Charles Ubsdell, tailor

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clothing

Street Views: 27 and 61
Addresses: 32 High Street, Bloomsbury and 75 Shoreditch

The elevation at the top of this post is for the property Charles Ubsdell had on 32 High Street, Bloomsbury, or, as he sometimes put it in his advertisements, opposite the end of Oxford Street. The earliest mention of Ubsdell in an advertisement is in the London Dispatch and People’s Political and Social Reformer of 14 January 1838. He calls his shop the “Great Western Emporium” and you could buy your suits and coats there “in any colour” and with “a good fit warranted”. But he also had a shop at 75 High Street, Shoreditch (elevation on the left), perhaps predictably called the “Northern Emporium”. An Old Bailey case of August 1838 tells us that Richard Ubsdell, Charles’ son, is living at Shoreditch and we can assume that he managed that branch for his father.⁽¹⁾

The 1841 census tells us that Charles is 52 years old, not born in Middlesex, married to Jean (also called Jane) who is 53 years old, and that the couple have five children living with them (Matilda, 23, Richard, 21, Martha, 19, Asa, 17, and Thomas, 14). They are living in Boziers Court, a small road behind a block of houses on the corner of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. See The Cat’s Meat Shop for more information on Boziers Court. By then, that is by 1841, the Ubsdells had moved their Emporium from High Street, Bloomsbury to 1 & 2 Oxford Street. The shop in Shoreditch is no longer mentioned in the advertisements.

Advert in various Street View booklets

Nothing spectacular happens in the tailor’s shop at the Great Western Emporium as the shop is still called, but that cannot be said of the personal life of some of the Ubsdells. Matilda, the eldest daughter went off in 1842 with “a Noble Lord, the younger son of a Duke, to Ireland, where she lived with him for some months, and having become enceinte by him, she returned to this country and was delivered of a boy”.⁽²⁾ Matilda sued the young Lord for breach of promise and was paid 300l. to hush it all up. She assumed the name of Mrs Black and with her younger sister Martha set up as milliners at 113 Park Street, Camden Town. In 1844, she met a young man who worked as a clerk in the goods department of Ely station and they became engaged. The engagement was, however, broken off and they did not see each other for a while. They renewed their engagement in 1846 after a chance meeting and the wedding day was fixed for September 1847. The millinery business was advertised for sale and the money raised was to be used for a house. On the 8th of August, Matilda received a letter from her young man in which he wrote that he thought they should acquaint her father with the engagement. Apparently they had kept it a secret. Why one wonders? Mr. W.R. Carr – the young man’s first name is not mentioned – wanted to get their financial future on a better footing and he thought that Matilda might “be furnished with 800l. or 1,000l.” He stresses that he does not want the money for himself, but for “the society I shall have to enter into and other things”. Matilda was not having any of that and she alleged that the letter amounted to a refusal to marry her and she consulted an attorney who wrote to Mr. Carr threatening proceedings, but also offering a way out if money were to change hands. In other words, Matilda thought she could get some money out of a second young man for another breach of promise. But this young man was not such a push-over as the Irish nobleman, or had less to lose, and it came to a court case.

The defence stated that Mr. Carr had not known of ‘Mrs. Black’s’ earlier history, but had thought her to be a young widow with a child. Witnesses were called to refute that claim as Matilda had frequently been called by her maiden name in front of the defendant and her young son had been called by his father’s real name. Two witnesses said that Carr had told them he knew of Matilda’s previous history but “that it would make no difference in his respect and esteem for the plaintiff”. The defence claimed that “it was not likely that with the knowledge of so serious a lapse of virtue on her part as consenting to live as the paramour of another man defendant would have entered into this engagement.” Chief Justice Wild considered the fact that this was Matilda’s second action for breach of promise and that she had entered this second one under her assumed name of Mrs. Black, giving the world the impression that she was a widow. She should have made the real facts known to the defendant and “as to the question of damages, if it should arise, plaintiff’s feelings were not likely to have suffered so severely as if this had been her first appearance in court as plaintiff in an action of this nature. Verdict for plaintiff – damages one farthing”.⁽³⁾ Not quite the 300l. she might have hoped for! If you now think that Matilda went on to lead the quiet life of a spinster, or even an assumed widow, you are wrong. The same year as the court case againt Carr, she managed to get her hooks into one John Lymes, a widowed coffee house keeper. The couple got married on 7 December 1848 and presumably lived happily ever after as Matilda’s name did not appear in the papers again.

Matilda behind the counter? (Source: British Museum)

Back to the Western Emporium on Oxford Street. In the 1851 census, we can still find Charles and his wife Jane at Boziers Court. Living with them are sons Thomas and Asa, and daughter Martha and her husband Jonathan King whom she had married in 1850. I am afraid things did not go well for Charles Ubsdell after that. Whether that had anything to do with the shenanigans of his daughter which lost him customers, or whether he just fell foul of the debit/credit balance is unclear, but in early 1853 he is confined to the Queen’s Prison as a bankrupt.⁽⁴⁾ And this story is unfortunately not a fairy tale and so does not have a happy end; in 1877, Charles dies on the 31st of March, 86 years old, at the Saint Pancras Workhouse. Life was not kind to this particular London tailor.

————
(1) Old Bailey t18380820-1949.
(2) the Morning Post, 17 May 1848.
(3) Lloyd’s Weekly, 21 May 1848.
(4) London Gazette, 11 and 21 January 1853.

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Richard, Richard and George Attenborough, jewellers and pawnbrokers

Tags

jeweller, pawnbroker

Street View: 61
Address: 110 Shoreditch High Street

As mentioned in the previous two posts, the Attenboroughs that had a pawnbroker’s or jeweller’s shop in London are manifold and cause many identification problems, especially the ones that are the subject of this post as they seem to be all over the place all at once, not to mention their predilection for the name Richard, but I will do my best to keep their story as simple as possible. Unfortunately, some family members will fall by the wayside, either because I cannot prove a relation between them, or including them would complicate matters unnecessarily. For a break-down of the Attenboroughs from Titchmarch, see the previous post and for the Attenboroughs from Blakesley, see here.

In this post I will attempt to sort out the ones from Titchmarsh that had their business at 110 Shoreditch, but to do so, we must first look at Robert Attenborough (1777-1809) who describes himself in his will as of Crown Street, Finsbury Square, pawnbroker. He mentions his brothers John and Richard who are to be the joint executors.⁽¹⁾ Not long after Robert’s demise, we find brother Richard (1780-1862) running the business in Crown Street. Robert’s sons are then still too young to be working, but in 1825, in an Old Bailey case, we learn that Richard (1809-1886), the son of the Robert who died in 1809 and the nephew of the Richard who took over the Crown Street pawnbroker’s, is working in his uncle’s shop.⁽²⁾ Crown Street, by the way, is sometimes given its later name of Sun Street, but the same property is meant. From at least 1812, one Alexander Innes Burgess (sometimes called plain Alexander and sometimes Alexander James) is working at the pawnbroker’s and is later taken on as a partner. The partnership is dissolved in 1838 and Burgess goes his own way.⁽³⁾ However, when the partnership is dissolved, the address of the business is given as 110 High Street, Shoreditch. When we look back through the Old Bailey cases, we find that at least from 1825 onwards, the 110 High Street shop is used by Richard alongside the Crown Street property. If the uncle and nephew had kept to these two addresses, there would not be a problem, but alas, their expansion drift knew no bounds.

68 Oxford Street

The 1841 census finds nephew Richard with his wife Elizabeth (who is also his cousin), their children (Mary 8 years old, Elizabeth, aged 6 and Richard, aged 2) in Oxford Street. Also living there as apprentices are yet another Richard Attenborough and a James Attenborough (both 15 years old, although that is probably approximate). There is a James Attenborough, silversmith, to be found in Victoria Road in 1851 who was born in 1823 in Titchmarch, and most likely the son of John and Susannah, and therefore nephew Richard’s cousin. Whether the other apprentice, Richard, is also the son of John and Susannah or another relation (perhaps Richard, son of George of Blakesley?) is unclear. But keep an eye on little Richard, the two-year old son of nephew Richard, as he will figure again later on. The 1842 Robson’s London Directory tells us that nephew Richard had his shop at 68 Oxford Street which was empty at the time Tallis brought out his Street View. It is also very badly depicted in the booklet with a gaping hole on the ground floor, so it may have been in the proces of being rebuilt for Richard.

Money Lent. An Accommodating Pawnbroker. Political satire, published by W. Dent, 1793

The 1848 Post Office Directory tells us that Richard senior (the uncle) is still working from 31 Crown Street, but also from 8 Bridge-house Place, Borough; the Shoreditch shop is not mentioned. The Bridge-house property must have been in his possession since at least 1835 as he takes out an insurance with the Sun Fire Office for the shop in that year. In 1848, nephew Richard is working from 68 Oxford Street and 1 Adam & Eve Court, but that latter address quickly disappears and is no longer listed for him in the 1851 Post Office Directory. The 110 Shoreditch address is back in the 1851 directory, but now belonging to George Attenborough (1815-1874) who also has shops at 31 Compton Street and 24 Kenton Street, Brunswick Square. He is the son of uncle Richard’s brother John. George is mentioned as working and living in Crown Street in various Old Bailey cases between 1833 and 1842. In 1850, he marries Harriet Elizabeth Leete, who, judging by her last name, was in some way related to George’s mother who was called Susanna Leete Coales, but I do not know how exactly. George died in 1874 and his probate entry describes him as of “11 Paragon, New-Kent-road and of 93 and 95 Old-Kent-road”.⁽⁴⁾ No more mention is made of the 110 High Street, Shoreditch shop.

In 1851, uncle and nephew Richard are living in the same house again, this time in Green Street House, East Ham. In 1861, Richard junior, the son of nephew Richard, can be found at 68 Oxford Street with his sister Mary. Unfortunately, young Richard dies just two years later.⁽⁵⁾ The business at 68 Oxford Street remains in the family as in 1871, we find nephew Richard living in Acton with the job description “pawnbroker 68 Oxford Street”. Ten years later, we find him at 52 Holland Park, but he is not happy and on 6 December 1886 he commits suicide.

“Dr Diplock held an inquest yesterday at no. 52, Holland-park, concerning the death of Mr Richard Attenborough, who shot himself with a revolver on Monday. –Miss Elizabeth Attenborough, daughter of the deceased, said her father was a pawnbroker, and was 77 years of age. Ever since Mrs Attenborough’s death [in 1884] deceased had been depressed and suffered from sleeplessness, and said he was worn out. On Monday witness heard a report as of firearms, and deceased was afterwards found, with a revolver near him, in a closet. –The Coroner asked if it was true that deceased had had to pay a large sum of money into the High Court of Justice. –Witness replied that she did not know; he had not mentioned any thing of the kind to her. –Dr R.A.Jackson, Ladbroke-grove, Notting-hill, said the bullet had entered the right ear and come out at the left temple. The wound must have been self-inflicted. –A verdict of suicide whilst of unsound mind was returned.”⁽⁶⁾

Richard was buried at Brompton cemetery on the 10th. Probate was granted to his daughters Elizabeth and Annie, spinsters.⁽⁷⁾ Uncle Richard could be found living at the 8 Bridge-house Place, Newington Causeway, property in 1861. He died in 1862 and although his probate entry only mentions Bridge-house Place, a notice about his death in The Observer also mentions Crown Street, so he must have retained that shop till the end of his life.⁽⁸⁾ An 1864 notice in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper mentions a John Attenborough at 8 Bridge-house Place, but I do not know how he was related to uncle Richard, or to the nephews Richard and George.

A pawnbroker’s shop from G.A. Sala’s Twice Round the Clock (1859)

Despite the use of the word jeweller, most of the pawnbroking business of 110 Shoreditch concerned everyday objects and pieces of clothing, rather than rings and watches. The Old Bailey cases where the Shoreditch or the Crown Street shops are mentioned, relate to items such as a looking glass, shawls, shirts, sheets, handkerchiefs, stockings and bits of carpet. For instance, in October 1831, Henry Horn, shopman to Attenborough’s at Shoreditch gave evidence in a case of a purloined shawl which the accused had pawned for 2s at the shop.⁽⁰⁾ And in another case, nephew Richard produces the sheet, valued at 3s, the accused had stolen from a farrier.⁽¹⁰⁾ Being accused of dealing in stolen items must have been a constant worry for pawnbrokers — it probably still is — and the Attenboroughs seemed to be in court quite often to give evidence on stolen property. In 1872, the Pawnbroker’s Act regulated the trade, making sure that pawnbrokers were of good character before they obtained their licence which could be revoked if the pawnbroker knowingly received stolen goods (see here). In 1907, Charles Leete Attenborough wrote The Law of Pawnbroking. With the Pawnbrokers’ Act, 1872, and the Factors’ Act, 1889, and Notes Thereon. Charles Leete was the son of George of 11 Paragon, New-Kent Road.

Pawnbroking and the jeweller’s trade seems to have run in the blood of any number of Attenboroughs and even today, Attenboroughs can still be found in London plying the same trade. There is a branch in Bethnal Green Road and their website states that they have been in business since 1892, but how they are related to the Attenboroughs that have been discussed in the last three posts is unclear.

(1) The National Archives; Kew, England; Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Registers; Class: PROB 11; Piece: 1491, 7 January 1809.
(2) Old Bailey, t18250113-59.
(3) First mention in 1812 (Old Bailey, t18120219-37); partnership dissolved (London Gazette, 30 January 1838); In 1848 he can be found as a pawnbroker at Clarence Place, Camberwell (Old Bailey, t18480918-2213).
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1874. Probate was granted to Gill and Layman, pawnbrokers and his son John of St. Paul’s Churchyard, a solicitor. The estate was valued at £16,000.
(5) The Observer, 12 June 1864. Richard had died on the 4th of June and was buried at Brompton cemetery on the 10th.
(6) The Standard, 9 December 1886. Thanks go to Nicholas Thompson for sending me his information on the Attenboroughs and for alerting me to the tragic end of nephew Richard’s life.
(7) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1886. The estate was valued at just over £35,000.
(9) The Observer, 26 May 1862; England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1862. Probate was granted to nephews Richard and John (a farmer at Brigstock, Northants). The estate was valued at £120,000. Uncle Richard was also buried at Brompton cemetery.
(9) Old Bailey, t18311020-107.
(10) Old Bailey, t18251027-81.

You may also like to read the posts on Robert Attenborough of Charlotte Street, and on George and Richard Attenborough of Fleet Street and Piccadilly.
More information on the Attenborough family can be found in blog post 243 on the Landed Families of Britain site (here)