John Pearson Teede, grocer

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grocer

Street View: 51
Address: 85 Bishopsgate Street Without

In 1835, fruiterer Samuel Mart‘s eldest daughter Mary married John Pearson Teede, a grocer. John was the son of John Thomas Teede of New Windsor, gentleman⁽¹⁾, and obtained the freedom of the City in 1830 by redemption. The normal procedure would have been for John to obtain his freedom by servitude, but his master Alfred Roper had died in 1828, leaving John short of a year on his indenture agreements (normally an apprentice served for 7 years before becoming free), but he was nevertheless given the freedom of the Innholders by paying a small fine. The following year, he took on his brother Charles as an apprentice and on Charles’s indenture we read that John’s address was 86 Bishopsgate Street Without. Not many years later, number 85 was given as his address, but I do not know if he actually moved, or, as so often happened, the numbering changed. Charles and John became business partners as grocers and tea dealers. The partnership was dissolved on 3 November 1842, but apparently in good harmony as “all debts owing to the said late partnership firm may be paid to either of the said parties, and all demands upon them will be discharged in like manner”.⁽²⁾

Top part of a bill by Teede. Please note the figure on the left-hand side (Source: Grosvenor Prints)

portrait of John Pearson Teede (Source: ancestry.co.uk)

Charles received his freedom of the Innholders only in 1852, presumably he had no need of it before that time, and the dossier holds a statement by John that Charles had indeed served his apprenticeship with him for the full seven years. A later notice about dissolving a partnership with one George Lewis still has John at 85 Bishopsgate Street Without⁽³⁾ and he remained there for the rest of his life. He died on 4 May 1870 and probate was granted to his widow Mary.⁽⁴⁾

Advertisement in the Official Catalogue of the 1851 Exhibition

Similar advertisements in the French and German editions of the Official Catalogue of the 1851 Exhibition

John led a remarkable uneventful life, or at least, nothing much about him made it into the records, but we can say a few more things about his house and shop. In 1857, in the Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, Thomas Hugo described a walk into the city from the north along Bishopsgate Street commenting on a group of houses on the eastern side of the street, that is, numbers 81-85. He also supplied an engraving of the houses with his article, which shows Teede’s house on the left. Please note the figure of the seated Chinese on Teede’s shop, a sure sign that it was the shop of a grocer and tea dealer. You can still see similar figures on the front of Twinings in the Strand.

Engraving of 81-85 Bishopsgate from Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society (1857)

“It consists of five houses, the gables of two of which are still entire; and the whole, with the exception of the three missing gables, remains pretty much the same as when first erected. I hardly need say that these edifices are constructed of wood, and indeed a forest of timber must have been used in their composition. […] The houses to which I am directing your attention are of three floors, the highest of which opens by a door, placed immediately in the centre of each gable, to a kind of gallery protected by a rail. They offer no internal peculiarities worthy of mention. I am informed that on the front of one of the group which has suffered the greatest mutulation the date of 1590 was formerly visible. The style of the edifices themselves is evidence of the correctness of this record”.

Unfortunately, the houses are long gone and even in 1905, when Philip Norman wrote his London vanished and vanishing, he had to say that “on the opposite side of the way [that is, from Paul Pindar’s house], there was, not very long ago, a group of four houses, numbered 81 to 85 Bishopsgate Street Without, which, although vulgarised and defaced, were evidently very old. They resembled each other more or less, and no. 82 still remains”. Norman refers to Hugo’s description and remarks on the 1590 date on one of the houses, “their wooden fronts, however, have markings in imitation of stone-work, called technically wooden rustications, which seem to suggest a later date”. It is always possible that the rustications had been added at a later date, so I do not see any problem with the description Hugo gave, but it is all academic as the houses are certainly no longer there. I do wonder, though, what happened to the Chinese figure that so proudly advertised the products Teede sold in his shop.

1886 view of 81-85 Bishopsgate by John Crowther (Source: Magnoliabox)

(1) Information from the indenture of 1822 when John Pearson became the apprentice of Alfred Roper, innholder.
(2) The London Gazette, 8 November 1842.
(3) The London Gazette, 14 May 1867.
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1870. The estate was valued at under £4,000.

You may also like to read the post on Samuel Mart, Teede’s father-in-law.

Neighbours:

<– 86 Bishopsgate Street

84 Bishopsgate Street –>

Thomas Alexander Millington, glazier

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glass

Street View: 51
Address: 87 Bishopsgate Street Without

In an advertisement in J.R. Pearson’s Hints on the Construction and Management of Orchard-Houses (2nd ed., 1862), Thomas Millington of 87 Bishopsgate Street Without proudly states than the firm had been established in 1750. The Thomas of this 1862 advert was officially called Thomas Alexander and was baptised at St. Botolph church on 20 June 1812 as the son of Samuel II Millington and Caroline Mary Church. Samuel was baptised at St. Antholin Budge Row in c. 1781 as the son of Thomas Cartwright and Ann Millington. This Thomas Cartwright was baptised 22 October 1759 as the son of another Samuel Millington and Catherine Stockall. This latter Samuel was the son of yet another Samuel and his wife Sarah and was baptised 9 October 1729 at St. Mary Abchurch.

So, we have in chronological order:
Samuel I 1729-1789
Thomas Cartwright 1759-1819
Samuel II 1781-1852
Thomas Alexander 1812-1887

vignette from Tallis’s Street View

Assuming that the business was indeed handed down from father to son, the first Samuel must have been the one to start the business in 1750, although not necessarily at the Bishopsgate address. As far as I can gather from various records, the men were all glaziers. The Sun fire insurance records enable us to find an early entry (for 1794) where Thomas is paying the insurance on the 87 Bishopsgate property.⁽¹⁾ The next step is a notice in the London Gazette, stating that in March 1819, the partnership between Thomas Cartwright Millington and Samuel Millington is dissolved and that Samuel continued the business alone. Thomas was to die later that same year. The Sun insurance records tell us that Samuel II (plumber and glazier) paid the insurance on 87 Bishopsgate in the years 1827-1831, but Thomas Alexander (plumber, painter, glazier and dealer in oil) in 1836, so presumably he took over the business somewhere in the early 1830s.⁽²⁾

Adverts from the Florist and Pomologist

The ability to produce bigger sheets of glass at reasonable prices greatly encouraged the building of greenhouses and Thomas was keen to corner that segment of the market and advertised regularly in dedicated magazines, such as The Florist and Pomologist; a pictorial monthly magazine of flowers, fruits, and general horticulture of Robert Hogg. Pearson in his small booklet mentioned above, Hints on the Construction and Management of Orchard-Houses, explains how to build yourself a greenhouse for growing, for instance, peaches and nectarines. No surprise that the last pages of the book contained advertisements for related goods, such as other books and magazines on horticulture, hot water boilers, whole greenhouses, but also for sheets of glass. One page-long advertisement was put in the booklet by James Phillips & Co. of 180, Bishopsgate Without, and, not to be outdone, Thomas Millington also put in a page-length advert. Both companies offered sheet glass for greenhouses in various sizes and other related items. Phillips sold milk pans, propagating glasses and paint, but Millington is more detailed in his description of what else he has available: hand glasses, propagating glasses, milk pans, hyacinth glasses, hyacinth dishes, cucumber tubes – even then they preferred their cucumbers straight – crystal glass shades, lamp glasses and also paint and oil. Millington’s was certainly the older establishment in that street as number 180 is occupied in Tallis’s Street View by Sanford, an ironmonger. Horticultural glass items were also used in other trades. In 1853, Millington was mentioned as one of the addresses where high bell glasses, known as ‘propagating glasses’ could be bought to use as a cover for microscopes.⁽³⁾

Frontispiece from Pearson’s Hints

Advert from Pearson’s Hints

Thomas Alexander died 11 October 1887 at 11, Dalby Square at Margate. The probate record stated that he was “late of 26 Kingdon Road, West Hampstead” and that he was a widower.⁽⁴⁾ If we follow the census returns, we find Thomas in 1841 in Bishopsgate Street, apparently still a bachelor, as lead and glass merchant with a servant and an apprentice. But, in 1851, we find him on Howards Road, West Ham (now Newham), a widower with four children (Caroline 15 years old, William 13, Thomas 8 and George 4), so the assumption that he was still a bachelor in 1841 is not correct. Further research shows that the children’s mother was called Julia and that there was another child, named after her mother and baptised in May 1839. Ten years later, in 1861, we find Thomas on the Orford Road in Walthamstow with his second wife Mary, children from his first marriage Caroline, Julia, Thomas and George, and children from his second marriage Gertrude, Henry, Arthur and Herbert. Another ten years on, in 1871, some of the older children have left or possibly died, but George and Gertrude are still there with new additions to the family: Grace, Frederick and Albert. In 1881, daughter Julia and son Herbert, both unmarried, are back and share the house with Thomas, Mary, Gertrude, Arthur, Grace and Frederick. The move to Kingdon Road must have taken place between the time of the 1881 census and Thomas Alexander’s death.

In the census records, Thomas is always described as (glass and/or lead) merchant, never as retired and although the census returns are not always accurate, we may assume that, at least till, 1881, he took an active role in the business. The latest datable advertisement I have found is from 1868 in the Journal of Horticulture. He may have lived above the shop in 1841, but he certainly no longer did so from 1851 onwards. This was a general trend in London; people moved to the suburbs and used the greatly improved transport network to get to their business in the city centre. What became of the business after Thomas’s death is unclear.

(1) LMA, MS 11936/399/632677.
(2) LMA, MS 11936/529/1121977 and MS/11936/547/1222492.
(3) H. Schacht, The Microscope, in its special Application to vegetable Anatomy and Physiology (1853), p. 15.
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1887, p. 287.

Neighbours:

<– 88 Bishopsgate Street

86 Bishopsgate Street –>