Perkins, Bacon & Petch, bank note engravers

Tags

engraver

Street Views: 15 and 13 Suppl.
Address: 69 Fleet Street

In a previous post, we saw that Samuel Parker, cut-glass manufacturer, occupied 69 Fleet Street with his partner William Perry up to 1820. The tax record for 1821 lists Jacob Perkins for the first time. They have not yet worked out the correct spelling of his name and call him ‘Perks’. By 1822, they have amended the name and the property is listed for Jacob Perkins & Co. According to the Baker Perkins Historical Society (see here), Jacob came to London from Boston, America; not as a young man seeking his fortune, but as a 53-year old who had already made his mark as an inventor and engineer. He had worked in Boston and New York, but moved to Philadelphia in 1814 (according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography it was in 1817), where he was involved in the business of printing banknotes from a number of separate engraved plates to prevent counterfeiting. “Jacob’s engineering genius had a very significant influence on the banknote printing industry both in the United States and in England and led him to set sail for England on the sailing ship ‘Telegraph’, with his eldest son, Ebenezer Greenleaf Perkins, his engraver colleagues, Gideon Fairman and Asa Spencer, some workmen and many cases of machinery, on 31st May 1819, in the hope of gaining a contract with the Bank of England”.⁽¹⁾

portrait of Jacob Perkins by Chester Harding (Wikimedia Commons)

Perkins and Fairman started their work in London at 29 Austin Friars and were joined at various times by other partners, some only for a short period. Already in December 1819, for instance, one Joseph Chessborough Dyer left the partnership he had with Perkins and Fairman⁽²⁾. That same month, Charles Heath, engraver to King George III, joined the partnership and they moved the business to 69 Fleet Street. On 16 October 1821, Jacob Perkins, Gideon Fairman, Charles Heath, George Thomas Heath and Marcus Bull dissolve a partnership, because Bull wanted out; the remaining partners continued the business in Fleet Street.⁽³⁾ In August 1822, Fairman decided to return to America and relinquish his share in the business.⁽⁴⁾

The London Gazette, 3 August 1822

Jacob Perkins was much more interested in inventing new things than in running a solid business, frequently exasperating his partners as he withdrew large sums of money from the business to fund his inventions, and in November 1824, G.T. Heath withdrew from a partnership he had with Perkins at Regent’s Park.⁽⁵⁾ This seems to have been a separate partnership from the Fleet Street one. The remaining partner, Charles Heath, dissolved the partnership with Perkins in Fleet Street in January 1826.⁽⁶⁾ In May 1929, Joshua Butters Bacon, who had married Jacob Perkins’ second daughter, joined the business and it became Perkins and Bacon. In 1834, Henry P. Petch was taken into the partnership – he had joined the firm in 1823 as an engraver – and the company became Perkins, Bacon & Petch.

banknote Derby Old Bank (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

Jacob’s son, Ebenezer, was not in good health and returned to America. He is listed as an engraver of metal work in the 1829 Boston Directory. Jacob’s other son, Angier March, also came over when the contract for producing banknotes had been obtained:

We embarked in the ship Electra, 500 tons, about November 1821 and arrived in England in thirty days where we found my father and brother and all our friends. I … went at once into the employment of my father and his partners and was engaged for the next eight years in manufacturing banknotes, dies and plates. During the latter part of the time I taught other parties to do the work I was engaged upon and my services in the firm became unnecessary and I found myself obliged to obtain other business.⁽⁴⁾

James Findlay, View of no. 69 Fleet Street (© London Metropolitan Archives, Collage)

According to the censuses of 1841, 1851 and 1861, 69 Fleet Street was not occupied as a house, or at least, no one slept on the premises when the census people came round. The Perkins family may of course have lived above the business before 1841, but they had moved out by the time of the first census. In 1841, Jacob could be found living in Great Coram Street with his son Angier, his daughter-in-law Julia, and his own daughter Henrietta. After Angier left his father’s business in Fleet Street, he established an independent business as heating and steam engineer, first at Harpur Street, Holborn, but after a few more moves, he settled in 1843 at 18 Regent Square, where Jacob also came to live and where he spent the last years of his life. Jacob died on July 30th 1849, aged 83, and was buried at Kensal Green.

Jacob’s method of printing bank notes in several layers with ‘siderographic’ plates to combat forgery also attracted Sir Rowland Hill, who was a friend of Jacob, and Perkins, Bacon & Petch obtained the contract to produce the Penny Black, which was first issued in 1840. Within a few years, twenty-two thousand million stamps for Great Britain and the Colonies had been printed by the Perkins process.

ice-making machine as invented by Jacob Perkins (patent 1834, no. 6662) and constructed for him by John Hague and two of his apprentices. According to one of them, Frederick Bramwell, it actually did produce ice. Bramwell described the process and drew the sketch in a letter to the Society of Arts who published it in their Journal (8 December 1882).

According to the 1886 insurance map, the engravers’ workshop ran backwards from 69 Fleet Street towards Whitefriars Street, comprising house numbers 36-40. You can still see the division at number 69 where first Chaffin and later Robinson had their shop. Following the death of Henry Petch in 1887, the firm became Perkins, Bacon & Co. Ltd. In 1904, they moved the business from 69 Fleet Street to Southwark Bridge Road.

(1) Website Baker Perkins Historical Society, see here.
(2) The London Gazette, 19 August 1820.
(3) The London Gazette, 20 October 1821.
(4) The London Gazette, 3 August 1822.
(5) The London Gazette, 23 November 1824.
(6) The London Gazette, 28 January 1826.
(4) G. Bathe and D. Bathe, Jacob Perkins: his inventions, his times, and his contemporaries (1943). Quoted in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry for Angier Perkins.

There is lots more information to be found on Jacob Perkins and his inventions, see for instance:
Jenn Nguyen, blogpost ‘Happy Birthday, Jacob Perkins’, 9 July 2018
Wikipedia page Jacob Perkins
Website Baker Perkins Historical Society
—————

Neighbours:

<– 70 Fleet Street

68 Fleet Street –>

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Charles Tilt, publisher and print seller

Tags

book trade

Street View: 15
Address: 86 Fleet Street

Charles Tilt was the son of William Tilt, a confectioner of St. Paul’s Churchyard. After the death of William in 1807, the confectioner’s business was continued by his widow and son William junior; young Charles was apprenticed to a bookseller in Hampshire. From 1817 till 1826 he worked for various booksellers, among them Hatchard’s and Longman’s, but in October 1826, he started his own business in Fleet Street. He had his shop just on the corner of St. Bride’s Avenue and Fleet Street, and specialised in illustrated books and lithographic prints. In 1827, he secured the assistance of George Cruikshank for one of his cheap (one shilling) illustrated publications, The Diverting History of John Gilpin in which a horse runs off with the hapless Gilpin.

John Gilpin being run off by the horse (Tilt, 1828)
And still, as fast as he drew near,
‘Twas wonderful to view,
How in a trice the turnpike men,
Their gates wide open threw.

Cruikshank had published his Scraps and Sketches with James Robins, but when he was no longer able to continue the project, or as Cruikshank put it, “poor Robins neglects my business sadly, as well as his own”, the publication was taken over by Tilt under the title My Sketch Book. Tilt reduced the size of the publication, and hence the price, hoping to attract a different public. The sketches were, according to the paper cover, “to be continued occasionally”, and when part 6 came out in late 1834, a collection of parts 1-6 was brought out, bound in cloth. Cruikshank continued to work with Tilt, see for instance the illustrations at the bottom of this post, but the volatile character of Cruikshank and the sharp business acumen of Tilt did not necessarily make for a harmonious relationship, as, for instance, when a dispute arose over money when Cruikshank tried to sell the leftover stock of the discontinued Omnibus to Henry Bohn. And on another occasion when, instead of asking Cruikshank to retouch the worn plates of the Almanack, as had been agreed, Tilt sent them off to a cheaper engraver. Tilt’s assistant David Bogue’s quieter and more tactful ways often saved the day.⁽¹⁾

trade card (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

The shop in Fleet Street was eminently suitable for displaying prints and books in the large windows along the front in St. Bride’s Avenue and around the corner in Fleet Street. It is said that is was sometimes so busy with window gazers that railings had to be put up to keep the crowds at bay, although these railings are not visible in any of the depictions of the shop. The anonymous reviewer of The Angler’s Souvenir, published by Tilt in 1835, commented on Tilt’s shop windows and said “we are not given to stare and linger at any show shop in the vast metropolis of England, not even at Mr. Tilt’s, No. 86, Fleet Street, or any other eminent print-seller’s exhibition, although henceforward we shall take a glance, all round the corner, at the above-mentioned gentleman’s pictorial displays”. He was to do that because he hoped to find other books on his favourite pastime, angling.⁽²⁾ The reviewer had to have had a bit of patience as it was only in 1844 that David Bogue and Henry Wix published Isaac Walton’s Complete Angler. Besides prints, Tilt published various series of cheap illustrated books, among them several of miniature books, such as Tilt’s Miniature Classics Library, Tilt’s Elegant Miniature Editions, and Tilt’s Hand-books for Children. These last could be collected in a wooden case with the words “My Own Library”.

The 1841 census saw Charles Tilt and his wife Jane at Clapham; he is listed as a publisher, but that same year he decided it was time to retire and, according to publisher and journalist Henry Vizetelly in his Glances Back Trough Seventy Years; Autobiographical and Other Reminiscences (1893), Tilt entered into a partnership with his assistant Bogue because of “his general shrewdness and steady application to business”. The idea was that Bogue would gradually pay back the money he owed Tilt for the partnership, between forty and fifty thousand pounds, and publications began to appear with both their names in the imprint. In 1843, the partnership between Tilt and Bogue was dissolved with Bogue to continue the business on his own. So, all was set for Tilt’s retirement and the 1851 census duly lists him as retired publisher at Bathwick, Somerset.

However, David Bogue died in November 1856 of heart disease, aged just 48. Charles Tilt was asked by the executors of Bogue’s estate to help with winding down the business. By 1859, most of Bogue’s copyrights and stock, as well as the shop, had been taken over by William Kent (more on the later history of the shop in the post on Bogue). The 1861 census lists Tilt at Kensington, once again as a retired publisher. He died later that same year and left the not inconsiderable sum of £180,000, although not quite the million he was said to have amassed by Malcolm Macleod, who tried to establish a link between the Tilts and Oliver Cromwell in Notes and Queries, 3rd series, vol. 1, Jan. 1862.⁽³⁾ Macleod, by the way, said that the Tilt family had in their possession “a massive gold ring, with his arms, initials, and date, engraved on it”. These arms consisted of “a chevron between three roundels; crest, a dolphin”. No idea if the ring still exists somewhere; if you have information, please leave a comment.

vignette in the Tallis booklet. Tilt’s shop on the left.

print of a drawing by T.H. Shephard depicting Tilt’s shop (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

George Cruikshank, March Winds from The Comic Almanack, 1835

George Cruikshank’s portrait of Tilt on the back cover of A Comic Alphabet (Source: Thorn Books)

(1) More on the relation between Charles Tilt and George Cruikshank can be found in Robert L. Patten, George Cruikshank’s Life, Times, and Art (1996).
(2) The Monthly Review, February 1836, p. 157.
(3) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1861. The executors were William Henry Dalton, publisher, George Gladstone, ship broker, and Benjamin Brecknell, wax chandler.

Neighbours:

<– 88 Fleet Street

85 Fleet Street –>

David Bogue, bookseller and publisher

Tags

book trade

Street View: 15 and 14 Suppl.
Address: 86 Fleet Street

David Bogue started life on 16 October 1808 in East Lothian as the son of Jacob Bogue, a farmer, and Ann Johnston. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Biography, he became the assistant of Thomas Ireland, a bookseller in Edinburgh, but moved to London in 1836 to work for Charles Tilt. Tilt had his shop at 86 Fleet Street and specialised in illustrated books and lithographic prints (more on Tilt in a forthcoming post). In 1841, Tilt decided it was time to retire and, according to publisher and journalist Henry Vizetelly in his Glances Back Trough Seventy Years; Autobiographical and Other Reminiscences (1893), Tilt entered into an unequal partnership with assistant Bogue because of “his general shrewdness and steady application to business”. The idea was that Bogue would gradually pay back the money he owed Tilt for the partnership, between forty and fifty thousand pounds, and publications began to appear with both their names in the imprint. In December 1841, for instance, they had a page-long advertisement in the Quarterly Literary Advertiser announcing their latest publications.

In 1843, the partnership between Tilt and Bogue was dissolved with Bogue to continue the business on his own. As the shop was within the City of London, he had to obtain the freedom of the City, but as he had not officially apprenticed to a London freeman, he had to do so by ‘redemption’ for which he paid a fine. In 1844, he married Alicia Edgar, and went to live at 39 Lonsdale Square. Alicia was also from Scotland and in 1846 and 1848, they had their children, Anne, Alicia and Charles Tilt, baptised at the United Reformed Church in Regent Square with “National Scottish Church” written above the entries in the baptism register.⁽¹⁾ In 1844, Bogue jointly published Isaac Walton’s Complete Angler with Henry Wix who had his bookshop just around the corner in New Bridge Street.

But things had not gone well with the business for some time. Bogue was apparently not as clever a businessman, or perhaps not as lucky, as Tilt had been and had entered into a few publishing projects that did not pay off, such as his European Library, which consisted of reprints of classic titles. The first title in the series was William Roscoe’s The life of Lorenzo de’ Medici, called the Magnificent and in the preface Bogue stated that the works in the series were to consist of volumes of 450 to 500 pages on paper of the best quality and in a handsome and convenient size. Each volume was to be bound in cloth, was to have an illustration, and was to cost 3/6, “being unquestionably the cheapest series of books ever published”. However, his main competitor, H.G. Bohn, was quick to imitate him with the Standard Library. Bogue lost his European Library to Bohn after a legal wrangle over copyright, and the series was incorporated into Bohn’s Standard Library.

Bogue had one major asset, George Cruikshank, but not all of their joint ventures were successful. The temperance series The Bottle and The Drunkard’s Children flopped, and so did the Fairy Library, a series of children’s books with traditional fairy tales retold as moral stories by Cruikshank. Charles Dickens took exception to the distortion of the fairly tales in his Household Words and mocked Cruikshank’s efforts to rid the tales of any reference to alcohol by ‘rewriting’ Cinderella (see here for Dickens’s text).

The bottle, by George Cruikshank, plate 4, 1847 (Source: Wellcome Library, London )

The Adventures of Mr and Mrs Sandboys by Henry Mayhew and George Cruikshank, 1851 (Source: fulltable.com)

The 1851 census found the Bogue family at 76 Camden Road. The census papers for 86 Fleet Street tell us that “no person sleeps on premises”. David died in November 1856 of heart disease, aged just 48.⁽²⁾ His name still appeared in the tax records and in imprints in 1857 and 1858 as the executors tried to keep the place going with the help of Charles Tilt, but by 1859, most of Bogue’s copyrights and stock, as well as the shop, had been taken over by William Kent (his name is listed in the Land Tax records for 1860). The 1861 census and the 1861 Land Tax records for 86 Fleet Street, however, saw Frederick Arnold living there. He helped George Cruikshank pay off the debts he owed to the Bogue estate, because, according to Cruikshank, Arnold wanted to become his publisher.⁽³⁾ Arnold died in 1874 and the bookshop at 86 Fleet Street was continued by his son Alfred who had to liquidate the business in 1877 to satisfy his creditors.⁽⁴⁾

The shop itself was a sight to behold with its large windows curving around the corner into St. Bride Avenue. It was depicted many times, sometimes with the name of Tilt on the boarding, sometimes with that of Bogue.

vignette in the Tallis booklet. Bogue’s shop on the left.

Source: Gillmark Gallery

(1) David and Alicia were to have two more children, Edgar and David, but they were apparently not baptised at the Scottish Church.
(2) PROB 11/2242/348.
(3) More on Cruikshank and his publishers in Robert L. Patten, George Cruikshank’s Life, Times, and Art (1996).
(4) The London Gazette, 4 December 1877.

Neighbours:

<– 88 Fleet Street

85 Fleet Street –>

Charles Baddeley, boot and shoe maker

Tags

footwear

Street View: 15
Address: 102 Fleet Street

Charles Baddeley was the son of another Charles and to distinguish himself from his father he usually added ‘junior’ to his name as, for instance, in his signature on his indenture document. He was apprenticed in 1814 to Cordwainer William Howse for the regular seven years at a consideration of five shillings. If all went according to plan, he should have obtained his freedom in 1821 and was then ready to set up his own business, but there is no evidence that he actually did so. He may have worked in his father’s shop for a while, or as a journeyman somewhere else. In 1834, however, he appears in the Land Tax record for 102 Fleet Street.

In 1833, the property was still listed for the widow Read, that is Sarah Elizabeth Read, who had continued the coffee rooms of her husband Thomas Read who had died in 1813.⁽¹⁾ Read’s Coffee House was also – and perhaps foremost – known for serving saloop, a coffee substitute. Charles Lamb referred to Read’s ‘Salopian House’ in his essay “The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers”, in which he wrote that he understood the beverage was made from “the sweet wood ‘yclept sassafras”, boiled down and served like tea with milk and sugar.⁽²⁾ More on the making and selling of saloop, or salop, can be found in a blog post on Jane Austen’s World (here). J.C. Hotton in his History of Signboards (1867) says that a signboard that used to hang outside the coffee house when it had opened in 1719 as ‘Mount Pleasant’ by Lockyer contained a poem beginning with the lines: Come all degrees now passing by, / My charming liquor taste and try; / To Lockyer come and drink your fill, / Mount Pleasant has no kind of ill. In later years the sign could be found in the coffee room until the establishment closed in 1833 and Baddeley took over.

In 1836, Baddeley married Ann Mart, the daughter of Samuel Mart senior and the sister of Samuel Mart junior, fruiterers at 130 Oxford Street. It is very likely that Charles had met Ann in Oxford Street as his uncle John had a shoe shop at number 48 and was a friend of Samuel Mart senior. Whether the couple wanted to be closer to their family in Oxford Street, or whether it was for economic reasons, in 1842 or early 1843 they moved the business from Fleet Street to 119 Oxford Street. The Fleet Street shop was taken over by Simpson, a hatter; we will come across Simpson again in a later blog post as he was listed in the Tallis Supplement booklet 14. The Tallis Supplements do not list Oxford Street, so Baddeley does not have a later entry in Tallis, but he was certainly at 119 Oxford Street in September 1843 when one Thomas Collins attempted to steal a boot. Shopman Thomas Hinde testified that he saw the accused unhook a boot from inside the doorway and make off with it. Why Collins stole just one boot and not a pair is not made clear, but he was caught and sentenced to three months in prison.⁽³⁾

To make life easy (ahum) for us historians, there were two properties on either side of Princes Street with the number 119, so it needed a bit of work to determine which one Baddeley moved into. The Index to Tallis’s booket 36 lists Ann Blanchard, depot for mourning bonnets, at number 118, which is at the corner of Regent Circus; then Charles Evans, a linen draper, at number 119; then the indication for Princes Street; then George Hobbs, a boot and shoe maker, also at number 119; then an empty space, also at number 119; and then one Skrymsher, a watch and clock maker, at number 120. Most likely, Baddeley took over from Hobbs as they were in the same line of business, and additional confirmation can be found in the 1841 census where Charles Evans and his partner Richard Sherriff can be found next to Ann Blanchard. Across the road, at the other number 119, we find two female servants and one 26-year old male. Unfortunately, the census entry is so vague that I cannot decipher the names, but it is not George Hobbs. The 1851 census makes it even more difficult by putting number 118 between the two 119s. The Post Office Directories of 1851 and 1856, however, help us out as they not only list the entries alphabetically, but also per street. Although some of the names have changed, we can clearly see that Baddeley occupied the property on the western corner of Princes Street and that he shared it with someone else; in 1851 with Owen Bailey, publisher, and in 1856 with William Gardner, jeweller, who used to be at number 121.

So, Baddeley was certainly still trading from 119 Oxford Street in 1856, but no longer so when the next census enumerator came round in 1861 as he is then found at 290 Regent Street as “gentleman”. By 1871 he has moved to 311A Regent Street and shortly before his death he must have moved once again as his probate entry lists him as “formerly of 311 but late of 286 Regent Street”. His widow Ann is one of the executors and Caleb Porter, the nephew of Ann and Samuel Mart is another.⁽⁴⁾ Ann was still living at 286 Regent Street when she died in March 1879.⁽⁵⁾ Her executors are two nephews, one of them John Teede, the son of her sister Mary and grocer John Pearson Teede.

119 Oxford Street remained the property of William Gardner and he could be found there in the 1861 census. At some point he joined forces with Lawrence van Praagh as jewellers, watch makers, and picture dealers until 1868 when they go bankrupt. The Van Praaghs remained at number 119 and in the 1871 census another(?) Lawrence, who described himself as “son” could be found there as a diamond merchant. Number 119 was to be renumbered to 242 in the early 1880s.

(1) PROB 11/1542/242.
(2) Charles Lamb, <The Essays of Elia. Edition used: Paris, Baudry’s European Library, 1835.
(3) Old Bailey case t18430918-2692.
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1878. His effects are valued at under £6,000.
(5) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1878. Her effects are valued at under £1,500.

Neighbours:

<– 103-104 Fleet Street

101 Fleet Street –>

James Chaffin, glass and lamp manufacturer

Tags

lighting

Street View: 15
Address: 69 Fleet Street

In 1839, when Tallis brought out his first set of Street Views, James Chaffin shared 69 Fleet Street with Perkins, Bacon & Petch, bank note engravers. They were the more important occupants, or perhaps they were more willing to pay Tallis to show their names above the building in the Street View booklet. Jacob Perkins paid the tax from 1821 onward, and Chaffin’s name is not listed in the tax records for Fleet Street, suggesting he just rented some space from Perkins & Co. By 1847, when the Street View Supplements came out, Perkins & Co. shared number 69 with bookseller Robinson; Chaffin was no longer mentioned. More on Perkins and Robinson in later posts, but in this post, we will go back in time, rather than forward.

top part of James’s indenture

In 1808, James, the son of James Chaffin of Lower Street, Islington, is apprenticed to his father, a chemist and druggist, which may go a long way towards explaining why Chaffin junior is sometimes listed as a chemical glass lamp manufacturer. In 1815, James Chaffin senior wrote his – very short – will. He does not start with the usual preamble, but says that “reflecting upon the uncertainty of life” he considered it “a prudent measure to declare on this written paper my will”. He names his wife Sarah as his sole heir and executrix and gives his address as 5 Lower Street, Islington. He only died in 1840, so quite a number of years after he wrote his will, but he apparently saw no reason to change it in the intermediate years. His son James of 69 Fleet Street, glass manufacturer, and Jane Richards Nash of 2 Canonbury Place, an acquaintance of many years, both testify in 1840 that they knew the deceased well and that the will and signature are indeed in his handwriting. Widow Sarah is duly granted probate.⁽¹⁾ Although James junior had his shop in Fleet Street, he did not live there. The 1841 census saw the bachelor living with his mother Sarah and Jane Nash at Albion Terrace.

Although he did not have his name displayed above the shop in Tallis, Chaffin was considered to supply lamps of quality, good enough for the likes of Michael Faraday, who, in 1835, wrote to Percy Drummond about some bills from Chaffin’s.⁽²⁾ Chaffin sold, no doubt besides other types of lamps, the Sinumbra, or Shadowless Lamp, patented by Paisley & Co. of New Bond Street. According to an advertisement, the lamps “increase illumination without any additional consumption of oil, dissipates all shadow by the construction of it frosted glass distributor, and softens the glare of light so generally objected to in other lamps”. See for examples here and for more information on the lamps and their history here. But lamps were not all that Chaffin sold. An Old Bailey case of 1829 also mentions decanters, water bottles, tumblers, salt cellars and salt cellar standards.⁽³⁾ A watchman giving evidence in the same case confirms that nobody actually lived at the property.

The Morning Chronicle, 28 November 1822

The 1843 Post Office Directory lists Chaffin’s at 69 Fleet Street as ‘chemical & gen[eral] glass & lamp wa[rehouse]’, but in the 1848 directory he is no longer present and 69 Fleet Street is occupied by W.W. Robinson and Perkins, Bacon & Petch. A clue can be found in the 1851 census where James is found in Henrietta Street as clerk to a print seller, so no longer with his own glass business. There is no record in The London Gazette of him going bankrupt, so that cannot have been the reason for his career switch, but we will leave his later career for what it is and return to 69 Fleet Street for an earlier occupant.⁽⁴⁾

In 1820, an advertisement in The Morning Chronicle stated that Chaffin and his partner Vaughan were the successors to Messrs. Parker and Sons at their Glass and Lamp Warehouse in Fleet Street. The partnership with Vaughan, by the way, must have lasted till at least 1825 as they are still listed together in Pigot’s Directory for that year.

Chandelier by William Parker (© National Trust Collection) at the Bath Assembly Rooms. He supplied them with three 40-light chandeliers for the tea rooms and another five for the ballrooms.

Parker
Samuel Parker and William Perry had been trading together at Fleet Street since 1803 as cut-glass manufacturers, but dissolved their partnership in 1817.⁽⁵⁾ Samuel continued the Fleet Street business with his sons till 1820, but then sold the premises, moved his business to Argyll Street and concentrated more on producing goods in bronze rather than glass.⁽⁶⁾. Twenty years earlier, in 1798, Samuel had taken over the glass and lamp manufactury from his father William Parker. William was famous for his chandeliers and counted many aristocratic and royal patrons amongst his customers. The catalogue Country House Lighting 1680-1890 calls him the “pre-eminent London maker” of chandeliers from the 1770s and the “development of a supremely elegant style of chandelier [is] associated with his name”. The Prince of Wales’ feathers on his invoices clearly advertise Parker’s royal patronage and he apparently supplied the Prince of Wales with £4,000 worth of items for Carlton House in the 1780s. Country House Lighting quotes an invoice for the Duke of Devonshire which tells us that “2 large 12 light lustres richly cut and ornamented” cost £210 and “13 very large vase lamps” were £11-14-0. But Parker also sold more moderate items, such as decanters, glasses, candle sticks, table lamps, etc., many of which are still to be found. A Google Image search for William Parker + glass brings up a number of examples, see here.

invoice 1787 (Source: Lewis Walpole Library, see here)

Parker also improved the quality of lenses (or rather burning glasses) to such an extent that the correspondence of men of science favourably reported on them, for instance in 1782 when one William Vaughan wrote to Benjamin Franklin:

I saw yesterday a lense whose powers you are not perhaps unacquainted with. Platina melts in Seventeen Seconds & other metals yeild to its power. The weather has not been favorable for a variety of experiments. Parker has however many in contemplation with the assistance of our philosophical men here. I beleive it is found superior to the one in France. The lense is solid, & weighs 212 pd. ⁽⁷⁾

The Benjamin Franklin Papers at the American Philosophical Society include an engraving of Parker’s lens.

Source: American Philosophical Society, online here

Horwood’s 1799 map showing the four houses between Water Lane and Crown Court

Sources vary as to when William Parker started his glass business at 69 Fleet Street, but 1763 seems to be the correct year. At least, from that year onwards we find his name in the Land Tax records for the Salisbury Court Precinct of Farringdon Without. He occupied the second of four houses situated between Water Lane (later renamed Whitefriars Street) and Hanging Sword Court (later Crown Court). In the Tallis Street View, we can indeed see that Chaffin, Robinson and Perkins & Co. had their shops in the second house from Water Lane.

trade card for William Parker (© Trustees of the British Museum)

William Parker took over the premises in Fleet Street from Joshua Lewis halfway through the tax return period of 1763; they are both listed for that year. Lewis was most likely the upholder (or upholsterer) who moved to The Three Tents near Water Lane in 1736. But since he had nothing to do with the sale of glass, I will stop this post here.

London Daily Post and General Advertiser, 17 March 1736

(1) PROB 11/1924/405.
(2) The Correspondence of Michael Faraday, volume 2: 1832-1840. Letter 823, dated 15 October 1835.
(3) Old Bailey case t18290115-49.
(4) James Chaffin died 16 November 1869. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1870. His estate was valued at under £200.
(5) The London Gazette, 30 September 1817.
(6) Geoffrey De Bellaigue, ‘Samuel Parker and the Vulliamys, purveyors of gilt bronze’, Burlington Magazine, vol.139, 1997, pp.26-37.
(7) Founders Online.

Neighbours:

<– 70 Fleet Street

68 Fleet Street –>

Stephen and George Hooper, stationers and printers

Tags

book trade

Street Views: 15 and 13 Suppl
Address: 179 and 45 Fleet Street

A search for the history of 179 Fleet Street brought me to the trade card collection in the British Museum where they have a card for Thomas Neave, an oil and colourman. Neave has left precious little trace of his life, but I found an indenture for the year 1800 when he was apprenticed to James Soames. This document tells us that his father was David Neave of Leadenhall Street, a victualler, and an insurance record of 1815 places Thomas at 179 Fleet Street, but that is more or less it. If he started working at number 179 straight after he obtained his freedom, he would have been there from 1807 or 1808 onwards, but certainly no longer than till 1816. The only tax record I could find for Neave was from 1816, so all we can say with a hundred per cent certainty is that he was at 179 Fleet Street in 1815 and 1816. In 1817, the property at 179 Fleet Street is registered for William Parker; in 1828 for Parker’s widow Elizabeth; in 1829 it is empty; and from 1831 to 1834 a William Knight who can be found there. And from 1835, the tax records show the name of Hooper, the subjects of this post. More on the Hoopers themselves in a minute, but first something about the developments in the area and the consequences for the Hooper premises.

trade card (source: British Museum Collection)

Neave did leave us this nice trade card which depicts his shop. On the right of the picture you can see a small section of the neighbouring business, Peel’s Coffee House, and on the left you can see the shop of Samuel Nock, a gun maker. Peel’s Coffee House was still there when Tallis produced his Street View in ±1839, but Nock and Neave had made way for Mickham, a tobacconist, and S. & G. Hooper, stationers and printers, respectively. The street between the two bollards on the Neave trade card is Fetter Lane and it is clearly not wide enough to take a large amount of traffic. In 1838, the Public Record Office Act placed the records of the Courts of Law and their offices in a non-ministerial department under the authority of the Master of the Rolls for safekeeping.⁽¹⁾ Plans were put forward to build a new repository on a site between Chancery Lane and Fetter Lane, but concerns were raised about the width of Fetter Lane and the decision was taken to widen it by removing a row of houses on the east side of the lane, thereby almost completely obliterating Fleur de Lys Court with the exception of a small section on the north side. See for maps of the before and after situation the post on Peel’s Coffee House. The houses that had to make way were gradually bought up and in 1842, the Hoopers at number 179 had to move. I think they temporarily removed their business to number 203 as that is where the 1843 Post Office Directory finds them, but the property at number 45, on the exact opposite side of the street of number 179, became vacant somewhere in 1843 as Charles John Eckford went bankrupt, and that is where they ended up.

section of Tallis’s Street View showing numbers 179 and 45 opposite

Stephen and George Hooper were the sons of another Stephen and their City freedom documents (by patrimony) give their father as a Currier. The brothers were in business together until 1848 when their partnership was dissolved. Stephen continued the business, later together with his son Stephen Wastel. They specialised as law stationers, no surprise with the Inns of Court so close by. The lawyers no doubt had need of parchment sheets to use for producing official deeds, and various advertisements for the Hoopers mention them as ‘stationers and parchment dealers’. In the 1851 census, Stephen’s son, Stephen Wastel, was found in Llandilo-fawr, Carmarthenshire. He was described as a commercial traveller in the paper line, so he may very well have been sourcing and/or selling paper and parchment for his father. The 1851 Post Office Directory just lists Stephen at number 45, but by 1856, he must have taken his son as partner, as the Post Office Directory for that year lists them as “Hooper Stephen & Son, stationrs & parchmnt dlrs”.

Not long afterwards, Stephen must have retired as the 1857 tax records name Stephen Wastel as the proprietor of number 45. An Old Bailey case of 1858, in which an employee is accused of stealing money, has Ebenezer Purcell describe himself as foreman to Stephen Wastel. He then confused the issue of Hooper’s occupation somewhat, as all of a sudden Hooper is described as a grocer of Fleet Street. Purcell claims to be the foreman of Hooper’s grocery business and as such had taken on the accused as a porter. The prisoner denied being in Hooper’s employ and Hooper testified that his main business was that of a stationer in Fleet Street, but that he also ran the grocery business of Barnum, Breddall & Co. which he had kept under that name so “that it may not interfere with [his] other business”. Purcell had the management of the grocery business with which Hooper claimed he had little to do, presumably meaning that he had little to do with the everyday running of the shop.⁽²⁾ I have not found any information on Barnum and Breddall, so am not even sure whether that business was also run from number 45, or whether it was situated somewhere else in Fleet Street. No house numbers were mentioned in the transcription of the court case, so it remains unclear where exactly this grocery was. The 1856 Post Office Directory certainly does not list them, either in Fleet Street or in the list of grocers.

Advertisement in The Solicitor’s Journal & Reporter, 2 December 1865

Whatever this excursion into grocery may have been, and it probably did not last very long, the 1861 census just describes Hooper as stationer, employing 10 men.⁽³⁾ Stephen Wastel extended the business by not just providing lawyers with the physical articles they needed for their profession, such as stamps and paper, the firm also acted as agents or middlemen, providing matches for partnerships or clerks. And a few years later, Hooper even ventured into money lending. In 1874 or 1875, he moved the business to 69 Ludgate Hill to a building he shared with Treloar‘s carpet business. Number 45 is listed in the Land Tax records of 1875 for the “proprietors of the Scotsman’, who remained there until they moved into their new building on the corner of Fleet Street and Bouverie Street (photo here).

Advertisement in The Law Times, 2 February 1867

In later life, Stephen Wastel, and his second wife, Mathilda, resided in Deptford (1881 census), in Ramsgate (1891 census), and at Ebury Street, Chelsea where he died on 23 April 1893.⁽⁴⁾ But the business continued after the owner’s death, at least till the early 1900s. The illustrations below show the range of services and goods they provided, from stationers’ goods and telegrams, to printing and paper making.

bill, 1901 (Source: Ebay)

top of a letter, 1886 (Source: Ebay)

trade card, after 1874 (Source: Victorian Typography & Design)

(1) For more information see here.
(2) Old Bailey case t18581025-940. The 1861 census finds Ebenezer Purcell as ‘managing grocer’, but they do not say where.
(3) He is living at Oval, Kennington, with his wife Eliza and two stepdaughters, Mary Ann and Fanny White. Fanny died in 1862 and is buried at Norwood Cemetery. Eliza died in 1872 and is buried in the same grave (8196-78).
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1893. Estate valued at over £16,000.

Neighbours:

<– 180 Fleet Street	177-178 Fleet Street –>
<– 46 Fleet Street	44 Fleet Street –>

Charles John Eckford, carver and gilder

Tags

art

Street View: 15
address: 45 Fleet Street

Advertisements for Charles John Eckford often contain the line “established 1792”. That may be true, but it was not at 45 Fleet Street that the Eckfords began their business. Charles’s name only appears at the Fleet Street address in the 1834 tax records. Before that he, and his father John, could be found in Water Lane (or Street), Bridewell. And before 1810, father John could be found in Crown Court, although not as early as 1792, but from 1804. In 1811, Charles was apprenticed to James Eckford of Walthamstow, also a carver and gilder. Judging by the name, there must have been a family link, but it is not specified what that link is.

top part of Charles’s indenture

When Charles’s brother, Henry George, was apprenticed to him in 1821, his address is given as Penton street, Pentonville. Father John and son Charles John must have worked in partnership for a few years in the 1820s, but on 4 December 1828, they dissolved their partnership with Charles John to continue the business on his own. The notice in The London Gazette about the partnership, describes them as carvers, gilders, and picture dealers. And it is this latter trade that got father John into trouble in 1824 with the custom officials.

According to a newspaper report, Eckford was accused of illegally importing some pictures. He had transported 146 picture frames from Antwerp, but had undervalued them in the import document and they were for that reason seized. The custom officials suspected Eckford of having removed the paintings that were in the frames and they raided his house and workshop. They seized 64 valuable paintings by Teniers and Van Dyke and claimed that they found marks on the frames that matched those on the paintings. The paintings were allegedly smuggled into the country separately to avoid custom duties. A former employee of Eckford, one Laming, confirmed that the paintings arrived at the workshop roughly at the same time as the frames were shipped over. They had been hidden in a case that contained human hair. The defence for Eckford disputed that the paintings had recently been brought into the country and called witnesses to testify that particular paintings had been in the country for months and in one case, even three years. Although eight pictures were sworn to in this manner, Eckford could not prove that he had paid the import duty and had to surrender most of the paintings.⁽¹⁾

That Eckford dealt in picture frames and not just in pictures is also shown from an Old Bailey case where he had sent two frames to the Bolt-in-Ton in Fleet Street to be forwarded to a customer in Midhurst by the Chichester coach. One of the frames, however, ended up in the hands of the accused, one John Young, who claimed to have bought it of a man “dressed in black, in Holborn, for 15s“. The frame cannot have been very large, as the constable who apprehended him said that Young had it behind his back in a handkerchief. Eckford claimed the frame was worth 10s, but unfortunately, exact measurement are not given, nor is it clear whether this was a new or second-hand frame, so it is difficult to judge whether that was a fair price.⁽²⁾

advertisement in The Art Union, 1840

Charles John, after the partnership with his father was dissolved, continued for a while at 17 Water Street, but the 1834 tax records find him in Fleet Street. As the advertisement above shows, he not only dealt in picture frames, he also made them. If we compare the price of the frame mentioned in the 1821 Old Bailey case with the 1840 price list, we must conclude that either Young had got hold of a very small frame, or it had been a second-hand one. 1840 was also the year in which John sr. died. From his will, it is clear that he was more than just a humble shopkeeper; he leaves various properties in Crown Court, St. Bride’s, and at Walworth and Bermondsey, in trust to his son Henry George, picture dealer, and to his son-in-law George Gull, a tallow broker, for the benefit of his widow and after her decease they are to be divided between Charles, Henry George and George Gull.⁽³⁾

advertisement in The Art Union, September 1842

Despite the income he must have received from the properties his father left him, Charles John only managed to keep the business afloat until 1843, when we find him in prison as an insolvent. The notice about it in The London Gazette has him as “formerly of no. 45, Fleet-street, London, picture dealer and carver and gilder, then of Liverpool-street, New-road, and afterwards of no. 16, Goulden-terrace, Barnesbury-road, Islington, both in Middlesex, not carrying on any business at either of the last-mentioned places, and late of no. 2, Grange-road-cottages, Queen’s-road, Dalston, Middlesex, not in any business or employ”.⁽⁴⁾

Two frames signed ‘C.J. Eckford Carver Gilder Looking Glass & Picture Frame Manufacturer 17 Water Street Tudor St. Blackfriars London’, so most likely dating between 1828 and 1834, that is, after the end of the partnership with his father and before he moved to Fleet Street (Source: Christie’s)

Charles died in 1850 at 14 Clarence Street, Liverpool. The notice in the local paper still has him as “late of Fleet Street, London”, but I do not know if you can class 7 years ago as “late”.⁽⁵⁾ When exactly the Eckfords moved to Liverpool is not clear, but on 22 September 1849, son Edwin Frances Harry, ship broker, married a Liverpool girl and his address is given as 14 Clarence Street. The year after, on the 19th of October, the other son, Frederick Charles, an artist, also marries in Liverpool, although not from the same address. Charles John’s widow Maria and his two daughters, Emily and Henrietta, are found in Derby Road, Bootle cum Linacre, Lancs. in the 1851 census. The daughters remain unmarried and living with their mother at various addresses in Lancashire until at least 1881.

More information on the Eckfords can be found on the National Portrait Gallery website here and here. And 45 Fleet Street? The fact that Eckford left in 1843, came in very handy for the neighbours across the street, Stephen and George Hooper, as their shop was about to be destroyed.

Advertisement sheet (© Trustees of the British Museum)

(1) The Morning Chronicle, 12 July 1824.
(2) Old Bailey case t18210214-111.
(3) PROB 11/1934/366.
(4) The London Gazette, 12 December 1843.
(5) The Liverpool Mercury, 22 February 1850.

Neighbours:

<– 46 Fleet Street

44 Fleet Street –>

William Benning, law bookseller

Tags

book trade

Street Views: 15 and 13 Suppl.
Address: 43 Fleet Street

In 1806, William Benning, the son of James Benning, surgeon of Barnard Castle, Durham, was apprenticed to Joseph Butterworth, a bookseller of 43 Fleet Street.⁽¹⁾ Butterworth was the son of John Butterworth, a baptist minister of Coventry, and was very active in the field of philanthropic and christian causes. He was also the M.P. for Coventry (1812-188) and Dover (1820-1826). More on Joseph’s political career can be read here. Joseph’s nephew Henry came to work for him, but set up on his own in 1818 at 7 Fleet Street. More on him in a forthcoming post. In 1813, Joseph’s own son, Joseph Henry obtained his freedom of the Stationers’ Company by patrimony and the bookselling business was henceforth called Joseph Butterworth and Son. They specialised in law books and were frequently mentioned as ‘law booksellers’ in various directories.

William Benning must have reached the end of his apprenticeship after the customary seven years in 1813, but he continued to work for the Butterworths and when Joseph Butterworth died in 1826, he left to his “clerk William Benning one hundred pounds as a token of my regard”. Son Joseph Henry was not left the bookshop outright, but it was given into the hands of executors in trust for Joseph Henry “for and during the term of his natural life provided he shall so long continue to carry on the trade of bookseller”. As soon as Joseph Henry ceases trading or died, the shop was to be sold. No reason is given why the son does not inherit the shop outright, but he was destined to only continue the business for another two years as he died in Genoa in late 1828.

Advertisement in The Morning Chronicle, 14 June 1827

The death of the elder Joseph may have prompted Benning to seek his own fortune elsewhere as we find him as law bookseller at 52 Fleet Street in an 1827 advertisement.⁽²⁾ He is still there in February 1829⁽³⁾, but later that year, a notice in The Law Relating to Friendly Societies saw Benning and one Robert Saunders in partnership at 43 Fleet Street. An advertisement at the end of that year, specifically names then as ‘successors to the late J. Butterworth and Son”.⁽⁴⁾ Saunders and Benning presumably bought the business from the executors of Joseph Butterworth’s estate after the death of Joseph Henry.

Although Benning had lived at 43 Fleet Street when he was working for Butterworth, and later at 52 Fleet Street, he moved at some point to Walthamstow where the 1841 census was to find him with his (second) wife Jane and children Jane, Elizabeth, Ellen, Francis and Albert.⁽⁵⁾ The eldest sons William Granger (born September 1827) and Charles (born 11 March 1829) are not at home, but at Hall Place School, Bexley. Ten years later, William, by then a widower, can be found at Wood Park, Hampstead. Another son had been added to the list of children, Edward, and daughter Jane had by then married William Pritchard, a proctor, and had two children of her own. The two eldest boys are once again away from home; William is visiting the Watsons, a stone merchant’s family in Thorpe, Norwich, and Charles was visiting the Christies in Bouverie Street where one Harriet Abbot just happens to be visiting as well. Charles was to marry her the following year. One of their sons, Ernest Bradley, died in a boating accident and has been given a plaque of honour in Postman’s Park (see here).

The partnership between Saunders and Benning is dissolved in February 1844 and the business is continued as Wm. Benning and Co.⁽⁶⁾ No indication is given who this ‘Co.’ is, but I imagine it was son William Granger who is listed as a law bookseller or publisher in the 1861 and 1871 censuses. William Granger must have taken over after his father’s death (date unknown), but things did not always go according to plan. In 1881 and 1891, William Granger is given as solicitor’s clerk, but in 1901 he is called a retired bookseller. He died in 1902. The change in career probably had something to do with his bankruptcy in 1865.⁽⁷⁾ He must have left 43 Fleet Street some time before his bankruptcy as he is consistently given as of “no. 4, Albert Road, St. John’s-villa, Upper Holloway, but late of no. 5, Great Queen’s Street, Lincoln’s Inn Field”.

A search for the next occupant of 43 Fleet Street brought me to William Spottiswoode who had already printed a lot of the publications of (Saunders and) Benning. Bible printers G.E. Eyre and W. Spottiswoode, printers to the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty, seem to have taken over number 43 for their Bible warehouse in 1860. They are mentioned at number 43 in The Literary and Educational Year Book for 1860 and in the appendix of the Sixth Report of the Postmaster General for 1860.

Papworth design ©RIBA

Goad 1886

The building at number 43 had a bit of a make-over in 1827-28. Plans by John Buonarotti Papworth exist in the RIBA library and they show the front elevation which accords well with what Tallis showed in his 1839 edition. In the 1847 Tallis edition, the windows seem to have been altered again with rounded tops. But what is most interesting is the Papworth plan for the inner oval room. If you compare that with the 1886 Goad insurance plan, you can see the daylight window at the top of the room consistent with that on Papworth’s plan. The doors shown on Papworth’s plan are presumably the ones leading to Mitre Court at the back of the building. The building as the Bennings knew it, is no longer recognisable as buildings have been brought together to form the larger premises next to Hoare’s bank.

Papworth oval room (©RIBA) on the left and the 1847 Tallis elevation on the right

(1) The will of James Benning is transcribed on the Will Transcriptions Website here.
(2) The Morning Chronicle, 14 June 1827.
(3) The Morning Chronicle, 7 February 1829.
(4) The Derby Mercury, 25 November 1829.
(5) His first wife was Alice Whitfield whom he had married 21 March 1820, but she died that same year (thanks go to Catherine Ryan for this information). There are more links between the Whitfields and Bennings which will be explored in the posts on William Whitfield of 44 Old Bond Street and John Whitfield of 16 Lamb’s Conduit Street.
(6) The London Gazette, 5 March 1844.
(7) See for instance The London Gazette, 2 June 1865.

Neighbours:

<– 44 Fleet Street

41 Fleet Street –>

Peel’s Coffee House

Tags

catering

Street Views: 15 and 13 Suppl.
Address: 177-178 Fleet Street

Peel’s, Peele’s or even Peels and Peeles without the apostrophe are names used indiscriminately for the coffee house, later also hotel, at 177-178 Fleet Street, depicted by Tallis in his Street Views. According to pubhistory, there had been a pub at the site since 1518 which was re-named Peele’s Coffee House in 1715. In the 1839 Tallis edition, the coffee house has a neighbour, number 179 on the corner of Fetter Lane, but by the time the 1847 Supplement came out, number 179 had disappeared and Peel’s looks different. In 1839, the Fleet Street frontage had 5 windows per floor, but in 1847 only 4. In 1843, The Gentleman’s Magazine reported on various improvements proposed by the City of London Corporation and one of them is the widening of Fetter Lane by “the demolition of the eastern side”, which is indeed number 179.⁽¹⁾

The 1839 situation on the left with the coffee house still attached to number 179 (Tallis mixed up the numbers 177 and 178; 177 should have been on the right and 178 on the left abutting the house that disappeared) and the 1847 situation on the right with the coffee house having one side in Fetter Lane.

The left-hand door of the premises in the 1839 situation gave access to Fleur de Lys Court which disappeared almost completely when Fetter Lane was widened. You can see the court clearly between numbers 178 and 179 in Horwood’s map, but in the Ordnance Survey map of a century later, all that remains is the top section. Peel’s coffee house marked with a red arrow.

1799 Horwood map

1893 Ordnance Survey map

In January 1847, the then proprietor of the coffee house, Mr. Austin, applied to Mansion House because of “an annoyance”. Someone had put an advertisement in the Manchester Guardian headed ‘Matrimony’, solliciting ladies to send in letters directed to T.A.D. at Peel’s Coffee House. T.A.D., whoever he was, had not agreed beforehand with Austin to have the letters kept for him at the coffee house and besides “it was needless to say that the advertisement came from one of the rascally adventurers” preying on “inexperienced ladies”. Austin was most upset by one of the letters in which the brother-in-law of a lady invited T.A.D. to his house without the lady knowing about it, so that “if a mutual liking were not likely to arise from the acquaintance, a termination could be at once put to it without the least chance of inflicting pain”. Charming! How to get rid of a surplus sister-in-law. No comment was made in the paper on the fact that Austin had apparently opened the letter(s). Privacy? The Lord Mayor asked Austin whether anyone had called for the letters and whether Austin had given them up to that person. A “sollicitor of respectability” had called for the letters, but Austin had refused to give them up and told the sollicitor “that [he] should hold him up to public contempt for engaging in so disgraceful a transaction”. After the T.A.D. affair, a similar advertisement had appeared in the papers, professing to come from A.Y. who said he was of the legal profession and looking for a wife and “that he would be found very useful to widow ladies who might be entitled to property from their deceased husbands’ estates or the estates of others, and that he would exclusively devote his attention to the comfort of any lady with whom he might be united. (Laughter.)”⁽²⁾ Have not found out if they ever caught the fellow, or whether the exposure in the papers was enough to stop him.

But if matrimony is not what you were after, you could always retire to Peel’s Coffee House to have your corns or awkward nails attended to as every morning at 8 o’clock John Hinge was available to solve your problems.

Trade card for John Hinge (Source: Wellcome Images L0004358)

Peel’s was also known for its collection of complete runs of the London and most provincial newspapers, which were kept for reference in the reading room and because of this easily accessible source, Peel’s was a favourite haunt of gentlemen of the literary and legal professions. Charles Dickens was often to be found at Peel’s.⁽³⁾ But, in 1874, it all came to an end; the rooms were needed for other purposes.

Littell’s Living Age, 21 November 1874

Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 7 Feb. 1845

Proprietors
Mr. Austin who complained about the matrimony advertisements, was Thomas Phipps Austin who had taken over the establishment in early 1845. Tallis indeed gives the proprietor of the coffee house as Austin in the 1847 edition, but in the earlier edition, he mention the name of Moore. I have tried to work out who the proprietors were from 1715 to 1900 from the Land Tax Records and, among other sources, the information on the pubhistory site, but the list is not complete. If you have any additions, please leave a comment.

?-1715 widow Nixon (Bell, Fleet Street)
1715-1718 Edmund Peel (Land tax).
1719-1735 Thomas Babb (Land tax from 1719; PROB 11/674/358, he died February 1735).
1735-1736 Rebecca Babb, the widow of Thomas (paid Land Tax in 1735; died May 1736).
1738 John England (Land tax).
1739-1745 John Woods (Land tax).
?1753-1774? Richard Bulkley (Land Tax 1753-1768. In a petition of 1774 he says he has kept (past tense) Peel’s for 23 years, but does not give extact years).
?1777-1802 Thomas Gurney (mentioned in Daily Advertiser, 20 June 1777. PROB 11/1378/52; he died on 30 June 1802).
1802-1823 Mary Gurney (PROB 11/1678/222; the widow of Thomas Gurney. She died on 21 September 1823 and left everything to her son William).
1824-1826 William Gurney (Pigot’s Directory), probably earlier together with his mother as he is mentioned as the proprietor by B.R. Haydon in his diary for 1808.
1827-1843? W. Moore (Land Tax, Tallis and Post Office Directory, 1843).
1845 Charlotte Moore (W. Moore’s widow? Post Office Directory, 1845)
1845-1852? Thomas Phipps Austin (advertisement and Post Office Directory, 1852)
1853 Land tax record hotel left blank; Thomas P. Austin is charged for a house in Fetter Lane, corner Fleur-de-Lys Court.
1854-1858 Thomas Moreton Johnson (Land tax: charged for the same house in Fetter Lane; hotel left blank. Post Office Directory, 1856. Transferred his licence on 4 Dec. 1858 to Brown (The Era, 12 Dec. 1858).
1858-1860 Neville Brown (Old Bailey case t18600813-689; went bankrupt in 1860).
?1863-1875 Thomas Winterbotham (Land tax; house in Fetter Lane 1863).
1876-1888 John Jones (Post Office Directory, 1884. He died 28 Feb. 1888. His name appears on the card the Rev. Croft found, see below).
1889-1900 Mary Ann Gill Jones (Land tax; the widow of John Jones).

The end
The Reverend Bernard Croft found a brochure in old family papers with written across it “This is where Grannie Howe stayed when in London”. Grannie Howe had been a witness in a legitimacy case (“a peculiar case” according to the Sheffield & Rotherham Independent of 1887, but in fact just a case of a widower marrying the sister of his late wife) and was probably put up in the hotel because it was close to the Law Courts. The brochure indeed declared that the hotel “was especially suitable for clients and witnesses, with whom special arrangements can be made”. A room with breakfast, including chop, steak or fish was 5/- per head. Croft checked the hotel out when he was in London in 1974, but it was all boarded up, ready for demolition and he was told that it had been closed since about four years, so the glorious career of Peel’s Coffee House which started in 1518 (year on card) had finally come to an end.⁽⁴⁾

Picture of the card the Reverend B. Croft found

(1) Collage has a picture of the coffee house which they originally dated to c. 1820, but as it shows the new situation, that is, after the widening of Fetter Lane, it must be later. After correspondence with LMA, they agreed and will change the date to c. 1845. They say that the costumes worn by the figures in the picture also indicate the later date. As I don’t know much about fashion, I am quite happy to take their word for it and am glad to have this corroborating ‘evidence’. See here.
(2) The Morning Post, 29 January 1847.
(3) W.G. Bell, Fleet Street in Seven Centuries (1912), pp. 505-506.
(4) “An innocent family skeleton” in Country Life, vol. 156 (1974), p. 1656.

Neighbours:

<– 179 Fleet Street

176 Fleet Street –>

Waithman & Co., linen drapers

Tags

clothing

Street View: 15
Address: 103-104 Fleet Street

The directory for Tallis’s Street View number 15 lists “Waithman & Co, Drapers and Shawl warehouse” at 104 Fleet Street. The shop was located at the corner of New Bridge Street and comprised 103 and 104 Fleet Street. Above you can see both sides of the shop; on the left the New Bridge Road side (from Tallis’s booklet 78) and on the right the Fleet Street front. You will have to imagine that one side is round the corner from the other. Click the picture to see a larger version. A trade card in the John Johnson collection shows the shop as that of Waithman & sons. Robert Waithman, the founder, died in 1833, however, so well before Tallis’s Street Views. The sons continued the business for a while after their father’s death, but must have retired before the Supplements were issued in 1847 as number 103 is then listed as occupied by the Sunday Times Newspaper Office.

trade card from the John Johnson collection © Bodleian Library

Robert started trading in Fleet Market, moved to a shop in Newgate Street and then in 1798 to 103-104 Fleet Street. There is far more to tell about father Robert than about the sons, but I will do that in a separate post (see here). Robert Waithman married Mary Davies on 18 July 1787. The following children were born from the marriage:
– Robert (17 April 1788, bapt. St. Bride’s 16 May 1788)
– John (7 Sept. 1789, bapt. St. Bride’s 8 Oct. 1789)
– William (±1792)
– Charles (6 Jan. 1794, bapt. St. Bride’s 12 Feb. 1794)
– Mary (7 July 1796, bapt. St. Bride’s 21 July 1796, died ?)
– Mary (14 Oct. 1798, bapt. All Saints, Edmonton, Enfield 7 Jan. 1799)
– Henry (16 March 1800, bapt. St. Bride’s 3 May 1800)
– Mary Ann (30 May 1801, bapt. St. Bride’s 18 June 1801)

advertisement in Court Journal, 1835

Freedom record Robert jr. 1812

Robert jr., John and Henry all became freemen of the Framework Knitters’ Company through patrimony. It is unclear, however, whether all the sons joined their father’s firm. I have not found any information on Charles; he may have died young or moved away. William did join the firm, but he died before his father and was buried 26 December 1831 in St. Bride’s. In 1816, an Old Bailey Court Case relates of one John Williams, alias Kitchen, who was indicted for stealing a pocket-handkerchief from William Waithman. William testifies that he is a linen draper and lives in Fleet Street.⁽¹⁾ That in itself would not be absolute proof that he did indeed work in his father’s shop, but the records of the Sun Fire Office tell us more. Certainly from 1826 to 1829 John and William are registered jointly for the insurance on 103-104 Fleet Street. In 1833 Robert jr. and John are listed as paying as executors.⁽²⁾

Waithman and Bristow ±1800 from W. Thornbury, Old and New London, vol. 1 (1889) (see for more on the partnership with Bristow here)

It is also clear from the election registers that some of the sons lived above the shop after the death of their father. In 1834 John is listed as living there and in 1837 Henry occupies the same premises. Earlier that year he had married Tryphena Penelope Clay.⁽³⁾. John has by then moved to Avenue Road, Regent’s Park. Robert jr. could be found at 72 Basinghall Street at the time of the election register in 1834, but moved to Brompton as both the announcement of his death in The Gentlemen’s Magazine and the register of St. Bride’s (where he was buried on 28 March 1835) state.

As shown above, the shop must have been sold before 1847 and John retired with his sisters Mary and Mary Ann to Kent. The 1851 census finds them at 3 Calverley Park, Tonbridge, where he lives as “landed proprietor”. In 1851, Henry is listed as “silk broker” and lives with Tryphena, two of their sons and a whole range of servants at 4 Hall Place, St. John’s Wood. Henry died at that address on 11 January 1862.⁽⁴⁾ Tryphena herself dies 22 January 1880.⁽⁵⁾ John died 31 January 1870 at Claverley Park. One of the executors is Robert Henry Waithman, the son of Henry and Tryphena.⁽⁶⁾ The two sisters die in 1873 and 1886.⁽⁷⁾. The ladies spent their last years at Sydenham Road, Croydon.

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

One bit of information can be added about one of the sisters, although it is unclear to which sister it refers. The draper’s shop was located on the corner of Fleet Street and New Bridge Street and the crossing was “in possession” of one Charles McKay (or McGhee), the street sweeper. The sister used to provide the sweeper with pennies and a smile, and on cold days with warm drinks and food. In gratitude he left her his savings. The accounts as to how much vary, either £700 or £7,000. In the picture above, you can see the sweep standing with his broom in front of the obelisk.⁽⁸⁾ The Waithman shop can just be seen on the right-hand side.

(1) Old Bailey, Reference Number: t18160918-47.
(2) Records Sun Fire Office, LMA MS 11936.
(3) St. Marylebone, 21 Jan. 1837.
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1862. Probate was granted to his widow Tryphena on 17 March (estate valued as under £10,000).
(5) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1880. Probate granted to her son Robert Henry on 13 Feb. (estate valued as under £12,000).
(6) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1870. Probate granted 28 Feb. (estate valued as under £40,000).
(7) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1873 (Mary, estate valued at under £7,000) and 1886 (Mary Ann, estate valued at just over £7,920). Probate was granted in both cases to the nephews Robert Henry and Frederic.
(8) You can read more about and see more pictures of McKay here.

You may also like to read the two other posts on Waithman:
– Waithman Street
– Waithman’s obelisk

Neighbours:

<– 1 New Bridge Street

102 Fleet Street –>