William Miers, Maker of Miniature Frames

Tags

art, jeweller

Street View: 19
Address: 111 Strand

On the 8th of June, 1821, John Miers, 64 years old, jeweller of 111 Strand was buried at St. Paul’s, Covent Garden. From John’s will we learn that he had nine children living (two had died before him) and that his son William and John Field “who has been my assistant several years shall jointly and as partners have the option of purchasing the lease of my house, goodwill of the business … at a fair valuation”. If they do not want it, the executors (Francis Place and John Meabry) were to sell the business. If we go back in time a few years, we come across an Old Bailey case in which two young boys were tried for attempting to steal earrings from the shop.⁽¹⁾ In itself, the report of the theft is not terribly exciting, but it does tell us that the shop belonged to John Miers senior and that his son, John junior, was also working there and so was Lewis Field who described himself as assistant to Mr. Miers. Were this Lewis and the John Field mentioned in the will related? Possibly. Or was there a mistake in the Old Bailey report and was his name John? Also possible.

William Miers and John Field did indeed enter into a partnership after the death of John Miers senior, but The London Gazette of 14 April 1829 has a short notice to say that they are “in insolvent circumstances”. A later notice (London Gazette, 15 October 1830) announces a meeting with the creditors and the executors of John senior’s estate. It also mentions that John junior has a debt owing to the estate and that he is “late of Rio de Janeiro, in the empire of the Brazils”. He was, in fact, to remain in South America for many years and became a well-known botanist. In due course, dividends were paid out to the Miers & Field creditors, but in 1840 (London Gazette, 17 March 1840), William is once again in financial trouble. This time no longer together with John Field (more on Field’s later career here), and instead of jeweller, he is now described as “ormolu miniature frame-maker, dealer and chapman”. His address is still given as 111 Strand, but two months later, in a further notice in which he is given a certificate (London Gazette, 15 May 1840), he is described as “late of 111 Strand”.

Bill-head of William Miers (Source: British Museum)

From the 1841 census we learn that he is living at 31 Cockspur Street with his wife (Amelia) and children (William John and Amelia). Ten years later, he and his wife can be found at 5 Charlotte Street. William dies in 1863 and that would be the end of the story, but for the amazing work father and son did. Although John senior was described as a jeweller, he specialised in silhouette portraits, or ‘profiles’ as they were also called, done on cardboard, plaster or ivory, some so small that they could be used on rings or lockets. Robert Burns had a silhouette of his Clarinda (see here) and a miniature one as well (see here). The correspondence between Burns and Clarinda shows her announcing that she is going to Miers (who was at that time working in Edinburgh) and Burns replies, “I thank you for going to Miers … I want it for a breast-pin to wear next my heart”.⁽²⁾. The National Portrait Gallery has ten examples of silhouette portraits by and after Miers (see here), but the Internet will reveal many more.

after John Miers, line and stipple engraving, late 18th or early 19th century (Source: National Portrait Gallery)

These small profiles or silhouettes obviously required small frames and that is what son William seemed to have specialised in. They were first made from gilded plaster or papier mâché, but were later made in ormolu. It is thought that at least some silhouettes ascribed to John Miers were in fact by John Field and he seems to have been the artistic driving force during the partnership with William Miers. William may not even have made any profiles himself, but just relied on copying the duplicates his father had made. In the trade card below you can see – in very small print – that he has “preserved all the original profiles for nearly half a century, and can supply copies of every size without the necessity of sitting again”. During his career William described himself variously as goldsmith, profilist, jeweller, miniature frame maker, and engraver.

Trade card William Miers (Source: British Library)

Addresses and partnerships:⁽³⁾
various cities in the north of England – John Miers (1781-1788)
162 Strand – John Miers (1788-1791)
111 Strand – John Miers (1791-1821)
111 Strand – William Miers and John Field (1821-1829)
111 Strand – William Miers (1830-1840)
31 Cockspur Street – William Miers (1841-1843)
36 Haymarket – William Miers (1844)
8 Greek Street – William Miers (1846)
35 Princes Street – William Miers (1848-1850)
5 Charlotte Street – William Miers (1853)
94 Dean Street, Soho – William Miers (1854)
88 Dean Street, Soho – William Miers (1856-61)

William died 22 August 1863, but does not seem to have written a will, at least, no mention is made of him in the National Probate Calendar. More information on John Miers can be found here, and more on William here.

And 111 Strand? That became the address of the Phonographic Institution, first run by Thomas Allen Reed and later by Bernard and Henry Pitman, the brothers of Isaac Pitman who developed phonography, that is, the shorthand writing system.

Isaac Pitman, A Manual of Phonography, Or, Writing by Sound (1849), p. 44.

(1) Old Bailey case t18100411-47,
(2) The Correspondence Between Burns and Clarinda, 1843, p. 191.
(3) For this list, I have relied on various post-office directories and on the information that profilesofthepast.org.uk has compiled.

Neighbours:

<– 112 Strand

110 Strand –>

John Perring, hat maker

Tags

hats

Street Views: 19 and 4 Suppl.
Address: 85 Strand and 251 Regent Street

The first advertisement I found for John Perring is one in the Morning Post of 20 April 1822, although in an 1832 advertisement, he claims to have been a hatter for 18 years.⁽¹⁾ In his 1822 advertisement, as indeed in all of his later advertisements, he offers silk and beaver hats; the silk hats with double covered edges, warranted water-proof for 17s and the fine light beaver hats from 18s to 21s, not to mention all sorts of other hats in various price ranges depending on quality. His address is given as 413 Strand, two doors from the Adelphi Theatre. Another advertisement of 11 April 1827 still finds him at that address, but a month later he has moved his business to 85 Strand, corner of Cecil Street.⁽²⁾ He later also refers to this address simply as Cecil House.

Advert from Tallis’s Street View

But Perring was not satisfied with just one shop and in 1830 he claims to have “four houses of business”. The April 1827 advertisement states that he has another shop at Hammersmith, although no exact address is given; an 1829 advertisement mentions the third shop at 124 Edgware Road. Although he already claims to have four shops in 1830, I could not find the fourth address, 251 Regent Street, until 1847 when the Supplements to Tallis’s Street Views came out. He was certainly not yet at Regent Street when the first lot of Street Views came out, as number 251 is then shared by Madame Lebas, a milliner and Thomas Day, a hatter.⁽³⁾ Perring may very well have taken over the latter’s business sometime between 1839 and 1847. The earliest Perring advertisement for the Regent Street address can be found in Berrow’s Worcester Journal of 29 March 1849 where he tells his customers that “Perring’s patent light ventilating hats, so universally worn, [are] sent carriage free to any part of England”. Or traders could export them even further away if they wished as they are “suitable for all climates and seasons”.

Advert from Alexander’s East India and Colonial Magazine, Volume 10 (1835)

Perring claims to have invented an improvement in the beaver hat to make it a lot lighter, but his competitors did not all agree and claimed the same. And there were of course the sharp ones who tried to sell their own inferior product under a false name. Perring frequently warned about such practices in his advertisements as in the The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction (vol. 18, 1831) where he states that “Since 1827, when Perring’s patent extra light beaver hats were first invented and introduced to public notice, hundreds in the trade have begun to talk about weight, professing the greatest absurdities, to the prejudice of the inventor”. In the 1832 advertisement mentioned in the first paragraph, he even speaks of copyists that “have sprung up like mushrooms”. Fakes were shipped abroad, so Perring “respectfully informs the nobility, gentry, and public generally, that none are of his make unless purchased at no. 85, Strand, with the name printed at the bottom of the lining”. How anyone abroad was to recognise a fake from a true Perring hat remains a mystery. A name in the lining can just as easily be faked as the whole hat. Information on how to make beaver hats can be found here.

Eight different styles of beaver hats from Horace T. Martin, Castorologia, or, The History and Traditions of the Canadian Beaver. An Exhaustive Monograph (1892)

Advertising was vital if one wanted to draw the customers to one’s shop and Perring certainly used the usual strategies of advertising in newspapers and journals – even in poetry -, and he may very well have used men standing about or walking with placards, sandwiched or otherwise, but he also embarked on a novel, mobile, way of getting attention. He had a giant hat constructed which was driven round town every day and which he claimed had cost him sixty guineas. Thomas Carlyle writes disparagingly about it in his Past and Present:

Consider for example that great Hat seven-feet high, which now perambulates London Street; which my Friend Sauerteig regarded justly as one of our English notabilities; “the topmost point as yet,” said he, “would it were your culminating and returning point, to which English Puffery has been observed to reach!”- the Hatter in the Strand of London, instead of making better felt-hats than another, mounts a huge lath-and-plaster Hat, seven-feet high, upon wheels; sends a man to drive it trough the streets; hoping to be saved thereby. He has not attempted to make better hats, as he was appointed by the Universe to do, and as with this ingenuity of has he could very probably have done; but his whole industry is turned to persuade us that he has made such!

mobile advertisement. Source: London, edited by Charles Knight, vol. 5 (1843), p. 38

Perring’s hat on a cart did not convince everyone that that was the way advertising should go, but it certainly got him attention. His name appeared in the newspaper in quite a different way as well. In 1837, James Greenacre was sentenced to death for murdering Hannah Brown. Greenacre had promised to marry Mrs Brown, but just before the wedding he murdered her and cut her into bits; most of the body parts were found near the Edgware Road, but the head was fished out of Regent Canal. Greenacre’s mistress, Sarah Gale, turned out to have been Hannah’s niece and goddaughter; she was sentenced to transportation for helping him dispose of the body. You can read the whole court case with all the gory details here. You may well wonder what this story has to do with hatter Perring, but it turned out that Hannah Brown, before coming to live at Union Street where she was murdered, had been living for about two years at the Strand as Perring’s housekeeper and this fact was reported in the papers. Unfortunately, the first census of 1841 is too late to be of any use in establishing the truth about her employment at Perring’s, but he remained a bachelor all his life, so he probably had a housekeeper. The 1841 census for 85 Strand only shows George Haule, apprentice hat maker, Thomas Pennell, errand boy, and Ann Reeve, a 40-year old servant (presumably the housekeeper after Hannah Brown), resident there. Where Perring himself was is unclear. We do find him at home, however, in the next census of 1851. Also there are Samuel and Susan Date, husband and wife who serve as shopman and housekeeper, and a number of visitors. The census gives Hammersmith as the place of birth for Perring and his age as 50. In 1852, Perring is still listed in the Post Office Directory, but I have found no record of him after that year.

Plate IV in W. Newton The London Journal of Arts and Sciences (1843)

Perring was not satisfied with just being a hatter. In 1829, he paid ‘game duty’ for a certificate that allowed him to “use any dog, gun, net, or other engine, for the purpose of taking or killing any game whatever, or any woodcock, snipe, quail, or landrail, or any conies, in any part of Great Britain”.⁽⁴⁾ Whether he actually hunted has not come to light, but at least he had a licence to do so. In 1851, he took 200 shares in the Northern and Southern Connecting Railway⁽⁵⁾ and in 1842 a patent was given to “John Perring, of Cecil House, 85, Strand, in the city of Westminster, hat manufacturer, for improvements in wood paving, – partly communicated by a foreigner residing abroad”.⁽⁶⁾ The improvements were to do with the way the wood blocks were cut and pegged together with an elastic substance between the blocks. The text of the patent with the explanation of what these improvements involved can be read online here. I am sorry about the quality of the illustration above, but Google has not produced a better one.

But to return to the business of hat making and to conclude this post, a poem:

Advertisement poem on the back cover of Leigh Hunt’s London Journal, 2 July 1834

(1) Shown in J. Strachan, Advertising and Satirical Culture in the Romantic Period (2007), p. 37. Unfortunately, no source is given for the advertisement.
(2) Morning Chronicle, 11 April 1827. Observer, 8 July 1827.
(3) In the 1847 Supplement, Tallis accidentally writes the name of J. Leonard over number 251, but he occupied number 249.
(4) Act 48 Geo. 3. cap. 55 of 1 June 1808. Morning Post, 7 September 1829.
(5) Daily News, 27 June 1851.
(6) W. Newton The London Journal of Arts and Sciences, vol. 22 (1843), pp. 103-106.

W.H. Simpson, baker

Tags

food and drink

Street View: 19 and 9 Supplement
Address: 391 Strand

In 1818, the fire insurance for 391 Strand was recorded for David Simpson, baker, but by 1833, the insurance was taken out by William Henry Simpson. The latter was living above the bakery at the time of the 1841 census with his wife Maria and four children. William Henry was 38 years old on the census record, so born in about 1803. David was born in about 1786 and married Agnes Johnston in 1811. David and Agnes had two children, Isabella Maria (born in 1813) and David junior (born in 1815). The gentlemen were most likely related, but I have not figured out how. Never mind, it is about the bakery of William Henry that this post is about. David moved his baking activities to Piccadilly and we will follow that story in another post.

Trade card ©British Museum

In 1833 and 1836, the Sun Fire Office insurance that William took out for his bakery also mentions 13 Tavistock Row, Covent Garden, with the name of Jamieson bracketed behind it. Tavistock Row was the name given in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to all the houses on the south side of the Piazza between the east corner and Southampton Street. Tavistock Row consisted of two groups of houses separated by a passage from the Piazza into Tavistock Street called Tavistock Court. By the early nineteenth century most of the houses in Tavistock Row had been converted into shops. All of them were demolished in 1884–5 to make more room for the market.⁽¹⁾ From the insurance records of the Sun Fire Office, it appears that number 13 was occupied by various people in the 1820s and 30s. Thomas Booth and Isaac Harkness, painters (Nov. 1824); Newman Francis Robinson Macgowran, grocer and oilman (Oct. 1828); Sprigg Homewood, grocer and oilman (Sept. 1831); Mary Manvell, grocer and dealer in oils (Oct. 1832); from 1833-1836 W.H. Simpson with other occupier Jamieson, but in July 1838 Ann Jamieson, widow, paid the insurance herself. This last entry gives the other occupiers as ‘tobacconist, fruiterer’. All this, however, does not explain what Simpson had to do with the property. Perhaps it was an investment, or perhaps he used it to sell part of his bread production, or … ? The 1841 census for the Strand bakery not only shows the Simpson family there, but also some lodgers and several employees, one of whom is William Jamieson, 20 year old, a baker. Now, was he a relation of the widow Ann Jamieson of Tavistock Row? I cannot prove that he is the William who was born to Alexander and Ann Jamieson (baptised at St. George the Martyr on 29 Oct. 1820), but Alexander’s profession is stated on the baptismal record and yes, he was a baker as well, so there is a good chance.

W.S. Lethbridge, W.H. Simpson as Hamlet

The Sun Fire insurance records also tells us that in 1823 Walter Stephen Lethbridge (1771-1831), an artist, takes out an insurance for 391 Strand. Presumably Lethbridge rented one or more rooms above the shop. Occasionally Lethbridge’s paintings, he specialised in miniatures, come up for sale, but one of them is of interest to the bakery story as it depicts a Mr. W.H. Simpson.⁽²⁾ The back of the panel is signed and inscribed ‘Mr. W. H. Simpson / of the Theatre Royal Bristol / in the character of Hamlet / “I knew him well” / act 5, sc.1 / by W.S. Lethbridge / 391 Strand’. The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1828.⁽³⁾ I am not suggesting that Lethbridge depicted baker Simpson all dressed up as Hamlet, or his son who had the same initials, but Hamlet was certainly painted when Lethbridge lived above the bakery. There really was an actor W.H. Simpson, and it does not seem unreasonable to surmise a family relation between the actor and the baker.

The Era 5 January 1851

In early 1851, Simpson puts an add in the papers to announce that he is planning the ‘first annual distribution of rich twelfth cakes’. Twelfth cakes were the precursors of our modern Christmas cake; rich cakes, filled with fruit which were eaten on the evening before Epiphany. Each guest at the party was handed a piece of cake, the ladies from one side and the gents from the other. This was to ensure that a man found the hidden bean in his slice of cake and thus became King of the party and one of the women found the dried pea and was hence proclaimed Queen.

recipe from J. Mollard, The Art of Cookery (1836)

The earliest recipe for Twelfth cake can be found in John Mollard’s The Art of Cookery, first published in 1803, but the one above is the recipe from the 1836 edition. Don’t worry, it is exactly the same as that in the 1803 edition. Do be careful if you want to make it at home, Mollard lists quantities for a very large cake indeed. You may want to adjust them to the size of your baking tin and oven.

An enormous plum cake was depicted on the front of John Newbery and His Books: Trade and Plumb-Cake for Ever, Huzza! (1994)

Twelfth cake (Source: Austenonly)

The stunning cake in the picture was created at a course by the Austenonly people. You can follow the whole baking process here.

Sugar mould (Source: Austenonly)

And if you want to know more about the icing on the cake, have a look here for A Complete System of Cookery by John Simpson (yet another family member of our baker?). Go to page 520 for his recipe for “Icing for Twelfth Cake, or Rich Cake”.

Above is the Street View illustration of the bakery in Tallis’s 1847 Supplement. We know from the census that William Henry and family were still living at 391 Strand in 1851, but in 1861, William Henry senior, a widower, no ‘rank, profession or occupation’ and William Henry junior, unmarried, secretary to the Indian Coal Company, are both living at 7 St. George’s Terrace, Kentish Town, with daughter and sister Maria, her husband Henry Liston, and baby granddaughter and niece Effie. What happened to the bakery is unknown.

(1) British History Online (Survey of London: volume 36: Covent Garden (1970), pp. 222-223)
(2) Lot 131 in Sotheby’s sale of 17 November, 2004.
(3) A. Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts. A Complete Dictionary of Contributors, vol. 5 (1906).

Neighbours:

<– 392 Strand

390 Strand–>

Freeman Roe, hydraulic engineer

Tags

engineer

Street View: 19 (Suppl. 9)
Address: 70 Strand

The 1838/40 Street View shows an empty property at 70 Strand, but by 1847 when the Supplements were published, the premises are occupied by Freeman Roe, “Hydraulic engineer and fountain maker”. He advertised his hydraulic water rams in The Gardeners Chronicle and agricultural gazette of 14 March, 1846, also listing the other devices he could supply: jets, baths, steam closets, cooking apparatus, fountain basins, water purifiers and, slightly at variance with the chunky hardware, the Agricultural Chemical Almanac. I have not been able to locate a copy, but another book from his hand, The Hand Book of Fountains, and a Guide to the Gardens of Versailles (1845) can be found at the British Library.

water ram from Gardeners Chronicle 14 March 1846

Hydraulic Ram from Mechanics’ Magazine 1 Jan. 1848

Roe’s hydraulic ram receives favourable attention in The Mechanics’ Magazine and one of his pumps can still be seen at the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall.

Pump at Heligan (Source: Grace’s Guide)

In June 1851, Roe and one William Hanson dissolve their partnership “by mutual consent”.⁽¹⁾ A bit strange that they only feel it necessary to announce the break in September, but that may have had something to do with the Great Exhibition where they displayed hydraulic pumps, fountain basins of iron for pleasure grounds, and a four-horse portable steam-engine for agricultural and other purposes.⁽²⁾ The Farmer’s Magazine of August 1854 reported on an agricultural show at Lincoln where Roe displayed his wares, giving the prices of the various goods. A farm fire engine, for instance, could be had for £12 12s. and a common pump could be supplied for £1 15s.

Farmer’s Magazine, August 1854

A later issue of the magazine (August 1855), reporting on a meeting in Carlisle, shows roughly the same products and prices, but gives William Freeman Roe of 70, Strand (his son, see below) as the supplier.

Plumbers like Roe were used to laying pipes and that skill stood him in good stead when the Electric Telegraph Company wanted to expand their network in London. Roe was contracted to lay all the underground pipes in London. Possibly as an offshoot of this work, he patented an “improvement in paving roads and streets” whereby “parallel timbers are placed in the longitudinal direction of the road or street, such timbers being supported by concrete packing, masonry, or other sound supports […]. These longitudinal timbers are to support a flooring of transverse timbers, by which means, when these transverse timbers are taken up, the longitudinal space between two longitudinal timbers will be accessible for the purpose of opening the way to pipes, drains or sewers […]. On the timber floor thus constructed the paving stones are placed […], sand or a like uncementing material used to bed the stones in.”⁽³⁾

Freeman Roe was originally from Thrapston, Northants. He married Elizabeth Hill on 5 February, 1833 in Islip. Their son, William Freeman, is born 6 April 1834 at Camberwell, Surrey. Roe marries a second time, in 1843, at St. George Hanover Square to Susan Thorne, originally from Frome, Somerset, and they have six children: James, Timothy, Mary Ann, Susan, Hannah and Charles.⁽⁴⁾ According to the 1851 census, the family lives at Jews House, Bridge Field, Wandsworth.

Bridgefield House (Source: Wandsworth Museum & Local History Service, LDWAN/1988/345)

Son William marries Louisa Simpkins at St. Pancras Church on 17 August 1858. On the wedding certificate his occupation is listed as mechanical engineer. By 1861 the other family members have moved to 4 Church Row, still in Wandsworth. Freeman himself died 28 March 1870 at Eton Park House, Fellows Road, Haverstock Hill (now part of Camden). His widow Susan received probate; the value of his estate was less than £300.⁽⁵⁾ In 1871, Susan and two daughters, Mary Ann and Hannah, are running a school in Fellows Road. Ten years later, they can be found at 100 Adelaide Road, Hampstead. The girls still have ‘teacher’ as their occupation. By 1891, they are still there, but now James, civil engineer, and Timothy, wine & spirit agent, have also moved in. Mother Susan dies on 29 November 1893 and probate is granted to Mary Ann and Hannah; the value of the estate has risen to just over £600.⁽⁶⁾. By 1901, the men have moved out again, but Mary Ann and Hannah remain living at 100 Adelaide Road with two lodgers and a servant.

In 1871, son William and his wife are found in Doune Place, Loughborough Road, Brixton, and in 1881 and 1891 at Holly Bank, Selhurst Road, Croydon. They apparently had no children. William died 2 September 1891 and probate was granted to the widow. The estate was valued at just over £988.⁽⁷⁾

(1) London Gazette, 5 September, 1851.
(2) Official Catalogue of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations (1851), pp. 33 and 55.
(3) 25 Jan. 1853, no. 186 in Patents for Inventions. Abridgements of Specifications Relating to Roads and Ways. A.D. 1619-1866 (1868), p. 106-107.
(4) James Thorne Roe (born 1844), Timothy Thorne Roe (born 1845 Camberwell, baptised 25 Oct. 1845 at Wandsworth All Saints), Mary Ann (born 1847 in Camberwell), Sarah (born 1849 Camberwell), Hannah (born 1851 in Camberwell), and Charles Thorne Roe (born 1852 Wandsworth, baptised 25 Oct. 1845 at Wandsworth All Saints).
(5) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1870.
(6) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1893.
(7) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1891.

Neighbours:

<– 71 Strand

69 Strand –>