Hewetson Brothers, upholsterers & warehousemen

Tags

carpet, furniture

Street views 48 and 52
Addresses: 185 Oxford Street and 204 Tottenham Court Road

The Hewetson brothers, John William and Thomas, had two very similar shops, at least from the outside. They were listed in two of Tallis’s Street Views and in each of them they had a vignette of their property; in booklet 48 one for 185 Oxford Street and in booklet 52 one their shop at 204 Tottenham Court Road. The various descriptions they get in the indexes of the Street View booklets and the lettering on the elevations show that they dealt in a large variety of goods, all to do with furniture, bedding, carpets and even interior decorating. And if two vignettes and their names and occupations on the elevations were not enough, they also included an advertisement in the booklet for Tottenham Court Road.

advertisement in Street View 52

In 1840 they take out insurances with the Sun Fire Office, the one for the Oxford Street premises fairly simple with the property described as John’s dwelling house with offices, stables and loft, all communicating, of brick and timber, with no cabinet work done on the premises and with no pipe stove therein. It is insured for £1350 with an additional entry for the plate glass in the shop front, valued at £50. The total premium came to 2l. 3s. The Tottenham Court Road property is listed for Thomas and insured for £1100 (premium £1/8/6). However, a separate entry in the name of both brothers explains that the house is connected northwards via a covered walkway with a (ware)house and stables at the back in Alfred Mews, which is partly rented out to a shoemaker. They insure household fixtures in the house and in the house behind for £50; household goods, wearing apparel, printed books and plate for £200; stock, utensils and business fixtures for £1800; china, glass & lace for £150; and stock and utensils for £200, which included livestock in the stables and the cart house plus loft in Alfred Mews, for a total premium of 3l. 3s.⁽¹⁾

furniture label (Source: Grosvenor Prints)

But one property in Alfred Mews was not enough for the brothers and they gradually acquired more and more houses until they occupied almost the whole south side of the street. They also acquired more properties in Tottenham Court Road. Thomas Hewetson had partnered with Robert Thexton and the address given for them in 1871 is 200, 203 and 204 Tottenham Court Road.⁽²⁾ By then, the premises in Oxford Street had probably been given up and although the census finds an upholsterer there, Herbert J. Boutor, he is listed as employing 9 men and 2 boys, so probably working for himself rather than for the Hewetsons. The Hewetsons are slightly difficult to pin down as half the family was called John, John William, William John, or William, with none of these names used consistently. The 1861 census saw a William Hewetson at Oxford Street, but whether he was the John William of the 1840 insurance is not clear. When he died in 1864, probate was registered for his son John Hewetson, also an upholsterer.⁽³⁾ John Hewetson, the son of William or another John?, died in 1876 and Thomas of Tottenham Court Road in 1881⁽⁴⁾, but Thomas Hewetson junior carried on the business with Robert Thexton and later also with William Peart, who dropped out as partner in 1884.⁽⁵⁾ A year after that, Thomas Hewetson also left the partnership and it was just Robert Thexton who continued the furniture business until his death in 1889.⁽⁶⁾ In or just before 1889, one Milner must have joined the firm as partner as Goad’s insurance map of 1889 shows the name of the firm splashed across the crescent-shaped row of houses as Hewetson, Milner & Thexton.

The leases in the area were to expire in 1902 and the City of London Corporation Estate decided to do something about the crescents in Chenies and Store Street as they were considered “quite out of date”. Alfred Place was to be extended to Alfred Mews, going straight through the premises of Hewetson & Co. Hewetson, Milner & Thexton, by then a Limited Company, resisted the Estate’s attempts, but were eventually forced to move to premises at 209–212 Tottenham Court Road, going bankrupt a few years later. Not surprising if the notice of 1901 in The British Architect is correct; it said that Hewetson & Co were granted a new 80-years’ lease by the Court of Common Council at an annual rent of £3,000, which was an increase on their old rent of £2,300. A notice in The London Gazette of 19 March 1907 about the forced sale of their premises after the bankruptcy gives an indication of the extent of their business:

Leasehold premises, comprising shops and showrooms, numbers 209, 210, 211, and 212 Tottenham Court Road, numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10, Chenies Street, numbers 15, 16, 17, and 18 Alfred Place, covering a ground area of upwards of eleven thousand square feet, and two dwelling houses and engineering works in the rear thereof, known as number 44, 46, and 44A, Whitfield Street, with a ground area of about three thousand four hundred square feet.

In November 1911, the Liquidators’ Report was ready to be shown to the members of the Company and that was, after some eighty years, the end of the flourishing furniture business started by two brothers. It is ironic, and rather sad really, that the so-called improvement of the extension of Alfred Place never took place and the crescents that were considered so out of date are still there. The Hewetson buildings in Alfred Mews have all been replaced and the street no longer shows the rounded front it had when the Hewetsons traded from there.

The Times, 20 December 1900

(1) London Metropolitan Archives, CLC/B/192/F/001/MS11936/575/1328805, CLC/B/192/F/001/MS11936/574/1328756 and 1328757.
(2) The London Gazette, 7 March 1871. They issued a debtor’s summons against a Miss Neville of Percy Villas, Teddington, who apparently failed to pay her bills.
(3) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1864. He left an estate worth £10,000, later resworn at £8,000.
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1876, John left an estate worth £40,000; England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1881. Thomas left an estate worth £25,000, later resworn at £16,000.
(5) The London Gazette, 15 January 1884.
(6) The London Gazette, 24 February 1885. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1889. His estate was valued at over £20,000.

Neighbours:

<– 186 Oxford Street <– 203 Tottenham Court Road

184 Oxford Street –> 205 Tottenham Court Road –>

Advertisement

Thomas Treloar, cocoa nut fibre warehouse

Tags

carpet, furniture

Street View: 14 Suppl.
Address: 42 Ludgate Hill

The picture above of the front of Treloar’s shop has suffered slightly from being depicted in the fold of the original Street View sheet, but it will have to do. Treloar’s coconut fibre warehouse only appeared in the 1847 Supplement; in the earlier edition of 1839 number 42 was still the Irish linen shop of Brown & Co. More on them some other time, but for now we will concentrate on the carpet shop. Thomas Treloar originally came from Portished, Somerset, but when he obtained his freedom of the City of London in April 1847, he listed his father as William Treloar, late of Bristol, gent., deceased. It is not entirely clear when Thomas came to London, but in the 1841 census he, his wife Elizabeth, their young son Thomas, and 60-year old Ann Treloar (Thomas’s mother?) could be found at Princes Road, Lambeth. Thomas is described as a clerk and when his second son, William Purdie Treloar, was baptised in 1843, Thomas is given the occupation of bookkeeper. From 1846, however, we find him at 42 Ludgate Hill, selling brass and iron bedsteads, mattresses and bed furniture. In a booklet he published in 1852, The Prince of Palms (online here), he claimed, however, to have been at Ludgate Hill from 1842 as he “respectfully presented” the booklet to his “numerous customers … with grateful acknowledgement for ten years of their patronage”. An 1846 advertisement for his shop lists the virtues of coconut fibre, not just for mattresses, but also for carpets and mats.⁽¹⁾

Illustration from The Prince of Palms

It is unclear whether Treloar ever lived above his shop in Ludgate Hill, as already in 1851, the census finds him and his growing family at 3 Dartmouth Terrace, Lewisham. When Elizabeth died in 1859, the address is given as Pitmain Lodge, Granville Park, Lewisham. In 1861, the family is still at Pitmain Lodge with Thomas senior as coconut fibre manufacturer and all three sons, Thomas junior, William Purdie and Robert, as commercial travellers. That same year, Thomas senior married Isabella Purdie, no doubt a relation of his or his first wife, judging by the fact that her last name was used as son William’s second name. In 1862, Treloar entered some of his fibre products in the International Exhibition and from the catalogue we learn that he had already won prize medals in other exhibitions.

At the beginning of that same year, on 2 January 1862, Treloar was mentioned in The Standard as having provided the matting that was laid in St. Paul’s Cathedral “by the kindness and liberality of the dean and chapter” and which would, according to the paper, “most assuredly contribute to the comfort of the numerous auditory”. For sure, one’s feet on matting in stead of on cold marble during evening service was no doubt more comfortable. But Treloar did not just stick to coconut fibres for his floor coverings; an advertisement of 26 August in The Standard also mentions kamptulicon, India rubber and Cork cloth. And a report on the Royal Agricultural Society’s International Show in June of that year mentions Treloar’s netting for sheepfolds, coir yarn for thatching, and kamptulicon of extra thickness for paving stables and padding stalls of kicking horses.

Advertisement in Frasers Magazine for Town and Country, 1865

Some pieces of Treloar’s floor coverings have been preserved and the Stockholm Nordiska museet (Nordic Museum) has uploaded some images of their collection onto DigitalMuseum. I have chosen the sample you see here because it includes a label, but you can see more items here.

In 1865, the Treloar warehouse is briefly listed at number 10, but later at 69 (which before the renumbering used to be the neighbouring property at number 9 and was occupied in 1847 by Harvey, a linen draper), which was across the road from the original shop at number 42. They also had premises at numbers 68 and 70, which was not the renumbered original shop at number 42 as that ended up under the new railway bridge, but the old numbers 38 and 39. The new building at nos 68/70 was designed in 1871 by J.R. Meakin for land investor Robert Pettit (information from Terence Hodgson). There was a lot of building going on at Ludgate Hill since 1864 when it was decided to allow the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company to build a bridge across the street with the added ‘bonus’ of creating Ludgate Circus, all meant to improve traffic flow. In the twenty odd years following, property in Ludgate Hill itself was bought up to allow for the widening of the street. The houses were set back and the southern side was the first section (numbers 51-71) to be demolished. Terence Hodgson sent me an illustration from The Building News of 1873 showing Treloars new shop at number 69, for which my grateful thanks.

The improvement scheme of Ludgate Hill was more or less completed in 1889.⁽²⁾ See for the involvement of William Purdie himself his Ludgate Hill, Past and Present (2nd ed. 1892; online here), esp. pp. 134-141. You may remember from a previous post that Hooper’s printing business moved to 69 Ludgate Hill in 1874 or 1875. There is no clash with Treloar as the gentlemen shared the building. Treloar used the ground floor, which, by the way, extended all the way back to Pilgrim Street, and Hooper used one (or more?) of the upper floors. Goad’s insurance map of 1886 just lists the occupants as “carpet warehouse & others”, but the 1904 insurance map says “carpet warehouse, stationers’ warehouse & offices over”. The colours on the 1904 map are not terribly bright, but if you click on it to enlarge, I think you will see what I mean. In an advertisement, Treloar’s made full use of the fact that their two shops were on opposite sides of the street by paving the street between his shops with one of their Turkish carpets. The same advertisement claims that Treloar’s were floor covering specialist for over 90 years, which would date the start of the business in 1833 or before (see bottom of this post). Well, possibly, but not at number 42 as that did not house a carpet manufacturing business before Treloar moved in.

Thomas senior died in June 1876, 58 years old. In the probate record he is still described as coconut fibre matting manufacturer, so he presumably had not yet retired.⁽³⁾ In 1881, both William Purdie and Robert claim their Freedom of the City by patrimony and are described as of 69, Ludgate Hill, carpet factors. They continued the business under the name of Treloar & Sons until Robert died in 1898.⁽⁴⁾. William Purdie, by then Sir William Purdie, died in 1923⁽⁵⁾ and that is where my story ends. I will leave you with some advertisements for Treloar.

Advertisement in The Graphic, 23 April 1887

Advertisement in The Pall Mall Gazette, 14 April 1897

Advertisement in Punch, 3 October 1923

(1) The Examiner, 18 July 1846.
(2) The British Architect, vol. 32, 15 November 1889, p. 343.
(3) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1876. Estate valued at under £35,000. Sons Robert and William Purdie were the executors.
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1898. Estate valued at roughly £16,500. Brother William Purdie is named as the executor.
(5) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1923. Estate valued at roughly £36,600.

Neighbours:

<– 43 Ludgate Hill

41 Ludgate Hill –>

Jeremiah Whitfield, carpet warehouse

Tags

carpet

Street View: 67
Address: 38 Bishopsgate Street Without

Mr. Whitfield at number 38 had, according to the writing on the elevation in Tallis’s Street View, a business in “carpet & floor cloth wholesale retail & for exportation”. The 1841 census identifies him as John Whitfield, warehouseman, 35 years old, and his wife Eliza, 40 years old, but his real name was Jeremiah Whitfield as Pigot’s Directory of 1839 correctly states. At one point, I thought Jeremiah might be related to John Whitfield, cheesemonger of Lamb’s Conduit Street, and William Whitfield of 44 Old Bond Street, but that does not seem to be the case.

Jeremiah obtained his freedom from the City of London in March 1838 by redemption, indicating that he had not gone through the usual apprenticeship of 7 years. In the papers deposited at Guildhall, there is a document listing Jeremiah’s age as 35 and his father’s name as Ralph Whitfield, late of Barton Bendish, Norfolk, labourer, deceased. Barton Bendish is fortunately a very small village and it was easy enough to work out that Jeremiah was baptised on the 9th of May 1802 as the son of Ralph and Sarah. Ralph died in 1825 at the age of 47.

As Jeremiah was not apprenticed to a member of one of the London Companies, there is no information as to when he came to London. Kent’s Directory of 1823 does not list a Jeremiah Whitfield anywhere, but he may of course have been employed rather than have owned a business. He was definitely not yet the proprietor of 38 Bishopsgate as one William Hare is listed there as carpet and rug manufacturer. There is a marriage listed in February 1825 at St. Leonard Foster Lane with Elizabeth Proud, which may very well have been the Jeremiah and Elizabeth of number 38, but there is no conclusive evidence that this is indeed the case. In Pigot’s 1825-26 Directory, William Hare is still the proprietor of number 38 and Whitfield is still nowhere to be found.

©Bishopsgate Institute via Spitalfields Life (http://spitalfieldslife.com/2010/10/23/in-bishopsgate-st-spitalfields-1838/)

Jeremiah must have started his carpet warehouse somewhere between 1826 and 1838 as a set of watercolour elevations of Bishopsgate Street of that latter year show his name to the right of the cobbled alley leading to the back of the buildings in that section of the street. The anonymous artist has given the alleyway a rounded ceiling, although Tallis has levelled the top of the arch and shows two doors on the right-hand side rather than the one shown in the watercolour. Whitfield must have occupied the premises above the alleyway as the house numbering does not correspond to the Tallis directory in any other way. Reynolds, milliner, occupies number 39, then comes Whitfield at number 38, then Mrs Hammond, dressmaker at number 37 and number 36 is the Coffee Rooms, in Tallis occupied by Shrimpton, but in 1838 by Robert Field.

Whitfield’s carpet business was not a great success and in April 1841, he is declared bankrupt. He is allowed to continue trading and is awarded a certificate in February 1843.⁽¹⁾ Later that year, a wine merchant by the name of Edward Jenner Stannard comes to the Whitfield warehouse and wants to buy a floorcloth and two mats for his counting house. They were to be paid for on delivery. The porter sent with the mats was not to deliver them without receiving the money. Stannard did not show up at the appointed time and the porter brought the material back. Stannard called again the next day and increased the order to 25 pieces with a total value of £150. Whitfield stated that he would only accept ready money as the profit margin on the mats was very small. The goods were transported in two vans and the porter was sent with the second one to receive the money. However, the mats were not brought to Stannard’s home or warehouse, but to a Mr. Davis in St. Mary Axe. The porter was not given the money, but was told Stannard would come to Whitfield the next morning. He did indeed come the next day, but only offered bills and no cash. Whitfield refused. After a bit of toing and froing, Whitfield tried to get his carpets back from Mr. Davis, but he would not let them go as he had a claim on Stannard which was covered by the carpets.

Whitfield took the case to Guildhall where Alderman Musgrove called the action by Stannard and Davis theft and a trick played on Mr. Whitfield. Although an employee of Stannard alleged that he had heard that Whitfield would accept bills, the porter, who was heard at Guildhall the next Monday, denied that. When the case was heard again on the Thursday, the solicitor for Mr. Whitfield said that the goods had been returned that day by Mr. Davis. Davis gave as an explanation that he had read in the paper how the goods had come into the hands of Stannard and had concluded that they still belonged to Whitfield and had therefore returned them. Alderman Musgrove was satisfied that the goods were now returned to Whitfield who, as a small trader, would have suffered badly from a loss of £150, but he did not think there was enough evidence to convict Stannard if the case went to the Old Bailey, so Stannard was discharged.⁽²⁾ I am afraid Stannard was a dodgy character and was up to no good again a few years later when he was confined for 18 months for defrauding someone of railway shares.⁽³⁾

Whitfield did not enjoy his life as a carpet dealer for very long as in December 1844 he died and was buried at Abney Park Cemetery. He left all his “household goods, ffixtures, plate, linen, china and all and every my personal estate of whatsoever nature” to his wife Elizabeth whom he also named as the sole executor.⁽⁴⁾ As he did not specify any of his goods, we are none the wiser, but as he does not mention a lease or freehold, we can probably assume that he just rented his property. Elizabeth continued the warehouse for a little while as she is mentioned in an Old Bailey case of October 1845 as the proprietor of number 38.⁽⁵⁾ She is still listed in the 1848 Post Office Directory, but she must have given up soon afterwards as Edmund Weaver is listed as carpet manufacturer at number 38 in the 1851 Post Office Directory.

As no examples of the carpets Whitfield sold, nor any advertisements listing his wares, have turned up, I have simply done a Google Image search for nineteenth-century carpets, so the carpets you see dotted around this post are the result of that search. Nothing to do with Whitfield; they just add a bit of colour to the page.

(1) The London Gazette, 9 April 1841, 13 December 1842 and 13 January 1843.
(2) The Morning Chronicle, 4, 5 and 8 September 1843.
(3) Old Bailey case t18490409-1005. You can read the complete proceedings here.
(4) PROB 11/2018/316.
(5) Old Bailey case t18451027-2014.

Neighbours:

<– 39 Bishopsgate

37 Bishopsgate –>

Askew & Co., Linen Drapers and Carpet Warehouse

Tags

carpet, clothing

Street View: 31
Address: 110 Blackman Street

In the post on George Alderson, we saw that George and his brother John sold their father’s old shop somewhere in the second half of the 1820s, but I think John had moved to 110 Blackman Street a little bit earlier [Update: no, wrong, that is another John, see comment on the post of George Alderson by David Williams]. In July 1823 he had married Margaret Loy at St. Giles, Camberwell and when their daughter Margaret was baptised on 28 May 1824 at St. George the Martyr, their address is already given as Blackman Street, albeit without a house number. The Land Tax record for 1826 shows John’s name squeezed in at number 110 between the names of his immediate neighbours. Unfortunately, John died in 1833, just 36 years old.⁽¹⁾ As his brother was to do, John left everything he possessed to his wife Margaret without specifying what properties and goods he owned.⁽²⁾

Margaret continued the business and in 1835 she is given as the proprietor of the business when Richard Russell testifies in a case of theft from the shop. He says ” I am in the service of Margaret Alderson, she keeps a linen-draper’s shop, in Blackman-street, Borough”.⁽³⁾ But less than a year later, widow Margaret married bachelor John Askew, hence Askew’s name in the Tallis Street View. In the 1841 census, Askew is classed as a carpet dealer; Margaret is not given an occupation and in the 1843 Post Office Directory, Askew is described as “linendraper & carpet war[e]h[ouse]”, suggesting he had taken over the management of the business. Another Old Bailey case tells us a little detail about the building. Askew testified: “I looked at the skylight over the counting-house the next morning, and part of the frame of it was broken”. We nowadays refer to a counting house as the inner office and it was were the money and papers were kept as the shopman testified: “they had … taken the money from the till, and I missed two coats from the counting-house — all the drawers in the counting-house had been broken open, and the papers were all about the floor”.⁽⁴⁾ The building at Blackman Street apparently had a skylight, but no more information is given, so, other than the picture of the front of the house at the top of this post and the existence of the skylight, no more is known about 110 Blackman Street.

From 1841 onwards, it is Askew’s name that appears in the Land Tax records. In the 1848 and 1851 Post Office Directories an additional address is given for Askew: 2 & 3 Mint Street, which was just round the corner from the Blackman Street shop, but the list of occupants for Mint Street in the 1856 Post Office Directory no longer shows Askew’s name.

View into Mint Street, 1840 (Source: British Museum)

Margaret dies in 1870 and is buried on 11 March at Nunhead Cemetery in the same grave as her daughter Eliza Loy who had died in 1860.⁽⁵⁾ Also in the same grave is a Margaret Sherrington (died 1856) whose connection to the Askew-Alderson family is not clear. A Margaret Askew married a Thomas Sherrington in Kerby-Stephen, Westmoreland in 1814, but whether she is the same woman is uncertain. Nor is it entirely clear who John Askew’s father was, but in the 1851 census he claims that Westmoreland was where he came from, although in other records, he names Lancashire. Margaret Sherrington may have been his mother who remarried after the death of John’s father, but that is only guesswork.

What is surprising in this post, and was indeed in the post on George Alderson, is that I have not found any advertisement for the shop, no trade cards, nor any references to them other than in a few Old Bailey cases of petty theft, with one exception. Unfortunately, that one exception was after the death of John Askew. According to a small item in LLoyd’s Weekly Newspaper of 15 June 1873, an inquest was held at St. George’s Workhouse in Mint Street, just round the corner from the draper’s shop, into the death of Askew. “He had lately engaged in large business transactions, and not being successful executed a deed of inspectorship for the benefit of his creditors. Since then he had been very desponding as to the fate of his business, and blew out his brains with a pistol. The jury returned a verdict of ‘temporary insanity'”. Poor chap. What the large business transaction was remains unsaid, but a deed of assignment of 21 May 1873 was mentioned in The London Gazette of 22 September 1874 where all creditors are urged to send in their claims. John was buried in the same grave as his wife and step-daughter on 14 June.⁽⁶⁾ The stock of the business was purchased by a company in Hull and advertised as for sale in that city.

The Hull Packet and East Riding Times, 27 June 1873

One more thing is left to say about Askew and that is that he moved from number 110 to number 109 Blackman Street. Margaret’s probate record of 1870 still mentions number 110, but the 1871 census lists John and his sister Peggy at no. 109. In April 1869, however, The Building News advertised the freehold business premises at no. 110 for £2,300 (let at £140 a year). Did that mean that Askew never owned the premises? Or did he sell it when he was in financial difficulties?

———————-
(1) There is something unexplained about his date of birth, though. I have found a son John for William and Martha Alderson of Barnard Castle, but he is baptised on 8 August 1783, which would make John 49 or 50 years old when he died. It is of course possible that the 1783 John died and that the name was re-used for a later child, but I have found no record of a later baptism. [Update: it is another John, see comment on the post of George Alderson by David Williams]
(2) PROB 11/1821/33.
(3) Old Bailey case t18351214-301.
(4) Old Bailey case t18450512-1216.
(5) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1870. Probate was granted to her son George Alderson and her estate was valued at £100, later resworn at under £200.
(6) In 1885 John’s sister Peggy was also interred there. Peggy, 7 years older than her brother, had lived with him at the time of the 1871 census, possibly as his housekeeper, although that is not made clear in the census record. The sister’s name Peggy, may strengthen the case for Margaret Sherrington as their mother. After the death of John, Peggy rented a room at 47 Blackman Street (census 1881). In the census record she is described as from Caton, Lancs. which leads me to suggest her baptism on 24 Nov. 1799 as the daughter of James and Margaret Askew. John may then very well have been the brother baptised on 30 July 1809, also with parents James and Margaret, but at St. Mary’s in Lancaster itself. It is slightly tenuous and circumstantial, but not impossible to tie the Aldersons to the Sherringtons.

Neighbours:

<– 109 Blackman Street

111 Blackman Street –>

Danks and Son’s carpet warehouse

Tags

carpet, furniture

Street View: 33
Address: 98-99 Hatton Garden

98-99 Hatton Garden

The carpet manufacturing firm of Danks and Son was spread over two properties, 98 and 99 Hatton Garden. Number 98 had been occupied by Thomas Danks who had died in 1837 and the business was continued after his death by his son Michael.⁽¹⁾ The 1841 census shows Michael living at number 98 with his wife Caroline Emblin whom he had married in September 1835. At the time of the census they had two children, Caroline Robson, aged 5 and Michael Henry, aged 2. Also living at number 98 were Josiah Danks (Michael’s younger brother) and his wife Rebecca Berdoe, both 20 years old.⁽²⁾ Michael and Josiah’s sister Ann married a near neighbour, John Jaques.

In the general information Tallis provided on Hatton Garden, he mentions Danks & Son as occupying the premises where once John Stanley (1712-1786), a blind musician had been living. In their shop, a very special carpet could be seen, which had once graced the altar of Kidderminster’s St. George’s Chapel. How the mutilated carpet came to be in the hands of Danks is not explained. The building of the “Bed, feather, blanket & floor cloth warehouse” looks quite substantial in Tallis’s Street View, but just to make sure you realise how grand their business is, Danks used a whole page of the Street View booklet to advertise his wares and to illustrate it with a view of the premises where it looks even larger and where elegant customers just happen to be arriving in their horse-drawn carriage.

98-99 Hatton Garden from Advert in Tallis’s Street View

To emphasise the solidity of the shop, the advertisement is headed by the phrase “Fashionable carpet manufactory, upon old-fashioned principles, the interest of customers and the proprietors”. Underneath the illustration, they explain that they have been “compelled” by the “unprecedented increase of their business” to enlarge the shop with the adjoining premises. They certainly splashed out in a major way in Tallis’s booklet, not only did they have their name on the building in the elevation and the page-long advertisement with illustration, they also had another advertisement on another page in the booklet. This one on a third of a page, smaller than the first advertisement, but still larger than the average advert of other shops and illustrating one of their carpet making devices.

Danks 1/3 advertisement in Street View

By combining the advertisements we learn that they supplied bed, feather, blanket and floor cloths, all sorts of carpets, Lapland wool rugs, damask Hollands, stair covers, painted baize for table covers, mats, doyleys, drugget, door mats, material for outside blinds and foot stools. And if that was not enough, they also specifically addressed carpet shoe makers to inform them that they had just introduced a new carpet for shoes, “very superior dyed jet black”. What are carpet shoes? I guess a kind of slipper with the uppers made from carpet material. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests as much for carpet slippers. Any thoughts anyone?

Things seemed to go smoothly for the Thomas Danks & Son business, but all was not well. The London Gazette of 3 December 1841 shows that bankruptcy proceedings had been filed against Michael Danks and in May 1845, 98 Hatton Garden had to be sold by order of the High Court of Chancery. Intriguingly, the case is referred to as “Danks versus Danks”. Can we assume that Michael’s brother(s) wanted a fair share of their father’s legacy? [see postscript]

Carpet making device

What is known is that Michael and Caroline moved to St. Leonards, Hastings for a while and that two of their children were born there, Elisabeth and Alfred. These two, together with two more children, Flower and John, were all baptised at St. Philip, Stepney, Tower Hamlets on 18 July 1855. The parents apparently liked to do this ritual in batches as the two eldest, Caroline and Michael, were both baptised on 18 June 1840 at St. Andrew Holborn.⁽³⁾ By the time of the 1851 census, Michael, Caroline and the children were back in London, this time living at 111 Whitechapel Road. Michael is now a “general agent”, but in 1861 he is a “tripe dresser”, this latter occupation most likely not involving the innards of animals, but mock velvet.

Michael died 25 December 1870 at 140 Pennington Street and probate was granted to his widow Caroline on 15 February 1871. His effects had the value of under £20. ⁽⁴⁾

98 Hatton Garden is now a jeweller’s shop and number 99 is occupied by Barclays Bank, but do not be tempted to have a look at the building, it is all post-war concrete on that side of the street.

Postscript: since writing this post, I have become aware of a second marriage that father Thomas entered into in 1832 with Elizabeth Scudemore. A son was born of that marriage, Andrew Sidesman Danks (baptised 1834), who was a lot younger than his half-siblings. In his will, Thomas divided up his properties in such a way that Michael, Josiah and Andrew Sidesman were to continue the Hatton Garden business. In 1839, however, on behalf of Andrew Sidesman (who was only 5 years old at the time) a case was started against the other heirs and although I have not yet seen the court papers themselves, a family feud seems to be in the making.

(1) Thomas was buried on 1 April 1837 at St. Andrew Holborn. Probate was granted on the 10th of April (PROB 11/1876/166). Michael is baptised on 18 June 1807 at St. Andrew Holborn.
(2) Both marriages took place at St. Andrew Holborn, 17 September 1835 and 31 May 1839 respectively.
(3) Caroline Robson was born 4 April 1837, Michael Henry 25 July 1839, Alfred 12 October 1847, Elizabeth Mary Ann 20 April 1846, Flower 29 December 1844 and John Early 24 June 1843. Their exact date of birth is given in the baptisms registers of St. Philip and St. Andrew.
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1871, p. 23.

You may also like to read the post on the other side of the family, Jeremiah Danks of 9 Tottenham Court Road.

Neighbours:

<– 100 Hatton Garden

97 Hatton Garden –>