Thomas Bowtell, boot and shoe maker

Tags

footwear

Street Views: 42 and 17 Suppl.
Address: 58 Cheapside

As we saw in the post on the 49 Skinner Street shop, Thomas Bowtell had quite a number of shops in various places and 58 Cheapside was one of them. The earliest we find him in Cheapside is in Kent’s Directory of 1823, albeit still at number 51. There is not a lot of evidence for the occupation of number 51, as Bowtell’s name does not appear in the tax records for that property which is continuously listed for a Benjamin Johnson. We know that in 1835 George and Alfred Pill had their confectioners’ business there, sharing it with other occupants. Only in 1841 does their name appear in the tax records, so it is likely that in their early years, as Bowtell had before them, they just rented the property from Johnson. What is certain, is that by 1835, Bowtell had moved to number 58, the house on the corner of Bow Lane as the tax records find him there in that year. He shared the property, at least at the time of the Tallis Street View, with Green & Chubb, hair cutters and wig makers. In the 1847 Tallis Supplement, the depiction of the shop is without any names, so no help in establishing whether Bowtell continued to share the shop, but the index tells us that James Green, hairdresser & wigmaker, was still there. In a forthcoming post, we will try and find out what happened to Chubb.

Goad’s insurance map of 1886, showing numbers 51 and 58

(© The Trustees of the British Museum)

The British Museum has the year 1832 pencilled in for the above advertorial poem which lists four addresses for Thomas, but there is a bit of a problem with that: 1835 is the year in which Bowtell is first recorded in the tax records for 58 Cheapside, but the printers of the advertisement, the Soulby brothers, dissolve their partnership and change addresses in April 1834.⁽¹⁾ It is very likely that Bowtell moved from no. 51 to no. 58 in 1834, as the tax data were only recorded once a year in August. We still have a discrepancy as in August 1834, Bowtell was not yet listed at number 58, and in April 1834, the Soulby brothers dissolved their partnership. The other addresses do not help much either; 49 Skinner Street was Bowtell’s address from 1813 to 1852; the Brighton address changed from number 106 to 116 somewhere between 1832 and 1838; and the Norwich address changed at some point from number 1 to numbers 20 & 21, but that address is frequently just described as Davey Place without a number, so that does not help much either. Anyway, somewhere in the early 1830s, Bowtell moved his shop a few houses, and he continued to trade from Cheapside till he died (1852). Until 1855, the shop was subsequently listed in the tax records for son William, but in the 1856 Post Office Directory and in the tax records for that year, the property is listed for John Edwin Shaw, a tailor.

advertisement in The Brighton Patriot and South of England Free Press, 23 Oct. 1838

We will come across William again in the post on the Tottenham Court Road shop, but first a bit more about the Brighton shop. In December 1856, Joseph, William’s brother, had trouble with one of his customers. One Sarah Cooper was charged with obtaining a pair of shoes under false pretences. She had come to the Bowtell shop, pretending to be a servant of a lady residing for the winter at 4 Brunswick Square, Brighton, who asked for a pair of overshoes on credit. She was to bring him the money next day. She did so and then asked for a pair of boots which were to be paid the following Monday. But she did not return with the money and Bowtell had her charged. The newspaper article was not so much about the theft itself as about the shambles the Grand Jury had made in going against the prosecutor’s case by claiming regret for the fact that Sarah had been held in custody and for the damage done to her reputation. The judge examining the case afterwards said that “he considered it a gross neglect of duty on the part of the grand jury, through which a prisoner had escaped punishment”.⁽²⁾ The newspaper reporting on the case, by the way, starts out by – erroneously(?) – naming the shoemaker James, in stead of Joseph, but in the rest of the article, they call him Joseph. As far as I know, Thomas Bowtell did not have a son James, so Joseph should be the correct name, but the confusion occurs again in a book on crime in Brighton.

In 1857, a young workhouse girl was raped by James Bowtell, her master, who is described as a married shoemaker with four children. The magistrates decided to release him on paying a fine of £10, because of his position and the feelings of his wife. Excuse me for using an expletive when I read this. The poor girl was sent back into the ‘care’ of the workhouse guardians.⁽³⁾ When I tried to check up on this story, I found another mention of the case in the CMPCANews, but here the man is named as Joseph Bowtell.⁽⁴⁾. So, what was going on? I contacted the author of the Church Hill Workhouse article, James Gardner, and he was certain the name was Joseph, although the local newspaper report he sent me also mentioned the name James.⁽⁵⁾ As we have seen in the post on the Skinner Street shop, the newspaper reports on the drowning of Henry Bowtell were very imprecise in the naming of the characters in the disaster, so I do not suppose this case was any different and James and Joseph are one and the same person.

116 St. James’s Street, corner of Charles Street, Brighton

The 1861 census, in listing Joseph’s family, who was by then back in London, corroborates that Joseph and his wife Kezia had four children at the time of his crime. Three of the children had been born in Brighton (Kezia, 11, Margaret, 10, and Charles, 5) and one (Emma, 6) in London. By 1861, one more child had been born in London (Susannah, 2). No evidence has been found in the census for a James Bowtell. That the third child was born in London can perhaps be explained by two notices in The London Gazette of that year in which we read that Joseph’s brothers Thomas and John were – at different times – declared bankrupts and in prison. John and Joseph had been trading as Bowtell Brothers in Piccadilly since 1842, first at number 181, but from 1848 at number 170. John’s bankruptcy may very well have necessitated a spell in London for Joseph, but he apparently went back to Brighton until his disgrace in 1857. Joseph does not seem to have had a shop again, but worked as an assistant. The 1871 census gives his occupation as ‘boot clicker’, which was someone who cut out the leather for making the uppers. I am afraid that his brother William did not fare much better, but he will be discussed in the next post on the shop at 152 Tottenham Court Road.

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(1) The London Gazette, 22 April and 25 November 1834.
(2) Daily News, 30 December 1856.
(3) D. d’Enno, Brighton Crime and Vice, 1800-2000 (2007), pp. 167-168.
(4) J. Gardner, “Church Hill Workhouse, Part 2 Children and Vagrants” in Clifton Montpelier Powis Community Alliance News 12, 2008.
(5) The Brighton Observer, 9 January 1857. Thanks go to James Gardner for sending me this newspaper cutting.

Neighbours:

<– 59 Cheapside

57 Cheapside –>

George and Alfred Pill, pastry cooks and confectioners

Tags

catering, food and drink

Street Views: 42 and 17 Suppl
Address: 51 Cheapside

We came across Mr. Pill in the post on James Pimm who had his business further up the street. Pimm’s establishment was compared to that of Alfred Pill with the latter’s considered too small to receive a licence to sell alcohol. There was a bit of wrangling going on between the aldermen whether pastrycooks and confectioners should be allowed a licence and if so, whether the licence should be granted with an endorsement that the premises were not to be used as a gin shop. In the case of Pimm, the licence was eventually granted, but it is not made clear whether Pill received the required licence. At the time of this application, 51 Cheapside was just run by Alfred Pill, but in 1839, when the first batch of Street Views came out, his brother George was a partner in the business.

The brothers had no doubt learned their trade from their father George who ran a confectionery in Mile End, Stepney, but the two boys were also apprenticed to London freemen, which, after seven years, enabled them to become freemen themselves and run a business in the City. George was apprenticed in 1815 to George Ponton, a cook and confectioner of Fore Street, Cripplegate, and Alfred in 1820 to John Coombes, a member of the Cooper Company, but his true occupation and address are not known. The brothers seem to have started at Mile End Road, no doubt the establishment run by their father until his death in 1825, but by 1829, they were to be found at 86 Newgate Street, and by 1835 at 51 Cheapside. A partnership between one Harriott Pill and Alfred Pill was dissolved in 1838 with Alfred remaining at 51 Cheapside, but how this Harriott was related to George and Alfred remains unclear. What is clear, is that Alfred remained the proprietor of 51 Cheapside, which was the fifth house west of St. Mary le Bow church. The building was slightly lower than the neighbouring houses. Alfred shared the premises with various other businesses; in the 1839 Street View with Mellor, Mountain & Co, a lace warehouse, and in the 1847 Supplement with Thomas McClure, a Manchester agent, and William Donne & Sons, engravers. No information is available as to how the premises were divided up.

Cheapside with number 51 on the right from Thomas Malton’s Picturesque Tour of 1792 (Source: British Museum Collection)

There is one customer who has written down what could be had at Pill’s. Charles George Harper, reminiscing about the London of the past wrote Queer Things about London in 1924 and said,

Then there was Alfred Pill, who, on the south side of Cheapside, between St. Mary-le-Bow and Old Change, sold the most exquisite and alluring jellies. You might have had a bun with Deputy Webber, consumed a jelly (Ah!) at Mr. Pill’s, and then, passing, let us say, through St. Paul’s Churchyard, have found on Ludgate Hill another bun shop …

Harper explains that Deputy Webber had his bun shop in Lombard Street, but he does not give any indication when he might have come across Webber or Pill. Tallis does not deal with Lombard Street, but the Post Office Directory of 1843 has a Thomas Webber as bread and biscuit baker at 81 Lombard Street. The jellies must have been quite famous, but other than this one tantalising glimpse of the food on offer at Pill’s, I have not found any more mention of the food available at the establishment, although the place itself must have developed over time from just a confectionery into a ‘proper’ restaurant. It is labelled as such on Goad’s insurance map of 1886 and in the German Baedeker’s guide to London of 1875 it is listed in the section of Coffee Shops, Pastry Cooks and Oyster Shops in the City, together with such places as Peel’s in Fleet Street and Holt’s in St. Paul’s Churchyard. Baedeker finishes the paragraph with the comment that, in most coffee houses, soup, chops and steaks were also available, but whether Pill actually had those on the menu is not made clear.

In the 1841 census, Alfred was living on his own at Cheapside with just a housekeeper, one Mary Wood. But she was or became more than a housekeeper and in 1847 Mary Cooper Wood and Alfred Pill got married at St. Lawrence Jewry. They had two daughters, Mary Susanna and Elizabeth, and one son Alfred Arthur. All three children are described as confectioner’s assistants in the 1871 census and Alfred must have counted on his son, Alfred Arthur to take over the business, but unfortunately, the young man died in 1875, just 20 years old.⁽¹⁾ This must have been roughly at the same time as Alfred retired as he is still listed in the Land Tax records for 1874, but in 1875 the names of Simpson & Bowser are given for 51 Cheapside. In 1881, Alfred, by then a widower, and his unmarried daughter Mary Susanna, are living at The Knowle, Manor Road, Wallington.

The Penny Illustrated Paper, 5 November 1881 (Digital Library@Villanova University)

Murder!
Pill’s quiet retirement was, however, rudely interrupted in 1881 when a man was brutally murdered on the railway from London to Brighton. It turns out that Frederick Isaac Gold, who had married Alfred Pill’s wife’s sister, Lydia Matilda Wood⁽²⁾, was travelling back from town to Preston, Brighton, on a Monday and somewhere along the line he was shot by Percy Lefroy Mapleton. Gold had put up a good fight, but lost his life and was thrown from the carriage in Balcombe tunnel where his body was later found. Mapleton pretended to have been attacked by two man, hence the blood on his clothes, and the police at first let him go, but as more information came in, they knew he must have been the killer and he was apprehended, charged, convicted and later hanged. Mapleton had been staying at a boarding house in Wallington and daughter Mary Susanna had to give evidence at the inquest that Mr. Gold had not come to visit them on that particular Monday and that they knew nothing about Mapleton. More on the notorious case can be read here and here.⁽³⁾

Two weeks before this shocking event, Alfred Pill had attended the forty-fourth anniversary dinner of the London Coffee and Eating-House Keepers’ Association; he is listed as one of the members of the Common Council present.⁽⁴⁾ But Pill’s health must have deteriorated after that, as in 1886, the Court of Aldermen decided to disqualify him “by reason of his not having attended any meetings of the Court in the last six months, owing, it was stated, to ill-health”. Pill had represented Bread Ward since 1860, but it was now time to elect a new representative.⁽⁵⁾ The 1891 census still saw Pill living at The Knowle with his daughter Mary Susanna, but he died in August of that year.⁽⁶⁾ Mary Susanna was one of the executors and remained living at The Knowle until her own death in 1942.⁽⁷⁾

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(1) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1875. Effects valued at under £200.
(2) Lydia Mathilda Wood had married Fredrick Isaac Gold on 13 April 1845 at Holy Trinity Church, Mile End Old Town, Stepney. Her father's name is given as Samuel Wood, gentleman. Alfred Pill's and Mary Cooper Wood's marriage registration also names her father as Samuel Wood, gentleman, so I think we can conclude that most of the papers were wrong in reporting Gold's sister as having married Pill; it was his wife's sister.
(3) At the time, the case was extensively reported in the newspapers, see for instance, The Morning Post and The Standard of 30 June 1881. The Penny Illustrated Paper devoted considerable space in several issues to the case which included graphic pictures. See for links to the magazine the bottom of the Wikipedia page on Mapleton here.
(4) The Era, 18 June 1881.
(5) Daily News, 13 October 1886.
(6) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1891. Estate valued at over £45,400.
(7) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1842. Estate valued at over £23,400.

Neighbours:

<– 50 Cheapside

52 Cheapside –>

Edward Dyer Suter and the Infant Book Depository

Tags

book trade, charities, copying machine, education

Street View: 42
Address: 19 Cheapside

The advertisement that bookseller and stationer Edward Suter put in Tallis’s Street View concerned a ‘Patent Letter Coping Machine’. It was a device for quickly copying a text, rather than copying it by hand. The method was to use special ink for the original, to place a piece of thin damp paper over the original and to put these two sheets under the press. The idea was first patented by James Watt, but improved upon by Patrick Ritchie of Nicholson Street, Edinburgh. The presses became a standard item in Victorian offices, but the ones that turn up today are usually thought of as book presses.⁽¹⁾

Advertisement for copying press in Street View 42

As Suter’s advertisement states, he is the sole agent for the machines in London and quotes a number of testimonials from satisfied customers. According to Suter they were used in the offices of solicitors, merchants and bankers and could be supplied in four sizes, depending on the paper required (large 4to, foolscap, large post and extra large post).

Suter may have been the sole supplier for London, but Ritchie farmed out his invention all over the country. Howlett & Co. were the agents for Norwich and Norfolk⁽²⁾ and in Hull they were sold by Thomas Freebody at the Hull Packet Office⁽³⁾. They even crossed the Atlantic where David Felt of Stationer’s Hall, Pearl Street, New York received them “direct from Patrick Ritchie”.⁽⁴⁾

Ritchie’s Copying Press
Source: http://www.tennants.co.uk

But selling copying presses was not all Suter did. He was heavily involved in all sorts of charitable and missionary organisations who could always rely on his support. In July 1834, for instance, the Society for Promoting Female Education in China, India and the East was formed in response to David Abeel’s pamphlet Appeal to Christian Ladies in [sic] behalf of Female Education in China. The Baptist Magazine of January 1835 published the appeal and concluded with “Those readers who desire further information may obtain it from Mr. Suter, 19, Cheapside; by whom contributions will be thankfully received.” The Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle of 1838 also reported on the Society and mentioned that “communications may be addressed, and parcels and boxes sent to either of the secretaries, Miss Hope or Miss Adam, care of Mr. Suter, 19, Cheapside, or of Mrs. Chevalier, 42, Great Coram-street”. By 1838 the name of the society was shortened to Society for Promoting Female Education in the East, and was often simply referred to as the Female Education Society. The publishers for the Society’s magazine Female Missionary Intelligencer were Suter and Alexander at 32 Cheapside (a later address and partnership). They are also listed as the publishers of Missionary Leaves by the Church Missionary Society and for the Annual Report of the Indian Female Normal School and Instruction Society. This interest in missionary work was of course a general Victorian pastime, but may also have been prompted by his acquaintance to Samuel Dyer, missionary in China and Malaysia, who was the son of John Dyer, Secretary of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich. Edward Suter, the father of the bookseller, was Dyer’s clerk and he gave his son the second name of Dyer after his employer.

Suter acted for all these charitable organisations as bookseller and postal address, but he was actively involved himself as a member of the Spitalfield Benevolent Society, set up in 1811 by the evangelical Reverend Josiah Pratt to assist the poor. In 1820, Suter is named as one of the stewards of the Society.⁽⁵⁾ The Society was associated with Whe(e)ler Chapel, Spital Square which was built in 1693 at the expense of Sir George Wheler to serve the people of Norton Folgate, Spitalfields and Mile End. In 1845 the chapel became a parish church and was renamed Saint Mary Spital, after a medieval hospital that used to stand in this area.⁽⁶⁾

St Mary’s Spital Square, formerly Sir George Wheler’s Chapel, as rebuilt in 1842, T. M, Rickman (Source: Survey of London, Volume 27)

But the biggest involvement Suter had was with the Infant School Society who decided in 1828 to move their depository from 15, Bucklersbury to 19, Cheapside.⁽⁷⁾ Suter was obviously proud of this choice as he had the name of the society splashed on the front of his shop in the Street View elevation. The society was founded in 1824 to support “the care and education of the infant children of the labouring classes”. Pictures were used to teach the children basic knowledge and discipline, which would give them an advantage when they went to, what we would now call, a primary school. Some members of the Society’s committee were also involved with the Spitalfields Benevolent Society which may have been why Suter’s shop was chosen for the depository.⁽⁸⁾ The philanthropic repertory of plans and suggestions for improving the condition of the labouring poor of 1841 recommended the Infant School initiative and announced that scripture lessons, illustrations, &c. for Infant schools could be had from Suter. In the Publishers’ circular of 1862, Suter advertised “A new catalogue of lessons, pictures, and apparatus, used in Infant Schools, Sunday Schools, and Nurseries”.

Shipping Sugar

One of these picture publications was a set of six coloured depictions of the sugar trade, accompanied by letter-press text leaves which have the imprint ‘Printed by Edward Suter, printer to the Infant School Society, 19. Cheapside, London, for the Ladies’ Society for Promoting the Early Education of Negro Children’. The aquatint plates had first been published in 1823 in William Clark’s Ten views in the Island of Antigua and were re-used by the Ladies’ Society with large letter text to teach children to read. This Ladies’ Society (offically founded as The Ladies’ Society for Promoting the Early Education and Improvement of the Children of Negroes and people of Colour in the British West Indies) had been established in 1825 and paid for schools in the West Indies from voluntary contributions.

Who was this Edward Dyer Suter? As said above, he was the son of Edward Suter, clerk, sometimes referred to as purser, in the Royal Navy. His mother’s name was Sarah Burn and he was born in Greenwich on 23 June 1815 (baptised 25 July). The census of 1841 finds him living with Richard Suter, architect, his uncle, in Fenchurch Street, but in 1851 he lives with his parents in Canonbury Street, Islington. He marries Maria Hannah (sometimes referred to as Hannah Maria) Elliot in 1858. Where they live in 1861 is not known, because on the day of the census they are found visiting George Hooper in Theydon Bois and their home address is not stated. What is stated is that he employs three men and two boys. Ten years later, he and his wife live at Kent Lodge, Islington and he is then employing six men and three boys. Business is obviously going well, in fact, so well, that in 1881 he is listed as retired. A year later, on 31 July 1882 Maria dies, but probate for her estate (£703 17s. 9d.) is not granted until June 1888. Edward Dyer died 13 March 1886 at Hastings. When probate is granted on 21 April, his estate is worth £12,501 7s. 2d., but in June 1886 the executioners are resworn and the amount has increased to £12,645 11s. 2d. Both the probates of Edward and Maria are granted to Catherine Hasell and Lucy Gregory Burn, sisters of Edward.⁽⁹⁾ What became of the business is not known.

(1) More information on copying machines is to be found in Barbara J. Rhodes and William Wells Streeter, Before photocopying, the art & history of mechanical copying, 1780-1938 (1999).
(2) Advertisement The Norfolk News 30 May 1846.
(3) Advertisement The Hull Packet 24 December 1847.
(4) Advertisement New York Evening Post 19 April 1836.
(5) Edward Bickersteth, The chief concerns of man for time and eternity:
Being a course of valedictory discourses preached at Wheler Chapel, in the autumn of 1830, p. 287.
(6) Survey of London: volume 27: Spitalfields and Mile End New Town, ed. F.H.W. Sheppard (1957), p. 103.
(7) Phillip McCann and Francis A. Young, Samuel Wilderspin and the Infant School Movement (1982).
(8) Notice in The Quarterly Review, July 1828, p. 14.
(9) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1886 and 1888.

Neighbours:

<– 20 Cheapside

18 Cheapside –>