Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 2
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Chapter XXXII: Islington (continued).
Chapter XXXII: Islington (continued).
The old parish church of , dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was a strange rambling structure, entered through a gable-ended school-room which blocked up the west end. It had an old flint tower, with bells, a clock, and a sun-dial. The date of the building was not much earlier than . In , [extra_illustrations.2.261.1] , under the direction of Mr. Dowbiggin, of the unsuccessful competitors for the erection of . It cost . In the church was repaired and the tower strengthened. | |
says Nelson, | |
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In Church were buried, in , Sir George Wharton, son of Lord Wharton, and James Steward, son of Lord Blantyre, and godson of James I. These young gallants quarrelled at the gaming-table, and fought at with sword and dagger, and in their shirts, for fear of either wearing concealed armour. They both fell dead on the field, and, by the king's desire, were buried in grave. In the church vault are iron coffins, and of cedar, the last containing the body of Justice Palmer, train-bearer to Onslow, the Speaker. The object of the cedar was to resist the attack of the worms, and the cover was shaped like the gable roof of a house to prevent any other coffin being put upon it. Here, also, is buried a great-grandson of the eminent navigator, Magelhaens, and Osborne, the bookseller, whom Dr. Johnson knocked down with a folio. Osborne gave for the Earl of Oxford's library, the binding of which alone had cost . In the body of a young woman named Thomas was disinterred here, there being a suspicion that she had been murdered, as a large wire was formerly thrust through her heart. It was, however, found that this had been done by the doctor, at her dying request, to prevent the possibility of her being buried alive. | |
of the celebrated buildings of was Fisher House, in the Lower Street, and nearly opposite the east end of . It was probably built about the beginning of the century. In the interior the arms of Fowler and Fisher were to be seen. Ezekiel Tongue, an old writer against the Papists, is supposed to have kept a school here about for teaching young ladies Greek and Latin. It was afterwards a lodging-house, and then a lunatic asylum. Here Brothers, the prophet, was confined, till Lord Chancellor Erskine liberated him in . | |
At the south end of was formerly a public-house called the sign, a plough drawn by frogs. At the publichouse, in , [extra_illustrations.2.262.1] , the painter, resided for several months, about the year . Morland would frequently apply to a farm-house opposite for harness, to sketch, and if he saw a suitable rustic for a model pass by, would induce him to sit, by the offer of money and beer. Here he drank and painted alternately. Close by, at No. , Popham Terrace, resided that useful old writer, John Thomas Smith (he was a pupil of Nollekens), to whose works on London we have been much indebted. He became Keeper of the Print-Room of the , and died in . | |
Opposite Rufford's Buildings there stood, till , an old Elizabethan house of wood and plaster, with curious ceilings, and a granite mantelpiece representing the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Knowledge. The new house became Shield's school, where Dr. Hawes and John Nicholls, the antiquary, were educated. In a house which formerly stood in the , opposite , resided Dr. William Pitcairn, elected physician, in , to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He commenced a botanical garden of acres behind the house, but it does not now exist. | |
of the celebrated houses of old was No. , , and formerly the mansion of the Fowler family, lords of the manor of Barnesbury. The Fowlers were great people in their swords and ruffs, in the days of Elizabeth and James; and Sir Thomas Fowler appears to have been of the jurors upon the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, at Winchester, in . The house is wood and plaster, with a modern brick front. It appears to be of the age of Elizabeth. | |
says Lewis, | |
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The name attached to the lodge may have arisen from some visit paid by Elizabeth to Sir Thomas Fowler or Sir John Spencer. | |
A house near the old charity school at the top of was partly demolished by the London rioters in , when it was occupied by the obnoxious Justice Hyde, who had ordered out the troops, and whose goods the true Protestants with the blue cockade burnt in the street. | |
In , in , died Mrs. Hester Milner, the youngest of daughters of the Dr. John Milner in whose school Dr. John Hawkesworth and Oliver Goldsmith were assistants. At the at the corner of , John Henderson, the best Falstaff ever known on he stage, made his appearance in public, by reciting Garrick's ode to Shakespeare, with close imitations of the actor's manner. He appeared as Hamlet at the Bath Theatre in . | |
John Quick, a celebrated comedian, resided at Hornsey row. He was the son of a Whitechapel brewer, and was the original Tony Lumpkin, Bob Acres, and Isaac Mendosa; he was of the last of the Garrick school, and was a great favourite of George III. He retired in , after thirtysix years on the boards, with , and died in , aged , another proof of the longevity of successful actors. Up to the last of his life Quick frequented a club at the opposite the old church, and officiated as president. Mrs. Davenport was Quick's daughter. | |
In the year great interest was excited by the abduction of the child of a shipbroker, named Horsley, who resided at , . It had been stolen by a man named Rennett, who had conceived a hatred for the boy's grandfather, Charles Dignum, the singer, and also for the sake of the reward. The man was tracked, taken, and eventually transported for years. | |
Laycock's dairy farm faced Union Chapel, built by Mr. Leroux, at the beginning of the century. Laycock, an enterprising man, who died in , erected sheds for cattle on their way to . Laycock and a Mr. Rhodes had gradually absorbed the smaller grass farms (once the great feature of ), and which were common or years ago, says Mr. Lewis, writing in . The stocks varied from to a cows.
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At a house in , near the west end of , and also in the and at , lived that extraordinary man, [extra_illustrations.2.263.1] , the compiler of the laborious Concordance to the bible. Cruden, the son of an Aberdeen merchant, was born in . After being a private tutor and a corrector of the press, he opened a bookseller's shop under the , London, and there wrote his Concordance. His mind becoming disordered at the bad reception of the Concordance, he was sent to an asylum at , the practices at which he afterwards attacked, bringing an unsuccessful action against the celebrated Dr. Munro. In , on his release, he applied for the honour of knighthood, put himself in nomination for the city of London, and assumed the title of believing himself divinely inspired to reform a corrupt age. of his harmless eccentricities was going about with a sponge, erasing the, number from the walls, to show his aversion for John Wilkes, against whom he published a pamphlet. Eventually he became corrector for the press on Mr. Woodfall's paper, the , and devoted his spare time to teaching the felons in Newgate, and other works of charity. He dedicated the edition of his Concordance to George III., and presented him a copy in person. He died in , being found dead on his knees, in the attitude of prayer. He was buried in a Dissenting burial-ground, in Deadman's Place, . | |
That excellent man, [extra_illustrations.2.264.1] , the founder of the Royal Humane Society, was born in , in or the Tavern, in , and was the son of the landlord. In he began to call attention to the means of resuscitating persons apparently drowned, a subject which the had been urging for years. At he encountered much ridicule and opposition, but, in , Dr. Hawes and Dr. Cogan brought each friends to a meeting at the Coffee House, and the Humane Society was at once formed, and the Tavern became of the houses of reception. This same year Dr. Hawes wrote a pamphlet on the death of Goldsmith, to show the dangers of violent medicine. In this good man was the chief means of saving families of Spitalfields weavers from starvation, at a time when cotton had begun to supersede silk. Dr. Hawes died in | |
p.264 p.265 p.266 | |
[extra_illustrations.2.266.4] , and was buried in the cemetery attached to the churchyard at . | |
was built in . acres at the back formed at a nursery and then a brick-field. Here that delightful humourist, Charles Lamb, resided, with his. sister, from about to , immediately after his retirement from the . | |
Lamb describes [extra_illustrations.2.266.5] , in a letter to Bernard Barton, dated :-- And again, in the November following, in a letter to Robert Southey, he informs the bard, who had promised him a call, that he is It was here that that amiable bookworm, George Dyer, editor of the Delphin classics, walked quietly into the from Charles Lamb's door, but was soon recovered, thanks to the kind care of Miss Lamb. | |
A small house at the back of was the residence of that great Parliamentary reporter, William Woodfall, the friend of Garrick, Goldsmith, and Savage. In lodgings at a house near the and Tea Gardens, old Colley Cibber, the best fop that ever appeared on the stage, died in , aged . As of Pope's most recalcitrant butts, as the author of the , and as poet laureate, Cibber occupied a prominent place among the lesser lights of. the long Georgian era. Cibber's reprobate daughter, Charlotte Charke, among other eccentricities in her reckless life, kept a public-house at , where she died in . | |
At the close of the last century the Baron D'Aguilar, a half-crazed miser, lived in , and kept a small farm on the west bank of the , near the north end of . He beat his wife and starved his cattle, which were occasionally in the habit of devouring each other. He died in , leaving jewels worth . The total bulk of his property is supposed to have been worth upwards of , which he left to daughters, of whom he cursed on his dying bed. | |
[extra_illustrations.2.266.6] , consecrated in , was erected at an expense of . The Irvingite church, in , was erected in , the year Irving died. After his expulsion from the Presbytery, Irving frequently preached in Britannia Fields, , till his admirers rented for him West's Picture Gallery, in . | |
And here we may, as well as anywhere else, sketch the history of the , which passes along , but was some years ago covered over. In the reign of Elizabeth, the London conduits being found quite inadequate to the demands of the growing city, the Queen granted the citizens leave to convey a stream to London, from any part of Middlesex or Hertfordshire. Nothing, however, was done, nor was even a Act, passed by King James, ever carried into effect. What all London could not do, a single publicspirited man accomplished. In , Mr. Hugh Myddelton, a Welsh goldsmith, who had enriched himself by mines in Cardiganshire, persuaded the Common Council to transfer to him the power granted them by the above-mentioned Acts, and offered, in years, at his own risk and charge, to bring the Chadwell and Amwell springs from Hertfordshire to London, by a route more than miles long. Endless vexations, however, befell the enterprising man. The greedy landholders of Middlesex and Herts did all they could to thwart him. Eventually he had to petition the city for an extension of the time for the fulfilment of his contract to years, and at last, when the water had been brought as far as Enfield, Myddelton was so completely drained that he had to apply to the city for aid. On their ungenerous refusal, he resorted to the King, who, tempted by a moiety of the concern, paid half the expenses. The scheme then progressed fast, and on the , the water was at last let into the , at Clerkenwell. Myddelton's brother (the Lord Mayor of London and many aldermen and gentlemen were present at the ceremony, which repaid the worthy goldsmith for his years of patient toil. | |
Stow gives us an account of the way in which the ceremony was performed. he says,
At which words the flood-gates flew open, the streame ran gallantly into the cisterne, drummes and trumpets sounding in triumphall manner, and a brave peale of chambers gave full issue to the intended entertainement. | |
It was a considerable time before the water came into full use, and for the years the annual profit scarcely amounted to a share. The following figures will give the best idea of the improvement of value in this property:-- (the ), ; , ; , ; and , The shares in were considered worth , and an adventurer's share has been sold for as much as . The undertaking cost the projectors half a million sterling. There were originally shares, and of these were vested in the projector, whose descendants, however, became impoverished, and were obliged to part with the property. The mother of the last Sir Hugh indeed received a pension of per annum from the Goldsmiths' Company. | |
Sir Hugh died in a prosperous man, though there is an old tradition that he became pensioner in a Shropshire village, applied in vain for relief to the city, and died in obscurity. | |
The last Sir Hugh was a poor drunken fellow who strived hard to die young, and boarded with an Essex farmer. Even as late as a female descendant of the Welsh goldsmith obtained a small annuity from the Corporation. | |
The is mentioned by Nelson in as having between and bridges over it, and upwards of sluices. Lewis, writing in , speaks of it as having in his day It was formerly conducted over the valley near Highbury, in a huge wooden trough feet long, supported by brick piers, and called the Boarded River. This was, however, removed in . | |
Dr. Johnson describes going to to see [extra_illustrations.2.267.2] , when his mind was beginning to fail. It was after Collins had returned from France, and had come to , directing his sister to meet him there. says the Doctor, When his friend took it in his hand, out of curiosity, to see what companion a man of letters had chosen, said Collins,
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On the east side of the Lower Street was formerly a very old public-house called
says Lewis,
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Between Lower and stood an old mansion generally known as Hunsden House, which was pulled down in . It was supposed to have been the residence of Queen Elizabeth's favourite cousin, Henry Carey, created by her Lord Hunsden. The front, abutting on Lower Street, was inscribed King John's Place, as that king was said to have had a hunting-lodge there. Sir Thomas Lovell rebuilt the house. It was | |
p.268 | supposed, from the armorial bearings in of the stained glass windows, that this chosen residence had been at time the abode of the great Earl of Leicester, the most favoured of all Elizabeth's suitors. It afterwards became the property of Sir Robert Ducy, Bart., the banker of Charles I. The memorable mansion was celebrated for its rich windows, illustrating the subjects of the Faithful Steward and the Prodigal Son, and crowded besides with prophets and saints. There was also a magnificent chimney-piece, containing the arms of the city of London, with those of Lovell quartering Muswell or Mosell, the arms of Priory, always potent in this neighbourhood, besides those of Gardeners of London, grocer, and the Company of Merchant Adventurers. |
Among the celebrities of we may notice the following, in addition to those already given:--Sir Henry Yelverton, a judge of Common Pleas in the reign of Charles I., who was baptised at . He got entangled in opposition to the imperious Duke of Buckingham, and paid for it by an imprisonment in the Tower and a heavy fine. | |
Robert Brown, the founder of the sect of Brownists, was a lecturer at . After flying to Holland, and being excommunicated on his return to England by a bishop, he went back to the Establishment about , and accepted a living in Northamptonshire, where he lived a somewhat discreditable life. For striking a constable who had demanded a rate from him Brown was sent to Northampton gaol, where he boasted that he had been in prisons. He died in , aged . | |
Defoe was educated at a Nonconformist seminary at , and years there was all the education the clever son of a butcher in seems ever to have had. [extra_illustrations.2.268.1] , the celebrated astronomer royal, fitted up an observatory at ; and resided there from till . It was Halley who urged Newton to write the and superintended its publication. He is accused of gross unfairness to his great contemporaries, Leibnitz and Flamsteed, breaking open a sealed catalogue of fixed stars drawn up by the latter, and printing them with his own name. | |
Halley's greatest work was the prediction of the return of a comet, and a discovery of inequalities in the motion of Jupiter and Saturn, which confirmed Newton's great discovery of the law of gravitation. | |
Mrs. Foster, the granddaughter of Milton, kept a chandler's shop at Lower Holloway for some years, and died at in . In her the family of Milton became extinct. She was poor and infirm, and in was represented at for her benefit, Dr. Johnson writing the prologue, which was spoken by Garrick. She used to say that her grandfather was harsh to his daughters, and refused to allow them to be taught to write; but we must allow perhaps something for the perpetual irritation of gout, which would sour the temper of an archangel. At Green resided Dr. Richard Price, a Nonconformist minister, celebrated for his financial calculations in connection with assurance societies. He was a friend of Howard, Priestley, and Franklin, and was consulted by Pitt as to the adoption of the Sinking Fund. He died in . Mary Woolstonecroft, the wife of William Godwin, and the mother of Mrs. Shelley, in early life conducted a day-school at Green. She was of the advocates of the rights of women, and died in . | |
That excellent woman, Mrs. Barbauld, was wife of Mr. Barbauld, a minister at a Unitarian chapel on Green. Amongst the vicars of we should not forget Daniel Wilson, Heber's successor as Bishop of Calcutta. He succeeded the good Cecil at , . Nelson, the best of the historians, lived and died, says Mr. W. Howitt, at his house at the corner of , . Rogers, the banker-poet, was born in at Green, On his mother's side Rogers was descended from Philip Henry, the father of Matthew Henry, the pious author of the well-known exposition of the bible. In of the detached houses opposite Lorraine Place lived that pushing publisher and projector, Sir Richard Phillips. We have described this active minded compiler elsewhere. Dr. Jackson, Bishop of London, was for a time head-master of the Proprietary School. | |
The at the south-east corner of Cadd's row, near , was, in the middle of the last century, kept by Thomas Topham, the celebrated of . His most celebrated feats were pulling against a horse at a wall in ; and, finally, in , in Coldbath Fields, lifting hogsheads of water, weighing , to commemorate the taking of Porto Bello by Admiral Vernon. He once hoisted a sleeping watchman in his box, and dropped both box and watchman over the wall into Bunhill Fields Burying Ground. Towards the close of his life this unhappy Samson took a public-house in Hog Lane, , and there, in , in a paroxysm of just jealousy, he stabbed his unfortunate wife and killed himself. | |
Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.2.261.1] the church becoming ruinous, it was pulled down and rebuilt by Mr. Steemson [extra_illustrations.2.262.1] George Morland [extra_illustrations.2.263.1] Alexander Cruden [extra_illustrations.2.264.1] Dr. William Hawes [extra_illustrations.2.266.1] New River-1884 [extra_illustrations.2.266.2] New River head [extra_illustrations.2.266.3] The Sir Hugh Myddelton head [extra_illustrations.2.266.4] The Engine House [extra_illustrations.2.266.5] his place of abode at Islington [extra_illustrations.2.266.6] St. Peter's Church Islington [extra_illustrations.2.267.2] poor Collins, the poet [extra_illustrations.2.268.1] Edmund Halley |
