Thomas Bowtell, boot and shoe warehouse

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footwear

Street Views: 43
Address: 49 Skinner Street

Nowadays, if you are trying to find Skinner Street, London, you end up in Islington, but in the 19th century, you’d find yourself near Smithfield. The stretch of road with the name Skinner Street, where Thomas Bowtell had his shop, connected Holborn with Newgate Street and Old Bailey. The eastern half of what became Skinner Street was a section of Snow Hill, a street that formed the age-old connection between Holborn and Newgate Street, but which, as Tallis mentioned in his introduction “had been for ages one of the most inconvenient and dangerous passages within the metropolis. Its circuitous way, declivity, and other great obstructions to commercial intercourse, had rendered it a necessary object to improvement”. Creating the Skinner Street short-cut was definitely an improvement, but it did not go far enough and in the 1860s, another change was made. Old Fleet Market was extended northwards and became Farringdon Road and the sharp bend in what had remained of Snow Hill was slackened off, so that the street only met Skinner Street at St. Sepulchre’s Church, rather than halfway. And Skinner Street itself disappeared altogether under Holborn Viaduct, a major reconstruction scheme that put a stop to traffic having to negotiate the dangerous ascent and descent at Holborn Hill. The plan of the proposed 1802 improvement shows the drastic way in which the houses in the neighbourhood between Snow Hill and Fleet Market were destroyed. I have turned the picture upside down to give you the modern prospect with the north at the top. The red dot in the triangular section of houses became Bowtell’s shop. Another, later, engraving shows the triangular part in more detail with Bowtell’s premises indicated as number 49.

If you compare the 1799 Horwood map with the modern Google map, you will see the differences in the layout of the streets. Note that Snow Hill has not just been straightened out, but also ends higher up at its western end in Farringdon Road, rather than where it used to meet the Holborn intersection. One point of reference is St. Sepulchre in the lower right-hand corner and another is Hosier Lane, which, if you imagine it running on further west, would end up in Farringdon Road, just above where Snow Hill now enters Farringdon Road, while in 1799, Snow Hill came nowhere near that far north.

Enough of maps. Let us continue with Bowtell and his shop. In 1813, Thomas acquired the freedom of the City through the Cordwainers’ Company by servitude, and was from that moment onwards allowed to trade as a boot and shoemaker. In 1814, he takes out an insurance for premises at 42 Skinner Street, and in 1816 for 49 Skinner Street. In Johnstone’s London Commercial Guide of 1818, he is duly listed at the latter number. But, Thomas was not content with one shop and already in 1823, we see him listed in Kent’s Directory for 88 St. Martin’s Lane, 51 Cheapside and 49 Skinner Street. It is true that only Skinner Street is listed for Thomas Bowtell, and the other two addresses for Bowtell & Co, but we will see that all shops were run by Thomas and later, by one or more of his sons. Thomas and his wife Sarah had five sons and one daughter.⁽¹⁾ Disaster struck, however, in 1832, when son Henry drowned in a boating accident. The newspapers were rather inaccurate in their reporting as the drowned man was variously called Thomas or Thomas Francis or Henry, the number of brothers out in the boat was either five or six, the name of the shopman and/or apprentice who was/were also on the boat was W. Renceraft, Mr. Rincher, William Sawer and/or Christian Ficken, and the female friend who joined them was named as Elizabeth Morrisford or Mornaford or Emily Detmering. Well, whoever was in the boat, it was definitely Henry Bowtell, 16 years old, who drowned; he was buried at St. Sepulchre on the 19th of September.⁽²⁾

That the Bowtell shop was quite a substantial business can be seen from the 1851 census where Thomas is still listed at 49 Skinner Street, “boot & shoe maker employing 16 men”. It does, however, not specify whether all these man were working for him at Skinner Street or in some of the other Bowtell shops. Some of Thomas’s shops were apparently run by his sons, although it is not always clear in what capacity: as managers on behalf of their father, or on their own account. We will come back to the sons in a minute, but first a detour to Norwich and Brighton as Thomas also had shops there. A trade card in the British Museum collection shows the shop in Skinner Street, but one in the trade card collection of Guildhall Library, depicted in G. Riello’s A Foot in the Past (2006) shows the same picture, with the same old man and his stick in the foreground, but with the addresses of the Norwich and Brighton shops in the right and left margin (see here). The name of the shop has changed as well, from ‘New London House’ to ‘Original London Shoe Mart’. ‘Original Shoe Mart’ is also what is depicted above the Tallis elevation at the top of this post.

(© The Trustees of the British Museum)

Thomas senior died in 1852 and was buried 25 July at All Souls, Kensal Green. I have not found a will for him, so there is no way of knowing how he left his money, but presumably he provided for his second wife Susannah (more on her in the forthcoming post on the shop in Tottenham Court Road). The lack of a will also makes it more difficult to determine whether the other shoe shops for the Bowtells were owned by Thomas senior or by one or more of his sons. Especially when the name is just given as Thomas Bowtell, there is sometimes no telling whether the father or the son is meant. Tallis lists two more Bowtell shoe shops, one at 58 Cheapside and one at 152 Tottenham Court Road, but there were many more. The two Tallis shops have been given a blog post of their own, but I have compiled a list of all the Bowtell shops with their proprietors and probable years of business. Records, such as the tax records, or advertisements, do not always give enough information to determine who was running which shop when, but they often mention more than one address, thereby making it certain that all the shops were in some way linked to the Bowtell family of Skinner Street. It is likely that it was Thomas senior who started branching out, but that at some point he turned some of the shops over to one or more of his sons. There is also mention of Bowtell & Co., but it is not clear who the Co. is; the partnership occurs too early to include the sons. It is, however, clear that the Bowtell in Bowtell & Co is Thomas as the name occurs on the same trade cards as 49 Skinner Street which is definitely Thomas’s shop. The two – very similar – trade cards below are both dated to c. 1825 by the British Museum, which could very well be correct. Kent’s Directory for 1823, lists Bowtell & Co. at 88 St. Martin’s Lane and 51 Cheapside. Both cards state that Bowtell took over from Stubbs and Hughes, and we know that Henry Stubbs acquired the patent for revolving heels in 1818 and that the partnership between Stubs and Hughes was dissolved in 1820.⁽³⁾ The list at the bottom of this post is not complete, but I may be able to refine it when sorting out the other Bowtell shops that Tallis listed. To be continued ….

(© The Trustees of the British Museum)

11 Charles Street
1810-1812 Thomas senior

49 Skinner Street, Snow Hill
1813-1852 Thomas senior

88 St. Martin’s Lane
1822-? Bowtell & Co

11 Fish Street Hill
1822-? Thomas senior

51 Cheapside
1823-? Bowtell & Co

58 Cheapside
1835-1852 Thomas senior
1854-1855 William

Tottenham Court Road
1832 Thomas and brother

152 Tottenham Court Road
1837 Thomas
1839-1843 Thomas and William
1848-1851 William

117 Tottenham Court Road
1851 Thomas and William
1851-1860 William
1861 Thomas junior

19 Strand
1837-1851 Thomas and William
1851-1856 William

181 Piccadilly
1842-1843 John and Joseph
1848 William

170 Piccadilly
1848-1856 John and Joseph

42 Crawford Street
1848 William
1851 Thomas and William

35 Crawford Street
1856 Mrs Eliza [it is at the moment unclear what relation she was, if any, of Thomas]

Brighton, 106 St. James’s Street
1824-1832?

Brighton, 116 St. James’s Street
1838?- Thomas senior
1850?-1856 Joseph

Norwich, 1 (later 20 & 21) Davey Place
1824-? Thomas senior

advertisement in The Norwich Guide and Directory, 1842

(1) Thomas 1808, William 1810, John 1812, Sarah 1814, Henry 1816, Joseph 1818.
(2) Examiner, 16 and 23 September 1832, The Morning Chronicle, 13 and 19 September 1832.
(3) Titles of Patents of Invention, Chronologically Arranged From March 2, 1617 (14 James I.) to October 1, 1852 (16 Victoriae), 1854; European Magazine, April 1820.

Neighbours:

<– 1 Skinner Street (across the road)

48 Skinner Street –>

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Richard Nelson Reeve, mercer

Tags

clothing

Street View: 43
Address: 1 Skinner Street

The West India Merchants and Planters had established a coffee outlet for their produce at 2 Skinner Street with William Deacon as the proprietor, and the establishment was hence called Deacon & Co’s Coffee Mart. William died in 1815, but other Deacons continued the business. Next door, at number 1, the Colonial Coffee House had been established as part of the Coffee Mart. A critical article in The Scourge, or, Monthly Expositor of Imposture and Folly (volume 3, 1811), suggesting improper behaviour at coffee houses such as the Colonial, quoted an advertisement for the coffee house in which it was said to be “handsomely fitted up, for the accommodation of the public, and also with the view of promoting the welfare of the British coffee and sugar plantations”. Coffee &c for breakfast was to cost 1s and a single cup 6d. Newspapers were to be provided and a subscription room upstairs was to be opened “liberally supplied with magazines, reviews, gazettes, papers, Lloyd’s list, price current, shipping intelligence, etc”. The ladies were provided with a separate sitting room. The “vile insinuations” that the coffee house was only established to “promote vice and immorality” were strongly objected to by “a subscriber” in the next instalment of the magazine and no more was heard of the allegations.

The Morning Chronicle, 21 January 1820.

When Samuel Deacon applied for a wine licence for his ‘hotel’ in 1828, a recommendation was filed “testifying to the respectability of Mr. Deacon’s character, to the perfect correctness of the manner in which the house had been hitherto conducted and the utility of such a house in the neighbourhood”.⁽¹⁾ So the “vile insinuations” of before seemed to have been just that, insinuations. The wine licence was, however, denied, not on moral grounds, but on bureaucratic ones: the absence of required signatures and for following the wrong procedure. Whether Deacon was fed up with having his licence refused or whether it was for other reasons, the fact is that in late 1831, he announced that he was removing the establishment to Walbrook, near the Mansion House.⁽²⁾

Trade card c. 1812 (Source: British Museum)

After the removal of Deacon & Co, the premises were once again used as two separate houses and Tallis found George Hodson, a woollen draper, at number 2 and Richard Nelson Reeve, “mans [sic] mercer” at number 1. Tallis is one of the few references I found for Reeve as a mercer; in most other sources he is listed as a woollen draper. In February 1838, Richard Nelson Reeve acquired the freedom of the City of London by redemption (that is, by paying for the privilege rather than through a 7-year apprenticeship) and on the registration papers he is said to be the 32-year old son of William Reeve, of Epsom, Surrey, a deceased victualler. His address is given as 1 Skinner Street, but he had been at that address well before he obtained his Freedom of the City. He could be found there at least as early as May 1837 when he took out an insurance policy for the premises with the Sun Fire Office. The 1841 census finds Richard, his wife Emma, and two female servants on the premises.⁽³⁾ Not all servants lived above the shop as one Richard Andrew Tackley testifies in an Old Bailey case that he is in the employ of Reeve, but he is not listed in the census for Skinner Street.⁽⁴⁾

Another Old Bailey case tells us a bit more about Reeve’s business and how fortunes can change. In 1843, one Henry Wilson is indicted for embezzlement. Reeve testifies that Wilson had been in his employ as “country traveller” and was supposed to enter the money received into the cash book and hand the money to Reeve. One Elbourn, a draper from Amersham, Bucks, had paid Wilson three lots of money (£5, £10, and £10), but Wilson had only accounted to Reeve for £4, £5 and £5. When cross-examined, Reeve said that in the past Wilson had traded on his own account in Sun Street, Bishopsgate, and that Reeve had been one of this employees. But after a robbery in which Wilson lost a lot of money, he had been obliged to go into service. He had been with Reeve for the past six years and had been paid £200 a year + travelling expenses. Reeve also says that his own business “is now very extensive”. Wilson received a good character and was recommended for mercy. He was confined for four months, which was indeed fairly lenient, considering that other thieves were condemned to death or transported to the colonies for having stolen far less.⁽⁵⁾

Richard Nelson’s business may have been “very extensive” in 1843, it was not to last. He is declared a bankrupt in 1848 and then described as of Clerkenwell Green, licensed victualler, trader, dealer and chapman.⁽⁶⁾ He did receive a licence and could continue trading. The 1848 Post Office Directory still lists him as woollen draper at 1 Skinner Street and as the proprietor of the Crown tavern on Clerkenwell Green, but a subsequent notice in The London Gazette of 19 October 1849, gives him as formerly of the Crown tavern, then of 25 Peyton Place, Walworth (out of business), and now of 6 High Street, Newington Butts, town traveller. In other words, what happened to his former employer Wilson, now happened to him. Reeve tried to re-establish his business, but in September 1851 he had to assign all his property to two trustees who were to satisfy the creditors with the proceeds.⁽⁷⁾ The 1851 census finds Richard and Emma in Islington. Richard is described as woollen traveller.

Daily News, 6 September 1876

In 1876, Richard’s name comes up as a witness in a case of fraud where a man and a woman had pretended to be running a tailor’s business. After paying one small order promptly at Reeve’s employers, Messrs. Powell and Caton of 13 Newgate Street, no doubt just to establish their credibility, the thieves ordered several larger lots which were never paid for and when Reeve went to their shop, it was empty and the culprits had absconded.⁽⁸⁾ In the 1881 census, Reeve, by then a widower, is listed as “retired merchant” and living at the almshouse at Stanstead College, Idsworth, on the Hampshire/Sussex border.⁽⁹⁾ He died in 1892.

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(1) The Morning Chronicle, 13 December 1828.
(2) The Athenaeum, 17 December 1831.
(3) Richard had married Emma Kentfield on 16 May 1829 at St. Nicholas, Brighton.
(4) Old Bailey case t18411025-2737.
(5) Old Bailey case t18430821-2357.
(6) The London Gazette, 4 January 1848.
(7) The London Gazette, 21 November 1851.
(8) Daily News, 6 September 1876.
(9) From A History of the County of Hampshire, Volume 3. (Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1908): Stanstead College, was founded by Mr. Charles Dixon, of Stanstead Park (Suss.), by deed 1852, for the support and benefit of decayed merchants of London, Liverpool, or Bristol, being members of the Church of England.

Neighbours:

<– 2 Skinner Street

1 Farringdon Street –>