Jay’s Mourning Warehouse

Tags

clothing, mourning

Street View: 4 and 4 Supplement:
Address: 217 and 247 Regent Street

Vignette from Tallis’s Street View 4 Supplement (1847) with Jay’s Warehouse on the right

What to do if you live in the country and experience the need for mourning clothes because of a sudden death? You turn – of course – to Messrs. Jay of Regent Street who “have always at command experienced dressmakers and milliners who act as travellers, so that in the event of immediate mourning being required, or any other sudden emergency for dress, one can be despatched to any part of the kingdom on receipt of letter or telegram, without any expense to the purchaser”.⁽¹⁾

Regent Street looking north towards All Souls Church by Samuel Lacey, after T.H. Jones, c. 1850. Jay’s shop on the left. ©British Museum

Jay’s started out moderately at number 217 Regent Street (see elevation at the top of this post on the left) as ‘Shawl warehouse’, but expansion soon followed. In 1847 when the Supplement to the Street Views came out, Jay’s were still ‘only’ occupying numbers 247 and 249, but they eventually spread out over almost the whole section of shops on the west side of Regent Street between Princess Street and Oxford Street, from 243 to 251, just missing out on numbers 239 and 241. The shop was frequently depicted in advertisements and other illustrations.

1876 Advert (Source: Grace’s Guide)

London as it is Today, 1851

1847 Pictoral Times

1847 Pictoral Times

cover and title-page of A History of Mourning

Jay commissioned Richard Davey to write A History of Mourning (online here) in which he tells us that “funeral ceremonies and rites are of the most remote antiquity” The ancient Egyptians apparently chose yellow as the colour of their garments when in mourning, but our custom of wearing black comes from the Greeks. Davey not only writes about the clothes, but also about the funerals themselves, the processions and customs in various countries. He says, for instance, that it was the custom in Norfolk until the beginning of the nineteenth century to give the mourners “black gloves, scarves, and bunches of herbs”. Remember that Pepys frequently received a mourning ring when attending a funeral. Very rarely does Davey touch upon the funeral of ordinary people; it is all about royalty, popes, and famous people like Lord Nelson. But that is not surprising; after all, Jay’s made a living out of selling people things they did not really need, but thought they were obliged to buy to keep up appearances. Their great example of course being Queen Victoria who elevated the art of mourning to a new height. And if you are not exactly sure what the regulations are, Davey will tell you who is responsible for the etiquette, for instance: “The order for Court mourning to be observed for the death of a foreign sovereign is issued by the Foreign Office, and transmitted thence to the Lord Chamberlain”. The notices issued about the mourning are very detailed and specify exactly at what time one is supposed to wear black and when dark grey and whether the gloves should be black or white.

Nelson’s funeral car from Davey’s History of Mourning

Of course, as the instigator of Davey’s book, Jay’s did not neglect to put themselves in as favourable light as possible, although I would take the phrase “at the very smallest modicum of profit” with a pinch of salt.

Such developments [that is: the percolation to England of Continental ideas in mourning fashion] could scarcely be exhibited in a more marked manner than in Jay’s London General Mourning Warehouse, Regent Street, an establishment which dates from the year 1841, and which during that period has never ceased to increase its resources and to complete its organisation, until it has become, of its kind, a mart unique both for the quality and the nature of its attributes. Of late years the business and enterprise of this firm has enormously increased, and it includes not only all that it necessary for mourning, but also departments devoted to dresses of a more general description, although the colours are confined to such as could be worn for either full or half mourning. Black silks, however, are pre-eminently a speciality of this house, and the Continental journals frequently announce that “la maison Jay de Londres a fait de forts achats.” Their system is one from which they never swerve. It is to buy the commodity direct from the manufacturers, and to supply it to their patrons at the very smallest modicum of profit compatible with the legitimate course of trade. The materials for mourning costumes must always virtually remain unchangeable, and few additions can be made to the lists of silks, crapes, paramattas, cashmeres, grenadines, and tulles as fabrics. They and their modifications must be ever in fashion so long as it continues fashionable to wear mourning at all; but fashion in design, construction, and embellishment may be said to change, not only every month, but well-nigh every week.
The fame of a great house of business like this rests more upon its integrity and the expedition with which commands are executed than anything else. To secure the very best goods, and to have them made up in the best taste and in the latest fashion, is one of the principal aims of the firm, which is not unmindful of legitimate economy. For this purpose, every season competent buyers visit the principal silk marts of Europe, such as Lyons, Genoa, and Milan for the purpose of purchasing all that is best in quality and pattern.

1888 Advert from Illustrated London News

Fashion obviously played a large role in the success of warehouses such as Jay’s. Mourners, despite their grief, still had to keep up with the latest fashion and could certainly not be seen in last year’s model (or even last week’s model if Davey’s eulogy on Jay is to be believed). No mention of the pecuniary value to Jay if fashion changed as often as it did, but it certainly did them no harm. So, ever changing models and material were available in the draper shops, but Jay realised that it was not just clothes the customers were after; they needed ribbons, hats, rings, gloves, hand bags, shoes, flowers, drapery for the house, etc, etc. and he supplied it all, not just for the ladies, but for the whole family.⁽³⁾ The British Library has a small booklet, Modes des Mantelets (Shelf-mark: C.193.a.275) which was published by Jay for the convenience of customers “at a greater distance from town” and which contains eight lithographed plates in colour of the latest fashion in mantelets and cloaks. For instance: Plate 1, “La Mantelette Sultane de Madame Popelin”, or Plate 6, “La Mantelet Clementine”. Unfortunately, no date is given, but Jay announces in the booklet that he has just taken over the adjoining premises of number 251 in which he “will forthwith open another suite of shew[sic] rooms, amply stored with the various products comprised in his extensive stock, from the principal manufacturing houses, both of London and Paris”.

Jay’s was started by William Chickall Jay, who was born around 1811 in Cavendish, Suffolk. He died 27 April 1888 and his probate record showed that he was worth over £100,000. His only son Thomas Simpson Jay was one of the executors.⁽²⁾ The census records also show several daughters for William and his wife Mathilda Wylie Simpson (they had married in 1838), but no other sons. William Chickall’s grave at Kensall Green, however, shows the names of three sons who were born to the couple but who died very young. The 1851 census is particularly revealing about the size of the business. William, his wife and the surviving five children (Thomas, Elizabeth, Ellen, Ada and Eugene) live above the shop (listed as being at numbers 247 and 249), but also living there are 20 employees, ranging from one of the porters, Henry Jones (21 years old), to a dressmaker, Henrietta Champ (18), and from a milliner, Mary Dixon (widow, 25), to the housekeeper, Sarah Martens (38). It is most likely that more employees came in on a daily basis, but the census just shows those living above the shop.

(1) Advertisement in Bradshaw’s Illustrated Handbook to France, n.d.
(2) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1888.
(3) See for more funeralia http://www.ephemera-society.org.uk/articles/funeralia.html and http://vichist.blogspot.nl/2008/06/victorian-funerals-and-mourning.html?m=1. If you want to know more about mourning clothes in general, have a look at Daphne Nash’s Review of Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire.

Neighbours:

<– 215 Regent Street <– 245 Regent Street

219 Regent Street –> 249 Regent Street –>

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J & J Holmes, shawl manufacturers

Tags

clothing

Street View: 4 (Suppl. 3)
Address: 171-175 Regent Street

James and Joseph Holmes, brothers, were shawl and cloak merchants at 171-175 Regent Street, just off the corner with New Burlington Street. As their advertisement in Tallis’s Street View proudly states, they ran their business by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen, Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent, Her Royal Highness the Princess Augusta, and Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge.

advertisement in Tallis’s Street View

Many of the shawls sold by Holmes were imported from India, but the import of certain goods from there was deemed detrimental to the manufacture in England and measures to curb imports were considered. The East India Company petitioned Parliament for the continued free trade with India and R. Montgomery Martin reports at length on the issue in The Colonial Magazine and Commercial-maritime Journal. Montgomery Martin not only states that it would be an injustice if imports from India were to be curbed, but a prohibition to import shawls from there would only benefit other countries as shawls made in England were of inferior quality. To support the argument, Holmes is quoted as saying that if they did not have enough stock from India, they imported the shawls from Paris.⁽¹⁾

Part of West Side of Regent Street drawn by Thomas Shepherd, engraved by W.Watkins, 1828

In an advertisement in The Court Journal the shawl dealers state that their business “is the only establishment in the Kingdom for the exclusive sale of SHAWLS; and, from the vast renown and distinguished patronage their house had acquired by the magnifique and constant supply of fresh productions from their Manufactories at home and Agents abroad, combined with the flattering encomiums bestowed by the fashionables who have honoured Messrs J. and J. Holmes with a visit, amply recompense them for the expense they have incurred in rendering their Establishment the most attractive and splendid even in that vicinage.”⁽²⁾ A visitor to London also heaps praise on the shop “At Holmes’s nothing was sold but Cashmere shawls of the most expensive kinds, and with these shawls the shop window was most picturesquely draped; the only other decoration being a huge vase of Oriental porcelain, standing perhaps some four feet and a half high. I have in my entrance hall precisely such a vase. I bought it many years ago, slightly cracked, as a ‘bargain,’ and when I look upon it I never fail to associate it with Holmes’s great Cashmere shawl shop in Regent Street.”⁽³⁾

Advertisement from Dickens, Bleak House, 1852 p. 22

elevation 1847

Things appeared to go well for Messrs. J. & J. Holmes and in the 1847 supplement to Tallis’s Street View they had their elevation not only adorned with their name, but also with their Royal links. Before that, in 1844, they had dissolved their partnership with Emile Le Batard “by mutual consent” and continued the business together.⁽⁴⁾ When and why they had entered into the partnership with Le Batard is unclear. Apart from the occasional embezzlement by dishonest employees, all seemed to go smoothly.⁽⁵⁾ In 1851, during the Great Exhibition, James Holmes & Co. [Joseph Holmes seems to have disappeared, perhaps he died, but see below for 1848 trouble] displayed an opera cloak, composed of the finest white wool, ornamented with 1,200 gold pendants, together with several other items.⁽⁶⁾ He received a medal. To lure more people to the Exhibition, a book was produced, London as it is Today, which described the establishment of J. Holmes as a “most elegant and distinguished trading establishment” with products ranging from three hundred guineas for the “wealthy and titled lady” to articles from a “humbler sphere”.

London as it is Today, 1851, p. 403

Be that as it may, very shortly afterwards, on 19 August, 1852, bankruptcy proceedings were filed against James.⁽⁷⁾ But things had already not been well even before the Great Exhibition. Dickens relates in his Household Narrative for 1853 that

In the Court of Bankruptcy on the 28th ult. Commissioner Fane gave an Important Judgment in the case of James Holmes the shawl-warehouseman in Regent-street, who became bankrupt some time ago. Mr. Fane attributed much of the bankrupt’s misfortunes to a private arrangement which followed his bankruptcy in 1848. He disapproved of private arrangements generally, as inducing the bankrupt to purchase secrecy by the promise of a higher dividend than his assets will allow, and as unfair to future creditors […] In the present case. Holmes owed, in 1848, £15,907, and had £4151 available assets; but the arrangement specified that he should pay not five shillings but ten shillings in the pound. Of course the extra five shillings could only come from the future profits of the business. Then he had agreed to pay the dividend by instalments extending over a space of eighteen months. Yet to some he had paid twenty shillings and fifteen shillings instead of ten shillings in the pound, and others he had paid in fifteen days instead of eighteen months. Mr. Fane censured him for extravagant personal expenditure—£800 a year. He also adjudged him guilty of obtaining forbearance of debts by fraud; the fraud being concealment of his dealings with the money-lenders, to the amount of £6518. Holmes likewise, when sued in June 1852, instead of meeting his creditors, as he should have done, being insolvent, had pawned some valuable shawls sent him by a French merchant on sale or return. That was a violation of commercial integrity. The judgment of the Court is, (Mr. Fane said in conclusion) that the certificate of the bankrupt be suspended for three years from the date of the bankruptcy, without protection, and when granted to be of the third class. If he should be imprisoned, I shall be willing to release him after three months’ imprisonment. I am sorry to be compelled to pronounce so severe a judgment against a person who had such excuse for his errors as the circumstances of 1848 furnish; and if all his creditors should abstain from exercising the power of punishment which the law gives,it will not surprise me, for I have seen in my judicial life quite enough to convince me that the severe creditor is the rare exception to the general rule.⁽⁸⁾

What happened in 1848? Did Joseph die and did James not have a head for figures? Or has something else happened we cannot now trace. I will continue the research and let you know if I come up with a clue.

The establishment was taken over by Farmer & Rogers who continued in the same line of business as an advertisement for a ‘bosio’, apparently an opera cloak, in The Musical world of 1858 testifies.

advertisement in The Musical World, 1858

G.A. Sala was, however, not as pleased with them as he had been with Holmes, “I am not so certain about Farmer and Rogers’, the Indian warehouse; although the firm are, I should say, ancient denizens of the street”.⁽⁹⁾ Other well-known customers frequented the shop; the Library of Congress holds an invoice to James McNeill Whistler for items delivered to Mrs Whistler, probably his mistress who sometimes styled herself Mrs Whistler, which was never paid because Whistler went bankrupt (see here).
But Farmer and Rogers played another part in the development of the ‘India’-style clothing and furnishings, as in 1862, they employed one Arthur Lasenby Liberty. After more than ten years in service at Farmer and Rogers, Arthur set up his own business, Liberty & Co, but that is another story.

(1) The Colonial Magazine and Commercial-maritime Journal, volume 5, 1841, p. 178.
(2) The Court Journal: Gazette of the Fashionable World, no. 299, 17 January 1835, p. 46.
(3) George Augustus Sala, Travels in Regent Street, part 2, 1895, pp. 219-220.
(4) London Gazette, 22 October 1844.
(5) In 1839 William Berry, described by Joseph Holmes as “their shopman” as withholding money received from clients (Old Bailey proceedings 13 May 1839).
(6) Official Catalogue of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 2nd ed., 1851, p. 105.
(7) London Gazette, 28 March 1854.
(8) Charles Dickens, Household Narrative, volume 4, 1853, p. 35 (online here).
(9) Sala, p. 219.

Neighbours:

<– 169 Regent Street

177 Regent Street –>