west angle, corner of James Street. 
This was the celebrated Princess of Babylon of I)e (irammont's 
Memoirs. Sir Godfrey Kneller ; he came into the Piazza the year 
after Lely died, and the house he occupied was near the steps into 
Covent Gankn Theatre ; he had a garden at the back, reaching as far 
as Dr. Radcliffe's, in Bow Street, "which was extremely curious and 
inviting, from the many exotic plants, and the variety of flowers and 
greens which it abounded with." 2 Here, therefore, and not in Great 
Queen Street, the scene of the well-known anecdote of Kneller's and 
Radcliffe's comical quarrel must be laid. Kneller lived here for 
twenty-one years. He had left in 1705.3 Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne. 

I have quitted my old lodging, and desire you to direct your letters to be left 
for me with Mr. Smibert, painter, next door to the King's Arms Tavern, in the 
Little Piazza, Covent Garden. Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, August 24, 1726 
(Berkeley's Lit. Relics, p. 160). 

Russell, Earl of Orford. 

Hard by the church and at the end of the Piazzas [now Evans's Hotel] is the 
Earl of Orford's house. He is better known by the name of Admiral Russell, who 
in 1 692 defeated Admiral de Tourville near La Hogue, and ruined the French fleet. 
A New Guide to London, I2mo, 1726, p. 26. 

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu lived in the Piazza for some time : there 
is a letter from Pope addressed to her here. 

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is dangerously ill at her house in the Piazza, Covent 
Garden. Grub Street Journal, September 17, 1730. 

Lankrink and Closterman, painters ; in the house lately Richardson's 
Hotel, now rebuilt and occupied as Lockhart's Cocoa Rooms. Sir 
James Thornhill, in 1733; in the second house eastward from James 
Street. Zoffany, the clever theatrical portrait-painter; in what was 
afterwards Robins's auction-room, in the north-east wing of the Piazza. 
Here he painted Foote, in the character of Major Sturgeon. 

Piccadilly. A street consisting of shops and fashionable dwelling- 
houses running east and west, which extends from the top of the 
Haymarket to Hyde Park Corner. The earliest allusion to it was 
thought to be in Gerard's Herbal, where we read " that the small wild 
buglosse grows upon the drie ditch bankes about Pickadilla," but the 
passage does not occur in the earliest edition, 1596, and is only to be 
found in that of 1633. The origin of the name is more than doubtful. 
Robert Baker, of the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, by his last will, 
dated April 14, 1623, bequeathed the sum of 2 : IDS. in money, and los. 
in bread, to the poor of the parish in which he lived. He had a wife and 
family and a good deal to leave. He speaks of his houses in the Strand, 

1 North's Lives of the NortJis, ed. 1826, vol. - Life of Radcliffe, by Pittis, 8vo, 1736. 

iii. p. 227. 3 Daily Courant of March 1705. 



86 PICCADILL Y 

before Britain's Burse, of a tenement in his own occupation, with its 
garden and cowhouse, and of a piece of land of about two acres " in 
the fields behind the Mews," which he had enclosed with a brick wall. 
The entry of the 3 in the Accounts of the Overseers of the Poor 
of St. Martin's tells us who Robert Baker was, and how his nameless 
tenement was known. 

Of Robte Backer of Pickadilley Halle gewen 
by wille, iij u - 

Here, then, is the earliest mention of Piccadilly Hall which has yet 
been discovered, and the bequest and entry are additionally important, 
when we contrast the silence of Baker in his will when he refers to the 
tenement in his possession, known as Piccadilly Hall, with the particular 
description made by the overseers in the entry of the payment. There 
is reason to believe that Robert Baker did not care to have his tenement 
described as Piccadilly Hall ; let us hear Blount : 

A Pickadil is that round hem, or the several divisions set together about the 
skirt of a garment or other thing ; also a kinde of stiffe collar, made in fashion of 
a band. Hence, perhaps, the famous ordinary near St. James's, called Pickadilly, 
took denomination, because it was then the utmost, or skirt house of the suburbs, 
that way. Others say it took name from this ; that one Higgins, a Tailor, who 
built it, got most of his estate by Pickadilles, which in the last age were much worn 
in England. Blount's Glossographia, ed. 1656, first ed. 

Minsheu, 1627, describes it as "a peece fastened about the top of the 
coller of a doublet." The word occurs in several of our old dramatic 
writers ; thus Ben Jonson : 

Ready to cast at one whose band sits ill, 
And then leap mad on a neat pickardill. 
Epistle to a Friend (Master Colby) ; also The Devil is an Ass, Act ii. Sc. I. 

His editor, Gifford, has a note upon the subject. "Piccadil," says 
Gifford, "is simply a diminutive of picca (Span, and Ital), a spear-head, 
and was given to this article of foppery from a fancied resemblance of 
its stiffened plaits to the bristled points of those weapons." It was in 
fashion when Barnaby Rich wrote in 1614. " He that some fortie or 
fifty years sithens," says Rich, "should have asked after a Pickadilly, I 
wonder who could have understood him, or could have told what a 
Pickadilly had been, either fish or flesh." 1 Taylor the Water Poet 
speaks of a "Tyburn Pickadill." 

Baker, it appears, had built on " the fields behind the Mews," and 
his widow increasing the number of tenements, the Overseers of the 
Poor of St. Martin's claimed Lammas money of her, for building on 
ground over which, after Lammas, the parishioners of St. Martin's had 
a right of common. In the books of the Overseers from April 18, 
1640, to May 2, 1641, the sum is placed under the head of "Lamas 
Ground Receipts," and the entry is as follows : 

1 A fresh etymology may be hazarded In was a place of entertainment as well as a gaming- 
Spanish picadillo means hashed or minced meat, house, took its name from a popular dish as from 
and it is as probable that Piccadilly Hall, which a fashionable collar. 



riccAnu i v 87 



Of Mrs. Mary Baker, widdowe, in Lieu of the Lamas Common, of certaine 
grounds nccrc ilio \Vindc Mill at the Cawsey head, builded upon by her late husband 
deceased, and now usually called Fickadilly, xxx</. 

Windmill Street preserves a recollection of "the Winde Mill at the 
Cawseyhead ; " Panton Square and Panton Street, the name of Colonel 
Panton, to whom Mrs. Baker sold Piccadilly Hall; and Coventry 
Street, the name of Mr. Secretary Coventry of the reign of Charles II., 
whose garden wall ran along part of Panton Street and Oxenden Street. 
The situation of Piccadilly Hall, at the north-east corner of the Hay- 
market, is laid down in the maps of London by T. Porter and W. 
Faithorne, both published before 1660; and these show that over 
against Windmill Street stood the Gaming-house or Shaver's Hall ; 
and at the corner of Windmill Street and Coventry Street Piccadilly 
HalL 

In the afternoon of the same day fin 1641], Mr. Hyde going to a place called 
Piccadilly (which was a fair house for entertainment and gaming, with handsome 
gravel walks with shade, and where were an upper and lower bowling green, whither 
very many of the nobility and gentry of the best quality resorted, both for exercise 
and conversation), as soon as ever he came into the ground, the Earl of Bedford 
came to him, and told him "He was glad he was come thither, for there was a 
friend of his in the lower ground who needed his counsel." Clarendon's History of 
the Rebellion, ed. 1826, vol. i. p. 422. 

Sir John Suckling, the poet (d. 1641), was one of the great frequenters 
of Piccadilly Hall, Aubrey preserving a story of "his sisters coming 
to Peccadillo Bowling-green, crying for the feare he should lose all 
[their] portions." Another well-known person was Phil Porter. 

Farewell, my dearest Piccadilly, 

Notorious for great dinners ; 
Oh, what a Tennis Court was there ! 

Alas ! too good for sinners. 
Phil Porter's Farewell (Wit and Drollery}, I2mo, 1682, p. 39. 

Lammas money was paid on account of Piccadilly House and Bowling 
Green as late as 1670, and the house itself pulled down circ. 1685. 
The Fives Court attached to the Gaming-house remained standing in 
Windmill Street a very few years back. The Tennis Court of Shaver's 
Hall remained in James Street until 1887, when it was rebuilt; a 
tablet now marks the place. 

February 7, 1638. A sentence in the Star Chamber this term hath demolished 
all the houses about Piccadilly ; by midsummer they must be pulled down, which 
have stood since the I3th of K. James [1615] : they are found to be great nuisances, 
and much foul the springs of water which pass by those houses to Whitehall and to 
the City. Garrard, Strafford Letters, vol. ii. p. 150. 

April 14, 1657. The Clause about manners and loose persons was read. . . . 
Sir William Strickland said, " Certainly this work is very requisite, and abundance 
of loose persons are about town; at Piccadilly and other nurseries of vice."- 
Journah of Parliament, Burton, vol. ii. p. 35. 

July 31, 1662. I sat with the Commissioners about reforming buildings and 
streets of London, and we ordered the paving of the way down St. James's north, 
which was a quagmire, and also of the Haymarket about Piquiilillo. Evelyn. 



88 PICCADILL Y 

Cordelia. At last 

Volscius the great this dire resolve embraced : 

His servants he into the country sent, 

And he himself to Piccadillt went, 

Where he's inform'd by letters that she's dead. 

Baynes. So, let me see. 

Enter Prince Volscius going out of town. 
Smith. I thought he had been gone to Picadille 
Baynes. Yes, he gave out so ; but that was only to cover his design. 

The Rehearsal (1671), Act. iii. 

The first Piccadilly, taking the word in its modern acceptation of a 
street, was a very short line of road, running no farther west than the 
foot of Sackville Street, and the name Piccadilly Street occurs for the 
first time in the Rate-books of St. Martin's under the year 1673. Sir 
Thomas Clarges's house, on the site of the present Albany, is described 
in the London Gazette of 1675 (No. 982) as "near Burlington House, 
above Piccadilly." From Sackville Street to Albemarle Street was 
originally called Portugal Street, after Catherine of Braganza, Queen of 
Charles II., and all beyond was the great Bath Road, or, as Agas calls 
it (1560), "the way to Reding." The Piccadilly of 1708 is described 
as "a very considerable and publick street, between Coventry Street 
and Portugal Street ;" and the Piccadilly of 1720 as "a large street and 
great thoroughfare, between Coventry Street and Albemarle Street." 1 
Portugal Street gave way to Piccadilly in the reign of George I. That 
part of the present street, between Devonshire House and Hyde Park 
Corner, was taken up, as Ralph tells us, in 1734, by the shops and 
stone-yards of statuaries, just as the Euston Road is now a statement 
confirmed by Lloyd in The Cifs Country Box, and by Walpole in a 
letter to Mann of June 6, 1746. 

And now from Hyde Park Corner come 
The Gods of Athens and of Rome ; 
Here squabby Cupids take their places, 
With Venus and the clumsy Graces. 

Lloyd, The Cifs Country Box, 1757. 

When do you come ? If it is not soon you will find a new town. I stared 
to-day at Piccadilly like a country squire ; there are twenty new stone houses. At 
first I concluded that all the grooms that used to live there had got estates and built 
palaces. Walpole to Montagu, November 8, 1759. 

We may read the history of Piccadilly in the names of several of the 
surrounding streets and buildings. Albemarle Street was so called after 
Christopher Monk, second Duke of Albemarle, to whom Clarendon 
House was sold in 1675, by the sons of the great Lord Clarendon. 
Bond Street was so called after Sir Thomas Bond, of Peckham, to 
whom Clarendon House was sold by the Duke of Albemarle when in 
difficulties, a little before his death. Jermyn Street was so called after 
Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans, who died 1683-1684; Burlington 
House after Boyle, Earl of Burlington; Dover Street after Henry 

1 Hat ton, 1708 ; Strype, 1720. 



PICCADILLY 89 



Jcrniyn, Lord Dover (d. 1708), the little Jermyn of De Grammont's 
Memoirs ; Berkeley Street and Stratton Street after John, Lord Berkeley 
of Stratton, Lord Deputy of Ireland in the reign of Charles II. ; Clarges 
Street after Sir Walter Clarges, the nephew of Ann Clarges, wife of 
General Monk ; and Arlington Street and Bcnnet Street after Henry 
Bcnnet, Earl of Arlington, one of the Cabal. Air Street was built in 
1659; Stratton Street in 1693, and Bolton Street was, in 1708, the 
most westerly street in London. Devonshire House occupies the site of 
Berkeley House, in which the first Duke of Devonshire died (1707). 
Hamilton Place derives its name from James Hamilton, ranger of Hyde 
Park in the reign of Charles II., and brother of La Belle Hamilton. 
Halfmoon Street was so called from the Halfmoon Tavern. Coventry 
House, No. 1 06, was built on the site of an old inn, called the 
Greyhound, and bought by the Earl of Coventry of Sir Hugh Hunlock 
in 1764 for 10,000 guineas. 1 Apsley House was called after Apsley, 
Earl of Bathurst, who built it late in the last century ; and the Albany 
from the Duke of York and Albany, brother of George IV. St. James's 
Church (by Wren) was consecrated on Sunday, July 13, 1684. The 
sexton's book of St. Martin's informs us that the White Bear Inn was 
in existence in 1685 ; and Strype, in his new edition of Stow, that there 
was a White Horse Cellar in Piccadilly in 1720; it was so named by 
Williams, the landlord, in honour of the accession of the House of 
Hanover. This house was widely renowned in coaching days, and is 
still the summer starting-place of the private four-horse stage-coaches. 
The two Corinthian pilasters, which stood one on each side of the 
Three Kings Inn gateivay, in Piccadilly (they were removed in 1864), 
belonged to Clarendon House, and were thought to be the only remains 
of that edifice. 

Sir William Petty, our first writer of authority on political arithmetic, 
died in a house over against St. James's Church (1687). Next but 
one to Sir William Petty, Verrio, the painter, was living in 1675. In 
the dark red-brick rectory house, at the north side of the church, 
pulled down 1848, and immediately rebuilt (now No. 197), lived and 
died Dr. Samuel Clarke, rector of St. James's, from 1709 till his death 
in 1729. Here he edited Ccesar and Homer ; here he wrote his 
Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity and his Treatise on tJte Being and 
Attributes of God. In Coventry House, facing the Green Park, corner 
of Engine Street (now the St. James's Club), died in 1809, William, 
sixth Earl of Coventry, married, in 1752, to Maria, the elder of 
the two beautiful Miss Gunnings. In what was then No. 23, now 
No. 99, died, in 1803, Sir William Hamilton, the collector of the 
Hamiltonian gems, better known as the husband of Nelson's Lady 
Hamilton: they went there in 1800. From the house No. 80, Sir 
Francis Burdett was taken to the Tower, April 6, 1810; the arrest 
was made by forcing open the area windows, after a fruitless attempt 

1 Carter the Antiquary in Gent. Mag. for March 1816, p. 230; Everyday Book, vol. i. p. 578; 
Selwyn's Correspondence, vol. i. p. 339. 



90 PICCADILLY 

to get in at the first floor by a ladder. They found Sir Francis in the 
drawing-room with his brother, his son, and some ladies. The coach 
in which they carried him off was escorted by the Life Guards, with the 
5th Hussars leading the way. They went round by Portland Street 
and the City Road through Finsbury Square and the Minories to the 
Tower. Windham records in his Diary (p. 503), "Went late to 
Albemarle Street. Found Life Guards in Piccadilly hunted by and 
hunting the mob." No. 105 was the old Pulteney Hotel; here the 
Emperor of Russia put up during the memorable visit of the allied 
sovereigns in 1814 ; and here the Grand Duchess of Oldenburg (the 
Emperor Alexander's sister) introduced Prince Leopold to the Princess 
Charlotte. On its site the late Marquis of Hertford built, but never 
occupied, Hertford House. The large brick house, No. i Stratton 
Street, was the residence of Mrs. Coutts, afterwards Duchess of St. 
Albans, and is now that of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. Lord Eldon's 
house, at the west corner of Hamilton Place, was built by his grand- 
father, Lord Chancellor Eldon. Nos. 138 and 139 were all one house 
in the old Duke of Queensberry's time. 

In the balcony of No. 138, on fine days in summer, used to sit, some forty years 
ago, a thin, withered old figure, with one eye, looking on all the females that passed 
him, and not displeased if they returned him whole winks for his single ones. . . . 
He had been Prince of the Jockies of his time, and was a voluptuary and millionaire. 
"Old Q." was his popular appellation. He died at the age of eighty-six. We 
have often seen him in his balcony 

Sunning himself in Huncamunca's eyes ; 

and wondered at the longevity of his dissipation and the prosperity of his worthless- 
ness. Leigh Hunt. 

Windham also mentions his habit of sitting at the window : 

September 25, 1808. Went in to the Duke of Queensberry, whom I saw at his 
window ; full of life but very difficult to communicate with, and greatly declined in 
bodily powers. Windham's Diary. 

He died in this house, December 23, 1810, aged eighty-six. The legacy 
duty on his property was ;i 20,000. 

At the corner of Park Lane, No. 137, then Lord Elgin's, the Elgin 
marbles were placed on their first arrival in this country. Later it was 
the residence of the Duchess of Gloucester. No. 94 was formerly 
Egremont House, then Cholmondeley House, afterwards the residence 
of the Duke of Cambridge (brother of George III.), and known as 
Cambridge House. It was then, from his first premiership, 1855, till 
his death, October 18, 1865, the residence of Lord Palmerston ; 
and famed for Lady Palmerston's brilliant receptions. It is now the 
Naval and Military Club. Lord Palmerston, prior to 1855, lived for a 
short time at No. 114. The bay-fronted house which stood at the 
corner of Whitehorse Street was the residence of Mr. Charles Dumergue, 
the friend of Sir Walter Scott ; until a child of his own was established 
in London, this was Scott's headquarters when in town. The London 



ADILLY 



season of Lord Byron's married life was passed in that half of the 
Duke of Queensberry's house afterwards numbered 139 and pulled 
down in 1889. "We mean to metropolise to-morrow," says Byron, 
"and you will address your next to Piccadilly. We have got the 
Duchess of Devon's house there, she being in France." Here he 
brought his wife, March 18, 1815, and that hag of a housemaid, Mrs. 
Mule, of whom Moore has given an amusing account ; and from here 
Lady Byron left him for ever in the middle of the following January. 
His affairs were so embarrassed that there had been no fewer than 
eight or nine executions in his house during this period. The letters 
of Lord Byron, written from this house, are one and all dated from 
No. 13 Piccadilly Terrace, and one and all of Scott's from Mr. 
Dumergue's, No. 15 Piccadilly West. Numbers are of little use to 
the local antiquary ; they suffer from the caprice of the authorities. 
Two houses are thrown into one, the street is enlarged, or the 
even numbers are arranged on one side and the odd numbers on 
the other. Piccadilly Terrace and Piccadilly West no longer exist ; 
and under the present system of numbering, Apsley House, Hyde Park 
Corner, is No. 149 Piccadilly. The Hercules Pillars public-house, 
where Squire Western put up his horses when in pursuit of Tom 
Jones, and where that bluff brave soldier, the Marquis of Granby 
(d. 1770), spent many a happy hour, stood long after Apsley House 
was built on what was Hamilton Terrace, now incorporated into 
Piccadilly. In Piccadilly, on the south side, facing Old Bond Street, 
was the shop of Wright (the publisher of the Antijacobin, the Baviad, 
etc.), now Ridgway's (No. 169), where Peter Pindar assaulted Gifford, 
and was bundled neck and crop into the muddy street for his pains. 
Peter Pindar, however, never ceased to assert both in print and 
conversation that he had " cudgelled, most soundly cudgelled " 
Gifford, in " one Wright's shop, a poor, ignorant and painstaking book- 
seller in Piccadilly." George Frederick Cooke was living at No. 9 
Piccadilly West when, on February 5, 1803, he made a resolve to keep 
a journal, which he forgot the next day. 

At the corner of Down Street was the house of Henry Thomas 
Hope, Esq., built 1848-1849, from the designs of M. Dusillon and Mr. 
T. L. Donaldson. The handsome iron railing in front was cast at Paris. 
The cost of the whole building is said to have been over ,80,000. 
Here Mr. Hope kept the celebrated collection of pictures (Dutch 
especially) formed at the Hague by the family of the Hopes, and 
now chiefly at Deepdene. The Junior Athenaeum Club purchased 
the lease for ^45,000. At "No. 22 Piccadilly, late the Fantoccini 
Rooms," Mr. Katterfelto exhibited in 1782 the wonders of his solar 
microscope, whereby the "insects which have threatened this king- 
dom with a plague . . . and which by all accounts, caused a great 
plague in Italy in the year 1432 . . . will be magnified as large as 
an ox, and are as tough." l 

1 Katterfelto's Advertisement. 



92 PICKAXE STREET 



Pickaxe Street, CLERKENWELL, the name given in some old 
maps to GOSWELL STREET. 

Pickering Place, ST. JAMES'S STREET, a small courtyard near the 
south-east end of the street. In Dodsley's London, 1761, it is set 
down as Pickering's Court. The old firm of engravers, through whose 
house the entrance to the Court passes, have preserved a card-plate of 
the Georgian era, which, without any name, states " 5 Pickering Place, 
St. James's Street, Rouge and Roulette, French and English Hazard. 
Commence at one o'clock." This was one of the most notorious Hells 
in London. 

Picket Street, STRAND, north side of St. Clement's Danes. 
Built on the site of Butcher Row, and so called in compliment to 
Alderman Picket (d. 1796, buried at Stoke Newington). Before 
the alteration was made the old cant name for the place among 
coachmen was " The Pass," or " The Straits of St. Clement's." * Picket 
Street was cleared away to make room for the new Law Courts. 

A number of old, ruinous houses called Butcher Row have been taken down, 
and a range of new buildings erected on the north side, named Picket Street, in 
honour of Alderman Picket, who projected the alteration. Priscilla Wakefield's 
Perambulations in London, 1809, p. 246. 

Pickleherring Street, by the Thames Side, HORSLEYDOWN. 
Here, at the north end of Vine Street, is the landing-place called 
Pickleherring Stairs. 

October 15, 1687. Mr. Timothy Evans, at Pickleherring Stairs, who had been 
kind to my son Henry, in bringing him out of .the Indies, came to me. He has 
been commander of merchantmen in to the Indies and Guinea, or mate, this ten 
years, and brought me four agates ; who is desirous I would move Mr. Pepes to him 
into his Majesty's service. Bishop Cartwright's Diary, p. 85. 

Picthatch, or PICKEHATCH, a noted receptacle for prostitutes and 
pickpockets, generally supposed to have been in Turnmill Street, near 
Clerkenwell Green, 2 but its position is determined by a grant of the 
33d of Queen Elizabeth, and a survey of 1649. What was Picthatch 
is a street at the back of a narrow turning called Middle Row (formerly 
Rotten Row) opposite the Charter House wall in Goswell Road. The 
name is still (or was till recently) preserved in " Pickax Yard " adjoining 
Middle Row. 

In a grant by pat. 33 Eliz., p. 9, m. 25-28, appears the grant of a small 
enclosure occupied as a garden with a stall stable thereon built, lying in Olde Street 
or Pickehatch near the Charter House, in the parish of St. Giles's without Cripple- 
gate ; and in a survey of the Prebendal Manor of Finsbury (1649) is mentioned, 
" All that other parcel of demesne land commonly called and known by the name of 
Rotten Row, set, lying and being in the parish of St. Giles's without Cripplegate, in 
a certain street there commonly called Old Street, adjoining north upon the said 
street, and south upon a way or passage leading out of Old Street into the Pickthatch, 
and abutting east upon the Cage and Prison House in Old Street aforesaid." T. 
Edlyne Tomlins (MS. Communication to Mr. Cunningham]. 

1 The Spectator, No. 498. 2 Gifford's Ben Jonson, vol. i. p. 17 ; Dyce's Middleton, vol. v. p. 512. 



/'//: CORNER 93 



Falstaff [to Pistol,} Reason, you rogue, reason : think'st thou I'll endanger my 
soul gratis ? At a word, hang no more about me ; I am no gibbet for you : go. 
A short knife and a throng : to your manor of Pickthatch, go. Merry Wives of 
Windsor, Act ii. Sc. 2. 

Shift, here in town, not meanest among squires, 

That haunt Pict-hatch, Marsh Lambeth and Whitefriars, 

; himself, with half a man, and defrays 
The charge of that state with this charm God pays. 

Ben Jonson, Epigram xii. (Lieutenant Shift}. 

Shift, a thread-bare shark ; one that never was a soldier, yet lives upon lendings. 
His profession is skeldring and odling, his bank Paul's, and his warehouse Picthatch. 
Ben Jonson, Dram. Pers. before Every Man out of his Humour. See also 
Every Man in his Humour ; and Alchemist. 

Here Middleton has laid the scene of his Black Book ; and here 
there is reason to believe, from what Middleton states, Nash, the rude 
railing satirist, died. 

I proceeded toward Pict-hatch, intending to begin there first, which (as I may 
fitly name it) is the very skirts of all brothel-houses. Middleton's Works, vol. v. 

P- 5I3- 

In the meantime, while they were ransacking his box and pockets [Sir John] 
Robinson fell a railing at the Colonel, giving him the base terms of Rebel and 
Murderer, and such language as none could have learnt, but such as had been 
conversant among the Civil Society of Pickt-hatch, Turnbull Street, and Billingsgate. 
Mrs. Hutchinson's Memoirs of Colonel Hntchinson, ed. 1838, p. 132. 

Pightle is a small enclosed place, and the root picht, pight seems 
to convey the idea of a fastening or shutting off. Pickthatch was a 
place parted off, where the residents were shut in and intruders shut 
out. It may be worth notice that Southey records in his journal of a 
journey in the western and south-western countries, under October 29, 
1799: "On the way [from Ringwood to Romsey in Hampshire] is 
the Picket Post, an extra-parochial alehouse, where unmarried women 
go to lie in, out of the reach of the constable." * 

Pie Corner, WEST SMITHFIELD, between Giltspur Street and 
Smithfidd ; now the Smithfield end of Giltspur Street. 

Pie Corner, a place so called of such a sign, sometime a fair Inn for receipt of 
travellers, but now divided into tenements. Stow, p. 139. 

Pye corner noted chiefly for Cook's Shops, and Pigs drest there during 
Bartholomew Fair. Strype, B. iii. p. 283. 

Hostess. I am undone by his [Falstaff s] going ; I warrant you, he's an infinitive 
thing upon my score. Good master Fang, hold him sure : good master Snare, let 
him not 'scape. He comes continually to Pie Corner (saving your manhood) to 
buy a saddle ; and he's indited to dinner to the Lubbard's Head in Lumbert Street 
to Master Smooth's the silkman. Shakespeare, Second Part of King Henry IV., Act 
ii. Sc. I. 

Face. I shall put you in mind, sir ; at Pie Corner 

Taking your meal of steam in, from Cook's stalls. 

Where, like the father of hunger, you did walk 

Piteously costive. Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, Act i. Sc. i. 

Little-wit. Tut, we'll have a device, a dainty one. I have it, Win, I have it, i' 
faith, and 'tis a fine one. Win, long to eat of a pig, sweet Win, in the Fair do you 

1 Southey's Commonplace Book, vol. iv. p. 523. 



94 PIE CORNER 



see, in the heart of the Fair, not at Pie Corner. Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, 
Act i. Sc. i. 

Whorebang. By this flesh, let's have wine, or I will cut thy head off, and have 
it roasted and eaten in Pie Corner next Bartholomew Tide. Nat Field, Amends for 
Ladies, 4to, 1618. 

In the Pig Market, alias Pasty Nook, or Pie Comer ; where pigs are all hours of 
the day on the stalls piping hot, and would say (if they could speak) come eat me. 
Bartholomew Fair (tract), 1641. 

Lady Frugal. What cooks have you provided ? 

Holdfast. The best of the city : they've wrought at my Lord Mayor's. 
Anne Frugal. Fie on them ! They smell of Fleet Lane and Pie Corner. 
Massinger, The City Madam. 

Sir Humphrey Scattergood. I'll not be served so nastily as in my days of nonage, 
or as my father was ; as if his meat had been dress'd at Pie Corner by greasy 
scullions there. T. Shadwell, TJie Woman Captain, 4to, 1680 ; See also his Sullen 
Lovers, 4to, 1668. 

Next day I through Pie Corner past : 

The roast-meat on the stall 
Invited me to take a taste ; 
My money was but small. 

The Great Boobee (Roxburghe Ballads, p. 221). 

Through a good part of the i7th century Pie Corner was noted 
for the manufacture of broad-sheet (or what in the next century would 
have been called Seven Dials) literature. Randolph, in his " Answer to 
Ben Jonson's Ode," speaks as contemptuously of " some Pie Corner 
Muse," as does Marvell, long after, in his " Rehearsal Transprosed " of 
" superannuated chanter of Saffron Hill and Pie Corner ; " and Edward 
Phillips says : 

Who would grudge the slight mention of a book and its author ; yet not so far 
as to condescend to the taking notice of every single -sheeted Pie Corner poet who 
comes squirting out with an elegy in mourning for every great person that dies. 
Edward Phillips, Preface to Theatrum Poetarum, I2mo, 1675. 

The Great Fire of London began at Pudding Lane and ended at 
Pie Corner, a singular coincidence in names, which is said to have 
occasioned the erection, at the corner of Cock Lane, of a figure of a 
boy upon a bracket, with his arms across his stomach, thus curiously 
inscribed : " This boy is in memory put up of the late Fire of London, 
occasioned by the sin of gluttony, 1666." There is an engraving of it 
by J. T. Smith, who also etched some " old houses at the south corner of 
Hosier Lane, drawn in April 1795," which, with the other old houses 
spared by the Fire, were taken down in 1809. There is still an inscrip- 
tion on the corner house. [See Cock Lane]. Long after the Fire 
D'Urfey calls Pie Corner " a very fine dirty place." * 

September 4, 1 666. W. Hewer this day went to see how his mother did, and 
comes late home, telling us how he hath been forced to remove her to Islington, her 
house in Pie Corner being burned, so that the Fire is got so far that way. Pepys. 

A certain Company were reckoning up y e families of y e Pyes and named divers ; 
at length one ask't what was Sir Edm. Py that married L d Lucas sister ? One 
answered he was Py of Py Corner. R. Symond's Pocket-Book, HarL MS., 991, 
fol. 10. 

1 Song of Bartholomew Fair. 



r 1 1. GRIM STKI'.I-.T 95 



Pie Powder Court. [See Bartholomew Fair.] " A court incident 
to all fairs, held before the steward of the lord of the fair, for 
adjudicating on all contracts arising at the fair," 1 and by 1 7 Edward 
IV., c. 2, the court is strictly prohibited from entertaining any plaint 
where the cause of action does not arise within the precincts and 
during the continuance of the fair. The Bartholomew Pie Powder 
Court was held in Cloth Fair, in its latter years at a public-house. 

This Court has for many years been held at a public house called The Hand and 
Shears, in King Street at the corner of Middle Street, and near the east end of Cloth 
-Wilkinson's Land, lllust, 

The Book of the Court, now deposited in the City of London 
Library, Guildhall, has for its last entry : 

September 2, 1854. The Lord Mayor not having proclaimed Bartholomew Fair, 
the Court of Pie Powder consequently was not held. 

A like tribunal was probably held at some Southwark Inn, the part 
of Southwark in which the fair was held consisted mostly of inns, from 
the Tabard to the Swan and at the Town Hall, which was in the midst 
of the fair, but there is no record of any particular place. In the 
picture of Hogarth's Southwark Fair an actor is being arrested by an 
officer of the court. 

Pike Garden, BANKSIDE, SOUTHWARK, a garden purchased by 
Philip Henslowe, the partner of Edward Alleyn the actor. 2 From Pat. 
13, Car. II., we learn that William Boreman obtained a grant of "all 
that garden or parcel of land commonly called the Pike Garden, con- 
taining by estimation 3 roods and 20 perches or thereabouts in the 
parish of St. Saviour within the Borough of Southwark, between the 
common way or Bank or the River Thames, on the north, and a 
certayn lane called Mayden Lane on the south, including four fish- 
ponds or rivaries for the conservation of river fish reserved for Our 
Service." 

Pilgrim Street, BLACKFRIARS, a narrow winding thoroughfare 
that follows the line of the old London Wall, from the south side of 
Ludgate Hill to the Broadway, Blackfriars. It has been said to owe 
its name to its being the road from the landing-place of pilgrims to the 
shrines at St. Paul's or Blackfriars. But for this there is no authority. 
The name is, in fact, comparatively recent. Pilgrim Street does not occur 
in the lists of streets in Hatton, 1708 ; Strype, 1720 ; Maitland, 1739 ; 
or Dodsley, 1761. A piece of the old City Wall, at the junction of 
Little Bridge Street, Pilgrim Street, and Broadway, was laid bare in 
1889. Strype, without naming it, describes it as "a narrow passage 
out of Ludgate Street, and turning by the back-side of Ludgate prison, 
falleth into an open Place, with very good buildings, well inhabited by 
tradesmen." Its continuation by Apothecaries' Hall to the Thames 
(now Water Lane) he calls Water Street. In his Map what is now 
Pilgrim Street is marked the " Wall." Here on the south side, in an 

1 Coke Institutes, 410, p. ^72. - Collier, Memoirs of AUeyn, p. 16. 



96 PILGRIM STREET 



old house of the reign of Charles II., with the royal arms over the 
door, was, a very few years back, the warehouse of " D. Price & Co., 
Ostrich Feather Merchants & Manufacturers," the last of the feather- 
makers of this once celebrated quarter. Ben Jonson has frequent 
references, especially in his Bartholomew Fair, to the Feather-Makers 
of Blackfriars. 

Doll Common (to Face) Who shall take your word ? 

A whoreson, upstart, apocryphal captain, 

Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriars will trust 

So much as for a feather. Ben Jonson, Alchemist, Act i. Sc. i. 

Bird, a featherman in Blackfriars, is one of the characters in his 
Muses' Looking- Glass, and Marston in his Malcontent (4to, 1604) 
makes Sly say : 

This play hath beaten all young gallants out of the feathers. Blackfriars hath 
almost spoil'd Blackfriars for feathers. Induction. 

[See Blackfriars.] 

Fimlico, near HOXTON, a great summer resort in the early part 
of the i yth century, and famed for its cakes, custards and Derby 
ale. The name is still preserved in " Pimlico Walk," by Hoxton 
Church, Hoxton Street, and St. John's Road. The references to the 
Hoxton Pimlico are numerous in our old dramatists. Ben Jonson 
mentions it in The Devil is an Ass, Bartholomew Fair, The Underwoods, 
and The Alchemist, where he makes Lovewit say, after his neighbours 
have told him how his house has been abused during his absence : 

Gallants, men and women, 

And of all sorts, tag-rag, been seen to flock here, 
In threaves, these ten weeks, as to a second Hogsden, 
In days of Pimlico and eye-bright. 

Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, Act v. Sc. i. 

Sir Lionel. I have sent my daughter this morning as far as Pimlico, to fetch a 
draught of Derby ale, that it may fetch a colour in her cheeks. Greene's 7n Quoque, 
4to, 1614. 

Plohvell. We have brought you 
A gentleman of valour, who has been 
In Moorfields often : marry it has been 
To 'squire his sisters and demolish custards 
At Pimlico. The City Match, fol. 1639. 

Pimlico, a large district lying between St. James's Park, the river 
Thames, the village of Chelsea, Hyde Park Corner, and the hamlet of 
Knightsbridge. Buckingham Palace, Grosvenor Place and Gardens, 
Belgrave Square, and the Victoria Railway Station are in Pimlico. 

A place near Chelsea is still called Pimlico, and was resorted to within these 
few years on the same account as the former at Hogsden. Isaac Reed (Dodsley's 
Old Plays, ed. Collier, vol. vii. p. 51). 

The following extracts, from the Accounts of the Overseers of the Poor 
of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, are the earliest notices yet discovered of 
the existing Pimlico : 



PINDER OF WAKEFIELD 97 



1626. Paied for a shroud Cloathe for Goodman's wife at Pimlicoe . iij 5 iiij' 1 
1626. Paicd for a shrowd Cloathe for an old man dyed at Pimlico iiij s 
1627. To the Constable of Pimlico to take out the Lord Cheiffe 
Justice's Warrant to take Mr. Burde that gott a man 
child one Mary Howard and borne at Pimlico . . j s vj' 1 
1630. The iiij" 1 of September 1630, paid for the hire of a horse 
and sledd, and a labouring man to make a grave, and to 
cover it at Hide pke corner, for Thomas Wood, who 
hanged himself at Pimplico . . . . v s 

Overseers' Accounts of St. Marthi's-in-the- Fields. 

Pimlico at this time was nearly uninhabited, nor is it introduced into 
the Rate-books of St. Martin's before the year 1680, when the Earl of 
Arlington, previously rated under the head of Mulberry Garden, is, 
though living in the same house, rated under the head of " Pimlico." 
In 1687, seven years after the first introduction of the name into the 
rate-books of the parish in which it was then situated, four people are 
described as residing in what was then called Pimlico the Duke of 
Grafton, Lady Stafford, Thomas Wilkins, and Dr. Crispin. The Duke 
of Grafton, having married the only child of the Earl of Arlington, was 
residing in Arlington House, and Lady Stafford in what was then and 
long before called Tart Hall. In 1698 the Duke of Buckingham 
(then only Marquis of Normanby) bought Arlington House of the 
Duchess of Grafton, and rebuilding it shortly after, named it anew by 
its well-known title of Buckingham House. Pimlico is not mentioned 
in Dodsley's London, 1761. George IV. began the great alterations in 
Pimlico by rebuilding Buckingham House, and drawing the courtiers 
from Portland Place and Portman Square to the splendid mansions 
built by Thomas Cubitt and others, in what was known at that time, 
and long before, as the Five Fields, and is now Belgravia. But 
splendid as were these houses they have been eclipsed by the stately 
mansions erected on the Duke of Westminster's estate, between Hyde 
Park Corner and Victoria Railway Station. Pimlico (including 
Belgravia) is now the most aristocratic quarter of the Metropolis. In 
a small gloomy house within the gates of Elliot's Brewery, between 
Brewer Street, Pimlico, and York Street, Westminster, lived and died 
Richard Heber ; here he had a portion of his extensive and noble 
library a second portion occupied the whole of a house from kitchen 
to attic in James Street, Buckingham Gate a third portion was at 
Hodnet, his country seat and at Paris he had a fourth depot. [See 
Davies Street.] 

Pincock Lane, NEWGATE STREET, on the north side leading to 
The Bagnio, originally Pentecost Lane, and now Roman Bath Street. 
[See Pentecost Lane.] 

Finder of Wakefield, GRAY'S INN ROAD. This famous old 
country tavern stood on the west side of Gray's Inn Road, north 
of Guildford Street The small houses between Harrison Street 
and Cromer Street (Nos. 235-243), Gray's Inn Road, were, till recently, 
named Pindar Place, and occupied the site. In 1705, when Tom 
VOL. in H 



FINDER OF WAKEFIELD 



Brown (with the help of Ned Ward) wrote his Comical View of 
London and Westminster, the house was still in the fields. He tells 
how, wishing to have an hour's star-gazing one bright night, he took his 
"quadrant telescope and nocturnal," walked as far as Lamb's Conduit, 
and having seated himself on a stile had just commenced operations 
when " a milkmaid, crossing the fields to Finder of Wakefield, asked 
me what I was looking at." The present Finder of Wakefield public- 
house is on the east side of Gray's Inn Road. 

Pine- Apple Place, MAIDA VALE, EDGWARE ROAD. In 1793- 
1794 George Romney the painter had a retreat here to which he used 
to run down to sleep and enjoy "rural breakfasts." Many of his 
letters to Hayley are dated from it. Another eminent painter, C. R. 
Leslie, R.A., lived in No. 12, from 1834 (after his return from America) 
till 1848, and here painted some of his best pictures. 

A few days since the Duke [of Wellington] took it into his head to walk out to 
Leslie's, Pine Apple Place, to see the picture he is painting for the Queen, " The 
Christening of the Princess Royal," and I believe to give Leslie another sitting. 
The Duke walked all the way, which is two and a half miles, and after a great deal 
of trouble found Leslie's house. Leslie, who is prudent and economical keeps a 
cheap servant . . . and he also keeps his outer garden-gate barred and locked, and 
one is questioned and cross-questioned before being admitted. . . . The Duke rang 
the bell. After at least ten minutes out comes the servant girl, sulky at being 
disturbed. " Is Mr. Leslie at home ?" said the Duke. " I don't know," said the 
girl, "but I'll see." Away she went, leaving the Duke in the dirt, without letting 
him into the garden, and she said to Leslie, ' ' Here's an old man wants you, Sir. " 
" Is there ?" said Leslie ; " ask him his name and what he wants." Down went the 
girl, " Master says you must tell your name and what you want, or I can't let you 
in." The Duke, by this time roused by the questioning, roared out, "I am the 
Duke of Wellington." The poor girl jumped up and ran back to her master, still 
leaving the Duke outside ; out came Leslie in a fright, and at last in got his grace. 
He tells the story himself, and jumps up like the girl, with capital humour. B. R. 
Haydon to Wordsworth, January 14, 1842 (Memoir of Haydon, by his son, vol. ii. 
P- 50- 

Pinners', or Pinmakers' Hall, PINNERS' COURT, 54 OLD BROAD 
STREET, the ancient hall of the Pinners' or Pinmakers' Company, a com- 
pany standing sixty-eighth on the list of City guilds, but without livery, 
and now defunct. The hall, a part of the Augustine priory, of which 
the church is known as the Dutch Church, Austin Friars, was let in 
the reign of Elizabeth to Verselyn for his Venetian glassworks. In the 
reign of Charles II. it was occupied as an Independent Meeting House, 
and many of the most eminent of their ministers Baxter, Manton, 
Owen, Bates and Howe preached here. Later, Isaac Watts and 
Pope's " Modest Foster " ministered here. It continued to be used as 
a dissenting chapel till 1798, when it was demolished. At Pinners' 
Hall was established in the i7th century the long popular "Merchants' 
Lecture," which was preached there at mid-day on Tuesdays. It was 
then delivered on the same day and hour at the Weigh-house Chapel, 
Fish Street Hill, and is now given at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon 
Street. The present Pinners' Hall is appropriated to merchants' offices. 



PLOUGH COURT 99 



Pit Place, DRURY LANE. [See Cockpit Theatre.] 

Plasterers' Hall, the Hall of the Ancient Fraternity of the Plas- 
terers is No. 23 ADDLE STREET, WOOD STREET, CHEAPSIDE. The 
company was incorporated by Henry VIII., in March 1501, by the 
title of the Master and Wardens of the Fraternity of the Blessed Mary 
of Plasterers, London. The ancient hall of the company was destroyed 
in the Great Fire. The present hall was designed by Sir Christopher 
Wren. It has been for many years occupied as a warehouse, and the 
ornamental features have been pretty nearly destroyed. 

Playhouse Passage, GOLDING LANE. [See Fortune Theatre.] 
Playhouse Yard, BLACKFRIARS. [See Blackfriars Theatre.] 

Playhouse Yard, DRURY LANE. So called because it led to 
Drury Lane Theatre. The Rate-books of St. Martin's give the names 
of the actors rated to the poor for Drury Lane Theatre, at the junction 
of the two companies, in 1681 : 

Playhotise Yard. Nicholas Burt, Robert Shattrell, Nicholas Moone, William 
Cartwright, Philip Griffith, Thomas Clarke, Martin Powell, Joseph Haynes. ^6, 
Theatre Royall. 

And so the names stand in 1683 and 1684. Subsequently they 
are omitted. Nicholas Moone was perhaps a mistake for Michael 
Mohun, the celebrated Major Mohun. 

Playhouse Yard, WHITEFRIARS. [See Whitefriars Theatre.] 

Playing-Card Makers' Company. This company was incor- 
porated by letters patent of Charles II., October 22, 1629, under the 
name of the Master, Wardens, and Commonalty of the Mistery of the 
Makers of Playing-Cards of the City of London. A livery was granted 
them in 1792, but they possess no hall. The card makers rank eighty- 
third amongst the City companies. 

Plough Court, LOMBARD STREET, runs south into Lombard 
Court, which itself runs west into Clement's Lane and east into 
Gracechurch Street. Alexander Pope is believed to have been born in 
this court " The house, which by the tradition of its inmates, claims 
the honour of being Pope's birthplace, is at the bottom of Plough 
Court, and faces you as you enter the passage from Lombard Street. 
It belonged to the well-known William Allen, and he succeeded a Mr. 
Bevan." 1 Mr. Sylvanus Bevan, admitted an apothecary in 1715, first 
associated the house with the drug trade. He was resident in the 
premises in 1735. A descendant, Joseph Gurney Bevan, received 
first as an apprentice, afterwards as a partner, William Allen, F.R.S. 
(d. 1843), eminent alike as a man of science and a philanthropist, and in 
their hands the establishment grew into great importance. The old 
house was pulled down in November 1872, and its site, together with 
that of other houses, were re-arranged for Allen and Hanbury's drug 
shop, and numerous city offices. 

1 Carrtithers's Life of Pope, p. 4. 



TOO PLOWDEN BUILDINGS 

Plowden Buildings. A row of chambers in the Temple, and so 
called (recently) after Edmund Plowden, an eminent lawyer in the reign 
of Queen Elizabeth, whose Reports and Queries are still referred to by 
every student of the old law. Here is Middle Temple Hall. 

Plumbers' Hall, BUSH LANE, CANNON STREET, CITY ; taken down 
to make way for the Cannon Street Railway Station, and not rebuilt. 
The Company, a fraternity, says Strype, " of large and very memorable 
antiquity," was first incorporated by James I. in 161 1, and is the thirty- 
first in rotation of the Livery Companies of London. The hall had 
been rebuilt about 1830. 

The first instance of actual punishment inflicted on Protestant Dissenters was in 
June 1567, when a company of more than one hundred were seized during their 
religious exercises at Plummers' Hall, which they had hired on pretence of a wedding, 
and fourteen or fifteen of them were sent to prison. Hallam, Const. Hist, of England, 
chap. iv. (loth ed.) vol. i. p. 182. 

Poets' Corner, WESTMINSTER ABBEY. The eastern angle of the 
south transept of Westminster Abbey was called Poets' Corner from the 
burial there of Chaucer, Spenser, and other eminent English poets. 
It is not known when this name was first applied to the place. It is 
not used in Dart's Westmonasterium, 1723, and the first use of the 
name has been noted in Entick's London, 1766. 

The Poets' Corner is the place they choose, 

A false nursery for an infant muse, 

Unlike that corner where true Poets lie. 

Crabbe, The Neivspaper (1785). 

This is the ordinary entrance into Westminster Abbey. The name is 
also given to the houses bordering the passage from Palace Yard to 
the Abbey door. On May 28, 1813, Wilberforce writes to Southey 
from "No. i Poets' Corner, Westminster." The houses, four in all, 
are now occupied by architects, surveyors, engineers and solicitors as 
offices. There is an important article on Poets' Corner by Henry 
Poole, master mason of the abbey, in the Antiquary, vol. iv. p. 137. 

Poland Street, OXFORD STREET, Dr. Burney (author of the 
History of Music} and Dr. Macaulay (husband of Mrs. Macaulay, the 
historian) both resided in this street. Dr. Burney came to live here in 
1760, when his second daughter Fanny was eight years old. Seventy- 
two years afterwards she wrote : 

The new establishment was in Poland Street ; which was not then, as it is now, 
a sort of street that, like the rest of its neighbourhood, appears to be left in the lurch. 
House fanciers were not yet as fastidious as they are become at present, from the 
endless variety of new habitations. Oxford Road, as at that time Oxford Street was 
called, into which Poland Street terminated, had little on its further side but fields, 
gardeners' grounds, or uncultivated suburbs. Portman, Manchester, Russell, Belgrave 
Squares, Portland Place, etc. ; had not yet a single stone, or brick laid, in signal of in- 
tended erection ; while in plain Poland Street, Mr. Burney then had successively for' 
his neighbours, the Duke of Chandos, Lady Augusta Bridges, the Hon. John Smith and 
the Miss Barrys, Sir Willoughby and the Miss Astons ; and well noted by Mr. 
Burney's little family, on the visit of his black majesty to England, sojourned almost 
immediately opposite to it, the Cherokee King. Memoirs of Dr. J3urney,vo]. i. p. 134. 



POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTION 101 

In this house died his first wife, Esther Sleepe, the mother of Fanny 
Eurney, of Dr. Charles Burney, and of that Admiral Burney who when 
a schoolboy had seen the handcuffs placed on the wrists of Eugene 
Aram, while in early manhood had witnessed the death of Captain 
Cook, and in his closing years was a much loved companion of Charles 
Lamb. Here, September 29, 1766, died the old Earl of Cromarty, 
who was pardoned by King George II. for the part he took in the 
Rebellion of 1745. Sir William Chambers, the architect, lived here 
before he removed to Berners Street about 1770. Gavin Hamilton, 
the painter, lived in this street in 1779, after his return from Italy. 
In 1787 William Blake took lodgings in this street the house "No. 
28 (now [1863, a tobacconist's in 1890] a cheesemonger's shop, and 
boasting three brass bells), not many doors from Oxford Street, on the 
right-hand side going towards that thoroughfare." 1 He left it for 
Hercules Buildings, Lambeth, in 1793. Schnebbelie, the engraver of 
many views of Old London, was living here in 1792. The poet Shelley 
on his expulsion from Oxford in 1811 took lodgings at No. 15, in this 
street. 

Polygon (The), CLARENDON SQUARE, SOMERS TOWN, was so 
called from its shape. Here for several years lived William Godwin. 
It has been asserted that it was here he wrote Caleb Williams and 
Political Justice ; but he did not remove to Somers Town till after the 
publication of the latter work, when he took a house in Chalton Street 
(running from the Polygon) and there wrote Caleb Williams. He took 
the house in the Polygon shortly before his marriage with Mary 
Wollstonecraft (March 29, 1797). She lived there, and there died 
(Sunday, September 10, 1797), after giving birth to the authoress of 
Frankenstein, but he continued till her death at 25 Evesham Buildings. 
He then moved his books to the Polygon and made his wife's room 
his study. 2 Godwin continued to reside in the Polygon till August 
1807, when he removed to Skinner Street. J. T. Willmore, the line 
engraver, lived for many years at No. 23. The Polygon, now enclosed 
by the dirty neighbourhood of Clarendon Square, was, when Godwin 
lived in it, a new block of houses, pleasantly seated near fields and 
nursery gardens. 

Polytechnic Institution, 309 REGENT STREET, built in 1837 
and opened 1838 (James Thomson, architect), incorporated for the 
advancement of the Arts and Practical Science, especially in connection 
with agriculture, mining, machinery, manufactures, and other branches 
of industry. The collection was very miscellaneous, and there were 
popular lectures illustrated by dissolving views, musical entertainments, 
etc. The diving-bell in the Great Hall constituted a permanent 
attraction. The great hall was 120 feet by 40 feet, by 38 feet high in 
the centre. In 1848 the building was extended southward by the 

1 Gilchrist's Life of Blake, vol. i. p. 60. 
2 K. Paul's Life of Godwin, vol. i. p. 288 ; Memoir of Mary Wollstonecraft. 



POL YTECHNIC INSTITUTION 



large lecture hall to seat 1200 persons, when the facade was widened 
by the same architect. The institution was closed on September 3, 
1 88 1. The building is now used as a Young Men's Christian Institute, 
partly for general education, and partly as a technical school, and the 
name is continued. 

Pontack's, a celebrated French eating-house, in ABCHURCH LANE, 
CITY, where the annual dinners of the Royal Society were held till 
1746, when the dinner was removed to the Devil Tavern at Temple 
Bar. It no longer exists. 1 Misson the French refugee, who wrote in 
1697, says : 

One word more about the cooks' shops, to give a full idea of the thing. Generally 
four spits, one over another, carry round each five or six pieces of butcher's meat 
(never anything else, if you would have a fowl or a pigeon you must bespeak it), beef, 
mutton, veal, pork, and lamb ; you have what quantity you please cut off, fat, lean, 
much or little done ; with this a little salt and mustard upon the side of a plate, a 
bottle of beer, and a roll and there is your whole feast. Those who would dine at 
one or two guineas per head are handsomely accommodated at our famous Pontack's ; 
rarely and difficultly elsewhere. Misson, Travels, p. 146. 

Pontack, who was somewhat of a character, well read, according 
to Evelyn, in philosophy, but chiefly the rabbins, exceedingly addicted 
to cabalistic fancies, and "an eternal babbler," set up as his sign a 
portrait of his father, the President of Bordeaux. Pontack's portrait is 
introduced in Plate III. of the Rake's Progress as having been put up 
in the place of Julius Caesar's ! 

Near this Exchange [the Royal Exchange] are two very good French Eating- 
Houses, the one at the sign of Pontack, a President of the Parliament of Bourdeaux, 
from whose name the best French Clarets are called so, and where you may bespeak 
a dinner, from four or five shillings a head to a guinea, or what sum you please ; the 
other is Kivat's, where there is a constant ordinary, as abroad, for all comers, without 
distinction, and at a very reasonable price. Macky, A Journey through England, 
8vo. 1722, vol. i. p. 175. 

July 13, 1683. I had this day much discourse with Monsieur Pontaq, son to 
the famous and wise prime President of Bordeaux. This gentleman was owner of 
that excellent vignoble of Pontaq and Obrien, from whence come the choicest of our 
Bordeaux wines ; and I think I may truly say of him, what was not so truly said of 
St. Paul, that much learning had made him mad. . . . He spake all languages, was 
very rich, had a handsome person, and was well bred ; about 45 years of age. 

November 30, 1693. Much importuned to take the office of President of the 
Royal Society, but I again declined it. Sir Robert Southwell was continued. We 
all dined at Pontac's, as usual. Evelyn. 

May 3, 1699. I come to wait upon you with a request that you would meet 
Sir Robert Southwell, Sir Christopher Wren, and other friends, at Pontac's to-day 
at dinner, to make an Act of Council at Gresham College. Bent ley to Evelyn. 

The object was " to move the King " to purchase Bishop Stillingfleet's 
library for the Royal Society. 

What wretch would nibble on a hanging shelf, 
When at Pontack's he may regale himself? 

The Hind and Panther Transvers'd. 

1 Advertisement in London Gazette, 1670, and Daily Courant, February 3, 1722. 



////; POOL 



103 



I )rawcrs must be trusted, through whose hands convey'd 
You take the liquor, or you spoil the trade ; 
For sure those honest fellows have no knack 
Of putting off stum'd Claret for Fontack. Ibid. 

Mrs. W'iiivoud. I know two several companies gone into the city, one to Pon- 
tack's, and t'other to the Rummer. Southernc, The Wive? Excuse, 410, 1692. 
They all agreed that his advice 
Was honest, wholesome, grave, and wise ; 
But not one man would quit his vice ; 
For after all his vain attacks 
They rose and dined well at Fontactfs. 

Sir C. Sedley, The Doctor and his Patients. 

August 16, 1711. I was this day in the City, and dined at Pontack's with 
Stratford and two other merchants. Pontack told us, although his wine was so 
good, he sold it cheaper than others ; he took but seven shillings a flask. Are not 
these pretty rates ? Swift, Journal to Stella, vol. ii. p. 323. 

January 26, 1713. 'Tis odd that this very day [see Powis House] Lord Somers, 
Wharton, Somerset, Halifax, and the whole club of Whig Lords, dined at Pontac's 
in the City, as I received private notice, they have some damned design. Swift to 
Mrs. Dingley. 

Immediately after, the South Sea smash we read : 
Advices from the Royal Exchange inform us that the Minute in the great Coffee 
Houses, of the Routs of the Brokers, are strangely altered of late ; for instead of 
being gone to Pontack's, gone to Brand's, gone to Caveach's ; they now run, gone 
to the Chop House, gone to the Grill House, etc. These advices add too that the 
Jews and late South Sea Directors have left 'off boiling their Westphalia hams in 
Champagne and Burgundy. Mist's Journal of April I, 1721. 

Read, the mountebank, who has assurance enough to come to our table up stairs 
at Garraway's, swears he'll stake his coach and six horses, his two blacks, and as 
many silver trumpets, against a dinner at Pontack's. Dr. Radcliffe (Radcliffe's Life, 
I2mo, 1724, p. 41). 

Pontack's successor was a lady, and a fortunate one. 

Thursday, January 15, 1736. William Pepys, banker in Lombard Street, was 
married at St. Clement's Church in the Strand, to Mrs. Susannah Austin, who lately 
kept Pontack's, where with universal esteem she acquired a considerable fortune. 
Weekly Oracle, quoted by Burn, p. 13. 

On April 19, 1740, the Duke and Duchess of Portland, with Mrs. 
Pendarves and five other friends, sallied out at i o A.M., in two hackney- 
coaches, for a day's sight -seeing in the City. They wound up with 
" a very good dinner at Pontack's." 1 

Pool (The) is that part of the Thames between London Bridge 
and Limehouse Point where colliers and other vessels lie at anchor. 
From London Bridge to King's Head Stairs, Rotherhithe, is called 
the Upper Pool ; from King's Head Stairs to Cuckold's Point, opposite 
Limehouse, the Lower Pool. Stations are provided in the Pool for 
about 250 colliers, where they can unload into lighters. Navigation 
in the Pool is under strict regulations. The Pool (la Pole} was a 
recognised term for this part of the river as early as the i3th century. 
In the Articles of Ancient Usage, collected and promulgated in the 
reign of Edward I., it is ordered in the article against forestallers 

1 Delany's Autobiography and Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 82. 



104 THE POOL 

That no merchant, denizen or stranger, whatever he may be, shall go to the 
Pole, or any other place in the Thames, to meet wines or other merchandize, or go 
on board of vessels to buy wines or other things, until such time as they shall have 
come to land, under pain of losing the article. Liber Albus, p. 230 ; and see Riley's 
Memorials, p. 298. 

Gold-wire. The ship is safe in the Pool then. Massinger, The City Madam. 

Pope's Head Alley, a footway from Cornhill opposite the south- 
west corner of the Royal Exchange to Lombard Street, and so called 
from the Pope's Head Tavern, of which the earliest mention occurs in the 
particulars of a wager made in the fourth year of Edward IV. (1464), 
between an Alicant goldsmith and an English goldsmith ; the Alicant 
stranger contending, " in the tavern called the Pope's Head, in Lom- 
bard Street, that Englishmen were not so cunning in workmanship of 
goldsmithry as Alicant strangers," and undertaking to make good his 
assertion by the superior work he would produce. The wager was 
decided in favour of the Englishman. 1 

The Pope's Head Tavern, with other houses adjoining, strongly built of stone, 
hath of old time been all in one, pertaining to some great estate, or rather to the 
King of this realm, as may be supposed both by the largeness thereof, and by the 
arms, to wit, three leopards, passant, gardant, which were the whole arms of England 
before the reign of Edward III., that quartered them with the arms of France, three 
fleur-de-lis. These arms of England, supported between two angels, are fair and 
largely graven in stone on the fore front towards the high street, over the door or 
stall of one great house lately for many years possessed by Mr. Philip Gunter. The 
Pope's Head tavern is on the back part thereof towards the south, as also one other 
house called the Stone House in Lombard Street. Some say this was King John's 
house, which might so be ; for I find in a written copy of Matthew Paris' History, 
that in the year 1232, Henry III. sent Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, to Cornehill 
in London, there to answer all matters objected against him, where he wisely ac- 
quitted himself. The Pope's Head tavern hath a footway through from Cornhill 
into Lombard Street. Stow (1603), p. 75. 

In the year 1615 Sir William Craven (the father of the first Earl 
Craven) left the Pope's Head to the Merchant Tailors' Company, for 
charitable purposes, and the rents of nine houses in the alley are still 
received by the Company. The tavern was in existence under the 
same name in i756. 2 

Early in the iyth century Pope's Head Alley was noted for its 
booksellers' shops. The History of the Two Maids of More- Clacke, 
1609, was "printed by N. O. for Thomas Archer, and is to be sold 
at his shop in Pope's Head Pallace" perhaps a part of the large edifice 
mentioned by Stow. The first edition of Speed's Great Britain (foL 
i6n)was "sold by John Sudbury and George Humble, in Pope's 
Head Alley, at the signe of the White Horse." Sudbury and Humble 
were the first printsellers established in London. Ben Jonson, in his 
Execration upon Vulcan, recommends "the Captain Pamphlets horse 
and foot 

that sally 
Upon the Exchange still out of Pope's Head Alley," 

1 Herbert's Livery Companies, vol. ii. p. 197. - Public Advertiser of March 16, 1756. 



POPE'S HEAD ALLEY 105 

to the wrath of the lame Lord of Fire. Some of these were political 
pamphlets. On February 15, 1624, Lord Keeper Lincoln writes to 
Secretary Conway : 

" The King is very sensible of the wicked libel. . . . The author might perhaps 
be detected by employing Mr. Bill to find out by the type where it was printed. 
All the copies met with must be suppressed." And Conway at once sends to the 
Recorder of London desiring him to "make search for a book {The Supplication of 
the Scottish Ministers] in Pope's Head Alley" Cal. State Pap., 1619-1623, p. 
321 ; 1623-1625, p. 163. 

Peacham, in his Compleat Gentleman, refers the print-collector, curious 
in the works of Golzius, to Pope's Head Alley, where "his prints are 
commonly to be had." 

I am old Gregory Christmas, and though I come out of Pope's Head Alley as 
good a Protestant as any in my parish. Ben Jonson, Masque of Christmas. 
Gresham. Let's step to the Pope's Head, 
We shall be dropping dry if we stay here. 

Heywood, If You Know not Me. 

November 21, 1660. I to Pope's Head and bought me an aggate-hafted knife, 
which cost me 53. Pepys. 

Febmary 4, 1662. Sir W. Pen and I and my wife in his coach to Moore Fields, 
where we walked a great while . . . and after our walk, we went to Pope's Head, 
and eat cakes and other fine things. Pepys. 

June 20. 1662. To Pope's Head Alley, and there bought me a pair of tweezers 
cost me 145., the first thing like a bawble I have bought a good while. Pepys. 

July 28, 1666. To the Pope's Head, where my Lord Brouncker and his mistress 
dined, and Commissioner Pett, Dr. Charleton and myself were entertained with a 
venison pasty by Sir W. Warren. Pepys. 

The Pope's Head was destroyed in the Great Fire, but rebuilt in 
a more costly manner. 

January 18, 1668-1669. To the Pope's Head Tavern, there to see the fine 
painted room which Rogerson told me of, of his doing ; but I do not like it all, 
though it be good for such a public room. Pepys. 

Before the Great Fire of 1666 Pope's Head Alley possessed a good 
trade for toys and turners' wares. 1 In Strype's time (thirty years later) 
it was chiefly inhabited by cutlers. 2 

I cannot but consider that Athens in the time of Pericles . . . held nothing that 
equalled the Royal or New Exchange, or Pope's Head Alley, for curiosities and toy- 
shops. Dr. King's Third Letter to Lister. 

In the Pope's Head Tavern, in Cornhill, April 14, 1718, Quin, the 
actor, killed in self-defence his fellow comedian, Bowen. Bowen, a 
clever but hot-headed Irishman, was jealous of Quin's reputation, and 
in a moment of great anger sent for Quin to the Pope's Head Tavern, 
when, as soon as he had entered the room, he placed his back against 
the door, drew his sword, and bade Quin draw his. Quin, having 
mildly remonstrated to no purpose, drew in his own defence, and 
endeavoured to disarm his antagonist. Bowen received a wound, of 
which he died in three days, having acknowledged his folly and 
madness, when the loss of blood had reduced him to reason. Quin 
was tried and acquitted. 

1 Strype, B. ii. p. 133. ~ Ibid., B. ii. p. 149. 



io6 POPE'S HEAD ALLEY 

In 1771 the New Lloyds fixed their place of meeting in Pope's 
Head Alley, and there they remained until March 1774, when they 
moved into their new rooms in the Royal Exchange. [See Lloyd's 
Subscription Rooms.] 

The Pope's Head, Cornhill, was not the only house with that sign. 
There was a Pope's Head Tavern in Chancery Lane ; and Edmund 
Burke, about 1756, when he met Yuseph Emin in distress in Hyde 
Park, gave him the only half-guinea he possessed, " took him home to his 
apartments at the Pope's Head, a bookseller's near the Temple." ! 

Poplar, a parish in Middlesex so called, originally a hamlet of 
Stepney, from whence it was separated in 1817, and called by the 
name of All Saints' Poplar. With the growth of the manufacturing 
industry of the district the population largely increased (in 1881 there 
were 55,120 inhabitants in the parish), and the district parishes of 
Christ Church, St. Matthias, St. Mary, St. Saviour, and St. Stephen 
have been formed. All Saints', the mother church, was erected from 
the designs of Charles Hollis and consecrated by the Bishop of London, 
July 3, 1823. It is a substantial stone edifice, and has a well-propor- 
tioned spire 161 feet high. The parish includes the hamlet of Black- 
wall, the Isle of Dogs, the East and West India and Millwall Docks, 
the Trinity House stores and lighthouse works, several shipbuilding yards 
and various large manufacturing establishments. There is a good Town 
Hall, Sailors' Home, Hospital, Baths, Wash-houses, stations on the 
North London and on the London and Blackwall Railway, and a 
statue of Richard Green, the shipbuilder of Blackwall Yard, and a 
great benefactor to the district. Here were the East India Alms- 
houses and Chapel. In this Chapel George Steevens, the Shake- 
speare commentator, son of George Steevens of Poplar, mariner, 
was baptized on May 19, 1736, and was buried in it, January 1800. 
There is a fine bas-relief to his memory, by Flaxman, in the north 
aisle. The inscription is by Hayley. Here also were buried 
Robert Ainsworth (d. 1743), compiler of the Latin Dictionary which 
bears his name; and Dr. Gloster Ridley (d. 1774), author of 
the Life of Bishop Ridley, and for many years chaplain of Poplar 
Chapel. In 1866 the ecclesiastical district of St. Matthias was 
formed, and the East India Company's Chapel (built in 1654) 
was made the district church. In 1875 the church was enlarged and 
a chancel added to it. The chapel, cemetery and grounds of the East 
India Almshouses have been converted into a Public Recreation 
Ground. 

Popler, or Poplar, is so called from the multitude of Poplar Trees (which love a 
moist soil) growing there in former times. And there be yet [1720] remaining, in 
that part of the hamlet which bordereth upon Limehouse, many old bodies of large 
Poplars standing, as testimonials of the truth of that etymology. Dr. Josiah 
Woodward, in Strype (Circuit Walk, p. 102). 

1 Prior's Life of Burke, ed. 1854, p. 43. 



()/ /.OX DON 107 



Poppin's Court, FLEET STREET, the first thoroughfare (under an 
archway) on the north side from Ludgate Circus. It is called Poppin's 
Alley in Hatton, 1788, but in Strype's Map, 1720, it figures as Popinjay 
Court ; Dodsley, 1761, mentions a Cockpit Alley leading out of it, and 
the turning next to it is still called Racket Court. It appears to have 
been a neighbourhood devoted to manly sports ; but recently a 
restaurant called " The Popinjay " has been built at the corner of the 
court, and a legend inscribed on the front which asserts that on the site 
stood the inn of a religious fraternity whose crest was the popinjay. 
The north end of Poppin's Court was cut off in 1870 in forming the 
new street from Holborn Circus to Ludgate Circus. 

Porridge Island, a paved alley or footway, near the church of St. 
Martin's-in-the-Fields, destroyed in 1829, when the great rookery (of 
which Bedfordbury was till lately a sample) was removed from about 
the Strand and St. Martin's Lane. [See Bermudas.] It was filled with 
cooks' shops, and was a cant name. 

The fine gentleman, whose lodgings no one is acquainted with ; whose dinner is 
served up under cover of a pewter plate, from the Cook's shop in Porridge Island ; 
and whose annuity of a hundred pounds is made to supply a laced suit every year, 
and a chair every evening to a rout ; returns to his bed-room on foot, and goes 
shivering and supperless to rest, for the pleasure of appearing among people of equal 
importance with the Quality of Brentford. The World, Thursday, November 29, 
1753- 

In Foote's comedy of Taste (1752), when Puff the auctioneer and 
Carmine the painter quarrel, the former exclaims, " Genius ! Here's 
a dog ! Pray how high did your genius soar ? To the daubing 
diabolical Angels for alehouses, Dogs with chains for tanners' yards, 
Rounds of Beef and Roasted Pigs for Porridge Island?" In the 
Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft is an amusing account of a club called 
the Cameronian, which he and Shield the composer set up at a beef 
shop " at the corner of a little bye-court called Porridge Island." 

Porridge Pot Row, OLD STREET, now ANCHOR YARD, on the 
north side, a few yards west of St. Luke's Church. Elmes notes it as 
called by the former name in 1831. Dodsley has an entry of 
"Porridge Pot Alley, Aldersgate Street," in 1761. 

Port of London, a term frequently used very vaguely. 

What is legally termed the Port of London extends six-and-a-half miles below 
London Bridge to Bugsby's Hole beyond Blackwall ; though the actual Port, 
consisting of the Upper, Middle, and Lower Pools, does not reach beyond Limehouse. 
J. R. M'Culloch, Diet, of Commerce, 1851. 

This is the usual but scarcely the legal acceptation of the term, and 
is manifestly unsuitable even for mercantile purposes, as it would shut 
out the East India and the Albert and Victoria Docks. The strictly 
legal limits are much more extensive. There having been frequent 
disputes as to the limits of the Port an Act was passed, 13 and 14 
Charles II., c. n, for appointing Commissioners with powers to fix the 



io8 PORT OF LONDON 

limits of the Port and to make arrangements respecting quays and 
landing-places. The Commissioners made their Report, May 24, 1665, 
and in it 

To prevent all further differences and disputes touching the extent and limits of 
the Port of London . . . the said Port is declared to extend and to be accounted 
from the promontory or point called the North Foreland in the Isle of Thanet, and 
from thence by a supposed right line from the opposite promontory or point called 
the Nase, beyond the Gun-fleet upon the coast of Essex, and continued westward, 
through the river Thames, and the several rivers, channels, streams, and rivers falling 
into it, to London Bridge. 

In like manner a Commission appointed in 1819, in a Return 
made to the Court of Exchequer, June 30, 1819, setting out "the 
Limits of the Port of London," declare that eastward "The Port 
of London shall commence at the distance of four miles from 
the North Foreland Lighthouse," and on the opposite shore at 
a distance of three miles from the Naze Tower, and be continued 
"westwardly to highwater mark throughout the river Thames, and 
the several channels, streams, and rivers falling into it, to London 
Bridge." 

For certain port dues " the Port of London terminates near Graves- 
end, at a spot called the Bound, or by corruption the Round, Tree, but 
this having been destroyed by time and accidents, a stone has been 
erected in its place." l 

In Reports of Committees of the House of Commons^ vol. xiv. (1803), is 
a full history of the Port of London. 

Portland Chapel. {See St. Paul's, Portland Place.] 

Portland Club, No. i STRATFORD PLACE, " the Whist Club par 
eminence since the dissolution of Graham's." 2 Members limited to 
250 in number; election by ballot, one black ball in ten excludes ; 
entrance fee, 20 guineas; annual subscription, 7 guineas. Play at 
whist not to exceed ;i points. 

Portland Market. [See Oxford Market.] 

Portland Place, REGENT'S PARK, a thoroughfare 125 feet wide 
and 600 feet long. It was designed by the brothers Adam, circ. 1778, 
and so named after the then Duke of Portland, the ground landlord. 
The Adams only built the portion of the place from Devonshire Street 
to Duchess Street. The great width was owing to a clause in Lord 
Foley's lease, which precluded the Duke of Portland from erecting any 
buildings to intercept the view from Foley House [which see]. -The 
original house stood on the site of the Langham Hotel. No. 8 is 
now styled Foley House, but this is a modern name. When first built 
Portland Place was in the highest fashion. 

1 Cruden's Hist, of Gravesend and Port of London, p. 37. 
3 Hayward's Select Essays, vol. ii. p. 106. 



GREAT PORTLAND STREET 109 

Then comes that good old character, a Wife, 
With all the dear distracting cares of life ; 
A thousand cards a day at doors to leave, 
And in return a thousand cards receive ; 
Rouge high, play deep, to lead the ton aspire, 
With nightly blaze set PORTLAND PLACE on fire. 

Sam. Rogers, Verses spoken by Mrs, Siddons, April 27, 1795. 

Although less fashionably inhabited than when first built, Portland 
Place still numbers among its occupants peers, baronets, judges and 
privy councillors. The bronze statue of the Duke of Kent, the father 
of Queen Victoria, in Park Crescent, at the north end of Portland 
Place, was designed and cast by Gahagan. Park Crescent was called, 
in 1816, by Nash the architect, "the key to Marylebone Park." 1 

Eminent Inhabitants. General Sir Henry Clinton. In 1788 his 
daughter eloped from this street in a hackney-coach with Mr. Dawkins, 
who eluded pursuit by posting half a dozen other hackney-coaches at 
the corners of the streets leading into Portland Place, with directions 
to drive off as rapidly as possible, each in a different direction, directly 
that started in which he and the lady were. 2 Horace Walpole wrote 
to Pennant from No. 5 Portland Place. At No. 25 Sir Alan Gardner 
was living in 1796 and 1811. James Monroe, when American 
Ambassador (1807), lived at No. 23. Talleyrand lived at No. 51. 
John Holroyd Lord Sheffield, the friend of Gibbon, and editor of his 
Miscellaneous Writings, died at his house, No. 20, May 30, 1821. Sir 
Humphry Davy was married, April n, 1812, to Mrs. Apreece. The 
ceremony was performed at her mother's house in Portland Place by 
the Bishop of Carlisle. At No. 63, the house of Sir Ralph Milbanke, 
Lord Byron made love to his future wife, Miss Milbanke. At No. 2, 
the house of Henry Browne, F.R.S. (it is situated 51 31' 8".4 N. Lat.) ; 
were made the original and important experiments of Captain Kater, 
for determining the length of the seconds pendulum, and somewhat 
later Sabine's elaborate observations for determining the oscillation of 
the pendulum in different latitudes both sets of experiments being 
made with Mr. Browne's instruments and with his assistance. 3 Lord 
Radstock, one of the most distinguished admirals in the Great War, 
resided for many years in No. 10, and there died, August 20, 1825. 
Mark Wilks at No. 9. Lord Chief Justice Denman at No. 38. 
Charles Theophilus, first and last Lord Metcalfe, passed his boyhood 
in No. 49, the house of his father, the East India Director. 

Portland Street (Great), OXFORD STREET, is now the name of 
the whole line of road between Oxford Street and the Euston Road, 
east of and parallel to Portland Place, but was originally confined to 
the portion between Margaret Street and Mortimer Street. South of 
the former it was John Street, and north of the latter Portland Road. 

1 Second Report of Woods and Forests, p. 113. 

- There is a clever account of the elopement in the Buckland Correspondence, vol. i. p. 467. 
3 Philosophical Trans., 1818, 1821. 



no GREAT PORTLAND STREET 

This last name is preserved in the Portland Road Station of the 
Metropolitan Railway at the corner of the Euston Road. 

Eminent Inhabitants. William Guthrie, author of Guthrie's Gram- 
mar , etc., died here, March 9, 1770. Richard Wilson, the landscape 
painter, " at the corner of Foley Place." 1 Joseph Wilton, R.A., sculptor, 
"occupied the large house, Foley Place, at the south-east corner of 
Great Portland Street." 2 William Seward, author of Seward's Anecdotes, 
lived at No. 40. 3 James Boswell, the biographer of Johnson, died in 
1795 at No. 47. 4 Carl Maria von Weber, composer of "Der Freis- 
chutz," died in Sir George Smart's house, No. 91 (now 103), June 5, 
1826. No. 65 was the residence of John Jones, the engraver of 
the portraits of Charles James Fox, and many other fine works of 
Reynolds and of Romney ; and father of the late Richard Jones, R.A. 
Sir David Wilkie was living at No. 84 in 1808-1809. William Collins, 
R.A., at No. 118 in 1810. Leigh Hunt at No. 35 in 1812. Joshua 
Brookes, the great surgeon, died at his house in Great Portland Street, 
January 30, 1833. On the west side (No. 131, etc.) is the Jewish 
Central Synagogue, a spacious building of Portland and red Mansfield 
stone, Oriental in style, with a tall campanile, erected from the designs 
of Mr. N. S. Joseph, and consecrated with great solemnity by Dr. 
Adler, the Chief Rabbi, April 7, 1870. The interior, which is very 
lofty, and fitted up in a rich and costly manner, is very striking. 

Portman Square, between Orchard Street, Oxford Street, and 
Baker Street, was so called after William Henry Portman, Esq., of 
Orchard -Portman, in Somersetshire (d. 1796), the proprietor of an 
estate in Marylebone, of about 270 acres, formerly the property of the 
Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in England, and described in a lease 
granted by the last prior of the knights of St. John as " Great Gibbet 
Field [see Tyburn], Little Gibbet Field, Hawkfield, and Brock Stand, 
Tassel Croft, Boy's Croft, and twenty acres Fursecroft, and two closes 
called Shepcott Haws, parcel of the manor of Lilestone [see Lisson 
Green], in the county of Middlesex." The present proprietor of the 
estate is Lord Portman. 

Portman Square was begun about 1764, when the north side of the square was 
built; but it was twenty years before the whole was finished. Lysons, vol. iii. 
P- 257- 

In Espriella's Letters (1807) Southey describes this square as "on the 
outskirts of the town," and approached "on one side by a road, unlit, 
unpaved, and inaccessible by carriages." The house in the north-west 
angle of the square (properly No. i Upper Berkeley Street) was designed, 
1760, by James "Athenian" Stuart for Mrs. Montagu, authoress of the 
Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakespeare. Here she had her 
public breakfasts, her Blue-stocking parties ; here, on May-day, she 

1 Wright's Life of Wilson, p. 5. 4 Letter from Mrs. Ogborne, of Great Portland 

" Smith's Nollekens, vol. ii. p. 172. Street, to the late John Thomas Smith, preserved 

3 Nichols's Lit. Anec., vol. ix. p. 467. in Mr. Murray's John son Collections. 



PORTSOKEN 1 1 1 



used to entertain the chimney-sweeps of London ; and here she died, 
August 25, 1800. 

November 12, 1781. Mrs. Montagu is very busy furnishing her new house ; part 
of her family is removed into it. Mrs. Boscawcn, Dclmicy, vol. vi. p. 65 ; and 
sec p. 76. 

When Summer comes the bells shall ring, and flowers and hawthorns blow, 
The village lasses and the lads shall all a-Maying go : 
Kind-hearted lady may thy soul in heaven a blessing reap, 
Whose bounty at that season flows to cheer the Little Sweep. 

W. L. Bowles, Climbing Boys' Album, p. 347. 

No. 12 (since numbered 15), was the Duke of Hamilton's, and here 
were some of the finest of William Beckford's pictures, removed by 
the duke, who was his son-in-law, from the house in which Beckford 
died, at Bath. No. 26 was Lady Garvagh's, where was the famous 
Aldobrandini Madonna of Raphael, now in the National Gallery. 

Portsmouth Street, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. The Black Jack 
public-house, No. 1 1 in this street, was a favourite house of Joe Miller. 
Joe died in 1 738, and the first edition of the Jests, which have rendered 
his name famous, was published the following year, "price one shilling." 
The Black Jack was long distinguished as "The Jump," from Jack 
Sheppard having once jumped from one of its first-floor windows to 
escape the emissaries of Jonathan Wild. No. 14 is said to be the 
original of Dickens's Old Curiosity Shop, but there is not sufficient 
authority for this statement. 

Portsoken, one of the twenty-six wards of London, deriving its 
name from the "soc" or "soke" (the liberty, or separate jurisdiction), 
without the "port" or gate called Aldgate. This ward is without the 
walls, but within the liberties of the City. 

In the days of King Edgar there were thirteen Knights or Soldiers, well-beloved 
to the King and realm, for service by them done, which requested to have a certain 
portion of land on the east part of the city, left desolate and forsaken by the inhabit- 
ants, by reason of too much servitude. They besought the King to have this land, 
with the liberty of a guild, for ever. The King granted to their request, with con- 
ditions following : that is, that each of them should victoriously accomplish three 
combats, one above the ground, one under ground, and the third in the water ; and 
after this, at a certain day in East Smithfield, they should run with spears against 
all comers ; all which was gloriously performed, and the same day the King named 
it Knighten Guild. Stow, p. 46. 

The " knightenguild " was held by the heirs of the thirteen knights till 
the reign of Henry I., when (A.D. 1115) the men of the guild taking 
upon them the brotherhood and benefits of the newly established 
priory of the Holy Trinity, within Aldgate, assigned their " soke " to 
the prior, and offered, upon the altars of the church, the several 
charters of their guild. Henry I. confirmed the gift, and the prior 
was made an alderman of London : an honour continued to his suc- 
cessors till the Dissolution, when the church was surrendered and the 
site of the priory granted by Henry VIII. to Sir Thomas Audley, 
Lord Chancellor. [See Duke's Place.] After the Dissolution the 



112 PORTSOKEN 



inhabitants of Knightenguild or Portsoken elected an alderman of their 
own a privilege they enjoy to this day. 1 The name survives (corruptly) 
in Nightingale Lane. The principal places in the ward are Aldgate, 
Houndsditch, Petticoat Lane (now Middlesex Street), and the Minories. 

Portugal Row, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, the old name of the south 
side of the present Lincoln's Inn Fields; built 1657, by Sir William 
Cowper, Robert Henley, and James Cowper, and known as Portugal 
Row before the marriage of Charles II. to Catherine of Portugal. In 
1668 it was inhabited by the following persons : 

The Lady Arden ; Wm. Perpoint, Esq. ; Sir Charles Waldegrave ; The Lady 
Fitzharding ; The Lady Diana Curzon ; Serjeant Maynard ; The Lord Cardigan ; 
Neale, Esq. ; Mrs. Ann Heron ; Deane, Esq. ; The Lady Mor- 

dant ; Richard Adams, Esq. ; The Lady Carr ; The Lady Wentworth ; Mr. Attorney 
Montague ; The Lady Coventry ; Judge Weld ; The Lady Davenant. 2 

Sir John Maynard, the celebrated lawyer, who was living here till his 
death in 1690, will long be remembered for his memorable reply to 
William III. Lord Cardigan was the father of the infamous Countess 
of Shrewsbury. Sir William Davenant had "lodgings" here, says 
Aubrey, and here he died, April 7, 1668. "I was at his funeral: he 
had a coffin of walnut tree : Sir John Denham said that it was the finest 
coffin he ever saw." The Lady Davenant was the widow of Sir William. 
Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (d. 1680), lived here. "If you write to 
me you must direct to Lincoln's -Inn -Fields, the house next to the 
Duke's Playhouse in Portugal Row ; there lives your humble servant, 
ROCHESTER." 3 On the site of what is now a part of the Museum of 
the Royal College of Surgeons stood the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre. 

This landscape of the sea (but, by the way, 
That's an expression which might hurt our play, 
If the severer critics were in town) 
This prospect of the sea, cannot be shown : 
Therefore be pleased to think that you are all 

Behind the Row which men call Portugal. Sir William Davenant, 
Epilogue to the Playhouse to be Let ; see also Davenant's Works, p. 74. 

Portugal Street, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS from Serle Street to 
Portsmouth Street was so called when Portugal Row, or the south 
side of Lincoln's Inn Fields ceased to be known by that name. In 
Strype's time it was without a name. He proposed to call it Playhouse 
Street. 4 In the burying-ground immediately opposite, belonging to St. 
Clement's Danes [which see], Joe Miller ("Joe Miller's Jests"} is 
buried (d. 1738). The site is occupied by King's College Hospital 
[which see]. Here also is the High Court of Justice in Bankruptcy. 
Here was till a few years back the Grange public-house, with its old 
picturesque inn yard. 

1 " These priors have sitten and ridden amongst 

the aldermen of London, in livery like unto them, ' 2 Rate-books of St. Clement's Danes, 
saving that his habit was in shape of a spiritual 3 Wharton's Works. 
person, as I myself have seen in my childhood." 4 Strype, B. iv. p. 119. 
Stow, p. 53. 



THE POST OFFICE 113 



Housekeeper. The poet has a special train behind him ; though they look lean 
and rnipty, yet they seem very full of invention. 

riayo: Let him enter, and send his train to our House Inn the Grange. Sir 
William Bavenant, The Playhouse to be Let. 

Portugal Street, the old name for part of PICCADILLY ; so called 
after Catherine of Portugal, Queen of Charles II. Portugal Street is 
entered in the Rate-books of St. Martin's, for the first time, under the 
year 1664, when the north side extended as far as Air Street. The 
south side was built in 1665. In 1671 it extended as far as Sackville 
Street, and in 1686 to Dover Street, then but newly built. 

Post Office (The), ST. MARTIN'S-LE-GRAND. Although now of 
such immense importance to our national welfare, the English Post 
Office cannot be traced back through more than about 300 years 
of our history. Before this time the King and the nobles sent their 
letters by private messengers or " nuncii," whilst the commonalty, travel- 
ling little, had small need of correspondence. The merchants of the 
Hanse Towns have the reputation of being the first to establish a 
regular European letter post ; and in England, although Henry VIII. 
paid attention to the official post, the foreign post remained for 
some years in the hands of the foreigners who had established it. It 
was on the occasion of a dispute between them as to the electing of a 
postmaster that James I. stepped in and appointed a Postmaster of 
England for foreign parts, who was to have " the sole taking up, 
sending, and conveying of all packets and letters concerning our service 
or business to be despatched to foreign parts," others being forbidden 
to convey letters, etc. ; and since that time the business of the Post 
Office has remained a Government monopoly. In the reign of James 
I. the total annual payment for the staff of the Post Office was only 
^255 15 : io. In 1635 a proclamation was issued "for settling the 
letter office of England and Scotland," in which it is enacted that there 
shall be " a running post or two, to run night and day, between 
Edinburgh and Scotland and the City of London, to go thither and 
come back in six days." In 1644 Edmund Prideaux, Esq., M.P., first 
established a weekly conveyance of letters to all parts of the nation. 
An Act of Parliament passed in 1656 " to settle the postage of England, 
Scotland and Ireland," is the real foundation of our postal system. 
This Act orders the "erecting of one general post office and one 
officer stiled the Postmaster-General of England and Comptroller of 
the Post Office." This Act was re-enacted 12 Car. II., c. 35, and it has 
been called the Post Office Charter, remaining in full force until 1710. 
In 1663, when the carriage of letters had become a source of income, 
the revenues were settled on James, Duke of York, afterwards 
James II. 

This Conveyance by post is done in so short a time by night as well as by day 
that every twenty-four hours the Post goes 120 miles and in five days an Answer of a 
Letter may be had from a place 300 miles distant from the writer. Delaune, Present 
State of London, 1681, p. 346. 

VOL. Ill I 



ii4 THE POST OFFICE 

At that time there were mails to Kent and the Downs daily ; over 
the whole of England and Scotland three times weekly ; and to the 
Continent from twice to thrice weekly. In 1680 a "Penny Post" 
was established in London by Robert Murray, a clerk in the Excise, 
and William Dockwra, a sub-searcher in the Customs. Murray and 
Dockwra quarrelled and set up rival offices, but the name of the former 
is soon lost sight of. When the penny post was found to be profitable 
the Duke of York wished to take possession of it, and after a time 
the Post Office succeeded in their object. Dockwra was appointed 
Comptroller of the Penny Post, but was dismissed by the Lords of the 
Treasury for mismanagement in 1698. [See Penny Post.] In 1708 
an attempt was made by a Mr. Povey to establish a half-penny post 
in opposition to the official penny post, but this enterprise, like 
Dockwra's, was suppressed by a lawsuit. The London penny post 
continued until 1801, when it was made a twopenny post. 

Ralph Allen of Bath, the friend of Pope and Fielding, established a 
system of cross roads by which he obtained a large fortune. At his 
death in 1 764 the " bye-posts " were transferred to the care of the Post 
Office authorities. John Palmer in 1784 succeeded in introducing 
special mail coaches for the conveyance of letters, thus materially 
accelerating the speed of conveyance over the older plan of transmission 
on horseback and in carts. But the rapid growth of the postal system 
dates from the introduction, by Sir Rowland Hill in 1840, of the 
uniform penny rate of postage. Before that time the rate had been 
so heavy as virtually to preclude the use of the post by the mass of the 
population. At the same time " franking," a privilege which had been 
very much abused, was abolished. The opposition to the introduction 
of penny postage and the abolition of franks was very great, and some idea 
of the abuse of the latter may be gained from the statements of one or 
two contemporaries. 

I was thereby deprived of the privilege of franking as a member of the House of 
Commons and I now lose the privilege of franking as a peer ; but I rejoice in the 
sacrifice for the general good, although the loss of consequence from ceasing to be 
able to frank a letter for a lady in travelling, or the waiter at an inn, gave great 
disgust to many members of both houses, Whig as well as Tory, and made some of 
them openly declare that there was no longer any use in being in Parliament. 
Lord Campbell, Autobiography, vol. ii. p. 117. 

Mr. Roebuck stated in the House of Commons, June 22, 1857, that "The 
Ambassadors' bag in past times had been sadly weighted. Coats, lace, boots and 
other articles were sent by it, even a pianoforte ; and not only a pianoforte but a 
horse." 

It was also stated before a House of Commons Committee that "one man had 
in the course of five months counterfeited 1200 dozen of franks of Members of 
Parliament, and that a regular trade of buying and selling franks had been actually 
established with several persons in the country." 

The combination of the different nations of the world to form the 
International Postal Union, with a uniform postage rate of 2jd. (except 
for very distant places, when 5d. is sometimes charged), has also done 
much to stimulate the growth of correspondence and the use of the 



THE POST OI'l-ICE 115 

Post Office. Since the introduction of penny postage in 1840 the 
number of letters passing through the Post Office has increased to so 
great an extent that in the year ending March 31, 1889, the estimated 
total of letters, post-cards, book packets, newspapers and parcels was 
2,362,990,000, made up as follows: 1,558,100,000 letters (or an 
average of 41.5 letters to each person in the United Kingdom); 
201,400,000 post-cards; 412,000,000 book packets and circulars; 
151,900,000 newspapers; 39,590,000 parcels. The total number of 
money orders during the year was 9,563,725, representing an aggre- 
gate amount of ^23,869,495. The number of postal orders was 
40,282,321, of the total value of ^16,112,079. There are now 
(1889) 37>783 receptacles of all sorts for letters, of which number 
17,829 are Post Offices. 

The deposits in the Savings Bank Department, a branch added to 
the Post Office in 1860, numbered 7,540,625, and amounted to 
,19,052,226 ; the withdrawals were 2,633,808 in number, amounting 
to ^15,802,735. The accounts remaining open on December 31, 
1888, were 4,220,297; the amount standing to their credit being 
^58,556,394 (including interest). During the year 580 Life 
Insurances, amounting to .34,819, were granted, as well as 995 
Immediate Annuities and 138 Deferred Annuities, of the annual values 
of ,23,404 and .2719 respectively. The total number of Life 
Insurances in existence on December 31, 1888, was. 6210, together 
with 10,358 Immediate and 1015 Deferred Annuities. The taking 
over the telegraphs in 1870, with the simultaneous adoption of a 
uniform shilling rate for the United Kingdom, largely increased the 
business of the Post Office; and the reduction to sixpence in 1885 
still further increased it. Excluding foreign, press and free telegrams, 
the returns show a total of 46,816,711 inland telegrams for the year 
1888-1889, the average value of which was 7.92d. 

The total number of officers on the permanent establishment of the 
department is about 58,396 ; of this number 4054 are women. 

With its large increase of business the Post Office has necessarily 
had to increase its accommodation. Originally in Cloak Lane, 
Dowgate Hill, the General Post Office was moved to the Black Swan, 
Bishopgsgate, which suffered destruction in the Fire of London in 1666. 
The office was then transferred to Brydges Street, Covent Garden, and 
thence in 1690 to Lombard Street. The work to be done still in- 
creasing beyond the capacity of the building, it was decided early in 
this century to erect one expressly suited for a General Post Office. 
The site chosen was that formerly covered by the ancient monastery 
of St Martin's-le-Grand. The edifice, completed after the designs of 
Sir Robert Smirke, is in the Ionic style, with a lofty central portico, 
surmounted by a pediment. This building still retains its position as 
the Central Office, but the large increase of business has necessitated 
the erection of several large auxiliary ones. The New Post Office, 
designed by Mr. J. Williams, is opposite and equal in extent to the 



ii6 THE POST OFFICE 



older General Post Office. Its two fronts in St. Martin's-le-Grand and 
Bath Street are 286 feet long, its two ends in Newgate Street and 
Angel Street 146 feet, and its height from the pavement 84 feet. The 
building is of Portland stone on a granite basement ; the two lower 
storeys are rusticated, with engaged shafts of the Tuscan order, the two 
upper Roman Corinthian. A large clearance of the whole of the west 
side of St. Martin's-le-Grand has been made, and new buildings for the 
accommodation of the Post Office are now in course of erection (1890) 
on this site. 

Potters' Hithe. [See Queenhithe.] 

Poulters' Company. This Company, incorporated in the reign 
of Henry VII., January 23, 1504, has a Master, an Upper and a 
Renter Warden, a Court of Assistants and a Livery. The hall of this 
Company is said to have been in Leadenhall Market, but was destroyed 
in the Fire of London, and their business is now transacted at the 
Guildhall. The Poulters' Company ranks thirty-fourth amongst the 
City Livery Companies. 

Poultry. A Street connecting CHEAPSIDE and CORNHILL, and 
long famous for its compter. [See Poultry Compter.] 

West from this church have ye Scalding Alley, of old time called Scalding 
House, or Scalding Wike, because that ground for the most part was then employed 
by Poulterers, that dwelt in the high street from the Stocks Market to the great 
Conduit. Their poultry, which they sold at their stalls, were scalded there. The 
street doth yet bear the name of the Poultry, and the poulterers are but lately 
departed from thence into other streets, as into Grasse [Gracechurch] Street, and 
the ends of St. Nicholas flesh shambles [Newgate Market]. Stow, p. 71. 

In the i6th and first half of the iyth century the Poultry was famous 
for its taverns. The Rose Tavern was noted for its wines, and down 
to the days of Ned Ward and the London Spy maintained its 
reputation. The Three Cranes is often referred to as a well-known 
house in the pamphlets and light literature of the day. The 
King's Head Tavern, No. 25, was kept in Charles II. 's time by 
William King. His wife, happening to be in labour on the day of the 
King's restoration, was anxious to see the returning monarch, and 
Charles, in passing through the Poultry, was told of her inclination, and 
stopped at the tavern to salute her. 1 The letter which in 1619 
" made a stir in Lancashire," respecting an apparition at Newmarket, 
"which the King went to see and has kept his bed ever since," 
was written by one Matt. Mason from "the Falchion, in Poultry." 
Mr. Cowden Clarke relates that in 1817, when Keats was about to 
publish his first little volume he lodged on "the second floor of a 
house in the Poultry, at the corner of the court leading to the Queen's 
Arms Tavern, that corner nearest to Bow Church ; " but this must 
have been the Queen's Head in Cheapside. Few of the old taverns 
appear to have been rebuilt after the Great Fire. There are now none 
in the Poultry. 

1 Nichols's Lit. Anec., vol. i. p. 3. 



POULTRY COMPTER 117 

No. 22 Poultry was Dilly the bookseller's. Here, May 15, 1776, 
Dr. Johnson met Wilkes at dinner, by a manoeuvre of BoswelPs, of 
which Burke declared " that there was nothing equal to it in the whole 
history of the Corps Diplomatique." Here Boswell's Life of Johnson 
was first published. Dilly sold his business to Mawman, a name 
well remembered in the book-trade. Dr. Parr took Landor to see 
him. In after days, however, Mawman declined to publish the 
Imaginary Conversations. No. 3 1 was the shop of Vernor and Hood, 
booksellers. Hood of this firm was father of Thomas Hood (" Comic 
Annual," "Song of the Shirt") who was born here in 1798. The church 
of St. Mildred? s-in-the- Poultry stood on the north side, where is now 
the Gresham Life Assurance Office. By the removal of St. Mildred's 
Church, the clearing away of most of the old houses on both sides of 
the way, and the erection in their places of large blocks of offices and 
shops of considerable architectural pretensions, and the general 
widening of the thoroughfare, the Poultry has since 1850 been entirely 
changed in character and aspect. 

On a portion of the site of the Poultry Compter was built in 1819 
the Poultry Chapel, for Congregationalists, which under the pastoral 
care of Dr. Clayton long flourished. In 1872, when the "Poultry 
Improvements" were in full progress, it was decided to remove to 
another locality, and a larger chapel the City Temple was built for 
the congregation on the Holborn Viaduct. The site of the Poultry 
Chapel (7440 square feet) was sold by auction for ^5 0,200. 

Poultry Compter, WOOD STREET, a sheriff's prison, which stood 
a little to the east of Grocers' Hall Court ; Chapel Place led directly to 
it. 1 [See Giltspur Street Compter and Compter in Southwark.] It 
was the only prison in London with a ward set apart for Jews 
(probably due to its proximity to the Jewry), and was the only prison 
left unattacked in the riots of 1780. It was a brick building of fifteen 
wards the king's, the prince's, the upper, middle and women's wards, 
and the Jews' ward. There was a chapel, and the leads were used for 
exercise grounds. 

John Bradford, one of the most illustrious of the Marian martyrs, 
was imprisoned here from January 30 to June 30, 1550. Here he 
was persecuted with "conferences," but as nothing could stir his 
fortitude, " he was suddenly conveyed out of the Compter, in the night 
season to Newgate ; and from thence he was carried to Smithfield." 2 
Dekker and Boyse, two unfortunate sons of song, were long inhabitants 
of the Poultry Compter. Here died Lamb, the conjuror (commonly 
called Dr. Lamb), of the injuries he had received from the mob, who 
pelted him (June 13, 1628) from Moorgate to the Windmill in the Old 
Jewry, where he was felled to the ground with a stone, and was thence 
carried to the Poultry Compter, where he died the same night. The 
rabble believed that the doctor dealt with the devil, and assisted the 

1 The site is carefully marked in Strype's Map " A 11 the Examinations of the Constanie 
of Cheap Ward. Martir of God, M. John Bradfourdc, 1561. 



ii8 POULTRY COMPTER 

Duke of Buckingham in misleading the King. The City had to pay 
heavily for their negligence in not protecting the unfortunate man. 
The last slave imprisoned in England was confined (1772) in the 
Poultry Compter. This was Somerset, a negro, the particulars of 
whose case excited Sharpe and Clarkson in their useful and successful 
labour in the cause of negro emancipation. 

Some four houses west from this parish of St. Mildred is a prison house 
pertaining to one of the sheriffs of London, and is called the Compter in the Poultry. 
This hath been there kept and continued time out of mind, for I have not read of 
the original thereof.- Stow, p. 99. 

First Officer. Nay, we have been scholars, I can tell you, we could not have 
been knaves so soon else ; for as in that notable city called London, stand two most 
famous universities, Poultry and Wood Street, where some are of twenty years' 
standing, and have took all their degrees, from the Master's side, down to the 
Mistress's side, the Hole, so in like manner, etc. The Phanix, by T. Middleton, 
4to, 1607. 

Prisoners committed by the Lord Mayor were sent to the Poultry ; 
prisoners committed by the sitting aldermen to Giltspur Street prison. 
The prisoners were removed from the Poultry Compter to White Cross 
Street prison shortly after the latter was completed. 

Powis House, KNIGHTSBRIDGE, the residence of Amelia Sophia 
de Walmoden, the mistress of George II., who was created Countess of 
Yarmouth for life. She died 1765. 

Powis House, at the north-west angle of Lincoln's Inn Fields and 
the corner of Great Queen Street ; the town house of the noble family 
of Herbert. It was built in 1686 by William Herbert, Viscount 
Montgomery and Marquis of Powis, on the site of a former house 
burnt to the ground, October 26, 1684, "the family hardly saving 
themselves from being burnt." Among the Private Acts is, i James 
II., c. 3, " An Act for rebuilding the Earl of Powis' House in Lincoln's 
Inn Fields, lately demolished by fire." The new house (now No. 67) 
was designed by Captain William Winde, architect. 

Then they went to the Lord Powis' great house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, wherein 
was a guard, and a bill upon the door This house is appointed for the Lord 
Delamere's quarters, and some of the company crying ' ' Let it alone, the Lord Powis 
was against the Bishops going to the Tower" they offered no violence to it. English 
Courant, December 1688. 

Lord Powis forfeited his house to the Crown for his adherence to 
James II. It was inhabited for a time by the great Lord Somers ; 
and, in February 1696-1697, was ordered to remain in the possession 
of the Lord Chancellor during his custody of the Great Seal. It was 
subsequently sold to Holies, Duke of Newcastle (d. 1711), when it 
received the name of Newcastle House. [See Newcastle House.] 

Powis House, at the north-west end of Great Ormond Street, 
stood back from the street, on the site of the present Powis Place. It 
was built in the latter part of the reign of William III. by William 
Herbert, Marquis of Powis, son of the first Marquis of Powis, who was 



rKKSCOT STREET 119 



outlawed for his adherence to James II., and was burnt down January 
26, 1713, when in the occupation of the Due d'Aumont, ambassador 
from Louis XIV. 

After dinner at Lord Treasurer's, the Frencli Ambassador, Duke d'Aumont, sent 
Lord Treasurer word that his house was burnt to the ground. It took fire in the 
upper rooms, while he was at dinner with Monteleon, the Spanish Ambassador, and 
other persons ; and soon after Lord Bolingbroke came to us with the same story. 
We are full of speculations upon it, but I believe it was the carelessness of his 
rascally French servants. Swift to Mrs. Dinghy, January 26, 1713. 

The house was insured, but the French King's dignity would not 
permit him, it is said, to suffer a Fire-office to pay for the neglect of 
the domestics of his representative. 1 The front of the new house 
which the King erected was of stone, with eight lofty Corinthian 
pilasters, and surmounted on the coping by urns and statues. Over 
the street door was a phcenix ; the ornament above the capitals of the 
pilasters, was the Gallic cock. The architect was Colin Campbell. 
The staircase was painted by Giacomo Amiconi, a Venetian painter, of 
some reputation in this country. He chose the story of Holofernes, 
and painted the personages of his story in Roman dresses. On the 
top was a great reservoir, used as a fish-pond and a resource against 
fire. Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke, came to reside here in 1737, 
when he was appointed Lord Chancellor, and continued to occupy it 
during the whole time that he held the seals. In 1764-1783 it was 
in the occupation of the Spanish Ambassador. 2 It was taken down 
a few years later, and is still preserved to us in a large engraving 
published by Thomas Bowles (1714). 

June 8, 1764. The house of Bedford came to town last Friday, I supped with 
them that night at the Spanish Ambassador's, who has made Powis House 
magnificent. Walpole to Lord Hertford, vol. iv. p. 247. 

Nos. 50, 51, and 52 were built 1777 on part of the site. 

Powis Place, GREAT ORMOND STREET. \See Powis House, 
Great Ormond Street.] John Leech was resident at No. 9 about 
1848. 

Pratt Place, now PRATT STREET, CAMDEN TOWN. Dr. Wolcot 
(Peter Pindar) lodged in the first floor of a house rented by a Mr. and 
Mrs. Knight in this street. 

Prerogative Will Office or Court was in KNIGHTRIDER 
STREET, DOCTORS' COMMONS. This was the court wherein all wills 
were proved and all administrations granted that belonged to the 
Archbishop of Canterbury by his prerogative. It was removed in 
1874 to Somerset House. [See Will Office.] 

Prescot Street, GOODMAN'S FIELDS, between Leman Street and 
Mansell Street, is divided into "Great" and "Little." In Little 
Prescot Street is one of the oldest dissenting meeting-houses in 
London. 

1 Noorthouck, p. 305 ; Europ. Mag. for June 1804, p. 429. - Noorthouck, p. 746. 



120 PRESCOT STREET 

Prescot Street, a spacious and regular built street on the south side of the Tenter 
Ground in Goodman's Fields. Instead of Signs the Houses here are distinguished by 
numbers, as the staircases in the Inns of Court and Chancery. Hatton, 1708, p. 65. 

Sir Cloudesley Shovel, the old rough admiral of Queen Anne's reign, 
resided in this street before he removed to Soho Square; and here 
(August 8, 1758) the first Magdalen Hospital was opened with eight 
inmates, all that the Institution could then shelter. [See Goodman's 
Fields.] In Great Prescot Street are the Whitechapel County Court, 
a Roman Catholic Church, and the convent of St. Mary. 

Primrose Hill, a hillock on the north side of the Regent's Park, 
from which it is divided by two roads and a canal. It belonged to 
the Provost and Fellows of Eton College, but has been secured by the 
Government and laid out as a public recreation ground. In the 
Register of the Stationers' Company, 1586-1587, is an entry of "A 
Sweete and Courtly Songe of the Flowers that grow on Prymrose 
Hill." In a dry ditch at the foot of this hill, on the south side, about 
two fields distant from the White House (Chalk Farm), the body of 
Sir Edmond Berry Godfrey was found on Thursday October 17, 1678. 
Primrose Hill was long familiarly known as Green Berry Hill, and by 
a curious coincidence three of the supposed murderers were named 
respectively Green, Berry, and Hill. Godfrey's body was removed to 
the White House and afterwards interred in the churchyard of St. 
Martin's-in-the-Fields. There is a contemporary medal of Sir Edmond, 
representing him, on the obverse, walking with a broken neck and a 
sword in his body, and on the reverse, St. Denis bearing his head in 
his hand, with this inscription : 

Godfrey walks up hill after he was dead, 

Denis walks down hill carrying his head. 

There is a good view on a fine day of the west end of London from 
this hill, though of late circumscribed by the progress of buildings. 
Whilst yet in the fields Primrose Hill (generally the Chalk Farm side) 
was often chosen for duels. Here occurred (1806) the harmless 
meeting between Tom Moore and Jeffrey, and here, on the night of 
February 16, 1821, was fought the duel between John Scott of the 
London Magazine and Mr. Christie, in which the former was killed. 

There's no news that you'd care to hear of, except that the Prince is to have a 
villa upon Primrose Hill, connected by a fine street with Carlton House, and is so 
pleased with this magnificent plan that he has been heard to say, "It will quite 
eclipse Napoleon." Thomas Moore, October 24, 1811 (Memoirs, vol. viii. p. 97). 

It is needless to say that Regent Street was not carried quite so far 
north, and Napoleon was eclipsed in quite another fashion. 

Prince's Court, GEORGE STREET, WESTMINSTER. John Wilkes 
had a house close to Storey's Gate, the last house on the north side, 
the windows looking into the park. On September 18, iy]i,Jtmius 
wrote a long letter to Wilkes, in which he says, "My Second Letter is 
of public import, and must not be suppressed. I did mean that it 
should be buried in Prince's Court," 



PRINCE'S STREET 121 



Prince's Hall, PICCADILLY, a large building on the south side of 
the street extending from the churchyard of St. James's, Piccadilly, 
to No. 189. It was erected in 1881 from the designs of Mr. E. R. 
Robson, architect, by a Limited Liability Company with a capital of 
^50,000, entitled the Piccadilly Art Galleries Company. There are 
three galleries occupied by the Royal Institute of Painters in Water- 
Colours and the Institute of Painters in Oil-Colours, and a hall let 
for concerts and entertainments. The elevation contains a series of 
recesses in which are placed busts of celebrated English water-colour 
painters. The lower part is occupied by shop fronts. 

Prince's Square. [See Ratcliffe Highway.] 

Prince's Street, BRIDGE-WATER SQUARE. Edmund Halley, the 
astronomer, lived in this street. 1 

Prince's Street, CAVENDISH SQUARE, south-east corner to 
Oxford Street. Charles Lamb placed the birthplace of the immortal 
Elia in this street. 

Is the Parish Register nothing? Is the room in Princes Street, Cavendish 
Square, where we saw the light six and forty years ago, nothing ? Elia, Postscript 
to the Chapter on Ears. 

Prince's Street, DRURY LANE. [See Drury Lane.] 

He [the first Earl of Clare, died 1637] likewise purchased one half of Princes 
Street by Drury Lane. And he caused to be routed those edificies called Lowche's 
Buildings, with the most part of Clement's Inn Lane, Blackmore Street by Drury 
Lane, and part of Clement's Inn Fields. Gervase Holies in Collins's Histor. Collec- 
tions, p. 85. 

Pope's correspondent, Henry Cromwell, lived at " the Widow 
Hambleton's Coffee-house, in Prince's Street, near Drury Lane." 
Hence Pope speaks of " your old apartment in the Widow's Corner," 
and the couplet 

To treat those nymphs like yours of Drury 
With I protest and I'll assure ye ! 2 

Prince's Street, HANOVER SQUARE, was built in the year 1 7 1 Q. 2 
Here in 1833 died Sir John Malcolm, the historian of Persia and 
biographer of Lord Clive. 

Prince's Street, WARDOUR STREET, was so called from the 
military garden of Henry, Prince of Wales, eldest son of King James 
I., which stood on part of Prince's Street and Gerard Street. [See 
Military Garden.] Princes Street extended from Coventry Street to 
Old Compton Street, where it joined Wardour Street; but in 1880 
the name was abolished and the thoroughfare from Oxford Street to 
Coventry Street was named Wardour Street for its entire length. 
When all the speculations of the brilliant author of Lacon had failed, a 
fiat of bankruptcy was issued against him as the " Rev. Charles Caleb 
Col ton, late of Prince's Street, Soho, Wine Merchant." 

1 Weld's History of the Royal Society, vol. i. p. 427. - Elwin's Pope, vol. vi. p. 64. 



122 PRINCE OF WALES THEATRE 

Prince of Wales Theatre, 21 TOTTENHAM STREET, Tottenham 
Court Road, was originally a concert room, then used for musical and 
miscellaneous entertainments and amateur theatrical performances. 
Converted into a theatre and named the Regency, it passed through 
many hands, and was at different times named the Fitzroy, the Royal, 
the West End, and the Queen's, but it was at length remodelled, and 
under the management of Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft became, as the 
Prince of Wales's, one of the most fashionable and highly patronised 
theatres in London. Early in 1880 Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft removed 
to the Haymarket Theatre, and the Tottenham Street Theatre 
remained empty for some years. It is now (1890) occupied by the 
Salvation Army. The name of Prince of Wales's Theatre has been 
given to what was previously the Prince's in Coventry Street. 

Princess's Theatre, OXFORD Street, opposite the Pantheon, was 
built in 1830 as a bazaar. Forming a part of the Queen's Bazaar, as 
it was named, was a spacious concert room. The speculation was not 
successful, and in 1840 the building was remodelled by Mr. T. M. 
Nelson, architect for Mr. Hamlet, a well-known west-end goldsmith, and 
reopened in 1841 as the Princess's Theatre. Under Mr. Charles 
Kean's management the theatre attained celebrity for its artistic 
" mounting " and careful performance of the plays of Shakespeare. 
Later it became noted for the "realistic melodrama." In 1880 the 
building was almost reconstructed under the direction of Mr. C. J. 
Phipps, architect. The theatre itself now includes the great concert 
room at the back (of late the lecture hall of the Castle Street Co- 
operative Institute), and rendered more attractive to occupants of the 
dress-circle and stalls by the provision of luxurious lounge, refreshment 
and smoking rooms. The Oxford Street entrance has been enlarged 
and new entrances provided, and the working arrangements improved. 

Printing House Square, BLACKFRIARS, so called from the 
printing office of the King's printers, formerly situated here. The first 
printer whose name has come down to us is John Bill, who, "at the 
King's Printing House in Black Friers," printed the proclamations of the 
reign of Charles II., and the first London Gazette, established in that 
reign. Charles Eyre and William Strahan were the last King's printers 
who resided here, and in February 1770* the King's Printing House was 
removed to New Street, near Gough Square, in Fleet Street, where it now 
is. The place still continues to deserve its name of Printing House 
Square, for here every day in the week (Sunday excepted) The Times 
newspaper is printed and published, and from hence distributed over 
the whole civilised world. This celebrated paper, finding daily employ- 
ment on the premises for between 200 and 300 people, was established 
in 1788 the first number, price 3d., appearing on the ist of January 
in that year as the successor to the Universal Register. In that number 
appeared an amusing explanation of the origin of the new title : 

1 London Gazette, February 17, 1770. 



PKINTING HOUSE SQUARE 123 

The Universal Register from the day of its first appearance to the day of its 
confirmation, has like Tristram, suffred from unusual casualties, both laughable and 
serious, arising from its name, which on its introduction was immediately curtailed 
of its fair proportions by all who called for it the word Universal bang universally 
omitted, and the word Register being only retained. "Boy, bring me a Register." 
The waiter answers "Sir, we have not a Library, but you may see it at the New 
Exchange Coffee-house." "Then I'll see it there," answers the disappointed 
politician, and he goes to the New Exchange, and calls for the Register ; upon which 
the waiter tells him that he cannot have it as he is not a subscriber, and presents him 
with the Court and City Register, the Old Annual Register, or the New Annual 
Register ; or, if the coffee-house be within the purlieus of Covent Garden, or the 
Hundred of Drury Lane, slips into the politician's hand Harris 1 Register of Ladies. 
For these, and other reasons, the parents of the Universal Register have added to its 
original name that of The Times, which being a monosyllable, bids defiance to 
corruptors and mutilators of the language. The Times of January i, 1788. 

77/i? Times of Tuesday, November 29, 1814, was the first work 
ever printed by a mechanical apparatus, and the first newspaper printed 
by steam, the machine being the invention of a German named Konig. 
A machine erected in 1846 threw off the then almost incredible 
number of 6000 sheets of eight pages per hour ;* but some years later 
another, by Mr. Applegarth of Dartford, was erected which threw off 
10,000 an hour. Afterwards the American ten-cylinder Hoe machine 
was employed; but since 1869 The Times has been printed by the 
Walter Press. This remarkable machine, the most perfect printing 
press yet produced, was manufactured within The Times office, and is 
said to be due to the "combined ingenuity of Mr. Walter, chief 
proprietor, Mr. Macdonald, manager, and Mr. Calverly, chief engineer 
of The Times newspaper," 2 nearly seven years of assiduous labour being 
devoted to its production. With it The Times is printed from a 
continuous roll of paper, about 4 miles long and double the width 
of The Times, which travels through the press at the rate of 1000 feet 
a minute the 4 miles of paper being covered on both sides with 
printed matter in twenty-five minutes. The impression is taken 
from curved stereotype plates, cast from a paper matrix, and the 
machine, almost entirely automatic in its action, unrols and 
damps the paper, inks the types, registers so that the columns of print 
range accurately on the two sides of the paper, cuts the sheets 
of eight pages, and delivers them printed on both sides at the 
rate of 17,000 an hour, and finally keeps an accurate record of the 
number so printed. To work this surprising apparatus only an 
engineer and three pressmen are required. The average number of 
compositors employed is no. The process of printing is well worth 
witnessing, but to see it a special order must be obtained. The 
establishment is one of the best ordered hives of industry in the 
metropolis. Every part is arranged for convenient and easy working. 
The editor's rooms, the rooms with their excellent reference libraries 
appropriated to the literary staff, the printing offices with the arrange- 

1 Times, August 21, 1846. 
- English Cyclopedia, Arts and Sciences Supplement, Art "Printing." 



124 PRINTING HOUSE SQUARE 

ments for the comfort of the workpeople, the advertisement and the 
publishing departments all seem designed with a view to the economy 
of time, labour and trouble. The buildings have been for the most part 
reconstructed since 1874, from the designs and under the supervision 
of Mr. Deacon. They are of great extent, stretching back from Queen 
Victoria Street, where is the advertisement office, to Playhouse Yard 
(the publishing office), and including the whole of Printing House Square. 
They are of red brick with moulded brick dressings (all made from 
clay dug on Mr. Walter's Bearwood estate), and Cornish granite shafts 
in the ornamental parts, but generally solidity rather than ornament 
has been sought after. 

The Times "that volume of Modern History put forth day by 
day," as Sir G. C. Lewis happily designated it in 1849 nas taken the 
lead of all the London papers for very many years, and deservedly so, 
for the proprietors have spared no money to render it accurate, early, 
and comprehensive in its intelligence. It was owing to the exertions 
used by the proprietors of this paper, and the immense outlay which 
they went to, that the notorious conspiracy of Bogle and his associates 
was (1841) detected and laid bare. The trial of Bogle v. Lawson (the 
printer of the paper) will occupy a place in the history of the commerce 
of this country, whenever such a work shall be again undertaken. A 
Times Testimonial was subsequently raised by the merchants and 
bankers of London, a tablet to commemorate the trial and exposure 
erected in the Royal Exchange, and the bulk of the money raised (the 
proprietors refusing to take any pecuniary recompense) invested in the 
funds for certain scholarships Times Scholarships, as they are called 
at Christ's Hospital and the City of London School. Mr. John 
Walter, under whose superintendence The Times was made what it now 
is, died in 1847. His father, who started the paper, died in 1812. 

The centenary number of the Times, January i, 1888, contains a 
full history of the paper in its early days. 

William Faithorne, the engraver, went to live in this square about 1 680, 
chiefly employing himself in drawing from the life in crayons ; here he 
died in 1691, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Anne's, Blackfriars. 

Privy Council Office, DOWNING STREET, WHITEHALL, is part of 
the south end of the range of buildings known as the Treasury. Here 
are kept the minutes of the Privy Councils of the Crown, commencing 
in 1540. 

Privy Garden, behind WHITEHALL, now called WHITEHALL 
GARDENS, a square of ground containing 3^ acres, 1 between Parlia- 
ment Street and the Thames, and appertaining to the King's Palace 
at Whitehall. 

May 21, 1662. In the Privy Garden saw the finest smocks and linen petticoats 
of my Lady Castlemaine's, laced with rich lace at the bottom, that ever I saw ; and 
did me good to look at them. Pepys. 

1 ffatton, p. 66, who describes it as "lying between the Cockpit and the Thames.' 



PRIVY GARDEN 125 



The Privy Garden, when Mr. Pepys was in it, was laid out into 
sixteen square compartments of grass, each compartment having a 
standing statue in the centre. The garden was concealed from the 
street by a lofty wall ; from the river by the Stone Gallery and state 
apartments ; from the court behind the Banqueting House by the 
lodgings of the chief attendants on the King ; and from the Bowling- 
green, to which it led, by a row of lofty trees. It would appear to 
have been in every respect a private garden. In the original Privy 
Garden Charles I., when Prince of Wales, caused a dial to be set up, 
and by command of James I. there was written, "The Description and 
use of his Majesty's Dial in Whitehall Garden, by Edmund Gunter, 
London, 1624," 410. It was defaced and went to ruin in King 
Charles II. 's time. 

This place for a dial was too insecure, 

Since a guard and a garden could not it defend ; 

For so near to the Court they will never endure 

Any witness to show how their time they misspend. 

ANDREW MARVELL. 

Other dials of glass, arranged pyramidically, were placed here by 
Francis Hall, alias Line, a Jesuit, in 1669. Vertue and Walpole 
speak of their remains. 1 " An explication of the diall sett up in the 
King's garden at London, anno 1669; in which very many sorts of 
dyalls are conteined, etc.," was printed at Liege, by Guillaume Henry 
Steel, in 1673, 4to. James II. relates in his Memoirs that on one 
occasion when Charles II. was rising from the Council he saw the 
Secretary of State lay several commissions before him, which he at once 
signed and passed on to the Privy Garden. 

The Duke stay'd behind and took up one of the Commissions which prov'd to be 
that for the Duke of Monmouth's Generalship, and looking in it to see how it was 
drawn, he found the word Natural had been scrap'd out in all the places where it 
had been writt, and the word Son only left in. ... The Duke took the Commission 
and carryd it immediately to the King then walking in the Garden, and withall 
desired his Ma'^ that the word Natural might again be put into the Commission as it 
had been, and as it ought to be. Whereupon the King taking out his sizers cutt the 
Commission in two, and order'd an other to be prepar'd for him to sign with the 
word Natural in it. Clarke's y^wes //., vol. i. p. 497. 

Evelyn records, May 31, 1672, that a day or two before he here 
took leave of " that incomparable person," the Earl of Sandwich, 
setting out to fight the Dutch, and full of foreboding of the death that 
was so close at hand. The wall that enclosed the Privy Garden was a 
favourite station for the display of the old ballad-sellers' wares. " I have 
seen Mr. Burke," said Joseph Moser, "examining the ballads, etc., upon 
the wall of Privy Garden, with an attention which our greatest authors 
might have thought it an honour to excite." 5 

The present Privy Garden, or Whitehall Gardens, consists of a row 
of large nouses fronting the river, from which it is divided by the 
Victoria Embankment, and is part in the parish of St Martin's-in-the- 

1 Anecd. of Painting, vol. ii. p. 54. a Europ. Mag., 1796. 



126 PRIVY GARDEN 



Fields and part in the parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster. The 
centre house was the residence of Sir Robert Peel, the eminent 
statesman, who formed here the fine collection of Dutch and Flemish 
pictures, now a part of the National collection. He died in the dining- 
room on the ground-floor facing the river, July 2, 1850. In an action 
in the Court of Exchequer, February 1870, brought by the third Sir 
Robert Peel to recover ^5355 from the Metropolitan Board of Works 
for damage and deterioration caused by the construction of the Thames 
Embankment, Sir Robert stated that the "house was built in 1824, 
that there were steps leading to the river, and he remembered that on 
one occasion, when a boy, preparations were made to remove the 
family and valuables by boats on occasion of a threatened attack by a 
riotous mob on his father's house." A house, which formed a part of 
the old palace, granted by William III. to the Earl of Portland, was 
long the town residence of the Dukes of Portland. Here lived the 
Duchess of Portland who purchased the Barberini Vase, and from it 
the house received its present name. Here the Duchess had collected 
an extraordinary museum, to the great disgust of her family. All the 
purchases were not like that of the Vase, which was kept secret from 
them till her death in the following year. Her museum was sold in 
this house, the auction beginning April 4 and ending June 7, 1786. 
The Duke of Portland bought the Vase for ^1029, the cameo of 
Jupiter Serapis for ^173 : 53., and that of Augustus Caesar for ^236 : 
55. The Vase was No. 4155 the last lot. At the south end of Privy 
Gardens is the fine modern mansion of the Duke of Buccleuch. [See 
Montague House, Whitehall.] The minister Earl of Liverpool resided 
in the Privy Gardens, and here at various times have lived the Earl of 
Fife, the Earl of Malmesbury, the Earl of Loudon, the Earl of 
Harrington, Lord Gage, and many other persons of distinction. 

Privy Seal Office, i NEW STREET, SPRING GARDENS, an office 
belonging to the Crown. The chief officer is called the Lord Privy 
Seal, and is always a cabinet minister. The Privy Seal is affixed to 
such grants as are required to pass the Great Seal. A grant must first 
pass the Privy Signet, then the Privy Seal, and lastly the Great Seal of 
England. The Great Seal is kept by the Lord Chancellor. 

Privy Stairs, WHITEHALL, the stairs leading from the Privy Garden, 
by which the sovereigns and courtiers, when the King was resident at 
Whitehall, passed to and from the barges on the Thames. In 
February 1613, on the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth with the 
Palatine, Francis Beaumont wrote a masque for the allied houses of 
Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple. The subject, the nuptials of the 
Thames and the Rhine, appears to have been suggested by Bacon, who 
took the greatest interest in its progress and success. The procession 
was by water from Winchester Place in Southwark to Whitehall, but 
the King was sleepy and weary when it arrived, and it never got beyond 
Privy Stairs. Bacon remonstrated with the King, beseeching him 



PUDDING LAM: 127 



" not to bury them quick," to which James replied that the alternative 
would be equivalent to " burying him quick, for he could last no longer." 
So, Chamberlain adds, " they came home as they went, without doing 
anything." 

Prujean Square, OT.D BAILEY, on the west side, a few doors 
from Ludgate Hill, so named from the residence here of Sir Francis 
Prujean, an eminent physician, who was President of the College of 
Physicians 1650-1654. In the latter year, when Harvey declined the 
office on account of age and infirmity, Prujean was on his advice 
chosen for the fifth time. In Strype's Map it is called Prideaux 
Court, Dodsley calls it Prujean Court. Gunner, a fashionable hair- 
dresser and perfumer, lived here, and in 1783 advertised that "ladies' 
maids, valets, and servants in general," are " taught to cut and dress 
hair in perfection in one month, at one guinea and a half each, at 
Gunner's Original Academy, No. 6 Prujean Square." Further, " Mr. 
Gunner is always at home to dress ladies at one shilling . . . best 
scented powder and pomatum included." 

Pudding Lane, EAST/CHEAP to LOWER THAMES STREET. 

Then have ye one other lane called Rother Lane or Red Rose Lane, of such a 
sign there, now commonly called Pudding Lane, because the butchers of Eastcheap 
have their scalding houses for hogs there, and their puddings with other filth of beasts 
are voided down that way to their dung boats on the Thames. This lane stretcheth 
from Thames Street to Little East Cheap, chiefly inhabited by basket makers, turners 
and butchers, and is all of Billingsgate Ward. Stow, p. 79. 

Phil. Come, Sergeants, I'll step to my uncle's, not far off, hereby in Pudding 
Lane, and he shall bail me. Westward Ho, Act i. Sc. 2. 

Venus. Right, forsooth, I am Cupid's mother, Cupid's own mother, forsooth ; 
yes, forsooth. I dwell in Pudding Lane. . . . 

Christinas. Good Lady Venus of Pudding Lane, you must go out for all this. 
Ben Jonson, Masque of Christmas, 1 6 1 6. 

The Fire of London, commonly called the Great Fire, commenced on 
the east side of this lane between one and two in the morning of Sunday, 
September 2, 1666, in the house of Farryner, the King's baker. It 
was the fashion of the True Blue Protestants of the period to attribute 
the fire to the Roman Catholics, and when, in 1681, Gates and his 
plot strengthened this belief, the following inscription was affixed on 
the front of the house (No. 25), erected on the site of Farryner the 
baker's : 

Here, by y* Permission of Heaven, Hell brake loose upon this Protestant City, from 
the malicious hearts of barbarous Papists by y* hand of their Agent Hubert, who 
confessed, ami on the mines of this place declared the fact for which he was hanged, 
viz., That here begun thet dreadful Fire which is described and perpetuated on and by 
the neighbouring Pillar. Erected Anno 1681, in the Mayoralty of Sir Patience 
Ward, Kt. 

This celebrated inscription, set up pursuant to an order of the 
Court of Common Council, June 17, 1681, was removed in the reign 
of James II., replaced in the reign of William III., and finally taken 
down, " on account of the stoppage of passengers to read it." Entick, 



128 PUDDING LANE 



who made additions to Maitland in 1756, speaks of it as "lately taken 
away." The house was " rebuilt in a very handsome manner." l The 
inscribed stone was buried in the cellar of the house in Pudding Lane, 
where it was found when the house was pulled down in 1876 and pre- 
sented to the City Museum, where it is carefully preserved. 

Hubert was a French Papist, of six -and -twenty years of age, the 
son of a watchmaker at Rouen in Normandy. He was seized in 
Essex, confessed he had begun the fire, and persisting in his 
confession, was hanged, upon no other evidence than his own. He 
stated in his examination that he had been "suborned at Paris to this 
action," and that there were " three more combined to do the same 
thing." They asked him if he knew the place where he had first put 
fire. He answered he "knew it very well, and would show it to anybody." 
He was then ordered to be blindfolded, and carried to several places of 
the City, that he might point out the house. They first led him to a 
place at some distance from it, opened his eyes, and asked him if that 
was it, to which he answered " No ; it was lower, nearer to the 
Thames." " The house and all which were near it," says Clarendon, 
" were so covered and buried in ruins, that the owners themselves, 
without some infallible mark, could very hardly have said where their 
own houses had stood ; but this man led them directly to the place, 
described how it stood, the shape of the little yard, the fashion of the 
door and windows, and where he first put the fire ; and all this with 
such exactness, that they who had dwelt long near it could not so 
perfectly have described all particulars." Tillotson told Burnet that 
Howell (the then Recorder of London) accompanied Hubert on this 
occasion, " was with him, and had much discourse with him ; and that 
he concluded it was impossible it could be a melancholy dream." This, 
however, was not the opinion of the judges who tried him. " Neither 
the judges," says Clarendon, " nor any present at the trial, did believe him 
guilty, but that he was a poor distracted wretch, weary of his life, and 
chose to part with it this way." We may attribute the fire with safety to 
another cause than a Roman Catholic conspiracy. We are to remember 
that the flames originated in the house of a baker ; that the season had 
been unusually dry; that the houses were of wood, overhanging the 
roadway, so that the lane was even narrower than it is now, and that a 
strong east wind was blowing at the time. It was thought very little 
of at first. Pepys put out his head from his bedroom window in 
Seething Lane a few hours after it broke out, and returned to bed 
again, as if it were nothing more than an ordinary fire, a common 
occurrence, and likely to be soon subdued. The Lord Mayor (Sir 
Thomas Bludworth) seems to have thought as little of it till it was too 
late. People appear to have been paralysed, and no attempt of any 
consequence was made to check its progress. For four successive days 
it raged and gained ground, leaping after a prodigious manner from 
house to house and street to street, at great distances from one another. 

1 Dodsley's London, 8vo, 1761, vol. v. p. 232. 



PUDDLE DOCK 129 



Houses were at length pulled down, and the flames still spreading 
westward, were at length stopped at the Temple Church, in Fleet 
Street, and Pie Corner in Smithfield. In these four days 13,200 
houses, 400 streets, and 89 churches, including the cathedral church 
of St. Paul, were destroyed, and London lay literally in ruins. The 
loss was so enormous that we may be said still to suffer from its effects. 
Yet the advantages were not a few. London was freed from the plague 
ever after ; and we owe St. Paul's, St. Bride's, St. Stephen's, Walbrook, 
and all the architectural glories of Sir Christopher Wren to the 
desolation it occasioned. 

Pudding Lane is now almost entirely occupied by wholesale fruit 
merchants and brokers. 

Puddle Dock (originally PUDDLE WHARF), at the foot of St. 
Andrew's Hill, Upper Thames Street, Blackfriars, in Castle Baynard 
Ward. 

Then a water gate at Puddle Wharf, of one Puddle that kept a wharf on the west 
side thereof, and now of Puddle water by means of many horses watered there. 
Stow, pp. 1 6, 136. 

The town house of the Earl of Rutland, temp. Elizabeth, seems to 
have been here. 1 Rutland Place and Rutland Yard (now Rutland 
Wharf), to the east of Puddle Dock, commemorate the fact. Sir Dudley 
Carleton was living at Puddle Wharf in 1600. On December 17, 1609, 
the Lady Arabella Stuart wrote to Cecil from Puddle Wharf beseeching 
that her Patent (of the " privilege of nominating such persons as shall sell 
wines, aquavitas or usquebagh " for twenty-one years) may speedily pass 
the Great Seal. 2 The house which Shakespeare bought in the Blackfriars, 
and which he bequeaths by will to his daughter, Susannah Hall, is 
described in the Conveyance as " abutting upon a streete leading down 
to Puddle Wharffe on the east part, right-against the King's Maiesty's 
Wardrobe" "and now or late in the tenure or occupacon of one 
William Ireland, or of his assignee or assignes." 3 [See Ireland Yard.] 

I gyve will bequeath and devise unto my daughter Susannah Hall ... all that 
messuage or tenemente with the appurtenances wherein one John Robinson dwelleth 
scituat lying and being in the Blackfriars in London neare the Wardrobe. "- 
Shakespeare's Will. 

Puddle Wharf, 

Which place we'll make bold with to call it our Abydos, 
As the Bankside is our Sestos. 
Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, Act v ; see also Beaumont and Fletcher, vol. ii. p. 167. 

H' had been both friend and foe to crimes ; 

Cartloads of bawds to prison sent 
For being behind a fortnight's rent ; 
And many a trusty pimp and crony 
To Puddle-dock for want of money. 

Hiidibras, pt. iii. c. 3. 

1 Comp. Cooper's Athen. Cant., vol. ii. p. 14. 2 Col. State Pap., 1603-1610, pp. 404, 573. 

3 Malone's Inquiry, p. 403. 
VOL. Ill K 



1 30 PUDDLE DOCK 



Clodpate. Is not this better than anything in that stinking Town [London] ? 
Lucia. Stinking Town ! I had rather be Countess of Puddle-Dock than Queen 
of Sussex. T. Shadwell, Epsom Wells, 4to, 1676. 

Swift also introduces the Countess of Puddle Dock in his Polite 
Conversation^ and Hogarth a Duke of Puddle Dock in his Trip to 
Gravesend. 

But what most pleased us was his Grace 

Of Puddle Dock, a porter grim, 

Whose portrait Hogarth in a whim 

Presented him in caricature 

And pasted on the cellar door. Hogarth's Trip. 

The Duke of Puddle Dock was probably at this time a notorious 
personage, as there was published in 1739 "The Popular Convention, 
a Poem by the Duchess of Puddle Dock." 1 

Puddle Hill, PUDDLE WHARF, BLACKFRIARS. Here in 1628 
lived the father of Archbishop Leighton. 

To his kind and loving Father, Mr. Alexander Leighton, Dr. of Medicine, at his 
house on the top of Pudle Hill, beyond the Black Friars Gate, near the King's 
Ward-robe, these. Archbishop Leighton to his Father from Edinburgh, 1628. 

Pllllin's Row, ISLINGTON. A few houses on the east side of 
Upper Street, were so called. 

Ben. The young gentleman in Pullin's Row, Islington, that has got the 
consumption, has sent to know if you can let him have a sweetbread. Charles 
Lamb's farce, The Pawnbroker's Daughter. 

Pulteney Street (Little), GOLDEN SQUARE, was originally called 
Knaves Acre.' 2 Sir William Pulteney, Knt., an inhabitant of St. James's 
parish, held the site of this street and adjacent property by lease from 
the Crown, part of which he demised in 1685 to Thomas Beake, a 
carpenter, hence Beak Street. A " Mr. Poultney of St. James's " is 
recorded as the owner of "certain messuages and tenements in a 
certain place called Soehoe " as early as 1645. I n 1720 Strype says 
"The Knave's Acre is but narrow and chiefly inhabited by those that 
deal in old goods and glass bottles." It is still marked Knave's Acre 
in Roque's Map of 1745, although it is figured as Pultney Street in 
Strype's Map of 1720. The present Great Pulteney Street was of 
later construction. At his house here died, July 9, 1742, John 
Oldmixon, the historian and party writer. Great Pulteney Street is 
peculiarly interesting to the musician from Joseph Haydn having 
resided at No. 1 8 (lately rebuilt), when he visited England ; and from 
Shudi (properly Tschudi), the harpsichord maker and friend of Handel, 
having founded his business at No. 33 as early, according to the 
family tradition, as 1732. The sign of the house was "The Plume of 
Feathers." Shudi's son-in-law, John Broadwood, who founded the 
pianoforte business, succeeded to it in 1769, and it still remains 
occupied by his descendants' firm. There is a room shown in this 
house to which Haydn used to retire to compose. 

1 Burn, Tokens, p. 495. 2 Hatton, p. 66. 



OLD PYE STREET 131 



Pump Court, TEMPLE, was so called from the pump in the centre. 
The present buildings were erected in 1826. 

January 27, 1678-1679. In the night the greatest part of the Middle Temple 
in London, consumed by a dreadful fire which began in the south-west corner of 
Pump Court. Dugdale's Diary, in Hamper. 

In 1710, when the future Lord Chancellor Hardwicke began to 
study for the Bar, he took chambers in this Court; and in 1715, 
when commencing to practice, he moved into a fresh set of chambers, 
but still in Pump Court. 

When, in June 1740, Fielding was called to the Bar he had cham- 
bers assigned him in this Court. 

Pur Alley. 

Now Post and Pair, old Christmas heir, 

Doth make and a gingling sally ; 
And wot you who, 'tis one of my two 

Sons, card-makers in Pur Alley. 

Ben Jonson's Masque of Christmas. 

There was a Pur (or Pur's] Court on the east side of Old Change 
near Cheapside ; and Pur Field was the old name of a portion of 
Lincoln's Inn Fields. 

Purim Place, MILE END, on the east side of the Cambridge 
Road. 

The names of streets will often be found connected with some singular event or 
the character of some person. Not long ago a Hebrew, who had a quarrel with his 
community about the manner of celebrating the Jewish festival in commemoration of 
the fate of Hainan, built a neighbourhood at Bethnal Green, and retained the subject 
of his anger in the name which the houses bear of Purim Place. This may startle 
some theological antiquary at a remote period, who may idly lose himself in abstruse 
conjectures on the sanctity of a name, derived from a well known Hebrew festival ; 
and perhaps in his imagination be induced to colonize the spot with an ancient horde 
of Israelites. I. D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature, vol. iii. p. 360. 

On this passage Mrs. Piozzi has a note (Piozziana, p. 207) which 
may serve to show that theological antiquaries are not the only people 
likely to idly lose their way when embarking on abstruse etymological 
conjectures. 

Pye Street (Old), WESTMINSTER, runs from St. Anne's Street to 
Duck Lane, and was so called from Sir Robert Pye (the husband 
of John Hampden's daughter), who resided here. Strype in 1720 
described the street as " better built than inhabited." At No. 8 
lived Isaac De Groot. 1 " I have known him many years," wrote Dr. 
Johnson. " He has all the common claims to charity, being old, 
poor, and infirm to a great degree. He has likewise another claim, 
to which no scholar can refuse attention ; he is by several descents 
the nephew of Hugo Grotius ; of him from whom, perhaps, every 
man of learning has learnt something." 

1 Boswell, by Croker, p. 535. 



132 THE QUADRANT 

Quadrant (The), the eastern end of REGENT STREET, was 
designed when Regent Street was built by John Nash, architect. The 
arcade, which covered the whole footway (supported by 145 cast-iron 
pillars), was removed in December 1848. Thus was sacrificed the 
most beautiful and most original feature in the street architecture of 
London. The reasons assigned for this removal were, that, though 
picturesque in itself, and of use on a rainy day, by darkening the 
footpath it lessened the value of the shops and occasioned other 
nuisances. Traces of the arcade may still be seen at the two inter- 
sections of Leicester Street. The name was retained some years after 
the removal of the arcade, but is now merged in that of Regent Street. 

Quebec Street, OXFORD STREET, commemorates the capture of 
Quebec by General Wolfe in 1759. 

Queen Square, BLOOMSBURY, was so called out of compliment to 
Queen Anne, in whose reign it was erected. 1 The north side " was 
left open for the sake of the beautiful landscape formed by the hills 
of Highgate and Hampstead, together with the adjacent fields." 2 In 
1756 Maitland calls it "Queen's Square, Red Lion Fields." 

Eminent Inhabitants. Alderman Barber, the printer, who died here 
in 1741 (the individual to whom Butler owes a monument in Poets' 
Corner). In January 1771 Barber's house was occupied by Dr. Charles 
Burney. Madame D'Arblay speaks of " the beautiful prospect of the 
hills, ever verdant and smiling, of Hampstead and Highgate, which at 
that period, in unobstructed view, faced the Doctor's dwelling in Queen 
Square." 3 

In February [1772] I had the honour of receiving the illustrious Captain Cook to 
dine with me in Queen Square, previously to his second voyage round the world. 
Observing upon table Bougainville's Voyage atitottr du Monde he turned it over and 
made some curious remarks on the illiberal conduct of that circumnavigator towards 
himself when they met and crossed each other ; which made me desirous to know, 
in examining the Chart of M. de Bougainville, the several tracks of the two navi- 
gators ; and exactly where they had crossed or approached each other. Captain 
Cook instantly took a pencil from his pocket-book, and said he would trace the 
route, which he did in so clear and scientific a manner that I would not take fifty 
pounds for the book. The pencil -mark having been fixed by skim -milk will 
always be visible. Mem. by Dr. Burney, Memoirs, vol. i. p. 270. 

It was on this occasion arranged that the Doctor's eldest son James 
(afterwards Admiral Burney, the friend of Charles Lamb) should 
accompany the great navigator in his approaching voyage. Charles 
Churchill, the poet, in 1758, after the death of his father, was engaged 
by Mrs. Dennis, who had a boarding-school in this square, to give 
" lessons in the English tongue to the young ladies," and, as Dr. Kippis 
says, " conducted himself in his new employment with all the decorum 
becoming his clerical profession." This school was at No. 31, and 
became so famous as to earn the name of "The Ladies' Eton." 
Boswell's daughter Veronica was there in 1789, and he writes of her 

i Hatton, p. 67. 3 D'Arblay's Memoirs of Dr. Burney, vol. i. 

" Dodsley, 1761, vol. v. p. 240. p. 290. 



QUEEN SQUARE 133 



with no small pride as his " Queen Square daughter." It continued to 
be a school of some note for nearly a century, and was finally closed 
about 1855. The house in the north-west corner was Heidegger's, 
who left it on his death in 1749 to his only daughter, the wife of 
Admiral Sir Peter Denis. Dr. Stukeley, who died here in 1765, was 
rector of the small brick church of St. George the Martyr, on the 
south-west side of the square [which see]. Dr. John Campbell, author 
of The Lives of the Admirals, and chief contributor to the Biographia 
Britannica, lived here for many years and here died, December 28, 
1775- 

Campbell's residence for some years before his death was the large new-built 
house, situate at the north-west corner of Queen Square, Bloomsbury, whither, par- 
ticularly on a Sunday evening, great numbers of persons of the first eminence for 
science and literature were accustomed to resort for the enjoyment of conversation. 
Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 210. 

Johnson. I used to go pretty often to Campbell's on a Sunday evening, till I 
began to consider that the shoals of Scotchmen who flocked about him might probably 
say, when anything of mine was well done, " Ay, ay, he has learnt this of Cawmell." 
Bos-well, by Croker, p. 142. 

Dr. Anthony Askew (d. 1774), famous as a physician, and in his own 
day still more widely famous as a Greek scholar. Dr. Mead gave to 
Askew the gold-headed cane which he had received from Radcliffe, and 
which, after Askew, was successively carried by Pitcairn and Baillie ; 
it is now preserved in the Royal College of Physicians. Askew's house 
was a favourite resort of the leading scholars of the day, among them 
being enumerated Archbishop Markham, Sir William Jones, Dr. Parr, 
and Richard Farmer, the Shakespearian annotator. 

Dr. Askew's house in Queen's Square, was said to be the most classical in Lon- 
don ; for every passage was lined with Greek or Latin books. He had a Greek 
servant reckoned the finest copyist in the world. Cradock's Lit. Memoirs, vol. iv. 
P- 135- 

George III., wishing to secure the library entire, offered ^5000 for 
it, but the family decided to submit it to auction. The sale took place 
in 1775 and lasted twenty days. A considerable portion of the library 
(including the large purchases by the King and Mr. Cracherode) came 
eventually to the British Museum. The Rev. George Croly, LL.D., 
author of Salathiel, was living at No. 9 Queen Square till his death in 
November 1860. 

Queen Square has long ceased to be a fashionable place of residence, 
and several of the larger houses have been appropriated to commercial, 
educational or benevolent uses. Nos. 17-19, the Alexandra Hospital 
for Children with Hip Disease; Nos. 23-25, the National Hospital for 
the Paralysed and the Epileptic ; No. 29, the College for Men and 
Women; Nos. 32 and 33, the School of Ecclesiastical Embroidery; 
No. 41, the Italian Hospital; No. 43 is the Government (District) 
School of Art for Ladies. General Strode erected a statue of Queen 
Charlotte in the centre of the square. 



134 QUEEN SQUARE 



Queen Square, WESTMINSTER, originally QUEEN ANNE'S SQUARE/ 
and now, with Park Street, called QUEEN ANNE'S GATE. At the upper 
end of the square is a standing statue of Queen Anne. 

Queen Square, a beautiful new (though small) square of very fine buildings on 
the north side of the Broadway, near Tuthill Street, Westminster, between which 
and the Broadway is a new street erecting, not yet named. There is also another 
square of this name designed, at the north end of Devonshire Street, near Red Lion 
Square. Hatton, 1708, p. 67. 

Queen Square was the freehold estate of Sir Theodore Jansen, one 
of the Directors of the South Sea Company, in the great bubble year 
of 1720, and was seized and sold towards the payment of the debts of 
the said Company, by commissioners authorised by 7 George I. c. i, 
and subsequent statutes. In the early part of the i8th century Lord 
Grey and Lord North resided in this square, and " Lords Guern- 
sey, Derby, and Dartmouth had town-mansions near it." 2 Admiral 
Edward Vernon, the captor of Portobello, was born in this square, 
November 12, 1684; and the Rev. C. M. Cracherode, who bequeathed 
his splendid library to the British Museum, was born here in 1729. 
When Thomson was soliciting the patronage of Speaker Compton to 
the second edition of the Winter, he wrote his letters (June 1726) from 
" Long's Coffee House in Queen Square, Westminster." Jonathan 
Richardson, the painter, and writer on painting, died at his house in 
Queen Square, May 28, 1745, and his son, of the same name, in 1770. 
Peg Woffington died here March 28, 1760. Sir William Browne, the 
distinguished physician, and founder of the gold medals for Greek and 
Latin odes and epigrams at Cambridge University, died at his house 
in Queen Square, May 10, 1774. At her house in this square Miss 
Frances Reynolds, the sister to Sir Joshua, so often mentioned by 
Boswell, died November i, 1807, aged eighty. In No. 2 Queen 
Square Place lived the notorious Theresa Constantia Philips, and in 
a detached dwelling in " Queen Square Place," looking on the garden- 
ground of Milton's house in Petty France, Jeremy Bentham died, in 
1832. He bought the property about 1772, and spent upon it "full 
;io,ooo," as he states in a Memorial to the Treasury dated 1773, 
against the erection of the contemplated barracks near his house. 
Here Sir Mark Isambard Brunei was living when working out the 
details of his famous block-making machinery. 

At the time when my father must have been busy working out the details of the 
block machinery (the idea I believe originated with him while in America) he was 
living in the white house which stands back from Bird-Cage Walk, near the Barracks. 
I believe it is now called No. i Queen's Square Place, and had been, I think, the 
house of Jeremy Bentham. /. K. Brunei to P. Cunningham, April 23, 1853. 

The white house was pulled down to make way for the huge Queen 
Anne's Mansions. 

Queen Street, BLOOMSBURY, the old name of the north portion 
of MUSEUM STREET [which see]. 

1 Strype; Maitland. " Walcott's Westminster, p. 75. 



GREAT QUEEN STREET 135 



Queen Street, CHEAPSIDK, " A street," says Strype, " made since 
the Great Fire, out of Soper Lane, for a straight passage from the 
water side to Guildhall." About 1667 it was named Queen Street 
in honour of the wife of Charles II. A trade token dated 1669 
has on it "Will Clerke, 1708, at ye Cock and Bottle in Soper Lane, 
alias Queen Street." l 

Some call the north end of this street from Watling Street, Soper Lane. 
Hat ton, p. 67. 

On the east side is the churchyard of St. Thomas the Apostle, a church 
destroyed in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt. The Rectory house of 
St. Thomas the Apostle and St. Mary Aldermary on the east side was 
designed in 1860 by Tress and Chambers, architects. At the south 
end of the street is Southwark Bridge. The end next Cheapside was 
widened in 1887-1889. 

Queen Street (Great), extends west from the north-west corner 
of Lincoln's Inn Fields to Drury Lane, and is the continuation east of 
Long Acre. It was so named in compliment to Queen Henrietta 
Maria, and was commenced about 1606; fifteen houses had been 
erected before 1623. .Howes, in his edition of Stow (1631), speaks 
of the " new fair buildings called Queene's Street leading into Drury 
Lane." The houses in the first instance were built on the south side 
only. Webb, the scholar of Inigo Jones, was the architect of some in 
1640-1660, and, from the date, was most likely assisted in the designs 
by his great kinsman. Sir Balthazar Gerbier, in his Counsel and Advice 
to all Builders (1663), ridicules the heads of lions which are creeping 
through the pilasters on the houses. Vertue, however, assigned the 
credit to " Mr. Mills, one of the four surveyors appointed after the 
fire of London." 

He [Inigo Jones] built Queen Street, also designed at first for a square, and, as 
reported, at the charge of the Jesuits ; in the middle whereof was left a niche for 
the statue of Henrietta Maria, and this was the first uniform street, and the houses 
are stately and magnificent. At the other side of the way, near Little Queen Street, 
they began after the same manner with flower de lices on the wall, but went no 
further. Bagford, Harl. MS., 5900, fol. 5o b . 

The statue of Henrietta Maria was probably set up, and also one of the 
King, for on January 17, 1651-1652, the Council of State ordered 
" that Colonel Berkstead doe take care of the pulling downe of the 
gilt image of the late Queene and alsoe of the King, the one in the 
street commonlie called Queene's Street, and the other at the upper 
end of the same street towards Holborne. And the said images are 
to be broken in pieces." 2 One of the earliest residents must have 
been the Spanish Ambassador. 

May 10, 1638. The Spanish Ambassador, the Conde de Oniate, accompanied with 
an Irish gentleman of the order of Calatrava, in the Holy Week came to Denmark 
House [i.e. Somerset House] to do his devotions in the Queen's Chapel there. He went 
off thence about 10 o'clock, a dozen torches carried before him by his servants, and 

1 Burn, p. 196. 2 Sainsbury in Fine Arts Quarterly Review, vol. i. p. 167. 



136 GREAT QUEEN STREET 

some behind him. He and the Irish gentleman were in front with their beads in 
their hands, which hung at a cross ; some English also were among them ; so that 
with their own company and many who followed after, they appeared a great troop. 
They walk from Denmark House down the Strand in great formality, turn into the 
Covent Garden, then to Seignior Con's house in Long Acre, so to his own house in 
Queen Street. Garrard to Wentworth (Stafford's Letters, vol. ii. p. 165). 

Another very early resident was John Digby, first Earl of Bristol 
(d. 1653), whose house here was seized by the Parliament, and granted, 
September 13, 1644, to the widow of Robert Lord Brooke, killed in 
the previous year at the siege of Lichfield. The Restoration gave it 
back to Lord Bristol. 

May 26, 1671. The Earl of Bristol's house in Queene Street was taken for the 
Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, and furnish'd with rich hangings of the 
King's. It consisted of seven roomes on a floore, with a long gallery, gardens, etc. 
This day we met ; the Duke of Buckingham, Earl of Lauderdale, Lord Colpeper, 
Sir Geo. Carteret, Vice Chamberlaine, and myself, had the oathes given us by the 
Earle of Sandwich, our President. . . . We then tooke our places at the Board in 
the Council Chamber, a very large roome furnished with atlases, mapps, charts, 
globes, etc. Evelyn. 

The celebrated Edward, first Lord Herbert of Cherbury, lived on 
the south side, at the east corner of Great Wild Street. On July 1 3, 
1645, Howel writes to him from the Fleet prison : 

God send you joy of your new habitation, for I understand your Lordship is 
removed from the King's Street to the Queen's. It may be with this enlargement 
of dwelling your Lordship may need a recruit of servants. 

He died here in 1648. 

He dyed at his house in Queen Street in the parish of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, 
very serenely ; asked what was o'clock, and then, sayd he, an hour hence I shall 
depart ; he then turned his head to the other side and expired. Aubrey's Lives, 
vol. ii. p. 387. 

Sir Thomas Fairfax, the Parliament General, and his father both 
lived in this street, most probably in the same house. The old lord 
announced his second marriage in a letter dated Queen Street, October 
20, 1646; and it was here that the young general on November 14, 
1647, when the war was brought to a conclusion, received a con- 
gratulatory visit from both Houses of Parliament. The Lords, who 
arrived in a long train of coaches, had the Earl of Manchester for their 
spokesman, and the Commons were headed by their renowned Speaker 
Lenthall. Fairfax dates a printed proclamation of February 12, 1648, 
from his house in Queen Street. Sir Heneage Finch, Earl of 
Nottingham and Lord Chancellor (d. 1682), was living here when the 
Mace and Purse were stolen from him. [See Lincoln's Inn Fields.] 
In this house he used to receive the New Year's gift from the Bar, 
which, in his time, "came to near ^3000 in gold." Lady Cowper in 
her Diary (p. 63) says : 

He received them standing by a table ; and at the same time he took the money 
to lay upon the table he used to cry out " Oh, Tyrant Cuthtom ! " (for he lisped). 
My Lord [Cowper] forbade the bringing them. 

Richard, Earl Rivers, the reputed father of Richard Savage, the poet, 



(IRE AT QUEEN STREET 137 

makes mention in his will of " Rivers House, in Great Queen Street, 
in the parish of St. Giles's-in-the-Fiekls." Sir Godfrey Kneller came 
here from the Piazza in Covent Garden. He writes to Pope " from 
Great Queen Street, June 16, 1719," and sends his "humble respects 
to Lady Mary Whortly." Walpole and others have wrongly assigned 
the scene of his wit combat with Dr. Radcliffe to this residence. It 
really took place when Kneller was living in the Piazza, and the 
Doctor on the west side of Bow Street. Thomas Hudson (d. 1779), 
the portrait painter, in the house west of Freemasons' Hall, now 
divided and numbered 55 and 56, and which it seems certain was the 
one previously occupied by Kneller. Here, on October 18, 1740, the 
young Joshua Reynolds came to him as a house pupil, and remained 
under his roof till July 1743. Thomas Worlidge, the portrait painter 
and engraver (best known by his etchings), afterwards lived in it. 1 
Hoole, the translator of Ariosto and Dante (d. 1803), was then its 
occupant, and after him it was rented by Chippendale the cabinet- 
maker, whose furniture has during the last few years been so eagerly 
sought after and imitated. Sir Robert Strange, the engraver, in No. 
5 2 ; here he engraved his Charles I. with the horse, and the companion 
print of Queen Henrietta Maria; and here he died, July 5, 1792. 
His widow continued to reside in the house. No. 34 was in 1796 
the residence of James Basire, the engraver, with whom William Blake 
passed his apprenticeship. According to Mr. Gilchrist, 2 the house 
was No. 32 (31), the more western of the two houses occupied by 
Messrs. Corben the coachbuilders. Blake was fond of describing a 
visit paid by Goldsmith to Basire at this period. Fuseli the painter 
was living at No. 7 in 1803. Twenty years earlier John Opie, R.A., 
was a resident in this street. Our great classic landscape painter, 
Richard Wilson, had at one time apartments in Queen Street, which 
were afterwards occupied by Theed, the sculptor. 3 The beautiful 
Perdita, when she first became Mrs. Robinson, lived here in " a large 
old-fashioned house, which stood on the spot where the Freemasons' 
Tavern has been since erected." 4 Her house was probably that in which 
William Hayley, the poet and friend of Cowper, resided for some years 
previous to his retirement to Eartham in 1774. Hayley believed his 
house to have been Kneller's. R. Brinsley Sheridan was living in this 
street in July 1780. Dr. Francklin, the translator of Lucian, in March 
1 7 84. About the same time Dr. Wolcott [Peter Pindar] was a resident. 

The concealed author of Lyrick Odes, by Peter Pindar, Esquire, is one Woolcot, 
a clergyman who abjured the gown, and now lives in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's 
Inn Fields, under the character of a physician. Maloniana (Prior's Life of Malone, 
p. 364). 

1 Smith (Nollekens, vol. ii. p. 220) says he died ..... 

here ; but he died at Hammersmith, and was Yet tno> his mortal part inactive lies, 

buried in Hammersmith Churchyard, where a StiU Worlidge lives-for Genius never dies, 

table records that " Here lies the body of Thomas 2 Life of Blake, vol. i. p. 22. 

Worlidge, painter, who died the 23d of September, 3 Wright's Wilson, p. 4. 

1766, aged 66 years." 4 Life, vol. i. p. 74. 



138 GREAT QUEEN STREET 

On the south side of this street are Freemasons' Hall and Tavern 
[which see], and a little east of it the once popular Great Queen Street 
Chapel, erected 1818, and the portico added in 1840. On the 
opposite side is the unfortunate Novelty Theatre. 

The old west-end gateway entrance to this street, taken down in 
January 1765, was by a narrow passage under a house, familiarly 
known as "The Devil's Gap," or " Hell Gate." 

Queen Street (Little), LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. William, Lord 
Russell, was led from Holborn into this street on his way to the 
scaffold in Lincoln's Inn Fields. 

As we came to turn into Little Queen Street, he said, ' ' I have often turned to 
the other hand, with great comfort, but I now turn to this with greater," and looked 
towards his own house ; and then, as the Dean of Canterbury [Tillotson] who sat 
over against him told me "he saw a tear or two fall from him." Bishop Burnet's 
Journal. 

"His own house," Southampton House (subsequently called 
Bedford House), he inherited through his wife, the virtuous Lady 
Rachel Russell, daughter of Charles II.'s Lord Treasurer, and grand- 
daughter of Shakespeare's Earl of Southampton. No. 7 was the 
residence of the father a.nd mother of Charles Lamb, September 23, 
1796 ; and here it was that Mary Lamb, his sister, in a sudden fit of 
insanity she had frequently experienced similar but less violent attacks 
before stabbed her mother to the heart with a case knife snatched 
from the dinner table. 

Queen Street (Little), now part of LANGHAM STREET, PORTLAND 
ROAD. No. 45 was long the residence of James Watson, the excellent 
engraver of the last century. Here he executed some of his best 
mezzotints, after Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

Queen Street, MAYFAIR. At No. 12 dwelt Mrs. Elizabeth 

Harlow, and from here her son, George Henry Harlow, sent his first 

picture to the Exhibition of 1804, before he had completed his 
seventeenth year. 

Queen Anne Square, the name given in some old maps to the 
square which was commenced at the south end of the present Portland 
Place, in front of the Langham Hotel. [See Portland Place.] In other 
maps it is called Bentinck Square. 

Queen Anne Street East, CAVENDISH SQUARE, was the name 
of the street leading from Langham Place to Cleveland Street. It was 
afterwards named Foley Place, and now the western portion, from 
Langham Place to Great Portland Street, is called Langham Street, and 
the portion east of Portland Street, Foley Street Eminent Inhabitants. 
Edmond Malone, the Shakespearian commentator, went in 1779 to 
live at No. 55, where he remained the rest of his life ; his house every 
year " became more and more that of a bachelor an accumulation of 
books ; rooms not in spruce order ; furniture rather in the rear of the 



QUEEN ANNE'S GATE 139 

fashion of the age" 1 and here he died, May 25, 1812. His very 
choice collection of books illustrating the Elizabethan drama is now 
among the cherished treasures of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. 
Fuseli, the painter, at No. 72, between 1788 and 1792 ; and in 1800 
at No. 75. 

Queen Anne Street, formerly QUEEN ANNE STREET WEST, 
CAVENDISH SQUARE Welbeck Street to Chandos Street. Edmund 
Burke removed from Wimpole Street to Queen Anne Street, "next 
door to Mr. Fitzherbert," in i76o. 2 Richard Cumberland was living 
here in 1770, when his best play, the West Indian, was produced. 

I had a house in Queen Anne Street West, at the corner of Wimpole Street, I 
lived there many years ; my friend Mr. Fitzherbert lived in the same street, and Mr. 
Burke nearly opposite to me. Cumberland's Memoirs, 410, 1 806, p. 238. 

William Windham was living here in 1782 in March 1794 he was 
in Hill Street. Boswell wrote to his daughter Euphe'mia, December 
19, 1788, "I have taken a neat, pretty, small house in Queen Anne 
Street West, quite a genteel neighbourhood." He was at this date 
busy over his Life of Johnson, and he found his residence in Queen 
Anne Street West very convenient in preparing it for the press. 

February 8, 1790. I still keep on my house in Queen Anne Street West, having 
taken it till Midsummer, upon my finding that chambers in the Temple, which I 
thought I had secured, were let to me by a person who had not a right. It is 
better that I am still here, for I am within a short walk of Mr. Malone [living in 
Queen Anne Street East] who revises my Life of Johnson with me. Boswell to 
Temple (Letters, p. 319). 

Among the imitations in the " Rejected Addresses " is one of a Dr. 
Busby, much quizzed by the wits of that day, of whom Horace Smith 
records that on his publishing a translation of the De Naturd Rerum 
there appeared a paragraph among the Domestic Occurrences " Yesterday 
at his house in Queen Anne Street .West, Dr. Busby of a still-born 
Lucretius." 

No. 48 was for nearly forty years (1812-1851) the residence of the 
greatest of our landscape painters, Joseph Mallord William Turner, 
and here the finest perhaps of his imaginative works were produced. 
His " gallery " was on the first floor. He painted in the drawing-room. 
The house has been rebuilt for the Duke of Portland's Estate Office. 
No. 31 was the town house of the late Bishop of Chichester, Dr. 
Gilbert (d. 1870). There was nothing to distinguish it from its 
plebeian neighbours. It would have been more conspicuous if he had 
blazoned his " bearing " over the door " A Prester John sitting on a 
tombstone, with a sword in his mouth." 

Queen Anne's Bounty Office, and First Fruits and Tenths' Office, 
3A DEAN'S YARD, WESTMINSTER. 

Queen Anne's Gate. [See Queen Square.] 

3 Prior's Life of Malone, p. 300. 2 Prior's Life of Burke, chap. iii. 



140 QUEEN ELIZABETHS GRAMMAR SCHOOL 

Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, SOUTHWARK. This 
school was founded in 1560 by certain inhabitants of St. Olave's 
parish (Henry Leeke the brewer being worthy of special note), and 
situated in Tooley Street. It was incorporated in 1571 and named 
after the reigning Queen. There are in Wilkinson's Londina (vol. ii.) 
two views and a plan of the buildings. The site being required for 
the approaches of New London Bridge, the building was cleared away 
in 1830 and a new one erected on the south side of Bermondsey 
Street. This was also removed in connection with some railway 
extension, and the present handsome and greatly enlarged building 
placed in Back Street Horsleydown (now named Queen Elizabeth 
Street). The institution is styled at present the Grammar School of 
St. Olave and St. John, and has an income of about ^10,000. It 
furnishes "a liberal and useful education for the sons of parents 
engaged in professional, trading, or commercial pursuits." Boys are 
not admitted before seven or after fifteen years of age, except under very 
special circumstances. A new scheme is (1890) under the consideration 
of the Charity Commissioners. 

Queen Victoria Street, CITY, from the north foot of Blackfriars 
Bridge to the Mansion House, forming the continuation eastward of 
the Thames Embankment. This noble street, one of the finest in the 
City, was commenced in 1867, and formally opened for traffic throughout, 
November 4, 1871. It proceeds in a nearly straight line from the 
Mansion House to Cannon Street, and thence with an easy curve to 
New Bridge Street, opposite the entrance to the Thames Embankment. 
Its width throughout is 70 feet, except by Little Earl Street, where it is 
somewhat narrower. Beneath it runs the Metropolitan District Rail- 
way ; and along it is carried a subway for gas and water pipes. Through 
nearly its whole extent it is lined on both sides with large, lofty, 
solidly built and ornamental buildings, most of them having stone 
fronts, and several being structures of considerable architectural 
pretension. Among the larger blocks of buildings there are starting 
from the Mansion House on the north, Mansion House Buildings ; 
Imperial Buildings ; Queen's Buildings ; Crown Buildings ; the New 
Civil Service Stores ; College of Arms ; British and Foreign Bible 
Society; the church of St. Andrew -by -the -Wardrobe; the Times 
Advertisement Office. On the south, the remarkable structure built 
for the National Safe Deposit Company ; Mansion House Chambers ; 
Victoria Buildings ; Albert Buildings ; the Mansion House Station of the 
Metropolitan District Railway; Metropolitan Buildings, and Balmoral 
Buildings; besides on both sides many private commercial establishments. 

Queen's Arms Tavern, BOW-IN-HAND COURT, between Nos. 77 
and 7 8 CHEAPSIDE. The second floor of the houses which stretched 
over the passage leading to this tavern was the London lodging of 
John Keats, the poet. Here he wrote his magnificent sonnet on 
Chapman's Homer, and all the poems in his first little volume. 



QUEEN'S LIBRARY 141 



Queen's Arms Tavern, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD. 

Garrick kept up an interest in the city by appearing, about twice in a winter, at 
Tom's Coffee House in Cornhill, the usual rendezvous of young merchants at 'Change 
time ; and frequented a Club, established for the sake of his company at the Queen's 
Arms Tavern in St. Paul's Churchyard, where were used to assemble Mr. Samuel 
Sharpe the surgeon, Mr. I'aterson the city solicitor, Mr. Draper the bookseller, Mr. 
Clutterbuck a mercer, and a few others ; they were none of them drinkers, and in 
order to make a reckoning called only for French wine. These were his standing 
council in theatrical affairs. Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 433. 

Here, after a thirty years' interval, Johnson renewed his intimacy 
with some of the members of his old Ivy Lane Club. 1 There is no 
Queen's Arms in St. Paul's Churchyard now. 

Queen's College, 43 and 45 HARLEY STREET, so named by royal 
permission and under royal charter, for general female education of a 
high class, and for granting to governesses certificates of qualification. 
Incorporated 1853. 

Queen's Gardens, BAYSWATER, are built on the exact site of the 
old Pest House. See Roque's Map, 1745. 

Queen's Gardens, KENSINGTON. Thomas, tenth Earl of Dun- 
donald, better known as Lord Cochrane, died at No. 12, October 31, 
1860, in his eighty-fifth year. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. 

Queen's Head Alley, now Queen's Head Passage, PATERNOSTER 
Row to NEWGATE STREET, was so called from an inn or tavern with 
such a sign, wherein were lodged the canonists and professors of 
spiritual and ecclesiastical law, before Doctors' Commons was provided 
for them, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. [See Doctors' Commons.] 
In this alley, in the reign of Charles II., Richard Head, author of The 
English Rogue, followed the profession of a bookseller. 2 Here, No. 8 
on the west side, was Dolly's Chop House. [See Dolly's.] 

Queen's House, another name for Buckingham House, so called 
after Queen Charlotte, Queen of George III., on whom it was settled 
by Act of Parliament in 1775. 

Queen's Library, THE STABLE YARD, ST. JAMES'S PALACE, so 
called from having been built by Caroline, wife of George II. It was 
pulled down by Frederic, Duke of York (second son of George III.), to 
make way for his new house. [See Stafford House.] It is described as 
a noble room, designed by Wm. Kent, 60 feet by 30 feet, and 30 feet 
high. It was furnished with a choice collection of 4500 handsomely 
bound volumes in the various modern languages. The books were 
placed on the shelves in 1737. 

The King [George II.], the Duke [of Cumberland], and Princess Emily saw it 
[the Celebration of Peace by fireworks in St. James's Park] from the Library, with 
their Courts ; the Prince and Princess [of Wales] with their children, from Lady 
Middlesex's ; no place being provided for them, nor any invitation given to the 
Library. Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, May 3, 1749. 

i Bosivell. by Croker, p. 45. '! Winstanley's Lives of the Poets, p. 208. 



142 QUEEN'S PRISON 



Queen's Prison, BOROUGH ROAD, SOUTHWARK, constituted 
pursuant to 5 and 6 Will. IV., c. 22 (1835), an ^ there described as 
" The prison of the Marshalsea of the Court of King's Bench ; a prison 
for debtors, and for persons confined under the sentence or charged 
with the contempt of his Majesty's Court of King's Bench." By this 
Act the King's Bench, the Fleet, and Marshalsea Prisons were con- 
solidated, and called " The King's Prison," changed on the death of 
the King in 1837 to "The Queen's Prison." All fees, the liberty of 
the rules and day rules, were abolished by the same Act. " The Brace 
Public-house" was abolished by the same Act. [See King's Bench 
Prison.] An Act was passed in 1862 "for discontinuing the Queen's 
Prison and removal of the prisoners to Whitecross Street Prison." 

Queen's Road, BAYSWATER, in Roque's Map, 1745, appears as 
Westbourne Green Lane. At the south-west corner was Shaftesbury 
House. Mr. Whiteley's immense establishment now occupies a part 
of the road. 

Queen's Walk is the path along the east side of the Green Park, 
connecting St. James's Park and Piccadilly. It appears in a map of 
1783 but not of 1763. From this it might be inferred that it was 
named after Queen Charlotte, but it is more likely that it was after 
Queen Caroline, whose library overlooked it. [See Queen's Library.] 

Queenhithe, in UPPER THAMES STREET, a short distance west of 
Southwark Bridge, a common quay for the landing of corn, flour, and 
other dry goods from the west of England, originally called " Edred's 
hithe" or bank, from "Edred, owner thereof," but known, from a 
very early period as Ripa Reginge, the Queen's bank or Queenhithe, 
because it pertained unto the Queen. King John is said to have given 
it to his mother, Eleanor, Queen of Henry II. It was long the rival 
of Billingsgate, and would have retained the monopoly of the wharfage 
of London had it been below instead of above bridge. In the i3th 
century it was the usual landing-place for wine, wool, hides, corn, 
firewood, fish, and indeed all kinds of commodities then brought by 
sea to London, and the City Records afford minute details as to " the 
Customs of Queen-Hythe," and the tolls ordered to be taken there by 
Edward I. But while the Queen's bailiff was authorised to take 
Scavage (or custom's toll) upon all goods landed there "in the same 
manner in which the Sheriffs of London take Scavage for his lordship 
the King in London elsewhere," it was declared that "all assizes of 
the City at the Hustings provided and enacted for the amendment of 
the City are to be enacted and observed " here. 1 As an illustration of 
the nature of the regulations we may cite the directions laid down for 
the measurement of corn : 

Every chief master-meter of all the serving people at Queen Hythe, shall find a 
quarter, bushel, half-bushel, strike [or strickle for smoothing the surface when the 

1 Liber Albus, B. iii. pt. i., and Riley's Memorials. 



QUEENHITHE 143 

measure is full], and one horse. And there shall be eight chief masters, and each of 
such eight masters shall have three associates standing there ; and each of such three 
so standing there shall find one horse and seven sacks, etc. . . . And of right there 
ought to be at Queen Hyde eight chief [or standard] measures for the measurement 
of corn. . . . None of the said horses [of the master-meters and their servants] shall 
be taken by the Sheriffs, or by any other persons in their names from the performance 
of their duties. . . . Also that no one of the said meters shall mete for any stranger 
without leave of the Bailiff of Queen Hythe. . . . Also that no meter, or any 
servant of theirs shall interfere between buyers and sellers, etc. 1 

For their meterage and carrying they are strictly forbidden to take 
" more than according to ancient custom ought to be taken," which is 
stated to be "for the measurement, porterage, and carriage of one 
quarter of wheat," as far as Westcheap, the church of Anthony in 
Budge Row and the like, "one halfpenny farthing," as far as Fleet 
Bridge, Newgate, Estchepe, and Billyngesgate, one penny, and for all 
streets and lanes beyond " as far as the Bar of the suburbs," one penny 
farthing. For measuring and carrying salt " no one of the meters shall 
take beyond one farthing more than for corn, and that according to 
the limits prescribed for corn." "And the Bailiff of Queen Hythe 
shall not take more than five shillings of a chief meter of corn and salt, 
or of his servant more than two shillings as his fee." For other 
merchandise the regulations are equally precise and stringent. No 
vessel was allowed to lie at anchor or be moored elsewhere than at 
Billingsgate or Queenhithe between sunset and sunrise, nor be placed 
near the Bankside of Southwark, on pain of the owners and masters 
losing the vessels and being sent to prison. The sixth charter of 
Henry III. confirms a grant by the Earl of Cornwall of the customs of 
Queenhithe to the City of London in consideration of a farm rent of 
$o per annum. 2 When shipping began to stay below bridge 
probably in part owing to the use of larger vessels and the difficulty of 
carrying them safely through the bridge the decline of Queenhithe 
was rapid. Fabyan says that in the reign of Henry VII. the tolls 
barely amounted to ^15 per annum. 

Peele's chronicle-play of King Edward I. (410, 1593) contains, 
among other things, " Lastly the sinking of Queen Elinor, who sunck 
at Charing Crosse and rose again at Pottershith, now named Queen- 
hith." When accused by King Edward of her crimes, she replies in 
the words of the old ballad : 

If that upon so vile a thing 
Her heart did ever think, 

She wish'd the ground might open wide, 
And therein she might sink ! 

With that at Charing Cross she sunk 
Into the ground alive ; 

And after rose with life again, 
In London at Queenhith. 

It is here written " Queenhith," but our old dramatists almost always 
wrote it " Queenhive." Stow says nothing about " Pottershith." 

i 

1 Liber Albus, p. 212. 2 Norton, p. 320. 



144 QUEENHITHE 

Milton refers scornfully to " That old wives tale of a certaine Queene 
of England that sunk at Charing Crosse and rose up at Queene-hithe." * 

A sleeping watchman here we stole the shoes from, 
There made a noise, at which he wakes, and follows ; 
The streets are dirty, takes a Queenhithe cold, 
Hard cheese, and that, chokes him o' Monday next. 

Beaumont and Fletcher. Monsieiir Thomas (Works, by Dyce, vol. vii. p. 375). 
From a right hand I assure you 
The eel boats here that lie before Queenhythe 
Came out of Holland. Ben Jonson, Staple of News. 

Mistress Birdlime. But I'll down to Queenhive and the watermen which were 
wont to carry you to Lambeth Marsh shall carry me thither. Westward Ho, vol. 
iv. p. I (1607, 4to). 

In the first quarter of the 1 7th century Queenhithe seems to have 
been the headquarters of the London watermen, whose place of 
assembly was an alehouse called the Red Knight. 

In this time of Lent I being in the watermen's garrison of Queen-hive (whereof I 
am a souldier) and having no imploiment, I went with an intent to incounter with 
that most valiant and hardy champion of Queen-hive commonly called by the name 
of Red Knight. West-ward for Smelts (Percy Soc. vol. Ixxviii. p. 6). 

When the Earl of Essex found that the attempt to " raise " the 
City was hopeless, and that he would scarce succeed in returning to 
Essex House by Ludgate, he made his way to Queenhithe and escaped 
thence in a boat. Tom Hill (Paul Pry) carried on his business as a 
drysalter in Queenhithe. 2 

Queenhithe (Ward Of), one of the twenty-six wards of London ; 
so called from the old wharf of the same name. This was originally 
a royal demesne, and is said to have been granted by Henry III. to 
his queen, 3 and thence to have been known as the Queen's Soke or 
liberty. As such it had independent jurisdiction, but like the other 
sokes ultimately became an electively represented ward. General 
Boundaries. North, Knight Rider Street and Trinity Lane ; south, the 
Thames ; east, Bull Wharf Lane ; west, Paul's Wharf, part of St. 
Peter's Hill, and the upper end of Lambert Hill. Stow enumerates 
seven churches in this ward : (i) church of the Holy Trinity in Trinity 
Lane (now united with St. Michael, Queenhithe; (2) St. Nicholas Cold 
Abbey, in Knight Rider Street ; (3) St. Nicholas Olave, Bread Street 
Hill (destroyed in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt) ; (4) St. Mary-de- 
Monte-Alto, or Mounthaunt, in Old Fish Street Hill (destroyed in the 
Great Fire, and not rebuilt) ; (5) St. Michael's, Queenhithe ; (6) St. 
Mary Summerset, in Thames Street, facing Broken Wharf (taken down 
and the parish united with St. Nicholas Cole Abbey); (7) St. Peter's, 
Paul's Wharf (destroyed in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt). And 
two Halls of Companies: (i) Painter Stainers" Hall; (2) Blacksmiths' 
Hall. The principal streets in the ward are parts of Upper Thames 
Street and Queen Victoria Street. 

1 Milton, P remonstrant s Defence (IVorks, 2 Letter, dated Queenhithe, May 17, 1803. 
1641, vol. i. p. 223). 3 Stow, Norton. 



KAILWAY CLEARING HOUSE 145 

Rag Fair, or, ROSEMARY LANE, now ROYAL MINT STREET (so 
named from its passing along the back of the Royal Mint), runs from 
Sparrow Corner, Tower Hill, to Cable Street, Wellclose Square, a place 
where old clothes and frippery are sold. 1 

The articles of commerce by no means belie the name. There is no expressing 
the poverty of the goods ; nor yet their cheapness. A distinguished merchant 
engaged with a purchaser, observing me to look on him with great attention, called 
out to me, as his customer was going off with his bargain, to observe that man, 
"For," says he, "I have actually clothed him for fourteen pence." Pennant, p. 433. 

Where wave the tattered ensigns of Rag Fair. Pope, The Dttnciad. 

Thursday last one Mary Jenkins, who deals in old clothes in Rag Fair, sold a 
pair of breeches to a poor woman for sevenpence and a pint of beer. Whilst they 
were drinking it in a public house, the purchaser in unripping the breeches found 
quilted in the waistband eleven guineas in gold, Queen Anne's coin, and a thirty 
pound bank note, dated in 1729, which last she did not know the value of till after 
she sold it for a gallon of twopenny purl. The Public Advertiser, February 14, 
I7S6. 

Royal Mint Street has hardly so evil a reputation as Rosemary Lane, 
but it is a squalid place, lined with old clothes' shops and stalls, and 
on Sunday mornings the aspect of Rag Fair, as it is still commonly 
called, is anything but edifying. 

Ragged Staff Court, DRURY LANE, the last alley on the left side 
going towards St. Giles's, derived its name no doubt from one of the 
many inns which took the cognisance of the Dudleys for their sign. 

1646. To William Burnett in a seller in Ragged Staff Yard, being poore and 
very sicke . . . . . . . . is. 6d. 

Vestry Books of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. 

This practice of dwelling in cellars, which thirty or forty years ago 
appeared to be universal in St. Giles's, is first mentioned in the Vestry 
Minutes of the parish in 1637. 

To prevent the great influx of poor people into the parish, ordered that the 
beadles do present every fortnight on the Sunday, the names of all new comers, 
undersetters, inmates, divided tenements, persons that have families in cellars, and 
other abuses. 

The Metropolis Management Act, 1855 (cap. 120, sects. 103, 104), 
dealt with these cellar dwellings. 

Rahere Street, GOSWELL ROAD to north end of CENTRAL 
STREET, belongs to the Governors of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, by 
whom it was built circ. 1808, and so called from Rahere, the founder 
of St. Bartholomew's Priory, on the site of the present hospital. The 
ground on which Rahere Street stands was designed, early in the 
present century, to have been the site of a new Smithfield Market, but 
the negotiation was broken off by the City authorities, and the street, 
as we now see it, built by the hospital authorities instead. 

Railway Clearing House, SEYMOUR STREET, EUSTON SQUARE. 
The Clearing House was established in 1842 to do for the various 
Railway Companies what was done for the Bankers by their Clearing 

1 Pope, Note to the Dttnciad 
VOL. Ill L 



146 RAILWAY CLEANING HOUSE 

House. It is regulated by an Act of Parliament passed in 1850. A 
sort of imaginary company is formed called the Clearing House, to 
which all the railways stand related as debtors and creditors, and 
which manages all the cross accounts from one company to another. 
The managers are elected by the Companies interested in its working. 
The business has grown to an enormous extent of late years, and the 
staff of clerks which at the foundation of the office consisted of twenty 
now consists of about 2000. 

Rainbow Tavern, No. 15 FLEET STREET, a well-conducted and 
well-frequented tavern (famous for its stout), and originally established 
as a coffee-house by James Farr, as early as 1657. 

When coffee first came in, he [Sir Henry Blount] was a great upholder of it, 
and hath ever since been a great frequenter of coffee-houses, especially Mr. Farr's, at 
the Rainbowe, by Inner Temple Gate. Aubrey's Lives, vol. ii. p. 244. 

I find it recorded that one James Farr, a barber, who kept the coffee-house 
which is now the Rainbow, by the Inner Temple Gate (one of the first in England), 
was, in the year 1657, presented by the Inquest of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, for 
making and selling a sort of liquor called coffee, as a great nuisance and prejudice of 
the neighbourhood, etc. And who would then have thought that London would 
ever have 3000 such nuisances, and that coffee would have been (as now) so much 
drunk by the best of quality and physicians. Hatton's New View of London, 8vo, 
1708. 

I have received a letter desiring me to be very satirical upon the little muff that 
is now in fashion ; another informs me of a pair of silver garters buckled below the 
knee, that have been lately seen at the Rainbow Coffee House in Fleet Street. The 
Spectator, No. 1 6. 

The Phcenix Fire Office (the second office established in this country 
for insurance against fire) was located at the Rainbow Tavern in Fleet 
Street as early as I682. 1 

The sign existed before the establishment of the coffee-house. 
There is an imprint of 1641 as follows : "Printed by Richard Bishop 
for Daniel Pakeman at the sign of the Rainbow in Fleet Street near 
the Inner Temple Gate." 

Ram Alley, now MITRE COURT, FLEET STREET, over against 
Fetter Lane. 

Ram Alley [is] taken up by publick houses ; a place of no great reputation, as 
being a kind of privileged place for debtors, before the late Act of Parliament [9 and 
10 Will. III., c. 27, s. 15] for taking them away. It hath a passage into the 
Temple and into Serjeants' Inn in Fleet Street. Strype, B. iii. p. 277. 

It was of no great reputation a century earlier. 
Methinks he is a ruffian in his style, 

Cuts, thrusts, and foins at whomsoe'er he meets ! 
And strows about Ram Alley meditations. 

Character of Marst on : Return from Parnassus, 1 606. 
And though Ram Alley stinks with cooks and ale, 
Yet say there's many a worthy lawyer's chamber 
'Buts upon Ram Alley. 
Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks ; a Comedy by Lo. Barrey, 4to, 1 6 1 1 . 

1 Delaune, Anglice Metrop., 1690, p. 352 ; Hatton, New View, 1708, p. 787. 



RANELAGH 147 

Come you to seek a virgin in Ram Alley, 
So near an Inn-of-Court, and amongst cooks, 
Ale-men and laundresses ? Ibid. 

Amble. The knave thinks still he's at the Cook's shop in Ram Alley, 
Where the clerks divide, and the elder is to choose ; 

And feeds so slovenly ! Massinger, A New Way to Pay Old Debts. 

Ben Jonson, in his Staple of News, 1625, represents Lickfinger, " My 
cook, that unctuous rascal," as the glory of the kitchen, and master 
of a shop in Ram Alley. From this play we learn also that some 
portions at least of the City banquets were supplied from this locality, 
for Lickfinger had managed to convey twenty eggs from the number 
supplied to him for "the Custard Politic," the huge custard prepared 
for the Lord Mayor's feast. The Ram's Alley cooks also supplied 
dinners at the taverns; thus Lickfinger furnished "the great feast" 
which Penniboy junior gave at the Apollo. 1 

1627. That Christmas the Temple Sparks had installed a Lieutenant, a thing 
we country folk call a Lord of Misrule. The Lieutenant had on Twelfth-eve last, 
late in the night, sent out to collect his rents in Ram Alley and Fleet Street, 
limiting five shillings to every house. At every door they winded their Temple 
horn, and if it procured not entrance at the second blast or summons, the word of 
command was Give fire Gunner ! The Gunner was a robustious Vulcan and his 
engine a mighty smith's hammer. L'Estrange's Reign of King Charles, p. 72. 

Belford, sen. Here's Mr. Cheatly shall sham and banter with you, or any one 
you will bring, for five hundred pound of my money. 

Belford, jttn. Rascally stuff, fit for no places but Ram Alley or Pye Corner. 
The Squire of Alsatia, by T. Shadwell, 4to, 1688. 

July 5, 1668. With Sir W. Coventry, and we walked in the Park together a 
good while. He mighty kind to me ; and hear many pretty stories of my Lord 
Chancellor's being heretofore made sport of by Peter Talbot, the priest, in his story 
of the death of Cardinal Bleau ; by Lord Cottington, in his Dolor de las Tripas ; 
and by Tom Killegrew in his being bred in Ram Ally, and bound prentice to Lord 
Cottington. Pepys. 

The Fire [of London] decreased, having burned all on the Thames side to the 
new buildings of the Inner Temple, next to Whitefriars, and having consumed them 
was stopped by that vacancy from proceeding further into that house ; but laid hold 
on some old buildings which joined to Ram Alley, and swept all those into Fleet 
Street. Lord Clarendon's Autobiography, ed. 1827, vol. iii. p. 90. 

The specialty of Ram Alley did not escape Sir Walter Scott, though 
the reference to it comes rather curiously from the mouth of a high- 
born lady addressing the Queen. 

The Queen said, when she stepped into the boat, that Saye's Court looked like 
a guard-house and smelt like an hospital. "Like a cook's shop in Ram Alley 
rather," said the Countess of Rutland. Kenihvorth, vol. i. p. 284. 

There was a Ram Alley in Leadenhall Street, and others by 
Smithfield, Spitalfields and Rotherhithe. 

Ramilies Street. [See Blenheim Street.] 

Ranelagh, a place of public entertainment, erected on the site of 
the gardens of a villa of Earl Ranelagh, at Chelsea, from the designs 
of William Jones, architect, in 1742. The principal room (the 

1 Staple of News, Act iii. Sc. i. etc. 



148 RANELAGH 

Rotunda) was 150 feet in diameter, with an orchestra in the centre, 
and tiers of boxes all round. The chief amusement was promenading 
(as it was called) round and round 1 the circular area below, and taking 
refreshments in the boxes, while the orchestra executed different pieces 
of music. It was a kind of "Vauxhall under cover," warmed with 
coal- fires. The rotunda is said to have been projected by Lacy, an 
actor, and the patentee of Drury Lane Theatre. The coup d'ceil, Dr. 
Johnson declared, "was the finest thing he had ever seen." The last 
appearance (if one may use the expression) of Ranelagh was when the 
installation ball of the Knights of the Bath, in 1802, was given there. 
It was closed after July 8, 1803, and an order made, September 30, 
1805, for pulling it down. The site of Ranelagh is now part of Chel- 
sea Hospital garden, between Church Row and the river, to the east 
of the hospital, the roadway and the barracks. No traces of it remain. 

I have been breakfasting this morning at Ranelagh Garden ; they have built 
an immense amphitheatre, with balconies full of little ale houses ; it is in rivalry to 
Vauxhall, and costs above twelve thousand pounds. The building is not finished, 
but they get great sums by people going to see it and breakfasting in the house : 
there were yesterday no less than three hundred and eighty persons, at eighteen 
pence a piece. Walpole to Mann, April 22, 1742. 

The invalides at Chelsea intend to present Ranelagh Gardens as a nuisance, for 
breaking their first sleep with the sound of fiddles. It opens I think to-night. 
Gray to Mr. Chute, vol. ii. p. 187. 

Two nights ago Ranelagh Gardens were opened at Chelsea ; the prince, princess, 
duke, much nobility, and much mob besides were there. There is a vast amphi- 
theatre, finely gilt, painted, and illuminated; into which everybody that loves 
eating, drinking, staring, or crowding is admitted for twelve pence. The building 
and disposition of the gardens cost sixteen thousand pounds. Twice a week there 
are to be ridottos at guinea tickets, for which you are to have a supper and 
music. I was there last night, but did not find the joy of it. Vauxhall is a little 
better, for the garden is pleasanter, and one goes by water. Walpole to Mann, 
May 26, 1742. 

Every night constantly I go to Ranelagh ; which has totally beat Vauxhall. 
Nobody goes anywhere else everybody goes there. My Lord Chesterfield is so 
fond of it that he says he has ordered all his letters to be directed thither. Walpole 
to Conway, June 29, 1744. 

Walpole has a great many other references to Ranelagh, and notices 
of it might be multiplied to any extent from other writers. Smollett, 
speaking from the Matt. Bramble point of view, says, "What are the 
amusements of Ranelagh? One half of the company are following 
one another's tails, in an eternal circle, like so many blind asses in an 
olive mill, where they can neither discourse, distinguish nor be dis- 
tinguished ; while the other half are drinking hot . water under the 
denomination of tea, till nine or ten o'clock at night, to keep them 
awake for the rest of the evening." On the other hand, the gay young 
niece was in raptures with everything. The concerts and the company 
were the permanent attraction, but during several seasons masquerades 
drew the fashionable world in crowds. Bonnell Thornton's Burlesque 
Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, set to music by Dr. Burney, was performed 

1 There is a little poem of Bloomfield's describing this promenading round and round. 



RATCLII-TK 149 

with great success at Ranelagh. The usual charge for admission was 
2s. 6d., "tea and coffee included." When fireworks were exhibited, 
the charge was 55. 

There is a good view of the interior of the Rotunda, with the 
company at breakfast, in the 1754 edition of Stow; and the ground 
plan of the gardens is carefully laid down in Horwood's Map of 
London, 1794-1799. Several other views have been published. 

Ranelagh House, CHELSEA, erected circ. 1691, to the east of the 
present hospital, by Richard, Earl of Ranelagh, on a piece of ground 
near Chelsea College, granted to him by William III., on March 12, 
1689-1690, for the term of sixty-one years, 1 and built, it is said, after 
a design by Lord Ranelagh himself. The house was taken down in 
1805. This Lord Ranelagh, who died in 1712, was the Jones of De 
Grammont's Memoirs. 

Ranelagh Street, PIMLICO, now the eastern part of Ebury Street. 
I paced upon my beat 

With steady step and slow, 
All huppandownd of Ranelagh Street 
Ran'lagh Street, Pimlico. 

Thackeray, Lines on a late Hospicious Event. 

Ratcliffe, a manor and hamlet in the parish of STEPNEY, between 
Shadwell and Limehouse. 

Radcliffe itself hath also been encreased in building eastward (in place where I 
have known a large highway with fair elm trees on both the sides), that the same 
hath now taken hold of Limehurst or Lime host, corruptly called Lime house, some 
time distant a mile from Radcliffe. . . . The first building at Radcliffe in my youth 
(not to be forgotten) was a fair free-school and alms-houses, founded by Avice 
Gibson, wife to Nicholas Gibson, grocer ; but of late years shipwrights and (for the 
most part) other marine men, have built many large and strong houses for themselves, 
and smaller for sailors, from thence almost to Poplar, and so to Blackwall. Stow 
(1603), p. 157. 

Ratcliffe is still for the most part occupied by marine men and those 
dependent upon or connected with them. But the buildings are 
rather places of business than dwellings, and the building space has 
been largely encroached upon for docks and yards. Lancelot Andrewes, 
the learned Bishop of Winchester of the reigns of James and Charles, 
received his first " education in grammar-learning in the Coopers' free- 
school at Ratcliffe, under Mr. Ward." 2 When Sir Walter Raleigh was 
organising the expedition to Cadiz in 1596, he literally lived on the 
river for many weeks. In his letters to Cecil this place is often referred 
to as Ratleife and Racklieif. 

Ratcliffe Cross is mentioned by Dryden, and still exists, though it 
does not find a place in the Post Office Directory. It runs from the 
intersection of the old road from Stepney (Butchers' Row) with Broad 
Street, Shadwell, and Narrow Street, Limehouse, to Ratcliffe Cross 
Stairs, formerly a much used landing-place and ferry. At Ratcliffe 

1 Appendix to Seventh Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, p. 82. 
3 Biog. Brit., vol. i. p. 184. 



1 5 o RATCLIFFE 

Cross, though far outside the City, was the ancient hall of the 

Shipwrights' Company. 1 

Tom. I have heard a ballad of him [the Protector Somerset] sung at Ratcliff Cross- 
Mol. I believe we have it at home over our kitchen mantle tree. Dryden's 

Misc. Poems, ed. 1727, vol. iii. p. 296. 

Ratcliffe Dock, on the west of Ratcliffe Cross, was one of those natural 
creeks so much prized by our ancestors. 

Ratcliffe Highway runs from EAST SMITHFIELD to SHADWELL 
HIGH STREET, and was so called from the manor of Ratcliffe, in the 
parish of Stepney, towards which it led. Its name has been changed 
to ST. GEORGE STREET. From end to end the street has a maritime 
savour. In some way or other every shop and place of business or 
resort seems to be dependent on ships or sailors. The very churches 
and institutions Seamen's Mission Hall, Seamen's Chapel, Seamen's 
Free Reading - Room, Bethel Station ; and, unfortunately, flaring 
drinking, dancing, and music rooms, and haunts of a far worse order. 
Here, among other "dens," are the Chinese opium-smokers' sties. 
William Hogarth engraved a shop bill, in the manner of Callot, for 
"William Hardy, goldsmith and jeweller, in Ratcliff Highway, near 
Sun Tavern Fields," of which only one impression is known. 455 
houses and 36 warehouses were burnt down on July 23, 1794. The 
murders of Marr and Williamson in Ratcliffe Highway are among the 
most notorious atrocities of the present century. Marr kept a lace and 
pelisse warehouse at 29 Ratcliffe Highway, and about twelve at night, 
on Saturday December 7, 1811, had sent his female servant to purchase 
oysters for supper, whilst he was shutting up the shop windows. On 
her return, in about a quarter of an hour, she rang the bell repeatedly 
without any person coming. The house was then broken open, and 
Mr. and Mrs. Marr, the shop-boy, and a child in the cradle (the only 
human beings in the house) were found murdered. The murders of 
the Marr family were followed, twelve days later, and about twelve at 
night, by the murders of Williamson, landlord of the King's Arms 
public-house, in Old Gravel Lane, Ratcliffe Highway, his wife, and 
female servant. A man named Williams, the only person suspected, 
hanged himself in prison, and was carried on a platform, placed on a 
high cart, past the houses of Marr and Williamson, and afterwards 
thrown, with a stake through his breast, into a hole dug for the purpose 
where the New Road crosses and Cannon Street Road begins. Sir 
Thomas Lawrence made a drawing of this miscreant immediately after 
he was cut down. 2 These murders form the subject of De Quincey's 
remarkable essay entitled Murder considered as a Pine Art. 

Many of our readers can remember the state of London just after the murders of 
Marr and Williamson the terror which was on every face the careful barring of 
doors the providing of blunderbusses and watchmen's rattles. We know of a 
shopkeeper who on that occasion sold three hundred rattles in about ten hours. 
Macaulay's Essays (Mackintosh's Hist, of the Revohition}. 

1 Maitland, p. 610. 2 Sale Catalogue, second day, No. 267. 



RATlinONE PLACE 151 

At Nos. 179 and 180 Ratcliffe Highway (or St. George Street) is the 
remarkable establishment of Mr. " Charles Jamrach, naturalist " the 
largest dealer in wild animals in Europe, where you may at any time 
purchase anything in that line from an elephant, giraffe, or rattlesnake 
to a dormouse or Java sparrow. Here and in his stores in Old Gravel 
Lane, close by, "you may be supplied with hyaenas by the dozen, lions 
in neat little lots of twenty to five and twenty each ; parcels of giraffes, 
snakes, or boa-constrictors; and samples of tigers, buffaloes, eagles, 
monkeys, bears and kangaroos." In one room, the late rector of 
St. George's tells us, 2000 paroquets "may sometimes be seen flying 
loosely about." x 

In Princes Square, Ratcliffe Highway, is the Swedish Protestant 
Church, in which Emanuel Swedenborg (d. 1772), whose followers 
form the New Jerusalem Church (Swedenborgians), was buried, by the 
side of Dr. Solander, the companion round the world of Sir Joseph 
Banks. In this church, on Sunday, September 18, 1748, an order 
was read prohibiting all natives of Sweden and their servants from 
wearing gold or silver in any shape about their dress. 2 

Rathbone Place, in OXFORD STREET, was so called after a 
carpenter and builder of that name. 3 A stone inscribed " RATHBONES 
PLACE, IN OXFORD STREET, 1718," was on the front of a house at the 
east corner of Oxford Street, which was taken down and rebuilt in 
1864. The stone was replaced in the wall of the new house. 

Rathbone Place at this time (1784) entirely consisted of private houses, and its 
inhabitants were all of high respectability. I have heard Mrs. Mathew say (the 
wife of the incumbent, for whom Percy Chapel was built) that the three rebel lords, 
Lovat, Kilmarnock, and Balmerino, had at different times resided in it. A Book 
for a Rainy Day, by J. T. Smith, p. 85. 

Mr. Mathew's house in Rathbone Place was a favourite resort of 
Flaxman, Stothard, and Blake. [See Percy Chapel.] Flaxman as a 
mark of esteem decorated the parlour, Mathew's library, with " models 
of figures in niches, in the Gothic manner, and Oram painted the 
window in imitation of stained glass," 4 the bookcases and furniture 
being also ornamented in a corresponding style. 

Mr. Nollekens stopped at the corner of Rathbone Place, and observed that 
when he was a little boy [he was born August 1737] his mother often took him to 
the top of that street to walk by the side of a long pond, near a windmill, which 
then stood on the site of the chapel in Charlotte Street [see Percy Chapel] ; and that 
a halfpenny was paid by every person at a hatch belonging to the miller, for the 
privilege of walking in his grounds. Smith's Life of Nollekens, vol. i. p. 37. 

In July 1742 Bolingbroke wrote from Rathbone Place to the Earl 
of Marchmont asking him to dine the next day with himself and Pope 
at Twickenham, and " carry him to Battersea in the evening." Ozias 
Humphrey, R.A. (d. 1810), was living at No. 29 Rathbone Place from 
1777 to 1785, when he went to India. Nathaniel Hone, R.A., 

1 Parkinson's Places and People ; Rev. H. Jones, East and West London. 
" Gent, Mag., September 1748, p. 425. 3 Parton's St. Giles's, p. 47. * Smith, p. 84. 



152 R A THE ONE PLACE 

painter of the picture called " The Conjurer " (an attack on Sir Joshua 
Reynolds's method of composing his pictures), died at his house, No. 
29 Rathbone Place, August 14, 1784. Baron Maseres at No. 14 in 
1803. The well-known publication called the Percy Anecdotes, edited 
by Sholto and Reuben Percy, derives its name from the Percy Coffee- 
house, in Rathbone Place (now no more), where the idea of the work 
was first started by Mr. George Byerley and Mr. Joseph Clinton 
Robertson, the Sholto and Reuben Percy of the collection. E. H. 
Bailey, R.A., the sculptor, was living here in 1826, and another 
inhabitant was Peter De Wint, the eminent water-colour painter. 

Raven Alley, WHITECHAPEL ROAD, is mentioned in Hudibras 
Redivivus (^(.Q, 1707): 

Yet I'm no upstart Albumazer ; 
Altho' a Fool, no Planet- Gazer ; 
That in this Coat has made a Sally 
From the six Steps in Raven Alley. 

But it does not occur in Hatton's list of streets, etc., in London, 
Westminster, and Southwark, 1708; Maitland's, 1729; Dodsley's, 
1761 ; or any of the maps of the early part of the i8th century. 

Rawthmell's Coffee-house, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT 
GARDEN, a fashionable coffee-house between 1730 and 1775, and so 
called after a Mr. John Rawthmell, long a respectable parishioner of 
St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Here the "Society of Arts" was first 
established (1754), and here Armstrong, the poet of the "Art of 
Preserving Health," was a frequent visitor. 

Ray Street, CLERKENWELL, formerly Hockley in the Hole. The 
present name is derived from the proprietor. Here is, or was, the 
well where the parish clerks before the Reformation performed a 
miracle-play once a year, and from which the district of Clerkenwell 
derived its name. The old Ray Street was nearly swept away in the 
Clerkenwell improvements of 1856 and subsequent years. Some years 
earlier the clerks' well was discovered to be dangerously polluted by 
the infiltration of sewage, and closed, and shortly after the pump, which 
had for many years marked its site, was removed. [See Clerkenwell.] 

Record Office (Public), FETTER LANE, was erected from the 
designs of Mr. (afterwards Sir James) Penniethorne, 1856-1870, to 
contain the national archives previously deposited in the Chapel in the 
White Tower [see Tower] ; the Chapter-house, Westminster Abbey ; the 
Rolls Chapel in Chancery Lane ; Carlton Ride in St. James's Park, and 
the State Paper Office, St. James's Park. The building, which was 
erected on the Rolls estate between Chancery Lane and Fetter Lane, 
is a* vast castellated structure, well adapted internally to the safe keeping 
of the inestimable documents and allowing ready access to them. The 
muniment rooms are "cubes of seventeen feet, fitted up in the most 
economical manner as to space," and filled with documents. These 
rooms are ranged along narrow brick-paved passages, the entrances to 



RED BULL THEATRE 153 

which on either hand are by iron doors. The shelves are of slate, 
and every effort has been made to render the whole fire-proof. 

The documents are of great extent and of unequalled historical 
interest and value. They include a long series of royal charters, 
chancery records from the reign of John, Exchequer records, the great 
rolls of the Pipe, the Gascon rolls, the judicial records of the Curia 
Regis and other courts, the courts of the Star Chamber and Requests, 
the early Year-books, the documents relating to the suppression of 
monasteries, the vast array of documents classed under the head of 
Domestic Records reaching from the reign of Henry VIII., and 
including colonial as well as home archives, and relating to the crown 
and household and wardrobe expenditure, the secret service, War-office, 
and Admiralty. The archives may be said to commence with that 
unrivalled national survey, the Domesday Book of William ; and among 
the more interesting of the later examples are the Treaty of Peace 
between Henry VIII. and Francis I., to which is attached the beautiful 
gold seal in high relief which is said to be the work of Benvenuto 
Cellini ; the deed of recognition of Edward as Sovereign and direct 
Lord of Scotland, and numerous royal autograph letters. 

Access to the documents may be obtained on application, and 
signing the name and address in a book kept for the purpose. 

Red Bull Theatre stood at the upper end of St. John Street, on 
what was until recently called "Red Bull Yard," and Woodbridge 
Street, St. John's Street Road. Mr. Payne Collier conjectures that it 
.was originally an inn-yard, converted into a regular theatre late in the 
reign of Queen Elizabeth. 

Cit. Why so, Sir : go and fetch me him then, and let the Sophy of Persia come 
and christen him a child. 

Boy. Believe me, Sir, that will not do so well : 'tis stale ; it has been tried 
before at the Red Bull. Beaumont and Fletcher, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, 
vol. iv. p. i. 

Last week at a puppet play, at St. John Street, the house fell, six persons were 
killed, and thirty or forty hurt. Chamberlain to Carleton, August 23, 1599 (Cal. 
State Pap., p. 306). 

Prynne speaks of it in 1633 as a theatre that had been "lately re- 
edified and enlarged." It was closed during the plague of 1636-1637. 

The Red Bull in St. Johns Streete, who for the present (alack the while) is not 
suffred to carrie the flagge in the mainetop. A New Book of Mistakes, 1637. 

The King's players, under Killigrew, performed within its walls till a 
stage in Drury Lane was ready to receive them. "The Red Bull 
stands empty for fencers," writes Davenant in 1663; "there are no 
tenants in it but old spiders." 

It was afterwards employed for trials of skill. Mr. Collier possessed 
a printed challenge and acceptance of a trial at eight several weapons, to 
be performed betwixt two scholars of Benjamin Dobson and William 
Wright, masters of the noble science of defence. The trial was to 
come off " at the Red Bull, at the upper end of St. John's Street, on 



154 RED BULL THEATRE 

Whitsun Monday, the 3oth of May, 1664, beginning exactly at three 
of the clock in the afternoon, and the best man is to take all." The 
weapons were : " back-sword, single rapier, sword and dagger, rapier 
and dagger, sword and buckler, half pike, sword and gauntlet, single 
faulchion." Mr. James Greenstreet communicated to The Athenceum, 
February 21, August 29, and November 29, 1885, some important 
documents relating to the theatre in 1613 and 1623. 

Red Cross Street, CRIPPLEGATE, from Fore Street to Barbican. 

In Red Cross Street, on the west side from St. Giles's Churchyard up to the 
said Crosse, be many fair houses built outward, with divers alleys turning into a large 
plot of ground, called the Jews' Garden, as being the only place appointed them in 
England wherein to bury their dead, till the year 1177, the 24th of Henry II. that 
it was permitted to them (after long suit to the King and Parliament at Oxford) to 
have a special place assigned them in every quarter where they dwelt. This plot of 
ground remained to the said Jews till the time of their final banishment out of 
England, and is now turned into fair garden-plots and summer-houses for pleasure. 
[See Jewin Street.] On the east side of the Red Cross Street be also divers fair 
houses up to the Cross. Stow, p. 113. 

And first to shew you that by conjecture he [Richard III.] pretended this thing 
in his brother's life, you shall understand for a truth that the same night that King 
Edward dyed, one called Mistelbrooke, long ere the day sprung, came to the house 
of one Pottier, dwelling in Red Crosse Street without Cripple Gate, of London, and 
when he was, with hasty wrapping, quickly let in, the said Mistelbrooke shewed 
unto Pottier that King Edward was that night deceased. "By my truth," quoth 
Pottier, " then will my master the Duke of Gloucester be King, and that I warrant 
thee." What cause he had so to think, hard it is to say, whether he, being his 
servant, knew any such thing pretended, or otherwise had any inkling thereof, but of 
all likelihood he spake it not of nought. Sir Thomas More (The Pitiful Life of 
King Edward the Fifth, I2ino, 1641, p. 27). 

Here was Dr. Williams's Theological Library, now in Grafton Street 
East, Gower Street. [See Dr. Williams's Library.] Lady Holles's 
School for Girls, rebuilt 1887-1888, is in this street. 

Red House, BATTERSEA, a favourite tea-garden and noted place 
for shooting matches, on the Surrey side of the Thames, nearly opposite 
Chelsea Hospital. Until the formation of Battersea Park the Red 
House was the headquarters of the Gun Club. It was purchased by 
Government in 1850 for ;n,ooo, and pulled down in order that the 
site might be included in Battersea Park. It stood as nearly as 
possible between the south end of Chelsea Bridge and the east gate of 
Battersea Park. 

Red Lion Court, FLEET STREET, north side, east of Fetter Lane. 
William Bowyer, the learned printer, moved into this court from 
Whitefriars in 1767. John Nichols (of the Gentleman's Magazine), 
his "apprentice, partner and successor " (and biographer), had just been 
admitted into partnership. When Jennens, the Shakespeare editor, 
visited his printers he always came in a carriage with four horses and 
the same number of footmen, and in his progress up the paved court 
the footmen preceded him to kick oyster shells or orange peel out ot 
his way. Nichols's office was destroyed by fire, February 8, 1808. 



KED LION SQUARE 155 

His son and grandson continued the business in Parliament Street. 
Printers, publishers, bookbinders, and others connected with "the 
trade," still occupy the major part of the houses in Red Lion Court, 
and many periodicals are published here. 

One word before we part : call upon Mr. John Nichols, bookseller and printer at 
Cicero's Head, Red Lion Passage, Fleet Street, and ask him whether he did not, 
about the beginning of March, receive a very polite letter from Mr. Gibbon of 
Lausanne. Gibbon to Lord Sheffield, May 30, 1792. 

Red Lion Court, GILTSPUR STREET, a short passage of old-fashioned 
houses on the south side of Cock Lane, extending to the back of 
St. Sepulchre's churchyard, now called RED LION BUILDINGS. Here 
after his marriage with Miss Mead, 1749, John Wilkes lived in the 
house of Mrs. Mead, his wife's mother, and here, August 5, 1750, his 
daughter, so often referred to in his correspondence, was born. He 
removed to Great George Street shortly after. 

Red Lion Passage leads from the south-east corner of Red 
Lion Square into Red Lion Street, Holborn. Erskine was living here, 
as a temporary arrangement, when he got his first brief. 1 

Red Lion Square, on the north side of HOLBORN. Built circ. 
1698, and so called of "The Red Lion Inn," long the largest and 
best frequented inn in Holborn. 

He came back again unto London, where he lodged in the Red Lyon in 
Ilolborne. Stow, by Howes, ed. 1631, p. 672. 

He [Andrew Marvell] lies interred under y e pewes in the south side of Saint 
Giles's Church in y e Fields, under the window wherein is painted in glasse a red 
lyon (it was given by the Inneh older of the Red Lyon Inne in Holborne). Aubrey's 
Lives, vol. iii. p. 438. 

Thomas, a child borne under the Redd Lyon Elmes in the fields in High 
Holborn, baptized iij of August 1614. Register of St. Andrew's, Holborn. 

On the 29th of January 1661 the corpses of Oliver Cromwell, Ireton 
and Bradshaw were removed from Westminster to the Red Lion in 
Holborn, and on the following morning put upon a sledge and dragged 
to Tyburn, there to undergo the ignominy with which our historians 
have made every one familiar. 2 Rede in his Anecdotes and Biography, 
1799, repeats a tradition that Cromwell's mutilated remains were 
procured by some devoted followers and reverently buried in a field on 
the north side of Holborn, and that the obelisk which stood in the 
centre of Red Lion Square marked the site of the grave. No contem- 
porary or early writer, so far as we know, alludes to any such tradition, 
which has all the appearance of being a late invention. Sir Philip 
Yorke (Earl Hardwicke) took a house in this square in 1727, in which 
he resided till 1731. At this time the centre of the square was in a 
dirty and neglected condition, and a newspaper paragraph, quoted in 
the Hardwicke Correspondence, relates the attempt made to improve it. 

Red Lion Square in Holborn, having for some years lain in a ruinous condition, 
a proposal is on foot for applying to Parliament for power to beautify it, as the 
inhabitants of Lincoln's Inn Fields have lately done. 

1 Rogers' s Recollections, p. 184. 2 Rugge's Diurnall, MS. 



156 RED LION SQUARE 

The central area was "inclosed with iron rails, a stone watch- 
house " was erected " at each corner, and a plain obelisk in the centre." 
But the effort to beautify added little cheerfulness to the aspect of the 
square, if we may trust the impressions of a somewhat later writer. 

Red Lion Square . . . has a very different effect on the mind. ... I am sure 
I never go into it without thinking of my latter end. The rough sod that " heaves 
in many a mouldering heap," the dreary length of the sides, with the four watch- 
houses like so many family vaults at the corners, and the naked obelisk that springs 
from amidst the rank grass, like the sad monument of a disconsolate widow for the 
loss of her first husband ; form altogether a memento mori, more powerful to me 
than a death's head and cross marrow-bones ; and were but a parson's bull to be 
seen bellowing at the gate, the idea of a country church-yard in my mind would be 
complete. Critical Ob's, on the Bidldings and Improvements of London, 4to, 1771, 
P- 13- 

The watch-houses and the obelisk have long since been removed, and 
the enclosure was turned into a public garden, in 1885, at a cost 
of ;3 2 7> under the superintendence of the Metropolitan Public 
Gardens Association. 

In this square, in 1733, died Lord Chief Justice Raymond; his 
body was opened by Cheselden the surgeon in the presence of Dr. 
Mead. The benevolent Jonas Hanway, the traveller and founder of 
the Marine Society and Magdalen Hospital, lived and died (1786) in a 
house in Red Lion Square, the principal rooms of which he decorated 
with paintings and emblematical devices, "in a style," says his 
biographer, " peculiar to himself." His object was, he says, " to relieve 
this vacuum in social intercourse [between the time of assembling and 
the placing of the card tables] and prevent cards from engrossing 
the whole of my visitors' minds, I have presented them with objects 
the most attractive I could imagine and when that fails there are the 
cards." Hanway was the first man who ventured to walk the streets of 
London with an umbrella over his head. After carrying one nearly 
thirty years he saw them come into general use. Dr. Parsons, the 
accomplished physician, died here in April 1770, in a house which he 
had occupied for many years. He left directions that he should not 
be buried till some change appeared in his corpse. He was kept 
unburied seventeen days. Henry Mayer, the portrait painter, lived at 
No. 3. Here Charles Lamb sat to him in 1826. Sharon Turner, the 
historian, practised for many years as an attorney at No. 32. He was 
living here in 1808; and here he died, February 13, 1847, aged 
seventy-eight. Haydon, the historical painter, was living about 1838 
in a large house on the west side of Red Lion Square, immediately 
north of where now stands the church of St. John the Evangelist. This 
church, consecrated in 1878, was built from the designs of J. L. Pearson, 
R.A. The foundation stone was laid June 30, 1874. 

Red Lion Street, CLERKENWELL GREEN, was partly built in 
1719, with other buildings in the neighbourhood, by Alexander 
Graves, builder (d. Nov. 13, 1737). At No. i in this street the 
Jerusalem Tavern, cleared away in forming Clerkenwell Road John 



RK1-OKM CLUB 157 



Britton, the antiquary, was apprenticed at the beginning of 1787 to 
the business of a wine merchant, and served six dreary years " in the 
vaults . . . forcing or fining wines, bottling, corking, and binning the 
same." l He relates that while here he saw a man " pilloried and 
pelted on Clerkenwell Green, and in Red Lion Street another flogged 
at the cart's tail, both ceremonies of the most terrifying kind." The 
Rev. Joseph Trusler, LL.D. (d. 1820), the "moralizer" of Hogarth, 
at this time, says Britton, 2 " lived in Red Lion Street, a few doors from 
my vaulted home." He was eking out a precarious income by compiling 
sermons for country clergymen. 

Red Lion Street, HOLBORN north side, to Lamb's Conduit 
Street. [See Red Lion Square.] On the wall of the house, at the 
corner of Holborn on the west side (The Old Red Lion\ is a block of 
wood let in, with the date " 1611 " inscribed upon it. 

Red Lion Street, WHITECHAPEL, HIGH STREET to GREAT ALIE 
STREET, now incorporated with LEMAN STREET. Here Dick Turpin in 
a fray with the constables accidentally shot his friend King. 

Red Lion Yard, HOUNDSDITCH. This opening was on the west 
side of Houndsditch, nearly opposite the present Cock and Hoop Yard. 
Here, February 15, 1748, was born Jeremy Bentham. His father 
and grandfather had been attorneys in this yard for a long series of 
years. In 1720 Strype described it as a "pretty square place with 
indifferent good buildings." The elder Bentham's house was the last 
on the left-hand side. 3 

Redriff, a corruption of Rotherhithe. [See Rotherhithe.] The 
immortal Gulliver was, as Swift tells us, long an inhabitant of Redriff. 
Have I for this thy tedious absence borne, 
And waked, and wished whole nights for thy return ? 
In five long years I took no second spouse, 
What Redriff wife so long hath kept her vows ? 

Swift, Mary Gulliver to Captain Lemuel Gulliver. 
Filch. These seven handkerchiefs, madam. 

Airs. Peachum. Coloured ones, I see. They are of sure sale from our warehouse 
at Redriff among the seamen. Gay, The Beggars Opera, 8vo, 1728. 

Reform Club, on the south side of Pall Mall, between the 
Travellers' Club and the Carlton Club, was founded by the Liberal 
members ot the two Houses of Parliament about the time the Reform 
Bill was canvassed and carried, 1830-1832. The Club consists of 
1400 members, exclusive of members of either House of Parliament. 
Entrance fee, 30 guineas; annual subscription, jio:ios. The 
house was built, 1837-1840, from the designs of Sir Charles Barry, 
R.A., based on the Farnese Palace. The exterior is greatly admired, 
though the windows, it is urged, are too small, and scarcely important 
enough in effect. The interior, especially the large square hall covered 

1 Autob. of John Britton, vol. i. p. 64. - Ibid., vol. i. p. 70. 

3 Bowring's Life of Bentham, p. 5. 



158 REFORM CLUB 



with glass, occupying the centre of the building, is very imposing. 
The water supply is from an artesian well, 360 feet deep, sunk at the 
expense of the Club. The cooking establishment of the Club attained 
great celebrity under the superintendence of M. Soyer, and still 
sustains its reputation. 

I am here [War Office] every day ; and if you should happen to come into these 
parts to see the National Gallery, or to look at the new building which Barry has 
erected for the Reform Club a building worthy of Michel Angelo I should be 
truly glad if you will look in on me. Macaulay to Leigh Hunt, March 24, 1841. 

Regency Theatre, TOTTENHAM STREET, TOTTENHAM COURT 
ROAD, afterwards the Prince oj Wales Theatre [which see], and now 
occupied by the Salvation Army. Here, in 1802, Colonel Greville 
instituted his Picnic Society. 

Regent Square, GRAY'S INN ROAD. At the south-west angle is 
the National Scottish Church, a large Gothic edifice, designed 1827- 
1828 by Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Tite, architect. The cost, with 
that of the freehold site, was ^25,000. In the view from Hampstead 
Heath it is often mistaken, from its two towers, for Westminster Abbey. 
It was built for the Rev. Edward Irving. Here the " unknown tongues " 
were often heard. At the east end is St. Peter's, best known as 
Regent Square Church, a semi-classic building with an Ionic portico 
and tower, designed 1824-1826 at a cost of ^16,000, by William 
and H. W. Inwood, the architects of new St. Pancras Church. 

Regent Street, perhaps the most effective street in the metropolis, 
was designed and carried out by John Nash, architect (d. 1835), 
under an Act of Parliament obtained in 1813, 53 George III., c. 120. 
It was nearly all completed in 1820. The portion up to Piccadilly 
was finished in 1817. The street was intended as a communi- 
cation from Carlton House to the Regent's Park, -and commenced at 
St. Alban's Street, facing Carlton House, thence through St. James's 
Market across Piccadilly to Castle Street, where it formed a quadrant, 
to intersect with Swallow Street, and then, taking the line of Swallow 
Street (the site of which is about the centre of Regent Street), it 
crossed Oxford Street to Foley House, where it intersected with 
Portland Place. Foley House and grounds (the site of the Langham 
Hotel) were bought by Mr. Nash for ,70,000, as part of the plan, 
but after again selling the ground, he changed the route and formed 
the present turn of Langham Place, instead of the straight line into 
Portland Place as was at first intended. All Souls Church was 
built by Nash as a termination to the view up Regent Street from 
Oxford Street. For this purpose the tower and spire are advanced 
forward to the centre line of the street, and they appear almost isolated 
from the church. Polytechnic Institution, erected 1838, from the 
designs of Mr. J. Thomson, architect, and enlarged in 1848 [which see\. 
Argyll Rooms, at the north corner of Argyll and Regent Streets, 
erected by Nash in 1816 for Joseph Welch. The large room was the 



REGENT'S CANAL 159 



best in London for sound, and was used for the Philharmonic and all 
other concerts of note until burnt down in 1834, when the present 
houses, Nos. 246, 248, 250, 252, and 254 Regent Street, were erected 
on the site. Argyll Place, formed at the time of making Regent 
Street, by taking down a house at the south-west end of Argyll Street, 
leading to Great Marlborough Street. County Fire Office [which see], 
erected on high ground, and, when viewed from Pall Mall, apparently 
terminating the lower part of Regent Street. The Quadrant was designed 
by Mr. Nash (on ground leased by him from the Commissioners), and 
originally consisted of two rows of shops, with bold projecting 
colonnades, removed in 1848. [See Quadrant.] Raleigh Club (No. 
1 6), on the east side of the lower part of the street. Junior 
Constitutional Club, No. 1 4 (part of the same fagade), late the Gallery 
of Illustration, was built by Mr. Nash for his own residence. He lived 
here until he retired from his profession. The gallery was decorated 
with copies of Raphael's paintings, to make which (with permission of 
the Pope) he had artists employed for four years at Rome. The 
Junior United Service Club, north corner of Charles Street and east 
side of Regent Street, was built by Sir Robert Smirke for the United 
Service Club, who sold it to the Junior United Service Club when 
they erected their present house in Pall Mall. The present elaborate 
edifice was built from the designs of Messrs. Nelson and Innes, architects, 
in 1857. Hanover Chapel, on the north-west side of Regent Street, 
was built (1823-1825) from the designs of C. R. Cockerell, R.A., 
and St. Philip's Chapel (1819-1820), on the south-west side, from the 
designs of G. S. Repton. St. James's Hall (No. 69) was erected in 
1857 from the designs of Owen Jones. 

In his designs for Regent Street Mr. Nash adopted the idea, 
previously practised with success by the brothers Adam, of uniting 
several dwellings into a single facade, so as to preserve a degree of 
continuity essential to architectural importance. The perishable 
nature of the brick and composition of which the houses in Regent 
Street are built gave rise to the following epigram : 

Augustus at Rome was for building renown'd, 
For of marble he left what of brick he had found ; 
But is not our Nash, too, a very great master ? 
He finds us all brick and he leaves us all plaster. 1 

The last two lines are otherwise read : 

But is not our George, too, a very great master ? 
He finds London brick, and he leaves it all plaster. 

Nash, it need hardly be remarked, was George IV.'s favourite 
architect. Considerable alterations have been made of late years in 
the appearance of the street by the rebuilding of several houses and 
the heightening of others. 

Regent's Canal was projected by Mr. John Nash, architect, for 
the purpose of forming a continuous line of canal navigation from the 

1 Quarterly Review for June 1826. 



160 REGENT'S CANAL 



Grand Junction Canal at Paddington to the River Thames at Lime- 
house ; with basins at the Regent's Park, the City Road, St. Luke's, 
and at Limehouse. It was commenced October 14, 1812, opened 
from Paddington to the Regent's Park basin in 1814, and throughout 
to the Thames August i, 1820. Mr. James Morgan was the engineer. 
This canal has two tunnels, and in length is rather more than 8 miles, 
with a surface breadth of 45 feet, a depth of 5 feet, and a fall of 90 feet 
by twelve locks, exclusive of the tide lock at the Thames. 

Regent's Park, a public park of 372 acres, part of old 
Marylebone Park, long since disparked, and familiarly known as 
Marylebone Farm and Fields. On the expiration of the lease from 
the Crown to the Duke of Portland in January 1811, the Crown 
obtained an Act of Parliament, and appointed a commission to form a 
park and to let the adjoining ground on building leases. The whole 
was laid out by Mr. James Morgan in 1812, from the plans of Mr. 
John Nash, architect, who designed all the terraces except Cornwall 
Terrace, which was designed by Mr. Decimus Burton. By a clause in 
the building leases of the Regent's Park houses the lessees covenant to 
renew the colouring on the stuccoed exteriors within the month of 
August in every fourth year ; the period being the same for them all, 
and the tint to be that of Bath stone. 

The park derives its name from the Prince Regent, afterwards 
George IV., who intended building a residence at the north-east side 
of the park. Part of Regent Street was actually designed as a com- 
munication from the Prince's residence to Carlton House, St. James's 
Palace, etc. The Crown property comprises, besides the park, the 
upper part of Portland Place from No. 8 (where there is now part of 
the iron railing which formerly separated Portland Place from 
Marylebone Fields), the Park Crescent and Square, Albany, Osnaburgh, 
and the adjoining cross streets, York and Cumberland Squares, 
Regent's Park Basin and Augustus Street, Park Villages east and west, 
and the outer road of the park. The Zoological Gardens are at the 
upper end of the park. The Holme, a villa near the centre of the park, 
was erected by Mr. James Burton (father of Decimus Burton), and 
where he resided until his decease. This Mr. Burton was a speculative 
builder, who covered with houses the Skinners' Company and Foundling 
Hospital estates ; he also erected York and Cornwall Terraces, Regent's 
Park ; Waterloo Place and the lower part of Regent Street. Through 
the park, on a line with Portland Place to the east side of the Zoological 
Gardens, runs a fine broad avenue lined with trees, and footpaths which 
ramify across the sward in all directions, interspersed with ornamental 
plantations and well stocked flower-beds. These were laid out in 
1833, and opened in 1838, up to which time the public were excluded 
from the inside of the park. On January 15, 1867, a fearful accident 
occurred through the breaking of the ice on the ornamental water, 
when about 200 persons were immersed and nearly 40 of them lost 



IUIENISH WINE-HOUSE 161 

their lives. The depth of the water has since been reduced to about 
four feet. Around the park runs an outer road, forming an agree- 
able drive nearly 2 miles long. An inner drive, in the form of a 
circle, encloses the Botanic Gardens. On the outer road is Holford 
House, now the Regent's Park (Baptist) College. St. Dunstan's Villa, 
the residence of Henry Hucks Gibbs, Esq., somewhat south of the 
college, erected by Decimus Burton for the late Marquis of Hertford. 
In the gardens of this villa are placed the identical clock and 
automaton strikers which once adorned St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet 
Street. When the marquis was a child, and a good child, his nurse, 
to reward him, would take him to see " the giants " at St. Dunstan's, 
and he used to say that when he grew to be a man " he would buy 
those giants." It happened when old St. Dunstan's was pulled down 
that the giants were put up to auction, and the marquis became their 
purchaser. They still do duty in striking the hours and quarters. 
There is a picture in the National Gallery by James Ward, R.A. 
(1175), which is entitled "Regent's Park, 1807." It is, in fact, a view 
of Marylebone Park, which afterwards became the Regent's Park. 
Regent's Park Market. [See Cumberland Market] 
Registrar General's Office, SOMERSET HOUSE, in the rooms 
formerly occupied by the Royal Academy. The office of the Registrar 
of Births, Marriages and Deaths was erected pursuant to 6 and 7 
William IV., c. 86. The Registrar General publishes an annual report, 
in which all the facts bearing on the movement of the population of 
England and Wales are minutely set forth in a tabular form, 
accompanied by such remarks as seem required to place the results 
they indicate in a clear light. He also publishes a weekly summary 
of the returns furnished by the local registrars throughout the country 
of the births, marriages, and deaths, and causes of death, particularly 
referring to the relative increase or otherwise of the several forms of 
zymotic disease ; and a somewhat more general quarterly statement in 
which particulars are given respecting the emigration and immigration 
of the past three months, the fluctuations in the quality of the water- 
supply, and whatever seems worthy of present attention as affecting the 
public health. The work going on in the Registrar General's office is 
unintermittent, and the reports issued by him are of the utmost value 
not only to the sanitary student and statistician, but to those interested 
in all that concerns the public health and wellbeing. 

Religious Tract Society, 56 PATERNOSTER Row, and 65 St. 
Paul's Churchyard. Established 1799 for "the circulation of small 
religious books and treatises throughout the British Dominions and 
foreign countries." But in addition to this, its primary object, the 
Society has become a great trading establishment for the publication 
and sale of religious books and periodicals. 

Rhenish Wine-house, CANNON Row, WESTMINSTER, at the end 
of a passage leading from King Street. In Strype's Map of 1720 

VOL. Ill M 



1 62 RHENISH WINE-HOUSE 

Rhenish Wine Yard opens south out of King Street, nearly opposite 
Charles Street. There was an entrance to it from the Privy Gardens, 
only open during the sittings of Parliament and the Law Courts. 
Pepys was "at the Rhenish Wine-house drinking," July 30, 1660, with 
the sword-bearer of London ; and again a few days later " with Judge- 
Advocate Fowler, Mr. Creed, Mr. Shepley, and Captain Howard . . . 
and very merry." On November 24 of the same year he is again 
there with Creed and Shepley, and "did give them two quarts of 
Wormwood wine." On June 19, 1663, he is there with Mr. Moore, 
who showed him " the French manner, when a health is drunk . . . 
which is now the fashion." The last visit he records is on June i, 
1668, but he adds, "Where I have not been in a morning, I think, 
these seven years, or more." There were other Rhenish wine-houses 
in London, one was in Crooked Lane and another in the Steelyard. 

Richard's Coffee-house. [See Dick's.] 

Richmond House, WHITEHALL, was so called after Charles, 
second Duke of Richmond of the present family (d. 1750), for whom 
it was built by the celebrated Earl of Burlington, but afterwards altered 
and enlarged by Wyatt. It stood at the southern extremity of Privy 
Gardens, and looked towards Charing Cross. The ground was 
previously occupied by the apartments of the Duchess of Portsmouth, 
mother (by Charles II.) of the duke's father, the first Duke of 
Richmond. Here the third Duke of Richmond (who died in 1806, 
having borne the title for fifty-six years) formed a noble collection of 
the very finest casts from the antique, and, with a spirit and liberality 
much in advance of his age, afforded every accommodation, and 
invited artists by advertisements to study in his gallery. This, the 
first - 1 public school established in this country wherein the beauties of 
the antique could be studied, was opened on Monday, March 6, 1758, 
ten years before the establishment of the Royal Academy. Cipriani and 
Wilton (artists of eminence) attended to instruct, and silver medals 
were occasionally awarded. Richmond House was famous also for its 
entertainments and private theatricals. 

May 17, 1749. The night before last the Duke of Richmond gave a firework : 
a codicil to the Peace. . . . The garden lies with a slope down to the Thames, on 
which were lighters, from whence were thrown up, after a concert of music, a great 
number of rockets. Then from boats on every side were discharged water-rockets 
and fires of that kind ; and then the wheels which were ranged along the rails of the 
terrace were played off; and the whole concluded with the illumination of a pavilion 
on the top of a slope, of two pyramids on each side, and of the whole length of the 
balustrade to the water. You can't conceive a prettier sight ; the garden filled with 
everybody of fashion, the Duke [of Cumberland], the Duke of Modena and the two 
black Princes [of Anamaboe]. The King and Princess Emily were in their barge 
under the terrace ; the river was covered with boats, and the shores and adjacent 
houses with crowds. Walpole to Sir Horace Mann (Letters, vol. ii. pp. 155, 160). 

Walpole, in one of his marginal notes on Pennant, says, " His Grace 
[of Richmond] having bought the adjacent house fitted up a small 

1 Sir James Thornhill opened his Art Academy established in 1734, but these were specially for 
in 1724, and the St. Martin's Lane School was artists to study the living model. 



THE RING 163 



theatre in it, where for two winters plays were performed by people of 
quality." Of the performances, Peter Pindar, addressing (as usual) 
George III., says : 

So much with Saving-wisdom arc you taken, 

I )rury and Covent Garden seem forsaken. 

Since cost attcndeth those theatric bon 

Content you go to Richmond House with orders. 

Peter Pindar, Peter's Pension. 

He adds in a note : " Here is a pretty little nutshell of a Theatre, 
fitted up for the convenience of Ladies and Gentlemen of Quality who 
wish to expose themselves." 

Richmond House was destroyed by fire, December 21, 1791, but 
rebuilt. There is an engraved view of the house by Boydell ; and 
Edwards, in his Anecdotes (p. 164), mentions a drawing of the gallery 
by an artist of the name of Parry, which he considered curious, 
" being," as he says, " the only representation of the place." The 
lease of the house did not expire until April 1841, but the Duke, in 
1819, parted with his interest in it for ^4300; the house was then 
taken down and Richmond Terrace built on its site. 

Richmond Street, LEICESTER SQUARE, runs from Wardour 
Street to Rupert Street. The first Earl of Macclesfield (d. 1693) was 
living here in I68I. 1 

Richmond Terrace, WHITEHALL, was erected on the site of 
Richmond House in 1824. Miss Foote, Countess of Harrington, 
died at No. 2, aged sixty-nine. [See Richmond House.] 

Ring (The), a circle in Hyde Park, surrounded with trees, and 
forming, in the height of the season, a fashionable ride and promenade. 
It was made in the reign of Charles I., was situated between the 
Humane Society's Receiving House and Grosvenor Gate, and was 
partly destroyed at the time the Serpentine was formed by Caroline, 
Queen of George II. Oldys had seen a poem in sixteen pages, 
entitled "The Circus, or British Olympicks, a Satyr on the Ring in Hyde 
Park." "This is a poem," says Oldys, "satirising many fops under 
fictitious names. Near a thousand coaches," he adds, "have been 
seen there in an evening." Several of the trees still remain. 

Wycherley was a very handsome man. His acquaintance with the famous 
Duchess of Cleveland commenced oddly enough. One day as he passed that 
Duchess's coach in the Ring, she leaned out of the window, and cried out, loud 
enough to be heard distinctly by him, "Sir, you're a rascal : you're a villain !" 
[alluding to a song in his first play]. Wycherley from that instant entertained hopes. 
Pope, in S fence (ed. Singer, p. 16). 

Wilt thou still sparkle in the box, 

Still ogle in the Ring ? 
Canst thou forget thy age and pox ? 
Can all that shines on shells and rocks 
Make thee a fine young thing? 

Lord Dorsefs Verses on Dorinda. 

1 Rate-books of St. Martin's. 



164 THE RING 



Young Bellair. I know some who will give you an account of every glance that 
passes at a play and i' th' Circle. Etherege, The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling 
Flutter, 410, 1676. 

Sir Fopling. All the world will be in the Park to-night : Ladies, 'twere pity to 
keep so much beauty longer within doors, and rob the Ring of all those charms that 
should adorn it. Ibid. 

The next place of resort wherein the servile world are let loose, is at the 
entrance of Hyde Park, while the gentry are at the Ring. Spectator, No. 88. 

Leonora. Trifle, let's see this morning's letters. 

Trifle. There are only these half dozen, madam. 

Leonora. No more ! Barbarity ! This it is to go to Hyde Park upon a windy 
day, when a well-dress'd gentleman can't stir abroad. The beaus were forced to 
take shelter in the playhouse, I suppose. I was a fool I did not go thither ; I 
might have made ten times the havoc in the side-boxes. 

Trifle. Your ladyship's being out of humour with the Exchange woman, for 
shaping your ruffles so odiously, I am afraid made you a little too reserv'd, madam. 

Leonora. Prithee ! was there a fop in the whole Ring, that had not a side-glance 
from me? Colley Gibber, Woman's Wit, or The Lady in Fashion, 4to, 1697. 

Sir Francis Gripe (to Miranda). Pretty rogue, pretty rogue ; and so thou shalt 
find me, if thou dost prefer thy Gardy before these caperers of the age ; thou shalt 
outshine the Queen's box on an opera night ; thou shalt be the envy of the Ring 
(for I will carry thee to Hyde Park), and thy equipage shall surpass the what d'ye 
call 'em Ambassadors. Mrs. Centlivre, The Busy Body, 4to, 1708. 

Here (1697) the people of fashion take the diversion of The Ring. In a pretty 
high place, which lies very open, they have surrounded a circumference of two or 
three hundred paces diameter with a sorry kind of balustrade, or rather with postes 
placed upon stakes but three feet from the ground ; and the coaches drive round this. 
When they have turned for some time round one way they face about and turn 
t'other : so rowls the world ! Wilson's Memoirs, 8vo, 1719, p. 126. 

How lately did this celebrated Thing, 
Blaze in the box, and sparkle in the Ring. 

Garth, The Dispensary, 1699. 

In Queen Anne's time 

The other public diversion was merely for the eyes, for it was going round and 
round the Ring in Hyde Park, and bowing to one another, slightly, respectfully, or 
tenderly, as occasion required. No woman of fashion could receive any man at her 
morning toilet without alarming the husband and his friends. Lord Chesterfield, MS. 
(Stanhope's Anne, p. 566). 

He would no more disagree with a Lord in his sentiments, than a Beau would 
put his hat on in Hyde-Park Ring. Orrery's As You Find It, 410, 1703. 

To all his most frequented haunts resort' 
Oft dog him in the Ring, and oft to Court. 

Addison's Prologue to Steele's Tender Husband, 1705. 

To scandal nextwhat awkward thing 
Was that, last Sunday in the Ring. 

Swift, Cadenus and Vanessa, 1713. 

What pains to get the gaudy thing you hate, 
To swell in show, and be a wretch in state ! 
At Plays you ogle, at the Ring you bow ; 
Ev'n Churches are no sanctuaries now. 

Garth, Epilogue to Addison 's Cato, 1713. 

All the fine equipages that shine in the Ring never gave me another thought than 
either pity or contempt for the owners, that could place happiness in attracting the eyes 
of strangers. Lady Mary W. Montagu {Works, by Lord Wharncliffe, vol. i. p. 177). 



ROCHESTER HOUSE 165 

Know, then, unnumbered spirits round thec fly, 
The light militia of the lower sky : 
These, though unseen, are ever on the wing, 
Hang o'er the Box and hover round the Ring. 

Pope, Rape of the Lock. 

She glares in balls, front-boxes, and the Ring, 
A vain, unquiet, glittering, wretched thing. 

Pope, To Martha Blount, with the Works of Voiture. 

The Ring, or its immediate vicinity, was the noted Hyde Park 
duelling-ground of the i8th century. Here in 1712 was fought the 
famous duel between the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun. 

My Lord [Mohun] then asked the Hackney Coachman if he knew where they 
could get any thing that was good, it being a cold morning ; he [the Hackney 
Coachman] said at the House near the Ring. When they came near the house, they 
[Lord Mohun and his second, General Macartney] both got out of the coach, and 
bid the coachman get some burnt wine at the house, while they took a little walk. 
He went into the house and told the Drawer he brought two gentlemen, who bid 
him get some burnt wine against they came back ; the Drawer said he would not, 
for very few came thither so soon in the morning but to fight. Duel between Duke 
of Hamilton and Lord Mohnn (Hackney Coachman's Evidence before the Coroner). 

" If we were not in the Park," answered Booth warmly, " I would thank you very 
properly for that compliment." " O, Sir !" cries the Colonel, "we can be soon in 
a convenient place." Upon which Booth answered, he would attend him wherever 
he pleased. The Colonel then bid him come along, and strutted forward directly 
up Constitution Hill to Hyde Park, Booth following him at first, and afterwards 
walking before him, till they came to that place, which may be properly called the 
field of blood, being that part a little to the left of The Ring, which heroes have 
chosen for the scene of their exit out of this world. Fielding's Amelia. 

The last circumstance of any interest connected with the Ring is the 
duel fought here in 1763 between John Wilkes and Samuel Martin, on 
account of a passage in the North Briton, in which Martin was stigma- 
tised as a " low fellow and dirty tool of power." Wilkes was wounded. 

Robert Street, ADELPHI. Thomas Hood and his wife, in 1824, 
resided in chambers at No. 2 Robert Street, Adelphi. [See Adelphi.] 

Robin Hood Club, a discussion Club, or "Oratorical Society," 
which met in the last century at a house in Essex Street, Strand. 
[See Essex Street.] About the same time there was another " religious 
Robin Hood Society, which met every Sunday evening at Coach- 
makers' Hall, for free debate." * [See Coachmakers' Hall.] 

Rochester House, SOUTHWARK. The inn or town house of the 
Bishops of Rochester. No traces remain, and the Borough Market 
occupies part of the site. 

Adjoining Winchester House is the Bishop of Rochester's inn or lodging, by 
whom first erected I do not now remember me to have read ; but well I wot the 
same of long time hath not been frequented by any bishop, and lieth ruinous for lack 
of any reparations. The Abbot of Waverley had a house there. Stow, p. 151. 

Rochester House was, about 40 years since, one great house and a great 
garden, and now consisteth of 62 tenements. AIS, temp. James I. (Churchwardens* 
Accounts of St. Saviour's, Southwark). 

1 Boswell, by Croker, p. 684. 



1 66 ROCHESTER ROW 



Rochester Row, WESTMINSTER, so called after the Bishops of 
Rochester, several of whom (Sprat and Atterbury, for instance) held 
the deanery of Westminster at the same' time with the see of Rochester. 
On the south side is the fine church of St. Stephen, erected and 
endowed, with the adjoining school-buildings for 400 children, by Miss 
(now the Baroness) Burdett-Coutts, 1847-1848; architect, Mr. B. 
Ferrey, F.S.A. Near it is the Westminster Police Court. On the 
north side are Hill's Almshouses, the Western Dispensary, and the 
Grenadier Guards' Hospital. 

Rolls House and Chapel, CHANCERY LANE, a place where the 
rolls and records of the Court of Chancery were kept from the reign 
of Edward III. until the erection of the Record Office in Fetter Lane. 
\See Record Office.] Rolls House was the official residence of the 
Master of the Rolls, who also kept his court here. The Rolls Court 
was removed on the opening of the Royal Courts of Justice, and this 
building is now occupied by the officials of the Record Office. The 
master's house was designed by Colin Campbell in 1717-1725 at a cost 
of ; 5 ooo, during the mastership of Sir Joseph Jekyll. The first stone 
was laid September 18, 1717. On the site of the present chapel Henry 
III. erected, in the year 1233, a House of Maintenance for converted 
Jews (Domus Conversorum), but the number of converts decreasing from 
the enactment of Edward I., in 1290, by which the Jews were banished 
out of the realm, Edward III., in 1377, annexed the house and chapel 
to the newly-created office of Gustos Rotulorum, or Keeper of the 
Rolls. The chapel has been greatly altered and disfigured. Prior to 
their removal to the Record Office the Rolls of the Chancery were kept 
in presses ranged along the walls of this chapel, under the seats of the 
pews, and even behind the altar. 

Observe. Monument to Dr. John Young, Master of the Rolls in 
the reign of Henry VIII. Vertue and Walpole attribute it, and with 
great reason, to Torrigiano, the sculptor of the tomb of Henry VII. 
at Westminster. The Master is represented lying on an altar-tomb, 
with his hands crossed, and his face expressive of deep devotion. 
Within a recess at the back is a head of Christ, with an angel's head 
on each side, in high relief. Monument to Lord Bruce of Kinloss 
(d. 1610), Master of the Rolls in the reign of James I., and father of 
Edward, Lord Bruce of Kinloss, killed in a duel with Sir Edward 
Sackville. Monument to Sir Richard Allington of Horseheath, in 
Cambridgeshire (d. 1561). Conspicuous in the windows are the arms 
of Sir Robert Cecil and of Sir Harbottle Grimston, "under whose 
protection," writes Burnet (Hist, of Own Times, p. 104), "I lived nine 
years, when I was preacher at the Rolls, he being the Master of the 
Rolls." Among the eminent preachers at the Rolls besides Bishop 
Burnet were Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, and Bishop Butler, 
author of the Analogy of Religion. Burnet's sermon at this chapel 
(November 5, 1684) on the text, "Save me from the lion's mouth, for 



ROOM LAND 167 



thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns," occasioned his 
removal from the preachership, the King considering the Chapel of the 
Rolls as one of his own chapels, and the words of the text as "levelled 
against his coat of arms." Fifteen of Butler's sermons at the Rolls 
form an octavo volume. The Rolls liberty is a parish or peculiar of 
its own. Sir William Grant, one of the greatest judges that has 
adorned the Bench, lived in the Rolls House (1801-1817), but never saw 
more of it than the ground-floor. When his successor arrived Sir William 
showed him his apartments. " Here are two or three good rooms ; 
this is my sitting-room ; my library and bedroom are beyond ; and I 
am told there are some good rooms upstairs, but I never was there." 

Roman Bath. [See Strand Lane.] 

Roman Catholic Church of St. Mary, BLOMFIELD STREET, 
MOORFIELDS. John Newman, architect; first stone laid August 5, 
1817; consecrated April 20, 1820; cost 26,000. The body of 
Weber, the composer, was buried in its vaults, but removed in 1842. 
[See Finsbury Circus.] This church, up to July 2, 1869, was regarded 
as the pro-cathedral of the arch-diocese of Westminster ; but on that 
day. "the seat of jurisdiction was moved westward" (as Archbishop 
Manning worded it) to the new edifice dedicated to " Our Lady of 
Victories," Newland Street, Kensington. That, however, is the pro- 
cathedral until sufficient funds are obtained to erect a more stately 
permanent cathedral in Westminster. 

Rood Lane, FENCHURCH STREET to EASTCHEAP. 

Rood Lane, so called of a roode there placed in the churchyard of St. Margaret 
Pattens, whilst the old Church was taken down and again newly built ; during 
which time the oblations made to this rood were employed towards the building of 
the church ; but in the year 1538, about the 23d of May, in the morning, the said 
rood was found to have been, on the night preceding, by people unknown, broken 
all to pieces, together with the tabernacle wherein it had been placed. Stcnv, p. 79 ; 
see also London Chronicle (Camd. Sac.), p. 12. 

The church of St. Margaret Pattens [which see] is at the south-east 
corner. The houses in Rood Lane are now chiefly occupied as 
merchants' offices. 

Roomland, BILLINGSGATE. 

At the head of Billingsgate Dock is a square plot of ground compassed with 
posts, known by the name of Roomland, which, with the adjacent part of the street, 
hath been the usual place where the ship-masters, coal-merchants, wood-mongers, 
lightermen, and labourers, do meet every morning, in order to the buying, selling, 
delivering, and taking-up of sea-coals and Scotch-coals, as the principal market. 
This coal-market was kept on Great Tower Hill in the time of the City's late 
desolation [by the Great Fire]. Delaune's Angl. Not., 1690, p. 355. 

There was another Roumeland at Dowgate, for the cleansing of 
which an ordinance was issued in 1365. The origin of the name is 
uncertain. In front of several of the larger monastic establishments, 
as St. Albans, Waltham, Norwich, Bury St. Edmund's, and Reading, 
were large open spaces railed off, and sometimes, at least, as at 



1 68 ROOM LAND 



Waltham, used as market-places, which were called Roomlands or 
Romelands)- Mr. Walcott says they were so called "probably from 
rome, roomy, as in Romney, Romsey, etc.," 2 but Romney and Romsey 
were certainly not so named as being roomy places, neither is it 
likely were the Romelands. Possibly they may have been places set 
apart by the Church in early times as market-places, in country 
towns as general, in London as special markets. The Coal Exchange, 
the present central coal-market, still holds its place at "the head of 
Billingsgate." [See Coal Exchange.] 

Ropemakers' Alley, MOORFIELDS, now widened and called 
ROPEMAKER STREET, runs from the west side of Finsbury Pavement 
to Moor Lane. Hatton, 1708, describes it as "on the west side of 
Little Moorfields, a passage to Grub Street." In a Map of 1720 
" Rope Walk " is given, and the alley appears to have run out from a 
Moorfields Holywell Street, called Rotten Row. At " his lodgings " 
in this alley on April 26, 1731, died Daniel Defoe, the author of 
Robinson Crusoe. 

Rosamond's Pond, a sheet of water in the south-west corner of 
St. James's Park, "long consecrated to disastrous love and elegiac 
poetry." 3 The earliest notice of it appears to be contained in a 
payment, issued from the Exchequer in 1612, of ^400 "towards the 
charge of making and bringing a current of water from Hyde Park, in 
a vault of brick arched over, to fall into Rosamond's Pond at St. 
James's Park." 4 It was filled up in 1770; in June of which year Mr. 
Whately writes to George Grenville : " Lord Suffolk is very happy that 
orders are given for draining the ponds near his house. Rosamond's 
Pond is also to be filled up and a road carried across it to [Great] 
George Street; the rest is to be all lawn." 5 It lay obliquely across 
the west end of the present Bird Cage Walk. Lord Suffolk lived in 
Duke Street, Westminster, and the ponds which he was so happy to 
get rid of were " the places for the fowle " of the old maps. 

Mrs. Friendall. His note since dinner desires you would meet him at seven at 
Rosamond's Pond. Southerne, The Wives' Excuse, 4to, 1692. 

Lady Trickitt. Was it fine walking last night, Mr. Granger? Was there good 
company at Rosamond's Pond ? 

Granger. I did not see your ladyship there. 

Lady Trickitt. Me ! fie, fie, a married woman there, Mr. Granger ! Southerne, 
The Maid's Last Prayer, or Any rather than Fail, 410, 1693. 

Sir Novelty (reads). Excuse, my dear Sir Novelty, the forc'd indifference I 
have shewn you, and let me recompense your past sufferings with an hour's 

1 Thome, Handbook to the Environs of London, from a drawing made in 1758, and a still better 
pt. ii. p. 655. view by W. H. Toms, from a drawing by 

2 Walcott, Ouircli and Conventual Arrange- Chatelain in 1752. In the Crowle Pennant in the 
went, p. 112. British Museum is a careful pen-and-ink drawing 

3 Warburton to Hurd, p. 151. of the pond by J. Maurer, 1742. No. 86 of the 

4 Devon's Issues from the Exchequer, 410, Royal Academy Exhibition of 1774 was "A 
1836, p. 150. View of Rosamond's Pond in St. James's Park," 

5 Grenville Corr., vol. iv. p. 517. There is an by John Feary. 
engraving of Rosamond's Pond by J. T. Smith, 



ROSE STREET 169 



conversation, after the play, at Rosamond's Pond. Colley Gibber, Love's Last Shift, 
4to, 1696. 

Mirabel. Meet me at one o'clock by Rosamond's Pond. Congreve, The Way of 
the World, 4to, 1700. 

Young I Voifd Be. Are the ladies come ? 

Serv. Half an hour ago, my lord. 

:i\f /'< . Where did you light on 'em? 

.VtV7\ One in the passage at the old Playhouse I found another very melancholy 
paring her nails by Rosamond's Pond and a couple I got at the Chequer Alehouse 
in llulbnrn.-- Farquhar, The Twin Rivals, 410, 1703. 

January 31, 1710-1711. We are here in as smart a frost for the time as I 
have seen ; delicate walking weather, and the Canal and Rosamond's Pond full of 
the rabble sliding, and with skates, if you know what those are. Patrick's bird's 
water freezes in the gally-pot, and my hands in bed. Swift, Journal to Stella. 

Upon the next public Thanksgiving Day it is my design to sit astride on the 
dragon on Bow steeple, from whence, after the discharge of the Tower guns, I 
intend to mount into the air, fly over Fleet Street, and pitch upon the Maypole 
in the Strand. From thence, by gradual descent, I shall make the best of my way 
for St. James's Park, and light upon the ground near Rosamond's Pond. The 
Guardian, No. 112. 

As I was last Friday taking a walk in the Park, I saw a country gentleman at 
the side of Rosamond's Pond, pulling a handful of oats out of his pocket, and with 
a great deal of pleasure gathering the ducks about him. Upon my coming up to 
him, who should it be but my friend the Fox-Hunter, whom I gave some account of 
in my 22nd paper ! I immediately joined him, and partook of his diversion, until 
he had not an oat left in his pocket. Addison, The Freeholder, No. 44, May 21, 
1716. 

This the Beau-monde shall from the Mall survey 

This the blest lover shall for Venus take, 

And send up vows from Rosamonda's Lake. Rape of the Lock. 

The termination of this delectable walk [in St. James's Park] was a knot of lofty 
elms by a Pond side ; round some of which were commodious seats for the tired 
ambulators to refresh their weary pedestals. Here a parcel of old worn-out Cavaliers 
were conning over the Civil Wars. Ned Ward's London Spy, ed. 1753, p. 164. 

Tom Brown speaks of the Close Walk at the head of the pond. 1 
Another pond in the Green Park (nearly opposite Coventry House) 
bore the name of Rosamond down to 1840-1841. 

Rose Street, COVENT GARDEN, a dirty and somewhat circuitous 
street, between King Street and Long Acre, for the most part cleared, 
or absorbed, in forming GARRICK STREET. 

Rose Street, of which there are three, and all indifferent well-built and inhabited ; 
but the best is that next to King Street, called White Rose Street, which is in 
Covent Garden Parish. Strype, B. vi. p. 74. 

It was in this street (" over against " which he was living at the time) 
that on December 18, 1679, Dryden 2 was barbarously assaulted and 
wounded by three persons hired for the purpose, as is now known, by 
Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. In the Mercurius Domesticus, the first 

1 Amusements of London, 8vo, 1700, p. 65. 

2 The biographers of Dryden relate that the Rate-books of St. Martin's show that Dryden was 
poet was on his way home from Will's to his living in Long Acre, over against Rose Street, 
house in Gerard Street ; but no part of Gerard That he was on his way home from Will's is only 
Street was built in 1679, and in that year the an assumption. 



i;o ROSE STREET 



number of which appeared on the following day, the affair is thus 
described. 

Upon the i8th inst., in the evening, Mr. Dryden, the great Poet, was set upon in 
Rose Street, in Covent Garden, by three persons, who calling him rogue, and son 
of a whore, knockt him down, and dangerously wounded him, but upon his crying 
out murther, they made their escape ; it is conceived that they had their pay before- 
hand, and designed not to rob him, but to execute on him som Feminine if not 
Popish vengeance. 

Fifty pounds were offered for the discovery of the offenders, and a 
pardon from the King, in addition, if a principal or an accessory would 
come forward. Rochester took offence at a passage in Lord Mulgrave's 
Essay on Satire, of which he thought Dryden was the author, and, 
three weeks before this cowardly revenge, had written to his friend 
Henry Saville that he intended to "leave the repartee to Black Will 
with a cudgell." There are many allusions to this Rose Alley 
Ambuscade, as it is called, in our old State Poems. So famous, indeed, 
was the assault, that Mulgrave's poem was commonly called " The Rose 
Alley Satire." Eminent Inhabitants, Samuel Butler, author QiHudibras, 
died here (1680) poor and neglected. Edmund Curll, the bookseller, 
was living here when he published Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence. 

Rose Street, SOHO, a street south-east of Soho Square, connecting 
Greek Street with Crown Street. Mrs. Delany writes that when she 
came to London in 1720 she found that Mr. Pendarves, her first 
husband, " had taken a house in a very indifferent part of the town, 
Rose Street, Hog Lane, Soho." 1 

Rose Tavern (The) stood in RUSSELL STREET, COVENT GARDEN, 
adjoining Drury Lane Theatre. 2 Part of it was taken down in 1776, 
when Adam, the architect, built a new front to the former theatre for 
Garrick, then about to part with his patent. In Charles II.'s time it 
was kept by a person of the name of Long (buried at St. Paul's, Covent 
Garden, August 5, 1661), and afterwards by his widow. Tavern tokens 
of the house still exist. 

May 1 8, 1668. It being almost twelve o'clock, or little more, to the King's 
Playhouse, when the doors were not then open ; but presently they did open ; and 
we in, and find many people already come in by private ways into the pit, it being 
the first day of Sir Charles Sedley's new play so long expected, The Mulberry 
Garden ; of whom, being so reputed a wit, all the world do expect great matters. I 
having sat here awhile and eat nothing to-day, did slip out, getting a boy to keep 
my place ; and to the Rose Tavern, and there got half a breast of mutton off of the 
spit, and dined all alone. Pepys. 

I left some friends of yours at the Rose. Sedley's Bellamira, 4to, 1687. 
Sir Fred. Frolic. Sing the catch I taught you at the Rose. Etherege, Love in a 
Tub, 410, 1669. 

Woodcock. By the Lord Harry, Sir Positive, I do understand Mathematics better 
than you ; and I lie over-against the Rose Tavern in Covent Garden, dear heart. 
Sha dwell, The Sullen Lovers, 4to, 1668. 

Or sipping Tea while they relate 
Their evening's frolic at the Rose. 

The School of Politicks, p. 40, 1690. 

1 Mrs. Delany's Autob., vol. i. p. 61. 2 Strype, B. vi. pp. 67, 74. 



THE ROSE TAVERN 171 



'J'opc. Pub, this is nothing ; why I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns 
and the Tityre Tu's ; 1 they were brave fellows indeed ; in those days a man could 
not go from the Rose Tavern to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, 
my clear Sir Willy. Shadwell, The Scowrers, 410, 1691. 

ll'/iackuin (a city sco-wrer, and imitator 'of Sir ll'illiain Rant}. Oh no, never 
talk on't. There will never be his fellow. O had you seen him scower, as I did, 
oh so delicately, so like a gentleman ! How he cleared the Rose Tavern ? I was 
there about law-business, compounding for a bastard, and he and two fine gentlemen 
came roaring in, the handsomeliest and the most genteely turned us all out of the 
room, and swinged us and kicked us about, I vow to God 'twould have done your 
heart good to have seen it. Ibid. 

Here Prior has laid the opening scene in The Hind and the Panther 
Transversed. 

Johnson. Nay faith, we won't part so ... let us step to the Rose for one 
quarter of an hour, and talk over old stories. 

Bayes. I ever took you to be men of honour, and for your sakes I will transgress 
as far as one pint. 

Johnson. Well, Mr. Bayes, many a merry bout have we had in this house, and 
shall have again, I hope. Prior and Montague, 7"he Hind and the Panther 
Transversed, 1687. 

Lucy. Pray, sir, pardon me. 

Brazen. I can't tell, child, till I know whether my money be safe (searching his 
pocket}. Yes, yes, I do pardon you ; but if I had you in the Rose Tavern in Covent 
Garden, with three or four hearty rakes, and three or four smart napkins, I would 
tell you another story, my dear. Farquhar, The Recruiting Officer, 4to, 1707. 
Suppose me dead, and then suppose 
A club assembled at the Rose, 
Where from discourse of this and that, 
I grow the subject of their chat. 

Swift, Verses on his own Death. 
Tho' he and all the world allow'd her wit, 
Her voice was shrill and rather loud than sweet ; 
When she began, for hat and sword he'd call, 
Then after a faint kiss, cry, 'Bye ; Dear Moll : 
Supper and friends expect me at the Rose. 

Taller, No. 2, April 14, 1709. 

He is an excellent critick, and the time of the play is his hour of business ; 
exactly at five he passes through New Inn, crosses through Russell Court, and takes 
a turn at Will's till the play begins ; he has his shoes, rubbed and his periwig 
powdered at the Barber's as you go into the Rose. The Spectator, No. 2. 

The hangings [at Drury Lane Theatre] you formerly mentioned are run away ; as 
are likewise a set of chairs, each of which was met upon two legs going through 
the Rose Tavern at two this morning. The Spectator, No. 36. 

Mr. Hildbrand Horden was the son of Dr. Horden, minister of Twickenham in 
Middlesex ; and was an actor upon the stage, and had almost every gift that could 
make him excel in his profession, and was every day rising in the favour of the 
public, when, after having been about seven years upon the stage, he was unfortunately 
killed at the bar of the Rose Tavern, in a frivolous, rash, accidental quarrel, for which 
Colonel Burgess, one who was resident at Venice, and some other persons of 
distinction, took their trials, and were acquitted. He was remarkable for his hand- 
some person ; and before he was buried, several ladies well dressed came in masks, 
which were then much worn, and some in their own coaches, to visit him in his 
shroud. List of Dramatic Authors appended to Scanderbeg, a Tragedy, 8vo, 1747. 
In this house [the Rose Tavern] George Powell spent great part of his time ; 

1 Bilboe and Tityre Tu are two Hectors in " one usurping the name of a Major, the other of 
Wilson's popular comedy of The CJteats (1662), a Captain." 



172 THE ROSE TAVERN 

and often toasted to intoxication his mistress, with bumpers of Nantz-brandy. 
Davies's Dramatic Misc., vol. iii. p. 416. 

Here (November 14, 1712) the seconds on either side arranged 
the duel fought the next day between the Duke of Hamilton and Lord 
Mohun, as " John Sisson, the drawer of the Rose Tavern," deposed in 
evidence before the coroner. The duke and Lord Mohun were here 
the same day, the duke and General Macartney (Lord Mohun's second) 
drinking part of a bottle of French claret together. 

One Leathercoat, a porter at this tavern, has been immortalised by 
Hogarth in Plate III. of The Rake's Progress, and by Fielding in The 
Covent Garden Tragedy, 1732. On January 19, 1763, the night of 
the production of Mallet's tragedy of Elvira, Edward Gibbon and his 
father dined with the " only Scot whom Scotchmen did not commend." 

I then undressed for the play. My father and I went to the Rose, in the passage of 
the play-house, where we found Mallet, with about thirty friends. We dined together, 
and went thence into the pit, where we took our places in a body, ready to silence 
all opposition. However, we had no occasion to exert ourselves. Gibbon'syiwrwa/. 

Rose Tavern was at the corner of THANET PLACE, without TEMPLE 
BAR. 

At the Rose Tavern without Temple Bar there is a vine that covers an arbour 
where the sun very rarely comes, and has had ripe grapes upon it. The City 
Gardener, by Thomas Fairchild, Gardener of Hoxton, 8vo, 1722, p. 55. 

The Rose Tavern, a well customed house with good conveniences of rooms, and 
a good garden. Strype, B. iv. p. 117. 

The painted room at the Rose Tavern is' mentioned in Walpole's 
letters to Cole of January 26, 1776, and March i, 1776. 

Rose Theatre, BANKSIDE, stood east of the Bear Garden and a 
little north-west of the site upon which the Globe was built soon 
afterwards. It was situated close by where the south end of Southwark 
Bridge now is. Here is still a Rose Alley. In 1552, as appears by a 
deed preserved at Dulwich College, Thomasin Symondes of London, 
widow, late wife of Raphe Symondes, citizen and fishmonger, sold her 
" messuage or tenement, called the Little Rose, with two gardens to the 
same adjoining," in the parish of St. Saviour, Southwark, to Ambrose 
Nicolas and others. In 1564 Nicolas let it for thirty-one years at ^7 per 
annum, and on March 24, 1584, the remainder of his lease was 
purchased by Philip Hinchley [Henslowe], citizen and dyer of London. 1 
The theatre, a wooden building, " done abowt with calme bordes on the 
outside," was opened about 1592, or a little before. 

Thou hadst a breath as sweet as the Rose that grows by the Bear Garden. 
Decker's Satiromastix, 1602. 

A messuage or tenement, called the Rose, is mentioned in the charter 
of Edward VI., granting the manor of Southwark to the City of London. 

Rose and Crown Court, GRAY'S INN LANE (now Gray's Inn Road, 
Rose and Crown Court, has long disappeared). In 1673 John 

1 Collier's Memoirs of Edward Alleyn (Cam. Sac.), p. 189. 



ROSOMAN STREET 173 



Aubrey, the antiquary, lodged at the house of Henry Coley in Rose 
and Crown Court, in Gray's Inn Lane. Coley was a tailor by trade, 
and astrologer, medical adviser, and fortune-teller by profession ; and 
adopted son of William Lilly, whose EpJicnicris he continued for 
several years. He published A Key to the whole Art of Astrology. 
Granger mentions his portrait inscribed " Henricus Coley, philomath," 
with " a celestial globe at his elbow." 

Rosemary Lane, from Sparrow Corner, Minories, to Cable Street, 
WHITECHAPEL, since 1850 called Royal Mint Street. Here was the 
once notorious mart for old clothes called Rag Fair, and there are still 
many second-hand clothes' stores in the street. [See Rag Fair.] On 
October 31, 1631, there is a "Grant to William Bawdrick and Roger 
Hunt of the King's interest in certain tenements in Rosemary Lane. 
Middlesex, the lease of which was taken by Horatio Franchotti, an 
alien, but discovered and prosecuted for on His Majesty's behalf." 1 
In the burial register of St. Mary's, Whitechapel, the following entry 
occurs : 

1646, Jttne 2 1 st. Rich. Brandon, a man out of Rosemary Lane. 

To this is added, "This R. Brandon is supposed to have cut off 
the head of Charles the First." 

He [Brandon] likewise confessed that he had thirty pounds for his pains, all paid 
him in half crowns within an hour after the blow was given ; and that he had an 
orange stuck full of cloves, and a handkercher out of the King's pocket, so soon as 
he was carryed off from the scaffold, for which orange he was proffered twenty 
shillings by a gentleman in Whitehall, but refused the same, and afterwards sold it 
for ten shillings in Rosemary Lane. The Confession of Richard Brandon, the 
Hangman, 4to, 1649. 

This Richard Brandon was, it is said, " the only son of Gregory 
Brandon, and claimed the gallows by inheritance the first he 
beheaded was the Earl of Stafford." 2 

" Rosemary Lane and Ratcliff " were the daily haunts, and the ashes 
of the neighbouring glass-house the nightly sleeping-place of Defoe's 
Colonel Jack, his business in "the case of some of the poorer shop- 
keepers " being " to look after their shops till they went up to dinner, 
or till they went over the way to an alehouse and the like." Goldsmith 
speaks of another craft than that of dealing in old clothes which was 
carried on here in his time. 

" I beg pardon sir," cried I, "but I think I have seen you before ; your face is 
familiar to me." "Yes, sir," replied he, " I have a good familiar face, as my friends 
tell me. I am as well known in every town in England as the dromedary, or live 
crocodile. You must understand, sir, that I have been these sixteen years Merry 
Andrew to a puppet-shew ; last Bartholomew fair my master and I quarrelled, beat 
each other, and parted ; he to sell his puppets to the pinnishion-makers in Rosemary 
Lane, and I to starve in St. James's Park. Goldsmith, Essay, p. 21. 

Rosoman Street (formerly ROSOMAN Row), CLERKENWELL, runs 
from Corporation Row to the New River Head. It was named after 

1 Cal, State Pap., 1619-1623, p. 305. - Ellis's Letters, 2d S., vol. iii. p. 342. 



174 ROSOMAN STREET 

a " Mr. Rosoman, a Devonshire gentleman, the owner of the land." 
John Britton, in his Autobiography (vol. i. p. 62), under date 1787, says, 
"Richard Earlom [d. 1822], the eminent mezzotint engraver, who 
lived in Rosoman Row would have taken me [as an apprentice] with 
a small premium, but the opportunity was neglected." At the end of 
Rosoman Row was one of the series of ponds which distinguished the 
district of Clerkenwell and Spa Fields. By it was one of the conduits 
for the supply of London with water, and close at hand were the London 
Spa and Merlin's Cave, " places of great public resort " in the last half 
of the 1 8th century. \See Spa Fields.] Both these signs remain, 
the London Spa in Exmouth Street and Merlin's Cave in Rosoman 
Street, but they are now ordinary "wine vaults." 

There was a reservoir at the corner of Rosoman Street, opposite the London 
Spaw public house, until the erection of the houses there about 1812. On the west 
side of this reservoir was a building with which water wheels, to aid the supply of 
London, were once connected ; they are represented in a small inferior print giving 
a north view of the Metropolis [one of a series of Views of North London from the 
Bowling Green at Islington], without date, but which was probably engraved about 
1780. Cromwell's History of Clerkenwell, 1828, p. 349. 

In Rosoman Street are the Clerkenwell Vestry Hall, St. James's 
and Cow Cross Mission Halls, and St. Peter and St. Paul Roman 
Catholic Church. 

Rotherhithe, corruptly REDRIFF, a manor and parish on the right 
bank of the Thames, in the county of Surrey, between Bermondsey and 
Deptford. It is not mentioned in Domesday Book, and was, at the 
time of the Conquest, a hamlet in the royal manor of Bermondsey. 
The name appears as "yEtheredes hyd" in a charter of A.D. 898, 
printed in Birch's Cartularium, vol. ii. p. 220. In the i7th century 
it had come to be so generally called Redriff that out of twenty trade 
tokens, recorded by Mr. Burn, nineteen spelt it Redriff; in the twentieth 
it was Rothorith, I666. 1 Philip Henslowe used to send his horse "to 
grasse to Redreffe." The charge in 1600 was twentypence a 
week. 2 

The living is a rectory. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, was 
built 1714-1715 on the site of a smaller church. It was enlarged 
and the steeple added in 1738. It is a large brick building with 
stone dressings, and a lantern, and columns of the Corinthian order. 
The architect is unknown. In the churchyard is the monument 
erected by the East India Company to the memory of Prince Lee 
Boo, a native of the Pelew or Palas Islands, and son to Abba Thulle 
Rupack, or King of the Island Coo-roo-raa, who died from the 
smallpox in Captain Wilson's house in Paradise Row, December 
29, 1784. The inscription records that the stone was erected "as 
a testimony of the humane and kind treatment afforded by his father 
to the crew of the Antelope, Captain Wilson, which was wrecked 
off the island of Coo-roo-raa on the night of the 9th of August, 

1 Burn, Desc. Cat. of London Traders Tokens, p. 201. 2 Henslowe's Diary, p. 81. 



ROTTEN ROW 175 



1783." Besides the mother church there are three or four district 
churches. Rotherhithe has always been much inhabited by seafaring 
people. Admiral Sir John Leake (d. 1720), distinguished on many 
occasions, from the Relief of Londonderry to the Battle of La Hogue 
and the reduction of Barcelona, was born at Rotherhithe in 1656. 
Manning states that the brave old Admiral Benbow was born in 
Wintershull Street, now Hanover Street, Rotherhithe. 1 But this is a 
mistake ; he was born at Coton Hill, Shrewsbury. Gulliver, so Swift 
tells us, was long an inhabitant of the place. " It was as true as if 
Mr. Gulliver had spoken it," was a sort of proverb among his neigh- 
bours at Redriff. In Rotherhithe are the extensive Commercial Docks. 
The south entrance to the Thames Tunnel was in Swan Lane, but since 
the tunnel has been appropriated for the passage under the Thames of 
the East London Railway it has been closed to foot-passengers. 
Rotherhithe has many wharves, stairs, docks, yards, granaries, manu- 
factories and shops, connected with maritime and river traffic. 

On June i, 1765, a fire broke out in a mast-yard near Rotherhithe 
Church, which destroyed 206 houses. 

Some discussion having arisen in connection with Turner's grand 
picture of " The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be 
broken up, 1838," as to where was the last berth of the good ship, the 
Rev. E. J. Beck, Rector of Rotherhithe, wrote a letter to the Times 
(December 20, 1877), in which is the following interesting passage : 

She was broken up not at Deptford, but at Rotherhithe, at the ship-breaking 
yard then in the occupation of the late Mr. John Beatson. It may interest your 
readers and the admirers of Turner's beautiful picture to know that the exact spot to 
which the good ship was towed is within a few yards of the Surrey Canal entrance 
of the Grand Surrey Commercial Docks. It so happened that while the Temeraire 
was still in process of destruction a chapel of ease to the old parish church of 
Rotherhithe was being erected within a short distance of the ship-breaker's yard, 
and Mr. Beatson presented to the architect (who was a relation of his own) sufficient 
timber to make the holy table, altar rails, and two large sanctuary chairs, which are 
still in use in the church of St. Paul's, Globe Street, Rotherhithe, consecrated in 
June 1850. The last of the wooden ships broken up in the same yard was the 
Queen, about five years since. The figure-heads of various old ships of the Fleet 
still adorn the entrance gates in Rotherhithe Street. Times, December 20, '77. 

The last line will recall another memorable picture, " Old Friends," 
by H. S. Marks, R.A., which attracted much notice at the Royal 
Academy Exhibition of 1879. 

Rotten Row, HYDE PARK, a roadway for saddle-horses only, on 
the south side of Hyde Park, between Hyde Park Corner and 
Kensington ; within the last few years a supplementary ride has been 
formed on the north side of the Serpentine, from Cumberland Gate to 
Victoria Gate. Many absurd etymologies have been proposed for the 
name, but the most probable is the apparent one, that it is called after 
the rotten soil of which it is composed. The privilege of driving along 
Rotten Row is confined to the Sovereign and the Hereditary Grand 

1 Manning's Surrey, vol. i. p. 229. 



1 76 ROTTEN ROW 



Falconer. In the months of May, June, and part of July, between the 
hours of twelve and two, and five and seven, Rotten Row is crowded 
with hundreds of equestrians, ladies in great numbers adding brilliancy 
to the scene. 

Horsed in Cheapside, scarce yet the gayer spark 
Achieves the Sunday triumph of the Park ; 
Scarce yet you see him, dreading to be late, 
Scour the New Road and dash thro' Grosvenor Gate : 
Anxious yet timorous too ! his steed to show, 
The hack Bucephalus of Rotten Row. 
Careless he seems, yet, vigilantly sly, 
Woos the stray glance of ladies passing by, 
While his off-heel, insidiously aside, 
Provokes the caper which he seems to chide. 

R. Brinsley Sheridan, Prologue tp Lady Craven's Comedy, The Miniature Picture, 
1781. 

When its quicksilver's down at zero, lo ! 

Coach, chariot, luggage, baggage, equipage ! 
Wheels whirl from Carlton Palace to Soho, 

And happiest they who horses can engage ; 
The turnpikes glow with dust ; and Rotten Row 

Sleeps from the chivalry of this bright age ; 

And tradesmen, with long bills and longer faces, 

Sigh as the post-boys fasten on the traces. 

Don Juan, Canto xiii., stanza 44. 

Round Court, ST. MARTIN'S-IN-THE-FIELDS, on the north-west 
side of the Strand, " almost," says Hatton, " against Buckingham Street 
end." It is particularly mentioned in No. 304 of the Spectator, and is 
carefully laid down in Strype's Map of St. Martin' s-in-the-Fields. It was 
partly in the Bermudas and partly in Porridge Island. The site is now 
occupied by the Charing Cross Hospital. A once popular book, 
Johnson's Lives of Highwaymen (fol. 1736), was "Printed for and Sold 
by Olive Payne at Horace's Head in Round Court in the Strand, 
over against York Buildings." 

Round House (The). [See St. Martin's Lane, Charing Cross.] 

Rowland Hill's Chapel, the corner of Little Charlotte Street, 
Blackfriars Road, called also SURREV CHAPEL. The first stone 
of this chapel, which in plan was nearly the same as the Whitefield or 
Countess of Huntingdon's Tabernacles, was laid by Rowland Hill 
himself, June 24, 1782. The architect was William Thomas. The 
funds for the building were raised by a subscription, to which Lord 
George Gordon gave ,$0. It was opened for service June 8, 1783, 
and Hill preached his last sermon in it March 31, 1833. The building 
was 80 feet in diameter, and would accommodate 3000 persons. Hill 
died at his house adjoining the chapel on the nth of April following, 
and by his own special desire a grave was dug for him beneath the 
pulpit which he had filled for fifty years. He was gifted with a rich 
flow of natural humour, which was always under perfect control, but 
this was merely a secondary part of the character of his preaching. 



ROYAL ACADEMY OF AKTS 177 

His great contemporary Robert Hall pronounced emphatically that 
" no man has ever drawn, since the days of our Saviour, such sublime 
images from nature : here Mr. Hill cxcells every other man." 

In 1876 the congregation, presided over by the Rev. Newman Hall, 
removed to Christ Church, a large and costly building which they had 
erected at the junction of the Kennington and Westminster Bridge 
Roads, on a site formerly occupied by the Female Orphan Asylum, 
and the body of Rowland Hill was removed at the same time. 
Rowland Hill practised vaccination before the treatment was sanctioned 
by public approbation, the vestry of the chapel being then one of the 
chief London stations. Hannah More " asked him if it were true that 
he had vaccinated six thousand people with his own hand. He answered, 
Madam, it was nearer eight thousand." 

Royal Academy of Arts, BURLINGTON HOUSE, PICCADILLY. 
The Academy was constituted by an instrument, which was signed 
by the King (George III.) as patron, December 10, 1768. In this 
instrument it is described as "a Society for promoting the Arts of 
Design," and is to "consist of forty members only, who shall be called 
Academicians of the Royal Academy ; they shall all of them be artists 
by profession at the time of their admission that is to say, painters, 
sculptors, or architects." In the next clause it is said to be "His 
Majesty's pleasure that the following forty persons be the original 
members of the said society," but only thirty-six are named, of whom 
two are ladies, and in fact the number was not made up to forty till 
ten or twelve years later. In December 1769 it was decided to form 
a class of associates, not to exceed twenty in number, from whom in 
future the academicians should be chosen, and in 1770 sixteen 
associates were elected. It was also resolved that there should be six 
associate engravers, who were not however to be eligible for election to 
the higher grade. 

The Academy established itself and opened its schools at Dillon's 
print warehouse, formerly Lamb's auction rooms, in Pall Mall, adjoining 
Carlton House, and immediately east of where the United Service 
Club now stands ; and here, at the first public meeting of the Academy, 
January 2, 1769, Sir Joshua Reynolds delivered the first of his famous 
Presidential Discourses. The first exhibition of the Academy was 
opened in these rooms on April 26, 1769, and contained 136 
paintings. In 1771 the King gave the Academy apartments in 
Somerset House, in that part of the old mansion facing the river which 
had been added by Inigo Jones. But though well adapted for the 
ordinary purposes of the society, there were no rooms suited for the 
exhibitions, which continued to be held in Pall Mall till 1780, when the 
apartments in New Somerset House, built by Sir William Chambers for 
the use of the Academy, by special desire of the King, were ready to 
receive them. They remained here for fifty-eight years, and removed 
in May 1838 to Trafalgar Square, where they continued thirty-one years, 
and migrated to Burlington House in 1869. 

VOL. Ill N 



178 ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS 

May, 1780. You know, I suppose, that the Royal Academy at Somerset House 
is opened. It is quite a Roman Palace, and finished in perfect taste as well as at 
boundless expense. It would have been a glorious apparition at the conclusion of 
the great war ; now it is an insult on our poverty and degradation. . . . 
Gainsborough has five landscapes there, of which one especially is worthy of any 
collection, and of any painter that ever existed. Walpole to Mason. 

May I, 1780. The Exhibition, Now will do either to see or not to see ! The 
Exhibition is eminently splendid. There is contour and keeping, and grace, and 
expression, and all the varieties of artificial excellence. The apartments are truly 
very noble. The pictures, for the sake of a skylight, are at the top of the house ; 
there we dined, and I sat over against the Archbishop of York. -Johnson to Mrs. 
Thrale. 

Gainsborough had sixteen pictures in this exhibition, among them 

the famous Horses drinking at a Trough. Reynolds contributed the 

portrait of Gibbon, and the almost equally well-known portrait of Miss 

Beauclerk as Una. The dinner to which Johnson alludes is that which 

was first given in Old Somerset House before the opening of the 

Exhibition, and has ever since formed one of the features of the London 

Season, and to which the highest and the most eminent deem it an 

honour to be invited. In the "Constitution and Laws" of the 

Academy it is laid down that " The guests shall consist exclusively 

of persons in elevated situations, of high rank, distinguished talents, or 

known patrons of the Arts," and the rule has been strictly adhered to 

for now more than a century. Writing to Mrs. Thrale in May 1783, 

Johnson says, "The Exhibition prospers so much that Sir Joshua says 

it will maintain the Academy." Sir Joshua's anticipations were well 

founded. From that time the Royal Academy has derived the whole 

of its funds from the produce of the annual exhibition. The members 

are under the superintendence and control of the Monarch, who confirms 

all elections, appointments, and alterations in the laws ; but the Academy 

is regarded by the members as a "private society, though it supports 

a school that is open to the public," x a position which the Parliamentary 

Commission of 1863 considered to be ambiguous. As now constituted 

the Royal Academy consists of forty royal academicians (including the 

President) and thirty associates. The honorary members not a fixed 

number comprise " honorary retired academicians," " honorary foreign 

academicians " all artists of distinction, and five " honorary members" 

(a chaplain, two professors, an antiquary, and a foreign secretary, whose 

duties are as honorary as their titles). The schools "provide means 

of instruction for students of painting, sculpture, architecture, and 

engraving," and are open, without charge, to students who satisfy the 

authorities that they " have already attained such a proficiency as will 

enable them to draw or model well," and have a certain rudimentary 

acquaintance with anatomy, or, if a student in architecture, "a 

reasonable degree of proficiency " in the elementary stages of that art. 

The schools are under the direction of the keeper, visitors, and 

professors, the professorial staff comprising professors of painting, 

sculpture, architecture, anatomy, and chemistry, a teacher of perspective, 

1 Evidence of Mr. Howard, R.A., the Secretary, before Committee of the House of Commons, 1835. 



ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS 179 

and a master in the class of architecture. The fine library of books of 
prints belonging to the Academy is open to the students. Directions 
as to the mode of obtaining admission as a student may be obtained 
on application to the Secretary at Burlington House. Connected with the 
school is a large collection of busts from the antique. The Academy 
also possesses some interesting pictures and many fine drawings by 
the old masters, among them being a cartoon of Leda, by Michelangelo; 
one of a Holy Family in black chalk by Leonardo da Vinci ; and a 
copy in oil, the size of the original, of Da Vinci's Last Supper, by 
Leonardo's scholar, Marco d'Oggione, which is probably of greater value 
than the original at Milan in its present dreadfully damaged condition. 
This was formerly in the Certosa at Pavia. The Academy possesses 
a few pieces of sculpture, the most noteworthy being a bas-relief in 
marble of the Holy Family by Michelangelo, presented by Sir George 
Beaumont. The models and casts of the works of the late John 
Gibson, R.A., were presented to the Academy by his widow, and are 
arranged in a room called the Gibson Gallery. 

By a law passed in 1770 every member has on his election to present 
to the Academy a specimen of his art. It did not apply to those already 
elected, and consequently it has no " diploma work " of the thirty-six 
original academicians, but it has a work from the pencil or chisel of 
every academician elected since that year; and a very interesting 
collection it forms. Thus there are in the class of historical and 
imaginative works Jael and Sisera, by Northcote ; Age and Infancy, 
Opie ; Thor and the Serpent of Midgard, Fuseli ; Charity, Stothard ; 
Prospero and Miranda, Thomson ; Venus and Adonis, Phillips ; 
Proclaiming Joash King, Bird ; Ganymede, Hilton ; Queen Katherine, 
Leslie ; Sleeping Nymphs and Satyrs, Etty ; Hagar and Ishmael, 
Eastlake ; and St. Gregory teaching his Chant, Herbert. In works of 
a somewhat less ambitious order The Fortune Teller, Ozias 
Humphrey ; A Gipsy Girl, Sir Thomas Lawrence ; Horses in a Storm, 
Sawrey Gilpin ; Boy and Kitten, Owen ; Boys digging for a Rat, 
Wilkie ; Boy and Rabbit, Raeburn ; The Village Buffoon, Mulready ; 
The Student, Newton ; The Faithful Hound, Sir Edwin Landseer ; 
Italian Mother, Uwins ; The Woodranger, Maclise ; Early Lesson, 
Webster. Among landscapes are Dolbadern Castle, Turner; 
Morning, Callcott; Young Anglers, Collins; Barge passing a Lock, 
Constable; On the Scheldt, Stanfield, and Baalbec, Roberts. The 
sculpture includes Cupid and Psyche, by Nollekens; Sickness, 
Bacon ; A Falling Giant, Banks ; Apollo and Marpessa, Flaxman ; 
Jupiter and Ganymede, Sir R. Westmacott ; Bacchanalian Group in 
Bronze, Theed; Bust of Benjamin West, P.R.A., Chantrey; Eve, 
Baily ; Narcissus, Gibson; Nymph, M'Dowell; the Elder Brother in 
Comus, Foley. But though there are no diploma works by the 
foundation members, the Academy possesses some good works by 
them, among others seven by Reynolds, including George III. and 
Queen Charlotte in their coronation robes, presented by George III. ; 



i8o 



Portraits of himself as D.C.L., and of Sir William Chambers, presented 
by Reynolds and both very fine works. By Gainsborough, his own 
and another portrait and a landscape; and by West his Christ 
Blessing Little Children, and two or three more. These will now be 
swelled by other works of the British School dating from the present 
time. Sir Francis Chantrey by his will bequeathed the reversion of 
his property, after payment of other bequests, on the death of his 
widow, to the Royal Academy, to be invested and the interest laid out 
annually in the purchase of works of the highest merit that can be 
obtained, in painting and sculpture, " which may hereafter be executed 
by artists resident in Great Britain when they were completed." The 
legacy has fallen in, and already several excellent paintings, exhibited 
at the South Kensington Museum, and some good pieces of sculpture 
have been purchased. 

In 1868 the eastern wing of the National Gallery, till then occupied 
by the Royal Academy, being required for the National pictures, the 
Government granted the Academy in exchange a lease for 999 years 
at a nominal rent of Old Burlington House with part of the garden 
behind. The house was altered, a new storey added and a range of 
spacious galleries erected in the rear, at a cost of about ;i 20,000. 
The new galleries, which, with the alterations in the house, were designed 
by Mr. Sidney Smirke, R. A., comprise, besides the vestibule, octagonal, 
central hall and gallery beyond, which form the sculpture galleries, 
a great room, in which the annual dinner is held, a lecture hall and 
nine other rooms, all of which are appropriated to the Exhibition. The 
three galleries in the upper storey of Burlington House contain the 
diploma pictures, the Gibson models, and the miscellaneous pictures 
and works of art belonging to the Academy. The library, offices, etc., 
are in the body of the building, the schools are in the basement. 

The Annual Exhibition" of the Works of Living Artists opens to 
the public on the first Monday in May and closes on the first Monday 
in August. The annual dinner is held on the Saturday preceding the 
opening day. Works for exhibition are received from any artists, 
subject to approval or rejection by the Council. No works that have 
been previously exhibited, or copies of any kind are admitted. Pictures, 
etc., have to be sent in about five weeks before the opening of the 
Exhibition, but the exact days are always advertised in the newspapers 
and generally printed in the catalogue of the previous exhibition. On 
removing to Burlington House the Academy arranged for a Winter 
Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters and Deceased Masters of the 
British School, similar to those of the British Institution, which had 
lapsed with the close of that institution. These exhibitions are opened 
on the first Monday in January and close on the second Saturday in 
March. 

Royal Academy Of Music. [See Academy of Music.] 

Royal Aquarium, TOTHILL STREET, WESTMINSTER, a large 



THE ROYAL EXCHANGE 181 

building constructed from the designs of Mr. A. Bedborough in 1876 
as an aquarium and winter garden, at a cost of nearly ,200,000. 
The building, which is of red brick and Portland stone, is about 600 
feet long and 160 wide. It was started as an institution for the moral 
elevation of the people by the contemplation of the wonders of nature. 
As a winter garden it failed completely, and it is now a sort of magnified 
"music hall," in which scantily dressed females go through "exciting" 
acrobatic performances, or are shot out of cannons, "genuine Zulus" 
dance, and female swimmers exhibit " aquatic feats " in the great tank, 
or fasting men are exhibited to a gaping crowd. Part of the western 
end of the building is fitted as a theatre, at present named The Imperial. 

Royal Astronomical Society. [See Astronomical Society.] 

Royal Exchange (The), a quadrangle and colonnade (the third 
building of the kind on the same site), erected for the convenience of 
merchants and bankers, built from the designs of Mr. (afterwards Sir 
William) Tite. The first stone was laid by Prince Albert, January 1 7, 
1842, and the building was opened with great pomp by Her Majesty 
in person on October 28, 1844. The cost of the structure, with its 
sculpture, was about ^150,000. Of the exterior the chief feature is 
the noble portico at the west end, the most imposing in its proportions 
and dignity of effect in the metropolis. It is octostyle (having eight 
Corinthian columns) with intercolumns, and the pediment is filled 
with emblematic sculpture in high relief by Richard Westmacott, R.A. 
(the younger). The portico is 96 feet wide and 74 feet high to the 
apex of the pediment. The columns are 4 feet 2 inches in diameter 
and 41 high, including the base and capital. The extreme length 
of the building is 308 feet. The east end is 175 feet wide, or 56 feet 
wider than the west end, a peculiarity which certainly adds picturesque- 
ness to its effect when looked at from the' west. The eastern entrance 
is marked by four Corinthian columns, from which rises a clock-tower, 
170 feet high, surmounted by the Gresham grasshopper. The sides 
have ranges of Corinthian pilasters, between which are shops, originally 
deeply recessed under rusticated arches ; but the shop fronts have 
been brought forward, much to the detriment of the architectural 
effect. The inner quadrangle, or merchant? area, is an open area 1 1 1 
feet long and 53 feet wide, surrounded by an arcade about 30 feet 
deep. This was formerly open to the sky, but after many years of 
consideration it was covered about 1880 by a glass and iron roof, from 
the designs of Mr. Charles Barry, architect. In the centre is a marble 
statue small in size and insignificant in character of the Queen, by 
Lough; statues of Sir Thomas Gresham, Sir Hugh Myddelton,Sir Richard 
Whittington, and Queen Elizabeth, hy Messrs. Behnes, Joseph, Carew, 
and Watson. The western part of the building is appropriated to the 
Royal Exchange Assurance Company ; the eastern end to Lloyds. [See 
Lloyds.] The two great days on 'Change are Tuesday and Friday, 
and the busy period from half-past three to half-past four P.M. The 



1 82 THE ROYAL EXCHANGE 

Rothschilds, the greatest people on 'Change, occupy a pillar on the 
south side of the Exchange. In the open space before the west front 
of the Royal Exchange is a colossal equestrian statue of the Duke of 
Wellington by Sir Francis Chantrey. 

The first Royal Exchange was founded by Sir Thomas Gresham ; 
the first stone was laid June 7, 1566, and the building opened by 
Queen Elizabeth in person, January 23, 1570-1571. 

The Queen's Majesty, attended with her nobility, came from her house at the 
Strand called Somerset House, and entered the city by Temple Bar, through Fleet 
Street, Cheap, and so by the north side of the burse, through Threedneedle Street, 
to Sir Thomas Gresham's house in Bishopsgate Street, where she dined. After 
dinner her Majesty, returning through Cornhill, entered the burse on the south side ; 
and after that she had viewed every part thereof above the ground, especially the 
pawn, which was richly furnish'ed with all sorts of the finest wares in the city, she 
caused the same burse, by a herald and trumpet, to be proclaimed "The Royal 
Exchange," and so to be called from thenceforth, and not otherwise. Stow. 

After the Royal Exchange, which is now [1631] called the Eye of London, had 
been builded two or three years, it stood in a manner empty ; and a little before 
her Majesty was to come thither to view the beauty thereof, and to give it a name, 
Sir Thomas Gresham, in his own person, went, twice in one day, round about the 
upper pawn, and besought those few shopkeepers then present that they would 
furnish and adorn with wares and wax-lights as many shops as they either could or 
would, and they should have all those shops so furnished rent free that year, which 
otherwise at that time was 403. a shop by the year ; and within two years after he 
raised that rent unto four marks a year ; and within a while after that he raised his 
rent of every shop unto 4 : IDS. a year, and then all shops were well furnished 
according to that time ; for then the milliners or haberdashers in that place sold 
mouse-traps, bird-cages, shoeing-horns, lanthorns, and Jews' trumps, etc. There 
were also at that time that kept shops in the upper pawn of the Royal Exchange, 
armourers that sold both old and new armour, apothecaries, booksellers, goldsmiths, 
and glass -sellers, although now [1631] it is as plenteously stored with all kinds of 
rich wares and fine commodities as any particular place in Europe, into which place 
many foreign princes daily send to be best served of the best sort. Howes, ed. 
1631, p. 869. 

The materials for the construction of the Exchange were brought 
from Flanders, or, as Holinshed has it, Gresham "bargained for the 
whole mould and substance of his workmanship in Flanders," and a 
Flemish builder of the name of Henryke was employed. 1 

October 26, 1570. Sir Thomas Gresham to Cecil. Requests a special license 
for a ship to go to Flanders with alabaster, as he had a special license for trans- 
portation of his stores from Antwerp to his Burse. Cal, Eliz., p. 394. 

In general design the Exchange was not unlike the Burse at Antwerp 
a quadrangle, with a cloister running round the interior of the 
building, a corridor or " pawn " 2 above, and attics or bedrooms at the 
top. 

Just. Phew ! excuses ! You must to the Pawn to buy lawn ; to St. Martin's for 
lace, etc. Westward Ho ! (1607), vol. ii. p. i. 

On the south or Cornhill front was a bell-tower, and on the north 

1 Burgon's Life of Gresham, vol. ii. p. 115. let at a yearly rent of 20 and .30 each 

2 Bahn (German)' Baan (Dutch), a path or (Burgon, vol. ii. p. 513). These were all vacant 
walk. These were divided into stalls, and formed in 1739, when Maitland published his History of 
a kind of bazaar. In 1712 there were 160 stalls London (Maitland, p. 467). 



THE ROYAL EXCHANGE 183 

a lofty Corinthian column, each surmounted by a grasshopper the 
crest of the Greshams. The bell, in Gresham's time, was rung at 
twelve at noon and at six in the evening. 1 In niches within the quad- 
rangle, and immediately above the cloister or covered walk, stood the 
statues of our kings and queens, from Edward the Confessor to Queen 
Elizabeth. James I., Charles I., and Charles II. were afterwards 
added. Charles I.'s statue was thrown down immediately after his 
execution, and on the pedestal these words were inscribed in gilt 
letters, Exit tyrannus Regum ultimus "The tyrant is gone, the last 
of the Kings." Hume concludes his History of Charles I. with this 
little anecdote of City disaffection, which no doubt was in Addison's 
mind when he made his Tory fox-hunter satisfied that the London 
merchants had not turned republicans " when he spied the statue of 
King Charles II. standing up in the middle of the crowd, and most of 
the Kings in Baker's Chronicle ranged in order over their heads." 2 
According to the valuation made at Gresham's death 

The Royal Exchange with all Howses, Buildings, Pawnes, Vawtes, and Proffittes 
thereof, amounte to the clere yearely vallew of ^751 : 55. per ann. over all chardges 
and reprises. 3 

Of this, the first or Gresham's Exchange, there are two curious 
contemporary views in the library of the Society of Antiquaries at 
Burlington House. A still more interesting view, representing a full 
Exchange High 'Change, as Addison calls it was made in 1644 by 
Wenceslaus Hollar. It is true to Dekker's description of the Exchange 
in 1607. "At every turn," says Dekker, "a man is put in mind of 
Babel, there is such a confusion of languages." Hollar has given the 
picturesque dresses of the foreign merchants. There was then no 
necessity for printed boards to point out the particular localities set 
apart for different countries. The merchants of Amsterdam and 
Antwerp, of Hamburgh, Paris, Venice, and Vienna, were unmistakably 
distinguished by the dresses of their respective nations. The places of 
business were at this time distinguished by signs. On January 1 1, 
1635, Cromwell addressed a letter ("Oliver's first extant letter," as 
Carlyle notes 4 ) " To my very loving friend Mr. Storie, at the Sign of 
the Dog in the Royal Exchange, London." 

Gresham's Exchange was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. 
Pepys describes its appearance as " a sad sight, nothing standing there 
of all the statues or pillars, but Sir Thomas Gresham in the corner." 
When the Royal Exchange was destroyed a second time by fire 
(January 10, 1838), the statue of Sir Thomas Gresham escaped again 
uninjured. 

The second Exchange was designed by Edward Jarman or Jerman, 
the City surveyor. This also, like the Exchange of Gresham, was a 
quadrangular building, with a clock-tower of timber on the south or 
Cornhill front ; its inner cloister, or walk ; its pawn above, for the sale 

1 Burgon, vol. ii. p. 345- - Freeholder, June i, 1716. 3 Strype, Second App., p. 6. 

4 Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. p. 129. 



1 84 THE ROYAL EXCHANGE 

of fancy goods, gloves, ribbons, ruffs, bands, stomachers, etc ; l and its 
series of statues (placed in niches as before) of our kings and queens, 
from Edward I. downwards, carved for the most part by Caius Gabriel 
Gibber, father of Colley. Later were added the first two Georges by 
Rysbrack, the third George by Wilton, and George IV. Gresham's 
statue was by Edward Pierce, and the statue of Charles II., in the 
centre of the quadrangle, by Grinling Gibbons. 2 Jarman's Exchange, 
which is said to have cost ,58,962, was destroyed by fire, January 10, 
1838. 

In excavating for the new Royal Exchange the workmen came 
upon a remarkable hole measuring 50 feet by 34, which had apparently 
been a gravel pit in the time of the Romans, but closed and built over 
some time before they left the island. Numerous Roman remains, 
fragments of pottery, knives, combs, sandals, and other articles of 
domestic and personal use were found in it, apparently thrown there 
when worn out or broken. These were carefully collected by Mr. 
Tite (who drew up and printed an elaborate Descriptive Catalogue of 
them), and are now in the City Museum, Guildhall. 

Royal Exchange Buildings, facing the east front of the Royal 
Exchange, were built in 1846 from the designs of the late Edward 
I'Anson. The ground is the property of Magdalen College, Oxford. 
At the north end of Royal Exchange Buildings was erected in 1869 
a seated statue in bronze of George Peabody, an American, who so 
munificently provided improved dwellings for the London poor. The 
statue was modelled by Mr. Peabody's countryman, Mr. W. W. Story, 
and was cast at Munich. When first set up it was of a bright golden 
hue, but has already become so black as to render the features almost 
undistinguishable a matter the more to be regretted as the likeness was 
pronounced by Mr. Peabody's friends to be both true and characteristic. 
Near the statue was erected in 1879 a very pretty drinking-fountain 
with a marble statue of Charity. It cost ^1500. 

Royal Free Hospital, east side of GRAY'S INN ROAD. This 
hospital was founded in 1828, "to receive all Destitute Sick and 
Diseased Persons, to whatever Nation they may belong, who may 
choose to present themselves as Out-Patients, and as great a number 
of In-Patients as the state of the Charity will permit." Previously 
there was no medical establishment in London into which the destitute 
poor, when overtaken by disease, could find instant admission without 
a letter of recommendation. The hospital has recently been much 
enlarged, and now contains 150 beds. It admits into its wards about 
1900 in-patients, and administers advice and medicine to over 21,000 
out-patients annually. The income in 1888 from charitable con- 
tributions and legacies was ^11,250, and from invested funds 1077. 
The hospital relieves the sick of a very poor and thickly inhabited 
district. 

1 See the Fair Maid of the Exchange, by T. 2 Gibbons received .500 for it. See Wright's 

Heywood, 410, 1607. Publick Transactions, i2mo, 1685, p. 198. 



ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN 185 

Royal Geographical Society. [See Geographical Society, 
Royal.] 

Royal Horticultural Society. [See Horticultural Society, 
Royal.] 

Royal Humane Society. [See Humane Society.] 

Royal Institute of British Architects. [See Institute of 
British Architects, Royal.] 

Royal Institution of Great Britain, 21 ALEEMARLE STREET, 
PICCADILLY, established March 9, 1799, at a meeting held at the house 
of Sir Joseph Banks, for diffusing the knowledge and facilitating the 
general introduction of useful mechanical inventions and improvements, 
etc. Count Rumford was its earliest promoter, and in a Poetical 
Epistle to him some portions of the scheme were handled with 
considerable humour, more particularly the " Refreshment Room." 

With rapture have I visited thy house 

And marvell'd at thy vast extent of vouj. 

Thanks to thy care that, midst its ample round, 

Soup, tea and toast, and coffee may be found ; 

And wine, and punch, and porter freshening draught, 

Mending the monstrous wear and (ear of thought, 

Thus a new birth shall Rumford's glory tell, 

And from its bowels spring a grand Hotel. 

The front of the building a row of half-engaged Corinthian columns 
was designed by Mr. Lewis Vulliamy ; and what, before 1837, was 
little better than a perforated brick wall, was thus converted into an 
ornamental faade. Here are a convenient lecture-theatre, one of the 
best for its acoustic properties of any in London, an excellent library 
of about 50,000 volumes, and a good reading-room, with weekly courses 
of lectures throughout the season, on science, philosophy, literature, 
and art. Members are elected by ballot. The admission fee is 5 
guineas, and the annual subscription 5 guineas. Annual subscribers 
pay the same subscription, with an entrance fee of one guinea. 
A syllabus of each course may be obtained of the secretary at the 
Institution. The Friday evening meetings of the members, at which 
some eminent person is invited to deliver a popular lecture on some 
subject of interest connected with science, art, or literature, are well 
attended. Campbell delivered his lectures on poetry here in 1812, 
but "was nervous about his Caledonianisms." He was paid 100 
guineas for the five, then a large honorarium. 1 Moore was invited 
to lecture but was advised not. 

July I, 1813. I was solicited very flatteringly to lecture at the Royal 
Institution next year. Campbell has just ended his lectures. I should not have 
disliked it, but by Rogers' advice, and that of some other friends (who thought it 
infra dig.) I declined it. Life of Thomas Moore, vol. viii. p. 145. 

1 Life, vol. ii. p. 212. 



1 86 ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN 

In the laboratory of the Royal Institution Davy made his great 
discoveries on the metallic bases of the alkalies and the earths, aided 
by the large galvanic apparatus of the establishment. His laboratory 
note-books, in which these discoveries are recorded, are preserved in 
the library. And here his assistant and successor carried out those 
investigations in chemistry, electricity and magnetism which placed 
him in the foremost rank among the scientific men of Europe. 
Faraday was appointed laboratory assistant, and went to reside "in 
two rooms at the top of the house," on March i, 1813 ; and here he 
resided continuously until 1858, when Her Majesty gave him a residence 
at Hampton Court. He delivered his last " Juvenile Course " on 
"The Chemistry of a Candle" in 1860, and on June 20, 1862, his 
last Friday evening discourse ; but he retained his post as laboratory 
director till 1865. 

Royal Military Asylum (popularly THE DUKE OF YORK'S 
SCHOOL), CHELSEA. Built from the designs of John Sanders in 1801. 
Founded for the maintenance and education of orphan children of 
British soldiers. The children, 500 in number, are admitted between 
the ages of ten and twelve and leave when fourteen. 

Royal Society, BURLINGTON HOUSE. Incorporated by royal 
charter, April 22, 1663, as "the Royal Society of London for the 
advancement of Natural Science," King Charles II. and his brother 
the Duke of York entering their names as members of the Society. 
This celebrated Society (boasting of the names of Newton, Wren, 
Halley, Cavendish, Watt, Herschel, Davy and Faraday among its 
members) originated in a small attendance of men engaged in the 
same pursuits, and dates its beginning from certain weekly meetings 
held in London as early as the year 1645; "sometimes," as Wallis 
relates, "at Dr. Goddard's lodgings in Wood Street; sometimes at a 
convenient place [the Bull Head Tavern] in Cheapside; and sometimes 
at Gresham College, or some place near adjoining." The merit of 
suggesting such meetings is assigned by Wallis (himself a foundation 
member) to Theodore Haak, a German of the Palatinate, then resident 
in London. The Civil War interrupted their pursuits for a time ; and 
Wilkins, Wallis and Goddard removing to Oxford, a second Society 
was established, Seth Ward, Ralph Bathurst, Dr. (afterwards Sir William) 
Petty and the Honourable Robert Boyle joining their number, and 
taking an active part in the furtherance of their views. With the Resto- 
ration of the King a fresh accession of strength was obtained, new 
members enlisted, meetings were again held in Gresham College, and on 
November 28, 1660, a resolution was adopted to establish the meetings 
on a regular basis, the memorandum of this meeting being, according 
to the Society's historian, "the first official record of the Royal 
Society." 1 It was agreed, December 12, 1660, to hold the meetings 
of the Society weekly at Gresham College, where "a subject" was 

1 Weld, Hist, of Royal Soc., vol. ii. p. 65. 



ROYAL SOCIETY 187 



given out for discussion and very frequently experiments were 
performed. Almost from the first the King showed an active interest in 
the proceedings, and did the fellows " the favour and honour of offering 
to be entered on the Society," and on July 15, 1662, granted them a 
Charter of Incorporation, and when this was found to have "failed in 
giving the Society certain privileges essential to their welfare," granted 
them a new patent, which passed the Great Seal on April 22, 1663, and 
is the acting charter of the Society at the present day. 1 The Society 
continued to hold its meetings in Gresham College ; and after the 
Great Fire, by permission of the Duke of Norfolk, in Arundel House. 
Subsequently the Society returned to Gresham College ; but in 1710 
removed to Crane Court, Fleet Street, and from thence in 1782 to 
Somerset House, where apartments had been assigned to them by 
George III. These being required for Government offices they 
removed in 1857 to Old Burlington House; and in 1873 to the 
new east wing which had been erected with especial regard to the 
Society's requirements. 

The meetings of the Society are held weekly (on Thursdays) from 
November to June. From among the candidates fifteen are annually 
selected by the Council for election by the members. At the Anniversary 
Meeting in November 1889 there was a total of 518 Fellows (including 
47 Honorary Foreign Members). The letters F.R.S. are the distinguish- 
ing mark of a Fellow. The patron saint of the Society is St. Andrew, 
and the Anniversary Meeting is held every 3oth of November, being St. 
Andrew's Day. The Scottish saint was chosen out of compliment to Sir 
Robert Murray or Moray, a Scot, one of the most active of the foundation 
members and president of the Society before the charter. When the 
Society was first established it was severely ridiculed by the wits of the 
time, " for what reason," says Dr. Johnson, " it is hard to conceive, since 
the philosophers professed not to advance doctrines, but to produce 
facts ; and the most zealous enemy of innovation must admit the 
gradual progress of experience, however he may oppose hypothetical 
temerity." Isaac D'Israeli has given an account of the hostilities it 
encountered, but, curiously enough, has overlooked the inimitable 
satire of Butler, called The Elephant in the Moon. The History of the 
Society was written by Sprat in 1667, by Birch in 1756, by Thomson 
in 1812, and by Weld in 1848. Mr. Weld has made the same 
omission as Mr. D'Israeli. The Philosophical Transactions, commenced 
in 1666, now occupy nearly 200 quarto volumes. The Proceedings, 
commenced in 1832, consist of forty-six volumes up to 1889. The first 
president after the incorporation of the Society was Viscount Brouncker, 
and the second Sir Joseph Williamson. Sir Christopher Wren was the 
third. Pepys the diarist and seven others, among whom were Halifax 
and Somers, came before Sir Isaac Newton, who, however, retained the 
chair till his death twenty -four years afterwards. Sir Hans Sloane 
succeeded Newton. Sir Joseph Banks was president from 1778 to 1820. 

1 Weld, Hist, of Royal Soc,, vol. i. p. 141. 



i88 ROYAL SOCIETY 



Among the secretaries have been Bishop Wilkins, John Evelyn, Hans 
Sloane, Edmund Halley, Wollaston, Robert Hooke, Sir Humphry 
Davy, and Sir John Herschel. 

The Society possesses some interesting portraits. Observe. Three 
portraits of Sir Isaac Newton one by C. Jervas, presented by Newton 
himself, and the other two by Vanderbank ; Bacon, by Van Somer ; 
two portraits of Halley, by Thomas Murray and Dahl ; two of Hobbes 
one taken in 1663 by, says Aubrey, "a good hand," and the other 
by Caspars, presented by Aubrey ; Sir Christopher Wren, by Kneller ; 
Wallis,by Soest; Flamsteed, by Gibson ; Robert Boyle, by F. Kerseboom 
(Evelyn says it is like) ; Pepys, by Kneller, presented by Pepys ; Lord 
Somers, by Kneller ; Sir R. Southwell, by Kneller ; Sir H. Spelman, 
the antiquary, by Mytens ; Sir Hans Sloane, by Kneller ; Sir Joseph 
Banks, by Phillips ; Lord Brouncker, by Lely ; Dr. S. Chandler, by 
Chamberlain ; Sir John Pringle, by Reynolds. Dr. Birch, by Wells, the 
original of the mezzotint done by Faber in 1741, bequeathed by 
Birch; Martin Folkes, by Hogarth; Dr. Wollaston, by Jackson; Sir 
Humphry Davy, by Sir T. Lawrence; Dr. Price, by West. Observe also. 
The mace of silver gilt (similar to the maces of the Lord Chancellor, 
the Speaker, and President of the College of Physicians), presented to 
the Society by Charles II. in 1662. The belief so long entertained 
that it was the mace or " bauble," as Cromwell called it, of the Long 
Parliament, was completely refuted by the late C. R. Weld, the 
assistant secretary, producing the original warrant of the year 1662, for 
the special making of this very mace. A solar dial, made by Sir Isaac 
Newton when a boy, and taken from the house at Woolsthorpe ; a 
reflecting telescope, made in 1671 by Newton's own hands; original 
MS. of the Principia ; lock of Newton's hair, silver white ; MS. of the 
Parentalia, by Christopher Wren, the son ; Charter Book of the Society, 
bound in crimson velvet, containing the signatures of the Founder and 
Fellows ; marble busts of Charles II. and George III., by Nollekens ; 
Newton, by Roubiliac ; Sir Joseph Banks, by Chantrey, and Mrs. 
Somerville, by Chantrey. The Society possesses a library of about 
40,000 volumes almost exclusively scientific; a Scientific Relief Fund; 
a Donation Fund, established to aid men of science in their researches, 
and distributes five gold medals in all ; a biennial Rumford gold medal, 
two Royal medals, a Copley medal, called by Davy "the ancient olive 
crown of the Royal Society," and a Davy medal. 

Royal Society of Literature, 2 1 DELAHAY STREET, ST. JAMES'S 
PARK. Founded in 1825 "for the advancement of Literature in its 
more important branches, with a special attention to the improve- 
ment of the English Language," and incorporated by royal charter, 
September 13, 1826. George IV. gave noo guineas a year to this 
Society, which has the merit of rescuing the last years of Coleridge's 
life from complete dependence on a friend, and of placing the learned 
Dr. Jamieson, who was fast sinking to the grave, above want. This 



RUFFIAN'S HALL 189 



grant was discontinued by William IV., and the Society has since 
become an ordinary Transaction Society. The Society, in its earlier 
existence, awarded gold medals to eminent writers, and published some 
valuable works on Egyptian hieroglyphics and on the Anglo-Saxon and 
Anglo-Norman periods of English literary history. The Society occu- 
pied a house in St. Martin's Place until this was required for the 
enlargement of the National Gallery and the opening for the new 
Charing Cross Road. 

Royalty Theatre (New), DEAN STREET, SOHO, is a small house 
built in 1840 by Miss Kelly for her school of acting, and then and 
afterwards much used for amateur performances. It is now chiefly 
devoted to burlesque and farce. 

Royalty Theatre, WELL STREET, WELLCLOSE SQUARE, was built 
by John Wilmot for John Palmer, the actor. The first stone was laid 
with great ceremony on Monday, December 26, 1785, the inscription 
declaring that "The ground selected for the purpose being situated 
within the Liberty of His Majesty's Fortress and Palace of the Tower 
of London, It has been resolved that in honour of the Magistrates, the 
Military Officers and Inhabitants of the said Fortress and Palace, the 
edifice when erected shall be called the Royalty Theatre." It was 
opened June 20, 1787, with a prologue by Murphy, and burnt down 
April u, 1826. It was originally intended for the performance of 
five-act pieces, and opened with As You Like It ; but the patentees of 
the other theatres memorialising the Lord Chamberlain on the subject, 
the new theatre was confined to pantomimes and still smaller entertain- 
ments until the restrictions on the " minor theatres " were removed. 
The ill-starred Brunswick Theatre was erected on its site. 

December 5, 1806. Having never seen the Royalty Theatre I determined that 
day should be devoted to that purpose. . . . The theatre is very plain but neat : 
the house seemed to me something larger than the Haymarket : the pit isVsmall, but 
I was told the middle gallery would contain a thousand people. George Fred. 
Cooke's Journal. 

Cooke seems to have thought that Wellclose Square was at the 
other end of the world, for he started at eight o'clock in the morning to 
make his visit. At one of the public-houses into which he went for 
refreshment the landlady told him that she had been obliged to remove 
the leaden weights from the clock to save them from the thieve^ who 
resorted there ! John Braham commenced his career as a singer at 
the Royalty Theatre; and here Clarkson Stanfield, the future R.A., 
after quitting the sea, started on his artistic course as a scene-painter. 
The site is now occupied by the Sailors' Home. 

Ruffian's Hall, a cant name for West Smithfield, " by reason it 
was the usuall place of frayes and common fighting during the time 
that sword and bucklers were in use." J 

1 Howes, ed. 1631, p. 1023. 



1 90 RUFFIAN'S HALL 



As if men will needes carouse, conspire and quarrel, that they may make Ruffian's 
Hall of Hell. Pierce Penilesse, 4to, 1592 (Collier's Reprint, p. 35). 
Beat down their weapons ! My gate Ruffian's Hall ? 
What insolence is this ? 

Massinger, The City Madam, Act. i. Sc. 2. 

Rummer Tavern (The). A famous tavern, two doors from 
Locket's, between Whitehall and Charing Cross, removed to the 
waterside of Charing Cross in 1710, and burnt down November 7, 
1750. No traces exist. It was kept in Charles II. 's reign by Samuel 
Prior, uncle of Matthew Prior, the poet. The Prior family ceased to 
be connected with it in 1702. 

My uncle, rest his soul ! when living, 

Might have contriv'd me ways of thriving : 

Taught me with cider to replenish 

My vats, or ebbing tide of Rhenish. 

So when for hock I drew prickt white-wine, 

Swear't had the flavour, and was right wine. 

Prior to Fleetwood Shepheard. 

There having been a false and scandalous report that Samuel Pryor, vintner at 
the Rummer, near Charing Cross, was accused of exchanging money for his own 
advantage, with such as clip and deface his Majesty's coin, and that tlie said Pryor 
had given bail to answer the same. This report being false in every part of it, if any 
person who shall give notice to the said Pryor, who have been the fomenters or dis- 
persers of this malicious report, so as a legal prosecution may be made against them, 
the said Pryor will forthwith give 10 guineas as a reward. London Gazette, May 
31 to June 4, 1688. 

Col. Standard. If you are my friend meet me this evening at the Rummer. 
Farquhar, The Inconstant Couple, Act i. Sc. I. 

And again 

Col. Then meet me in half an hour hence at the Rummer. Ibid., Act. iv. Sc. 3. 

Here Jack Sheppard committed his first robbery by stealing two 
silver spoons. The Rummer is introduced by Hogarth into his picture 
of " Night." There were Rummer Taverns in Henrietta Street, 1 Covent 
Garden, and Queen Street, Cheapside ; also a Swan and Rummer in 
Finch Lane, and a Rummer and Horse-shoe in Drury Lane. 

Rupert Street, HAYMARKET, east side of Coventry Street to Great 
Crown Court, built in 1667, and so called in compliment to Prince 
Rupert of the Rhine, son of the King of Bohemia, and nephew to 
Charles I. 

Russell Court, DRURY LANE, a narrow passage for foot-passengers 
only, leading from Drury Lane into Catherine Street, Covent Garden. 
[See Will's ; Rose.] 

Towards the defraying the charge of repairing and fitting up the Chapel in 
Russell Court, Drury Lane, will be presented at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 
this present Tuesday, being the i8th of June, the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of 
Denmark. With Singing by Mr. Hughes and entertainment of Dancing by Mons. 
Cherier, Miss Lambro, his scholar, and Mr. Evans. Daily Courant, June 18, 1706, 
quoted in Burton's Hist, of Queen Anne, vol. iii. p. 309. 

1 Cockburn's Letters, vol. ii. p. 225. 



RUSSELL SQUARE 191 



This curious benefit performance called forth much comment, and Defoe, making 

merry with it in his Review, recommended that when the chapel was re-edified a 

let up, "as is very frequent in like cases," stating when and by 

whose charitable aid the work was accomplished, and testified by " Lucifer, Prince of 

Darkness, and Hamlet, 1'rinceof Denmark, Churchwardens.'' Rcvieiv, June 2O, 1706. 

Russell House, on the south side of the STRAND, was inhabited 
by the Russells, Earls of Bedford, prior to the erection of their 
house on the north side of the Strand, between it and the great 
square of Covent Garden. Stow, 1598, speaks of it as "Russell or 
Bedford House." 

Russell House, near Ivye bridge, seytuate upon the Thamise now [1592] in the 
use of the right honorable Sir John Puckering, knight, Lord Keeper of the Prevye 
Scale. Norden's Speculum /';-//. llarl. J/.V.S'., p. 570. 

September 13, 1595. I dyned with the Erie of Derby at Russell Ilowse. Mr. 
Thymothcw, and Mr. John Hatfeldt, German, being there : [and again Sept. 22]. 
Dr. Dee's Diary, p. 53. 

Russell Institution, GREAT CORAM STREET, RUSSELL SQUARE, 
a subscription library and reading-room. The house was erected in 
1800 on speculation, for the purpose of holding assemblies and balls, 
and was purchased in 1808 from Mr. James Burton, the builder, by 
the managers of the institution, of which Sir Samuel Romilly was one 
of the original trustees. E. W. Brayley, author of Londiniana and 
many topographical works, was librarian from 1825 to his death in 
1854. 

Not Palmyra, not the Russell Institution in Great Coram Street, present more 
melancholy appearances of faded greatness [than the Cork Reading Room]. 
Thackeray, Irish Note- Book, p. 140. 

Russell Row, SHOREDITCH, a row of houses built in the reign of 
Queen Elizabeth, by one Russell, a draper, on the site of certain tene- 
ments, called from their decayed , appearance "Rotten Row." Origin- 
ally Rotten Row " was one row of proper small houses, with gardens, 
for poor decayed people, there placed by the Prior of the hospital [of 
St. Mary, Spital] ; every one tenant whereof paid one penny rent by 
the year at Christmas, and dined with the Prior on Christmas Day." l 

Russell Square, BLOOMSBURY, north of Bloomsbury Square, with 
which it is united by Bedford Place, built circ. 1804, and so called 
after the Russells, Earls and Dukes of Bedford. Each side of the 
square is about 670 feet in length. The area was laid out by 
Humphrey Repton. On the south side is the statue of Francis, Duke 
of Bedford (the hero of Burke's Letter to a Noble Lord, 1796), by Sir 
Richard Westmacott, R.A., looking down Bedford Place on the statue 
of Charles James Fox which, exactly opposite to it, adorns the north 
side of Bloomsbury Square. 

March 18, 1807. Young Faulder and I walked over all the Duke of Bedford's 
new feuing grounds, Russell Square, Tavistock Place, Brunswick Square, etc. The 
extent of these, and the rapidity of the buildings, is beyond all comprehension. Their 

1 Stow, p. 158. 



192 RUSSELL SQUARE 



houses very inferior in appearance to our new town at Bellevue ; but their squares 
(the areas I mean) are all most tastefully laid out with shrubs, walks, etc., which has 
an admirable effect. A. G. Hunter to A. Constable (A. Constable and his Literary 
Correspondents, vol . i . p . 112). 

Eminent Inhabitants. Sir Samuel Romilly in No. 21, where, body 
and mind utterly prostrated by his wife's death on October 29, he died 
by his own hand, November 2, 1818. Russell Square was long in 
much favour with members of the bench and bar. No. 28 was the 
residence of Lord Chief Justice Tenterden, who died there November 
4, 1832. The houses at the south corner of Guilford Street formed 
Baltimore House, built in 1763 (before Russell Square was formed) for 
George Calvert, the last Baron Baltimore, who was tried in 1768 for 
decoying a young milliner named Sarah Woodcock to his house in the 
previous year. It was afterwards occupied by the Duke of Bolton, 
who gave his name to the house. He was succeeded by Wedderburn, 
Lord Loughborough, and the name Rosslyn House, which it sometimes 
bore, was taken from his subsequent title, Earl of Rosslyn. No. 67, 
part of Baltimore House, was the residence of Sir Vicary Gibbs, C.J. 
of the Common Pleas, who died there February 8, 1820, "where 
Heath had lived and died and Talfourd afterwards held his con- 
vivialities." No. 67 was Sir T. N. Talfourd's last London residence. 
Charles Grant, the old East India Director and father of Lord 
Glenelg and Sir R. Grant, lived in No. 40. Here Francis Horner 
dined on May 28, 1803, and met Sir William Grant, Wilberforce and 
Mackintosh. Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., in No. 65, for the last 
twenty-five years of his life; he died here January 7, 1830. 

We shall never forget the Cossacks mounted on their small white horses, with 
their long spears grounded, standing centinels at the door of this great painter, whilst 
he was taking the portrait of their General, Platoff. Rev. John Mitford, Gentleman'' s 
Mag. for January, 1818. 

Russell Street (Great), BLOOMSBURY, was built about 1670. 
In 1720 it was described as "a very handsome, large, and well-built 
street with the best buildings in all Bloomsbury, and the best inhabited 
by the nobility and gentry, especially the north side, as having gardens 
behind the houses, and the prospect of the pleasant fields up to 
Hampstead and Highgate." * When the first edition of this work was 
published it was " a street of shops," but for some years past many of 
the shops have been undergoing the process of reconversion into 
"private houses." 

January 31, 1750. People are almost afraid of stirring out after dark. My 
Lady Albemarle was robbed the other night in Great Russell Street by nine men. 
Walpole to Sir Horace Mann. 

Eminent Inhabitants. Sir Christopher Wren erected a mansion 
for himself in this street, which was afterwards inhabited by his son 
and his grandson ; and then by Shelden the surgeon and anatomist. 
Its " noble front, with its majestic cantalever cornice," writes Elmes, 

1 Strype, B. iv. p. 85. 



GREAT RUSSELL .STAY-,/-:/ 193 

"has now (1823) been taken down by a speculative builder, and 
common Act of Parliament fronts run up " for four houses in its stead. 
Ralph, first Duke of Montague (d. 1709) in Montague House [which 
see], afterwards the British Museum. William, Earl Cowper (d. 1723). 

November 30, 1714. This day was employed in packing for removing from 
Russell Street (where I had a delightful house, with the finest view backwards of 
any house in town) to the house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where I had lived before, 
when my Lord had the seals, and which jny Lord Harcourt lived in whilst he was 
Chancellor. Lady Cowper's Diary. 

Francis Sandford, author of the Genealogical History! John Le 
Neve, author of Monumenta Anglicana, was born " in the house facing 
Montague Great Gate, December 27, i679." 2 Lewis Theobald, in 
Wyan's Court, Great Russell Street. Speaker Onslow ; he died here 
in February 1768. John Philip Kemble, in No. 89, on the north side. 
The house was built by Lord St. Helen's, and destroyed in 1847 to 
make way for the eastern wing of the British Museum. During the 
height of the O. P. riots, the song of "Heigh Ho, says Kemble," 
written by Horace Smith, was sung by ballad -singers under the 
windows, accompanied by "shouts and other sounds," which, Mrs. 
Inchbald says, nearly frightened Mrs. Kemble to death. It is of this 
house that Talfourd speaks when he tells us that the great actor ex- 
tended his high-bred courtesy even to authors with MSS., whom he 
invariably attended to the door, and bade them " beware of the steps." 3 
Topham Beauclerk. 

November 14, 1779. Mr. Beauclerk has built a library in Great Russell Street 
that reaches half way to Highgate. Everybody goes to see it. It has put the 
Museum's nose quite out of joint. Horace Walpole to Lady Ossory. 

Beauclerk died in this house, March n, 1780. Opposite Dyot Street 
was Thanet House, the residence of the Earls of Thanet. It was 
latterly divided into two houses. Lord Mansfield took a house in this 
street in 1780, after the destruction of his mansion in Bloomsbury 
Square. Benjamin Wilson, a portrait painter of some merit, and 
master painter to the Board of Ordnance, died at his house, No. 56 in 
this street in 1788, and there his more celebrated son, Sir Robert 
Wilson, was born in 1777. No. 88 was built by William Battie, M.D., 
the celebrated physician of St. Luke's, and author of a well-known 
treatise on Mental Madness (d. 1776). In the Gentleman s Magazine 
for April 1809 is printed a characteristic letter from Dr. John Jenner, the 
discoverer of vaccination, dated "Great Russell Street, July 8, 1808." 
Sir Sidney Smith, the hero of Acre, was living in No. 72 in i828. 4 
Charles Mathews (the elder) died at No. 62, June 28, 1835. At No. 
105 lived, 1829, the well known publisher of works on Gothic 
architecture, Augustus Pugin, and there he had many pupils who became 
eminent in their profession. His more celebrated son, Augustus Welby 
Pugin, was born in Store Street, March i, 1812. 

1 London Gazette of 1688, No. 2339. * Letters of Charles Latn6, p. 123. 

2 Nichols's Lit. Ante., vol. i. p. 128. * Barrow's Life, vol. ii. p. 348. 

VOL. Ill O 



194 GREAT RUSSELL STREET 

At the chapel in this street, on June 22, 1749, David Garrick 
was married to Mademoiselle Violette. Dr. Francklin performed the 
service. The ceremony was repeated on the same day according to 
the Roman Catholic forms in the Chapel of -the Portuguese Embassy 
in South Audley Street. 

Russell Street, COVENT GARDEN, built 1634, and so called after 
the Russells, Earls and Dukes of Bedford, the ground landlords. In 
1720 "it was a fine broad street, well inhabited by tradesmen;" 1 it is 
now rather poorly inhabited. Remarkable Places in. Will's Coffee- 
house, on the north side of the west -end corner of Bow Street. 
Button's Coffee-house, "on the south side, about two doors from 
Covent Garden ;" :: Tom's Coffee-house, on the north side; Rose 
Tavern, next Drury Lane Theatre. [See these names.] The 
candidates for being touched for the King's Evil, July 1660, were 
required first to repair " to Mr. Knight the King's Surgeon, living at 
the Cross Guns in Russell Street, Covent Garden, over against the 
Rose Tavern." Eminent Inhabitants. Carr, Earl of Somerset, 
implicated in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury ; he was living here, 
on the north side, in 1644, the year before his death. Joseph Taylor, 
1634-1641, one of the original performers in Shakespeare's plays. 
[See Piazza.] John Evelyn, the Diarist. 

October 18, 1659. I came with my wife and family to London : tooke lodgings 
at the 3 Feathers in Russell Street, Covent Garden, for all the winter, my son being 
very unwell. 

There is a token of " John Hatten at the Three Feathers in Russell 
Streete," in the Beaufoy Collection, Guildhall. 3 Evelyn was at this 
time acting as a secret agent in London for Charles II. Major 
Mohun, the actor, on the south side; in 1665 he was assessed at ios., 
the highest rate levied in the street. Thomas Betterton, the actor; 
he died here in 1710, and here, "at his late lodgings," his "books, 
prints, drawings, and paintings " were sold after his death. 4 Tom 
Davies, the bookseller, on the south side, " over against Tom's Coffee- 
house," later the Caledonian Coffee-house. Tom Davies had originally 
a shop in Duke's Court. He began at Russell Street in 1762, and 
became a bankrupt in 1778. 

The very place where I was fortunate enough to be introduced to the illustrious 
subject of this work deserves to be particularly marked. It was No. 8. I never 
pass by without feeling reverence and regret. Bos-well, by Croker, p. 133, note. 

This [1763] is to me a memorable year; for in it I had the happiness to obtain 
the acquaintance of that extraordinary man whose memoirs I am now writing. . . . 
Mr. Thomas Davies, the actor, who then kept a bookseller's shop in Russell Street, 
Covent Garden, told me that Johnson was very much his friend, and came frequently 
to his house, where he more than once invited me to meet him ; but by some 
unlucky accident or other, he was prevented from coming to us. ... At last, on 
Monday, the 1 6 th of May, when I was sitting in Mr. Davies' back parlour, after 
having drunk tea with him and Mrs. Davies, Johnson unexpectedly came into the 

1 Strype. 3 Burn, p. 203. 

2 Johnson's Li f e of Addzson. * Advert, in No. 213 of ist ed. of The Tatler. 



RUSSELL STK/-:/<:T 195 



shop ; anil Mr. Davics having perceived him through the glass door in the room in 
which we were sitting, advancing towards us he announced his awful approach to 
me somewhat in the manner of an actor on the part of Horatio when he addresses 
Hamlet on the appearance of his father's ghost, " Look, my Lord, it comes ! " . . . 
Mr. Davie.s mentioned my name, and respectfully introduced me to him. I was 
much agitated ; and recollecting his prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had 
Iu-;ird much, I said to Davies, " Don't tell where I come from." " From Scotland," 
'uvies roguishly. " Mr. Johnson," said I, " I do indeed come from Scotland, 
but I cannot help it." . . . This speech was somewhat unlucky, for with that 
quickness of wit, for which he was so remarkable ... he retorted, "That, Sir, I 
find is what a great many of your countrymen cannot help." Boswell, by Croker, 
pp. 131-133- 

Another bookseller in Russell Street is remembered by association 
with a great English writer. When Edward Gibbon, at sixteen years 
of age, by solitary study of the writings of Father Parsons, had made 
up his mind to embrace the Roman Catholic faith, he sought counsel 
of " Mr. Lewis, a Roman Catholic bookseller in Russell Street, Covent 
Garden," who recommended him to a priest of whose name and order 
the great historian was ignorant when he wrote his Memoirs. It has 
since been ascertained that he was a Jesuit named Baker, one of the 
chaplains to the Sardinian Ambassador. The conversion of a Gentle- 
man Commoner of Magdalen made a great stir in 1753, and the 
Russell Street bookseller was called before the Privy Council. The 
offence committed by Gibbon and Baker amounted to high treason in 
the statute book of those days. Baker remained unnoticed ; against 
Gibbon "the gates of Magdalen were for ever shut." Dr. Armstrong 
the poet died at his house in Russell Street, September 7, 1779. 
Charles Lamb (Elia) took lodgings in October 1817 at "Mr. Owen's, 
Nos. 20 and 21 Great Russell Street, Drury Lane." The house was 
the west corner of Bow Street, " delightfully situated," says Talfourd, 
" between the two theatres : " " the house belonged," writes Procter, 
" to an ironmonger (or brazier) and was comfortable and clean, and 
a little noisy." x Lamb himself describes his lookout as follows : 
" Drury Lane Theatre in sight from our front and Covent Garden from 
our back-room windows." 

November 21, 1817. We are in the individual spot I like best in all this great 
city. The theatres with all their noises. Covent Garden dearer to me than any 
gardens of Alcinous, where we are morally sure of the earliest peas and 'sparagus. 
Bow Street where the thieves are examined within a few yards of us. Mary had 
not been here four and twenty hours before she saw a thief. She sits at the 
window working ; and casually throwing out her eyes, she sees a concourse of 
people coming this way, with a constable to conduct the solemnity. These little 
incidents agreeably diversify a female life. Lamb to Miss Wor&sworth (Letters, p. 
103). 

He remained here till the middle of i823. 2 No. 19 was the shop of 
Barker the bookseller, at which Lamb purchased the folio Beaumont 
and Fletcher, over which as Elia he gossiped so pleasantly in his essay 
on "Old China." There is much wit in Wycherley's play of The Country 
Wife about Mr. Horner's lodgings in this street : that kind of wit, 

1 //. Crabb Robinson, vol. ii. p. 79. - Proctor, p. 249. 



196 RUSSELL STREET 



however, which suffers from transplanting. Russell Street was the 
name given to both Great and Little Russell Street in 1859. Previously 
Great Russell Street extended from Covent Garden Market to Brydges 
Street (now Catherine Street), and Little Russell Street from Brydges 
Street to Drury Lane. 

Rutland Gate, KENSINGTON ROAD, KNIGHTSBRIDGE, built 1838- 
1840, and so called from a large house on the site, belonging to the 
Dukes of Rutland. John, third Duke of Rutland, died here in 1779. 
The detached house, the last on the south-west side, was built by John 
Sheepshanks, Esq., the distinguished patron of British Art, who here 
assembled that noble collection of English pictures which he afterwards 
presented to the nation, and which now forms one of the great 
attractions of the galleries at South Kensington. 

Rutland House, at the upper end of ALDERSGATE STREET, near 
what is now called Charter House Square. Here, in 1656, "at the 
back part of Rutland House," the drama revived under Sir William 
Davenant Cromwell, who, Carlyle says, "was very fond of music," 
having by the interposition of Whitelocke consented to the performance 
of Declamation and Mustek after the Manner of the Ancients. The 
scenes were by John Webb,' kinsman and executor of Inigo Jones. The 
first of the entertainments was published on September 3, in honour 
no doubt of the Protector's birthday. 1 Rutland Place, Charterhouse 
Square, commemorates the site. 

Rutland Place, UPPER THAMES STREET. [See Puddle Dock.] 

Ryder Street, ST. JAMES'S, formerly GREAT and LITTLE RYDER 
STREET, from St. James's Street to Bury Street, was built in 1674, and 
was so named after a Captain Ryder, who, as early as 1660, had set 
up gates on the Parish Lammas. 2 One of Swift's Letters, written from 
Letcombe, near Wantage, in 1714, is addressed to "Mrs. Esther Van- 
homrigh, at her lodgings over against the Surgeon's in Great Ryder 
Street, near St. James';" and on December 13, 1712, Swift himself 
was living " over against the house in Little Rider Street, where D. D. 
lodged." Ten years later (June i, 1722), when attempting to soothe 
the feelings of the unhappy Vanessa, he asks her to "remember . . . 
Rider Street." 

Sabloniere Hotel, LEICESTER SQUARE, occupied the south corner 
of the east side. The northern half of it was previously the residence 
of William Hogarth. [See Leicester Square.] The old Sabloniere 
must not be confounded with the present Hotel Sabloniere, which is at 
the north corner of the east side of the square. When Kosciusko was 
in England he wrote to Dr. Walcott (Peter Pindar) from " Sabloniere's 

1 " The Siege of Rhodes, made a representation Street, London. London, printed by J. M. for 

by the Art of Prospective in Scenes, and the Story Henry Herringman, 1656," 410. 
sung in Recitative Musick, at the back part of 

Rutland House, in the upper end of Aldersgate 2 Rate-books of St. Martin's. 



SADDLERS' HALL 197 



Hotel," requesting a visit, as he was unable, " on account of weakness 
from his wounds," to call on him. He could not, he told Walcott, 
" visit England without seeing an author who had given him so much 
pleasure, particularly in his prison at St. Petersburgh." l After that 
Ualcott "constantly visited him." The house was pulled down in 
1870, and a new building on its site was erected for Archbishop 
Tenison's Schoolhouse. 

Sackville Street, PICCADILLY, to VIGO STREET ; said to be the 
longest street in London of any consequence without a turning out 
of it on either side, and the only one without a lamp-post. It was built 
about idyp. 2 Sir William Petty, the earliest English writer on Political 
Economy, lived, in the reigns of Charles II. and James II., in the corner 
house on the east side, opposite St. James's Church. Dr. Joseph Warton 
had lodgings here in I792. 3 Arthur Young, the father of agricultural 
science, lived at No. 32 for a long series of years, and died there, April 
12, 1820, at the age of eighty-one. He had been blind for the last ten 
years of his life. The house where he lived was occupied by the Board 
of Agriculture, of which he was secretary. Sir Everard Home was living 
at No. 30 in 1809. Boswell, writing in 1785, mentions that the Literary 
Club, when the Turk's Head in Gerard Street was converted into a 
private house, "moved first to Prince's in Sackville Street," then to 
Baxter's (Le Teller's) in Dover Street. 

Sacred Harmonic Society, established in 1832, famous for 
performances in Exeter Hall of the sacred oratorios of Handel, Haydn, 
Mendelssohn, and other great composers. With a chorus 500 strong 
of carefully trained voices, and an admirable orchestra, the concerts 
of the Society, under the direction of Sir Michael Costa, were for 
many years among the greatest treats which the lover of good music 
enjoyed. There was an important musical library in connection with the 
Society, now in the possession of the Royal College of Music. In 1880 
Exeter Hall was purchased for the Young Men's Christian Association, 
and the Sacred Harmonic Society had to decide between a removal to 
other quarters or dissolution. After some hesitation it was resolved to 
continue operations, and on December 3, 1880, they commenced their 
forty-ninth season by a performance at St. James's Hall ; but the Society 
is now dissolved. The Handel Festivals at the Crystal Palace, where 
Handel's oratorios are performed by a band and choir of unparalleled 
magnitude, originated with and were conducted by the Sacred Harmonic 
Society. They are now carried on by the Crystal Palace Company. 

Saddlers' Hall, 141 CHEAPSIDE (north side, between Foster Lane 
and Gutter Lane), the hall of the Saddlers' Company, the twenty-fifth 
on the list of the City Companies, and one of the most ancient and 
honourable, and of the minor Companies one of the most wealthy. 
Herbert thinks there can be " little doubt of the Saddlers being a veri- 

1 Annual Biog. and Obit., 1820; Peter Pindar. - Rate-books of St. Martin's. 

3 Nichols's Lit. Anec., vol. ix. p. 473. 



198 SADDLERS' HALL 



table Anglo-Saxon gild ; and, consequently, the oldest on record of all 
the present Livery Companies." l The first Charter of Incorporation 
was granted to the Company, 37 Edward III., December 1363. In 
the persecution of 1545 Anne Askew was examined at Saddlers' Hall. 2 
Frederick, Prince of Wales (father of George III.), was a saddler, 
and from a balcony erected in front of the hall was once a spectator, 
in disguise, of the Lord Mayor's show ; and when his eldest son 
(afterwards George III.) was christened, the Saddlers had a grand 
illumination and a bonfire before their hall. 3 

The Prince was desirous of seeing the Lord Mayor's Show privately, for which 
purpose he entered the City in disguise. At that time it was the custom for several 
of the City companies, particularly those who had no barges, to have stands erected 
in the streets through which the Lord Mayor passed in his return from Westminster ; 
in which the freemen of companies were accustomed to assemble. It happened that 
his Royal Highness was discovered by some of the Saddlers' Company ; in conse- 
quence of which he was invited into their stand, which invitation he accepted, and 
the parties were so well pleased with each other that his Royal Highness was soon 
after chosen Master of the Company, a compliment which he also accepted. Edwards's 
Anecdotes of Painting, 4to, 1 808, p. 14. 

In the great hall of the Company is a full-length portrait of the 
Prince, by T. Frye. Sir Richard Blackmore, the poet and physician, 
lived either within or in a house adjoining this hall. Among the 
Miscellaneous Works of Tom Brown are epigrams and verses "To Sir 

R_ . Bl , on the Two Wooden Horses before Saddlers' Hall," 

" To the Merry Poetasters at Saddlers' Hall in Cheapside," and " To a 
Famous Poet and Doctor, at Saddlers' Hall." In the earliest mentioned 
copy occurs this couplet : 

'Twas kindly done of the good-natur'd cits, 
To place before thy door a brace of tits. 

Two horses, argent, it may be stated, are the supporters ot the Com- 
pany's arms. With a view to identify the particular dwelling of Sir 
Richard Blackmore, Sir Peter Laurie (himself a member) caused the 
books of the Company to be examined, but without success. 

The present handsome hall was erected in 1822 from the designs 
of Jesse Gibson. The buildings in front were erected 1863-1864, 
and the street facade designed by F. W. Porter, the Company's 
architect. The Company possesses an enriched funeral pall of crimson 
velvet, date about isoo. 4 When funerals were conducted with more 
pomp and heraldic ceremony than they now are, it was customary, on 
the death of a master or eminent member of a Company, for his body 
to lie in state in the hall ; and sometimes the City halls were let on 
great occasions for the purposes of lyings in state. The pall of the 
Saddlers' and the pall of the Fishmongers' Company (a still finer one) 
were used on such occasions. Besides various charitable gifts the 
Company have a fine range of almshouses, called after the founder 

1 Herbert, History of the Twelve Great Livery 3 Daily Post, June 22, 1738. 

Companies, vol. i. p. 17. 4 Engraved by Shaw in his Dresses andDecora- 

~ Foxe, vol. v. p. 538. tions of the Middle Ages. 



SADLER'S WELLS 199 



Honnor's Home, for decayed freemen of the Company, their widows 
and daughters, at Spring Grove, Hounslow. 

Sadler's Wells, between the NEW RIVER HEAD and ST. JOHN 
STRKET ROAD, ISLINGTON, a well-known place of public amusement; 
first a music house, then a theatre, and so called from a spring of 
mineral water, discovered by a surveyor of the highways named Sadler, 
who, in 1683, opened in connection with it a public music-room, and 
called it by his own name as "Sadler's Wells Music House," but they 
were more generally known as " Islington Wells." A pamphlet was 
published in 1684 giving an account of the discovery, with the virtues 
of the water, which is there said to be of a ferruginous nature, and 
much resembling in quality and effects the water of Tunbridge Wells. 

People may talk of Epsom Wells 

Of Tunbridge Springs which most excells : 

I'll tell you by my ten years' practice 

Plainly what the matter of fact is : 

Those are but good for one disease, 

To all distempers this gives ease. 

A Morning Ramble, or Islington Wells Burlesqt, 1684. 

Misson, writing in 1697, describes Islington as "a large village, 
half a league from London, where you drink waters that do you neither 
good nor harm, provided you don't take too much of them." The 
theatre was in an outlying neighbourhood, and the playbills as late as 
the middle of the last century commonly announce, whenever a great 
performance took place, that " a horse patrol will be sent in the New 
Road that night for the protection of the nobility and gentry who go 
from the squares and that end of the town," and "that the road also 
towards the city will be properly guarded." For a time the place was 
a fashionable resort. 



7, 1732. Poor Lady Sunderland goes constantly to Islington Wells, 
where she meets abundance of good company. These waters are rising in fame, and 
already pretend to vie with Tunbridge. If they are as good it will be very con- 
venient to all Londoners to have a remedy so near at hand. Mrs. Delany,'\o\. i. 
P- 367- 

"For some years," says Dodsley, writing a few years later, it "was 
honoured by the constant attendance of the Princess Amelia and many 
persons of quality, who drank the waters." The Princess, it is said, 
was always received with a salute of twenty-one guns. The charge for 
drinking the waters was " 3d. for each person," or half a guinea for the 
season. 1 This place for the water drinkers was at this time called 
" Islington Wells," and near it was the " house of entertainment called 
Sadler's Wells, where, during the summer season, people are amused 
with balance-masters, walking on the wire, rope dancing, tumbling, and 
pantomime entertainments." '' In this " Long Room opposite to 
Sadler's Wells," July 1765, George Alexander Stevens delivered his 
Lecture on Heads. The popularity of the Wells was declining when, 

1 Antfatlator, 1782, p. 118. 2 Dodsley, 1761, vol. iii. p. 262. 



200 SADLER'S WELLS 



in 1770, it was made the subject of George Colman's farce, The Spleen, 
or Islington Spa. The theatre continued to be only a summer house 
till near the end of the century. 

At this time also [Easter week] opens a theatre for tumbling, rope-dancing, etc., 
at Saddler's Wells, Islington, and contemnes all the summer. Admittance 35. 6d., 
2s. and is. Each person has allowed him for his money a pint of wine or punch. 
Trusler's London Adviser and Guide, I2mo, 1790, p. 175. 

"I was afterwards," says Winifred Jenkins, " of a party at Sadler's Wells, where I 
saw such tumbling and dancing upon ropes and wires that I was frightened and 
ready to go into a fit " (Smolletf). It was on this occasion that Humphiy Clinker 
rescued her from the gentleman who "offered for to treat me with a pint of wind." 

Sadler's Wells, writes John Britton, who at the time lived close by 
and was a constant attendant at the theatre, " at the end of the last 
century and beginning of the present, was truly a suburban theatre, 
being surrounded by fields. . . . There were not any public lamps, and 
men and boys with flambeaus were in attendance on dark nights to 
light persons across the fields to the nearest streets of Islington, 
Clerkenwell, and Gray's Inn Lane." At this time was introduced the 
" real water " novelty, which for many years was the special attraction 
of Sadler's Wells. 

Now the New River's current swells 
The reservoir of Saddler's Wells, 
And in some melodrame of slaughter 
Floats all the stage with real water. 

Luttrell's Julia, Letter iii. 

The New River flowed past the theatre and means were taken to introduce " a 
large body of water from it to a tank beneath the floor of the stage. " This floor 
being taken up, a broad sheet of water was displayed to the audience, and rendered 
very effective in naval spectacles, pantomimes, and burlettas, which were written and 
adapted to exhibit aquatic scenes. Among the apparently perilous and appalling 
incidents thus exhibited, was that of a heroine falling from the rocks into the water, 
and rescued by her hero-lover ; a naval battle, with sailors escaping by plunging into 
the sea from a vessel on fire ; a child thrown into the water by a nurse, who was 
bribed to drown it, but rescued by a Newfoundland dog. John Britton's Auto- 
biography, vol. i. p. 103. 

Sensational scenes were not unknown eighty or ninety years ago. 
A great painter has given his impression of the aquatic drama as it was 
presented here a few years later. 

September 14, 1812. I have been to Sadler's Wells to see the aquatic scene that 
is so much talked of. Excepting by Grimaldi (the clown), I was very little enter- 
tained. I take but little delight in pantomime changes, which, to do them justice, 
they manage here in the greatest perfection. The afterpiece was a melodrama, the 
dialogue of which was in blank verse, with now and then a foolish rhyme coming 
out in order to call it recitative. [Then necessary to evade the penalties for infring- 
ment of the patent rights of the two great theatres.] The water scene pleased me 
better than I expected ; it represented a castle with a moat and drawbridge : the 
castle of course attacked by troops who came on in boats. Many of the combatants 
contrived to get themselves into the water by the breaking of the drawbridge, where 
they fought up to their chins. This theatre is quite small, and ornamented in the 
most showy manner, with a plentiful lack of taste. C, R. Leslie to Ms Sistei 
(Autob., vol. ii. p. 22). 



SAFFRON HILL 201 



Here Belzoni, the Egyptian traveller, exhibited his prodigious feats 
of strength as "the Patagonian Samson" (1803). Grimaldi, the most 
famous of clowns, achieved here his greatest triumphs (1819-1828). 
In 1832 T. P. Cooke made his first appearance as William in Black- 
Eyed Susan. The theatre fell into disrepute, but was restored to 
credit and fame under the admirable management of Mr. Phelps, who 
made it during many years (1844-1862) "the home of the legitimate 
drama." 

After being for some time closed the theatre was rebuilt in 1879 
on a larger scale from the designs of Mr. C. J. Phipps, the architect of 
many of the theatres recently built in London and the provinces. 
Sadler's Wells Theatre was for a short time under the management 
of Mrs. Bateman, when the performance of the Shakesperian drama 
was made the leading feature. For some years past the theatre has 
had a very fitful existence, and has only been opened at intervals. Of 
the earlier houses there are views in Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata. 
The scene of Hogarth's Evening is laid at Sadler's Wells, in front of the 
Sir Hugh Myddelton public-house, which still exists and has a large 
music hall attached. 

Saffron Hill, a densely inhabited neighbourhood between HOL- 
BORN and CLERKENWELL. It was formerly a part of Ely Gardens 
[see Ely House], and derives its name from the crops of saffron 
which it bore. It runs from Field Lane into Vine Street, so called 
from the vineyard attached to old Ely House. So bad was the 
reputation of the locality thirty or forty years ago that the clergymen 
of St. Andrew's, Holborn (the parish in which the purlieu lies), were 
obliged, when visiting it, to be accompanied by policemen in plain 
clothes. Dickens described Saffron Hill and its purlieus with his 
darkest colours, but not darker than those who knew the neighbour- 
hood of old felt to be deserved. 

Thence into Little Saffron Hill, and so into Saffron Hill the Great. ... A 
dirtier or more wretched place he had never seen. The street was very narrow and 
muddy, and the air was inpregnated with filthy odours. . . . The sole places that 
seemed to prosper amid the general blight of the place were the public houses, and 
in them the lowest orders of Irish were wrangling with might and main. Covered 
ways and yards, which here and there diverged from the main street, disclosed little 
knots of houses where drunken men and women were positively wallowing in filth ; 
and from several of the doorways great ill-looking fellows were cautiously emerging, 
bound, to all appearance, on no very well-disposed or harmless errands. Charles 
Dickens, Oliver Twist, 1838, chap. viii. 

The street is not very clean nor very fragrant even now, nor is the 
appearance of its occupants reassuring, but it is a very different place 
to what it was when Dickens wrote. Part of it has been cleared away 
for the Clerkenwell improvements, and the rest has been partially 
cleansed and purified and brought under stricter police supervision. 
The church, St. Peter's, was designed 1830-1832 by Mr. (afterwards Sir 
Charles) Barry, and was one of his earliest works in Gothic architecture. 



202 SAFFRON HILL 



The Duke of Muscovy declared war against Poland, because he and his nation 
had been vilified by a Polish poet : but the author of the Ecclesiastical Politie 
would, it seems, disturb the peace of Christendom for the good old cause of a 
superannuated chanter of Saffron Hill and Pye Corner. Andrew Marvell, Rehearsal 
Transprosed, 1674, pt. ii. p. 65. 

Salisbury Court, FLEET STREET, or, as it is now written, 
SALISBURY SQUARE, lies to the west of St. Bride's Church, and 
occupies the site of the courtyard of Salisbury, or, as it was afterwards 
called, Dorset House. There is now a Salisbury Court as well as a 
Salisbury Square. In The Squire of Alsatia, by Shadwell (who was 
an inhabitant of the court), " Salisbury Court " and " Dorset Court " are 
used indiscriminately one for the other. Salisbury House was the 
residence of the Bishops of Salisbury, and as Seth Ward, who held the 
see from 1667 to 1689, told Aubrey, was got from them by the 
Lord Treasurer Buckhurst (d. 1608), "in exchange for a piece of land 
near Cricklade in Wilts, I think called Marston, but the title was not 
good, nor did the value answer his promise." 

March 25, 1611. Confirmation to Richard Earl of Dorset of a grant of the 
manor of Salisbury Court, together with Salisbury House, alias Sackville Place, 
alias Dorset House, and divers messuages in St. Bride's and St. Dunstan's on his 
compounding for defective titles. Cal. State Pap., 1611-1618. 

In 1634 Bulstrode Whitelocke, when urged by his wife to have a 
town residence as well as one in the country, took a house in 
Salisbury Court. Whitelocke was absent in France when his wife died, 
and Edward Hyde (afterwards Lord Clarendon), writing to him about 
his affairs, says of his child, " My little friend at Salisbury Court is 
lusty, and shall give you comfort." He gave up the house on his 
return. In 1655 the ambassador sent from Sweden to the Protector 
was lodged in Salisbury Court. Here Whitelocke frequently dined 
with him, the ambassador complaining of feeling solitary. The large 
building on the south side, the Salisbury Hotel and Farmers' Club, was 
erected by the Agricultural Hotel Company, 1863-1864, at a cost of 
over ^23,000, from the designs of John Giles, architect. It has 
about 100 rooms. 

Eminent Inhabitants. Betterton, Harris, Cave, Underbill, and 
Sandford the actors, next the Duke's Theatre in Dorset Gardens ; 
Shadwell, the poet; Lady Davenant, the widow of Sir William 
Davenant ; John Dryden ; a Samuel Richardson, the novelist. " He 
took a range of old houses, eight in number, which he pulled down, 
and built an extensive and commodious range of warehouses and 
printing offices." 2 His dwelling-house was No. 1 1, in the north-west 
corner of the square, and his printing office and warehouse in Blue- 
ball Court, on the east side of the square. 

My first recollection of Richardson was in the house in the centre of Salisbury 
Square, or Salisbury Court, as it was then called ; and of being admitted as a 
playful child into his study, where I have often seen Dr. Young and others. ... I 

1 Rate-books of St. Martin's, 2 Nichols's Lit. Artec., vol. iv. p. 594. 



SALISBURY COURT THEATRE 203 

recollect that he used to drop in at my father's, for we lived nearly opposite, late in 
ning to supper ; when, as he would say, he had worked as long as his eyes 
and nerves would let him, and was come to relax with a little friendly and domestic 
chat. Mrs. to Mrs. Barbauld (Richardson's Correspondence, vol. i. p. 183). 

It is said to have been a common practice with Richardson to hide 
half a crown among the types, that it might reward the diligence of the 
workman who should be first in the office in the morning ; on the other 
hand, he was so sensible of his own warmth of temper that all his 
admonitions to his workmen were given in writing ! 1 Here Richard- 
son wrote his Pamela. Here, for a short time 1757, in the interval 
between his practice as a " physician in a humble way " on the Bank- 
side and his becoming an usher at Peckham Goldsmith sat as press- 
corrector to Richardson. And here was printed Maitland's London, 
folio, 1739, the imprint on the title page being " London : Printed by 
Samuel Richardson, in Salisbury Court, near Fleet Street, 1739." 
Mrs. Delany notes, October 30, 1754, that "Richardson is very busy, 
removing this very day to Parson's Green. Dr. Delany called yester- 
day at Salisbury Court." 2 Here, in August 1732, died Mrs. Daffy, 
preparer of the elixir known by her name. 3 

In 1716 there were many riots in the City, mobs gathering together 
in processions, with the cry of " High Church and Ormond," breaking 
windows which were not illuminated when the cry was raised, and 
" demolishing houses, especially those houses then called M2ig-houses, 
where those who were for King George used to hold societies." 4 One 
of the most noted of the Mug-houses was in Salisbury Court, and a 
Jacobite mob, led by one Bean, pulled down the sign-post, and then 
breaking into the house, tore down the bar and benches, plundered 
the cellar and wrecked the premises. In attempting to defend his 
house Robert Read, the landlord, shot one of the assailants, a weaver 
named Vaughan, dead. Read was tried for manslaughter and 
acquitted ; but five of the rioters were tried at the Old Bailey, 
September 7, 1716, for "demolishing" Read's house, found guilty, 
and all five hanged in Fleet Street, at the end of Salisbury Court. 5 

Salisbury Court Theatre, SALISBURY COURT, FLEET STREET, 
was built in 1629, by Richard Gunnell and William Blagrove, players, 
and was originally the " barn " or granary at the lower end of the great 
back yard or court of Salisbury House. 

In the yere one thousand sixe hundred [and] twenty-nine, there was builded a 
new faire Play-house, near the White-Fryers. And this is the seauenteenth stage 
or common Play-house which hath beene new made within the space of threescore 
yeres within London and the suburbs. Howes, ed. 1631, p. 1004. 

The Play-house in Salisbury Court, in Fleete Streete, was pulled down by a 
company of souldiers, set on by the Sectaries of these sad times, on Saturday, the 
24th day of March, 1649. MS. Notes from Howes, quoted in Collier's Life of 
Shakespeare, p. ccxlii. 

1 Nichols's Lit. Anec., vol. iv. p. 597. Nichols, vol. vi. p. 41. 

2 Delany Corr., vol. iii. p. 296. 4 Burton's Neiu View, 1730. 

3 Historical Register for 1732 ; The Tatler, by 5 //,/, 



204 SALISBURY COURT THEATRE 

It was bought by William Beeston, a player, in 1652, and rebuilt 
and reopened by him in 1660. The Duke's company, under 
Davenant, played here till their new theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields was 
ready to receive them. Salisbury Court Theatre was finally destroyed 
in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt. The Duke's Theatre in Dorset 
Gardens, opened November 9, 1671, stood facing the Thames, on a 
somewhat different site. 

Salisbury House, in the STRAND, stood on the sites of Cecil 
Street and Salisbury Street, between Worcester House and Durham 
House, and was so called after Sir Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, 
Lord High Treasurer to James I., by whom it was built, when 
only Sir Robert Cecil. Queen Elizabeth was present at the house- 
wanning on December 6, I602. 1 

December 7, 1602. On Munday last the Queen dyned at Sir Robert Secil's 
newe house in the Strand. Shee was verry royally entertained, richely presented, 
and marvelous well contented ; but at hir departure shee strayned her foot. His 
hall was well furnished with choise weapons, which her Majestic took speciall notice 
of. Sundry deuises ; at hir entraunce, three women, a maid, a widdowe, and a wife, 
cache commending their owne states, but the virgin preferred ; 2 an other, one attired 
in habit of a Turke desyrous to see hir Majestic, but as a straunger without hope 
of such grace, in regard of the retired manner of hir lord, complained ; answere 
made, howe gracious hir Majestic in admitting to presence, and howe able to 
discourse in anie language ; which the Turke admired, and, admitted, presents hir 
with a riche mantle, etc. Manningham's Diary > p. 99. 

The house was, however, far from finished at this time. Salisbury 
was busy building in 1608. On August 10, 1608, we find Thomas 
Wilson writing to Cecil on the " difference of cost between Canterbury 
stone [Kentish rag] and Caen stone for the works at Salisbury House," 3 
and there are several subsequent letters on the subject ; one (September 
9) from Leonard Lawrence to Wilson informing him that he has taken 
down the inner part of the gate at Canterbury, which will yield 60 
or 70 loads of stone fit for London, but he refrains from meddling 
with the outer part till he has further instructions, because "the 
townspeople keeps so much ado." 4 He probably received instructions, 
as a few days later (September 25) he reports the demolition of the 
building at Canterbury and the shipment of the stones for London 
" for the Earl of Salisbury's use." There seems to have been as much 
difficulty in procuring workmen as materials, and as summary modes 
of procedure in order to obtain them. Sir W. Bowyer writes to the 
Earl from Newcastle (August 28) that he "could not obtain workmen 
to get stones at Berwick till Dunbar ordered three or four to be spared 
from the works on the bridge and castle." 5 In September 1610 are 
entered the specifications of a plan by a Mr. Osborne for making a 
portico at the south end of the Earl of Salisbury's garden in the 

1 Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, for the occasion but not printed in his Works, 
vol. iii. p. 601 ; Collier's Annals, vol. i. p. 323. 3 Cal. State Pap., 1603-1610, p. 451. 

2 This was " a pretty Dialogue of John Davies, 4 Ibid., vol. i. p. 456. 
Twixt a Maid, a Widow, and a Wife," written 5 Ibid., p. 453. 



SALISBURY STKI-: It'/' 205 

Strand. 1 Subsequently the house was divided into "Great Salisbury 
House" and "Little Salisbury House," and finally pulled down in 
1695. 

This house afterwards became two, the one being called Great Salisbury House, 
as being the resilience of the Earl, and the other Little Salisbury House, which was 
used to be let out to persons of quality ; being also a large house ; and this was 
above 28 years ago contracted for [i.e. 1692] of the then Earl of Salisbury for a 
certain term of years to build on, and accordingly it was pulled down and made into 
a street, called Salisbury Street, which being too narrow, and withal the descent to 
the Thames too uneasy, it was not so well inhabited as was expected. Another 
part, viz. that next to Great Salisbury House and over the long Gallery, was con- 
verted into an Exchange, and called the Middle Exchange, which consisted of a 
very long and large room (with shops on both sides) which from the Strand run as 
far as the water-side, where was a handsome pair of stairs to go down to the water- 
side, to take boat at, but it had the ill-luck to have the nick-name given it of the 
"Whore's Nest;" whereby, with the ill-fate that attended it, few or no people 
took shops there, and those that did were soon weary and left them. Insomuch 
that it lay useless except three or four shops towards the Strand ; and coming into 
the Earl's hands, this Exchange, with Great Salisbury House, and the houses 
fronting the street are pulled down, and now converted into a fair street called 
"Cecil Street," running down to the Thames, having very good houses fit for 
persons of repute, and will be better ordered than Salisbury Street was. Strype, B. 
iv. p. 120. 

In " Little Salisbury House " lived William Cavendish, third Earl 
of Devonshire, father of the first Duke of Devonshire, who played so 
important a part in the Revolution of 1688, and in his house Thomas 
Hobbes, the philosopher, had his chamber and home. 

It happened about two or three days after his Majesty's [Charles II.'s] happy 
returne, that as he was passing in his coach through the Strand, Mr. Hobbes was 
standing at Little Salisbury House Gate (where his Lord [the E. of Devonshire] 
then lived) ; the King espied him, putt off his hat very kindly to him, and aslced 
him how he did. Aubrey's Life of Hobbes. 

John Pell, the mathematician, records his meeting with Hobbes in 
the Strand, who " led me back to Salisbury House, where he brought 
me into his chamber and there showed me his construction of that 
Probleme, which he said he had solved, namely the Doubling of a 
Cube." 2 There is a good river- front view of the house in Wilkinson's 
Londina Illustrate/, from a drawing by Hollar, in the Pepysian Library 
at Cambridge. 

Salisbury Square, FLEET STREET. [See Salisbury Court.] 

Salisbury Street, STRAND, built circ. 1678, and so called from 
Salisbury House, the residence of Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury 
of the Cecil family. [See Salisbury House.] The present street was 
rebuilt, James Paine, architect, 1783. Partridge the almanac maker 
lived in this street. 

I have some thoughts of sending for him from the banks of Styx, and reinstating 
him in his own house, at the sign of the Globe in Salisbury Street. Taller , No. 
118, January 10, 1709. 

i Cal. State Pap., 1603-1610, p. 632. 2 p e ll, MS. Birch, Brit. Mus. 



2o6 SALISBURY STREET 

The Salisbury estate, consisting of Salisbury and Cecil Streets, was 
sold by the present Marquis of Salisbury for ^200,000, and prepara- 
tions were made at the end of. 1888 for the utilisation of the ground 
to the best advantage. A large hotel is being built at the end of the 
present street, which abuts upon the Embankment Gardens. It is 
proposed to build a club, theatre and chambers, with a courtyard in 
the centre. The entrance will be at Cecil Gate, where Cecil Street now 
is, and the exit at Salisbury Gate, where Salisbury Street now is. 

Salmon's (Mrs.) Wax- Work, FLEET STREET, a famous wax-work 
exhibition on the south side of Fleet Street, between the Temple 
Gates. Mrs. Salmon was the Madame Tussaud of the last half of the 
i 8th century. 

Tall Polygars 
Dwarf Zanzibars 

Mahomed's Tomb, Killarney's Lake, the Fane of Ammon, 
With all thy Kings and Queens, ingenious Mrs. Salmon ! 

Probationary Odes for the Laureateship, 1785. 

Salopian (The), CHARING CROSS, a coffee-house and tavern 
described in 1804 by Sir Richard Phillips as "frequented by gentlemen 
of the army, etc. good dinners, wines and lodgings." When Thomas 
Campbell, the poet, first came to London, Thomas Telford the engineer 
invited him to live with him at The Salopian, but the poet said that 
the noise of Charing Cross was enough to drive any man crazy, and he 
soon left it for South Molton Street. 

Saltero's (Don). [See Don Saltero's.] 

Baiters' Hall, ST. SWITHIN'S LANE, west side, the Hall of the 
Master, Wardens, and Commonalty of the Art or Mistery of Salters, 
the ninth on the list of the Twelve Great Companies of the City of 
London. The Salters received a grant of livery from Richard II. in 
1394, and letters patent from succeeding monarchs, but the Charter of 
Incorporation only dates from the first of Elizabeth, 1558. The first 
hall of the Company was in Bread Street, but they had removed to 
the present site some time before the Great Fire, which destroyed the 
hall and its contents, including the Company's books. The present 
hall, 1823, was designed by Henry Carr, architect, and opened May 
23, 1827. It is semi-classical in style with a portico of the Ionic 
order, spacious and stately. The hall itself is 72 feet by 40 feet. 
Oxford Court, in which it is situated, was so called from John 
De Vere, the sixteenth Earl of Oxford of that name, who died in 
1562, and was originally the site of the inn or hostel of the Priors of 
Tortington, in Sussex. Empson and Dudley, notorious as the un- 
scrupulous instruments of Henry VII. 's avarice in the later and more 
unpopular years of his reign, lived in Walbrook, in " two fair houses," 
with doors leading into the garden of the Prior of Tortington (now 
Salters' Garden). "Here they met," says Stow, "and consulted of 



SALUTATION TAVEI<\ 207 

matters at their pleasures." 1 Part of Sailers' Hall was let in the reign 
of William III. to a Protestant congregation of the Presbyterian 
persuasion. Tom lirown alludes to the sermons here in a well-known 
passage : 

A man that keeps steady to one party, though he happens to be in the wrong, is 
still an honest man. lie that goes to a Cathedral in the morning, and Sailers' Hall 
in the afternoon, is a rascal by his own confession. Tom Brown's Laconics (Works, 
8vo, 1709, vol. iv. p. 23). 

I Thumb'd o'er many factious Reams 
Of canting Lies, and Poets Dreams, 
All stuff d as full of Low-Church Manners, 
As e'er was Sailers' 1 Hall witli Sinners. 

Hudibras Kalivivus, 4to, 1707. 

Sailers' Hall Chapel, adjoining the hall, continued to be one of the 
chief dissenting chapels in the City down to our own day. It was re- 
moved to make room for the present Sailers' Hall. Lilly, the astrologer, 
was a freeman of this Company. Observe. Full-length portrail of 
Adrian Charpentier, painter of the clever and only good portrait of 
Roubiliac, the sculptor ; equestrian portrait of the Duke of Wellington ; 
and Alderman Gibbons in his Mayoral robes, by H. T. Wells, R.A. 

Salutation Tavern, No. 1 7 NEWGATE STREET (south side), in the 
reign of Anne was much resorted to for social gatherings. Somewhat 
later the leading booksellers and printers met here. Bowyer prints a 
rhyming invilation to a booksellers' supper, January 19, 1736, sent by 
the stewards Cave and Bowyer : 

SATURDAY, January 17, 1735. 
SIR 

You're desired on Monday next to meet 

At Salutation Tavern Newgate Street, 

Supper will be on table just at eight, 

One of St. John's, 2 and 'other of St. John's Gate. 3 

Along wilh the invilation Bowyer prinls a poetical answer by 
Richardson ihe novelisl, beginning : 

For me I'm much concerned I cannot meet 
At Salutation Tavern, Newgate Street. 4 

A " lale landlord preserved a Iradilion of ihe house lo the effect 
that Sir Chrislopher Wren used to smoke his pipe there whilst St. Paul's 
was in course of rebuilding." 5 

Here, in a liltle smoky room, Coleridge and Lamb used to meet to 
enjoy Welsh-rabbits and egg-hot, and discuss poetry and philosophy, 
both moral and political, over pipes and Orinoco. 6 And here it was 
that Southey discovered Coleridge in one of his gloomiest fits of 
melancholy, and endeavoured to rouse him to active exertion. 

Some of the Sonnets which shall be carelessly turned over by the general reader, 

1 Stow, p. 84. 5 A. Andrews in Notes and Queries, ad S., vol. 

2 Bowyer. vi. p. 137. 

3 Cave. 6 Talfourd, Life and Letters of Charles Lamb, 
* Bowyer, Anecdotes, p. 160. pt. i. passim. 



SALUTATION TAVERN 



may happily awaken in you remembrances which I should be sorry should be ever 
totally extinct the memory 

Of summer days and of delightful years, 

even so far back as those old suppers at our old Salutation Inn, when life was 
fresh and topics exhaustless and you first kindled in me, if not the power, yet the 
love of poetry and beauty and kindliness 

What words have I heard 
Spoke at the Mermaid. 

Charles Lamb's Dedication of his Works to Coleridge. 

Salvador House, BISHOPSGATE STREET. Here, in the office of 
Mr. James Edmeston, architect (d. 1867), Gilbert Scott, when a youth 
of sixteen, was placed, April 1827, to learn the profession of architect, 
and remained there till April I83I. 1 

Sainbrook Court, 24 BASINGHALL STREET, so called after Sir 
Jeremy Sambrook, whose house was here. 2 Here practised and died, 
November i, 1815, John Coakley Lettsom, M.D. 3 

Sam's Coffee-house, in EXCHANGE ALLEY; ditto in LUDGATE 
STREET. See, in the State Poems (8vo, 1697, p. 258), "A Satyr 
upon the French King ; writ after the Peace was concluded at Reswick, 
anno 1697, by a Non-Swearing Parson, and said to be drop'd out of 
his Pocket at Sam's Coffee House." See also State Poems, 8vo, 1703, 
p. 182. Sam's was one of the City houses chosen for receiving 
subscriptions for the wild projects put forward during the rage for 
speculation resulting from the publication of the South Sea Scheme : a 
sample or two will show their character. 

Jamiary?>, 1720. This day at Sam's Coffee House, behind the Royal Exchange, 
at 3 in the afternoon, a book will be opened for entering into a joint co-partner- 
ship on a thing that will turn to the advantage of the concerned. 

Same day. ^2,000,000 for purchasing and improving Fens in Lincolnshire 
Sam's. Weekly Papers, 1719-1720. 

While you at Sam's like a grave doctor sate 

Teaching the minor clergy how to prate. The Observatory. 

There are now two large Mulberry Trees growing in a little yard about sixteen 
foot square at Sam's Coffee House in Ludgate Street. The City Gardener, by 
Thomas Fairchild, 8vo, 1722, p. 53. 

Sanctuary, WESTMINSTER, a privileged precinct, under the 
protection of the abbot and monks of Westminster, and adjoining 
Westminster Abbey on the west and north side. The privileges 
survived the Reformation, and the bulk of the houses which composed 
the precinct were not taken down till 17 So. 4 In this Sanctuary 
Edward V. was "born in sorrow, and baptized like a poor man's child;" 
and here Skelton, the rude-railing satirist, found shelter from the 
revengeful hand of Cardinal Wolsey. 

Sir Thomas More's account of the taking of sanctuary by the 
widow of Edward IV. is very picturesque. 

1 Personal and Professional Recollections 3 Pettigrew's Life ofj. C. Lettsom, 1817. 

of Sir Gilbert Scott, pp. 55, 68. 4 See the oath on admission in Lansdowne 

2 North's Lives, vol. iii. p. 101. MS., No. 24, Art. 84. 



SANS SOUCI THEATRE 209 

Therefore nowe she [Queen Elizabeth Woodville] toke her younger sonne the 
Duke of Ynrke and her doughters and went out of the Palays of Westminster into 
the Sanctuary, and there lodged in the .' lace, and she and all her chyldren 

and compaignie were legistred for sanctuary persons. . . . Whereupon the ! 

! ilshop of York and Lord Chancellor] called up all his servantes and 
ith hym the great scale and came before day to the Quene, about whom he 
found much heavynesse, rumble, haste, busincsse, conveighaunce, and carriage of hjr 
stuffe into snnctuarye ; every man was busye to cary, beare and conveigh stuffe, chestes, 
and fardelles, no man was unoccupied, and some caried more than they were 
commaunded to another place. The Queen sat alone belowe on the rushes all 
desolate and dismayde. Sir Thomas More's J'itifull Life of A7//V Ed-uanl V., p. 
49 ; Hall's Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke, 
reprint, p. 350. 

What is styled the Broad Sanctuary contains St. Margaret's Church, 
the Guild Hall and Sessions House, and the Westminster Hospital. In 
the Broad Sanctuary Edmund Burke resided for many years. He 
begins to date from it November 7, 1772. Sir John Hawkins died, 
May 21, 1789, at his house by the Broad Sanctuary, formerly the 
residence of Admiral Vernon. Here are the Westminster Guild Hall, 
erected in 1805 from the designs of Mr. S. P. Cockerell ; Westminster 
Hospital, erected in 1832 from the designs of Mr. W. Inwood. The 
portion styled the Sanctuary extends from the open space in front 
of Westminster Hospital to Great Smith Street. Here are the 
Central Office of the National Society ; and at the south end, facing 
Dean's Yard, the Memorial to Old Westminsters who died in the 
Crimean War, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott. 

Sands End, CHELSEA. Probably named from the sandy nature 
of the soil here, although it has been suggested that the name is derived 
from the Sandys family. 

All the grass that Rumney yields, 
Or the sands in Chelsey fields, 
Or the shops in silver Thames. 

Ben Jonson's Song to Celia (The Forest, vi.) 

At a house near the creek which divided Chelsea from Fulham 
Addison occasionally dwelt. In a letter to the youthful Lord Warwick 
dated May 20, 1708, he wrote in reference to a passage in Cicero's 
Treatise on Friendship, " If your Lordship understand the sweetness 
of these words, you may assure yourself you are no ordinary Latinist ; 
but if they have force enough to bring you to Sandy End I shall be 
very much pleased." 

Sans Souci Theatre, LEICESTER PLACE, LEICESTER SQUARE, a 
theatre of some distinction in the early part of the present century, 
built by Thomas Dibdin, the song writer, and opened February 16, 1793. 
It was first erected behind Dibdin's music shop, in the Strand (opposite 
Beaufort Buildings), and afterwards removed to Leicester Place. It is 
now the "Hotel de Paris et de 1'Europe." The first theatre was 
planned, painted, and decorated by Dibdin himself. Edmund Kean, 
when little more than a child, distinguished himself here by readings 
and recitations. 

VOL. in p 



210 SARACEN'S HEAD 



Saracen's Head, a celebrated tavern and coaching establishment, 
which stood on the north side of Snow Hill, "without Newgate." It 
was removed in constructing the Holborn Viaduct. On the new Snow 
Hill, but some distance from the old inn, another "Saracen's Head 
Hotel" has been erected, but it is quite unlike its predecessor in 
appearance and character. 

Next to this church [St. Sepulchre's] is a fair and large inn for receipt of travellers, 
and hath to sign the Saracen's head. Stow, p. 143. 

In the preparations for the reception of the Emperor Charles V. 
in 1522, is the entry, "The signe of the Sersyns hed : xxx beddes, 
a stable for xl horses." This shows the importance of the inn at 
that time. Two other inns have the same stable room, but none 
make up so many beds. 

Methinks, quoth he, it fits like the Saracen's Head without Newgate. Tarlton's 
Jests, 4to, 1611. 

Do not undervalue an enemy by whom you have been worsted. When our 
countrymen came home from fighting with the Saracens, and were beaten by them, 
they pictured them with huge, big, terrible faces (as you still see the sign of the 
Saracen's Head is), when in truth they were like other men. But this they did to 
save their own credits. Selden's Table Talk. 

At the Saracen's Head, Tom pour'd in ale and wine, 
Until his face did represent the sign. 

Osborn's Works, 8vo, 1701, p. 538. 

The sign, as long as it remained, was surly and Saracenic enough 
to remind one of a passage in Fennor's Counter's Commonwealth, 
where a serjeant of the compter is described with " a phisnomy much 
resembling the Saracen's head without Newgate, and a mouth as wide 
vaulted as that without Bishopsgate." x Dickens has described the 
aspect of the Inn in its latter days. 

Near to the jail, and by consequence near to Smithfield . . . and on that particular 
part of Snow Hill, where omnibus horses going eastward seriously think of falling 
down on purpose, and where horses in hackney cabriolets going westward not 
unfrequently fall by accident, is the coachyard of the Saracen's Head Inn ; its portal 
guarded by two Saracen's heads and shoulders . . . frowning upon you from each 
side of the gateway. The Inn itself garnished with another Saracen's head, frowns 
upon you from the top of the yard. . . . When you walk up this yard you will see 
the booking-office on your left, and the tower of St. Sepulchre's Church darting 
abruptly up into the sky on your right, and a gallery of bedrooms upon both sides. 
Just before you you will observe a long window with the words ' ' Coffee Room " 
legibly painted above it. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, 1839, chap. iv. 

Another well known inn of this name was outside Aldgate. 

Nearer Aldgate is the Saracen's Head Inn, which is very large and of a con- 
siderable trade. Strype, B. ii. p. 82. 

Sardinia Street, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. Duke Street was 
renamed Sardinia Street in 1878, and the new name was given to it 
from the chapel formerly belonging to the Sardinian minister situated 
in the street [see Duke Street]. 

1 Fennor's Counter's Commonwealth, 410, 1617, p. 3. 



SAVILE ROW 2ir 



Savile House, on the north side of LEICESTER SQUARE, 
immediately adjoining Leicester House, and so called after the Savile 
family, was the residence of Sir George Savile, the friend of Burke. 
Frederick, Prince of Wales, when living in Leicester House hired Savile 
House for his children. Savile's Bill for the Relief of the Roman 
Catholics was one of the stimulants to the Gordon Riots of June 1780, 
and his house was one of the first attacked by the mob, " carried by 
storm and given up to pillage," but the building was saved. The 
railings torn from it were the chief weapons and instruments of the 
rioters. 1 Burke, though his own house was threatened, went to the 
assistance of his friend. 

For four nights I kept watch at Lord Rockingham's or Sir George Savile's 
whose houses were garrisoned by a strong body of soldiers, together with numbers of 
true friends of the first rank who were willing to share the danger. Savile House, 
Rockingham House, Devonshire House, to be turned into garrisons ! Burke to 
Shackletou (Corresp. vol. ii. p. 355). 

When Leicester Square ceased to be a fashionable place of resi- 
dence, Savile House, rebuilt from the design of Mr. S. Page, was let 
for exhibitions and entertainments. Here for a long series of years was 
held Miss Linwood's exhibition of pictures in needlework. In its 
last years panoramas and poses plastiques were the leading attractions. 
The house was burnt down to the basement, February 28, 1865, and 
the site, after remaining empty for many years, was utilised about 1880 
for a panorama, and subsequently reformed into the Empire Theatre. 

Savile Row, BURLINGTON GARDENS to BOYLE STREET, was so 
called after the heiress of the Saviles, Dorothy, only daughter and heir 
of the celebrated George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, and wife of Richard 
Boyle, Earl of Burlington, the amateur architect. 

A new Pile of buildings is going to be carry'd on near Swallow Street by a Plan 
drawn by the Right Hon. the Earl of Burlington, and which is to be called Savile 
Street. The Daily Post, March 12, 1733. 

Eminent Inhabitants. Henrietta Hobart, Countess of Suffolk, and 
mistress of George II. 

The Right Honorable the Countess of Suffolk has purchased a large house of Mr. 
Gray the builder, in Savile Street, Burlington Gardens for ^3000. Daily Couraiit, 
February 21, 1735. 

Walpole, describing a fire in Vigo Street, April 28, 1761, says: 
" I went to my Lady Suffolk in Savile Row, and passed the whole night 
till 3 in the morning, between her little hot bedchamber and the spot, 
up to my ankles in water without taking cold." 2 Bryan Fairfax, " at the 
south end, in an excellent well-built brick house, held by lease under 
the Earl of Burlington," as appears from an advertisement of the sale of 
his pictures inserted in the Public Advertiser of April 5, 1756. Wal- 
pole speaks of it in 1761 as "that pretty house of Fairfax's, now 
General Waldegrave's." It must have been close to the south-east 

1 Walpole to Rev. W. Cole, June 15, 1780. 2 vol. iii. p. 398. 



S A VILE ROW 



corner. In 1781 William Pitt, with his brother Lord Chatham. 
Writing to Wilberforce for Anderson's Dictionary of Commerce, he says, 
" If you can find it and spare it, and will trust me with it, pray send it 
to Savile Street." 1 Joseph Hill, the attached friend and correspondent 
of William Cowper, lived at No. u. In 1797 Henry Crabb Robinson 
went to him as a clerk at a guinea a week. " He had no general law 
practice, but was steward to several noblemen." 2 Richard Brinsley 
Sheridan died in the front bedroom of No. 17, and was buried in 
Westminster Abbey. In a short note to Mr. Rogers, dated Savile 
Row, May 15, 1816, six weeks before his death, he says : "They are 
going to put the carpets out of window and break into Mrs. S.'s 
room and take me ; for God's sake let me see you." A present of 
^"150 from Mr. Rogers arrived in time. He had previously lived in 
No. 14. The Right Hon. George Tierney, a leading member of 
Parliament in his day, but now chiefly remembered by his duel with 
Mr. Pitt, fought on Putney Heath at 3 P.M. on Sunday, May 27, 1798. 
Mr. Tierney died at his house, No. n in this Row, January 25, 1830. 
At No. 20 lived Robert (Bobus) Smith, the brother of the Rev. Sydney 
Smith. No. 16 was the residence of Sir Benjamin Brodie. No. 12 
was for many years the town residence of George Grote, the historian 
of Greece, and here he died, June 19, 1871. 

Saviour's (St.) Church, for the DEAF and DUMB, 272 Oxford Street 
(the corner of Queen Street), was erected in 1871 from the designs of 
Mr. (now Sir) A. W. Blomfield, R.A. The church, which is of red brick, 
Early English in style, a Maltese cross in plan and octagonal above, will 
accommodate a congregation of 250. The sermon is preached directly 
by signs, or orally, and interpreted by the sign language. Connected 
with the church are lecture and reading rooms, where not only lectures are 
delivered and evening classes taught, but a debating Society is carried 
on by the " deaf-mutes." The whole is a part of the organisation of the 
Royal Association in Aid of the Deaf and Dumb, an institution which 
is doing excellent work among this class of persons. 

Saviour's (St.) SOUTHWARK, the church of the Augustinian Priory 
of St. Mary Overy, and first erected into a parish church by Act of 
Parliament, 32 Henry VIII. (1540-1541), when the two parishes of St. 
Margaret and St. Mary Magdalen in Southwark were united, and the 
church of the Priory of St. Mary Overy made the parish church, and 
called by the name of St. Saviour's. The priory church of St. Mary 
Overy was built by Bishop Giffard of Winchester and others about 
1 1 06, when the Augustinian Priory was established (or reorganised) by 
the two Norman knights, William Pont de 1'Arche and William Dawncey. 
One hundred years after much of the borough including the church 
and part of London Bridge was burnt. It was rebuilt in 1208. 

1208 [loth of King John]. And Seynt Marie Overeye was that yere be- 
gonne. Chronicle of London (Nicolas, p. 7). 

1 Rose, vol. i. p. 31. '- H. C. Robinson, vol. i. p. 38. 



ST. SAVIOUR'S 213 



The church had not been entirely destroyed by the fire, for a 
beautiful doorway and other traces of Giffard's work were discovered 
shortly before the demolition of the nave in 1838, and bits of earlier 
work which have been found at various times, indicate the existence of 
a church of the Saxon period. In 1238 Peter de Rupibus, then Bishop 
of Winchester, built the chapel afterwards set apart and used as the 
parish church. To stimulate the speedier completion of the building the 
Archbishop of York granted in 1273 an indulgence of eighty days to 
all who might contribute to the fabric. At the beginning of the i5th 
century Cardinal Beaufort, son of John of Gaunt, and Bishop of Win- 
chester, spent large sums upon the church in repairs and alterations. 
His arms and Cardinal's hat are still to be seen carved on a pillar 
in the south transept. On February 2, 1424-1425, the marriage of 
James I. of Scotland and Johanna Beaufort was celebrated in this 
church with the customary pomp. The marriage feast was kept in the 
Bishop of Winchester's palace close to the church. In 1469 the stone 
roof of the nave fell and was replaced by the wooden roof, which lasted 
till the present century. Some of the bosses, curiously carved and with 
remains of the original colouring still upon them, are preserved in the 
Lady Chapel. The date of the roof is fixed by the rebus of Henry de 
Burton, who was Prior of St. Mary Overie in I469. 1 The original form 
was Overies, and the derivation of the word is given by Somner and 
quoted by Bosworth. A.S. ofer (genitive, ofres ; dative, ofre) means a 
bank or shore, therefore the meaning of the name is St. Mary of the 
Bank, or on the Bankside. Overies is probably the genitive ofres, and 
the s was dropped under the erroneous supposition of its being a 
plural, like Chinee from Chinese. 

In October 1539 the priory was suppressed, the canons were put 
out and their place taken by secular priests, and the property passed 
to Sir Anthony Brown, whose son became Viscount Montague. In 
1540 the priory was made a parish church the little church of " Marie 
Mawdley " (really a chapel attached to the chapel on the south side of 
the choir) that of St. Margaret's (in the middle of the High Street) 
being united with it. Some elaborate dealings protracted to the time 
of James I. took place between the parish and the court, in which the 
parish was very unfairly treated. The rectory and church buildings 
now became the property of the parishioners, and have remained so 
ever since. Alterations have been made by Acts of Parliament in 
1868 and 1883, and the right of popular election of the chaplain has 
ceased. 

The three days' " Examinacions of the Constante Martir of God, 
M. John Bradfourde, before the Lorde Chancellour, B. of Winchester, 
the B. of London, and other Commissioners," were held in this church 
in January 1555. Bradford was one of the most illustrious of the 
Marian martyrs, and no efforts were spared to convert him. After 
each day's examination he was taken to the " revestry " of this church 

1 Quarterly Review, vol. clxx. p. 397. 



214 ST. SAVIOURS 



and assailed by fresh hands zealous to "confer "with him. Among 
these was a gentleman who came "for old acquaintance sake," says 
Bradford, "for I was at Muttrel tourney [the battle of Montreuil] a 
paymaster, in which he was, and had often received money at my 
hands." Other martyrs in the Marian persecution, such as Bishop 
Hooper, John Rogers, Bishop Ferrars, Dr. Groom and Mr. Saunders 
were tried in St. Saviour's Church. 

After Westminster Abbey St. Saviour's contained some of the finest 
specimens of Early English architecture in London. Little, however, of 
the original work remains. A remarkable and conscientious restoration 
of the choir and tower was made, 1822-1825, by George Gwilt, architect. 

Of the many worthy names which the parish register of St. Saviour's preserves, 
none deserves honour better than his. For thirty years he fought a difficult battle 
against ignorance and parsimony, and it is not too much to say that although all was 
not saved, we owe it to Mr. Gwilt and those who worked with him that all was not 
destroyed. Quarterly Review, vol. clxx. p. 407. 

The nave was taken down in 1838, and in the following year it was 
replaced by a very unsightly building, at a cost of ^8000, erected from 
the designs of Henry Rose, the floor being at a higher level than the 
choir and transepts, from which it is shut off by a partition. It is 
proposed to remove this portion of the church and to reconstruct the 
nave as far as possible on the lines of the old one. For the complete 
restoration of the building, which is projected> the services of Sir Arthur 
Blomfield, R.A., have been (1890) retained as architect. 

The choir is of excellent design, the lancet shaped arch being pre- 
served throughout. On the floor cut in the stone are the names of 
John Fletcher, Edmund Shakespeare, and Philip Massinger, buried in 
this church, not implying the actual position of burial but simply the 
fact. The altar screen (similar to the one at Winchester) was like that 
one erected at the expense of Bishop Fox. In the string-course is his 
famous device, the pelican. The choir was restored in 1822, but the 
altar screen was not discovered until 1833, when a iyth century screen 
was removed. It was restored under Robert Wallace, architect. 

The Lady Chapel was restored in 1832-1834, also under George 
Gwilt, architect. The woodwork divided off a corner of this chapel, 
which was used by Gardiner in the time of Queen Mary as a 
Consistory Court. 

The church has always been famous for its bells. In 1612 the 
great bell was not to weigh less than 50 cwt. At the Restoration of 
1737 the weight of all the bells was about 10 tons 15 cwts. This 
endangered the stability of the tower, but the danger was overcome 
by the skilful use of iron ties by Mr. Gwilt. 

Monuments. Effigy of knight cross-legged, in north aisle of choir. 
To John Gower, the poet (d. 1402); a perpendicular monument, 
originally erected on the north side of the church, in the chapel of St. 
John, where Gower founded a chantry. The monument was removed 
to its present site, and repaired and coloured in 1832, at the expense of 



ST. SAVIOUR'S 215 



George Granville Leveson Gower, first Duke of Sutherland. Gower's 
monument has always been taken care of. Peacham speaks of it in his 
Compleat Gentleman, p. 95, as " lately repaired by some good Benefactor." 

Ho [Gower] lieth under a tomb of stone, with his image also of stone over him: 
the hair of his head, auburn, long to his shoulders but curling up, and a small forked 
licni'l ; on his head a chaplet like a coronet of four roses; a habit of purple, 
damasked down to his feet ; a collar of esses gold about his neck ; under his head 
the likeness of three books which he compiled. Stow, p. 152. 

Thomas Cure (d. 1588), founder of Cure's Almshouses. Lancelot 
Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester (d. 1626); a black and white marble 
monument in the Lady Chapel, with his effigy at full length. The 
epitaph, on which Hallam remarks (Const. Hist., vol. ii. p. 63, note, zoth 
ed.), claims for Bishop Andrewes "a superior reward in Heaven on 
account of his celibacy " calebs migravit ad aureolam ccelestem, the crown 
of virginity in fact, was lost in the fire of 1676. When St. John's chapel 
was taken down his leaden coffin was found, with no other inscription 
than L.A. (the initials of his name). John Traherne, gentleman porter 
to James I. (d. 1618); half-length of himself and wife (upright), with 
two sons and four daughters (kneeling). John Bingham, saddler to 
Queen Elizabeth and James I. (d. 1625). Alderman Humble and 
his wife (temp. James I.), with some pretty verses, beginning 

Like to the damask rose you see. 

William Austin (d. 1633); a kind of harvest-home monument, in north 
transept ; this Austin was a gentleman of fortune and importance in 
Southwark in the reigns of James I. and Charles I. Lionel Lockyer, 
the famous empiric in Charles II.'s reign (d. 1672) ; a rueful full-length 
figure in north transept. The inscription says that his pills, well-known, 
will 

Survive his dust, and not expire 
'Till all things else, at th' universal fire. 

He [a Popish Priest] sells indulgences, like Lockyer's Pills, with directions how 
they should be taken. Butler's Remains, vol. ii. p. 143. 

Abraham Newland, chief cashier to the Bank of England (d. 1807). 

Eminent Persons buried in, and graves unmarked. Sir Edward 
Dyer, the poet, in the chancel, May n, 1607; he lived and died in 
Winchester House, adjoining. Edmund Shakespeare, "player" (the 
poet's youngest brother), buried in the church, December 31, 1607. 
Lawrence Fletcher, one of the leading shareholders in the Globe and 
Blackfriars Theatres, and William Shakespeare's "fellow," buried in the 
church September 12, 1608. Philip Henslowe, the manager, so well 
known by his curious Account Book or Diary ; buried in the chancel, 
January 1615-1616. John Fletcher (Beaumont and Fletcher), buried 
in the church, August 29, 1625. "Philip Massinger, a stranger" 
(the dramatic poet), buried in the church, March 18, 1638-1639. 

The houses in Dodington Grove, Kennington, were built some of 
them over earth removed during the renovating and rebuilding of St. 



216 ST. SAVIOUR'S 



Saviour's ; there probably, if anywhere, is the sacred dust of the great 
people buried at St. Saviour's, serving as foundations for the tenements 
of those who probably never heard of them. 

Among notable chaplains of the parish may be mentioned Sutton, 
who in his sermon on the Romans, delivered in 1 6 1 6 from St. Saviour's 
pulpit, inveighed against certain people " who dishonour God, living 
upon usurie, by dicing houses, and by penning and acting of playes." 
He was very sharply answered by Nathan Field, an actor whose name 
appears in the list at the beginning of the first folio of Shakespeare 
(1623). Moreton, fellow of Emmanuel, friend and executor to the 
Harvards. Crodacott, a puritan divine deprived on St. Bartholomew's 
Day. Sacheverell, the incendiary preacher of Queen Anne's time, who, 
in his famous sermon, preached at St. Paul's, November 5, 1709, 
described himself as Fellow of Magdalen, Oxford, and Chaplain of St. 
Saviour's, Southwark. Thomas Jones, of the Wesley School, and much 
esteemed by earnest religious people ; he died young, of fever caught in 
visiting the sick. 

Registers are well preserved and of considerable interest. Those of 
St. Margaret, before it became one with St. Mary Overy, begin 1538 ; 
other records of the same parish of a hundred years or so before, but 
in a very fragmentary state, still remain. 1553 the name of St. Saviour 
appears instead of St. Margaret. In these registers, among the births, 
marriages, and deaths, may be found names of note connected with the 
Shakesperian stage, and before that. 

Token-books. These at first sight appear like waste-books of some 
common chandler's shop long and narrow books of common paper, 
in brown paper covers ; they are nevertheless valuable manuscripts, con- 
taining names of all parishioners above fifteen ; of streets, courts, rents, 
and houses in regular order ; of the pence given in each case in receipt 
of a sacramental token of lead, having some suitable inscription, cast 
by the warders for the purpose of ensuring attendance at the parish 
church when the sacrament was administered, under penalty for neglect. 
The names of some sixteen of the actors of the 1623 folio appear in 
these books as taking the sacrament at St. Saviour's. These token-books, 
containing names of people in that illustrious and stirring time and in a 
notable district, are very valuable, but they are not cared for as they 
ought to be, considering that the parish contains many rich people, 
and that the cost of putting them in order and binding them would be 
trifling ; to show their value as records of the past, in no other way but 
by these books could the actual birthplace of that pilgrim father (as 
he may perhaps be called), John Harvard, founder of the great 
University of New England, have been discovered. 

From the Churchwarden's Accounts St. Saviour's, March 30, 1613 : 

It. For another quire of pap to make the token booke . . iiij d 

For writinge the borough side token booke . . . iij s iiij d 
For writinge the bankside token booke .... iiij s 

4800 tokens, ,60. In this case the contribution was at 3d. each, and the money 
was generally given to the poor. 



THE SAVOY 217 



Among other burial-places belonging to St. Saviour's now entirely 
disused was one at the corner of Union Street and Red Cross Street, 
known as the Cross Bones, having an emblem of the name over the gate- 
way. This was " the single women's churchyard," an unconsecrated place 
of burial appropriated, with scarcely a doubt, to the women of the stewes. 

In the vestry minutes, December 1786, it is noted of the Cross Bones 
that some persons had dug up bodies there for dissection, that they had 
put them into a coach and got away with their spoil. A reward of 
five guineas was offered and some strong language was used in the 
vestry. It turned out that the sexton of the place was concerned in 
the traffic. 

Savoy (The), in the STRAND, a house or palace on the river side 
(of which the chapel alone remains), built in 1245 by Peter, Earl of 
Savoy and Richmond, uncle unto Eleanor, wife to King Henry III. 
The Earl bestowed it on the fraternity of Montjoy (Fratres de Monte 
Jovis, or Priory de Cornuto by Havering at the Bower, in Essex), of 
whom it was bought by Queen Eleanor for Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, 
second son of King Henry III. (d. 1295). In 1293 a license to 
castellate was obtained. 1 Henry Plantagenet, fourth Earl and first 
Duke of Lancaster, "repaired, or rather new built it," at a cost of 
50,000 marks, and here John, King of France, was confined after the 
battle of Poictiers (1356). The King, not long after his release, died 
on a visit to this country in his ancient prison of the Savoy. Blanche 
Plantagenet, daughter and co-heir of Henry, first Duke of Lancaster, 
married John Plantagenet, Duke of Lancaster, fourth son of King 
Edward III. ("Old John of Gaunt"); and while the Savoy was in his 
possession it was burnt and entirely destroyed by Wat Tyler and 
his followers (1381). Mention is made in the Accounts of 1393-1394 
of the annual loss of ^4:13:4, "the rent of 14 shops belonging 
lately to the Manor of the Savoy annexed, for each shop by the year, 
at four terms 6s. 8d., the accomptant had nothing, because they were 
burnt at the time of the Insurrection, and are not rebuilt." In the 
Accounts the Insurrection is spoken of as " The Rumor " (or popular 
murmuring, post rumoreni). The Symeon Tower was repaired this 
year, as were also the "Great Gates of the Manor," and the Water 
Gate ; and IDS. were paid "for making one hedge for the protection of 
the Garden opposite the said manor of the Savoy." The "fruits and 
profits" of the garden were let for 133. 4d. "Paid to divers labourers 
for making 2 perches of the wall on the west side of the garden, called 
' mud-wall ' between the Savoy and the Inn of the Bishopric of Carlisle, 
each perch at 95. = 1 8s. ; and paid for covering i o perches of a certain 
old wall on the same western side, at i8d. a perch, 155. Mem. for 
the Steward to inquire whether the burden of making this wall of 
right belongs to the Lord or not." Also "for 82 Ibs. of iron, bought 
and worked into the form of a lattice and placed in the wall of the 

1 Thirty-first Report oftlie Deputy Keeper of the Records, Appendix i, p. 17. 



218 THE SAVOY 



aforesaid [Symeon] tower, inclosing the window towards the east, for 
the safe keeping of the prisoners in the said tower, at 2d. the pound, 
133. 8d." l The writer of the accompt received 2d. a day for wages. 

The Savoy lay long neglected after this, nor would it appear to 
have been rebuilt, or indeed employed for any particular purpose 
before 1505, when it was endowed by Henry VII. as a Hospital of 
St. John the Baptist, for the relief of 100 poor people. The King 
makes particular mention of it in his will. At the suppression of the 
hospital in 1553, the beds, bedding, and other furniture were given 
by Edward VI. to the Royal Hospitals of Bridewell and St. Thomas. 
Queen Mary re-endowed it, and it was continued and maintained as 
a hospital till the first of Queen Anne (1702), when it was finally 
dissolved. Fleetwood, the Recorder of London, describes the Savoy 
in 1560 in a letter to Lord Burghley as a nursery of rogues and 
masterless men : " The chief nurserie of all these evell people is the 
Savoy, and the brick-kilnes near Islington." Queen Elizabeth, when 
taking the air "at her woode nere Islyngton was environed with a 
number of roges," and sent word to the Lord Mayor and Recorder, 
who took summary measures for the apprehension of all rogues and 
masterless people. But the master of the Savoy Hospital was unwilling 
to allow of their apprehension in his precinct, as he was "sworne to 
lodge claudicantes, egrotantes, et peregrinantes ; " but in spite of his 
"curtese letter" they were "all soundly payd" before they were sent 
back. 2 The Savoy, long after sanctuary was legally abrogated, continued 
to be a refuge for debtors and disorderly persons, and the chapel was 
the last place in which the so-called Fleet marriages were performed in 
defiance of the law. [See St. Mary le Savoy.] 

At the Restoration the meetings of the commissioners for the 
revision of the Liturgy took place in the Savoy (April 15 -July 25, 
1661); twelve bishops appearing for the Established Church, and 
Calamy, Baxter, Reynolds, and others for the Presbyterians. This was 
called "The Savoy Conference," and under that name is matter of 
English history. Fuller, the author of The Worthies, was lecturer at 
the Savoy, and Cowley, the poet, a candidate at Court for the office of 
master. " Savoy missing Cowley " is commemorated in the State 
Poems of that time. The successful candidate was Dr. Killigrew, the 
father of Anne Killigrew, who is buried in the chapel, and who still 
lives in the poetry of Dryden. King Charles II. established a French 
church here, called " The French Church in the Savoy." Now removed 
to Bloomsbury Street. The first sermon was preached by Dr. Durel, 
Sunday, July 14, 1661. The sick and wounded in the great Dutch War 
of 1666 were lodged in the Savoy. On the night of April 16, 1763, the 
recruits for the East India Service, temporarily confined in the Savoy, 
made a determined attempt to escape. They disarmed the guard and 
obtained possession of the keys, but before they could force the outer 
gate a detachment of soldiers arrived, and after a sharp struggle the 

1 Archceologia, vol. xxiv. p. 299. z Ellis's Letters, vol. ii. p. 285. 



SCALDING ALLKY 219 



recruits were forced back and secured, but not till three of their number 
had been killed and "several mortally wounded." 1 

This Savoy House is a very great and at this present a very ruinous building. 
Tn the midst of its buildings is a very spacious Hall, the walls three foot broad at 
least, of stone without and brick and stone inward. The ceiling is very curiously 
built with wood, and having knobs in due places hanging down, and images of 
holding before their breasts coats of arms, but hardly discoverable. On one 
is a Cross gules between four stars or else mullets. It is covered with lead, but in 
divers places perished where it lies open to the weather. This large Hall is now 
divided into several apartments. A cooper hath a part of it for stowing of his 
hoops and for his work. Other parts of it serve for two Marshalseas for keeping 
Prisoners, as Deserters, men prest for military service, Dutch recruits, etc. Towards 
thr east end of this Hall is a fair cupola with glass windows, but all broken, which 
makes it probable the Hall was as long again ; since cupolas are wont to be built 
about the middle of great halls. In this Savoy, how ruinous soever it is, are divers 
good houses. First the King's Printing Press for Proclamations, Acts of Parliament, 
Gazettes, and such like public papers ; next a Prison ; thirdly a Parish Church 
[St. Mary-le-Savoy] and three or four of the churches and places for religious 
assemblies, viz. for the French, for Dutch, for High Germans and Lutherans ; and 
lastly, for the Protestant Dissenters. Here be also harbours for many refugees and 
poor people. Strype, ed. 1720, B. iv. p. 107. 

On Tuesday a person going into the Savoy to demand a debt due from a person 
w r ho had taken sanctuary there, the inhabitants seized him, and after some con- 
sultation agreed, according to the usual custom, to dip him in tar and roll him in 
feathers, after which they carried him in a wheelbarrow into the Strand, and bound 
him fast to the Maypole, but several constables and others coming in, dispersed the 
rabble and rescued the person from their abuses. The Postman for July 1696, No. 
1 80. 

Sir Thomas Heneage appears to have removed from Bevis Marks 
[which see] to the Savoy in 1590, on being appointed Chancellor of the 
Duchy of Lancaster, and he died at the Duchy House in the Savoy in 
1595. In 1687 the Jesuits opened a chapel and schools in the Savoy, 
and offered to instruct gratuitously all youths who were " fit to begin 
Latin " in that language, Greek, poetry and rhetoric ; but schools 
and chapel were closed and the Jesuits dispersed on the abdication of 
James II. The inscription on the monument at Acton to Mrs. Barry, 
the celebrated actress of the reign of Charles II., describes her as "of 
the parish of St. Mary Savoy." Alexander Cruden, author of the 
Concordance, lived here, and here Jacob Tonson had a warehouse. 
The last vestiges of the Savoy buildings were swept away in forming 
the approaches to Waterloo Bridge. 2 

Savoy Church. [See St. Mary le Savoy.] 

Scalding Alley, in the POULTRY, was so called from the 
poulterers scalding or scorching their poultry there. [See Poultry.] 
But who is this ? O, my daughter Cis, 
Minced-pie ; with her do not dally 
On pain o' your life : she's an honest cook's wife, 
And comes out of Scalding Alley. 

1 Lambert, vol. ii. p. 193. 

2 Of the Savoy there is a scarce etching by for the Vetusta Monumenta. Its position and 
Hollar (a river front), done in 1650, and a most the connection of the buildings are well shown 
careful survey and view by Vertue, done in 1736, in Strypu's Map, 15. iv. p. 108. 



220 SCHOMBERG HOUSE 

Schomberg House, PALL MALL, Nos. 81 and 82 on the south 
side, so called after Frederic Count of Schomberg, a German by birth 
and descent, but a Marshal of France, and Baron Teyes; Earl of 
Brentford, Marquis of Harwich, and Duke of Schomberg in England, 
as also Knight of the Garter and Master of the Ordnance. By a 
curious limitation in the patent he was succeeded in the dukedom by 
his third son, Charles, who died in 1693 of wounds received at the 
battle of Marsaglia, and he in his turn was succeeded by the second 
son of his father, although the first son was still living. This second 
son, and third Duke, Mindhardt Schomberg, was the actual builder of 
this house, which could hardly have been finished when, in 1699, a 
party of disbanded soldiers drew themselves up before it and threatened 
to pull it down. 1 After his death it passed into the possession of 
Lord Holderness, by whom it was let in 1760 to the Duke of Cumber- 
land, of Culloden fame. In 1765 it was purchased for ^"5000 by 
John Astley, the handsome portrait painter. Astley was a fellow pupil 
with Reynolds under Hudson, and they were together in Rome. 
There, "poor in purse as with the pencil," he had eked out a deficient 
toilet by making the hinder part of his waistcoat out of one of his 
own canvases. On a summer's day a party of painters went for a 
little excursion. The day was hot, Astley incautiously threw off his 
coat, and his companions discovered that he was carrying on his back 
a terrific chasm and tremendous waterfall. 2 He had not long to resort 
to such shifts. Before he had been long back in England in the 
course of itinerant portrait-painting he attracted the notice of a 
wealthy widow, Lady Daniel of Duckinfield, who sat to him for her 
portrait and offered him her hand. Upon Schomberg House Astley 
spent ^5000, dividing it into three, and fitting up the centre part 
" most whimsically," says Pennant, for his own use. Others, however, 
praise his architectural efforts here, as they praise the taste he displayed 
on his mansion at Duckinfield at which he died, November 14, 1787. 
About 1780 Astley let his part of Schomberg House to Dr. Graham, 
the notorious quack, who converted it into what he called his "Temple 
of Health," with a living goddess, in the shape of a certain Mrs. Prescott, 
as the presiding deity. After a few years Graham found it convenient 
to flit to Edinburgh, where Scott, it may be remembered, was when a 
child subjected to his electrical treatment and earth baths. 3 

August 23, 1780. In the morning I went to Dr. Graham's. It is the most 
impudent puppet-show of imposition I ever saw, and the mountebank himself the 
dullest of his profession, except that he makes the spectators pay a crown a-piece. 
H. Walpole to Cotmtess of Ossory. 

In 1786 the quack doctor was succeeded in the central portion of 
the building by Richard Cosway, R. A., the most fascinating of miniature 
painters. His wonderful skill and the charms and accomplishments of his 
wife, Maria Hadfield, rendered the house a great resort of the fashion- 

1 Vernon Corr., vol. ii. p. 319. " Northcote's Life of Reynolds, vol. i. p. 44. 

3 Lockhart's Life of Scott, chap. iv. 



SCHOOL OF DESIGN 



able world ; and the attractions of their musical parties where the 
most popular singer and musician and the latest lion were sure to be 
found were not diminished by the circumstance that there was a 
private door which communicated with the gardens of Carlton House, 
and that the Prince of Wales on such occasions frequently availed him- 
self of it. These receptions were on Sunday evenings, when 1'all Mall, 
according to Smith, "was hardly passable." Cosway gave up the house 
about 1799. It was then successively occupied by the Polygraphic 
Society, who held an exhibition here of their " wretched copies of good 
pictures ;" 1 by Bryan, the well-known picture-dealer ; by Peter Coxe, the 
auctioneer; and then by Payne, the bookseller, "honest Tom Payne," 
and Messrs. Payne and Foss, who here brought together their matchless 
collection of old books. Jervas, the portrait painter (d. 1730), eulogised 
by Pope ; and Nathaniel Hone, R.A. (d. 1 784), now chiefly remembered 
by his picture entitled the " Conjuror," were in turns tenants of 
Schomberg House. 2 

Another portion was more worthily occupied. In the summer of 
1774, when Thomas Gainsborough removed from Bath to London, he 
rented the west wing of Schomberg House from Astley for ^300 a year. 
Here Reynolds at once called upon him, and here, but after an interval 
of eight years, Sir Joshua had one sitting for his portrait, on Sunday 
November 3, 1782. But the portrait was never painted; and 
Reynolds did not again enter his door till he received that affecting 
letter saying that he had been " six months in a dying state," and 
begging as a last favour that he " would come once more under my 
roof and look at my things." Here then took place that interesting 
and solemn interview between these two illustrious painters which left 
the impression on the mind of the survivor that the dying man's 
"regret at losing life was principally the regret at leaving his art." 
Gainsborough died here, August 2, 1798. "We are all going to 
Heaven," he said, "and Vandyck is of the company." He is buried 
at Kew. His widow continued to reside here for some years after his 
death ; in the spring following which an exhibition was here made of his 
pictures and drawings. There were 56 of the former and 148 of the 
latter, with their prices marked. 

A Society of Arts memorial tablet in commemoration of Gains- 
borough's residence is placed on the house. 

In 1850 part of the house was required for the enlargement of what 
was then called the Ordnance Office ; the east wing was pulled down, 
and Schomberg House, which, in spite of all this "partitioning," had 
continued to preserve the appearance of a single fine mansion of the 
King William period, was reduced to a very awkward and disjointed 
condition. The whole of it has since been incorporated in the WAR 
OFFICE. 

School of Design (Government), was opened May i, 1837, at 
Somerset House (in rooms vacated by the Royal Academy), by and 

1 Smith's Nollekens, vol. ii. p. 398. - .Smith, vol. ii. p. 395. 



222 SCHOOL OF DESIGN 

under the superintendence of the Board of Trade, for teaching the art of 
design or composition, with reference especially to the staple manu- 
factures of the country. The whole arrangements were entrusted to 
John B. Papworth, architect, who was appointed Director, and he was 
succeeded by William Dyce, and then by C. H. Wilson. After 
some fluctuation it was in 1852 remodelled under the superintendence 
of Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Cole, and the title changed to the 
"Department of Practical Art." In 1841 a Branch School of Design 
was established at Spitalfields with the object of educating the 
weavers of the neighbourhood in the principles of design. In 1853 
a Science Division was added ; three years later the establishment 
ceased to be connected with the Board of Trade, and was placed 
under the direction of the Lord President of the Council and the Vice- 
President of the Committee of Council on Education. In 1857 the 
Department was removed to South Kensington. [See Science and 
Art Department.] 

The number of students in the School of Design and branch 
institutions before the reorganisation in 1852 was 6997. 

School Board for London (The), VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, was 
established in pursuance of the Elementary Education Act of 1870 
(33 and 34 Viet. c. 75, ss. 37-39). The Board formerly consisted of 
49 members, but the number is now fixed at 55. The members are 
elected by the direct (and cumulative) vote of all persons rated for the 
relief of the poor. The election of the Seventh Board took place on 
November 26, 1888. By the terms of the Act the Board have to 
provide sufficient accommodation in public elementary schools avail- 
able for all the children resident in the metropolis for whose elementary 
education sufficient and suitable provision is not otherwise provided, 
and to furnish elementary education under such conditions as are de- 
fined in the Act. Since the Act has been in operation the Board has 
provided up to 1889 substantial and spacious buildings providing 
accommodation for upwards of 400,000 children. "Elementary" 
instruction is not defined in the Act, and the Board have shown them- 
selves disposed to interpret the phrase in a liberal spirit; and some 
efforts have been made by the foundation of scholarships, etc., to assist 
promising scholars in obtaining education of a higher grade. Else as a 
rule the teaching is confined to the simpler branches of an ordinary 
English education. Drawing is taught in most of the Board Schools, 
and music as far as singing by the Tonic Sol-fa system. Instruction 
in plain needlework is a part of the regular teaching in all the girls' 
schools, and in some instruction is given in cookery and domestic 
economy. Instruction in physiology, mensuration, and other special or 
"extra" subjects sanctioned by the Council of Education is also in 
some instances given at specific times. In the Infant Schools the 
Kindergarten system is largely adopted. In certain centres provision is 
made for teaching the blind and the deaf and dumb. The Board have 
also for the friendless and refractory a reformatory ship and reformatory 



scn-:.\ci-: AND ART />/;/'// A 1 TMF.NT 223 

and truant schools. The number of male and female teachers employed 
in the Board Schools in 1889 was 6898, 2319 male and 4579 female. 

There are also about 1696 pupil teachers. The annual expendi- 
ture of the Board is about .1,900,000. The office of the Board on 
tin.' Victoria Embankment is a red brick "Queen Anne" building, 
from the designs of Mr. E. R. Robson, the Board's architect, who has 
superintended the erection of all and designed most of the Board 
Schools, which now form conspicuous features in most of the poorer 
districts of London. 

The London School Board District, as defined by the Act, comprises 
ten Divisions, City of London, Chelsea, Finsbury, Greenwich, Hackney, 
east and west Lambeth, Marylebone, Southward, Tower Hamlets, and 
Westminster, and at the census of 1881 contained 488,995 inhabited 
houses and 3,832,441 inhabitants. 

Science and Art Department, SOUTH KENSINGTON, founded in 
1853, with offices at Marlborough House. In 1857 it was removed 
to South Kensington. The department grew out of the Government 
School of Design established in 1837 [see School of Design], and re- 
modelled in 1852 as the "Department of Practical Art," in accordance 
with the suggestion of Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Cole. When the 
Science Division was added, the scheme, dated March 16, 1853, was 
intended "to extend a system of encouragement to local institutions 
for Practical Science similar to that already commenced in the Depart- 
ment of Practical Art." The Department of Science and Art remained 
under the control of the Board of Trade until the Education Depart- 
ment was constituted by an order of Council of February 25, 1856, 
and the 19 and 20 Viet, c. 116, to include "() the Educational 
Establishment of the Privy Council Office ; (b] the Establishment for the 
encouragement of Science and Art, now under the direction of the 
Board of Trade, and called the Department of Science and Art." 
These two Departments were placed under the Lord President of the 
Council, assisted by the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on 
Education. 

The Parliamentary vote for the Department of Science and Art in 
1856-1857 was ^64,075, while that in 1888-1889 was ^445,303. 
The Department was incorporated by Royal Charter dated April 30, 
1864. 

Science Division. When the Department was constituted, the 
Government School of Mines, the Museum of Practical Geology, the 
Geological Survey, the Museum of Irish Industry and the Royal Dublin 
Society were constituted portions of the Department. Though the 
principle of granting aid to Science Schools and Classes was established 
in 1853, no general system of making grants applicable to the whole 
county was formulated until 1859, in which year the first examination 
for teachers was held. The staff consists of a Director for Science, 
an Assistant Director, an Official Examiner and two Assistant Ex- 
aminers, also Professional Examiners for special subjects. The 



224 SCIENCE AND ART DEPARTMENT 

Normal School of Science [which see], with its Council, Professors, 
Demonstrators, etc., forms a part of the Science Division. 

Art Division. In 1853 the Training Class was moved from 
Somerset House to Marlborough House, where temporary school- 
rooms were erected. In 1857 the offices of the Department and the 
Art Training Schools were removed from Marlborough House to South 
Kensington. The number of students instructed in local schools of 
'art was then 12,500, and in the National Art Training School at South 
Kensington 396, besides which there were 43,312 scholars of ele- 
mentary schools taught drawing by the teachers of those schools, while 
the number of students in the Schools of Design before the establish- 
ment of the Department of Science and Art was 6997. In 1864 a 
Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire 
into the constitution, working, and success of Schools of Art, and its 
recommendations were adopted as far as they were found practicable. 
In 1887 there were 209 Schools of Art with 24 branch classes, and 
a total of 41,263 students; 584 art classes with 33,438 students; 
3979 elementary schools at which 875,263 children and pupil teachers 
were taught drawing, of which 684,306 were examined; 51 Training 
Colleges with 3756 students in training examined in drawing, of whom 
i o 1 2 students and teachers obtained certificates. The staff of the Art 
Division consists of a Director, an Assistant Director, an Official 
Examiner and Assistant Examiner, and an Examination Clerk. There 
is also the Staff of the National Art Training School. 

The South Kensington Museum [which see] is in connection with 
the Science and Art Department. 

Scotland Yard, WHITEHALL, was divided into Great and Little, 
situated between Whitehall and Northumberland Avenue. It was so 
called, it is said, after the Kings of Scotland and their ambassadors, 
who were occasionally lodged here. 

On the left hand from Charing Cross be also divers fair tenements lately built, 
till ye come to a large plot of ground inclosed with brick, and is called Scotland, 
where great buildings have been for receipt of the kings of Scotland and other 
estates of that country ; for Margaret, Queen of Scots, and sister to King Henry 
VIII., had her abiding there, when she came into England after the death of her 
husband, as the kings of Scotland had on former times, when they came to the 
Parliament of England. Stow, p. 1 68. 

Part of Scotland Yard was long the official residence of the 
Surveyor of the Works to the Crown. It was occupied by Inigo Jones. 
There is a letter from him dated " Office of Works, Scotland Yard, August 
1 6, 1620, complaining that "many masons employed on the Banquet- 
ting Hall have run away." Inigo's successor, Sir John Denham, the 
poet of Cooper's Hill, died here, March 1668. 

June 10, 1666. He [Pierce, the surgeon] tells me further, how the Duke of 
York is wholly given up to his new mistress, my Lady Denham, going at noonday 
with all his gentlemen with him to visit her in Scotland Yard ; she declaring she 
will not be his mistress, as Mrs. Price, to go up and down the Privy-stairs, but will 
be owned publicly : and so she is. Pepys. 



225 



1 1 is successor, Sir C. Wren, had his office here ; and in a house 
designed by himself and built out of the ruins of Whitehall (destroyed 
by fire in 1697) lived Sir John Vanburgh. It was probably built by 
him as comptroller of the Royal Works, for he did not succeed Sir 
C. U'ren. 

Milton, on his appointment as Latin Secretary to the Council 
of State in 1649, was granted an official residence in Scotland Yard, 
and there he continued to reside till 1652, when he removed to "a 
pretty garden-house" in Petty France. Whilst in Scotland Yard he 
lost his infant and only son, March 1650; and also the sight of 
his left eye. Mrs. Gibber lived in Scotland Yard, and here Charles 
Burney, previously a pupil of her brother Dr. Arne, was introduced to 
her in 1749, and laid the foundation of his fashionable career. Here 
in 1761 died Mrs. Dunch, known to the readers of Horace Walpole and 
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Samuel Pegge, author of the Curialia 
and of Anecdotes of the English Language, died here, May 22, 1800. 
After the death of his wife Thomas Campbell took the lease of a large 
house in Middle Scotland Yard from midsummer 1829; gave even- 
ing parties, and was visited by the great Cuvier, August 23, 1830. 
He describes the situation as " admirably convenient for all parts of 
London." 

Scotland Yard has been much contracted of late years, and the 
offices of the Police Commissioners, long associated with the place, 
have been removed to Whitehall Place. A large building (R. N. 
Shaw, R.A., architect), to be used as police offices, is now (1890) in 
course of construction on the Thames embankment, near the old Board 
of Control Office. It is to be called New Scotland Yard. 

Scottish Corporation, CRANE COURT, FLEET STREET, for the 
relief of aged and infirm natives of Scotland resident in London or 
its immediate neighbourhood, to give temporary aid to Scotsmen in 
distress, and to educate poor Scottish children. The Corporation 
derives its origin from a society formed a short time after the accession 
of James I. for relieving the less fortunate individuals of the Scottish 
nation. The Society continued to exercise its benevolent purpose 
under the designation of the " Scottish Box " until the reign of Charles 
II., when, in the year 1665, a Charter of Incorporation was granted, 
empowering the Society to hold lands, and to erect a hospital for the 
reception of the objects of the charity. A second Charter of In- 
corporation, containing more extended privileges, was granted by the 
same monarch in 1676. Within a few years after the date of the first 
charter a hospital was built in what is now Bridge Street, Blackfriars; 
but experience soon proved that confinement to a charity workhouse 
was uncongenial to the feelings and habits of the Scottish poor. The 
maintenance of a hospital, or receptacle for the objects of the charity, 
was in consequence relinquished, and the plan of assisting and relieving 
them at their own habitations substituted. That assistance was 
confined to such natives of Scotland, resident in London, as had 

VOL. Ill Q 



226 SCOTTISH CORPORATION 

become members by paying stated contributions to the Society, in 
virtue of which they were entitled to relief when in want. But the 
system did not work well, and the Society appearing to be fast 
dwindling away, a new charter was obtained in 1775, whereby the 
"Scottish Hospital of the Foundation of King Charles II." was 
reincorporated, and directed to be governed, in all time coming, by a 
president, six -vice-presidents, a treasurer, and an unlimited number of 
governors. Donors of ^105 and upwards are members of the com- 
mittee of management for life, a donation of ten guineas and upwards 
constituting a governor for life, and a subscription of one guinea or 
more an annual governor, so long as such subscription shall continue 
to be paid. The necessity of contributing, as a title to admission, was 
dispensed with, and the corporation thus became completely a charitable 
institution for the relief of poor natives of Scotland, who might be 
reduced to poverty and want. The income is about ^6000, and 
about 165 pensions are paid annually, besides about 340 petitioners 
relieved monthly. 

The premises belonging to the corporation in Crane Court were 
bought from the Royal Society in 1782. The hall was the great 
meeting -room of the Royal Society when Sir Isaac Newton was 
president. [See Crane Court.] This interesting building was destroyed 
by fire on Wednesday, November 14, 1877. A more commodious 
building of red brick and stone was erected on the site from the designs 
of Professor T. L. Donaldson, and opened in 1880. 

Scriveners' Company, the forty-fourth in rank of the City guilds, 
was originally known as the Writers of the Court Letter of the City 
of London, and was incorporated 14 James I. (1616) as the Society 
of Writers of the City of London. The Company has a livery and a 
few charities. It had a hall in Noble Street, but " being reduced to 
low circumstances " sold it to the Company of Coachmakers. 

Scroope's (or Scrope's) Inn, HOLBORN, a Serjeants' inn, over 
against St. Andrew's Church, in Holborn, so called after the noble 
family of the Scropes of Bolton. It ceased, it is said, to be a Serjeants' 
inn about the year 1498. Scroope's Inn was succeeded by Scrooped 
Court, known in the present century as Union Court. In Scroope's 
Court died, 1632, Sir Oliver Butler. The Holborn (or Scroope's Inn) 
end of Union Court, was cleared away for the Holborn Viaduct. 

Seacoal Lane, a lane 180 yards in length, between Snow Hill 
(north) and Fleet Lane (south), swept away in extending the London, 
Chatham, and Dover Railway from Ludgate Hill to the Holborn 
Viaduct. 

The next is Seacoal Lane, I think called Limeburners' Lane, of burning lime 
there with seacoal ; for I read a record of such a lane to have been in the parish of 
St. Sepulchre, and there yet remaineth in this lane an alley called Limeburners' 
Alley. Stow, p. 145. 

Seacoal Lane is named in the Pipe Rolls, 12 Henry III. (1228), being no 



SEETHING LANE 227 



doubt then used as a landing-place for sea coal from the barges on the Fleet River ; 
and in the Patent Rolls, 41 Henry III. (1257) mention is made of ship-loads of sea 
coal imported into London. These facts dispose of the assertion which has been 
made that sea coal was not used in London earlier than the time of Edward I. or 
II. Kilcy Memorials, p. xvi. note 7. 

In the i yth of Edward III. (1343), "a piece of land in the lane 
called Secollane near the water of 1'lete," was granted upon lease to 
the Butchers of St. Nicholas Shambles, " for the purpose of there in 
such water cleansing the entrails of beasts . . . they paying yearly to 
the Lord Mayor, at the Feast of our Lord's Nativity, one boar's head " 
(Riley). In the reign of Henry IV. we find it again mentioned in 
a " Writ for the repair of one foot of Flete Bridge, towards Secollane." * 

The she doctor that cured Abel Drugger of the effects of " fat ram 
mutton " supper, lived here. 

Yes faith she dwells in Seacoal Lane, did cure me, 
With sodden ale, and pellitory of the wall ; 
Cost me but twopence. Ben Jonson, Alchemist, Act iii. Sc. 2. 

" The Jest of George and the Barber," in The Merry Conceited Jests 
of George Peele, Gentleman, is said to have taken place "at a blind 
ale-house in Sealcoal Lane," where he found "George in a green 
jerkin, a Spanish platter-fashioned hat, all alone at a peck of oysters. " 2 

Searle Street. [See Serle Street.] 

Seething Lane, GREAT TOWER STREET (east end) to CRUTCHED 
FRIARS. The church of Allhallows Barking is at the corner in Tower 
Street. Sieuthenestrate, or Suiethenestrate, is mentioned in the City 
records as early as A.D. 1281 ; Stow's conjecture that it was originally 
Sidon Lane would seem, therefore, to be unfounded. Sir Francis 
Walsingham lived and died in this lane : 

Sidon Lane, now corruptly called Sything Lane. ... In this Sidon Lane divers 
fair and large houses are built, namely, one by Sir John Allen, some time mayor of 
London, and of council unto King Henry VIII. j Sir Francis Walsingham, Knight, 
principal secretary to the Queen's Majesty that now is was lodged there, and so was 
the Earl of Essex. Stow, p. 50. 

The 6 of April [1590] about midnight deceased Sir Francis Walsingham, Knight, 
at his house in Seeding Lane, and was about ten of the clocke in the next night 
following, buried in Paules Church without solemnity. Stow, by Howes, ed. 1631, 
p. 761. 

Walsingham's widow continued to live in Seething Lane, and at her 
house here Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, was baptized by Lancelot 
Andrewes. 3 

Seething or Sything Lane runneth northwards from Tower Street unto Crutched 
Friars. It is now [1720] a place of no great account ; but amongst the inhabitants 
some are merchants. Here is the Navy Office ; but the chief gate for entrance is 
out of Crutched Friars. Strype, B. ii. p. 53. 

Pepys lived at the Navy Office in this lane during the nine years, 1660- 
1669, over which his Diary extends. 

1 Liber Albus, p. 502. - Dyce's Piele, vol. ii. p. 271. 

3 Lift of Bisltop Andrewes, p. 34. 



228 SEETHING LANE 



July 4, 1660. Up early and with Commissioner Pett to view the houses in 
Seething Lane belonging to the Navy, where I find the worst very good, and had 
great fears that they will shuffle me out of them, which troubles me. Pepys. 

July 1 8, 1660. This morning we met at the [Navy] Office: I dined at my house 
in Seething Lane. Pepys. 

September 5, 1666. About two in the morning my wife calls me up and tells 
me of new cryes of fire, it being come to Barking Church, which is at the bottom of 
our lane. Pepys. 

May 9, 1667. In our street, at the Three Tuns Tavern, I find a great hub- 
bub : and what was it but two brothers had fallen out, and one killed the other. 
And who should they be but the two Fieldings ; one whereof, Bazill, was page to 
my Lady Sandwich ; and hath killed the other, himself being very drunk, and so 
was sent to Newgate. Pepys, 

It was Basil who was killed. They were sons of George Fielding, 
Earl of Desmond, and uncles of the father of Henry Fielding the 
novelist. Seething Lane has now many corn, wine, and general 
merchants among its inhabitants. Here are the Corn Exchange 
Chambers and Subscription Room. Pepys's Three Tuns Tavern has 
disappeared. [See Navy Office ; Allhallows Barking.] 

Sepulchre (St.) in the BAILEY (occasionally written ST. TULCHER'S), 
a church at the western end of Newgate Street, and in the ward of 
Farringdon Without. About a fifth of the parish of St. Sepulchre lies 
" without the liberties " of the City of London, and the church is in 
consequence in the anomalous position of having two sets of church- 
wardens. A church existed here in the i2th century; but the oldest 
part of the present edifice, the tower and south-west porch, is of the 
middle of the i5th century. The body of the church was destroyed 
in the Great Fire of 1666, and was rebuilt and the tower repaired, it is 
said, by Sir C. Wren, the works being completed in 1670. The fire 
itself was stopped at Pie Corner, a few yards north of the church. In 
1338 William of Newcastle-under-Lyme bequeathed an estate to the 
parish for the maintenance of the fabric. With the process of time 
the estate has increased in value, and now yields, it is said, nearly 
^2000 a year. The consequence has been frequent repairs and 
restorations, by the last of which the church has been thoroughly trans- 
formed. Large repairs were done in 1738. The body of the church 
was in a great measure rebuilt and a new roof put on in 1837. In 
1863 and following years considerable alterations were made; but the 
most material were effected in 1875 and 1878. In 1875 tne tower 
and porch a separate building of three floors, projecting from the 
tower on the south had new window tracery inserted, pinnacles to the 
tower rebuilt, a new oriel on the south front of the porch, where Popham's 
statue stood, and the whole refaced and completely restored, the architect 
being Mr. W. P. Griffith. In 1878-1880 the body of the church was 
restored under Mr. Robert Billing, architect. New windows filled with 
tracery of a very florid type were inserted, new buttresses, battlements, 
and pinnacles added, and the interior made conformable. The church 
is now Gothic throughout, but Gothic of the last quarter of the 



ST. SEPULCHRE 229 



century. The tower was 152 feet 9 inches to the cap of the pinnacles ; 
as restored itjs 149 feet n inches. The organ, a very fine instrument, 
originally built by Renatus Harris in 1670, was repaired and enlarged 
by the elder Byfield about 1730. Subsequently improvements have 
been made, and new stops added by Hancock, and by Gray and 
Davison in the present century. The case is attributed to Grinling 
Gibbons. It is now entirely remodelled and placed in St. Stephen's 
Chapel. For many years past it has been the custom for the organist 
to give a recital after the Sunday evening service. The church is 150 
feet long by 62 wide, and with St. Stephen's Chapel 81 feet. 

A tablet is preserved in the church with a list of charitable donations 
and gifts, containing the following item : 

1605. Mr. Robert Dowe gave for ringing the greatest bell in this 
church on the day the condemned prisoners are executed, and 
for other services for ever, concerning such condemned prisoners, 
for which services the sexton is paid i : 6 :8 . . . ^50 o o 

This has now been appropriated by the Charity Commissioners. 

It was the custom formerly for the clerk or bellman of St. Sepulchre's 
to go under Newgate on the night preceding the execution of a criminal, 
and ringing his bell to repeat the following verses : 

All you that in the condemned hold do lie, 
Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die ; 
Watch all and pray, the hour is drawing near, 
That you before the Almighty must appear ; 
Examine well yourselves, in time repent, 
That you may not to eternall flames be sent. 
And when St. Sepulchre's bell to-morrow tolls, 
The Lord above have mercy on your souls. 
Past twelve o'clock ! 

This is further explained by a passage in Munday's edition of Stow : 

Robert Dowe, citizen and merchant taylor of London, gave to the parish church 
of St. Sepulchre's, the somme of ,50, that after the several sessions of London, 
when the prisoners remain in the gaol as condemned men to death, expecting execu- 
tion on the morning following : the clarke of the church should come in the night 
time, and likewise early in the morning to the window of the prison where they lye, 
and there ringing certain tolls with a hand-bell, appointed for the purpose, he doth 
afterwards (in most Christian manner) put them in mind of their present condition, 
and ensuing execution, desiring them to be prepared therefore as they ought to be. 
When they are in the cart, and brought before the wall of the church, there he 
standeth ready with the same bell, and after certain tolls, rehearseth an appointed 
prayer, desiring all the people there present to pray for them. The Beadle also of 
Merchant Tailors' Hall hath an honest stipend allowed him to see that this is duly 
done. Munday's Stow, ed. 1618, p. 25. 

Hatton has printed (New View, p. 707) the "Exhortation" and 
" Admonition " used on this occasion. The former he calls " The 
Words said in the Gateway of the Prison the night before Execution ; " 
the latter, "The Words said in St. Sepulchre's Churchyard as the 
prisoners are drawn by [to Tyburn] to be executed." Dowe is buried 
in the church of St. Botolph, Aldgate, where there is a portrait-monu- 
ment to his memory. Another curious custom observed at this church 



230 ST. SEPULCHRE 



was that of presenting a nosegay to every criminal on his way to Tyburn. 
One of the last given was presented from the steps of St. Sepulchre's to 
Sixteen-stringed Jack, alias John Rann, executed in 1774 for robbing 
the Rev. Dr. Bell in Gunnersbury Lane, on the road to Brentford. 
He wore it in his button-hole. The clock of St. Sepulchre's still regu- 
lates the execution of criminals in Newgate. 

John Rogers, the Marian protomartyr, was vicar of this church. 
On April n, 1600, William Dodington, a brother-in-law of Sir Francis 
Walsingham, and an officer in the Exchequer, threw himself from the 
tower and was killed. " If I do break my neck," said Bacon to Queen 
Elizabeth, " I shall do it in a manner as Mr. Dodington did it, which 
walked on the battlements of the church many days, and took a view 
and survey where he should fall." l 

Saturday, April 12, 1600. Dorrington, rich Dorrington, yesterday morning, 
went up to St. Sepulchre's steeple, and threw himself over the battlement, and broke 
his neck. There was found a paper sealed, with this superscription, " Lord save 
my soule, and I will praise thy name." Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sydney, vol. 
ii. p. 187. 

It was that William Dodington that wilfully brake his neck by casting himself 
down headlong from the battlements of St. Sepulchre's steeple, upon the sight of 
certain depositions touching a cause in controversy between him and one Brunker in 
Chancery. Marginal Note to a letter from Dodington to Nation, p. 362. 

Eminent Persons buried in St. Sepulchre's. Roger Ascham (d. 
December 30, 1568), author of Toxophilus (1545) and The School- 
master (1570); William Gravet, vicar of St. Sepulchre's, watched over 
him as he was dying. When Elizabeth was told of his death she said 
she would rather have lost ten thousand pounds than her old tutor. 
Captain John Smith, author of the General History of Virginia (fol. 
1626), (d. 1631); his epitaph in doggrel verse is no longer legible: it 
is printed in Strype and elsewhere. Sir Robert Peake, the engraver, 
Faithorne's master, and Governor of Basing House for the King 
during the Civil War under Charles I. (d. 1667). Fleetwood, the 
Recorder of London, writes to inform Lord Burghley, July 1585, that 
when Awfield was executed at Tyburn for " sparcinge abrood certen 
lewd sedicious and traytorous bookes," his body "was brought to St. 
Tulchers to be buryed, but the parishioners would not suffer a traytor's 
corpes to be layed in the earthe where theire parents, wyeffs, chyldren, 
kynred, maisters, and old neighbours did rest," and so "his carcase 
was retourned to the buryall grounde neere Tyborne." 2 A century and 
a half later the parishioners, less scrupulous, permitted the body of 
Sarah Malcolm, the murderess, to be buried, 1733, in their church- 
yard. Thomas Lord Dacre was beheaded at the Tower and his body 
buried in this church. 

The churchyard, till the middle of the i8th century, extended on 
the south side far into the street, and was bounded by a high wall, 
leaving no footway for passengers. In 1760 the wall was removed 
and a portion of the churchyard levelled. When, the Holborn Viaduct 

1 Cooper, At/i. Cant., vol. ii. p. 164. ' 2 Ellis's Letters, vol. ii. p. 298. 



S/-:K/I-: ANTS' /,v.v 231 



was formed, 1871, a further portion was laid into the street, the 
bodies exhumed being reinterred in the City Cemetery at Ilford, where 
a monument was erected to their memory. Since then the churchyard 
has been levelled and planted as a flower-garden. In Johnson's 
Highwaymen (fol. 1736) is a characteristic view of St. Sepulchre's; it 
is entitled "Jonathan Wild going to the place of Execution." 

Payne Fisher, "Paganus Piscator," 1616-1693, was buried in the 
churchyard. 

Serjeants' Inn, CHANCERY LANE; Serjeants' Inn, FLEET STREET, 
houses of law originally set apart for the Honourable Society of Judges 
and Serjeants-at-Law. The Serjeants always addressed one another 
as "brother." One of Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims is a "serjeant- 
of-law." No person could be made a justice of the Queen's Bench 
or Common Pleas who was not "of the degree of the coif" ; a phrase 
taken from the peculiar cap which was the distinctive badge or emblem 
of the serjeant-at-law. When, as of late years was commonly the case, 
a justice was appointed who was not of the degree of the coif, before 
taking the oaths as judge he went through the ceremony of admission 
as a serjeant, and at the same time received a retainer from his own 
inn to plead as their serjeant. 

First I was made a serjeant, and then my patent writ as Chief Justice was 
handed to me, and, having taken many strange oaths, my title to hang, draw, and 
quarter was complete. . . . Brougham tried to play me a dog's trick, by running 
away with my fee of ten guineas as a retainer to plead when become a serjeant 
for the Society of Lincoln's Inn. I made him disgorge. ... I have dined twice at 
Serjeants' Inn, my admission to which cost me near ^700. Lord Campbell (Letter 
and Journal, November 1850), Life, vol. ii. pp. 274, 276. 

Mr. Foss, following Dugdale, is of opinion that the Chancery 
Lane Inn was not an Inn for Serjeants before the 2d of Henry V. 
(1414-1415), and that it was earlier occupied by Serjeants than the 
inn in Fleet Street. 1 The Fleet Street Inn appears to have been a 
private dwelling in the reign of Henry VIII. It ceased to be occupied 
by the Serjeants towards the end of the i8th century. The hall was 
purchased by the Amicable Assurance Society, and the rest of the inn 
rebuilt as private houses. The Fleet Street front of the building is 
now occupied by the Norwich Union Office. On one of the houses in 
the square behind (No. 9) is a stone with a coat of arms, S. I. and the 
date 1669 cut on it. No. 13, occupied by the Church of England 
Sunday School Institute, has a handsome elevation. The Chancery 
Lane Inn was retained till the dissolution of the Society in 1876. 
The premises, including the hall, a spacious and lofty dining-room, 
lighted by five painted glass windows, chapel and robing rooms, 
were sold by auction, February 23, 1877, for ^"57,100, the proceeds 
being divided amongst the members, a transaction which gave rise 
to some comment at the time. The portraits, twenty-six in number, 
of eminent members of the inn, including Lord Chancellors King, 

1 Foss, Judges, vol. iv. p. 247. 



232 SERJEANTS' INN 



Camden, Eldon, Truro, Lyndhurst, and Campbell ; Sir Edward Coke, Sir 
Matthew Hale, the Earl of Mansfield, Lord Denman and other 
distinguished judges, were presented by the Society to the National 
Portrait Gallery. 

Lord Chief Justice Coke was living in Serjeants' Inn during the 
Overbury inquiries. Lord Chief Justice Hyde and Lord Keeper 
Guildford also lived here. 

His Lordship by the means of his brother in law Mr. Robert Hyde, settled 
himself in the great brick house near Serjeants' Inn in Chancery Lane, which was 
formerly the Lord Chief Justice Hyde's ; and that he held till he had the Great 
Seal, and some time after. . . . His house was to his mind, and having, with 
leave, a door into Serjeants' Inn Garden, he passed daily to his chambers, dedicated 
to business and study. . . . But being scandalised at the poorness of the Hall 
[Serjeants' Inn Hall], which was very small and withal ruinous, he never left till he 
brought his brethren to agree to the new building of it ; which he saw done, with as 
much elegance and capacity as the place would admit of, and thereby gained a 
decent avenue, with stone steps, to his chambers, as may be seen at this day. 
North's Life of Lord Keeper Guildford, pp. 164, 165. 

Serle Street, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS to CAREY STREET, was so 
called from a Mr. Henry Serle, who died intestate (circ. 1690), much 
in debt, and his lands heavily mortgaged. 1 He acquired his property 
in this neighbourhood partly by purchase from the sons and from the 
executors of Sir John Birkenhead, the writer of Mercurius Aultcus, 
during the Civil War under Charles I., who died in 1679, seized in 
fee of two-thirds of Fickett's Field. The second edition of Barnabce 
Itinerarium, or Barnabas Journal (the first edition with a printer's 
name and date upon it), was printed in 1716, for "S. Illidge, under 
Searle's Gate, Lincoln's Inn New Square." Sir James Mackintosh 
removed from Portland Place to 14 Serle Street, after Michaelmas 
Term, 1795. In an invitation to Canning he calls it his "black-letter 
neighbourhood." His wife died here, April 8, 1797. There is a 
monument to her in St. Clement's Danes with an inscription by Dr. 
Parr. Parr tells Landor, April 1801, that his daughter "Catherine is 
at Mackintosh's, 14 Serle Street." 2 

Serle's Coffee-house, LINCOLN'S INN. [See Serle Street.] 

I do not know that I meet in any of my walks objects which move both my 
spleen and laughter so effectually as those young fellows at the Grecian, Squire's, 
Serle's, and all other Coffee-houses adjacent to the law, who rise early for no other 
purpose but to publish their laziness. The Spectator, No. 49. 

Mr. Dyce has printed a letter from Akenside, the poet, addressed " To 
Mr. Dyson, at Serle's Coffee House, Lincoln's Inn ; " this was Jeremiah 
Dyson, the poet's friend and patron. 

Serle's Court, LINCOLN'S INN. This was the old name for New 
Square, and was so called from the Henry Serle noticed under Serle 
Street. The arms of Serle with those of the inn are over the gateway 
next Carey Street. 

1 Autob. of Sir John Bramsion, p. 359. - Parr's Life and Corr., vol. i. p. 160. 



SERPENTINE RIVKR 233 

July 29, 1714. -With the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge at their 
new apartments at Lincoln's Inn (No, 6 in A /). After the business was 

DMT I In, iked at the curious and noble models of many churches proposed to be 
built ; this pleasant room being that where the Commissioners meet upon that 
account in the forenoons (as the Bishop of London, Mr. Nelson, etc., did this day) 
and the Society in the afternoon. Thoresby's Diary. 

Lord Eldon (when Sir John Scott and Solicitor -General) in the 
summer of 1791 took "a set of chambers at No. n Serle's Court, 
commonly called The New Square, Lincoln's Inn, under a lease to 
him, dated September i in that year." 

Sermon Lane, ST. PAUL'S, or SERMON LANE, DOCTORS' COM- 
MONS, from Carter Lane to Knightrider Street. 

Corruptly called Sermon Lane for Sheremoniers' Lane, for I find it by that name 
recorded in the I4th of Edward I., and in that lane a place to be called the Blacke 
loft (of melting silver) with four shops adjoining. It may therefore be well supposed 
that lane to take name of Sheremonyars, such as cut and rounded the plates to be 
coined or stamped into sterling pence ; for the place of coining was the Old 
Exchange, near unto the said Sheremoniars Lane. Stow, p. 138. 

Serpentine River, 50 acres of water, partly in Hyde Park and 
partly in Kensington Gardens, formed 1730-1733, by Caroline, Queen 
of George II., who threw several ponds into one, and carried a stream 
into it which had its rise near Westend, in the parish of Hampstead. 
This small tributary stream, for many years the Bayswater sewer, was 
cut off (except the storm water) from the Serpentine in 1834, and the 
lc<^ nf writer was supplied from the Thames by the Chelsea Waterworks 
Company. After quitting the park at Albert Gate by a waterfall made 
in 1820, the Serpentine is now absorbed in the main drainage system 
of London. 

The earliest reference to the Hyde Park ponds occurs perhaps in 
the Works Accounts for 1628-1629, when a payment is entered "for 
making a new sluice and mending other sluices at the Pond Heads in 
Hyde Park." In the evidence before the coroner, on the subject of 
the fatal duel between the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun, in 
1712, it is stated that the duke got out of his coach " on the road 
that goes to Kensington, over against Price's lodge, and walked over 
the grass and between the two ponds." Twenty years later the lodge 
was removed. 

The old Lodge in Hyde Park, together with part of the grove, is to be taken 
down in order to compleat the Serpentine River. The Daily Post, April 20, 1733. 

The stone bridge separating Kensington Gardens from Hyde Park 
was built by J. and G. Rennie in 1826, of Bramley Fall stone, at a 
cost of ^45,469, besides ^3100 for the approaches. On the north 
side is the neat semi-classic edifice erected in 1834 and enlarged in 
1837 by John B. Bunning, architect, as the receiving-house of the Royal 
Humane Society. Near it the Boat-house, where boats are let for hire. 
The Serpentine is the most resorted to of all the London waters for bathing 
and skating. It is estimated that nearly 1,000,000 persons bathe in 
the Serpentine during the year. Many lives are endangered of both 



234 SERPENTINE RIVER 

bathers and skaters, but, thanks to the vigilance and skill of the 
Humane Society's officers, very few lives are lost. When young 
Benjamin West arrived in England he was told that he could get 
excellent skating on "the Serpentine River in Hyde Park" or the 
Basin in Kensington Gardens. Skating in those days was much better 
understood in New than in Old England, and the performance of the 
handsome young American made a great sensation. He was 
recognised by General Howe, who had known him at Philadelphia, 
and requested by him to show the bystanders what was called in 
Pennsylvania "The Salute." "Out of this trivial incident an 
acquaintance arose between him and the young noblemen present," 
and, as he told Gait, " he perhaps received more encouragement as a 
portrait-painter on account of his accomplishment as a skater than he 
could have hoped by any ordinary means to obtain." l Franklin won 
equal admiration by his skating on the Serpentine. The carriage 
drive along the north bank is called The Ladies' Mile. 

Seven Dials, an open area in the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, 
on what was once " Cock and Pye Fields," from which seven streets 
Great Earl Street, Little Earl Street, Great White Lion Street, Little 
White Lion Street, Great St. Andrew's Street, Little St. Andrew's Street, 
Queen Street radiate, and so called because there was formerly a 
column in the centre, on the summit of which were (as was always 
said) seven sun-dials, with a dial facing each of the streets. 

October 5, 1694. I went to see the building beginning neere St. Giles's, where 
7 streets make a star from a Doric pillar placed in the middle of a circular area ; 
said to be built by Mr. Neale, introducer of the late Lotteries in imitation of those 
at Venice. Evelyn. 

Where fam'd St. Giles's ancient limits spread, 

An inrail'd column rears its lofty head ; 

Here to seven streets seven dials count the day, 

And from each other catch the circling ray : 

Here oft the peasant with inquiring face, 

Bewilder'd trudges on from place to place ; 

He dwells on every sign with stupid gaze, 

Enters the narrow alley's doubtful maze ; 

Tries every winding court and street in vain, 

And doubles o'er his weary steps again. Gay's Trivia. 

The column on which the seven dials stood was removed in July 
1773, on the supposition that a considerable sum of money was 
lodged at the base. But the search was ineffectual, and the pillar was 
removed to Sayes Court, Addlestone, with a view to its erection in the 
park. This, however, was not done, and it lay there neglected until 
the death of Frederica, Duchess of York, in 1820, when the inhabitants 
of Weybridge, desiring to commemorate her thirty years' residence at 
Oatlands and her active benevolence to the poor of the neighbourhood, 
bethought them of the prostrate column, purchased it, placed a coronet 
instead of the dials on the summit, and a suitable inscription on the 

1 Gait's Life of West, vol. ii. p. 31. 



SEVEN DIA/.S 235 



base, and erected it, August 1822, on the green. The stone on 
which were the dials not being required was utilised as the horse-block 
at a neighbouring inn, but has been removed and now reposes on the 
edge of the green, opposite the column. The most curious thing is 
that, notwithstanding the concurrent testimony of all who described 
it during the eighty years it stood at Seven Dials, it is a hexagonal 
block, and has most distinctly only six faces too much battered to 
make out what was on them, but which are said to have had the 
marks where the styles were fixed plainly discernible when the column 
was erected. 1 

The accounts are not so certain of the exact time and place of his [Martinus 
Scriblerus's] birth. As to the first he had the common frailty of old men to conceal 
his age ; as to the second, I only remember to have heard him say, that he first saw 
the light in Saint Giles's parish. But in the investigation of this point, Fortune hath 
favoured our diligence. For one day as I was passing by the Seven Dials I overheard 
a dispute concerning the place of nativity of a great astrologer, which each man 
alleged to have been in his own street. The circumstances of the time and the 
description of the person, made me imagine it might be that universal genius whose 
life I am writing. I returned home, and having maturely considered their several 
arguments, which I found to be of equal weight, I quieted my curiosity with this 
natural conclusion, that he was born in some point common to all the seven streets : 
which must be that on which the Column is now erected. And it is with infinite 
pleasure that I since find my conjecture confirmed by the following passage in the 
codicil to Mr. Neale's will: "I appoint my executors to engrave the following 
inscription on the Column in the centre of the Seven Streets which I erected : ' LOG. 
NAT. IXCI.YT. riui.os. MAR. SCR.'" But Mr. Neale's order was never performed, 
because the Executors durst not administer. Memoirs of Marti mix Scribkrus. 

Seven Dials was long famous for its ballad-mongers and ballad- 
printers. The Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Giles's, between the 
years 1640 and 1657, exhibit the payment of small sums to "Tottenham 
Court Meg " and " Ballet-singing Cobler," and the sum of two shillings 
and sixpence "for a shroude for oulde Guy, the poet." The late 
Mr. Catnach, whose name is affixed to a large collection of ballads, 
lived in the Seven Dials. 

Portraits that cost twenty, thirty, sixty guineas, and that proudly take possession 
of the drawing-room, give way in the next generation to those of the new married 
couples, descending into the parlour, where they are slightly mentioned as my father's 
and mother's pictures. When they become my grandfather and grandmother, they 
mount to the two pair of stairs ; and then unless dispatched to the mansion-house 
in the country, or crowded into the housekeeper's room, they perish among the 
lumber of garrets, or flutter into rags before a broker's shop in the Seven Dials. 
Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, vol. iv. p. 22. 

Here Taylor has laid the scene of his Monsieur Tonson. 

Be gar there's Monsieur Tonson come again, 
and 

One night our hero, rambling with a friend, 

Near famed St. Giles's chanced his course to bend, 

Just by that spot the Seven Dials hight : 
'Twas silence all around, and clear the coast, 
The watch as usual dozing on his post, 

And scarce a lamp displayed a twinkling light. 

1 Thome, Handbook to the Environs, p. 692. 



236 SEVEN DIALS 



Dickens, in one of his earliest sketches, doubts whether any French- 
man ever lived in the Seven Dials, and then goes on to describe the 
neighbourhood : 

The stranger who finds himself in the Dials for the first time, and stands, Belzoni 
like, at the entrance of seven obscure passages, uncertain which to take, will see 
enough around him to keep his curiosity and attention awake for no inconsiderable 
time. From the irregular square into which he has plunged, the streets and courts 
dart in all directions, until they are lost in the unwholesome vapour which hangs 
over the house-tops, and renders the dirty perspective uncertain and confined ; and 
lounging at every corner, as if they came there to take a few gasps of such fresh air as 
has found its way so far, but is too much exhausted already to be enabled to force itself 
into the narrow alleys around, are groups of people, whose appearance and dwellings 
would fill any mind but a regular Londoner's with astonishment. ... In addition 
to the numerous groups who are idling about the ginshops, and squabbling in the 
centre of the road, every post in the open space has its occupant who leans against it 
for hours with listless perseverance. Sketches by Boz> 1836. 

Of late years the Seven Dials has been greatly improved. Much 
of the district, however, has been cleared away to make room for 
Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue. 

Seymour Street (West), PORTMAN SQUARE to CONNAUGHT 
SQUARE, was so called from the noble family of the Seymours, Dukes of 
Somerset, connected by marriage with the Portman family, the ground 
landlords of the Seymour Street property. Eminent Inhabitants. 
General Paoli. 1 In the drawing-room of No. 45, the residence of 
Lady Floyd, Sir Robert Peel was married, in 1820, to Julia, her 
step-daughter, and daughter of the late General Sir John Floyd, Bart. 
Campbell, author of The Pleasures of Hope, at No. 10. He came to 
live here in 1823. 

September 5, 1823. Every article of the drawing room is now purchased: the 
most amiable curtains the sweetest of carpets the most accomplished chairs and 
a highly interesting set of tongs and fenders ! I hope to have the pleasure of showing 
you through the magnificent suite of chambers the front one of which is actually 
1 6 feet long ! Campbell to Mr. Gray. 

Some of Campbell's saddest days were spent in this house; for 
here his only son became a hopeless lunatic, and here (May 9, 1828) 
his wife sank into the grave. 

Shades, UPPER THAMES STREET and OLD SWAN STAIRS, LONDON 
BRIDGE, a tavern of great civic celebrity for the purity and flavour of 
its wines. The coffee-room was a dark, low room built out from the 
Old Fishmongers' Hall, and divided into compartments, overlooking 
the river. The wine was drawn from the butt into silver tankards, the 
Shades being said to be the last of the old taverns that retained that 
custom. 

Shadwell, on the left bank of the Thames, between Wapping and 
Limehouse, formerly a hamlet of Stepney, but created a distinct parish 

1 See a letter from Boswell to Lord Thurlow, Street, Portman Square, June 24, 1784." 
dated from "General Paoli's, Upper Seymour Croker's Boswell'^, 773. 



SHAVERS HALL 237 



in 1670. [See St. Paul's, Shad well.] London Docks are partly within 
this parish. The occupations are chiefly maritime. The population, 
11,702 in 1851, had decreased to 10,395 m 1881, owing mainly to the 
demolition of small houses for the London Docks' extensions. 

Shaftesbury Avenue, a new road leading from Piccadilly to 
New Oxford Street, which was completed and opened to the public in 
June 1886. The line of route cuts through Seven Dials and includes 
the old Dudley Street, King Street, and Richmond Street. At 
the point where Shaftesbury Avenue intersects Charing Cross Road 
has been built Cambridge Circus (named after the Duke of Cambridge, 
who opened Charing Cross Road in January 1887). The opening up 
of these poor neighbourhoods has constituted one of the greatest 
improvements in Western London during the second half of the 
present century, and the need of these thoroughfares is shown by the 
use made of them as new routes for omnibuses, etc. There are three 
theatres in Shaftesbury Avenue, viz. the Lyric (near the Piccadilly 
Circus end of the Road), built from the designs of C. J. Phipps, 
architect ; the Shaftesbury (near Cambridge Circus), which is isolated 
on four sides, also built from the designs of Mr. Phipps; and a theatre 
built for Mr. D'Oyley Carte, which is not yet (1890) named. This 
building is also isolated on four sides, and fronts Cambridge Circus, 
Shaftesbury Avenue, Greek Street and Church Street. It is built from 
the designs of T. E. Collcutt, architect. 

Shaftesbury House, ALDERSGATE STREET. [See Aldersgate 
Street.] 

Shakespeare Gallery. [See British Institution.] 

Shanley's, a Coffee-house in COVENT GARDEN. 

The two theatres, and all the public Coffee-houses I shall constantly frequent, but 
principally the Coffee-house under my lodge, Button's, and the play-house in Covent 
Garden : but as I set up for the judge of pleasures, I think it necessary to assign 
particular places of resort to my young gentlemen as they come to town, who cannot 
expect to pop in at Button's on the first day of their arrival in town. I recommend 
it, therefore, to young men to frequent SHANLEY'S some days before they take 
upon them to appear at Button's. Steele's Lover, No. 5, March 6, 1714 (and see 
No. 2). 

Shaver's Hall, the cant and common name for the celebrated 
gaming-house, erected in the reign of Charles I. by a gentleman- 
barber, servant to Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. 
It faced Piccadilly Hall, and occupied the whole south side of the 
present Coventry Street, between the Haymarket and Hedge Lane. 

Since Spring Gardens was put down, we have, by a servant of the Lord 
Chamberlain's, a new Spring Gardens, erected in the fielde beyond the Mews, where 
is built a fair house and two bowling greens, made to entertain gamesters and 
bowlers at an excessive rate, for I believe it hath cost him above four thousand 
pounds, a dear undertaking for a gentleman barber. My Lord Chamberlain 
[Pembroke] much frequents this place, where they bowl great matches. Garrard to 
Lord Strqffbrd, June 24, 1635. 



238 SHAVER'S HALL 



All that Tenem 1 called Shaver's Hall, strongly built w th Brick, and covered with 
lead, consistinge of one Large Seller, commodiously devided into 6 Roomes, and 
over the same fewer fair Roomes, 10 stepps in ascent from y c ground, at 3 seurall 
wayes to the goeinge into the said house, all very well paved w th Purbeck stone well 
fitted and joynted, and above stayres in the first story 4 spacious Roomes ; also out 
of one of the said Roomes one faire Belcony, opening w th a pleasant prospect south- 
wards to the Bowling Alleyes, and in the second story 6 Roomes, and over the same 
a fair walk leaded and inclosed w th Rayles, very curiously carved and wrought ; alsoe 
one very fayr stayr Case, veiy strong and curiously wrought, leadinge from the 
bottome of the said house, very conveniently and pleasantly upp into all the said 
Roomes, and upp to one Leaded walk at the topp of the said house ; as alsoe 
adioyninge to a Wall on the west part thereof, one shedd devided into 6 Roomes, and 
adioyninge to the North part, one Rainge consisting of 3 Large Roomes, used for 
Kitchens, and one other room, used for a coale house, and over the Kitchens 2 Lofts, 
devided into faire chambers ; as alsoe one faire Tennis Court, very strongly built 
w th Brick and covered with Tyle, well accommodated with all things fitting for the 
same ; as alsoe one Tenement thereunto adioyninge, consisting of 3 Roomes below 
stayres, and 3 Roomes above stayres ; alsoe at the gate, or comeing in to the upper 
Bowlinge Alley, one Parlour Lodge, consisting of one faire Roome at each side of 
the gate ; as alsoe one faire pair of stayres w th 12 stepps of Descent leading down 
into the Lower Bowlinge Alley 2 wayes, and meeting at the bottom in a faire Roome 
under the Highway or footpath, leading between the 2 bowlinge Alleys, between 
two brick walls east and west, and the Lower ground, one fair bowling Alley and 
one Orchard wall, planted w th seurall choyce of fruite trees ; as also one pleasant 
banquetting house and one other faire and pleasant Roome, called the greene Roome, 
and one other Conduit house and 2 other Turretts adioyninge to the walls, consist- 
ing of 2 Roomes in each of them, one above the other. The ground whereon the 
said buildings stand, together w th 2 fayre Bowlinge Alleyes, orchard gardens, gravily 
walks, and other green walks and Courts and Courtyards, containinge, by estimacon, 
3 acres and 1, lyeing betweene a Road way leading from Charinge Crosse to Knights- 
bridge west, and a high' way leadinge from Charinge crosse towards So-Hoe, abutting 
on the Earl of Suffolk's brick wall south, and a way leading from St. Gyles to 
Knightsbridge west, now in the occupacon of Captayne Geeres, and is worth per ann. 
cl u . A Survey [made in 1650] of Certain Lands and Tenements, scituate and being 
at Pickadilley, the Blue Muse and others thereunto adioyninge (No. 73 of the Aug- 
mentation Records], 

[See Piccadilly.] 

Shepherd's Market, MAY FAIR (south of Curzon Street), was 
formed about 1735, and was so called after "Edward Shepherd, Esq., 
an architect, owner of Shepherd's Market and many other buildings 
about May Fair," who died September 24, 1747.* 

Shepherdess Walk, CITY ROAD to PACKINGTON STREET, ISLING- 
TON, formerly SHEPHERD and SHEPHERDESS WALK. The walk led across 
the Shepherd and Shepherdess Fields and Hoxton Fields, appropriated 
as grounds for the archery practice of the Royal Artillery Company. 
On the east ot the walk was the old manor-house of Wenlocksbarn, 
known in the early part of the present century as Wenlock Farm ; 
Wenlock Street marks the site. At the south-east corner of the walk, 
by the City Road, stood the Shepherd and Shepherdess Tavern and 
Tea-gardens, long a popular place of resort 

To the Shepherd and Shepherdess then they go, 
To tea with their wives for a constant rule. 

1 Gent, fllag., October 1747, vol. xvii. p. 496. 



surr YARD 239 



The site was afterwards occupied by the Eagle Tavern and Grecian 
Theatre. At the opposite corner is St. Luke's Workhouse, rebuilt on 
a larger scale in 1871 for the Holborn Union. The fields on either 
side of the walk (now a broad street) have been built over, and a 
district church, Holy Trinity, erected in the walk itself. Here are 
Lumley's Almshouses, erected in 1672 in Pest House Field by the 
Viscountess Lumley for six poor women of the parishes of Aldgate and 
Bishopsgate. 

Sherborne Lane, CITY King William Street to Abchurch 
Lane. Here is the City Carlton Club. 

Langborne Ward, so called of a long bourne of sweet water, which of old time 
breaking out into Fenchurch Street, ran down the same street and Lombard Street, 
to the west end of St. Mary Woolnoth's church, where turning south and breaking 
into small shares, rills, or streams, it left the name of Share-borne Lane or South- 
borne Lane (as I have read) because it ran south to the river of Thames. Slow, 
P- 75- 

Sa're-burne (sdr, a share ; scrir-an, to divide) is the more likely 
etymology. 

All those that will send letters to the most parts of the habitable world, or to any 
parts of our King of Great Britaine's Dominions, let them repaire to the Generall 
Post-Master Thomas Withering at his house in Sherburne Lane, neere Abchurch. 
The Carrier's Cosmographie, by John Taylor, the Water Poet, 4to, 1637. 

Sherrard Street, GOLDEN SQUARE. [See Sherwood Street.] 

Sherwood Street, GOLDEN SQUARE, from Brewer Street to 
Glasshouse Street. Built circ. 1679,* and so called after "Esquire 
Sherwood," who lived in Brewer Street in 1680. In the last century 
it was commonly called Sherrard Street. Many of Walpole's early 
letters to George Montagu are addressed to Sherrard Street. 

After Mr. Dryden's decease, the Lady Elizabeth, his widow, took a lesser house 
in Sherrard Street, Golden Square, and had wherewithal to live frugally genteel, 
and keep two servants to the day of her death. Mrs. Thomas (Wilson's Memoirs 
of Congreve, 8vo, 1730, pt. 2, p. 9). 

Ship, at CHARING CROSS, a long established tavern and coach 
office over against Scotland Yard. Part of it, with property in Spring 
Gardens, 3250 feet, was sold June 1874 for ^3 0,000 to Messrs. 
Drummond for their new banking premises. 

Ship Court, OLD BAILEY, west side, near Ludgate Hill; now 
absorbed in the Railway Companies' and carriers' yards and stables. 
Richard Hogarth kept a school in this Court, and here most probably 
his son William, the celebrated painter, was born. 

Ship Yard, in the STRAND, without TEMPLE BAR. It led past 
the Ship Tavern into Little Shire Lane. It was particularised as 
" Without Temple Bar," to distinguish it from another tavern of the 
same sign within the Bar. In the London Gazette of September 8, 
1666, the first issued after the Great Fire is the following : 

1 Rate-books of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. 



240 SHIP YARD 



Mr. Thomas Nevil, Comptroller of the Petty Customs in the Port of London, 
who formerly dwelt at the Crown in St. Paul's Churchyard, is now removed to the 
Ship, between Temple Bar and Chancery Lane End, over against the hither Temple 
Gate. 

In 1571 an Inn near Temple Bar called the Ship, lands in Yorkshire and 
Dorsetshire, and the Wardship of a minor, were granted to him [Sir Christopher 
Hatton]. Life and Times of Sir Christopher Hatlon, by Nicolas, p. 7. 

Faithorne now set up in a new shop, at the sign of the Ship next to the Drake, 
opposite to the Palsgrave's Head Tavern, without Temple Bar, where he not only 
followed his art, but sold Italian, Dutch, and English prints, and worked for book- 
sellers. Waif ok, ed. Dallaway, vol. v. p. 132. 

A tavern token exists of " The Ship without Temple Bar," with 
the date upon it of 1649. I n Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata is a 
" south-west view of an ancient structure in Ship Yard, Temple Bar, 
supposed to have been the residence of Elias Ashmole, the celebrated 
antiquary." Ashmole's house was in Shire Lane. 

Shipwrights' Company, the fifty-ninth in order of the City guilds, 
was a fraternity by ancient prescription, and was granted ordinances for 
its government from the Court of Mayor and Aldermen in 1456, and 
a Patent of Incorporation from James I. in 1605. The Company has 
a livery but no hall. The hall it once possessed was at Ratcliff Cross. 

Shire Lane (vulgarly SHEER LANE), TEMPLE BAR. In James I.'s 
time, as appears from a list of houses, taverns, etc., in Fleet Street and 
the Strand, it was known by the name of Shire Lane, alias Rogue 
Lane. 1 Despite the name it had respectable inhabitants. In it lived 
Sir John Sedley, and here his son Sir Charles Sedley, the dramatic 
poet, was born. " Neere the Globe in Sheer Lane " 2 lived Elias 
Ashmole, the antiquary; here Antony a Wood records his having 
dined with him ; 3 and here Seth Ward, Bishop of Salisbury, sought him 
out in February 1677 to apprise him that Garter King -at -Arms was 
dead. At the upper end of Shire Lane Steele placed the residence of 
Isaac Bickerstaff, who dates many of his Tatlers from it. The Tatler 
Club met at the Trumpet 4 in Shire Lane ; and from it he led his 
company of Twaddlers on their immortal march. In Shire Lane is 
said to have originated the famous Kit-Cat Club, commemorated on 
Kneller's most famous canvases. [See Kit-Cat Club.] But whatever 
Shire Lane may have been in its prime, in its later days it became 
utterly abominable. So disreputable a place had it become that at one 
time a man was employed to stand at the end of it, with a lanthorn 
lighted in broad day, warning passengers not to enter it. In July 
1845, m trie hope that by another name it would lose some of its evil 
fragrance, the name was changed to LOWER SERLE'S PLACE, as the 
Tempest for a like reason had altered its sign to the Duke of York. 
Under the supervision of the New Police there was some improvement, 
but it remained a disreputable place. Happily the last vestige of it 
was cleared away for the New Law Courts. 

1 Harleian MS., 6850. " Hamper, p. 393. 

3 Lives ofLeland, Hearne, and Wood, vol.ii. p. 234. 4 Tatler, No. 132. 



LANE 241 



Then hard by the Bar is another lane called Shire Lane, because it divideth the 
City from the Sliiiv. Slow, p. 139. 

Shear Lane comcth out of Little Lincoln's Inn Fields, and falleth into Fleet 
Street by Temple liar : the upper part hath good old buildings, well inhabited ; but 
the lower part is very narrow and more ordinary. Strype, B. iv. p. 72. 

n then at the same time he sounds another trumpet than that in Sheer Lane, 
to horse and hem in his auditory. Andrew Marvell. 

In this order we marched down Sheer Lane, at the upper end of which I lodge. 
When we came to Temple Bar, Sir Harry and Sir Giles got over ; but a run of the 
coaches kept the rest of us on this side the street : However we all at last landed and 
drew up in very good order before Ben Tooke's shop, who favoured our rallying 
with great humanity. Tatltr, No. 86, October 25-27, 1709. 

And oft repuls'd, as oft attack the great 

With painful art, and application warm, 

And take at last some little place by storm ; 

Enough to keep two shoes on Sunday clean, 

And starve upon discreetly, in Sheer Lane. Young, Sat. iii. 

In the dwelling and spunging-house of a sheriff's officer of the 
name of Hemp in this lane, Theodore Hook, while under arrest for a 
defalcation in his accounts as Treasurer of the Mauritius, made the 
acquaintance of Dr. William Maginn. 1 The time passed "pleasantly," 
he said, and there was " an agreeable prospect, barring the windows." 

Shoe Lane, FLEET STREET, runs due north from Fleet Street into 
Holborn, by St. Andrew's Church. The earliest mention of Shoe Lane 
in the City records is in 4 Edward II. (1310), when a writ is sent from 
the King on the 8th of July commanding that " you cause to come 
before us, or the person holding our place, at the church of St Brigit 
without Ludgate, on the Saturday next after the Feast of the 
Translation of St. Thomas the Martyr, eighteen good and lawful men 
of the venue of Scolane in the ward without Ludgate ; to make 
inquisition on oath as to a certain tenement with its appurtenances in 
Scholane, which the Abbot of Rievaulx is said to have appropriated 
without leave of our Lord the King," etc. 2 This writ was not in 
accordance with custom and was evaded by the City authorities. A 
similar one was sent on the loth of October, but the result is not 
recorded. The next notice is in the igth of Edward III. (1345), when 
Thomas de Donyngtone is condemned to be hanged for stealing one 
furred surcoat and two double hoods, value 45., and two linen sheets, 
value 4od., in Sholane near Holbourne. The name again occurs in 
the 2ist of Edward III. (1347), when John Tournour of Sholane is 
ordered not to make his wine-measures for the future " of any wood 
but dried," and to stamp his name, or his mark, on the bottom of them. 

In this Shoe Lane, on the left hand [the east side] is one old house called 
Oldborne Hall ; it is now letten out into tenements. Sttnv, p. 145. 3 

1610. Thomas Penkithman of Warrington, Co. Lancaster, has expended money 
in building houses in Shoe Lane, on the ground of the Earl of Derby. They have 

1 Quarterly Review, No. 143, p. 86. Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata. The same 

- Riley, Memorials, p. 75. work contains a chimney-piece and ceiling in 

3 See a view of the exterior (circ. 1800) in the old hall, the latter with the date 1617. 

VOL. Ill R 



242 SHOE LANE 



been taken possession of by one Shute under pretence, etc. Cal. State Pap., 1611- 
1618, p. 132. 

In the 1 7th century there was a noted cock-pit in Shoe Lane. It 
was sometimes visited by persons we should not have expected to 
meet there. Writing to his nephew from " St. Martin's Lane by the 
Fields," June 3, 1633, Sir Henry Wotton says : "This other day at the 
Cock-pit in Shoe Lane (where myself am rara avis) your Nephew, 
Mr. Robert Bacon came very kindly to me, with whom I was glad to 
refresh my acquaintance, though I had rather it had been in the theatre 
of Redgrave." x Thirty years later the company was less refined. 

December 21, 1663. To Shoe Lane to see a cocke-fighting at anew pit there, a 
spot I was never at in my life : but Lord ! to see the strange variety of people, from 
Parliament man by name Wildes that was Deputy Governor of the tower when 
Robinson was Lord Mayor, to the poorest 'prentices, bakers, brewers, butchei's, 
draymen, and what not ; and all these fellows one with another cursing and betting. 
I soon had enough of it. Pepys? 

About this time Shoe Lane appears to have been the centre for the 
designers of the rude woodcuts which figured at the heads of ballads 
and broad-sheets. 

A ballad-monger is the ignominious nickname of a penurious poet, of whom he 
partakes in nothing but in poverty. . . . For want of truer relations, for a need, he 
can find you out a Sussex dragon, some sea or inland monster, drawn out by some 
Shoe Lane man, in a Gorgon-like feature, to enforce more horror in the beholder. 
Whimzies : or a New Cast of Characters, 1631. 

The sign-painters, a busy race when every shop in London had its 
painted sign, also congregated here, and Harp Alley, Shoe Lane, was 
the great mart for ready-made and second-hand signs. 3 Thackeray, in 
his Lecture on Steele, repeats a story " as exceedingly characteristic " 
of the men and times, narrated by Dr. John Hoadley, of his father, 
when Bishop of Bangor, being present by invitation " at one of the 
Whig meetings held at the Trumpet in Shoe Lane, when Sir Richard 
[Steele] in his zeal rather exposed himself, having the double duty of 
the day upon him, as well to celebrate the immortal memory of King 
William, it being the 4th of November, as to drink his friend Addison 
up to conversation pitch." But the meeting, if not fabulous, must be 
transferred to the Trumpet in Shire Lane, where the Tatler's Club met. 
[See Shire Lane.] George Colman makes Dr. Pangloss say 

I'm dead to the fascinations of beauty : since that unguarded day of dalliance, 
when being full of Bacchus, Bacchi plemts Horace Hem ! my pocket was picked 
of a metal watch at the sign of the Sceptre in Shoe Lane. Heir at Law, Act iv. 
Sc. 3. 

At the back of Walkden's ink manufactory an extensive range of vaulted 
cellars still remain. They belonged apparently to some large house 
which stood upon the spot. 

Eminent Inhabitants. John Decreetz (or De Critz), serjeant painter 
to James I. and Charles I. " Resolute " John Florio, author of the 
well-known Dictionary which bears his name. His house in Shoe Lane is 

1 Reliq. Wottonianx, p. 463. 2 See also Anecdotes and Traditions, by Thorns, p. 47. 

3 Edwards, Anecdotes of Painting, p. n8. 



243 



mentioned in his will. In 1676 Praise-God Barebones was paying ^25 a 
year for a house in Shoe Lane. He states himself to be eighty years of 
age, and to have resided twenty-five years in the parish of St. Dunstan 
in the West. 1 In an obscure lodging, near Shoe Lane, died, in 1749, 
Samuel Boyce, the poet. When almost perishing with hunger he is 
said to have been unable to eat some roast beef that was brought for him 
because there was no ketchup. Oliver Goldsmith mentions Shoe Lane 
as though he had himself lived in it : " Nor will I forget the beauties 
of Shoe Lane in which I myself have resided since my arrival." 2 

Observe. No. 3, the Ben Jonson Tavern, with the poet's head for 
a sign. Nos. 103-105, the Standard newspaper printing and publishing 
office, a large and massive new building. On the site of Farringdon 
Market, on the east side of Shoe Lane, in what was once the burying- 
ground of Shoe Lane workhouse (added during Racket's ministry, and 
by Racket's interest), Thomas Chatterton was buried. The northern 
half of Shoe Lane has been greatly changed in appearance by the con- 
struction of the Holborn Viaduct and its approaches, and Farringdon 
Market, or what remains of it, is destined to be cleared away as soon as 
the new City Fruit and Vegetable Market is completed. [See Bangor 
Court ; Farringdon Market ; Gunpowder Alley ; Harp Lane.] 

Shoemakers' Row, WEST SMITHFIELD. 

Then at Smithfield Bars, 'tvvixt the ground and the stars, 

There's a place they call Shoemaker Row, 
Whereat you may buy shoes every day 

Or go barefoot all the year thro'. 

Tom D'Urfey, Ancient Song for Bartholomew Fair, 

Probably this was a cant name for a row of stalls where shoes were 
on sale during Bartholomew Fair. The only Shoemakers' Rows we 
find extant in D'Urfey's day were between Great Carter Lane and Black- 
friars, in Aldgate, and by Deadman's Place, Bankside, Southwark. Sir 
Christopher Wren is said to have rented a house in Shoemakers' Row, 
Carter Lane, during the building of St. Paul's, for convenience in 
watching the progress of the works. 

Shoreditch, a manor and populous parish, at the north-east end of 
London, between Norton Folgate, Hoxton, and Hackney. The old way 
of spelling the name is Soersditch, but the derivation is uncertain. 
That it was so called after Jane Shore, the mistress of Edward IV., is 
a vulgar error, perpetuated by Haywood's " King Edward IV." and a 
ballad in Percy's Reliques : 

Thus weary of my life, at lengthe 

I yielded up my vital strength 

Within a ditch of loathsome scent, 

Where carrion dogs did much frequent : 

The which now since my dying daye, 

Is Shoreditch call'd, as writers saye ; 

Which is a witnesse of my sinne, 

For being concubine to a King. Percy's Reliqtus, vol. ii. Book 2. 

1 Notes and Queries, ad S., vol. i. p. 253. ? Citizen of the World, Letter 122. 



244 SHOREDITCH 

Richard. But, Catesby, say, where died Shore and his wife ? 
Catesby, Where Ayre was hanged for giving her relief, 
There both of them round circling his cold grave, 
And arm in arm, departed from this life. 
The people, from the love they bear to her 
And her kind husband, pitying his wrongs, 
For ever after mean to call the ditch 
Shore's Ditch, as in the memory of them. 

Hay wood's King Edward IV., ad part, p. 192 (Shak. Soc.) 

The popular notion had early taken material form in the Jane Shore 
Inn, of which there are 17th-century tokens extant. The inn still 
exists No. 103 Shoreditch High Street. 

Soersditch, so called more than four hundred years since, as I can prove by 
record. Stow, p. 158. 

The Manour of Soersditch with the Polehowse and Bowes (so expressed in the 
Record), lately belonging to John de Northampton of London, Draper, was granted 
15 Richard II. to Edmund Duke of York, and Earl of Cambridge, and Edward 
Earl of Roteland [Rutland], son of the same Edmund and Isabel. Strype, B. iv. 

P- 5. 

I read of the King's Manour, called, Shoresditch Place, in the parish of Hackney. 
But how it took that name I know not. This house is now called Shore Place. 
The vulgar tradition goes that Jane Shore lived here ; and here her royal lover used 
to visit her. But we have the credit of Mr. Stow that the true name was Shorditch 
Place, and 'tis not unlikely to have been the place of a Knight called Sir John de 
Sordich, a great man in Edward the Third his days, who was with that King in his 
wars in France, and is remembered in our Annals in 14 Edw. III. He was owner 
of lands in Hackney as well in demesne as in service : which he gave to Croston his 
chaplain. This Weever notes ; who thinks Shorditch to be named from the said 
Knight. Strype, B. iv. p. 53. 

The mock title " Duke of Shoreditch " used to be bestowed on the 
most successful archer in the annual trials of skill. It was said to have 
been applied in the first instance by Henry VIII. In the "Poor Man's 
Petition" of 1603, one item is that the King should not make the 
" good Lord of Lincoln Duke of Shoreditch." The title appears to 
have been given from the circumstance that the fields at Shoreditch 
with those at Finsbury and Hoxton were the chief practising grounds 
of the London archers, and hence, whilst the Duke of Shoreditch was 
the premier archer, those of somewhat inferior fame were dubbed 
Marquis of Hogsden (Hoxton), Earl of Pancridge (St. Pancras), and 
the like. The archers who practised in the fields at Mile End called 
their chief bowman Prince Arthur, and others his knights. 

And another time at a shooting match at Windsor, the King [Henry VIII. ] was 
present ; and the game being well nigh finished, and the upshot thought to be given, 
one Barlo, a citizen and inhabitant of Shoreditch, shot and won them all. Whereat 
the King greatly rejoiced, and told him he should be named The Duke of Shoreditch. 
On which account the Captain of the Company of Archers of London, for a long time 
after, was styled by that name. Strype, B. i. p. 250. 

In 1598 was published "A Martiall Conference pleasantly discussed between two 
Souldiers otJy practised in Finsbury Fields, in the modern Wars of the renowned 
Duke of Shoreditch and the mighty Prince Arthur. Newly translated out of Essex 
into English by Barnaby Rich, Gent. 1598." Collier, vol. i. p. xxxvi. 

In July 1 553; when Dudley Duke of Northumberland set out with a goodly 
following to seize Queen Mary in the Eastern Counties "As they went throughe 



SHOREDITCH 245 

Shordyke t saieth the duke to one that rid by him, ' the people prece to se us, but not 
one sayeth God spede us.'" Queen Jane ami Queen Mary (Cam Jen Soc.), p. 8. 

Two of the witnesses in the inquiry into the mysterious death of 
Richard Hunn, who was found hanged in the Lollards' Tower, St. 
Paul's, where he was imprisoned on a charge of heresy, were " Robert 
Johnson and his wife dwelling at the Bell in Shoreditch." The back 
of the inn must at that time have opened upon the country, for it is 
deposed that one Charles Joseph leaped upon his horse in the inn yard 
and " prayed the host to let him out of his back gate, that he might 
ride out by the field side ; which the host so did." l Lying on the 
main road to the Eastern Counties, the inns of Shoreditch, the nearest 
point to the City, were numerous and much frequented by travellers. 

.Monopoly. Gad's-so, dost hear ? I'm to sup this night at the Lion in Shoreditch 
with certain gallants. Westward Ho, Act ii. Sc. 3 (1607, 410). 

Newton dates a remarkable letter to Locke " At the Bull, in 
Shoreditch, London, September 16, 1693." Shoreditch was formerly 
notorious for the easy character of its women. To die in Shoreditch 
was not a mere metaphorical term for dying in a sewer. 

" Call a leete at Bishopsgate, and examine how every second house in Shoreditch 
is mayntayned ; make a privie search in Southwarke, and tell me how many shee 
inmates you finde." In another passage Nash couples "Shoreditch, the Spittle, 
Southwarke, Westminster, and Turnbull Street." Nash's Pierce Penniless, 1592. 

Well said, daughter : lift up your voices and sing like nightingales, you Tory- 
rory jades. Courage, I say ; as long as the merry pence hold out, you shall none of 
you die in Shoreditch. Dryden, The Kind Keeper, or Air. Limber ham, 410, 1680. 

Here, next door unto The Gun, lived Mrs. Millwood, who led George 
Barnwell astray. 

Good Barnwell, then quoth she, 
Do thou to Shoreditch come, 
And ask for Mrs. Millwood's house, 

Next door unto the Gun. Percy's Reliques, vol. iii. Book 3. 

When Chatterton first came to London, 1770, he lodged in the 
house of Walmsley, a plasterer, in Shoreditch, where his kinswoman, 
Mrs. Ballance, also lived. He remained here from May to July, when 
he removed to Brook Street, where in the following month came the 
unhappy end. 

Harwood, my townsman, who invented first 

Porter to rival wine, and quench the thirst, 

was a brewer on the east side of High Street, Shoreditch, and his 
famous beverage was first retailed at the Blue Last at the corner of 
New Inn Yard in the neighbouring Curtain Road. New Inn Yard 
remains, but the Blue Last has departed. Shoreditch High Street has 
been much improved in appearance of late years by the widening of its 
northern end, the formation of Commercial Street, and the new street 
from Old Street, and especially by the extensive works in connection 
with the new Goods Station of the Great Eastern Railway. [See Hog 
Lane ; Holywell Street ; St. Leonard's, Shoreditch ; Standard Theatre.] 

1 Foxe, vol. iv. p. 193 



246 SHORTS GARDENS 

Short's Gardens, DRURY LANE, to King Street, St. Giles's, said 
to have been so named from a " mansion built there by Dudley Short, 
Esq., an eminent parishioner in the reign of Charles II., with garden 
attached." x But another Mr. Short had built here much earlier. 

July 7, 1618. The Justices of Middlesex report to the Council that they have 
examined the state of the large building lately erected in Drury Lane, assigned by 
W m - Short of Gray's Inn to Edw. Smith, and find that it is erected on the 
foundations of the former tenements. Cal. State Pap., 1611-1618, p. 551, and 
comp. under July 1 8. 

Here, in " a hole," as he calls it, Charles Mathews the elder made one 
of his first attempts as an actor. 

Shrouds (The), the crypt at St. Paul's. [See St. Paul's Cathedral.] 
There is a sermon of Latimer's " preached in the Shrouds at St. Paul's 
Church, in London, January 18, 1548." 

Shug Lane, PICCADILLY, afterwards Tichborne Street (which see). 

Chatelain, the celebrated engraver, died [1770] of an indigestion after a hearty 
supper of lobsters : he then lodged at a carpenter's in a court near Shug Lane : 
going home after his supper of lobsters, he bought and eat a hundred of asparagus ; 
he was buried by subscription. Captain Grose, Biographical Anecdotes ', p. 166. 

Shunamite's House, WATLING STREET. The maintenance of 
the sermons at St. Paul's Cross, and the ensuring of suitable preachers, 
was from an early period a matter of much interest. Aylmer, Bishop 
of London, and other benefactors contributed liberally to a fund for 
the purpose, and the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen ordered that 
every minister who should preach at the Cross, " considering the 
journies some of them might take from the Universities, or elsewhere, 
should at his pleasure be freely entertained for five days' space, with 
sweet and convenient lodging, fire, candle, and all other necessaries : 
viz. from Thursday, before their day of preaching, to Thursday 
morning following." z The house provided for their lodging was called 
the Shunamite's House from the hospitable entertainment of Elisha by 
the Shunamite woman. 3 The character of the house is very well 
shown in the interesting story told by Izaak Walton in his Life of 
Richard Hooker, which the reader of that book cannot fail to 
remember, of Hooker's coming to town to preach at Paul's Cross, 
soon after he had taken his degree (1581); how he arrived "at the 
Shunamite's House in Watling Street " (then kept by John Churchman, 
sometime a draper of note) ; " wet and weary and weather-beaten ; " 
how he took a cold, and how Mrs. Churchman cured him ; how she 
persuaded him that he was a man of a tender constitution, and that it 
was best for him to have a wife, that might prove a nurse to him ; 
how Mr. Hooker acceded to her opinion, and how Mrs. Churchman 

1 Dobie's St. Giles, 2d ed., p. 61. [Elisha] there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and 

2 Strype, B. iii. p. 149. a candlestick : and it shall be, when he cometh to 

3 " And she [the Shunamite woman] said unto us, that he shall turn in thither. And it fell on 
her husband, . . . Let us make a little chamber, a day, that he came thither, and he turned into 
I pray thee, on the wall ; and let us set for him the chamber, and lay there." 2 Kings, iv. g-n.j! 



SSAM'S 247 

recommended her daughter Joan ; how Mr. Hooker married her, and 
had so little cause to rejoice in the wife he obtained on the occasion 
of his Paul's Cross sermon, that he might with the Psalmist liken his 
habitation to the tents of Kedar. The Paul's Cross Sermons were 
continued after the Cross was destroyed ; but the Shunamite's House 
was abandoned. The date of its discontinuance is not stated, but 
Strype (1720) says, "This good custom continued, till of late times it 
hath been taken away, or disused." 

Siam's, an India House in St. James's Street, kept by a Mrs. 
Siam, for the sale of teas, toys, shawls, Indian screens, cabinets, and 
other oriental goods. It is mentioned by several of our Queen Anne 
writers ; but the name has long been removed, and the site of the 
house long since forgotten. 

Lady Malapert. O law ! what should I do in the country ? There's no levees, 
no Mall, no plays, no tea at Siam's, no Hyde Park. Southern, The Maid's Last 
Prayer, 4to, 1693. 

Leonora. I will write to him to meet me within half an hour at Mrs. Siam's the 
India House, in St. James's Street. Gibber, Woman's Wit or the Lady in Fashion, 
4to, 1697. 

Leonora [Scene, an India House], Come, Mrs. Siam, what new Indian toys have 
you ? Ibid. 

India, or as they were at first called China, houses monopolised the 
shopping of the fine ladies of London from early in the zyth to the 
middle of the 1 8th century. Ben Jonson more than once refers to 
them : 

[She] is served 

Upon the knee ! And has her pages, ushers, 
Footmen, and coaches her six mares nay eight, 
To hurry her through London, to the Exchange, 
Bethlem, the China-houses. 

Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, 1610, Act iv. Sc. 2. 

So in The Silent Woman (Act iv. Sc. 2) he makes Lady Haughty say : 
" And go with us to Bedlam, to the China-houses, and to the 
Exchange." Scandal imputed other motives to the monopoly than 

To cheapen tea or buy a screen. PRIOR. 

King William III. severely reprehended Queen Mary for being 
persuaded to go to one. 1 Gibber makes Lady Townley " take a flying 
jaunt to an India house," as one of the dashing gaieties of a fine lady's 
London life. 

There are no Indian-houses, to drop in 

And fancy Stuffs, and chuse a pretty Screen, 

To while away an hour or so " I swear 

These cups are pretty, but they're deadly dear :" 

And if some unexpected friend appear 

"The Devil ! Who could have thought to meet you here?" 

Epilogue to Rowfs Ulysses, 1 706, 410. 

1 Dalrymple's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 79, Appendix. 



248 SfAM'S 

Straight then I'll dress, and take my wonted range 
Through India shops, to Motteux's, or the Change, 
Where the tall jar erects its stately pride, 
With antic shapes in China's azure dyed. 
There careless lies a rich brocade unroll'd, 
Here shines a cabinet with burnish'd gold. 

Lady M. W. Montagu, The Toilet, by Gay. 

In reprinting this as a " Town Eclogue " Gay makes a few altera- 
tions, and adds a couplet which notices one of the chief temptations of 
these shops the raffle 

But then remembrance will my grief renew 
'Twas there the raffling dice false Damon threw. 

Sidney Alley, LEICESTER SQUARE, now Sidney Place, from the 
north-west corner of the square to Coventry Street, was so called from 
the Sidneys, Earls of Leicester. [See Leicester House.] 

Sidney House, the first known London residence of the Sidney 
family was in the Old Bailey. 

Silver Street, CHEAPSIDE, from Wood Street to Falcon Square. 

Down lower in Wood Street is Silver Street (I think of silversmiths dwelling 
there), in which be divers fair houses. Stow, p. 112. 

Gossip Censure. A notable tough rascal, this old Pennyboy ! right city-bred. 

Gossip Mirth, In Silver Street, the region of money, a good seat for an usurer. 
Ben Jonson, The Staple of News. 

It must also have been famous for its wig-makers. 

Otter. All her teeth were made in the Blackfriars ; both her eyebrows in the 
Strand, and her hair in Silver Street. Ben Jonson, The Silent Woman, Act iv. Sc. I. 

On the south side of Silver Street (No. 24) is the Parish Clerks' 
Hall [which see]. A large fire occurred here in 1884. 

Silver Street, GOLDEN SQUARE, from Beak Street to Cambridge 
Street. Canaletto, the great landscape painter, was living here in 1752, 
when he issued the following advertisement : 

Signior Canaletto gives notice that he has painted Chelsea College, Ranelagh 
House, and the River Thames ; which if any gentleman or others are pleased to 
favour him with seeing the same, he will attend at his lodgings at Mr. Viggan's in 
Silver Street, Golden Square, for fifteen days from this day, July 31, from 8 to i, 
and from 3 to 6 at night each day. 

Sion College, VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, E.C., ne.ar the north end 
of Blackfriars Bridge and next building on the west to the City of 
London School, was founded 1623 as a College and Almshouse 
pursuant to the will of Dr. Thomas White, who therein describes 
himself as " Minister of God's Word and Vicar of St. Dunstan in the 
West." This, however, was perhaps the least important of his pre- 
ferments, as he held the prebend of Mora in the cathedral church of 
St. Paul's, and as he was also Treasurer of Salisbury, Canon of Ch. Ch. 
Oxford, and of Windsor. To the College and almshouse was added, 
by the munificence of Dr. John Simson, rector of St. Olave, Hart 



SION COLLEGE 249 



Street, and one of the executors of Dr. White, a library. Letters patent 
incorporating the College were granted by Charles I., July 3, 1630. 
Other letters patent containing an exemplification of the former 
Charter of Incorporation of 1630, and in no way altering it, were 
granted by Charles II., June 20, 1664. The College consists of 
the incumbents of the City of London and its suburbs. By pre- 
scription the suburbs are taken to be the parishes which touched the 
City walls in any part of its circumference at the date of the founda- 
tion of the College, and parishes which, as time has gone on, have 
been carved out of the original suburban parishes. The Governing 
Body is elected annually on the third Tuesday after Easter Tuesday, 
and consists of a President, two Deans, and four Assistants. The 
objects for which the College was incorporated are thus set forth in 
Dr. White's will : " For the Glory of God the good of his Church and 
redress of many inconveniences not prejudicial to the Lord Bp. of 
London's jurisdiction whom I would have visitor he and his Successors 
for ever, but to maintain truth in Doctrine, love in conversing together, 
and to repress such sins as follow us as men ; that they might be 
admonished and ordered there rather to make them amend or else the 
College to send them and their cause to the Bishop to be punished 
accordingly." 

The almshouse was to shelter ten poor men and ten poor women ; 
of these eight were to be of the Merchant Taylors' Company, six from 
the parish of St. Dunstan in the West, four from the City of Bristol, 
and two from the parish of St. Gregory by St. Paul's. Besides their 
rooms the almsfolk were to receive a small pension. 

The Library, coeval with the College, though no part of the original 
foundation, has from the first been the chief glory of the College. The 
late Lord Campbell, when summing up in a case in which the President 
and Court had to defend their dismissal of an unsatisfactory employe 
thus spoke of it : " The Corporation of Sion College is one of the most 
venerable institutions of the country, the library being very splendid 
and one that has been of very great service both to literature and to 
science. It is most excellent, and I think the public are indebted to 
the Governors of Sion College in seeing that the public have the full 
benefit of that noble library." 

From the first the Library, though belonging to the President and 
Fellows of the College, has always been considered to have a public 
character. The times during which it is open are 10 A.M. to 4 P.M. on 
every week day except Saturday, when it closes at 2 P.M. During these 
hours students are freely admitted to consult such works as they may 
desire to see, though, if it seems to the Librarian desirable, he may 
require the production of a recommendation from a beneficed clergy- 
man. Upon payment of half a guinea per annum the Fellows and 
all licensed curates in the metropolis acquire the privilege of borrowing 
books from the Library, and of using the Common Room, which is well 
supplied with all the leading periodicals, with newspapers and with 



250 SION COLLEGE 



writing materials. To obtain the same privileges incumbents not 
being Fellows are required to pay an annual guinea. Up to the 
date of the first Copyright Act the Library depended for its 
supply of books upon voluntary contributions in money and in kind, 
and a small entrance fee paid by the Fellows. These contributions 
were very liberal, and resulted in the formation of the nucleus of 
a library of exceptional interest. To mention a few of the principal 
benefactors Elizabeth, Viscountess Camden, gave ^200, and there 
were various contributions of ;ioo and of ^50 each. Nathaniel 
Torporley, Walter Travers, Simeon Ashe, George, Earl of Berkeley, 
John Lawson, Eleanor, relict of the celebrated printer, Thomas 
James, gave whole libraries to the college. Mrs. James as many 
as 3000 volumes, Earl Berkeley 1676 volumes, many of them very 
choice. The Rev. E. Waple close upon 1900 volumes, besides 
duplicates, which sold for ^155. In 1679 King Charles II. presented 
a Jesuit library seized at Holbeck in the West Riding; few, 
however, of these volumes reached the College, and these in a very 
sorry condition, the greater part were made away with by pursuivants, 
etc. A new source of supply was opened up in the reign of Queen 
Anne, as Sion College Library was one of those named in the first 
Copyright Act, and so became entitled to a copy of every work entered 
at Stationers' Hall until 1836, when under 6 and 7 William IV., c. 
no, this privilege was taken away and a money compensation voted 
to replace it. At present the sum annually spent in the purchase of 
additions to the library is zT- The new buildings of the College 
upon the Victoria Embankment were formally opened by H.R.H. the 
Prince and Princess of Wales on December 15, 1886. Previous to 
this the College had occupied premises situated in London Wall between 
Aldermanbury on the east and Philip Lane on the west, the former site 
of Elsing Spital. The old library was built along the east side of Philip 
Lane; it was 125 feet in length, 25 feet in width. The hall, a building 
of no architectural interest, stood back in the College garden. The only 
feature in the old buildings of any artistic merit was the gateway. 

In the short period which elapsed between the opening in 1630 of 
the original buildings of the College (of which those just spoken of 
were apparently a tolerably faithful reproduction) and the Great Fire 
of London, there were several sets of chambers for students in the 
College gardens. In one of these sets lived Thomas Fuller whilst collect- 
ing materials for his Church History. This book is dated from Sion 
College. Up to the year 1845 the rooms occupied by the almsfolk 
were under the Library, to which they were a constant source of danger 
from fire. In 1845 a new almshouse was built in another part of 
the College property, some of the rooms looking into Philip Lane. 

With the view, however, of removing the College and its valuable 
Library to a more accessible site, an Act of Parliament was obtained in 
1884, which sanctioned the assignment to the almsfolk of a definite 
portion of the property in place of a somewhat vague claim to a 



SKINNERS' HALL 251 



small proportionate share of the whole. The Act also sanctioned the 
abolition of the almshouse, the almsfolk to receive premiums of much 
larger amount than those payable to them before. The arrangement 
thus sanctibned has worked so well that there are now forty instead of 
twenty pensioners, with pensions of from ,30 to 40 a year instead 
of 17. At the same time a new Governing Body was provided for 
what had now become Sion Hospital. This set the President and 
Court of Governors free to purchase the present freehold side of the 
College, which they acquired from the City for ,31,625, and to erect 
the new building thereon from the designs of Mr. (now Sir) Arthur 
Blomfield at a cost of ,26,000, the money for the purpose being 
raised by the sale of a large part of the freehold of the old site. In 
the new buildings the library is well housed and the other business 
of the College is carried on as it was carried on heretofore in London 
Wall. 

Sion Hill. [See College Hill.] 

Sise Lane, CITY, from Bridge Row to Queen Victoria Street, a 
corruption of St. Syth's Lane or St. Osyth's Lane ; from the church of 
Sf. Bennet Sherehog or Syth, destroyed in the Great Fire, and not 
rebuilt. A large part of the northern end of Sise Lane was swept 
away in constructing Queen Victoria Street. 

Skinner Street, HOLBORN, was formed in 1802, and received its 
name from Alderman Skinner, through whose exertions it was built. 
The old highway between Newgate Street and Holborn Bridge, before 
Skinner Street was made, was Snow Hill, a circuitous, very narrow, very 
steep, and very dangerous roadway. William Godwin, author of Caleb 
Williams, kept a bookseller's shop for several years in this street in the 
name of his wife. Charles Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, and Mary 
Lamb's Mrs. Leicester's School were published by " M. J. Godwin, at 
the Juvenile Library, 41 Skinner Street." 

Popular Works for the Amusement and Instruction of Young Persons Published 
by M. J. Godwin & Co., French and English City Juvenile and School Library, 
No. 41 Skinner Street, Snow Hill (a Corner House). Advertisement at the end of 
Lamb's Adventures of Ulysses, 1819. 

The house was on the north side, at the angle of Snow Hill, and 
nearly opposite Turnagain Lane. It was swept away for the London, 
Chatham and Dover Railway; and what remained of Skinner Street 
was cleared away in 1867 for the Holborn Viaduct. 

Skinners' Hall, DOWGATE HILL. The hall of the Skinners' 
Company, the sixth on the list of the Twelve Great Companies of 
London. The Company was incorporated in 1327, and the government 
vested in a master, four wardens, and a court of assistants. The hall, 
mentioned as early as the reign of Henry III., was destroyed in the 
Great Fire, and rebuilt shortly after at a cost of over 1800. The 
East India Company held their meetings for a time in this hall, for 



252 SKINNERS' HALL 



which they paid a yearly rent of ^300. The present front, Ionic in 
character, with the Skinners' arms in the pediment, was added by 
Richard Jupp, the Company's architect, in 1790. The dining-hall 
was rebuilt 1847-1850 under the direction of G. B. Moore. The 
drawing-room is lined with cedar wood, traditionally said to have been 
given by the East India Company to the Skinners Company. A few 
years since (under the mastership of Charles Barry, architect) the old 
ceiling was removed, and a new decorated carved ceiling added, 
and the old work redecorated, making a very handsome apartment. 
The mode of electing a master is curious. A cap of maintenance 
is carried into the hall in great state, and is tried on by the old master, 
who announces that it "will not fit" him. He then passes it on 
to be tried by several next him. Two or three more misfits occur, till 
at last the cap is handed to the intended new master, for whom 
it was made. The wardens are elected in the same manner. 
Observe, Portrait of Sir Andrew Judd, Lord Mayor of London in 1551, 
and founder of the large and excellent school at Tunbridge, of which 
the Skinners' Company have the patronage and supervision. [See 
Skinners' Well.] 

Skinners' Well, CLERKENWELL, on the west side of the church, 
but now closed ; one of six wells forming the River of Wells, which 
had its rise in the high ground about Clerkenwell, and, running due 
south, fell into the Fleet river at the bottom of Holborn Bridge and 
Snow hill. It was so called, says Stow, " for the skinners of London 
held there certain plays yearly, played of Holy Scripture." In Rocque's 
Map of 1745 a Skin Market occupies the ground on both sides of what 
is now Perceval Street. Its memory is preserved in Skinner Street and 
Market Street The latter occupies part of the site and the former leads 
to it. 

In the year 1390, the I4th of Richard II., I read the Parish Clerks of London, 
on the 1 8th of July, played interludes at Skinners' Well, near unto Clarkes' Well, 
which play continued three days together ; the king, queen, and nobles being pre- 
sent. 1 Also in the year 1409, the loth of Henry IV., they played a play at the 
Skinners' Well, which lasted eight days and was of matter from the Creation of the 
world. There were to see the same the most part of the nobles and gentles in Eng- 
land. Stow, p. 7. 

Skinners' Well is almost quite lost, and so it was in Stow's time. But I am 
certainly informed, by a knowing parishioner, that it lies on the west of the church, 
enclosed within certain houses there. The parish would fain recover the well again, 
but cannot tell where the pipes lie. Dr. Rogers, who formerly lived in an house 
there, shewed Mr. E. H. , late churchwarden, two marks in a wall in the Close where 
these pipes (as he affirmed) laid, that it might be known after his death. Strype, 
B. iv. p. 69. 

Slaughter's Coffee-house, a famous coffee-house at the upper 
end of the west side of St. Martin's Lane, three doors from Newport 

1 It appears by Devon's Issues of the Ex- the Passion of our Lord, and the Creation of the 

citeq-uerfroni Henry III. to Henry VI. (8vo, 1837, World, performed by them at Skinners' Well, in 

p. 244), that the sum of ;io was paid to the Parish 1391, after the Feast of St. Bartholomew (Shaks. 

Clerks and others on account of the play of Sac. Pap., vol. i. p. 43). 



SMART'S QUAY 253 



Street, so called after Thomas Slaughter, the landlord by whom it was 
established in the year 1692. Slaughter died in or about the year 
1740, and in 1741 was succeeded in his business by Humphrey Bailey. 
A second Slaughter's (New Slaughter's, as it was called) was established 
in the same street about 1760, when the original establishment adopted 
the name of " Old Slaughter's," by which designation it was known till 
within a few years of the final demolition of the house to make way for the 
new avenue between Long Acre and Leicester Square made 1843-1844. 
The chief frequenters of the house were artists living in St. Martin's 
Lane. Here Roubiliac was often to be found, and Wilson was an 
occasional visitor ; and here, in early life, Wilkie would enjoy a small 
dinner at a small cost. Abraham De Moivre, the great mathematician, 
in his old age and penury (he died in 1754, aged eighty-seven), used to 
attend at Slaughter's Coffee-house to pick up a pittance by the solution of 
questions relative to games of chance. Goldsmith, in his Account of 
Various Clubs (Essay VI.) : says " If a man be passionate, he may vent 
his rage among the old orators at Slaughter's coffee-house, and damn 
the nation because it keeps him from starving." 

Sloane Street, a very long street lying between Knightsbridge and 
the King's Road, and so called after Sir Hans Sloane, the physician, and 
Lord of the Manor of Chelsea. It was planned in 1780 by the 
architect Henry Holland. [See Cadogan Place ; Chelsea; Hans Place.] 

On the a6th of October (1818) Mrs. Inchbalcl went once more into private 
lodgings at No. 48 in Sloane Street ; a situation to which she had always professed 
uncommon dislike. Boaden, Life of Mrs. Inchbald, vol. ii. p. 230. 

Originally on the east side, near Sloane Square, was Holy Trinity 
Church, erected from the designs of James Savage, architect, and 
consecrated May 8, 1830. This church was pulled down in 1889, 
and replaced by a new one, built from the designs of J. D. Sedding, 
architect, at a cost of nearly .35,000, defrayed by Earl Cadogan. 
Consecrated by the Bishop of London, May 13, 1890. 

In Sloane Square, at the south end of Sloane Stree.t, lived 
(1790-1797) Francis Legat, the engraver of Northcote's Murder of the 
Princes in the Tower and other excellent plates. 

When Lord Byron, at ten years of age, was brought to London for 
the benefit of Dr. Matthew Baillie's advice, his mother took apartments 
in Sloane Terrace, the second turning south of Cadogan Place, on the 
east side of Sloane Street. Here too he came for the Saturdays and 
Sundays, and for all holidays, during the two years he was at Dr. Glennie's 
School at Dulwich. 

Smart's Quay, LOWER THAMES STREET, east of Billingsgate. 

Smart's Key, so called of one Smart sometime owner thereof. Stoiv, p. 78. 

One Wotton, a gentilman borne and sometyme a marchauntt of good credyte, 
who fallinge by tyme into decay, kepte an alehowse at Smart's keye, neere Byllinges- 
gate, and after, for some mysdemeanor beinge put downe, he reared upp a new trade 
of lyffe, and in the same howse he procured all the cuttpurses abowt this Cittie to 



254 SMART'S QUAY 



repaire to his said howse. There was a schole howse sett upp to learn younge boyes 
to cutt purses. There were hung up two devices, the one was a pockett, the other 
was a purse. The pocket had in yt certen cownters and was hunge abowte with 
hawkes bells, and over the toppe did hangge a little scaring bell ; and he that could 
take owt a counter without any noyse was allowed to be a publique Hoyster ; and 
he that could take a piece of sylver owt of the purse without the noyse of any of the 
bells, he was adjudged a judiciall Nypper. Nota, that a Hoister is a Pick-pockett, 
and a Nypper is termed a Pickpurse or a Cutpurse. 

Memorand. That in Wotton's howse at Smart's keye are wryten in a table 
divers Poysies, and among the rest one is this 

" Si spie sporte, si non spie, tune steale." 

Another is thus 

" Si spie, si non spie, Hoyste, nyppe, lyfte, shave and spare not." 

Note, that Hoyste is to cutt a pockett, nyppe is to cutt a purse, lyft is 
to robbe a shoppe or a gentilman's chamber, shave is to take a cloake, a sword, a 
sylver spoone, or such like that is negligentlie looked unto. Fleetwood (the 
Recorder) to Lord Burghley, July 7, 1585 (Ellis, vol. ii. p. 298). 

Sraithfield, or, SMOOTHFIELD, the " campus planus re et nomine " 
of Fitzstephen, an open area in the form of an irregular polygon con- 
taining 5f acres, 1 for centuries, and until 1855, used as a market 
for sheep, horses, cattle and hay. It is sometimes called West 
Smithfield, to distinguish it from a place of smaller consequence of 
the same name in the east of London. 

Est ibi extra unam portarum, statim in suburbio, quidam planus campus, re et 
nomine. Fitzstephen (temp. Henry II.) 

And this Sommer, 1615, 2 the Citty of London reduced the rude vast place of 
Smithfield into a faire and comely order, which formerly was neuer held possible to 
be done, and paved it all ouer, and made diuers sewers to conuey the water from the 
new channels which were made by reason of the new pauement : they also made strong 
rayles round about Smithfield, and sequestred the middle part of the said Smithfield 
into a very faire and ciuill walk, and rayled it round about with strong rayles to 
defend the place from annoyance and danger, as well from carts as all manner of 
cattell, becausejit was intended hereafter, that in time it might proue a faire and peace- 
able Market Place, by reason that Newgate Market, Cheapside, Leadenhall, and 
Gracechurche Street, were unmeasurably pestred with the unimaginable increase and 
multiplicity of market-folkes. And this field, commonly called West Smithfield, was 
for many yeares called " Ruffian's Hall," by reason it was the usual place of Frayes 
and common fighting during the time that sword and bucklers were in use. But the 
ensuing deadly fight of Rapier and Dagger suddenly suppressed the fighting with 
Sword and Buckler. Howes, ed. 1631, p. 1023. 

Fahtaff. Where's Bardolph ? 

Page. He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse. 

Fahtaff, I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield : an 
I could get me but a wife in the Stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived. 
Second Part of Henry IV,, Act i. Sc. 2. 

This town two bargains has not worth one farthing, 
A Smithfield horse and wife of Covent Garden. 

Epilogue to Dryden's Limberham. 

And if some Smithfield Riiffian take up some strange going : some new mowing 
with the mouth ; some wrinching with the shoulder ; some brave proverb ; some 

1 Answer 1372 to Question of Committee of us, on February 4, 1614-1615. "The citizens 
House of Commons on Smithfield Enquiry, charge thereof (as I have been credibly told 
1849-1850. by Master Arthur Strangewaies) amounting well 

2 The work began, Antony Munday informs near to sixteen hundred pounds." 



SMITHFIELD 255 

fresh new oath that is not stale but will run round in the mouth ; some new disguised 
garment, or hat, fond in fashion, or garish in colour, whatsoever it cost, 

ever his living be, by what shift soever it be gotten, gotten must it be, 
and used with the first, or else the grace of it is stale and gone. Roger Ascham's 

, 1570 (Arber, p. 54). 

December 4, 1668. Mr. Pickering meets me at Smithfield, and I, and W. 
I Fewer and a friend of his, a jockey, did go about to see several pairs of horses, for 
my coach ; but it was late and we agreed on none, but left it to another time : but 
here I do see instances of a piece of craft and cunning that I never dreamed of, con- 
cerning the buying and choosing of horses. Pepys. 

Smithfield is famous in history for its jousts, tournaments, 
executions and burnings, and until 1855 for its market, the 
great cattle market of the largest city in the world. Here Wallace 
and the gentle Mortimer were executed. [See The Elms.] Here, on 
Saturday, June 15, 1381, Sir William Walworth slew Wat Tyler. 
" The King," says Stow, "stood towards the east near St. Bartholomew's 
Priory, and the Commons towards the west in form of battle." 1 

1357. In the winter following [the Battle of Poictiers] were great and royall 
justs, holden in Smithfield, where many knightly feats of armes were done, to the 
great honour of the king and realme, at the which were present the kings of England, 
France, and Scotland, with many noble estates of all those kingdomes, whereof the 
more part of the strangers were prisoners. Stow, by Howes, p. 263. 

" Sir William Chatris, otherwise called Santre, parish priest of the 
church of St. Scithe [Osyth] the Virgin in London," was the first person 
burned for heresy in England. The decree of Henry IV., dated 
February 26, 1400- 1401, directs that he shall be "put into the fire in some 
public or open place within the liberties of your City." There can be 
no doubt that Smithfield was the place selected. The next victim 
(March 1609) was John Badley, a tailor in the diocese of Rochester. 
According to Foxe Prince Henry (Henry V.) was present at Smithfield 
and did his best to save him, going so far even as to have the fire 
extinguished for a time. 

1410 (nth Henry IV.) This same yere there was a clerk that beleved 
nought on the sacrament of the Auter, that is to seye, Codes body, which was 
dampned and brought into Smythfield to be brent, and was bounde to a stake where 
as he schulde be brent. And Henry, prynce of Walys, thanne the kynge's eldest sone, 
consailed hym for to forsake his heresye and holde the righte wey of holy chirche. 
And the prior of seynt Bertelmewes in Smythfeld broughte the holy sacrament of 
Codes body, with xij torches lyght before, and in this wyse cam to this cursed heretyk : 
and it was asked hym how he beleved ; and he ansuerde, that he beleved well that it 
was halowed bred and nought Codes body ; and thanne was the toune put over hym, 
and fyre kyndled therein : and whanne the wrecche felte the fyre he cryed mercy ; 
and anon the prynce comanded to take awey the toune and to quenche the fyre, the 
whiche was don anon at his comandement: and thanne the prynce asked hym if 
he wolde forsake his heresye and taken hym to the feith of holy chirche, whiche if he 
wolde don, he schulde have hys lyf and good ynow to liven by : and the cursed 
shrewe wold nought, but contynued forth in his heresye ; wherefore he was brent. 
A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483, p. 92, edited by Sir N. H. Nicolas. 

In May 1538 Forrest, the Prior of the Observant Convent at 
Greenwich, was burnt for denying the King's [Henry VIII.'s] supremacy ; 

1 Stem's Annals, by Howes, ed. 1631, p. 288. 



256 SMITHFIELD 

and for some reason his punishment was made to differ from the usual 
form. A wooden image of a Welsh saint which had been regarded 
with peculiar reverence throughout North Wales had recently been 
brought to London, and was hewed into billets to serve as fuel for 
the occasion. Forrest was suspended over the fire in an iron cage 
and roasted to death. On July 28, 1540, three eminent Protestant 
divines, Barnes, Garret and Jerome, were burnt at Smithfield for 
heresy ; and three papists, Powel, Fetherstone and Abel, were, at the 
same time and place hanged, drawn and quartered, for denying the 
King's supremacy. The Marian burnings, some 270 in all, were too 
numerous to particularise. The last of the burnings for heresy in 
Smithfield was in the reign of James I., when, on March 25, 1612, 
" Bartholomew Legate, the Arian " so suffered. For other crimes 
Smithfield witnessed burnings, at least occasionally, for many years 
longer. 

May 10, 1652. Passing by Smithfield, I saw a miserable creature burning who 
had murdered her husband. Evelyn. 

In March 1849, during excavations necessary for a new sewer, 
and at a depth of 3 feet below the surface, immediately opposite 
the entrance to the church of St. Bartholomew the Great, the workmen 
laid open a mass of unhewn stones, blackened as if by fire, and 
covered with ashes and human bones charred and partially consumed. 
This was doubtless the spot generally used for the Smithfield burnings 
the face of the sufferer being turned to the east and to the great 
gate of St. Bartholomew, the prior of which was generally present on 
such occasions. Many bones were carried away as relics. The spot 
is indicated by a granite memorial with a suitable inscription placed 
(1870) in the wall of St. Bartholomew's Hospital (on the left of the 
entrance), nearly opposite the above site. A " Smithfield Martyrs' 
Memorial Church " was about the same time erected in St. John's 
Street Road, the nearest site available. In the first English edition 
of Foxe's Acts and Monuments there is a view, accurate enough as 
to the locality, representing the burning of Anne Askew and her 
two companions. The market-place was paved, drained and railed 
in 1685. 

The sharp practices in the horse and cattle markets early made 
Smithfield bargains a byword. 

He [Gay] had made a pretty good bargain (that is a Smithfield) for a little pace 
in the Custom House. Swiff to Arbuthnot, November 30, 1727. 

Shall I stand still and tamely see 
Such Smithfield bargains made of me ? 
Is not my heart my own ? 

H. Carey, The Honest Yorkshireman. 

The inconvenience of holding the great horse and cattle market of 
the. metropolis within the City was every year more obvious. The 
space was insufficient to meet the ever increasing growth of the trade, 
and the interference with the ordinary traffic and the public comfort 



SMITHFIELD BARS 257 



had become almost intolerable. The place itself had, moreover, come 
to be a moral and physical nuisance. It was surrounded by bone- 
houses, cat-gut manufactures, slaughter-houses, and knackers' yards, 
and of the sixty-seven houses about it thirteen were public-houses. On 
market-days it was dangerous to pass and painful to witness. None too 
dark for the latter years of its existence was Dickens's sketch of Smith- 
field Market in 1838: 

It was market morning. The ground was covered, nearly ankle-deep, with filth 
and mire ; a thick steam perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and 
mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily 
above. All the pens in the centre of the large area, and as many temporary pens 
as could be crowded into the vacant space, were filled with sheep ; tied up to posts 
by the gutter side were long lines of beasts and oxen, three or four deep. Country- 
men, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers and vagabonds of every low 
grade, were mingled together in a mass ; the whistling of drovers, the barking of 
dogs, the bellowing and plunging of oxen, the bleating of sheep, the grunting and 
squeaking of pigs, the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all 
sides ; the ringing of bells and roar of voices, that issued from every public-house ; 
the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping and yelling ; the hideous and 
discordant din that resounded from every corner of the market ; and the unwashed, 
unshaven, squalid, and dirty figures constantly running to and fro, and bursting in 
and out of the throng ; rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene, which quite 
confounded the senses. Oliver Twist, chap. xxi. 

At length the Corporation decided to remove the market. The 
necessary Parliamentary powers were obtained. A site of about 30 
acres was obtained in what was known as the Copenhagen Fields and 
a new market constructed. On June n, 1855, the last market for 
horses, cattle and sheep was held, and Smithfield Market finally closed ; 
and two days later, June 13, the New Smithfield or Metropolitan Cattle 
Market was opened in Copenhagen Fields. [See Metropolitan Cattle 
Market.] On January 19, 1857, a large meeting of unemployed 
workmen of London was held in Smithfield. It was stated that the 
numbers were : carpenters, 9000 ; plasterers, 4000 ; painters, 4000 ; 
stone masons, 1000; bricklayers and labourers, 15,000; smiths, 
moulding decorators, etc., 2000, making a total of 35,000 men. 

The general aspect of Smithfield has since greatly changed. It is 
still preserved as an open space, the hay market being still held here ; 
but the area has been contracted by the appropriation of that portion 
of it lying north of Long Lane to the construction of the Central Meat, 
Poultry, and Provision Markets, a very remarkable structure described 
elsewhere. [See London Central Markets.] The centre of Smithfield has 
been laid out as a garden, with a handsome drinking fountain, etc. The 
greater part of the public-houses have been cleared away ; a bank and 
other good buildings have been erected, and the approaches improved. 

Smithfield Bars, a wooden barrier on the north side of Smithfield, 
like Holborn Bars, Temple Bar, etc. The name survived till the 
erection of the new Central Meat Market (1868), but the barrier had 
long disappeared. 

VOL. Ill S 



258 SMITHFIELD BARS 

Smithfield Bars, so called from the Bars there set up for the severing of the City 
Liberty from that of the County. Strype, B. iii. p. 284. 

June 23, 1580. The French Imbasidore, Mounswer Mouiser (Malvoisier) 
ridinge to take the ayer, in his returne cam thowrowe Smithfild ; and ther, at the 
Bars, was steayed by those offisers that sitteth to cut sourds, by reason his raper was 
longer than the statute. He was in a great feaurie, and dreawe his raper ; in the 
meane season my Lord Henry Seamore cam, and so steayed the matt r . Hir Ma tie is 
greatlie ofended w th the ofisers, in that they wanted jugement. Letter of Lord Talbot 
(Lodge, ///. Br. Hist., vol. ii. p. 228). 

Smithfield (East). Spenser, author of The Faerie Queen, is said 
to have been born here. 

On the east and by north of the Tower lieth East Smithfield and Tower Hill, two 
plots of ground so called without the walls of the city. Stow, p. 47. 

Strype mentions the " lands and mills." In early times it was a 
haunt of river-pirates, and very appropriately their place of execution. 

Concerning Pyrates : I read, that in the year 1440 in the Lent season, certain 
persons with six ships brought from beyond the seas fish to victual the City of 
London ; which fish when they had delivered, and were returning homeward, a 
number of sea-thieves in a barge, in the night came upon them, when they were 
asleep in their vessels, riding at anchor on the river Thames, and slew them, cut 
their throats, cast them over board, took their money, and drowned their ships, for 
that no one should espy or accuse them. Two of these thieves were after taken and 
hanged in chains upon a gallows set upon a raised hill, for the purpose made, in the 
field beyond East Smithfield, so that they might be seen far into the river Thames. 
Strype, B. iv. p. 43. 

Smith Square, WESTMINSTER, the houses round St. John's 
Church [which see]. John Fawcett, the actor, was born at No. 5, 
February 6, 1824. 

Smith Street, WESTMINSTER. 

Smith Street, a new street of good buildings, so called from Sir James Smith, 
the ground landlord, who has here a fine house. It is situate in Westminster 
fronting the Bowling Alley on the west side Peter Street. Hatton, 1708, p. 76. 

From "Smith Street, Westminster, 1707," Steele writes to assure the 
future Mrs. Steele that he lies down to rest with her image in his 
thoughts, and awakes in the morning in the same contemplation. 1 
Thomas Southerne, author of Oroonoko and the Fatal Marriage, died 
in 1746 at his house in this street. The Westminster Literary, 
Scientific, and Mechanics Institute was built 1840. It is now a Free 
Library and School of Art in connection with South Kensington. 

Smyrna Coffee-house, a celebrated coffee-house of the time of 
Queen Anne. It was situated on the north side of Pall Mall, at the 
corner of Crown Court, over against Marlborough House where is 
now No. 59, Messrs. Harrisons, the booksellers. 

My brother Isaac designs, for the use of our sex, to give the exact characters of 
all the chief politicians who frequent any of the coffee-houses from St. James's to 
the 'Change ; but designs to begin with that cluster of wise-heads, as they are found 
sitting every evening, from the left side of the fire at the Smyrna to the door. The 
Tatler, No. 10, May 3, 1709. 

1 Corrtsp., by Nichols, vol. i. p. 104. 



SNOW HILL 259 



The seat of learning [at the Smyrna] is now removed from the corner of the 
chimney on the left hand towards the window, to the round table in the middle of 
the floor, over -against the fire; a revolution much lamented by the porters and 
chairmen, who were much edified through a pane of glass that remained broken all 
the last summer. The Tatler, No. 78, October 8, 1709. 

I have known Peter publishing the whisper of the day by eight o'clock in the 
morning at Caraway's, by twelve at Will's, and before two at the Smyrna. The 
Spectator, No. 457. 

Prior and I came away at nine, and sat at the Smyrna till eleven receiving 
acquaintance. Swift, Journal to Stella (Scott, vol. ii. p. 49). 

February 19, 1711. I walked a little in the Park till Prior made me go with 
him to the Smyrna Coffee House. Ibid. (Scott, vol. ii. p. 1 80). 

If it is fine weather, we take a turn in the Park till two, when we go to dinner ; 
and if it be dirty, you are entertained at picket or basset at White's ; or you may 
talk politics at the Smyrna and St. James's. Macky, A Journey through England, 
8vo, 1722, vol. i. p. 1 68. 

I have known him [Beau Nash] wait a whole day at a window in the Smyrna 
Coffee House, in order to receive a bow from the Prince, or the Duchess of Marl- 
borough as they passed by where he was standing, and he would then look round 
upon the company for admiration and respect. Goldsmith, Life of Nash. 

To the printed copy of Thomson's Proposals for publishing, by 
subscription, the Four Seasons with a hymn on their succession, the 
following note is appended : " Subscriptions are taken in by the 
author at the Smyrna Coffee House in Pall Mall." 

Snow Hill, HOLBORN, the confined, circuitous, narrow and steep 
highway between Holborn Bridge and Newgate. Stow writes it Snor 
Hill and Snore Hill (pp. 144, 145); Howell, Sore Hill, adding, "now 
vulgarly called Snow Hill ; " * but Hatton writes Snow Hill without 
any comment. When Skinner Street was built in 1802 Snow Hill 
ceased to be the highway between Newgate Street and Holborn. It 
remained little improved till cleared away in forming the Holborn 
Viaduct and approaches, 1867. The present Snow Hill is a new and 
wider street, carried partly on the old lines, from the eastern end of the 
Holborn Viaduct to Farringdon Street. The steepness of Snow Hill 
is suggestive of a species of ruffianly violence which Gay has described 
in his account of the " Scowrers " and " Mohocks " in his Trivia : 

I pass their desp'rate deeds, and mischiefs done 

Where from Snow Hill black steepy torrents run ; 

How matrons hooped within the hogshead's womb 

Were tumbled furious thence. Gay's Trivia, B. iii. p. 329, etc. 

Snow Hill in Charles II. 's days was famous for its ballads and 
ballad-mongers. Dorset asks Howard : 

Whence 

Does all this mighty mass of dulness spring 
Which in such loads thou to the stage dost bring ? 
Is't all thy own ? or hast thou from Snow Hill 
The assistance of some ballad-making quill ? 

Buckingham, Misc. p. 75. 

1 Londitwpolis, fol. 1657, p. 344. In a contem- Hill, alias Snow Hill." Additional MSS., Brit. 
porary document describing property destroyed Jlftts., No. 5063, fol. 37. 
in the Great Fire of 1666, it is written "Snore 



260 SNOW HILL 



I knew a Unitarian minister who was generally to be seen upon Snow Hill (as 
yet Skinner Street was not) between the hours of ten and eleven in the morning, 
studying a volume of Lardner. I own this to have been a strain of abstraction 
beyond my reach. I used to admire how he sidled along keeping clear of secular 
contacts. Elia's Essays, "Detached Thoughts." 

Where Snow Hill joined Holborn Bridge and Cow Lane (near the 
end of the present Cock Lane) the roadway widened, and in the midst 
was a conduit about which idlers used to gather and gossip and 
occasionally to quarrel. Here in 1715, on the anniversary of Queen 
Anne's coronation, a Jacobite mob collected, and with banners and 
trumpets toasted the memory of King James, drank Queen Anne and 
High Church, cursed King William and abused King George, and 
beat and stripped all passers-by who would not do the same. 1 

By the advantage of copying some pictures of Titian and Vandyck, Dobson 
profited so much that a picture he had drawn being exposed in the window of a 
shop on Snow Hill, Vandyck passing by was struck with it ; and inquiring for the 
author, found him at work in a poor garret, from whence he took him and 
recommended him to the king. Walpole's Anecdotes, 1st ed. , 4to, 1762, vol. ii. p. 
106 ; ed. 4to, 1798, vol. iii. p. 235. 

John Bunyan, author of the Pilgrim's Progress, died (1688) at the 
house of his friend, Mr. Strudwick, a grocer at the sign of the Star on 
Snow Hill. Thomas Cromwell, great grandson of the Protector and 
grandson of Henry Cromwell, the Lord Deputy, carried on the business 
of a grocer on Snow Hill, and there died in 1748. 

Soane Museum (Sir John Soane's Museum), 13 LINCOLN'S INN 
FIELDS, north side ; formed by Sir John Soane, architect of the Bank of 
England (d. 1837). The house was built by Sir John Soane in 1812, 
and the collection is distributed over twenty-four rooms. Every corner 
and passage is turned to account. On the north and west sides of the 
picture-room are cabinets, and on the south are movable shutters, 
with sufficient space between for pictures. By this arrangement the 
small space of 13 feet 8 inches in length, 12 feet 4 inches in breadth, 
and 1 9 feet 6 inches high, is rendered capable of containing as many 
pictures as a gallery of the same height 45 feet long and 20 feet 
broad. 

Observe. The Egyptian sarcophagus, discovered by Belzoni, 
October 1 8, 1815, in a tomb in the valley of Biban el Molook, near 
Gournou. It is formed of one single piece of alabaster, or arragonite, 
measuring 9 feet 4 inches in length by 3 feet 8 inches in width, and 2 
feet 8 inches in depth, and covered internally and externally with 
elaborate hieroglyphics. When a lamp is placed within it the light 
shines through, though it is z\ to 4 inches in thickness. On the interior 
of the bottom is a full-length figure, representing the Egyptian Isis, the 
guardian of the dead. It was purchased by Soane from Mr. Salt in 1824 
for ^2000. The lid or cover has been broken into numerous pieces, 
of which there are seventeen in the Museum ; it was itself a hollowed 

1 Doran, London in Jacobite Times, vol. i. p. 69. 



SOANE MUSEUM 261 



block, which when placed upon the chest added 15 inches to its height. 
The pieces were put together by Joseph Bonomi. Sixteen original sketches 
and models, by Flaxman, including one of the few casts in plaster of 
the Shield of Achilles. . Six original sketches and models by T. Banks, 
K.A., including the Boothby Monument, one of his finest works. A 
large collection of ancient gems, intaglios, etc., under glass, and in a 
good light. Set of the Napoleon medals, selected by the Baron Denon 
for the Empress Josephine, and once in her possession. Sir 
Christopher Wren's watch. Carved and gilt ivory table and four ivory 
chairs, formerly in Tippoo Saib's palace at Seringapatam. Richly 
mounted pistol, said to have been taken by Peter the Great from the 
Bey, Commander of the Turkish army at Azof, 1696, and presented 
by the Emperor Alexander to Napoleon at the Treaty of Tilsit in 
1807. Napoleon took it to St. Helena, from whence it was brought 
by a French officer, to whom he had presented it. The original copy of 
the Gerusalemme Liberata, in the handwriting of Tasso. The first four 
folio editions of Shakespeare (J. P. Kemble's copies). An exceedingly 
interesting folio of designs for Elizabethan and James I. houses by 
John Thorpe, an architect of those reigns. Fauntleroy's Illustrated 
copy of Pennant's London; purchased by Soane for 650 guineas. 
Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles^ illuminated by Giulio Clovio for 
Cardinal Grimani. Three Canalettis one A View on the Grand 
Canal of Venice, extremely fine. The Snake in the Grass, or Love 
unloosing the Zone of Beauty, by Sir Joshua Reynolds ; purchased at 
the sale of the Marchioness of Thomond's pictures for ^500. The 
Rake's Progress, by Hogarth, a series of eight pictures ; purchased by 
Soane in 1802 for ^"598. The Election, by Hogarth, a series of four 
pictures ; purchased by Soane, at Mrs. Garrick's sale in 1823 for 
^1732:103. Van Tromp's Barge entering the Texel, by J. M. W. 
Turner, R.A. Portrait of Napoleon in 1797, by Francesco Goma. 
Miniature of Napoleon, painted at Elba in 1814, by Isabey. In the 
dining-room is a portrait of Soane, by Sir T. Lawrence ; and in the 
gallery under the dome a bust of him by Sir F. Chantrey. The 
contents of the Museum are very crowded, but the trustees having 
succeeded in obtaining some additional premises near, new rooms 
are now (1890) in course of completion which will give more space 
and cause some rearrangement of the Museum. 

Admission by tickets, which may be obtained on application at the 
hall. The Museum is open to general visitors on Tuesdays, Wednes- 
days, Thursdays and Saturdays from ten to five during the months of 
April, May, June, July, and August ; and on Tuesdays and Thursdays 
in February and March. Access to the Books, Drawings, MSS., or 
permission to copy Pictures or other Works of Art, is to be obtained 
by special application to the Curator. 

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. [See Christian 
Knowledge Society.] 



262 SOCIETY FOR PROPAGATION OF GOSPEL 

Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts ; 

Office, 19 Delahay Street, Westminster. An offshoot of the Society 
for Promoting Christian Knowledge; this Society was founded in 1701 
to establish and support Church of England Missions in the colonies 
and heathen countries. Its income in 1888 was ^"138,366. 

Society of Painters in Water Colours, PALL MALL EAST, was 
established in 1805, and held its first exhibition at No. 20 Lower 
Brook Street, Bond Street. 

Here fat the house of Samuel Shelley, a miniature painter of considerable eminence 
in his day], Shelley, W. F. Wills, W. H. Pyne, and R. Hills first kid their heads 
together and projected the institution of a Society of Painters in Water Colours. 
This was about the years 1800-1802, and it was not till 1804 that they had succeeded 
in getting nine others to join them in the speculation. MS. Letter of the late 
Robert Hills, President of the Society of Painters in Water Colours. 

The original members were George Barrett, Joshua Cristall, W. S. 
Gilpin, John Glover, William Havell, Robert Hills, J. Holworthy, J. C. 
Nattes, F. Nicholson, N. Pocock, W. H. Pyne, S. Rigaud, S. Shelley, 
J. Varley, and W. F. Wells. The annual spring exhibition of this 
Society, commonly called the Old Water Colour Society, is one of the 
most agreeable and attractive in London. They also have a winter 
exhibition of the members' studies and sketches. [See Institute of 
Painters in Water Colours.] 

Soho Bazaar. [See Soho Square.] 

Soho Square, on the south side of OXFORD STREET, contains 
some good houses, well inhabited till within the last fifty or sixty years. 
So-Jio, or So-how, was an old cry in hunting when the hare was found. 
Pennant gives a very erroneous account of the square : 

Soho Square was begun in the time of Charles II. The Duke of Monmouth 
lived in the centre house [on the South side] facing the statue. Originally the square 
was called in honour of him Monmouth Square ; and afterwards changed to that of 
King Square. I have a tradition 1 that on his death, the admirers of that unfortunate 
man changed it to Soho, being the word of the day at the field of Sedgemoor. The 
house was purchased by the late Lord Bateman [hence Bateman's Buildings] and let by 
the present Lord [1791] to the Comte de Guerchy, the French ambassador. After 
which it was let on building leases. The form of the house is preserved by Mr. 
Nathaniel Smith, in the first number of the Illustrations of London. The name ot 
the unfortunate Duke is still preserved in Monmouth Street. Peniiant. 

The square was not named from " the word of the day at Sedgemoor," 
but "the word" at Sedgemoor was given from the name of the neigh- 
bourhood in which Monmouth dwelt. The battle of Sedgemoor was 
fought in 1685, and the ground on which Soho Square stands was called 
"Soho" or So-hoe as early as the year i632, 2 and perhaps before. So- 
hoe frequently occurs in the Records and in the parish books from that 
time onwards. In 1 634 there is a grant of the lease of a " watercourse 
of spring water coming and rising from a place called So-howe," etc. 
In 1636 people were living at the "Brick-kilns near Sohoe," 3 and in 

1 S. Pegge, Esq., to whom I am indebted for 2 Rate-books of St. Martin's, 

several interesting remarks. Pennant. The re- 3 Ibid, 

verse of Pegge 's tradition is the fact. 



SO HO SQUARE 263 



1650 Shavers' Hall, or Piccadilly Hall, is described in the Common- 
wealth Survey as " lying between a roadway leading from Charing Cross 
to Knightsbridge West, and a high-way leading from Charing Cross 
towards So-Hoe." In the burial register of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, 
is the following entry 

1 660. Dec. 1 6. A pr'sh child from Soeho in chy'd. 

"The fields about So-Hoe" are mentioned in a proclamation of 
April 7, 1671, prohibiting the further erecting of small habitations and 
cottages in the fields, called the Windmill Fields, Dog Felds, and the 
fields adjoining to " So-Hoe," which building, it is said, " choak up the 
air of his Majesty's palaces and parks, and endanger the total loss of 
the waters, which, by expensive conduits, etc., are conveyed from those 
fields to his Majesty's Palace at Whitehall." In 1675 the fields about 
Soho were so much built upon that there was a separate receiver of the 
rates of this part of the then parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields ; and 
the book in which the rates are entered is called the " Soho Book." 
To this information it may be added that Alexander Radcliffe's Epistle 
from Hypsipyle to Jason, in his Ovid Travestie (410, 1680), is dated 
from "So-hoe Fields, February 27th, 1679-1680;" that Soho, and 
certain fields adjoining, south of the present Oxford Street, were granted 
(July 17, 1672) by the trustees of Henrietta Maria to Henry Jermyn, 
Earl of St. Albans ; by Charles II. to the Duke of Monmouth ; by 
James II., after the duke's attainder, to his duchess ; and by William 
III. (May 13, 1700) to William Bentinck, Earl of Portland, and his 
heirs for ever. The grant to the Earl of Portland includes " all those 
pieces or parcels of land situate, lying, and being in or near the parish 
of St. Anne, within the liberty of Westminster, anciently called or known 
by the names of Kemp's Field and Bunches Close, Coleman Hedge, or 
Coleman Hedge Field, containing together by estimation 220 acres, and 
Doghouse Field, alias Brown's Close, containing by estimation 5 \ acres, 
and were since more lately called or known by the name or names of 
Soho or Soho Fields, which premises are now laid out into streets and 
other places, with many tenements and buildings erected thereon, the 
chief of which are at present known and distinguished by the names 
following King's Square, alias Soho Square, Greek Street, Church 
Street, Moor Street, Compton Street, Frith Street, Charles Street, 
Sutton Street, Queen Street, Dean Street, King's Court, Falconberg 
Court, Rose Street, north side of King Street, west side of Crown 
Street, alias Hog Lane, south side of the road called Acton Road 
[Oxford Street], leading from St. Giles's towards Tyburn, the whole 
ground aforesaid being limited and bounded as followeth, viz. by the 
said high road leading to Tyburn on the north ; by the said lane or 
street, called Crown Street, alias Hog Lane, towards the east ; by the 
said street or high road leading towards Piccadilly, called King Street, 
over against the land called the Military Ground (now also built upon), 
towards the south ; and by the back part of houses and lands late in 



264 SOHO SQUARE 



the tenure of Sir William Pulteney, deceased, or his assigns, in a street 
called Old Soho, alias Wardour Street, in part, and by a lane called 
Hedge Lane (now Princes Street), towards the west." This, it will 
be seen by a reference to the map, includes the whole of Soho, and 
nearly the whole of the present parish of St. Anne's. So much for the 
Pennant tradition. 

The square was built in 1681, and contained at that time the 
following inhabitants : 

Duke of Monmouth ; Colonel Rumsey ; Mr. Pilcher ; Broughton, Esq ; Sir 

Henry Inglesby ; Earl of Stamford. Rate-books of St. Martin's. 

It is called King's Square (1694) in the quotation below. Hatton 
describes it in 1708 as "King's or Soho Square" (p. 43); Strype in 
1720, and Maitland in 1739, as " a stately quadrate designated King's 
Square, but vulgarly Soho Square ;" in the index to Strype it is entered 
as " Soho Square," though the name never occurs in the description. In 
Strype's Map the present Carlisle Street is called King Square Street 
and King Square Court ; and the latter name by Smith in his Life of 
Nollekens, 1829. 

The design also of that Fountain in the middle of King's Square in Soe-Hoe-Fields- 
Biii/dings, deserves observation ; where on a high pedestal is His Majesty's statue, 
and at his feet lie the representatives of the four principal rivers of England, Thames, 
Trent, Humber, and Severn, with subscriptions under each. Anglicz Notitia, 1694. 

November 27, 1690. I went to London with my family to winter at Soho in the 
great Square. Evelyn. 

Sir Will. That's the coxcombly Alderman [Sir Humphrey Maggot], that 
marry'd my termagant Aunt : she has this dolt under correction and has forced him 
out of Mark Lane to live in Soho Square. The Scowrers, by T. Shadwell, 4to, 
1691, and so in two other places in the same play. 

The first of our Society is a gentleman of Worcestershire, of ancient descent, a 
Baronet : his name Sir Roger de Coverley. When he is in town he lives in Soho 
Square. The Spectator, No. 2 (March 2, 1710-1711). 

And when I flatter, let my dirty leaves 

Clothe spice, line trunks, or, fluttering in a row, 

Befringe the rails of Bedlam and Soho. POPE. 

Eminent Inhabitants. The Duke of Monmouth, natural son of 
Charles II., by Lucy Walters (beheaded 1685). In 1717 Monmouth 
House was an auction- room. J. T. Smith visited the house with 
Nollekens about 1773, when the workmen were beginning to pull it 
down. 

It was on the south side [between Frith Street and Greek Street] and occupied 
the site of the houses which now stand in Bateman's Buildings. . . . The gate 
entrance was of massive ironwork supported by stone piers, surmounted by the 
crest of the owner of the house ; and within the gates there was a spacious court- 
yard for carriages. The hall was ascended by steps. There were eight rooms on the 
ground floor ; the principal one was a dining-room towards the south, the carved and 
gilt panels of which had contained whole-length portraits. At the corners of the 
ornamented ceiling, which was of plaster, and over the chimney-piece, the Duke of 
Monmouth's arms were displayed. . . . The staircase was of oak, the steps very low, 
and the landing-places were tesselated with woods of light and dark colours. ... As 
I ascended, I remember Mr. Nollekens noticing the busts of Seneca, Caracalla, Trajan, 
Adrian, and several others, upon ornamented brackets. The principal room on the 



SO HO SQUARE 265 



">r, which had not been disturbed by the workmen, was lined with blue satin, 
superbi . i with pheasants and other birds in gold. The chimney-piece was 

richly ornamented with fruit and foliage. ... In the centre over this chimney-piece, 
within a wreath of oak leaves, there was a circular recess which evidently had been 

d for the reception of a bust. The beads of the panels of the brown window - 
shutters, which were very lofty, were gilt; and the piers between the windows, from 
stains upon the silk, had probably been filled with looking-glasses. The workmen 
were demolishing the upper part, so that it was dangerous for us to go higher, or see 
more of this most interesting house. Smith's Nollekens, vol. i. pp. 30-32. 

There is an engraving of the front in Smith's Antiquities of London. 
Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury. 

January 22, 1708-1709. Walked to Soho Square to the Bishop of Salisbury's, 
who entertained me most agreeably with the sight of several valuable curiosities, as 
the original Magna Charta of King John, supposed to be the very same that he 
granted to the nobles in the field, it wanting that article about the Church, which in 
the exemplars afterwards was always inserted first ; it has part of the great seal also 
remaining. Thoresby's Diary, vol. ii. p. 27. 

Sir Cloudesley Shovel (d. 1707.) Here his body, after his 
melancholy shipwreck, was laid in state previous to interment in 
Westminster Abbey. On the south side Daniel Finch, Earl of Win- 
chelsea and Nottingham, 1708. Ripperda, the Dutch adventurer, once 
Prime Minister of Spain, lived here in great magnificence, 1726. Lord 
Chancellor Macclesfield ; he died here in 1732. His son, the 
President of the Royal Society, afterwards resided in the same house. 
Alderman Beckford (father of William Beckford, author of VatheK), 
in the house the corner of Greek Street, sold in 1861 to the Sisters 
of Charity. [See Greek Street.] 

The Lord Mayor had enjoined tranquillity as Mayor. As Beckford, his own 
house in Soho Square was embroidered with "Liberty" in white letters three feet 
high. Luckily the evening was very wet, and not a mouse stirred. Walpole to 
Mann, April 19, 1770. 

Walpole's correspondent, Field-Marshal Conway (d. 1795), on 
the south side, in the right-hand corner, leading from .Greek Street. 
Mrs. Teresa Cornelys, "the Heidegger of the age," 1 in "Carlisle 
House " (so called from Charles Howard, Earl of Carlisle, who built 
the house between 1786 and 1790), on the east side, corner of Sutton 
Street; Mrs. Cornelys purchased the house in 1760, and built some 
additional rooms in 1769. Here were given a series of balls, concerts, 
and masquerades, unparalleled in the annals of public fashion. At 
one of these (February 26, 1770) the Duke of Gloucester (brother of 
George III.) appeared in the character of Edward IV., with Lady 
Waldegrave as Elizabeth Woodville ; and though their disguise was not 
made known till two or three years later, " methinks," says Horace 
Walpole, " it was not very difficult to make out the meaning of the 
masks." 2 Mrs. Cornelys was a German by birth, and by profession a 
public singer. She was a bankrupt in 1772, and the house was sold 
by auction, but in 1776 she re-obtained temporary possession of it. 
The house was pulled down in 1788, but the ballroom was kept 

1 Walpole to Mann, February, 22, 1771. 2 Letters, vol. v. p. 227. 



266 SO HO SQUARE 



standing, and in 1792 St. Patrick's R. C. Chapel was consecrated. Sir 
John Hawkins says in his Life of Johnson, published in 1787, that she 
was a prisoner for debt to a large amount, "but in the riots of 1780 
found means to escape from confinement, and has not since been heard 
of." She turned up again, however, as a "vender of asses' milk" at 
Knightsbridge, but she sank still lower, and died (1797) in the Fleet 
Prison. The staircase of the house was painted by Henry Cook (d. 
1700). Wedgwood thought ot taking this house for a warehouse and 
showrooms. On November 14, 1772, he wrote to his partner, 
Bentley, " What has become of Mrs. Cornelys's rooms ? She is, I hear, 
to remain in prison, and I cannot think anybody else will venture to 
take up her place. Soho Square is not a bad situation I think, but 
then you know better than I do." They ultimately settled in Greek 
Street. George Colman the elder, at No. 28, left-hand corner of 
Bateman's Buildings. Sir Joseph Banks, in the house No. 32 in the 
south-west corner, by Frith Street Here he gave his public breakfasts 
and Sunday evening receptions. 

On Sundays at Sir Joseph's never failed. 

Matthias, Pursuits of Literature, pt. iv. 1. 275. 

Sir Joseph Banks's house, as Gifford remarked to Moore, 1 was in 
science what Holland House was in politics and literature. Peter 
Pindar made merry with the President of the Royal Society and his 
Sunday gatherings. 

One morning at his house in Soho Square, 
As with a solemn awe-inspiring air, 

Amidst some Royal sycophants he sat ; 
Most manfully their masticators using, 
Most pleasantly their greasy mouths amusing, 

With coffee, butter'd toast, and birds' nest chat. 

Peter Pindar, Sir Joseph Banks and the Boiled Fleas. 

To give a breakfast in Soho, 
Sir Joseph's very bitterest foe 

Must certainly allow him peerless merit : 
Where on a wagtail and torn-tit 
He shines, and sometimes on a nit ; 

Displaying powers few gentlemen inherit. 
Peter Pindar, Sir Joseph Banks a Privy Counsellor ! (an Ode). 

By a codicil to his will, dated January 21, 1820, Sir Joseph left 
the use of his large library and collections to Robert Brown, the 
eminent botanist, during life, and to the British Museum on his death. 2 
Brown occupied the apartments in which Banks held his meetings, 
and there died, June 10, 1858. The front part of the house, over- 
looking the square, was occupied by the Linnasan Society till its 
removal to Burlington House. It is now the Hospital for Diseases of 
the Heart. 

Richard Payne Knight, the famous collector and writer of many 
works on art and taste, died, April 24, 1824, at his house No. 3 in this 

1 Diary, vol. ii. p. 230. 2 Weld, Hist, of Royal Society, vol. ii. p. 115. 



SOMERS TOWN 267 



square, now Messrs. Kirkman's pianoforte warehouse. Here he formed, 
at a cost of over ^50,000, the remarkable collection of bronzes and 
Greek coins, drawings, etc., which he bequeathed to the British 
Museum. No. 12 was the residence of Sir Anthony Carlisle the great 
surgeon. 

In this solitary sullen life Barry [the painter] continued till he fell ill, very 
probably from want of food sufficiently nourishing ; and after lying two or three days 
under his blanket, he had just strength enough to crawl to his own door, with a 
paper in his hand on which he had written his wish to be carried to the house of 
Mr. Carlisle in Soho Square. There he was taken care of, and the danger which he 
had thus escaped seems to have cured his mental hallucinations. Southey to A. 
Cunningham. 

Hatton (1708) gives the following as the aristocratic inhabitants of 
the square at that date : on the east side, Lord Berkeley, Lord Carlisle ; 
on the west side, Lord George Howard, Sir Thomas Mansel, comptroller 
of the Household; on the south side, Lord Nottingham; and on the north 
side, Lord Leicester, whose house in Leicester Square was then let to 
the Imperial ambassador. 

The White House opposite Mrs. Cornelys had long a very unsavoury 
reputation. It is now included in Messrs. Crosse and Blackwell's 
premises. No. 18 on the east side was occupied in 1824, and for 
many years, by W. H. Pickersgill, R.A., portrait painter. In 181 1, when 
Sir Charles Bell, the great anatomist, married, he took the house No. 34 
Soho Square. 

Here, on the west side, is the Soho Bazaar, established 1815 by 
Mr. Trotter. This the chief bazaar in London was offered for sale by 
auction in July 1879, but the reserved price was not reached, and the 
bazaar, to the great delight of young folks (and their elderly relations), 
still keeps its doors open, although its proportions are somewhat 
contracted, the upper rooms being closed. 

The statue of Charles II. which stood in the centre of the square 
was removed in the summer of 1876 to the grounds of Mr. Frederick 
Goodall, R.A., at Harrow Weald, and an octagonal tool-house erected 
on the site. 1 

Sol's Row. [See Hampstead Road.] 

Somers Town, a poorly inhabited suburb of London, on the 
north-west side, built in 1786 and following years, and so called from 
the noble family of Somers, whose freehold property it is, or was, when 
it was named. "The Brill," or, as Dr. Stukeley has called it, Caesar's 
Camp, was a part of the present Somers Town, but the district called 
the Brill and a considerable portion of the rest of Somers Town has 
been cleared away during the last twenty years in order to construct 
the Midland Railway Terminus and goods depot. Towards the end 
of the last century Somers Town became a great resort of Roman 
Catholic priests and other refugees from the French Revolution, 
attracted probably by the low rents of houses in the unfinished " town," 

1 Builder, July 29, 1876 



268 SOMERS TOWN 



and the proximity of the St. Pancras burial - ground. A chapel and 
various benevolent institutions were established here by the Abbe 
Caron, a man of great influence among his compatriots. In the 
chapel were interred the Princess of Conde, M. Caron and his brother, 
and other persons of note, but the majority were buried at St. Pancras. 
The chapel remains, but all other vestiges of the French colony have 
disappeared. William Godwin lived in Somers Town from the 
beginning of 1793, first in Chalton Street, where he wrote Caleb 
Williams and published Political Justice ; afterwards (1797), when he 
married Mary Wollstonecraft, in Evesham Buildings, and then in the 
Polygon. Dr. Wolcott (Peter Pindar) died at his house in Somers 
Town, January 14, 1819. He had gone there to live when the house 
was in the midst of nursery grounds, and remained when it was 
surrounded by dull lines of streets. Leslie the painter visited him 
shortly before his death. 

A short time before Dr. Wolcott's death I became acquainted with a young 
Irishman, a literary man, named Desmoulins, who was intimate with him, and who, 
knowing my admiration of his poems, offered to take me to see him. The doctor 
appointed a day to receive us, and we called at his lodgings in a small house in an 
obscure street in Somers Town. But he was too ill to see a stranger. Mr. 
Desmoulins went up to his bedroom, and I stayed in his little sitting-room which 
was furnished as might be expected. There were shelves with books, a piano on 
which lay a violin, and there were pictures and drawings on the walls, of which 
some were small copies from Reynolds, and some landscapes in water-colours by 
Wolcott himself. Autob. Recollections of C. R. Leslie, R.A.,\o\. i. p. 248. 

Somerset Coffee-house, in the STRAND, east corner of the 
entrance to King's College. The letters of Junius were occasionally 
left at the bar of this coffee-house, sometimes at the bar of the New 
Exchange, and now and then at Munday's in Maiden Lane. The 
waiters received occasional fees for taking them in. 

Somerset House, in the STRAND (the old building), " a large and 
goodly house," x built by the Protector Somerset, brother of Queen 
Jane Seymour, and maternal uncle of Edward VI. Two inns, 
appertaining to the sees of Worcester and Lichfield, and several tene- 
ments adjoining, were pulled down in 1549 to make way for it; and 
the great cloister on the north side of St. Paul's, containing " The 
Dance of Death," and the priory church of the Knights Hospitallers (of 
St. John of Jerusalem), Clerkenwell, were demolished to find stones to 
erect it. The present Somerset House occupies the same site. The 
Protector began his palace in the Strand very soon after the death of 
Henry VIII. Letters exist dated from "Somerset Place" as early as 
1547 ; Foxe tells of speeches in "the Gallery at his Grace's house in 
the Strand," and of his examining prisoners there ; 2 and one of the 
" Articles objected against the Lord Protector " was that " you had and 
held, against the law, in your own house, a Court of Requests." But 
this house may have been an inn seized and new named not an 
uncommon circumstance at this time, or indeed for many years after. 

1 Stow. 2 Foxe, vol. vi. pp. 198, 246. 



SOMERSET HOUSE 269 

1551. Master Bradford spared not the proudest, and among many many others 
will't them to tak example be the last Duek of Somerset, who became so cold in hearing 
God's word,' that the ycir before his last apprehension hce wold goe visit his masonis, 
and wold not dinye himsell to goe from his Gallerie to his hall for hearing of a 
sermon. John K'nox to the Faithful in London. 

What portion of the work was completed when the Protector was 
beheaded, January 22, 1552, no research has yet been able to discover. 
In an account of the duke's expenditure between April i, 1548, and 
October 7, 1551, the amount expended on Somerset House is stated as 
^10,091:9:2, equal at least to .50,000 of our present money. 1 
The name of the architect is unknown. The Clerk of the Works was 
Robert Lawes, described in a roll of the duke's debts as "late Clerke 
of the Duke's Woorkes at Strand Place and at Syon." 2 There is a 
plot or plan of the house among the drawings of Thorpe, preserved in 
Sir John Soane's Museum. Of this very interesting old building 
there are several views ; that by Moss is considered the best. One 
by Knyff is early and curious. The picture at Dulwich (engraved in 
Wilkinson) represents the river front before Inigo Jones's chapel and 
alterations destroyed the uniform character of the building. In the 
Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge is a cork model of the facade and 
back, presented in 1826 by the Rev. E. B. Elliot of Trinity College. 
After the attainder of the duke, when Somerset House became the property 
of the Crown, little, if anything, was done to complete the building. The 
screen prepared for the hall was bought for the church of St. Bride's, 
where it no doubt remained till destroyed in the Great Fire. 3 During 
a iportion at least of Mary's reign it was appropriated to her sister 
Elizabeth. 

[On February 25, 1557] the Lady Elizabeth came riding from her house at 
Hatfield to London, attended with a great company of lords, and nobles, and 
gentlemen, unto her place called Somerset Place, beyond Strand Bridge. MS. 
journal, quoted by Strype, Eccl. Mem., vol. iii. p. 444. 

In 1566-1567 Queen Elizabeth listened to the promises of an 
alchemist who undertook to manufacture precious gems and to transmute 
any metal into gold. His letters were addressed direct to the Queen. 
Cecil writes in his Diary, February 10, 1567 : "Cornelius de la Noye, 
an alchemist, wrought in Somerset House, and abused many." In 1596 
Elizabeth granted the keeping of Somerset House to her kinsman, 
Lord Hunsdon, during life. 4 James I. granted Somerset House to his 
Queen, Anne of Denmark, and in 1 6 1 6 commanded it to be called 
Denmark House. 5 

August 14, 1604. Grant by Queen Anne to John Gerard, Surgeon and Herbalist, 
of lease of a garden plot adjoining Somerset House, on condition of his supplying 
her with herbs, flowers, and fruit. With an endorsement of surrender to the Oucen 
of the said plot, 27 June 1611, by Robert Earl of Salisbury to whom it was granted 
by Gerard. Cal. State Pap., 1603-10, p. 141. 

1 Letters to Granger, p. 108. 3 Stow, p. 147. 

2 Account of Thomas Blagrave, Esq., preserved 4 Burjjhley's Diary in Murdcn, p. 8n 
in the Audit Office, Somerset House. Norden's Essex, p. 15. 

5 Stow, by Howes, ed. 1631, p. 1026. 



270 SOMERSET HOUSE 

June 22, 1608. Grant to Earl of Salisbury of the office of Keeper of Somerset 
House and Garden during the Queen's life. Cal. State Pap., 1603-1610, p. 441. 

February 8, 1609. Warrant to pay to William Goodrowse, Sergeant Surgeon 
.400 for laying out the gardens of Somerset House. Ibid,, p. 490. 

Charles I. assigned it to his Queen (Henrietta Maria) in the ninth 
year of his reign, and caused a chapel to be added to the building, for 
the free use of the Roman Catholic religion. The chapel was designed 
by Inigo Jones, and the first stone laid September 14, j.632. 1 It was 
consecrated with much ceremony at the end of 1635. 

January 8, 1636. This last month the Queen's Chapel in Somerset House Yard 
was consecrated by her Bishop ; the ceremonies lasted three days, massing, preaching, 
and singing of Litanies, and such a glorious scene built over their altar, the Glory of 
Heaven, Inigo Jones neer presented a more curious piece in any of the Masques at 
Whitehall; with this our English ignorant papists are mightily taken. Garrard to 
Wentiuorth (Straffbrd Letters, vol. i. p. 505). 

May 10, 1638. The Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir William Balfour,. beat a priest 
lately for seeking to convert his wife : he had a suspicion that she resorted a little too 
much to Denmark House, and staid long abroad, which made him one day send 
after her. Word being brought him where she was, he goes thither, finds her at her 
devotions in the Chapel ; he beckons her out ; finds her accompanied with a priest, 
who somewhat too saucily reprehended the Lieutenant for disturbing his Lady in 
her devotions ; for which he struck him two or three sound blows with his Battoon, and 
the next day came and told the King the whole passage : so it passed over. Garrard 
to Wentworth (Strafford Letters, vol. ii. p. 165). 

A few tombs of her French Roman Catholic attendants are built 
into the cellars of the present building, immediately beneath the great 
square. Here, in the Christmas festivities of 1632-1633, Henrietta 
Maria took a part 'in a masque (the last in which she played) ; Here, in 
1652, died Inigo Jones, the great architect. Here, in 1658, Oliver 
Cromwell's body lay in state. 

This folly and profusion so far provoked the people that they threw dirt in the 
night on his escutcheon that was placed over the great gate of Somerset House. 
Ludlow, vol. ii. p. 615. 

After Cromwell's death it was in contemplation to sell Somerset 
House. Ludlow, not always a safe authority, says it was sold. 

Col. Henry Martin moved at the same time that the Chapel belonging to 
Somerset House might not be sold, because it was the place of meeting for the 
French Church, and this request was granted ; but the House itself was sold for the 
sum of ten thousand pounds. Ludlow, vol. ii. p. 679. 

A project was formed to purchase it for the Quakers, but George 
Fox put his foot upon it : 

1658. When some forward spirits that came among us would have bought 
Somerset House, that we might have meetings in it, I forbade them to do so : for I 
then foresaw the King's coming in again. George Fox, vol. i. p. 490. 

On November 2, 1660, Henrietta Maria resumed her residence in 
Somerset House, and Cowley and Waller wrote copies of verses on the 
repairs she had made iii her old palace. The former makes the 
renovated edifice sing its own praises. After speaking of the desolate 
condition in which she had found it, he continues : 

1 Ellis's Letters, vol. iii. p. 271, 2d S. 



SOMERSET HOUSE 271 

And now I dare 
Ev'n with the proudest palaces compare. 

Before my gate a street's broad channel goes, 

Which still with waves of crowding people flows. 

And every day there passes by my side, 

Up to its western reach, the London tide, 

The Spring-tides of the term ; my front looks down 

On all the pride and business of the town. 

My other fair and more majestic face 

(Who can the Fair to more advantage place ?) 

For ever gazes on itself below ; 

In the best mirror that the world can show. 

Cowley, On the Qtteen's Repairing Somerset House. 

Here, in May 1665, on Henrietta Maria's farewell to England, 
Catharine of Braganza took up her residence, although the formal grant 
by letters patent was not made by Charles II. till after his mother's 
death in 1669. Here, in January 1669-1670, the body of Monk, 
Duke of Albemarle, lay in state. Sir Samuel Tuke, author of Adventures 
of Five Hours, died in Somerset House, January 26, 1673, and was 
buried in the chapel. Here, on October 17, 1678, the famous 
Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, is said to have been murdered, and his 
body carried hence to the field where it was found near Primrose Hill. 
Two of the supposed murderers were attendants belonging to the chapel 
in Somerset House. Charles II. died, February 2, 1685, and on 
April 8 Evelyn " met the Queen - Dowager going now first from 
Whitehall to dwell at Somerset House. When she left England for 
Portugal, in May 1692 (never to return), Somerset House became a 
nest of lodgings (as Hampton Court at the present day) for some 
of the nobility and poorer persons about the Court ; though it would 
appear to have been always recognised as part of the jointure of the 
consort of the sovereign. 

They passed that building which of old 

Queen Mothers were designed to hold, 

At present a mere lodging pen, 

A palace turn'd into a den, 

To barracks turn'd, and soldiers tread 

Where Dowagers have laid their head. 

Churchill, The Ghost, B. iv. 

Lewis de Duras, Earl of Feversham, who commanded King James's 
troops at the battle of Sedgemoor, and Lady Arlington, widow of 
Secretary Bennet, were living here in I708. 1 Mrs. Gunning, the mother 
of the three celebrated beauties the Duchess of Argyll and Hamilton, 
the Countess of Coventry, and Mrs. Travers held the appointment of 
housekeeper, and here she died in 1770, and her husband John 
Gunning in 1767. Here, in the reign of George III., Charlotte 
Lennox, author of the Female Quixote, had apartments. 

Addison (Spectator, No. 77) represents himself as walking "in 

1 Hatton, p. 633. 



272 SOMERSET HOUSE 

Somerset Garden a little before our Club time," when he saw Will 
Honeycomb "squirt away his watch a considerable way into the 
Thames," thinking it was the pebble he had just picked up from the 
grand walk. 

Buckingham House, in St. James's Park, was settled on Queen 
Charlotte, in lieu of Somerset House, by an Act passed in 1775, and 
the old palace of the Protector and of the Queens of England immedi- 
ately destroyed, to erect the present pile of public offices still dis- 
tinguished as Somerset House. [See Denmark House ; Somerset Stairs.] 

Somerset House, in the STRAND (present building). A pile of 
public offices, erected between the years 1776 and 1786, on the site 
of the palace of the Protector Somerset. [See preceding article.] The 
architect was Sir William Chambers. The general proportions of the 
building are good, and some of the details of great elegance. The 
entrance archway or vestibule from the Strand has deservedly found 
many admirers. 1 The terrace elevation towards the Thames was 
made, like the Adelphi Terrace of the brothers Adam, in anticipation 
of the long projected embankment of the river, and is one of the 
noblest fa9ades in London. The building is in the form of a quad- 
rangle, with wings. The Strand front is 155 feet long, the river front 
600 feet. The inner quadrangle is 319 by 224 feet. Wings have been 
added to Chambers's building ; the east wing, which contains King's 
College, by Sir R. Smirke in 1828-1831; the west wing, devoted to 
the Inland Revenue Department, by Sir James Pennethorne in 
1853. Observe under the vestibule, on your left as you enter (dis- 
tinguished by a bust of Sir Isaac Newton), the entrance doorway to 
the apartments formerly occupied by the Royal Society and Society of 
Antiquaries ; Herschel and Watt, and Davy and Wollaston, and 
Walpole and Hallam have often entered by this door. Observe under 
the same vestibule, on your right as you enter, the entrance doorway 
of the apartments, from 1780 to 1838, of the Royal Academy of Arts. 
Some of the best pictures of the English school have passed under 
this doorway to the great room of the yearly exhibition ; and under 
the same doorway, and up the same steps, Reynolds, Wilkie, Flaxman 
and Chantrey have often passed. The last and best of Reynolds's 
Discourses were delivered, by Sir Joshua himself, in the great room of 
the Academy, at the top of the building. Somerset House is now 
wholly appropriated as Government offices. The principal are the 
Exchequer and Audit Department ; the Probate Office ; the Legacy 
Duty Office, where the several payments are made on bequests by 
wills of personal property ; the Inland Revenue Office, where stamps 
are issued, and public taxes and excise duties received from the 
several district collectors ; Accountant and Comptroller-General's Office ; 
and the Registrar-General's Office is for the registration of the births, 
marriages, and deaths of the United Kingdom. In the basement are 

1 The keystone masques of river deities on the Strand front were carved by Carlini and Wilton, two 
of the early Royal Academicians. 



SOMERSET STREET 273 

produced by steam and hand presses all the various stamps issued 
from the several Government departments, with the exception of the 
adhesive postage stamps, which are prepared by private firms. Here 
also is the Chemical Laboratory of the Inland Revenue Office. The 
bronze statue of George III. and figure of Father Thames, by John 
Bacon, R.A., cost ^2000. 

A little above the entrance door to the Stamps and Taxes is a 
white watch-face, regarding which the popular belief has been, and is, 
that it was left there by a labouring man who fell from a scaffold at 
the top of the building, and was only saved from destruction by the 
ribbon of his watch, which caught in a piece of projecting work. In 
thankful remembrance (so the story runs) of his wonderful escape, he 
afterwards desired that his watch might be placed as near as possible 
to the spot where his life had been saved. The story is utterly 
unfounded. The watch-face was placed where it is by the Royal 
Society as a meridian mark for a portable transit instrument in one of 
the windows of their ante-room. 

To this account of Somerset House may be added a little circum- 
stance of interest which Mr. Cunningham was told by an old clerk on 
the establishment of the Audit Office. "When I first came to this 
building," he said, " I was in the habit of seeing, for many mornings, 
a thin, spare, naval officer, with only one arm, enter the vestibule at 
a smart step, and make direct for the Admiralty, over the rough round 
stones of the quadrangle, instead of taking what others generally took, 
and continue to take, the smooth pavement at the sides. His thin, 
frail figure shook at every step, and I often wondered why he chose 
so rough a footway ; but I ceased to wonder when I heard that the 
thin, frail officer was no other than Lord Nelson who always took," 
continued my informant, " the nearest way to the place he wanted to 
go to." 

July 15, 1817. Wrote some lines in the solitude of Somerset House, not fifty 
yards from the Thames on one side, and the Strand on the other ; but as quiet as 
the sands of Arabia. Crabbe's Journal. 

But the record is wrongly dated by Crabbe : it should be Sunday 
the 1 3th, which explains the quiet. 

Somerset Stairs, SOMERSET HOUSE. 

Neander was pursuing this discourse so eagerly, that Eugenius had called to him 
twice or thrice, ere he took notice that the barge stood still, and that they were at 
the foot of Somerset Stairs, where they had appointed it to land. The company 
were all sorry to separate so soon, though a great part of the evening was already 
spent ; and stood awhile looking back on the water, upon which the moonbeams 
played and made it look like floating quicksilver ; at last they went up through a 
crowd of French people who were merrily dancing in the open air, and walking 
thence to the Piazza, they parted there. Dryden's Essay on Drumstick Poesy, 410, 
1668. 

Somerset Street, PORTMAN SQUARE, from Orchard Street to 
Duke Street. George Stubbs, A.R.A. [elected R.A. in 1781, but 

VOL. Ill T 



274 SOPER LANE 



declined the honour, d. 1806], the eminent animal painter, lived here 
for some years. 

Soper Lane, now QUEEN STREET, CHEAPSIDE, Stow says, " took 
that name not of soap-making as some have supposed, but of Alen le 
Sopar, in the Qth of Edward II." But he is in error. It was called 
Soper Lane as early as 1288, and undoubtedly from the sopers, or 
soapmakers, dwelling there. The pepperers succeeded them. 

In this Soper's Lane the Pepperers anciently dwelt, wealthy Tradesmen who 
dwelt in spices and Drugs. Two of this trade were divers times Mayors in the 
reign of King Henry III. ; viz. Andrew Bocherel and John de Gisorcio or Gisors. 
In the reign of King Edward II. anno 1315, they came to be governed by rules and 
orders, which are extant in one of the books of the Chamber under this title, 
Ordinatio Piperarum de Soper's Lane. Strype, B. iii. p. 15. 

When Mary and Philip rode through the City, they were accompanied by 
Cardinal Pole and Gardiner. Before the Cardinal was carried a cross, and as the 
party rode on, the Cardinal ostentatiously blessed the multitude ; but these only 
"greatly laughed him to scorn " for his pains, and would neither take off their caps 
nor bow to the cross. This manifestation, from the houses as well as the streets, 
fired Gardiner with unseemly rage ; and his cry to his servants was, " Mark that 
house!" "Take this knave, and have him to the Compter!" "Such a sort of 
heretics, who ever saw?" "I will teach them, an I live." "This did I hear him 
say," writes Mowntayne, " I standing at Soper Lane end." J. G. Nichols, 
Narratives of the Reformation (Camd. Soc.) 

Sir Baptist Hicks, Viscount Campden, of the time of James I., 
whose name is preserved in Hicks' 's Hall and Campden Hill, Kensington, 
was a mercer, at the sign of the White Bear, at Soper Lane End, in 
Cheapside. 1 Bulstrode Whitelocke was residing in Soper Lane in 
1631, when his son James was born. [See Queen Street.] 

South Bank, REGENT'S PARK, a row of cottages on the south 
bank of the Regent's Canal, west of the Regent's Park. One of these 
was built by Ugo Foscolo, and named Digamma Cottage, to com- 
memorate his share in that celebrated controversy. The neighbouring 
Alpha Road and Beta Place probably owe their names to this 
Digamma Cottage. 

South Eastern Railway. The original terminus of this Com- 
pany was on the Surrey or Southwark side of London Bridge. The 
first \\ mile ran on arches side by side with the East Greenwich 
Railway, the next 8 miles on the Croydon Railway, and the continu- 
ation to Reigate Station, 20 J miles from London, on the Brighton 
Railway. The South Eastern works began at Reigate Station (Redhill 
is the junction now) and ran to Tunbridge, Ashford, Canterbury, 
Ramsgate, Deal, Folkestone, and Dover. The whole line to Dover 
was opened in February 1844. It is now carried to the Cannon 
Street Station in the City and the Charing Cross Station at the west end 
both large and costly structures with magnificent hotels attached. 
To reach each of these the Thames is crossed by an iron girder bridge. 
Besides the original line the Company have constructed branch lines to 

1 Stryje, B. i. p. 287. 



SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM 275 

Tunbridge Wells and Hastings ; a Mid-Kent line to Bickley ; North 
Kent to Dartford, Gravesend, and Maidstone ; a line to Guildford, 
Aldershot, and Reading, and suburban lines to Greenwich, Woolwich, 
Peckham Rye, etc. Pleasant excursions, returning the same day, may 
be made by this line to Box Hill and Dorking, Penshurst, Hever Castle, 
Tunbridge Wells, Knole and Canterbury. 

South Kensington, a new district so named, formed chiefly out 
of Brompton and Brompton West, and having for its nucleus the estate 
purchased by the Commissioners of the Great Exhibition of 1851. 
The district has no very definite limits, but is generally considered to 
extend from the west end of the Brompton Road to Kensington 
proper, and to have for its north and south boundaries Kensington 
Gore and the Harrington estate. It is traversed by broad roads, lined 
by spacious and high-rented dwellings, intermingled with still more costly 
mansions and " gardens " ; and within its limits are the South Ken- 
sington Museum and Schools of Science and Art, the Natural History 
Museum, and the Imperial Institute ; also the South Kensington and 
Gloucester Road Stations of the Metropolitan Railway. 

South Kensington Museum has grown out of the collection of 
models, casts, prints, and other examples purchased for the purpose of 
Instruction in Design and Ornamental Art in the Schools of Design. In 
1851 the Board of Trade appointed a committee to select objects for 
purchase, notable " entirely for the excellence of their art or workman- 
ship," to the amount of ^5000, from the Great Exhibition of that year. 
These objects were exhibited at Marlborough House and opened in 
September 1852 as a Museum of Ornamental Art. It was then 
decided to take an annual vote for the formation of a systematic collec- 
tion representing the application of fine art to industry of all periods. 
In 1856 Parliament voted ^"10,000 for the transference of the Science 
and Art Department [which see] to the estate at South Kensington 
purchased by the Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851, and an 
iron building was erected, under the superintendence of Sir William 
Cubitt, upon the south-eastern portioa of the estate, at a cost of 
;i5,ooo. The Museum was opened on June 22, 1857, by the Queen, 
accompanied by the Prince Consort. Immediately after the opening 
the erection of permanent buildings was commenced, and the Picture 
Galleries, the Schools of Art, the North and Central Courts, the Ker- 
amic Gallery, Lecture Theatre, and Refreshment Rooms were com- 
pleted and opened in successive years. The greater portion of the 
iron building was taken do\vn in 1868 and re-erected as a Branch 
Museum at Bethnal Green [which see\. The South Kensington 
Museum stands on 12 acres of land, and the site was acquired by 
Government at a cost of ,60,000. 

At either end of the South Court are the two fine frescoes by Sir 
Frederick Leighton, Bart., P.R.A., executed in a process, called by its 
inventor, Mr. Gambier Parry, "Spirit fresco." The subject at the 



276 SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM 

north end is The Industrial Arts as applied to War, and that at the 
south end The Industrial Arts as applied to Peace. The contents of 
the Museum have now grown to vast dimensions, and it will only be 
possible to indicate very briefly the character of the chief collections. 
An admirable series of Guides to the contents of the Museum, each 
forming a handbook to a particular subject, has been published by the 
Department. 

Pictures. Mr. John Sheepshanks presented his fine collection of 
pictures of English painters in 1857, "with a view to the establishment 
of a collection of pictures and other works of art fully representing 
British art and worthy of national support." The Sheepshanks' gallery 
includes 26 of the finest works of Mulready, 16 by Landseer, 20 by 
Leslie, and 4 by Turner. 

The collection of water-colour paintings is of great value, and is 
composed of the gift of Mrs. Ellison, Mr. William Smith, Mr. C. T. 
Maud, and the bequests of the Rev. C. H. Townshend and Mr. J. M. 
Parsons. The gallery contains works by Paul Sandby, T. Girtin, J. S. 
Cotman, Turner, Varley, David Cox, De Wint, Copley Fielding, Prout, 
W. Hunt, etc. 

The Raphael Cartoons, which were exhibited at Hampton Court 
from the reign of William III. till 1865, were in that year allowed by 
Her Majesty to be removed to the Museum, when a special gallery 
was prepared for them. 

Architectural Court. The majority of the objects are full-sized re- 
productions in plaster of architectural works of large dimensions. In 
1884 a series of casts illustrative of the history of antique sculpture, 
copies of the best examples in the principal continental galleries, was 
added to the Museum. 

Pottery. The Keramic Gallery contains a fine collection of earthen- 
ware, stoneware, and porcelain. There are no less than five pieces of 
the famous Oiron (or Henri Deux) ware. A fine collection of English 
pottery was presented by Lady Charlotte Schreiber and the late Mr. C. 
Schreiber. 

Jones Collection. In 1882 the Museum was enriched by the im- 
portant bequest of Mr. John Jones of Piccadilly, which consisted of a 
collection of furniture, Sevres and other porcelain, enamelled miniatures 
by Janet, Petitot, and others ; paintings, sculpture, bronzes, etc. 

The Japanese and Chinese collections in the South and Oriental 
Court are of great value and interest. The historical collection of 
Japanese pottery was formed by the Japanese Government for the 
Museum. 

Mention must also be made of the Delia Robbia ware, majolica, 
bronzes, woodwork of various countries, textiles, and the fine collection 
of historical musical instruments in the west Arcade. 

National Art Library. This library contains upwards of 70,000 
volumes bearing directly upon art, and in addition 240,000 drawings, 
prints, engravings of ornaments, and photographs of art objects. A 



SOUTH MOLTON STREET 277 

range of galleries on the first floor has lately been specially erected for 
this library. 

Science and Educational Library. The nucleus of this library is the 
collection which formed part of the Educational Exhibition held in 
St. Martin's Hall in 1854 ; a portion of the library of the Royal School 
of Mines in Jermyn Street has recently been added. The library 
contains over 64,000 volumes. 

Dyce and Forster Collections. The valuable libraries of the Rev. 
Alexander Dyce, the Shakespearian scholar, and John Forster, the 
critic and biographer of Dickens, are kept distinct from the other 
collections, and a reading-room is attached to them. The Dyce 
collection consists of oil paintings, miniatures, engravings, a few manu- 
scripts, and upwards of 1 1,000 volumes of printed books. The Forster 
collection consists of oil and water-colour paintings, drawings, engravings, 
manuscripts, autographs, and upwards of 18,000 volumes of printed 
books. 

Science Collections. A Museum of Science was contemplated as an 
integral part of the Science and Art Department from its creation, but 
owing to a variety of circumstances the collections were not developed 
as much as the art collections. Some (among them the food collec- 
tion) were removed to the Bethnal Green Museum, and the develop- 
ment of. the science collections remained in abeyance till 1881. The 
Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks Act of 1883 having transferred the 
control and management of the Patent Museum to the Science and 
Art Department, the iron building which had hitherto contained 
the Patent Museum was vacated in 1886, and the collections were 
rearranged in the Exhibition galleries between the Imperial Institute 
and the Natural History Museum. 

India Museum [which see] is temporarily placed in the Exhibition 
galleries. 

The remarkable growth of the South Kensington Museum was 
largely due to the untiring energy of the late Sir Henry Cole, K.C.B., 
who occupied the position of Director for many years. He was suc- 
ceeded by Sir Philip Cunliffe Owen, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., the present 
director. 

The Museum is open on Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays from 
10 A.M. till 10 P.M., free; and on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays 
from 10 A.M. till 4, 5, or 6 P.M., according to the daylight, on payment 
of sixpence for each person. The Exhibition galleries and Indian 
section are open free daily from 10 A.M. till 4, 5, or 6 P.M., according 
to the season. 

South Molton Street, NEW BOND STREET, from Brook Street 
to Oxford Street. William Blake, the poet and eccentric painter, 
lived for seventeen years at No. 17 in this street. Here he had 
interviews with angels and persons of scarcely inferior distinction. 
"South Molton Street, Sunday, August 1807. My wife was told by a 
spirit to look for her fortune by opening by chance a book which she 



278 SOUTH MOLTON STREET 

had in her hand. It was Bysshe's Art of Poetry. She opened the 
following. ... I was so well pleased with her luck that I thought I 
would try my own." 

In excavating, a few years back, in front of a public-house at the east 
corner of this street, at a depth of about 6 feet from the pavement, an 
old conduit head was discovered, having on it the City arms with the 
date 1627. 

I can cut watch-papers and work cat-gut ; make quadrille baskets with pins, and 
take profiles in shade ; ay, as well as the Lady at No. 62 South Molton Street, 
Grosvenor Square. Mrs. Cowley's Belle's Stratagem, 1780. 

On the front of No. 36 (the third house from Oxford Street) is an 
inscription: "This is South Molton Street 1721." 

South Place, FINSBURY, north of Finsbury Circus. Mr. W. J. Fox, 
M.P. (Publicola), was for many years minister of South Place Chapel. 

South Place, KNIGHTSBRIDGE, on the south side of what is now 
known as the Kensington Road. Here was the residence of the elder 
Sterling, that "gallant shewy stirring gentleman the Magus of the 
Times," to whom and to whose house reference is so often made in 
Carlyle's Life of John Sterling. 

South Sea House, north-east end of THREADNEEDLE STREET, 
the hall or place of business of "The Governor and Company of 
Merchants of Great Britain trading to the South Seas and other parts 
of America." The Company, incorporated in 1711, consisted of 
holders of navy and army bills and other unfunded debts, to the 
amount of ^9,177,967 : 15 -.4, who were induced to fund their debts 
on reasonable terms, by being incorporated into a Company, with the 
monopoly of the trade to the South Sea and Spanish America. 
Government, says Mr. M'Culloch, was far from blameless in the affair. 
The word " bubble," as applied to any ruinous speculation, was first 
applied to the transactions of the South Sea Company, and, often as 
the word has been used since, never was it more applicable to any 
scheme than to the South Sea project of the disastrous year of 1720. 

When Sir Isaac Newton was asked about the continuance of the rising of the 
South Sea Stock, he answered, that he could not calculate the madness of the 
people. Spence's Anecdotes, p. 368. 

What made Directors cheat in South-Sea year ? 
To live on venison when it sold so dear. 

Pope, Works, vol. iv. p. 242. 

In the extravagance and luxury of the South Sea Year, the price of a haunch of 
venison was from three to five Pounds. Ibid. 

Adam Anderson, author of the History of Commerce (d. 1765), was 
forty years a clerk in the South Sea House. The Company has long 
ceased to be a trading body, and its remaining stock has been 
converted into annuity stock. 

At the north east extremity of Threadneedle Street, where it enters Bishopsgate 
Street, is situated the South Sea House. This house stands upon a large extent of 
ground ; running back as far as Old Broad Street facing St. Peter le Poor. The 



SOUTHAMPTON BUILDINGS 279 

back-front was formerly the Excise Office ; then the South Sea Company's Office ; 
and hence is distinguished by the name of the Old South Sea House. As to the 
new building in which the Company's affairs are now transacted, it is a magnificent 
structure. Noorthouck's History of London, 4to, 1773, p. 569. 

Reader, in thy passage from the Bank where thou hast been receiving thy 
half-yearly dividend (supposing thou art a lean annuitant like myself) to the Flower 
Pot to secure a place for Dalston, or Shacklewell, or some other thy suburban retreat 
northerly, didst thou never observe a melancholy looking, handsome, brick and 
stone edifice, to the left where Threadneedle Street abuts upon Bishopsgate? I 
dare say thou hast often admired its magnificent portals ever gaping wide, and 
disclosing to view a grave court, with cloisters, and pillars, with few or no traces of 
goers-in or comers-out a desolation something like Balclutha's. 

This was once a house of trade, a centre of busy interests. The throng of 
merchants was here the quick pulse of gain and here some forms of business are 
still kept up, though the soul be long since fled. Here are still to be seen stately 
porticos, imposing staircases, offices as roomy as the state apartments in palaces 
deserted, or thinly peopled with a few straggling clerks ; the still more sacred 
interiors of court and committee-rooms, with venerable faces of beadles, door-keepers 
directors seated on forms on solemn days (to proclaim a dead dividend) at long 
worm-eaten tables, that have been mahogany, with tarnished gilt-leather coverings, 
supporting massy silver inkstands long since dry ; the oaken wainscot hung with 
pictures of deceased governors and sub-governors, of Queen Anne, and the two first 
monarchs of the Brunswick dynasty ; huge charts, which subsequent discoveries have 
antiquated ; dusty maps of Mexico, dim as dreams, and soundings of the Bay of 
Panama ! Charles Lamb, Elia, 1st S. 

John Lamb, the elder brother of Charles, was a clerk in the South Sea 
House, and through his influence Elia himself was admitted to learn 
bookkeeping in the office hence his familiarity with its interior 
economy. Portions of the interior and exterior have been remodelled, 
1855-1856, and the South Sea House is now a nest of mercantile offices, 
it having been sold for ^55,700. 

South Street, GROSVENOR SQUARE, Farm Street to Park Lane. 
Eminent Inhabitants. Charles James Fox at No. 26, in 1792. The 
Duke of Orleans (Philippe Egalite), at No. 31. Lady Holland 
died, November 16, 1845, at No. 33; and here died, April 10, 1843, 
John Allen, M.D., of Holland House celebrity. George Bryan (Beau) 
Brummell was living at No. 24 in 1809. Lord Melbourne, at No. 39, 
during the whole of the Melbourne administration (1835-1841); it is 
said that Lord Melbourne for many years never gave a dinner, or even 
had a joint cooked for himself, in this house. 

His cooks with long disuse their trade forgot ; 
Cool was his kitchen. 

Southampton Buildings, HOLBORN to CHANCERY LANE, a row of 
tenements so called after the Wriothesleys, Earls of Southampton, and 
entitled "Old" to distinguish them from the "New" buildings in 
High Holborn, erected by Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton 
(d. 1667), son of Shakespeare's patron, and father of Lady Rachel 
Russell. [See Southampton House, Holborn.] On August 16, 1673, 
the Holborn property of the Southampton family was assigned, in trust, 
to Arthur, Earl of Essex, and others, for and on behoof of Elizabeth, 



280 SOUTHAMPTON BUILDINGS 

Countess -Dowager of Northumberland, on her marriage with the 
Honourable Ralph Montague, eldest son and heir of Edward, Lord 
Montague. On July 17, 1690, it was assigned in mortgage by Ralph, 
Earl of Montague, and Elizabeth, Countess of Montague, to Edward 
Rudge and Edward Littleton. In 1723 it was granted by John, 
Duke of Montague, as a portion to his eldest daughter, Lady Isabella, 
on her marriage to William, Duke of Manchester. On March 22, 
1727, it was sold and assigned in fee by William and Isabella, Duke 
and Duchess of Manchester; John, Duke of Montague; Scroop, 
Duke of Bridgewater ; Robert, Earl of Sunderland ; and Francis, Earl 
of Godolphin, to Jacob de Bouverie, Esq., and Sir Edward de 
Bouverie, Bart., ancestors of the present proprietor, the Earl of 
Radnor. On March 3, 1740, Sir Jacob de Bouverie, Bart., granted 
a lease to Edward Bootle, for a term of 230 years, of those premises. 
After that the present buildings were erected by Edward Bootle, who 
left them by will to Robert Bootle ; who left them by will to trustees ; 
and by divers assignments they became vested in Edward Smith Bigg, 
Esq., who granted them on lease to the trustees of the London 
Mechanics' Institute, for the whole of his term of 146 years, from 
September i, 1824, at a rent of 229 per annum, with liberty to 
purchase down to ^29 per annum, at any time, for the sum of s$o. 1 
They are now held by the Birkbeck Bank. The Birkbeck Institution, 
a reconstitution of the London Mechanics' Institution, and so named in 
honour of Dr. Birkbeck, the original founder, has been removed to a 
new house in Bream's Buildings. 

This yeare [1650] Jacob, a Jew, opened a Coffey house at the Angel, in the 
Parish of S. Peter in the East Oxon, and there it was by some, who delighted in 
Noveltie, drank. When he left Oxon, he sold it in Old Southampton buildings in 
Holborne near London, and was living there in 1671. Autobiography of Antony a 
Wood, vol. ii. p. 65. 

Here, in the house of a relative, Edmund Ludlow, the Parliamentary 
general, lay concealed at the time of the Restoration till he succeeded in 
escaping to the Continent. In 1696, when Sir George Barclay was 
arranging the plot for the murder of William III., he took lodgings under 
the name of Brown in Southampton Buildings, " over against the arch " 
which led to Staple Inn, the meeting-place of the conspirators being the 
Griffin Tavern close by. 2 Thomas Holcroft, the dramatist, about 
1780 kept a lodging-house in this street. Charles Lamb was living at 
No. 34 in 1809, after he left Mitre Court Buildings and before he 
went to Inner Temple Lane. Twenty-one years afterwards, in 1830, 
when he made a last attempt to reside in London, he once more took 
up his abode in the same No. 34. In March 1811, when Coleridge 
was lecturing, he resided in Southampton Buildings, and, as he was in 
daily intercourse with the Lambs, very probably in No. 34, to which 
they themselves twice resorted. Here, in the Southampton Coffee- 
house, at the Chancery Lane end, Hazlitt has laid the scene of his 

1 MecJianics' Register, vol. ii. pp. 179, 180. 2 Blackmore, pp. 135, 136. 



SOUTHAMPTON HOUSE 281 

Essay on Coffee-house Politicians ; and here he occasionally held a 
kind of evening levee. 1 

For several years Mr. Ilazlitt was a very regular visitor to the Southampton 

Coffee House. . . . He always came in the evening, occupied a particular place 

1 for him as scrupulously as his seat at Covent Garden, called for what he 

1, and settled the score whenever it happened to be convenient. W. C. 

li.i-litt, Memoirs of William llazlitt, vol. i. p. 292. 

In the year 1820 Hazlitt took apartments at No. 9, at the house of a 
tailor named Walker. Here, on August 16, he "first saw the sweet 
apparition " of Miss Sarah, the landlord's daughter, bringing up the 
tea-tray, and at once fell in love with her. She would not listen to 
his advances ; and after a while he made a journey to Edinburgh to 
procure a divorce, but the young lady remained unmoved. The great 
writer then " threw out his clamorous anguish to the clouds and to the 
winds and to the air " in his Liber Amoris, or the New Pygmalion 
(i2mo, 1823), and returned no more to Southampton Buildings. 

At Nos. 25 and 26 are the Patent Office, the Registries of Design 
and Trade Marks Offices, and the Patent Library and Reading Room. 
At No. 10 is the Office of the Commissioners for Affidavits in the 
Irish Law Courts, and Registry of Deeds in Ireland. [See Patent 
Office.] 

Southampton House, BLOOMSBURY, occupied the whole of the 
north side of the present Bloomsbury Square. 

Southampton House, a large building with a spacious court before it for the 
reception of coaches, and a curious garden behind, which lieth open to the fields, 
enjoying a wholesome and pleasant z\i;.Strype, B. iv. p. 84. 

October 2, 1664. To my Lady Sandwich's through my Lord Southampton's new 
buildings in the fields behind Gray's Inn, and indeed they are very great and a noble 
work . Pepys. 

February 9, 1665. Din'd at my Lo. Treasurer's the Earle of Southampton in 
Blomesbury, where he was building a noble Square or Piazza, a little Towne ; his 
owne house stands too low, some noble roomes, a pretty cedar chapell, a naked 
garden to the north, but good aire. Evelyn. 

If you're displeas'd with what you've seen to-night 
Behind Southampton House we'll do you right ; 
Who is't dares draw 'gainst me and Mrs. Knight ? 

Epilogue to Mountforfs Greenwich Park, 4to, 1691. 

Rachel, Lady Russell, whose letters invest this house with many 
delightful associations, died in it September 29, 1723, aged eighty-six. 
[See Bedford House, Bloomsbury.] 

Southampton House, HOLBORN, the town house of the 
Wriothesleys, Earls of Southampton, on the south side of Holborn, 
a little above Holborn Bars. It was taken down circ. 1652. Parts 
remained as late as 1850 in Mr. Griffith's, a whipmaker's warehouse, 
322 Holborn, and some fragments existed in the Blue Posts Tavern, 
No. 47 Southampton Buildings, Holborn. On May 17, 1847, Mr. 
Griffith showed Mr. Cunningham what is still called " the chapel " of 

1 Patmore, injerrold's Mag. No. 2. 



282 SOUTHAMPTON HOUSE 

the house, with rubble walls and a flat-timbered roof. Mr. Griffith 
informed Mr. Cunningham at the same time that his father remem- 
bered a pulpit in the chapel, and that he himself, when forming the 
foundation of a workshop adjoining, had seen portions of a circular 
building which he supposed to be part of the ruins of the old Temple 
mentioned by Stow. He was probably right, for in pulling down some 
old houses early in the last century in the immediate neighbourhood 
unmistakable remains of the first Temple church were discovered. 
These remains were of Caen stone. 

Beyond the bars [Holborn Bars] had ye in old time a Temple built by the 
Templars, whose order first began in 1118, in the iqih of Henry I. This Temple 
was left and fell to ruin since the year 1184, when the Templars had built them a 
new Temple in Fleet Street, near to the river of Thames. A great part of this old 
Temple was pulled down but of late in the year 1595. Adjoining to this old Temple 
was sometime the Bishop of Lincoln's Inn, wherein he lodged when he repaired 
to this city. Robert de Curars, Bishop of Lincoln, built it about the year 1147. 
John Russell, Bishop of Lincoln, Chancellor of England in the reign of Richard III., 
was lodged there. It hath of late years belonged to the Earls of Southampton, and 
therefore called Southampton House. Master Ropar hath of late built much there ; 
by means whereof part of the ruins of the old Temple were seen to remain, built of 
Caen stone, round in form as the new Temple by Temple Bar, and other Temples in 
England. Stow, p. 163. 

Southampton House was conveyed in Fee to the Lord Wriothesley, Earl of 
Southampton, and Lord Chancellor in the time of King Edward VI. For which 
the Bishop hath no other house in or near London, as is thought. Strype, B. iv. p. 69. 

This Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, died at Southampton House 
in 1550. 

1617. James I. to Sir Henry Yelverton, Attorney-General. Orders him to 

prepare a Bill confirming certain privileges to Henry Earl of Southampton, etc 

and to extend the liberties of Southampton House from Holborn Bars to the Rolls 
in Chancery Lane. Cal. State Pap., 1611-1618, p. 507. 

My Lord of Southampton moved the king by petition, that he might have leave 
to pull down his house in Holborn, and build it into tenements, which would have 
been much advantage to him, and his fortune hath need of some helps. His Majesty 
brought his petition with him to the Council Table, and recommended it to the 
Lords, telling their lordships that my Lord of Southampton was a person whom he 
much respected, etc. ; but upon debate it was dashed. Garrard to Lord Strafford, 
March 23, 1636, vol. ii. p. 57. 

And lately it [Southampton House] hath bin quite taken down and turned to 
several private tenements. Howell's Londinopolis, fol. 1657, p. 344. 

Tuesday, Aiigust 28, 1649. There is a well found by a souldier (and so called 
the Souldier's Well) near Southampton House in Holburne, doth wonderfull cures to 
the blind and lame. Perfect Occurrences from August 24 to Attgust 31, 1649. 

Southampton Market, BLOOMSBURY, better known in later years 

as Bloomsbury Market [which see]. 

December 9, 1 668. Abroad with my wife to the Temple . . . and so to see Mr. 
Spong, and found him out by Southampton Market, and there carried my wife, and 
up to his chamber, a bye place, but with a good prospect of the fields. Pepys. 

Southampton Row, from HIGH HOLBORN to RUSSELL SQUARE. 
Under this name are now included King Street and Upper King Street. 

1 Herbert's Inns of Court, p. 259, note. 



SOUTHAMPTON STREET 283 

The former included the portion between High Holborn and Hart 
Street, and the latter the portion northwards to Bloomsbury Place. 
The remainder is the original Southampton Row, of which the east side 
of Russell Square is a prolongation. Here, about 1750 (nine doors 
north of Cosmo Place), was the residence of Ashley Cowper, trie uncle 
of the poet, and the father of Lady Hesketh and Theodora Jane 
Cowper, whom the poet loved so tenderly, and who retained for him a 
life-long affection. " The most popular poet of his generation " was 
then articled to a solicitor in the neighbourhood, and he and his fellow- 
clerk, Edward Thurlow, afterwards Lord Chancellor, passed most of 
their time with this family. 

I did actually live three years with Mr. Chapman, a solicitor, that is to say I 
slept three years in his house ; but I lived, that is to say I spent rhy days, in South- 
ampton Row, as you very well remember. There was I and the future Lord 
Chancellor, constantly employed from morning to night, in giggling and making 
giggle, instead of studying the law. Cowper to Lady Hesketh. 

Here, " at Mr. Jauncey's," on the east side of the Row, when the 
British Museum was first opened to the public, Gray the poet took 
apartments which had previously been occupied by his friend Dr. 
Wharton. 

I am now settled in my new territories, commanding Bedford Gardens and all the 
fields as far as Highgate and Hampstead, with such a concourse of moving pictures as 
would astonish you ; so rus-in-urbe-ish, that I believe I shall stay here, except little 
excursions and vagaries, for a year to come. What though I am separated from the 
fashionable world by Broad St. Giles' and many a dirty court and alley, yet here is 
air and sunshine, and quiet however to comfort you : I shall confess that I am 
basking all the summer, and I suppose shall be blown down all the winter, besides 
being robbed every night ; I think, however, that the Museum, with all its manu- 
scripts, and rarities by the cart load, will make ample amends for all the aforesaid 
inconveniences, Gray to Mr. Palgrave, July 24, 1759. 

The unhappy Dr. Dodd at one time kept a " Select Academy " in 
this Row. Dodd, the actor, celebrated as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, 
died at his lodgings in this Row in 1796. 

Southampton Square. [See Bloomsbury Square.] 

Southampton Street, BLOOMSBURY, runs from Holborn into 
Bloomsbury Square. 

I was born in London on November 6, 1671, in Southampton Street, facing 
Southampton House. Colley Gibber's Apology. 

Southampton Street, PENTONVILLE, from Pentonville Road to 
Caledonian Road. Dickens relates that Joe Grimaldi, the King of 
Clowns, passed his last days in a "neat little dwelling" in this street. 
A few doors off was the " Marquis Cornwallis Tavern," the landlord of 
which used to call for him every evening and return with him at night. 
Grimaldi was crippled in his lower limbs, and the friendly landlord 
carried him on his back. Grimaldi died here in 1837. In this street 
Thomas Carlyle had lodgings ("my own rooms in Southampton 
Street") 1 on his first visit to London, 1824. 

1 Carlyle's Reutiniscences, p. 241. 



284 SOUTHAMPTON STREET 

Southampton Street, STRAND to COVENT GARDEN MARKET, 
was so called in compliment to Lady Rachel Russell, daughter of 
Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, and wife of William, Lord 
Russell, the patriot. Eminent Inhabitants. Mrs. Oldfield, the actress ; 
Arthur Maynwaring, in his will (dated 1712), describes her as residing in 
" New Southampton Street, in the parish of St. Paul's, Covent Garden." 
David Garrick in No. 27, from his marriage in 1749 until 1772, 
during the most brilliant part of his career, intermediately between 
King Street and the Adelphi. The house still bears the same number 
and will be easily recognised. It is on the west side near the top ; is 
of red brick, and has four front windows in each of the upper storeys. 
Thomas Linley, the composer, and father of Mrs. Sherid&n and Mrs. 
Tickell, died, 1795, at No. u (pulled down in 1890). Dick Estcourt, 
the actor, died (1713) at his lodgings on the west side. Dr. Lempriere, 
of Classical Dictionary celebrity, died at a house in this street in 1824. 
No. 31, Godfrey and Cooke's (established 1680), the oldest chemist and 
druggist's shop in London, is now occupied by a publisher, lasted 
till about 1860, when the firm discontinued this house and retained 
the business in Conduit Street. There was a bar at the south end of 
the street which was taken away about thirty years ago. 

Soilthwark, Borough Of, on the south of the Thames, long known 
as the Borough, takes its name from being originally the fortification 
of London on the south. Being on the high road to London from 
the Continent it appears to have been inhabited from the earliest 
times. During the Roman occupation many villas were built here for 
the wealthier Roman colonists. George Gwilt's Map, compiled in 1819, 
shows some twenty distinct finds of Roman remains about 10 feet 
below the present surface, and connected with villas and burial-places, 
and more have been discovered since. In the construction of South- 
wark Street evidences of dwellings built on piles (like lake dwellings) 
came to light. 

Southwark was at the first confined to within a short distance of the 
river, known as the gildable manor, and was from time immemorial 
a borough. "The burgesses in 1356 say they had formerly a charter 
franchise which was destroyed by fire, they pray an exemplification of the 
same, and it was allowed." Bit by bit Southwark came under the City 
jurisdiction, but never completely so; and although made a ward 
Bridge Ward Without it was never like other wards, it conferred no 
citizenship on the inhabitants and gave them no privileges. 1 On a 
vacancy in Bridge Ward Without it is offered to the senior alderman, 
as being in the category of an honorary dignity. [See Bridge Ward 
Without] The ward has no representatives in the Common Council. 

The Borough is in shape somewhat like the map of Italy, St. George's 
Road and Bethlem being at the toe of the boot. It lies entirely south 
of the Thames, having Lambeth to the west and Deptford to the east. 

1 The first alderman of the ward was Sir John Ayliffe, barber surgeon, who was appointed in 1550. 



BOROUGH OF SOUTHWARK 285 

The older borough comprised the parishes of St. George, St. John, 
Horselydown, St. Olave, St. Thomas and St. Saviour, exclusive of the 
Clink and Christ Church (Paris Garden) ; later on it included, as it does 
now, Christ Church, the Church Liberty, Bermondsey, and Rotherhithe. 
In 1631, during a time of scarcity, the Lord Mayor counted 16,880 
mouths in Southwark, but the area then was so much smaller than 
it is now that it can scarcely be compared with the Southwark of the 
census of 1881, which showed a population of 221,946. 

The town or village which had grown up in Saxon times where the 
Roman villas had previously stood was burnt by William the Conqueror, 
and little seems to have remained of it when the Domesday Survey was 
made. Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, then had " a monastery and tide-way in 
Southwark." These he seems to have acquired by somewhat sharp 
practice. In Edward the Confessor's time " of the produce of the port 
where ships resort, the King received two parts, Earl Godwin the 
third," but now the Bishop seems to have appropriated the whole to 
himself. Edward III., by a charter of the first year of his reign (1327), 
granted the vill of Southwark to the citizens of London who, as 
recited, in a petition to the King in Parliament had complained that 
malefactors escaped there out of the jurisdiction of the City, and prayed 
that such vill might be given to them. With consent of his Parliament 
the King grants the said vill in fee farm. The grant against which the 
inhabitants of Southwark petitioned in vain was confirmed in a second 
charter of the nth year (1337), and in fuller terms in a third of the 
5oth of the same King's reign (1376). Several charters in later reigns 
confirmed, extended, or varied the terms of the grant, the last, which vests 
the entire control of the borough in the Lord Mayor and Corporation 
of London, being that of 5th Edward VI., I55I. 1 Southwark sent 
representatives to Parliament from the 23d of Edward I., 1 296.2 

Southwark, from the earliest times, was the chief thoroughfare to 
and from London and the southern counties and towns, including 
Canterbury and the cities of the Continent. This is sufficient to account 
for the large number of inns, such as the Bear at the Bridge foot, the 
King's Head, the Talbot or Tabard of Chaucer's "Canterbury Pilgrims " 
[see Tabard], and the White Hart, which was the headquarters of Jack 
Cade during his brief occupancy of the City and Borough (1450). 
Cade's inn was destroyed in the great Southwark fire of 1676, but was 
rebuilt, and it was at this White Hart that Sam Weller was first intro- 
duced to a world of admirers. The inn was cleared away in 1889. 

The Duke of Hamilton of the time of Charles I., while knocking 
for admittance at an inn gate in Southwark, about four in the morning, 
was arrested by a party of soldiers searching for Sir Lewis Dyves. 

He told them a very formal story of himself and his business, which at first 
satisfied them ; but they observed that as he took a pipe of tobacco by them, he 
burned several great papers to fire it, whereupon they searched him, and found such 

1 Manning and Bray, and Brayley's Surrey ; Liber Albus; Riley's Memorials ; Norton. 
2 Manning and Bray, vol. iii. p. 649. 



286 BOROUGH OF SOUTHWARK 

papers about him as discovered him. Burnet's Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton, 
p. 384. 

Some of the inns bore odd signs. Andrews, in Anecdote History 
of Great Britain (i 794), mentions that " in the borough of Southwark is 
a sign on which is inscribed The Old Pick-my-toe." Mrs. Piozzi, who 
long dwelt in the Borough, wrote in the margin, " So it is : I knew the 
sign and was probably then the only person who could have guessed 
the derivation." The figure represented the ancient statue of the Roman 
slave seeking for the thorn in his foot. 1 In the i6th century there 
were here many town houses of persons of importance, such as abbots, 
priors and others. There were Suffolk House, by St. George's Church, 
for Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and his wife, the Princess Mary ; and 
Winchester House for the Bishops of Winchester. West of the latter 
place were playhouses, bear and bull baiting circuses, and stews or 
licensed brothels. 

In the old poem of "Cock Lorell's Bote," printed by Wynkyn de 
Worde in the reign of Henry VIII., the Bankside, Southwark, is 
called " The Stewes Banke." They were of very old standing. As early 
as the reign of Edward I. there was an ordinance of the City providing 

That no boatman shall have his boat moored and standing over the water after 
sunset ; but they shall have all their boats moored on this [the City] side of the water 
that so thieves or other misdoers may not be carried by them under pain of 
imprisonment : nor may they carry any man or woman, either denizens or strangers, 
unto the Stews [of Southwark] except in the day-time under pain of imprisonment. 
Liber Albus, B. iii. pt. ii. p. 242. 

Southwark had also an unenviable celebrity for its prisons. These 
prisons were the King's Bench (Queen's Prison), the Marshalsea, the 
White Lion, the Borough Compter, and the Clink, or prison of the 
Clink Liberty, as the Manor of Southwark was of old called. [See 
those names.] " I live," said Mr. Highland, member for Southwark, 
speaking in the House of Commons, June 6, 1667, "I live amongst 
prisoners. In three prisons near me there are above one thousand 
prisoners." 2 Taylor, the Water Poet, thus refers to these prisons : 

Five jayles or prisons are in Southwark placed, 
The Counter, once St. Margarets church defaced, 
The Marshalsea, the Kings Bench and White Lyon 
Then thers the Clinke, where handsome lodgings be, 
And much good may it do them all for me. 

It is pleasanter to remember that the first English Bible printed in 
England was "Imprynted in Southwarke for James Nycolson," 1536. 
Southwark being the last stage towards London was necessarily the 
chosen resort of reformers, disturbers, and lovers of change. Godwin 
and his sons made incursions in 1052. Simon de Montfort was here 
in 1264 during the Barons' Wars; attempts were made to take him by 
surprise at his lodgings, but they failed. In 1554 Sir Thomas Wyatt 
found his way to Tower Hill through Southwark. In 1666 Colonel 
Thompson and 2000 of people gathered here "for King Jesus." 

1 Piozziana, p. 183. 2 Burton's Diary, vol. ii. p. 191. 



SOUTHWARK FAIR 287 



A great change was made in the appearance of Southwark when 
George Dance the younger, R.A., "Clerk of y e City's Works" at the 
end of the last century, laid out the Bridge House estate of the 
Corporation in St. George's Fields. Since then changes have been 
continuous, and very little of the old-fashioned character of the 
Borough is now left. [See also Bankside, Barclay and Perkins's 
Brewery, Bear Garden, Bridge Ward Without, George (St.) the 
Martyr, Globe Theatre, Guy's Hospital, Hope Theatre, Horselydown, 
Mint, Olave (St.), Paris Garden, Rose, Saviour (St.), Thomas (St.) a 
Waterings, Thomas's (St.) Hospital, Winchester House.] 

Southwark Bridge, a bridge over the Thames, was of three cast- 
iron arches, resting on stone piers, at the narrowest part of the river, 
between London and Blackfriars Bridges. It was designed by Sir John 
Rennie, and erected by a public company, at an expense of about 
,800,000. The first stone was laid April 23, 1815, by Admiral 
Viscount Keith. The bridge was opened without any public cere- 
mony at midnight of March 24, 1819. The span of the centre arch 
is 240 feet, of the side arches each 210 feet. The entire weight of 
iron employed in upholding the bridge is about 5780 tons. The 
roadway is 700 feet long and 42 wide. The approach from the City 
is by Queen Street, Cheapside. Southwark Bridge was purchased by 
the Corporation of London in 1866 for ^218,868, and made free 
of toll. A good general account of the bridge and its erection will be 
found in the Autobiography of Sir John Rennie^ pp. 7 and 22-26. 

Southwark Fair, called also the Lady Fair and St. Margaret's 
Fair. It was one of the three great fairs of special importance 
described in a Proclamation of Charles I., "unto which there is usually 
extraordinary resort out of all parts of the kingdom." 1 The three 
fairs were Bartholomew Fair, Sturbridge Fair, near Cambridge, and Our 
Lady Fair, in the borough of Southwark. Liberty to hold an annual 
fair in Southwark, on September 7, 8, and 9, was granted to the 
City of London by the charter of 2 Edward IV. (November 2, 
1462), but it was probably held long before in a loose informal manner. 
The charter was confirmed by that of 5 Edward VI. (April 23, 1551), 
together with a Court of piepoudre for the determination of all suits 
and offences occurring during the fair. [See Bartholomew Fair ; Pie- 
powder Court] The fair was held in the public ways, courts and 
inn-yards from above the Tabard to St. George's Church. Though 
the allowed time for its continuance by charter was only three days, it 
generally continued, like other fairs, for fourteen days. It was famous 
for its drolls, puppet shows, rope dancing, music booths, and tippling 
houses. 

September 21, 1 668. To Southwark Fair, very dirty, and there saw the puppet- 
shew of Whittington, which was pretty to see ; and how that idle thing do work 
upon people that see it, and even myself too ! And thence to Jacob Hall's dancing 

1 Rymer, vol. xix. p. 185. 



288 SOUTHWARK FAIR 

on the ropes, where I saw such. action as I never saw before, and mightily worth 
seeing ; and here took acquaintance with a fellow that carried me to a tavern, 
whither came the music of this booth, and by and by Jacob Hall himself, with whom 
I had a mind to speak, to hear whether he had ever any mischief by falls in his time. 
He told me, "Yes, many, but never to the breaking of a limb." He seems a 
mighty strong man. So giving them a bottle or two of wine, I away. Pepys. 

Before going into the fair Pepys had taken the precaution to leave 
his purse with Bland his waterman, " at the Beare," for " fear of his 
pocket being cut." 

September 13, 1660. I saw in Southwark at St. Margaret's Faire, monkies and 
apes dance and do other feates of activity on y e high rope ; they were gallantly clad 
a la mode, went upright, saluted the company, bowing and pulling off their hatts ; 
they saluted one another with as good a grace as if instructed by a dauncing-master. 
They turn'd heels over head with a basket having eggs in it without breaking any ; 
also with lighted candles in their hands and on their heads without extinguishing 
them, and with vessells of water without spilling a drop. I also saw an Italian wench 
daunce and performe all the tricks on y e high rope to admiration ; all the Court 
went to see her. Likewise here was a man who tooke up a piece of iron cannon 
of about 400 Ib. (sic) weight with the haire of his head onely. Evelyn. 

It was studied for its low life by Hogarth and Gay, who have left us 
the celebrated picture of Southwark Fair and the popular Beggar's Opera, 
Powell, Booth, and Macklin were all three introduced at the fail 

His [Boheme's] first appearance was at a Booth in Soiithwark Fair, which in 
those days, lasted two weeks, and was much frequented by persons of all distinctions, 
of both sexes ; he acted the part of Menelaus in the best droll I ever saw, called the 
Siege of Troy. Victor's History of the Theatres (1761), vol. ii. p. 74. 

Timothy Fielding, the actor (who has been confused with Henry 
Fielding, the author), had a booth at Southwark Fair. [See BLUE MAID 
ALLEY.] The bellman by order of the Justices cried down the fair in 
1743, and it was prohibited for the future by the Common Council in 
1762, having long been scandalous for its scenes of riot and immorality ; 
it was finally suppressed by the Corporation in September 1763. 

Southwark Park, of 63 acres, was formed by the Metropolitan 
Board of Works and opened to the public in 1869. The name has 
the same misappropriateness as that of Finsbury Park. Southwark 
Park is situated immediately west of the Commercial Docks and the 
Deptford Lower Road, with the whole of Bermondsey between it and 
Southwark. The park is in the midst of a dense and very poor 
population, to whom it is a great boon, and by whom it appears to be 
thoroughly appreciated. It cost about ,96,000. There was an old 
Southwark Park, an appendage to Suffolk House and a part of the 
King's Manor, which was excepted from the grant of the borough of . 
Southwark to the City of London in the charter of Edward VI. 1 

Southwark Place, SOUTHWARK. [See Suffolk House, Southwark.] 

Southwark Street, a broad and handsome street (but disfigured 
at its western end by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway 

1 Norton, p. 388. 



AY 1 ./ FIELDS 289 



bridge which crosses it there), constructed by the Metropolitan Board 
of Works and opened in 1864. It cost ^555,922. It is 70 feet wide 
and 3450 feet long, and runs from the Borough High Street, a little 
south of the Borough Market, in an easy curve to the Blackfriars Road, 
opposite Stamford Street, and is lined for the most part with large and 
substantial warehouses and offices, some of them of considerable 
architectural pretension. Such are the Hop Exchange (opened 1867), 
the Southwark and the Alliance Chambers, etc. The east end is much 
occupied by hop merchants and factors ; farther west are wholesale 
stationers, druggists, oil-merchants, engineers, and other large business 
establishments. 

Spa Fields, CLERKENWELL, so called from the London Spa, a 
mineral spring of some celebrity in the i?th and first half of the i8th 
century. The Spa House stood at the angle where Exmouth and 
Rosoman Streets meet. [See London Spa.] The fields were also 
known as Ducking Pond Fields, Clerkenwell Fields, and Pipe Fields. 
They were an open waste, notorious for bull-baiting, duck-hunting, 
pugilism, wrestling and other rough sports, and a favourite Sunday 
prom^ ide for Londoners. They began to be built over in 1817, and 
were m a few years covered thickly with houses. 

March 27 (Lord's Day), 1664. It being church-time walked to St. James's, to 
try if I could see the belle Butler, but could not ; only saw her sister, who indeed is 
pretty, with a fine Roman nose. Thence walked through the Ducking Pond Fields ; 
but they are so altered since my father used to carry us to Islington, to the old man 
at the King's Head, to eat cakes and ale (his name was Pitts), that I did not know 
which was the Ducking Pond, nor where I was. J \-py.s. 

On Wednesday last two women fought for a new shift, valued at half a guinea, 
in the Spaw Fields, near Islington. The battle was won by the woman called 
Bruising Peg, who beat her antagonist in a terrible manner. Daily Advertiser, June 

22, 1768. 

On Sabbath-day who has not seen 

In colours of the rainbow dizen'd 
The prentice beaux and belles I ween, 

Fatigued with heat with dust half poisen'd 
To Dobncy's strolling, or Pantheon 

Their tea to sip or else regale, 
As on the way they shall agree on, 

With syllabubs or bottled ale. 

London Evening Post, August 1776. 

Malcolm, in his Anecdotes of Manners in London in the Eighteenth 
Century (1803), speaks of Spa Fields as still a great Sunday resort. 

The Ducking Pond was a little west of the London Spa, and by it 
was Ducking Pond House. This was taken down in 1770, and the 
Pantheon, a large circular assembly room, erected on its site. The 
grounds were laid out as a sort of minor Vauxhall or Ranelagh, the 
Ducking Pond being now called the lake, and furnished with boats. 
After a time the Pantheon acquired an evil reputation, and in 1776 
was closed as a place of entertainment, to become shortly the birth- 
place and cradle of a new and influential sect. It was taken by two 
VOL. in u 



290 SPA FIELDS 



"evangelical" clergymen and reopened as Northampton Chapel; the 
lake being drained and, with the grounds, turned into a cemetery. 
This provoked the incumbent of the parish, and the clergymen were 
inhibited by the Ecclesiastical Courts (February 1779) from preaching 
in an unconsecrated place. The chapel was transferred to the Countess 
of Huntingdon and immediately reopened, she making the adjoining 
house her residence with a view to cover, by privilege of peerage, 
clergymen preaching there. The Ecclesiastical Courts, however, 
decided against the claim, and two of her clergy having seceded from 
the Establishment, the chapel became the first chapel of "The 
Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion." It was a plain brick building, 
with a high domical roof and lantern, and had on the front a stone 
inscribed Spa Fields Chapel. It was pulled down 1879. It was 
capable of holding 2000 persons. 

Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, died in the house adjoining, June 
17, 1791. Spa Fields burial-ground became notorious in 1845 in 
consequence of the proprietors burning the bodies of the dead to make 
room for fresh interments. About 1350 bodies, it appeared, were 
annually buried there. The ground was shortly after closed by an 
Order in Council. 

In 1886 a new Spa Fields chapel was built in Lloyd Square, the 
site and building costing ^15,000. 

The Spa Fields Reform Meetings of 1816, which led to the 
suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in the following spring, were 
held on the site of the present Wilmington Square (erected 1818). 
The first meeting was held November 15, when the crowd dispersed 
quietly after being addressed by Orator Hunt from the first floor 
window of the Merlin's Cave public-house. At the second meeting on 
December 2 the Watsons, father and son, spoke from a waggon drawn 
up in front of Merlin's Cave. After much noise and riot young 
Watson called on the mob to follow him and seize the Tower. Having 
sacked the shop of Beckwith, a gunsmith at Snow Hill, on their way, 
they reached Tower Hill, but were there quickly dispersed. In the 
following June young Watson was tried for high treason before Lord 
Ellenborough and acquitted. A Merlin's Cave still occupies the site of 
the old house, the present building being a " gin palace " marked by a 
bust, meant no doubt for Merlin, but which would serve as well for 
Homer, with the equally authentic date, "A.D. 516." It stands at the 
junction of Merlin's Place with Upper Rosoman Street. Wilmington 
Square is immediately south. 

Spanish Place, MANCHESTER SQUARE, is at the north-east corner 
of the square and extends into Charles Street. At its own north-east 
corner is the chapel built for the Spanish Embassy in 1792 from the 
design of Joseph Bonomi, A. R. A., architect, and renovated and decorated 
in 1866 under the superintendence of C. J. Wray, when a new and 
powerful organ by Gray and Davison was added. The campanile was 
raised, 1846, by Charles Parker, architect. In the time of the first 



SPITALFIELDS 291 

French Empire No. 3 was the residence of the Marechal due de Coigny, 
and a great resort of the leading emigres. Michael Faraday, who spent 
his early days in this neighbourhood, often pointed out the spot in this 
street where he used to play marbles. 

'SparagUS Garden, a place of amusement in LAMBETH MARSH, 
adjoining Cuper's Gardens, and now only known, even by name, to local 
antiquaries and the readers of our seventeenth century literature. It was 
a narrow strip running up from the river, a little east of Queen's Arms 
Stairs, the landing-place opposite and answering to Whitehall Stairs. 
Richard Brome wrote a play, called the 'Sparagus Garden, acted in 
1635 at Salisbury Court, and printed in 4to, 1640. 

April 22, 1668. To the fishmonger's and bought a couple of lobsters, and 
over to the 'Sparagus Garden, thinking to have met Mr. Pierce and his wife, and 
Knipp. Pepys. 

Spectacle Makers' Company, the sixtieth on the list of the City 
Companies, an ancient fraternity by prescription, but first incorporated 
by letters patent of Charles I., dated May 16, 1630. The Company 
has a livery, granted by the Court of Aldermen in 1809, but no hall. 

Spencer House, ST. JAMES'S PLACE and the GREEN PARK, was 
built for John Spencer, first Lord Spencer of Althorp (d. 1783). The 
statues on the pediment are by M. H. Spang. The Green Park 
front designed by John Vardy, and the St. James's Place front by James 
Stuart. [See St. James's Place.] 

Spitalfields, a district and parish in the east of London, between 
Bishopsgate and Bethnal Green, inhabited by weavers of silk and other 
poor people. It was a place of sepulture for Roman London, and 
received its name from the fields having once belonged to the Priory 
and Hospital of St. Mary Spital, founded in 1197 by Walter Brune and 
Rosia his wife, and dedicated to the honour of Jesus Christ and the 
Virgin Mary by the name of Domus Dei et Beatse Mariae, extra Bishops- 
gate, in the parish of St. Botolph. Hence the present parish of Christ 
Church, Spitalfields. The old name was Lolesworth, according to 
Stow, who gives a long and particular account of the discovery of a 
large number of Roman cinerary urns, bones, vestiges of coffins and 
various other remains made in excavating on the east side of the church 
for brick-earth in 1576. Stow was himself present during some of 
the diggings, and carried with him a small " pot of white earth . . . 
made in the shape of a hare squatted upon her legs, and between 
her ears the mouth of the pot ; also the lower jaw of a man, some iron 
nails," etc. 1 The fields were covered with buildings between 1650 and 
1660. 

The silk manufacture was planted in Spitalfields by French emi- 
grants, expelled from their own country upon the revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes in 1685, a measure which transferred to this country 

1 Stmu, p. 64. 



292 SPITALFIELDS 

the families of Auriol, Barre, Boileau, Bouverie, Ligonier, Labouchere, 
Romilly, Houblon, Lefroy, Levesque, De la Haye, Garnault, Ouvry, etc. 
In Spitalfields are found many French names, as Bataille, Lafontaine, 
Strachan, Fontaneau, etc., by weavers, enamellers, jewellers, etc., both 
masters and workpeople, down to our own day ; while still more, perhaps, 
translations of the original French names of their ancestors, as Masters 
(Le Maitre), Young (Le Jeune), Black (Lenoir), King (Le Roi), and 
the like ; but the traces of French descent have been fast fading away 
in recent years. The Dollonds were French refugees, and John 
Dollond, the inventor of the achromatic telescope, was born in Spital- 
fields and worked with his father at the loom. In the churchyard of 
the priory (now Spital Square), was a pulpit cross, "somewhat like," 
says Stow, " to that in St. Paul's churchyard," where the celebrated Spital 
sermons were originally preached. The cross was rebuilt in 1594, and 
destroyed during the troubles of Charles I. The sermons, however, 
have been continued to the present time, and are still preached every 
Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday, before the Lord Mayor and 
Aldermen, at Christ Church, Newgate Street. The Christ's Hospital or 
Blue Coat Boys were regular attendants, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 1 
at the Spital sermons at the old cross in Spital Square. 

A hospital or spital signified a charitable institution for the advantage of poor, 
infirm, and aged persons an almshouse, in short ; while spittles were mere lazar- 
houses, receptacles for wretches in the leprosy, and other loathsome diseases the 
consequence of debauchery and vice. Gifford (Note in Massinger' 1 s Works], 

On Easter Sunday the ancient custom is that all the children of the Hospital go 
before my Lord Mayor to the Spittle, that the world may witness the works of God 
and man, in maintenence of so many poor people, the better to stir up living men's 
minds to the same good. A Nest of Ninnies, by Robert Armin, 410, 1 680. 

That other 

That, in pure madrigal, unto his mother 
Commended the French hood and scarlet gown 
The Lady May'ress passed in through the town, 
Unto the Spittle Sermon. Ben Jonson, Underwoods, No. Ixi. 

But the sermon of the greatest length was that concerning Charity before the 
Lord Mayor and Aldermen at the Spittle : in speaking which he [Dr. Barrow] spent 
three hours and a half. Being asked after he came down from the pulpit whether he 
was not tired: "Yes, indeed," said he, "I began to be weary with standing so 
long." Pope's Life of Seth Ward, I2mo, 1697, p. 148. 

The population of Spitalfields in 1881 was 22,585. No district in 
or about London contains a similar mass of low-rented houses to that 
of Spitalfields and Bethnal Green. The weavers' houses generally con- 
sist of two rooms on the ground floor and a workroom above. This 
workroom always has a window the whole length of the room for the 
admission of light to the loom ; in these small, crowded, and often dirty 
rooms some of the most delicate and exquisitely wrought velvets, satins, 
and brocaded- silks have been produced. But the weaving population 
of Spitalfields has been for some years declining. Many of the houses 
above described have been swept away in constructing Commercial 

1 Stovj, p. 119. 



SPRING GARDENS 293 



Street, the formation and extension of the C.rcat Eastern Railway, and 
in various local alterations and improvements, and few if any such 
houses have been built in their place. The character of the district 
has undergone a marked change in the last few years, but it remains 
distinctively a region of small, low-rented and overcrowded houses, in- 
habited by a very poor population. [See Christ Church, Spitalfields ; 
Pelham Street, Spital Square, Wheeler Street.] 

" In 1870, when the promulgation of the celebrated decree of papal infallibility 
had been resolved upon, it was deemed necessary that the Pope should wear at the 
attendant ceremony a new vestment woven entirely in one piece. Italy, France, 
and other European countries were vainly searched for a weaver capable of executing 
this work, and at last the order came to England, where in Spitalfields was found 
the only man able to make the garment, and he, by a strange irony of fate, one of 
the erstwhile persecuted Huguenot race." Booth's Labour and Life of the People, 
1889, vol. i. p. 394, note. 

Bishop Wilson of Calcutta was born in Church Street, Spitalfields, 
July 22, 1778. A view of the house is given in his Life, vol. i. p. 3. 

Spital Square, SPITALFIELDS, is an open place on the east side of 
Norton Folgate, formerly a centre of the silk and velvet trade. Thomas 
Stothard, R.A., passed a seven years' apprenticeship with a "draftsman 
of patterns for brocaded silk " in this square ; and here his genius was 
first discovered by Harrison, the publisher of the Novelist's Magazine, 
which was to owe its popularity to his graceful pencil. 1 

Spittle Croft, a burying ground of 13 acres, consecrated in 1349 
by Dr. Ralph Stratford, Bishop of London, situated near Charterhouse 
Square. 

And the Plague coming on with great fury in the year 1349, Sir Walter de 
Manny . . . purchased of the Master and Brethren of St. Bartholomew's Spittle, a piece 
of ground called Spittle Croft, containing thirteen acres and a rod . . . and there 
were buried in that year more than fifty thousand corpses in these thirteen acres and 
a rod of ground. Bearcroft's Stitton and Charter House, 1737, p. 164. 

Spring Gardens, between St. JAMES'S PARK and CHARING CROSS 
and WHITEHALL, a garden dating at latest from the reign of James I., 
with butts, bathing -pond, pheasant -yard, and bowling-green, attached 
to the King's Palace at Whitehall, and so called from a jet or spring of 
water, which sprung with the pressure of the foot, and wetted whoever 
was foolish or ignorant enough to tread upon it. 

In March 1610, there is a " Grant to Geo. Johnson, Keeper of the King's Sprin^ 
Garden ;" amd in the same month funds are assigned for " making defence for orange 
and other fruit trees in the Park and Spring Garden." In March, 1611, the minion 
Robert Carr was created Viscount Rochester, and appointed Keeper of the Palace oj 
Westminster, part of the duty being to "keep and preserve wild beasts and fowl in 
St. James's Park and Garden and Spring Garden" (Cal. State Pap., 161 1-1618, p. 57, 
etc.) Among the Egerton MSS., No. 806, in the British Museum, is an account of 
' ' Charges don in doeinge of sundry needful reparacons about the Pkc and Springe 
Garden, beginninge primojtilij, 1614, and ending ultimo Septem. next." The water 
was supplied by pipes of lead from St. James's Fields. Among other charges at the 

1 Life, by Mrs. Bray, p. 9. 



294 SPRING GARDENS 



end is one, " For two clucking henns to sett upon the pheasant eggs, iiij s ." On the 
29th of November, 1601, a payment was made to George Johnson, keeper of the 
Spring Garden, for a scaffold which he had erected against the Park wall in the Tilt 
Yard, for "the Countie Egmond"to see the tilters (Chalmer's Apology, vol. i. p. 
340). And in 1630 Simon Osbaldeston was appointed keeper of the King's Garden 
called the Spring Garden and of His Majesty's Bowling-green there. It appears by 
the patent (Pat. 7 Car., pt. 8, No. 4) that the garden was made a Bowling-green by 
command of Charles I Lysons's Environs, vol. i. p. 324 ; Lord Chamberlain's 
Warrant Book, vol. i. p. 252. 

In a garden joining to this Palace [Whitehall] there is a jet d'eau, with a sun-dial, 
at which, while strangers are looking, a quantity of water forced by a wheel, which 
the gardener turns at a distance through a number of little pipes, plentifully sprinkles 
those that are standing round. Hentzner's Travels, anno, 1598. 

Water-springs of this description were not uncommon in gardens of 
the time of Queen Elizabeth, and even later. One of this character 
existed at Chatsworth ; and Nares, in his Glossary, says that the 
spring-garden described by Plot was to be seen at Enstone, in Oxford- 
shire, in 1822. 

But look thee, Martius ; not a vein runs here, 

From head to foot, but Sophocles would unseam, 

And like a Spring Garden, shoot his scornful blood 

Into their eyes, durst come to tread on him. 

Beaumont and Fletcher, ed. Dyce, vol. ii. p. 484. 

To John Sweate, carpenter, for framing and putting up two Sluces <?f tymber in 
the Spring Garden, and a new Bridge with tymber and plankes and nailes on each 
side, Ix foote in length, to lead to the Duck Pond Island, and for framing and setting 
up a Sluce at the Pond in Scotland Yard . . . 6 : 13 14. Crown Works at 
Whitehall, 1634-1635. 

April 18, 1633. The Earl of Holland was on Saturday last very solemnly 
restord at Council Table (the King present) from a kind of eclipse wherein he had 
stood since the Tuesday fortnight before. . . . All the cause yet known was a verbal 
challenge sent from him by Mr. Henry Germain to the now Lord Weston, newly 
returned from his foreign imployments, that ... he did him at such a time, even 
in the Spring Garden (close under his father's window) with his sword by his side. 
Sir H. Wotton to Sir Edmund Bacon (Rel. Wott,, p. 455). 

The great bowling green in this garden, and a " new garden house for 
his Majesty to repose in," were made in 1629 by William Walker for 
Charles I., the bowling green with turf from Blackheath. 1 

June 3, 1634. The Bowling-green in the Spring Garden was, by the King's 
command, put .down for one day, but by the intercession of the Queen it was 
reprieved for this year ; but hereafter it shall be no common bowling-place. There 
was kept in it an ordinary of six shillings a meal (when the King's proclamation 
allows but two elsewhere), continual bibbing and drinking wine all day under the 
trees ; two or three quarrels every week. It was grown scandalous and insufferable ; 
besides my Lord Digby being reprehended for striking [Will. Crofts] in the King's 
garden, he answered that he took it for a common bowling-place, where all paid 
money for their coming in. Garrard to Lord Strafford (Strafford Papers, vol. i. 
p. 262). 

Since the Spring Garden was put down, we have, by a servant of the Lord 
Chamberlain's, a new Spring Garden erected in the fields behind the Muse [See 
Piccadilly], where is built a fair house, and two bowling greens made, to entertain 
gamesters and bowlers at an excessive rate ; for I believe it has cost him ^4000, a 

1 Accounts, favoured by Lord Chamberlain's office. 



SPRING GARDENS 



295 



dear undertaking for a gentleman barber. My Lord Chamberlain much frequents 
that place, where they bowl great matches. Garrard to Lord Strafford (Strafford 
Papers, vol. i. p. 435). 

When James, Duke of York, made his escape from St. James's Palace, 
April 20, 1648, he and Colonel Bam field passed into and out of the 
Spring Garden "as gallants come to hear the nightingale." 

As for the pastimes of my sisters, when they were in the country, it was to read, 
work, walk, and discourse with each other. Commonly they lived half the year in 
London. Their customs were in winter time to go sometimes to plays or to ride in 
their coaches about the streets, to see the concourse and recourse of people, and in 
the spring time to visit the Spring Garden, Hyde Park, and the like places ; and 
sometimes they would have music and sup in barges upon the water. Margaret 
Lucas, Duchess of Newcastle (temp. Charles I.) 

June 13, 1649. I dined with my worthy friend Sir John Owen. . . . After- 
wards I treated ladies of my relations in Spring Garden. Evelyn. 

Shall we make a fling to London, and see how the spring appears there in the 
Spring Garden ; and in Hyde Park, to see the races, horse and foot ? R. Brome, 
A Jovial! Crew, 4to, 1652. 

May 10, 1654. My Lady Gerrard treated us at Mulberry Garden, now y e onely 
place of refreshment about the toune for persons of the best quality to be exceedingly 
cheated at ; Cromwell and his partizans having shut up and seized on Spring Garden, 
w ch till now had been y e usual rendezvous for the ladys and gallants at this season. 
Evelyn. 

May 20, 1658. I went to see a coach race in Hyde Park, and collationed in 
Spring Garden. Evelyn. 

The manner is as the company returns [from Hyde Park] to alight at the Spring 
Garden so called, in order to the Parke, as our Thuilleries is to the Course ; the 
inclosure not disagreeable, for the solemnness of the grove, the warbling of the birds, 
and as it opens into the spacious walks at St. James's ; but the company walk in it 
at such a rate, you would think that all the ladies were so many Atalantas contending 
with their wooers . . . But as fast as they ran they stay there so long as if they wanted 
not time to finish the race ; for it is usual here to find some of the young company 
till midnight ; and the thickets of the garden seem to be contrived to all advantages 
of gallantry, after they have been refreshed with the collation, which is here seldom 
omitted, at a certain cabaret, in the middle of this paradise, where the forbidden 
fruits are certain trifling tarts, neats' tongues, salacious meats, and bad Rhenish ; 
for which the gallants pay sauce, as indeed they do at all such houses throughout 
England. A Character of England, etc. (attributed to Evelyn), I2mo, 1659, 
p. 56. 

After the Restoration the Spring Garden at Charing Cross was called 
the Old Spring Garden, the ground built upon, and the entertainments 
removed to the New Spring Garden at Lambeth, since called Vauxhall}- 
Pepys preferred the new Spring Garden to the old one. 

May 29, 1662. To the old Spring Garden, and there walked long, and the 
wenches [his wife's two maids] gathered pinks. Here we staid and seeing that we 
could not have anything to eate, but very dear and with long stay, we went forth 
again without any notice taken of us, and so we might have done if we had had 
anything. Thence to the new one, where I never was before, which much exceeds 
the other. Pepys. 

In the early part of the i8th century there was another Spring 
Garden at Knightsbridge, like the Old and the New Spring Gardens, 

1 London Gazette of 1675, No. 981. 



296 SPRING GARDENS 



a place of public resort. 1 The ground built upon was called " Inner 
Spring Garden " and " Outer Spring Garden." 2 

The Blue Posts in Spring Garden was the rendezvous of the 
conspirators in the plot to assassinate William III., in the spring of 
1696. 

Eminent Inhabitants. Sir Philip Warwick, in 1661, etc., author of 
the Memoirs which bear his name ; he lived in Outer Spring Garden. 
Warwick Street, adjoining, was named after him. Sir William Morris, 
in 1662, etc., in Outer Spring Garden. Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, 
1667-1670, in Outer Spring Garden. Prince Rupert, from 1674 to 
his death in November 1682. The Lord Crofts, "mad Lord Crofts," 
1674, etc. In the books of the Lord Steward's office he is described 
as living, in 1677, "in the place commonly called the Old Spring 
Garden." Sir Edward Hungerford, in 1681, after his removal from 
the site of Hungerford Market. Colley Gibber, from 1711 to 1714. 

In or near the old Play-house in Drury Lane, on Monday last, the igth of 
January, a watch was dropp'd having a Tortoise-shell Case inlaid with silver, a silver 
chain, and a gold seal ring, the arms a cross wavy and chequer. Whoever brings it 
to Mr. Gibber, at his House near the Bull Head Tavern in Old Spring Garden at 
Charing Cross, shall have three guineas reward. The Daily Courant, January 20, 
I703- 

The Earls of Berkeley from 1772. [See Berkeley House.] Admiral 
Sir Charles Saunders, one of the most distinguished on our long 
roll of seamen, died at his house in Spring Gardens, December 7, 
1775. Sir Gilbert Elliott (first Earl of Minto) was living here before 
his expedition to Toulon, 1793. George Canning at No. 13 (right-hand 
corner of Cockspur Street). On March 12, 1799, he writes to Malone 
asking him to take his place in the chair at "The Club." 3 

A lady having put to Canning the silly question "Why have they the spaces 
in the iron gate at Spring Gardens so narrow?" he replied, "Oh Ma'am, because 
such very fat people tried to go through," a reply concerning which Tom Moore 
said that the person who does not relish it can have no perception of real wit. 
Dyce's Rogers, p. 160. 

The first Earl of Malmesbury at No. 1 4. 

Sunday, November 3, 1805. Mr. Pitt and Lord Mulgrave came to me in Spring 
Gardens, about 10 o'clock, with a Dutch newspaper in which the capitulation of 
Ulm was inserted at full length. As they neither of them understood Dutch, and all 
the offices were empty, they came to me to translate it, which I did as well as I 
" could ; and I observed but too clearly the effect which it had on Pitt, though he did 
his utmost to conceal it. This was the last time I saw him. Lord Malmesbury 's 
Dia?y. 

Sir Robert Taylor, the architect of the Bank of England and 
founder of the Taylor Institute, Oxford, died at his house in 
Spring Gardens, September 27, 1788, leaving a fortune of ;i 80,000, 
though, as he used to say, he began life with hardly eighteenpence. 
His son, Michael Angelo Taylor, whose name is attached to the well- 

1 He carried me to the Spring Garden at Moll Flanders, Talboy s ed., p. 243. 
fCmghtsbrieige, where we walked in the gardens, - Rate-books of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. 

and he treated me very handsomely. Defoe's 3 Prior, Life of Malone, p. 256. 



SQUIRE'S COFFEE-HOUSE 297 

known Act of Parliament 1816-1817, relating to paving, also died here 
in 1834. In June 1838 another eminent and equally prosperous 
architect, Sir George Gilbert Scott, " settled down," as he wrote, shortly 
fifter his marriage, at No. 20 (now 31) Spring Gardens, and continued 
to live there till 1844, when he removed to St. John's Wood; but the 
house in Spring Gardens continued to be his professional office till 
his death. The houses are now principally used as offices. No. 24 is 
the Land Revenue Records and Enrolments Office, and the Admiralty 
has No. 26. At the Park end, Nos. 10 to 14, was the office of the 
Metropolitan Board of Works, erected in 1860, from the designs of 
Fred. Marrable, architect to the Board. It is a large Palladian edifice, 
now occupied by the London County Council. The meeting-room 
has been (1890) enlarged to afford accommodation for the increased 
number of representatives at a cost of over ^16, 500. " The Great Room 
in Spring Garden," where the Society of Artists held their exhibitions 
for several years, now forms a part of the offices of the London County 
Council. Hogarth designed a frontispiece for the second exhibition in 
1761. St. Matthew's Episcopal Chapel, at the corner of New Street, 
was built by an ancestor of Lord Clifford, and occasioned a dispute in 
1792 between Lord Clifford and the vicar of St. Martin's -in -the 
Fields, who claimed the right of presentation. It is now closed as a 
place of worship, and is filled with Admiralty Records. [See Bull 
Head Tavern.] 

Spur Alley, in the STRAND, an opening under the Salutation 
Tavern, 1 now Craven Street, in the Strand, and so called since I742. 2 

Vertue had received two different accounts of his [Grinling Gibbons's] birth ; from 
Murray the painter, that he was born in Holland of English parents, and came over 
at the age of nineteen ; from Stoakes (relation of the Stones), that his father was a 
Dutchman, but that Gibbons himself was born in Spur Alley in the Strand. 
Horace Walpole. 

The truth is, Gibbons was born at Rotterdam on April 4, i648. 3 

Spur Inn, No. 129 BOROUGH HIGH STREET, SOUTHWARK. Spur 
Inn Yard still remains ; and there is a 17th-century token of the Spur 
Inn in the Guildhall Collection. 

From thence [the Marshalsea] towards London Bridge, on the same side, be 
many fair inns for receipt of travellers by these signs, the Spurre, Christopher, Hull, 
Queene's Head, Tabarde, George, Hart, Kinge's Head, etc. Amongst the which 
the most ancient is the Tabard. Stow, p. 154. 

This inn is shown in the plan of the borough in 1542, reproduced in 
Rendle's Old Southivark. 

Spurriers' Lane, TOWER STREET. [See Water Lane.] 
Spurriers' Row, LUDGATE HILL. [See Creed Lane.] 

Squire's Coffee-house, FULWOOD'S RENTS, was so called from 
a Mr. Squire, " a noted coffee man in Fuller's Rents," who died 

1 Harleian MS., 6850, temp. James I. 3 Black's Catalogue of the Ashmoltan MSS, 

2 Rate-books of St. Martin's-in-the- Fields. col. 209. 



298 SQUIRE'S COFFEE-HOUSE 

September 1 8, 1717. It was patronised by the benchers and students 
of Gray's Inn. 

I do not know that I meet, in any of my walks, objects which move both my 
spleen and laughter so effectually, as those young fellows at the Grecian, Squire's, 
Serle's, and all other coffee houses adjacent to the Law. The Spectator, No. 49. 

Having passed away the greatest part of the morning in hearing the Knight's 
[Sir Roger de Coverley's] reflections, he asked me if I would smoke a pipe with him 
over a dish of coffee at 'Squire's. The Spectator, No. 269. 

Stafford House, in ST. JAMES'S PARK, between St. James's Palace 
and the Green Park, occupies the site of the library built by Caroline, 
wife of George II. [See Queen's Library], and partly that of Godolphin 
House. It was built, all but the upper storey, for the Duke of York 
(second son of George III.), with money advanced for that purpose by 
the Marquis of Stafford, afterwards first Duke of Sutherland (d. 
1833), Benj. Wyatt, architect. The Duke of York did not live to 
inhabit it, and the Crown lease, pursuant to 4 and 5 Viet. c. 27, was 
sold to the Duke of Sutherland on July 6, 1841, for the sum of 
^72,000, the original cost of the building. The purchase money 
was spent in the formation of Victoria Park. The upper storey was 
added for the Duke of Sutherland, by Sir Charles Barry, R.A., architect. 
This is said to be the finest private mansion in the metropolis. The 
great dining-room is worthy of Versailles. The internal arrange- 
ments were also planned by Barry. The pictures, too, are very 
fine ; but the collection is private, to which admission is obtained only 
by the express invitation or permission of the duke. The collection is 
distributed throughout the house. The Sutherland Gallery, as it is 
called, is a noble and splendidly decorated room, 136 feet long by 32 

feet wide. 

PRINCIPAL PICTURES. 

RAPHAEL. Christ bearing His Cross, a small full-length figure, seen against a 

sky background between two pilasters adorned with arabesques. 
GUIDO. Head of the Magdalen. Study for the large picture of Atalanta in 

the Royal Palace at Naples. The Circumcision. 
GUERCINO. St. Gregory. St. Grisogono. A Landscape. 
PARMEGIANO. Head of a Young Man (very fine). 
TINTORETTO. A Lady at her Toilet. 
TITIAN. Mercury teaching Cupid to read in the presence of Venus (an Orleans 

picture, figures life size). St. Jerome in the Desert. Three Portraits. 
MORONI. Head of a Jesuit (very fine). 
MURILLO (5). Two from Marshal Soult's Collection the Return of the 

Prodigal Son (a composition of nine figures). Abraham and the Angels. 

Cost ^3000. 

F. ZURBARAN (4). Three from Soult's Collection (very fine). 

VELASQUEZ (2). Duke of Gandia at the Door of a Convent, eight figures, life 

size, from the Soult Collection. Landscape. 
ALBERT DURER. The Death of the Virgin. 
HONTHORST. Christ before Pilate (Honthorst's chef d'&uvre), from the Lucca 

Collection. 
N. POUSSIN (3). 

G. POUSSIN (i). 

RUBENS (4). Holy Family. Marriage of St. Catherine. Sketch, en grisaille, 



STAFFORD ROW 299 



for the great picture in the Louvre, of the Marriage of Henry IV. and 

Marie <U- Medicis. 
VAN DYCK (4). Three-quarter portrait of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, 

seated in an arm-chair (very fine and admirably engraved by Sharp). 

Two Portraits. St. Martin dividing his Cloak (in a circle). 
WATTEAU (5). All fine. 

D. TENIERS (2). A Witch performing her Cantations. Ducks in a Reedy 
Pool. 

TKRBURG. Gentleman bowing to a Lady (very fine). 

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Dr. Johnson without his Wig, and with his hands up. 

SIR D. WILKIE. The Breakfast Table, painted for the first Duke of 

Sutherland. 
SIR T. LAWRENCE. LadyGower and Child (afterwards Duchess of Sutherland, 

and her daughter, the Duchess of Argyll). 

E. BIRD, R.A. Day after the Battle of Chevy Chase. 

E. LANDSEER, R.A. Lord Stafford and Lady Evelyn Gower (Lady Blantyre). 

W. ETTY, R.A. Festival before the Flood. 

JOHN MARTIN. The Assuaging of the Waters. 

PAUL DELAROCHE. Lord Strafford on his way to the Scaffold receives the 

blessing of Archbishop Laud. 
WINTERHALTKR. Scene from the Decameron. 
A collection of 1 50 portraits, illustrative of French history and French memoirs. 

The land on which Stafford House stands belongs to the Crown, 
and the duke pays an annual ground rent for the same of 7 5 8. At 
least ^250,000 were spent on Stafford House up to 1850. 

Stafford Row, PIMLICO, extended from Buckingham Palace Gate 
to Brewer Street, and was so called after Sir William Howard, Lord 
Viscount Stafford, beheaded (1680) on the perjured evidence of Titus 
Gates and others. [See Tart Hall.] Stafford Row has been pretty 
well cleared away for the office of the Duchy of Cornwall, the 
Buckingham Palace Hotel, etc., and is now included in Buckingham 
Palace Gate and Buckingham Palace Road. Here (1767) lived 
William Wynne Ryland, the engraver, executed for forgery, August 29, 
1783. Here lived for many years; and died, December 1781, Judith 
Cowper (Mrs. Madan), Pope's correspondent. No. 9 was the resi- 
dence of Grosvenor Bedford, the correspondent of Horace Walpole. 
O'Keefe, the actor, was for some time a resident in Stafford Row. 
Here too resided Anna Maria Yates, the celebrated tragic actress. 
Her house was a favourite resort of Arthur Murphy, John Home, 
Richard Cumberland, and other literary men connected with the stage. 
She died here in 1787 ; and in 1796 was followed by her husband, 
Richard Yates, also actor, and famous for his old men's parts. Yates had 
ordered eels for dinner, and died the same day of rage and disappoint- 
ment because his housekeeper was unable to obtain them. The 
actor's great-nephew was, a few months after, August 22, 1796, killed 
while endeavouring to force an entry into the house of his uncle, to 
whose property he thought, as heir at law, he had a just claim. He 
was a lieutenant in the navy, and an artist of some merit. Mrs. 
Radcliffe, author of the Mysteries of Udolpho, died here, February 7, 
1823, m her sixty-second year. 



300 STAFFORD STREET 

Stafford Street, OLD BOND STREET to ALBEMARLE STREET, 
occupies the exact site of the Chancellor Clarendon's mansion. A 
public-house, " The Duke of Albemarle," perpetuates the name of the 
next possessor. A stone was formerly let into the wall with the 
inscription, "This is Stafford Street, 1686." 

Staining Lane, WOOD STREET, Gresham Street West to Oat Lane. 
Staining Lane of old time so called, as may be supposed, of painter stainers 
dwelling there. Stow, p. 114. 

When Charles V. was about to visit England in 1522 an inventory 
was taken of the accommodation afforded by the London, when " The 
signe of the Egle in Stanyng Lane," was returned as having " vi beddes, 
and a stable for xvi horses." x The old church of St. Mary Staining 
was at the north end of the lane. [See St. Mary Staining.] The 
hall and chapel of the Haberdashers' Company are on the east side. 
The houses in the lane are chiefly occupied by wholesale warehouse- 
men. 

Stamford Bridge, FULHAM ROAD, nearly opposite the Chelsea 
Station of the West London Extension Railway. Here, on the west of 
the West London Cemetery, and close to the Lillie Bridge Grounds, 
are the grounds of the London Athletic Club, opened February 3, 
1878, one of the principal metropolitan places for the practice of 
general athletic sports, lawn tennis, and the like. 

Stamford Street runs from WATERLOO ROAD to the BLACKFRIARS 
BRIDGE ROAD, and was built in the present century on part of Lam- 
beth Marsh. John Rennie, the engineer, the builder of Waterloo and 
South wark Bridges, lived at No. 52 (now 18), and died there, October 
1 6, 1821, in his sixty-first year. He was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. 
On the east side are the Stamford Street Unitarian Chapel (1827) 
noticeable by its massive Doric portico, and a Gothic Wesleyan Chapel. 
On the north side is the Hospital for Diseases of the Skin. In Duke 
Street, Stamford Street, is Messrs. Clowes's vast printing-office. 

Standard in Cheap, a water standard or conduit, situated " about 
the midst of this street " [Cheapside], opposite Honey Lane, but " of 
what antiquity the first foundation," added Stow, " I have not read." 
The Standard in Cheap was a place for the execution of capital and 
minor punishments, the making of proclamations, etc. Stow mentions 
that in 1293 "three men had their right hands smitten off there, for 
rescuing of a prisoner arrested by an officer of the City." Wat Tyler 
in 1381 beheaded Richard Lions and others; and in 1450 Jack Cade 
beheaded Lord Saye at the Standard in Cheap. 2 

Also the same yere [17 Hen. VI., 1439], in hervest tyme were brent at the 
Standard in Chepe diverse nettes, cappes, sadelys and other chaffare, for they were 
falsely mad and deseyvebly to the peple. Zowofcw Chronicle , edited by Sir N. H. 
Nicolas. 

[See Cheapside.] 

1 Rutland Papers, p. 29. . z Stow , p. 100. 



STANHOPE STREET 301 

Standard in Cornhill, a water-standard, with four spouts, made 
(1582) by Peter Morris, a German, and supplied with water conveyed 
from the Thames, by pipes of lead. It stood at the east end of 
Cornhill, at its junction with Gracechurch Street, Hishopsgate Street, 
,'iul Leadenhall Street, and with the waste water from its four spouts 
cleansed the channels of the four streets. The water ceased to run 
between 1598 and 1603 ; but the Standard itself remained for a long 
time after. It was long in use as a point of measurement for distances 
from the City, and several of our suburban milestones were, but a very 
few years ago, and some perhaps are still, inscribed with so many miles 
"from the Standard in Cornhill." There was a Standard in Cornhill 
as early as the 2d of Henry V. 1 [See Cornhill.] 

Standard Theatre, SHOREDITCH, opposite the former terminus, 
now the Goods Station of the Great Eastern Railway, with an entrance 
from Holywell Street, occupies in part the site of the old Curtain 
Theatre. It was burnt down in October 1866, but immediately rebuilt 
on an improved plan, and is now one of the largest theatres in London. 
It will, it is said, accommodate an audience of 4500 persons. 

Stangate, LAMBETH, from the west foot of Westminster Bridge to 
Lambeth Marsh. Stukeley, who calls it Stanega Ferry, traces the old 
Roman road from Chester to Dover through St. James's Park and Old 
Palace Yard to Stanegate and Canterbury, and so to the three famous 
seaports, Rutupise, Dubris, and Lemanis. 2 His itinerary is not quite 
accurate, but Stangate was a part of or on the Roman road to the 
South Coast, and it has been stated that " from Lambeth to Fisher's 
Gate on the Sussex Coast, the word Gate is added to the names of 
nearly all the places through which the Roman road passes." 3 

Had they a standynge at Shooter's Hill, or at Stangat Hole to take a pourse ? 
Why : dyd they stande by hyghe waye ? Did they robbe ? or break open any man's 
house or dore ? Latimer's Third Sermon to Edward VI., 1549. 

A large tract of ground was here rescued from the river, upon which the 
new St. Thomas's Hospital was built, 1868-1871. 

Stanhope House, WHITEHALL, the residence of George Monk, 
Duke of Albemarle. 

There was a Trunk on Saturday last, being the iSth inst. [July, 1672-1673] cut 
off from behind the Duke of Albemarle's coach, wherein there was a Gold George, 
1 8 Shirts, a Tennis Sute laced, with several fronts and laced Cravats and other Linen ; 
if any can give tidings of them to Mr. Lymbyery the Duke's Steward at Stanhope 
House near Whitehall, they shall have five pounds for their pains and all charges 
otherwise defrayed. London Gazette, No. 748. 

Stanhope Street, CLARE MARKET, so called after Ann Stanhope, 
wife of John Holies, first Earl of Clare, and mother of the celebrated 
Denzil Holies : she died in 1651 in "the corner house of the Middle 

1 Stow, p. 71 ; 'London Chronicle (Nicholas), p. 99. 
2 Her. Curiosuw, p. 113. 3 Edinb. Rev., May 1828, p. 515. 



302 STANHOPE STREET 

Piazza in Covent Garden." Joe Grimaldi, the greatest of clowns, was 
born in this street, December 18, I778. 1 He was baptized at St. 
Clement Danes. John [Lord] Campbell rented, Michaelmas 1800, 
" the second floor [Scotice, the third storey] of No. 6 Stanhope Street, 
Clare Market. ... I get it, unfurnished, at the rate of ;i8 a year, 
including 2 a year for service. ... I have three rooms a parlour, 
a bedroom, and a large dressing closet." 2 

Stanhope Street, MAY FAIR, now Great Stanhope Street, 
consists of fifteen spacious houses, built on ground belonging to the 
Dean and Chapter of Westminster, and runs from South Audley Street 
to Park Lane. No. i is the town residence of the Duke of Manchester; 
No. 3 of the Earl of Jersey ; No. 8 of the Earl of Lanesborough. 

Eminent Inhabitants. Right Hon. Charles Townshend in 1777. 
George Canning writes to Crabbe the poet from "Stanhope Street, 
November 13, 1817." Colonel Barre, Adjutant-General of Wolfe's 
army at Quebec, and, as a politician, the faithful adherent of Chatham, 
lived and died (1802) at No. 12 in this street. In this house Sir 
Robert Peel the statesman lived (1820-1825), and here his heroic son, 
William, was born, November 2, 1824, as is recorded on his tomb at 
Cawnpore. Lord Palmerston at No. 9. Henry Fitzroy, first Lord 
Raglan (died before Sebastopol, June 28, 1855), at No. 5. Field- 
Marshal Henry, first Viscount Hardinge (died, September 24, 1856), at 
No. 15. 

Staple Inn, HOLBORN, an Inn of Chancery (before 1415) 
appertaining to Gray's Inn, extends from No. 2 Holborn Bars to 
Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane. The houses are built about 
an open quadrangle, and behind is a pleasant garden. 

Staple Inn was the Inne or Hostell of the Merchants of the Staple (as the tra- 
dition is), wherewith until I can learne better matter, concerning the antiquity and 
foundation thereof, I must rest satisfied. But for latter matters I cannot chuse but 
make report, and much to the prayse and commendation of the Gentlemen of this 
House, that they have bestowed great costs in new-building a fayre Hall of brick, 
and two parts of the outward Courtyards, besides other lodging in the garden and 
elsewhere, and have thereby made it the fayrest Inne of Chauncery in this 
Universitie. Sir George Buc (Howes, ed. 1631, p. 1065). 

Staple Inn was purchased by the Benchers of Gray's Inn in 1529. 
In Elizabeth's reign there were 145 students in term and 69 out of 
term. Sir Simond D'Ewes mentions that on February 17, 1624, in the 
morning, he went to Staple Inn and there argued a moot point or law 
case with others, and was engaged until near 3 P.M. The inn was sold 
in 1884 to the Prudential Assurance Company for ^68,000, and the 
Holborn front was restored and cleared from the plaster covering the 
timber beams. The houses are let as offices and chambers, and are 
largely tenanted by solicitors. The new buildings on the terrace 
leading into Southampton Buildings were erected in 1843 (Messrs. 

1 Life, by Dickens. 2 Life, vol. i. pp. 56, 57. 



STAR CHAMBER 303 



Wigg and Parnell architects) for the Taxing Masters, but are now 
occupied by the Patent Office and the Land Registry Office. 

Dr. Johnson was living here in 1758; in 1759 he removed to Gray's 
Inn. Isaac Reed, the Shakespeare commentator, had chambers at No. 
i i. where he died, January 5, 1807. In Reed's chambers Steevens 
corrected the proof sheets of his edition of Shakespeare. He used to 
leave his house at Hampstead at one in the morning, and walk to 
Staple Inn. Reed, who went to bed at the usual hour, allowed his 
fellow-commentator a key to the chambers, so that Steevens stole 
quietly to his proof sheets, without, it is said, disturbing the repose of 
his friend. 

Star Chamber, a judicial court in the palace of our Kings at 
Westminster, commonly said to have been erected by Henry VIII., 
but which was in fact, as Hallam pointed out, the old Concilium Regis 
or Ordinarium y and the object of statute 3, Henry VII. c. i, was to 
revive the Council and place its jurisdiction on a permanent and un- 
questionable basis. "The Judges of the Court" were "the Privy 
Council and the Messengers of the Court, the Warden of the 
Fleet's servants, the Chancellor, Treasurer, and Keeper of the 
Privy Seal, with a Bishop and temporal Lord of the Council ; and the 
Chief Justices of the King's Bench and Common Pleas, or two other 
justices in their absence," are empowered to summon before them 
certain specified offenders, and after examination to punish them " as if 
convicted by course of law." But the jurisdiction of the court soon 
stretched far beyond the boundaries assigned by law. It took 
cognisance among other offences of " forgery, perjury, riot, maintenance, 
fraud, libel, and conspiracy." The King was often present at the 
sittings of the court, and both the Stuarts too often acted the part of 
prosecutor. Under the Tudors the Star Chamber formed a terrible 
instrument for the punishment, short of death, of any who had fallen 
under the displeasure of the Government, but its full capacity in this 
respect only became manifest under the Stuarts, when by its means, as 
Macaulay remarks, " the Government was able to fine, imprison, pillory, 
and mutilate at pleasure." The most famous prosecution of this court 
was that of the learned Puritan lawyer Prynne, in the reign of Charles I., 
by the Attorney-General Noy, at the instigation of Archbishop Laud. 
Prynne had published a bulky volume called Histriomastix, in con- 
demnation of plays and actors, full of erudition, and if possible fuller 
of invective, some of which were specially directed against female actors. 
Unfortunately for the author the Queen took part in a court masque 
about the time of the publication of his book, when attention was 
directed to an entry in the index, "Women Actors notorious whores." 
The reference was to the Roman courtesans, but Prynne was summoned 
before the Star Chamber ; other offensive passages were cited, and he 
was condemned and sentenced to stand twice in the pillory, to have both 
his ears cut off by the common hangman, to be branded in the fore- 
head, pay a fine of ; 5000, and to be imprisoned for life. This was 



304 STAR CHAMBER 



perhaps the most atrocious of the sentences inflicted by the court, but 
others nearly as severe and quite as iniquitous were about this time not 
infrequent. The Chamber had become in fact an intolerable tyranny. 
It was abolished by the Act of 1 6 Charles I. c. i o, the first year of the 
Long Parliament, and the memory of its misdeeds contributed power- 
fully to bring about the tragic fate of Laud, if not that of his royal 
Master. 1 

In the Chamber of Stars 

All matters there he 2 mars ; 

Clapping his rod on the board, 

No man dare speak a word ; 

For he hath all the saying, 

Without any renaying. 

He rolleth in his Records ; 

He sayeth how say ye my Lords, 

Is not my reason good ? 

Some say yes, and some 
Sit still as they were dumb. 

Skelton, Why Come ye not to Court ? 85-96 (Dyce's 
Skelton), vol. ii. p. 32. 

Then is there the Star Chamber, where in the Term time, every week once at the 
least, which is commonly on Fridays and Wednesdays, and on the next day after the 
term endeth, the Lord Chancellor, and the Lords and other of the Privy Council, and 
the Chief Justices of England from nine of the clock till it be eleven do sit. This 
place is called the Star Chamber, because the roof thereof is decked with the likeness 
of stars gilt. Stow, p. 175. 

The Starre Chamber is a chamber at the one End of Westminster Hall. It is 
written the Starred Chamber. Now it hath the signe of a Starre ouer the doore as 
you one way enter therein. Minsheu, ed. 1617. 

Lord Carew writes to Sir Thomas Roe, then absent on his embassy 
to the Great Mogul, that on June 20, 1616, the King, James I., sat in 
person in the Star Chamber and "made a large speeche to the 
admiration of the hearers, speaking more like an angel than a man." 3 
About this time James purposed building a new Star Chamber. 
There is a Council Warrant of June 27, 1619, for payment to Inigo 
Jones of ^37, "for making two several models, the one for the Star 
Chamber, the other for the Banqueting House ; " but the design had 
been prepared by him at least two years earlier. 

June 21, 1617. The Queen is building at Greenwich after a plan of Inigo 
Jones : he has a design for a new Star Chamber which the King would fain have 
built if there were money. Cal. Stat. Pap., 1611-18, p. 473. 

The building itself was evidently of the Elizabethan age, and the date 1 602, 
with the initials E. R. separated by an open rose on a star, was carved over one 
of the doorways. The ceiling was of oak, and had been very curiously devised in 
moulded compartments, ornamented with roses, pomegranates, portcullises and 
fleurs-des-lys : it had also been gilt and diversely coloured. Britton and Brayley's 
Westminster Palace, p. 443. 

1 Hallam, Const, Hist, of England, chaps, i., 2 Cardinal Wolsey, who made much use of the 

viii., ix. ; Sir F. Palgrave, Original Authority of Star Chamber. 
the King s Council \ "Account of Star Chamber," 

by John Bruce, Archcto., vol. v. p. xxv. 3 Cal. State Pap., 1611-18, p. 425. 



STATE PAPER OFFICE 305 

There is an engraving of the ceiling by J. T. Smith, and an 
interesting view of the Chamber in Britton and Brayley's Westminster, 
Plate XX. In the curious Illumination l in the Lambeth Library of 
Earl Rivers presenting his book, and Caxton his printer, to King 
Edward IV., the King is represented seated in a chamber, the roof of 
which is powdered with stars. 

Star and Garter, PALL MALL, a tavern of considerable note in 
the 1 8th century. Smollett makes Matthew Bramble say that the 
servants at private houses were so greedy and rapacious that he could 
" dine better, and for less expense, at the Star and Garter in Pall Mall 
than at our Cousin's castle in Yorkshire." Swift has also a good 
opinion of the house and the moderation of the charges. 

March 20, 1712. I made our Society change their house, and we met to-day 
at the Star and Garter in the Pelmall. Lord Arran was president. The other dog 
was so extravagant in his bills that for four dishes, and four, first and second course, 
without wine or desert, he charged 21 : 6 :8 to the Duke of Ormond. Swift to 
Stella. 

Here, 1760-1770 met George Selwyn's Thursday Club, famous 
for wit and whist. "There is nobody at White's," writes Gilly 
Williams to George Selwyn, July 18, 1763; "our jovial club meets 
at the Star -in -Garter." The Dilettanti Society met here, at least 
occasionally. The instructions for the famous Classical Mission sent 
out by the Society are dated, "Star and Garter, May 17, 1764." The 
meeting of another club at the Star and Garter had a melancholy 
termination. Ten members of the Nottinghamshire Club sat down to 
their weekly dinner one afternoon in January, in "a mighty odd- 
shaped room on the second floor." Dinner was served precisely at a 
quarter after four. About seven o'clock a dispute arose between 
William, fifth Lord Byron, and Mr. Chaworth, neighbours and hitherto 
friends, about the game on their respective estates. Hot words were 
exchanged, but it was thought the quarrel had died away. About 
eight o'clock Mr. Chaworth left the room, and five minutes after was 
followed by Lord Byron. They met on the first floor landing, and 
asked the waiter for an empty room. He showed them into the back 
room on that floor, placed a very small tallow candle on the table, and 
closed the door upon them. The room was about 16 feet square, 
with one corner cut off for the fireplace and chimney. They drew, 
fought, and Mr. Chaworth fell mortally wounded. Lord Byron was 
tried for murder and acquitted. "So far was he from feeling any 
remorse for having killed Mr. Chaworth," wrote his grand-nephew, 
Lord Byron, the poet, that " he always kept the sword which he used 
upon that occasion in his bedchamber, and there it still was when he 
died." 

State Paper Office, in ST. JAMES'S PARK, at the bottom of Duke 
Street West, where a flight of stone steps now leads into the Parade, 

1 Engraved as a frontispiece to Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors. 
VOL. Ill X 



3 o6 STATE PAPER OFFICE 

was a repository for the reception and arrangement of the documents' 
accumulating in the offices of the Privy Council and the Secretaries of 
state, at whose disposal the documents are held. The office was 
established in 1578, and enlarged and made into a "set form or 
library " in the reign of James I. The papers were originally kept in 
the uppermost rooms of the Gate House at Whitehall, and were first put 
in order during the Grenville administration in the reign of George III. 
They are now deposited in the Record Office, Fetter Lane. . [See Record 
Office.] The building in St. James's Park, the last design by Sir John 
Soane, R.A., was erected in 1829-1833, and demolished in 1862 to 
make way for the New India Office. 

Stationers' Hall, STATIONERS' HALL COURT, LUDGATK HILL. 
The Stationers' Company was incorporated May 4, 1557, by letters 
patent of Philip and Mary, under the title of "The Master and 
Keepers, or Wardens, and Commonalty of the Mistery or Art of 
Stationers of the City of London," and a livery was granted by the 
Court of Mayor and Aldermen, February i, 1560. Its foundation, 
however, took place at a much earlier date, as we find it mentioned in 
1403, when a set of by-laws were allowed by the Court of Aldermen. 
The first hall of the Brotherhood was situate in Milk Street, Cheapside ; 
and in 1553 they moved to St. Peter's College, near the Deanery of 
St. Paul's. In 1611 the Stationers' Company purchased the site of 
their present hall, which was then occupied by Abergavenny House, 
the residence successively of the Dukes of Brittany and the Earls of 
Pembroke and Abergavenny. The house was renovated and enlarged 
for the purposes of the Company, but was destroyed in the Great Fire 
of 1666, when the Stationers' Company suffered heavy losses. 

Only the poor booksellers have been indeed ill-treated by Vulcan : so many 
noble impressions consumed by their trusting them to the churches, as the loss is 
estimated near two hundred thousand pounds, which will be an extraordinary 
detriment to the whole republic of learning. Evelyn to Sir S. Tuke, September 
27, 1666. 

The first meeting of the court after the Fire was held at Cook's Hall, 
and the subsequent courts until the hall was rebuilt were held at the 
Lame Hospital Hall, i.e. St. Bartholomew's Hospital. The present 
edifice was erected on the site of the former hall in 1670. It was 
built of brick, but in 1800 received a casing of Portland stone, from 
the designs of Robert Mylne, architect. St. Cecilia's Feast and several 
County Feasts were annually held in Stationers' Hall. Various lotteries 
have been drawn here, and in 1745 the Surgeons' Company were 
allowed the use of the hall. Alterations were made in 1888, when a 
new wing was added. 

Observe. Painted window by Eginton, given by Alderman Cadell ; 
portraits of Prior and Steele (good), presented by John Nichols; of 
Richardson, the novelist, Master of the Company in 1754, and of Mrs. 
Richardson, the novelist's wife (both by Highmore) ; of Alderman 



ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY 307 

Boydell, by Graham ; portrait of Tycho Wing, son of Vincent Wing, 
the astrologer; he died in 1668, but his name is still continued on 
one of the sheet almanacks of the Stationers' Company. 

The Stationers' Company, for two important centuries in English 
history, occupied by the terms of their charters a commanding position 
in literature. Printers were obliged to serve their time to a member 
of the Company, and publications were required to be " Entered at 
Stationers' Hall." This was, however, far from always being the 
case, as during the reigns of Elizabeth and succeeding sovereigns 
special letters patent of permission to print specified works were issued, 
and these letters patent really exempted them from the jurisdiction 
of the Stationers' Company, the fees being in such cases paid 
to the Crown. Thus, to give one example, Elizabeth granted Richard 
Tottel, the publisher of the first Poetical Miscellany, the privilege 
of printing every law-book published in England. Registration is 
not compulsory, but under the Copyright Act of 1842 the proprietor 
of every published work is required to register his claim, for his own 
protection, in the books of the Stationers' Company before any legal 
proceedings can take place. The Stationers' is not a wealthy Company, 
but it possesses an important treasure in the series of registers of 
works entered for publication at Stationers' Hall from 1557, which con- 
stitutes a most valuable source of information relating to the history of 
literature of the last 300 years. These registers, however, do not by 
any means include every work since their introduction, for, as already 
mentioned, many works issued by special license were not entered 
therein. Mr. J. Payne Collier's two volumes of carefully selected 
extracts from their earlier pages, and the accurate " Transcripts " edited 
by Mr. Edward Arber, have opened up a mass of interesting matter 
previously lying hidden. There are several charities connected with 
the Company, and a Grammar School in Bolt Court, founded in 
1858. 

Stationery Office (Her Majesty's), PRINCES STREET, STOREY'S 
GATE, WESTMINSTER, was established in 1785 for the supply of stationery, 
books and printing to the several public departments of Government, 
prior to which time the chief offices of Government were supplied by 
private individuals, under patents from the Crown. The printing of 
the Excise was long executed under patent by Jacob Tonson, the 
eminent bookseller, and in 1757 a patent was granted to George 
Walpole, Earl of Orford, for the supply of stationery to the Treasury 
for the period of forty years. The old office was in James Street, 
Buckingham Gate, in the house long the residence of Lord Milford, 
where Mr. J. R. M'Culloch (1780-1864), comptroller, lived for many 
years. The present Stationery Office was erected about 1847, from the 
designs of Sir J. Pennethorne, at a cost of ,25,792. 

Statistical Society (Royal), ADELPHI TERRACE, founded 1834; 
incorporated 1887. The members are styled "Fellows," and pay 



3o8 STEEL YARD 

2 guineas annually. The Society issues a quarterly Journal, which 
contains many papers of great research and permanent value. 

Steaks (The). [See Beaf Steak Society.] 

Steelyard, STELEYARD, or STILLIARD in UPPER THAMES STREET, 
in the ward of Dowgate (facing the river), where the Cannon Street 
Railway Station now stands. "Their hall," says Stow, "is large, built 
of stone, with three arched gates towards the street, the middlemost 
whereof is far bigger than the others, and is seldom opened ; the other 
two bemured up; the same is now called the old hall." 1 

The Steelyard, a place for merchants of Almaine, that used to bring hither as well 
wheat, rye, and other grain, as cables, ropes, masts, pitch, tar, flax, hemp, linen 
cloth, wainscots, wax, steel, and other profitable merchandises. Stow, p. 87. 

Steelyard, a place in London where the fraternity of the Easterling Merchants, 
otherwise the Merchants of the Hannse and Almaine are wont to have their abode. 
It is so called Stilliard of a broad place or court, wherein steele was much sold. 
Alinsheu, ed. 1617, and H. Blount both in his Law Dictionary and his Glosso- 
gr aphia. 

The Steelyard was lately famous for Rhenish Wines, Neats' Tongues, etc. 
Blount's Glossographia, ed. 1670. 

Other writers derive the name from its being the place where the 
King's steelyard, or beam, for weighing the tonnage of goods imported 
into London, was erected before its transference to Cornhill. 

Lambecius explains the name Steel-yard (or as he calls it Stealhof) to be only a 
contraction of Stapelhof, softened into Stafelhof, and synonymous with the English 
word Staple, which is in the civil law Latin style of Edward III. termed Stabile 
emporium, a fixed port depot. Herbert's Twelve Livery Companies, p. 12, note. 

This latter derivation is by far the most likely ; Minsheu is without 
doubt wrong, as steel until long after the adoption of the name Steel- 
yard for their guild by the Merchants of the Hanse was only quite a 
secondary item in their trade. 

In their hall were the two great pictures by Holbein, the triumphs 
of Riches and Poverty, thus described by Walpole : " The former was 
represented by Plutus riding in a golden car ; before him sat Fortune 
scattering money, the chariot being loaded with coin, and drawn by 
four white horses, but blind and led by women, whose names were 
written beneath ; round the car were crowds with extended hands 
catching at the favours of the god. Fame and Fortune attended him, 
and the procession was closed by Crcesus and Midas, and other avar- 
icious persons of note. . . . Poverty was an old woman, sitting in a 
vehicle as shattered as the other was superb ; her garments squalid, and 
every emblem of wretchedness around her. She was drawn by asses 
and oxen, which were guided by Hope and Diligence, and other 
emblematic figures, and attended by mechanics and labourers. It was 
on the sight of these pictures that Zucchero expressed such esteem of 
this master. . . . The large pictures themselves Felibien and Depiles 
say were carried into France and Flanders, whither they were trans- 

1 Stow, p. 88. 



STEELYARD 309 

ported I suppose after the destruction of the Company. The Triumph 
of Poverty was engraved by Vosterman, and copies of both are now at 
Strawberry Hill." Walpole's Anecdotes, ed. Dallaway, vol. i. p. 152. 

The merchants of the Steelyard formed a branch of the great 
Hanseatic League, and probably originally gave rise to this League. 
As early as 967 a regulation of King Ethelred ordains that "the 
emperor's men, or Easterlings, coming with their ships to Belingsgate, 
shall be accounted worthy of good laws." In the first charter of which 
we have record as being granted to the members of the Steelyard was 
that given by Henry III. in the following words : 

Henry by the Grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of 
Aquitain, etc. To the citizens of London to whom these Presents shall come, 
greeting : Know ye that, at the Instance of the most Serene Prince of the Roman 
Empire, our Brother, we have granted to these Merchants of Almain who have a 
House in our City of London, which is called commonly Guikla Aula Theutonicorum, 
that we will maintain them all and every one, and preserve them through our whole 
Kingdom, in all their Liberties and free Customs, which they have used in our Times, 
and in the Times of our Progenitors, and will not withdraw such Liberties and free 
Customs from them, nor suffer them to be at all withdrawn from them, etc. Witness 
my Self at Westminster the iSth of June in the 441)1 year of our Reign. 



It is thus clear that at that date the Merchants of the Hanse were 
a fully recognised body possessed of distinct privileges. The term 
Steelyard as applied to the Guildhall of these merchants came into use 
towards the end of the 1 4th century. 

Other privileges were granted to them by the citizens of London, 
on condition of their maintaining one of the gates of the City, called 
BisJwpsgate, in repair, and their sustaining a third of the charges, in 
money and men to defend it, "when need were." These privileges 
remained unimpaired till the reign of Edward VI., when, on the com- 
plaint of a society of English merchants called " The Merchant 
Adventurers," " sentence was given that they had forfeited their liberties 
and were in like case with other strangers." l Great interest was made 
to rescind this sentence, and ambassadors from Hamburg and Lubcck 
came to the King, " to speak on the behalf of the Stilliard Merchants." '* 
Their intercession was ineffectual. " The Stilliard men," says the King, 
" received their answer, which was to confirm the former judgment of 
my council." 3 This sentence, though it broke up their monopoly, did 
not injure their Low Country trade in any great degree, and the mer- 
chants of the Steelyard still continued to export English woollen 
clothes, and to find as ample a market for their goods as either the 
Merchant Adventurers or the English merchants not Merchant 
Adventurers. The trade, however, was effectually broken by a pro- 
clamation of Queen Elizabeth, by which the merchants of the Steelyard 
were expelled the kingdom, and commanded to depart by February 
28, iS97- T 598. 4 The after history of the building I find recorded 
in the Privy Council Register of the year 1598-1599, wherein, under 

1 King Edward's Diary, in Burnet, February 23, 1551. 3 //,/., May 2. 

2 Ibid., February 28. 4 Egcrton Papers, p. 273. 



3 io STEELYARD 

January 30 in that year, the register records that a letter was sent to 
the Lord Mayor, requiring him to deliver up the house of the Steelyard 
to the officers of Her Majesty's navy, " after the avoydinge and depart- 
inge of the strangers that did possess the house. That the said house 
of the Stiliards should be used and employed for the better bestowing 
and safe custodie of divers provisions of the navy. The rent to be 
paid by the officers of the navy." l In the church of Allhallows the 
Great, adjoining, is a handsome screen of oak, manufactured at Ham- 
burg, and presented to the parish by the Hanse Merchants, in memory 
of the former connection which existed between them and this country. 
Sir Thomas More held the office of agent for the associated merchants. 

Stephen's Alley, KING STREET, WESTMINSTER, ran between King 
Street and Canon Row. It was swept away when Parliament Street 
was formed : Derby Street, then called Derby Court, was a pro- 
longation of it. Here lived and died (1650) Thomas May, the poet, 
and historian of the Long Parliament. 

As one put drunk into the Packet boat, 
Tom May was hurried hence and did not know't, 
But was amaz'd on the Elysian side, 
And with an eye uncertain gazing wide, 
Could not determine in what place he was, 
For whence in Steven's Alley, trees or grass, 
Nor where the Pope's Head or the Mitre lay 
Signs by which still he found and lost his way. 

Andrew Marvell's lines "On Tom May's Death," Miscellaneous Poems, folio 
1681, p. 35. 

Stephen's (St.) Chapel. [See Houses of Parliament.] 

Stephen's (St.), COLEMAN STREET, a church in Coleman Street 
Ward (on the left-hand side of Coleman Street, going up to London 
Wall), destroyed in the Great Fire and rebuilt in 1676, from the 
designs of Sir C. Wren. 

John Hayward, at that time under-sexton of the parish of St. Stephen Coleman 
Street, carried or assisted to carry all the dead to their graves, which were buried in 
that large parish and who were carried in form ; and after that form of burying was 
stopped, he went with the Dead-Cart and the Bell to fetch the dead-bodies from the 
houses where they lay, and fetched many of them out of the chambers and houses. 
For the parish was and is still remarkable, particularly above all the parishes in 
London, for a great number of alleys and thoroughfares, very long, into which no 
carts could come, and where they were obliged to go and fetch the bodies a very 
long way ; which alleys now remain to witness it ; such as White's Alley, Cross 
Key Court, Swan Alley, Bell Alley, White Horse Alley, and many more. Here he 
went with a kind of hand-barrow, and laid the dead bodies on it, and carried them 
out to the carts ; which work he performed and never had the distemper at all, but 
lived about twenty years after it, and was sexton of the parish to the time of his 
death. Memoirs of the Plague, by Defoe, ed. Brayley, p. 128. 

The old church contained a monument " To the Memory of that 
antient servant to the City with his Pen, in divers employments, 
especially the Survey of London^ Master Anthony Munday, Citizen and 

1 Harl. MS., 4182, fol. 185 B. 



ST. STEPHEN'S 311 



Draper of London" (d. 1633). Over the gateway into the churchyard 
is a representation in high-relief of the Last Judgment, a relic probably 
of the old church. The living is a vicarage. The right of presentation 
belongs to the parishioners, who in 1823 elected the Rev. Josiah Pratt, 
a popular evangelical preacher of that time. On his death in 1879 
the parishioners elected his son, the Rev. J. W. Pratt, to succeed him. 
The church was cleaned and decorated in 1879. 

Stephen's (St.), WALBROOK, in the ward of Walbrook, im- 
mediately behind the Mansion House, one of Sir C. Wren's most 
celebrated churches, of which the first stone was laid October 16, 
1672. It was completed in 1679, and cost only ^7652. The 
church was erected at the public expense ; but the pews and wain- 
scoting were supplied by the Grocers' Company, the patrons of the 
living, against the wish of the architect. The exterior is unpromising, but 
the interior is all elegance and even grandeur. The interior is an oblong, 
75 feet by 56, with a circular dome on an octagonal base, which rests 
on eight Corinthian columns an arrangement at once original and 
singularly rich, varied and graceful. The cupola a little St. Paul's 
is very effective ; the lights are admirably disposed, and every one 
can see and hear to perfection. The walls and columns are of stone ; 
the dome only of timber and lead. The dimensions of the church 
are 60 feet wide, 83 feet long, and 60 feet high. The diameter of the 
dome at the springing is 43 feet. 

August 24, 1679. Ordered that a present of Twenty Guineas be made to the 
lady of Sir Christopher Wren, as a testimony of the regard the parish has for the great 
care and skill that Sir Christopher Wren showed in the rebuilding of our church. 
Ward's Lives of the Gresham Professors, p. 104. 

On the north wall hangs West's masterpiece the Martyrdom of 
St. Stephen, painted originally as the altarpiece. The east window is 
now filled with painted glass, by Willement, the gift of the Grocers' 
Company. Sir John Vanbrugh, the architect and wit, was buried 
(1726) in the family vault of the Vanbrughs in the north aisle. 
The church serves as well for the parish of St. Benet Sherehog. 

Sir Robert Chicheley, alderman and twice Lord Mayor (1411, 
1421), purchased the ground whereon St. Stephen's Church stands, 
and built the previous church. He gave the advowson to the 
Grocers' Company. 1 Thomas Becon was instituted rector of this 
church, March 24, 1547, on the presentation of the Grocers' Company, 
but was ejected after the accession of Mary as a " married priest " and 
imprisoned in the tower. There is a tablet to the memory of 
Nathaniel Hodges, a physician and writer on the Plague (1629-1688). 
Dr. Wilson, rector of St. Stephen's in the last half of the 1 8th century, 
erected in the chancel of his church a statue of Mrs. Macaulay, the 
republican historian, while she was yet living. It was removed by his 
successor. 2 Dr. Croly (d. 1860), author of Salathiel and other works 

1 William Ravenhill's Short Account of the Company of Grocers, 1689. 
2 Wright's Note to Walpole, vol. v. p. 146. 



312 ST. STEPHEN'S 



of fancy and imagination, was rector for many years. There is a 
monument and bust by Behnes to his memory. 

The church underwent a restoration in 1847-1848 (John Turner, 
architect). The high pews were removed and Mosaic pavement laid 
down in 1888, when extensive alterations were carried out under the 
direction of A. M. Peebles, architect. 

Stephen's (St.), WESTMINSTER, on the south side of Rochester 
Row, between Greycoat Street and Vincent Square, a spacious Gothic 
church, erected and endowed, with the adjacent schools and buildings, 
by Miss (now the Baroness) Burdett Coutts. The first stone of the 
church was laid July i, 1847, and it was completed in 1849. It was 
designed by Benjamin Ferrey, F.S.A. ; is Decorated in style ; a 
substantial stone structure, carefully finished in all the details and 
richly ornamented throughout. The body of the church is 82 feet 
long with a chancel 47 feet deep. The tower and spire are 200 feet 
high. The windows are filled with painted glass by Willement some 
of his best work. The altar cloth was the gift of the Duke of 
Wellington. The adjoining schools, for 400 children, and connected 
buildings, correspond in style with the church, and the whole form an 
architectural and picturesque group. 

Stephen Street, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD, west side, the next 
street south of Percy Street. George Morland, the painter, was living 
with his father, Henry Robert Morland, at No. 14 in this street (now a 
rag and bottle merchant's) in the years 1780-1 7 86. l Stephen Street 
and the adjacent Gresse Street were so named from Stephen Caspar 
Gresse (father of John Alexander Gresse, drawing- master to the 
daughters of George III.), who purchased a long lease of the site 
which was then " divided into small portions and let for smoke-a-pipe 
gardens to various tradesfolks " and let it on building leases. 

Stepney, a parish lying east of Whitechapel, was originally of very 
much larger extent than at present, and included Stratford-le-Bow, 
Whitechapel, Shadwell, Mile End, Poplar, Blackwall, Spitalfields, 
Ratcliff, Limehouse, and Bethnal Green. It is the mother parish 
of the whole of what is now called " East London." The etymology of 
the name Stepney is doubtful. In the Domesday Book this parish is 
entered as a manor under the name of Stibenhede. It has been 
variously written as Stevenhethe, 3 Stebenhuthe, 4 Stebenhethe, 5 Steben- 
hythe and Stebunhethe. 6 That the termination is the old Saxon word 
hyth, a wharf or haven, there can be little doubt, but the rest of the 
word is by no means so clear. Lysons suggests that it may be derived 
from ste&, a trunk, and thus be the timber-wharf; others believe it 
to be a corruption of Steven, and the word thus means St. Stephen's 
Haven. 

1 Catalogues of the Royal Academy. * Liber Albus, p. 204. 4 Ibid., p. So. 

2 MS. Recollections of the late Robert Hills, 5 Riley's Memorials, p. 28. 

the water-colour painter. G Lysons's Environs, vol. iv. p. 678. 



STERLING CLUB 313 



The whole parish in 1794 contained about 1530 acres of land (exclusively of the 
site of buildings), of which about 80 acres were then arable, about 50 occupied by 
market-gardeners, and the remainder meadow-pasture and marsh land. Lysons's 
'ons, vol. iv. p. 678. 

All its pastures and market-gardens have long since disappeared, 
and Stepney is now one of the most populous parishes in London. In 
1 88 1 its population was 58,500. 

The great plague of 1665 was particularly severe in this part of 
London. Clarendon, in speaking of the difficulty of obtaining seamen 
in the following year, says that " Stepney and the places adjacent, which 
were their common habitations, were almost depopulated." 

The church is dedicated to St. Dunstan (which see). Stepney 
meeting-house was erected for Mathew Mead (buried in the churchyard 
of St. Dunstan's), and during his time was one of the most noted of 
the nonconformist places of worship. It has lately been rebuilt. 
Near the church stood a spacious mansion, the seat of Henry, first 
Marquis of Worcester. It was in the two-storied dwelling above the 
gateway of this mansion that Mathew Mead lived, and here that his 
still more famous son, Dr. Richard Mead, the " prince of English 
physicians," and the friend and successor in practice of Dr. Radcliffe, 
the founder of the Radcliffe Library at Oxford was born in 1673. 
William King, LL.D., who delivered the Latin oration at the dedication 
of the above library in 1 749, was also a native of Stepney. 

Sterling Club, a social club, founded in 1838 by John Sterling as 
the Anonymous Club, where he and his friends might meet monthly 
and talk together over a frugal dinner. The original members 
included, besides the founder and James Spedding the secretary, 
Thomas Carlyle, Alfred Tennyson, Frederick Maurice, John Stuart 
Mill, Archdeacon Hare, Bishop Thirlwall, Lord Lyttleton, Monckton 
Milnes (Lord Houghton), and Sir C. L. Eastlake; to whom were 
shortly afterwards added Bishop Wilberforce, Chenevix Trench (Arch- 
bishop of Dublin), and Archdeacon (now Cardinal) Manning. 1 The 
history of the club is sufficiently told by Carlyle : 

In order to meet the most or a good many of his friends at once on such occasions 
[his visits to London], he now, furthermore, contrived the scheme of a little Club 
where monthly over a frugal dinner some reunion might take place ; that is, where 
friends of his, and withal such friends of theirs as suited and in fine, where a small 
select company definable as persons to whom it was pleasant to talk together, might 
have a little opportunity of talking. The scheme was approved by the persons con- 
cerned : I have a copy of the Original Regulations, probably drawn up by Sterling, 
a very solid lucid piece of economics ; and the List of the proposed Members, signed 
"James Spedding, Secretary," and dated "August 8, 1838." The Club grew; was at 
first called the Anonymous Club ; then, after some months of success, in compliment 
to the founder, who had now left us again, the Sterling Club, under which latter name, 
it once lately, for a time, owing to the Religious Newspapers, became rather famous 
in the world ! In which strange circumstances the name was again altered, to suit 
weak brethren ; and the Club still subsists, in a sufficiently flourishing, though 
happily once more a private condition. That is the origin and genesis of poor 

1 Carlyle's Life of Sterling, p. 208 ; Ashwill's Life of Bishop Wilberforce, vol. i. p. 142. 



314 STERLING CLUB 



Sterling's Club ; which, having honestly paid the shot for itself at Wills' Coffee-house 
or elsewhere, fancied its bits of affairs were quite settled ; and once little thought of 
getting into Books of History with them ! Carlyle's Life of Sterling, 2d ed., 1852, 
p. 208. 

Stew Lane, a narrow passage between No. 5 1 and No. 5 2 LOWER 
THAMES STREET, leading to Stew Quay by the Thames. This name 
was given to the passage as leading to a landing-place to which the Doll 
Tearsheets were probably restricted in passing to or from the Stews on 
the opposite bank. 

January 20, 1608. Grant to George Chester and Wingfield Mouls worth to use 
Stew Quay and Sennocke Quay, near the Custom House, as free quays for lading 
and unlading goods. Cal. State Pap., 1603-1610, p. 396. 

Stews, or STEWES BANK. [See Winchester House, Southwark ; 
Cardinal's Cap Alley.] A small district on the Bankside in Southwark, 
the houses of which were " whited and painted, with signes on the front, 
for a token of the said houses." x "The Bordello or Stews," says Stow, 
" a place so called of certain stew-houses privileged there, for the repair 
of incontinent men and the like women." These " allowed stew- 
houses " were originally eighteen in number, and were situated between 
the Bear Gardens and the Clink prison. They "had signs on their 
fronts towards the Thames, not hanged out but painted on the walls, 
as the Boar's Head, the Cross Keys, the Gun, the Castle, the Crane, 
the Cardinal's Hat, the Bell, the Swan, etc." 2 The houses were under 
strict parliamentary and municipal regulations, dating from the 8th 
Henry II., and confirmed or modified in several later reigns. On 
the City side were such ordinances as that (temp. Edward I.) which 
directs that " no boatman shall have his boat moored and standing over 
the water after sunset ; but they shall have all their boats moored on 
this [the City] side of the water . . . nor may they carry any man or 
woman, either denizens or strangers, unto the Stews, except in the 
day-time, under pain of imprisonment." 3 These houses, which then 
belonged to William Walworth, Lord Mayor of London, who leased 
them from the Bishop of Winchester, were " spoiled " by Wat Tyler 
and the Kentish rebels a circumstance that may have helped to nerve 
the arm of the loyal mayor when he encountered Tyler in Smithfield 
a few days later. In 1506 a royal ordinance closed the doors of the 
Stews, but shortly after they were allowed to be reopened, the number 
being reduced from eighteen to twelve. Forty years later (1546) they 
were finally suppressed and all similar privileges abolished. 

Latimer, in his third sermon before Edward VI. (March 22, 1549), 
alludes to the suppression of the Stews. " You have put downe the 
Stues, but I praye you what is the matter amended. ... I dare say 
there is now more whoredom in London than ever there was on the 
Bancke. These be the newes I have to tell you, I feare they be true." 
So also says Alexander Barclay in his Eclogue of the Cytezen and 
Uplondysman, printed by Wynkyn de Worde. 4 

1 Proclamation of April 13 (37th Henry VIII.) in the Library of the Society of Antiquarians. 
~ Stow, p. 151. 3 Liber Albus, p. 242. 4 See the Percy Society reprint, p. 29. 



STOCK EXCHANGE 315 



Blessed Saynt Saviour 
For his naughty behaviour 

That dwelt not far from the Stewes 
For causyng infidelitie 
Hath lost his dignitie 

Of him we shall have more ncwes. 
A Booke entitled the Fantassie of Idolatrie (circ. 1540) ; Foxe, vol. v. p. 406. 

In the time of Henry II. (1154) the Stews, regulated hitherto by 
Custom (" Customarie" of long before is quoted), were legally recognised, 
and they so continued to be until 1535, when they were proclaimed by 
sound of trumpet and as far as possible publicly and entirely suppressed. 
In the reign of Richard II. the rebels under Wat Tyler " brake down 
the Stews near London Bridge," then held by frowes of Flanders of the 
Lord Mayor, Sir William Walworth. 

The Castle and the Cardinal's Hat, two of these houses, are noted 
in the book of expenses of Sir John Howard, the first Duke of Norfolk 
of that time. 

Stinking Lane, NEWGATE STREET to LITTLE BRITAIN, now 
King Edward Street, was so called as leading to the slaughter-houses of 
St Nicholas Shambles, and probably not often visited by the scavenger. 

Then is Stinking Lane so called, or Chick Lane, at the East End of the Grey 
Friars Church, and there is the Butchers' Hall. Stow, p. 118. 

It was afterwards called Bloivbladder Street, next Butcher Hall 
Lane, and last of all, about 1844, King Edward Street. 

Stock Exchange, CAPEL COURT, and 7, 8, 9 Throgmorton 
Street. The ready-money market of the world, which had its origin in 
the National Debt. The Stockbrokers originally met at New Jonathan's 
Coffee-house in Change Alley, and on July 14, 1773, they "came to a 
resolution that instead of being called New Jonathan's it should be 
called 'The Stock Exchange,' which is to be wrote over the door, the 
brokers then collected sixpence each, and christened the house with 
punch." In 1801 a new building was erected, and opened March 
1802. In 1854 this gave place to the present edifice, erected after 
the designs of Thomas Allason, jun., which, after being enlarged on 
two several occasions, was supplemented in and after 1884 by a 
magnificent annexe, equal in size to, but of an entirely different shape 
from, that of the original building. This was designed by J. J. Cole, 
architect, and comprises the additions in Throgmorton Street and in 
Old Broad Street. The interior of the New Exchange with its second 
dome is lined with marbles. Capel Court, in which it stands, was so 
called from the London residence and place of business of Sir William 
Capel, ancestor of the Capels, Earls of Essex, and Lord Mayor of London 
in 1504. The members of the Stock Exchange, about 3200 in number, 
consist of brokers and dealers (or jobbers) in British and foreign funds, 
railway and other shares exclusively ; each member paying an annual 
subscription of ;io. A notice is posted at every entrance that none 



3i6 STOCK EXCHANGE 

but members are admitted. A stranger is soon detected, and by the 
custom of the place is made to understand that he is an intruder, and 
turned out. The admission of a member takes place in committee, 
and is by ballot. The election is only for one year, so that each 
member has to be re-elected every Lady-day. The committee, consisting 
of thirty, and called the " Committee for General Purposes," is elected 
by the members at the same time. Every new member of the " house," 
as it is called, must be introduced by three members, of not less than 
four years standing, each of whom enters into security in ^500 for 
four years. An applicant for admission who has been a clerk to a 
member for the space of four years has to provide only two securities, 
each to enter into a similar engagement for ^300. A bankrupt 
member immediately ceases to be a member, and cannot be re-elected 
unless all his liabilities have been discharged in full. The usual 
commission charged by a broker is one-eighth per cent upon the stock 
sold or purchased ; but on foreign stocks, railway bonds and shares, it 
varies according to the value of the securities. The broker generally 
deals with the "jobbers," as they are called, a class of members who 
are dealers or middle men, who remain in the Stock Exchange in 
readiness to act upon the appearance of the brokers, but the market is 
entirely open to all the members, so that a broker is not compelled to 
deal with a jobber, but can treat witrTanother broker if he can do so 
more advantageously to his client. The fluctuations of price are 
produced by sales and purchases, by continental news, and domestic 
politics and finance. Those who buy stock which they cannot receive 
are called "Bulls," or who sell stock which they have not, are in Exchange 
Alley called " Bears." These nicknames were in use as early as the 
reign of Queen Anne, but their meaning is now somewhat altered ; a 
Bull is one who speculates for a rise, and a Bear one who speculates 
for Sifall. 

Stocking Weavers' Hall. [See Weavers' Hall.] 

Stocks Market. A market for fish and flesh in Walbrook Ward, 
on the site of the present Mansion House. It was established in 1282 
by Henry Walis, Lord Mayor, " where some time had stood (the way 
being very large and broad) a pair of stocks for punishment of offenders ; 
this building took name of these stocks." x 

On November I, 1319, the "sworn wardens for overseeing the flesh-meat brought 
to the shambles called ' les Stokkes ' . . . caused to be brought before the said 
Mayor and Aldermen two beef carcasses, putrid and poisonous, the same having 
been taken from William Sperlyng of West Hamme, he intending to sell the same at 
the said shambles." Riley's Memorials of London, p. 133. 

The Stocks Market remained a market for the sale of meat and 
fish until destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. When rebuilt it was 
converted into a market for fruit and vegetables. 

Instead of Flesh and Fish sold there before the Fire, are now sold Fruits, Roots 
and Herbs ; for which it is very considerable and much resorted unto, being of note 

1 Stow, p. 85. 



STOKE NEWINGTON 317 

for having the choicest in their kind of all sorts, surpassing all other markets in 
London. Strype, B. ii. p. 199. 

In the market stood a statue of Charles I. and one intended to be 
taken for Charles II., of which latter, however, Pennant 1 gives the 
following account : 

In it stood the famous equestrian statue, erected in honour of Charles II. by his 
most loyal subject Sir Robert Viner, lord mayor. Fortunately his lordship dis- 
covered one (made at Leghorn) of John Sobieski trampling on a Turk. The good 
knight caused some alterations to be made, and christened the Polish monarch by 
the name of Charles, and bestowed on the turbaned Turk that of Oliver Cromwell. 

Walpole 2 says that the statue " came over unfinished, and a new 
head was added by Latham." Stocks Market was removed at Michael- 
mas, 1737, to the site of the present Farringdon Street. Here it 
lost its name, and was known as Fleet Market (which see). The 
mutilated statue, after remaining for some time among rubbish, was 
presented by the Common Council to Mr. Robert Vyner, a descendant 
of the Lord Mayor, who removed it to his county seat in Gautby Park, 
Lincolnshire. 

Stockwell (Surrey), an ecclesiastical parish, but one of the eight 
wards of the parish of Lambeth, lies between Wandsworth and Brixton. 
Lysons, writing in 1810, says "the hamlet of Stockwell contains about 
one hundred houses." At that time Stockwell was a surburban hamlet, 
but it has now lost all its rural character. Rather more than a 
century ago (in 1772) this place became noted as the scene of the 
famous " Stockwell Ghost," who created a great sensation by causing 
the furniture, etc., to dance. The maid -servant is said to have 
afterwards acknowledged to having practised the imposition, but after 
the death of the lady of the house in 1790 the "dancing furniture" 
sold at extravagant prices. 3 

The parish church of St. Michael was erected in 1840, and 
enlarged in 1864, and accommodates about 1400 persons. Here in 
the Clapham Road is Mr. Spurgeon's Stockwell Orphanage, founded 
in 1867. Stockwell Green, formerly an open space at the junction of 
Stockwell Road and Landor Road, fell a prey to the builder in 1874, 
after a struggle with the inhabitants. 

Stoke Newington (MIDDLESEX), in the Finsbury division of 
Ossulstone Hundred, is bounded by Hornsey, Islington, Hackney, and 
Tottenham. Lysons describes Stoke Newington as containing in 1810 
" about 550 acres of land, 18 of which are occupied by market gardeners ; 
the remainder almost wholly meadow and pasture." Now it is a 
populous suburb of London, and contained, in 1881, 3544 inhabited 
houses and a population of 22,780. In old records the name is written 
Newtone, or Neweton. The word Stoke occurs in the names of several 
places as a distinguishing addition, and is probably derived from the 

1 London, p. 577. 

- Annals, ed. Dallaway, vol. iii. p. 152. 237 ; and Hone's Every Day Book, vol. i. (January 

3 See Lysons's Environs of London, vol. i. p. 7, 1825), p. 62. 



318 STOKE NEWINGTON 

Saxon Stoc, a wood. It was first prefixed to the name of this place in 
the 1 5th century, at which time the manor contained about 100 acres 
of woodland. 1 Morris explains the word Stoke as denominating "a 
place by the water." 

The old parish church, dedicated to St. Mary, was a low Gothic 
structure, and according to Stow repaired or " rather rebuilded " in 
1562. Further enlargements and alterations were made in subsequent 
years, and in 1858 a new church was erected exactly facing the old one. 
The new church, also dedicated to St. Mary, now serves as the parish 
church, but divine service is likewise performed in the old church, 
which still retains many of the characteristics of a rural place of 
worship. The new church, a handsome edifice of the Early Decorated 
style, was built after the designs of Sir Gilbert Scott. In the old church 
are monuments to John Dudley (d. 1580), with effigies of himself and 
his wife (who afterwards married Thomas Sutton, the founder of the 
Charter House); Sir John Hartopp, Bart. (d. 1762), the monument by 
Banks; Dr. Samuel Wright (d 1787), the famous nonconformist 
preacher, etc. Amongst the ministers at the presbyterian chapel on 
Newington Green may be mentioned Dr. Price (d. 1791), famed for 
his moral and metaphysical writings, but especially for his "Treatise on 
Reversionary Payments " and his " Observations on Civil Liberty, and 
the Justice and Policy of the War with America ; " Dr. Towers (d. 1799), 
the author of British Biography and other works ; Rochemont Barbauld 
(d. 1808), husband of the more noted Mrs. Barbauld, who was buried 
in the churchyard. Clissold Park, or Newington Park as it was formerly 
called, which was for many years the residence of the Crawshays, was 
acquired as a public park in 1889. The New River passes through 
the grounds. 

Eminent Inhabitants. Here in 181 7, at the school of the Rev. John 
Bransby, Edgar Allan Poe, the American poet, " was for the first time 
placed under the restraint of regular school discipline." 2 Poe has him- 
self described the house in his "partly autobiographical" story of 
"William Wilson." There, however, he speaks of " the five years of my 
residence in the quaint old building," and adds, " Encompassed by the 
massy walls of this venerable academy, I passed, yet not in tedium or 
disgust, the years of the third lustrum of my life." But this must be 
taken as a poetic fiction, as his biographer expressly states that he was only 
two years in England, 1817-1819, i.e. from his ninth to eleventh 
year. Daniel Defoe resided in Church Street about 1 7 1 o. 3 The house 
was pulled down some years ago to make room for a new street, which was 
named after him Defoe Street. Thomas Day (d. 1789), the author of 
Sandford and Merton. John Howard, the philanthropist and pioneer 
of prison reform in England, took lodgings here after his first tour 
abroad, and after being nursed by his landlady through a severe illness, 
married her, although twenty-seven years her junior. Lord Chief Justice 

i Lysons's Environs, vol. iv. p. 15, etc. " Gill's Lije of Poe, pp. 26, 28. 

3 Harl. MSS., No. 7001. 



STOREY'S GATE 319 



Popham and Sir Francis Popham resided here. Bridget Fleetwood, the 
eldest daughter of Oliver Cromwell, was buried here September 5, 1681. 
She married General Ireton, and after his death General Fleetwood, and 
resided many years at Stoke Newington. Dr. Isaac Watts was from 1696 
to 1702 tutor in the family of Sir John Hartopp here, and afterwards 
spent the last thirty years of his life in the house of Sir Thomas and Lady 
Abney. A spot containing an arbour said to have been a favourite 
haunt of the great divine, and where many of his hymns were written, 
is still railed off; and a statue, erected to his memory by public 
subscription in 1845, stands in one of the principal walks. The old 
manor house belonged to the prebendaries of Newington, but was 
leased at the beginning of the i6th century to William Paten, and 
in 1571 assigned by him to John Dudley. After Dudley's death 
his widow appears to have let the house to the Earl of Leicester 
about 1582, and to the Earl of Oxford a few years later. It was 
probably a visit made by Elizabeth to one of these courtiers that 
gave rise to her association with an avenue in this estate, which still 
bears her name. Mrs. Dudley, after her second marriage to Thomas 
Sutton, again lived on her Newington estate. Through the marriage of 
John Dudley's daughter Anne to Sir Francis Popham the manor passed 
into the Popham family, in which it remained till 1669, when it passed 
by sale to Thomas Gunstor. He built anew mansion, and in 1695 tne 
old one was pulled down and part of the estate let on building leases. 
His sister Mary, who inherited the manor, married Sir Thomas Abney, 
some time Lord Mayor of London. The Abney estate was converted 
into a cemetery under the title of Abney Park Cemetery, and opened 
in 1840. [See Abney Park Cemetery.] 

Stone Buildings, LINCOLN'S INN, a handsome range of stone houses 
(hence the name) built 1756 from the designs of Sir Robert Taylor. 
The working drawings were made by a young man of the name of 
Leach, then a clerk in Taylor's office, who afterwards became a student 
of Lincoln's Inn, and died filling the high and lucrative office in the 
law of Master of the Rolls. Leach's drawings are preserved in the 
library of Lincoln's Inn. Pitt's chambers appear to have been in Stone 
Buildings. Canning's father was " for some time with a Serjeant Walker 
who then resided in Stone Buildings." The south end was added 
1844-1845 under the direction of Philip Hardwick, R.A. 

Store Street, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD to GOWER STREET. Mary 
Wollstonecraft went to live here in 1791, and, according to Godwin 
In a commodious apartment, added to the neatness and cleanliness which she 
had always scrupulously observed, a certain degree of elegance, and those temperate 
indulgences in furniture and accommodation, from which a sound and uncorrupted 
taste never fails to derive pleasure. Godwin's Memoir, p. 95. 

Storey's Gate, BIRDCAGE WALK, ST. JAMES'S PARK, was so called 
after Edward Storey, who lived in a house on the site of the present 
gate, and was keeper of the Volary (Aviary) to King Charles II. He 
died in 1684 and was buried in St. Margaret's, Westminster. 



320 STOREY'S GATE 



April 25, 1682. About nine, this night, it began to lighten, thunder, and rain. 
The next morning, there was the greatest flood in S. James's Park ever remembered. 
It came round about the fences, and up to the gravel walks people could not walk 
to Webb's and Stories. 

April 3, 1685. This afternoon nine or ten houses were burned or blown up, 
that looked into S. James's Park, between Webb's and Stone's. Diary of Philip 
Madox, MS., formerly in the possession of Thorpe, the bookseller (Notes and Queries, 
No. 8). 

Their late Ma ties King William and Queen Mary by L res Patents under the Great 
Scale bearing date the 7th of June, 1690, did demise to Richard Kent and Thomas 
Musgrave, Esqrs., at the nominacon of S r Henry Fane, A certain Peece of Land in 
the Parish of St. Margarett's Westm r . without the wall of S'. James's Parke extending 
in length from the north end of a Tenement late in the poss ion of John Webb 
to the south end of some shedds late in the Tenure of William Storey, Five Hundred 
and Seaventy Feet or thereabouts To hold for Fifty years from the date at the Yearly 
Rent of Six Shillings and Eight Pence. HarL MS., No. 6811, Art. 3. 

Dropt in St. James's Park, September the 3d, 1705, betwixt Mr. Story's and 
the Duke of Buckingham's House, a Gold Minuit Pendulum Watch, etc. ; if offered 
to be Sold or pawn'd you are desired to stop the same and give notice to Mr. Pading- 
ton at his house in Princes Court near Mr. Story's. The Daily Courant, September 

5, 1705- 

From nine to eleven I allow them to walk from Story's to Rosamond's Pond in 
the Park. Toiler, No. 113.! 

August 5, 1746- I don't know whether I told you that the man at the Tennis 
Court protests that he has known Lord Balmerino dine with the man that sells 
pamphlets at Storey's Gate, and says " he would often have been glad if I would have 
taken him home to dinner." Walpole to Montagu, vol. ii. p. 46. 

Strand (The), one of the main arteries of London, reaching from 
Charing Cross to the site of Temple Bar (now marked by a huge decorated 
pedestal). The portion between King William Street and Charing Cross 
is now called West Strand. In the last century it only reached " from 
Charing Cross to Essex Street," 2 the portion of the road from Essex 
Street to Temple Bar being called " Temple Bar Without." The Strand 
was originally a low-lying road running near the banks of the Thames, 
and hence it obtained its name. 

I send, I send here my supremest kiss 

To thee my silver footed Thamasis. 

No more shall I reiterate thy Strami 

Whereon so many stately structures stand. 

Herrick, Teares to Thamasis. 

At the digging a Foundation for the present Church (St. Mary-le-Strand), the 
Virgin Earth was discovered at the Depth of Nineteen Feet ; whereby 'tis manifest that 
the Ground in this Neighbourhood originally was not much higher than the River 
Thames ; therefore this Village was truly denominated the Strand, from its Situation 
on the Bank of the River. Maitland's History of London, p. 739. 

In 1315 a petition of the inhabitants of Westminster represented 
the footway from Temple Bar to the King's Palace at Westminster as 
so bad that the feet of horses and rich and poor men received constant 
damage, and that the footway was interrupted by thickets and bushes. 

1 Pennant has an erroneous statement about dark passage leading into the Park, which pre- 

the origin of the name. " Where the iron gates serves its memory, but was corruptly called 

at the bottom of that noble street, George Street, Storey's Gate." 
are placed, stood a storehouse for the Ordnance 

in the time of Queen Mary. I remember a dirty 2 Parish Clerks' Survey, i2mo, 1732. 



Till-: STRAND 321 



An ordinance of Edward III. in council, dated 1353, directs the laying 
of a tax on all goods carried by land or water from the City to West 
minster, " in order for the repairing the highway lending from the gate of 
London called Temple Bar to the gate of the Abbey at Westminster, 
that highway being . . . become so deep and miry, and the pavement 
so broken and worn as to be very dangerous both to men and carriages." 1 
The Strand was long very little more than "a way or street" 2 between 
the cities of Westminster and London, and was not paved before Henry 
VIII. 's reign, when (1532), it being then "full of pits and sloughs, very 
perilous and noisome," an Act was passed for " paving the streetway 
between Charing Cross and Strand Cross, at the charge of the owners 
of the land." 

One of the first ascertained inhabitants of the Strand was Peter of 
Savoy, uncle of Henry III., to whom that king, in the thirtieth year of 
his reign (1245), granted "all those houses upon the Thames, which 
sometime pertained to Briane de Insula, or Lisle, without the walls of 
the City of London, in the way or street called the Strand." The Bishops 
were the next great dignitaries who had inns or houses in the Strand, 
connecting, as it were, the City with the King's Palace at Westminster. 
" Anciently," says Selden in his Table Talk, " the noblemen lay within 
the City for safety and security ; but the bishops' houses were by the 
waterside, because they were held sacred persons whom nobody would 
hurt." As many as nine bishops possessed inns or hostels on the south 
or water side of the present Strand, at the period of the Reformation. 
The Bishop of Exeter's inn was afterwards Essex House. The Bishop 
of Bath's inn was afterwards Arundel House. The inns of the three 
Bishops of Llandaff, Chester, and Worcester were swallowed up by the 
palace of the Protector Somerset, on the site of the present Somerset 
House. Near the site of the present church of St. Mary's stood 
" Strand Cross." 

Opposite to Chester Inn stood an antient cross ... in the year 1294 and at 
other times the Judges sat without the city, on this cross, to administer justice. 
Pennant's London, p. 144. 

The Bishop of Carlisle's inn (west of the Savoy) was afterwards 
Worcester House, the mansion of the Dukes of Beaufort, hence the 
present Beaufort Buildings. The Bishop of Durham's inn occupied the site 
of the Adelphi ; and the inn of the Archbishop of York was conveyed, 
in the reign of James I., to Villiers, first Duke of Buckingham, whose 
name and titles are preserved in several streets between the Adelphi 
and Charing Cross. The upper or north side of the road lay open to 
the fields, to St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and 
Covent Garden, as late as the reign of Charles I. A few noblemen's 
mansions, however, had been previously erected. Burghley House, 
the London lodging of the great Lord Burghley, on the site of the 
present Exeter Street and Exeter 'Change, and Bedford House, on the 
site of the present Southampton Street and Bedford Street, were built 

1 Rymer's Fccdera, vol. v. p. 762. - Stow, p. 164. 

VOL. III. Y 



3?2 THE STRAND 



in the reign of Elizabeth. Salisbury House, on the site of the present 
Cecil Street and Salisbury Street, and Northampton, now Northumber- 
land House, were built in the reign of James I. Middleton, the 
dramatist, describes it not untruly at this time as "the luxurious 
Strand." 1 The stables of Durham House were taken down in 1610 
to erect the New Exchange ; York House was taken down in 1675; and 
Burghley, or Exeter House, in 1676, and Exeter 'Change erected the 
next year on the principal site. Arundel House was taken down in 
1678; Worcester House in 1683 ; Salisbury House in 1696 ; Bedford 
House in 1704; Essex House in 1710; the New Exchange in 1737, 
and the Adelphi afterwards erected on the same site : old Somerset 
House was taken down in 1775; Butcher Row in 1813; and Exeter 
'Change in 1829, when the great Strand improvements at the West End 
were made pursuant to 7 Geo. IV., c. 77. 

The Lawyer embraced our young gentleman atid gave him many riotous instructions 
how to carry himself : told him he must acquaint himself with many gallants of the 
Inns of Court, and keep rank with those that spend most, always wearing a bountiful 
disposition about him, lofty and liberal ; his lodging must be about the Strand, in 
any case, being remote from the handicraft scent of the City. Father HttbburcCs 
Tales, 410, 1604 (Middleton's Works, vol. v. p. 573). 

For divers yeares of late certain fishmongers have erected and set up fishstalles in 
the middle of the street in the Strand, almost over against Denmark House, all which 
were broken down by speciall Commission, this moneth of May, 1630, least in short 
space they might grow from stalles to shedds, and then to dwelling houses, as the 
like was in former time in Olde Fish Street, and in Saint Nicholas Shambles, and 
in other places. Howes, ed. 1631, p. 1045. 

Come let us leave the Temple's silent walls, 

The business to my distant lodging calls : 

Through the long Strand together let us stray, 

With thee conversing I forget the way. 

Behold that narrow street, which steep descends, 

Whose building to the shining shore extends ; 

Here Arundel's fam'd structure rear'd its frame, 

The street alone retains an empty name : 

Where Titian's glowing paint the canvas warm'd, 

And Raphael's fair design with judgment charm'd, 

Now hangs the Bell-man's song, and pasted here, 

The coloured prints of Overton appear. 

Where statues breath'd the work of Phidias' hands, 

A wooden pump or lonely watch-house stands ; 

There Essex' stately pile adorn'd the shore, 

There Cecil's, Bedford's, Villiers', now no more. Gay, Trivia. 

Where the fair columns of St. Clement stand, 
Whose straitened bounds incroach upon the Strand ; 
Where the low pent-house bows the walker's head, 
And the rough pavement wounds the yielding tread ; 
Where not a post protects the narrow space, 
And strung in twines combs dangle in thy face ; 
Summon at once thy courage, rouse thy care, 
Stand firm, look back, be resolute, beware. 
Forth issuing from steep lanes, 2 the Collier's steeds 

1 Middleton's Works, by Dyce, vol. v. p. 578. " Milford Lane. 



THE STRAND 323 



Drag the black load ; another cart succeeds, 

Team follows team, crowds heap'd on crowds appear. Ibid. 

The Strand is now given up entirely to business purposes, and the 
"luxurious" mansions of the nobility and gentry must be sought for 
farther westward. The Strand is remarkable as containing more 
theatres than any other street in London. In it are to be noticed 
north side: Adelphi, Nos. 410, 411 ; Vaudeville, No. 404; Lyceum, 
No. 354: Gaiety, No. 345; Opera Comique, No. 299. South side: 
Strand, No. 168; and Terry's, Nos. 105, 106. Besides these the 
Royal Italian Opera House, Drury Lane Theatre, the Globe, the 
Savoy, Toole's, and the Avenue only lie a short distance off the Strand. 
[See these respective headings.] The business of the Strand now 
forms a kind of connecting link between the hurry and bustle of the 
City and the comfort and leisure of the West End. 

Eminent Inhabitants (not already mentioned). Sir Harry Vane 
the elder (temp. Charles I.), next door to Northumberland House 
(then Suffolk House), where now stands the Grand Hotel ; l this was 
long the official residence of the Secretary of State. Mr. Secretary 
Nicholas was living here in Charles II. 's reign. William Lilly, the 
astrologer (d. 1681), at "the corner house, over against Strand 
Bridge." He was servant for some time to a man of the name of 
Gilbert Wright, and performed many of the menial offices of his house 
swept the street before his door, cleaned his shoes, scraped the 
trenchers, and played the part of tub-boy to the Thames in carrying 
water for his master's use. "I have helped," he says, "to carry 
eighteen tubs of water in one morning." Lilly got on in life, married 
his master's widow, and came at last to possess the house in which he 
had performed so many menial occupations. William Faithorne, the 
engraver (d. 1691), "at the sign of the Ship, next to the Drake, 
opposite to the Palsgrave Head Tavern, without Temple Bar." Pierce 
Tempest, the engraver of the Cries of London, which bear his name : 

There is now Published the Cryes and Habits of London, lately drawn after the 
Life in great Variety of Actions, Curiously Engraved upon 50 Copper Plates, fit for 
the Ingenious and Lovers of Art. Printed and Sold by P. Tempest over against 
Somerset House in the Strand. The London Gazette, May 28 to 31, 1 688. 

At "No. 1 8 in the Strand" lived J. Mathews the bookseller, and father 
of Charles Mathews the actor, and in this house the latter was born. 
Jacob Tonson, the bookseller and friend of Dryden, at " Shakespeare's 
Head, over against Catherine Street, in the Strand," now No. 141 ; 
the house (since rebuilt) was afterwards occupied by Andrew Millar, 
the publisher, and friend of Thomson, Fielding, Hume, and Robertson ; 
and after Millar's death by Thomas Cadell, his apprentice, and friend, 
and the publisher of Gibbon. Thomson's Seasons, Fielding's Tom Jones, 
and the Histories of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon were first 
published at this house. Millar was a Scotchman, and distinguished 
his house by the sign of " Buchanan's Head." James Northcote, R.A., 

1 This house was No. i in the Strand, and was the first house in London that was numbered. 
Smith's Nollekens, vol. i. p. 236. 



324 THE STRAND 



on his first coming to London in 1771 lodged at "Mrs. Lefty's, 
Grocer in the Strand." Six shillings a week gained by colouring 
prints of flowers covered all his expenses. "At the corner of Beaufort 
Buildings, in the Strand," lived Charles Lillie, the perfumer, known to 
every reader of The Tatler and The Spectator. [See Beaufort Buildings.] 
Mrs. Inchbald, the actress and dramatic writer, was living in 1809 at No. 
163, " by the side of the new Church," and from the top of this house 
was a witness of the burning of Drury Lane Theatre. No. 332, now the 
printing-offices of The Weekly Times and Echo, was during its flourishing 
epoch the office of The Morning Chronicle, the upper floors being the 
Editor's rooms and the residence of Mr. John Black during his long 
editorship of that journal. 1 No. 346 (corner of Wellington Street), 
now the offices of The Field and The Queen, was formerly Doyley's 
warehouse for woollen goods. Dryden in his Limberham speaks of 
"Doily Petticoats," and Steele in The Guardian (No. 102) of his 
" Doily Suit," while Gay in his Trivia describes a Doily as a poor 
defence against the cold. No. 277 was in the time of Queen Anne 
the shop of Bat Pidgeon, known to every reader of The Spectator? At 
No. 132 Bathoe the bookseller established in 1740 the first circulating 
library in London. On the first floor of a house at the eastern corner 
of Castle Court (where Agar Street now stands) the Society of Arts held 
their meetings in 1756, and there they erected assaying furnaces. 
Nathaniel Smith and Joseph Nollekens were playfellows here. 
Adjoining Temple Bar and on a part of the site of the New Law 
Courts, stood the small pent-house of lath and plaster occupied for 
many years by Crockford 3 (d. 1844) as a shell-fish shop; here he 
made the money with which he established the Club in St. James's 
Street which bore his name. [See Crockford's.] The Banking House 
of Messrs. Coutts and Company is numbered 59. 

The business hitherto carried on in St. Martin's Lane was removed by Middleton 
to its present site in 1757 in a house erected for it, the central house of eleven 
which formed the New Exchange, or Britain's Bourse. The house itself was at this 
time known as the Three Crowns. In 1755 Mr. James Coutts of Edinburgh was 
admitted as a partner, the firm being then entitled Campbell and Coutts. By the 
death of George Campbell in 1760 Coutts was left sole partner. Soon after his 
brother Thomas was admitted, and he, surviving his brother, became the head of the 
firm, the Old Coutts of boundless wealth. By his death in 1822 the male line of 
Coutts became extinct. "Account of Coutts Family, "by Robert Chambers, Chambers 's 
Journal, November 7, 1874. 

[See the various buildings mentioned under their several names, and 
also the several streets along the line.] 

Strand Bridge, the original name for the fine bridge by John 
Rennie, but changed by Act of Parliament, and now universally known 
as Waterloo Bridge. It was previously applied to a bridge over the 

1 See Forty Years' Recollections, by Charles :J There is a good view of the house in No. i 
Mackay, LL.D., vol. i. p. 7:. of J. W. Archer's Vestiges of Old London. 

" Smith's Nollekens, vol. i. p. 3 ; vol. ii. p. 217. 



STRAND LANE 325 



streamlet from St. Clement's Well, where it crossed the Strand ; and 
afterwards to a landing-pier at the foot of Strand Lane. [See Strand 
Lane.] 

Then had yc in the high street a fair bridge called Strand Bridge, and under it a 
lane or way down to the landing-place on the bank of the Thames. Stow, p. 165. 

I''fl>niary 25, 1527. The Lady Elizabeth came riding from her house at 
Hatfield to London . . . unto her place called Somerset Place, beyond Strand 
Bridge. Strype, Hist. Mem., vol. iii. p. 444; Afachyn, p. 167. 

I landed with ten sail of Apricock boats at Strand Bridge, after having put in at 
Nine Elms, and taken in Melons, consigned by Mr. Cuffe of that place to Sarah 
Sewell and Company at their stall in Covent Garden. The Spectator, No. 454. 

There was a third bridge in the Strand in addition to Ivy Bridge 
and Strand Bridge, the remains of which were discovered in 1832 
during the construction of a sewer a little east of St. Clement's Church. 
" It was of stone and consisted of one arch about 1 1 feet long, very 
antique in its appearance and of the most durable construction." l It 
is difficult for us to conceive what a London roadway must have been 
in the time of the Tudors and Stuarts. When James Naylor, the 
weak-minded Quaker enthusiast, was flogged by the direct order of 
Parliament, the historian of the sect records that 

The 1 8th December [1656] J. Naylor suffered part : and after having stood 
full two hours with his head in the Pillory, was stripped, and whipped at a cart's 
tail, from Palace Yard to the Old Exchange, and received three hundred and ten 
stripes ; and the executioner would have given him one more (as he confessed to 
the Sheriff), there being three hundred and eleven kennels, but his foot slipping, the 
stroke fell upon his own hand, which hurt him much. Sewel's Hist, of the Quakers, 
4to, 1709, vol. i. p. 239. 

There were thus no fewer than 311 open channels crossing the 
roadway between Westminster Hall and the Royal Exchange ; and 
after heavy rains every lane leading to the Thames must have been an 
open watercourse. Perhaps the largest of the unbridged channels was 
at Milford (Mill Ford) Lane. 

Strand Inn, an Inn of Court belonging to the Middle Temple. 
It was pulled down by the Protector Somerset, and part of the present 
Somerset House occupies the site. 

Strand Lane, in the STRAND, east of Somerset House, and 
opposite the east end of St. Mary's Church, was originally the channel 
of the rivulet which crossed the great thoroughfare under Strand 
Bridge. It must be remembered that the Strand at this part has been 
raised fully 20 feet above the ancient level. The lane led to the 
landing-place, at one time known as Strand Bridge ; but this was 
destroyed in forming the Thames Embankment and the lane is no 
longer a thoroughfare. On the east side of this lane is a genuine 
ancient Roman Bath, which is well worth inspection. The bath is 13 
feet long and 6 feet wide, and is supplied by a spring of beautifully 
clear, cold water. The bricks of which it is constructed are similar to 
those of the City Wall, but smaller in size. 2 

1 Knight, vol. ii. p. 151. London, vol. ii. p. 164, 1842. It has been littlo 

2 There is an engraving of the bath in Knight's altered since. 



326 STRAND THEATRE 

Strand Theatre, on the south side of the Strand, four doors west 
of Surrey Street, formerly called Punch's Playhouse, is principally 
devoted to burlesque and farce. The exterior is unpretentious, the 
interior well appointed. 

Stratford Le Bow, (the Stratford atte Bowe of our old writers of 
the 1 4th and i$th centuries), now commonly called Bow, formerly a 
hamlet of Stepney, but made into a separate parish in 1720, lies a mile 
east of Mile End. The name Stratford or Straet-ford is derived from a 
ford through the Lea at the place where it was crossed by the old 
Roman Road to Colchester. About the beginning of the i2th 
century Queen Matilda built a bridge over the Lea near the " Old Ford," 
and from the shape of this bridge the name of the village took the 
addition of " atte Bow." 

Matilda, wife of Henry I. , having herself been well washed in the water, caused 
two bridges to be builded in a place one mile distant from the Old Ford, of the 
which one was situated over Lee at the head of the town of Stratford nowe called 
Bowe, because the bridge was arched like unto a bowe, a rare piece of work, for 
before that time the like had never been seen in England. The other over the little 
brooke, commonly called Chanelse Bridge. Leland's Collections. 

The old bridge, consisting of three narrow arches, had been so often 
repaired as to leave little of the original structure when taken down in 
1835. The present one, a substantial structure in Aberdeen granite, 
of a single elliptical arch, 70 feet in span, was erected from the designs 
of Messrs. Walker and Burges, and formally opened February 14, 1839. 
The French of Chaucer's "Prioress" was spoken in the Stratford manner : 

And Frensch sche spak ful faire and fetysly, 
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, 
For Frensch of Parys was to hire unknowe. 

Prologue to Canterbury Tales ; 1. 124. 

Bakers living at Stratford -le- Bow supplied London with bread as 
late as the reign of Henry VIII. 

A custome which many holde that Mile-End is no walke without a recreation at 
Stratford Bow with creame and cakes. Kemp's Nine Days' Wonder, 410, 1 600. 

William de Croton, of the county of Suffolk, was attached for pretending to be 
a sergeant of the Sheriffs of London. Meeting Richolda of Stratford and Mabel of 
Stratford, bakeresses, who were bringing bread to the City with their carts, for sale, 
he arrested the carts of the said Richolda and Mabel until they had paid him a 
fine. Riley's Memorials, p. 79. 

This parish was also for some time the resort of the butchers of 
London, " who do rent their houses at Stratforde and around Stratforde." 
In 1371 the air of the City having been "greatly corrupted and 
infected " by the slaughtering of cattle therein, Edward III. ordained 
that 

All oxen, sheep, swine and other large animals, for the sustenance of our city 
aforesaid to be slaughtered, should be taken to the village of Stretteford, on the one 
side and the village of Knyghtebrugge on the other side of the said city and there 
be slaughtered. Riley's Memorials, p. 356. 



STRATFORD PLACE 327 

The parish church, dedicated to St. Mary, was originally built about 
the beginning of the i4th century as a chapel of ease to Stepney, and 
was consecrated as a parish church March 16, 1719. 

What is now known as Stratford, a mile or so farther east, is more 
properly Stratford Langthorn. 

Stratford Place, OXFORD STREET, north side, opposite South 
Molton Street, was built about 1775 by Edward Stratford second 
Earl of Aldborough, and others, to whom a ground-lease, renewable for 
ever under certain conditions, had been granted by the Corporation of 
London. In the mansion that terminates the place, and fronts the 
entrance from Oxford Street, the Earl of Aldborough resided for many 
years. 1 Here stood the Lord Mayor's Banqueting House, erected for 
the Mayor and Corporation to dine in after their periodical visits to the 
Bayswater and Paddington Conduits, and the Conduit Head adjacent 
to the Banqueting House, which supplied the City with water. 

A conduit head 

Hard by the place toward Tyburn, which they call 
My Lord Mayor's Banqueting House. 

Ben Jonson, The Devil is an Ass, Act v. Sc. i