Solomon Barraclough, tobacconist

Tags

tobacco

Street Views: 6, Suppl. 14, and Suppl. 17
Addresses: 46 Ludgate Hill and 70 Cheapside

Solomon Barraclough was, according to Tallis, an importer of Cuban cigars. He no doubt imported cigars from Cuba, but he was in fact a general tobacconist where you could also get your daily dose of snuff, if you so wished. The first record I found of Solomon was his birth registration at Dr. Williams’s Library on 21 July 1807. Solomon’s parents were Samuel Barraclough of Postern Row, Liberty of the Tower, and his wife Anna Bere, the daughter of Barnaby Bere. Solomon’s date of birth was given as 30 March, 1796. His birth was registered at the same time as those of his brother Timothy (1792) and of his two sisters, Anna (1793) and Jemima (1798). Registering the birth at Dr. Williams’s Library showed a definite non-conformist tendency by Solomon’s parents, but he does not seem to have been too worried himself as his marriage to Mary Preston took place at Christ Church and the baptism of his son William Preston at St. Bride’s. According to the Land Tax records, Barraclough could be found at 46 Ludgate Hill from 1827 onwards.

In 1844, Thomas Prout of 229 Strand, a bush and comb maker, who also ran a patent medicine warehouse, advertised almost weekly in provincial newspapers, such as The Belfast News-Letter, with his pills against gout and rheumatism. As one of the satisfied customers appeared G.E. Smith, “Assistant to Mr. Barraclough, Snuff Manufacturer to the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor”. My first instinct was to dismiss it as an advertising gimmick, but G.E. Smith most likely actually existed and is the same as the male servant listed in the 1841 census as living with the Barracloughs in Ludgate Hill (Geo. Smith, 30 years old). And in 1843, George Edward Smith testified in an Old Bailey case, where he said “I am in the employ of Solomon Barraclough, a tobacconist, in Ludgate Hill”.⁽¹⁾ Pigot’s Directory of 1839 still lists Barraclough at 46 Ludgate Hill, but by 1843 (Post Office Directory) he had extended his business to include the premises at 70 Cheapside, on the corner of Queen Street. He shared this latter address with William Garratt, an umbrella maker, who, at the time of the first series of Street Views (± 1839), had shared 70 Cheapside with Sanders & Co, hatters.

70 Cheapside

But, things did not go well for Solomon. Despite his apparent success in business, his personal life took a turn for the worse. His wife Mary died in August 1849 of cholera and this affected him so much that he committed suicide on the 1st of December. The inquest heard that on the morning of that fatal day, his son William heard strange noises coming from his father’s bedroom and when he went to investigate, his father was screaming and apparently trying to take hold of something in the air. His father got out of bed, but fell over and hurt his head. He was persuaded to go back to bed and his son left him to attend to the shop. His father said he would not go to the Cheapside shop as he normally did, but would stay in bed as he was not feeling well. Early in the afternoon, the bedroom door was found locked and when it was forced, they found Barraclough hanging from the bedstead rail. It was testified that Barraclough had not been himself after the death of his wife and would sit and cry for hours. A verdict of temporary insanity was returned.⁽²⁾ Barraclough was buried on the 7th at St. Bride’s, as his wife had been, at, as vicar Charles Marshall noted in the register, the “Coroner’s order / temporary insanity”, thereby avoiding the refusal to the suicide of a Christian burial.

In the 1851 census, we find William Preston Barraclough, tobacconist, at 46 Ludgate Hill and George Botterill, importer of cigars, at 70 Cheapside. Botterill was later to move to 33 Cheapside and in the 1861 census the property is listed as empty. William Preston is still at 46 Ludgate Hill in the 1856 Post Office Directory, and also in the 1861 census, but at some point he entered into a partnership with Henry Wilson Preedy at 129 Strand. That partnership was dissolved at the end of 1864 with Barraclough to continue on his own.⁽³⁾ The 1871 and 1881 censuses for Ludgate Hill no longer show number 46; they jump from 45 to 47 without any mention of 46. As we saw in the post on Thomas Treloar‘s carpet business, the area changed considerably because of the construction of the viaduct for the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company, with houses set back, pulled down and rebuilt. The numbering was also changed and what were numbers 46 and 48 became one new property with number 78. The old Barraclough shop was probably pulled down in 1871 or 1872 as the Land Tax records for 1870 still record it for Solomon Barraclough – they apparently never updated it to his son’s name – but in the 1871 record his name has disappeared. The 1886 insurance map below shows were Barraclough’s shop used to be in relation to the new situation.

And William Preston Barraclough himself? No idea; he seems to have disappeared from London as I cannot find him in any of the usual places. Did he emigrate? If you have a suggestion, let me know.

(1) Old Bailey case t18430508-1408.
(2) Story amalgamated from various newspaper reports.
(3) The London Gazette, 10 January 1865.

advert in Street View booklet 6

Neighbours:

<– 47 Ludgate Hill <– 71 Cheapside

45 Ludgate Hill –> 69 Cheapside –>

Everington & Graham, India shawl warehouse

Tags

clothing

Street Views: 6 and 15 Suppl.
Address: 10 Ludgate Street

On 12 February 1812, William Everington, linen draper, insured 10 Ludgate Street with the Sun Fire Office. A few months earlier, in September 1811, the partnership between Robert and John Waithman of Fleet Street and William Everington had been dissolved. And in 1840, evidence is given by John Francis, a silk manufacturer of Norwich, who stated that he had made shawls for 20 or 30 years and also made them “for Everington when he was in company with Waithman”.⁽¹⁾ I have no absolute proof that the Everington who was the partner of the Waithmans and who ordered shawls from Mr. Francis and the Everington who insured 10 Ludgate Street are the same – there are various William Everingtons around at that time – but it seems likely. [Postscript: Have since found out from William Ablett’s Reminiscences of an Old Draper (1876) that “Everington originally had been a lad occupying a very humble position in the establishment of Robert Waithman, who made him his partner; but on the occasion of the elder Waithman wishing to take his son into partnership also, Mr. Everington would not agree to the arrangement, and the partnership … was dissolved”. Ablett also says that to avoid the heavy import duty on India shawls, ladies coming from abroad would bring as many as they could as their personal clothing, “which they would sell to Everington, who had paid great attention to this part of the business”.]

trade card (Source: British Museum Collection)

Everington advertised in 1817 with Irish linens that he had obtained cheaply because of “the great depression in the price of Irish linens”.⁽²⁾ And two years later he has bought up “the whole of the elegant Cachemere Shawls, sent to her Majesty as presents from the different Foreign Courts”. The shawls had been Queen Charlotte’s who had died in November 1818.⁽³⁾ Things went well for Everington as in 1834, the Sun Fire insurance records suddenly hve him of 9 and 10 Ludgate Street. If we compare the frontage of the shop in the bill head below with the elevations Tallis depicted for the shop, you can see the difference. It is telling that number 9 (the right-hand side of the building in the Tallis elevations) has disappeared from the Tallis Index as if completely incorporated into Everington’s number 10.

bill head (Source: British Museum Collection)

elevation in the 1847 Supplement

Somewhere around 1839 or 1840, Everington must have entered into a partnership with John Graham as advertisements start to appear with both their names and Tallis has their joint names in index of the 1839/40 edition of his Street Views, although the elevation just shows the name of Everington. And in 1840 Nathaniel Whittock also depicts the shop with just the name of Everington. Whittock says that, despite the fact that the ceiling is low inside the old building,

the projector of this front exercised considerable ingenuity and skill in raising the windows so much above the brestsummer⁽⁴⁾, and adding to their light and elegant effect by a concave ceiling. The height of this front is obtained by intrenching on the windows of the first floor, yet by a skilful alteration of their form, they do not appear unsightly. The whole front is coloured in imitation of white-veined marble; the name and ornaments are gilt.

Plate XVIII of N. Whittock’s On the Construction and Decoration of the Shop Fronts of London (1840)

In the 1841 census, William Everington, then said to be 60 years old, is still living above the shop with 5 male assistants, 2 male porters, one male servant and 3 female servants. But at the end of 1842, the partnership between Everington and Graham is dissolved with Graham to continue the business.⁽⁵⁾ Everington retires and can be found at Gloucester Terrace in the 1851 census. He died in 1860.⁽⁶⁾

At some point John Graham may have entered into a partnership with George Smith. That partnership was quickly dissolved again, and in an 1845 advertisement George Smith describes himself as ‘late Graham and Smith, successors to Everington’ and now trading from 32 Ludgate Hill, the shop previously occupied by Rundell and Bridge.⁽⁷⁾ The following year, Smith had a very unusual visitor in his shop: a large Durham cow came in, walked round the shop and exited through another door without doing any damage to the china jars and glass on display.⁽⁸⁾ The Era of 29 August 1847 relates a story about an American lady who bought a shawl from the “ruination shop of Everington on Ludgate Hill” which elicited smirks from passers-by as she had failed to remove the price ticket, but the 1851 and 1861 censusus still see John Graham, his family, and a large workforce, living at 9 & 10 Ludgate Street. As no house number is given in the notice about the end of the partnership, nor in the story about the American, nor in the advertisements by Smith, these stories may have been about another Everington, as there were more Everingtons trading in the area.

Advertisement in Street View 6

In 1870, John Graham’s son, John junior, described as a shawl warehouseman, married Amy Attenborough. She was the daughter of Robert Attenborough, the pawn broker who featured in a previous post. The couple had two daughters, but all was not well. In 1875, divorce proceedings were started in which Amy, who was then living with her father again, claims that John threw a bottle of wine at her and that he, on various occasions, had hit her and that she had therefore left him. As can be expected, Graham denied the allegations and alleged that Amy was “a woman of extravagant habits and violent temper” who “habitually neglected her children and her household duties”, and that she was the one doing the hitting. And to top it all, she also had an affair with one Petrocochino, something Petrocochino and Amy denied. Amy continued to call herself Amy Graham, at least she did in the 1881 census when she is still living with her father, and given as ‘unmarried’. John junior and his father can be found at Brockhill Farm, Warfield, Berkshire, in the 1881 census (Google Street View here). John senior is listed as a retired shawl merchant and John junior, ‘unmarried’, is now a farmer, employing 4 labourers and a boy. In the 1891 census, Amy is still living with her father at 56 Avenue Rd, claiming to be a widow.

The Graphic, 9 February 1878

In 1878, John Graham senior had sold off his stock and Peter Robinson, a linen draper in Oxford Street, bought the whole lot to sell on again. Two of Robinson’s sons had also married Attenborough girls, but I am afraid these marriages ended in divorce as well; more on that in the forthcoming post on Robinson.⁽⁹⁾

The research on this post once again found unexpected links between London shopkeepers, an aspect of this blog that continues to amaze me and had not expected at all when I first started writing. I hope to show more interconnections in the future.

———————–
(1) Parliamentary Papers 1780-1849, Volume 8: Report from the Select Committee on East India Produce, 1840.
(2) The Morning Chronicle, 6 January 1817.
(3) The Morning Chronicle, 23 February 1819.
(4) Brestsummer is a variation of bressummer ‎(plural bressummers), a term used in architecture for a large, horizontal, supporting beam which bears the weight of a wall starting on a first or higher floor.
(5) The London Gazette, 6 January 1843.
(6) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1860. Estate valued at under £180,000.
(7) The London Gazette, 22 October, 1844; The Examiner, 28 June 1845.
(8) Glasgow Herald, 16 February 1846.
(9) Frank Robinson married Catherine, daughter of James Attenborough; his brother Peter married Fanny, the sister of Amy. Both left their wives and established illegitimate families with other women. I am grateful to Nick Thomson for supplying the information on the Graham/Robinson/Attenborough links.

Neighbours:

<– 11 Ludgate Street

8 Ludgate Street –>

Ebenezer Flint, hosier

Tags

clothing

Street View: 6
Address: 48 Ludgate Hill

Tallis lists Mr. Flint, according to the index a hosier and general outfitter, on the corner of Ludgate Hill and Farringdon Street, but as the elevation tells us, Flint had global ideas and described his shop as hosiery and shirt warehouse that outfitted to India. We will get back to Flint shortly, but an email from Jim Hunn mentioned a previous occupant of 48 Ludgate Hill and we will look at that shopkeeper first.

From 1802 to 1805, Christian August Gottlieb Göde (1774-1812), a lawyer, was attached to a legation that visited Britain. He wrote down his thoughts on what he saw during this visit in England, Wales, Irland und Schottland: Erinnerungen an Natur und Kunst aus einer Reise and in volume 1 he remarked that “in the vicinity of Ludgate-hill, the house of one S–, who has amassed a fortune of forty thousand pounds by selling razors, is daubed with large capitals three feet high, acquainting the public, that ‘the most excellent and superb patent razors are sold here'” (translation by Thomas Horne, 1821 edition). In the German original, however, we can read that “one S–” is in fact a mister Shrop. Something must have gone wrong when Göde’s diary was printed as no Shrop has come to light, but Charles Sharp did sell razors on Ludgate Hill at the time Göde was in London, so we can assume that is whom he meant.

Sharp used to have his shop at 131 Fleet Street and 67 Cornhill, but from 1794 onwards we find him at 48 Ludgate Hill.⁽¹⁾ Advertisements for Sharp in various newspapers promote his concave razors which were made from the very best steel and were so good that others attempted to pass inferior razors off as Sharp’s. Sharp warns the public that his razors are only sold from his shop and have the name Sharp stamped on the blade. But razors were not all he sold as all manner of perfumery articles, shaving cases and tooth brushes could be had in his shop.⁽²⁾ An advertisement of 1795 lists Sharp as one of the addresses where Dr. Daniel Johntenoco’s original Spanish Aromatic Dentifrice could be bought. This ‘dentifrice’ was a type of tooth powder that allegedly fastened loose teeth, cured gumboils, cleansed the mouth and breath, and only cost 1s. 2d.⁽³⁾ This last advertisement also reveals that Sharp was “Perfumer to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales”, but he was more.

As I said at the beginning of this post, Jim Hunn sent me information on Sharp as he owns a portable desk box that was supplied by Sharp. It has three different labels which show that Sharp was not just a perfumer who supplied razors, but was also a cutler and dealt in portable desks, dressing cases, cork screws, snuffers and pocket books. One of the labels is for M. Sharp, but what relation he or she was to Charles remains unclear. I am most grateful to Jim for sending me photographs of his desk and the attached labels.

With grateful thanks to Jim Hunn for the photographs

Sharp was certainly still at number 48 in 1811 when his address was used as the receiving office for replies to an advertisement of a young man looking for work in the brewery sector⁽⁴⁾, but he must have stopped his perfumery business soon after that, as from 1814 to 1816 Charles Wigley used the address for his music business.⁽⁵⁾ Kent’s Directory of 1823 and Pigot’s of 1825-26 have a George Longstaff, hosier, at number 48, but on an engraving by T.H. Shepherd of Ludgate Hill, which is dated 1830, we can see the premises on the corner with Farringdon Street, on the left-hand side of the picture, with the name of Palmer above the window.

T. Barber after T.H. Shepherd, Ludgate Hill, 1830 © British Museum

The side of the building in Farringdon Street was far more substantial than the front on Ludgate Hill as depicted in the elevation above this post. The Ludgate Hill side had only a width of one window, but the Farringdon side had five windows. The second edition of the Tallis Street Views, published in ±1847, shows both sides of the building and gives a far better idea of the size. It also shows that Flint was importing silk handkerchiefs from the East.

The Land Tax records of 1826 list a William Palmer at number 48 and he is still there in 1837, but in 1838, Ebenezer Flint is the one paying the tax. He must have moved in sometime in 1837, as we first find his name in that year when he appears as the owner of 63 yards of flannel, stolen from his shop on the corner of Ludgate Hill, which must be number 48.⁽⁶⁾ In an advertisement that Flint had in the Tallis Street View booklet he claims that his business had been established for 40 years, but that must have been at another address and with another proprietor. When Ebenezer acquired the freedom of the City in 1841 by redemption (that is, by paying a fine for not following the usual course of an apprenticeship) his father is named as Thomas Flint of Cambridge Street, Westminster, house painter, so whoever had the hosiery business before Ebenezer, it was unlikely to have been his father. And Ebenezer was only born in 1813, so was certainly not the one to start the business and even if we count the other hosiers that came before him (Palmer and Longstaff), the years still do not add up to forty.

Advertisement in Tallis’s Street View

In 1839 The Charter takes issue with an advertisement Flint had apparently put in the newspapers for ‘a young man of religious habits to take the lead of a hosiery and outfitting business’. The Charter had a problem with the word ‘religious’ and wonders what Flint means.⁽⁷⁾ Did he mean a precise religion, or would any religion do? It is a bit of silly stop-gap journalism by The Charter, but at least it gives us an idea of Flint’s values.

Advertisement in The Era, 30 July 1848

Unfortunately, Flint got into financial difficulties and a bankruptcy case was started against him in 1840.⁽⁸⁾ He managed to hang on, though, and could be found at number 48 in the 1841 census. In the 1851 census, he is residing at 39 Kings Road, Brighton, with his wife Harriet. And the Post Office Directory of 1852 shows him at both Brighton and Ludgate Hill as hosier. The 1851 Land Tax records for Ludgate Hill still show his name, but in early 1853, he can be found with his wife and their three children on the Ganges which left Dartmouth on the 23 of March, bound for Melbourne. They arrived there on 22 June and Flint’s was one of the names under an advertisement in the Australian Argus in which captain Robert Deas of the Ganges is heartily thanked for his kindness. There is reference to Deas’s ‘delicate position’, but what they mean by that is not made clear. What is clear, however, is that the Flints chose a new life on the other side of the world.

Flint’s name appears in Clara Aspinall’s Three Years in Melbourne as the secretary of the Mechanics’ Institute, whom she describes as “the right man in the right place” and “nothing can exceed the unwearied diligence with which he calls, and calls, and calls again, once, twice, and thrice in the day, if necessary, on any gentleman whom he has made up his mind is the fit and proper person to deliver the next lecture”. I am sure the inhabitants of Melbourne sometimes preferred to be ‘not at home’ on occasion, but Flint apparently did his best for the institute. Sometime before 1881 Ebenezer and Harriet returned to England and at the time of the 1881 census could be found at Stoney Lane, Lewisham. Ebenezer died in 1889 and when probate was granted, Harriet could be found in Brighton once again.⁽⁹⁾

(1) The Directory of London, Westminster & Southwark, 1794.
(2) The Times, 14 May 1785.
(3) The Morning Chronicle, 28 March 1795.
(4) The Morning Chronicle, 9 February 1811.
(5) C. Humphries and W.C. Smith, Music Publishing in the British Isles, 1970.
(6) Old Bailey case t18371127-9.
(7) The Charter, 10 March 1839.
(8) The London Gazette, 27 March 1840.
(9) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1889. Estate valued at £284.

Neighbours:

<– 1 Farringdon Street

47 Ludgate Hill –>

Isherwood & Son, house decorators

Tags

decorator

Street Views: 6 and 12 Suppl.
Address: 35 Ludgate Hill

Whalley in Lancashire has been in the news this Christmas because of floods, which is obviously most distressing for the residents, but Whalley ties in with one of London’s shopkeepers that appeared in Tallis’s Street View, so I thought to start this post in Whalley rather than in London.

In 1756, one Henry Isherwood, the son of another Henry, blacksmith, late of Easterley in Lancashire, is apprenticed to James Isherwood, a Stationer of London. Easterley is very close to Whalley and there is still an Easterley Farm, just east of Whalley and south of the golf course. Henry senior died in 1748 and the burial record of the parish names him as the blacksmith of Whalley. When Henry junior was baptised in 1737, he is described as the son of Henry Isherwood of Easterley within Whalley, so I guess that Easterley was only a hamlet, or even just an extended farm, and did not have its own church. Twelve years earlier, in 1725, another son of Henry the blacksmith was baptised, Nicholas, but this time the father is described as “of Read”. Read is the next village along the road coming from Whalley towards Padiham. Keep this Nicholas in mind because we will come back to him later on in the story, but we will first return to Henry junior.

Henry, at some point after his apprenticeship, went into partnership with Thomas Bromwich and Benjamin Bradley, and not only that, in 1766 he married Ann Maria Bromwich, the niece of his partner. She was most likely the daughter of the reverend John Bromwich who was mentioned in Thomas Bromwich’s will as “my dear brother”. In this will of 1787, Thomas mentions Henry Isherwood as his nephew-in-law and leaves him certain bequests “as a reward for and token of his ffidelity and assiduity as a partner to me in business and his affection and good behaviour to me and my family”.⁽¹⁾ Bromwich had been a paper-hanger and leather gilder at the Golden Lyon, 35 Ludgate Hill, since the 1740s and did not just supply wallpaper, but, according to one of his trade cards, also “all manner of screens, window blinds, covers for tables, rooms, cabins, stair-cases, etc.” In other words, all house decorations could safely be left in the hands of Bromwich & Co. He worked, for instance, for Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill House.⁽²⁾ The shop at 35 Ludgate Hill was situated on the left-hand side of Naked Boy Court and touched at the back upon the yard of the Belle Sauvage Inn. Later baptism records for Isherwood children show that the family also used the address of 6 Belle Sauvage Yard to describe their living quarters.

1799 Horwood map

Announcement in The London Gazette, 26 October 1784

Bromwich retired from the partnership in 1784 and Isherwood and Bradley remain in partnership until the death of Bradley in 1792 at the age of 55. They had used Bromwich’s name in their billhead as “(late partners with M^r. Bromwich)” as we can see, for instance, on a bill written out in May 1792 for William Drake for “a mans time and expences going to Roehampton”.⁽³⁾ This particular bill was paid in February 1793 and the receipt of the money was signed by N. Isherwood. And this is where we go back to the beginning of this post and Whalley. Nicholas, the elder son of Henry the blacksmith, died in 1775; his son Nicholas (baptised 1762) came to work in his uncle’s shop in London and married Sarah Fielding in 1796. Uncle Henry and his wife Anna Maria Bromwich had one surviving son, Robert (born 1781), but he does not seem to have been involved in the business. He is always described as Esquire of Highgate and took on the management of the house and lands at Highgate that came to him via Thomas Bromwich, the widow Elizabeth Bromwich, and his father Henry Isherwood.⁽⁴⁾ Henry Isherwood of Ludgate Hill died – suddenly according to the record of St. Bride’s – in 1812 and was buried on 3 February.

John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, 1812

Invoice for Lady Ann Conolly from the Isherwood firm, 1788 (Source: British Museum)

The next phase in the decorator’s business is that under the management of Nicholas Isherwood, Henry’s nephew. In 1818, his son Nicholas Thomas obtained his freedom of the Company of Stationers and the City by patrimony and three years later he married Elizabeth Ann Dawes. When their son Nicholas William Tertius was baptised in 1825, their address is given as 7 Racquet Court. Nicolas dies in 1829 and from his will, we learn that he and his son are in partnership and that he would like his wife Sarah to continue the business in partnership with his son.⁽⁵⁾ And that is what happens. The 1841 census shows Sarah at 35 Ludgate Hill with her widowed daughter Mary Ann Daker and two servant. Where Nicholas Thomas is on the night the census is taken remains unclear. He may very well have been away on business as we know that the Isherwoods (and Bromwich before them) were frequently called upon to (re-)decorate country houses. [Update: he was at the cottage in Acre Lane, Brixton, see comment by Steve] Ten years later, Nicholas Thomas is at home at Ludgate Hill and his sister is still there as housekeeper. This time it is Sarah who is missing from the census. Things were not well with the business, however.

Daily News, 2 December 1851

On the 14th of November, 1851, a petition was filed at the Court of Bankruptcy against Nicholas Thomas and Sarah. While that in itself would not necessarily be a grave problem as many petitions were filed against shopkeepers and if they could satisfy their creditors, they could continue trading, but the Isherwoods were not able to turn things around and in December 1851, an advertisement announced the sale, not only of their furniture and household goods, but also of their stock in trade at 35 Ludgate Hill. In March 1852, a cottage at Acre Lane that they owned was also put up for sale.⁽⁶⁾ They had to move to Oxford Street and the building at number 35 was taken over by the Prudential Insurance Company for their headquarters. In March 1852, the Isherwood case came before the Bankruptcy Court and it was not a pretty picture. The total debt of Sarah and Nicolas was £3509 plus £753 for which security was held. Leniency was asked for Sarah who was almost 80 years old and as good as completely bedridden.

It turned out that Nicholas’s annual expenditure had exceeded income and “that the bankrupt had continued in trade when hopelessly insolvent”, “that he had kept his books badly” and that “he [drew] on persons on whom he had no claim, and thus supported himself with fictitious credit”. Assets had made £800 while the debts were between £3000 and £4000. The defence tried to put the blame on circumstances and stressed that “the business had been profitable for a series of years. The house had been established for a century, and had been carried on by the bankrupt’s father and uncle. The failure was attributable to the system now pursued by the large builders, who contracted for every part of the work in a house, and thus injured those who, like the bankrupt, were engaged in a particular department as decorators. The bankrupt’s father had carried on the business with great success; and the aged lady, his widow, had been accustomed to every comfort”. It sounds as if Nicholas Thomas and his mother failed to adapt to a changing world, compounded by Nicholas’s bad book-keeping which the commissioner thought decidedly reckless and hence refused to give Nicholas a certificate immediately. His certificate was postponed for a year, after which one of the third class (dishonest or fraudulent) would be given. Sarah was given one of the second class (that is: having been careless or reckless).⁽⁷⁾

Illustration of a carriage pulling into the Belle Sauvage inn. Isherwood’s shop can be seen behind the carriage with the name displayed on the front (Source: British Museum)

Sarah died in November 1853 and was buried at St. Bride’s on the first of December. Her address was given as 493 New Oxford Street. In 1858, Nicholas Thomas had to appear before the bankruptcy commissioners again and is then said to be “Formerly of 493, New Oxford Street, and now of 501a, Oxford Street … Paper Hanger, Decorator, House Agent and Appraiser”. The 1861 census does indeed find him at 501a Oxford Street, living with his sister Mary Ann Daker, her daughter Mary Ann who is a governess, and his own son Nicholas Wiliam Tertius. The men are both described as decorators.

Papier-mâché bracket, ca. 1764 by Bromwich & Co. (Source: Sotheby)

What happened subsequently is not entirely clear, but in the 1871 census, Nicholas Thomas can be found in Sutton’s Hospital of Charterhouse which provided accommodation for “men who had lived active and useful lives in conditions of prosperity and comfort and who had fallen on hard times through no fault of their own to finish their days in the kind of circumstances to which they had become accustomed”. “Through no fault of their own” may stretch the truth a little bit, but at least Nicholas had a few quiet years there before his death.
 
 
 
 
 
—————–
(1) PROB 11/1156/119.
(2) Thanks to Louise Varma, weekend volunteer at Strawberry Hill House, whose question on Bromwich led me to do the research on the Isherwoods.
(3) This particular bill is in the British Museum, but the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies have more records regarding the Drake family house at Roehampton.
(4) Survey of London, volume 17, the Parish of St Pancras. Part 1, the Village of Highgate.
(5) PROB 11/1765/25.
(6) Morning Chronicle, 12 March 1852.
(7) Daily News, 27 March 1852. The certificate was duly given to Nicholas in March 1853.

Neighbours:

<– 36 Ludgate Hill

34 Ludgate Hill –>

Charles Vyse, straw hat manufacturer

Tags

hats

Street Views: 6 and 15 Suppl.
Address: 30 Ludgate Street

Straw hats were quite a craze in Victorian England and Charles Vyse’s was one of the many shops where you could buy one. The straw suitable for making bonnets was mainly manufactured in Bedfordshire; the St. Albans, Dunstable and Luton areas are frequently named as sources of either the raw material or the finished product. The main disadvantage of growing the wheat for the straw in England was the climate. Although a single thunderstorm would not damage the wheat enough to prevent it from being milled into flour, damp could cause the straw to become rusted or spotted. Very dry weather would cause the straw to become very stiff or turn an undesirable reddish colour. If the conditions were favourable, however, and the farmer quickly got the dried straw tied into sheaves and stored or despatched to the straw pleaters, he could get from an acre of wheat “five to eight loads of wheat, of five bushels to the load, and from fifteen cwt. to a ton of cut straw, of the value of six to eight pounds stirling the ton, clear of all expenses”.⁽¹⁾ But straw bonnets were not just made in England; many were imported from Italy, specifically from the Leghorn area (Livorno, Tuscany) after which they were named Leghorn bonnets, or just Leghorns (examples here).

Leghorn bonnet c. 1830 (Source: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

Advert in The Morning Post, 21 July 1829. Click to enlarge.

Charles Vyse can be found at 30, Ludgate Street from at least 1828 when an advertisement in the Morning Chronicle can be found for him, but he was already living in the street in 1823 when his daughter Emma was baptised, although no house number is given in the baptismal record. In a rather larger advert that appeared a year later (see illustration), Vyse lists all sorts of straw bonnets he had for sale and in it he also claims to have introduced British Leghorns in 1825, but I have found no other record of him to substantiate this claim. In 1829, his son Valentine is born who was eventually to take over the business.⁽²⁾ In 1847, bankruptcy proceeding were taken out against Charles, but he was given a certificate⁽³⁾ and continued to supply his straw bonnets from 30, Ludgate Street. In 1849, he advertised that he had just returned from Paris and could now supply an “entire new stock of Parisian and English millinery” and “trimmed bonnets” could be “sent into the country carriage free”. He could also supply mourning bonnets (fashionable ones of course) and milliners could obtain “first-rate pattern bonnets at really wholesale prices”.⁽⁴⁾

Advert in the Tallis Street View

Charles died in July 1850 at the age of 66 and left his entire business during her lifetime to his wife Mary and after her death to his children.⁽⁵⁾ There was however, one condition: his son Edward⁽⁶⁾ was not to be a partner, but was to receive a salary. Was Edward not trusted with the business? Not sure what happened to Edward, but at the time of the 1851 census, Mary is listed as the head of the household with son Augustus as manager.⁽⁷⁾ The 1851 census does not help very much with the whereabouts of Valentine, Augustus’s younger brother, as he is seen visiting a family in Lambeth, so where he actually lived remains unclear. His occupation is given as bankers’ clerk. Valentine marries Anne Cornish Saunders, the daughter of a chemist, on 5 January 1851 at St. Peter le Poer. Both their addresses are given as Old Broad Street. It is quite possible that any combination or all of the brothers Edward, Valentine and Augustus ran the business together for their mother as an advertisement in the 1851 Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Great Exhibition mentiones the firm as “Messrs. Vyse”. The Land Tax records list Mary Vyse for the Ludgate property up till 1858, after which Valentine takes over. Edward and Augustus disappear from the records and Valentine seems to take over the business on his own. And then disaster struck.

Around 7 June 1862, a short notice appears in various newspapers, reporting that Mrs Vyse of Ludgate Hill had been committed to Newgate on a charge of wilfully murdering her children. Other papers suggest that she remained in her own house in the charge of a hospital nurse. What happened? The reports in the newspapers vary in detail and chronology, but I will draw upon Reynolds’s Newspaper of 13 July 1862, which seems to have carried the most comprehensive (and reliable?) account of Anne Vyse’s trial.

Valentine and Anne had at the time of the murder five children, but Ann had only brought her two daughters, Alice and Annie, up to town to show them the Exhibition. It later transpired that another child had also been in town, but he was at school during the afternoon. On the 22nd of May, Mrs Vyse went to Keating’s, a chemist in St. Paul’s Churchyard, where, after buying some perfume, she asked for something to kill rats. When suggested some poisoned wheat, she said she had tried that, but to no avail. She was then shown Battle’s Vermin Powder of which she bought three packets. She was cautioned by the chemist’s assistent that it was dangerous stuff. In the afternoon, she sent the servant to get another packet of the same. The servant, returning with the purchase, went to her mistress’s room, but was told not to come in. Her suspicions were aroused and she called Mrs Sarah Saunders, Mrs Vyse’s sister, who forced open the door. They found Anne Vyse standing over the washstand, bleeding from the throat, with a razor in her hand. The children were found dead in their beds, fully clothed. An analyses of their stomachs found large quantities of strychnine. The defence at the trial was that Mrs Vyse was pregnant “and that was a circumstance and a time calculated to produce great depression of the brain”. She had also lost a child to diphteria in 1860 which much affected her. Also, in the past, a cousin had intended to commit suicide and another had been confined in a lunatic asylum. More witnesses were called and all could mention a (distant) relative of Anne who committed suicide, was insane or at best, excentric. In other words, Anne Vyse’s actions could only be explained by insanity. The defence lawyer realised that an insanity verdict would mean confinement for life, but he could not argue any other way. The jury agreed and Anne was found not guilty on the grounds of “insanity at the time of committing the act”. The prisoner was to be “confined as a criminal lunatic during the royal pleasure”.

Burial record of St. Paul’s, Hook, Surrey

Put away at Broadmoor for life one would assume, but not so. The 1871 census shows Anne living with Valentine and a growing family at Wimbledon. Also at the address is Sarah Saunders, the sister who kicked in the door in 1862. One of the children, Sidney, is 8 years old, so he was probably the child Anne was pregnant with when she committed the crime. In 1868, another child was born to the couple, Sallie Louise, and I do hope that a permanent eye was kept on Anne for the children’s sake, although nothing untowards seems to have happened after 1862. Anne died in 1889 and was laid to rest in the same grave as the two little girls she killed. Valentine himself died in 1918.

The shop with new large windows in the 1847 Tallis Street View Supplement

(1) A.J. Tansley, “On the straw plait trade” in The Journal of the Society of Arts, no. 422, vol. IX (1860), pp. 69-73.
(2) Baptised 4 April 1829 at St. Andrew’s Holborn as the son of Charles Vyse, Leghorn merchant, and his wife Mary.
(3) The London Gazette, 18 May and 13 August 1847.
(4) The Morning Post, 11 October 1849.
(5) He was buried at Norwood Cemetery on 11 July 1850.
(6) I have not found a baptism or burial record for Edward.
(7) Augustus was baptised 6 April 1827 at St. Andrew’s Holborn.

You may also like to read the post on Charles’s brother Thomas Vyse, another straw bonnet manufacturer.

Neighbours:

<– 32 Ludgate Street

29 Ludgate Street –>

Thomas and James Farrance, cooks and confectioners

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catering

Street View: 6 and 76
Address: 28 Ludgate Street and 66-67 Charing Cross

In 1775, Thomas Farrance obtained his freedom of the City of London by presenting his credentials to the authorities. He had been bound as an apprentice to one William Manser, “a musician, a cook by trade” and had served his full seven year. Manser had, however, made the mistake of binding Farrance in the Company of Cooks, while not himself “free of this City in that Company”. An administrative mistake and fortunately not with any dire consequences as the error was considered a genuine mistake and Farrance was accordingly admitted to the freedom of the City.

Miniatures of Thomas and Sarah

In September 1782, he married Sarah Pennington at St. Clement Danes. The miniatures on the left are kindly provided by David Roy Clapham.⁽¹⁾ In all, the couple have at least ten children, all baptised at St. Gregory by St. Paul. Two of them, Thomas II (1786-1865) and James (1792-1862) follow their father in his profession. In 1791, an insurance record places Thomas as pastry cook at 74 Leadenhall Street.⁽²⁾ Tax records for the Aldgate Ward show the Leadenhall premises empty in 1791, but occupied by Thomas Farrance from 1792 onwards. However, the indenture with which Thomas junior is bound to his father in 1800 says that they live in Ludgate Street (more accurately Ludgate Hill as the shop was on the corner of Ave Mary Lane) and an insurance entry for that same year places them at 28 Ludgate Street.⁽³⁾ Considering that the children were baptised at St. Gregory, I assume that the family had always lived at 28 Ludgate Hill, which is born out by the tax records for the Castle Baynard ward of 1782 which firmly places Thomas in the correct area.⁽⁴⁾ But Thomas is not content with just one or two shops and already in 1801, in an advertisement for a masquerade taking place in Ranelagh Gardens, we see that tickets can be bought from “Mr. Farrance’s, pastry cook, Ludgate-hill and Spring-gardens”.⁽⁵⁾ We can assume that the Spring Gardens address was the same as the later 67 Charing Cross one as the premises were on the corner of Charing Cross and Spring Gardens and both street names were used interchangeably. Indeed, in 1805, the insurance is listed for Charing Cross.

detail Horwood map 1799

In 1808, an intriguing entry occurs in the Post Office Directory where 74 Leadenhall Street is occupied by one “R. Farrance, confectioner”. I have not found a child of Thomas I and Sarah with the initial R. but it would be too much of a coincidence to have an unrelated Farrance occupying the premises for which Thomas took out the insurance in 1791 and for which he kept paying the Aldgate Ward tax right up to 1826. The 1811 Holden’s Annual London and Country Directory also has R. Farrance at the Leadenhall address and lists both 28 Ludgate Street and 67 Charing Cross for Thos. Farrance, confectioner. It is not at all unlikely that Thomas junior and senior are each in charge of one establishment. Thomas junior lived in Leadenhall Street for a while (see below), but from 1827 to 1834 the tax for that establishment is registered to James Farrance, the other son of Thomas I who went into the confectionary business and who obtained his City freedom in 1822 by patrimony. In the 1825 Pigot’s Directory James is already listed as being at the Leadenhall address. That still does not prove there was no R. Farrance, but at least we can be certain that he did not figure in the confectioner’s story after 1825. Was it perhaps a mistake by the directories, or is there a missing Farrance family member?

The invoice below is made out in 1813 for a Mr. Booth of New Street for the account of the years 1810-1813 and from that we can establish what sort of food the Farrances produced. Booth was charged for pies, giblet soup, oyster patties, jelly, cheese cakes and a few other items I cannot decipher. The bottom item looks suspiciously like turtle spunge. We know they sold mock turtle soup as in 1848, Percy Hamilton overhears the waiter in Farrance’s “soup-room” relay his and his friends’ order as “One pea, one ox, and one mock”.⁽⁶⁾

Invoice from Thomas Farrance to Mr. Booth 1813 ©British Museum

Ralph Rylance in his Epicure’s Almanack of 1815 is very complimentary about Farrance’s establishment at Spring Garden. “In point of magnitude, and of the excellence and cheapness of its article, this long celebrated shop has no superior, perhaps, in the world. here are exquisite soups, highly flavoured tarts, savoury patties, and delicious pastry and confitures. Fruits and ices throughout the whole extent of their season, good and in great variety”. And at Ludgate Street, one could get “soups, mock turtle savoury patties, ices, and confectionary, in all their glory and splendour, with custards of the greatest delicacy”.⁽⁷⁾

An unusual archival find gives us a glimpse into the life of one of Farrance’s apprentices. One James Thornton is asked by his then employer, John Frederick Fitzclarence, the Lieutenant Governor of Portsmouth, to give as much information as possible about his time as cook to the Duke of Wellington, because Fitzclarence thought that anything to do with Wellington might be of interest. Thornton served Wellington as field cook from August 1811, that is, during part of the Peninsular War and during the Battle of Waterloo. Afterwards he is promoted to Steward at Apsley House, but he resigns that position at the end of 1820. The question put to Thornton “where were you apprenticed?” is answered “1st to Mr. Farrance, Cook and confectioner, at the corner of Spring gardens and Charing Cross. 2nd to Mr. Escudier, Hotel Keeper in Oxford Street, London”. Fitzclarence is very content with Thornton as his cook and says “I cannot give him too good a character”.⁽⁸⁾

But back to the Farrances. In 1818, Thomas junior marries Temperance Horwood and up to 1823, their address given at the baptisms of their children is Leadenhall Street, but from 1824, the baptisms are recorded for 67 Charing Cross. But life isn’t always kind and in 1827, Temperance dies “at the house of her father, James Horwood, Esq. of Walworth”.⁽⁹⁾. In 1824, the insurance record for Thomas Farrance of 38 (mistake for 28) Ludgate Street, lists his other properties as “The Spring Garden Coffee House adjoining 66 and 67 Charing Cross. In 1832, both Sarah and Thomas senior die and are buried at St. Gregory’s in the “rector’s vault”. In January 1833 we see the insurance record for the Ludgate property registered to Mary, Harriet, Elizabeth and Maria Farrance (the sisters of James and Thomas junior). In June of that year, it is just registered to Mary, but in January 1834 it is James, Mary and Harriet who pay the insurance. From 1834 onwards, the electoral register lists James at that address. I cannot find him in the 1841 census, but in 1851 and 1861 James lives with his sister Harriet, companion John Tucker and two servants at 10 St. Mary Abbots Terrace, Kensington. The family grave at Brompton Cemetery tells us that James was interred there on 15 November 1862, his sister Harriet followed him in April 1867. Thomas II had been buried in the same grave on 6 June 1865 and so had his second wife Elizabeth (1871), the other sister Maria (1891) and her husband Thomas Thomas (1868) and their child Maria Harriet (1861).

In 1851 and 1861, Thomas II is living at 6 Ladbroke Terrace with his second wife Elizabeth (Eliza) whom he had married in 1845 and the census lists Thomas III and James II (the sons of James II), both unmarried, as living at 66-67 Charing Cross as “confectioners, employing 16 servants”, some of whom are living on the premises. In 1864, a letter sent to the editor of the Society of Arts complains about the lack of sculpture entries for the exhibition at the Royal Academy, Trafalgar Square. The author, who just signed the letter ‘Epsilon’, is not surprised at this lack of response as “the rooms […] applied to the exhibition of this art in this building are a national disgrace”. If the organisation cannot do better, they might as well turn over the rooms “into the charge of Mr. Farrance, over the way, or some other restaurant of that class, who would be ready, probably, to pay a handsome honorarium to the academy for the privilege of there supplying cakes, ices, &c. to the weary and thirsty lovers of pictures.”⁽¹⁰⁾

Cakes from Mrs Beeton’s Household Management

And ices they certainly served at Farrance’s. F.M. Trollope in her 1850 novel Petticoat Government has Miss Tollbridge and Judith Maitland wait for their ices and buns in one of the smaller rooms at the restaurant which “exhibited flower-pieces, plans of porticoes and palaces, and drawings of various descriptions”. But it was not to last forever. James I died in 1862, Thomas II in 1865, Thomas III in 1876 and James II in 1891, but the building on Charing Cross did not last as long as the last survivor. The Architect of 5 February, 1870, tells us that “The old premises in Cockspur Street [the new name for that stretch of Charing Cross], so long occupied by Farrance’s well-known hotel and confectioner’s shop, have been purchased by the Union Bank of London, and are to be pulled down.” In fact, business had already ceased in 1865. When the Farrances stopped serving cakes at the Ludgate shop is unclear.

And to end this post, a poem that appeared in Punch, or the London Charivari of 4 November 1865:

“Jam,” Satis.
“Thomas Farrance and Sons, 66 and 67, Charing Cross, beg to return sincere thanks to their friends and the public in general for their kind patronage, and respectfully inform them that their business of a Confectioner will on and after Oct. 31, be discontinued,” &c.

How they vanish, one by one,
All the haunts we loved of yore:
Farrance, they proud race is run:
regal ice or lowly bun
Thou wilt yield us – never more!

When we left, in Mays gone by,
The Academician’s door,
“Come! to Farrance let us hie.”
Straight we said – but now we cry.
“Never more-oh, never more!”

When our country cousins troop
To the Abbey, old and hoar,
On to Farrance’s they swoop –
But to tarts and ox-tail soup
We shall treat them – never more!

Other Farrances may rise,
Quite as bilious as before –
But the old familiar pies
(Veal and ham) will glad our eyes
Never more! oh. never more!

(1) The miniatures are watercolours on card measuring 7.5 x 6.0 cm and are part of a larger collection of miniatures in the collection of David Roy Clapham that have come down to him through the family via Ann Farrance, Thomas’s elder sister.
(2) LMA, MS 11936/379/588954.
(3) LMA, MS 11936/418/700144.
(4) LMA, MS 11316/250.
(5) The Morning Post, 7 Jan. 1801.
(6) Sporting events at home and abroad (from the MS life of Hon. Percy Hamilton) communicated to and edited by Lord William Lennox in The Sporting review, edited by ‘Craven’, September 1848, p. 180. That same year, the brothers Mayhew in The image of his father: a tale of a young monkey also mention a “basin of mock-turtle” (p.58).
(7) Ralph Rylance, The Epicure’s Almanack. Eating and Drinking in Regency London. The Original 1815 Guidebook, ed. by Janet Ing Freeman (2012), pp. 92,82.
(8) Your Most Obedient Servant: James Thornton, Cook to the Duke of Wellington, intr. by E. Langford, 1985.
(9) The Morning Post, 13 April 1827.
(10) Journal of the Society of Arts, volume 12, nr. 596 (22 April, 1864), p. 378.

Neighbours:

<– 65 Charing Cross	34 Cockspur Street –>
<– 29 Ludgate Street	27 Ludgate Street –>