Nichols & Son, printers

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book trade

Street View: 73
Address: 25 Parliament Street

This blog post has been written jointly with Julian Pooley of the Nichols Archive Project (see here) who kindly shared his extensive knowledge of the Nichols family.

The story of the Nichols printing office starts in 1759 when John Nichols (1745-1826), the son of Edward Nichols, a baker, is apprenticed to printer William Bowyer. He obtained his freedom after the customary seven years, but did not set up business on his own. He entered into a partnership with his former master and in April 1766, their first joint publication came from the press, which was then situated in Temple Lane, Whitefriars.⁽¹⁾ Shortly afterwards they moved the business to Red Lion Passage, Fleet Street, frequently referred to as Red Lion Court.

Lloyd’s Evening Post, 5 May 1769

When Bowyer died in 1777 Nichols inherited the business, together with Bowyer’s extensive Classical library and “the old bureau in the little back room which I give to Mr John Nichols my present partner in business to survey and preserve my papers”.⁽²⁾ Nichols continued the business in Red Lion Passage, with its lucrative printing contracts to learned societies and Parliament, on his own. A year later he acquired a significant share in the Gentleman’s Magazine, which he and his successors printed and edited until 1856. Horwood does not name the small passage on his 1799 map, but it is indicated with the red circle. Nichols’s property is the one with the red cross.⁽³⁾ These days the whole stretch between Fleet Street and Pemberton Row is called Red Lion Court, but the top part used to be the Passage, although that name was not used consistently. When the printing house and warehouse were destroyed by fire in February 1808, Nichols and his son, John Bowyer Nichols, rebuilt the premises and continued in business.⁽⁴⁾

Advertisement in The Morning Post, 11 January 1819, giving both addresses

As printers of the Votes of the House of Commons, the Nicholses sought premises closer to Parliament. An insurance record of June 1817 shows Arthur Oates Hebdin and two others, army clothesmen, at 25 Parliament Street, with Nichols as the occupier of another of their properties on the East Side of King Street, that is, the street behind Parliament Street. A year later, according to another insurance record, Nichols is in possession of both 25 Parliament Street and the adjoining printing office at 10 King Street. The 1818, 1819 and 1820 Post Office Directories, however, still list Nichols, Son & Bentley in Red Lion Passage. The partnership with Samuel Bentley, the son of John’s sister Anne, was dissolved on the last day of 1818.⁽⁵⁾ The tax records up to and including 1819 list Nichols & Son as the proprietors of the premises in Red Lion Passage, but in 1820 Abraham John Valpy takes over. This, by the way, is two years earlier than most sources claim.⁽⁶⁾

The take-over of the Nichols business by Valpy was most likely not one by a new kid on the block, as Valpy had been apprenticed in 1801 to John Pridden and later, after the death of John, to Humphrey Gregory Pridden, John’s son. Another son of John, John junior married Nichols’s daughter Anne. More on Valpy in The Gentleman’s Magazine of 1855. Despite his move to Westminster, Nichols remained in possession of the Red Lion Passage property and Valpy paid the tax as ‘occupier’ until 1841, by which time he had retired.

Taylor’s business was situated to the south of the Red Lion pub, but Nichols’s property was more towards the north, on the other side of the Red Lion pub. The property is sometimes considered to be the one that is still there and has the ‘Alere Flammam’ relief set into the wall, but that was the motto of Taylor & Francis. Valpy used the digamma symbol on some of his publications.

The move to Westminster was not universally popular with Nichols’s private customers. Ralph Churton (1754-1831) of Oxfordshire feared Nichols would ‘hardly know a poor country Rector’ if he should visit, and remarked, ‘In Fleet Street there are Printers, radicals or not radicals, in every court and corner; but in Westminster, and the best street in Westminster – not a printer I ween to be found within a shilling coach fare. You will have the best business and all the business without a rival.’⁽⁷⁾

John Nichols’s son, John Bowyer Nichols, obtained his freedom of the Stationers’ Company in 1800 and became a partner in the firm. After the death of his father in 1826, he continued and enlarged the business, which was eventually spread across 23, 25 Parliament Street and 20, 22, 24, 26 King Street. In 1896, the Office of Works requisitioned the leases of these properties in their efforts to widen Parliament Street and to build one large office which now houses Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (see the blog post on John Burder of 27 Parliament Street for more information).⁽⁸⁾ The Nichols firm relocated to Parliament Mansions, Victoria Street, later usually referred to as Parliament Mansions, Orchard Street.

Ordnance Survey map 1893-95, showing Parliament Mansions

Between 1820 and 1827 John Bowyer Nichols and his young family lived at 25 Parliament Street. Family correspondence discusses their redecoration of the living quarters and nursery and records how family and friends joined them at upstairs windows to watch royal processions on State Occasions. Although they moved to Clapham in 1827 and then to Hammersmith in 1831, they retained their living quarters ‘above the shop’, attending St. Margaret’s church, serving parish offices and entertaining neighbours such as the family of John Burder at number 27. In 1822 a quantity of paper was stolen from their warehouse in Cannon Row by a former employee, James Thatcher⁽⁹⁾ and on 16 October 1834 Bowyer Nichols’s son, John Gough Nichols, feared that the printing house was on fire when he saw a glow in the sky over Westminter when returning home from Piccadilly. The Nicholses premises were safe, but that evening the Palace of Westminster was destroyed by fire.⁽¹⁰⁾

silhouette of John Nichols (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

The census of 1841 list Thomas Brickwood, a carpenter, and his wife on the premises in Parliament Street; in 1851 James and Rachel Brown, messenger and housekeeper to Nichols & Son; in 1861 and 1871, Rachel is still there as housekeeper; in 1881, Edmund W. Howick or Horrock, a printers’ warehouseman, unemployed, and his wife Mary, housekeeper, presumably to Nichols & Son, although that is not stated in the census and why Edmund is unemployed and not working for the Nicholses is also unclear; and in 1891 Sarah Sidery, a widow, is keeping house, presumably for Nichols. According to the Post office Directory of 1856, the Nichols firm also rented out offices at 25 Parliament Street to William John Thoms, secretary of the Camden Society (established by the Nicholses in 1838), the Liverpool Water Works Company, and to Stephen William Hy, parliamentary agent. And in 1860 to William Moxon, contractor, Gilbert Thomas Field, election agent, William Paul Gale, civil engineer, William John Thoms, secretary of the Camden Society, and to Thomas F. Gilbert, secretary of the National Society for the Amelioration of the Poor Laws. The housekeeper must have been quite busy.

John Bowyer had died in 1863, but his eldest son John Gough continued the printing works in partnership with his brother, Robert Cradock Nichols, till his death in 1873. The next director was John Gough’s son John Bruce Nichols who worked in partnership with his uncle, Robert Cradock. From 1898 until his death in 1929 John Bruce was joined by his son John Cradock Morgan Nichols. In 1930 the business became a Limited Company, J. B. Nichols & Sons Ltd, but in 1939 they voluntarily wound up the company and were absorbed into the Stationery Office.⁽¹¹⁾

The London Gazette, 8 December 1939

For further information see J. Pooley, ‘”The Most Despicable Drudge in the Universe”? Ambition, Assistance and Experience in the papers of John Nichols and his family, 1765-1830’ in Michael Harris, Giles Mandelbrote and Robin Myers, eds., Craft and Capital (forthcoming), or any of his other publications on the Nicholses (here) and The Nichols Archive Project.

—————
(1) K. Maslen and J. Lancaster, The Bowyer Ledgers, no. 4603, James Elphinston, The Principles of the English language.
(2) PROB 11/1036/267. J. Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1812) vol. 3 pp. 277 and 285.
(3) Determined by comparing Land Tax Assessments with various Directories.
(4) J. Pooley and Robin Myers, ‘The Nichols Family (1745-1873)’ The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004-ongoing). Online here, but subscription required.
(5) The London Gazette, 2 January 1819.
(6) See for instance his advertisement for Stephens’ Greek Thesaurus in The Morning Chronicle of 18 September 1820.
(7) Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. lett. c. 354 ff. 221-2. Ralph Churton to John Nichols, 16 Feb. 1820.
(8) National Archives, Kew, WORK 12/81/8.
(9) Old Bailey case t18220220-91 (online here).
(10) See www.carolineshenton.co.uk quoting Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. Lett. c. 6165/3/f. 302: John Gough Nichols to John Bowyer Nichols, 17 Oct. 1834.
(11) Anon [G.E. Dunstone], A Short History of the House of Nichols, 1699-1938 (London, 1938).

Neighbours:

<– 26 Parliament Street

24 Parliament Street –>

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Sampson Low, bookseller

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book trade

Street View: 32
Address: 42 Lamb’s Conduit Street

The houses in Lamb’s Conduit Street have been renumbered in the 1860s and what was number 42 is now 83 Lamb’s Conduit Street, a property with a Grade II listing (see here). It sits snugly between two far more modern buildings, but looks more or less the same as it did when Sampson Low had his business there, despite the new shopfront that the listing text dates to the 20th century – you could have fooled me. The interior still retains some 18th-century features, such as the staircase and some panelling.

Google Street View

Before we get on to Sampson Low, the bookseller who had his shop at 42 Lamb’s Conduit Street, first something about his father:
On 3 September, 1782, Sampson Low, son of David, perukemaker from Ireland, was apprenticed to Jessintour (also Jessington) Rozea. This Rozea had his business at 91 Wardour Street and seems to have retired in 1786 or thereabouts as in that year J. Denew and A. Grant take over the printing business in Wardour Street. Apprentice Sampson Low is officially turned over to another master, Webster Gillman, on 3 February 1789. He must have been made free of the Stationers’ Company soon after that, probably after the required term of seven years, but he did not take up the freedom of the City until 7 October 1794, that is, more than two years after he started working for himself. The earliest evidence for him having his own business is an advertisement in The World of 24 December 1791 and the fact that in March 1792 he paid the duty for having an apprentice himself. He was then listed as letter press printer at Great Portland Street, which was outside the actual City and he had therefore no need to become a freeman of the City. 1792 is also the first year in which he is mentioned in the tax records for Great Portland Street. His earliest dated publications are from 1793: The Book of Common Prayer and A Catalogue of the Genuine Collection of Antient and Modern Coins & Medals. The latter publication did not mention Low on the title-page, but unobtrusively at the top of page 3.

In 1794, Low married Mary Ann Sheldrick from Dartford, Kent, and his son Sampson was born in 1797. To distinguish the two Sampsons, the father will henceforth be mentioned as Sampson (I) and the son as Sampson (II). Sampson (I) died in late 1800 or early 1801 and was buried on 5 January 1801 at St. James, Piccadilly. He had been trading since 1796 from Berwick Street, Soho. His business was probably sold by the executors, at least, it is no longer mentioned in advertisements or directories, but when his son grew up, he had the same bookish interest and was for a time apprenticed to Lionel Booth who ran a circulating library in Duke Street, Portland Place, and who also maintained the Register of Pamphlets and Newspapers at the Stamp Office. After Booth’s death in 1815, his son, also Lionel, continued the library. Sampson (II) worked for a time at Messrs. Longman, but in 1819, he set up his own bookshop in Lamb’s Conduit Street. According to his later partner Marston, his mother, who had remarried in 1802 to William Brough, kept house for him in the early years. In 1821, Sampson (II) married Mary Stent, but his mother continued to visit the bookshop and library frequently.

trade card (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

Early advertisements for Sampson (II) suggest that in the early years he just sold and published books, but on 27 June 1822, he entered an advertisement in The Morning Chronicle announcing that he had “that day opened a commodious room, built expressly for the purpose, which will be regularly supplied with the morning and evening newspapers [… etc.] Cards of terms may be had on application”. One such card is probably the one shown above with the various subscription options.

Low remained at Lamb’s Conduit Street till 1849, when he gave up the reading room and library and established himself at the corner of Red Lion Court and Fleet Street, only to remove a few years later, in 1852, to 47 Ludgate Hill. But that was not the end of the moves as the viaduct for the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company was built right across the houses in Ludgate Hill and Low, by then in partnership with Edward Marston, moved to 14, Ludgate Hill. The firm moved again, in 1867 to 188 Fleet Street, and in 1887 to St Dunstan’s House, Fetter Lane. The business dealt with many authors who are now household names, such as Wilkie Collins and Mrs Gaskell. More on Low’s publications and Marston’s dealing with these and many other authors can be read in the latter’s biographical After work; fragments from the workshop of an old publisher (1904; online here).

Sampson (II) Low from Marston’s After Work via Wikimedia

Low retired in 1875 and died at his home in Mecklenburgh Square in April 1886. He had outlived his wife and his three sons, Sampson junior, William and Walter. His estate was valued at over £24,000, which seems modest for a successful publisher, but, as Marston said, “he was not the man to accumulate a large fortune in trade; his zeal and energy took a less selfish and more philanthropic turn”. Low had used his energy into establishing a fire service and worked as a Sunday school teacher. His partner Edward Marston was one of the executors of the will. The profitable business continued for may years with various other partners until the 1950s when it became part of the British Printing Corporation. Unfortunately, Robert Maxwell got his hands on it in 1981 and the long-standing firm was stripped of its assets and wound up after Maxwell’s death and subsequent bankruptcy. But, history repeats itself in a way, and where there was a gap between the working years of Sampson (I) and Sampson (II), there was also a gap between the termination of the business and the rebirth in 1997, when a descendant brought the name Sampson Low back to life as a new publishing company (see here). Sampson (I) and (II) would have been proud.

One of Sampson Low, Marston and Company’s publications (Source: Little Stour Books via AbeBooks.com)

Neighbours:

<– 43 Lamb’s Conduit Street

41 Lamb’s Conduit Street –>

George Peirce, printer

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book trade

Street View: 10 Suppl.
Address: 310 Strand

Tallis did not list the occupants of 309-317 Strand in the Street Views that came out in 1839. That section of the street was situated behind St. Mary-le-Strand and, for whatever reason, Tallis decided to depict the church rather than the shops behind it. You can just about see a small section of number 310 behind the church, but Peirce was not listed in the directory that came with the Street View. Tallis did make amends, however, in the 1847 Street Views and instead of the church he depicted the row of shops of which you can see number 310 at the top of this post.

Peirce’s shop peeping out from behind the church in the 1839 Street View

In March 1829, Charles Ingrey and George Edward Madeley, lithographic printers, at 310 Strand dissolved their partnership.⁽¹⁾ Ingrey left us a nice trade card that depicts his lithographic printing office. The British Museum date the card to somewhere between 1824 and 1839.

trade card Charles Ingrey (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

The 1841 census tells us that James Randall, a collector of rents, and his family are occupying the premises, but so is George Peirce, printer, and his wife Susannah. At some point in time George had entered into a partnership with one Matthew Flinders Pearson of 7 Castle Street, Holborn, also a printer, but that partnership was dissolved in late 1842.⁽²⁾ Peirce was to continue the business in the Strand on his own, although he later had another partnership with James Trevelyan Hyde which was dissolved in March 1848. The notice in the London Gazette stated that the firm of Peirce and Hyde had been working as booksellers, printers and publishers.⁽³⁾ Once again, the business was to be continued by Peirce.

We can learn a bit more about the everyday practices in Peirce’s business and about the layout of his shop from an Old Bailey case of 1845. Charles Thomas Knight, described by Peirce as a pressman in his employ until 3 October, was indicted for stealing 900 sheets of printed paper from Peirce. Peirce said that he had printed Thomas Doubleday’s The True Law of Population and that he kept some of the print run in loose sheets in the store room. He had sold some of the work bound, but none unbound. He saw some of the sheets at Mr. Durien’s, an oil and colourman, who had bought the sheets from George Eaton, a bookseller. Scrap paper, printed or otherwise, was used to wrap any kind of produce in, so there was a ready market for waste paper among the shopkeepers and young Knight seems to have made use of that demand. He pilfered the sheets from Peirce’s warehouse, no doubt given a helping hand by his brother who still worked for Peirce. The unfortunate printer told the court that his business had two entrances, one in the Stand and one at the back leading into One Bell Yard. The latter entrance was the one the workmen were supposed to use. Knight was sentences to nine months confinement.⁽⁴⁾

Another book that Peirce printed was William Cobbett‘s Rural Rides in the Counties of 1853. A letter from Peirce to J.P. Cobbett contains the bill for printing 1000 copies of Rural Rides, which was not published by Peirce as he had done the edition by Doubleday, but by A. Cobbett of 137 Strand. J.P. Cobbett was the editor, so apparently a regular family edition. The invoice by Peirce can be found in the archives of the Museum of Farnham (see here).⁽⁵⁾

Peirce’s wife Susannah died in January 1857 and was buried the 22nd of that month at All Souls, Kensal Green, and George was to follow her exactly one year later as he was buried there on the 22nd of January 1858. His will was proved by his brother, Thomas Henry Peirce, an ironmonger.⁽⁶⁾ In October 1858, the “materials of the newspaper and jobbing printing office of Mr. G. Pierce [sic] was sold by auction.⁽⁷⁾ Thomas tried to dispose of the lease of 310 Strand (see advertisement below), but he continued to pay the Land Tax up to 1863. In 1864 a William Ponsford took over.

advertisement in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 31 Jan. 1858

Nothing is now left of 310 Strand as the developments for Kingsway completely obliterated the row of houses behind St. Mary le Strand and where Peirce’s business once was, you can now find a gate between two buildings that – I think – belong to King’s college. And if you position yourself on the other side of the street – roughly at the bus stop in front of King’s College – you will have the same view as Tallis depicted in his 1847 Street View.

The gate where 310 Strand was situated (Source: Google maps)

Comparable view with Tallis’s 1847 Street View (Source: Google maps)

(1) The London Gazette, 24 March 1829.
(2) The London Gazette, 27 December 1842.
(3) The London Gazette, 7 March 1848.
(4) Old Bailey case 718451124-59.
(5) Museum of Farnham, Archives, 152/A/12/vi.
(6) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858. The effects were valued at less than £800.
(7) Advertisement in The Standard, 5 October 1858.

Neighbours:

<– 311 Strand

309 Strand –>

Charles Tilt, publisher and print seller

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book trade

Street View: 15
Address: 86 Fleet Street

Charles Tilt was the son of William Tilt, a confectioner of St. Paul’s Churchyard. After the death of William in 1807, the confectioner’s business was continued by his widow and son William junior; young Charles was apprenticed to a bookseller in Hampshire. From 1817 till 1826 he worked for various booksellers, among them Hatchard’s and Longman’s, but in October 1826, he started his own business in Fleet Street. He had his shop just on the corner of St. Bride’s Avenue and Fleet Street, and specialised in illustrated books and lithographic prints. In 1827, he secured the assistance of George Cruikshank for one of his cheap (one shilling) illustrated publications, The Diverting History of John Gilpin in which a horse runs off with the hapless Gilpin.

John Gilpin being run off by the horse (Tilt, 1828)
And still, as fast as he drew near,
‘Twas wonderful to view,
How in a trice the turnpike men,
Their gates wide open threw.

Cruikshank had published his Scraps and Sketches with James Robins, but when he was no longer able to continue the project, or as Cruikshank put it, “poor Robins neglects my business sadly, as well as his own”, the publication was taken over by Tilt under the title My Sketch Book. Tilt reduced the size of the publication, and hence the price, hoping to attract a different public. The sketches were, according to the paper cover, “to be continued occasionally”, and when part 6 came out in late 1834, a collection of parts 1-6 was brought out, bound in cloth. Cruikshank continued to work with Tilt, see for instance the illustrations at the bottom of this post, but the volatile character of Cruikshank and the sharp business acumen of Tilt did not necessarily make for a harmonious relationship, as, for instance, when a dispute arose over money when Cruikshank tried to sell the leftover stock of the discontinued Omnibus to Henry Bohn. And on another occasion when, instead of asking Cruikshank to retouch the worn plates of the Almanack, as had been agreed, Tilt sent them off to a cheaper engraver. Tilt’s assistant David Bogue’s quieter and more tactful ways often saved the day.⁽¹⁾

trade card (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

The shop in Fleet Street was eminently suitable for displaying prints and books in the large windows along the front in St. Bride’s Avenue and around the corner in Fleet Street. It is said that is was sometimes so busy with window gazers that railings had to be put up to keep the crowds at bay, although these railings are not visible in any of the depictions of the shop. The anonymous reviewer of The Angler’s Souvenir, published by Tilt in 1835, commented on Tilt’s shop windows and said “we are not given to stare and linger at any show shop in the vast metropolis of England, not even at Mr. Tilt’s, No. 86, Fleet Street, or any other eminent print-seller’s exhibition, although henceforward we shall take a glance, all round the corner, at the above-mentioned gentleman’s pictorial displays”. He was to do that because he hoped to find other books on his favourite pastime, angling.⁽²⁾ The reviewer had to have had a bit of patience as it was only in 1844 that David Bogue and Henry Wix published Isaac Walton’s Complete Angler. Besides prints, Tilt published various series of cheap illustrated books, among them several of miniature books, such as Tilt’s Miniature Classics Library, Tilt’s Elegant Miniature Editions, and Tilt’s Hand-books for Children. These last could be collected in a wooden case with the words “My Own Library”.

The 1841 census saw Charles Tilt and his wife Jane at Clapham; he is listed as a publisher, but that same year he decided it was time to retire and, according to publisher and journalist Henry Vizetelly in his Glances Back Trough Seventy Years; Autobiographical and Other Reminiscences (1893), Tilt entered into a partnership with his assistant Bogue because of “his general shrewdness and steady application to business”. The idea was that Bogue would gradually pay back the money he owed Tilt for the partnership, between forty and fifty thousand pounds, and publications began to appear with both their names in the imprint. In 1843, the partnership between Tilt and Bogue was dissolved with Bogue to continue the business on his own. So, all was set for Tilt’s retirement and the 1851 census duly lists him as retired publisher at Bathwick, Somerset.

However, David Bogue died in November 1856 of heart disease, aged just 48. Charles Tilt was asked by the executors of Bogue’s estate to help with winding down the business. By 1859, most of Bogue’s copyrights and stock, as well as the shop, had been taken over by William Kent (more on the later history of the shop in the post on Bogue). The 1861 census lists Tilt at Kensington, once again as a retired publisher. He died later that same year and left the not inconsiderable sum of £180,000, although not quite the million he was said to have amassed by Malcolm Macleod, who tried to establish a link between the Tilts and Oliver Cromwell in Notes and Queries, 3rd series, vol. 1, Jan. 1862.⁽³⁾ Macleod, by the way, said that the Tilt family had in their possession “a massive gold ring, with his arms, initials, and date, engraved on it”. These arms consisted of “a chevron between three roundels; crest, a dolphin”. No idea if the ring still exists somewhere; if you have information, please leave a comment.

vignette in the Tallis booklet. Tilt’s shop on the left.

print of a drawing by T.H. Shephard depicting Tilt’s shop (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

George Cruikshank, March Winds from The Comic Almanack, 1835

George Cruikshank’s portrait of Tilt on the back cover of A Comic Alphabet (Source: Thorn Books)

(1) More on the relation between Charles Tilt and George Cruikshank can be found in Robert L. Patten, George Cruikshank’s Life, Times, and Art (1996).
(2) The Monthly Review, February 1836, p. 157.
(3) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1861. The executors were William Henry Dalton, publisher, George Gladstone, ship broker, and Benjamin Brecknell, wax chandler.

Neighbours:

<– 88 Fleet Street

85 Fleet Street –>

David Bogue, bookseller and publisher

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book trade

Street View: 15 and 14 Suppl.
Address: 86 Fleet Street

David Bogue started life on 16 October 1808 in East Lothian as the son of Jacob Bogue, a farmer, and Ann Johnston. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Biography, he became the assistant of Thomas Ireland, a bookseller in Edinburgh, but moved to London in 1836 to work for Charles Tilt. Tilt had his shop at 86 Fleet Street and specialised in illustrated books and lithographic prints (more on Tilt in a forthcoming post). In 1841, Tilt decided it was time to retire and, according to publisher and journalist Henry Vizetelly in his Glances Back Trough Seventy Years; Autobiographical and Other Reminiscences (1893), Tilt entered into an unequal partnership with assistant Bogue because of “his general shrewdness and steady application to business”. The idea was that Bogue would gradually pay back the money he owed Tilt for the partnership, between forty and fifty thousand pounds, and publications began to appear with both their names in the imprint. In December 1841, for instance, they had a page-long advertisement in the Quarterly Literary Advertiser announcing their latest publications.

In 1843, the partnership between Tilt and Bogue was dissolved with Bogue to continue the business on his own. As the shop was within the City of London, he had to obtain the freedom of the City, but as he had not officially apprenticed to a London freeman, he had to do so by ‘redemption’ for which he paid a fine. In 1844, he married Alicia Edgar, and went to live at 39 Lonsdale Square. Alicia was also from Scotland and in 1846 and 1848, they had their children, Anne, Alicia and Charles Tilt, baptised at the United Reformed Church in Regent Square with “National Scottish Church” written above the entries in the baptism register.⁽¹⁾ In 1844, Bogue jointly published Isaac Walton’s Complete Angler with Henry Wix who had his bookshop just around the corner in New Bridge Street.

But things had not gone well with the business for some time. Bogue was apparently not as clever a businessman, or perhaps not as lucky, as Tilt had been and had entered into a few publishing projects that did not pay off, such as his European Library, which consisted of reprints of classic titles. The first title in the series was William Roscoe’s The life of Lorenzo de’ Medici, called the Magnificent and in the preface Bogue stated that the works in the series were to consist of volumes of 450 to 500 pages on paper of the best quality and in a handsome and convenient size. Each volume was to be bound in cloth, was to have an illustration, and was to cost 3/6, “being unquestionably the cheapest series of books ever published”. However, his main competitor, H.G. Bohn, was quick to imitate him with the Standard Library. Bogue lost his European Library to Bohn after a legal wrangle over copyright, and the series was incorporated into Bohn’s Standard Library.

Bogue had one major asset, George Cruikshank, but not all of their joint ventures were successful. The temperance series The Bottle and The Drunkard’s Children flopped, and so did the Fairy Library, a series of children’s books with traditional fairy tales retold as moral stories by Cruikshank. Charles Dickens took exception to the distortion of the fairly tales in his Household Words and mocked Cruikshank’s efforts to rid the tales of any reference to alcohol by ‘rewriting’ Cinderella (see here for Dickens’s text).

The bottle, by George Cruikshank, plate 4, 1847 (Source: Wellcome Library, London )

The Adventures of Mr and Mrs Sandboys by Henry Mayhew and George Cruikshank, 1851 (Source: fulltable.com)

The 1851 census found the Bogue family at 76 Camden Road. The census papers for 86 Fleet Street tell us that “no person sleeps on premises”. David died in November 1856 of heart disease, aged just 48.⁽²⁾ His name still appeared in the tax records and in imprints in 1857 and 1858 as the executors tried to keep the place going with the help of Charles Tilt, but by 1859, most of Bogue’s copyrights and stock, as well as the shop, had been taken over by William Kent (his name is listed in the Land Tax records for 1860). The 1861 census and the 1861 Land Tax records for 86 Fleet Street, however, saw Frederick Arnold living there. He helped George Cruikshank pay off the debts he owed to the Bogue estate, because, according to Cruikshank, Arnold wanted to become his publisher.⁽³⁾ Arnold died in 1874 and the bookshop at 86 Fleet Street was continued by his son Alfred who had to liquidate the business in 1877 to satisfy his creditors.⁽⁴⁾

The shop itself was a sight to behold with its large windows curving around the corner into St. Bride Avenue. It was depicted many times, sometimes with the name of Tilt on the boarding, sometimes with that of Bogue.

vignette in the Tallis booklet. Bogue’s shop on the left.

Source: Gillmark Gallery

(1) David and Alicia were to have two more children, Edgar and David, but they were apparently not baptised at the Scottish Church.
(2) PROB 11/2242/348.
(3) More on Cruikshank and his publishers in Robert L. Patten, George Cruikshank’s Life, Times, and Art (1996).
(4) The London Gazette, 4 December 1877.

Neighbours:

<– 88 Fleet Street

85 Fleet Street –>

Henry Wix, bookseller & publisher

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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. 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.

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(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 –>