James Crocker, reel cotton manufacturer

Tags

cotton

Street View: 87
Address: 60, 61, 62 Wood Street

James Crocker is described in the index to Tallis’s Street View as ‘reel cotton manufacturer’. On the front of his shop he had the words ‘reel cotton & wadding manufacturer’ depicted, but the various sources I found give a wide variation for his and his partners occupations, so I will list them here, rather than with the individual references: warehouseman, dealer in British lace, sewing cotton manufacturer, wadding manufacturer, cotton winder, haberdasher, machine makers, turner, dealer, chapman. Not only did Crocker have various occupations, or more precisely, various descriptions of his occupation, he also had various partners. I found the following: 1827-1828 Arthur Inglis; 1829-1831 James Capey; 1831-1833 Thomas Liggins; 1834 David Colegrave; and 1835-1838 Daniel Griffin. This last partnership was dissolved on 10 January 1838⁽¹⁾ and after that, Crocker seems to have run the business on his own.

The London Gazette, 15 February 1828

It had all started in 1828 at 50 Wood Street with Inglis and Crocker going bankrupt. Both gentlemen had other premises; Crocker at 120 Fore Street and St John Square, Clerkenwell. Then on 31 December 1829, both Crocker and Capey, separately, take out an insurance for 62 Wood Street. Crocker is described as ‘gent, his wife a milliner’, and Capey as ‘warehouseman’. But, they also take out a joint insurance for the premises as ‘warehousemen’. When one of the employees of Crocker and Capey stole some cotton and the case was heard in the Old Bailey, Crocker gave evidence and said that he and his partner lived at Wood Street and had two “manufacturies”, but only one for the manufacture of wadding; the stolen cotton probably came from their premises in Cowper Street, City Road. A foreman testified that they employed at least forty people.⁽²⁾ The partnership between Crocker and Capey ended on 5 September 1831.⁽³⁾

Not long afterwards, in October 1831, by then partnered with Liggins, Crocker’s premises in Wood Street go up in flames. From the newspaper report we learn that the building housed the “card and wadding rooms of an extensive cotton factory in Cowper Street, City Road”. Despite the quick attendance by the firemen, the building was totally destroyed with the front parapet falling into the street. Fortunately, no one was injured.⁽⁴⁾ According to the paper, Crocker and Inglis were not insured, which may very well have been the case as the insurance policy for 62 Wood Street for Crocker and Liggins is dated 1 December 1831, so after the fire. The 1831 Land Tax records give number 62 as “empty”, but in 1832, Crocker & Co are given as occupants.

Horwood’s 1799 map with Crocker’s premises at numbers 60 to 62 outlined in red

In 1833, Crocker and Liggins insure 62 Wood Street, but also 26 Philip Lane, London Wall. Liggins goes, Colegrave comes and goes, and Griffin (sometimes named as Griffith) comes. At some point the gentlemen must have acquired number 61 as both houses are mentioned when the partnership is dissolved. I think that the two houses were considered as one property as the tax records consistently give the next tax payer as number 60. If you look at the elevation at the top of this post, you can see a blank wall on the higher floors of number 62 and the numbers pulled together by and ampersand (62 & 61). In 1839, one John Eley is listed for number 60, but in 1840, his name has been supplanted by that of Crocker (no more mention of Griffin, by the way), so Crocker now occupies 60, 61 and 62 Wood Street, which matches with what Tallis gives us. The 1843 Post Office Directory lags behind and just gives numbers 61 and 62 for Crocker.

But it was not to last. At least not in Wood Street. Crocker is still given in the 1843 tax records, but by 1844, one William Swainston had taken over. In the 1851 Post Office Directory, the properties have separate occupants once again: a cotton flock dealer at number 60, a wadding maker at 61, and a straw bonnet maker at 62. In July 1854, another fire, this one a lot bigger, ravaged the properties in the neighbourhood. It started at number 61 where a Mr. Jones, a carpenter and box maker, had his business which extended round the corner to 2 and 3 London wall. Superintendent Braidwood of the Fire Service accounted for the damage to properties in his report and the newspaper quoted from it. In all, about ten houses were damaged; some were not much affected by the fire itself, but had a lot of water damage, and even a few houses on the other side of Curriers Court did not escape unscathed.⁽⁵⁾

Destruction by the 1882 fire as depicted in the Illustrated London News

Here we go again!
In December 1882, a massive fire broke out once again in the same neighbourhood with even greater damage. More or less all the properties between Wood Street, London Wall, Philip Lane and Addle Street, a total area of about 380 by 150 feet, were destroyed with the fronts of the buildings in Wood Street collapsing and falling into the street. Curriers Hall, although wedged in by the other buildings, miraculously escaped with minor damage because of its thick walls and fireproof roof. Numbers 56-62 were at that time in the occupation of Messrs Silber & Fleming, manufacturers and importers of fancy goods. As is often the case, the fire was a blessing in disguise and the old buildings could be razed to the ground and rebuilt in a much grander style. The Illustrated London News of 1882 pictured the destruction in Wood Street and two years later, in 1884, the new shop and sale room of Silber & Fleming.

The new premises for Silber & Fleming as depicted in the Illustrated London News

Sale room (ILN, 1884)

Trade mark of Albert Marcius Silber (Source: Silver forum at 925-1000.com, which has more information on the history of the firm and more pictures of the articles they produced

Goad’s insurance map of 1886

(1) The London Gazette, 12 January 1838.
(2) Old Bailey case t18310908-75.
(3) The London Gazette, 9 September 1831.
(4) Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 29 October 1831.
(5) The Daily News, 31 July 1854,.

Neighbours:

<– 5 Cripplegate Buildings

59 Wood Street –>

Evans and Lescher, wholesale druggists

Tags

chemist

Street View: 87
Address: 4 Cripplegate Buildings

Cripplegate Buildings is now the top part of Wood Street and changed beyond recognition. For its history, see the post on Richard Finden who lived at number 1 Cripplegate Buildings when the Tallis Street View was published.
An advertisement in Jackson’s Oxford Journal of 16 August, 1800, about the sale of an estate and dwelling house in Bampton, Oxfordshire, lists Mr. Bristow, druggist, at no. 4, Cripplegate Buildings, London, as one of the addresses where particulars could be obtained. Thomas Ferniough Bristow had links to Oxfordshire and is mentioned in several leases now held at the Oxfordshire History Centre, concerning the Bradwell Grove Estate.

Thomas died in 1826⁽¹⁾ and the next occupants of 4 Cripplegate Buildings were Messrs. Evans and Lescher, who styled themselves “wholesale druggists” in an advertisement in The Times of 30 December, 1830. In The Perfumery and Essential Oil Record of 1913, it it said that Joseph Sidney Lescher married Sarah Harwood, a niece of Thomas Bickerton Evans, so the gentlemen were not just business partners, but became related by marriage.⁽²⁾ In July 1839, that is around the time of the Street View publication, a notice in The London Gazette mentions John Evans and Thomas Bickerton Evans of Liverpool, wholesale druggists, as the main creditors of a druggist in Llangefin, Anglesey, who has assigned his assets over to them because of impending bankruptcy proceedings. The development of the port of Liverpool had opened up more markets and the Evanses were keen to take advantage of that opportunity.

Thomas Bickerton’s signature on a declaration to support the City freedom application of Frank Harwood Lescher

In 1842, the London Thomas Bickerton takes on as his apprentice Worthington Evans, son of John Evans of Bartholomew Close, also a wholesale druggist. Not sure whether Worthington was Thomas B.’s brother or nephew. To complicate things even more, a partnership is dissolved in April 1843 between John Evans, Joseph Sidney Lescher and Richard Hawley Evans, wholesale druggists of 60 Bartholomew Close.⁽³⁾ No mention of Cripplegate Building. A year later, a partnership is dissolved between Thomas Evans and Richard B. Colley, who were first at 6 Silver Street and subsequently at 4 Cripplegate Buildings. Can you still follow the story? I cannot, because I am not sure of the exact family relationship between all these Evanses, but that they are related is certain. We know that Thomas Bickerton was the son of John Evans, but whether all the Johns mentioned above are one and the same is debatable as there were more than one in the druggist business. The 1851 census gives us (Thomas) Bickerton Evans at 13 Parliament Street as a wholesale druggist, and Joseph Sidney Lescher at 17 Church Row, Hampstead, also a wholesale druggist.

There was no family feud going on despite all these changes, it was just decided to split the Liverpool and London branches with Lescher to concentrate on the London side of things. In 1856, the son of J.S. Lescher, Frank Harwood Lescher, becomes T.B. Evans’ apprentice. On the indenture paper, Lescher is given the address of 60 Bartholomew Close, which must have been the main London address for the firm. At the time of the 1861 census, both Lescher and Evans are still given as wholesale druggists, although they have both moved to a different address.⁽⁴⁾ The Evans family remained in the drug trade and an obituary for Edward Evans, one of the sons of John Evans (the one who dissolved his partnership with Lescher in 1843), appeared in The Chemist and Druggist of 1905. In 1916, another obituary, in the same magazine, for John James Evans, the eldest son of Edward, states that in 1902, the two branches in London and Liverpool were united again as Evans Sons Lescher & Webb Ltd. The firm also had branches in Canada and the US and more mergers were to follow.

J.W. Archer, Part of Cripplegate (Source: British Museum)

And what became of 4 Cripplegate Buildings? That question is not so easy to answer as sources frequently fail to give a house number and describe an occupant as just “of Cripplegate buildings”, but in 1843 and 1844 the combination Thomas Evans and Richard Bowen Colley could be found at no. 4. In 1843 they are given as the proprietors of a patent concerning a parasol.⁽⁵⁾ This does not seem to have anything to do with the druggist business and perhaps the name Evans is just a coincidence. A year later, the partnership between these two umbrella makers is dissolved (see here for a possible later career of Evans) and we have to wait for 1858 to find evidence that William Thorne occupied the building, although the address is given as no. 4a. He was a draper and artificial flower maker, lately of Houndsditch, who unfortunately went bankrupt.⁽⁶⁾ Next comes Robert James Blyth who, in 1862, gave his address as 4 Cripplegate Buildings in a notice regarding the estate of one Anna Maria Blyth. You can see the name Blyth on the building in the picture above. The carrier Deacon of the White Horse Inn yard whose name you can see on the green door will get a blog post of his own.

In 1866, John Knight and Robert Sealby registered a couple of lace designs⁽⁷⁾ from 4a Cripplegate Buildings and in 1867 they dissolve their partnership.⁽⁸⁾ Perhaps they just had part of the, rather substantial, building, just as William Thorne probably had, as in 1867, we also find Robert James Blyth, Charles George Blyth and one William Nicholes dissolving their partnership as wholesale clothiers at no. 4. The C. for Charles would match the name on the front of the building in the drawing by Archer.

As we saw in the post for no. 1, the 1881 census says, “Warehouses recently built. 5 warehouses built on the site of 11 houses Forestreet and Cripplegate Buildings”. Number 3 was amalgamated with number 4 and occupied at the time of the 1881 census by Charles Shepherd, a foreman porter, and in 1891 by Stephen Hunt as caretaker. In the long run, that is after WW2, the eastern side of the Barbican was built on the site of nos. 1-4 and nothing is now left of the original Cripplegate Buildings (see for a picture no. 1).

————————-

(1) He was buried on 1 February, 1826, at Reigate. Probate was granted on the 13th of that month to the executors (PROB 11/1708/234).
(2) The marriage took place on 5 October 1835 at St. Paul’s, Bristol.
(3) The London Gazette, 18 April 1843.
(4) Thomas Bickerton Evans died 9 October 1863 at Wavertree (near Liverpool) on 12 May 1866. The executors mentioned do not seem to be involved in the druggist business. Estate valued at under £30,000. Joseph Sidney Lescher of Elm Tree House, Pond Street, Hampstead and 60 Bartholomew Close died 5 July 1893. Probate was granted to his sons Frank Harwood Lescher, wholesale druggist, and Herman Joseph Lescher, accountant. Estate valued at over £8,500.
(5) National Archives, Kew, BT 45/1/80.
(6) The London Gazette, 2 July 1858.
(7) National Archives, Kew, BT 44/31/194670-194673.
(8) The London Gazette, 20 September 1867.

Neighbours:

<– 63 Wood Street

3 Cripplegate Buildings –>

Thomas Vyse, straw hat manufacturer

Tags

hats

Street View: 87
Address: 3 Cripplegate Buildings

In 1848, Thomas Vyse and his sons, Charles, Richard and Henry, end a partnership they had started in 1845 as “merchants and straw hat manufacturers, carrying on business at No. 3, Cripplegate-buildings, and No. 76 Wood-Street, Cheapside, both in the City of London; at Luton, in the county of Bedford; at New York, in the United States of America; and at Florence”.⁽¹⁾ Another document states that Charles had been in New York, but was now “on the Continent”.⁽²⁾ Thomas is said to be Charles’ attorney in a London Gazette notice, which has probably to do with the very imprecise “on the Continent” address.⁽³⁾ Didn’t they know where he was? The document in the LMA says that some money had been invested for Charles “for his own use but so that the said Charles Vyse shall not have power to deprive himself of the benefit of the said annual income or any part thereof by any sale mortgage or change or otherwise in the way of anticipation and so that his receipts in writing under his own hand given after the interest shall become due and payable and not before”. Hmmm, Charles seems to have been the black sheep of the family and not to be trusted with money. Various later notices in The London Gazette show that Richard concentrated on the Luton side of the business, Henry on Wood Street and two other sons, William, and after his death, Thomas Andrew, on the New York branch. Earlier, Thomas Andrew had looked after the Italian branch. Despite all these changes, Vyse and sons remained one large firm until 1864.

trade card ±1814 (Source: British Museum)

Thomas first traded from Holborn Hill, but later from 3 Cripplegate Buildings. For a map of the Cripplegate area and the later history of the buildings in the street see the post on neighbour Richard Finden. According to the Land Tax records, Vyse could be found at number 3 from 1830 to 1850. The family did not live above the Cripplegate shop for very long, if at all, as in the 1841 census, William Barnet, a straw hatter, and his family can be found at the property. In the 1851 census, Thomas and his wife Alice are found at The Abbey, Herne Hill, but they had apparenty already been there since the 1830s.⁽⁴⁾ By 1851, the Cripplegate shop had been taken over by Joseph Fisher who dealt in artificial flowers.

Frederick’s gravestone (Source: florin.ms)

As the partnership notice already indicated, there were branches of the firm in New York and Florence. Family members were sent out there to see to things, but some unfortunately also died there. In December 1843, son William died of apoplexy at New York⁽⁵⁾, but the firm continued to trade in New York and in 1864, Thomas Vyse jr. bought 126 West 18th Street. It is said that he lived at 20 West 17th Street.⁽⁶⁾ A few years before William died, in 1840, Frederick, another of Thomas’s sons, died in Florence, 23 years old. One website says that he was buried at the English cemetery in the same grave as his sister, Florence Ann, but that is incorrect. They have interpreted their own findings wrongly as they say that she died 21 October, 1829, just 16 months old. However, they also transcribe the entry in the churchyard records where she is named “Ann Wyse (Florence)”, which I interpret as Anna Vyse of Florence; she is just “quinze mois”, which is fifteen months, not sixteen; and “fille de Thomas Andrews Wyse et de Mary J. Fisher”.⁽⁷⁾ Thomas Andrew was the son of Thomas, and the little girl was hence Frederick’s niece. Never mind, languages can be difficult and it does show that the Vyses were in Italy at least since 1829. Colnaghi (see below) mentions 1827 as the year the Vyse business started trading in Italy.

Italy was a huge supplier of straw hats and the Vyses imported the broad-rimmed floppy straw hat, the Leghorn (example here), so named after the English name for the Livorno region, in large quantities, so it is not surprising that they set up a branch over there to control the trade.

“From the year 1826 the demand for the ‘fioretto’ hat [that is, the Leghorn hat] began gradually to fall off, and it was necessary to supply its place with another article. This was found in the eleven-end plait, one strip of which, in making up the hat, was sewn so as to overlap the other. The merit of introducing this plait was chiefly due to Messrs. Vyse, an English firm, first established at Florence about the year 1827. After some temporary changes, the factory was finally removed to Prato, about the year 1844, where the centre of the business has ever since remained.”⁽⁸⁾

Straw hats were not just produced in Italy, but also in England, and especially in Bedfordshire. Vyse set up a factory in Luton and the building, at least its reincarnation after a 1930 fire, can still be seen with the V for Vyse between the windows. For more information about the Luton factory, see here.

In 1843, Thomas had a disagreement with the customs officers at St. Katherine Docks and he applied to the House of Commons where a Special Committee investigated the matter and found the case for Thomas. The duty on straw hats was to be levied per quarter of a pound and not per ounce.⁽⁹⁾

Thomas died on 8 January 1861 and he was buried on the 16th at Norwood Cemetery. His probate entry said that he was of Herne Hill, Surrey and of Wood Street, Cheapside, and that his estate was valued at £180.000.⁽¹⁰⁾ Many more changes took place after Thomas’s death, but the firm continued until well into the 20th century.

advert in The Otago Witness, 10 December 1870

Thomas Vyse was most likely the brother of Charles Vyse, the subject of a previous post. A Thomas and a Charles Vyse were baptised as the children of Andrew and Jane Vyse (or Vize) in Birmingham in 1782 and 1785 respectively. This does tie in with the ages we know they had in later records. I have not found absolute proof, just circumstantial evidence for the relation between the two straw hat manufacturers, but for now, I will assume that they were indeed brothers. [UPDATE: yes, they were brothers, see the comment by Martyn Priestnall on yet another brother William who was convicted of receiving stolen goods. His wife and his two brothers Thomas and Charles petitioned for clemency] Thomas turned out to be a much better businessman than his brother Charles who went bankrupt at some point. You can read all about Charles and his unlucky son Valentine here.

——————
(1) The London Gazette, 1 August 1848.
(2) London Metropolitan Archives: CLC/B/227/Ms12057.
(3) The London Gazette, 20 September 1853 and 2 September 1859. In 1864, Thomas Andrew the younger split off the New York branch and continued on his own account. The rest of the family continued to trade as Vyse and sons (The London Gazette, 26 August 1864).
(4) Herne Hill Personalities, researched by G. Young et al. (2006). See also there for the later purchase of the property for Herne Hill railway station.
(5) The Times, 16 January 1844.
(6) Manhattan Landmarks Preservation Commission December 11, 1990 Designation List 230 LP-1815.
(7) Thomas Andrew Vyse (1802-1865) and Mary Jane Fisher were married on 2 March 1826 at St. Martin Ludgate.
(8) Consul-General Colnaghi, “Notes on the Florentine Straw Industry” in The Antiquary, September 1886, p. 123.
(9) Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons, volume 52 (1843).
(10) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1861

Neighbours:

<– 4 Cripplegate Buildings

2 Cripplegate Buildings –>

John Mason, plumber

Tags

plumber

Street View: 87
Address: 2 Cripplegate Buildings

In the previous post, I wrote about 1 Cripplegate Buildings where new occupants could be seen every few years, but for the neighbours at number 2, the story is totally different. Two families plied their plumbing businesses there for the best part of a century. Tallis lists John Mason, but we will start with his predecessors, the Banners. In 1741, John Banner, the son of Peter Banner, a joiner of Frodsham, Cheshire, put himself apprentice to John Battin, a plumber of London. From John Battin’s will, we learn that John Banner was his “kinsman” and that one Elizabeth Banner was his sister-in-law.⁽¹⁾ Battin’s widow, Margaret, takes over the business after her husband’s death and also takes on John Banner’s younger brother William as an apprentice later that year.

Top part of John Banner’s indenture (LMA: COL/CHD/FR/02/0722-0-729)

From Margaret’s will we learn that she was Peter Banner’s sister, hence John Banner’s aunt. John is named as joint-executor with Margaret’s sister Elizabeth and he is left “the residue of the estate”.⁽²⁾ In other words, he gets the business. The Land Tax records at that time do not necessarily specify addresses; the assessors just went from house to house and noted the tenants down one after another as they found them in the order of their walk, only occasionally noting a side street or court. So, in order to work out an address, you need to look for those for whom you do know a specific address in any given year and work backwards or forwards from there. In Banner’s case, we can work backwards from the 1780 Land Tax record which does specify Cripplegate Buildings. Noting the neighbours and going back in time, it is clear that the shop he inherited from Margaret Battin was indeed 2 Cripplegate Buildings. At some point, John (or possibly his son, also named John) acquired a property in White Cross Street, but when exactly is unclear.

trade card for John Banner (Source: British Museum)

trade card for Henry and Francis Gifford Banner (Source: British Museum)

I have not found a marriage for John Banner, but on 13 April 1755, a son John, is baptised at St. Giles Cripplegate. The mother is just referred to as Mary. John junior is apprenticed to his father in 1778 and takes over the business when his father dies in 1788. In Kent’s Directory for 1794, he is listed as plumber and glass cutter. John junior’s son Francis Gifford is apprenticed into the business in 1805 and duly takes over, together with his brother Henry. When John resigns from the business or dies is not known, but in 1818, the insurance for the plumber’s shop is in the name of Francis Gifford. In 1831, however, the brothers are declared bankrupt. They no longer seem to have the property in White Cross Street.

London Gazette, 18 November 1831

The Land Tax record for 1832 lists the property as empty, but in 1835, we find John Mason there. He had already been living and working at Cripplegate Buildings from 1827, but across the street at number 9. Judging by Horwood’s map (see here), number 2 was slightly larger than number 9, so a reasonable move. The 1841 census lists John Mason, his wife Ann, four children aged between 5 and 10, a female servant and an apprentice at the property. The 1851 census is interesting, because John is no longer just described as a plumber, but as “plumber, painter, glazier, paper hanger & builder” employing 25 men. The 1861 census lists John Mason junior and his wife Mathilda as the residents of the property. John is employing 20 men. Although it would seem that John junior took over the business from his father sometime before 1861, that is not the case. Father and son remained partners until 1867 when they officially “dissolved and determined” their partnership.⁽³⁾ John junior must have moved to Kent as in late 1867, Mathilda dies and her probate record gives the address of 19 Essex Terrace, Lee, Kent.⁽⁴⁾ John is still at that address at the time of the 1871 census, still a plumber and employing 17 men. Also listed are Eliza, his second wife, and children of both marriages: Mathilda (9 years old), Ruth (8), Edith (3), and Lizzie (1).

The 1871 census shows the Cripplegate Buildings property as empty. At some point Alfred Benjamin Catford and Frederick Brown, skirt factors, ran their business from 2 Cripplegate Buildings until they went bankrupt in 1879⁽⁵⁾ and after that, the redevelopment took place described in the post on 1 Cripplegate Buildings (see here). And that was the end of the building as Tallis knew it. Do click on the elevation at the top of this post for a larger picture and enjoy the figure between the windows on the first floor waving at us. A naughty Mason child? A painter at work? Or an advertisement puppet of some sort? Also have a look at the trade cards where a figure is crawling on top of the bow window, although he is probably just fixing a leak in the roof. Whatever they represents, I thought them fun.

(1) Prerogative Court of Canterbury: PROB 11, 746, dated 23 December 1740, proved 28 April 1748.
(2) Prerogative Court of Canterbury: PROB 11, 784, dated 4 August 1749, proved 3 December 1750.
(3) The London Gazette, 8 January 1867.
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1868. Estate valued at under £450.
(5) The London Gazette, 30 September 1879.

Neighbours:

<– 3 Cripplegate Buildings

1 Cripplegate Buildings –>

Richard Finden, baby linen warehouse

Tags

baby linen

Street View: 87
Address: 1 Cripplegate Buildings

Cripplegate Buildings as a street name no longer exists. It used to be the top section of Wood Street, between London Wall and Fore Street. Once upon a time, Cripple Gate stood across the southern end of the street as one of the entrance points to the City. You can still see it written in the Ordnance Survey map of 1893, although the gate itself had been demolished in 1760. The Cripplegate area was badly hit during the Blitz and in the 1960s largely replaced by the Barbican Estate.

Cripplegate (Source: Wikipedia)

1799 Horwood map

If you compare the 1799 Horwood map above with the Ordnance Survey map below, you will see that there are fewer, but larger, houses in the street. Most houses have been enlarged at the back, encroaching on the gardens and yards that used to exist in the centre of the housing blocks. Number 1, at the top left-hand side of the street used to look out at the back onto the churchyard of St. Giles without Cripplegate, but already by 1893, it was completely built in by the extensions to the neighbouring houses.

1893 Ordnance Survey map

At the time Tallis produced his Street Views, Richard Finden occupied 1 Cripplegate Buildings where he ran a baby linen warehouse. In the 1841 census, his household consisted of himself (50 years old), his wife Sarah (also 50 years old), 2 milliner’s apprentices (both 14 years old) and a servant. But by 1845, Theophilus Carr, a silk velvet manufacturer is listed for the address in the Post Office Directory. He did not last very long as in 1847, The London Gazette writes that Caleb Pizzie had been trading in artificial flowers, etc. at 1 Cripplegate Buildings in partnership with John Pardue the younger. That same year, one Hesketh Hughes registered a “rouche tray”. More on that invention later, but first a bit more on the later occupants of the building. The 1851 census lists Isaac Lyons there with his family as umbrella and parasol maker, but at the end of that year, bankruptcy proceedings had been filed against him and his partner Henry Woolf. Businesses did not seem to last very long in this particular building, although not all went bankrupt of course; some died and some simply moved away. The next shopkeeper we hear about is haberdasher Charles Philip Townsend, but in the 1861 census we find yet another name: Robert W. Morton. He is listed as the Principal of the City Academy, although he probably just rented (part of?) the house as the Land Tax records give A. Duffie as the owner. Well, I could go on, but we will leave it here and try and find a bit more information on some of the occupants. I would normally concentrate on whoever ran the shop at the time of the Street View, that is in 1839, but there was not a lot I could find out about Richard Finden, so to flesh out this post, I have chosen to write something about two of the later occupants as well.

Finden
First Richard Finden. After all, he is the one listed there in the Street View. A bit of digging in the records revealed that Richard paid land tax on the Cripplegate property from 1823 to 1842, so his was not such a short-lived occupancy as those who came after him. 1823, by the way, was also the year in which Richard purchased his freedom of the Spectacle Makers Company by redemption for 46s 8d. On the freedom document, his occupation is given as warehouseman. What happened after 1842 is unclear, but a Richard Finden of 11 Charles Street (58 years old) was buried on 11 February 1847 at St. John’s, Hoxton. No guarantee that this is the same Richard, but it is likely. Alas, this is all I can tell you about Richard Finden and his baby linen warehouse, so we will move on to another occupant.

Spectacle makers – Finden, detail

Hughes
Hesketh Hughes does not figure in the Land Tax records at all, so presumably he just rented the property for a short time. We do find his name with the Cripplegate address in the registration of the ‘rouche tray’ as mentioned above, but that was not his first patent. In 1844, then at Chiswell Street, he registered “an improved machine for crimpling, fluting, and quilling muslin and other fabrics”.⁽¹⁾ Registrations and patents were frequently used to protect one’s inventions from being copied by competitors, but in 1847, Hughes ran into trouble with his ‘invention’.⁽²⁾ On 12 April 1847, at the Guildhall, the case Webb v. Hughes was heard.⁽³⁾ George Webb of Wood Street and Manchester alleged that he had registered an original design for a protective rouche tray⁽⁴⁾ and that Hughes had sold a fraudulent imitation of his design. Fortunately for us, it was explained at the hearing what a rouche tray was: Rouche is a piece of thin lace of about two inches in width and a yard in length. It is first crimped (goffered) and then a thread is run down the centre. The lace is then folded in half. Before the invented tray, rouche was kept in round boxes containing three tiers whereby only one-third of the lace could be displayed and no part could be removed without disturbing the others. Webb had therefore invented a long shallow box and used paper folded into ridges to keep the lace apart. The total capacity of the box was the same as the old round ones, but the whole length of lace could now be shown to customers. Hughes had apparently slightly modified Webb’s design by opening up the ridges of the paper.
The report showed the resulting difference in ridges and one of the experts called to give evidence in the case went to great length to explain what was new in Hughes’ design and why Webb’s registration had been faulty as it had not stated specifically which bits of the design were new. And because of that, it could not be objected to if Hughes varied the design. In the end, the two aldermen could not agree on a verdict and Webb and Hughes were told to “persue any other remedy they had” and dismissed. Obviously not the aldermen’s best day in office.

Townsend
From Charles Philip Townsend we learn a few details about the property itself. Townsend, a haberdasher, lived at 3, Victoria Villas, Queen’s Road, Dalston, but had his business at 1 Cripplegate Buildings. In 1857, someone broke into his warehouse and as part of the evidence, Townsend described how he and one of his employees left the property in Cripplegate Buildings,
“I have a warehouse … on the ground floor – there are two doors to the warehouse, one communicating directly with the street, the other opens into the passage of the house – on the evening of 13th March I left the warehouse about a quarter before 8 o’clock – both the doors were shut, and fast – the outer door was shut by my assistant – I shut and locked the side door, which opens into the passage.”⁽⁵⁾
A policeman, Henry Hemmings, tried the door of the warehouse at 20 past 10 that evening; it was then locked. The house above the warehouse was occupied by Charles Harding, a schoolmaster, who also gave evidence. When Harding came home at about half past ten, he saw the thief come out of the warehouse door and when he confronted him, he was hit with a lantern, resulting in a nose bleed. He nevertheless followed the thief who was apprehended in Three Nun Court. When Harding returned to his house, he found a wedge, a crowbar and a pile of sacks. The perpetrator was found guilty and sentenced to twelve months. As we saw above, Townsend did not remain at 1 Cripplegate Buildings for very long and many more businesses were to use the address after him.

Redevelopment
In 1879-1880, the eastern side of the street and some houses around the corner in Fore Street were redeveloped, resulting in the larger houses shown on the Ordnance Survey map. The Land Tax records very clearly show “down” in 1879 and “rebuilt” in 1880, but for the western side of the street, that is the side where number 1 was on, the situation is not so easy to read from the Tax record. Numbers 1 and 2 were empty in the early 1860s, but that seems to have been by chance and only from the census records twenty years later do we learn that the houses were actually razed to the ground and rebuilt. The 1881 census record says, “Warehouses recently built. 5 warehouses built on the site of 11 houses Forestreet and Cripplegate Buildings”. Number 3 was amalgamated with number 4 and occupied at the time of the census, but numbers 1 and 2 were empty, or at least, nobody stayed the night which was the condition for recording a name in the census. In the 1891 census, numbers 1 and 2 are still unoccupied, in other words, what had once been houses and shops had been converted into warehouses where nobody lived.

And what used to be Cripplegate Buildings 1-4 is now part of the Barbican Estate as you can see on the left in the Google Street View below.

(1) The Repertory of Patent Inventions, 1844.
(2) National Archives, Registered design BT 45/5/977.
(3) The Mechanics’ Magazine, vol. 46 (1847), pp. 383-384.
(4) The London Journal of Arts and Sciences (and repertory of patent inventions), 1847; registered 13 January 1847.
(5) Old Bailey, t18570615-728.

Neighbours:

<– 2 Cripplegate Buildings