Ann Drewett, circulating library

Tags

book trade, library

Street View: 17
Address: 44 Regent Street

Writing this post was fraught with difficulties. Not only was the name Ann Drewett not to be found in any of the advertisements for a circulating library in Regent Street, there was only one advertisement for number 44. That was a notice in The Times of 21 August 1838 in which “Drewett’s library” at number 44 was the place where chymists could buy “a quantity of fixtures, bottles, drugs, and utensils, the complete stock of a gentleman declining retail”. Not quite what you expect to find in a library, but the place seemed big enough to set aside a room for some extracurricular activities. Then I found for 1839: Joseph Bunney’s Christian Phrenology: a Guide to Self-Knowledge which was published by A. Drewett and Co., public library, 62 Regent Street. Well, A. Drewett could of course be Ann, but who the Co. was remains a mystery. It is at least clear that the library must have moved from number 44 to number 62 quite soon after the publication of the Tallis Street View booklet. Number 62 in the Tallis booklet was still occupied by J. Whitehouse (late Brown), a milliner, so he must have moved out quite soon after the publication of the booklet for Drewett to appear in a 1839 advertisement.

Etching derived from a print by John Raphael Smith (Source: British Museum)

Quite a number of advertisements appear for the circulating library (and attached stationary business) at number 62 in the period July 1839 to early 1844, but in none of them an initial is given for the proprietor, so whether we are still dealing with Ann Drewett is unclear. The advertisements either call the place Drewett’s circulating library, Drewett’s library, Drewett and Co., or just plain Drewett’s. The 1841 census is no help either. No Drewetts to be found in the relevant section. There are of course enough Drewetts living in London, but no Ann that can be matched to the library and without another first name, it is hopeless to find out who it was that ran the library. Never mind, we can still find out what they had on offer in their library and shop.

Besides the one publication mentioned above, no other books seems to have been published by Drewett’s, so that does not help us any further. The advertisements, most of them in The Morning Post, however, do tell us a little bit about the library itself. A subscription was only a guinea a year and they had “a good supply of books and all the new works”. Well, they would say that, would not they? But, you could not just borrow the books, you could also buy them. They had “5,000 juvenile and other books at little more than half price. Bibles, Prayers, or Church Service, in velvet, morocco, and illuminated. Handsomely bound Bibles 2s only.”⁽¹⁾ But their biggest advertorial item was not the library, but the envelopes they sold. In July 1840, for instance, they say that they are selling off “good envelopes 4d. per 100.” In the same advertisement they also mention other items that could be bought at number 62: envelope cases, blotting books, scrap books, travelling cases, dressing cases, despatch boxes, post office stamps, black-bordered envelopes and cards.⁽²⁾ In another advertisement, juvenile books, novels, fancy papers, silver-bordered envelopes and wafers are offered.⁽³⁾

And special occassions were not forgotten. Christmas presents were suggested, such as leather envelope cases, matching blotting books, rosewood or mahogony writing desks, portable dressing cases, complete with razor, shaving brush, strop and comb, or what about an inkstand?⁽⁴⁾ For Valentine’s Day Drewett offered a “splendid asortment of Valentines, French papers, and envelopes just received from Paris”⁽⁵⁾ And for Easter, the perfect gift would be, “at an immense reduction” (see further on why), a writing desk, a work box, a music or pamphlet case, or perhaps a book “at less than half price”?⁽⁶⁾

The cheapness of the product became more and more an important selling point in the advertisements and plain Drewett’s even became Drewett’s Cheap Stationary Warehouse. Competition in the field of stationary was fierce. The introduction of the Penny Post in 1840 caused an enormous increase in letter-writing and the development of the separate envelop; with the subsequent surge in retail outlets. Just across the road from Drewett’s, Stocken could be found who also advertised heavily with his envelopes, often on the same page as Drewett in The Morning Post. Before 1840, a letter was folded and sealed and then sent on with the recipient having to pay for the delivery. Putting a letter in a separate envelop would double the charge. Rowland Hill’s Post Office Reform revolutionized the system and any letter under an ounce could be sent anywhere in the UK for a penny, to be paid for by the sender.⁽⁷⁾ A whole new industry in envelope making (and selling) developed and Drewett had obviously jumped on the bandwagon. Not only did he sell them, he also produced them himself.

The Morning Post, 8 October 1842

The journalist George Augustus Sala (1828-1895) wrote in his autobiography that one summer (no exact year mentioned, but it seems to be in 1841⁽⁸⁾), he and his mother and siblings, after “a week in a boarding house … where … we were most terribly bitten by fleas, settled down in our old happy hunting ground in the Quadrant; our apartments being this time at the house of a stationer named Drewitt.” And this is where it gets interesting, because Sala relates that there he “made acquaintance with a most ingenious machine for cutting envelopes, which now universally used accessories to correspondence were, until the penny postage system became firmly established, very rarely made use of”.⁽⁹⁾ No wonder Drewett could slash his prices of envelopes if he no longer had to rely on manual labour to cut his envelopes. Sala unfortunately does not describe the machine any further, so we do not know if it was anywhere near as sophisticated as the one shown by De La Rue at the 1851 Exhibition. Probably not. Drewett may have imported his from France where they were using envelopes a little earlier than they did in England and we know he imported stationary from across the Channel.

Source: victorianweb.org

Up till 6 December 1842, Drewett inserted advertisements in The Morning Post more than once a week, but all of a sudden they stopped. In April 1843, we learn why. That month, three identical advertisements were put in the paper, mentioning that they were “declining business”, hence the “immense reduction” in the prices mentioned when the Easter gifts were advertized.⁽¹⁰⁾ In early 1844, a few more advertisements were put in the paper, inviting “attention to a stock of various articles now being cleared off at prices not to be equalled in London”. Envelopes went for one penny a hundred.⁽¹¹⁾ The stationary business was taken over by Allcroft and Co, and they were still at 62 Regent Street when the second lot of Tallis’s Street Views came out in 1847, but they will be the subject of a separate post some other time.

———————
(1) The Morning Post, 4 June 1842.
(2) The Morning Post, 3 July 1840.
(3) The Morning Post, 4 November 1840.
(4) The Morning Post, 9 December 1840.
(5) The Morning Post, 12 February 1841.
(6) The Morning Post, 17 April 1843.
(7) More information here.
(8) The census for 1841 lists Henrietta Sala, music teacher, Frederick Sala, piano teacher, and daughter and son Augusta and George in the Quadrant, but as the census does not mention house numbers, it is difficult to determine where they were staying exactly. Drewett him- or herself is certainly not listed in Regent Street.
(9) The life and adventures of George Augustus Sala, written by himself (1895), volume 1, p. 122.
(10) The Morning Post, 12, 15 and 17 April 1843.
(11) Last advertisement in The Morning Post appeared on 19 March 1844.

George Hebert, librarian and bookseller

Tags

book trade, library

Street View: 38
Address: 88 Cheapside

This story starts when George Hebert, a weaver, and Ann Peltrau get married in St. Leonard Shoreditch Church on 16 April 1772. They were both of French Huguenot descend and their children were baptised in the French Protestant Church in Artillery Street. Two of the children, George David and Guillaume (later more often called William) were to set up a bookshop and circulating library.⁽¹⁾ On 1 April, 1794, William Lane, Citizen and Stationer of London takes on apprentice George (David) Hebert at a premium of £100. This premium was paid by David Descarrieres who, according to the indenture, was George’s guardian. George acquires his freedom after the regular 7 years. His brother William was apprenticed in 1799 to Richard Lekeux, Citizen and Fishmonger, which does not sound likely in view of William’s later career, but although Lekeux (or Le Keux) happened to be a member of the Fishmongers’ Company, his profession was mathematical instrument maker. Still not quite the same as bookseller, but at least not as far removed as fishmonger and the brothers were to specialise in mechanical and scientific books. Lekeux received a premium of £63, but the indenture does not state who paid it. William was made free in May 1806.⁽²⁾

Whether the brothers set up shop immediately after the end of their apprenticeship or whether they first worked for someone else is unclear. The earliest mention I found of the brothers’ bookshop and library is in the 1814 Post Office Directory where the address is given as 36 Poultry. The joint enterprise did not last very long, as in February 1815, a notice in the London Gazette announces the end of the partnership; George is to continue the “Circulating Library and the Bookselling and Stationary Business” at 36 Poultry. Where William next went is unclear, but when his son William Theodosius was apprenticed in 1838 to a chaser, William was described as a bookseller of Liverpool.⁽³⁾

Mercer’s Hall, Cheapside, with Hebert’s bookshop visible on the left (Source: Shepherd & Elmes, London Environs)

In November 1811, George had married Elizabeth Woodburne at St. Mildred Poultry and the couple were to have (at least) three children: Elizabeth, baptised 16 August 1814, and two boys who were to follow their father in the book trade: George junior, born 22 April 1817, baptised at St. Mildred’s 24 January 1819 and Roger Woodburne, born 25 December 1818 and baptised on the same day as his brother. The address of the parents is given as Cheapside, so George senior must have moved the shop somewhere between 23 November 1816 when he advertises in The Morning Post with the 36 Poultry address and early 1819. The baptism record does not give a house number, but an advertisement in The Morning Chronicle of 11 March does; the shop could be found at number 88. We know almost nothing about the circulating library, apart from the mention of its existence in directories and advertisements, but by chance, one book (Owen Felltham’s Resolves, Divine, Moral and Political, 1806) with the label of the library was offered for sale recently and the seller very kindly sent me a photograph to illustrate this post.

Library label (with grateful thanks to Peter Spain of http://www.westgrovebindery.com)

George junior is apprenticed to his father in 1832 and made free in 1839. The indenture gives no indication of what happened after the death of George senior in 1837.⁽⁴⁾ Normally, on the death of his master, an apprentice is turned over to another master to serve out his time and that is usually recorded on the papers, but not here, so presumably the Company did not see the continuation of the business by the widow as a change. Roger acquires the freedom of the City through the Stationers’ Company by patrimony in December 1840. In his will, George senior had named his wife Elizabeth as the sole executrix and he leaves her “all my estate and effects … absolutely for ever feeling perfectly satisfied … that my dear and good wife will do the best for our most dear sons”.⁽⁵⁾ From the 1841 Post Office Directory we can see that Elizabeth continued to lead the bookshop and library and even the 1851 census still lists her as Circulating Library Keeper with the two unmarried sons still living at the same address. However, the family no longer lives above the shop in Cheapside, but at 17 Queens Place, Lambeth. Advertisements in the 1840s suggest that while Elizabeth ran the library, George took care of the bookselling and publishing side of the business with Roger joining him later.

George junior married Mary Ann Nesbit in 1854, but the marriage did not last very long as in the 1861 census he is listed as a widower. I have not discovered when he died, but since I have not found any advertisements for the bookshop after 1861, I assume he died or retired soon after. Roger marries Elizabeth Redman in 1864 and, according to the censuses, the couple seems to have had one daughter, Elizabeth. Roger dies 5 May 1894, but is by then long retired (at least since 1871, but possibly as early as 1861) and living in Somerset.

1860 one of the last Hebert publications

(1) George David, born 21 April 1776, baptised 17 May 1776; Guillaume born 23 November 1783, baptised 23 December 1784.
(2) London Metropolitan Archives, Freedom admissions papers, COL/CHD/FR/02.
(3) At the time of William Theodosius’ baptism in 1824, William and his wife Mary Ann were living in Gee Street, Clerkenwell.
(4) He dies at Margate and is buried at Bunhill Fields on 20 July 1837.
(5) The National Archives; Kew, England; Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Register, PROB 11/1881/347.

Neighbours:

<– 89 Cheapside

86 Cheapside –>