Millar’s obelisk

Tags

book trade

Dovehouse Green is a small patch of public green, situated on the corner of Dovehouse Street and King’s Road, Chelsea. The paths run crosswise from the four corners and where they meet stands an obelisk, known as Millar’s Obelisk.

Dovehouse Green was given to the parish by Sir Hans Sloane to be used as an overspill graveyard. It was consecrated as such in 1736, but by 1812, the new cemetery on Sydney Street had taken over its function and only interments in existing family tombs were allowed. In 1977, the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, the neglected piece of ground was revamped and opened to the public as Dovehouse Green. The centre piece is the obelisk that was originally erected by Andrew Millar, a bookseller, to commemorate his wife and children.

Andrew Millar (1705-1768) came to London from Schotland in the 1720s to work in the bookshop on the Strand that his Edinburgh master James McEuen (or M’Euen) had opened. In January 1728, young Andrew took over the shop, continuing the name, Buchanan’s Head, and starting with the stock that McEuen had had in the shop. But Millar had grander ideas than just selling books and libraries. He became a respected publisher who did his origins proud by publishing, or acting as agent of, a large number of Scottish authors. Samuel Johnson said of him that he was “the Maecenas of the age” who “raised the price of literature”. Unlike most of his competitors, he looked after his authors and gave them bonuses when their books sold well. Was he without fault? No, of course not. Some thought him a bumpkin upstart with unscrupulous tendencies. Perhaps they were just jealous, but perhaps they were right. If nothing else, Millar must at least have been a sharp businessman to get where he ended up as one of the, if not the, most important publisher of the mid-eighteenth century. He was the publisher who took care of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary and his patience must have been sorely tried by the ever-extending time it took to complete. Allegedly when Millar received the last sheet, he sent his compliments with the money due and thanked God he had done with Johnson. To which Johnson replied that he was glad that there was at least something Millar thanked God for.⁽¹⁾

Mindfull / of Death and of Life
ANDREW MILLAR / of the Strand London Bookseller
Erected This / Near the Dormitory
Intended / For Himself and his Beloved Wife
JANE MILLAR / When it shall please Divine Providence
To call them hence / As a place of Like Rem[embrance]
For other near Relations / and / In Memory of
the deceased Pledges of their love
MDCCLI

In 1751, Millar had the obelisk erected over the vault where his relations were or would be buried. On the four sides, texts were carved on the pedestal and base to commemorate the family members who were interred, but time has erased most of the inscriptions. On one side, a coat of arms can be seen. And on the other side is still, faintly, visible that the remains of Margaret Johnstone who died in 1757 are buried there. She was Millar’s unmarried sister-in-law who had lived with the family most of her adult life. Although we can no longer read them, we do know what the texts on the other sides originally said. They commemorate the three children of Andrew and Jane Millar who all died young: Robert in 1736, just one year old; Elizabeth in 1740, also one year old; and Andrew junior who died in Scarborough, five years old. The sorrow of the Millar parents is expressed in a poem:⁽²⁾

Reader ! if Pity ever touch’d thy Heart
At these sad Lines a tender Thought impart
Think with what Sorrow we inscribe the Stone
That speaks us Parents and that speaks us None.

The bookseller himself died in 1768 and his widow (by then remarried to Sir Archibald Grant) in 1788.

The information on Andrew Millar has come from Richard B. Sher, The Enlightenment & the Book. Scottish Authors & Their Publishers in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, & America 2006), p. 275-294.
The information on the obelisk has mainly come from “Chelsea Old Town Hall to Knightsbridge”, a publication of Kensington and Chelsea Royal Borough which I can no longer find on their website, but which can still be accessed through Google (online here); and from the Survey of London, Volume 11, Chelsea, Part IV: the Royal Hospital. Originally published by London County Council, London, 1927 (online via British History Online here).

(1) Paul J. Korshin, ‘The mythology of Johnson’s Dictionary‘ in Anniversary Essays on Johnson’s Dictionary, ed. Anne McDermott (2005), p. 16-17.
(2) Samuel Richardson had composed another epitaph on Andrew junior’s death, but Millar chose this one (see here for Richardson’s text).

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The tomb of William Rawlins

In the churchyard of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate stands a rather grand funeral monument for Sir William Rawlins. On the various inscriptions we read that he died 26 March 1838 at the age of 83 (in fact, he was 84), that he had been a sheriff of London in 1801-02 and a great benefactor to the parish of St. Botolph’s. So who was this William Rawlins? He was born on 24 July 1753, the son of farmer Samuel and Ann Rawlins of Bridgecomb, Berkshire. In 1770, he was apprenticed to a London weaver, but turned over in 1773 to Samuel Swaine, an upholder⁽¹⁾ of 9 Broker’s Row⁽²⁾ and in 1778 he received his freedom of the Upholders’ Company. Whether Rawlins worked for someone else in the first ten years after his apprenticeship or whether he had a place of his own is unclear, but in 1790, he certainly had his own business, “The Royal Bed and Star” at 12 Broker’s Row, a street full of furniture dealers.⁽³⁾ The street was later renamed Blomfield Street (often referred to as Bloomfield Street) in honour of Charles James Blomfield, bishop of London (1828-1857) who had been rector of St. Botolph’s earlier in his career.⁽⁴⁾

Coat of Arms of the Worshipful Company of Upholders

William III silver gilt salt given in 1832 by Rawlins to the Company of Upholders (Source: website Upholders; more information here)

The Land Tax records show Rawlins from 1791 onwards in Old Bethlem, just round the corner from Broker’s Row. Old Bethlem was to be widened in 1829 and henceforth called Liverpool Steet. Rawlins lived at number 13, but whether he also had a shop there, or whether he just lived there and still traded from Blomfield Street is unclear. We do not really know very much about his upholstery, but much more about his public life. As said above, he became sheriff of London in 1801-02, together with Robert Albion Cox, a goldsmith. Sheriffs were always chosen in pairs from the Liverymen of the City Companies (more here). After his term in office, a knighthood was conferred on Rawlins by the King, and he was hence properly referred to as Sir William Rawlins. A glorious career lay before him, one may surmise, but in 1805, both Cox and Rawlins were put in Newgate prison by order of the House of Commons for election fraud during their time of office as sheriffs. They were in prison for about two months and were then gravely spoken to by the Speaker of the House,

For the purpose of giving one of the candidates in the Middlesex election a colourable majority upon the poll, you wilfully, knowingly, and corruptly admitted the reception of fictitious votes, thereby encouraging persons to commit perjury; and that, in pursuance of the same intent, you refused to examine their competency by the books of the land tax. A higher offence than this could not be committed; and in so conducting yourselves, you betrayed the most important duties of your high office, for which you were committed to Newgate, the common receptable of malefactors, and over which you before presided over as the proper Magistrates, to your own indelible disgrace, and for the example of all others. In consequence, however, of your long imprisonment, and your expression of humble contrition, you are now discharged, on payment of your fees.⁽⁵⁾

Indelible disgrace or not, Rawlins’ further career does not seem to have been hampered by his stint in prison and he went on to hold important posts in the Company of Upholsters, the Bishopsgate Ward, and other civic bodies, although you never know to what other posts he may have been elected if he had not been charged with fraud.

Morning Chronicle, 5 November 1807

On 23 October 1807, Rawlins arranged a meeting of a group of City merchants, bankers and traders in Cole´s Coffee House, Cornhill, to discuss the formation of an association “for fire and life assurance and for granting annuities”. The Eagle Insurance Company (later The Eagle Star) was formed of which Rawlins remained the chairman until his death in 1838.⁽⁶⁾

In his will he outlined how he wanted his burial to take place,

I desire that my body may be buried at the direction of my executors hereafter named after the following manner: that my body may be placed in a lead coffin and that it be interred in the vault belonging to me in Bishopsgate Churchyard and wherein is already deposited the remains of the late Mrs Mary Rawlins, widow of the late William Rawlins Esquire. That my funeral may be a walking procession and that it commence from my own house down Liverpool Street to the Catholic Chapel to turn on the lefthand up Bloomfield Street to the end of New Broad Street then through the Iron Gates up the said street to Bishopsgate Church Yard. I also desire that the entrance to my vault may be enclosed with good sound and solid brick work so as to prevent the further use thereof by any person whatever, and I also desire that a respectable mausoleum or tomb may be erected over the said vault of well manufactured polished Haytor Granite with designs of scientific excellence which may do honor to the artist whom my said executors hereafter named may think proper to employ. It is also my wish that a cast iron railing may be erected round my said tomb and to be at least five feet ten inches high and to be well painted four times in oil.⁽⁷⁾

Route of Rawlins’ funeral cortege plotted on the 1893 Ordnance Survey map

The will is dated 22 March 1837, but there is a second codicil of 2 January 1838 in which Rawlins writes that he has already agreed a design for his tomb and the adjoining railings with Samuel Grimsdell (a builder from Sun Street). The railings and the tomb are certainly replete with the “designs of scientific excellence” Rawlins had specified in his will and which he presumably agreed upon when discussing the design of the tomb with Grimsdell. The executors just needed to make sure the tomb was maintained properly, for which he left them – he thought – ample funds. And maintained it was; that is, up till now, as the fund is sadly depleted. All contributions gladly excepted, see here.

Portrait of William Rawlins in A.F. Shepherd, Links with the Past (1917)

During his lifetime, Rawlins had always been generous to good causes, such as the Bishopsgate Ward School that received a thousand pound in 1837 to be invested and used “for the clothing and education” of the schoolchildren. Rawlins does not seem to have had any children of his own – did he ever marry? – as, after bequests to various charities, friends, nephews and great-nephews, the residue of the estate was to go to two of his nephews, Robert and George. The great-nephew mentioned is William Rawlins, son of nephew William Rawlins, deceased. Are we to assume that the Mary who was already in the vault was this William’s widow and hence the mother of great nephew William? Possibly, but there are so many William Rawlinses that I have not yet found out which one is meant here. Mary was certainly buried from 13 Liverpool Street and a possibility is that she came to live with Rawlins after the death of her husband. It is sometimes suggested that Mary was Sir William’s wife, but that supposition is untenable, as he clearly mentions her as the widow of someone else in his will and the inscription on the tomb would not give Rawlins as Esq. as he was already knighted by the time Mary was buried. I will add a postscript if I find out more about the relation between Sir William and Mary.

(1) An upholder is now more frequently called an upholsterer, or is – more generally – a dealer in furniture. See Karin M. Walton, “The Worshipful Company Of Upholders Of The City Of London” in Furniture History (1973) for the origins of the word upholder and the history of the Company of Upholders.
(2) J.F. Houston, Featherbedds and Flock Bedds (2006).
(3) Elizabeth A. Fleming, “Staples for Genteel Living: The Importation of London Household Furnishings into Charleston During the 1780s” in American Furniture (1997).
(4) C. Hibbert et al, The London Encylopaedia. See also Wikipedia which tell us that he was the grandfather of Sir Reginald Blomfield, the architect of 20 Buckingham Gate.
(5) The Lancaster Gazette and General Advertiser, 18 May 1805.
(6) A.F. Shepherd, Links with the Past: A Brief Chronicle of the Public Service of a Notable Institution, London, published by The Eagle and British Dominions Insurance Co., Ltd (1917).
(7) The National Archives; Kew, England; Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Registers; Class: PROB 11; Piece: 1894.

Guy of Warwick

Tags

coat of arms, knight

A small bas-relief of Guy, Earl of Warwick, can be seen on the corner of Warwick Lane and Newgate Street on a very modern office building. It is said that Warwick Lane is named after Warwick Inn, owned by the Earls of Warwick. In 1458, the 16th Earl of Warwick, Richard Nevell ‘The Kingmaker’, came to the great convention that took place during the Wars of the Roses and John Stowe says that he came,

with 600. men, all in redde iackets, imbrodered with ragged staues before and behind, and was lodged in VVarwicke lane: in whose house there was oftentimes sixe oxen eaten at a breakefast, and euery tauern was full of his meat; for he that had any acquaintance in that house, might haue there so much of sodden [boiled] and roste meate, as hee coulde pricke and carry upon a long dagger.⁽¹⁾

An uncommon feature of the little statue is the reference to Pennant’s book Some Account of London, 5th ed, p. 492. if we go to that source, we read the following:

On the front of a house in the upper end of the lane is placed a small neat statue of Guy earl of Warwick, renowned in the days of King Athelstan for killing the Danish giant Colbrand, and performing numbers of other exploits, the delight of my childish days. This statue is in miniature the same with that in the chapel of St. Mary Magdalen, in Guy’s-Cliff near Warwick. The arms on the shield are chequè or and azur, a chevron erminè, which were his arms, afterward gold, by the Beauchamps earls of Warwick.

How much of all that is historical fact or just embellished legend is hard to judge. What is fact, is that Æthelstan died in 939 AD and the earldom of Warwick was not created until 1088, so there is at least a substantial time-gap to be explained. In any case, this Guy’s exploits became a great source for legends and romantic stories, from fourteenth-century French romantic poems to seventeenth and eighteenth-century plays, ballads and chapbooks.⁽²⁾ Another possibility is a confusion with Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick (c. 1272-1315) whose coat of arms, as Pennant noted, was adopted by the Beauchamps in c. 1200, and closely resembles the one on the relief. However, a footnote by the editor of the 5th edition claims that the arms were born by Thomas de Newburgh, earl of Warwick in 1222. Let’s say that the true story has disappeared in the mists of time and we will just have a closer look at the later history of the relief itself.

Drawing of the older relief ©British Museum

The middle section of the present bas-relief could be seen higher up on the front of a house built after the Great Fire. See copyrighted picture from Collage here. Although the information that goes with this drawing suggest the date is c. 1820, I assume it must be before 1817, because of the restoration date on the present bas-relief.

The statue, as Pennant already noticed, is a copy of the much larger one in the chapel of St Mary Magdalen, in Guy’s Cliff. The house and chapel now belong to the Freemasons and are not open to the public, but they have posted a Photo Gallery Archive on the web that contains a picture of the original statue of Guy, but alas, the poor man is in an advanced stage of decay. See copyrighted picture here.

Illustration of the original statue from C. Knight, Old England: Pictoral Museum (1845), vol. 1.

The top and bottom sections of the present-day relief were added later, most likely at the time of a restoration in 1817. Or perhaps even later when it was moved to its present location? The 1817 restorer was John Deykes, architect and surveyor, who is probably best known for his work in Malvern, where he designed the Library and Assembly Rooms. He entered the Royal Academy’s Exhibition of 1815 with ‘The Fountain of the Innocents, Paris’ in the Architectural Drawings section as number 771 and also had in hand in the restoration work at St. Bride’s. At one time he lived at Mr. G. Smith’s, Doctors’ Commons and at 2 Thavies Inn, Bartlett’s Buildings, Holborn.⁽³⁾ Bartlett’s Buildings was a place where a number of solicitors and attorneys lived and had their offices, close to the Inns of Court. In the Middle Ages, Thavie’s Inn had been one of the Inns of Chancery, but was, in the nineteenth century, no longer used as such.

Thavies Inn by T.H. Shepherd, 1858 ©British Museum

How and why the relief ended up on the front of a modern office block is unclear. The why is not difficult to work out as it is still on a building that is situated at the corner of Warwick Lane and Newgate Street where the old inn is supposed to have been, but the how is not known. When I asked the good people at the reception desk in the building, they could not tell me anything about it, so this is where the story ends for the moment. If anyone has a clue, please add a comment.

(1) John Stow, A Survay of London. Conteyning the originall, antiquity, increase, moderne estate, and description of that city, written in the yeare 1598 (1603), p. 66.
(2) See also: Guy of Warwick: Icon and Ancestor, ed. Alison Wiggins and Rosalind Field (2007) online here. And the webpage of Siân Sechard.
(3) Boyle’s Court Guide for January 1821 and A. Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts; a complete dictionary of contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904 (1905), vol. 2, p. 319.

Isabella Gilmore

Tags

nursing, religion

While walking round in Southwark cathedral, I came upon a sculpted plaque on one of the walls dedicated to someone – and I apologise profusely for my ignorance – of whom I had never heard before. But a little research soon put me on the track of a remarkable lady.

Bas-relief in Southwark Cathedral

Isabella was born on 17 July 1842 at Woodford Hall, at the edge of Epping Forest, as the daughter of William and Emma Morris. Yes, indeed, the same parents as those of the far more famous William Morris. Unfortunately, one of Isabella’s biographers thought it necessary – or maybe her publisher did – to use the family connection as the subtitle of her book. That is a great shame, because the appreciation of Isabella’s accomplishments should not be dependent on her brother’s achievements. Isabella should be remembered for her own deeds.

When Isabella – or Issy is she was informally called – was five years old, her father died and the family moved to Water House, Walthamstow. She was at first educated by a governess, but she later went to a private school in Brighton and a finishing school in Clifton. In 1856, the family moved once again, this time to Leyton Hall, Essex. When Isabella was eighteen, and living with her mother at Leyton Hall, she became acquainted with Lieutenant Arthur Hamilton Gilmore. The naval officer was ten years older than Isabella, but she liked him for his kindness and humour. After a few months, Arthur asked her to marry him and in September 1860, the wedding ceremony took place in St. Mary’s, Leyton.

Leyton St. Mary’s church (Source: leytonparishchurch.org.uk)

Biographies of Isabella say that because of Arthur’s navy duties and hence absences, the couple frequently moved house. We know that at the time of the 1871 census, they were living at 21 Burton Street, and ten years later, at the time of the 1881 census, they could be found at 16 Notting Hill Square. But, a lot of time was also spent in Ramsgate where Arthur’s parents had taken a house. Arthur was promoted to commander in 1869, but retired sometime before 1881 when he is recorded as ‘retired’. The couple then moved to Lyme Regis hoping that the fresh air would do Arthur good, but his health deteriorated fairly quickly and he died on 1 November 1882. The probate record gives his address as Silverley, Lyme Regis. For one reason or another, the probate was not granted to Isabella until March 1893.⁽¹⁾ Why it took so long is unclear. After Arthur’s death, Isabella went to live with her mother and sister at Much Hadham, but her sister’s overdone enthusiasm for the Roman Catholic faith to which she had converted, did not make life any easier.

Isabella Gilmore in the 1880s (Source Wikipedia)

Isabella decided to become a nurse which caused a lot of misgivings in the family. Although nursing was seen as a worthy occupation, it was something else to have one’s own middle or upper class family member aspiring to a career in nursing. Although Florence Nightingale had done much to improve people’s idea of hospitals, they were still considered too harsh an environment for well-brought up, that is sheltered, girls. But Isabella was adamant and she entered Guy’s hospital training school. Much had been done at Guys in the 1870s and 1880s to improve standards. Cleaning staff were employed to clean the wards, thereby relieving the nurses of this duty. Nurses were now boarded at the hospital, preventing the theft of food that had been a major problem. And they were also made to wear a uniform, not only contributing to an improved hygiene, but also to the dignity of the profession.

In 1886, Isabella was approached by Anthony Wilson Thorold, the Bishop of Rochester, who was involved in setting up an order of deaconesses who were to work among London’s poor. Deaconesses worked directly under a bishop, as opposed to nuns who worked from a religious institution. It took some doing to find a parish where deaconesses would be accepted. The clergy considered them too near the catholic tradition, but eventually a house at 11 Park Hill, Clapham, was rented from archdeacon Burney and work could begin in earnest. Isabelle did much of the work to make the house suitable herself, but her brother William helped her. The following account is from her own memories:

The Council told me only to furnish for four women besides myself. It was settled that it should be ready the week after Easter, and the Bishop said that he would ordain me on April 16 in our chapel. I told him the Council need not think of the chapel and my two rooms, as I would settle everything for that part of the house, if he would give me leave and tell me if there was anything we must not have. He said that there must be no cross on the Holy Table, but there might be a cross on the hangings above the Altar. I asked my brother, William Morris, to come and tell me how I might make the chapel beautiful; he was in one of his happy tempers, liking the old house on the Common, and telling me it was a nice place to live in, and saying we might make a lot out of the rooms we were considering. So he took the order off, and said his people would come and do it all and give me no trouble.

The rest of the house the Council had to make good as to clean paper and paint, but the passages and staircase were left with a horrible green malachite paper which Bishop Thorold said was “good discipline for me.” I got an estimate from Tarns for our simple furniture and sent it to the Treasurer, General Geary. He told me I must knock off something, so I knocked off thirty-two pounds for staining floors and some small matters. That was passed, and I gave the order, and arranged that everything was to be ready and the people out of the house by Easter Tuesday. I then went off, I think, to Lyme Regis, and returned in Holy Week. I did my best to hurry the workmen. The chapel and my rooms had been finished for more than a week, but the rest of the house was not nearly done. On Good Friday, after Matins at Clapham Parish Church, I shut myself alone in the house, and then I stained all the floors with permanganate of potash. It was a glorious hot day, and by the time I had finished upstairs the downstair rooms were ready for the oil. I did them all, and left them ready for my next morning’s work. I went on until late on Easter Eve, and then went off to dear mother at Hadham. It was a calm and beautiful Easter. I felt quite happy, nothing troubled me. On Easter Tuesday I got back to the house: the two servants I had engaged came long before any furniture. It was a scrimmage to get ready by the Saturday, but by working hard we did it. One of my mother’s dear old servants brought boxes of things for the tea, and my sister, Mrs. Oldham, came ready for the service.⁽²⁾

On 16 April, 1887, Isabella was ordained and became head deaconess of the Rochester and Southwark Deaconess House. At first, it was not easy to attract women to the house they had set up. Most left after a shorter or longer time as the job proved too challenging. It must certainly have been a shock for many of them to learn that the idea was not to reside in splendour and dish out alms to the poor, but that ‘real’ work had to be done. Gilmore insisted that the women were trained in the basic theological principles in order to be ready for parochial duties. They were also trained in basic nursing skills and some were given the opportunity to train for six months at Guy’s hospital. The strict discipline weeded out the unsuitable candidates quite quickly and after a couple of years, the house was full of dedicated professionals. They provided a soup kitchen, donated clothing, looked after the sick, taught religion and basic sanitation. One of Isabella’s more odious duties was fundraising. She disliked it, but was very good at it and in 1891, the institution could move to a larger house on the north side of Clapham Common called “The Sisters”, but later named “Gilmore House”.⁽³⁾

The Clapham Common House from Google Street View

In 1894, Isabella’s mother died and left her a substantial sum which she decided to use on a chapel for the Institution. Philip Webb designed a simple chapel in the arts and crafts style, as well as the furniture and a cross for the chapel.⁽⁴⁾

lectern designed by Philip Webb ©Victoria and Albert Museum

In 1895, Katherine Beynon came to the Institution to discuss the possibility of sending deaconesses to Lahore where her father, grandfather and great-uncle had played a major part in India’s administration. Katherine ended up doing the training herself and after a year went back to set up a similar, very successful, centre in Lahore, St. Hilda’s. In 1906, Isabella retired from the Rochester Institution, not because she was tired of the work, but because she thought a younger person might benefit the organisation. She went to live in Upper West Street in Reigate with her niece Ada Morris, but retirement did not mean she no longer kept in touch with her work or her former pupils. She corresponded with deaconesses she had trained all over the world and could always be called upon in a difficult situation. In 1914, the two nieces moved to Kew and gradually Isabella was less and less capable of active involvement in church work and she retired from her diocesan post. She died on 15 March 1823 and was buried on the 21st at St. Michael’s, Lyme Regis, beside her husband.⁽⁵⁾ The bas-relief in Southwark cathedral was set up the following year. According to Grierson, it is the work of Arthur George Walker and one Mr. (Ninian?) Comper.

Isabella Gilmore, aged 64, from a portrait by C. B. Leighton (Source Wikipedia)

Sources:
Deaconess Gilmore: Memories, Collected by Deaconess Elizabeth Robinson (1924) online here
Frank C. Sharp, “Isabella Morris Gilmore” in Journal of William Morris Studies 11.4 (Spring 1996), pp 31-38 online here
Janet Grierson, Isabella Gilmore: sister to William Morris (1962)

(1) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1893. Probate granted to the widow. Value £181 5s.
(2) Deaconess Gilmore: Memories, Collected by Deaconess Elizabeth Robinson, 1924.
(3) See London Remembers for the house and a
later occupant, John Walter.
(4) See for a picture of the chapel here (click on ‘here it is’).
(5) England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1923. Probate granted 10 May to Ada and Effie Mabel Morris. Value £6066 1s. 4d.

Waithman’s obelisk

Tags

draper, Fleet Street, obelisk, politics

In Salisbury Square, an obelisk can be found as a memorial to Robert Waithman who died in 1833.

obelisk Waithman in Salisbury Court

Waithman was born in Wrexham in 1764 and became apprenticed to a linen draper in London. He became a freeman of the Framework Knitters’ Company in October 1787 and obtained the freedom of the City the following January.⁽¹⁾ On 18 July, 1787, he had married Mary Davies (1761–1827), his cousin, at St. George the Martyr, Queen Square. They had at least 8 children (see here). Robert started trading at Fleet Market, but soon opened a shop at 120 Newgate Street. The British Library has a trade card of his in their collection which they date to 1791.

 

©British Museum

©British Museum

But soon after opening his first shop – how soon is unclear – Waithman entered into a partnership with Charles Bristow and business boomed. In 1797 they were listed for the Sun Fire Office as having insurance for premises at 104 Fleet Street, 120 Newgate Street, 7 Holborn Hill, south end Fleet Market, and Winchmore Hill. Another trade card (dated 1799) shows their shop on the corner of Fleet Street and New Bridge Road. See for a larger picture of the shop with both their names above the shop windows here. As a notice in the London Gazette of 25 December 1802 testifies, Waithman was the partner with the most financial clout, 3/4 as against 1/4 for Bristow. Very soon afterwards, the partnership seems to have been dissolved and Waithman went into a new partnership with Everington at roughly the same addresses. The trade card (dated 1803) again shows the 103-104 Fleet Street property, but now with Everington’s name in stead of Bristow’s.

©British Museum

The Sun Fire Office records for 1803 and 1804 list John Etherington alongside Waithman, but in 1811, a partnership was dissolved between Robert Waithman and his son John on the one hand and William Everington on the other.⁽²⁾ Is there a mistake and are Etherington and Everington the same? And is John related to William? Whatever the exact details of the partnership(s), by 1811, the business was solely in the hands of the Waithman family. After Robert’s death, the shop in Fleet Street was continued by his sons (see here).

Portrait of Robert Waithman by Edward Scriven © National Portrait Gallery, London

But Robert was not just a linen draper, he also went into politics. He frequented a debating society at Founders’ Hall in Lothbury and became a liveryman of the Framework Knitters’ Company. In 1795, he was elected as a common councilman for the ward of Farringdon Without and took a stance against the war with France. He was involved in the founding of the Society of the Independent Livery of London and, in 1800, published a pamphlet War proved to be the real cause of the present scarcity and enormous high price, of every article of consumption, with the only radical remedies, which was directed against the injustice of the income tax and in which he demanded reform for a more equal society. The Independent Livery became a lobbying group to be reckoned with in City politics, working for the people against high prices and taxes, and campaigning against war and for parliamentary reform. Waithman tried several times to get a seat in Parliament for London, but did not at first succeed. His background and lack of education spoke against him. “It was time to teach Mr Waithman that the government is not in the common hall, and that we are not to have a supreme council of war made up of the tradesmen of London”.⁽³⁾

But, in 1818, he was voted as one of the four City representatives, defeating the Tory candidate, Sir William Curtis. Waithman’s speech of 1 July 1819 on parliamentary reform was published in 1823. Soon after his election, in July 1818, he was chosen as alderman for his ward of Farringdon Without, replacing the deceased Sir Charles Price, but failed to hold on to his parliamentary seat in 1820. He attained the post of sheriff of London and Middlesex in 1820–21, during which time he sided with the popular radicals in support of Queen Caroline. He also became Lord Mayor of London in 1823-1824, satirized by his political opponents in Maxims of Robert, Lord Waithman, Somewhile Chief Magistrate of London (1824). Waithman always tried to strive for reform without becoming too radical, which resulted in an unfortunate middle position, where the Whigs thought he was too radical and the Radicals considered him too much of a Whig. And his background led to accusations of trying to use politics for his personal gain which he vehemently denied. His concern was the fairer distribution of power and wealth between the classes.⁽⁴⁾ While some may claim he was just an upstart shopkeeper, he, although not always successful, did much to reform the political landscape in favour of the ordinary man in the street.

Waithman died at his house at 7 Woburn Place on 6 February 1833 and was buried in St. Bride’s on the 14th. His body was brought there from Guildhall in a cortège of twenty-seven carriages. Waithman Street in London was named in his honour and a subscription was raised by the St Bride’s Society to set up an obelisk. The Morning Chronicle of 26 June 1833 reported that the day before “the first stone of the Waithman Obelisk was laid by Alderman Harmer … attended by the architect and the Secretary of the Haytor Granite Company, by whom it was constructed”. A little further on in the report on the occasion, they name the architect as John Elmes⁽⁵⁾ and the secretary of Haytor as Mr. Bigg.

The inscription seen on the pedestal of the obelisk was, according to the paper, also engraved on a sheet of lead which was deposited with a portrait of Waithman and a list of the subscribers in a hermetically sealed bottle which was placed in a cavity in the lower foundation stone. Is it still there? The obelisk was originally erected at the southern end of Farringdon Street, opposite the Fleet Street shop, but it was relocated twice. The first time in 1951 to Bartholomew Close and in 1972 to it’s present position in Salisbury Square. And if negotiations had not broken off – reason unknown – the obelisk might even have ended up in Waithman’s birthplace Wrexham.⁽⁶⁾

Besides the obelisk, a wall tablet was erected in the south wall of the tower of St. Bride’s which now lives in their crypt with other miscellaneous gravestones and memorials. According to The architecture of St Bride’s⁽⁷⁾, the tablet was accompanied by a shield of arms “Or an eagle holding in his beak a crosslet [], on a chief engrailed vert an escallop [] between two molets []”. That, however, is no longer to be seen in the church, but you can see the coat of arms on the bosses above the text on the obelisk.

Biographical information on Waithman from:
– Michael T. Davis, ‘Waithman, Robert (1764–1833)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004.
– Lawrence Taylor and R. G. Thorne, ‘Waithman, Robert (c.1764-1833), of 7 Woburn Place, Mdx.’ in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986 (online here).

(1) Freedom admissions papers, 1681 – 1925. London Metropolitan Archives: COL/CHD/FR/02.
(2) London Gazette, 17 Sept. 1811.
(3) William Huskisson on the reception given to Waithman’s petition for an inquiry into the convention of Cintra (Source: www.historyofparliamentonline.org)
(4) J.R. Dinwiddy, Radicalism and Reform in Britain, 1780-1850 (1992), p. 78.
(5) John Elmes (1782-1862), A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland, ed. E. Skempton, vol. 1: 1500-1830 (2002), pp. 212-213.
(6) Many thanks to Martyn Partridge to pointing this bit of history out to me (see his comment). A photo of the obelisk in its original position can be found here.
(7) ‘The architecture of St Bride’s: Monuments’, Survey of London Monograph 15: St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street (1944), pp. 55-113 (online here).

You may also like to read the two other posts on Waithman:
– Waithman Street
– Waithman & Co., linen drapers