Borradaile, Son & Ravenhill, merchants

Tags

hats, merchant

Street View: 74
Address: 34 Fenchurch Street

Tallis mistakenly lists the firm as Borradaili, but it should be Borradaile, nor does he give any indication what trade they were in. Admittedly, their profession is somewhat confusing as they were involved in all kinds of activities, but to keep it simple, I have given them the occupation of ‘merchants’. They were involved, however, in (fur) hatmaking, shipping, insurance, cotton mills, and probably much more that has not made it into easily accessible records.

top part of William’s indenture

William Borradaile (born 16 Dec. 1750, baptised 5 Jan. 1751), son of John Borradaile, a tanner of Wigdon, Cumberland, was apprenticed in 1765 to London Founder Edward Watson. In 1778, William’s younger brother Richardson followed him to London to be apprenticed to Draper Henry Wright. In Bailey’s Northern Directory for the year 1781, Edward Watson was listed as a merchant at 31 Cannon Street and in his will of 1788, Watson leaves “to the said William Borradaile all the rest residue and remainder of my personal estate”, in other words: everything that had not been left to others was to go to William.⁽¹⁾ By that time, William had already set up on his own and his name appears in the tax records for Fenchurch Street. That the relationship between his master Edward Watson and William Borradaile was close, can be seen in the name of Borradaile’s son, who was baptised on 2 April 1785 as John Watson Borradaile. In 1799, this son was apprenticed to his uncle Richardson, and so was his younger brother Abraham in 1803. Another brother, William, was apprenticed in 1807 to a Merchant Taylor, John Clark, but later became a man of the church.⁽²⁾

Pelts of beaver, fox, and other animals (Source: uniquelyminnesota.com)

To complicate matters, Richardson, who had entered into a partnership with his brother, also had a son William who was taken on as an apprentice in the Fenchurch business of furriers, hatters and merchants. In those days, the Borradailes were certainly involved in the fur trade and the Hudson Bay Company archive shows them supplying hats to the North West Company at Grand Portage, Minnesota.⁽³⁾ See here and here for more information on the fur trade from Grand Portage. In the summer of 2017, the Grand Portage National Park Service plans to open a reconstruction of the inside of a 1799 hatters’ shop, which they will name ‘Borradaile and Atkinson’.

The Borradailes formed all sorts of – temporary – partnerships, sometimes more than one at any given time, and a particular example is given in The London Gazette of 1811 where several partnerships were dissolved.⁽⁴⁾ The first one mentioned was between William Borradaile, Richardson Borradaile and John Atkinson of Salford, Manchester, as merchants and manufacturers. They had been trading under the name of William and Richardson Borradaile and Co. in London and under the name of Borradailes, Atkinson and Co. in Salford. Another partnership between the Borradailes, Atkinson and John Clark was dissolved that same day. These partners had been trading under the name of Borradaile and Clark. Both partnerships were dissolved because Atkinson pulled out. Two more partnerships were dissolved that had involved Atkinson, although the entry in The London Gazette does not state whether they were dissolved because he withdrew. One of these partnerships was between the Borradaile brothers of Fenchurch Street, John Atkinson of Salford, Robert Owen⁽⁵⁾ of Manchester and Thomas Atkinson of Manchester, as cotton spinners under the name of the Chorlton Twist Company. And the last partnership had been between all of the above mentioned partners together with Henry and John Barton of Manchester as cotton spinners under the name of the New Lanark Cotton Mills. The Johnstone’s 1818 Directory shows that matters in London were also not quite as straightforward as one might think, especially not when the next generation got involved. Johnstone lists under the name Borradaile:
R. & C. & Co. , furriers, Great Suffolk Street, Borough
R. and Wm. jun. & Co., merchants, 14 St. Helen’s Place
W. & R. & Co., merchants, 14 St. Helen’s Place
W., Sons & Ravenhill, hat makers, 34 Fenchurch Street, manufactury Hatfield Street, Blackfriars Rd.

fur shop from Diderot’s Encyclopédie (Source: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

We will concentrate on the Fenchurch Street business here, which was run by the Borradaile brothers and George Ravenshill after Atkinson withdrew from the partnership. More on the business in a moment, but first a glimpse into the private life of William Borradaile. On the 4th of July, 1812, he wrote a letter to the churchwardens of St. Laurence Pountney,

Gentlemen,
From the parents of my wife (who is just deceased) having been many years inhabitants of the parish of St. Laurence Pountney, and being, as well as my own mother and several others of our family, interred in the burial ground of that parish, I feel desirous to possess a vault there. I therefore request the favour of you to call a vestry, in order to consider of a grant to be made me of ground for the purpose of building such vault near the foot of my late mother’s grave stone, of the following dimensions, viz.: 7 feet long by 4 feet 10 inches wide in the clear, and of such depths as you may judge proper.⁽⁶⁾

His request was granted and presumably the vault was built, but surprisingly, he does not mention it in his will.⁽⁷⁾ He was, however, buried at St. Mary Abchurch, which was the parish to which St. Laurence Pountney had been united after the Fire of London in 1666 as St Laurence’s was not rebuilt, although their graveyard continued in use until 1850. William’s gravestone, and those of other Borradailes, is listed for St. Laurence Pountney in The Churchyard Inscriptions of the City of London. But to return to the business: sons John Watson and Abraham continued the business under the name of Wm. Borradaile & Co., although the property at 34 Fenchurch Street was now listed in the tax records for John Watson alone as he had inherited the building itself. In 1832, these second-generation brothers, George Ravenhill and one William Thornborrow dissolve a partnership as insurance brokers; apparently a new sideline of the hatters.⁽⁸⁾ The 1841 census found John Watson, his wife Ann, their children and brother Abraham at 34 Fenchurch Street, but soon afterwards the business premises were shared with various other companies.

From 1843 onwards, various other businesses could be found trading from 34 Fenchurch Street, among them Ludd and William Fenner, who went bankrupt in late 1843.⁽⁹⁾, William Grant, tobacco broker who died in March 1853, and Marshall and Edridge, who ran the Australian line of packet ships. In 1851, John Watson and Abraham dissolved the partnership they had as “merchants and general commission agents”, because John Watson was retiring.⁽¹⁰⁾ He died in 1859. Abraham continued the business until his own death in June 1857. While sitting in his counting house “he was suddenly attacked by mortal sickness, and, although medical aid was promptly at hand, expired in a few minutes of the seizure”.⁽¹¹⁾ The notice about Abraham’s death listed the company as “Cape merchants” and said that he had married his cousin, the daughter of Richardson Borradaile, many years M.P. for Newcastle-under-Lyne. The entry for Richardson on the website of the Parliamentary history gives more information on the various merchant activities of the Borradailes (see here). The Borradaile name continued to be used by various family members and could be found as far away as Calcutta where Messrs Borradaile owned a steam boat, the “Pioneer” which did service on the Ganges; they were also heavily involved in the Indian railways. The Borradailes even acquired eternal fame by having an – albeit small – island near Antarctica named after them, Borradaile Island.

Strakers’ Annual Mercantile, Ship & Insurance Register of 1863, lists numerous businesses trading from 34 Fenchurch Street:
Merchants: Bartholomew Calway; Alexander L. Georgacopulo; Demetrio Georgiades; V.A. Van Hüffel & Co.; Charles Maltby; Michaelis, Boyd & Co; Henry William F. Niemann; W. Potter; Henry A. Preeston & Co.; W.S. Shuttleworth & Co.; John Hammond Winch; East India and Colonial Merchants: Lerosche and Co.; James Macdonald and Co.; Tea and Coffee Brokers: Charles Maltby; Timber Brokers: Grant, Hodgson & Co.
Many more names could be added to these over the years, but I will leave it at this and end with the note that the building as the Borradailes knew it no longer exists. The building as Tallis depicted it with the gate in front had already disappeared when Goad produced his insurance maps. In 1936 a much larger Plantation House was erected and even that has now been superseded by Plantation Place, an enormous glass and steel office development.

Goad’s insurance map, 1887

(1) PROB 11/1170/126.
(2) He became rector of Wandsworth, but killed himself in 1836 ‘in a fit of temporary derangement’ by jumping off Vauxhall Bridge.
(3) Public Archives of Canada Reel 5M5, Part F4/20, Invoice of sundries shipped by McTavish Fraser and Co. for the NWcCo. Reference kindly supplied by Karl Koster for which my thanks.
(4) The London Gazette, 28 September and 15 October 1811.
(5) A biographical sketch of Robert Owen appeared in The Poor Man’s Guardian, 28 November 1834.
(6) H.B. Wilson, A History of the Parish of St. Laurence Pountney, 1831, p. 177. William Borradaile had married Ann Delapierre in 1784; she was the daughter of Abraham and Mary Delapierre.
(7) PROB 11/1790/29.
(8) The London Gazette, 4 January 1833.
(9) The London Gazette, 22 December 1843.
(10) The London Gazette, 17 January 1851.
(11) The Morning Chronicle, 17 June 1857.

Neighbours:

<– 35 Fenchurch Street

33 Fenchurch Street –>

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George Moffatt, tea broker

Tags

merchant

Street View: 74
Address: 28 Fenchurch Street

The index to Tallis’s Street View 74 lists George Moffatt erroneously as a baker, but he was in fact a tea broker. The first time he, as Messrs. Moffatt and Co., appears in the records for 28 Fenchurch Street is in 1836 when he takes out an insurance for the property. The 1838/9 Glasgow Post Office Directory describes the firm as “tea & colonial agents, 41 Virginia Street, and 28 Fenchurch-street, London”. If the numbering has not changed, the Glasgow building is still there, see here. 28 Fenchurch Street, however, no longer exists, at least not in the form Moffatt knew. There were also Moffatts dealing in tea in Mincing Lane, but sources are in two minds whether that address belonged to Moffatt and Co. of Fenchurch Street or not, so I will leave them out of this post. Moffatt, by the way, was not the only occupant of number 28. Tallis also lists the Grand Collier Dock Company and H. Powell (no occupation given) at the address.

tea plant from M.A. Burnett’s Plantae Utiliores (1842-1850) to which Moffatt subscribed

The 28 Fenchurch Street property belonged to the Skinners’ Company; to be precise, to their Thomas Hunt Charity. Thomas Hunt bequeathed upon the Skinners the remainder of his estate with the proviso that the rents were to be used to help deserving young man with a loan. The neighbouring house, number 27, at the time of the Tallis Street Views in use by the jewellers W. and J. Marriott, was also “let to George Moffatt for 21 years, from Christmas 1856” for £150. In 1864, the following statement was entered: “the trustees of the charity, granted a new lease of the site of the buildings above described, and Nos. 26 and 27, Fenchurch Street, to Mr. George Moffatt for a term of 77 years, from Lady Day 1864, at an annual rent of 415l., the lessee covenanting to expend a sum of 4,000l. upon buildings upon the demised property.” An 1880 account for the Charity lists Moffatt at number 26 paying £442, 12s as rent for one year to Lady Day 1882. Whether they moved from 27-28 to 26-27 or whether the numbering changed is unclear.⁽¹⁾ The Horwood map of 1799 shows number 28 next to a passageway, but by 1839, the building had been extented to go over the passage, see the elevation at the top of this post where the passage can clearly be seen on the left-hand side of the building.

detail of Horwood’s 1799 map

Glasgow Herald, 8 July 1869

Moffatt and Co. did very well, but as in all businesses, there was the occassional set-back. An example is an absconding bankrupt who was chased across the Channel. See the article in the Glasgow Herald on the left. Unfortunately, I have not found out what happened in the end. Did they apprehend Lamb or his property?

George Moffatt was the son of William and Alice who had set up the tea agent and broker’s business at 4 Fenchurch Buildings. George started his career in his father’s business, but whether the 28 Fenchurch Street company is a continuation of his father’s business, or one he set up for himself is unclear. George cannot be found in the 1841 census, but apparently, he travelled extensively in the 1840s on business.⁽²⁾ In 1851, he lived at 103 Eaton Square as an unmarried merchant and MP with seven[!] servants. He had unsuccessfully contested the seats of Ipswich in 1842 and Dartmouth in 1844, but he won the latter in a by-election in 1845. According to Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (vol. 15, 1847), Moffatt was “an advocate of free-trade principles, and opposed to all taxation not strictly applicable to the exigencies of the State; opposed to church rates and in favour of the ballot”. In 1856, he married Lucy Morrison, the daughter of James Morrison, another MP and one-time London draper.

In 1861, George, his wife Lucy, their children Alice (3), Harold Charles (1) and Ethel (2 months), and a whole army of servants, can be found at St. Leonard’s House, Clewer, Berkshire. George’s occupation is given as MP, but in 1871, when the family is back at Eaton Square, he is listed as a retired merchant. The latest addition to the family is daughter Hilda (born ±1863). 1871 is also the year in which Moffatt buys Goodrich Court, near Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire where he settles down as a country squire. He died in February 1878 at Torquay. His son Harold Charles did not follow his father in the tea business, but became a boat builder and a collector of English furniture.⁽³⁾ The tea business in London was, however, continued as a 1902 notice in the Edinburgh Gazette of 1 August announces the bankruptcy of Robert Henry Salmon the elder, Robert Henry Salmon the younger, and Stanley Richard Salmon who were trading as Moffatt & Co. at 28 Fenchurch Street. How these gentlemen were related to George Moffatt, if at all, is unclear. Perhaps they just took over the business on Moffatt’s retirement and kept the name as being that of a good and reliable firm.

Goodrich Court (Source: rosscivic.org.uk)

—————–
(1) City of London Livery Companies Commission. Report, Volume 4, Charitable accounts of the Skinners’ Company. Originally published by Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, 1884 via British History Online.
(2) Thomas Bean, “Moffatt, George (1806-1678)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography where more information on Moffatt’s political career can be found.
(3) John Martin, A History of Landford in Wiltshire. Part 11: Hamptworth Lodge (online here). Harold inherited Goodridge Court from his father and Hamptworth Lodge from his aunt, Barbara Jane Morrison. He published a catalogue of his collection: Illustrated Description of Some of the Furniture at Goodrich Court, Herefordshire and Hamptworth Lodge, Wiltshire (1928).

Waring & Moline, Consignees of Guinness & Co’s Stout

Tags

food and drink, merchant

Street View: 1
Address: 5 Adelaide Place

Adelaide Place was the broad section between King William Street and the north foot of London Bridge. It was named after Adelaide, the wife of William IV. On the west side, Fishmongers’ Hall can be found; on the east side a large building was constructed in c.1835 which was divided up into several offices. Number 5 Adelaide Place, where Waring and Moline had their office as agents for Guinness, was, according to Tallis, also occupied by a Mr. Field (first floor) and a Mr. Chadwick (second floor). Although these two gentlemen were not given an occupation by Tallis in the first lot of Street Views (±1839), they were still there in 1847 when the second batch of Street Views was published and although Chadwick still does not have an occupation, at least he is given the first name William (was he the architect John Belcher was apprenticed to?). Mr. Field is James Field, architect & surveyor. In 1847, we also find John Belcher, architect, at number 5, but Moline has disappeared from the Tallis Supplement list. Not so in reality, however, as he was certainly there until his death in 1865.

In the early 1830s, Samuel Waring, a merchant from Bristol, had the London agency for the Irish beer with his partners Tuckett and Foster at 79 Lower Thames Street. By 1834, Tuckett and Foster had been replaced by the Quaker Sparks Moline (1811-1865), at first from the Lower Thames Street address, but from 1837 at Adelaide Place.⁽¹⁾ Moline and Waring were related, Sparks’ grandmother on his mother’s side was a Waring and his sister was given the name of Mary Waring Moline. The partnership between the relatives did, however, not last very long. The London Gazette announced the end of the partnership as per 18 July 1838 with Moline to continue the business alone. Waring had got into financial difficulties and only narrowly avoided bankruptcy. The Guinness firm appears to have helped Waring with a mortgage on his house and disaster was averted, but the London agency was separated from the Bristol enterprise.⁽²⁾

The years from 1836 to 1840 were turbulent years for Moline. In November 1836, his father John Sparks Moline died. He was buried at the Quaker burial site at Winchmore Hill, Enfield, and the burial record gives Adelaide Place as his address and “porter merchant” as his occupation. Father and son may have been in partnership together with Waring, although the records do not make that clear. A few months later, on 2 February 1837, Sparks received the freedom of the Company of Curriers by patrimony.

Next comes the end of the partnership with Waring and later that same year, on 8 November 1838, Sparks marries Isabella Prideaux at Kingsbridge, Devon. She unfortunately dies on 4 October 1840, just two weeks after their daughter Isabella Prideaux Moline is born. She is also buried at Winchmore Hill. The 1841 census lists Sparks in Llandygai, Caernarvonshire. Not sure what he was doing there, but with him is a Mary Moline, one year younger than Sparks, so she may very well have been his sister Mary Waring who was born in 1812.

In 1855, Sparks’ younger brother, David (1814-1864) had taken out a patent “for the manufacture of metallic window frames and skylights”.⁽³⁾ In 1856, David obtained his freedom of the City (by redemption) and is then classed as “porter merchant” of 5 Adelaide Place, suggesting a partnership with Sparks. How is that for a career-change? When the partnership between the brothers was officially entered into is unclear, but it was dissolved on the 31st of December 1861.⁽⁴⁾ Somewhere in the early 1840s, David had married an Austrian wife and they lived in “Laybach, in the empire of Austria” as his probate record would have it. David died there in 1864 of typhoid fever.⁽⁵⁾ Laybach, by the way, is usually spelled Laibach and is better known as Ljubljana, these days the capital of Slovenia, but then part of the Austrian Empire. A train service between Ljubljana and Vienna had been established in 1849, so not too far an outpost to be living in.

Moline & Co. continued to act as the sole agent for Guinness, a privilege they frequently had to defend when others tried to encroach on their territory. In 1846, an injunction was taken out by Guinness and Purser against Hill and Coulson, to stop them “selling or otherwise disposing of any stout, porter, or other malt liquor in bottles with labels in imitation of the labels furnished to the plaintiff’s agents by Sparks Moline, or differing only colourably therefrom”.⁽⁶⁾ And in 1853, it was Richard Sutton of Wood Street who fell foul of Moline’s monopoly.

Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 25 June 1853

The agents and bottlers Guinness used were allowed to put their own trademark on the bottles and Moline’s was a monkey. The “monkey brand” was advertised as far away as New Zealand where Arthur H. Nathan advertised the beer bottled by Moline in The New Zealand Herald of 16 August 1889. At some point, Moline & Co. moved the business from Adelaide Place to Monument Buildings and from just acting as the London Guinness agent, the firm also became an exporter of their ‘own’ bottled Guinness.

Sparks Moline died 28 November 1865 at Church Row, Stoke Newington, and, although he had been a Quaker all his life, he was privately baptised at St. Mary’s a few days before he died. He was nevertheless buried at Winchmore Hill. And he was not the only one who seems to have had a change of heart. His daughter Isabella Prideaux was baptised on 26 June 1861, also at St. Mary’s, and so were Sparks’ sisters, Lydia and Mary Waring, both on 16 January 1866. The unmarried sisters, their mother and their unmarried niece continued to live at Stoke Newington.⁽⁷⁾ Despite sister Lydia’s baptism at St. Mary’s, she was buried in 1891 at Winchmore Hill, the Quaker burial site, so I am not sure what was going on, but perhaps it was another example of what the Friends mention on the Winchmore Hill website, that is that “The nineteenth century saw the defection of most of the more prominent business families, as the delicate balancing act between Quaker ethics and the demands of hard-nosed capitalism became increasingly difficult”.

Postscript: Tabitha Driver of the excellent Friends’ library sent me the following information, for which many thanks:
You may notice that Quaker registers do include non-members (there’s a “N.M.” column in the 19th century Digester registers), and you will as in this case find non-members in Quaker burial grounds. Two common reasons for these non-member entries is in the case of disownment (as happened to bankrupts, for instance), or when children did not have “birthright” membership because only one of their parents were in membership – yet the individual or family maintained a close association with the meeting. In the case of close family ties one can see how easily the continuing association could lead to an entry in a burial register after a death in particular.

I’m glad to be able to quote the excellent guide, Milligan and Thomas, My ancestors were Quakers (Society of Genealogists, 1999):

Regulations adopted by yearly meeting 1774 provided that ‘when any person, not a member of the society, is permitted to be buried in friends burying-ground, it is to be noted in the margin of the register’. The book of discipline adopted in 1833 made more explicit provision for ‘one or more proper person’ to be appointed by the monthly meeting, without whose authority ‘no burial is to take place’: as far as the burial of non-members was concerned, discipline stated that ‘Friends are to exercise discretion in complying with any application’.

In the case of Sparks Moline, his entry in the post-1837 Digest registers clearly states that Sparks Moline, Commission Agent, of 6 Church Road, Stoke Newington, died 28.11.1865, aged 64, and was buried at Winchmore Hill, 5.12.1865 – and that he was N.M. (not in membership of the Society of Friends).

——–
(1) David Hughes, “A Bottle of Guinness Please”: The Colourful History of Guinness (2006). Hughes also mentions Sparks Moline at Billiter Street, but that may have been the grandfather of Sparks who was also called Sparks. The grandfather applied for the job of bridge master in 1824 and asked for the support of his fellow liverymen in an advertisement in The Times, sponsored by Samuel Gurney and William Fry, both Quakers.
(2) Patrick Lynch and John Vaizey, Guinness’s Brewery in the Irish Economy 1759-1876 (2011), p. 132-134.
(3) The Repertory of Patent Inventions (1855). For a description of the window frames, see here.
(4) The London Gazette, 24 January 1862.
(5) Illustrated London News, 15 October 1864.
(6) Rolls’ Court, The Times, 26 March 1846.
(7) More on the family and their Quaker ancestors can be found here.

Neighbours:

<– 4 Adelaide Place

6 Adelaide Place –>

Johnson, Renny & Milman, indigo merchants

Tags

indigo, merchant

Street View: 56
Address: 57 Fenchurch Street

In 1826, Christopher Gullett Millman (also Milman), the son of William Millman, coal merchant at Plymouth, was taken on as an apprentice by Thomas Broomhall of Swan Lane, Upper Thames Street, indigo and drug broker. Broomhall died in July 1828 and his executors agreed to turn Millman over to Thomas Etherington of Cannon Street, dry-salter, for the rest of his term. Daniel Defoe described a dry-salter as a trader in “salt-peter, indico, shumach, gauls, logwood, fustick, brasileto &c”⁽¹⁾. Both Broomhall and Etherington were members of the Company of Dyers and in 1838, Millman received the freedom of that Company.

top section of Millman’s 1838 freedom paper

Source of the three illustrations of the catalogue: IISG, Amsterdam, shelfmark 474:4.3.1.17

Millman became a partner in the firm of Andrew Johnson and David Henry Renny, brokers at 57 Fenchurch Street since at least 1834. We would not have known much more of Johnson, Renny & Millman if one of their sale catalogues had not been kept in a Dutch archive (the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis / International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, shelfmark 474: 4.3.1.17). This 10-page catalogue announces the sale of products that the firm had for sale on 27 February, 1840, at the sale room in Mincing Lane. The copy of the catalogue in the archive is annotated in different hands, but the one who made the notes on the right-hand side of the paper in ink was certainly a Dutchman. I cannot decipher everything he has written, but certain words are legible, such as oranje [orange], hobbelig [bumby], gruis [grit], helder [clear], donker bruin [dark brown], and fijn stof [fine dust] and are definitely Dutch.

Although Tallis describes the three men as being indigo merchants, they did not sell indigo in this sale, but linseed, saffron flowers, shellac, seedlac, hemp and gum arabic. Indigo is derived from the plant Indigofera tinctoria which basically produces the same dye as the woad plant (Isatis tinctoria), but more and richer hues could be produced with indigo, so it was well worth the trouble of importing from afar.⁽²⁾ Nowadays, indigo is usually imported from El Salvador, but in the 19th century, most came from India. Seedlac and shellac are not derived from a plant, but is a natural resin secreted from the female lac beetle (Kerria lacca) during the mating season. The secretion is gathered from the branches on which the beetle deposits it. It is then ground and sifted to remove most of the dirt and other impurities. The seedlac thus obtained can be further refined to produce shellac.⁽³⁾

Lac insect from H. Maxwell-Lefroy, Indian Insect Life, 1909 (Source: Biodiversity Heritage Library)

Don Williams, The Story of Shellac, 1913

Millman’s partnership with Johnson and Renny did not last very long; on 2 April 1841 it was announced in the London Gazette that Millman was to retire and Johnson and Renny were to continue the business. In 1850, the two remaining partners, by then trading from 11 Great Tower Street, split up.⁽⁴⁾ Johnson remained in Great Tower Street and we still find him there in 1864, when “Andrew Johnson and Co, brokers” announce the sale of 217 bags of cochineal.⁽⁵⁾ In that same newspaper we find an advertisement for “Renny, Anderson and Co, brokers” of 37 Mincing Lane offering 60 bags of cochineal and 30 bales of safflower. That this Renny is the same Renny as the one in partnership with Johnson and Millman can be seen from the notice about his retirement from this later partnership in 1877. The notice in the London Gazette of 13 March 1877 explicitly states that it is David Henry Renny who retires. He dies in 1880 at 1 Argyll Road, Kensington and was buried at Norwood Cemetery. His probate entry⁽⁶⁾ mentions two executors, one of whom is Thomas Hardwick Cowie, Renny’s nephew. The Cowie family, although not Thomas himself, had been visiting the Renny family at the time of the 1851 census when Renny lived at Crown Hill, Lambeth.

It would have been nice if more information had been found on the third partner Johnson, but alas, I have not managed to work out which of the many Edward Johnson’s fits the bill.

There is, however, a bit more information to be found about later occupants of 57, Fenchurch Street, which was, at least since 1847, and maybe even earlier, in the possession of John Poole, watch and chronometer maker. He is mentioned in Kelly’s Directory of the Watch and Clock Trade of 1847 and won prize medals at the 1855 Paris, 1862 London and 1867 Paris International Exhibitions. He invented the ‘Auxiliary Compensation’ to correct for errors in chronometers at low temperatures. He committed suicide in 1867 and the business was taken over by his brother James who continued to produce chronometers engraved with his brother’s name.⁽⁷⁾

Source: Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

(1) Daniel Defoe, The Compleat English Tradesman, volume 2 (1727), p. 23-24.
(2) More information here.
(3) Online here.
(4) London Gazette, 1 January 1850.
(5) Commercial Daily List, 8 November 1864.
(6) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1880. Estate valued at under £6,000.
(7) More information here.

Neighbours:

<– 58 Fenchurch Street

56 Fenchurch Street –>

Thomas Ridgway, a Baptist tea merchant

Tags

grocer, merchant

Street View: 1
Address: 4-5 King William Street

The London Gazette of 7 March, 1837 included a notice that William Dakin, Thomas Ridgway, Arthur Dakin and Robinson Bywater had dissolved their partnership of tea-dealers and grocers in Coventry by mutual consent. This in itself is not a very unusual notice, the newspapers frequently showed similar announcement, but in this case it gives us more information on the business dealings of Thomas Ridgway. The Ridgway company, which still exists, states on their website that Thomas opened his first shop in London in 1836. Wikipedia tells us that he had a shop in the Bull Ring, Birmingham before that, but that he went bankrupt and started again in London. He was certainly in Birmingham in 1830 when Daken [sic] and Ridgway are mentioned as the ones who were going to dispose of the stock in trade of the bankrupt Samuel Partridge, tea-dealer and grocer.⁽¹⁾ At the time of the Bull Ring Riots (1839), the Dakins still had a large shop in Birmingham at 28, High Street.⁽²⁾ How Dakin and Ridgway ended up in Coventry is not clear, but what is clear is that Ridgway set up in King William Street, London in the 1830s and the Dakins a bit later at 1 St. Paul’s Churchyard.⁽³⁾

Thomas Ridgway
Source: ridgwaystea.co.uk

Tallis’s Street View shows the lettering “Ridgeway Sidney & Co. Tea Importers” across the premises of numbers 4 and 5, but despite the grand shop and the lettering, Ridgway & Co did not put an advertisement in the Street View. Who Sidney was, I have no idea, and that name seems to have disappeared quite quickly from the business. Thomas Ridgway himself, however, makes a huge success of his London grocer’s business and in 1851, he was one of the coffee importers who met at the London Tavern in March 1851 to condemn the 1840 Treasury Minute which allowed for the adulteration of coffee with chicory and resulted in fraud and high prices. The meeting led to questions asked in Parliament.⁽⁴⁾

Tea caddy. Source: teacaddy.czi.cz

Eventually, Ridgway & Co. specialised in just tea, tracking down new varieties from all over the world to use in their high quality blends. In 1886 they received a request by Queen Victoria for a personal blend and they were later appointed tea merchants to King George VI. Ridgway’s became one of the first tea companies to sell their produce pre-packed against adulteration.

Baptist Chapel Towcester
Source: mkheritage.co.uk

 
Thomas was born in 1802 in Lymm, Cheshire according to the 1851 census which sees him living with his wife Lucretia, a butler, a cook, a housemaid, a laundry maid and a nurse at 27 Oxford Square, London. However, on 3 June 1855, the couple were both baptised in North End Baptist Chapel, Towcester, Northamptonshire. The chapel had been opened in October 1853 and was built on land belonging to Thomas.

His native town of Lymm also received the benefit of a Baptist Chapel from Ridgway. Here again it was built on land he owned. That chapel opened in 1850 and the first pastor was Isaac Ridgway, Thomas’s brother.⁽⁵⁾

Baptist Chapel Lymm
Source: lymmbaptistchurch.com

Thomas, by now classed as retired tea merchant, and his wife Lucretia lived at Elm Lodge, Towcester, where Lucretia died in October 1862. Before that, at the time of the 1861 census, they had a holiday in Wisbech where they stayed at the Rose and Crown Hotel, 23 Market Place, which still exists. Thomas remarried (at Liverpool) in 1864 to Cordelia Dawbarn who was also received into the Baptist Church. In 1871 and 1881, the census tells us that Thomas and Cordelia were living at Elm Lodge, Daventry Road with six servants. Thomas died at Elm Lodge on 20 August 1885 and was buried in Lymm, his place of birth. One Edward Parker preached a funeral sermon Christ living and dying: A memorial sermon for the late Thomas Ridgway, Esq., of Elm Lodge, Towcester : preached in the North End Baptist Chapel, Towcester, September 6th, 1885. When his estate was proved, Thomas was worth £58,523 8s. 3d.⁽⁶⁾ Cordelia apparently did not live up to the moral expectations of the Baptist community, as in 1887, she and four others came under “careful consideration” and were “no longer recognised as members”.⁽⁷⁾

(1) London Gazette3 September 1830.
(3) Eliezer Edwards, Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men (1877), unpaginated.
(3) Street View 15 and 16 of the 1847 Supplements.
(4) T. Baring, Adulteration of Coffee. A verbatim report of the proceedings of a public meeting held at the London Tavern on Monday, the 10th of March, 1851. London (1851); Hansard Commons Debate 5 June 1851 (vol 117 cc510-33).
(5) See here
(6) Baptist Chapel records from North End Church Book
(7) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations ), 1885.

Neighbours:

<– 6 King William Street

3 King William Street –>