Robert Dever, confectioner

Tags

catering, food and drink

Street Views: 21, 86 and 7 Suppl.
Address: 60 Cornhill

The large property where Robert Dever (or De-Ver) had his business as a cook and confectionary, was situated on the corner of Gracechurch Street and Cornhill and it was hence depicted in both Street Views. The elevation above this post is from Street View 21, that is the Gracechurch Street one, and shows the side of the building. The Cornhill front was a lot larger and was depicted in Street View 86. When Tallis produces his Supplements in 1847, the Cornhill front was once more depicted, but this time, the right-hand side of the building has acquired a new door and the number 58 above the building. I will come back to the numbering shortly.

elevation of the Cornhill front (1839)

elevation of the Cornhill front (1847)

And if three depictions of the shop was not enough, Dever also paid for a vignette showing his shop situated against the church of St. Peter at Cornhill. A map of the Cornhill Ward of October 1833 in the British Library, clearly shows how the building abutted the church. Number 60 is in the top right-hand corner.

Detail of the Cornhill Ward Survey, 1833 (Source: British Library)

As the vignette shows, the shop had once belonged to Angell & Son and we will start the story with them. William Angell was baptised at St. Peter at Cornhill on 7 October 1733 as the son of John and Elizabeth. Fortunately, the record of the church gives the father’s occupation, cook, but alas not the exact address. William marries in 1759 and in 1767, his son William Sandell Angell, who was to take over the business, is born. William Angell senior dies in 1814 and leaves his property at Cornhill to William Sandell. In William’s will it is described as “the leasehold messuages or tenements and premises numbered 58, 59 and 60 situated in Cornhill aforesaid and now in the occupation of myself and my said son William Sandell Angell [space] Wilkinson and [space] Sanders”. The Kent’s Directory for 1803 mentions one Robert Wilkinson, print seller, at number 58 and a William Sanders, fan-maker, at number 59, so large as the premises may look, it was not in the exclusive occupations of the Angell family, although it may have done so later.

1836 Land Tax entry

William Sandell’s son William Henry, receives his freedom of the Company of Cooks in 1823 and he presumably continued the family business. That is, until he died in 1834. Whether Robert Dever immediately took over the shop from Angell after the death of William Henry, or whether William Sandell himself, or perhaps one of the other Angell sons, continued the confectionary business is not entirely clear, but Dever certainly obtained his freedom of the Company of Cooks in 1834 by redemption. His name appears for the first time in the Land Tax register for Cornhill in 1836 with the name of Angell written behind his, perhaps to indicate a take-over halfway the tax period. Dever is listed for three properties, so I gather that numbers 58, 59 and 60 were then all three occupied by him and had for some time been by the Angells. Tallis, in his first set of Street Views, does not mention numbers 58 and 59, but he does do so in the 1847 Supplement. Above the building is written 58, although the index lists Hyams, a jeweller at number 59. Will try and find out more about Mr. Hyams for a later post.

What do we know about the food Angell and later Dever provided? The elevation in Street View 21, calls Dever “Confectioner Venison and Turtle Dealer”. The vignette just adds the word Cook, but nothing else. The Morning Post of 18 Januari 1842, tells us that Dever provided a banquet at Mansion House which was “most sumptious”. That does not help us much, but The Standard of the same day printed the whole menu and French names were obviously quite in vogue; gelée au citron sounds much better than lemon jelly, does it not?

In 1851, things went slightly pear-shaped for Robert and bankruptcy proceedings were filed against him. He seems, however, to have managed to survive and a certificate of the first class was issued by the Court of Bankruptcy. The Morning Chronicle not only reported on this fact, they also said that his debts were £7,000 and the assets already realised were £4,500. So, he could continue cooking and that is what he did. On 3 July 1856, the same paper mentioned him as the provider of “an elegant déjeuner” at the National Orphan Home. No menu provided by the paper this time, so no clue as to what the dignataries had on their plates.

While the 1851 census had shown Robert living above the shop at 60 Cornhill, the 1861 census shows him at 20 Oakley Villas, Hampstead as a “fundholder”. He dies three years later and his probate record makes no mention of the Cornhill address, so he seems to have given up the business somewhere between 1856 and 1861.⁽¹⁾ In later years, the building was occupied by the YMCA (photograph here) and it is still extant on the corner of Gracechurch and Cornhill, although it has changed its appearance. Apparently, in 1877, it received its new look at the hands of architect Benjamin Tabberer.⁽²⁾ The YMCA photo shows rather ornate columns on the outside that were not there when Tallis depicted his Street Views, nor did the top floor look quite like it does in the photograph. This top floor has now disappeared, but the columns are still there as the Google Street View picture shows.⁽³⁾

Henry Edward Tidmarsh (1855-1939), St. Peter at Cornhill with the YMCA building on the right (Source: allposters.co.uk)

Photograph from An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in London, volume 4 (1929), p. 63 (Source: british-history.ac.uk)

Google Street View

(1) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1864. Probate of the estate, valued at under £3,000, is granted to his widow Mary.
(2) Crossrail Bill, first special report, session 2006-07, Vol. 2, Oral evidence, 17 January to 23 March 2006.
(3) The building is now occupied by David Clulow, optician, who lists it as 59, Cornhill.

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Fribourg and Treyer, tobacconists

Tags

tobacco

Street View: 22, 6 and 7 Supplement
Address: 34 Haymarket and 51 Cornhill

Fribourg & Treyer of 34 Haymarket sold snuff and the best quality at that. But, a partnership between a Mr. Fribourg and a Mr. Treyer had never existed. The firm was allegedly started in 1720 by P. Fribourg, although the earliest surviving ledger is dated 1764.⁽¹⁾ It is not clear whether the same P. Fribourg was in control of the shop all those years, or whether more generations had the same initial. According to Evans, the Fribourgs had originally come from Switzerland. From a tax assessment record of 1767 for the St. Martin in the Field parish, it is certain that a Peter Fribourg was paying taxes for a property in the Haymarket. He retired in 1780 and the shop was taken over by G.A. Treyer who linked the – no doubt well-known and highly esteemed – name of Fribourg to his own.

shop window pane for Fribourg & Treyer that can still be seen today

Fribourg retired to Epsom, but almost four years later, he considered it necessary to place the following notice in the paper:

Source: G. Evans, The Old Snuff House

Had he been pestered by former clients? He sounds fairly annoyed about the non-existing connection between him and Treyer. Gottlieb August Treyer, originally from Germany, had married Martha Evans the same year he took over the snuff shop and was granted naturalisation in 1793.⁽²⁾ The couple had no children and when they retired in 1803, the daily management was put into the hands of Price Evans, Martha’s brother, during the minority of the three sons of Richard Evans, one of Martha’s other brothers. By 1815, Martha and Gottlieb were both dead⁽³⁾ and the two nephews George (1786-1867) and Gottlieb August Treyer (1789-1869) were old enough to manage without their uncle. Later, they were joined by their younger brother Robert Lloyd (±1803-?). This partnership was dissolved in 1858 in favour of the next generation, Gottlieb August Treyer junior (1818-1899), the son of G.A.T. senior, George Arthur Carter (1833-1887), son of George, and Price James Evans (1815-1885), the son of James Evans, a cousin of G.A.T. senior and George.⁽⁴⁾ After the death of these three cousins, the firm was then managed by August (1843-1906), son of G.AT. junior, and George (1867-after 1920), the son of G.A.C. Evans. August died in 1906 and the firm became the responsibility of George and August’s son W. Bridgman (1876-after 1920). Lost track of all these Georges and Gottliebs? Perhaps this family tree will help.

click to enlarge

The shop itself with its distinctive bow windows, although no longer in the possession of the Treyers or Evanses, but a souvenir shop, still looks very much the way it had always been. George Evans in his 1920 book already remarked that “the greatest care has been taken to ensure its preservation and the structure is entirely in its original state”. He does, however, apologise for the need in the 1890s to replace the stone steps as they had “become so worn by continued use, and not unlikely to cause an accident to someone walking over them, it was necessary to replace them, this being the only serious renovation that has been made to the front”.

shop 1920 (Source: Evans)

shop screen detail

Inside, separating the original front shop from what Evans calls the “first inner room” is an Adam’s screen which can still be seen, although the glass panelled doors seem to have disappeared. The private entrance on the right of the shop was once the only way to get to the outbuildings at the back and the horse that the first G.A. Treyer kept, had to go through the house to the stable. The upper floors were sometimes let, but often used by one or another member of the family. In 1912, number 33 was acquired to accommodate the expanding business, but was quickly dismissed by Evans as not of the same historical value, it “has been much more altered for modern requirements, and contains now nothing of interest”.

shop screen 1920 (Source: Evans)

shop screen 2013

Although Fribourg is alleged to have started the business in the Haymarket in 1720, it cannot have been in the same building, as the Survey of London states that the “two houses [i.e. nrs. 33 and 34] appear to date from the middle of the 18th century, and it is probable that they were built by John Maidman, carpenter, who in 1741 obtained a 51 years lease of the houses (20 in all) on the site of Coventry House” The Survey says that Fribourg first appears in the ratebook in 1751, so one wonders if 1720 was really the correct date for the start of the snuff business.⁽⁵⁾

Floor plan from Survey of London via British History Online

Evans states that they opened what he called ‘The City Branch’ at 18 Cornhill in 1834, but it was probably slightly later as their name does not appear in Tallis’s Street View of 1839 when number 18 is still occupied by J. Viney, a tailor. They do appear in the 1847 Supplement, but by then they have moved to number 51. The City branch was to move again in 1869 when 51 and adjoining premises were bought by a bank and Treyer moved to 2 Leadenhall. In 1881, they moved once again when their block was pulled down to widen the street. They temporarily relocated to 70 Cornhill, but came back to Leadenhall Street (to number 3) in 1882. They were still there when Evans wrote his book. In the 20th century, the firm also opened branches in Oxford and Cambridge, but already in 1814, they used agents to sell their wares further afield than London. In an advertisement in Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post or Plymouth and Cornish Advertiser of 9 June, 1814, they announce that they have appointed Thomas Balle, 203 High Street to be their sole agent for Exeter and its vicinity. An N.B. at the bottom of the advert states that Balle supplies “teas and groceries of every description”.

Advert Morning Chronicle, 15 February 1802

What to make of the last sentence in the advert above “To prevent mistakes, they find themselves under the necessity of giving this public notice, that they have no concern whatever with any other shop in London”. Their City Branch had not been opened yet, so that cannot be the reason for the confusion, nor would the wording be quite the same if it had been one of their own branches. They are possibly referring to Fribourg & Pontet, snuff-makers at 134 Pall Mall who are listed in the 1808 Post Office Annual Directory and were still there (at number 124) when Tallis produced his Street Views. Evans mentions a J. Fribourg who traded in the colonnade of the Opera House, Haymarket, in the later 18th century. He sold snuff, but also opera tickets. Also in Tallis’s Street View we find ‘Fribourg Evans’ at 6 Regent Street, but whether the latter was perhaps an offspring of the Haymarket Evanses is not clear yet.

Trade Card 1781 ©British Museum

Tobacco was rasped by hand to produce snuff as the shop sign of “the rasp and crown” already indicates. Tobacco could be rasped to a varying degree of fineness, hence the expressions Fine, Denigros and Gros. Fribourg & Treyer sold a large number of snuffs, such as Dutch Carotte, Lundy Foot, Dunkirk, Brazil, Montagne and Marino de Leipsic. They even made up snuff mixtures according to special recipes for individual customers and kept the recipes in a special book for later reference. George Evans was proud of the distinguished customers the firm had over the years and says that “several of the Popes were supplied by Fribourg and Treyer, but indirectly, and, according to an old book, Napoleon, at St. Helena, was also supplied by the Firm in the same way”. Evans quotes from an old account ledger for the account of Beau Brummell “1 lb. Bureau and Canister, sent to the Prince of Wales 7s. 6d.” (3 Oct. 1799), but “it was very shortly after this that His Royal Highness dealt directly with the Firm”. Note the capital F in Firm. George IV was not the only Royal to get his supplies from 34 Haymarket; in 1809 Princess Charlotte started an account with F&T and in 1819 the King of France. In all, Evans lists five pages of customers whom he apparently considered worthy of mention, the majority of them styled Lord, Earl, Sir or Lady. The average guy in the street gets no mention.

Although snuff was the main commodity at F&T’s, they also sold cigars, small numbers to begin with, but from 1850 onwards in increasing quantities. You could buy your cigars in large quantities and have F&T look after them, just collecting a small number when you needed them. In this way, the correct conditions for keeping them could be guaranteed and your cigars would always be fresh. Some customers, especially at the City Branch, even kept their own open box of cigars on a special shelf in the shop and came in every day to smoke a cigar on the premises. Loose tobacco for use in pipes was also sold, but Evans does not have much to say about them “for the varieties were so few in use until fairly recent years”. Cigarettes were first mentioned in the accounts in 1852, but became more frequent from 1866 when the first Russian cigarettes were sold. In 1880 the Egyptian cigarette was introduced and with cigars, they slowly but surely took over from snuff and became the mainstay of the business.

Pipe handle with the name of Fribourg & Treyer ©Pijpenkabinet

——————-
(1) George Evans, The Old Snuff House of Fribourg & Treyer at the Sign of the Rasp & Crown no. 34, St. James’s Haymarket, London, S.W.1720-1920, [1920]. The ledger was apparently still available to Evans when he wrote the history of the firm. The present whereabouts are not known.
(2) Journal of the House of Lords, volume 39: 1790-1793, 18 Feb., 5 June, 11 June and 21 June 1793.
(3) They lived the last years of their lives in Brighton. Gottlieb’s will was proved 17 December 1812 (PROB 11/1539/365) and Martha’s 20 March 1815 (PROB 11/1566/298).
(4) London Gazette, 1 June 1858.

You may also like to read the post on Fribourg & Pontet, tobacconists, or at Georgian Gentleman’s blog post on snuff here.

Neighbours:

<– 35 Haymarket <– 52 Cornhill

33 Haymarket –> 50 Cornhill –>

W. & J. Sangster, umbrella makers

Tags

canes, umbrellas

Street View: 15, 3 Suppl., 7 Suppl. and 14 Suppl.
Addresses: 94 Fleet Street, 140 Fleet Street, 10 Royal Exchange

As early as 1786, one Samuel Sangster is mentioned as cane merchant of Fleet Street.⁽¹⁾ Whether he already occupied number 94 is not certain, but that particular address is mentioned as being in the family at least since 1802. In that year Samuel Sangster, dealer in sticks and canes, insured his business against fire.⁽²⁾ Samuel also appears as stick and cane manufacturer in the list of members of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce “extended to December 31st, 1818”.

Advertisement Palmer’s European Pocket Guide, 1882

In an advertisement in Palmer’s European Pocket Guide of 1882, the Sangster firm claims to have been established in 1777 and although 94 Fleet Street is mentioned as one of their premises, it does not necessarily follow that it all started at no. 94. The Street View elevation shows the passage to The Old Bell between numbers 94 and 95. This pub was built by Christopher Wren for the builders working on St. Bride’s Church after the 1666 Fire. For centuries, the Fleet Street entrance to the pub was through this small alleyway, but nowadays the pub has taken over what was number 96 (In 1840 Hemsley’s Baby linen warehouse) and they have a proper front in Fleet street.

The 1882 advert also show the other addresses where Sangster could be found: 140 Regent Street, 10 Royal Exhange and 75 Cheapside. The 140 Regent Street address must have been acquired between the publication of Tallis’s first series of Street Views, when 140 was still occupied by R.H. Franks’ hat shop, and 1847 when the supplements were brought out.

Samuel’s cane shop developed into an umbrella and cane shop when his two sons, William and John, took over the shop. William was born on 3 Feb. 1808 and John on 24 Nov. 1811; they were both baptised in St. Bride’s Church.⁽³⁾ At some point, however, the family moved to the ‘Paragon’, a newly developed housing estate in Streatham, Surrey where they are found in the 1841-1881 censuses. The brothers called one of their umbrellas ‘the paragon’.

Paragon advertisement in C. Dickens, Bleak House, 1852

For the ladies they developed parasols “for the fête, promenade, or sea-side”. According to London as it is Today the most important article among the stock of Sangster’s was their “Sylphide Parasol, light and graceful [… that] may now be seen in all the most fashionable drives and promenades in and about London”. The demand for this new fashion item was so great, that “the manufacturers have supplied no less than sixty thousand” of them. But one is not to forget that Sangster’s were also “the patentees of the much approved Alpaca Umbrella, of which upwards of seventy thousand have been sold”.

shopfront from London as it is Today, 1851, p. 412

Great Exhibition display from The Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue, p. 313

The British Museum has in its collection a draft for a trade card which also shows the Regent Street shopfront with the canes and umbrellas displayed in the window. The shop windows could be so large because the excise duty on glass had been repealed in 1845, which allowed for far larger display windows.

Trade Card © British Museum

In the London Society Magazine of 1864. W. & J. Sangster announce “a large assortment of sun shades and parasols, made of entirely new patterns in Lyons silk, &c.” and lest you forget, they also remind you of the fact that they “have been awarded four prize medals for the quality of their silk and alpaca umbrellas”.

Advertisement in London Society Magazine July 1864 (thanks to Grace’s Guide)

In 1855, William even wrote a book about umbrellas, Umbrellas and Their History. The illustrations were by Charles Henry Bennett (1828-1867). You can read the whole book online here if you want, but I will just show some of the pictures.

William Sangster died 3 September 1888, his brother John a few years later on 17 November 1890. Their combined estates were valued at almost £83,000.

(1) PROB 11/1144/256. He was buried on 31 July, 1786 in St. Bride’s Church.
(2) Sun Fire Office, National Archives, MS 11936/424/727039.
(3) Baptism records St. Bride’s Church: William was baptised 10 August 1808; John 10 June 1812 at the same time as his sister who had been born 17 Nov. 1809. Their mother was Harriet Cockerell and some of the baptisms of Samuel and Harriet are accidentally listed under Cockerell.

Neighbours:

<– 95 Fleet Street <– 142 Regent Street <– 9 Royal Exchange

93 Fleet Street –> 138 Regent Street –> 11 Royal Exchange –>