John Meabry & Son, grocers

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grocer

Street View: 26
Address: 1 Broad Street

John Meabry’s shop was situated at 1 Broad Street, on the corner of Museum Street. Museum Street and opposite Drury Lane used to be the point where High Holborn ended and Broad Street began, but nowadays the two roads are both called High Holborn. Not only has the name of the street where Meabry had his shop disappeared, the plot on which the shop stood is now just a piece of pavement in front of the entrance to the Shaftesbury NCP car park.

Meabry probably moved into 1 Broad Street after his marriage in 1793 to Elizabeth Rishforth at St. George’s, Hanover Square, although the first record for his business in one of the city directories is for 1795 (Kent’s Directory). The tax records, however, list him in Broad Street in 1794 where he took over from one Robert Snowden, also a grocer. Snowden had been at 1 Broad Street since 1790 when he insured the property with the Sun Fire Office for £1200.⁽¹⁾

Horwood’s 1799 map showing the corner property. The southern section of Museum Street used to be called Bow Street.

Snowden was most likely Meabry’s brother-in-law by marriage, as Elizabeth’s sister Martha was married to a Robert Snowden who is described on their marriage registration as a grocer from London (13 Dec. 1788, St. Peter, Leeds). Martha Snowden leaves one hundred pounds to two of Meabry’s daughters, her nieces Sarah and Martha Meabry, by that time both widows.⁽²⁾

These two daughters of Meabry had married sons of Francis Keysell, a cheesemonger at 7 Broad Street. Martha Meabry married Richard Keysell in January 1822, and in August of that same year Sarah Meabry married Henry Keysell. The brothers both died of consumption; Richard in 1830 and Henry in 1833. Martha does not seem to have had an occupation after the death of her husband, as in the 1851 census she is described as ‘fundholder’ of 5 George Street, Hammersmith. She died there in 1876.⁽³⁾ Her sister Sarah, however, continued to run the oil and Italian warehouse her husband had had at 17 Museum Street. Her father had insured that property in 1832 for £900, then “in tenure of Henry Keysall oil & Italian warehouseman”. The last mention I found for Sarah there is 1843. In 1851, she is living with her widowed uncle John Patchett (he had married Sarah Rishforth, another sister of her mother Elizabeth). He was seriously rich and left substantial bequests to his wife’s nephews and nieces and their offspring (see here). From the 1861 census onwards, we find Sarah living on her own means in Verulam Terrace, Hammersmith, where she was to die in 1887.⁽⁴⁾

Plate 9: the grocer, from P.A. Basset’s Genre Parisien, 1827-1829 (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

But back to John Meabry who continued to run his grocery shop at 1 Broad Street. The London Metropolitan Archives have a document (MR/B/C/1804/015), dated 1804, pertaining to be a “Surveyor’s affidavit confirming that 3 houses erected and built on the north east corner of Broad Street in the district of Saint Giles and Saint George, Bloomsbury, belonging to John Meabry, meets the requirements of the Building Act”. Unfortunately, the document is “unfit for consultation”, but it does seem to indicate that the property shown above this post was built for Meabry himself. From 1830 onwards, the business was kown as Meabry and Son, as son William (born in 1806) became his father’s partner. Son Charles (born 1807) also seems to have worked in the shop, but he was never a partner.

John died in September 1841, only a month after his wife.⁽⁵⁾ The partnership that had existed between William and his father came to an end and so did the business. Charles and William both ‘retired’ and lived off their inheritance. William never married and died in 1852, as far as I can find out without leaving a will. Charles died in 1872, leaving a widow and daughter.⁽⁶⁾

The London Gazette, 12 Nov. 1841

The Yale Center for British Art has an undated trade card for “Constable & Compy : successor to John Meabry & Son : wholesale and retail tea, coffee & grocery warehouse : No. 1 Broad Street, Bloomsbury, London” (see here). The 1843 Post Office Directory lists Constable & Phillips, grocers, at 1 Broad Street. Henry Constable was still there in 1848, but by 1851 the grocery shop was run by William Palmer & Co. (Post Office Directories).

This would be the end of this post, but there is a little more to say about the final resting places of some of the Meabry family members. In 2003 Oxford Archaeology (AO) undertook some work at St. George’s, Bloomsbury, prior to the redevelopment of the crypt.⁽⁷⁾ They excavated seven vaults where they found a total of 781 burials, dating from 1804 to 1856. Most of them could be identified, and yes, you probably guessed, some of the Meabry family were indeed laid to rest in one of St. George’s vaults. AO found the remains of John Meabry, his wife Elizabeth, their daughter Louisa, who died aged just eight years old, and their son William. The coffins were found to have been rearranged at some point in the past, probably in 1856 when the order was given to seal off the vaults. People buried later were found on top of earlier burials, so it was impossible to determine who was originally buried in the same ‘stack’. However, families were usually still found together in the same vault, albeit not necessarily in the same stack. The Meabrys were all found in vault 2. Each coffin has been given a number by AO: John (2032), Elizabeth (2014), William (2007) and Louisa (2022). Elizabeth’s coffin was found underneath number 2013, but the others were all found at the top of their stack.

upper level of coffins in vault 2 (Source: “In the vaults beneath”, p. 40, fig. 3.11)

Besides the information on these burials, the OA also lists memorial plaques in the church which gives us another tangible link to John and Elizabeth, as one of the church walls apparently holds a memorial plaque for the couple.

—————————–
(1) LMA MS 11936/368/565145. The insurance record gives the address as 1 Bow Street, Bloomsbury, the old name for the southern end of Museum Street.
(2) PROB 11/1922/75. Martha died between January 1837 when she wrote her will and January 1840 when probate was granted.
(3) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1876. The executor was her nephew John Jeffryes Oakley. Her estate was valued at under £200.
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1887. The executors were John Jeffryes Oakley and William Alfred Oakley, nephews. Her estate was valued at over £6,500.
(5) PROB 11/1954/81.
(6) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1872. His estate was valued at under £1000.
(7) ‘In the vaults beneath'. Archaeological recording at St George's Church, Bloomsbury by C. Boston, A. Boyle, J. Gill, and A. Witkin. Oxford Archaeology Monograph No. 8 (2009).

Neighbours:

<– 2 Broad Street

169 High Holborn –>

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Marshall and Sons, wax chandlers

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chandler

Street View: 26
Address: 181 Holborn

On the 9th of July, 1790, Beaumont was born as the son of John and Lucy Marshall of St. Andrew, Holborn. His birth was registered in November of that year at the Baptist Chapel in Keppell Street, Russell Square. In 1808, both Beaumont and his brother Stephen were apprenticed to their father, a tallow chandler. I have not found a baptism record for Stephen, but judging from later census records, he was born somewhere around 1793. The address given for all of them is Richmond Street, which is where Mary Marshall (John’s mother?) could be found earlier (see trade card below). By 1811, John Marshall takes out an insurance on the 181 (High) Holborn property and that is where the family will remain for several decades. Another son, David (born 18 March 1802), is taken on as an apprentice by his father in 1818, so the candle manufactury had become quite a family business.

trade card for Mary Marshall & Son, 1760-1818, Richmond Street (Source: British Museum)

Beaumont marries Mary Clarke at St. George’s, Bloomsbury in 1822, and when their daughter Maria Felicia (born 19 Oct. 1825) and their son John (born 6 July 1827) are both baptised on 7 September 1827, they can be found in Museum Street. In 1823, John had taken out an insurance for 18 Museum Street, so presumably Beaumont was running that branch of the business for his father. In 1828, both John and Stephen are mentioned as the proprietors of 181 Holborn when they take out an insurance with the Sun Fire Office, suggesting that Stephen was working at the Holborn branch. Father John dies in August 1831, ±78 years old, and is buried at Bunhill Fields. In his will, John describes himself as of 18 Southampton Row, Russell Square and of 181 High Holborn. He names his wife Lucy and his sons Beaumont and Stephen executors of his will. All the household goods at Southampton Row are to go to Lucy⁽¹⁾, but the house itself is for son David. The wine and liquors to be found in the house are to be divided between Lucy, Beaumont and Stephen.

Baptist Magazine (1824)

Besides various bequests to Baptist organisations and societies, and to John’s daughters Margaret and Lucy jr. and (future) grandchildren, the bulk of the estate is to be divided up between Stephen and Beaumont. The latter receiving the property in Museum Street and Stephen “all my messuages tenements dwelling houses warehouses and premises situate and being in Holborn, Drury Lane, Smarts Buildings, the Coal Yard Drury Lane, and 15 Princes Street Soho”. All but the latter property (now part of Wardour Street) could be found within one block of 181 Holborn. The various bequests are to be paid out of the property Stephen inherits. Beaumont is to get the portraits of John, Lucy and John’s brother, painted by John Linnell.⁽²⁾ The business is left to Beaumont and Stephen together.

Tallow chandler from Tabart’s Book of Trades, vol. 2 (1806)

On 25 July, 1836, the partnership between Beaumont and Stephen is dissolved⁽³⁾ with Beaumont to carry on by himself, although still calling the firm “John Marshall and Sons”, as is testified when he takes out an insurance in 1837 with the Sun Fire Office. And when Tallis produced his Street Views, the business was still called Marshall and Sons. But things did not go well for very long and in 1841, Beaumont was declared a bankrupt. Did the introduction of gas lighting have anything to do with the decline of the candle business? A few years later, Stephen, by then classed as having a partnership with one Richard Smith as Russia brokers, is also declared insolvent. The Westminster Archives hold several documents regarding these bankruptcies and the subsequent transfer of leases of various properties in the Holborn region.⁽⁴⁾ The yearly rent of number 181, together with a melting house and warehouse at the back of nr 181, was given as £280. The property is described in one of the transfer documents as dwellinghouse, offices and candle manufactury, occupied by Beaumont Marshall and Alexander James Dove. The latter being the person to whom Beaumont and Stephen had assigned property after their bankruptcies. The assignment of leases and mortgages was a lot more complicated than outlined above and took several years to get resolved, but what basically happened was that the Marshalls lost the family business.

Stephen managed to hang on as a Russia broker, at least he is described thus in the 1851 census when he is living at 15, Bayham Terrace. Stephen died in 1859 and left his widow less than £300.⁽⁵⁾ In the 1851 and 1861 censuses, Beaumont can be found at 27 Great Coram Street with a job description of “(assistent) secretary & collector to Society for relief of poor clergy”. In 1871, he still does the same work, but is then living at Silchester Road, Kensington. He dies in 1884 and leaves just over £157.⁽⁶⁾

The Holborn shop itself was given a mention in The Survey of London, vol. 5 (1914) and described as having a

distinctive early 19th-century shop front … [with] a large, slightly bowed window with segmental head, flanked by two doorways. The window was fitted with small panes of glass, having bars forming interlacing segmental panes above the transom. The doors were of quiet and refined design, with excellently treated side posts, having brackets, carved with acanthus ornament, supporting the entablature. The whole exhibits a distinctly Greek feeling.

The Survey says that number 181 had “recently been demolished”, so there is unfortunately nothing left of the former chandler’s shop for us to go and see; we are just left with a picture, albeit with the name of a later occupant above the window.

Source: H. Dan and E.C.M. Willmott, English Shop-fronts Old and New (1907)

(1) Lucy died in October 1839 and was also buried at Bunhill Fields. In her later years, she had been living at Gibson Square, Islington.
(2) The portraits are listed in D. Linnell, Blake, Palmer, Linnell and Co. The Life of John Linnell (1994) as oil portraits of Mr. Marshall, Mrs. Marshall and Mr. Marshall’s brother, all three done on panel in 1820 and measuring 10″ x 8″.
(3) The London Gazette, 26 July 1836.
(4) City of Westminster Archives, 1103/41-44.
(5) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1859.
(6) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1884.

Neighbours:

<– 182 Holborn

180 Holborn –>