James I. in Turkey, who was born about the end of the sixteenth or
beginning of the seventeenth century, and died in 1650. On his return
from Turkey he brought with him a diamond valued at £30,000, which
the king wished to purchase "on tick," but the cautious merchant, not
having sufficient confidence in his credit, declined to let him have
it on those terms. However, he agreed to lend it to him to flash it in
the eyes of his subjects on State occasions. He afterwards sold it to
Charles I., but most probably was never paid for it. He was reputed
to have been worth a quarter of a million sterling at one time, an
enormous sum for that period. He gave £18,000 towards the repairs
of St. Paul's Cathedral, and expended other sums on charitable and
philanthropic objects, but although so wealthy he lost so much money in
bad debts, arising out of loans to Kings James I. and Charles I. that
he fell into comparative poverty, and died in debt himself.
He erected for his residence a magnificent house on the western side
of the street, without the gate, a portion of whose picturesque
frontal remaining in 1890, attracted the notice and admiration of
every passer-by. It was a fine specimen of Elizabethan architecture,
and richly decorated both without and within. There were rooms with
wainscoted walls, sculptured chimney-pieces, and ceilings profusely
ornamented, but most of them terribly mutilated; one splendid ceiling
represented the sacrifice of Isaac, with a radiation of beautiful
ornamentation. Behind the house was a park, with mulberry trees, some
of which were only cut down within the present century; and near by,
in Halfmoon Alley, stood a house, with sculptural details, which is
supposed to have been the gatekeeper's lodge. A small portion with
a narrow frontage was converted into a tavern, with the sign of the
Sir Paul Pindar, which has just been taken down by the Great Eastern
Railway.
Devonshire House.—Built by one Jasper Fisher, around which he laid out
extensive pleasure grounds. It was held by the Cavendishes until 1670,
but in the interval, during the ascendency of the Puritans, had been
taken possession of by them, and made use of as a chapel. Butler, in
his _Hudibras_, describes the Rump Parliament as like—
"No part of the nation
But Fisher's folly congregation."
After this it was opened as a "Bank of Credit," a sort of pawnshop,
which did not last long, as by 1708, Devonshire Square was built,
described by Hatton as "a pretty, though very small square, inhabited
by gentry and other merchants."
Sir Thomas Gresham, the wealthy and munificent founder of the Royal
Exchange, was born _circa_ 1519; died, 1579; was knighted, 1559;
married Anne, daughter of William Fernley, and relict of William Read,
and had issue an only son, Richard, who died v.p. and s.p. 1564.
He was a parishioner of St. Helen's, and in that parish he built his
house, which Stow describes as "the most spacious thereabouts, builded
of brick and timber," and that is about all he could say in eulogy of
it, for it appears, from engravings of it, to have been more remarkable
for size than for architectural grandeur. It was built in the Flemish
style, chiefly by Flemish workmen, and extended from the west side of
Bishopsgate Street to Broad Street. It consisted of a quadrangle of
two galleried stories, with gabled attics; a piazza and rows of trees
running round, giving it a quiet, collegiate air, and a picturesque
aspect, and was surrounded by gardens and pleasure grounds, with trees.
It was commenced about the year 1559, and was finished in 1562. Within
its walls Sir Thomas entertained Queen Elizabeth, and had the custody
of the Lady Mary Grey.
At his death he left it to his widow for life, and at her decease
in trust to the Corporation of London and the Mercers' Company, to
be converted into a College of Professors, with salaries of £50
per annum, to lecture weekly on divinity, astronomy, music, law,
geometry, medicine, and rhetoric, for the gratuitous instruction of the
young citizens of London, which were commenced in 1597. Amongst the
professors were several eminent men, one of whom was Sir Christopher
Wren, who, in conjunction with others, there laid the foundation of
the Royal Society. The trustees allotted two rooms to the Society,
one for their meetings, the other for their books and philosophical
instruments. Pepys tells of King Charles making merry over the people
of Gresham House, and Boyle in particular, amusing themselves with the
child's play of weighing air. The society met at Gresham House until
1710, when they removed to Crane Court.
After the Great Fire of 1666, when nearly all the public buildings
were destroyed, Gresham House became the Mansion House and residence
of the Lord Mayor, the Law Courts, and the Exchange, the merchants
assembling in the quadrangle, where they remained until their
establishments were rebuilt.
The collegiate lectures were not properly appreciated, and became
almost sinecures to the professors, until in 1768-70 the Government,
wanting an excise office in the City, agreed with the trustees to take
a perpetual lease of the site, at the absurdly low rental of £500
per annum, the trustees to take down the buildings, to do which cost
them £1,800. The lectures were then removed to a dull, upper room
in the Exchange, where they were delivered until the destruction of
the Exchange by fire, in 1838, when they were given in the City of
London School, until the opening of the New Gresham Lecture Hall, in
Basinghall Street, in 1843.
Dashwood House stood westward of St. Botolph's Churchyard, and was the
City mansion of the Dashwood family; afterwards it is supposed to have
been the residence of Lady Jane Grey. It was subsequently converted
into the Ottoman Bank, and Consular and Mercantile Offices; has
recently been taken down, and a colossal block constructed for suites
of offices.
There are many other fine old houses in the ward, dating from before
the Fire, whose fronts have been modernised by building up the space
beneath the overhanging upper floors and removing the gables, but which
retain many of their olden time features at their backs, and are still
adorned in their interiors with fine balustraded staircases, carved
chimney pieces, and timber-work ceilings.
Another house of a somewhat different but very useful character
stood in Bishopsgate Street. In 1649 the Corporation of London
founded a house called the London Workhouse, "for the entertainment
of the greatest objects of commiseration, but likewise to receive a
great number of the miserable and unhappy vagrant orphans known by
the infamous name of 'blackguard,' the pest and shame of the City,
pilfering and begging about the streets by day, and lying therein,
almost naked, in all seasons of the year by night." In 1662 a charter
of incorporation was granted, under the name of "The President (always
the Lord Mayor) and Governors of the Poor of the City of London."
In 1700 a large house was built for the reception of these objects
of charity, and in 1704 it is recorded that "368 children were fed,
clothed, and taught to work and the principles of religion;" besides
whom there were "maintained and employed 653 vagabonds, sturdy beggars,
and other idle and disorderly persons." It was taken down early in the
present century, the Poor law administration rendering it superfluous.
In the Parish of St. Helen's there lived and died a man of eccentric
opinions and evil reputation, very different in character from his
neighbours, the merchant princes of Bishopsgate. His name was Francis
Bancroft, and his vocation that of a summoning officer in the Lord
Mayor's Court, in which capacity he made a large fortune by issuing
false summonses, "not only pillaging the poor, but likewise many of
the rich, who, rather than lose time in appearing before the said
magistrate, gave money to get rid of this common pest of the citizens."
He was so much detested that at his funeral the populace nearly jostled
his coffin off the shoulders of the bearers, and they set the bells
ringing "for joy at his unlamented death."
He entertained an eccentric notion that in a certain number of years
after his death he should return to life and occupy his original
position in the City, and in accordance with this idea had a vault,
with folding doors and glass in the panels, constructed in St. Helen's
Church, and a coffin with hinges only, not screwed down, so that
when he came to life he would have nothing to do but to step out of
his coffin, open the doors of the vault, and walk out. His name is
remembered by his having bequeathed £27,000 for the foundation of
almshouses for twenty-four poor almsmen, a chapel, a school for one
hundred poor boys, and houses for two masters. The money was left in
trust to the Drapers' Company, who erected the buildings at Mile-end in
1735. There was a proviso in the will that the trustees should visit
his tomb and look upon his body, in May every year for ever, failing
which the money to be diverted to other purposes. They have long
discontinued the custom, but still hold the trust, and although the
testator has now lain 150 years in his unfastened coffin, he has not
come forth yet to rectify this direliction of duty on the part of the
Drapers.
From a very early period has Bishopsgate Street and Ward been a
centre of Nonconformity. Maitland, writing 1725-36, refers to three
Presbyterian, two Independents, and one Quaker's meeting houses in the
parishes of St. Botolph and St. Helen. The Devonshire Square Baptist
church was, excepting one in Kent, the oldest in England, and in its
early years suffered much from persecution. It migrated hither from
Wapping in 1638, and occupied a part of Devonshire House, or, as it
was popularly called, Fisher's Folly. The chapel was built in 1653,
which was taken possession of by the Episcopalians after the fire,
and used for Church of England services until the churches of London
were rebuilt. It continued to flourish until, the Metropolitan Railway
requiring the site, it was taken down and a new Gothic chapel, with
spire, built at Stoke Newington out of the proceeds of the sale, at
a cost of £11,000. It has had several notable ministers, the most
remarkable being William Kaffin, who made an eminent figure among the
Antipœdo-Baptists of the 17th century.
Crosby Hall Independent Church. The Rev. Thos. Watson, whose chief
work was "A body of Divinity," consisting of 176 sermons, fol., 1792,
posth. Stephen Charnock, B.D. Benjamin Grosvenor, D.D., a very
eminent man, who held the pastorate from 1704 to 1749, one of the most
popular preachers in London; and was also lecturer in the Old Jewry,
at the Weigh House, and at Salters' Hall. Portrait in Dr. Williams'
library. Edmund Calamy, B.D., son of Dr. Edm. Calamy, author of the
"Nonconformist Memorial." On the expiration of the lease in 1799, the
congregation was dispersed, and the chapel was rented by James Relly, a
rough and uncultured Welshman, but a powerful preacher, who established
a church of Rellyanists or Rellyan Universalists, who held a species of
anti-nomian doctrine. He was author of some controversial works, now
altogether forgotten.
A Presbyterian meeting-house was erected in Little St. Helen's in
1672, under the Indulgence, which became a place of importance in the
annals of Nonconformity. Within its walls the first public ordination
of Nonconformist ministers took place, and the Coward Lecture preached
there from 1721, till the demolition of the chapel. There was also a
seven o'clock morning lecture, preached every Sunday in the summer
months, to commemorate the accession of the House of Hanover. The first
minister, he who took out the licence and collected the congregation,
was the learned and pious Samuel Annesley, LL.D., the ejected of St.
Giles's Cripplegate, formerly rector of Cliffe, Kent, and of St.
Matthew's, Friday Street, London, lecturer at St. Paul's, and one of
the preachers at Whitehall during the Protectorate. He was first cousin
to Arthur Annesley, Earl of Anglesey; was a popular preacher, and
author of some published sermons and other works. He continued in the
pastorate until his death in 1694. Anne, his daughter, a very superior
woman in every respect, in piety, intelligence, and sound discretion,
was married to the Rev. Samuel Wesley, vicar of Epworth, and bore him
nineteen children, amongst whom were John and Charles Wesley, the
founders of Methodism.
Benj. Robinson occupied the pulpit from 1701 to 1724, a Derbyshire man,
of great reputation, and Merchant Lecturer at Salters' Hall. After him
the church gradually dwindled down until 1790, when Mr. Brown preached
there for two years, and removed with his congregation to Shoreditch;
after whom Christian Frederick Trieber, with a Lutheran congregation,
occupied it for two years, and on the expiration of the lease removed
to Cheapside. Some other ministers of various denominations preached
in the chapel for short periods until 1799, when it was taken down and
houses built on the site.
In Hand Alley, on the western side of Bishopsgate Without, stood a
large Presbyterian meeting-house. On the site had been a plague pit,
and when it was proposed to be built upon it, the bodies, some not
entirely decomposed, 2,000 in number, were carted away and buried
in another pit, over which is a passage to Rose Alley. The chapel
was built soon after Bartholomew Day for Thomas Vincent, famous for
his labours amongst the poor during the plague of 1665, who held the
pastorate until his death in 1678. After the fire of 1666, his chapel
was seized by the clergyman of a City parish, who performed service
there until his church was rebuilt. After him came a succession of
popular ministers, until the beginning of the 18th century, when the
congregation, a wealthy body, removed with their minister, Dr. John
Evans, author of "A Discourse on Temper," to a new chapel, which they
built in 1727, in New Broad Street, when the old chapel was pulled down.
A Particular Baptist Church, in Great St. Helens, existed during the
time of the civil war, when the famous Hansard Knollys was the pastor.
He was a Lincolnshire man of great oratorical talent, and gathered
about him a congregation of a thousand hearers. His doctrines, however,
were deemed irregular and unsound by the Presbyterians, and he was
summoned before the Westminster assembly of divines, who prohibited
him from preaching. This prohibition appears, however, to have been
withdrawn afterwards, as from 1645 to 1691, he preached the doctrines
in Curriers' Hall. He was author of "The Smoke of the Temple," "An
Exposition of the Book of Revelations," and some other works, including
an autobiography written in 1672. His death occurred in 1691, at the
age of 93, when he was buried in Bunhill Fields. Portrait in Wilson's
"History of the Dissenting Church."
The Society of Friends have a large meeting-house in Bishopsgate
Street, which is the head quarters of the society, where the annual
meetings are held, when Friends from all parts of England assemble
here, giving quite a picturesque aspect to the street, when it is
thronged by them in their somewhat grotesque costume. Their first
meeting-house was in Bull and Mouth Street, Aldersgate, which was
destroyed by the fire of '66, rebuilt and occupied till 1744, when they
removed to White Hart Court, Gracechurch Street. Many of the members of
this meeting were the originators of some of the most eminent banking
firms of Lombard Street, such as the Gurneys, the Barclays, the Hoares,
the Hanburys, the Lloyds, the Mastermans, the Jansons, the Osgoods,
the Dimsdales, and others; and it was from there that the remains of
George Fox were carried to Bunhill Fields for burial, followed by 3,000
Friends. This chapel becoming too small for the congregation, a new
one, that now existing, was erected in Bishopsgate Street on the site
of the Dolphin Inn.
In 1838 a Jews' synagogue was built in Great St. Helens. It is the
largest in London in the Italian style, with a splendid interior.
The Wesleyan Centenary Hall stands in a commanding position opposite
the end of Threadneedle Street, with a fine pedimented range of columns.
We have, in our historical retrospect, seen Bishopsgate under various
aspects. In the Roman era, when it was a suburb of aristocratic
residences, with all the appliances of Roman civilisation, and all
the beauties of Roman art; in the Saxon and Norman periods, with its
mean habitations and monastic establishments, with cowled monks, and
bare-footed friars, conspicuous amongst the wayfarers as they passed
along the thoroughfare ankle deep in mud, or blinded by the clouds of
dust from the unpaved roads; in the days of the Tudors and Stuarts,
when it was lined with picturesque gabled houses, with overhanging
upper floors, cross timberings, and latticed windows; with quaint old
hostelries and their galleried courtyards, frequently occupied by
fashionable crowds of spectators, witnessing the performances of the
actors of the Elizabethan drama; and with the noble mansions of the
City magnates and merchant princes. In addition to these, there was the
City gate and a conduit at each end of the street, one to the north,
just within the gate, erected by Lord Mayor Knesworth in 1505; the
other at the south end, at its junction with the streets of Cornhill,
Leadenhall, and Gracious Church. The street was rendered more passable
for pedestrians and vehicles by being paved in 1543, and the sloughs
of despond, previously so characteristic of London thoroughfares, and
so impedimental to locomotion, got rid of. After this followed the
Georgian or dark age of architecture, when the quaint old houses of the
past were replaced by the hideous abortions of the last and beginning
of the present century.
Now for the third time we see Bishopsgate Street again gradually
assuming an aspect of architectural grandeur, which will make it in
another fifty years one of the finest streets in London or any other
city. Within the last few years there have been erected several
blocks of buildings of a palatial character, and this process of
transformation is still going on with great rapidity. Among the more
notable we may mention the National and Provincial Bank of England, one
of the finest buildings of Modern London; the Royal Bank Buildings, the
London and Lancashire Life Office, the Capital and Counties Bank, the
South Sea Chambers, the Palmerston Buildings, the Devonshire Chambers,
the Royal Bank of Scotland, and the block of offices at the rear of St.
Botolph's Church.
Aldersgate Street and St. Martin's-le-Grand.
These two streets, forming one continuous thoroughfare, are so
intimately associated in their annals, that it is almost impossible
to write the history of one of them without constant reference to the
other.
Aldersgate Street derives its name from the old City gate which was
the north-western outlet of the City, and St. Martin's-le-Grand
(formerly Martin's Lane) from the collegiate establishment which
occupied the site of the older or eastern portion of the Post Office.
In the last century, that portion from the Barbican to the Bars was
called "Pick-axe Street." Aldersgate is supposed to have been one of
the four gates of Roman London, and was in the line of an ancient
British trackway, improved by the Romans into a road called Watling
Street, which came from Dover, crossed the Thames by a ferry, passed
along where the modern Watling Street is, emerged from the City by
Aldersgate, and went onwards towards Verulamium (St. Albans). As to
the origin of the name there are various discrepant presumptions.
Some assume that it was so called because it was one of the elder, or
one of the four original gates; others that it obtained its name from
a Saxon—one Aldrich, the builder or re-edifier of it; but the most
probable assumption is that it was so denominated from the alder, or
elder trees which grew in great profusion in that locality. The wall,
after leaving Cripplegate, proceeded westward for a short distance,
then turned at a sharp angle to the south, along the present Noble
Street, until it came to near where the Castle and Falcon stands, where
it again took a south-westerly direction, past St. Botolph's Church
and the Greyfriars' Monastery. As represented by Aggas's map, there
were four semicircular bastions in the Noble Street portion, looking
westward, and two in the line from Noble Street to Greyfriars, besides
the gate at the end of St. Martin's Lane, which is there represented as
a heterogeneous mass of buildings, fortified, and with two posterns,
the centre arch being hidden by a low building standing in front of
it. A little to the north-west of Cripplegate stood a watch-tower
called the Barbican, on the north side of the street bearing that
name. It was erected by the Romans, and was garrisoned by a cohort of
soldiers, who had a threefold duty to perform: first to keep an outlook
for approaching enemies, secondly to watch for the outbreak of fire
in the City, and thirdly to keep a beacon blazing on the top to serve
as a guide for travellers by night over the northern fens and moors.
Bridgewater House, which was destroyed by fire in 1698, is supposed to
have been built on the site, and now Bridgewater Square. Some remains
of the old Barbican were to be seen here in the last century.
Very little is known of the earlier history of Aldersgate. Stow says
"This gate was antiently at divers times increased with buildings,
namely on the south side, a great frame of timber was set up,
containing many large rooms and lodgings; and on the east side was the
addition of one large building of timber with one large floor, paved
with stone or tile, and a well therein curbed with stone to a great
depth, and rising into the said room two stories high from the ground."
In 1610, Thomas Hayes erected a conduit a little way to the north
of the gate, which was supplied with water brought in pipes from the
Thames.
It was usual to grant the rooms over the gates as residences for
officials of the Corporation, those over Aldersgate being generally
appropriated to the city crier. There is among the Corporation Records
a deed of grant, in Latin, dated 49, Edw. 3, 1378, which, translated,
runs thus: "Be it remembered that we, William Walworth, Mayor of London
and the Assembly of Aldermen, with the assent of the Commonality of the
City aforesaid, by reason of the good service by Ralph Strode, Common
Countor (pleader or common serjeant) unto us done and hereafter to
be done, have given and granted unto the said Ralph all the dwelling
houses, together with the garden and all other appurtenances, situate
over the gate of Aldrichesgate, to have and to hold the same as long
as he, the said Ralph, shall remain in the said office of Countor, it
being understood that the Chamberlain for the time being during the
next year shall cause at his own expense all and singular the defaults
in the said house to be repaired, etc." In the reign of Elizabeth it
was occupied by the famous printer, John Day. Frequently, as was
usual with city gates, Aldersgate presented to the view of passers-by
a ghastly garnishing of the dismembered limbs of traitors. Thus Pepys
writes, October 20th, 1660: "This afternoon, going through London
and calling at Crowe's (Alderman Crowe) the upholsterer in Saint
Bartholomew's, I saw the limbs of some of our new traytors set upon
Aldersgate, which was a sad sight to see; and a bloody week this and
the last have been, there being ten hanged, drawn, and quartered."