J.W. Norie & Co., navigation warehouse

Tags

book trade, instrument maker, transport

Street View: 2
Address: 157 Leadenhall Street

It is sometimes a good thing that the process of OCR is not perfect, especially not for older text material, as I might not so easily have worked out that Tallis made a mistake by listing J.W. Norie as Morie, with the modern facsimile edition making it even worse by transcribing Tallis’s mistake as Moria. My first Google search for ‘moria leadenhall’ immediately gave me as a matching result a book available at archive.org that contained an advertisement for Norie and Wilson at 157 Leadenhall Street, and that put me on the right track for John William Norie who obtained his freedom of the City of London by redemption through the Company of Coopers. The notice from the Coopers’ Company about his registration already has 157 Leadenhall Street as his address. The 1834 electoral registers tell us that besides his shop, he also had property in Albany Street, Regent’s Park.

Norie did not start the navigation warehouse in Leadenhall; it was William Heather who had taken over the chart publishers Mount and Page and who ran the Naval Warehouse and Academy from 1795. When Heather retired in 1813, Norie took over and hence needed the freedom of one of the Worshipful Companies to be able to trade in the City. He had already been busy before 1813, not just as an assistant to Heather, but also as an author, or perhaps more correctly compiler, of A New and Complete Epitome of Practical Navigation (1805). On the title-page he is referred to as ‘teacher of navigation and nautical astronomy’ and in his preface he sets out his reasons for writing the book, namely the inadequacy of existing works on practical navigation. He dedicated the book to the Court of directors of the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies, which was of course a sensible move as most of the customers of the Navigation Warehouse had links with the East India Company and their headquarters were situated just a bit further up the street.

The shop is depicted in Robert Wilkinson’s Londina Illustrata (1825) as the second building from the left in the first section on the north side of Leadenhall Street, that is, on the left if you were coming from Cornhill and had just crossed Bishopsgate and Gracechurch Street. The caption explains that these houses were erected after a fire in 1765. A map of that fire, with the individual houses can be seen here. From the map, we learn that number 157 was then occupied by a linen draper, but none of the names correspond to the ones in the 1825 picture and in turn, most names of the 1825 occupants had disappeared by the time Tallis produced his booklet on the street some 15 years later, with the exception of Norie at no. 157, Robinson at no. 153 and Corser at no. 152.

There is nothing left now of the shop as street widening has taken its toll. There is, however, a tangible reminder of the shop in the Charles Dickens Museum. They have on display the figure of a midshipman who used to adorn the Norie premises as a shop sign.⁽¹⁾ The poor man is squashed a bit against the ceiling in the museum and not so easy to photograph (no flash allowed), but it is great that he has not been thrown in a skip when the shop was demolished. Dickens used the navigation warehouse in Dombey & Son as the model for Sol Gills’ shop with one of the “little timber midshipmen in obsolete naval uniforms, eternally employed outside the shopdoors of nautical instrument-makers in taking observations of the hackney coaches”. The little midshipman appears throughout Dickens’s story, following the ups and downs of Gills’ shop, and ending with a new coat of paint, still gleefully taking the measure of the hackney coaches.

Illustration by Hablot Browne (‘Phiz’) from the 1848 edition of Dombey and Son

portrait of Norie by Adam Buck, after Williams (Solomon Williams?), watercolour, circa 1803 (© National Portrait Gallery, London)

John William Norie was born in 1772 and died in 1843. He probably retired in 1840, as that is when the partnership between the executors of George Wilson and Norie came to an end.⁽²⁾ Norie’s will provides a number of clues. For starters, it was drawn up in Edinburgh, because he was at that time “residing in Princes Street Edinburgh in order to settle my affairs and to prevent all disputes that might otherwise arise in regard to my means and estate after my death”.⁽³⁾ In fact, he was to die there at the end of 1843. He names William Nash of St. Thomas’s Hospital, his brother-in-law John Hodgson Anderson, and his son William Heather Norie as executors. Besides a few named bequests, he leaves his three daughters £5,500 each and the rest of his estate is to go to his son William Heather.⁽⁴⁾ From the bequests he lists, we can work out that he had a brother Evelyn Thomas Francis, a nephew John William, and five sisters. All this information makes it fairly easy to work out that John William was the eldest son of James Norie of Moray and Dorothy Mary Fletcher of London. James had been trained for the Presbyterian ministry and ran a school at Burr Street, London. You can see a portrait of him here.

After John William’s retirement, the business was continued by Charles Wilson, the son of George Wilson who had been Norie’s partner in the past. The Land tax for 1840 is still in Norie’s name, but in 1841 it is Wilson who is paying the tax. His name continued in the tax records till 1882 when his name is given as “late Charles Wilson” and an annotation indicates that a new building is being put up: “Premises in course of erection” as the tax man phrased it. The business relocated to 156 Minories, and in time amalgamated with various other firms to become Imray, Laurie, Norie & Wilson, but it is nowadays just plain Imray of St. Ives, Cambridgeshire (more on them here).

title-page of J.W. Norie’s A New and Complete Epitome of Practical Navigation, 1805

part of a nautical chart by Norie, 1837 (Source: Library of Congress, online here)

octant, c. 1795 (Source: Land and Sea Collection, see here)

imprint of J.W. Norie’s New sailing directions for the Adriatic sea, or Gulf of Venice, 1843

advertisement for The Corinthian Yachtsman. Note the new address

(1) On loan since 1946 from Laurie, Norie, Imray & Wilson, see here.
(2) The London Gazette, 22 September 1840.
(3) PROB 11/1991/402.
(4) Evelina Harriet, Frances Charlotte, and Ann Isabella.

Neighbours:

<– 158 Leadenhall Street

156 Leadenhall Street –>

William John Huggins, marine painter

Tags

art

Street View: 2
Address: 105 Leadenhall Street

Although at first sight, William John Huggins seems to have had a substantial house in Leadenhall Street, in fact, all he probably had was an entrance in the street, with a narrow alley leading to his house which was situated behind numbers 104 and 106. Horwood’s 1799 map and Goad’s 1886 insurance map show the actual situation. It is, however possible that Huggins used one of the front rooms of number 106 as his shop. Number 106 was listed in the Street View for F.S. Crawley, modeller, who will get a blog post of his own sometime in the future. Huggins did manage to have his name prominently depicted on the Street View elevation, suggesting number 106 was where his business was, but no evidence has come to light that he actually occupied that house in addition to number 105, so I assume it was rather an advertorial opportunity rather than a depiction of the actual situation.

The 1799 situation from Horwood’s map on the left and the 1886 situation from Goad’s insurance map on the right

In 1825, William John Huggins (sometimes given as John William), marine painter, acquired the freedom of the City by redemption. A note at the bottom of the document states that Huggins had been admitted as freeman of the Fanmakers’ Company in December 1823. And the 1829 Post Office Directory lists Higgins as marine painter & print seller at number 105, so it would appear that he started his career in the 1820s, but that is only half the story, as he used to be a ‘sailor’ in the service of the East India Company and had hence every opportunity to make numerous drawings of ships, coastlines and landscapes. The only documented voyage for him is one in 1812-1814 to Bombay and China when he served as steward to Captain James Buchanan on the Perseverance. Already in 1817, he exhibited a picture in the Royal Academy, “The honourable Company’s ship Lowther Castle off St. Helena”. His address is then gives as 36, Leadenhall Street, and only with his exhibit of 1823, “The James Watt steam packet towing the Royal George yacht”, is his later address of 105 Leadenhall Street mentioned. He may have rented that place first of all as the Land Tax record of 1828 lists the house for one Jane Davis and only in 1829 does Huggins’s name appear as “Huggins & others”. No indication, unfortunately, who the ‘others’ were, although in 1831, the house is listed for Young & Huggins.

SS ‘James Wyatt’ Towing the Royal Yacht, ‘Royal George’ on the Visit of George IV to Edinburgh, August 1824 by William John Huggins (© Fishing Heritage Centre / North East Lincolnshire Museum Service)

A trade card in the British Museum collection gives 105 Leadenhall Street as the address for Huggins, but it also says “removed from Merles 36 opposite”. Number 36 at the time of Tallis’s Street View was occupied by E. Fisher, a carver and gilder, but the 1822 indenture for William John’s son, James Miller, tells us more. James Miller is described as the son of John Huggins of Leadenhall Street, artist, and his master as Thomas Robert Merle of the same place, carver and gilder. Only in 1841, did James Miller seek the freedom of the City and he does so by testifying that he had been bound to Merle in October 1822 and had served the full seven years of his apprenticeship. Merle’s father had had his frame maker’s business at 36 Leadenhall Street at least since 1783. See for more information on Thomas Robert Merle and his father Thomas Merle the National Portrait Gallery’s website here.

trade card (© Trustees of the British Museum)

Huggins was assisted by Thomas Duncan, whose son, Edward Duncan married Huggins’ daughter Berthia, named after her mother. Huggins probably taught all his children to draw and a tantalising glimpse of daughter Berthia’s skills can be seen in a drawing of the figurehead of the ‘Druid’, now in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (see here). Edward was responsible for many of the prints made after Huggins’s paintings, for instance the one below of the crowd watching ships coming into St. Katherine Docks on the opening day in 1828. On 20 September 1830, William John was appointed marine painter to William IV, who commissioned three large paintings of the battle of Trafalgar. The first two were shown at Exeter Hall in 1834.

Exhibition entrance ticket and catalogue (Source: Peter Harrington)

Huggins died in 1845, 63 or 64 years old, and, although the Dictionary of National Biography says that nothing is known about his parents, it is not so difficult to work out that William John Huggins and Berthia Miller were married 27 March 1804 at St. Clement’s, Oxford, and their eldest son William was registered at St. Clement’s with the note “born and baptised at Kidlington”. The couple must have moved to London before July 1807 as on the 5th of that month, their third child, James Miller, was baptised at St. Luke, Old Street. William sr. died on 19 May 1845, according to The Era “after one or two days’ illness” and was buried on the 24th at St. James’s, St. Pancras. The burial register lists his age as 63, but most other sources give 64. The reception of his painting was varied; E.C. Needham, who wrote about ‘Painters within the City Gates’ in the June 1885 issue of London Society: An Illustrated Magazine of Light and Amusing Literature said of his work “unluckily for his fame, his works are tame in design, his skies bad in colour, his seas poor and thin”, but his obituary in The Gentleman’s Magazine was a lot more positive, “his portraits of ships … were excellent, and the scenery displayed many a sunny spot of beautiful colouring, particularly in his delineations of Chinese landscape”. Huggins left his estate to his wife and his unmarried daughters, which suggests that the other children predeceased him or that he had already given them money on their marriage.⁽¹⁾

The Morning Post, 23 October 1845

The Opening of the St. Katherine Docks, engraved by E. Duncan after W.J. Huggins. (© Trustees of the British Museum)

The 1848 and 1851 Post Office Directories list Henry Edgerley of the Golden Anchor, public house, at number 105, but other businesses used the address as well. In 1849, for instance, J. Witham of number 105 sent out a 4-page booklet on Phillips’ patent fire annihilator, which has ended up in the collection of the International Institute of Social History. There is another copy of a few years later in the British Library collection. William Henry Phillips had a chequered career, but the fire annihilator was one of his more successful inventions. However, by 1853, he, for one reason or another, no longer wished to be associated with the Company and arrived one day at the office in Leadenhall Street where he started tearing up the leaflets. He was bound over to keep the peace.⁽²⁾ And with this disruptive episode in the history of 105 Leadenhall Street, I will end this post.

Top part of leaflet on Fire Annihilator, 1852 (© British Library)

(1) PROB 11/2022/341. Children: William (1804-?), John (1805-?), James Miller (1807-1870), Berthia (1809-1884), John (also known as John William, 1811-?), Elizabeth Mary (1813-?), Amelia (1817-?), and Sarah Christina (1821-?).
(2) Deborah Colville: ‘From Aerodiphros to Painless Dentistry: Bloomsbury’s Notable Inventors’ online here.

Neighbours:

<– 106 Leadenhall Street

104 Leadenhall Street –>

Parbury & Co and the Oriental Herald Office

Tags

book trade

Street View: 2
Address: 8 Leadenhall Street

Contrary to the usual practice in the Tallis Street Views, Parbury’s entry in the index does not give his occupation but just “Oriental Herald Office”. As you can see from the elevation above, that phrase is also written above the shop, but on the shop itself Parbury is designated as a bookseller. He specialised in books about the Orient and the Colonies, such as G.A. Prinsep’s Remarks on the external commerce of Bengal (1823) and Zoological Researches in Java (1824; see the illustration below) – Java had briefly been a British Colony from 1811-1815.

1838 advert in Arcana of Science and Art, Or an annual register of popular inventions.

The Oriental Herald and Colonial Intelligencer turns out to be a journal published since 1838 by Parbury with all sorts of information on and for the colonies, such as articles (for instance on the Hindi language), literary notices, letters to the editor (for instance on ‘steam communication with India’), snippets of colonial news (for instance on a new road through the town of Poona), shipping news, announcements of military appointments, marriages or deaths; in short, everything that could possibly be of interest about the colonies. Unfortunately, the publication was short-lived, only 4 volumes, published in instalments, came out between 1838 and 1840. And halfway through, the imprint suddenly changed to ‘James Madden, late Parbury’.

Imprint of James Mill’s History of British India.

Parbury was George Parbury, the son of Charles Parbury who we can find as early as 1818 in an Old Bailey case where someone had stolen four books of Alexander Black, Thomas Kingsbury, Charles Parbury and William Houghton Allen.⁽¹⁾ Black leaves the partnership in 1822 and Kingsbury in 1827.⁽²⁾ Charles Parbury dies in late 1834 and George takes over, but as we saw from the take-over by Madden, not for long. What happened to George is unclear, but James Madden must have taken over shortly after the publication of Tallis’s Street View. Perhaps George had his own career and only ran his father’s bookshop until he could find a suitable successor. A possible candidate is George Parbury, East India merchant, who lived at Caterham and died in 1881. Madden originally came from Ireland and obtained his freedom from the City of London in December 1838 through the Company of Spectacle Makers by redemption (i.e. by paying a fine for not having been a regular apprentice). The document tells us that he is a bookseller and already occupying the premises of 8 Leadenhall Street.

Madden continued the specialisation of Parbury into Oriental and Colonial publications. In 1840, for instance, he published J.S. Polack’s Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders and five years later C.A. de Bode’s Travels in Luristan and Arabistan. This latter book also included a list of books published by Madden & Co.; Co. being a partnership with Frederick Malcolm, dissolved in 1846.⁽³⁾ Madden lived to 1890, but in 1868, John Stuart Mill wrote to Henry G. Mackson who had inquired about The History of British India (written by Mill’s father), “the publisher of the edition, Mr. Madden, has, I am almost sure, given up business, but I do not know into whose hands his copyrights passed”.⁽⁴⁾ Well, not quite; a few titles were issued in 1869 and 1870, the latter with “J. Madden and son” but after that, the stream of books about the Orient and the Empire emanating from 8 Leadenhall Street dried up completely and Mill’s History of British India did not appear again until 1968 in a facsimile edition by Chelsea House Publishers.

Parbury and Madden’s 8 Leadenhall Street shop figures in various artists’ impressions. The first one is an illustration of ‘Ancient Architecture’ in The European Magazine of 1790. On the left is the shop of Barrow, biscuit baker; the lower building on the right was not yet a bookshop, but was occupied by The mineral water warehouse.

Source: British Museum

The next illustration is a print by J. Hoskins after a drawing by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd (1837). The bookshop is the first shop on the righthand side, with Parbury’s name clearly visible.

Source: Wikipedia Commons

And last, the vignette with which Tallis adorned his Street View. The bookshop is indicated by the red arrow.

(1) Old Bailey ref nr, t18180506-16
(2) London Gazette, 6 April 1822 and 30 January 1827.
(3) London Gazette, 18 August 1846.
(4) Letter 1351, dated 7 December 1868, in The Later Letters, 1849-1873, Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, ed. F.E. Mineka (1972), p. 1512.

Neighbours:

<– 10 Leadenhall Street

7 Leadenhall Street –>

Mechi’s magic razor strops and dressing cases

Tags

cutler, shaving

Street View: 2
Address: 4 Leadenhall Street

John Joseph Mechi (1802-1880) was the son of Giacomo Mechi from Bologna, Italy, who set up business as a cutler in the 1820s at 130 Leadenhall Street. When business went well, he moved to larger premises at 4 Leadenhall Street where he proudly announced his invention of the ‘magic’ razor strop on the Street View elevation. This last address is mentioned as Mechi’s in the Electoral Register for 1834.

He did not just stick with the traditional cutler’s wares, but branched out into dressing cases, chess boards, small tables, portable desks, and lots of similar goods. Some of the boxes and cases he supplied still come up in auctions and antique sales. His frequent advertisements were always verbose, listing as many trade goods as he could possibly fit in the allotted space. A good example is the page-long advertisement in Hammond’s List of London and Provincial Newspapers of 1850.

Advertisement in Hammond’s List of London and Provincial Newspapers 1850

Advertisement from C. Dickens, Bleak House 1852 p. 22

A slightly more subdued one is the advertisement he put in one of Dickens’s books by instalments, but even here he cannot refrain from listing the items available. Sometimes his advertisements were concerned with just one item, but then he would describe them in great detail as in the case of an advert for dressing cases in Notes and Queries of 25 January, 1851 where he states that “In no article perhaps is caution more necessary than in the purchase of a Dressing Case, for in none are the meretricious arts of the unprincipled manufacturer more frequently displayed. MECHI, 4. LEADENHALL STREET, near Gracechurch Street, has long enjoyed the reputation of producing a Dressing Case in the most finished and faultless manner. Those who purchase of him will be sure of having thoroughly-seasoned and well-prepared wood or leather, with the fittings of first-rate quality. The prices range from 1l. to 100l. Thus the man of fortune and he of moderate means may alike be suited, while the traveller will find the Mechian Dressing Case especially adapted to his necessities”.

shop front from 1841 catalogue

In 1851, Mechi exhibited at the Great Exhibition and as he announces in the Notes and Queries of 24 May 1851, he could be found in the gallery at the north-east corner of the transept. Totally in character, he could not refrain from adding a P.S.: “In order to afford room for the great accession of Stock which Mechi has provided to meet the demand consequent upon the anticipated influx of visitors to London during this season, he has fitted up an additional Show Room of great splendour, and made other improvements, to which he earnestly invites public attention.” He also acted as juror of the 1851 Exhibition and of the Paris Exhibition of 1855.

Mechi's Catalogue of 1834

From time to time, he also brought out a catalogue with pages and pages of items he could supply. You can see one full-text here and another one here. In 1859 he promoted his manager Charles Bazin to partner and expanded the business to 112 Regent Street. That is also the address were Bazin and his family were registered as living at the time of the 1861 census. Unfortunately, Charles Bazin died in 1865 (not in 1869 as is sometimes alleged) and Mechi had to take sole responsibility again.⁽¹⁾ We do indeed see Mechi and his second wife Charlotte residing at the Regent Street address in the 1871 census. Their children Isabella, Joseph and Florence are then living at Triptree-Hall, Tollesbury, Essex, a farm that Mechi had purchased in the early 1840s and on which he experimented with new farming methods.⁽²⁾ The Gardeners’ Chronicle makes frequent mention of talks, demonstrations and books, all by Mechi. Mr. Mechi’s Farm Balance-Sheets; also, His Lectures and Papers on farming since the publication of his former book was published in 1867 (see here). He also gave a lecture on how to ensure success in trade which was published in 1850 (see here). He stressed that customers had to be treated well, or in his words “with the utmost latitude of liberality” (p. 8). Even if they are wrong, they are right and you might as well take a small loss if that means the customer is satisfied with the service and will not only come back to you, but will also tell his friends about it.

Illustrated London News, 11 April 1857 Mechi as Middlesex magistrate

Mechi’s flair for business enabled him to live the life of a gentleman-farmer, frequently sojourning into the limelight with new farming practices. He became Alderman in the Ward of Lime Street and magistrate for Middlesex and founded a charity to support farmers. In 1860, the premises in Regent Street were used for the inaugural meeting of the Agricultural Benevolent Institution, a charity that still exists, and which had – and has – as its purpose “to secure a home for, or pension to, the bona fide farmer, or widow of a farmer and to maintain and educate the orphan children of farmers.”⁽³⁾

At the end of his life, things did not go as well as before. The failure of the Unity Joint Stock Bank and an unfortunate commitment with the Unity Fire and General Life Insurance Company, combined with the growing fashion for beards which markedly diminished the magic razor strop appeal and the bad farming years in the late 1870s all contributed to a gradual decline of his fortunes. He died on Boxing Day 1880, just 12 days after the liquidation of his affairs.⁽⁴⁾ In an obituary he was referred to as the “well-known agriculturist” and it was said that “although Mr. Mechi had attained a good old age, there appears to be no doubt that his death was immediately caused by the misfortunes that overtook him at the end of his useful career”.⁽⁵⁾ Although he died at Tiptree, his last address was given as 439 Strand and that is also the address where Isabella and Florence are found at the time of the 1881 census. Their mother Charlotte is then still residing at the farm with Joseph and Alice.

portrait Illustrated London News 8 Jan. 1881

(1) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1865. Charles died on 9 March 1865.
(2) John Joseph and Charlotte had five children: Louisa (±1850), Isabella (±1853), Joseph (±1854), Alice (±1856) and Florence (±1859). Mechi had married Charlotte Ward on 17 Feb. 1846 (St. Mary’s Stoke Newington) after his first wife Fanny Frost had died. He had married Fanny on 23 March 1823 (St. George the Martyr, London).
(3) RABI. Their website provided some of the information I have used for this post, esp. the section of their 150th anniversary (see here).
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1881. The probate on 7 January 1881 was granted to his daughter Isabella as one of the executors. Although his affairs had gone into liquidation, his personal estate was still valued as “under £2,000”.
(5) Journal of the Society of Arts, vol. 29 (1880-1881), p. 103.

Neighbours:

<– 5 Leadenhall Street

3 Leadenhall Street –>