Henry Wix, bookseller & publisher

Tags

book trade

Street View: 78
Address: 41 New Bridge Street, Blackfriars

Always Keep Your Temper

The Merchant Taylors’ School Register lists Henry Wix, born 3 June 1803, the son of the reverend Samuel Wix, as entering the school in February 1811. This date of birth in the register is almost certainly wrong. Henry was baptised by his father at All Souls, Inworth, Essex on 14 December 1804.⁽¹⁾ After having been at school for eight years, Henry was apprenticed to John Rivington, one of the many Rivingtons who ran a well-known publishing house from St. Paul’s Churchyard. Henry’s father had to pay £200 for the privilege of seeing his son instructed as a member of the Stationers’ Company, but it paid off and in 1826, Henry was duly given the freedom of the Company after his seven years of ‘servitude’. The first publication I found with his name in the imprint is from 1829, so there is a gap of a few years, but Henry may have lingered on as a servant to the Rivingtons until he had acquired enough money to set up on his own. The 1829 Post Office Directory does not yet list him, either at New Bridge Street or anywhere else, and the 1829 tax records for 41 New Bridge Street show an empty space. However, in the 1830 tax record Wix is listed at number 41. The last tax record for him there is 1844 and in 1845 Thomas Quartermaine is listed for the property. Quartermaine was the proprietor of the York Hotel, which Tallis lists for 39 New Bridge Street, and it looks as if Quartermaine was trying to get hold of the two houses between the large property of the Albion Life Assurance Company at number 42 and his own at the corner of Little Bridge Street. We will see if he succeeded in his plan when we write the post on his hotel, but first the career of Henry Wix.

trade card (© Trustees of the British Museum)

Henry must have started his business early in 1829, or perhaps even in 1828, as on the 24th of February we find his first advertisement in The Morning Chronicle in which he announces John Halcomb’s Patriotic Address to the Inhabitant Householders of London and Westminster. That same year he also published Two Sermons; One on the General Errors, the Other on the Particular Pretensions, of the Romish Church, to which are Prefixed Some Thoughts on “Catholic Emancipation”. These sermons were by Edward Rice, but they could just as well have been by Henry’s father as Samuel Wix was opposed to Catholic emancipation.⁽²⁾ The Two Sermons were co-published with the Rivingtons, suggesting that Henry’s apprenticeship with them led to a helping hand in the first years of his independent career. In 1832, he published, again together with the Rivingtons, his father’s Reflections Concerning the Expediency and Unchristian Character of Capital Punishments, as Prescribed by the Criminal Laws of England.

New Bridge Street from Ackermann’s Repository of Arts &c., vol. 7 (1812) via Wikimedia Commons. What would become Wix’s shop can be seen on the left, next to the large white building

advert in The Liverpool Mercury etc, 9 April 1830

If you get the impression that Wix’s publications were all about religion, you would be wrong as he also co-published A History of English Gardening (1829), The Magazine and Review of Literature, Science, and the Arts, and Charles Caswell’s The Physiology of the Organ of Hearing (1833). Wix seemed to have terminated his business in 1844 or 1845 and in 1845 we find him listed at 65 St. Paul’s Churchyard – according to Tallis the address for the Religious Tract Society – as a member of the committee for the Booksellers’ Provident Fund which was being used to build a home for those in the book trade who had fallen on hard times.⁽³⁾ In the 1851 census, we find Wix at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, living with his father, the vicar at St. Bart’s. Henry’s own occupation is given as ‘assistant to a bookseller’, but unfortunately it is not stated which bookseller. In 1861, the census still records Henry living with his father at St. Bart’s, but this time with ‘no profession or occupation’. The reverend Samuel Wix died later that year, leaving the tidy sum of £80,000.⁽⁴⁾ Ten years later, Henry is found in Clay Street, Walthamstow as ‘independant’ with a coachman, a housekeeper and a house servant.

Wix died in 1881⁽⁵⁾ and The Athenaeum wrote “We hear of the death, at the age of seventy-seven, of Mr. Henry Wix, many years ago a well-known bookseller in Bridge Street, Blackfriars. Mr. Wix will be remembered by many persons as the publisher of a hymnal which at one period had a very large sale.”⁽⁶⁾ He was buried at Chingford and the inscription on his gravestone of polished grey granite reads “In affectionate remembrance / Henry Wix / Clay Hill House, Walthamstone / Died March 27, 1881 / In the 77th year of his age”.⁽⁷⁾ Henry Wix was, however, more than just a bookseller who retired early because he had the financial means to do so; he was also a keen angler.

advert in The Publishers’ Circular and Booksellers’ Record, 15 October 1844

In 1844, he published a book after his own heart, Walton’s Complete Angler. This edition of Walton’s book on angling was published together with David Bogue of 86 Fleet Street whom we will come across again in a forthcoming blog post. Walton in his time had fished on the river Lea near Amwell Hill and The Amwell Magna Fishing Club was founded in 1831, starting out as a club mainly fishing for pike, but gradually changing into a group of keen fly fishers for trout. Wix was the secretary of the club from 1851 until 1874. For more on his contribution to the club and a lovely portrait of Wix as an angler all kitted out see their website.

In 1860, a small booklet of just 16 pages On Roach Fishing and its Peculiarities was published by H.W., initials in which we can recognise Henry Wix. Proof, if necessary, of Wix’s authorship is found in a copy of the book in the New York Public Library (online here) as that contains a letter by Wix of 7 May 1860 to Thomas Westwood, addressed from the vicarage at St. Barts where he was then still living with his father, in which he wrote, “I have the greatest pleasure in forwarding a copy of my little treatise on the ‘Peculiarities of Roach fishing'”. After apologising for the less than serious manner in which he pushed it “hastily through the press” as he intended it only as a bit of fun, he said that he “would prefer, that my name be not mentioned as regards this little work”. Was he ashamed of it? Or was it just false modesty? Whatever the reason for the use of his initials rather than his full name, he gave excellent advice at the end of the booklet, which, by the way, does not just apply to angling, namely Always Keep Your Temper.

tail piece from Wix’s edition of Walton’s Complete Angler

(1) Thanks go to Feargal Starkey, archivist of the Amwell Magna Fishery, for providing the relevant information.
(2) Peter B. Nockles, ‘Wix, Samuel (1771–1861)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
(3) Gentleman’s Magazine, October 1845, p. 411.
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1861.
(5) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1881. He left an estate worth £45,000
(6) The Athenaeum, 9 April 1881.
(7) Fragmenta Genealogica, vol, XIII (1909).

Neighbours:

<– 42 New Bridge Street

40 New Bridge Street –>

J.W. Norie & Co., navigation warehouse

Tags

book trade, instrument maker, transport

Street View: 2
Address: 157 Leadenhall Street

It is sometimes a good thing that the process of OCR is not perfect, especially not for older text material, as I might not so easily have worked out that Tallis made a mistake by listing J.W. Norie as Morie, with the modern facsimile edition making it even worse by transcribing Tallis’s mistake as Moria. My first Google search for ‘moria leadenhall’ immediately gave me as a matching result a book available at archive.org that contained an advertisement for Norie and Wilson at 157 Leadenhall Street, and that put me on the right track for John William Norie who obtained his freedom of the City of London by redemption through the Company of Coopers. The notice from the Coopers’ Company about his registration already has 157 Leadenhall Street as his address. The 1834 electoral registers tell us that besides his shop, he also had property in Albany Street, Regent’s Park.

Norie did not start the navigation warehouse in Leadenhall; it was William Heather who had taken over the chart publishers Mount and Page and who ran the Naval Warehouse and Academy from 1795. When Heather retired in 1813, Norie took over and hence needed the freedom of one of the Worshipful Companies to be able to trade in the City. He had already been busy before 1813, not just as an assistant to Heather, but also as an author, or perhaps more correctly compiler, of A New and Complete Epitome of Practical Navigation (1805). On the title-page he is referred to as ‘teacher of navigation and nautical astronomy’ and in his preface he sets out his reasons for writing the book, namely the inadequacy of existing works on practical navigation. He dedicated the book to the Court of directors of the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies, which was of course a sensible move as most of the customers of the Navigation Warehouse had links with the East India Company and their headquarters were situated just a bit further up the street.

The shop is depicted in Robert Wilkinson’s Londina Illustrata (1825) as the second building from the left in the first section on the north side of Leadenhall Street, that is, on the left if you were coming from Cornhill and had just crossed Bishopsgate and Gracechurch Street. The caption explains that these houses were erected after a fire in 1765. A map of that fire, with the individual houses can be seen here. From the map, we learn that number 157 was then occupied by a linen draper, but none of the names correspond to the ones in the 1825 picture and in turn, most names of the 1825 occupants had disappeared by the time Tallis produced his booklet on the street some 15 years later, with the exception of Norie at no. 157, Robinson at no. 153 and Corser at no. 152.

There is nothing left now of the shop as street widening has taken its toll. There is, however, a tangible reminder of the shop in the Charles Dickens Museum. They have on display the figure of a midshipman who used to adorn the Norie premises as a shop sign.⁽¹⁾ The poor man is squashed a bit against the ceiling in the museum and not so easy to photograph (no flash allowed), but it is great that he has not been thrown in a skip when the shop was demolished. Dickens used the navigation warehouse in Dombey & Son as the model for Sol Gills’ shop with one of the “little timber midshipmen in obsolete naval uniforms, eternally employed outside the shopdoors of nautical instrument-makers in taking observations of the hackney coaches”. The little midshipman appears throughout Dickens’s story, following the ups and downs of Gills’ shop, and ending with a new coat of paint, still gleefully taking the measure of the hackney coaches.

Illustration by Hablot Browne (‘Phiz’) from the 1848 edition of Dombey and Son

portrait of Norie by Adam Buck, after Williams (Solomon Williams?), watercolour, circa 1803 (© National Portrait Gallery, London)

John William Norie was born in 1772 and died in 1843. He probably retired in 1840, as that is when the partnership between the executors of George Wilson and Norie came to an end.⁽²⁾ Norie’s will provides a number of clues. For starters, it was drawn up in Edinburgh, because he was at that time “residing in Princes Street Edinburgh in order to settle my affairs and to prevent all disputes that might otherwise arise in regard to my means and estate after my death”.⁽³⁾ In fact, he was to die there at the end of 1843. He names William Nash of St. Thomas’s Hospital, his brother-in-law John Hodgson Anderson, and his son William Heather Norie as executors. Besides a few named bequests, he leaves his three daughters £5,500 each and the rest of his estate is to go to his son William Heather.⁽⁴⁾ From the bequests he lists, we can work out that he had a brother Evelyn Thomas Francis, a nephew John William, and five sisters. All this information makes it fairly easy to work out that John William was the eldest son of James Norie of Moray and Dorothy Mary Fletcher of London. James had been trained for the Presbyterian ministry and ran a school at Burr Street, London. You can see a portrait of him here.

After John William’s retirement, the business was continued by Charles Wilson, the son of George Wilson who had been Norie’s partner in the past. The Land tax for 1840 is still in Norie’s name, but in 1841 it is Wilson who is paying the tax. His name continued in the tax records till 1882 when his name is given as “late Charles Wilson” and an annotation indicates that a new building is being put up: “Premises in course of erection” as the tax man phrased it. The business relocated to 156 Minories, and in time amalgamated with various other firms to become Imray, Laurie, Norie & Wilson, but it is nowadays just plain Imray of St. Ives, Cambridgeshire (more on them here).

title-page of J.W. Norie’s A New and Complete Epitome of Practical Navigation, 1805

part of a nautical chart by Norie, 1837 (Source: Library of Congress, online here)

octant, c. 1795 (Source: Land and Sea Collection, see here)

imprint of J.W. Norie’s New sailing directions for the Adriatic sea, or Gulf of Venice, 1843

advertisement for The Corinthian Yachtsman. Note the new address

(1) On loan since 1946 from Laurie, Norie, Imray & Wilson, see here.
(2) The London Gazette, 22 September 1840.
(3) PROB 11/1991/402.
(4) Evelina Harriet, Frances Charlotte, and Ann Isabella.

Neighbours:

<– 158 Leadenhall Street

156 Leadenhall Street –>

Elizabeth Huntly, seal and copper-plate engraver

Tags

book trade, seal engraver

Street View: 9
Address: 74 New Bond Street

Thomas Day Huntly and his sister Mary, two of the five children of William Huntly and Elizabeth Lockyer, were baptised in Bath Abbey on the 21st of December 1783, the feast day of St. Thomas, hence young Thomas’s name.⁽¹⁾ In 1796, he was apprenticed to a well-known engraver of Bath, William Hibbart (also spelled Hibbert) and his son John. Hibbart was a printmaker, engraver, and copper-plate printer, who advertised as a teacher of the trade. William paid Hibbart the premium of £26 6s for the privilege, which was quite a substantial sum of money to lay out on the vocational education of a younger son (Thomas was the 5th child and the 3rd son). If Thomas served the regular 7 years’ apprenticeship, he would have been ready to set up on his own in 1803, but there is no evidence that he had his own business that early in his career. He may have worked for his elder brother John Lockyer Huntly who worked as an engraver in Bath from Pulteney Street and later from Sydney Buildings. The first we hear of Thomas Day in London is on 15 October 1811 when he married Elizabeth Allen at St. James’s Piccadilly. The marriage record does not give Thomas’s profession or address, so it is unclear what he was doing and where he was living at that time.

The first record of him in the land tax records for 74 New Bond Street is in 1816. In 1815, the property appears to be empty as no name has been filled in, and in 1814 the name of the previous occupant, Michael Visterin, a corset or truss-maker, has been crossed out. Visterin’s name had been listed at number 74 from 1809. The tax records for New Bond Street are slightly confusing, as two numbering systems have been used. Sometimes the house number is given, sometimes some sort of administrative number, sometimes both, and sometimes neither, as for instance in 1816. Number 74 was administrative number 62, and therefore number 74 is in reality house number 86. The administrative numbers do not correspond – as I first thought – with the house numbers before the renumbering in c.1805 as number 74 was then number 69 (see Horwood’s map of 1799). Fortunately, the record for 1814 gives both house and administrative numbers and although Huntly is not yet listed, it clearly shows his later neighbours: Harry Phillips, the auctioneer, at number 73 (admin nos 59-61) and William Tarner at 75 (admin no 63). At the time Tallis produced his booklets, Phillips was still working from number 73 and number 75 was occupied by Thomas Tarner, bookseller and stationer. Huntly probably moved into number 74 earlier than the tax records suggest, as the Westminster Rate Books already have him paying for the property in 1813.

1814 Land Tax record with number 74 no longer occupied by Michael Visterin (click to enlarge)

Horwood 1799

Thomas Day probably shared the building with others as, for instance, an insurance record and advertisements show one John Ewer Poole, tobacconist, working from number 74 at the same time as when Huntly is paying the tax. Poole had rather an eclectic career. In the 1811 London Directory he is listed as a jeweller in Gough Square, he then became a tobacconist in Bond Street and when he went bankrupt in 1821 he was said to be an auctioneer and appraiser.⁽²⁾ Below two advertisements for the gentlemen:

Morning Chronicle, 21 February 1818

Morning Chronicle, 16 October 1819

After Poole left, number 74 was also used by Wallis and Co, who sold The Recreative Review from the premises. But despite these other occupants, Thomas Day Huntly continued his engravers business and his name is listed for number 74 in all the relevant directories. He engraved seals, but also bookplates (ex-libris), and he supplemented his income by organising exhibitions of paintings and/or drawings (see for instance the 1818 advertisement above); the admission price for these events was 1s.

seal and box from c.1830 (Source: Puckering’s via rubylane.com)

In 1830, Thomas expanded the business to include 167 Regent Street, but he was not to reap the rewards of the expansion for very long as he died in late 1832 and was buried at St. George’s on the 13th of December. He left all his property, including the business, to his widow “for her personal use” and if she was to remarry, her new husband “shall not have it in his power to dispose of the aforementioned business or trade or any other property” that was part of the estate. After Elizabeth’s death, the estate was to be sold for the benefit of the children.⁽³⁾ If either of the sons wanted to have the business, they were allowed to purchase it at a price determined by “persons competent to judge the same”. No new husband was in the picture and neither did the sons take over 74 Bond Street, so it was Elizabeth whom Tallis found on the premises when he compiled his Street Views.

advertisement in Street View booklet 9

The 1841 census found Elizabeth at number 74 with sons George and Samuel; daughter Selina used the address in 1843 when she dissolved a partnership with Amelia Liberty as milliners and dress makers.⁽⁴⁾ In 1851, the census lists Elizabeth with her sons Thomas and Samuel at number 74, and in 1861 with her daughter Ann. She died in 1868 in Marylebone; probate was only granted in 1885 to daughter Ann as the residuary legatee.⁽⁵⁾ Elizabeth must have relinquished the business sometime after the census of 1861, where she is still listed as engraver and printer, and before the end of 1865 as from then onwards, advertisements appear for Henry Turner and Co., homoeopathic chemists and medical publishers. The tax records still list Elizabeth in 1864, but no longer in 1865, so she probably left in 1863 or 1864 – tax records tended to be a bit slow in updating the names of property owners. In 1869, John Keene took over the shop in New Bond Street after his partnership with the Turners was dissolved. See for the rest of the story on the chemist’s here. It is not entirely clear what happened to 167 Regent Street. Pigot’s Directory of 1839, and the 1843 and 1851 Post Office Directories just show Elizabeth Huntly at 74 New Bond Street, although she apparently still paid tax and rates on the Regent Street property, at least until 1843. The Post Office Directories (and Tallis, by the way) give William Eyre, hosier, as the occupant of number 167, but he may just have rented (part of?) the shop. I will try to find out the exact circumstances when I write the post on Eyre.

1876 publication by Keene and his partner Ashwell

Source: thesaleroom.com

74 New Bond Street as the Huntleys knew it no longer exists. In c.1900, a new building, designed by Henry John Treadwell (1861-1910) replaced the old one. The Treadwell building is now Grade II listed; you can read the listing text here and see the building in Google Street View here.

(1) I am most grateful to Debra Lyons, a Huntly descendent, who sent me a lot of information on the family, which has been incorporated into my text.
(2) The London Gazette, 16 January 1821.
(3) PROB 11/1809/120. Children mentioned in his will: Thomas Johnson, William, Elizabeth, Mary Anne, Selina, John Lockyer (named after his uncle), George, Samuel Hazard, Anne, Elizabeth Selina.
(4) The London Gazette, 2 October 1846.
(5) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1885. Estate valued at £150.

Neighbours:

<– 75 New Bond Street

73 New Bond Street –>

Dolby’s Dining Rooms

Tags

book trade, catering, tobacco

Street View: 62
Address: 96 Wardour Street

In 1815, Ralph Rylance wrote in his Epicure’s Almanack that the York Chop-house could be found in Wardour Street, across from St. Anne’s Court. The proprietor at the time was a Mr. Clark, and, according to Rylance

the house is very neatly fitted up, and the handmaids are in general way neatly dressed, which circumstance, added to the goodness of the cheer, constitutes no small temptation to youth of sanguine temperament and vigorous digestive organs. The beef steaks and chops here are capitally cooked.⁽¹⁾

The chop-house has made it into online search results, not so much because of the neat dresses of the waitresses, but because some of its clientèle became famous; Washington Irving, Edgar Allen Poe and Charles Robert Leslie all dined there. The editor of the modern edition of Rylance’s guide tells us helpfully that Mr. Clark was Christopher Clark, and that leads us to a notice in The London Gazette of 26 October 1827, in which Christopher Clark is described as formerly a captain in the Cumberland militia, but afterwards of 1 Short Street, Finsbury Square, then of 384 Oxford Street, then of 96 Wardour Street, eating house keeper, and lately of 34 Carmarthen Street, Fitzroy Square, out of business. In 1809, Charles Turner, a builder of Hampstead Road insures 96 Wardour Street with the Sun Fire Office. The actual occupant of number 96 is one Pitt, a print seller. In 1828, the executors of Charles Turner once again insure 96 Wardour Street, but this time the Sun Fire Office record states that the property is used by Dolby, coffee house keeper. This is Samuel Dolby who is listed as chop house keeper when the baptism of his son George is registered in 1830 at St. James’s, Piccadilly. But Samuel had not always been a caterer, as earlier records show.

A leg-of-beef shop from George Cruikshank’s Omnibus (1842). Cruikshank did not depict Dolby’s establishment, but the York chop-house may very well have looked much the same (© Trustees of the British Museum)

The baptism record for son George also gives the mother’s name, Charlotte, which helps to find the other children of the couple. The eldest child seems to have been Charlotte Helen who was born on 17 May 1821, and baptised a little later at St. Anne, Soho.⁽²⁾ The family’s address is given as St. Anne’s Court and Dolby’s occupation as ‘tobacconist’. This matches the entry in the 1820 Poll Book for St. Paul and St. Ann, which lists him at number 7 St. Anne’s Court. The Poll Book must have been slightly behind with the current state of affairs, as Samuel’s brother Thomas wrote in his Memoirs that during his own trial for seditious libel in the summer of 1821, Samuel “had only about a year and a half been settled in Wardour Street”, which makes it early 1820.⁽³⁾ An 1824 Old Bailey case tells us a lot more about Samuel’s shop, which, by the way, was then still at number 95 Wardour Street. One William Ramsden Robinson is indicted for stealing 20 printed books valued at 10s from Dolby. Dolby explained the situation in his shop to the magistrates, “I keep a tobacco shop which communicates with my stationer’s shop, by two glass doors. I can see in one shop what is going on in the other”. While Samuel Dolby was in the tobacco department, his wife Charlotte sorted out the issues required by the accused of “Dolby’s Acting Plays”, which had been published by Samuel’s brother Thomas, and put them on the counter in front of her customer.⁽⁴⁾ When her back was turned to find some additional numbers the prisoner said he also wanted, he grabbed the books that were on the counter and ran. Mr. and Mrs. Dolby were certain of their identification and, despite an alibi provided by the prisoner’s brother, the jury found him guilty.⁽⁵⁾

But when and why did Samuel Dolby turn from a tobacconist cum stationer to a chop house keeper? In Pigot’s Directory of 1825 he is still listed at number 95 as a tobacconist, but the 1826 Land Tax records for St. James, Westminster, show him between Harrison and Vidall. Although the tax records do not give any house numbers, Harrison is the first name under the heading of ‘Wardour Street’ in that particular section, indicating that his shop was on a corner, and Tallis has Harrison, pawnbroker, at number 95, and Vidall, carver & gilder, at number 97. This certainly seems to indicate that Dolby took over Clark’s chop-house when the latter ‘lately’ removed himself to Carmarthen Street as The London Gazette of 1827 tells us. Does this mean that Dolby gave up his other business? No, it does not, as as late as 1843, The Post Office Directory lists Charlotte, by then a widow, as both tobacconist at number 95 and keeper of the York chop-house at number 96. But the Dolbys seem to have given up on the stationary side of their business in the late 1820s and this may very well have been a case of collateral damage of his brother Thomas’s bankruptcy in 1825. Samuel may have been more an outlet for Thomas’s publications rather than an independent stationer and the bankruptcy would have cut off his access to cheap editions. See the post on The Printshop Window blog for lots more information on Thomas Dolby’s fortunes and misfortunes.

When Samuel died is a bit of a mystery, but a Samuel Dolby was buried at St. Mary’s, Greenwich, on the 5th of December, 1831, and he is described as of St. James, Westminster. No will has been found for him, so I am not absolutely sure it is him and I cannot explain why he should be buried at Greenwich, but by 1835, the tax records were listing Charlotte and not Samuel, so he must have died before 1835. Although I have not found a marriage registration for Samuel and Charlotte which might have given an indication where he came from or who his father was, we do know that he came from Northamptonshire. The only other snippet we know is that Charlotte came from Oxfordshire as she gives that as her place of birth in the 1851 census and we can surmise that her last name was Niven as daughters Rebecca and Sarah were baptised as Rebecca Niven and Sarah Amy Niven, but that is as far as I got with their origins.

Detail of Horwood’s 1799 map

Charlotte continued to run the two businesses, but seems to have sold the tobacconist’s section in or before 1851 as in the 1851 Post Office Directory she is only listed with the chop-house. She did not continue to live above the shop after her husband’s death, as in the 1841 census she could be found in Newman Street, Marylebone, with her daughters Charlotte, Rebecca and Sarah. In the 1851 census, she is living in Hinde Street with daughters Charlotte, Eliza, Jane and Sarah. She made at least one more move, probably to live with her daughter (see below), as her burial and probate records give 5 Wimpole Street as the address where she died in July 1866.⁽⁶⁾ Two of Samuel and Charlotte’s children made a name for themselves, each in their own way. Son George became the manager of Charles Dickens’s reading tour in America, and daughter Charlotte Helen became a celebrated singer.

George was appointed manager of Dickens’s readings tour in 1866. The men probably already knew each other as Dickens was a friend of Charlotte Helen. Dickens and Dolby became great friends and frequently dined together. These tours in England were so successful that Dolby was also appointed manager of the American tour (1867-1868).⁽⁷⁾ In 1885, he wrote Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: the Story of the Readings Tour in Great Britain and America (1866-1870), which he “affectionately inscribed” to his sister Charlotte. George at some point went into partnership with Richard D’Oyly Carte, but that partnership as “opera and concert agents” was dissolved in 1876.⁽⁸⁾ Dolby also arranged the English tour of Mark Twain to whom he wrote a short note on 4 January 1874 with directions to his house at “2 Devonshire Terrace, Hyde Park, at foot of Craven Hill, one shilling cab fare from the Langham Hotel”. The note said that the Dolbys dined at six o’clock and that they were looking forward to seeing Twain and his friend Stoddard.⁽⁹⁾ Despite all these grand acquaintances, Dolby fell on hard times, it is said because of his personal extravagance, and the 1891 census found him at the Cleveland Street Asylum. He died in 1900 as a pauper in Fulham infirmary.

carte-de-visite for Charlotte (© National Portrait Gallery)

Charlotte Helen was listed as “musical” in the 1851 census, but she was more than just a bit musical. In 1832, she entered the Royal Academy of Music and received a scholarship in 1837. In 1845, she sang in Leipzig under the auspices of Mendelssohn, which was such a success that he even dedicated his Opus 57 to her. She subsequently went on a tour through the Netherlands and France and in 1860 married Prosper Philippe Sainton, a French violonist who had been living in London since 1844. Charlotte became a celebrated contralto vocalist with her own academy which she opened in 1872 after her retirement from professional singing. Charlotte did a lot better than her brother and when she died in 1885, she left almost £1,600.⁽¹⁰⁾ The probate registration gives her as formerly of 5 Wimpole Street, but lately of 71 Gloucester Place, Hyde Park.⁽¹¹⁾

Advertisement for Charlotte’s music academy in the 1874 London Illustrated News

And the York chop-house? In the 1849 Land Tax records, Charlotte Dolby is listed between Harrison (the pawnbroker at number 95) and Vidall (carver & gilder at number 97) who were the same neighbours as we saw in the 1826 tax record, but from 1850 onwards, the Land Tax records suddenly list a Mrs Niven. Can we assume a relation of Charlotte? It is unlikely that Charlotte suddenly reverted to her maiden name, as in other records she is still known as Mrs Dolby. The name of Niven has disappeared again in the 1856 Post Office Directory and is replaced by that of dining room keeper Charles Alexander Halfhide. His name, however, disappeared a year later, and various other proprietors can be found in the following years, although it is unclear whether they continued the chop-house, and that is as far as I can take the story of the York chop-house.

—————————-
(1) Ralph Rylance, The Epicure’s Almanack. Eating and Drinking in Regency London. The Original 1815 Guidebook, ed. by Janet Ing Freeman (2012), p. 117.
(2) The other children were: Samuel (1823-), Eliza (1825-), Jane (1826-), Rebecca Niven (1828-), George (1830-1900), and Sarah Amy Niven (1833-).
(3) Thomas Dolby, Memoirs of T. D. late Printer and Publisher, of Catherine Street, Strand, written by himself (London, 1827), p. 131. Thanks go to Mathew Crowther for sending me this information.
(4) From 1823 to 1825 Thomas Dolby issued his series of plays in paper wrappers at sixpence per number. Thomas Dolby, publisher and printer, had his business in the Strand and at 34 Wardour Street. Read more on Thomas Dolby here.
(5) Old Bailey case t18240715-101.
(6) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1866. Probate is granted to son George and the effects are gives as under £100.
(7) The Oxford Companion to Charles Dickens. You can also read more about Dolby here.
(8) The London Gazette, 4 February 1876.
(9) Mark Twain’s Letters, vol. 6: 1874-1875 (2002).
(10) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1885. Probate is granted to her husband.
(11) More information on Charlotte and Prosper can be found in the Oxford Dictionary of Biography.

Neighbours:

<– 95 Wardour Street

97 Wardour Street –>

Alexander Cheffins, music seller

Tags

book trade, clothing, music

Street View: 65
Address: 4 Mortimer Street

The index to booklet 65 of the Street Views, lists Cheffin, music seller, at 4 Mortimer Street, but the elevation in the street plan gives the name of Morse, bookseller & stationer, so what is going on? The bookseller was Edward Morse, who could be found at number 4 in Pigot’s Directory of 1839 and in the 1841 census, but that is more or less the end of the story for Morse, as I have not been able to find out anything else about him; he must have had a very short career indeed. I will leave Mr. Morse for what he was and continue with Cheffin whose name was usually spelled with an ‘s’, so Cheffins. If you search online for Cheffins, you will invariably end up with information about Charles Frederic Cheffins, but that was Alexander’s brother. Charles was the elder of the brothers and baptised in December 1807 at St. Bride’s as the son of Richard and Jane Cheffins. Richard Cheffins worked for the New River Waterworks Company and was a member of the Pattenmakers’ Company, although he described himself as surveyor on the indenture document when he took Charles on as his apprentice in 1822. Charles had a glittering career as mechanical draughtsman, lithographer, cartographer, consulting engineer, and surveyor. He published many maps, of which the majority depicted new railways that were either proposed or being built.

London & Birmingham Railway Map, published by Chas. F. Cheffins, Surveyor, Engineering Draughtsman & Lithographer, 1835 (Source: Andrew Cox PBFA via Abebooks)

Charles became assistant to John Ericson who was working on a faster engine for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. This connection with Liverpool brought Charles into contact with Lucinda Harrison Grey, whom he married there in October 1830, but the couple went to live in London and the 1841 census finds them at 9 Southampton Buildings, Holborn, the address Cheffins continued to use throughout his life. Only in the very last year of his life, 1861, after the death of his wife the year before, did he move to 15 Gloucester Terrace, Hyde Park.⁽¹⁾

portrait of Alexander (Source: Kateelliott50 at ancestry.co.uk)

But back to 4 Mortimer Street where brother Alexander Cheffins had his music business, or at least, he had for a short while. Alexander, as we saw, was the son of Richard and Jane Cheffins, and he too was baptised at St. Bride’s, on 17 July 1814. In February 1837, he married Ann Pattison at All Souls, St. Marylebone. The earliest I found him in Mortimer Street is on the baptism registration for their son Frederick who was baptised on 22 May 1838. Alexander gives his occupation as pianoforte maker, so he was definitely involved in the music industry. The next child for the couple to be baptised is Anne Louisa (21 Aug. 1839). Alexander is then listed as a musical instrument seller, but the address given is 15 Mortimer Street. That section of Mortimer Street is not listed by Tallis, so I cannot say who occupied number 15 before Cheffins. Pigot’s Directory of 1839 also lists Cheffins at number 15, so the occupation of number 4 was as short-lived as it was for Edward Morse. And so was their sojourn at number 15, as the 1841 census already reports them at Upper Rosoman Street, Clerkenwell. Alexander is then a “professor of music” (see the post on Anthony Brown, musical instrument maker, for other residents at that address). In 1844, the Cheffins family lives in Granville Square, in 1845-1851 in Weston Street, in 1852-1856 in Ampton Street, all the while with Alexander described as professor of music. But then, in 1859, when the youngest child, Percy, is baptised, the family is living at Brunswick Street and Alexander is suddenly described as surveyor.⁽²⁾ What happened? Was music no longer profitable enough? Or perhaps, he was not as musical as he made out? The only publication I found for him is a ballad, “The Happy Bride” which begins: They said she was married. The text is by J.H. Jewell and the music by Cheffins.⁽³⁾

Whatever the reason for Alexander’s change of profession, from 1859 onwards he is variously described as draughtsman or surveyor. In other words, he followed in his father and brother’s footsteps. And in 1865, he is given a provisional patent as a mechanical draughtsman for an invention to improve the construction of omnibuses.⁽⁴⁾ In 1871 and 1881 the census found him at Kentish Town. He died in 1885. Son Edwin had a similar job change as his father; in 1871 he was listed as a railway clerk, but in 1881 as a pianoforte tuner. Music, drawing and mechanics were apparently skills that went together in this particular family.

Milliner from Tabart’s Book of Trades, volume 2 (1806)

And 4 Mortimer Street? We saw Edward Morse there in the 1841 census and he had his name plastered on the front of the building in the Street View, but most of the building must have been overrun by the women of Anna Maria Hammans’s milliner’s business. The occupation of the building by the Hammanses pre- and post-dates that of Morse and Cheffin, so it seems that it was a multi-business property. The Hammanses were already there in early 1834, when Maria and Rebecca Hammans of 4 Mortimer Street dissolve their partnership, but possibly long before that.⁽⁵⁾ In 1841, Anna and at least nine women were living at the property, besides bookseller Morse, a porter and three gentlemen who were listed as independent. One of the milliners was Elizabeth Abrahall who is mentioned in Anna’s will of 1845 as her sister and who is left the business.⁽⁶⁾ The 1851 census does indeed see Elizabeth Abrahall at number 4 as dressmaker, although the 1851 Post Office Directory still has the name of Anna Maria Hammans for number 4. The 1856 Post Office Directory names the firm Mrs Elizabeth Hammans & Co. By 1861, however, her place has been taken by Eliza Johnson, a lodging house keeper. And is this the whole story? No, censuses and Tallis do not tell us everything. We know, for instance, that in 1848, one Jacques Robert Lavenne, heraldic engraver and fancy stationer, was listed as “late of no. 4” in the bankruptcy records. And the same goes for John James MacGregor, surgeon, who had to appear before the commissioners in 1855. What does seem clear is that 4 Mortimer Street, contrary to many long-running single-family businesses listed in the Street Views, had numerous occupants, as well as a resident family not mentioned in Tallis, in the years just before, during and after the period in which Tallis produced his booklets.

—————-
(1) Charles was buried at All Souls, Kensal Green 28 October 1861. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1861. Estate valued at under £35,000. Sons Charles Richard and George Alexander were two of the executors.
(2) Children: Frederick, bapt. 22-05-1838; Anne Louisa, bapt. 21-8-1839; Henry Alexander, bapt. 31-10-1841; Richard Albert, bapt. 8-9-1844; Julia, bapt. 8-11-1845; Herbert George, bapt. 23-05-1852; Edwin John, bapt. 17-9-1854; Alfred Courtenay, bapt. 8-6-1856; and Percy Frank, bapt. 28-8-1859.
(3) British Library music collection H.282.o.(8).
(4) Patent Office, Chronological and Descriptive Index of Patents, Cheffins, 27th July 1865.
(5) The Hammanses came from Garford, Berkshire. Rebecca, Maria, Anna Maria and Elizabeth were all daughters of William Hammans and his wife Elizabeth.
(6) PROB 11/2022/350. Elizabeth Hammans had married John Abrahall by licence on 28 July 1828.

Neighbours:

<– 5 Mortimer Street

3 Mortimer Street –>

Stephen and George Hooper, stationers and printers

Tags

book trade

Street Views: 15 and 13 Suppl
Address: 179 and 45 Fleet Street

A search for the history of 179 Fleet Street brought me to the trade card collection in the British Museum where they have a card for Thomas Neave, an oil and colourman. Neave has left precious little trace of his life, but I found an indenture for the year 1800 when he was apprenticed to James Soames. This document tells us that his father was David Neave of Leadenhall Street, a victualler, and an insurance record of 1815 places Thomas at 179 Fleet Street, but that is more or less it. If he started working at number 179 straight after he obtained his freedom, he would have been there from 1807 or 1808 onwards, but certainly no longer than till 1816. The only tax record I could find for Neave was from 1816, so all we can say with a hundred per cent certainty is that he was at 179 Fleet Street in 1815 and 1816. In 1817, the property at 179 Fleet Street is registered for William Parker; in 1828 for Parker’s widow Elizabeth; in 1829 it is empty; and from 1831 to 1834 a William Knight who can be found there. And from 1835, the tax records show the name of Hooper, the subjects of this post. More on the Hoopers themselves in a minute, but first something about the developments in the area and the consequences for the Hooper premises.

trade card (source: British Museum Collection)

Neave did leave us this nice trade card which depicts his shop. On the right of the picture you can see a small section of the neighbouring business, Peel’s Coffee House, and on the left you can see the shop of Samuel Nock, a gun maker. Peel’s Coffee House was still there when Tallis produced his Street View in ±1839, but Nock and Neave had made way for Mickham, a tobacconist, and S. & G. Hooper, stationers and printers, respectively. The street between the two bollards on the Neave trade card is Fetter Lane and it is clearly not wide enough to take a large amount of traffic. In 1838, the Public Record Office Act placed the records of the Courts of Law and their offices in a non-ministerial department under the authority of the Master of the Rolls for safekeeping.⁽¹⁾ Plans were put forward to build a new repository on a site between Chancery Lane and Fetter Lane, but concerns were raised about the width of Fetter Lane and the decision was taken to widen it by removing a row of houses on the east side of the lane, thereby almost completely obliterating Fleur de Lys Court with the exception of a small section on the north side. See for maps of the before and after situation the post on Peel’s Coffee House. The houses that had to make way were gradually bought up and in 1842, the Hoopers at number 179 had to move. I think they temporarily removed their business to number 203 as that is where the 1843 Post Office Directory finds them, but the property at number 45, on the exact opposite side of the street of number 179, became vacant somewhere in 1843 as Charles John Eckford went bankrupt, and that is where they ended up.

section of Tallis’s Street View showing numbers 179 and 45 opposite

Stephen and George Hooper were the sons of another Stephen and their City freedom documents (by patrimony) give their father as a Currier. The brothers were in business together until 1848 when their partnership was dissolved. Stephen continued the business, later together with his son Stephen Wastel. They specialised as law stationers, no surprise with the Inns of Court so close by. The lawyers no doubt had need of parchment sheets to use for producing official deeds, and various advertisements for the Hoopers mention them as ‘stationers and parchment dealers’. In the 1851 census, Stephen’s son, Stephen Wastel, was found in Llandilo-fawr, Carmarthenshire. He was described as a commercial traveller in the paper line, so he may very well have been sourcing and/or selling paper and parchment for his father. The 1851 Post Office Directory just lists Stephen at number 45, but by 1856, he must have taken his son as partner, as the Post Office Directory for that year lists them as “Hooper Stephen & Son, stationrs & parchmnt dlrs”.

Not long afterwards, Stephen must have retired as the 1857 tax records name Stephen Wastel as the proprietor of number 45. An Old Bailey case of 1858, in which an employee is accused of stealing money, has Ebenezer Purcell describe himself as foreman to Stephen Wastel. He then confused the issue of Hooper’s occupation somewhat, as all of a sudden Hooper is described as a grocer of Fleet Street. Purcell claims to be the foreman of Hooper’s grocery business and as such had taken on the accused as a porter. The prisoner denied being in Hooper’s employ and Hooper testified that his main business was that of a stationer in Fleet Street, but that he also ran the grocery business of Barnum, Breddall & Co. which he had kept under that name so “that it may not interfere with [his] other business”. Purcell had the management of the grocery business with which Hooper claimed he had little to do, presumably meaning that he had little to do with the everyday running of the shop.⁽²⁾ I have not found any information on Barnum and Breddall, so am not even sure whether that business was also run from number 45, or whether it was situated somewhere else in Fleet Street. No house numbers were mentioned in the transcription of the court case, so it remains unclear where exactly this grocery was. The 1856 Post Office Directory certainly does not list them, either in Fleet Street or in the list of grocers.

Advertisement in The Solicitor’s Journal & Reporter, 2 December 1865

Whatever this excursion into grocery may have been, and it probably did not last very long, the 1861 census just describes Hooper as stationer, employing 10 men.⁽³⁾ Stephen Wastel extended the business by not just providing lawyers with the physical articles they needed for their profession, such as stamps and paper, the firm also acted as agents or middlemen, providing matches for partnerships or clerks. And a few years later, Hooper even ventured into money lending. In 1874 or 1875, he moved the business to 69 Ludgate Hill to a building he shared with Treloar‘s carpet business. Number 45 is listed in the Land Tax records of 1875 for the “proprietors of the Scotsman’, who remained there until they moved into their new building on the corner of Fleet Street and Bouverie Street (photo here).

Advertisement in The Law Times, 2 February 1867

In later life, Stephen Wastel, and his second wife, Mathilda, resided in Deptford (1881 census), in Ramsgate (1891 census), and at Ebury Street, Chelsea where he died on 23 April 1893.⁽⁴⁾ But the business continued after the owner’s death, at least till the early 1900s. The illustrations below show the range of services and goods they provided, from stationers’ goods and telegrams, to printing and paper making.

bill, 1901 (Source: Ebay)

top of a letter, 1886 (Source: Ebay)

trade card, after 1874 (Source: Victorian Typography & Design)

(1) For more information see here.
(2) Old Bailey case t18581025-940. The 1861 census finds Ebenezer Purcell as ‘managing grocer’, but they do not say where.
(3) He is living at Oval, Kennington, with his wife Eliza and two stepdaughters, Mary Ann and Fanny White. Fanny died in 1862 and is buried at Norwood Cemetery. Eliza died in 1872 and is buried in the same grave (8196-78).
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1893. Estate valued at over £16,000.

Neighbours:

<– 180 Fleet Street	177-178 Fleet Street –>
<– 46 Fleet Street	44 Fleet Street –>

Richard Mills, musical circulating library

Tags

book trade, music

Street View: 9
Address: 140 New Bond Street

We saw in the post on Christopher Lonsdale that he used to work for Robert Birchall, music seller at 140 New Bond Street (was 129 from c. 1780-c. 1785 and 133 from c. 1788 to ±1816/7), but later set up on his own at 26 Old Bond Street. This post is about the shop at 140 New Bond Street where, after the death of Robert Birchall in December 1819, Christopher Lonsdale, Birchall’s daughter Mary, and Richard Mills formed a partnership to continue the music business. Mary Birchall left the partnership in 1829 and in October 1834 Mills and Lonsdale decided to discontinue the remaining partnership with Mills to stay at 140 New Bond Street and Lonsdale to start his own business. Richard Mills was the nephew of Mabel Mills, the wife of Robert Birchall, but the Millses were also related to the Lonsdales as Richard’s grandmother was the sister of the Christopher Lonsdale who died in 1797. Moreover, Christopher the younger who moved to 26 Old Bond Street, that is, the grandson of the Christopher who died in 1797, married Mary Ann Mills, the sister of Richard Mills, his former business partner. All quite complicated, but we will forget about the Lonsdales in this post and concentrate on Richard Mills.

trade card Birchall and Beardmore ±1783 (Source: British Museum Collection)

In an advertisement in The Literary Gazette, and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c. of 21 February 1835, that is, 15 years after Birchall’s death, Mills described himself as “nephew and successor to the late Robert Birchall” who will continue the business “established nearly 60 years ago”. He draws particular attention to “the musical circulating library [which] will be continued as usual, as R.M. has been in the above house twenty-three years, and has paid particular attention to this department of the business”, so Richard had already been responsible for the library when Birchall was still alive and intended to continue with this part of the business. The rules are made clear in an 1816 booklet; no writing in the books allowed on fine of paying the set price; and the library was open from 8 o’clock in the morning till 8 o’clock in the evening, but “no longer”. There is no exclamation mark after this last clause, but it certainly feels as if there were customers annoyingly banging on the door trying to exchange material after eight. Why else the warning?

Rules and regulations of the circulating library (Source: British Museum Collection)

The 1841 census found Richard Mills, his wife Elizabeth, and their growing family at number 140 where they were to remain till they handed over to their successors Hill & Co, but let’s not get ahead and stay with the Millses for a bit. In 1841 four children are at home (Elizabeth, Thomas, Arthur and Robert); the eldest sons, Richard Maitland and Henry, are at school in Greenwich. In 1851, Richard Maitland and Henry are back home and described as assistants to their father, and so is Arthur. Son Thomas has chosen a different career and is a clerk in a foreign merchant’s office. The youngest son Robert is described as ‘scholar’, that is, still at school. Ten years on, in 1861, Richard Maitland and Robert are working in the business as assistants. Richard senior died 28 November 1870⁽¹⁾ and widow Elizabeth is named the head of the household in the 1871 census. Richard Maitland and Robert are still there and listed as music sellers. Thomas is also living in Bond Street and is listed as clerk, but whether he is a clerk in the music business or somewhere else is not made clear. In 1881, Richard Maitland, by then a widower,⁽²⁾ is the head of the household and living with him are Arthur and Robert. Ten years later, Richard has married again, Robert is still there, but no sign of Arthur.

advertisement in Faust: a romantic opera (1842)

Title on sheet music for a duet from the opera Faust (Source: National Trust Collection)

And the 1891 census was the last to list the Millses at 140 New Bond Street as in 1895, W.E. Hill & Sons (that is William Ebsworth and his sons William Henry, Arthur Frederick and Alfred Ebsworth) took over and immediately rebuilt the shop to their requirements. They specialised in string instruments and had started out in Wardour Street, adding 38 New Bond Street to their emporium and then moving their whole business to number 140 in 1895. The building is now Grade II listed and according to the listing text it was designed/built in the Flemish style by Frederick James Eedle and Sydney Herbert Meyers.⁽³⁾ You can read more about the Hill family and their track record as musical instrument makers and restorers here. The Hill Company was dissolved in 1992, but the building is still there and the ornate ground floor surround can still be admired (or loathed, depending on your architectural taste), although the shop windows have been replaced by a more modern version.

trade card for Hill & Sons at Wardour Street (Source: British Museum Collection)

shop front c. 1795 of Hill & Sons (Source: jiyugaoka website)

present-day shop front (Source: Google Street View)

(1) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1871. Probate is granted to widow Elizabeth and son Richard Maitland. Effects valued at under £7,000.
(2) He had married Fanny Judith Grattan, a widow, on 17 April 1876 at Langham, Westminster. She died in 1879 and Richard married again in 1882 with Martha Jane Aves from Cambridge.
(3) Listing NGR: TQ2887780824.

Neighbours:

<– 141 New Bond Street

139 New Bond Street –>

William Benning, law bookseller

Tags

book trade

Street Views: 15 and 13 Suppl.
Address: 43 Fleet Street

In 1806, William Benning, the son of James Benning, surgeon of Barnard Castle, Durham, was apprenticed to Joseph Butterworth, a bookseller of 43 Fleet Street.⁽¹⁾ Butterworth was the son of John Butterworth, a baptist minister of Coventry, and was very active in the field of philanthropic and christian causes. He was also the M.P. for Coventry (1812-188) and Dover (1820-1826). More on Joseph’s political career can be read here. Joseph’s nephew Henry came to work for him, but set up on his own in 1818 at 7 Fleet Street. More on him in a forthcoming post. In 1813, Joseph’s own son, Joseph Henry obtained his freedom of the Stationers’ Company by patrimony and the bookselling business was henceforth called Joseph Butterworth and Son. They specialised in law books and were frequently mentioned as ‘law booksellers’ in various directories.

William Benning must have reached the end of his apprenticeship after the customary seven years in 1813, but he continued to work for the Butterworths and when Joseph Butterworth died in 1826, he left to his “clerk William Benning one hundred pounds as a token of my regard”. Son Joseph Henry was not left the bookshop outright, but it was given into the hands of executors in trust for Joseph Henry “for and during the term of his natural life provided he shall so long continue to carry on the trade of bookseller”. As soon as Joseph Henry ceases trading or died, the shop was to be sold. No reason is given why the son does not inherit the shop outright, but he was destined to only continue the business for another two years as he died in Genoa in late 1828.

Advertisement in The Morning Chronicle, 14 June 1827

The death of the elder Joseph may have prompted Benning to seek his own fortune elsewhere as we find him as law bookseller at 52 Fleet Street in an 1827 advertisement.⁽²⁾ He is still there in February 1829⁽³⁾, but later that year, a notice in The Law Relating to Friendly Societies saw Benning and one Robert Saunders in partnership at 43 Fleet Street. An advertisement at the end of that year, specifically names then as ‘successors to the late J. Butterworth and Son”.⁽⁴⁾ Saunders and Benning presumably bought the business from the executors of Joseph Butterworth’s estate after the death of Joseph Henry.

Although Benning had lived at 43 Fleet Street when he was working for Butterworth, and later at 52 Fleet Street, he moved at some point to Walthamstow where the 1841 census was to find him with his (second) wife Jane and children Jane, Elizabeth, Ellen, Francis and Albert.⁽⁵⁾ The eldest sons William Granger (born September 1827) and Charles (born 11 March 1829) are not at home, but at Hall Place School, Bexley. Ten years later, William, by then a widower, can be found at Wood Park, Hampstead. Another son had been added to the list of children, Edward, and daughter Jane had by then married William Pritchard, a proctor, and had two children of her own. The two eldest boys are once again away from home; William is visiting the Watsons, a stone merchant’s family in Thorpe, Norwich, and Charles was visiting the Christies in Bouverie Street where one Harriet Abbot just happens to be visiting as well. Charles was to marry her the following year. One of their sons, Ernest Bradley, died in a boating accident and has been given a plaque of honour in Postman’s Park (see here).

The partnership between Saunders and Benning is dissolved in February 1844 and the business is continued as Wm. Benning and Co.⁽⁶⁾ No indication is given who this ‘Co.’ is, but I imagine it was son William Granger who is listed as a law bookseller or publisher in the 1861 and 1871 censuses. William Granger must have taken over after his father’s death (date unknown), but things did not always go according to plan. In 1881 and 1891, William Granger is given as solicitor’s clerk, but in 1901 he is called a retired bookseller. He died in 1902. The change in career probably had something to do with his bankruptcy in 1865.⁽⁷⁾ He must have left 43 Fleet Street some time before his bankruptcy as he is consistently given as of “no. 4, Albert Road, St. John’s-villa, Upper Holloway, but late of no. 5, Great Queen’s Street, Lincoln’s Inn Field”.

A search for the next occupant of 43 Fleet Street brought me to William Spottiswoode who had already printed a lot of the publications of (Saunders and) Benning. Bible printers G.E. Eyre and W. Spottiswoode, printers to the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty, seem to have taken over number 43 for their Bible warehouse in 1860. They are mentioned at number 43 in The Literary and Educational Year Book for 1860 and in the appendix of the Sixth Report of the Postmaster General for 1860.

Papworth design ©RIBA

Goad 1886

The building at number 43 had a bit of a make-over in 1827-28. Plans by John Buonarotti Papworth exist in the RIBA library and they show the front elevation which accords well with what Tallis showed in his 1839 edition. In the 1847 Tallis edition, the windows seem to have been altered again with rounded tops. But what is most interesting is the Papworth plan for the inner oval room. If you compare that with the 1886 Goad insurance plan, you can see the daylight window at the top of the room consistent with that on Papworth’s plan. The doors shown on Papworth’s plan are presumably the ones leading to Mitre Court at the back of the building. The building as the Bennings knew it, is no longer recognisable as buildings have been brought together to form the larger premises next to Hoare’s bank.

Papworth oval room (©RIBA) on the left and the 1847 Tallis elevation on the right

(1) The will of James Benning is transcribed on the Will Transcriptions Website here.
(2) The Morning Chronicle, 14 June 1827.
(3) The Morning Chronicle, 7 February 1829.
(4) The Derby Mercury, 25 November 1829.
(5) His first wife was Alice Whitfield whom he had married 21 March 1820, but she died that same year (thanks go to Catherine Ryan for this information). There are more links between the Whitfields and Bennings which will be explored in the posts on William Whitfield of 44 Old Bond Street and John Whitfield of 16 Lamb’s Conduit Street.
(6) The London Gazette, 5 March 1844.
(7) See for instance The London Gazette, 2 June 1865.

Neighbours:

<– 44 Fleet Street

41 Fleet Street –>

Christopher Lonsdale, music library

Tags

book trade, music

Street View: 7
Address: 26 Old Bond Street

To learn about Christopher Lonsdale of 26 Old Bond Street, we first have to go back to 1819 when Robert Birchall, a music seller at 140 New Bond Street, died. In his will, Birchall described Christopher as Christopher Lonsdale the Younger “now living with me”. Christopher’s father, also Christopher, is described by Birchall as “the Elder” and a relation of his wife’s. Robert Birchall was married to Mabel Mills, who was the daughter of Mary Mills-Lonsdale, who was the sister of Christopher Lonsdale the elder’s father, yet another Christopher Lonsdale. So, Christopher the younger was the grandson of the uncle of the wife of Robert Birchall. Still with me? The family relations are even more difficult than this, see for more information the post on 140 New Bond Street. Suffice it to say here that Christopher the younger was related to Birchall and worked in his shop until the latter’s death. Christopher Lonsdale, Birchall’s daughter Mary, and Richard Mills (another relation which is explained in the other post) formed a partnership after the death of Robert to continue the music business. Mary left the partnership in 1829 and in October 1834 Mills and Lonsdale decided to discontinue the remaining partnership with Mills to stay at 140 New Bond Street and Lonsdale to start his own business at 26 Old Bond Street, taking with him Birchill’s sign “Handel’s Head”. A photograph of the doorway of number 26 with the bust of Handel above it, can be found in the collection of the London County Council Photograph Library.

Click here to go to Collage for the original photograph

1834 was also the year in which Christopher the elder died. He is described as gentleman of Arlaw Banks, Whorlton, Durham.⁽¹⁾ Grandfather Christopher was also described as of Arlaw Banks; he died in 1797.⁽²⁾. Christopher the younger had been born in Whorlton, or at least, he was baptised there on 22 May 1795 as the son of Christopher and Mabel Lonsdale. This Mabel is not to be confused with the Mabel that married Birchall. Christopher’s mother was Mabel Bellamy. Christopher the younger married Mary Ann Mills, the sister of his business partner Richard Mills in 1821. But now onto the business and the shop at 26 Old Bond Street itself. The building is still there, although it has acquired a totally new shop front and the top floor as been extended upwards. You can, however, still recognise the brickwork and windows on the first and second floor as more or less original. The brickwork of the higher floors does not quite match.

Google Street View still shows Chanel as the occupant of the building, but they have recently moved to a bigger shop at 158-159 New Bond Street. I do not know who now occupies number 26 Old Bond Street as I have not been in the street for quite a while.

26 Old Bond Street from Google Street View

The first insurance record for Lonsdale with the Sun Fire Office after the split with Mills is dated 2 September 1835 and names Christopher as ‘music seller and publisher’, but he was certainly trading from the new address as early as March 1835 as an advertisement in The Morning Chronicle makes clear. And not just as a music seller, but also, as Birchall had done, as a musical circulating library (The Era, 12 December 1841). Please note that Lonsdale is still referring to Birchall, more than 8 years after opening his own shop.

Birchall had started publishing work by Ludwig von Beethoven in 1805 and obtained some of Beethoven’s’s copyrights in 1815/6. Beethoven sent a receipt in March 1816 confirming that he had received the equivalent of £65 from Birchall for the copyright of four works.⁽³⁾ In November 1816, Lonsdale writes to Beethoven on behalf of Birchall and says that he is “sorry to say Mr. Birchall’s health has been very bad for two or three years back – which prevents him from attending to business […] I fear but little hopes of his being much better”.⁽⁴⁾ Because of Birchall’s declining health, Lonsdale was the one to take over the correspondence with Beethoven, first as Birchall’s assistant, later in his own right from his premises in Old Bond Street. But not just Beethoven went with Lonsdale to Old Bond Street; Johann Sebastian Bach did as well. Yo Tomita, of Queen’s University Belfast, has dedicated a web-page to the publishing history of Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues, showing the editions published by Birchall and Lonsdale (see here).

Title-page of Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues (Source: Yo Tomita)

The 1841 census does not tell us very much other than that the Lonsdales were living above the shop, but in 1851 sons Charles Richard and Robert Edward are listed as ‘assistants’ and Christopher himself is employing 7 men. Ten years later, the sons are no longer living at home, but the number of employees has remained the same. In 1855, Robert Edward had married Marie Rosalie Thémar, “a talented pianiste”.⁽⁵⁾ In 1871, Robert Edward and Rosalie are once again living in Old Bond Street. Christopher is by then a widower and was to die in November 1877.⁽⁶⁾ I think that Robert continued the business for a few years, but in 1881, the name of Lonsdale is struck through in the Land Tax records and a Mr Hays is pencilled in. Robert died in 1891 and his address is then given as 21 Parkside, Albert Gate, Knightsbridge. He apparently died in Nice at Maison Salvi, 55 Boulevard de l’Imperatrice de la Russie.⁽⁷⁾

The Mr Hays of the Land Tax record was Alfred Hays, who took over the business, but not so much as a shop where music could be bought, but as theatre ticket supplier or ‘entertainment agent’. His sons, Alfred Cordeux and Herbert Bosworth, are referred to as such in the registration of the leasehold of 26 Old Bond Street in The London Gazette of 6 May 1921. They published, for instance, Alfred Hays’ Theatre Plan Book, Showing the Seating Plan of London Theatres, Concert Halls, Sports Grounds, &c.. Alfred Cordeux died on the last day of 1929. His brother Herbert was one of the executors of his will.⁽⁸⁾ Herbert himself died in 1948.⁽⁹⁾

(1) PROB 11/1826/305.
(2) PROB 11/1286/108.
(3) Lady Grace Wallace, Beethoven’s Letters 1790-1826 (1866), letter 181 (online here).
(4) Beethoven-Haus Bonn, NE 151 (online here).
(5) The Morning Chronicle, 2 August 1855.
(6) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1877. Robert Edward was one of the executors and the estate was valued at under £8,000.
(7) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1891. The estate was valued at just over £1,500.
(8) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1891. The estate was valued at over £27,300.
(9) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1891. The estate was valued at over £100,000.

Neighbours:

<– 27 Old Bond Street

25 Old Bond Street –>

Augustus Thiselton, printer

Tags

book trade

Street View: 54
Address: 37 Goodge Street

Although Tallis in his index spells the name of Augustus Union Thiselton as Thistleton, I have chosen to use Thiselton as that is the spelling the family of printers preferred. It all started with William Thiselton who established a printing house and bookshop in Goodge Street at least as early as 1784, but possibly even earlier. To whom William Thiselton was apprenticed is unclear as his name does not appear in the list of Stationers’ apprentices, nor in the freedom records of the City of London, which suggests he never felt the need to apply for the freedom, his business being outside the City boundaries. His sons, however, were apprenticed to a master who did hold the freedom of the City and were as such listed in the records. More on them in a moment, but first William’s career. One of the first publications that lists his name is The New Spectator, a short-lived weekly magazine that appeared from 1784 to early 1786. Thiselton’s was one of the booksellers where the publication could be bought. The publication already had the 37 Goodge Street address, so he certainly traded from that address as early as 1784. Number 37 was situated on the south side of Goodge Street, on the corner with Charlotte Street.

colophon The New Spectator

At some point Thiselton extended his book selling activities to include a Circulating Library, a popular 18th-century way of making literature available to those who could not afford to buy the books outright. Although we know nothing about the titles on offer in Thiselton’s library, the collection probably consisted mainly of multi-volume novels and other popular reading material. More on circulating libraries here.

trade card (Source: British Museum Collection)

The trade card shown above is from the Ambrose Heal collection of the British Museum, but another one has turned up recently in a 4-volume set of Richard Cumberland’s Henry (1795), for sale at Doull Books (see here). This one has the same text as the other one, but the decorative border is slightly different and small differences in the position of the words show that the cards must have been printed at different times.

Thiselton was involved with the Masons and his name appears in the membership list for the Tyrian Lodge with an admission date of 8 January 1784. He printed several masonic texts, such as Free Masonry for the Ladies (1791), shown here and also Free-Masonry. A Word to the Wise! (1796) (online here). The last mention of the Circulating Library is in 1806, when W.H. Rayner’s Virtue and Vice was published “for the author, and sold by W. Thiselton, Circulating Library, 37 Goodge Street. The colophon shows that the actual printing was done by William Matthew Thiselton, William’s eldest son.

William Matthew was apprenticed to one John Abraham in 1797 and made free of the Stationers Company in 1804. He applied for a printing licence soon afterwards and seems to have taken over the printing side of the business, while his father continued the bookshop and stationer’s.⁽¹⁾ Another son, Octavius Young Thiselton, had been apprenticed in 1813 to his brother Charles Alfred who himself had been apprenticed to their eldest brother William Matthew in 1805. Another brother, Augustus Union, does not seem to have applied for the freedom of the City, or at least, I can find no record of him doing so. It is likely that all these sons worked in the family business, but only William Matthew and Augustus Union’s names seemed to have graced the imprints of their publications. One other son, Arthur Loutherbourg, seems to have bucked the trend and became an artist.⁽²⁾

The London and Country Directory of 1811 gives William as stationer and bookseller at Goodge Street and William Matthew as printer at Great Russell Street, although The National Anecdotes, published in 1812, still had William Matthew as a printer at 37 Goodge Street. He probably ran both printing businesses, but already in 1807, at the time of his marriage, William Matthew is described as of Great Russell Street. Father William died in 1830 and was at that time living in John Street, Fitzroy Square.⁽³⁾ He does not mention the business in his will and leaves most of his estate to his daughter Ann. The sons get various bequests of money, suggesting that the business had been signed over to the sons sometime before. In 1824, William, “gent”, insures a property at 12 Blenheim Street which may be where he went after retiring from the business. The Fire Office records give us various names of who was paying the premium on 37 Goodge Street:

1805: William as bookseller and stationer
1805: William Matthew as printer
1808-1809: William Matthew as printer
1814: William as bookseller and stationer
1819: William Matthew as printer
1821: William as bookseller
1822: Augustus Union as printer
1823: William as bookseller
1825: William Matthew as printer

Frontispiece of T. Waring’s Treatise on Archery: Or, The Art of Shooting with the Long Bow (1830), printed by A.U. Thiselton

Augustus was listed at number 37 in the 1825 Pigot’s Directory and in 1827, The London Gazette of 26 June announces the end of the partnership between William Matthew and Augustus Union as printers at 37 Goodge Street. An 1832 advertisement for The Comical Melange names Augustus as the publisher at Goodge Street.⁽⁴⁾ But, although he continued to publish, Augustus devoted more and more time to secretarial jobs for various institutions and charities. He is named as the secretary of the Masonic Institution for Clothing, Educating and Apprenticing the Sons of Indigent and Deceased Freemasons in an advertisement for their quarterly meeting in The Morning Chronicle of 8 April 1828, but he apparently started this office in 1824 and he was to continue that post until 1861.⁽⁵⁾ Augustus was also the secretary of the governors of Queen Charlotte’s Lying-in Hospital⁽⁶⁾, and of the Artist’s Benevolent Fund for the Relief of their Widows and Orphans.⁽⁷⁾ In the 1843 Post Office Directory Augustus’s address is given as 7 Bloomsbury Place and he is then referred to as ‘Esquire’ which suggests he had given up the bookshop. The Bloomsbury Place address is also given as the address for the Masonic Institution for Clothing in a list of Metropolitan charities, “where attendance is given every Saturday, between the hours of 10 and 2”.⁽⁸⁾ Augustus Union died 13 November 1869. His address is then given as 6 Athern Road, Peckham, formerly of 28 Alma Street, Kentish Town.⁽⁹⁾

In the mean time, William Matthew also changed his vocation. Desirous of becoming a magistrate, he qualified at the age of fifty as a barrister at Gray’s Inn and changed his name to W.M. Thiselton Dyer, taking on the surname and coat of arms of his uncle Thomas Dyer (granted by the Queen on 16 April 1840).⁽¹⁰⁾ He died in May 1842 and the Freemason’s Quarterly listed his public offices: coroner and steward for the Tower of London, magistrate of Middlesex, Westminster, and the Tower Royalties, governor of the hospitals of Bethlehem, Bridewell and St. Bart’s, and he also held an unspecified “responsible situation” in the stamp and tax department at Somerset House. The journal also mentions his physique as strong and six feet four in height. He was able to pull 400 an hour at a press, but a few months before he died he had been “reduced to a mere skeleton” through “marasma, or atrophy”.

Octavius Young died in 1865 and is then described as gentleman. ⁽¹¹⁾ Charles Alfred seems to have fared quite well as he left £30,000. ⁽¹²⁾

(1) National Archives, MR/LP/1804/10.
(2) He is variously described as an artist or as a scene painter in the masonic membership records. He died in 1842.
(3) PROB 11/1771/405.
(4) Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 2 October 1832.
(5) The London Gazette, 17 April 1840.
(6) Freemason’s Magazine and Masonic Mirror, 1 October 1870.
(7) From 1828 (The Morning Post, 11 January 1828) till at least 1837 (The Morning Post, 20 May 1837).
(8) The Standard, 21 June 1869.
(9) The Metropolitan Charities: Being an Account of the Charitable, Benevolent, and Religious Societies … in London, 1844.
(10) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1869. Estate valued at under £600.
(11) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1875. Estate valued at under £200.
(12) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1873. Estate valued at under £30,000. He was living in York at the time of his decease.

Neighbours:

<– 38 Goodge Street

20 Charlotte Street –>