Thomas Bowtell, Tottenham Shoe Mart

Tags

footwear

Street View: 49
Address: 152 Tottenham Court Road

In two previous post, here and here, we saw that the Bowtells ran various boot and shoe shops, both in and outside London, and we also found out that it is not always easy to tell which Bowtell ran which shop when. Father and eldest son were both named Thomas and were listed without the handy distinction of ‘senior’, ‘junior’, ‘the elder’, ‘the younger’ or somesuch. Or the shop was just listed for Bowtell & Co., which does not help. Anyway, I have tried to give an overview of all the shops in the post for 49 Skinner Street and that will have to do. This post is about the Tottenham Court Road shop at number 152, which is first listed in March 1837 for Thomas Bowtell in a Sun Fire Office record.

But an earlier Old Bailey case of theft shows that Thomas had a shop in Tottenham Court Road a number of years before he took out the insurance, although it may not have been at number 152. In July 1832, one John Rae is indicted for stealing a pair of boots from Thomas Bowtell “and another”. Rae apparently grabbed the boots through the open door of the shop, but the shopboy saw him do it and ran after him. Rae was caught with the boots in his possession, found guilty and transported for seven years.⁽¹⁾ This was, however, not the first time that Rae had attempted to steel boots from Bowtell. A very short transcription of another Old Bailey case saw Rae accused of stealing boots a few weeks before the other attempt, but this time he was found ‘not guilty’.⁽²⁾ No indication is given what happened exactly, but Thomas Bowtell is recorded as saying “these boots were the property of myself and brother”, so we can deduce that it was Thomas junior who ran the Tottenham Court Road shop. Yet another Old Bailey case helps to identify the brother as William, as in 1837 more boots were allegedly stolen and Thomas testifies that he is “a bootmaker, and in partnership with my brother William, at No. 19, Strand”.⁽³⁾ In Robson’s 1842 Directory and in the 1843 Post Office Directory, the shops in both Strand and Tottenham Court Road are listed for T. & W., which must be Thomas and William.

1886 map showing both nos 117 and 152, by that time neither premises were occupied by the Bowtells. Number 152 had been incorporated into the Shoolbred department store and 117 had been turned into a restaurant

And at some point in time, the brothers ran a third shop at 42 Crawford Street, but on the 7th of January 1851, they dissolved their partnership.⁽⁴⁾. The Tottenham Court Road shop is by then listed at number 117 and no longer at no. 152. The 1851 census shows William living at number 117 with his assistant Martha Wardley. Thomas is then living at Portland Terrace and is described as master bootmaker, employing 6 men. But things did not go as well as the census appears to indicate, as in 1855, Thomas’s name is found in a list of bankrupts in the Debtor’s Prison and he is described as “formerly of no. 19 Strand, boot and shoe maker, having a private residence, first at no. 51, Saint John’s Wood, then at no. 4, Elm Tree-road, Saint John’s Wood, then again of some place, and next and late of no. 117, Tottenham Court Road, assistant to a boot and shoe maker”.⁽⁵⁾ The 1856 Post Office Directory lists both 19 Strand and 117 Tottenham Court Road for William, so he seems to have come to the rescue of Thomas.

But, things were not well at William’s either. In 1860, he appeared to have a debt of 1,600l at Lutwych and George, leather merchants, but what was worse, he had become involved in giving out dodgy bills which also involved his brother John and a John Baker, publican in Hertfordshire. This John Baker was the brother of Thomas Bowtell senior’s second wife Susannah, and a shoe shop had been opened in Baker’s name across the street from William, although Baker had never been in the shoe trade. William ended up in the Queen’s Prison.⁽⁶⁾

The Morning Chronicle, 12 December 1860

But all these bankruptcies did not mean the immediate end of the business in Tottenham Court Road, as in the 1861 census, Thomas could still be found at number 117 as a bootmaker. Also living there as housekeeper is Martha Wardley, sister-in-law. It turns out that Thomas had married Mary Ann Wardley, Martha’s sister, but that was not the end of the family link as sometime between 1861 and 1871, William and Martha marry as well – a double family knot so to speak. Where William is in 1861 is unclear; perhaps still in prison? But by 1871, he could be found as a “shopman in the shoe trade” in Bristol. Living with William and his wife Martha are two daughters of Thomas, Ellen and Alice. Thomas, his wife Mary Ann, and some of their older children are living in Grange Road, Hackney. Fast forward twenty years to 1891 when William is retired, but still in Bristol. Thomas is also retired, but living at Mortlake Surrey at the Bootmaker Institute, also known as the Bootmakers Asylum. These almshouses were founded in 1836 and run by the Master Boot and Shoe Makers’ Association for the Relief of Aged and Decayed members, their Widows and Orphans, which later became the Boot Trade Benevolent Society (see here).

The Bowtell emporium that father Thomas had so carefully built up, did not survive the next generation. John and Thomas went bankrupt in 1855, William in 1860, and Joseph thoroughly disgraced himself in 1857.

shoemaker at work from Tabart’s Book of Trades, vol. 2 (1806)

——————————-

(1) Old Bailey case t18320705-86.
(2) Old Bailey case t18320517-141.
(3) Old Bailey case t18370130-557.
(4) The London Gazette, 10 January 1851.
(5) The London Gazette, 12 June and 10 July 1855.
(6) The London Gazette, 6 November 1860.

Neighbours:

<– 151 Tottenham Court Road

153 Tottenham Court Road –>

Thomas Bowtell, boot and shoe maker

Tags

footwear

Street Views: 42 and 17 Suppl.
Address: 58 Cheapside

As we saw in the post on the 49 Skinner Street shop, Thomas Bowtell had quite a number of shops in various places and 58 Cheapside was one of them. The earliest we find him in Cheapside is in Kent’s Directory of 1823, albeit still at number 51. There is not a lot of evidence for the occupation of number 51, as Bowtell’s name does not appear in the tax records for that property which is continuously listed for a Benjamin Johnson. We know that in 1835 George and Alfred Pill had their confectioners’ business there, sharing it with other occupants. Only in 1841 does their name appear in the tax records, so it is likely that in their early years, as Bowtell had before them, they just rented the property from Johnson. What is certain, is that by 1835, Bowtell had moved to number 58, the house on the corner of Bow Lane as the tax records find him there in that year. He shared the property, at least at the time of the Tallis Street View, with Green & Chubb, hair cutters and wig makers. In the 1847 Tallis Supplement, the depiction of the shop is without any names, so no help in establishing whether Bowtell continued to share the shop, but the index tells us that James Green, hairdresser & wigmaker, was still there. In a forthcoming post, we will try and find out what happened to Chubb.

Goad’s insurance map of 1886, showing numbers 51 and 58

(© The Trustees of the British Museum)

The British Museum has the year 1832 pencilled in for the above advertorial poem which lists four addresses for Thomas, but there is a bit of a problem with that: 1835 is the year in which Bowtell is first recorded in the tax records for 58 Cheapside, but the printers of the advertisement, the Soulby brothers, dissolve their partnership and change addresses in April 1834.⁽¹⁾ It is very likely that Bowtell moved from no. 51 to no. 58 in 1834, as the tax data were only recorded once a year in August. We still have a discrepancy as in August 1834, Bowtell was not yet listed at number 58, and in April 1834, the Soulby brothers dissolved their partnership. The other addresses do not help much either; 49 Skinner Street was Bowtell’s address from 1813 to 1852; the Brighton address changed from number 106 to 116 somewhere between 1832 and 1838; and the Norwich address changed at some point from number 1 to numbers 20 & 21, but that address is frequently just described as Davey Place without a number, so that does not help much either. Anyway, somewhere in the early 1830s, Bowtell moved his shop a few houses, and he continued to trade from Cheapside till he died (1852). Until 1855, the shop was subsequently listed in the tax records for son William, but in the 1856 Post Office Directory and in the tax records for that year, the property is listed for John Edwin Shaw, a tailor.

advertisement in The Brighton Patriot and South of England Free Press, 23 Oct. 1838

We will come across William again in the post on the Tottenham Court Road shop, but first a bit more about the Brighton shop. In December 1856, Joseph, William’s brother, had trouble with one of his customers. One Sarah Cooper was charged with obtaining a pair of shoes under false pretences. She had come to the Bowtell shop, pretending to be a servant of a lady residing for the winter at 4 Brunswick Square, Brighton, who asked for a pair of overshoes on credit. She was to bring him the money next day. She did so and then asked for a pair of boots which were to be paid the following Monday. But she did not return with the money and Bowtell had her charged. The newspaper article was not so much about the theft itself as about the shambles the Grand Jury had made in going against the prosecutor’s case by claiming regret for the fact that Sarah had been held in custody and for the damage done to her reputation. The judge examining the case afterwards said that “he considered it a gross neglect of duty on the part of the grand jury, through which a prisoner had escaped punishment”.⁽²⁾ The newspaper reporting on the case, by the way, starts out by – erroneously(?) – naming the shoemaker James, in stead of Joseph, but in the rest of the article, they call him Joseph. As far as I know, Thomas Bowtell did not have a son James, so Joseph should be the correct name, but the confusion occurs again in a book on crime in Brighton.

In 1857, a young workhouse girl was raped by James Bowtell, her master, who is described as a married shoemaker with four children. The magistrates decided to release him on paying a fine of £10, because of his position and the feelings of his wife. Excuse me for using an expletive when I read this. The poor girl was sent back into the ‘care’ of the workhouse guardians.⁽³⁾ When I tried to check up on this story, I found another mention of the case in the CMPCANews, but here the man is named as Joseph Bowtell.⁽⁴⁾. So, what was going on? I contacted the author of the Church Hill Workhouse article, James Gardner, and he was certain the name was Joseph, although the local newspaper report he sent me also mentioned the name James.⁽⁵⁾ As we have seen in the post on the Skinner Street shop, the newspaper reports on the drowning of Henry Bowtell were very imprecise in the naming of the characters in the disaster, so I do not suppose this case was any different and James and Joseph are one and the same person.

116 St. James’s Street, corner of Charles Street, Brighton

The 1861 census, in listing Joseph’s family, who was by then back in London, corroborates that Joseph and his wife Kezia had four children at the time of his crime. Three of the children had been born in Brighton (Kezia, 11, Margaret, 10, and Charles, 5) and one (Emma, 6) in London. By 1861, one more child had been born in London (Susannah, 2). No evidence has been found in the census for a James Bowtell. That the third child was born in London can perhaps be explained by two notices in The London Gazette of that year in which we read that Joseph’s brothers Thomas and John were – at different times – declared bankrupts and in prison. John and Joseph had been trading as Bowtell Brothers in Piccadilly since 1842, first at number 181, but from 1848 at number 170. John’s bankruptcy may very well have necessitated a spell in London for Joseph, but he apparently went back to Brighton until his disgrace in 1857. Joseph does not seem to have had a shop again, but worked as an assistant. The 1871 census gives his occupation as ‘boot clicker’, which was someone who cut out the leather for making the uppers. I am afraid that his brother William did not fare much better, but he will be discussed in the next post on the shop at 152 Tottenham Court Road.

——————–

(1) The London Gazette, 22 April and 25 November 1834.
(2) Daily News, 30 December 1856.
(3) D. d’Enno, Brighton Crime and Vice, 1800-2000 (2007), pp. 167-168.
(4) J. Gardner, “Church Hill Workhouse, Part 2 Children and Vagrants” in Clifton Montpelier Powis Community Alliance News 12, 2008.
(5) The Brighton Observer, 9 January 1857. Thanks go to James Gardner for sending me this newspaper cutting.

Neighbours:

<– 59 Cheapside

57 Cheapside –>

Thomas Bowtell, boot and shoe warehouse

Tags

footwear

Street Views: 43
Address: 49 Skinner Street

Nowadays, if you are trying to find Skinner Street, London, you end up in Islington, but in the 19th century, you’d find yourself near Smithfield. The stretch of road with the name Skinner Street, where Thomas Bowtell had his shop, connected Holborn with Newgate Street and Old Bailey. The eastern half of what became Skinner Street was a section of Snow Hill, a street that formed the age-old connection between Holborn and Newgate Street, but which, as Tallis mentioned in his introduction “had been for ages one of the most inconvenient and dangerous passages within the metropolis. Its circuitous way, declivity, and other great obstructions to commercial intercourse, had rendered it a necessary object to improvement”. Creating the Skinner Street short-cut was definitely an improvement, but it did not go far enough and in the 1860s, another change was made. Old Fleet Market was extended northwards and became Farringdon Road and the sharp bend in what had remained of Snow Hill was slackened off, so that the street only met Skinner Street at St. Sepulchre’s Church, rather than halfway. And Skinner Street itself disappeared altogether under Holborn Viaduct, a major reconstruction scheme that put a stop to traffic having to negotiate the dangerous ascent and descent at Holborn Hill. The plan of the proposed 1802 improvement shows the drastic way in which the houses in the neighbourhood between Snow Hill and Fleet Market were destroyed. I have turned the picture upside down to give you the modern prospect with the north at the top. The red dot in the triangular section of houses became Bowtell’s shop. Another, later, engraving shows the triangular part in more detail with Bowtell’s premises indicated as number 49.

If you compare the 1799 Horwood map with the modern Google map, you will see the differences in the layout of the streets. Note that Snow Hill has not just been straightened out, but also ends higher up at its western end in Farringdon Road, rather than where it used to meet the Holborn intersection. One point of reference is St. Sepulchre in the lower right-hand corner and another is Hosier Lane, which, if you imagine it running on further west, would end up in Farringdon Road, just above where Snow Hill now enters Farringdon Road, while in 1799, Snow Hill came nowhere near that far north.

Enough of maps. Let us continue with Bowtell and his shop. In 1813, Thomas acquired the freedom of the City through the Cordwainers’ Company by servitude, and was from that moment onwards allowed to trade as a boot and shoemaker. In 1814, he takes out an insurance for premises at 42 Skinner Street, and in 1816 for 49 Skinner Street. In Johnstone’s London Commercial Guide of 1818, he is duly listed at the latter number. But, Thomas was not content with one shop and already in 1823, we see him listed in Kent’s Directory for 88 St. Martin’s Lane, 51 Cheapside and 49 Skinner Street. It is true that only Skinner Street is listed for Thomas Bowtell, and the other two addresses for Bowtell & Co, but we will see that all shops were run by Thomas and later, by one or more of his sons. Thomas and his wife Sarah had five sons and one daughter.⁽¹⁾ Disaster struck, however, in 1832, when son Henry drowned in a boating accident. The newspapers were rather inaccurate in their reporting as the drowned man was variously called Thomas or Thomas Francis or Henry, the number of brothers out in the boat was either five or six, the name of the shopman and/or apprentice who was/were also on the boat was W. Renceraft, Mr. Rincher, William Sawer and/or Christian Ficken, and the female friend who joined them was named as Elizabeth Morrisford or Mornaford or Emily Detmering. Well, whoever was in the boat, it was definitely Henry Bowtell, 16 years old, who drowned; he was buried at St. Sepulchre on the 19th of September.⁽²⁾

That the Bowtell shop was quite a substantial business can be seen from the 1851 census where Thomas is still listed at 49 Skinner Street, “boot & shoe maker employing 16 men”. It does, however, not specify whether all these man were working for him at Skinner Street or in some of the other Bowtell shops. Some of Thomas’s shops were apparently run by his sons, although it is not always clear in what capacity: as managers on behalf of their father, or on their own account. We will come back to the sons in a minute, but first a detour to Norwich and Brighton as Thomas also had shops there. A trade card in the British Museum collection shows the shop in Skinner Street, but one in the trade card collection of Guildhall Library, depicted in G. Riello’s A Foot in the Past (2006) shows the same picture, with the same old man and his stick in the foreground, but with the addresses of the Norwich and Brighton shops in the right and left margin (see here). The name of the shop has changed as well, from ‘New London House’ to ‘Original London Shoe Mart’. ‘Original Shoe Mart’ is also what is depicted above the Tallis elevation at the top of this post.

(© The Trustees of the British Museum)

Thomas senior died in 1852 and was buried 25 July at All Souls, Kensal Green. I have not found a will for him, so there is no way of knowing how he left his money, but presumably he provided for his second wife Susannah (more on her in the forthcoming post on the shop in Tottenham Court Road). The lack of a will also makes it more difficult to determine whether the other shoe shops for the Bowtells were owned by Thomas senior or by one or more of his sons. Especially when the name is just given as Thomas Bowtell, there is sometimes no telling whether the father or the son is meant. Tallis lists two more Bowtell shoe shops, one at 58 Cheapside and one at 152 Tottenham Court Road, but there were many more. The two Tallis shops have been given a blog post of their own, but I have compiled a list of all the Bowtell shops with their proprietors and probable years of business. Records, such as the tax records, or advertisements, do not always give enough information to determine who was running which shop when, but they often mention more than one address, thereby making it certain that all the shops were in some way linked to the Bowtell family of Skinner Street. It is likely that it was Thomas senior who started branching out, but that at some point he turned some of the shops over to one or more of his sons. There is also mention of Bowtell & Co., but it is not clear who the Co. is; the partnership occurs too early to include the sons. It is, however, clear that the Bowtell in Bowtell & Co is Thomas as the name occurs on the same trade cards as 49 Skinner Street which is definitely Thomas’s shop. The two – very similar – trade cards below are both dated to c. 1825 by the British Museum, which could very well be correct. Kent’s Directory for 1823, lists Bowtell & Co. at 88 St. Martin’s Lane and 51 Cheapside. Both cards state that Bowtell took over from Stubbs and Hughes, and we know that Henry Stubbs acquired the patent for revolving heels in 1818 and that the partnership between Stubs and Hughes was dissolved in 1820.⁽³⁾ The list at the bottom of this post is not complete, but I may be able to refine it when sorting out the other Bowtell shops that Tallis listed. To be continued ….

(© The Trustees of the British Museum)

11 Charles Street
1810-1812 Thomas senior

49 Skinner Street, Snow Hill
1813-1852 Thomas senior

88 St. Martin’s Lane
1822-? Bowtell & Co

11 Fish Street Hill
1822-? Thomas senior

51 Cheapside
1823-? Bowtell & Co

58 Cheapside
1835-1852 Thomas senior
1854-1855 William

Tottenham Court Road
1832 Thomas and brother

152 Tottenham Court Road
1837 Thomas
1839-1843 Thomas and William
1848-1851 William

117 Tottenham Court Road
1851 Thomas and William
1851-1860 William
1861 Thomas junior

19 Strand
1837-1851 Thomas and William
1851-1856 William

181 Piccadilly
1842-1843 John and Joseph
1848 William

170 Piccadilly
1848-1856 John and Joseph

42 Crawford Street
1848 William
1851 Thomas and William

35 Crawford Street
1856 Mrs Eliza [it is at the moment unclear what relation she was, if any, of Thomas]

Brighton, 106 St. James’s Street
1824-1832?

Brighton, 116 St. James’s Street
1838?- Thomas senior
1850?-1856 Joseph

Norwich, 1 (later 20 & 21) Davey Place
1824-? Thomas senior

advertisement in The Norwich Guide and Directory, 1842

(1) Thomas 1808, William 1810, John 1812, Sarah 1814, Henry 1816, Joseph 1818.
(2) Examiner, 16 and 23 September 1832, The Morning Chronicle, 13 and 19 September 1832.
(3) Titles of Patents of Invention, Chronologically Arranged From March 2, 1617 (14 James I.) to October 1, 1852 (16 Victoriae), 1854; European Magazine, April 1820.

Neighbours:

<– 1 Skinner Street (across the road)

48 Skinner Street –>

Henry Fricker, shoe maker

Tags

footwear

Street View: 48
Address: 171 Oxford Street

There must have been thousands of shopkeepers such as Henry Fricker in 19th-century London. Nothing spectacular happened to them, they were not particularly successful and their name hardly ever appeared in the newspapers. Their lives may not have been as quiet as one may assume from the lack of records, but for the purpose of this blog, they are the difficult ones. What do you write about a 19th-century London shopkeeper if nothing seems to have been worth recording, either about the person or the shop they had, or indeed about the building where they had their business? Well, you make the most of what you have found and hope the unassuming story about an unassuming man does not bore your readers. If you like detective stories, you may appreciate the account given below of my research. No, nobody was murdered, so do not expect a sensational plot; it is just a description of the tortuous route to find snippets of information about Fricker.

19th-century ladies’ shoes from the New York Public Library Digital Collections (see here)

Henry Fricker is not a very common name, so first of all, I gathered all the bits of information I could find about what I thought was him, and put them in chronological order. That sounds like an efficient way of starting your research, but it quite quickly became apparent that there were two Henry Frickers involved in the leather and shoe business in London at roughly the same time. So, the next step was to separate these two gentlemen. There is a will for one of of them, dated 1842, and this fortunately tells us his exact address, 171 Oxford Street, so he must be the one we are after for this blog post. He mentions his brothers John and Francis and his wife Harriet. The will was written in 1836 and witnessed by Griffith Humphreys of 169 Oxford Street, by Griffith Richards, also of 169 Oxford Street, and John Henry Hoskyns of Queen Street, Edgware Road. Probate was granted on 8 August 1842 to Harriet and John Fricker, the surviving executors.⁽¹⁾ The only snag is that no Henry Fricker is listed in the Registration of Deaths for 1842. But, a Henry Fricker, 54 years old, is buried at All Souls, Kensal Green, on 19 September 1841, which may be the shoe maker we are after. Perhaps it just took a long time to sort out the effects after Henry’s death. However, the address given in the burial register is not Oxford Street, but 6 Mortimer Terrace, Kentish Town, so more work to be done.

entry for Fricker in the 1829 Post Office Directory

The other Henry Fricker could at one time be found at 182 Fleet Street and is consistently listed as a (Japanned) leather cutter or splitter, or as a cap peak maker, never as a shoe maker or seller. In about 1836, he moved to 2 Albion Terrace, Kingsland Road, so, as long as the addresses or occupations are mentioned, the two man can be distinguished from one another. This second Henry died in 1866, still at 2 Albion Terrace.⁽²⁾ To work out more details of the life and/or career of Henry of 171 Oxford Street, we can safely ignore all references to Albion Terrace or peak makers. The most logical place to start for someone who was alive after June 1841 is the census for that year which was taken on 6 June. Sounds straightforward, but it was not.

A name search on Ancestry only gave me more Henry Frickers, but none matched the shoemaker and the 1841 census does not give any house numbers for Oxford Street, so we have to work it out by looking at the neighbours. William, Thomas and Henry Green are listed as dressing case makers next door to Griffith Humphreys whom we have already seen as a witness to Fricker’s will. Both are also listed by Tallis (published in ±1839, so a little bit before the census). It is therefore easy enough to work out that they must be living at numbers 168 and 169. At 170 Tallis has a Mr. Balls, auctioneer and upholsterer and the census has George Martin, upholsterer, so he probably took over from Balls. We will sort those two out when we get to write the post on number 170. If we follow the numbering, we would next expect number 171 with Fricker, and after him Henry Mills, a silversmith, who is listed by Tallis at 172. But, that is not the case. Mills follows Martin and number 171 seems to have disappeared from the list completely. Or has it? No, not really, an 1840 insurance record for the Sun Fire Office has both the names of Mills and Fricker for number 171 and later advertisements for silversmith Mills have him at 171 & 172. In other words, he took over number 171 and merged it with 172. So far, so good, but where is Fricker?

Perhaps already at 6 Mortimer Terrace? Yes, indeed, Mortimer Terrace, Kentish Town, no house numbers given, has Henry Fricker, 52 years old, “ind” as in independent/retired. His wife is 40 years old, her name unfortunately totally unreadable, or perhaps the squiggle says ‘Mrs’, and children Harriet, Emily, Eliza, Francis, Mary and John. As always, the 1841 census is completely unreliable as regards ages, and they have the eldest three daughters all at 15 years of age. Anything is possible, of course, but I doubt they were triplets. The children were all born in London, but Henry and his wife were not (see last column in the illustration below).

Although the bare fact that a Henry Fricker lived and died at 6 Mortimer Terrace, and that a person of the same name had his business at 171 Oxford Street, does not necessarily mean that these two people are one and the same, but the baptism records of the children help us out here. On 21 July 1837, Henry and Harriet of 171 Oxford Street register their children, as most non-conformists did, at Dr. Williams’s Library. The names and ages of the children roughly match those of the 1841 census and no, the girls were not triplets.⁽³⁾

signatures of Henry and Harriet under the children’s baptism registration

Where did Henry come from? Well, the electoral register for 1840 tells us that Henry Fricker who resided at the freehold of 171, Oxford Street, came originally from Meltham (this should probably be Melksham) in Wiltshire. And the baptism records for the children state that Harriet was the daughter of John Webb, a dyer, of Park Street, Borough, Southwark. This gives us enough information to search for a marriage. Harriet and Henry were married at St. Saviour’s, Southwark after putting up the banns on three successive Sundays: 24 May, 31 May and 7 June 1818. Henry was 54 years old when he died and 52 in June 1841 (census), so should have been born in 1788 or 1789. I have not found a record for the birth of Henry, but there were Frickers in Melksham around that time, so it is very possible that he came from there.

There is one intriguing trade card (© Trustees of the British Museum) left to discuss and that is the one above of Farmilo and Fricker at Bentinck Street. Was he “our” Fricker? Farmilo is certainly listed as a ‘lady’s shoe maker’ in various records, as Fricker was to be later on, but that is of course no guarantee. Francis Farmilo was buried on 1 April 1801 at St. George, Hanover Square, and that does seem a bit early for Henry to have been involved with him. The earliest possibility I found for shoemaker Henry is 1814 when he insured premises at 3 Tavistock Court, Covent Garden. And in 1822 he insured 171 Oxford Street and was found at that address in Pigot’s Directory. Was there an earlier generation of Frickers involved in the shoe business? Please leave a comment if you know the answer. For now, I think I have bored you enough with this account of my search for Henry Fricker of 171 Oxford Street.

——————–

(1) PROB 11/1966/277
(2) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1866. Estate valued at under £450.
(3) Date of births: Harriet (1-9-1819), Emily (14-2-1822), Eliza (1-6-1824), Francis (16-1-1829), Mary (20-8-1830) and John (29-1-1833).

Neighbours:

<– 172 Oxford Street

170 Oxford Street–>

Henry Edward Morey, fishmonger

Tags

food and drink, footwear

Street View: 67
Address: 201 Bishopsgate Street Without

In a previous post on James Pimm, we saw that Pimm’s successor at 3 Poultry was one Samuel D. Morey who, according to his 1877 probate listing, could also be found at 201 Bishopsgate. We have to go back to the end of the eighteenth century to sort out the Moreys at Bishopsgate. In 1796, Harry (or Henry) Edward, the son of Harry (or Henry) Morey became apprenticed to Samuel Dance, a Butcher, that is, a member of the Company of Butchers, but, as we shall see, not necessarily a butcher in the sense of someone dealing in meat. An insurance record of 1788 saw Samuel Dance at 194 White Cross Street, but by 1793, he had moved to 189 Bishopsgate. Harry Morey is described as a patten-maker of White Cross Street, so young Henry Edward went to work with a former neighbour. A patten-maker, by the way, is someone who made wooden overshoes that protected the wearer’s shoes from the mud on the streets. For pictures of people wearing pattens see this blog post by the Georgian Gentleman.

early 19th century pattens. Museum of Fine Art, Boston (sourced from the very interesting blog post on pattens of Jane Austen’s World)

Somewhere between 1803 and 1806, Harry Morey also moved to Bishopsgate, but not yet to number 201. The 1806 tax records find him in a house between Bottle Alley (renamed Britannia Place) and One Swan Yard, number 183 or 184.⁽¹⁾ Morey hung on to his property in White Cross Street, although in his will of 1818, he describes himself as of Bishopsgate Street, so presumably that became his main residence.⁽²⁾ His widow Susanna remained at number 183 and even after her death in 1824, the tax records still list her name, suggesting that the property remained in the hands of the family. Only in 1840 do the records list a new proprietor.

Susanna was the sole executrix and beneficiary of Harry’s will, but had left the estate of her husband unadministered and when she died in 1824, her son Harry Edward had to sort it out. In the documents, he is described as the only child of the deceased and of 96 White Cross Street. He moved his business to 201 Bishopsgate Street sometime before 1829 as he is then listed at that address in the Sun Fire Office records as dealer in pattens and shell fish. Perhaps an unlikely combination, but patten-making had been the trade of his father and he was himself listed as such in the baptism records of his children, but fishmongering became his occupation in Bishopsgate, specialising in shell fish as the elevation in Tallis’s Street View testified where the business is described on the front as ‘Barrel’d oyster warehouse’. Number 201 was situated between The White Hart tavern and St. Botolph Bishopsgate Church.

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The White Hart tavern in 1825 with Morey’s shop on the left under the awning (click to enlarge)

Another picture of the tavern in The Mirror of 1830 (see the post on The White Hart) shows Morey’s name on the left-hand side of the inn building, but that must be a mistake by the draughtsman, as there is no evidence to suggest that Morey occupied part of the White Hart building. In the 1825 picture above the name of Kempster can be seen on that part of the building and as other pictures also show Kempster’s name, and so do the tax records, that name must be correct. Morey had always occupied the building next to the White Hart, number 201, and we see him there in the 1841 census as a fishmonger. Also living there is son Samuel with the same occupation as his father and another son Robert who is a butcher.

Henry Edward died in 1855 and left his estate to his four sons, Henry Trott, Samuel Dance, David Edmund and Robert Borkwood. Judging by Samuel’s second name, I think we can assume that the former master of Henry Edward was his godfather. When Samuel Dance, Morey’s master that is, wrote his will in 1813, Henry Edward was one of the witnesses and one William Trott the other.⁽³⁾ Did he become Henry Edward’s eldest son’s godfather? Possibly. I have not found a marriage for Henry Edward, so we do not know more than a first name, Catherine, for his wife, and can hence say nothing about her last name; it may have been Trott. According to the records of the Sun Fire Office, Henry Trott could be found at 418 Oxford Street in 1831 as a fishmonger. He was the first of the brothers to die, in 1868, at St. Agnes Terrace.⁽⁴⁾ The Sun Fire Office records also tell us that Robert Borkwood became a butcher and insured a property at 4 Hatton Wall, Hatton Garden in 1839. David Edmund took over the running of the 201 Bishopsgate shop and Samuel Dance, as we saw in the post on James Pimm, became the proprietor of 3 Poultry and may or may not have had something to do with the invention of Pimm’s No. 1 Cup, although the fact that it was his property that continued the Pimm’s name for the establishment rather that of James Pimm himself is perhaps telling.

Samuel Dance Morey died in 1877 and is described in his probate record as formerly of 201 Bishopsgate and 3 Poultry, but late of 11 Northampton Park, Canonbury, gentleman.⁽⁵⁾ He may have retired in 1865, or just concentrated on the Bishopsgate shop as in that year the licence for Pimm’s in the Poultry was transferred to Frederick Sawyer of the Green Man, Bucklersbury.⁽⁶⁾ The premises were extended to include numbers 4 and 5 Poultry and at the back also numbers 5 and 6 Bucklersbury. It is hard to say without further research whether Morey had already set this extension in motion, or whether Sawyer was solely responsible, but it was Sawyer who negotiated a new lease in 1870 and who commissioned an architect to build a new restaurant at 4-5 Poultry (see the postscript to Pimm’s post for more information and a picture). It is a fact that the 1886 Goad insurance map shows the 5 houses as one large ‘restaurant’.

Very faint pencil drawing of 201 Bishopsgate Street c. 1850 (©Corporation of London via Collage)

But this post is about 201 Bishopsgate, so we will continue the story with David Edmund. I am not sure where David is at the time of the 1851 census, certainly not at 201 Bishopsgate Street, but he is listed in the 1857 tax record, so he must have taken over the fishmonger’s fairly soon after his father’s death. He remained the bachelor occupant of the building till at least 1881. He died in 1889 and is described in his probate record as a gentleman of 6 Petherton Road, so he must have retired somewhere between 1881 and 1889.⁽⁷⁾ The tax record help to date his retirement to somewhere between 1886 and 1887. In 1886 the property at 201 Bishopsgate is still listed for David, but in 1887 one Samuel Jacobs has taken over. All those years from 1861 onwards, David’s housekeeper was Elizabeth Castle and in 1861, 1871, and 1881 a visitor happens to be staying with them, a Selina Castle. We are left to wonder what the relationship between Elizabeth and Selina is until 1891, after the death of David, when Elizabeth and Selina, this time acknowledged as her daughter, are living at 143 Petherton Road. They have two boarders, Robert Morey, 73, and Robert H. Morey, 40, both living “on their own means”. Robert is no doubt Robert Borkwood, the brother of David, and Robert H. is Robert Henry, the son of Robert Borkwood. Robert Borkwood, the last of the Morey brothers, died at 143 Petherton Road in 1892.⁽⁸⁾

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(1) Horwood gives the property number 183, but Tallis has the same property as number 184. In his Street View, number 183 does not exist.
(2) PROB 11/1605/217.
(3) PROB 11/1553/260.
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1868. Effects valued at under £4,000.
(5) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1877. Effects valued at under £80,000.
(6) The Era, 8 January 1865.
(7) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1889. Effects valued at well over £28,000. His brother Robert Borkwood of 8 Chart Street, Hoxton, is named the executor.
(8) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1892. Effects valued at over £11,000.

Neighbours:

<– 202 Bishopsgate

198-199 Bishopsgate –>

Gundry and Sons, shoemakers

Tags

footwear

Street View: 85
Address: 1 Soho Square

On the 4th of September 1839 the reverend Joseph Romilly wrote in his diary that he got up early and went shopping in a cab. He bought a tea-tray, arrowroot, books, pearl needlecases for his sisters Lucy and Margaret and purses and penknives for the maids. He also went to Gundry’s to fetch some shoes for Margaret.⁽¹⁾ Gundry’s, the shoemakers, were mentioned more often in literature, such as when Mr. Worthington shows off his little daughter to his visitors and tells her to lift her frock a little “to show your beautiful blue shoes, from Gundry’s”.⁽²⁾

Maker’s label in Queen Victoria’s wedding shoes (©Northampton Museum and Art Gallery)

Gundry and sons had their well-known shoemakers’ shop at 1 Soho Square from the 1830s to the 1880s. As can be seen in the elevation above this post and in the maker’s label above, they were shoemakers to Queen Victoria and the late King William IV’s widow, Adelaide, besides a few more miscellaneous Royals. The British Imperial Calendar for the year 1844 mentions Robert Gundry of Soho Square as one of the boot and shoemakers to Queen Adelaide, but that must have been a mistake, as Richard is the name mentioned in a partnership notice.⁽³⁾ On 11 November 1843, Richard, William and Jonathan Gundry dissolve their partnership; Richard and William are to continue the business at 1 Soho Square and Jonathan is to have the shop in the High Street, Hampstead. Richard dies in 1848 and from his will, we learn that William is his son who inherits everything belonging to the business in Soho Square. William had already been living at 1 Soho Square since at least 1833. When the two youngest of his children were registered at Dr. William’s Library, the family’s address was given as 17 Weston Place, but the other children were all born in Soho Square.⁽⁴⁾

Evening slipper (©Metropolitan Museum of Art)

The pictures I have found for the shoes the Gundrys produced almost all seem to be ladies’ slippers rather than solid workman’s boots, but that may be because nobody in his right mind thought of keeping the down at heel boots, while the flimsy Royal slippers were considered worthy enough to keep for posterity. You can see some of Queen Victoria’s foot wear in the illustrations of this blog, but there are more, for instance at the Powerhouse Museum (here) and in the Museum of London (here).

The 1841 census records tell us very little other than the names of the family members and their occupation, but in 1851, the record is more informative and tells us that Sarah Holt, who had already been living with the family in 1841, was the shopwoman and William’s sister-in-law. William died 11 December 1860 and probate was granted to sons William junior and Alfred Andrew.⁽⁵⁾

Silk brocade mule, possibly produced for the 1851 Great Exhibition (©Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia)

While William senior had employed 44 men and 12 women in 1851, William junior was to employ 58 men, 2 boys and 12 women ten years later. Things were going well for the Gundrys. William’s brother Joseph can also be seen living at 1 Soho Square, “in business with brother” and quite by accident, on the day the census was taken, their sister Ann and her husband, Hugh Barclay, a printer, and their two young children are visiting and hence recorded on the same sheet. In 1871, William is no longer living in Soho Square, but in Hilldrop Road, Islington. Joseph and his wife are living at Adelaide Road, but the business was still conducted at Soho Square as is stated the year after the census when they announce the end of their partnership; William is to retire and Joseph to continue the business, still under the name of Gundry and Sons.⁽⁶⁾ William died in 1876 and probate was granted to his brother Horace, architect.⁽⁷⁾

Queen Victoria’s wedding shoes (©Northampton Museum and Art Gallery)

The family ties remained close and sister Alice can be seen visiting the other sister Ann Barclay in 1871, living with her brother Horace in 1881, with her aunt Sarah Holt in 1891 and with her widowed brother Joseph in 1911. In the 1891 census, Joseph is still described as bootmaker, but by 1901, he had retired. He died in 1912 and Alice in 1923.⁽⁸⁾ But what about the business at Soho Square? We saw William and Joseph still there in the 1861 census, and although they were no longer living there in 1871, the business was still theirs. In that year, the premises were occupied by Thomas Molyneux, 65 years old, and his wife. He is decribed as a shoemaker in the census and presumably the manager for the Gundrys. In 1881, the widowed Jane Molyneux is still there as a housekeeper, but in 1891, 1 Soho Square is occupied by one Louisa Emily Connolly, an associate of the Royal Academy of Music & tutor, and her two sisters, which does not sound as if the building was still functioning as a shoe and bootmakers’ business. It is very likely that the ground floor of the premises were used for separate commercial purposes, as we know that in the early 20th century, both Thomas Baker and Wilfrid Voynich had their bookshop at 1 Soho Square. Voynich became an admirable medieval scholar and managed to secure large numbers of books and manuscripts from Continental libraries, among which the so-called Voynich manuscript that has so far resisted decoding. More on Voynich here. The building in the picture below at 1 Soho Square replaced the one the Gundrys occupied in 1904-5 and was designed by E. Keynes Purchase.

(1) Romilly’s Cambridge Diary, 1832-42: Selected Passages from the Diary of the Rev. Joseph Romilly, Fellow of Trinity College and Registrary of the University of Cambridge, ed. J.P.T. Bury (1967), p. 176. Joseph Romilly was the nephew of Sir Samuel Romilly.
(2) Miss Aylmer; or, The Maid’s Husband, vol. 1 (1840), p. 305.
(3) The London Gazette, 12-03-1844.
(4) William, born 13-12-1829; Thomas, born 9-12-1830; Frederick, born 17-11-1833; Ann, born 3-12-1835. These four were all registered on 23-12-1836 “according to the custom in use among Protestant Dissenters, at the Registery of births kept at Dr. William’s Library, red-Cross Street, Cripplegate”. Alfred Andrew, born 4-6-1837 was registered later that year, but for the three youngest, Joseph, born 1839, Horace, born 1841, and Alice Jane, born 1847, I have not found a registry entry. Their mother was Ann Holt, the daughter of Andrew Holt of Warwick.
(5) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1861. The estate was first valued at £12,000, but later re-valued at £14,000.
(6) The London Gazette, 17-12-1872.
(7) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1876. The estate was first valued at £1,500, but later re-valued at £3,000. Horace designed, for instance, the offices of The Standard newspaper in St. Bride Street (see here).
(8) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1912. Probate was granted to his son Ernest William, a chartered accountant. Value of the estate is a little over £5000. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1923. Probate was granted to the same Ernest William and her estate was valued at £1444. Ernest William married Flora Kate Parsons and their son Inglis (1905-2000) became a famous musician (see here for his memories, esp. chapter 1).