London of the past—Eccentricities of modern architecture—Dreary
modern streets—Decay of the picturesque—The dignity of old
London—“The only running footman”—Berkeley Square and its
memories—Lady Cowper—Lord and Lady Haversham—Charles Street
and Mayfair—Curzon Street and Piccadilly—Wimborne House—A
great party—Changes since the ’sixties—The last of the
apothecaries—Lady Londonderry—The Sultan and his Ambassadress
—Shadows of the past.
Since the days when as a child I first knew London the outward aspect of
most of the streets may be said to have completely changed. Up to within
the last twenty years the alteration was not very marked, being for the
most part gradual, but now a veritable architectural revolution seems to
be taking place. Everywhere the boxlike Georgian house is passing away,
and on all sides towering mansions with elaborate frontages in every
possible style (some indeed being little but collections of decorative
samples jumbled up together) are making their appearance. Amongst other
eccentricities modern architects seem to have an especial love for small
windows, which, considering the not over-abundant supply of sunshine and
light available in London, seem somewhat out of place. On one estate (I
believe that belonging to the Duke of Westminster), a clause in every
lease forbids the building of a house with any but windows of very
moderate dimensions. In modern street architecture uniformity seems to
have little place; it is, I fancy, considered inartistic by English
architects, who, careless of the example of Mansard (the designer of the
Place de la Concorde) and other men of the past, who were capable of
really great architectural conceptions, imagine that decoration, no
matter how exotic or inappropriate, produces a more striking effect than
that well-proportioned, dignified, and graceful uniformity of
construction to which, I fear, they are quite unable to attain. The best
modern street in the West End, I think, is Mount Street, which,
notwithstanding the diversity of style exhibited in the façades of the
houses, is a really fine street, and one, moreover, not entirely
unpicturesque. Most of the old streets in the West End are too narrow
for the lofty houses now so frequently being erected. How the occupants
of these mansions—overshadowed as they must be by other giant
constructions facing them, and for the most part only furnished with
ridiculous little windows—ever obtain any light, is a mystery which I
think their builders would be considerably puzzled to explain. The old
Georgian houses were quite devoid of any pretension to especial
decorative merit, but some of them were not lacking in a certain dignity
of proportion, whilst ample provision for the admission of light was
always to be found. The ironwork of the railings was also in some cases
extremely artistic, never erring (as almost invariably does modern
ironwork) in the direction of over-elaboration and meaningless
eccentricity.
In former years Punch and Judy shows were quite common in the London
streets, but they are now rarely to be met with, and the piano-organs
look like sharing their fate, for of late there has been a great
diminution in their numbers, and few are now to be heard in the West
End. They have indeed been practically banished from many squares and
streets, in some of which draconian edicts are posted up against them.
Personally I rather deplore their disappearance, but then I have never
had the slightest pretension to being endowed with a musical ear, and I
suppose many people find them a great nuisance. Nevertheless, all the
barrel-organs in London could not produce anything like the din made by
that clanging and clattering conveyance, the motor omnibus. The old
red-coated crossing-sweepers are now also almost a thing of the past,
though one or two are still to be seen striking a picturesque note in
certain squares; modern methods of road-cleaning have, however, rendered
this humble vocation more or less obsolete. Some years ago street
vendors shouting out their picturesque cries still survived as a feature
of some London streets, but now, I believe, there are regulations
preventing any one shouting out anything, and even the newsboys, who
formerly used to utter the most strident cries when shouting out news,
real or imaginary, have been sternly bidden to hold their peace.
Rowlandson or Wheatley would find no picturesque types in London streets
to-day, from which even the Guy Fawkes celebrations, not very long ago
pretty well universal, have now been practically banished. As for the
Jack of the Green, with his attendants, he has long become but a memory
of other days, and with him has gone that strange instrumentalist who,
playing any number of instruments, may be said to have been a musical
host in himself. The tendency of the age now seems distinctly hostile to
everything which is not regulated, and a good-humoured toleration is no
longer meted out to the picturesque, if somewhat disreputable,
characters who were formerly well-known features of certain
thoroughfares. London, indeed, is altogether a different and, no doubt,
a much more orderly city than when Pierce Egan’s heroes, Corinthian Tom
and Jerry Hawthorn, were witnessing the day and night scenes which
Cruikshank pictured with such quaint and inimitable skill.
Externally, as I have before said, the streets within the last twenty
years or so have changed a good deal. Amongst other alterations the
removal of the old lamp-posts, which used to line each side of every
street, has effected a considerable alteration in the appearance of
London.
The electric light is, no doubt, a great improvement, but there was
something rather picturesque about the lamplighter who, at the dusk of a
winter’s evening, kindled the old gas-lamps which are now things of the
past. When the electric light first came in most people viewed it with
the greatest suspicion, which for some time seemed rather justified,
for, owing to an absolutely safe method of installation not being
perfectly understood, there were a good many slight outbreaks of fire,
for the most part happily extinguished before much damage had been done.
About the first people to make use of the new illuminant in their house
were Lord and Lady Randolph Churchill.
A certain architectural symmetry was always observed by the architects
who built the houses around the old squares of London, but to-day there
is no uniformity at all—buildings of every sort of style and size
jostling each other like toys in a shop window. In our streets and
squares, indeed, we may see attempts at every kind of style, from the
Byzantine to a sort of spurious Queen Anne, whilst terra-cotta
decorations (peculiarly unsuited, I fancy, to our atmosphere) ramble in
meaningless riot over many a sham Renaissance façade. Proportion, the
real foundation of true artistic effect, is totally neglected in favour
of laboured originality of design, whilst hardly ever do any of our
modern buildings convey that idea of dignified stability which should be
the thoughtful architect’s chief aim. It is true we have what might well
be termed “the prison style,” in which enormous arches of ponderous
design support minute pillars, which in turn are crowned with some
eccentric terminal, the whole being liberally topped by a series of
domes, pepper-boxes, or miniature steeples embellished with
ornamentation of a more or less insignificant kind.
Old London, from an architectural point of view, was a very
unpretentious city, as may be seen from many an old print; but there was
a certain air of solid comfort about it as well as a good deal of
old-fashioned dignity.
Few streets in the West End have escaped being modernised, and façades
of every period and style may now be seen side by side with such old
Georgian mansions as still remain. On the whole, however, Berkeley
Square has survived pretty well, and still retains a good deal of its
old appearance.
The streets leading out of it, though in many cases some of the houses
have been altered, also keep that air of quiet repose which makes this
part of London so pleasant to live in.
I have lived in Charles Street now for some thirty-eight years, and have
naturally become much attached to it and to Berkeley Square, where I was
born, and where nearly every house possesses memories which to me recall
the past. Charles Street boasts one of the most curious old tavern signs
in London—“The Running Footman”—though I fear that the sign itself is
but a modern reproduction of the original one. Be this as it may, no
similar signboard exists; it recalls the days when noblemen were
preceded by runners, whose especial duty lay in clearing the way. The
legend beneath the footman, clad in green coat and knee-breeches,
states, “I am the only running footman,” and such as a matter of fact is
the case, for there exists no other sign of this kind. Long may this
interesting survival of other days maintain its position!
The Duke of Queensberry,—“Old Q.,” the star of Piccadilly,—is believed
to have been the last nobleman to retain running footmen. These he
himself was in the habit of engaging after having made them give an
exhibition of such fleetness of foot as they might possess. A well-known
story used to be told of the trick which one of these gentlemen played
his Grace. A man desirous of serving “Old Q.” in the capacity of running
footman had to run a sort of trial up Piccadilly, whilst his future
master sat on the balcony of his house carefully watching the
performance. On one occasion, a particularly likely-looking candidate
having presented himself, orders were given that he should exhibit his
running powers in the Duke’s livery, in which accordingly he was
equipped. The man ran well, and “Old Q.,” who was delighted, shouted out
to him from his balcony: “You will do very well for me.” “And your
livery will do very well for me,” replied the man, after which reply he
made off at top speed, and could never be caught nor found again.
Running footmen were wont to sustain their energies by drinking a
mixture composed of white wine and eggs—a small supply of the wine
being frequently carried in the large silver ball which topped their
tall canes. About seven miles an hour was by no means an unusual speed
for them to attain, but when put upon their mettle they would do even
better.
In the eighteenth century these men were frequently matched to run
against horses and carriages, and one of the last recorded contests of
this sort was between a celebrated running footman and the Duke of
Marlborough, some time before 1770. The wager was that the footman would
run to Windsor from London quicker than the Duke could drive there in
his phaeton and four, both to start at the same time. The result was
that his Grace just (but only just) won, whilst the poor footman, worn
out by his tremendous exertions, and very much chagrined at his defeat,
died from the effects, it was said, of over-fatigue.
Some of these men wore no breeches at all, but a sort of short silk
petticoat kept down by a deep gold fringe.
In the north of England the calling of running footmen was not totally
extinct till well into the middle of the last century, for as late as
1851 the Sheriff and Judges were announced, on the opening of a North of
England Assize Court, as being preceded by two running footmen, whilst
about the same date the carriage of the High Sheriff of Northumberland,
on its way to meet the Judges of Assize, was attended by two pages on
foot, holding on to the door handles of the carriage and running beside
it. These running footmen were dressed in a short livery jacket and
white trousers, and wore a jockey cap.
In the old days, when communication between towns and villages was by no
means easy, swift runners were often of the greatest service to their
employers, especially in cases of illness when a doctor lived far away.
The story of the Scotch running footman is a very old one; still I hope
I may be excused for repeating it here. This man was on his way from
Glasgow to Edinburgh in order to requisition the services of two noted
physicians for his sick master, when he was stopped by an inquirer who
wished to know how the invalid was.
“He’s no dead yet,” was the reply, “but he soon will be dead, for I’m
fast on the way to fetch twa Edinbro’ doctors to come and visit him.”
In a small street at the foot of Hay Hill, leading towards Burton Mews,
used to be another quaint old sign—“The Three Chairmen”—a relic of the
days when Sedan-chairs were in fashion. I do not know whether this
public-house still exists, but rather think it has disappeared.
In 1774 a party of people driving in a coach were attacked and robbed on
Hay Hill; the reputation of this locality, indeed, was very bad, as
George IV. and the Duke of York, when very young men, discovered to
their cost, for they also were made to stand and deliver by highwaymen
who stopped their hackney carriage at this place. George IV. always used
to declare that the man who robbed him was none other than Champneys the
singer. The reason, as a matter of fact, why no great stir was made
about this affair, was that the Prince Regent would have had to account
for his whereabouts the evening before the robbery took place, and this
he was for certain reasons unwilling to do.
The whole neighbourhood, indeed, is full of memories of old days when
life in London was totally different from that of the present
time—witness the stout iron bar which stands in the doorway of
Lansdowne Passage in Berkeley Street. This was put up to hamper
highwaymen, one of these gentry having effected his escape after a
robbery in Piccadilly by galloping through the passage from Curzon
Street, his horse successfully negotiating the steps. This happened in
comparatively recent times—at the end of the eighteenth century.
It might be thought that in these more peaceful times highwaymen had
long been extinct in the West End of London, but such is not the case,
for within the last twenty years they reappeared in modern guise in the
very centre of Mayfair. One winter’s night in 1889, the French naval
_attaché_, who was going home from his club, was set upon in Curzon
Street by four men who, after violently assaulting and robbing him, left
him senseless upon the ground, where he was discovered by the police a
short time afterwards. The assailants in this case were never, I
believe, arrested, though the whole affair created a great sensation,
occurring as it did in the very centre of a quarter generally considered
to be about the safest in London.
Peaceful as Berkeley Square is to-day, it came near being a scene of
carnage at the time of Lord Liverpool’s ministry, when artillerymen
stood there, lighted match in hand, by the side of loaded field-pieces
which they were quite prepared to fire. Mount Street also has had a
military day, owing its very existence indeed to rumours of battle, for
on its site stood a bastion or mount—part of the line of fortifications
hastily thrown up to defend the western suburbs of London in 1643, when
the Parliament was expecting an attack from the forces of King Charles
I. In the centre of Berkeley Square stood, up to comparatively recent
times, an equestrian statue of George III. as Marcus Aurelius. This had
been erected by the Princess Amelia; it had no particular artistic
merit, and was perched upon a very clumsy pedestal.
Berkeley Chapel, at the other end of Charles Street, has been but
recently demolished; it may not be generally known that at one time the
celebrated Sydney Smith was its minister. In after-years this celebrated
divine took up his abode in Charles Street, at No. 33. At No. 42 in this
old street lived the celebrated and unfortunate dandy “Beau
Brummell”—this was about the year 1792; whilst a more intellectual
occupant of one of its houses was Bulwer Lytton, in whose house was a
room fitted up in exact facsimile of an apartment at Pompeii—everything
being in keeping. Charles Street, in all probability, did not derive its
name from the Merry Monarch, but from Charles, Earl of Falmouth, brother
of the first Lord Berkeley of Stratton. Berkeley Square, though begun
about 1698, was not finished till the time when Sir Robert Walpole was
Prime Minister; he, indeed, made a note of the last houses being built
there. Many distinguished people have lived in this old square—Lord
Clive amongst others. It was at a house in Berkeley Square that a butler
murdered a certain nobleman, his master—a crime which called forth from
George Selwyn the remark: “Good God! What an idea that butler will give
the convicts of us when he is sent to Newgate!”
In these days houses change owners very quickly, and people, I think,
rather like the amusement of taking new houses and redecorating them;
but in the past this was not at all the case. There is yet one house in
Charles Street, “No. 41,” which has been in the possession of the same
family for over one hundred and fifty years. Lord Powis’s house in
Berkeley Square is another instance of a long continuity of tenure.
Another old-world square is St. James’s. Passing through it the other
day my thoughts strayed back to the memory of a great lady of old days,
Lady Cowper, who used to live there. She was the mother of the late
earl, and has long been dead. Well do I remember the ballroom, and
especially some magnificent silver chandeliers, which made a great
impression upon my girlish mind.
Lady Cowper was an amusing woman, and used to say shrewd things at
times. She once told me, “To make a ball successful, three men should be
always asked to every lady—one to dance, one to eat, and one to
stare—that makes everything go off well”—and her entertainments
certainly did.
The beautiful drawing-room in this house is, I believe, reproduced at
No. 9 Grosvenor Square, the residence of Lord and Lady Haversham, who
are endowed with a quite unusual share of artistic taste, as is
exemplified in their delightful country residence, Southill Park, in
Berkshire.
There still remain in Charles Street, as well as in Berkeley Square,
several specimens of the old iron extinguishers which were formerly used
by the linkboys in the days when torches served to light people home and
no regular system of street lighting existed. For this reason the
neighbourhood of Mayfair was at one time none too pleasant at night,
abounding, as it did, in riotous characters.
It was said that it was Lord Coventry, the husband of the famous beauty,
who finally caused an end to be put to the “May fair” which used to be
held upon the ground now covered by Hertford Street, Curzon Street,
Shepherd’s Market, and some other streets. Lord Coventry lived at the
house at the corner of Engine Street (now Brick Street) which, in the
middle of the eighteenth century, had been erected on the site of the
large and ancient Greyhound Inn. The perpetual noise and uproar which
went on by night as well as by day during the whole month of May, owing
to the fair, so irritated and annoyed him that he determined to make an
effort to have it totally suppressed. As early as 1709 it had been
prohibited, but within a few years was once more revived, though the
Grand Jury of the City of Westminster had characterised it as a vile and
riotous assembly. Lord Coventry, however, by some means or other, was
completely successful in his efforts to abolish finally what he
considered to be an intolerable nuisance, and no “May fair” seems to
have been held much after 1764, the date at which Lord Coventry entered
into possession of his new house. Most of the ground on which the fair
was held belonged to a Mr. Shepherd, whence has originated the present
name of Shepherd’s Market, which is sometimes wrongly called “Shepherd
Market,” as if it had been a meeting-place for shepherds in the past.
This was never the case. Another gentleman of the same sounding name
also lived in Mayfair for a time in 1723. This was the celebrated Jack
Sheppard of notorious memory.
In an attic in Curzon Street Sir Francis Chantrey, when quite an
undistinguished young man, modelled his Head of Satan and the bust of
Lord St. Vincent; and in this street also lived Madam Vestris; the Miss
Berrys, one of whom I knew, lived at No. 8, whilst Lord Beaconsfield
went to reside in this street at No. 19 at the beginning of 1881, in
which house he died some three months later.
Many have sought to trace the origin of the name Piccadilly, but I
believe that no entirely satisfactory explanation has ever been given.
The first mention of what is now a world-famous thoroughfare occurs (as
is well known) in Gerard’s _Herbal_, which has originated an erroneous
idea that Piccadilly existed in 1596 when the work in question was
published. As a matter of fact, it is not in the original edition of
Gerard’s _Herbal_ that such a mention occurs, but in a much later one
published in 1636, and edited by Thomas Johnson. It runs as
follows:—“The little wild bugloss grows upon the dry ditch bank about
Pickadella.” It is pretty well authenticated that about 1630 a retired
tailor, named Higgins, whose fortune had been in a great measure made by
the sale of “pickadelles”—piccadillies or turnover collars—built
himself a snug house in this locality which he called Pickadilla Hall;
and Mr. Higgins, therefore, it was who, in all probability, originated
the name.
Up to about 1851, the year of the great Exhibition, Piccadilly was more
a fashionable lounge than anything else, but since that time it has
completely changed, and from having been a purely West End street has
become an ordinary London thoroughfare.
No. 22 Arlington Street, now Wimborne House, has had a good many
different names as well as occupants. Once it was called Beaufort House,
then Hamilton House, then Walsingham House, and now finally, as has been
said, Wimborne House. Amongst other remarkable people who have lived
there was Lord Houghton, who once took it for a year. It was the
interior of this house, it is said, that Hogarth utilised as the scene
of the wonderful series illustrating the marriage _à la mode_ of his
day. In 1870 Mr. Pender (afterwards Sir John) gave a great party in this
mansion to inaugurate the opening of a telegraph cable to India, in
those days considered a great feat. Messages, I remember, were sent to
the Viceroy during the evening, and congratulatory replies duly
received, whilst most of the intellect and rank of London were amongst
the guests. The present King and Queen were there, and Mr. and Mrs.
Disraeli, and altogether the whole entertainment was a most brilliant
one. Just about this time society was beginning to widen out, and the
stamp which once used so ruthlessly to hall-mark people as belonging to
the _crême de la crême_ or as being outside the pale, to make a more
feeble impression. Nevertheless, the great millionaires had not yet made
their appearance, and if any one died and left a hundred thousand it was
still thought enormous.
The ways and things of the ’sixties seem very strange to-day. Oysters
were a shilling a dozen, and people used to be made ill by arsenic green
wall-paper. The hideous crinoline was universally worn by ladies, and
entailed untold inconvenience and discomfort. Old Dr. Fuller of
Piccadilly (the last of the apothecaries) was once summoned to dislodge
a fish-bone from the throat of Frances Anne, Lady Londonderry, and when
imperiously told to begin, was obliged to say that he was quite unable
to get within many yards of her ladyship’s throat in consequence of her
crinoline being so enormous and so solid!
People were much more ignorant about health than is the case nowadays,
when they discuss the unromantic ailments of their interiors with the
greatest freedom. Formerly great reticence was observed about such
subjects, which no one would have even dreamt of mentioning. Doctors,
and the medicine they gave, were still viewed with something of a
mysterious awe. In the days when the old Coliseum in Regent’s Park was
still in existence, a gentleman came out of his doctor’s in Harley
Street, looking very solemn, and met a friend on the doorstep, who said,
“What on earth is the matter? You look like the man who lost a sovereign
and found sixpence.” “Well,” said the other, “my doctor tells me that
I’m not at all the thing. By the way, where is the ‘Perineum’?” “Oh,”
replied his friend, “that’s easily answered; straight down Portland
Place, and turn to the right, and then you’ll see it in front of you!”
At a great party which was given at the India Office during the Sultan’s
visit to England in 1867, the wife of the Turkish Ambassador (who was,
of course, like most of the Turkish envoys sent to England, a
Christian), a lady weighing some twenty-five stone, completely
succumbed, being overpowered by the heat. A doctor was present in the
room, being in close attendance upon the Sultan, and every one thought
that he would at once be sent to revive the enormous and prostrate
Ambassadress. Her imperial master, however, instead of thus despatching
his medical adviser, whom he kept in close attendance by his side, did
not show the slightest desire to dispense even for a moment with his
services, but on the contrary, fearing that the excitement consequent
upon this unfortunate occurrence would heighten the august temperature,
bade the physician keep his hand closely upon the imperial pulse till
such time as all inflammatory symptoms should have subsided.
Formerly, practically the whole of the West End was more or less given
up to the fashionable world, and the great majority of people in
Piccadilly or St. James’s Street knew one another. The men then thought
a good deal more of their dress than is to-day the case; indeed, having
as a rule no occupation, it was for many one of the principal ends of
their existence. The young man of that day lived principally in Mount
Street, where, before it was rebuilt, comfortable furnished chambers
could be procured for about a hundred a year—rather a difference this
from the present Mount Street, in which an unfurnished flat of the
simplest description costs about four or five hundred pounds per annum.
In spite of their greater attention to dress, the dandies of another age
were not so luxurious as the men of to-day—at least theirs was a
different kind of luxury. They had no City avocations to attend to
during the day, or restaurants to dine at in the evening, and
consequently clubs played a much greater part in their lives than is now
the case. A sort of mysterious solemnity used to attach to clubs in my
youth, and we used to regard them with the greatest awe. To-day ladies
frequently call for male relatives at their clubs; years ago such a
thing was absolutely unheard of, and would have been regarded with the
utmost consternation and horror.
In the ’forties, I remember, it was hardly considered proper for a young
lady to walk past the big bow-window at White’s, at that time filled
with the dandies of the day; and I well remember my father telling our
governess to take care that my sister and myself, when going down St.
James’s Street, should walk on the other side of the road. The peculiar
charm of this old street has been best expressed, I think, by my
delightful friend of other days, the late Mr. Frederick Locker:—
Why, that’s where Sacharissa sigh’d
When Waller read his ditty;
Where Byron lived and Gibbon died,
And Alvanley was witty.
At dusk when I am strolling there
Dim forms will rise around me,
Lepel flits past me in her chair,
And Congreve’s airs astound me.
And once Nell Gwynne, a frail young sprite,
Look’d kindly when I met her;
I shook my head, perhaps,—but quite
Forgot to quite forget her.