Bloomsbury People

Bloomsbury Project goes live

2011-08-04T02:32:00.000-07:00

The Bloomsbury Project, of which this blog has been a feature, has now been completed after three years research, and the website has been launched.

The project was established to investigate 19th-century Bloomsbury's development from swampy rubbish-dump to centre of intellectual life. The project has traced the origins, locations, and reforming significance of hundreds of progressive and innovative institutions. Many of the extensive archival resources relating to these institutions have also been identified and examined, and Bloomsbury’s developing streets and squares have been mapped and described.

While all this was going on in the academic realms of UCL, the Bloomsbury People blog set out to find information about the 'ordinary' people who lived and worked in the area. In fact, most of the people featured were very far from 'ordinary' and it has been a pleasure to correspond with their descendants who have so enthusiastically shared these Bloomsbury lives. This blog is now closing but I hope that anyone finding it in the future will be able to learn something new about the area, most especially from the online resource.

2nd Viscount Frankfort de Montmorency and a case of libel

2011-03-09T04:23:00.000-08:00

I’ve just received a fascinating e.mail from Raymond Foster whose ancestors, the Newsoms of Bloomsbury Square, were featured in February. Raymond writes: ‘… as a result of researching Jane Hovil Newsom's father, John Sawyer I happened upon some material about an Elizabeth Sawyer who resided at 35 Montague Place (Bloomsbury) in 1861 and who I thought might have been a relative. The Census for that year describes her as a widow aged 34 years, born in Tenterden, Kent, and records a range of young children and a retinue of servants and also a visitor, described as an uncle, L.H. Sawyer, aged in his late 50s and normally resident in Dublin.

Nothing particularly noteworthy about that and I can't establish any definite link with Jane Hovil Newsom (nee Sawyer) living just round the corner in Bloomsbury Square (and later by the way in Southampton Row). What caused me some surprise though was that 10 years later, in 1871 there is (another?) Elizabeth Sawyer recorded at exactly the same address - 35 Montague Place - but this one is aged 40, born in Brighton and described as an annuitant. There were no children present, just one servant and an Irish Peer, Viscount Frankfort - Lodge Raymond de Montmorency, 2nd Viscount Frankfort de Montmorency to give him his full title. I did a little research on the 2nd Viscount, born in 1806, and discovered that apart from being an Old Etonian and guardsman, he was in 1861 on trial in London for publishing an indecent communication (reported in "Victorian London" by Liza Picard). He apparently served a year's imprisonment with hard labour in Pentonville but was able to avoid the hard labour component of his sentence by paying towards his keep in prison. I also read that there was a strong suggestion that he was in fact insane, and at least one instance of assault - by spitting on someone in the street - was evinced in support of this. I'm sure there must be more material available about this intriguing character. I don't know if this is at all relevant to the "Bloomsbury People" project but it might add a little extra flavour. It hasn't added anything definite to my own family research but it did provide some entertainment! Incidentally I am fairly sure that the Frankfort line is now extinct! Best wishes, Raymond Foster (no relation to the 2nd Viscount as far as I know).’

The Frankfort de Montmorencys were Irish peers, owning thousands of acres in Carlow, Cavan and Kilkenny. They were, nevertheless, absentee landords and the agent who managed the 2nd Viscount’s estates described him in 1843 as ‘becoming as oblivious in Matters of business as he is insane in other Matters’ (page 2 of online document). This was the time of the devastating Irish famine and the Viscount was said to be ignorant of the extent of distress (as many absentee landlords were). In 1842, he was living in Paddingon, west London, when Alice Lowe was tried at the Old Bailey for stealing property from his house. The Viscount’s testimony is garbled to say the least and it turned out that Alice Lowe had been living with him for several weeks prior to the ‘theft’. A pawbroker who gave evidence maintained that she had been a regular customer for four years and intimated that she regularly co-habited with ‘noblemen’ and pawned their valuables. Alice was found not guilty.

In 1843, the Viscount sent a notice to every member of the House of Lords complaining of ‘grievances and injuries, which for several years have seriously interfered with, and in some instances fatally destroyed his domestic arrangements, placed him at variance with his family connections …’ etc. Four years later he appeared at the Middlesex Sessions on a charge of assault (the spitting episode mentioned by Raymond), and then in 1852 he was tried at Bow Street Magistrates Court for defamation and libel after circulating letters supposedly from members of the aristocracy. In fact, the content of the letters suggest that the Viscount was seriously deluded. He mentions a ‘secret committee’ tampering with intimate friends, turning the inabitants of the country into cannibals and taking children of rank out of their graves, etc. etc. The Liverpool Standard, commenting on this case, observed: ‘That [the Viscount] is a fit subject for a lunatic asylum can hardly be doubted; but that his disease of mind has been induced by depraved habits is abundantly obvious.’ Full details of these events are online (scroll down to end of document).

The photograph above (xynt4x Flickr) shows Montague Square with the back of the British Museum on the left and the offices of Senate House, University of London on the right.

Alfred Gibbs Bourne, UCL, and Sir (Edwin) Ray Lankester

2011-02-11T03:32:00.000-08:00

Mark Bourne’s account of his great, great grandfather’s experience at UCL under the tutorship of the eminent zoologist, Ray Lankester (1847-1929, top picture), fired my curiousity to know what became of Alfred Gibbs Bourne. As with many of Lankester’s students, he did rather well.

Mark writes: ‘Alfred Gibbs went to Madras in 1886 to join the Presidency College and became Professor of Biology. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1895. In 1903 he was appointed Director of Public Instruction and worked on changes in the secondary education system, introducing the Secondary School Leaving Certificate System. After his retirement, he took charge as director of the Indian Institute of Science. He held this position from 1915 to 1921. He was knighted Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire in 1913.’

Alfred had been in India for less than a year when he received a letter from Lankester, obviously in response to the draft of a paper that he had asked his old tutor to read:

Letter from E. R. Lankester to A. G. Bourne, 18th January 1887

‘I am now going to pitch into you. I think your paper on Earthworms very bad. It is the old complaint I have to make which I have made to you and dozens of younger men – viz. you will not take the trouble to say what you mean – in fact are infernally lazy. Even your reference to “Q.J.M.S.” shows damnable shirking. It ought to be “Quart. Journ. Micros. Sci.” You coolly assume that everyone knows all about the thing before you begin to write. In consequence your paper is most uninteresting. You never explain what the Perichaetes are or in what points they are known to vary – or what remarkable anatomical characters they exhibit. You don’t describe any of your species fully and you give no drawings. You coolly say often at great length with an air of solemnity and importance “The presence of so and so was not determined” which really ought to be written “I am so lazy and careless that I did not trouble to ascertain this important fact – and I won’t even now take the trouble to do it – but prefer to write without doing so”. The whole style of that kind of work is damnable. You have heaps of these worms & have no excuse for sending home slovenly work. ...’

One hopes that Alfred, having spent some years as Lankester’s student and also as his laboratory assistant, was not overly perturbed by this attack on his scholarship. Mark suggests that Lankester, in fact, held his old student in high regard: ‘His letters of recommendation of Alfred to other institutions and publishers (including that very the same paper!) were always very complimentary. I think it was he also who was a proposer for Alfred's membership to the Royal Society.’ And the respect was mutual: ‘Alfred certainly seemed to have a lot of respect for him even when Ray seems to be travelling off to Europe, leaving Alfred (somewhat in the lurch) to deal with a lot of the responsibility for teaching the students.’

Mark also attached a photograph (above) of Alfred’s wife, Emily Tree Glashier (later Lady Bourne). She was an acclaimed botanical artist and teamed up with other artists at Kodaikanal to produce illustrations of the local flora. Many of Alfred's scientific articles were also illustrated by her. For readers interested in 19th century earthworms, here's a link to an original illustrated article by Alfred Gibbs Bourne.

The Bayntons of Bloomsbury

2011-02-10T02:33:00.000-08:00

Simon Auger contacted me for help in find out more about his maternal ancestors, Thomas (baptised 1718) and Mary (nee Tufton) Baynton (d. 1776) who lived in Field Court, Gray’s Inn between 1767 and 1776 (they also lived, for a very brief time, in Queen Square).

Thomas and Mary came from Wiltshire and were married in Dursley in 1745. Their five children were all baptised in Bloomsbury, at St Andrew Holborn – James Lewis, baptised 1753; Thomas in 1767; John in 1769; Samuel in 1771; Sarah in 1773. Samuel is Simon’s 4x great grandfather. Simon has no information about Thomas’s death or his occupation although Samuel (and possibly also John) became a greengrocer. If anyone reading this blog is a Baynton descendent, we’d very much like to hear from you.

Putting on my historian’s sleuth hat I’m interested in the 14-year gap between the birth of the Baynton’s first child, James Lewis (1753) and their second, Thomas (1767). There doesn’t seem to have been a problem with Mary’s fertility as she had three more children in quick succession so what might be going on here? It’s possible that Mary had a number of miscarriages or stillbirths between her first and second sons and these wouldn’t have been recorded. It’s also possible (and perhaps more likely) that Thomas was working away for much of this period. Perhaps he was in the navy or military. These might be useful lines of enquiry for Simon to pursue.

The lovely picture above (top) shows two 18th century houses in Field Court (thisisforever, Flickr), and the one below depicts a snowy Field Court looking towards Gray’s Inn Square (J D Mack, Flickr). This area is now populated with legal businesses.

Bloomsbury missionary becomes head of a church

2011-02-09T03:54:00.000-08:00

Bloomsbury People has featured a number of stories about Bishop Andrew McLaglen, the father of Hollywood star, Victor McLaglen. Andrew McLagen was consecrated in November 1897 as bishop of the Free Protestant Episcopal Church of England (later known as the Evangelical Church of England). This church was formally dissolved in 1997 although it remains active in the US and Canada.

From knowing absolutely nothing about Bishop Andrew McLaglen's background when the first blog about him was posted on 6 August 2009, other than the fact he had been an apprentice missionary in Bloomsbury from 1877-1879, the Bloomsbury Project now has a link to the church through its current Primus and Bishop of California, the Most Reverend Edwin D Follick, who is also Director of University Libraries and University Chaplain, South Baylo University, Anaheim, California. Bishop Ed has sent me a photograph (top picture) of three of the first bishops of the Free Protestant Episcopal Church. It shows (from left) the Most Reverend Lord Leon Checkemian, DD LLD, the first Archbishop; the Right Reverend James Martin, DD LLD; and the Right Reverend Andrew Albert McLaglen, DD LLD.

The photograph was reproduced on the souvenir programme of the 12th Annual Convocation and Dinner of St Andrew’s Ecumenical Research Intercollegiate Fellowship, held at St Andrew’s Collegiate Church, Stonebridge Road, Tottenham, North London, on 4 September 1965. This church was acquired in 1967 by the Church of God but maybe it was later demolished or used for a different purpose because I cannot find reference to a church in Stonebridge Road. Laziness on my part because I haven’t actually been to investigate!

The middle picture shows Bishop Edwin Follick (right) presenting a sculpture to the Most Reverend Charles D Boltwood, DD LLD, Bishop Primus of the Free Protestant Episcopal Church, in 1978. It was Dr Boltwood who wound down the operations of the FPEC in the UK and transferred the church records to North America.

From humble beginnings in Bloomsbury, this story has travelled the world and pulled in more information about Victor McLaglen’s ancestry than I believe was generally known before. And by another strange twist of fate, I was talking to an elderly friend about the Bloomsbury Project and its stories when he informed me that he had known Victor’s daughter Sheila and her husband, and had even met (only once) the great actor himself. His recollection was that Victor arrived, having clearly enjoyed a ‘couple of drinks’!

Finally, I had to include a photograph (bottom) of Victor with his daughter Sheila and son Andrew.

Bloomsbury writer gives Charlie Chaplin idea for film

2011-02-09T01:05:00.000-08:00

Some time ago Jenny Woolf contacted me to draw my attention to a book by Thomas Burke (1886-1945) entitled Living in Bloomsbury. London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1939. Although the book is now out of print, it’s possible to buy it very inexpensively through Amazon and I’ve just placed an order for a second edition (1947) costing £5.00.

Thomas Burke was a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction, publishing his first short story, ‘The Bellamy Diamonds’ in 1901 at the age of fifteen. He was born in Clapham, South London, and seems to have been orphaned (or at least became fatherless) early in life, ending up in a home for middle-class poor but ‘respectable’ boys. Much of his non-fiction work about London, particularly the East End, is considered to be romanticised but a number of his stories captured the imagination of the burgeoning film industry and were adapted for Hollywood. D W Griffith, for example, used Burke’s short story ‘The Chink and the Child’ from Limehouse Nights (1917) as basis for his silent movie, ‘Broken Blossoms’ (1919), and Charlie Chaplin derived ‘A Dog’s Life’ (1918) from the same book.

I’m not certain whether Burke ever lived in Bloomsbury but he certainly died here – at the Homeopathic Hospital, Queen Square, on 22 September 1945, at the very end of World War II.

The Love Letters of Alfred Gibbs Bourne

2011-02-08T09:02:00.000-08:00

Mark Bourne contacted me with a fascinating account of his great, great grandfather’s experience at University College London (UCL). Alfred Gibbs Bourne, aged 20 (top picture), was a biology student at UCL in 1879. He studied biology under (Sir) Edwin Ray Lankester (1847-1929) who had been appointed to the chair of zoology in 1875. Alfred subsequently became Lankester’s assistant and worked as his demonstrator. Mark quotes from two journals written by Alfred during this period. He says: ‘The journal is essentially a love letter and was exchanged at several intervals with his wife-to-be, Emily, during an enforced separation to allow them to continue their studies. However, of interest to your project might be some descriptions of his life as a student demonstrator.’

Written on 25th Nov 1879:

'From 2 to 5 the practical zoology class lasts + I have to look after it all, settle what is to be done, provide material + be generally responsible for the whole thing. Ray sometimes does not come in but leaves it all to me. I have three demonstrators to help me, 2 of whom are “swell men" who have taken their degrees at Oxford + are both older than myself so that I feel a little shy of telling them what to do.

On Tuesday + Thursday we have the Ladies' Class + I have to take that myself – Lankester generally giving them a little time. - Oh how I wish my own darling was in it. Wouldn't I take pains over it then – as it is I do my best for them because it will be rather a good thing to say afterwards if they pass their examination that I had something to do with the teaching of the first ladies who ever took a degree.'

In 1878, UCL became the first British university to admit women on the same terms as men.

'You have heard of my Ladies Class - the council have settled that it had better not be continued after Xmas - they have been in the habit of attending Lankester's lectures & then 2 afternoons a week coming to me upstairs for practical work - They have thus asked me to continue with them giving them private lessons - i.e. two of them ... have asked me to take them at home two evenings a week - my first impulse was to say no - chiefly on your account & I would do so in a moment if I thought you would not like it, but then I thought that you had too much trust in me to abstain from teaching 2 young ladies Biology - my great wish to do it lies in the fact they are the first ladies who have gone up for a Science degree & of course if I could pass them well it would be greatly to my credit & I might get more work to do another year & if I stick to Biology it will be very important that I should get plenty of coaching, that's the thing that pays. I hardly like however arranging to coach these women without knowing what my own darling would wish, as all I do will be only a means to make her happy in life & care for her'.

Mark says that as a science student himself (Earth Sciences, University of Oxford), he finds accounts of his great, great grandfather’s life very interesting. He also noticed in our video of the Bloomsbury project, an image of women being taught in 1878 and in fact this image (bottom picture) was taken in the zoology department – notice the animal skeletons on the desks.

The Newsoms of Bloomsbury Square

2011-02-08T03:59:00.000-08:00

Raymond Foster recently contacted me with details about his great, great grandparents Samuel John and Jane Hovil Newson who, in the 1850s, lived at number 3 Bloomsbury Square. The photo above shows this lovely square, which is the oldest of London's residential squares, set out in 1665. It was originally called Southampton Square. Here's a link to a panorama of the entire square.

Jane was born in 1807 in the City of London to John and Sarah Sawyer (née Hovil) and baptised at the church of St Botolph-without-Aldersgate. Her grandfather, John Hovil, was a celebrated clockmaker, living and working in Horsleydown, Southwark. Jane went to Cork (Ireland) as a young woman and there married an Italian, Giovanni Berra. He died within a year of their marriage but not before she had established ‘Signora Berra’s School’ on Patrick Street where she taught languages.

Jane subsequently married Samuel John Newsom in 1839. He was a member of a large Quaker family in Cork. They were importers and retailers of tea and coffee. Samuel and Jane left Ireland in about 1845 and settled in Bloomsbury Square where Jane continued to teach languages but whether she set up another school is uncertain (I’m hoping that my colleagues researching the Bloomsbury Project might help here). Raymond states that ‘it is just possible that the Sawyer family (with Dublin connections), living just round the corner in Montague Place, were relatives of Jane, but this is speculative.’

Samuel and Jane had three children. In 1865, their elder daughter, Pauline Genevieve, married John Harwood Thomas, a native of Cork, at St George’s Bloomsbury. Jane died in 1870, in Tavistock Place.

If anyone has more information about this family, please do contact me.

Dr Henry Shuckburgh Roots and the founder of Roget's thesaurus

2011-02-08T01:54:00.000-08:00

In a blog last May I discovered some intriguing information about Dr Shuckburgh Roots (1785-1861) who lived at 42 Russell Square in the 1830s and helped in a pioneering operation to repair the disfigured nose of a 40-year-old shoemaker. In searching the web for more information about Dr Henry Shuckburgh Roots, I came across a post by Brian Shuckburgh (2002) also searching for connections to his ancestor. I had hoped that Brian would see the blog and indeed he did and contacted me a week or so later. Brian lives in Honolulu but originally came from Kingston-upon-Thames, home of many Shuckburghs and Roots dating back to the 17th century.

Members of the Roots family came to England with William of Orange in 1688 (the name was originally de Rutz), and settled in Kingston. The Shuckburghs were also an old family, one member being Master of the Kings Buck Hounds under Henry VIII, a circumstance that apparently explained the adoption of the hunting horn as the family crest.

Henry, whose father George was also a doctor, became a Fellow of the Medical and Chirurgical Society (later the Royal Society of Medicine) in 1819. By 1853 he was consulting physician to St Thomas’s Hospital, London, and apparently no longer living at 42 Russell Square. I have found one article by Henry Shuckburgh Roots in the Lancet (1823), in which he tries a number of treatments for an enlarged thyroid in a 19-year-old girl, including the regular application of leeches to the thyroid. Eventually, after attending a talk by Dr Roget, who recommended the use of iodine to reduce the size of the thyroid, he successfully applied this remedy and subsequently reported his results. Interestingly, Dr Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869) was not only a medical doctor but also the creator of the famous thesaurus which bears his name. From 1808, Roget lived at 30 Bernard Street, Bloomsbury (just off Russell Square), with his mother and sister but later moved to 18 Upper Bedford Place (now Bedford Way), Bloomsbury, where he remained until his death.

At the end of Henry Shuckburgh Roots’ paper he gives his address as Grenville Street, Brunswick Square, only a few hundred metres from Russell Square.

The top picture shows a doctor applying leeches to a patient's neck in 1827, about the same time as Dr Roots would have doing the same thing to his teenage patient. The photograph below is dated 1924 and shows a physician using calipers to measure an enlarged thyroid (also called a goitre) in a young girl.

Phantoms, Physicians and Football, part 1

2011-02-03T08:16:00.001-08:00

IIn June 2010, Stephen Pewsey of the British Museum contacted me to say that he was writing an article about the history of numbers 42 and 43 Russell Square, home to 'Phantoms, Physicians and Football'. The article was published in a British Museum newsletter and Stephen kindly sent me a copy for the blog and also for our Bloomsbury Project. It's a fantastically researched article (I do have a copy with references) so I'm reprinting it in full in 7 parts. Numbers 42 (right door in the photo above, taken at 1pm today by me) and 43 are now offices of the British Museum but have an extraordinary 200-year history. Here it is:

42 and 43 Russell Square are almost the only houses in the square surviving intact from the Fifth Duke of Bedford’s grand scheme to develop his Bloomsbury Estate around 1800. The houses in the south-west corner of Russell Square, numbers 38-43, are the only largely unaltered buildings in the square, and even No. 39 (which incorporates No. 40) is only a façade, almost completely rebuilt following severe damage in the Blitz.

And what a history! Now the offices of the British Museum’s Visitor & Building Services Directorate, 42-43 were built as townhouses for the gentry, and in their time have been the home of a pioneering surgeon, a Lord Mayor of London, a Consul-General, a famous dancer, and a wealthy merchant who was a close friend of Dickens and Tennyson. These buildings also served as the headquarters of the Football Association, a homeopathic hospital, and the home of the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain, not to mention a wartime role as a cavalry brigade HQ.

Phantoms, Physicians and Football, part 2

2011-02-03T08:09:00.000-08:00

Until the end of the 18th century, Bloomsbury was a rural spot on London’s northern fringe, part of a large estate owned by the Dukes of Bedford which was centred on Southampton (later Bedford) House. Great Russell Street was “inhabited by nobility and gentry..(with)..the prospect of pleasant fields up to Hampstead and Highgate”. Montagu House was built in 1675 as a country retreat for the Montagu family but was rarely used, and so was sold in 1754 to house the collections of the new British Museum. There were still fields to the north, but London was growing rapidly, and by 1795 Francis, 5th Duke of Bedford, began planning further building development.

From 1800 onwards, the new estate was laid out. Bedford House was demolished, and a grand square – Russell Square – laid out in its former grounds. Humphry Repton, the great landscape gardener, was paid the amazing sum of £2,750 to design Russell and Bloomsbury Squares. New streets were laid out, including the future Montague Street/Russell Square, at first know as Bedford Terrace. The builder James Burton was employed to surround Russell Square with elegant houses, which he did between 1804-06. The prospect was described in 1805; “Squares, and spacious streets of the first respectability are rising in every direction; and the north side of the parish will, in a few years, contain an immense accumulation of riches, attracted by the grand structures in Russell Square now almost complete....” The photograph above, taken by Carole Reeves on 3 January 2011, shows Russell Square with its central fountain and the Post Office Tower in the background.

The earliest residents of 42-43 Russell Square were of course gentlemen. As it was close to Grays Inn and Lincolns Inn, the area was attractive to lawyers, and so many of them lived in Russell Square that it was nicknamed “Judge-Land”.

In the 1820s, No. 42 was occupied by one Captain William Agnew, a member of the “London Institution for the Advancement of Literature and the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge”, while next door resided James Christian Clement Bell and his family. Bell, a wealthy merchant, was born in Dunkirk in 1788. He married Jane Strangman at St. Pancras, his local church, in 1825, and the 1851 census shows they had at least two children, James junior and Alicia, and all looked after by a butler, cook, lady’s maid, housemaid and footman. Mr. Bell was active in mercantile affairs, corresponding with the Earl of Aberdeen about getting rid of the slave trade. He had also been appointed Tuscan Consul General, which implies he traded with Italy. Tuscany was an independent grand duchy until 1859, so 43 Russell Square has the distinction of having served as a foreign embassy!

Phantoms, Physicians and Football, part 3

2011-02-03T07:38:00.000-08:00

Less is known of Jane Bell, though in 1831 she was caught up in a scandal. Society doctor John St.John Long was accused at the Old Bailey of murdering one of his patients , by not providing the proper treatment. After lengthy submissions by leading physicians, Long was found not guilty, thanks largely to a string of character witnesses, including Mrs Bell. She also supported worthy causes connected with her husband’s interests, including a fund for the building of a hospital for sick sailors.

The Bell family were followed in the 1850s by John Petty Muspratt:, a banker and director of the Hon. East India Company, who died at home in 1855.

The Novelli family followed, bringing some scandal to No. 43. Augustus Novelli was already an eminent and well-off member of the Royal College of Physicians when in 1852 his father died, leaving him a fortune of £50,000 from the family’s business interests in Italy and the Middle East. Now a very wealthy man, Novelli gave up his medical practice at Middlesex Hospital and took over the family banking and trading business. With a country house in Aberystwyth and the family business trading out of London and Manchester, Augustus was doing very well. The 1861 census shows his family – wife, two daughters and a son – being looked after by eight servants at 43 Russell Square, and Augustus used his money to buy influence and prestige in the world of the arts. He befriended Tennyson and Dickens, and soon gained a reputation for being a man of exquisite taste and culture. He was a gifted pianist, commissioned works of art and was a prominent donor to worthy artistic causes. To the pre-raphaelite sculptor Thomas Woolner he was “one of the most fascinating men I have ever met, he has the soul of a poet with the profoundest comprehension of business in its minutest details”. Novelli may have befriended the pre-Raphaelites (the Brotherhood was founded in Gower Street, Bloomsbury). He was the first to own, and may have commissioned, the painting illustrated above, entitled 'Fairlight Downs: Sunlight on the Sea' by William Holman Hunt. The painting was purchased by Novelli in November 1858 for £120.

Novelli was also a close friend of James Brooke, the “White Rajah”, absolute ruler of Sarawak in the East Indies, who called him “Prince of British Merchants”.

However, this wealthy well-connected family lived with a terrible burden. An all-too public scandal had engulfed the family in 1850. Augustus’s older brother Lewis had died, leaving a widow, Harriet, and another brother, Alexander, as his executor. Alexander moved into Harriet’s house and made no secret of his desire to marry her, though she rejected his advances. Then tragically one morning, the servants found the strangled body of Harriet Novelli with her clothes all askew and, nearby, the body of Alexander, who had hanged himself. The relatives made an attempt to lessen public interest by claiming insanity was widespread in the family, but the tabloid press wallowed in sordid speculation. The scandal may have been the cause of a personal tragedy for Augustus; his wife Helen went into labour prematurely and their daughter was still-born.

Phantoms, Physicians and Football, part 4

2011-02-03T07:24:00.000-08:00

Meanwhile next door at No. 42, another doctor had also been making headlines. Augustus Novelli may have left the medical world once he had gained a fortune, but Henry Shuckburgh Roots found fame within his profession as a pioneering advocate of plastic surgery. In the course of his work at St. Pancras Infirmary, Roots came across a hideously deformed shoemaker, whose nose had been eaten away by the mercury treatment then used as a “cure” for syphilis. Despite the fact that anaesthetics had not yet been invented, the patient was given a skin graft by a local doctor, and survived.

Henry Roots occupied No. 42 in the 1830s, before Augustus Novelli lived next door, so the two doctors never actually met coming down the front steps. Novelli’s neighbour at No. 42, who lived there after Roots, was Sir Chapman Marshall, a Lord Mayor of London no less.

Born in 1786, Sir Chapman was a London grocer who had been knighted in 1831 while serving as Sheriff of London for giving a particularly fulsome and loyal address to the King. He capped this in 1839-40 by serving as Lord Mayor of London.

The 1851 census shows Marshall living at No. 42, a 67-year old widower, being looked after by a housekeeper, cook, housemaid and coachman.

And so for the next half-century, there was a succession of wealthy residents of 42 and 43 Russell Square. At No. 42 the Astons, attorneys and stockbrokers, lived quietly between about 1860-1880, followed by the Mattons. Edward Matton, head of the household, was a Dutch coal merchant. At about this time the house seems to have been subdivided, as Alfred Kendrick, a renowned actor of the late Victorian and Edwardian age, was also recorded living there. The photo above shows Alfred Kendrick (far right) in 'The Scarlet Pimpernel', which opened at London's New Theatre in January 1905.

Next door in the 1870s lived John (later Sir John) Monckton, Town Clerk of the City of London, followed in the 1880s by Richard Poppleton, a well-to-do Yorkshire leather merchant.

There were significant changes to Russell Square in the 1890s. Decorative terracotta work was addded to the houses on the north and south sides; this still survives on the south side. And in 1895 the Trustees received a loan of £200,000 from Parliament so that they could purchase outright all the perimeter properties surrounding the Museum, including 42-43 Russell Square. As long ago as 1851, the architect of the British Museum Sydney Smirke had proposed acquiring the Montague Street and Russell Square properties for additional library space, but the cost then was too high.

Architect Sir John Burnet was commissioned to expand the Museum galleries out to the new perimeter. Under this scheme, the houses of Montague Street and Rusell Square, Bedford Square and Montague Place were to be demolished and replaced with vast colonnades leading to new galleries. Only the Montague Place element of the scheme was completed, built 1906-14 and now of course known as the King Edward Building.

Phantoms, Physicians and Football, part 5

2011-02-03T06:58:00.000-08:00

Museum ownership and the Burnet plan meant many changes for 42-43 Russell Square. The great and the good no longer wanted to live in the square, and the process began of converting the buildings into offices and small flats. The 1901 census shows Robert Humphrey, a general labourer, occupying No. 42 and police sergeant Nelson Neame next door at No. 43. The houses also acquired new names during the 20th century; No. 42 became Marylebone House, and No. 43 Chalmers House. For much of the 20th century, the houses were divided between offices on the main levels and small apartments on the top floor.

Around 1910, the eminent archaeologist Herbert Sefton-Jones lived in the flat at the top of No. 42. A leading Quaker, patent attorney and world traveller, he was an active promoter of the League of Nations.

More significantly, the Football Association moved into No. 42 in 1910, and made it their headquarters for nearly 20 years. These were years of expansion for the FA, led by its formidable Secretary Sir Frederick Wall, as it organised links with foreign national football associations and oversaw changes in English football which led to the end of the dominance of northern teams in the Football League. Sir Frederick Wall may have been the globetrotting Secretary, but the real power at No. 42 was undoubtedly Mrs Alice Rule, the resident Housekeeper. Born in Babbacombe, Torquay in 1866, she occupied the top flat with her husband John, described as a “hot water fitter”. There was of course no professional football played during the First World War, and in 1915, the War Office commandeered 42 Russell Square.

Next door, No. 43 was already playing its part in the war effort. It had been turned into a homeopathic hospital in 1910, but when war broke out the building became the headquarters of the South East Mounted Brigade. This territorial unit was sent off to the killing fields of Gallipoli in 1915. The London Homeopathic Hospital had been based in Great Ormond Street since 1859, and in 1911 acquired grand new premises next door to its earlier hospital (picture above shows its new nurses home, 1911). No. 43 Russell Square had also been bought up, to act as a headquarters and medical school for the British Homeopathic Association.

No. 43 had been described in 1909 as comprising “two fine reception rooms occupying the whole of the first floor… one for a lecture-room, the other for a library, while on the top floor is a spacious, well-lighted and suitably fitted research laboratory”. Also living somewhere on the premises (a basement flat perhaps?) was Myron Phelps, a prominent American lawyer and campaigner for Indian independence. However, he was best known as a promoter of the Bah’ai faith; he translated the works of Abdu’l-Bahá, the second leader of Baha’i, into English, which popularised Bahaism in the West.

Phantoms, Physicians and Football, part 6

2011-02-03T06:44:00.000-08:00

The Football Association left Russell Square in 1929, but not before numerous stories of hauntings and poltergeist activity had circulated widely. This intrigued the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain, whose local branch in Marylebone began renting No. 42 in 1930. Regular seances took place in the house, including at least one led by Helen Duncan, the notorious fake medium prosecuted in 1942, the last person to be convicted in England under the 1735 Witchcraft Act. The top photo shows her materialising a 'spirit'.

The inter-war years at No. 43 were not quite so exciting; it housed the offices of the London Federation of the League of Nations Union, which promoted peace as the world slid towards another global conflict, and the Inter-Varsity Federation, an evangelical Christian group. However, in No. 43’s top flat lived a very colourful character, Beryl de Zoete. Beryl was flamboyant ballet dancer who dabbled in all kinds of theatrical and dance forms, especially eastern, and would nowadays be called a “luvvie” (lower photo by Cecil Beaton, 1941). In later life she met Arthur Waley, a distinguished orientalist who was an Assistant Keeper at the British Museum. They formed a rather scandalous partnership; he was much younger than she was, and living together unmarried was something shocking in the 1920s. However, the pair’s relationship endured over many decades. The writer James Cahill visited them in 1956 and wrote,

“I went alone to the meeting with Waley, who was living quietly in an upstairs apartment on Russell Square, with his longtime companion Beryl de Zoete. She was a specialist in Asian dance, and quite old by this time; she scarcely spoke, but sat by the stove wearing a cap with a green celluloid shade, reading. The flat was disheveled and comfortable-looking, with a smell of wood smoke.”

During the war, Arthur Waley was employed as a censor at the Ministry of Information, vetting letters and telegrams written in Japanese. He found the work boring, and relieved the tedium by writing to the senders of the letters criticising their sloppy handwriting and poor grammar! He left No. 43 when Beryl de Zoete died in 1962.

Nos. 42-43 fortunately escaped damage in the Blitz, though neighbouring No. 40 took a direct hit and, with No. 39, lay a derelict shell for years until rebuilding merged the two buildings in 1962. The Spiritualist Association had wisely (and perhaps not surprisingly!) foreseen this and built a robust air-raid shelter in the basement of No. 42.

After the war, No. 42 became home to a succession of publishers such as St. Bride's Press. Iliffe Books, Temple Press and Hide Books, mostly subsidiaries of Reed International. Then in 1977 the building became the new home of the German Historical Institute. There was a small private cinema in the basement of No. 42 in these postwar years.

Phantoms, Physicians and Football, part 7

2011-02-03T06:14:00.000-08:00

Next door in No. 43, the postwar years saw a succession of small businesses occupying the building. The British Homoeopathic Association maintained a foothold, but in the 1940s shared the building with various horsey organisations, including the National Horse Association of Great Britain, the British Show Jumping Association, and the National Pony Society. Then there was a series of rather odd tenants. General Impex, a company which, imported “first-quality Indian peacock feather…quills with eyes and peacock swords” shared the premises with a Mr Bandman, a German Jewish refugee and bespoke cabinetmaker. By 1958 No. 43 was the headquarters of Dairy Cream Products Ltd, and they were followed in quick succession by Frederick Brand & Partners, structural and civil engineers, and the Bacon Society, which was devoted to the study of Francis Bacon the renaissance philosopher rather than back or streaky! By 1964 the Educational Interchange Council had taken up residence. This was an educational charity which promoted links between schools and colleges around the world, best known for organising exchange visits for students across the Iron Curtain, hence the presence in the building in 1968 of the USSR Working Group on Youth Exchanges with the USSR.

By the early 1980s plans were advancing for the British Library to leave the Museum site, and large scale re-organisation of the main building and peripheral properties was put in hand to make best use of the additional space. At No. 43, the Educational Interchange Council had gone bankrupt in 1979, but an educational purpose was retained when the museum’s Education Service (now Learning & Audiences) moved in. The German Historical Institute moved out of No. 42 in 1982 and the building then was used as a decant space; during the conversion of 1-la Montague Street to a Ceramics Study Centre it was occupied by the Medieval and Later Antiquities Department (now Prehistory & Europe).

Finally, in 1988 the British Museum took over responsibility for managing its own maintenance and works programme, and the new department of Architectural & Building Services – the ancestor of today’s Visitor & Building Services – was set up. Nos. 42-43 were converted into the headquarters of the new service. The Education department were re-located round the corner in 38 Russell square, and Nos 42-43 were internally linked and refurbished. There has been some minor re-organisation of the rooms since then, notably the re-creating of the grand rooms on the first floor fronts of both buildings. The maintenance, estates and facilities teams still occupy the buildings in the 21st century, ensuring that day in and day out, visitors to the Museum can expect a clean, comfortable and safe environment in which to gaze in awe at some of the world’s greatest historical treasures. As the two houses which comprise 42-43 Russell Square begin their third century, it is doubtful whether many of the British Museum’s millions of visitors ever give a thought to the two houses whose staff make their visit possible, and even less likely that they know anything of the fascinating historical cavalcade of characters and organisations which have called the buildings home over the past two hundred years.

Photo shows the Great Court of the British Museum, designed by Norman Foster and Partners, opened in 2000.

Sir Thomas Joshua and Lady Augusta Platt

2011-02-03T02:28:00.000-08:00

Way back in October 2008 I posted a blog about the eminent Platt family which can be traced back to the 16th century and most of whose males were in the legal profession and lived in Bloomsbury adjacent to the Inns of Court at Lincolns Inn Fields.

One of those mentioned was Sir Thomas Joshua Platt (1788-1862) and I have just received an e.mail from Alicia Eykyn stating that he was her great, great grandfather.

Sir Thomas Joshua was born in Brunswick Square, Bloomsbury, the son of Thomas Platt (1760-1842) and his wife Catherine. He was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College Cambridge, admitted to the Inner Temple in 1806 and called to the Bar in 1816. He was a King's Counsellor (1834), Bencher of Inner Temple (1835), Serjeant at Law (1845), knighted (1845), and Baron of the Exchequer (1845-56). In 1814, at the age of 23, he married 18-year-old Augusta Cuming at St George, Bloomsbury. Alicia attached portraits of Sir Thomas Joshua and Augusta (above). She wrote: 'I am only just starting my research into the family ... Stupidly, I never asked my mother anything about the family. All that I knew was that the two portraits we have were of my great, great grandfather, Thomas Joshua Platt and his wife Augusta (and a formidable creature she looks too - she always terrified me as a child with her eyes following me around with a disapproving air!) Nine of their children were baptised at St Pancras Old Church between 1815 and 1832. Thomas Joshua, Augusta, and 8 of their children are buried in a vault in Highgate Cemetery. They lived at 39 Tavistock Square, Bloomsbury, from 1832 to 1846, then moved to 59 Portland Place until 1862 when he died.'

Thomas Joshua was described as 'a sensible popular judge, especially successful with common juries and with a large practice on the home circuit' (Harrow School Records). He sounds like a down-to-earth, no-nonsense type of adjudicator.

Alicia continues, 'I can't join the Platts between about 1660 to 1760. The logical link is that the Richard/Hugh/William branch owned masses of land in north London - including what is now St Pancras Station, Farringdon Street Tube, Smithfield Market and all round Holborn. As you know, all the "legal" Platts lived around that area - Bloomsbury - even my grandmother died in Park Crescent, which is at the end of Portland Place - the last home of Thomas Joshua. However, that could also simply be explained by the fact that area is handy for the legal London - the Inns of Court, etc., and as all of them were either legal people or parsons, easy to accomodate in that area!!'

Another descendent of the Platts, Elizabeth Smith, has also contacted me from Australia and I have put her and Alicia in touch, and also with Maurice Byford who sent me the original information about the Platt family. Hopefully, we can pull together more information about this remarkable Bloomsbury family.

Inside Bloomsbury's medicinal herb garden

2010-08-04T05:53:00.000-07:00

Who owns our health? This is the question asked by Dr Vivienne Lo who planted our medicinal herb garden in Mecklenburgh Square. The garden includes an intriguing herb spiral landscaped from Welsh slate.

Vivienne says: 'Food is really the basis of medicine in many difference aspects, certainly the kind of potencies attributed to food then become attributed to medicines. But we think the boundaries between food and medicine are obvious when in fact they're not at all. I dreamed up the herb spiral to teach us what's safe and what's appropriate when we are suffering from a cold or virus so that we can deal with these kinds of complaints in an everyday way. My early work has been about self-care in ancient China, and most recently the boundaries of food and medicine, and it's really in that context that I'm building the spiral.'

See the video 'Who owns our health? Inside the medicinal garden'

A medicinal garden in Bloomsbury

2010-06-21T01:05:00.000-07:00

We have created a medicinal garden in Mecklenburgh Square, Bloomsbury. This lovely residential square is not open to the public except on London Open Garden Squares weekend, which this year was 12-13 June.

On Sunday 13 June, we held an event devoted to rhubarb - Fools 4 Rhubarb - at which speakers from UCL included Professor Chris Lawrence who explored the rhubarb in David Livingstone's medicine chest (Livingstone's Rowser), Dr Guy Attewell on rhubarb in the Indo-Muslim healing traditions, and Dr Vivienne Lo on rhubarb in China. Dr Anne Stobart from Middlesex University, who is also a consultant medical herbalist, gave an insight into the medicinal use of rhubarb in the 17th century. Although rhubarb has been taken for centuries as a laxative, it has also been used as an ingredient in remedies to treat rickets in children, kidney complaints, ulcers in the womb, and to soothe fevers. Rhubarb root is generally used in medicines rather than the stems which are used in cooking.

My talk was entitled 'Rhubarb Growers in the Land of Fire'. The Land of Fire is of course Tierra del Fuego, where Abby Goodall and her family grow rhubarb varieties brought from England by her great grandfather, Thomas Bridges, who went to Tierra del Fuego in 1863 as a missionary, and built a farm, Estancia Harberton in the Beagle Channel, which is now the oldest farm in Argentina. Abby grows 200 kilos of rhubarb a year and has hundreds of rhubarb recipes! We had planned to skype Abby during the event but the connection was very bad and we had to abandon it, much to our disappointment.

After the fascinating talks at Goodenough College and a superb lunch of chicken and rhubarb tagine (an historic Persian recipe), rhubarb sorbet, rhubard crumble and custard, rhubarb juice, rhubarb mead and other culinary delights, we moved to Mecklenburgh Square where Ann Stobart gave us a lesson in healing herbs around the physic garden. There are two components to the garden - a herb spiral (bottom photo), and a herbaceous herb border (top photo). The herb spiral is landscaped from Welsh slate, skilfully constructed by slate workers from North Wales. Vivienne Lo worked with Mecklenburgh Square gardeners to plant and nurture the medicinal herbs which include feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium), tansy (Chrysanthemum vulgare), opium poppy (Papaver somniferum), borage (Borago officinalis), camomile (Chamomilla nobilis), and of course a number of varieies of rhubarb. Advice and help in planning and establishing our garden was given by Chelsea Physic Garden and the Royal College of Physicians, which has a wonderful medicinal garden curated by the garden fellow, Dr Henry Oakeley.

The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, after which the garden is named (centre photo), has also supported this venture.

A lovely day ended with afternoon tea in the garden - scones and rhubarb jam with cream, rhubarb muffins, rhubarb meringues, washed down with rhubarb tea. Love my rhubarb but am currently rhubarbed-out.

The servant, the doctor, and the British Museum

2010-06-03T05:13:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Stephen Pewsey at the British Museum who has been able to identify the houses in which lived Jayne Hyslop's x3 grandmother, Sarah Green, a servant, and Dr Henry Shuckburgh Roots, who lived next door and who assisted at one of the first ever plastic surgery operations.

Stephen says: 'I had a look at your very interesting Bloomsbury People blog, which I came across by accident as I was researching the history of 42-43 Russell Square, now part of the British Museum, for an in-house newsletter.

I was trying to track down information on Henry Shuckburgh Roots, who lived at 42 Russell Square in the 1830s and 1840s, and googling his name gave a link to your blog. I think I can help on the exact address of Sarah Green, the domestic servant. According to the 1844 list of members of the Royal College of Physicians, Dr Roots lived at 42 Russell Square. According to the 1841 Post Office Directory for London, No. 43 was occupied by James Christian Clement Bell, so John Foster’s house where Sarah Green lived must have been No. 41.

Hope that helps!'

The top photograph (taken by me today at 12.30) shows No. 41, the home of the Foster family. I captured the scene just as a group of tourists were wandering by although I''m not sure what they are pointing at. The photograph below shows Nos. 41 (on the right) and 42. The Russell Square street sign is just visible on the left of the picture.

Free Protestant Episcopal Church of England

2010-05-21T02:52:00.000-07:00

Bloomsbury People has featured a number of stories about Bishop Andrew McLaglen, the father of Hollywood star, Victor McLaglen. Andrew McLagen was consecrated in November 1897 as bishop of the Free Protestant Episcopal Church of England (later known as the Evangelical Church of England). This church was formally dissolved in 1997 although it remains active in the US and Canada.

I have just been contacted by Bishop Edwin Follick, Director of University Libraries and University Chaplain, South Baylo University, Anaheim, California. He writes: 'Your article relating to Bishop McLaglen was so well done and afforded special insight into missionary activities related to Africa. After graduating from the Free Protestant Episcopal Seminary in London (Bishop Follick was consecrated on 28 August 1968), it fell upon me to serve as a director of education under the Bishop Primus, Charles Dennis Boltwood. The educational ministry included James Martin Bible College and St Andrew's Correspondence College, for the training of an indigenous pastorate to serve the local churches.

The Free Church is ongoing, and undoubtedly continues in service within the United Kingdom. A schismatic bishop from Germany did apparently attempt to disestablish the church and replace it with an "international" prefix hopefully perhaps trying to bring some good intention to revitalize the mission. With many of the clergy not versed in legal matters and a vacuum in leadership the usual issues of social disorganization appear. Fortunately, one of the bishops in Canada, Bishop Darrel D Hockley, literally is the consummate historian of the church.

I do have a real love of history [BA Cal State Los Angeles 1956, MA Pepperdine 1957] with majors in history and sociology. Thus, your work at the University of London is so important to record our past progress and mistakes - we don't mind repeating the progress but need to minimize the mistakes! Thus, a copy of this email is being sent to Bishop Hockley and for sure he would be able to shed far more light on the history of the church than me.

Please do feel free to post any message from me on the Bloomsbury People blog. Working in an Asian university and going to lunch with my deputy, Dr Kwang-hee Park, I jested that we should be in a pub watching the boats move past on the River Thames and enjoy the food with a pint of stout. Of course we repaired to an elegant Asian restaurant for wonderful food. But with respect for past delightful experiences the nostalgia does come through. My appreciation for your interest in the past of the now ambient Bloomsbury district.

The Most Reverend Edwin Follick is Primus and Bishop of California.

From knowing absolutely nothing about Bishop Andrew McLaglen's background when the first blog about him was posted on 6 August 2009, other than the fact he had been an apprentice missionary in Bloomsbury from 1877-1879, the Bloomsbury Project now has a link to the church.

I couldn't find a suitable picture unfortunately, but perhaps Bishop Ed will kindly send me one.

Bloomsbury resident tried at the Old Bailey

2010-05-21T02:20:00.000-07:00

Sue Fisher’s 4x Grandfather, George Lewis, was a schoolmaster at an academy established in about 1818 by the Reverend Peter Fenn, in Hyde Street (no longer exists), off New Oxford Street, Bloomsbury. George Lewis died in November 1827, and on his death-bed obtained a promise from the Reverend Fenn to protect his wife and three children, George William Fenn Lewis (b.1819), Richard Caleb Fenn and Esther Georgiana.

However, the Reverend Peter Fenn was not all he seemed because on 11 September 1828 he was tried at the Old Bailey for deception and forgery. An article in The Times of 2 April 1828, tells the story:

‘It appears that about thirty years since (ie. c.1800), this man was ordained in holy orders, under the name of Fall, but why he subsequently changed his name, remains at present a mystery. Under the assumed name of Fenn, he was employed as a teacher in Kirkman's academy, Islington, and about ten years since purchased, on his own account, an academy in Bloomsbury, in which he succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectations. Unfortunately for him, and, we may say with truth, for the greatest body of his creditors, Mr Fenn was not satisfied with the profits derived from his school; he started also as a bill-broker, or rather discounter of bills, taking to himself (as others of that notorious class do) an exorbitant rate of interest. He thus made many bad debts, and was himself ultimately induced to resort to other usurers, who, like himself, though more wary, were not wanting in the rate to be charged to a brother miscreant. Spurred on by this connexion, he was led to commit the crime of forgery, and not only committed various forgeries himself, but he also made one of his tutors draw and accept bills in fictitious names. He also had the unmanly hardihood to involve his pupils in his guilt, for he has also, in a like manner, made them draw, accept, and indorse fictitious bills, and has circulated that kind of rubbish (among tradesmen only) to an enormous amount; and in order to give a greater facility to his criminal traffic, an account was opened at Messrs. Ransom's bank. This circumstance gave a degree of credit to his movements, and by an insinnating address, pretended friendship, and plausibility of manner, ingratiated himself with various tradesmen. He would in some instances pretend that he possessed a a bill for a large amount, such as £2000 on this nobleman or the other, and that he was himself to receive £200 or £300 from the pretended nobleman, for the accommodation, and consequently could afford to give the unsuspecting tradesman £50 for the loan of £500. The tradesman, confiding in the sanctified clergyman, has in many instances been thus duped to the tune of £2000 or £3000. Again, the clergyman would produce one of his concocted bills, and say "If you discount me this £200 at 5 per cent, I will take £50 worth of goods, and you shall draw a bill on me for the amount of the goods", so that this fellow has in many instances obtained £250 for one of his forged bills of £200.

It appears that the circumstances which led to his immediate detection, was his absenting himself from his home, together with several of his cheques (which he had post-dated) becoming due, which were returned, as a matter of course, by his banker, for want of funds. Under these circumstances a meeting was convened, and an intercepted letter coming to hand, disclosed the whole system, and that the Rev. gentleman had emigrated to Paris, under the assumed named of George Lewis.’

Sue says: I believe that Peter Fall who matriculated from Pembroke College Oxford in 1791 and went on to be a curate in Guernsey and Jersey is our Peter Fenn. His father is given as "John of Isle of Jersey, gent" but I have yet to confirm this. Why Peter changed his name from Fall (possibly spelt Falle, as is more common in the Channel isles) to Fenn is still a mystery. I always assumed that my 3x Grandfather's middle name of Fenn (George William Fenn Lewis) would turn out to be his mother's maiden name, not the vicar's surname!

Peter Fenn was sentenced to death (see his records at Old Bailey online) but this was commuted to transportation for life to Australia (there had been a petition for clemency in The Times). Charles Dickens was aware of his case as he mentions his name in a letter to the Daily News in 1846. Fenn had hoped to be sent to Botany Bay "where,by the employment of his literary talents, he calculates upon improving his condition". But unfortunately he was sent to "The Valley of the Swells", a penal colony where he was set to manual work. He was given a conditional pardon in 1845.

My 3x Grandfather, George William Fenn Lewis (b.1819) became a Thames waterman. The photograph above shows boats on the River Thames at Southwark in 1845. Southwark Cathedral is in the foreground.

Samuel Mathers, a schoolmaster in Bloomsbury

2010-05-13T06:11:00.000-07:00

The Bloomsbury Project has discovered no fewer than 62 educational establishments in the area, between 1800 and 1904. So, when Pat Pond e.mailed asking if I could find information about her ancestor, Samuel Mathers, who was a schoolmaster during the 1840s, I had to reply that I hadn't a clue where to start. However, there might be a descendent with more information so here's as much as I know.

Samuel Mathers was baptised on 12 February 1786. He married Hannah Liddell at St Giles, Great Orton, Cumberland, on 12 July 1808. His marriage certificate states that he was a weaver from Cross Gates, County Durham. Samuel and Hannah's first daughter, Margaret, was born on 4 November 1811, by which time Samuel had become a schoolmaster and parish clerk. A son, John, was baptised on 19 November 1815, but Hannah died in the same year, possibly in childbirth. Samuel presumably remarried and by the 1840s the family had moved to Bloomsbury. Another son, Joseph, was married at St George, Bloomsbury (1847) and a daughter, Elizabeth, at St James (1850). This was probably the church of St James, Hampstead Road, adjacent to Bloomsbury, and now demolished. On his children's marriage certificates, Samuel's occupation is still a schoolmaster.

And this is where Pat loses Samuel's trail although she says, 'We are hoping he was with his children in London, although Samuel's son, Joseph, eventually goes to America.' Some of the family did remain in the area because Pat's grandfather was also a schoolmaster in Holborn. Samuel Mathers is not to be confused with Samuel Liddell Mathers.

The photograph above (courtesy Ipoh 7, Flickr) shows the Bloomsbury skyline with the spire of St George's church in the distances. The keen-eyed will observe three men sitting on the parapet of a roof (right) with their feet dangling over the edge.

Joseph Aloysius Stanfield and the British Museum

2010-05-13T04:24:00.000-07:00

Tim Stanfield, who lives in Paris, sent me information about his eminent grandfather, Joseph Aloysius Stanfield. I'm posting his message in the hope that other descendants of this family will help Tim in the search for his ancestors.

He writes: 'I read about your research on the internet after a conversation with a student involved in your project. Sometime ago I traced my family back a few generations. My grandfather, an archaeologist associated with the British Museum (Joseph Aloysius Stanfield) was born in the latter half of the 19th century in Bloomsbury where the family had lived for some time. His work on Gallo-Roman ceramics (lovely example above) co-authored with Dr Grace Simpson (d. 2008) is still to this day an important text on the subject (J A Stansfield & Grace Simpson, CENTRAL GAULISH POTTERS: Oxford University Press, London, 1958). An affiliation with Imperial College I believe.

The name was altered form the original STANDFIELD. So any census details from before my grandfather's era will show this as the correct spelling. I know that my great, great Grandfather John William Standfield was married circa1780 to a Louise Maria Harding and they were resident in Bloomsbury. My gandfather's father John Henry Standfield similarly married and resided in Bloomsbury. I have copies of birth and mainly marriage certificates from early research I made in the mid 1980s (from waxed-written tomes at St Catherines house!) and am trying to locate them. If there is any information you may be able to provide concerning historical facts, where they may have lived, their occupations, I would be most grateful for anything you can provide. I hope you may be able to turn over a stone or two for me.'

Knowing how successful this blog has been in putting ancestors in touch, it would be great if anyone could help Tim - and the Bloomsbury Project!

Bloomsbury doctors pioneer plastic surgery to rebuild nose

2010-05-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

Jayne Hyslop's account of her x3 grandmother, Sarah Green, a domestic servant in a house in Russell Square (1841), mentioned a Dr Henry S Roots who lived in the house next door. This was intriguing as one of the purposes of the Bloomsbury Project is to discover information about the medical and scientific practitioners who lived and worked in the area.

Henry S Roots is probably Henry Shuckburgh Roots (1785-1861). In 1823, Dr Roots was a physician at the St Pancras Infirmary in King's Road, St Pancras (now St Pancras Way), a 20-minute walk from Russell Square. On 19th September of that year, Roots examined a 40-year-old shoemaker named Mr Capon, who was described as 'a most hideous object' because of a gaping hole in his face where his nose and mouth had once been. The unfortunate man had had syphilis and been treated with mercury. The dreadful disfigurement was a result of both the treatment and the infection which destroyed the tissue and cartilage of his face and which he was obliged to cover with a handkerchief. Since his palate had also been destroyed, his speech was barely articulate.

An operation - one of the first of its kind - to repair the defect, was carried out by a Dr John Davies (1796-1872), who had a practice at 189 Tottenham Court Road. No doubt Dr Roots was present when the patient was made to sit on a chair with his face towards the window so that the surgeon could operate with the maximum light. This was more than twenty years before the discovery of anaesthesia so Mr Capon would have been held fast by a number of assistants. The description of the operation can be read here. It appears to have been successful and Mr Capon was still alive the following year.

The picture above shows the type of facial deformity caused by syphilis for which there was no successful treatment until the discovery of the arsenical compound, Salvarsan, in the early 20th century, followed by the antibiotic penicillin in the 1940s.

In searching the web for more information about Dr Henry Shuckburgh Roots, I came across a post by Brian Shuckburgh (2002) also searching for connections to his ancestors. I hope Brian finds this blog. Apparently, Henry's father, George Roots, of Kingston Surrey, was also a doctor. He married Anne Shuckburgh in 1772 at Twickenham, Middlesex, and they had at least two children, Henry and William.

Sarah Green in Bloomsbury

2010-05-12T00:16:00.000-07:00

Jane Hyslop e.mailed me from Canada with this story of her x3 grandmother, Sarah Green, who was born around 1816.

Sarah Green gave several places as her place of birth on the Census entries from 1851-81. Usually she gave Great Clacton, Essex, and once she stated Colchester, Essex, between the years 1812-13. There is no baptism entry on the IGI (International Genealogical Index, Mormon Library) to verify the exact place. Her marriage certificate indicates her father was William Green, a labourer.

Sarah appears in Russell Square, Bloomsbury (top picture courtesy GothPhil, Flickr), on the 1841 Census as a F.S. (Female Servant?), age 25, N (not born in the County). She is one of 4 female and 1 male servants in the household of John Foster, whose household lists 6 family members beside himself, 4 female and 1 male servant. As there is no listing of specific duties we cannot know if Sarah was a kitchen maid, governess or cook. Mr Foster’s occupation is blank except for the abbreviated word Ind., presumably meaning 'Independent', obtaining his income from private means. The house next door to the Fosters was inhabited by Henry S Roots, a physician. So although we don’t know the Foster’s house by street number, it was next door to Dr Roots (more of him in the next blog).

On 16 April 1843 Sarah married Christopher Best at St George’s, Bloomsbury. She gave her address as Upper Bedford Place (possible number 6 but the entry is illegible. This is now Bedford Way), Bloomsbury, and her occupation as Servant. The witnesses were Sarah and George Johnson (relationship to Sarah Green unknown). Christopher Best was a Mason by trade living on Little Guildford Street (now incorporated into Herbrand Street), the son of John Best, Cordwainer. Christopher was born in Kingston-upon-Hull, Yorkshire, and had gone to London in search of work after 1841. He was not a resident of Hull, his family were natives of Heighington, County Durham, a village near Darlington.

Sarah and Christopher lived at 7 Cowley Street in Smith Square, Westminister when their first child, Sarah Mahala, was born on 14 Jul 1844. They were still there in 1845 at the birth of their son Christopher on 2 Oct 1845. They had returned to the north, Darlington, County Durham, by the birth of their third child, Ann, in May 1848. Sarah and Christopher had 6 children (3 died in infancy). It is unknown when Sarah died. She appears in the 1881 Census for Darlington as a Widow (Christopher had died in 1860). It is undetermined whether she left the area or remarried.

From her presence in Bloomsbury, it is assumed Sarah went to London in search of work and found employment in a house at Russell Square. Since little else is known about her family it is unclear if she was living near to family members who also worked in service. Her reason for choosing London is presumably more opportunity for employment than in the small rural villages of Essex. No photos survive of Sarah or Christopher Best.

The bottom photograph (courtesy Jamie Barras, Flickr) shows the Peabody buildings in Herbrand Street which were completed in 1885, long after Christopher Best had left the area. The street had become a slum and these superior apartments were built to rehouse working people. Peabody buildings, of which there are a number around London, were intended for 'respectable' working class tenants rather than the indigent poor or those out of work.

End of History of Medicine in Bloomsbury

2010-05-11T23:44:00.000-07:00

Followers of this blog (and my backlog of contributors) have no doubt noticed the lack of entries for the past couple of months. A couple of things happened: I broke my ankle running for a train at Waterloo Station (yes, I know that shouldn't prevent me using a keyboard), and I lost my job.

Just before the Easter vacation we heard that our department is to be closed. You can read about it here. We supposedly get a two-year wind down but there is some scepticism amongst my colleagues about this. However, I will keep this blog going while I'm here, and it will be archived as an important component of the Bloomsbury Project, so if you do have ancestors who lived and / or worked in the area please keep sending me stories.

Bloomsbury Day

2010-03-11T09:27:00.000-08:00

Bloomsbury Day, a celebration of Bloomsbury Past and Present, will be held on Friday 12 March in the Department of English at University College London. During the course of the event, guests will be able to look at the Bloomsbury Project website (although the most interesting features are still password-protected) and at the Bloomsbury People blog. This has now been online since April 2008 when I decided that it would be exciting to find out as much as possible about the ordinary folk of the area as well as the elite who changed Bloomsbury during the 19th century from swampy rubbish dump to a centre of intellectual life.

I was relying on descendents of Bloomsbury residents to come forward with stories, and that is more or less what has happened over the past two years. Perhaps I could have wished for a few more than the forty features that I have been able to post, but links have been made with some extraordinary families such as the Hornes and the Bartons, and also with South Africa, to where a large number of Bloomsbury residents emigrated in the early 19th century. This in itself deserves a more thorough investigation.

The Bloomsbury Project has another year to run and I am therefore appealing to anyone who has ancestral links with the area, however tenuous these might be, to contact me with your story. The blog has been able to link up members of a number of families as you'll see if you read the story of Sir Rickman Godlee immediately below this one. The Bloomsbury Project has also benefited from the information given by the families. Together we hope to reconstruct the area as it existed in all its vibrancy between 1800 and 1904.

Sir Rickman Godlee and the first brain tumour operation

2010-03-11T09:12:00.000-08:00

Paul Tucker, another descendent of the incredible Barton family (John Barton, 1789-1852, was a founder member of what is now Birkbeck College, Bloomsbury), has highlighted a further Bloomsbury link between John and his second wife, Fanny Rickman. They were married in 1828 and had nine children before Fanny died of scarlet fever in 1842, along with their 4-year-old daughter, Sarah.

Fanny’s aunt, Mary Rickman (1770-1851), married John Godlee (1762-1841). The firm of Rickman and Godlee were ship builders and built the first sea-going vessel to sail out of Lewes Harbour in Sussex. It was named the Lewes Castle and its keel was laid on Queen Victoria’s Coronation day, 28 June 1838.

John and Mary Godlee had a son, Rickman Godlee (1804-1871, who became an eminent barrister at Middle Temple, just over the Bloomsbury border. Rickman married Mary Lister who was the daughter of Joseph Jackson Lister (1786-1869), a wine merchant but also a very competent optical engineer. He built the first achromatic microscope lenses and thereby revolutionised microscopy in the mid-19th century. Joseph Jackson Lister was not only the father of Mary but also of Sir Joseph Lister (1827-1912), the surgeon whose antiseptic techniques using carbolic acid, helped reduce the surgical death rate from infection. The top photograph shows Sir Joseph Lister (centre) with his family.

Rickman and Mary Godlee’s son, also named Rickman (1849-1925), became a well known surgeon who performed the first operation to remove a brain tumour in 1884 at was is now the Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, Bloomsbury. He was knighted for his services to medicine and also wrote a biography of his uncle, Lord Lister. Sir Rickman Godlee was also surgeon to the household of Queen Victoria, and a Fellow of University College. The middle photograph shows Godlee operating on a child at University College Hospital, and the bottom picture is a portait.

Eliza Jane Tuttle (Adkin) tells her story

2010-01-26T08:42:00.000-08:00

In the year of her 90th birthday in 1946, Eliza Jane Tuttle was interviewed for The Winnipeg Tribune. She is pictured daintily drinking tea from a blue Crown Derby cup for Mother’s Day. Her Honiton lace collar was made by one of her daughters, Mrs N McDougall, in Saskatoon, and her gold-rimmed locket held the pictures of two sons, Robert and Walwark, who were killed in the First World War. Her little gold brooch, ‘from my uncle’s shop in Devonshire’, held a lock of a sister’s hair.

It’s easy to imagine Eliza offering the newspaper reporter tea and buttered bread. ‘Have some,’ she urged. ‘My daughter makes wonderful bread. All my four girls learned to bake well.’ The reporter remarked that ‘Little Mrs Tuttle weighs 90 pounds, stands less than five feet, crochets and knits, puts on glasses just to read.' 'I don’t call myself old but I know I really am,' she smiled. Eliza and her husband Thomas came to Canada in 1882. ‘It was his idea,’ she recalled. ‘ He wanted some land. The government gave us a quarter section for $10. Later we got some more, 480 acres in all, near Minnedosa. He just loved the land, but I found it solitary. Later, there were enough of us to have square dances and enjoy ourselves.’

There was a dramatic story of arrival on the prairie. ‘Brandon was the terminus then. My husband left me there and walked over strange land the 23 miles to his brother’s log cabin. He didn’t know the way, of course, and walked far more than that. His feet … were so swollen from the icy water he stumbled into, they had to cut his boots off. Next day they came for me with a pair of horses. There was no bridge at Brandon and we had to ford the river. The tongue came out of the wagon and the water came in. I picked up my skirts but that was no good. I had to get out. I slid along the whiffle tree and they encouraged me by singing, “There’s One More River”.' A year later, in October 1883, she found the chimney of her log home on fire. ‘I could see the house had to go so I set to saving things. I got out the two chests that held our blankets and clothing, and my nice set of blue and gold china. I put my 14-months-old child on the feather bed and covered her up. She stayed outdoors all day long as I kept saving things. I got out the 100-pound bag of flour and the wheat. We didn’t have much furniture. I got it out, except for the stove. It had to stay. By late afternoon, the embers had died down and I set out, carrying the baby, to meet my husband. “You needn’t go any further,” I told him. “There’s no house. It’s burned to the ground.” We went to his sister’s homestead till we could rent a place.'

The Tuttles had eight children. They had a big dairy with 16 cows to milk and they made 50 pounds of butter a week, trading it for sugar and groceries at Rapid City. After her husband’s death, Eliza took turns living with her daughters. Two sons, Robert and Walwork, were killed in the Great War. On the wall of her home was framed a Biblical text – “Let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like His. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” This was embroidered by Eliza Jane at the age of nine when she was living in Bloomsbury.

The Adkin / Tuttle Family in Manitoba

2010-01-26T07:55:00.000-08:00

When I received an e.mail from Mark Sanderson back in September, telling of his great grandmother’s emigration in the early 1880s as a young married woman to the Manitoba prairie, I was intrigued to learn more. I asked Mark if he had any photographs of Eliza Jane and her family. It was four months before Mark replied but with an amazing set of pictures!

Eliza Jane was born in Bloomsbury in 1856. Her mother was Sarah Wallwork Adkin (top picture). Eliza Jane’s father, Robert Isaiah, died when she was three-years-old, and her mother remarried although she herself died in the 1860s. Eliza went into service as a lady’s maid. In 1882, she married Thomas Tuttle, a coachman, and they moved to Canada to become homesteaders in Manitoba. The second picture shows Eliza and Thomas with their eight children – four boys and four girls. The third picture is a portrait of Eliza taken at the beginning of the 20th century. The fourth picture is of Eliza’s brother James (Jim) Adkin in his hardware store in Manitoba. Jim was born on 9 July 1850 and was baptized on 28 July at St George, Bloomsbury. He also went to Canada around 1882. After making his fortune there, he returned to England in 1926 and died in Devon in 1938, aged 88. Eliza’s sister, Alice Avonell Adkin, born 9 November 1854 in Bloomsbury, seems to have moved to Devon as a young woman. The fifth picture is a portrait of her taken in Exeter.

Mark also sent me a newspaper cutting of Eliza Jane on the eve of her 90th birthday, which I’ll feature in the next blog. Mark writes: ‘It was really great that you posted her story on your blog. My family was very pleased. Actually, at the present time I live in the Philippines, but I was born and raised in the USA. I lived in Canada for about 18 years. I’m a missionary here.’

John Barton, a founder of Birkbeck College

2010-01-26T06:34:00.000-08:00

Some months ago I wrote about Dave Barton’s Gx3 grandfather, John Barton (1789-1852), who was a founder, in 1823, of the London Mechanics’ Institute which later became Birkbeck College, part of the University of London. John Barton’s name was included on a commemorative stone which I discovered still existed in the new Birkbeck building. Unfortunately, it was tucked behind protective wrapping while building works were in progress so I was unable to photograph it.

Yesterday, on a grey wintry morning, I went back to take my photographs. The stone is very faded so I’ve pushed up the contrast somewhat. The top picture shows the stone in situ with a cameo of George Birkbeck above. Below this, is the stone in its entirety followed by a list of names which includes John Barton. The bottom photograph shows Birkbeck College with London University’s Senate House in the background. Senate House, built in Art Deco style, dates from the 1930s and was, at one time, one of the tallest buildings in London. During the Second World War the flat roof on top of the building was used for communications equipment by the Ministry of Information. The building, which resembles a 1930s American skyscraper, has been used in films for just that purpose.

Women, babies and working men - a radical education in Bloomsbury

2010-01-05T05:50:00.000-08:00

What stories lie beneath the surface of Bloomsbury's streets and squares? The Bloomsbury People blog is but one facet of the project which aims to explore Bloomsbury's rise from swampy rubbish dump to London's centre of intellectual life in the 19th century.

Professor Rosemary Ashton and Dr Deborah Colville (UCL English) are researching educational reform in the area. The founding of University College London - to provide an alternative to Oxford and Cambridge - is just one of the great reforming institutions of Bloomsbury. The painting above, by George Shepherd (1784-1862), is of Old Gower Mews in 1835 with the famous portico and cupola of UCL in the background (UCL Art Collections).

To find out more about radical education in Bloomsbury, click on this link.

The Tisdalls of Bloomsbury

2010-01-05T03:14:00.000-08:00

William de Villiers of Cape Town, who sent me the latest information on Bishop Andrew McLaglen, has revealed a Bloomsbury ancestry! His great-great-great grandparents, James Tisdall (b.1795) and Martha Tisdall (née Purchas, b.1793), lived in Queen Street (now Museum Street), Bloomsbury, during the early 19th century. James was employed as a ‘hot presser’ (someone who worked a hot press, used in a number of occupations such as paper making). The Tisdall’s eldest daughter, Caroline Martha, was born in 1817 and christened in St George’s, Bloomsbury, the sixth and final London church designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor (c.1661-1736). Their second daughter, Martha Sarah (1818-1895), was christened at St Giles-in-the-Fields, Bloomsbury. By this time, her parents were living in Brownlow (now Betterton) Street, just outside the borders of Bloomsbury, off Drury Lane. James had changed his occupation to that of dry-salter (usually refers to someone who traded in preserving chemicals, including salt, but also in dyes and other chemicals). Martha Sarah was William’s great-great grandmother. The couple had two further children, Sarah (b.c.1821) and James Nathanial (c.1826-1865), both of whom were christened at St Giles-in-the-Fields.

Martha Sarah was married at St Giles church in 1841 to Richard Payze (1818-1915), a successful corn factor and land owner of Leytonstone, then in the Essex countryside but now part of East London! Martha’s own granddaughter, Martha Amy (always known as Jane) Payze, was born at Whitchurch-on-Thames, a picturesque village in South Oxfordshire. William takes up the story: ‘My grandmother, seeking adventure, went out to Tanganyika shortly after the First World War, and there met my grandfather, a good-looking young South African, and married him!’

The picture directly above shows the British Museum in 1805. This is the view that James and Martha Tisdall would have seen from their home at the north end of Museum Street (this was the Queen Street end). The top picture is a summer view of the east face of St Giles-in-the-Fields (taken by Mark Charter, Flickr). This disguises its position in the centre of a busy London thoroughfare and shows how it might have looked to the Tisdalls of Bloomsbury as they took their children to be christened.

Victor McLaglen’s father – new revelations

2009-12-22T03:25:00.000-08:00

It’s amazing how many connections between Bloomsbury and South Africa are being revealed in this blog. Take the story of Bishop Andrew McLaglen, for example, featured on 8 August. Local historian, Paul Rason, who sent me the story of the Hollywood star’s missionary father, could find no evidence of the clergyman’s claim to be Bishop of Claremont, South Africa. However, I have just been contacted by William de Villiers of Cape Town who has shed light on this mystery.

He writes: ‘I am researching the life and times of the McLaglen family as a private research project. I saw your blog on Bloomsbury People and thought you would be interested to hear about Andrew McLaglen's antecedents. As I understand it, Philip McLACHLAN and Catherina Petronella NEYHOFF, both resident at the Cape of Good Hope, had a son, born out of wedlock. This was Jacobus Petrus McLAGLEN (alias James Philip McLACHLAN), born in Cape Town on 15 January 1820, and baptised on 4 March 1821. He was a printer by trade, but developed mental illness and was confined to Robben Island, where he died on 16 September 1856. He was married at the Cape of Good Hope to Margaretha (Grietje) RUTGERS (she died in 1890). They had seven children, of whom the fifth was Andries Carel Albertus (alias Andrew Charles Albert) McLAGLEN, born on 4 April 1851, and baptised in Cape Town on 27 April 1851.’ This was, indeed, Victor McLaglen’s father. More genealogical details can be seen here.

Andrew Charles Albert McLaglen must have arrived in London sometime before 1877 when he is known to have been working as a probationer missionary with the London City Mission in Bloomsbury. He was either accompanied to England, or subsequently joined here, by his eldest sibling, Catharina (Catherine) Cornelia McLaglen (born August 1842 in Cape Town).

Apparently, the Reverend Andrew was a very active self-publicist, and William sent me the above picture (from an unknown Victorian journal quoting the Christian Herald) showing McLaglen presenting the Zulu King Cetewayo and his chiefs with Zulu bibles and seven copies of the Book of Common Prayer, in the parish of Kensington, 1881. In fact, King Cetewayo (c1826-1884), whose nation suffered defeat by Britain in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, actually travelled to England in 1882 to meet with Queen Victoria (1819-1901) in the hope of having his sovereignty restored. Cetewayo was given celebrity status in London and stories about him appeared in a variety of periodicals. This particular event may not, in fact, have taken place. William says that it ‘is breathtaking in its inaccuracy’.

What is accurate, however, is Andrew McLaglen’s consecration on 2 November 1897 as bishop of the Free Protestant Episcopal Church of England. He was consecrated to be ‘Colonial Missionary Bishop and Titular Bishop of Claremont’. The consecration took place in the wood-and-iron building known as St. Stephen's Church in Shrewsbury Road, East Ham, London, by one Leon Chechemian, an Armenian Uniate. The Free Protestant Episcopal Church of England was formed on that same day with the union of the Free Protestant Church, the Ancient British Church, and the Nazarene Episcopal Church. Dr Chechemian was its first Primus. Bishop McLaglen became its primus on 3 December 1920. He never took up his see in Claremont, and died in Lambeth, South London. The Free Protestant Episcopal Church of England (later known as the Evangelical Church of England) was formally dissolved in 1997 although it remains active in the US and Canada.

From Bloomsbury to the Cape of Good Hope

2009-10-22T01:48:00.000-07:00

Following my blog entry, Wesleyan Methodists emigrate to the Cape of Good Hope, Rodney Jones contacted me from Randburg, South Africa. He wrote: 'One of my wife's distant ancestors has links to Bloomsbury.

James Hancock (top picture) was born on 1 May 1776 in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England. He married Ann Kennedy (b. 1790, picture above) on 21 February 1808 at the Church of St George the Martyr, Bloomsbury. Ann was a Londoner, born in Bride Lane, in the City. James and Ann were two of the 1820 Settlers to South Africa, part of Hezekiah Sephton's party in the ship Aurora (344 passengers). They departed from London on 15 February 1820, and arrived at Simon's Bay on 1 May 1820. They arrived at their final destination of Algoa Bay, Cape Colony, on 15 May 1820.

James Hancock was a china painter. He founded an art school in Grahamstown. James Hancock was a Wesleyan lay preacher. In 1833, he had a street named after him (Hancock Street) in Port Elizabeth.

He died on 20 August 1837, in Port Elizabeth, Cape Colony. He is buried in the Old Settler Cemetery, South End, Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Any further information about James Hancock would be of great interest to me.'

Hezekiah Sephton, who led the emigrating party, was a carpenter of 1 Bedford Court, Red Lion Square, Bloomsbury. He and other members of the group seem to have been members of the Great Queen Street Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, which was just over the Bloomsbury border in Holborn. They formed themselves into the United Wesleyan Methodist Society, with a committee responsible for the organisation of the party. The selection of the clergyman was put in the hands of the committee of the General Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, whose choice fell on the Rev William Shaw. Read more about this journey by clicking on the link to Hezekiah Sephton.

The Barton family, the abolition of slavery, and the founding of Birkbeck College

2009-10-13T00:30:00.000-07:00

Dave Barton has asked to be put in touch with Vivienne Lewis (née Horne), whose Gx3 grandfather, Thomas Horne, had a house in Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, and ran his successful coal merchant business from Bankside (where the Globe Theatre now stands, top picture) – see blog entries 21 April 2008, 30 March 2009 and 2 July 2009.

Dave writes: ‘Vivienne and I are 6th cousins. Her Gx3 grandfather and his brother William Horne were amongst the children of Anthony Horne. Anthony and Elizabeth Horne (my Gx4 grandma) were amongst the children of Thomas Horne senior (d.1802), who was the son of Benjamin Horne, who founded the coal business. Thomas Horne senior was my Gx5 grandfather, through his daughter Elizabeth (1760-1833, second picture from top), who married John Barton (1754-1789, third picture from top), one of the nine English Quaker members of the “Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade” set up in 1787 by William Wilberforce and two other Anglicans. Their efforts ultimately led to the passing, by British Parliament, of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act (1807).’

John Barton’s son, John (1789-1852, Dave’s Gx3 grandfather, bottom picture), was a botanist and political economist, and a lifelong supporter of schools and mechanics’ institutes (established to promote the education of working people). In December 1823 he was elected a member of the governing committee responsible for setting up the London Mechanics' Institution, and his name was included on the foundation stone in the entrance hall of Birkbeck College, then in Chancery Lane. (The London Mechanics’ Institution was renamed Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution in 1866, and is now Birkbeck College, part of the University of London, in Bloomsbury). John Barton was acquainted with its chief founder, George Birkbeck, and other members such as David Ricardo, George Grote, Jeremy Bentham (also a founder, in 1826, of University College London) and William Cobbett. Barton’s economic writings influenced both David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus although he disagreed with both on aspects of employment and wages. Like Malthus, Barton tackled the issue of the effects of overpopulation. He argued that only where land was cheap and plentiful would economic growth be maximised and he therefore supported emigration to Canada and other colonization schemes. His ideas were discussed by Karl Marx in Das Kapital.

In 1827, John Barton left the Society of Friends and joined the Church of England, becoming a churchwarden at Stoughton, Chichester, West Sussex. His first wife having died in 1822, he married Fanny Rickman in 1828, and they had nine children. Fanny and their 4-year-old daughter, Sarah, died of scarlet fever in 1842.

About 1833, John Barton had his first four economics pamphlets bound in one volume and gave copies to Lord Grey who steered the Reform Bill through Parliament, Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Richmond, Lord G Lennox, Sir George Staunton FRS and Lord Althorp. John was half-brother to Bernard Barton (1784-1849), a minor poet, and Maria Hack (née Barton, 1777-1844), a children’s writer. John, Bernard and Maria have entries in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Dave writes: ‘Every one of John Barton of Chichester's sons and son-in-laws were vicars! My Gx2 grandfather was another John (Rev. John Barton, a missionary in India and then Vicar of Holy Trinity Cambridge). He married a lady called Emily Eugenia Elliott, and her family history goes way way back, not just because of the already extensive Elliott pedigree but also because her grandmother Alicia Boileau was of Huguenot stock.’

Dave Barton contacted me in November 2010 to say that he has now set up a Barton family history site.

Henry T Packman and the monster Christmas pudding

2009-10-08T02:25:00.000-07:00

This newspaper feature from the Daily Mirror, 3 December 1909, tells of a charity football match to be played between 'The Church and The Stage' - ie. 'eleven athletic clerics who are all really good players' versus 'eleven actors' - in aid of 'The Daily Mirror Fund for providing hungry London children with Christmas Pudding on Christmas Day.' The match was to be played on Monday 13 December at the Stamford Bridge ground, 'very kindly lent by the Chelsea Football Club'.

About 5000 puddings were to be produced by a legion of cooks at the 'Palace of Pudding', 41a Quaker Street, Spitalfields, in London's East End. In addition, 'A monster Christmas pudding is promised by Mr H T Packman, proprietor of the Dr Butler's Head (a pub in Moorgate owned by Henry T, which has a great medical history!), and a well-known salesman in the Central Meat Markets.'

The pudding recipe was supplied by Messrs Alfred Bird & Sons (Bird's Custard) so if you fancy making an Edwardian Christmas pudding 100 years after the original recipe was published, here it is (makes six puddings):

Ingredients: 3lb breadcrumbs, 1.5lb flour, 6lb raisins, 3lb currants, 4.5 lbs suet (finely chopped), 4.5 lb moist sugar, 0.75lb mixed peel (sliced), whole nutmeg (grated), powdered cinnamon (saltspoonful), salt (teaspoonful), 2.5 pints milk, egg power (6 heaped teaspoonfuls).

Mix together with wooden spoon. Moisten gradually with milk, pour into well-buttered basins. Tie on pudding-cloths, buttered and sprinkled with flour. Boil for 8 hours.

Enjoy!

The children of Henry Tillett Packman

2009-10-08T02:05:00.000-07:00

These lovely portraits are the children of Henry Tillett Packman and his wife Ann (see blog dated 29 September), sent to me by his great grandson, Roger Packman. The photographs were taken by Lang Sims, 437 Brixton Road, South London. Roger reckons they were taken about 1895/6, a couple of years before the family moved to Tavistock Square, Bloomsbury.

From the top, the children are: Annie Wensley (b. 1881), William Henry (b. 1883) - Roger's grandfather, Nellie May (b. 1884), Gladys Mary (b. 1886), and Winifred Dorothy (b. 1890).

Roger writes: 'I hope you will agree they are a wonderful set of photos with the little girls all in similar dresses but with different neck brooches.'

More about the adventures of some of these children in later features.

Solved! The mystery of Henry Tillett Packman's 'Tavistock Theatre'

2009-10-08T00:46:00.000-07:00

Roger Packman has solved the mystery of his great grandfather's ownership of the 'Tavistock Theatre' (see blog entry 29 September). It was a spoof! Roger recently met up with a relative, Lesley Joffick, with whom he shares Henry Tillett Packman as a great grandfather, and Lesley showed him her collection of the printed theatre programmes.

Henry T was a wealthy wholesale and retail butcher who traded at London's Smithfield Market and also had a number of retail outlets, the only one in Bloomsbury being at 40 Store Street.

Roger says: 'There is an element of disappointment in that Henry T didn't actually own a theatre, but on the other hand the family and friends/neighbours had clearly taken huge trouble to produce these Christmas events. I think the wit and humour contained within them plus getting the programmes actually printed is a fantastic example of the lengths that they would have gone to in order to produce their own entertainment, by comparison with what of course is available today.'

The programme reproduced above dates from 1907. It is clearly also a very good exercise in marketing, and Henry T may indeed have distributed these amongst his customers for advertising purposes. By including advertisements from other local traders, he may also have offset the cost of printing! A clever man.

Roger has sent me lots of interesting information about his Bloomsbury family, which I'll be featuring in other blog entries.

If you have an ancestor who worked as a butcher, particularly such a high profile one as Henry T, you may find it worthwhile to search the trade journal entitled The Meat Trades' Journal and Cattle Salesman's Gazette published 1888-1966, thereafter called the Meat Trades Journal. These are viewable in the British Library Newspaper Library at Colindale, North London.

Wesleyan Methodists emigrate to the Cape of Good Hope

2009-09-30T00:35:00.000-07:00

Although Bloomsbury was one of the most cosmopolitan and tolerant communities in 19th century London, many British emigrants of this period were non-conformists who sought lives in new lands which welcomed those fleeing from religious persecution.

Helen Roberts' ancestors, Daniel Roberts (1780-1844) and his wife Harriet (nee Mills, 1785-1845), who married in Bloomsbury in 1802, were Wesleyan Methodists. The family probably worshipped at Whitefield's Chapel on the west side of Tottenham Court Road. This was established by George Whitefield (1714-1770), a well known evangelical preacher, in 1756. When Whitefield died in Boston, America, his memorial sermon at the chapel was preached by John Wesley himself. A good history of the chapel is at: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=65173

Daniel and Harriet had three children, Mary Ann (b. 1803), Daniel (b. 1806), and Samuel (b. 1812). In 1820, the family was part of a group of Methodists who sailed for the Cape of Good Hope as settlers on board the Aurora. Daniel was a shoemaker by trade. Other people in the party were the Aldum family and William Shaw, a Methodist preacher. Helen believes that they were all lay missionary preachers. I found details of their passage on 'The British Settlers to South Africa' website. By the time they arrived at the Cape, its territory had been ceded to the British (1814) and was administered as Cape Colony. The Roberts family seems to have settled at Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, which saw a wave of colonial settlement between 1820 and 1834. You can read an account of what it would have been like to be a settler at this time on the Grahamstown website.

The photographs above show the bronze statue to the settlers of 1820 erected in Grahamstown and commemorative South African stamps.

Bloomsbury resident finds a new life in Manitoba

2009-09-29T06:04:00.000-07:00

Mark Sanderson's great grandmother, Eliza Jane Adkin, was born in 1856 at St Giles (a parish next to Bloomsbury) and was baptized at St George, Bloomsbury. At that time, her family was living on Little Russell Street. He says, 'Eliza Jane did not tell us much about her family history before she died in the late 1940s. However, from what I am learning, her father, Robert Isaiah Adkin, was married to Sarah Wallwork in 1846 at St Pancras Church. At that time, he was living at Tottenham Place (now Beaumont Street). Sadly, the records show that Robert died in 1859, when Eliza Jane was only 3 years old. The 1861 census shows that Sarah Adkin, his widow, was a lodging house keeper at 20 Gilbert Street (now Gilbert Place), Bloomsbury.'

The top photograph shows the entrance to Gilbert Place from Museum Street (close by the British Museum). The entrance to Little Russell Street is also visible and runs parallel to Gilbert Place. Gilbert Place (middle picture) is not very attractive although it might have been better at mid-19th century. Not all the building are numbered, and the presence of a large block of flats built after the period, confuses the numbering. From what I can make out, number 20 was near the location of the now empty Quinto Bookshop (bottom picture).

Eliza Jane, then aged 5, is not listed with her family in the 1861 census, but in that year, her mother Sarah remarried. Her new husband was George Alfred Courcelle. Sarah died during the next decade for her husband is listed as a widower in the 1871 census. Eliza is not mentioned although her youngest brother, Charles T was living with his step-father.

Eliza appears on the 1881 census as a lady's maid. The following year, aged 26, she married Thomas Tuttle, a coachman, and they moved to Canada to become homesteaders in Manitoba. Mark says that they endured many privations but raised a fine family on the bald prairie.

Henry Tillett Packman and the Tavistock Theatre

2009-09-29T02:14:00.000-07:00

Roger Packman sent me details of his great grandfather, Henry Tillett Packman, a wealthy butcher and meat salesman (top picture), who in 1901 lived at number 9 Tavistock Square with his family and servants. Henry and his wife Ann had five children - Annie Wensley, b. 1881; William Henry, b. 1883 (Roger's grandfather); Nellie May, b. 1884; Gladys Mary, b. 1886; and Winifred Dorothy, b. 1890. At the time of the 1891 census, the family lived in Brixton, South London, but moved to Bloomsbury sometime during the next decade.

Henry Tillett apparently owned the Tavistock Theatre, for which I can find no information although Roger says that another family member has theatre programmes printed with family names. These might throw light on the whereabouts of the theatre.

However, a very interesting theatre was based in Tavistock House at number 1 Tavistock Square, several decades before the Packman's moved there. This was the house where Charles Dickens lived from 1851 to 1860 and where he wrote Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit and A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens converted the house's large schoolroom into what was billed "The smallest theatre in the world". More information about this theatre can be found at: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/gallery/30.html

Roger also sent two photographs of his grandfather, William Henry Packman, in two football teams of 1905/6 (in which he is seated first right, front row) and 1910 (standing third right, back row).

The Kerton family and a legal mystery

2009-08-12T06:44:00.000-07:00

Jenny Wood’s 3xgreat grandparents, George Kerton and Mary Labrum (b. 1789) were married at St George the Martyr, Queen Square, Bloomsbury, in July 1814 (top two photos above by Ninoxowl, Flickr). Mary’s family were almost certainly of Huguenot descent and she was a member of the Independent Tabernacle, St Luke’s, Finsbury, a non-conformist chapel where her younger siblings were baptised. Jenny wonders what Mary’s parents thought about her marrying in a fashionable Anglican church. She does not know how Mary came to be in Bloomsbury or what work she did.

George Kerton gave his occupation as clerk (legal) at the time of his marriage so it is probable that he was employed at nearby Gray’s Inn, one of the four Inns of Court of London (photo above by Dramagirl, Flickr). At the time of the birth of their son, Walter Labrum, in July 1817, the family’s address was Duke Street (now Coptic Street), named after the Duke of Bedford on whose estate much of Bloomsbury sits. George was now described as a ‘gentleman’, ie. of independent means. Walter grew up to become Chief Clerk to the Queen’s Bench.

A daughter, Sarah Ann Kerton, was baptised at St George the Martyr in 1820, by which time the family was living in Henry Street (now Roger Street), just off Gray’s Inn Road. George has now become a ‘Clerk to an Attorney’. Sarah Ann married James Fereday, a silversmith (who later became a gas fitter when houses and businesses began to be lit and heated by coal gas). Henry Thomas Kerton was born in Henry Street in 1822, and his father is described, once again, as a ‘gentleman’. Henry became an artist and photographer. By the time of Thomas Lally’s birth in 1825, George was an attorney, and the family had moved to Robert Street (now Kirk Street), a short distance from their previous residence. Thomas became a French polisher.

Jenny says, ‘I am not sure whether George was a gentleman who dabbled at law, or a legal clerk who called himself a gentleman when unemployed! I feel there may be a story here if only I had more information. So far, I haven’t found George in the Inns of Court archives online. I don’t know where he was born or when. As adults the children are all found south of the river (around Lambeth and Southwark), so I think the family must have moved there during their childhood/teenage years.’

George Harmer and the Catholic Apostolic Church

2009-08-12T03:13:00.000-07:00

Nick Harmer’s great grandfather, George Frederick Harmer (1841-1911), came from a large family of ornamental plasterers who worked on many of the eminent houses in Bloomsbury. Indeed, George’s father, James (b. 1800), had an exhibit of ornmental plaster work in the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, London (1851).

George Harmer was married in the Church of Christ the King, in 1872, where he was an organist. A photograph of the church, on Gordon Square, is featured on the blog entry for 2 July 2009 (see "Photos of your Bloomsbury ancestors’ homes and workplaces"). It was built between 1850-54 for the Catholic Apostolic movement, which began and ended in Bloomsbury, and which is associated with a Scottish minister, Edward Irving (1792-1834). Irving arrived in London in 1822 and for a time won followers with his eloquence and commanding presence. When he became increasingly drawn into a belief in the apostolic gifts of prophecy and healing, he was excommunicated by the presbytery of London (1830) and from the ministry of the Church of Scotland (1833). The Catholic Apostolic movement claimed to be restoring the Apostolate so that Christianity would be ready for the Second Coming of Christ. Membership gradually declined after 1900 although the movement had spread to about 1000 congregations in some 20 countries.

George Harmer played the organ at the Church of Christ the King but was an elder at the movement’s church in Mare Street, Hackney, established in 1874 (photo above by Fin Fahey, Flickr). Nick says that there is a plaque commemorating George in one of these churches. Our roving researcher, Dr Deborah Colville, has been unable to find it in the Bloomsbury church so it may be in Christ Apostolic Church, Hackney. This is a Grade II listed building and much of interior has survived intact. If anyone has information about this plaque, we would very much like to hear from you.

Victor McLaglen – son of a Bloomsbury missionary

2009-08-06T05:46:00.000-07:00

For Hollywood film buffs, the name Victor McLaglen conjures up epics of derring-do, in which our hero was inevitably typecast as a ‘hard man’ with a soft centre.

Local historian, Paul Rason, has discovered that McLaglen’s father was a ‘probationer’ missionary from 1877-1879 at St Saviour’s Church, Fitzroy Square, part of which parish encroaches into Bloomsbury. (The church was built in 1865, united with St John, Fitzroy Square, in 1904, but no longer exists). Andrew Charles Alfred McLaglen served his Bloomsbury apprenticeship with the London City Mission, a Christian evangelical institution founded in 1835 which was (and still is) concerned with ministry amongst the people of London, particularly the underprivileged. McLaglen was about 23 years old in the late 70s. He married Lily Marion Adcock in January 1881 and their first child, Frederick, was born the same year in Bromley, Kent. Victor was born in 1886 at number 505 Commercial Road, Stepney, East London, although for the benefit of Hollywood he seems to have ‘upgraded’ his birthplace to the Royal spa town of Tunbridge Wells.

According to Victor’s entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, his father was an Anglican clergyman who became bishop of Clermont, South Africa. However, Paul’s research suggests that the ‘Right Reverend Bishop ACA McLaglen, DD’ was a title without substance. Although his occupation is listed as ‘Clerk in Holy Orders’ on his marriage certificate, he is not listed in Crockfords Clerical Directory of the Anglican clergy, nor in the archives of the non-conformist churches such as the Congretational Church and the Methodist Church. Furthermore, he does not appear on any ships’ passenger lists although both Victor and Frederick appear as passengers to Canada in 1905 and 1906 respectively. The Reverend McLaglen was apparently ‘known to the police’, being involved in a number of dubious charities from the 1890s to the 1920s, and was involved in a bankruptcy case in 1902.

The McLaglen’s 9 children (8 sons and 1 daughter) were all born in Bromley or the East End, and the family appears in the 1891, 1901 and 1911 censuses. By 1914/15, they were living in Chiswick, and Andrew Charles Alfred died in Lambeth in 1928. He and his wife are buried in Kensington Cemetery, near Hanwell, Middlesex. The photograph above, taken by Simon White (Flickr) is captioned ‘Grave of Lily Marion and Bishop Andrew McLaglen’.

Victor McLaglen arrived in Hollywood in the mid-1920s, after several years in the British film industry and a previous career as a roistering global adventurer. During the early 20th century he travelled through Canada and the US, working as a prize fighter amongst other occupations. He apparently ended up as personal trainer to the Raja of Akola, India, before joining the Middlesex Regiment at the Outbreak of World War I, from which he was demobbed with the rank of captain.

Victor’s Hollywood career spanned 35 years. He won a best actor Academy Award for his performance as Gypo Nolan in The Informer (1935), a film based on Liam O’Flaherty’s novel about the Irish Uprising (1922), and was nominated as best supporting actor for his role as Red Will Danaher in John Ford’s The Quiet Man (1952). However, his action movies such as Gunga Din (1939), Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and Rio Grande (1950), are probably his most popularly remembered.

Benjamin Horne and the coal fraud

2009-07-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

I have just received an e.mail from Vivienne Lewis (nee Horne), whose ancestral stories are featured on 30 March 2009 and 21 April 2008. She writes:

'Do you remember you put me into contact with the bursar of Aldro School who had seen the Horne blog on your web site. My second cousin, Rosemary, and her husband plus Paul (my partner) and myself went up to the school at the end of May and Norman kindly showed us around. Seemingly Edgar Horne not only owned the big house that now houses the school but all the surrounding land which comprised the whole of the village of Shackleford which is on the outskirts of Godalming, Surrey.

Inside the school they have a copy of the portrait of Sir Edgar, the original of which is evidently still in the Prudential Head Office. The Edwardian bell-push remains with the various names of the Horne family clearly written under each room. There is an old gong in the hallway plus an old-fashioned telephone. The staircase which Edgar acquired from another old property, which was being pulled down, also remains in situ. Evidently after his wife died he did not wish to remain in the house and moved to another property across the road. It was a very interesting visit and many thanks for being kind enough to forward Norman's e-mail on to me.

Two weeks ago I went up to the Society of Genealogists and found out some further information about the first Horne (Benjamin Horne, 1698-1766) who started the coal factor/merchant business. He has an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of Biography and quite a large one. Seemingly, he started his business when he was 21 when he set up as a middle-man between the colliery owners of the North of England and the main users of coal in London and the suburbs, namely the brewers, soapboilers, dyers etc. As a result of an Act of Parliament he was allowed to set up his own wharves and lighters to ferry the coal ashore. By 1730 he had a financial interest in over 40 collieries (the picture above shows what a colliery would have looked like in Benjamin's day). However, a bit like the present MPs, he skated on thin ice when he issued bonds to the shipmasters to pay the excise duty on their behalf so they could return North quicker to pick up the next load of coal, and then delayed payment. When the Customs Department exposed the fraud that he and other coal factors had been involved in he quickly paid up!!!!! He retired to High Cross, Tottenham, and died in 1766 worth over £70,000.00.

His son, Thomas (1726-1802) was considered by one biographer to be the greatest coal-merchant in London. Succeeding generations entered into various partnerships and finally the business was absorbed into the Charringtons Group.

Hope your project is going well. I still intend to visit the Quaker Library in Euston although I have learnt that the Thomas Horne who was living in Bloomsbury in the 1841 Census had, in fact, left the Society of Friends in 1823.'

Photos of your Bloomsbury ancestors' homes and workplaces

2009-07-02T04:01:00.000-07:00

I have started to take photographs of some of the areas of Bloomsbury inhabited by the descendants of people who contact me with stories. I will be happy to provide anyone with a Bloomsbury ancestor a digital image file of their house or work place. Or, if the property no longer exists, an image of the building now in its place. Many of the original 19th century properties are still very much in evidence, however.

The image above, taken by Mary Hinkley, a UCL photographer, shows the Church of Christ the King on Gordon Square. It was built from 1850 to 1854 and is Gothic Revival in style, typical of many 19th century Anglican churches.

Lancet's editor certifies death of Bloomsbury resident

2009-07-01T03:02:00.000-07:00

Coral Still sent me the death certificate of her ancestor, William Thorne, the paper hanger who fell off a ladder, broke his hip and died in University College London (see 'An untimely death at University College Hospital', 1 April 2009). It confirms that William sustained a comminuted fracture of the femur (thigh bone) and died from gangrene. A communited fracture is one where the bone is not cleanly broken but crushed or splintered in a number of pieces - almost impossible to repair in 1853, when he died.

However, what is intriguing about this death certificate is that a coroner was involved in investigating William's death. This was the coroner for Middlesex, who at that time was Thomas Wakley (portrait above). Wakley (who lived in Bedford Square, Bloomsbury) is famous for founding the Lancet journal, in 1823. This was the first inexpensive weekly medical journal, written specifically for the 'ordinary' British surgeons and physicians rather than the elite. It focused on 'hot' news and comment, especially the major political issues of the day, as well as learned medical articles. Wakley was a radical and spent much of the first decade of his editorship in the law courts, defending libel actions and copyright litigation. He pirated lectures delivered by eminent doctors and reprinted them in Lancet, and 'outed' those who had botched operations or misdiagnosed diseases.

Wakley became MP for Finsbury in 1835 as an independent radical reformer and his first parliamentary speech defended the Tolpuddle Martyrs, a group of Dorset labourers sentenced to transportation for forming an illegal trade union. He also campaigned agains the flogging of sailors as well as reform of the medical profession. It was largely Wakely's campaigning that resulted in the 1858 Medical Act, which created a Medical Register in which all practitioners were listed, and the establishment of a General Medical Council to regulate the profession and set clinical standards.

Wakely was elected Coroner for Middlesex in 1839, a role he adopted with his usual rigour, investigating every suspicious death in the district, calling multiple medical witnesses when he believed it necessary, and involving the police when he suspected foul play. He was particularly insistent that industrial accidents should fall under the coroners' jurisdiction, and his recommendations became the norm.

So, William Thorne's industrial accident came under Thomas Wakely's jurisdiction, a post-mortem would almost certainly have been ordered, and possibly an inquest held as well. We can guess that these events took place because William's death was registered over two months after he died. In any other district, it is unlikely that a coroner would have been involved at all.

Dr Thomas Hunt of Bedford Square

2009-04-01T01:23:00.000-07:00

Geoff Culshaw's ancestor, Thomas Hunt (c.1798-1879), was a doctor who lived and practised in Bloomsbury (photo above). He was born in Watford, Hertfordshire, where his father (also Thomas) was the Baptist minister. In 1812, Thomas received an apprenticeship grant of £80 from the John Bankes Trust of the Haberdashers' Company, and probably commenced his medical training. As a non-conformist, he would not have been eligible for a university place at Oxford or Cambridge so his route into medicine lay in becoming apprenticed to a surgeon and taking hospital courses in anatomy and surgery. At that time, surgeons acted more as 'general practitioners' in the community than as hospital-based doctors, treating skin diseases (including syphilis), performing minor surgery and amputations, and setting fractures. Physicians, on the other hand, were more likely to be university-educated and ranked higher in the medical heirarchy.

Thomas Hunt trained at at St Thomas's and at Guy's Hospital, London, and was admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons by examination in August 1820. In 1826 he lived at Upper Clapton, Middlesex, but by 1829, he was practising in Herne Bay, Kent. He returned to London some time before 1850, taking up residence at 26 Bedford Square, Bloomsbury (picture above). He practised as a dermatologist (skin specialist) and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1852. He lectured on diseases of the skin at the College and was also consulting surgeon to the Western Dispensary for Diseases of the Skin, Great Portland Street. He served for a time as Vice-President of the Medical Society (the Medical Society of London, founded in 1773, is the oldest medical society in Britain: http://www.medsoclondon.org/) and was an active member of the Epidemiological Society (founded 1850: http://www.ph.ucla.edu/EPI/snow/LESociety.html). He was also Medical Officer of Health for the St Giles District of London. Thomas Hunt published a number of books and articles which are listed on Geoff's website: http://www.geoffsgenealogy.co.uk/hunt/huntdoc.htm

Thomas married Martha Mary Colam sometime between 1819-1925. She came from a properous family and was born in Charterhouse Street in the City of London. The marriage produced thirteen children (6 boys and 7 girls), of whom Thomas (probably their first son) also trained as a doctor and lived at his parent's residence, which by 1861 was 23 Albert Place, Bedford Square. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1859.

The third son, William, born about 1839, was a medical student at the Middlesex Hospital, London, in 1861, but died the following year off the Cape of Good Hope, on his way to Sydney on board the Nourmahal.

Martha Mary died in 1861 and Thomas senior married Caroline Hall three years later.

Despite having a very large family, the Hunts lived very comfortably in Bloomsbury. At 26 Bedford Square the household included a cook, a housemaid and a page. Thomas was an exact contemporary of two other eminent medical residents of Bedford Square, both of whom lived at no 35 - Thomas Hodgkin (1798-1866), who first described Hodgkin's disease, and Thomas Wakley (1795-1862), founding editor of The Lancet. They also trained at St Thomas's and Guy's Hospitals. After the move to 23 Albert Place, the Hunt household no longer included a page but still employed a cook and housemaid.

Interestingly, only three of the Hunt children married, and produced only three offspring between them.

An untimely death at University College Hospital

2009-04-01T00:07:00.000-07:00

Coral Still's 5 x great grandfather, William Thorne, born about 1804, came to London from Dorset before 1829, which was the year that he married Mary Ann Stockwell at All Souls, Marylebone. He was a painter and wallpaper hanger with premises at 10 Tottenham Street (1839 Trade Directory for London), pictured above as it is now. At least one of his sons and grandsons also followed this profession, which would have been much sought after with the growing affluence of Bloomsbury.

Unfortunately, in his late forties, William broke his hip falling from a ladder and died at University College Hospital, Bloomsbury, after gangrene set in.

At the time of William's death there was little that could be done for severe fractures, particularly those in which the bone penetrated the skin and which almost always became infected. These compound fractures usually necessitated amputation of the limb although amputating a leg at hip or upper thigh level was particularly difficult and dangerous. If William died before 1846 there would have been no anaesthetics to deaden the pain of amputation because it was not until October of that year that ether was first used to anaesthetise a patient undergoing surgery.

In December 1846, Robert Liston (1794-1847) at University College Hospital, performed the first major operation under ether anaesthesia in Europe. This was, in fact, a mid-thigh amputation of the left leg on a man named Frederick Churchill, who subsequently recovered. Accustomed to operating at speed without the benefit of anaesthesia, Liston removed the leg in twenty-eight seconds!

The picture above shows Liston performing the operation watched by a number of colleages including Joseph Lister (1827-1927) - standing second left - who went on to develop the concept of antisepsis. He cleaned wounds, particularly those related to compound fractures, with carbolic acid. Antiseptic surgery was adopted at University College Hospital and many other hospitals. Lister's idea was based on Louis Pasteur's belief that 'germs' of putrefaction were carried in the air. This was in the 1860s although it would be another twenty years before the first 'germs' (ie. bacteria) were seen under the microscope.

The Woodman and Ogden Families

2009-03-31T06:30:00.000-07:00

Jenny Stoner sent this information about her ancestors: There seems to be quite a few Woodmans in the Bloomsbury area at this time. It's not a very common name so I presume they're all from the same stock but as yet I haven't discovered where they originally came from.

William Woodman was born in 1808 in St Pancras. He was a solicitor's clerk originally but by the 1861 census he was an engineer. He and his wife Maria lived in Duke's Street (now Duke's Road), just south of the Euston Road. They had seven children, of whom one was William Lacey Woodman.

William Lacey Woodman was born in Newington in 1842 and married Anna Ogden (1865) in St Pancras Church. He, too, was an engineer.

Anna's parents, John and Anna Ogden, although not born in London, lived at 1 Little Russell Street, Bloomsbury by the mid-19th century. John Ogden was a coach builder. Their daugher, Anna (1846-1904), who was a milliner by the age of fourteen, was one of five children. The others were: John, a surveyor, who had eight children and lived in St Pancras; William, a coach painter who had three children and had moved away by 1891; Emily, who married a solicitor's clerk at St Pancras, and Rosina, who remained unmarried and looked after her retired father. From her birth until 1901, Rosina lived at 1 Little Russell Street. After her father's death, she was a self-employed sempstress and lived with two lodgers.

William and Anna Woodman had four children, all born in Bloomsbury - William became a barman, Anna married and moved to Liverpool, Rosina was a clerk to a photographer, and Francis (my grandfather), known as Frank, became an accountant. Frank was a choirboy at St George's Church, Bloomsbury (pictures above), and then went on to amateur dramatics. I can remember that he and his sister, Rosina (Rose), could converse in 'back-slang', which reverses the first and last letter of words - eg. boy becomes yob! It was something that they had learned in childhood.

The Kirk Family

2009-03-31T05:49:00.000-07:00

Mary Slater sent this information about her family: James Kirk, my great, great grandfather, is listed in the 1884 Business Directory of London at 3 Bloomsbury Court, Holborn (near the British Museum), as a french polisher. By 1895 (in the Post Office Directory), the firm is James Kirk and Sons.

James Kirk, the son of a bootmaker, was born in Norwich about 1827-8. No doubt economic and social conditions led to his move to London and by 1851 he was in Finsbury. By 1853, for marriage licence purposes, he called himself a cabinet maker and was married in Shoreditch. By 1861, as a french polisher, he was once again in Finsbury with four sons and later, a daughter. He was widowed by 1875 and had moved west to Wardour Street. At the time of his second marriage he was calling himself an upholsterer. By 1881, he and his family (totalling seven) were at Bloomsbury Court.

These premises must have become too small for both working and living, as the 1891 census shows that he and his second family had moved to Clapham (south London). They were living in the same premises as a son from his first marriage (William Henry Kirk), and his family of three children.

William Henry, my great grandfather, was also a french polisher, no doubt in his father's firm. At the time of his marriage in 1878, he had been living in Gilbert Street (now Place) , which is round the corner from Bloomsbury Court. In 1881, he was in Great Titchfield Street. By 1901, he was one of the 'lucky' industrial poor to get a new home in the London County Council Boundary Estate model dwellings on the site of the 'Old Nicol' (Shoreditch). His father James, now 73, was living in Coram Street, Bloomsbury, with his wife and three children.

No doubt french polishing and upholstery would have been a service much in demand by the more well-heeled Bloomsbury clientele and West End shops, and to have one's own business there would be a good step up from journeyman work in the furniture sweatshops of Shoreditch and the East End of London. Wood was a favourite material for 19th century interiors because it was attractive and provided good insulation against the cold. The picture above is of the Flaxman Gallery, University College London.

William Henry's son, William Henry junior, eventually became a chauffeur to an employer in Mount Street, Mayfair, where my father was born in mews, and later a publican in Sussex. My father became a surveyor and architect in Sussex. So, London was a staging post in this family line's escape from poverty.

Benjamin Franklin

2009-03-30T09:48:00.002-07:00

Benjamin Franklin (1709-1790), printer, philosopher, politician, diplomat, scientist, inventor and civic activist, was a major figure in the Age of Enlightenment and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. He invented bifocals, the lightning rod, formed the first public lending library in America and played major roles in establishing the University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania General Hospital. Benjamin Franklin lived in London as a diplomat (1757-75) at 36 Craven Street, less than half a mile from Bloomsbury. His landlady's son-in-law, William Hewson (1739-74), ran an anatomy school from the house, and during its renovation in 1997, more than 3000 human and animal bones and other material artefacts were excavated. Tania Kasmaully, a PhD student and forensic archaeologist at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, UCL, is working on this extraordinary and unique material.

More about Tania's work can be found here:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/histmed/people/research_students/#Kausmally,%20Tania

Information about Benjamin Franklin in America and Britain:

http://www.fi.edu/franklin/

http://www.benjaminfranklinhouse.org/site/sections/default.htm

http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?tip=1&id=4873

The pictures above show Benjamin Franklin wearing spectacles (top) and conducting his famous lightning rod experiment.

The Horne Family and Benjamin Franklin

2009-03-30T07:35:00.000-07:00

In April 2008, Vivienne Lewis (nee Horne) e.mailed me with details of the Horne family who were involved in the coal merchant business and subsequently in banking and insurance in central London. Sir Edgar Horne was a founding member (1848) and first chairman of the Prudential Insurance Company.

Earlier this month I was contacted by Norman Patterson, the Bursar of Aldro School in Godalming, Surrey, the former family home of Sir Edgar Horne, whose portrait (above) hangs outside his office. Norman wrote: 'I have been searching for any present day members of the Horne family and after googling I found the Bloomsbury blog.' He asked me to forward his message to Vivienne and she came back with more information about the Horne family.

'My cousin Rosemary, who is also a Horne descendent, drew me to the site about Aldro School and Hall Place so we were familiar with the fact that the school was occupying Edgar Horne's old home. However, I never expected to hear from the Bursar so that was a surprise. One thing I did discover last summer was by some weird coincidence I found the modern day descendents of the Horne branch which emigrated to America in the early 1700s to Philadelphia. Benjamin Horne, who was the founder of the coal merchant business, had an elder brother called Edward who emigrated with a number of other Quakers. I googled 'Benjamin Horne' and came up with a family tree of the Knox-Johnson family who were descended from Edward and Benjamin's mother and father, Thomas and Susannah Horne. I contacted them and they were amazed as they had only known about Edward and five of his siblings, and were unaware that there were four more children. They have now added the family tree that Rosemary and I had compiled, to their own.

I have also found a reference to Edward Horne being a friend and mentor to the young Benjamin Franklin, but have been unable to verify this as yet.

Martha Louisa Nixon (1869-1924)

2009-03-25T02:58:00.000-07:00

Jean Skinner sent this account of her entrepreneurial maternal grandmother.

Martha Louisa Kirby was born in Shadwell, East London, and married Albert Thomas Nixon at Stepney in 1898. Her daughter, Winifred Rhoda (Jean's mother) was born in March 1900 in Hackney. Later, the family moved to 14 Hand Court, Holborn. Albert was a master carpenter, working at theatres, stages and exhibitions. By the eve of World War I, his wages were £136 a year whilst Martha was making a profit of £200 a year, running her newsagents at Hand Court.

Jean writes: 'Martha had a sort of benefactor or business partner who was a bookmaker, and she kept a betting book under the counter of her shop. She took bets against the law. When Albert wanted to go to the gold-rush (I think my mother mentioned Australia), Martha said there was no way she would take a baby and live in a tent. Albert went but returned threadbare and too fond of alcohol. This probably influenced at least two generations of temperance in our family, broken by my own children in the 1990s on going to university.

Martha was very petit (under 5ft) and had copper-coloured hair - the colour of a new penny - which was long enough for her to sit on. She was strict, authoritarian, and wanted her daughter (my mother) to be ladylike. She sent her to a convent school where Mum learned nothing useful except beautiful copperplate handwriting. Due to this, Mum worked, in the 1920s, as a ledger-keeper, standing up at a sloping desk with huge ledgers but not quite a quill pen! There weren't many women and the men had to move for her. It's interesting to note that I became a book-keeper and my daughter a chartered accountant.

Mum's lifelong friend was called Bobs (nicknamed after General Roberts, famous during the Boer War in South Africa). She was my godmother and also godmother to my son, Andrew. Bobs lived with an old lady called Mrs Turnbull who wore a long black skirt and little black mob-cap and could have been her grandmother. If Mum had a new dress made they did one for Bobs too because she was so poor.

At Hand Court, Martha had the shop and a back room but I don't know how many other rooms they had. In the 1901 census, there were three familiies living there - 23 people, 17 of them children. According to my Aunt Freda, it was dark and dim. It was opposite the Lincoln's Inn Courts, and if the newspaper boys didn't turn up, Mum used to have to do their paper rounds around the Inns of Court. She sometimes went on roller skates during the war years (1914-18). From 1916-18, Mum's father was in the Army.

Martha died, aged 55, at the National Hospital, Queen Square, Holborn, in 1924 (pictured above). She left an estate of £2550 and Mum was her sole benefactor and Executrix. Martha's husband, Albert, was cut out of the will completely and when Mum offered him a share, he refused.'

The Platt family

2008-10-17T05:24:00.000-07:00

Maurice Byford contacted me with stories about his eminent ancestors, the Platt family.

The birth of Thomas Platt (1760-1842) was registered at St Dunstan in the West, Holborn, but the family moved into the Bloomsbury parish of St Andrew soon after. Thomas attended Magdalen College, Oxford, and in May 1780, was admitted as an Attorney and Solicitor in the superior courts at Westminster. He became a member of Serjeants Inn, Chancery Lane, City of London. By the early 19th century, Thomas and his wife, Catherine, were living in Brunswick Square. They seem to have had five sons and one daughter, of whom four sons survived their parents. Thomas's obituary in The Times (19 October 1842) states that he was the father of the [legal] profession for more than 60 years. He retired on the death of Lord Ellenborough and was presented with two silver vases. He completed the publication, with two others, of Flora Graeca by Dr John Sibthorpe, professor of Botany at Oxford, with whom he had studied. In 1796, Thomas helped set up a freehold estate in Sussex to fund the publication (1806-1813) of this 10-volume work.

It's likely that Thomas was interested in natural history because his father, Samuel, had a large collection of books on this subject, which he bequeathed to his third son, Samuel junior. Samuel junior (1771-1854) also became a barrister and lived at 33 Keppel Street with his wife Julia (nee Dorrell) and children. When he died, he left 'my large bookcase and all my shells, fossils and the cabinet containing fossils and subjects of Natural History' to his son, Thomas.

All of Thomas senior's sons entered the legal profession. His eldest son, Thomas Joshua (1788-1862), went to Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was admitted to the Inner Temple (1806) and called to the Bar (1816). He was a King's Counsellor (1834), Bencher of Inner Temple (1835), Serjeant at Law (1845), knighted (1845) and Baron of the Exchequer (1845-56). He was living at 39 Tavistock Square in 1833. He married Augusta (Cuming) at St George, Bloomsbury, in 1814. Nine of their children were baptised at St Pancras Old Church (1815-1832). Their son, Charles (1820-1902), also attended Trinity College, Cambridge, and was called to the Bar in 1852.

Thomas and Catherine's second son, Samuel (1795-1862), followed his brother to Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge, but transferred to Magdalen College, Oxford. He was admitted to the Inner Temple (1818) and called to the Bar (1825). He was a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant for Middlesex. In 1841, he was living at 22 Russell Square.

Their third son, George (1802-) was the solicitor for the 1841 Census, at which time he was living with his wife, Sophia, at Sayers Street in the parish of St Andrew, Holborn. Their fourth son, William (1804-) attended Brasenose College, Oxford, and was called to the Bar in 1830.

This is a greatly condensed version of the very complicated family history sent by Maurice, so I hope I've entered everything correctly. This is a family with strong Bloomsbury roots. As members of the legal profession, they lived in an area easily accessible to all the Inns of Court in London.

The picture shows the title page of a book entitled Delightes for ladies, to adorne their persons, tables, closets, and distillatories: with beauties, banquets, perfumes and waters (1611) by Sir Hugh Platt, an ancestor of the legal Platts, whose own son, William, was admitted to the Inns of Court in 1612.

Bloomsbury Searchers

2008-10-17T03:30:00.000-07:00

Carol Gilbert mentioned the 'Bloomsbury Searchers' in her article about the Foothead family. Searchers were people hired by London parishes to certify the cause of death for listing in the London Bills of Mortality. These were begun early in the 16th century, mainly to warn of plague epidemics, and published weekly. Most searchers were elderly women who were also often long-term pensioners of the parish. They were probably seen as expendable in the event of the highly infectious nature of plague but certainly they could learn to recognise its very florid symptoms.

As far as other causes of death are concerned, there is no historical evidence that searchers were given instructions on how to do their job so the trustworthiness of their findings is disputed. However, they did not always have to rely totally on their own judgements because of input by the medical practitioners (assuming that ordinary people could afford these) and lay people who had been attending the sick person. Nevetheless, the Bills of Mortality were the earliest example of how death trends could be observed. Even with the introduction of the Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths Act (1836) in England and Wales (1855 in Scotland), many registered deaths remained uncertified by a medical practitioner. It was only in 1926 that deaths in England Wales could not be registered without a doctor's certification of death from natural causes or a coroner's order for burial.

The picture shows a page from The London Bills of Mortality, 1664-1665. During this week there were 112 deaths from plague out of 558 deaths in total (20 per cent). There were 206 Christenings.

The Foothead family

2008-10-17T02:36:00.000-07:00

Carol Gilbert sent the following information about her Bloomsbury ancestors.

'My great, great grandfather, James Felix Foothead, was born in Bloomsbury in 1801. On his later marriage certificate he gives his father's name as James and his occupation as schoolmaster. The family research I have done so far indicates that at this point the family was Roman Catholic, and that makes finding details a trifle difficult until later in the century. I have early baptismal records from the Portugese Chapel in Lincoln's Inn, but these are incomplete as many were destroyed by fire. However, I believe James senior to be James Hayles Foothead, son of John-Jonathon Foothead and Frances Hayles.

It appears that the older James had an 'interesting' past and may be the same James that was convicted and sentenced to 7 years deportation in 1786. This is not only recorded in the Old Bailey records but also in a letter from his older brother John - a student priest in Rome - to a fellow priest in England. John, who was definitely a son of John-Jonathon and Frances, died in 1788. The family appears to have hit hard times immediately following the debt of John-Jonathon who was declared bankrupt in 1783. At that time he was running a brick-making/building business in Covent Garden, but was recorded, shortly before that, as living in Gilbert Street, Bloomsbury.

James senior had a second brother, Charles George Foothead, who is described on his wife's death certificate as 'Professor'. He lived at 14 Southampton Row in the early 1800s. A daughter, Catherine, died at this address in 1806. This was recorded by the Bloomsbury searchers (more about these in the next article). His wife was Hannah Frances Rogers who died in Birmingham in 1845. In 1811, Charles George was still in Southampton Row, according to the London Directory, so it is safe to assume that his other two daughters, Marianne (1805-40) and Eliza (1808-) were born there. Charles served on the Old Bailey Middlesex Jury in 1808 and died in 1831, leaving a very perfunctory Will. At that time he was living in Fitzroy Square (Fitzrovia). By 1813, he was placing advertisements in The Times using this address. He is also listed, with Charles, as having an educational premises/stationers at Great Leonard Street in 1811.

Around 1822, a 'Mr Foothead' was recommended by Burke of Burke's Peerage, as an excellent tutor in classics for the education of the sons of the US ambassador to England. He is also mentioned as a tutor in the Bloomsbury area in the Memoirs of a Highland Lady (Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus). However, there is no way of telling whether this was Charles or James.

James Felix joined the East India Company Army and served in India for many years. He twice married native Indian girls who both died in childbirth. Two of the children, William and Eliza, returned to England with him. He married in 1849, after his return to England, and for a while ran the new Lascar Seamen's Mission in Limehouse (East London). He died in Islington (north London) in 1880. His son, Edward James Foothead, my great grandfather, emigrated to New Zealand in 1871.'

The picture shows the British Museum in Montague House, facing Russell Street, in the early 19th century, as the Footheads would have seen it.

Bloomsbury Gap

2008-10-17T01:55:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid there has been a lack of articles for some months because the hunt for people with ancestral ties to Bloomsbury proved more difficult than I imagined when I set up the blog. However, another burst of publicity has led to contact with a number of people whose ancestors lived in this increasingly vibrant area of London and will help us build up a picture of its development during the 19th century. I'll also aim to add historical information of relevance to individual family histories.

The photograph shows the London (later Royal) Homeopathic Hospital, at the corner of Queen Square and Great Ormond Street, in the late 19th century. It was one of 12 hospitals built in this square mile of London.

Bloomsbury Connections

2008-04-30T07:18:00.000-07:00

I'm interested in hearing from people with ancestral connections to Bloomsbury, and not just those who were born, lived or died there. Perhaps your ancestor was an employee in one of the various institutions established in Bloomsbury during the 18th and 19th century such as the Foundling Hospital (pictured), or they might have established a business. Don't worry if the information you have is minimal. I might be able to discover more in the history archives, and you'll also be making potential connections with others who can fill in the gaps.

Bloomsbury Parishes, 1877

2008-04-29T06:40:00.000-07:00

These are the Bloomsbury parishes from Stanford's parish boundary map, 1877. According to this information, there are twenty parishes wholly or partly within the Bloomsbury area. Of these, six are wholly within Bloomsbury.

They are Holy Cross, All Saints St Pancras, St George's Bloomsbury, St Peter (Regent Square), St George the Martyr (Queen Square), and St John Holborn (Red Lion Square).

Of the other fourteen, we are only interested in the streets which fall within our borders, ie. Tottenham Court Road (west), Euston Road (north), Gray's Inn Road (east) and New Oxford Street/High Holborn (south).

These parishes are: St Andrew (Wells Street), St John (Fitzroy Square), and St Mary - only Tottenham Court Road.

St James (Hampstead Road), Christ Church (Somers Town), and St Saviour - only Euston Road (New Road).

St Albans - only Gray's Inn Road.

St Andrews - only Gray's Inn Road and High Holborn.

All Saints (Islington) - only Gray's Inn Road and Euston Road (New Road).

St Pancras (pictured, c.1890) - only Euston Road and streets south of here.

St Jude (Gray's Inn Road) - only Gray's Inn Road and streets west of here.

St Giles in the Fields - only St Giles High Street, Broad Street, High Holborn and streets north of here.

St Bartholomew's, and Trinity (Gray's Inn Road) - only Gray's Inn Road and streets west of here.

Albert Isaiah Coffin and the Tomey family

2008-04-29T00:08:00.000-07:00

I have just received an e.mail from Kay Williams whose ancestors, George Tomey and his second wife, Sarah, lived in Little Russell Street (1841), 49 Duke Street (1851, now Coptic Street) and 31 Dorset Street (1861), which is half a mile west of Bloomsbury. The Tomeys were involved with Albert Isaiah Coffin (1790/1-1866), an American medical botanist, who came to Britain in 1838.

Coffin (pictured) may have begun orthodox medical training but claimed to have been influenced by Native American healers, after being successfully treated for tuberculosis. He first practised in Manchester, using key remedies, lobelia (an emetic) and cayenne pepper (for warmth). He wrote 'Botanic Guide to Health' (1845) and 'Treatise on Midwifery and the Diseases of Women and Children' (1849). One of Coffin's assistants, John Skelton, was a great influence on John Boot, the father of Jesse and founder of Boot's pharmaceutical company and high street chemist chain. The institutions of British herbalism, notably the National Institute of Medical Herbalists, can be traced back to Coffin, who was active in London from the late 1840s.

Apparently, the Tomey family were a 'project' of Coffin's as he studied them for a number of years. Kay doesn't have the details of this surveillance but has given me the contact details of a distant cousin who might.

Coffin died on 1 August 1866 at 24 Montague Place, Russell Square, which is in the heart of Bloomsbury.

For more information about Albert Isaiah Coffin, click on the link:

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iss/library/spec/bookmonth/coffin.html

The Hatton Family

2008-04-23T02:54:00.000-07:00

Patricia Player writes: My husband's great, great uncle, Charles Frederick Hatton, is recorded as residing at 12 New Oxford Street at the time of the 1891 Census.

Charles was born at 5 Freeling Street, Islington, on 16 January 1853, son of Clerk Rattray Hatton and Elizabeth Ayres (Clerk Hatton was born in Edinburgh, attended the Edinburgh Academy, and according to the published Register of Pupils for the Academy, became Translator of Foreign Documents at Chancery Lane, London).

Charles' grandfather, David Hatton, of 97/98 Princes Street, Edinburgh, was a carver, gilder and printseller to the King. David Hatton published many of the works by the well known Scottish artist, Henry Raeburn (1756-1823).

Charles Frederick Hatton is recorded as being employed at the Courts of Justiciary, London. He married Frances Sarah Taylor at Islington in 1881.

Bloomsbury photographs and documents

2008-04-22T00:42:00.000-07:00

If you have family photographs and documents that would help bring this project to life, I'd be very pleased to include them on this blog and to deposit copies in the archive that we're hoping to establish at University College London. They'll also be important for future exhibitions.

I've been working on a similar project, The Children of Craig-y-nos, which also has a blog at http://craig-y-nos.blogspot.com/ You can see how we've built up the project over the past sixteen months with memories, images, letters and other memorabilia. We've also had two major exhibitions and a third is booked for this summer at Swansea Museum, south Wales.

If you want to send me original material (by registered mail for safety), I can scan it to high resolution and return it (by registered mail). If you have electronic versions so much the better.

The Horne Family

2008-04-21T08:22:00.000-07:00

Vivienne Lewis (nee Horne) writes: I am a direct descendent of the Horne family who were involved in the coal merchant business and subsequently banking and insurance in central London. Just recently I found out that my great-great-great grandfather had a house in Gordon Square which I believe is in the centre of Bloomsbury. In the 1841 Census he is recorded as living there with his wife Ann, his son Neale Horne and wife Louisa, their daughter Ann, and two more members of the Horne family, namely Mary and Julia, but I do not know their relationship to the others. Also recorded as living there are three female servants and one male servant. Unfortunately, in the 1841 Census there are no numbers listed in Gordon Square, but the entry above is of the Musgrave family, which includes a barrister and the entry below is of a James Harding who is recorded as being an artist.

The Horne coal merchant business was located at Bankside, and both Thomas and his Brother, William, were born on Bankside, the business having been founded by their great-grandfather, Benjamin Horne. As a point of interest, William's son, Edgar Horne, was a founding member and the first chairman of the Prudential Insurance Company, and subsequently his son, William Edgar, was also Chairman of the Prudential.

Before Thomas Horne relocated to Gordon Square, he had been living at his house in Bankside (where the Globe Theatre now stands), with his business close by. They were of Quaker origin, with a social conscience, and in the 1830s he had tried unsuccessfully to get a standard pay rate fixed for the porters so they would not have to compete with each other when work was scarce. This fact I found out from a book published last year called The House by the Thames: and the people who lived there, written by Gillian Tindall (London: Pimlico 2007).

Although I have yet to find out whether Thomas had any input into any of the institutions in Bloomsbury, he does come over as an individual who liked to be involved. At the time of the 1841 Census he was 56 and he was still alive in the 1861 Census when I found him living at 21 Highbury Grove, Islington.

Bloomsbury People

2008-04-21T08:10:00.001-07:00

Do your ancestors have Bloomsbury connections? If so, I'd like your help in creating an archive of 19th century literary, medical and scientific Bloomsbury (1800-1904), a period which saw its metamorphosis from swampy rubbish-dump to centre of intellectual life.

The Leverhulme-funded Bloomsbury Project is a University College London initiative that will trace the foundations of many diverse local institutions including Great Ormond Street Hospital, the British Museum Round Reading Room, the Swedenborg Society and Mudie's Circulating Library. It will also feature many of the individuals who made significant contributions to learning in the area. A website is being developed and will be added to as the project progresses over three years: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/bloomsbury-project/

However, I'm also keen to receive information about the ordinary professional and working people of Bloomsbury - the writers, journalists, publishers, librarians, hospital employees, doctors, dentists, scientists - who contributed to this increasingly vibrant and unique area of London. Bloomsbury is defined as the area of cental London bounded by Euston Road (north), Gray's Inn Road (east), New Oxford Street / High Holborn (south) and Tottenham Court Road (west).