Nathaniel Jones Woolley, chemist & druggist

Tags

chemist

Street View: 25
Address: 35 Piccadilly

Before 1837, the chemist’s shop at 35 Piccadilly, on the corner of Swallow Street, was occupied by John Knaggs who dissolved a partnership with one Jeremiah Pereira on the 4th of May, 1835.⁽¹⁾ Pereira is listed for the property in the tax records for 1835 and 1836, but by 1837, Nathaniel Jones Woolley had taken over and advertisements began to appear in the newspapers listing him as one of the addresses where corn plasters and cough lozenges could be bought.

Advertisement in The London Dispatch and People’s Political and Social Reformer, 28 January 1838

By the time Tallis came round to gather information for his Street View, Woolley was well-established and even thought it worth his while to invest in the vignette Tallis included in his Street View. The chemist’s is prominently depicted, although Woolley still added ‘successor to Knaggs and Co’ to his name to make sure everyone knew his firm had been there for quite some time and he was not just a new kid on the block. Also included in Tallis’s booklet was an advertisement of 1/3 page, once again advertising cough lozenges.

advertisement in The Fleet Papers, 27 March 1841

The London Gazette, 8 July 1851

A notice in The Chartist of 19 May 1839 listed the marriage of Nathaniel Woolley to Ann Mary, the only daughter of William Brown Esq. of St. Alban’s on the 14th of that month, but the 1841 census gives a Robert Haynes, chemist, and his wife Sarah, at number 35, with no trace of Woolley. Things had not gone well for Woolley and the 1851 census lists him, 39 years old and originally from Northampstonshire, in the debtors’ prison in Whitecross Street. He is listed as a surgeon. His fellow prisoner were mainly professional men, such as architects, bakers and engineers, all fallen on hard times. The entry in The London Gazette for the prisoners brought before the bankruptcy court on the 22nd of July, 1851, gives us more information about Woolley’s whereabouts before his bankruptcy. It is a rather long list of addresses and – apparently failed – employments. Two years later, another notice in The London Gazette (28 June 1853), has him once again in the debtor’s prison with a former address of 9, Sussex Street, Wandsworth Road.

In the mean time, the chemist’s shop at number 35 was run by Robert Haynes until 1843. The 1843 Post Office Directory still lists Haynes, but the tax records for 1843 already have William Higgs on the premises. He managed to stay on for a lot longer than his two predecessors, as he was still in Piccadilly in the late 1860s. Besides a chemist, Higgs was also a soda water manufacturer. Carbonated water had been invented in the late 1760s (see here), but in the 1830s, dispensing fountains were developed to ease distribution (see here). Soda water was thought to be beneficial and chemists were quick to introduce the fountains in their shops.

Soda fountain from the Industrial History of the United States, 1878

1880 Land tax record for the five redeemed properties

In 1851, an advertisement concerning the sale of the leasehold of 35 Piccadilly appeared in the newspapers and it tell us that it was held on lease from the Crown at a ground rent of £88 5s and that the “highly respectable” tenant paid £170 a year. The let was to expire in 1855 and the rent was then expected to rise to £220. In 1868, the highly respectable Higgs is still listed in the tax records, but in 1870, the names for numbers 33, 34 and 35 were all preceded by ‘late’ and ‘redeemed Lady Day 1870’, suggesting that the leaseholder or the Crown had other plans with the properties. In 1872, two more shops, numbers 36 and 37, were added to the list of redeemed properties, but nothing much seems to have happened as the situation was still the same in the 1885 tax records. By 1889, however, a new building housed the Counties and Capital Bank (photo here), but that building did not make it to the present time either as the satellite view below shows.

Google satellite view, showing number 35 opposite St. James’s Church

(1) The London Gazette, 12 May 1835.

Neighbours:

<– 36 Piccadilly

34 Piccadilly –>

Advertisement

General Steam Navigation Company

Tags

transport

Street Views: 17, 25 and 2 Suppl.
Address: 37 Regent Street

The General Steam Navigation Company had their office at 37 Regent Street, one of the houses of Piccadilly Circus, which was still called Regent Circus (South) when Tallis produced his booklets and looked similar to how Oxford Circus (Regent Circus North) still looks today, but it lost its complete circular form in 1886 with the construction of Shaftesbury Avenue. The Ordnance Survey map of 1893-95 below shows the changes in progress. The north-eastern corner of the Circus has already disappeared and the rounded off corners of the three remaining sections were to disappear over time when streets were widened and houses set back.⁽¹⁾ Number 37 is indicated by the arrow.

In February 1823, a meeting took place at the London Tavern, Bishopsgate Street, to see whether enough interest (read: money) could be raised to form a General Steam Navigation Company (GSNC). The idea was to raise a capital of £300,000 by issuing 150 shares of £2000, a large sum to fork out, but individual shares could be divided into halves or quarters. With the money raised steam ships were to be purchased or ordered to be built. It was envisaged that these ships would provide a regular service from London, Dover, Brighton, Southampton and Plymouth to various destinations on the Continent.⁽²⁾ The official year for the start of the Company is 1824, as was proudly displayed on their flag. A notice in the papers a year and a half after the meeting in Bishopsgate Street, showed that the activities and the capital were to be increased considerably by issuing 20,000 shares of £100.⁽³⁾ The GSNC initially had their office at 24 Crutched Friars, and later in Lombard Street, but certainly by 1834 they also had an office at 37 Regent Street.

Source: P&O Heritage website

After only a year in business, the Company announced that they were so successful that a dividend of eight per cent could be paid out to the shareholders and that fifteen vessels had been bought or built.⁽⁴⁾ The company initially concentrated on passengers, but from the late 1820s they also transported livestock. By 1833, the company ran regular mail boats to Hamburg, Ostend, Boulogne and Rotterdam. In 1836, they acquired the six steam ships of the London and Edinburgh Steam Packet Company and the steamships of the rival Margate Steam Packet Company. Some of the GSNC’s personnel managed to be singled out for their achievements, such as, in November 1836, when one of the Company’s captains, W. Norwood of the Sir Edward Banks, was presented with a gold medal by the Emperor of Russia for rescuing some Russian citizens from the shipwreck of The Neptune on the Hinder Bank. To distribute among the crew, £40 was given.⁽⁵⁾ And one Henry Cobby, of the GSNC’s Kingston-upon-Hull office, listed a design for “an apparatus for causing the paddle-wheels of a steam-vessel to revolve in a contrary direction to each other at one time, and thereby to turn the vessel round”.⁽⁶⁾ I wonder how they managed to do that before Cobby’s invention.

advertisement in Northcroft’s Parliamentary Chronicle, 1834

listing of rates and conditions in The Pocket Cambist of 1836

Pleasure boats, ferrying people for trips to Southend, Margate or Ramsgate, were very popular, but after the SS Princess Alice disaster in 1878 (see here), the market slumped considerably and it took all the efforts of the company to restore public confidence. The Continental cattle trade was also in trouble due to the Franco-Prussian War, a cattle plague on the Continent, and some severe winters blocking traffic to northern harbours, forcing the company to decommission some ships.

advertisement in The Post-Office Directory for Edinburgh & Leith, 1854-55

Changing holiday destinations, the railways and cheap flights all contributed to the decline of the Steam Company and they were taken over in 1920 by P&O, although remaining under own management till 1972. More on this later part of the history of the GSNC is to be found here.

A list of all the ships that have been owned by the General Steam Navigation Company can be found here. And if you want to know more about the history of the GSNC, have a look at Sarah Palmer’s “‘The most indefatigable activity’: the General Steam Navigation Company, 1824-50” in The Journal of Transport History 1982.

Guidebook (Source: P&O website)

shipping token (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

One of the GSNC’s ships (Source: Ebay)

Dutch poster for the GSNC (Source: Geheugen van Nederland)

Poster GSNC (Source: classicboat.co.uk)

(1) Changes described in Survey of London, vols. 31-2; online here and here.
(2) The Morning Post, 12 February 1823.
(3) The Morning Post, 19 August 1824.
(4) The Morning Post, 12 August 1825.
(5) The Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle for 1838, p. 628 and List of Shipwrecks in 1836.
(6) Newton’s London Journal of Arts and Sciences, 1843.

Neighbours:

<– 35 Regent Street

39 Regent Street –>

Samuel Hemming, hosier

Tags

clothing

Street View: 25
Address: 6 Piccadilly

Samuel Hemming appeared a while ago in the post on Benjamin Poulson of Regent Street as the nephew of John Eddels and Nathaniel Keen Eddels and as one of the executors of the latter’s will. Nathaniel’s will was quite a complicated one with lots of bequests to various family members, some of whom make their appearance in the Tallis Street Views. One such is the subject of this post, nephew Samuel Hemming who had his hosier business at 6 Piccadilly. In 1827, one Sophia Burke insures the premises and the Sun Fire Office entry gives ‘Eddels, hosier’ as the occupier. Although no first name is mentioned, we may assume that the shop was already in the hands of the extended Eddels/Hemming family and that at some point Samuel was put in charge.

The American Medical Intelligencer of 1839 reported on a lecture given by a Dr. T. King at the Blenheim Street Dispensary on the treatment of fractures. Dr. King used Hemming as an example of how a broken arm was treated in such a way that it ameliorated the pain considerably. Apparently, Mr. Hemming (no first name given), of 6 Piccadilly, had fallen down “two years ago”, so somewhere in 1837, “and severely lacerated his right arm”. The arm was since then prone to swelling and pain. The unlucky Hemming was thrown from a gig in the spring of 1839 and fractured the same arm. As you can imagine, Dr. King worked his miracle – or he would not have been so proud of his achievements and given a lecture on the subject – by providing a special bandage, or ‘apparatus’ as he calls it, and the patient was at the time of the lecture “able to move the limb a good deal”. You can read the whole report here. As no first name was mentioned, I am not absolutely sure that it was Samuel who broke his arm, but if so, he had his arm out of commission when he got married on 29 June 1839 to Elizabeth Parsey at St. Mary’s, Whitechapel. It cannot have been his writing arm, by the way, as his signature is perfectly legible.

signatures on the marriage registration

The 1842 Robson’s London Directory lists S. Hemming & Co., tailors & outfitters at 6 Piccadilly, but who the Co. is remains unclear. The 1843 Post Office Directory just lists Samuel as a hosier, so if it had been a partnership, it was rather short-lived. In the 1851 census, we see the ever-growing Hemming family (4 daughters, 3 sons) living above the Piccadilly shop. Also living there are Edward Hemming, nephew, shop assistant, Benjamin Hemming, nephew, shop boy, and Robert Wright, assistant. Edward is listed in the 1851 Great Exhibition catalogue as having entered with his design of “a model shirt, of fine Manchester long cloth and Irish linen”. No picture unfortunately, so we do not know what the shirt looked like.

Just round the corner, at 14 Tichborne Street, another Samuel Hemming, 17 years old, can be found as shop assistant. Two other young man are listed on the premises, but they are both shop assistants and who actually ran the shop is not made clear, at least not in the 1851 census. Ten years later, however, Elizabeth Hemming, by then a widow, is given as the head of the business, so, can we assume that the Samuel of 6 Piccadilly also ran the shop in Tichborne Street?

Yes, we can, as Samuel describes himself in his will as “of Piccadilly and of Tichborne Street”. Samuel had made his will in July 1854; he died 6 April 1857 and probate was granted solely to the widow on 26 June 1857. The other two executors, Edward Ives Fuller and Benjamin Poulson “having renounced the probate and execution of the will and letters of administration”. In the 1861 census, 6 Piccadilly was occupied by William Ridgway, a tailor, so Elizabeth must have rented that establishment out or let it go completely to concentrate on the Tichborne Street shop. Although she was named as the head of the Tichborne establishment, the day to day running was probably done by a manager, one William Gorby, who is also listed in the census with his assistant Emilia Malini. In 1863, the freehold of 14, Tichborne Street comes up for sale by auction and Edward Hemming – the one of the design for the shirt in the Exhibition? – is mentioned as the occupier, paying a rent of £300 a year. It would seem that Elizabeth retired sometime between 1861 and 1863. In the 1871 census she can be found as a retired outfitter in West Hackney. She was to live on till May 1889 when she is buried in the same grave as Samuel at Brompton cemetery.⁽¹⁾

Daily News, 4 April 1863

In 1867, Edward Hemming gives evidence in an Old Bailey case and then still declares himself as of 14, Tichborne Street. The case is about stolen gloves and Edward describes various gloves and the number of them that he bought of the accused.⁽²⁾ Not much is known about the other goods sold at the Hemming shops, but an 1847 advertisement mentions Golden Flax Cravat Collars, apparently a combination of a collar and a cravat, available in “a variety of styles”. The summer of 1846 had been exceptionally hot with temperatures in the sun of well over 100°F and cool clothes were in great demand. The Golden Flax Cravat Collar was one of the items that was recommended as very suitable in the hot conditions.⁽³⁾ And a year later, the advertisements for the cravat still mentioned it being “delightfully cool for summer weather”.

Advertisement in The Morning Chronicle, 21 May 1847

From Neckclothitania, 1818

In 1871, another chapter could be added to the administration of the will of Nathaniel Keen Eddels, the uncle of Samuel Hemming (see the post on Benjamin Poulson who was the other executors of Eddels’s will). After Samuel Hemming’s death, Elizabeth took on the role of trustee for the Eddels’s 153 Whitechapel property. Nathaniel Keen had bequeathed the interest of that property to Eliza Wakefield after the death of his own wife Sarah, and after Eliza’s death to her child or children. On Eliza’s death, her only child, Eliza Sarah Freudemacher had not yet attained the age of 21 years, so the interest of the property reverted to the residual estate. In May 1870, however, Eliza Sarah attained the age of 21 and claimed the interest for the period between her mother’s death in 1861 and 1870. Because of the wording of Benjamin’s will, that was contested by Elizabeth Hemming and four of her children. The judge agreed with Elizabeth, but wanted to stress, that from her 21st birthday, Eliza Sarah had a right to the interest.⁽⁴⁾

Family connection abound in the hosier community in London, not all of them part of this blog as the shopkeepers involved are not mentioned in Tallis’s Street View, but where possible, I will try to link the various family members, so that you can get an idea of the networks that played a role in the running of London businesses, not just in the Eddels-Hemming family, but throughout the retailing community. See for another example the post on Samuel Mart.

————
(1) Brompton Cemetery grave R/113/4.3.
(2) Old Bailey case t18670107-162.
(3) Alathea Hayter, A sultry month. Scenes of London Literary Life in 1846 (1965, rprt 2009), p. 47-49.
(4) The Weekly Reporter, Containing Cases Decided in the Superior Courts of Equity and Law in England and Ireland (1871), pp. 815-816.

Neighbours:

<– 7 Piccadilly

5 Piccadilly –>

Hawkes, Moseley and sons, military warehouse

Tags

military

Street View: 25
Address: 14 Piccadilly

In 1776, John Hawkes, a hat and cap maker, married Martha Moseley. Martha was the aunt of Hawkes’s business partner Richard Moseley (he is called the nephew of my dear late wife in Hawkes’ will) and hence she was also the aunt of Richard’s brothers, John Moseley of 17-18 New Street and Thomas Moseley, a minister, who is named as one of the executors in Richard’s will. Martha Hawkes-Moseley died in August 1808 and gets a lenghthy obituary based on her funeral sermon in The Evangelical Magazine.⁽¹⁾ A little over a year later, in December 1809, her husband followed her to the grave and he also gets a long obituary in The Evangelical Magazine, ending with a list of all his charitable donations.⁽²⁾ His funeral sermon was preaced at Orange Street Chapel, which Hawkes had purchased from the Huguenots when they were obliged to relinquish it because of falling attendance numbers. It was converted into a Congregational Chapel and served as such until 1913 when it was demolished and replaced by a new building.⁽³⁾ Both Martha and John Hawkes were buried at Old Swinford, Worcester.

trade card John Hawkes, 1791. (Source: British Museum)

At what time the partnership between Hawkes and Moseley started exactly is not clear, but in his will, Hawkes mentions Richard Moseley, his wife’s nephew, and Thomas Walker “both of Piccadilly … army accoutrement makers and two of my partners” as his executors. The military warehouse had at one point been at number 17 Piccadilly, but in his will, Hawkes describes it as “n^o 22 (lately 24)”. From about 1820, it was situated at number 14 and that is where Tallis found it when he produced his Street View.

photograph of the front elevation of 14 Piccadilly in 1902 (©Westminster Archives, Image Gallery ID:A13A6705)

After Hawkes’ death, his name remained a part of the firm’s name, although as far as I know, the Hawkes family was no longer involved in the business. Walker, the other partner, remained in the background and his name almost never appeared as part of the firm’s. At the end of 1831, the partnership between Walker and Moseley is officially dissolved with Moseley continuing the business.⁽⁴⁾

trade card of Hawkes, Moseley & Co., 1808. (Source: British Museum)

A Richard Moseley had married Mary Ann Ford in 1802 at St. Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney, but whether he was the Richard working with Hawkes is unclear. The marriage record says he is of the parish of St. Martin in the Field, so certainly in the Piccadilly neighbourhood, but that is no absolute proof. The problem with the Moseley family is that they only seem to have used a limited number of names for their male children, so the Johns, Thomases, Williams and Richards abound and it is not always clear which one is referred to. From the will of one of the Richards⁽⁵⁾ (he dies in 1820), we learn that he has three sons living at the time, predictably named John, William and Richard, and one daughter whom he refers to as Elizabeth Walker. Is she married to a relation of Thomas Walker, partner of John Hawkes and the Richard Moseley involved in the military warehouse, or even to Thomas Walker himself? The Richard who dies in 1820 wants to be buried in the family grave in Old Swinford and his executors are Richard Moseley junior and Thomas Walker, both of Piccadilly. One would assume that the Richard who dies in 1820 is the father of ‘Piccadilly’ Richard and a brother to John Hawkes’ wife Martha, but whether he himself worked in the military warehouse business remains unclear. The other Richard Moseley of Piccadilly (presumably the son) dies in 1856 and names his brother, the reverend Thomas Moseley, as one of his executors.⁽⁶⁾ Besides a whole host of other bequests, he leaves, above the annuity she already has, a thousand pounds outright to “Mary Ann Aylott now residing at n^o. 2 The Terrace Turnham Green in the County of Middlesex and who is called or known as Mrs Moseley”. What are we to make of the phrase “called or known as”? Was she not officially his wife? For the moment it will have to remain a mystery. If I find out, I will add a postscript to this post.

army dispatch box by Hawkes, Mosely and Co., 1818 (Source: National Trust Collection, Killerton House, Devon)

shako of the 66th Regiment of Foot Officers with the label for Hawkes Moseley & Co inside (Source: icollector.com)

John Hawkes is sometimes credited with the invention of the shako, a tall cylindrical army cap with a visor and a badge on the front, but that is unlikely since they were already in use in the 18th century by the Hungarians (shako derives from the Hungarian csákós süveg which means peaked cap). He may, however, have had a hand in the wholesale introduction of the cap to the British army. The firm of Hawkes, Moseley & Co. continued to supply the army with uniforms, caps and other paraphernalia. It kept the names of Hawkes and Moseley until 1852 when the Moseley name was dropped and the firm continued as Hawkes & Co, still at 14 Piccadilly, until 1890 when they moved to 1 Saville Row, but the Hawkes name remained over the door of the Piccadilly shop until at least 1902 as the photograph above testifies. In 1974, Hawkes & Co. were incorporated into the Gieves business (suppliers to the Royal Navy) and Gieves and Hawkes (now supplying both the Navy and the Army) can still be found at 1 Saville Row up to the present day.⁽⁷⁾

———————-
(1) The Evangelical magazine, volume 17, 1809, online here.
(2) The Evangelical magazine, volume 18, 1810, online here.
(3) Survey of London, volume 20 via British History Online.
(4) The London Gazette, 6 January 1832.
(5) The National Archives; Kew, England; Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Registers; Class: PROB 11; Piece: 1624.
(6) The National Archives; Kew, England; Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Registers; Class: PROB 11; Piece: 2240.
(7) Hidden away on the Gieves and Hawkes website is a brief overview of their history (see here).

Neighbours:

<– 15 Piccadilly

13 Piccadilly –>

Benjamin Edgington, tarpaulin manufacturer

Tags

travel

Street Views: 45 and 25
Addresses: 2 Duke Street (1* Wellington Street) and 208 Piccadilly

To explain some of the family history of the Edgingtons, we have to look at an 1864 court case Edgington v. Edgington in which Benjamin Edgington accused the defendant of falsely representing himself as in succession to or in connection with him.⁽¹⁾ He also accused him of opening a letter addressed to him, answering it in his own name in order to gain the custom of the letter writer. Benjamin stated that he had been in partnership with his brother Thomas as marquee makers up to 1823 when they dissolved the partnership.⁽²⁾ Benjamin carried on the business under his own name, Thomas as Thomas Edgington and Co., and the latter’s son as John Edgington and Co. Although only indirectly stated in the report of the case, the defendant of the court case was not Thomas senior, who had died in 1857, but possibly his son John Farncombe, although more likely Thomas Farncombe, the other son of Thomas who took over after his father’s death. Thomas senior had his shop at 17 Smithfield Bars and John had his place of business on the Old Kent Road, but probably combined the two again after the death of Thomas senior and junior. It does not help that the various Edgingtons all seem to work in the tarpaulin, marquee and tent business, although not all had addresses within the scope of the Tallis Street Views, so can be safely ignored for the purpose of this blog.

Trade card (Source: British Museum)

Back to the court case. Benjamin states that until 1853 he had his shop at 208 Piccadilly [on the right in the elevation at the top of this post], then moved to 32 Charing Cross where he remained until 1861 when he left for Duke Street [corner of Wellington Street, Borough; on the left in the elevation]. This is slightly ambiguous, as we know from the Tallis Street views that he already had the shop in Duke Street since at least 1839 (in fact, since 1834 or 1835), but he probably meant that he gave up his other shop and just concentrated his activities in Duke Street. Benjamin alleged that soon after he left the Piccadilly premises, the defendant made an arrangement with the owner of 18 Piccadilly, almost opposite number 208, to take in his letters and receive commissions and that when Benjamin left Charing Cross, he did the same with the owner of 5 Charing Cross. The defendant disputed this and said he had only made arrangements in Piccadilly 8 years after Benjamin had left and that he had only supplied the owner of 5 Charing Cross with goods and was not trading from there. The allegation that he pretended to be Benjamin’s successor could not be substantiated. The only case that could be proven was the opening of the letter from the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, about the erection of a marquee for the visit of the Prince of Wales to the College. The defendant alleged that the address had been indistinctly written (he had conveniently destroyed the envelope) and besides, he had received wrongly addressed letters before. He had, to add to the confusion, sent his manager, who had previously worked for Benjamin, to Cambridge, leaving the Master under the wrong impression that Thomas (or John) had taken over Benjamin’s business. That mistake had been corrected and the Cambridge order had gone to Benjamin. The outcome of the whole procedure was that deliberate impersonation and misrepresentation could not be proven, but the defendant was urged to be more careful with the correspondence, especially as wrongly addressed letters had been received by him before, so he should have been aware of the possibility that they were not meant for him.

Vignette from Tallis’s Street Views

We’ll leave Thomas, John and the early family history for the blog post for 17 Smithfield Bars and concentrate on Benjamin. In 1823, the same year as the partnership with his brother is dissolved, Benjamin marries Stella Sophia Nattali at St. James’s, Clerkenwell. They have at least three children, but they all die young and in 1828, Stella Sophia also dies. In her will, she says that she is in a “bad state of health” and she dies a few weeks later.⁽³⁾ In 1830, Benjamin can still be found in Tooley Street, at number 5 to be exact, as he takes out an insurance for the premises with the Sun Fire Office. That same year he marries Maria Theresa Francis, a widow, at St. Luke, Chelsea. Their first child is born in April 1831 and named Charles Nattali. It struck me as strange that the second name of the child is the last name of his first wife, but a bit more research revealed that Maria Theresa was Stella Sophia’s sister. She had married Edward Roberts Francis in 1818, hence the Francis surname. The couple were to have at least five daughters, but no more sons.⁽⁴⁾

Specially printed envelopes (Source: Grosvenor auctions)

In an advertisement in the Bury and Norwich Post of 20 May, 1835, Benjamin “begs to inform his friends and the public, [that] he has removed from 5, Tooley Street, to No. 2 Duke Street”. This was the direct result of the building of the new London Bridge. In 1829, Benjamin had heard that this new bridge was to be built and he realised that the new structure would obscure his Tooley Street premises from view, which would negatively affect his business. He complained directly to the Lord Mayor with a petition and claimed damages. He was able to convince the Mayor and City Corporation of his case and was awarded the lease on 2 Duke Street.⁵ From the 1835 advertisement, we also learn that Benjamin deals in rick clothes, poles, pullies, waterproof cloths for waggons, sacks, ropes, tarpaulins, etc. Later advertisements single out his marquees that are bigger and better than any the competition can deliver. His ‘Royal Victoria’ has a boarded floor for dancing and 8,000 people can stand in it, or 1,000 can be seated, for instance at a dinner. The marquee can be hired “at the shortest notice”.⁽⁶⁾ That it was not an idle boast, can be deduced from the report of a “sumptious entertainment” given by the Duke and Duchess of Somerset to the Queen which included one of Benjamin’s marquees. “A table was spread for the Royal party in the dining-room, and an immense marquee was erected at the end of the portico, capable of containing the whole assembly with ease. After dinner the tent was cleared for dancing, and its grand and striking appearance can only be faintly imagined by stating its dimensions. These were – 180 feet long, 40 feet wide, 35 feet high, with a dome 53 feet diameter, and 50 feet high”.⁽⁷⁾ It must have been some party.

tent label (Source: campinggear4u.co.uk)

Benjamin himself died in September 1869⁽⁸⁾, but the business was continued, first under the continuing management of William Hardcastle who started his career as an apprentice to Benjamin’s father, but stayed on after his term to become the trusted employee and friend of Benjamin. He married Benjamin’s sister Maria on 23 Jun 1817 at Saint Mary’s, Reading. By the time he took over the firm, Hardcastle himself was getting on and the management devolved to the three sons of one of Benjamin’s other sisters, Sarah Williams.⁽⁹⁾ The firm was to continue under Benjamin’s name for many years to come, supplying an ever-increasing range of camping requirements to travellers, settlers, explorers, emigrants and the military. At some point, the firm liaised with S.W. Silver who specialised in clothing and furniture for travellers. They do not seem to have entered into a formal partnership, but pooled resources and advertised together, sometimes with the emphasis on clothing and then the address for Silver would be given, sometimes with the emphasis on the equipment and then the Edgington address would be given. In 1967, Benjamin Edgington Ltd was taken over by Thomas Black & Sons, which are now Black’s of Greenock.
Below a selection of advertisements and trade cards for Benjamin Edgington.

1846 Pictoral Times

Trade Card (Source: Fitzwilliam Museum, Oxford)

1913 Yearbook Royal Colonial Institute

Trade card (Source: British Museum)

1893 Advert (Source: gracesguide.co.uk)

Grateful thanks go to Charles E. Alexander who kindly sent me his notes on the family. For more Edgingtons, see the post for Thomas Edgington of 17 Smithfield Bars.

(1) The Law Times, vol. XI, pp. 299-301.
(2) Official notice of termination partnership to be found The London Gazette, 4 January 1823. They are then called sack-cloth and tarpaulin manufacturers and worked from Tooley Street, Southwark.
(3) The will is dated 8 December 1827 (PROB 11/1737/307) and she is buried on 12 January 1828 at St. John’s, Hackney. Probate is granted 17 March.
(4) Charles Nattali 1831, Stella Sophia 1832, Sarah Ann 1834, Helen Nattali 1836, Emily 1838, Elizabeth Atkinson 1840, and Susanna Jane Francis 1842.
(5) Information on the reasons behind the move received from Charles E. Alexander.
(6) The Brighton Patriot, 26 September 1837.
(7) The Morning Chronicle, 31 July 1839.
(8) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations ), 1869. Probate was granted on 17 September 1869 to Maria Theresa, the widow, Charles Nattali, the son, Samuel Bourne, the husband of daughter Sarah Ann and William Hardcastle of 2 Duke Street (the manager of the firm).
(9) Information on the later management received from Charles E. Alexander.

Neighbours:

<– 1 Wellington Street
<– 209 Piccadilly	207 Piccadilly –>

Joseph Egg, gunsmith

Tags

guns

Street View: 25
Address: 1 Piccadilly

Durs Egg, a gun maker originally from Switzerland, spent some of his apprenticeship years in Paris, but came over to England in the early 1770s (more on the Swiss Eggs here). He set up his own shop in Princes Street in 1778. In 1786 he moved to Coventry Street, then to 132 Strand and then to 1 Pall Mall (you can read why he left the Strand here). After his death in 1831, the business was continued under his sons.⁽¹⁾ Another member of the Egg family, Joseph (baptised as Jean Joseph), the son of Durs’ brother Johann Jacob from the Alsace region, also came over to England, probably in 1790. He most likely started working for his uncle, but in 1800 he set himself up independently in Great Windmill Street. In 1801 he entered a partnership with one Walker at 59 Frith Street as “Gunmakers and Patent Spring Truss Makers”, but that same year he was also recorded as having being in partnership with Henry Tatham as Tatham & Egg at 37 Charing Cross. That partnership was dissolved on the 8th of September, 1814.⁽²⁾

In 1800, Joseph, took out a patent for a “method of bending steel without the assistance of heat, which may me applied to the manufacturing of surgical instruments”.⁽³⁾ In 1814, Joseph advertised a self-resisting and adjusting truss, invented by him and protected by a German patent, used in many hospitals, and made at his shop on the corner of Piccadilly, at the top of the Haymarket. Two years later, he still advertises them “with the high sanction and patronage” of even more hospitals. This time, he lists his address as No. 1 Piccadilly, near the Haymarket.⁽⁴⁾ These trusses must have been a lucrative sideline, as Joseph’s main claim to fame comes from his guns. Several gun labels are still extant.

2 gun labels (Source: www.dixiegunworks.com)

In 1813, then working at Charing Cross, Joseph took out a patent for “applying and improving locks”.⁽⁵⁾ That was not the only improvement he made or patent he took out: he devised a waterproof gun lock (referred to in the labels), a self-primer, a percussion priming magazine and he patented a pellet lock (patented in France). He also claimed to have invented the copper percussion cap, but that invention was claimed by more gunsmiths. In 1827, Christie’s held a sale of fire-arms and other weapons belonging to the late Duke of York and one of the items was “a beautiful pair of double-barrelled pocket pistols, by Joseph Egg, silver mounted, with coronet engraved on gold behind the locks, and the Royal Arms in gold upon the buts, with case and apparatus”.⁽⁶⁾

Detail of shot gun by Joseph Egg (Source: museumvictoria.com.au)

Joseph married Ann Stephens in 1805 and they had four sons, Henry, Charles, George and Augustus.⁽⁷⁾ I do not know what happened to George, but Augustus became an artist, and Henry and Charles followed their father’s footsteps in the gun-making business. Somewhere around 1835, Joseph changed the name of the firm to Joseph Egg & Sons. Henry and Charles continued the business from 1 Piccadilly after their father’s death⁽⁸⁾, at some point changing the name to Charles & Henry Egg.

Gun label for Henry and Charles Egg (Source: www.dixiegunworks.com)

Charles died in 1867, Henry in 1869 and the business was then continued by Henry’s son Henry William.⁽⁹⁾. According to the census records, both Henry and Henry William continued to live at 1 Piccadilly.

Source: E. Callow, Old London Taverns, 1899, p. 327

(1) Not in 1822 as I first thought. He was blinded in 1822, but died in 1831. Thanks to Seth Isaacson for pointing this out to me.
(2) The London Gazette, 10 September 1814. Information on the Egg family and the details about guns from a forum on doublegunshop.com.
(3) The Annual Register, or A View of the History, Politics, and Literature, for the Year 1800 (1801), p. 338 “useful projects”.
(4) The Times, 14 October 1814, 5 July 1816 and 18 November 1817.
(5) Repertory of Patent Inventions and other Discoveries and Improvements in Arts, Manufactures, and Agriculture, volume 5 (1828), p. 319 “notice of expired patents”.
(6) The Times, 24 March 1827.
(7) Charles 8 Oct 1809 (bapt. 8 Nov. 1809 St. Martin in the Fields), Henry 10 Nov 1810 (bapt. 1 May 1812 St. Martin’s), George Hine 3 Nov. 1814 (bapt. 2 Dec. 1814 Piccadilly St. James), Augustus Leopold born on 2 May 1816 (bapt. 29 May 1816 St. James’s).
(8) His will is dated 11 May 1837. PROB/1878/58.
(9) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1867, p. 46-47. Probate granted to Sarah, his widow; effects valued as under £12,000. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1869, p. 49. Probate granted to son Henry William; effects valued as under £7,000.

Neighbours:

<– 2 Piccadilly

5 Tichborne Street –>