Samuel Fisher, cutler

Tags

cutler

Street Views: 28 and 11 Suppl.
Address: 188 Strand

On the corner of Arundel Street and the Strand, the premises of Samuel Fisher could be found. Arundel Street was built in 1678 on part of the site of the demolished Arundel House. The picture below shows the shop as it was in 1851, next door to the entrance to the Crown and Anchor Tavern.

1851 watercolour by J. Findlay (Source: British Museum)

Samuel Fisher was a young man from the parish of Saint John, Hampstead, but that is all I know about his background. He first appears in the records in 1837 when he marries Mary Smith of St. Clement Eastcheap on 23 February. Mary was still a minor and the marriage registration duly noted that the marriage took place “with consent of the legally appointed guardians of the said Mary Smith”. No address was given for the couple, but they must have set up the business at 188 Strand quite soon afterwards, as an advertisement in The Graphic mentions the establishment of the firm in 1838. The 1841 census shows the couple at 188 Strand with daughter Mary Elizabeth and sons Robert Edward and Henry. More children were to follow and at the time of the 1851 census, there were five more. The eldest are all given as born in London, but two of the younger ones were born in Beckenham, Kent and the youngest at Willesden where the family resided in 1851. Father Samuel is styled as dressing case maker, but in various directories and advertisements he is also called needle maker or cutler.

The Graphic, 1 December 1883

The Fisher firm sold all kinds of items, not just dressing cases and needles, but also billiard tables, stoves, trunks, travelling bags, scissors, Nuremberg caskets, lamps, and flasks. The article they seem to have been most proud of, as it appeared in numerous advertisements, was their Gladstone bag which was “perfect as a dressing bag” and “perfect as a travelling bag”.

The address for the extensive Fisher family (in the end there were at least 14 children) in 1851 and 1861 is Willesden, but in 1871 and 1881 Ravenscroft Lodge, Penge. Samuel dies on 9 March 1890 at 10 Anerley Park, Surrey. His probate is granted to his sons Robert Edward and Charles Alfred.⁽¹⁾ Robert is called a dressing case manufacturer and Charles is a commercial clerk, presumably at the family business as both are given the address of 188 Strand.

Case and label (Source: geraldmathias.com)

In 1880, an attempt was made to steal from Fisher’s shop with the help of John Neate whose wife acted as housekeeper at Fisher’s. The thieves thought that Neate would help them in their attempt by telling them the layout of the building and obtaining impressions of the keys, but Neate had told Robert Edward Fisher of the plans and Fisher had sent him to the police. They devised a plan to trap the thieves and Neate pretended to go along with the criminal plans, but kept the police informed and when the rogues’ plans came to fruition, they were duly nabbed and hauled before the Court at the Old Bailey.⁽²⁾ The evidence Neate gave at the trial explains the situation inside the house, so I will quote him:

I am a picture-frame and window-blind maker, and live at Mr. Fisher’s, 118 [mistake for 188], Strand, with my wife and family—we occupy the basement, and my wife acts as housekeeper—Mr. Fisher does not live on the premises—Mr. Stennett, Mr. Fishers foreman, his wife and family, occupy the fourth floor—the first floor is used by Mr. Fisher as a show-room, and the second and third floors are let as offices to Mr. Cooper, an engineer—the access to those floors is by a private door in Arundel Street—inside the shop there is a staircase, leading up through the show-room to Mr. Stennett’s apartments on the fourth floor—there is no door out of the show-room on to the staircase leading up to the second and third floors—the entrance in Arundel Street communicates with the shop as well as the private part of the house, but has no communication with the show-room.

While the Fisher family resided in Willesden and Penge, the shop was minded by shopman, later foreman, Thomas Stennett and his family. Thomas Stennett proved a loyal employee and can be found at 188 Strand in the 1851 to 1881 censuses. He is missing from the 1891 census and dies in 1895. His address is then given as Stoke Newington.⁽³⁾ John Neate has not made it into the census records for the shop. In 1871 the housekeeper is one Martha B. Houghton, and in 1881, the nearest census to the attempted burglary, the Topliffs can be found on the premises besides the Stennetts with Charles Topliff as caretaker and his wife Elizabeth as housekeeper. Nothing else of any importance seems to have happened to the Fishers or the shop, so I will stop the story here and leave you with some advertisements.

The Nursing Record, 20 April 1895

Pascoe’s Joyous Neighborhood of Covent Garden, 1887

The Graphic, 28 May 1892

(1) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1890. Estate valued at just over £3107.
(2) Old Bailey case t18801123-51. You can read the whole trial here.
(3) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1895. Probate is granted to his son George, a salesman. Estate valued at just over £1574.

Neighbours:

<– 189 Strand

187 Strand –>

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Elizabeth Pryor, silversmith

Tags

cutler, jeweller

Street View: 21
Address: 20 Gracechurch Street

The previous post showed us Charles Snelling, perfumer and hairdresser, moving from Wellington Street to 20 Gracechurch Street some time between the publication of the Tallis booklet and the 1841 census. In the Tallis booklet for Gracechurch Street, number 20 is occupied by E. Pryor, silversmith, jeweller and cutler. The advertisement for the shop in the booklet shows us that E. Pryor was widow Elizabeth Pryor. She had continued the business of her husband Nathaniel after his death in 1833.⁽¹⁾ Nathaniel Pryor (born 1766) and Elizabeth Thake (born 1777) had married in 1795 at St. Botolph’s, Bishopsgate, but the earliest mention I found of a shop for them in Gracechurch Street is in 1809 in the Sun Fire Office records. That is not to say that Nathaniel had not had a shop before that, perhaps even as early as 1789 when he was eligible for the freedom of the Goldsmith’s Company (he had started his apprenticeship at Joseph Savory’s of Cheapside in 1782), but he may just as well have stayed on with his master as a journeyman. In the advertisement Elizabeth entered into the Tallis’ Street View booklet, she says that the business had been established 30 years ago, which would indeed suggest 1809 as the starting date.

Advertisement in Tallis’s Street View booklet

Montague Howard in his Old London Silver of 1903 gives Nathaniel from 1810 to 1833 and Elizabeth from 1834 tot 1840. Intriguingly, he also gives a Matthew Pryor at 20 Gracechurch Street in 1819, but I have not found any record of him elsewhere. Could that have been a misreading of Nath.? We do not know a lot more about the shop or what was sold there other than what has been described in the advertisement, but there is a bit more to say about the charitable work undertaken by the Pryors.

For all Victorians charity constituted a large part of everyday life and an advertisement in The Morning Chronicle of 7 May 1821 testifies that the Pryors were no exception. Mrs Pryor is mentioned as one of the people undertaking all the arrangements for the embarkation of a destitute mother and her eight children to New South Wales where they are to join the husband and father. The subscription needed was to cloth the family and provide them with a few necessities for their passage. In this particular case, we do not know the name of the woman, but in another case, we know more.

In February 1819, Nathaniel Pryor received a letter from the Bank of England saying that they were prepared to give £5 to Elizabeth Brooks upon her embarking for transportation to New South Wales. Elizabeth Brooks had been convicted of knowingly trying to pay with a counterfeit £1 bank note. The case was heard at the Old Bailey in September 1818 and she was sentenced to death.⁽²⁾ The sentence must have been changed to one of transportation as on the 1st of February, Elizabeth Brooks writes to the Governors of the Bank of England from Newgate Prison’s “transport side” that she is to go “to a Foreign Country” with her children, two of which are with her in the prison. Two others who are at a factory are to join her with a 5th child to remain behind, looked after by a friend. While Elizabeth was in prison she sold or pawned all her clothes to support the children and now that transportation was imminent, she asked the bank for support. This may seem strange as she first robbed them by trying to pay with a forged note, but the Bank had a fund set aside for desperate cases such as Elizabeth’s.⁽³⁾ I gather from the correspondence that Elizabeth’s letters did not go to the Bank directly, but were sent via an intermediary, in this case Nathaniel Pryor, hence the answer to him and not to her directly.

The original letters from Elizabeth Brooks and the bank’s answer to Nathaniel Pryor (and many more like them) can be seen here.

Despite the fact that Elizabeth Pryor said that she was still continuing her late husband’s shop in the Tallis’ Street View advertisement, she must have given the business up quite soon afterwards, as in the 1841 census we find her living as an “independent” with William Smither, a tea-dealer at 28 Gracechurch Street. As we have seen, the shop at number 20 was taken over by hairdresser and perfumer Charles Snelling who had his business there until at least 1852 when dividends were paid out to his creditors after bankruptcy proceedings had been started against him.

————-
(1) Nathaniel died the 15th and was buried the 24th of the 2nd month of 1833 at Bunhill Fields. The notation of the month as the 2nd rather than February is a Quaker practice and the records of the Quarterly Meeting of London and Middlesex contain a paper asking Thomas Colcock, grave maker to dig a grave for Nathaniel in the Friends’ burial ground at Bunhill Fields.
(2) Old Bailey case t18180909-107.
(3) See website Bank of England here.

Mechi’s magic razor strops and dressing cases

Tags

cutler, shaving

Street View: 2
Address: 4 Leadenhall Street

John Joseph Mechi (1802-1880) was the son of Giacomo Mechi from Bologna, Italy, who set up business as a cutler in the 1820s at 130 Leadenhall Street. When business went well, he moved to larger premises at 4 Leadenhall Street where he proudly announced his invention of the ‘magic’ razor strop on the Street View elevation. This last address is mentioned as Mechi’s in the Electoral Register for 1834.

He did not just stick with the traditional cutler’s wares, but branched out into dressing cases, chess boards, small tables, portable desks, and lots of similar goods. Some of the boxes and cases he supplied still come up in auctions and antique sales. His frequent advertisements were always verbose, listing as many trade goods as he could possibly fit in the allotted space. A good example is the page-long advertisement in Hammond’s List of London and Provincial Newspapers of 1850.

Advertisement in Hammond’s List of London and Provincial Newspapers 1850

Advertisement from C. Dickens, Bleak House 1852 p. 22

A slightly more subdued one is the advertisement he put in one of Dickens’s books by instalments, but even here he cannot refrain from listing the items available. Sometimes his advertisements were concerned with just one item, but then he would describe them in great detail as in the case of an advert for dressing cases in Notes and Queries of 25 January, 1851 where he states that “In no article perhaps is caution more necessary than in the purchase of a Dressing Case, for in none are the meretricious arts of the unprincipled manufacturer more frequently displayed. MECHI, 4. LEADENHALL STREET, near Gracechurch Street, has long enjoyed the reputation of producing a Dressing Case in the most finished and faultless manner. Those who purchase of him will be sure of having thoroughly-seasoned and well-prepared wood or leather, with the fittings of first-rate quality. The prices range from 1l. to 100l. Thus the man of fortune and he of moderate means may alike be suited, while the traveller will find the Mechian Dressing Case especially adapted to his necessities”.

shop front from 1841 catalogue

In 1851, Mechi exhibited at the Great Exhibition and as he announces in the Notes and Queries of 24 May 1851, he could be found in the gallery at the north-east corner of the transept. Totally in character, he could not refrain from adding a P.S.: “In order to afford room for the great accession of Stock which Mechi has provided to meet the demand consequent upon the anticipated influx of visitors to London during this season, he has fitted up an additional Show Room of great splendour, and made other improvements, to which he earnestly invites public attention.” He also acted as juror of the 1851 Exhibition and of the Paris Exhibition of 1855.

Mechi's Catalogue of 1834

From time to time, he also brought out a catalogue with pages and pages of items he could supply. You can see one full-text here and another one here. In 1859 he promoted his manager Charles Bazin to partner and expanded the business to 112 Regent Street. That is also the address were Bazin and his family were registered as living at the time of the 1861 census. Unfortunately, Charles Bazin died in 1865 (not in 1869 as is sometimes alleged) and Mechi had to take sole responsibility again.⁽¹⁾ We do indeed see Mechi and his second wife Charlotte residing at the Regent Street address in the 1871 census. Their children Isabella, Joseph and Florence are then living at Triptree-Hall, Tollesbury, Essex, a farm that Mechi had purchased in the early 1840s and on which he experimented with new farming methods.⁽²⁾ The Gardeners’ Chronicle makes frequent mention of talks, demonstrations and books, all by Mechi. Mr. Mechi’s Farm Balance-Sheets; also, His Lectures and Papers on farming since the publication of his former book was published in 1867 (see here). He also gave a lecture on how to ensure success in trade which was published in 1850 (see here). He stressed that customers had to be treated well, or in his words “with the utmost latitude of liberality” (p. 8). Even if they are wrong, they are right and you might as well take a small loss if that means the customer is satisfied with the service and will not only come back to you, but will also tell his friends about it.

Illustrated London News, 11 April 1857 Mechi as Middlesex magistrate

Mechi’s flair for business enabled him to live the life of a gentleman-farmer, frequently sojourning into the limelight with new farming practices. He became Alderman in the Ward of Lime Street and magistrate for Middlesex and founded a charity to support farmers. In 1860, the premises in Regent Street were used for the inaugural meeting of the Agricultural Benevolent Institution, a charity that still exists, and which had – and has – as its purpose “to secure a home for, or pension to, the bona fide farmer, or widow of a farmer and to maintain and educate the orphan children of farmers.”⁽³⁾

At the end of his life, things did not go as well as before. The failure of the Unity Joint Stock Bank and an unfortunate commitment with the Unity Fire and General Life Insurance Company, combined with the growing fashion for beards which markedly diminished the magic razor strop appeal and the bad farming years in the late 1870s all contributed to a gradual decline of his fortunes. He died on Boxing Day 1880, just 12 days after the liquidation of his affairs.⁽⁴⁾ In an obituary he was referred to as the “well-known agriculturist” and it was said that “although Mr. Mechi had attained a good old age, there appears to be no doubt that his death was immediately caused by the misfortunes that overtook him at the end of his useful career”.⁽⁵⁾ Although he died at Tiptree, his last address was given as 439 Strand and that is also the address where Isabella and Florence are found at the time of the 1881 census. Their mother Charlotte is then still residing at the farm with Joseph and Alice.

portrait Illustrated London News 8 Jan. 1881

(1) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1865. Charles died on 9 March 1865.
(2) John Joseph and Charlotte had five children: Louisa (±1850), Isabella (±1853), Joseph (±1854), Alice (±1856) and Florence (±1859). Mechi had married Charlotte Ward on 17 Feb. 1846 (St. Mary’s Stoke Newington) after his first wife Fanny Frost had died. He had married Fanny on 23 March 1823 (St. George the Martyr, London).
(3) RABI. Their website provided some of the information I have used for this post, esp. the section of their 150th anniversary (see here).
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1881. The probate on 7 January 1881 was granted to his daughter Isabella as one of the executors. Although his affairs had gone into liquidation, his personal estate was still valued as “under £2,000”.
(5) Journal of the Society of Arts, vol. 29 (1880-1881), p. 103.

Neighbours:

<– 5 Leadenhall Street

3 Leadenhall Street –>