Ralph Wilcoxon, boot maker

Tags

footwear

Street Views: 1 and 18 Suppl.
Address: 60 King William Street

Ralph Wilcoxon of 60 King William Street was a rather enterprising shoemaker. Going through the Tallis index elicits a number of Wilcoxons as either shoe or boot maker, but as they are frequently listed without a first name, or even an initial, it is unclear whether they were the same shoemaker as the one of King William Street. However, a number of Old Bailey cases help us out. In 1835, John Green testifies that he is “foreman to Ralph Wilcoxon—he is a shoemaker, and lives in King william-street”.⁽¹⁾ A few years later, in another case, Ralph himself testifies and says, “I have seven shops, one in Howland-street, another in Tottenham-court-road, two in Oxford-street, one in Regent-street, one in Walker’s-court, Berwick-street, Soho, and one in King William-street, London-bridge—I live in Tottenham-court-road”. The total turnover of the shops was considerable. Wilcoxon states, “I have now a stock of 40,000 for my different shops”.⁽²⁾

Statue of William IV who is reported as looking towards London Bridge, which would mean that Wilcoxon’s shop is the darker property to the right of the statue. The statue was later moved, see here. (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

Wilcoxon may have lived at Tottenham Court at the time of the 1840 Old Bailey case, but in the 1841 census he is listed at Claremont Place, Clapham. Over the years he seems to have moved a number of times. With the help of more Old Bailey cases, the 1841 Post Office Directory, some insurance records and Tallis’s Street Views we will try and pinpoint the Wilcoxon shops a bit more precisely as he does not give any house numbers in the Old Bailey report mentioned above:
-1 Howland-street (not mentioned in the 1841 Post Office Directory, but mentioned in an insurance record for 1833, and in Pigot’s Directory, 1839)
-60 King William Street (Street Views 1 and 18 Suppl.)
-289 Oxford Street (Street View 48)
-303 Oxford Street (Street View 41, but mentioned by Tallis for Bellenger, wine and spirit merchant)
-99 Regent Street (Quadrant) (Street Views 12 and 2 Suppl.)
-93 Tottenham Court Road (Street View 49)
-5 Walker’s Court, Berwick Street, Soho (1828 and 1829 Old Bailey cases (t18281204-230 and t18290115-25), Wilcoxon testified “I live in Walker’s-court, St. James'”; last mentioned for Wilcoxon in the 1851 Post Office Directory.
The first and the last shops in this list were not mentioned by Tallis as he did not produce Views for those streets, so we will leave those for the moment.

Below pictures of the elevations of the Wilcoxon shop as represented in the Tallis Street Views. More information on the shops other than the one in King William Street will be given in later posts on the individual premises:

60 King William Street

289 Oxford Street

First mentioned for Wilcoxon in a Sun Fire insurance record of 1829. Wilcoxon testified in an 1828 Old Bailey case (t18281204-22), “I am a shoemaker, and live in Oxford-street”. He does not say at what house number, but the claim seems to contradict another Old Bailey report of the same day where Wilcoxon said he lived in Walker’s Court. Last mentioned for Wilcoxon in the 1848 Post Office Directory.

303 Oxford Street

First mentioned for Wilcoxon in a Sun Fire insurance record of 1829.
In an 1834 Old Bailey case (t18341205-311) the shopman, George Samsome, said “I am shopman to Mr. Ralph Wilcoxon, who is a shoemaker, and lives at No. 303, Oxford-street” and “I have possession of the house all day, and two boys sleep there at night—Mr. Wilcoxon does not sleep or take his meals there”. One shop-boy, Dennis Crowley testified, “I am shop-boy to Mr. Wilcoxon, who lives in Tottenham-court-road”. Philip Jewell, the other shopboy said “I then went to No. 289, Oxford-street, to acquaint Mrs. Wilcoxon—I left the policeman at the door—I came back—Mr. Wilcoxon was not at home”. Three different addresses for Wilcoxon mentioned in one court case; something must have gone wrong in the transcription of the answers each of the shop servants had given. For one, it seems unlikely that they did not know where their master lived. And another peculiarity is the fact that Crowley said that there was only one shop window that was fastened with a catch on the inside and had shutters on the outside. Judging by the elevations in the Street View, this was far more likely to be number 289 than 303. So, was the shop robbed at number 289 and did Wilcoxon live at the far larger property at number 303? Most likely. The property is last mentioned for Wilcoxon in the 1848 Post Office Directory.

99 Regent Street

First mentioned for Wilcoxon in a Sun Fire insurance record of 1834, but an 1826 insurance record for 99 Regent Street mentions “other occupier: shoemaker” without giving a name. Last mentioned for Wilcoxon in the 1848 Post Office Directory.

93 Tottenham Court Road

First mentioned for Wilcoxon in a Sun Fire insurance record of 1830 ; last mentioned for Wilcoxon in the 1851 Post Office Directory.

Other shops mentioned for Wilcoxon
-3 Peter’s Street, Soho (Pigot’s Directory, 1825)
-102 Berwick Street (Wilcoxon in an 1825 Old Bailey case t18250407-126 “I live at No. 102, Berwick-street”; insurance 1826)
-38 Princes Street, Soho (insurance 1829)
-11 High Street, Islington. Tallis’s Street View lists no less than three numbers 11, occupied respectively by a hosier, a hatter and a shoemaker. It is tempting to promote the last one to Wilcoxon’s predecessor, but a decisive identification must await further research. First mentioned for Wilcoxon in the 1845 Post Office Directory; last mentioned for Wilcoxon in the 1848 Post Office Directory.

Ralph Wilcoxon died unexpectedly in 1846; the coroner’s investigation into his death was reported in the newspapers:

On Sunday the deceased was in excellent health, attended divine service, and dined with his family. About nine in the evening he suddenly complained of shortness of breath, and went to the window for air, but feeling no relief, he proceeded down stairs, with the view of getting into the garden, but he got no further than the hall, when he fell on his knees, and died.⁽³⁾

Sounds like a heart attack to me. He left his wife Hannah the “goodwill and stock in trade of the business carried on by me in King William Street”. He does not separately mention the other shops, but I gather they were considered to be part of the King William Street business as Mrs Hannah Wilcoxon is listed as the proprietor of all the shops in later directories. His wife also gets the interest in Claremont Cottage, Wandsworth Road, and his mother the interest in the Paragon, Blackheath. He does mention lots of other houses and leaseholds in his possession which he distributes among his four children, Arthur (officially Arthur Samuel), Ralph, Hannah and Catherine. His executors are to take care of all these properties until the children reached the age of twenty-five when their inheritance was to be turned over to them.⁽⁴⁾ Because he died so suddenly, his two youngest daughters were not mentioned in his will. He had no doubt planned to make a new will, but had not yet got round to it, so Hannah remedied the omission in her will, “I am especially desirous of making a provision for my two youngest children Eliza Wilcoxon and Emily Wilcoxon who from the circumstance of their being born after the execution of the will of their late father have by the disposition which he therein made of his property been excluded from any part of portion in his estate”.⁽⁵⁾ She leaves the two girls all her personal estate, with the exception of an annuity for her sister.

After the death of her husband, Hannah continued the shoe shops and the 1848 Post Office Directory gives the following addresses after her name: 60 King William Street, 289 and 303 Oxford Street, 99 Regent Street (Quadrant), 93 Tottenham Court Road, 5 Walker’s Court and 11 High Street, Islington. By 1851, however, that is after her death – she died in 1849 – only 60 King William Street, 93 Tottenham Court Road and 5 Walker’s Court were listed after her name. The emporium was reduced even more after that and the 1856 Post Office Directory just lists Arthur Wilcoxon at 60 King William Street. He had probably been running that shop with his brother Ralph who had died in November 1850, just 31 years old.

advertisement in The Times, 11 November 1858

60 King William Street seems to have been the headquarters of the Wilcoxon shoe shop imperium, but until which year it continued is difficult to establish. According to the 1856 Post Office Directory, it was certainly still there in that year, and in November 1858, an advertisement lists the shop as one of the addresses where patent India rubber shoes could be had, but after that, no trace has been found of the shoe shop. Arthur himself married in 1859 and later lived for a time on the Isle of Wight, in Petersfield, Hants, and lastly in Frensham, Surrey, where he died in 1886.⁽⁶⁾

———–
(1) Old Bailey case t18351214-255.
(2) Old Bailey case t18400406-1281.
(3) Daily News, 16 September 1846.
(4) PROB 11/2044/78.
(5) PROB 11/2103/352.
(6) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1886. The executors were his brothers-in-law, George Martin Hughes (husband of Catherine) and James Reynold Williams (husband of Hannah). The estate was valued at over £11,000, but later resworn at just over £10,000.

Neighbours:

<– 61 King William Street (across)

59 King William Street –>

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James Corss, tailor

Tags

clothing, footwear

Street Views: 59 and 60
Address: 16, 25 and 49 Shoreditch

The elevations at the top of this post show the three shops James Corss had at the time when Tallis produced his Street Views: number 16 is Corss’s boot and shoe warehouse and numbers 25 and 49 are the outlets for his clothing business. From various sources, we can work out when each shop was occupied by him. He was often listed as of Holywell Street, but that should not be read as another address, but as an older name for Shoreditch High Street.
It all seems – and I use ‘seems’ deliberately, see further on – to have started at number 49 where we find him paying the Sun Fire Office insurance premium from 1816 tot 1839. From 1829 onwards, number 16 is added with a last mention for that shop in an 1845 street directory. From 1839 till 1844, we also find number 25 in Corss’s occupation, but numbers 16 and 25 were superseded in 1844/5 by the larger shop at number 63.

Insurance records also place him at 48 Chiswell Street from 1826 onwards, but that may have been his home address. We also find him at 15 New Bond Street in early 1832 and at 348 Oxford Street in July 1839, but it is unclear how long he used those premises. They may just have been temporary outlets.

James Corss said in the 1847 advertisement in Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper we already saw in the post on Josiah Luntley, that he had removed his “Great Emporium” to 63 Shoreditch. In the same advertisement he claimed that his business had started in 1807 on the site of the present terminus of the Eastern Counties Railway”, so most likely at number 49 where he must have been some ten years before he paid his first insurance premium. Number 49 was situated on the corner of the alley that led to Webb Square, which disappeared completely to make way for the new railway line and terminus. Tallis probably only just caught Corss at number 49 before the demolishing began. The Shoreditch terminus of the Grand Eastern Counties Railway was opened on 1 July 1840 (see here).

Horwood’s 1799 map with Corss’s properties indicated

The Webb Square area was a notorious haunt of “pickpockets, house-breakers and prostitutes”, at least according to the reverend Timothy Gibson when he gave evidence to the Metropolitan Railway Commissioners in April 1846.⁽¹⁾ It is therefore perhaps no wonder that Corss had to suffer several attempted thefts from his shop. He is listed several time in Old Bailey cases as the victim of small thefts. The records do not specify his address exactly, so are no use in determining whether he had always been at number 49, but they indicate that his shop was in Shoreditch. For instance, in 1819, when a pair of shoes were stolen, and in 1820 when a pair of trousers were taken, he is said to be of Shoreditch.⁽²⁾
The 1845 notice in The London Gazette about James Corss and Stephen Roberts dissolving their partnership as tailors and drapers already mentioned no. 63 as their address, so the move from 16 and 25 to 63 Shoreditch must have been made well before the advertisement in Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper of 1847.

The vignette street view in Tallis’s booklet shows two of Corss’s shops. Number 16 on the right, that is, the boot and shoe department which he ran in partnership with Tuckett and number 25 on the left, the tailoring business. It is quite likely that the advertisement Corss had in The Times of 5 December 1828 had something to do with the opening of his business at number 16. In the advertisement he is asking for a “smart, active, single young man” for a retail shoe warehouse. Also wanted is a shop boy. The first official mention of number 16 as Corss’s shoe shop is in an insurance record of February 1829. The 1841 census shows Charles Tuckett and his family at number 16. Was he the – by then married – young man of the advertisement who got promoted to partnership? It is just a guess. But the partnership did not last much longer as it ended at the end of 1841.⁽³⁾ In the 1843 Post Office Directory, James Corss is still listed at numbers 16 and 25, without any indication that he was at that time in partnership with anyone else. The 1845 Post Office Directory, however, finds him at number 16 on his own, but at number 63 in partnership with one Roberts. Number 25 seems to have been relinquished and as the 1844 electoral register still has James for numbers 25 & 63, the change must have taken place in late 1844 or early 1845. On the 19th of February 1846, James Corss and Stephen Roberts dissolve their partnership with Corss to continue on his own.⁽⁴⁾ The premises at number 63 were a lot larger than the previous shops, so James’s business seemed to have flourished.

63 Shoreditch

Although the business flourished, Corss’s personal life was less rosy. We saw him in the 1841 census at number 25 with his wife Mary Ann and children Maria (17), James (15) and Eliza (13). Young James was to work in the business and most likely destined to take over after his father retired. But James junior suffered from depression, feeling himself wholly inadequate to deal with life’s challenges and one summer night he killed himself. He had been spending that Tuesday on business, buying goods at a warehouse in Wood Street. His father said at the inquest that he had not seen his son afterwards. But young James somehow ended up at an inn in Greenwich where he engaged a bed and wrote a letter to his father to explain why he could not go on and he then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Corss senior said that the delusions of his son had no ground in reality and that he had good prospects, but that he had suffered at times from great depressions. He was know to have disappeared before and that time he ended up in America. The verdict was insanity.⁽⁵⁾

advertisement in The Star and National Trades’ Journal, 20 March 1852

Despite this tragedy, James Corss senior continued his Great Emporium business at 63 Shoreditch and in the 1861 census wife Mary Ann is given as the head of the family; she is listed without an occupation. James is not listed, but his daughter Eliza, an artist, and his son Clifford are at home. Clifford’s occupation is not easy to read, but it is [something] & tailor, so he is presumably working in his father’s business. Another son, Charles William, had chosen another career and was, in 1844, apprenticed to a Law Stationer, Alfred James Waterlow. On his marriage certificate (1863) Charles William called himself a lithographic artist. There was another link between the Corsses and Waterlows as Charles’s sister Maria married one of Alfred’s younger brothers, Albert Crakell Waterlow.

Father James Corss died in 1863⁽⁶⁾ and brother Clifford in 1864⁽⁷⁾; Charles then gave up his own career to take over the family business. Mother Mary Ann died in 1870⁽⁸⁾, but it is unclear whether she had run the business after her husband’s death, or whether it were just the sons who had taken over. The 1871 census lists Charles William in Brighton, but with the occupation “master tailor employing 10 males at 63 Shoreditch”. The 1881 census saw him at Southbrook, Croyden, as “clothier” without any further information, and the 1891 census as “retired woollen draper”, still at Southbrook. He died there in 1902.⁽⁹⁾ In the 1860s, the Corss firm seems to have specialised in boys’ school uniforms. I have not found any advertisements after 1868, but since Charles William still listed the business on the census papers in 1871, they must have continued for a bit longer.

advertisement in Reynold’s Newspaper, 9 April 1865

Recap:
49 Shoreditch: 1807?-1839
16 Shoreditch: 1829-1845
25 Shoreditch: 1839-1844
63 Shoreditch: 1844?-1871 or later

——————–
(1) Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Commissioners Appointed to Investigate the Various Projects for Establishing Railway Termini, within or in the Immediate Vicinity of the Metropolis, 1846.
(2) Old Bailey cases t18190217-94 and t18200517-130.
(3) The London Gazette, 31 December 1841.
(4) The London Gazette, 20 February 1846.
(5) The Morning Chronicle, 24 August 1848.
(6) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1863. The estate was valued at less than £5,000. The executor was Walter Blanford Waterlow, another brother of Alfred. See for the Waterlow family here.
(7) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1864. The estate was first valued at less than £5,000, but later resworn as £9,000. The executor was Charles William Corss.
(8) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1870. The estate was valued at less than £1,500. The executor was Walter Blanford Waterlow.
(9) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1902. The estate was valued at over £14,000. The executor was a solicitor.

Neighbours:

<– 17 Shoreditch <– 26 Shoreditch <– 50 Shoreditch <– 64 Shoreditch

15 Shoreditch –> 24 Shoreditch –> 48 Shoreditch –> 62 Shoreditch –>

John Baddeley & Son, boot makers

Tags

footwear

Street View: 34
Address: 48 Oxford Street

John Baddeley was the brother of Charles Baddeley who had his shoe shop at 130 Strand. His nephew, also a Charles, first had his shop in Fleet Street and later at 119 Oxford Street. But in this post we will concentrate on John and his son George who had their bootmaker’s business at 48 Oxford Street. John was baptised as an adult at the Independent Chapel in Marshall Street on the 29th of April 1831, but the record tells us that he had been born on the 2nd of December 1769. Why he had himself baptised so late in life is unclear, nor do other members of the family seem to have followed him. John had already been baptised in 1793, along with several of his brothers and sisters, at the Baptist chapel in Keppell Street. In 1797 John married Charlotte Cordell, the younger sister of Ann Cordell who had married Charles Baddeley senior in 1792, thereby forging a double family link.

When comparing Horwood’s 1799 map with Tallis’s Street View, I noticed a slight discrepancy in the numbering. Starting from the corner of Oxford and Berners Street, the first five properties are numbered 54, 53, 53, 51, 50 in both resources. Logic dictates that the next property is number 49 and that is what Horwood shows, but Tallis had Baddeley at number 48, next to number 50. Later Post Office Directories (1851 and 1856) list 49 & 50 together as one property, so that may be the explanation why Tallis does not show 49. But that is not all. If we follow the numbers from the other side, that is, the corner of Newman Street, both Tallis and Horwood have 40, 41, 42, 43, 44. Then Horwood has a double property with numbers 45 and 46 and Tallis just has 45. Horwood shows a small alley going to Timber Yard at the back where we find number 47; the house numbers in the street jump from 46 to 48 on either side of the alley. Tallis misses out number 46, but so do the tax records from ±1830 onwards and the later Post Office Directories. The Land Tax records show, from at least 1792 onwards, a continuous numbering from 40 to 54 with numbers 46 and 47 often bracketed together for the same occupant. The index to the Tallis Street View does not help very much as numbers 42, 43, 44, 45 and 51 have no names attached and were presumably empty at that time. Tallis shows Baddeley’s property with two doors, one of which, the one on the right, may very well have been the old entrance to Timber yard. In 1888 when Goad’s insurance map was produced, the open ground at the back of the houses, including Timber Yard, had more or less been filled in completely and the alley towards the back can no longer be seen. Besides that, the numbering changed and numbers 40-54 became 90-114 with Baddeley’s number 48 turned into 104.

click to enlarge

In 1801, Mary Cordell, that is John’s mother-in-law, by then a widow, insured two houses, one in Upper Rathbone Place and one in Carey Street, both rented out to others. She had inherited the properties from her husband Thomas who had died in 1798.⁽¹⁾ Her own address is given as 48 Oxford Street, but no information is given on the status of that house. Did she own the house, or did she just live with her daughter and son-in-law? The latter is probably the case as John Baddeley pays the Land Tax from 1798 onwards. In 1805 John insured number 48 and the Sun Fire Office record states that it was built of brick and valued at £200. He also insured his household goods, including china and glass to the value of £350, and £550 worth of stock and utensils. Mary Cordell died in 1809 and left three of her daughters, that is Elizabeth East, Ann Baddeley and Charlotte Baddeley, “all my property and effects”, excluding some named bequests.⁽²⁾

We can see the changes in Baddeley’s finances by looking at some later insurance records. The value of £200 on the house is increased in 1828 to £237, although a confusing entry in 1817 for one Richard Barnet lists 48 Oxford Street, which he insured for £600 as “in tenure of Baddeley a shoemaker”. Baddeley’s household goods for some reason decrease in value from £350 in 1805 to £220 in 1828. The value of his stock and utensils vary a bit from £550 in 1805 to £580 in 1814 and £500 in 1828. From 1814 onwards, however, Baddeley also insured a property in Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, occupied by a grocer, for £600 (£680 in 1828). In 1828 the rent he receives for that property is £63.

Schoolplaat (Source: De Kantlijn)

The 1841 census still has John Baddeley, his wife Charlotte and two of their daughters, Charlotte and Elizabeth, at number 48, but a year and a half later, a notice in The London Gazette of 27 December 1842 tells us that John is terminating the partnership with son George. George could be found as a bootmaker at 2 Upper King Street in the 1848 Post Office Directory and at 521 Oxford Street from 1850 onwards. In June 1850, George registered a design for a boot (no. 2335), describing himself as “naval and military boot maker”. He was doing well for himself and the 1851 census lists him as employing 20 men. In the 1848 Post Office Directory, John can still be found at 48 Oxford Street, but by the time of the 1851 census John, Charlotte and their two daughters have moved to 20 High Street, with John listed as “proprietor of houses & dividens (sic.)”. Charlotte died in 1852, 74 years old, and was buried at Abney Park, Stoke Newington, where John was to follow her three years later.⁽³⁾ He was then living at 12, Kingston Russell Place, Oakley Square.

After John’s retirement, 48 Oxford Street had been taken over by John Davies, a linen draper, who is listed there in the 1851 and 1856 Post Office Directories, but it was not to last as the advertisement below makes clear. Baddeley had remained the lessee of the property and in his will he states that the lease of 48 Oxford Street was to expire in June 1858, which may very well have been the reason that the stock of Davies was sold off that same month. The rent for Baddeley had been £115 a year, but he had subleased it to Davies for £200 a year, so a nice profit for our shoemaker.⁽²⁾

(1) PROB 11/1314/256.
(2) PROB 11/1506/135.
(3) Abney Park, Grave Number 007675.
(4) PROB 11/2207/372.

Neighbours:

<– 50 Oxford Street

47 Oxford Street –>

Charles Baddeley, boot and shoe maker

Tags

footwear

Street View: 15
Address: 102 Fleet Street

Charles Baddeley was the son of another Charles and to distinguish himself from his father he usually added ‘junior’ to his name as, for instance, in his signature on his indenture document. He was apprenticed in 1814 to Cordwainer William Howse for the regular seven years at a consideration of five shillings. If all went according to plan, he should have obtained his freedom in 1821 and was then ready to set up his own business, but there is no evidence that he actually did so. He may have worked in his father’s shop for a while, or as a journeyman somewhere else. In 1834, however, he appears in the Land Tax record for 102 Fleet Street.

In 1833, the property was still listed for the widow Read, that is Sarah Elizabeth Read, who had continued the coffee rooms of her husband Thomas Read who had died in 1813.⁽¹⁾ Read’s Coffee House was also – and perhaps foremost – known for serving saloop, a coffee substitute. Charles Lamb referred to Read’s ‘Salopian House’ in his essay “The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers”, in which he wrote that he understood the beverage was made from “the sweet wood ‘yclept sassafras”, boiled down and served like tea with milk and sugar.⁽²⁾ More on the making and selling of saloop, or salop, can be found in a blog post on Jane Austen’s World (here). J.C. Hotton in his History of Signboards (1867) says that a signboard that used to hang outside the coffee house when it had opened in 1719 as ‘Mount Pleasant’ by Lockyer contained a poem beginning with the lines: Come all degrees now passing by, / My charming liquor taste and try; / To Lockyer come and drink your fill, / Mount Pleasant has no kind of ill. In later years the sign could be found in the coffee room until the establishment closed in 1833 and Baddeley took over.

In 1836, Baddeley married Ann Mart, the daughter of Samuel Mart senior and the sister of Samuel Mart junior, fruiterers at 130 Oxford Street. It is very likely that Charles had met Ann in Oxford Street as his uncle John had a shoe shop at number 48 and was a friend of Samuel Mart senior. Whether the couple wanted to be closer to their family in Oxford Street, or whether it was for economic reasons, in 1842 or early 1843 they moved the business from Fleet Street to 119 Oxford Street. The Fleet Street shop was taken over by Simpson, a hatter; we will come across Simpson again in a later blog post as he was listed in the Tallis Supplement booklet 14. The Tallis Supplements do not list Oxford Street, so Baddeley does not have a later entry in Tallis, but he was certainly at 119 Oxford Street in September 1843 when one Thomas Collins attempted to steal a boot. Shopman Thomas Hinde testified that he saw the accused unhook a boot from inside the doorway and make off with it. Why Collins stole just one boot and not a pair is not made clear, but he was caught and sentenced to three months in prison.⁽³⁾

To make life easy (ahum) for us historians, there were two properties on either side of Princes Street with the number 119, so it needed a bit of work to determine which one Baddeley moved into. The Index to Tallis’s booket 36 lists Ann Blanchard, depot for mourning bonnets, at number 118, which is at the corner of Regent Circus; then Charles Evans, a linen draper, at number 119; then the indication for Princes Street; then George Hobbs, a boot and shoe maker, also at number 119; then an empty space, also at number 119; and then one Skrymsher, a watch and clock maker, at number 120. Most likely, Baddeley took over from Hobbs as they were in the same line of business, and additional confirmation can be found in the 1841 census where Charles Evans and his partner Richard Sherriff can be found next to Ann Blanchard. Across the road, at the other number 119, we find two female servants and one 26-year old male. Unfortunately, the census entry is so vague that I cannot decipher the names, but it is not George Hobbs. The 1851 census makes it even more difficult by putting number 118 between the two 119s. The Post Office Directories of 1851 and 1856, however, help us out as they not only list the entries alphabetically, but also per street. Although some of the names have changed, we can clearly see that Baddeley occupied the property on the western corner of Princes Street and that he shared it with someone else; in 1851 with Owen Bailey, publisher, and in 1856 with William Gardner, jeweller, who used to be at number 121.

So, Baddeley was certainly still trading from 119 Oxford Street in 1856, but no longer so when the next census enumerator came round in 1861 as he is then found at 290 Regent Street as “gentleman”. By 1871 he has moved to 311A Regent Street and shortly before his death he must have moved once again as his probate entry lists him as “formerly of 311 but late of 286 Regent Street”. His widow Ann is one of the executors and Caleb Porter, the nephew of Ann and Samuel Mart is another.⁽⁴⁾ Ann was still living at 286 Regent Street when she died in March 1879.⁽⁵⁾ Her executors are two nephews, one of them John Teede, the son of her sister Mary and grocer John Pearson Teede.

119 Oxford Street remained the property of William Gardner and he could be found there in the 1861 census. At some point he joined forces with Lawrence van Praagh as jewellers, watch makers, and picture dealers until 1868 when they go bankrupt. The Van Praaghs remained at number 119 and in the 1871 census another(?) Lawrence, who described himself as “son” could be found there as a diamond merchant. Number 119 was to be renumbered to 242 in the early 1880s.

(1) PROB 11/1542/242.
(2) Charles Lamb, <The Essays of Elia. Edition used: Paris, Baudry’s European Library, 1835.
(3) Old Bailey case t18430918-2692.
(4) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1878. His effects are valued at under £6,000.
(5) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1878. Her effects are valued at under £1,500.

Neighbours:

<– 103-104 Fleet Street

101 Fleet Street –>

Charles Baddeley, boot and shoe maker

Tags

footwear

Street Views: 19 and 10 Suppl.
Address: 130 Strand

The Baddeley family worked from various addresses in London and to avoid mixing them up when writing the blog posts, I started with an overview of the addresses Tallis listed for the Baddeleys involved in the shoe and boot making industry:
102 Fleet Street
48 Oxford Street
130 Strand
From other records could be added: 119 Oxford Street, and 86 and 95 Strand. There were a few other addresses mentioned in the records for other Baddeleys, but as those are not in Tallis, I am ignoring them for the moment.

The next step was to see who lived/worked at the above addresses. It looks as if they can be grouped nicely: Charles senior and heirs at the Strand; John at 48 Oxford Street (he was Charles’s brother); and Charles junior in Fleet Street and 119 Oxford Street (he was Charles’s son). I will give Charles junior and John their own blog posts and concentrate on Charles senior, Ann and William here.

86 Strand:
– 1798?-1806 Charles

95 Strand:
– 1806-1818 Charles

130 Strand:
– 1819-1836 Charles
– 1837-1839? Ann
– 1843?-1848 William

48 Oxford Street:
– 1805-1848 John

102 Fleet Street:
– 1839-1841 Charles jr

119 Oxford Street:
– 1843-1851 Charles jr

130 Strand in 1799

130 Strand in 1888

130 Strand was situated on the southern side of the Strand, on the corner of Wellington Street (now Lancaster Place), that is, from 1817 onwards. Before that, Wellington Street did not exist and 130 was neatly tucked between 129 and 131, but when Wellington Street was constructed to become the approach road to Waterloo Bridge, numbers 131 to 134 were completely demolished. The 1815 Land Tax records list George Cross, Durs Egg, a Mr Ottridge and G. Yonge in those four houses, but in the 1817 record, the description is four times “pull’d down”. We have came across Durs Egg, the gunsmith, in another blog post and it is no wonder that he moved to Pall Mall. The demolishing of the houses had everything to do with the Strand Bridge Company who had been granted the right to build Waterloo Bridge and to levy toll on it. The 1818 tax records still show Thomas Alexander, a baker, at number 130, although he had died in 1817. The 1819 records lists Charles Baddeley who had moved from number 95 where he had been working from 1806 onwards (before 1806 he had been at 86 Strand). Because the neighbouring property was pulled down, number 130 needed a new side wall and when Baddeley moved in, he not only had more space than in his old premises, but also additional shop windows on the Wellington Street side.

elevation in the 1847 Supplement. Notice the change in the position of the doors as compared to the elevation shown at the top of this post which dates from 1839 or 1840.

The whole area must have been a hive of activity between – roughly – 1810 and 1835, and not just with the Waterloo Bridge construction. In the Strand, just around the corner from Wellington Street, the Exeter (Ex)Change could be found, a building that had served various purposes over the years, the most interesting perhaps as a small zoo or menagerie (see for a poster of Pidcock’s menagerie here). As you can see in Horwood’s 1799 map above, the building jutted out into the street, hampering the flow of traffic and it was finally demolished in 1829. The building has been depicted several times from the same viewpoint, but the illustration below by George Cooke included just a tiny bit more of Baddeley’s shop than the other pictures did. On the left-hand side, you can just about see the number 130 and the last letters of Baddeley’s name.

engraving by George Cooke (Source: rareoldprints.com)

On the other side of the street, the Cooke print also shows the old Lyceum Theatre, which burnt down in 1830, creating a convenient opportunity to extend Wellington Street northwards in order to connect it to Charles Street.⁽¹⁾ The new Lyceum Theatre was erected in this new section of Wellington Street, so just around the corner from its old spot. And Mr. Baddeley who saw all these building works from his window? He died in late 1836 and left his “beloved wife everything I possess” and “the choice to carry on the business or to dispose of it or lett the house no. 130 Strand on lease or otherwise as she may think best”.⁽²⁾ He had married his wife, Ann Cordell, in February 1792 at St. Marylebone and they had at least twelve children.⁽³⁾ Ann choose to continue the business after the death of her husband as Pigot’s Directory of 1839 lists her as boot & shoemaker at 130 Strand, but by 1843, she had relinquished the business to William Baddeley, her son. He was still there in 1848, but by 1851 he had disappeared and R.S. Newell & Co, wire rope makers, had taken over (Post Office Directories). [See the comment section for a link to a photograph of the property with Newell’s name on the facade]

Ann died in early 1858, 84 years old, and was buried at All Souls, Kensal Green. Her address is given as King Street, St. Paul Covent Garden, which was where her daughter Caroline lived with husband Alexander Moffatt. More on the double link between the Cordell and Baddeley families in the post on JohnBaddeley.

advert Newell & Co (Source: Graces Guide)

Nothing is now left of 130 Strand as Baddeley knew it. These days, the whole block is covered by Wellington House which was built in the 1930s.

Google Street View

(1) Act 1 and 2 William IV, c. 29, public. See also Survey of London, vol. 6 and the article on the Arthur Lloyd website (here).
(2) PROB 11/181/21.
(3) They were all baptised at the Baptist chapel in Keppell Street, Russell Square: Thomas 1793, Emily 1795, Mary Ann 1797, Ann 1798, Charles 1800, Caroline 1802, Elizabeth 1804, Eliza 1807, Frederick 1808, Henry 1810, William 1812, Edward 1815.

Neighbours:

<– 135 Strand

129 Strand –>

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.

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(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.

Embed from Getty Images 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 –>