OLD JEWRY.
The Old Jewry--Early Settlements of Jews in London and Oxford--Bad
Times for the Israelites--Jews' Alms--A King in Debt--Rachel weeping
for her Children--Jewish Converts--Wholesale Expulsion of the Chosen
People from England--The Rich House of a Rich Citizen--The London
Institution, formerly in the Old Jewry--Porsoniana--Nonconformists
in the Old Jewry--Samuel Chandler, Richard Price, and James
Foster--The Grocers' Company--Their Sufferings under the
Commonwealth--Almost Bankrupt--Again they Flourish--The Grocers'
Hall Garden--Fairfax and the Grocers--A Rich and Generous Grocer--A
Warlike Grocer--Walbrook--Bucklersbury.
The Old Jewry was the Ghetto of mediaeval London. The Rev. Moses
Margoliouth, in his interesting "History of the Jews in Great Britain,"
has clearly shown that Jews resided in England during the Saxon times,
by an edict published by Elgbright, Archbishop of York, A.D. 470,
forbidding Christians to attend the Jewish feasts. It appears the Jews
sometimes left lands to the abbeys; and in the laws of Edward the
Confessor we find them especially mentioned as under the king's guard
and protection.
The Conqueror invited over many Jews from Rouen, who settled themselves
chiefly in London, Stamford, and Oxford. In London the Jews had two
colonies--one in Old Jewry, near King Offa's old palace; and one in the
liberties of the Tower. Rufus, in his cynical way, marked his hatred of
the monks by summoning a convocation, where English bishops met Jewish
rabbis, and held a religious controversy, Rufus swearing by St. Luke's
face that if the rabbis had the best of it, he would turn Jew at once.
In this reign the Jews were so powerful at Oxford that they let three
halls--Lombard Hall, Moses Hall, and Jacob Hall--to students; and their
rabbis instructed even Christian students in their synagogue. Jews took
care of vacant benefices for the king. In the reign of Henry I. the Jews
began to make proselytes, and monks were sent to several towns to preach
against them. Halcyon times! With the reign of Stephen, however, began
the storms, and, with the clergy, the usurper persecuted the Jews,
exacting a fine of L2,000 from those of London alone for a pretended
manslaughter. The absurd story of the Jews murdering young children, to
anoint Israelites or to raise devils with their blood, originated in
this reign.
Henry II. was equally ruthless, though he did grant Jews cemeteries
outside the towns. Up till this time the London Jews had only been
allowed to bury in "the Jews' garden," in the parish of St. Giles's,
Cripplegate. In spite of frequent fines and banishments, their historian
owns that altogether they throve in this reign, and their physicians
were held in high repute. With Richard I., chivalrous to all else,
began the real miseries of the English Jews. Even on the day of his
coronation there was a massacre of the Jews, and many of their houses
were burnt. Two thousand Jews were murdered at York, and at Lynn and
Stamford they were also plundered. On his return from Palestine Richard
established a tribunal for Jews. In the early part of John's reign he
treated the money-lenders, whom he wanted to use, with consideration. He
granted them a charter, and allowed them to choose their own chief
rabbi. He also allowed them to try all their own causes which did not
concern pleas of the Crown; and all this justice only cost the English
Jews 4,000 marks, for John was poor. His greed soon broke loose. In 1210
he levied on the Jews 66,000 marks, and imprisoned, blinded, and
tortured all who did not readily pay. The king's last act of inhumanity
was to compel some Jews to torture and put to death a great number of
Scotch prisoners who had assisted the barons. Can we wonder that it is
still a proverb among the English Jews, "Thank God that there was only
one King John?"
[Illustration: RICHARD PORSON. (_From an Authentic Portrait._)]
The regent of the early part of the reign of Henry III. protected the
Jews, and exempted them from the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical
courts, but they were compelled to wear on their breasts two white
tablets of linen or parchment, two inches broad and four inches long;
and twenty-four burgesses were chosen in every town where they resided,
to protect them from the insults of pilgrims; for the clergy still
treated them as excommunicated infidels. But even this lull was
short--persecution soon again broke out. In the 14th of Henry III. the
Crown seized a third part of all their movables, and their new synagogue
in the Old Jewry was granted to the brothers of St. Anthony of Vienna,
and turned into a church. In the 17th of Henry III. the Jews were again
taxed to the amount of 18,000 silver marks. At the same time the king
erected an institution in New Street (Chancery Lane) for Jewish
converts, as an atonement for his father's cruelty to the persecuted
exiles. Four Jews of Norwich having been dragged at horses' tails and
hung, on a pretended charge of circumcising a Christian boy, led to new
persecution, and the Jews were driven out of Newcastle and Southampton;
while to defray the expense of entertaining the Queen's foreign uncles
20,000 marks were exacted from the suffering race. In the 19th year of
his reign Henry, driven hard for money, extorted from the rich Jews
10,000 more marks, and several were burned alive for plotting to destroy
London by fire. The more absurd the accusation the more eagerly it was
believed by a superstitious and frightened rabble. In 1244, Matthew of
Paris says, the corpse of a child was found buried in London, on whose
arms and legs were traced Hebrew inscriptions. It was supposed that the
Jews had crucified this child, in ridicule of the crucifixion of Christ.
The converted Jews of New Street were called in to read the Hebrew
letters, and the canons of St. Paul's took the child's body, which was
supposed to have wrought miracles, and buried it with great ceremony not
far from their great altar. In order to defray the expenses of his
brother Richard's marriage the poor Jews of London were heavily mulcted,
and Aaron of York, a man of boundless wealth, was forced to pay 4,000
marks of silver and 400 of gold. Defaulters were transported to Ireland,
a punishment especially dreaded by the Jews. A tax called Jews' alms was
also sternly enforced; and we find Lucretia, widow of David, an Oxford
Jew, actually compelled to pay L2,590 towards the rebuilding of
Westminster Abbey. It was about this time that Abraham, a Jew of
Berkhampstead, strangled his wife, who had refused to help him to
defile and deface an image of the Virgin, and was thrown into a dungeon
of the Tower; but the murderer escaped, by a present of 7,000 marks to
the king. Tormented by the king's incessant exactions, the Jews at last
implored leave to quit England before their very skins were taken from
them. The king broke into a fit of almost ludicrous rage. He had been
tender of their welfare, he said to his brother Richard. "Is it to be
marvelled at," he cried, "that I covet money? It is a horrible thing to
imagine the debts wherein I am held bound. By the head of God, they
amount to the sum of two hundred thousand marks; and if I should say
three hundred thousand, I should not exceed the bounds of truth. I am
deceived on every hand; I am a maimed and abridged king--yea, now only
half a king. There is a necessity for me to have money, gotten from what
place soever, and from whomsoever."
[Illustration: SIR R. CLAYTON'S HOUSE, GARDEN FRONT. (_From an Old
Print._)]
The king, on Richard's promise to obtain him money, sold him the right
which he held over the Jews. Soon after this, eighty-six of the richest
Jews of London were hung, on a charge of having crucified a Christian
child at Lincoln, and twenty-three others were thrown into the Tower.
Truly Old Jewry must have often heard the voice of Rachel weeping for
her children. Their persecutors never grew weary. In a great riot,
encouraged by the barons, the great bell of St. Paul's tolled out, 500
Jews were killed in London, and the synagogue burnt, the leader of the
mob, John Fitz-John, a baron, running Rabbi Abraham, the richest Jew in
London, through with his sword. On the defeat of the king's party at the
battle of Lewes, the London mob accusing the Jews of aiding the king,
plundered their houses, and all the Israelites would have perished, had
they not taken refuge in the Tower. By royal edict the Christians were
forbidden to buy flesh of a Jew, and no Jew was allowed to employ
Christian nurses, bakers, brewers, or cooks. Towards the close of
Henry's life the synagogue in Old Jewry was again taken from the Jews,
and given to the Friars Penitent, whose chapel stood hard by, and who
complained of the noise of the Jewish congregation; but the king
permitted another synagogue to be built in a more suitable place. Henry
then ordered the Jews to pay up all arrears of tallages within four
months, and half of the sum in seventeen days. The Tower of London was
naturally soon full of grey-bearded Jewish debtors.
No wonder, with all these persecutions, that the Chancery Lane house of
converts began soon to fill. "On one of the rolls of this reign," says
Mr. Margoliouth, probably quoting Prynne's famous diatribe against the
Jews, "about 500 names of Jewish converts are registered." From the 50th
year of Henry III. to the 2nd of Edward I., the Crown, says Coke,
extorted from the English Jews no less than L420,000 15s. 4d.!
Edward I. was more merciful. In a statute, however, which was passed in
his third year, he forbade Jews practising usury, required them to wear
badges of yellow taffety, as a distinguishing mark of their nationality,
and demanded from each of them threepence every Easter. Then began the
plunder. The king wanted money to build Carnarvon and Conway castles, to
be held as fortresses against the Welsh, whom he had just recently
conquered and treated with great cruelty, and the Jews were robbed
accordingly. It was not difficult in those days to find an excuse for
extortion if the royal exchequer was empty. In the 7th year of Edward no
less than 294 Jews were put to death for clipping money, and all they
possessed seized by the king. In his 17th year all the Jews in England
were imprisoned in one night, as Selden proves by an old Hebrew
inscription found at Winchester, and not released till they had paid
L20,000 of silver for a ransom. At last, in the year 1290, came the
Jews' final expulsion from England, when 15,000 or 16,000 of these
tormented exiles left our shores, not to return till Cromwell set the
first great example of toleration. Edward allowed the Jews to take with
them part of their money and movables, but seized their houses and
other possessions. All their outstanding mortgages were forfeited to the
Crown, and ships were to be provided for their conveyance to such places
within reasonable distance as they might choose. In spite of this,
however, many, through the treachery of the sailors, were left behind in
England, and were all put to death with great cruelty.
"Whole rolls full of patents relative to Jewish estates," says Mr.
Margoliouth, "are still to be seen at the Tower, which estates, together
with their rent in fee, permissions, and mortgages, were all seized by
the king." Old Jewry, and Jewin Street, Aldersgate, where their
burial-ground was, still preserve a dim memory of their residence among
us. There used to be a tradition in England that the Jews buried much of
their treasure here, in hopes of a speedy return to the land where they
had suffered so much, yet where they had thriven. In spite of the edict
of banishment a few converted Jews continued to reside in England, and
after the Reformation some unconverted Jews ventured to return. Rodrigo
Lopez, a physician of Queen Elizabeth's, for instance, was a Jew. He was
tortured to death for being accused of designing to poison the Queen.
No. 8, Old Jewry was the house of Sir Robert Clayton, Lord Mayor in the
time of Charles II. It was a fine brick mansion, and one of the grandest
houses in the street. It is mentioned by Evelyn in the following
terms:--"26th September, 1672.--I carried with me to dinner my Lord H.
Howard (now to be made Earl of Norwich and Earl Marshal of England) to
Sir Robert Clayton's, now Sheriff of London, at his own house, where we
had a great feast; it is built, indeed, for a great magistrate, at
excessive cost. The cedar dining-room is painted with the history of the
Giants' war, incomparably done by Mr. Streeter, but the figures are too
near the eye." We give on the previous page a view of the garden front
of this house, taken from an old print. Sir Robert built the house to
keep his shrievalty, which he did with great magnificence. It was for
some years the residence of Mr. Samuel Sharp, an eminent surveyor.
In the year 1805 was established, by a proprietary in the City, the
London Institution, "for the advancement of literature and the diffusion
of useful knowledge." This institution was temporarily located in Sir
Robert Clayton's famous old house. Upon the first committee of the
institution were Mr. R. Angerstein and Mr. Richard Sharp. Porson, the
famous Greek scholar and editor of Euripides, was thought an eligible
man to be its principal librarian. He was accordingly appointed to the
office by a unanimous resolution of the governors; and Mr. Sharp had the
gratification of announcing to the Professor his appointment. His
friends rejoiced. Professor Young, of Glasgow, writing to Burney about
this time, says:--"Of Devil Dick you say nothing. I see by the
newspapers they have given him a post. A handsome salary, I hope, a
suite of chambers, coal and candle, &c. Porter and cyder, I trust, are
among the _et caeteras_." His salary was L200 a year, with a suite of
rooms. Still, Porson was not just the man for a librarian; for no one
could use books more roughly. He had no affectation about books, nor,
indeed, affectation of any sort. The late Mr. William Upcott, who urged
the publication of Evelyn's diary at Wootton, was fellow-secretary with
Porson. The institution removed to King's Arms Yard, Coleman Street, in
1812, and thence in 1819 to the present handsome mansion, erected from
the classic design of Mr. W. Brooks, on the north side of Moorfields,
now Finsbury Circus.
The library is "one of the most useful and accessible in Great Britain;"
and Mr. Watson found in a few of the books Porson's handwriting,
consisting of critical remarks and notes. In a copy of the Aldine
"Herodotus," he has marked the chapters in the margin in Arabic numerals
"with such nicety and regularity," says his biographer, "that the eye of
the reader, unless upon the closest examination, takes them for print."
Lord Byron remembered Porson at Cambridge; in the hall where he himself
dined, at the Vice-Chancellor's table, and Porson at the Dean's, he
always appeared sober in his demeanour, nor was he guilty, as far as his
lordship knew, of any excess or outrage in public; but in an evening,
with a party of undergraduates, he would, in fits of intoxication, get
into violent disputes with the young men, and arrogantly revile them for
not knowing what he thought they might be expected to know. He once went
away in disgust, because none of them knew the name of "the Cobbler of
Messina." In this condition Byron had seen him at the rooms of William
Bankes, the Nubian discoverer, where he would pour forth whole pages of
various languages, and distinguish himself especially by his copious
floods of Greek.
Lord Byron further tells us that he had seen Sheridan "drunk, with all
the world; his intoxication was that of Bacchus, but Porson's that of
Silenus. Of all the disgusting brutes, sulky, abusive, and intolerable,
Porson was the most bestial, so far as the few times that I saw him
went, which were only at William Bankes's rooms. He was tolerated in
this state among the young men for his talents, as the Turks think a
madman inspired, and bear with him. He used to write, or rather vomit,
pages of all languages, and could hiccup Greek like a Helot; and
certainly Sparta never shocked her children with a grosser exhibition
than this man's intoxication."
The library of the institution appears, however, to have derived little
advantage from Porson's supervision of it, beyond the few criticisms
which were found in his handwriting in some of the volumes. Owing to his
very irregular habits, the great scholar proved but an inefficient
librarian; he was irregular in attendance, and was frequently brought
home at midnight drunk. The directors had determined to dismiss him, and
said they only knew him as their librarian from seeing his name attached
to receipts of salary. Indeed, he was already breaking up, and his
stupendous memory had begun to fail. On the 19th of September, 1806, he
left the Old Jewry to call on his brother-in-law, Perry, in the Strand,
and at the corner of Northumberland Street was struck down by a fit of
apoplexy. He was carried over to the St. Martin's Lane workhouse, and
there slowly recovered consciousness. Mr. Savage, the under-librarian,
seeing an advertisement in the _British Press_, describing a person
picked up, having Greek memoranda in his pocket, went to the workhouse
and brought Porson home in a hackney coach; he talked about the fire
which the night before had destroyed Covent Garden Theatre, and as they
rounded St. Paul's, remarked upon the ill treatment Wren had received.
On reaching the Old Jewry, and after he had breakfasted, Dr. Adam Clarke
called and had a conversation with Porson about a stone with a Greek
inscription, brought from Ephesus; he also discussed a Mosaic pavement
recently found in Palestrini, and quoted two lines from the Greek
Anthologia. Dr. Adam Clarke particularly noticed that he gave the Greek
rapidly, but the English with painful slowness, as if the Greek came
more naturally. Then, apparently fancying himself under restraint, he
walked out, and went into the African or Cole's coffee-house in St.
Michael's Alley, Cornhill; there he would have fallen had he not caught
hold of one of the brass rods of the boxes. Some wine and some jelly
dissolved in brandy and water considerably roused him, but he could
hardly speak, and the waiter took him back to the Institution in a
coach. He expired exactly as the clock struck twelve, on the night of
Sunday, September 25, 1808. He was buried in the Chapel of Trinity
College, Cambridge, and eulogies of his talent, written in Greek and
Latin verse, were affixed to his pall--an old custom not discontinued
till 1822. His books fetched L2,000, and those with manuscript notes
were bought by Trinity College. It was said of Porson that he drank
everything he could lay his hands upon, even to embrocation and spirits
of wine intended for the lamp. Rogers describes him going back into the
dining-room after the people had gone, and drinking all that was left in
the glasses. He once undertook to learn by heart, in a week, a copy of
the _Morning Chronicle_, and he boasted he could repeat "Roderick
Random" from beginning to end.
Mr. Luard describes Porson as being, in personal appearance, tall; his
head very fine, with an expansive forehead, over which he plastered his
brown hair; he had a long, Roman nose (it ought to have been Greek), and
his eyes were remarkably keen and penetrating. In general he was very
careless as to his dress, especially when alone in his chamber, or when
reading hard; but "when in his gala costume, a smart blue coat, white
vest, black satin nether garments, and silk stockings, with a shirt
ruffled at the wrists, he looked quite the gentleman."
The street where, in 1261, many Jews were massacred, and where again, in
1264, 500 Jews were slain, was much affected by Nonconformists. There
was a Baptist chapel here in the Puritan times; and in Queen Anne's
reign the Presbyterians built a spacious church, in Meeting House Court,
in 1701. It is described as occupying an area of 2,600 square feet, and
being lit with six bow windows. The society, says Mr. Pike, had been
formed forty years before, by the son of the excellent Calamy, the
persecuted vicar of Aldermanbury, who is said to have died from grief at
the Fire of London. John Shower was one of the most celebrated ministers
of the Old Jewry Chapel. He wrote a protest against the Occasional
Conformity Bill, to which Swift (under the name of his friend Harley)
penned a bitter reply. He died in 1715. From 1691 to 1708 the assistant
lecturer was Timothy Rogers, son of an ejected Cumberland minister, of
whom an interesting story is told. Sir Richard Cradock, a High Church
justice, had arrested Mr. Rogers and all his flock, and was about to
send them to prison, when the justice's granddaughter, a wilful child of
seven, pitying the old preacher, threatened to drown herself if the poor
people were punished. The preacher blessed her, and they parted. Years
after this child, being in London, dreamed of a certain chapel,
preacher, and text, and the next day, going to the Old Jewry, saw Mr.
Shower, and recognised him as the preacher of her dream. The lady
afterwards told this to Mr. Rogers' son, when the lad turned Dissenter.
Like many other of the early Nonconformist preachers, Rogers seems to
have been a hypochondriac, who looked upon himself as "a broken vessel,
a dead man out of mind," and eventually gave up his profession. Shower's
successor, Simon Browne, wrote a volume of "Hymns," compiled a lexicon,
and wrote a "Defence of the Christian Revelation," in reply to Woolston
and other Freethinkers. Browne was also a victim to delusions, believing
that God, in his displeasure, had withdrawn his soul from his body. This
state of mind is said by some to have arisen from a nervous shock Browne
had once received in finding a highwayman with whom he had grappled dead
in his grasp. He believed his mind entirely gone, and his head to
resemble a parrot's. At times his thoughts turned to self-destruction.
He therefore abandoned his pulpit, and retired to Shepton Mallet to
study. His "Defence" is dedicated to Queen Caroline as from "a thing."
Samuel Chandler, a celebrated author and divine, and a friend of Butler
and Seeker, and Bowyer the printer, was for forty years another Old
Jewry worthy. He lectured against Popery with great success at Salters'
Hall, and held a public dispute with a Romish priest at the "Pope's
Head," Cornhill. In a funeral sermon on George II., Chandler drew absurd
parallels between him and David, which the Grub Street writers made the
most of. Chandler's deformed sister Mary, a milliner at Bath, wrote
verses which Pope commended.
In 1744 Richard Price, afterwards chaplain at Stoke Newington, held the
lectureship at the Old Jewry. Price's lecture on "Civil Liberty,"
_apropos_ of the American war, gained him Franklin's and Priestley's
friendship; as his first ethical work had already won Hume's. Burke
denounced him as a traitor; while the Corporation of London presented
him with the freedom of the City in a gold box, the Congress offered him
posts of honour, and the Premier of 1782 would have been glad to have
had him as a secretary. The last pastor at the Old Jewry Chapel was
Abraham Rees. This indefatigable man enlarged Harris's "Lexicon
Technicum," improved by Ephraim Chambers, into the "Encyclopaedia" of
forty-five quarto volumes, a book now thought redundant and
ill-arranged, and the philological parts defective. In 1808 the Old
Jewry congregation removed to Jewin Street.
Dr. James Foster, a Dissenting minister eulogised by Pope, carried on
the Sunday evening lecture in Old Jewry for more than twenty years; it
was began in 1728. The clergy, wits, and freethinkers crowded with
equal anxiety to hear him of whom Pope wrote--
"Let modest Foster, if he will, excel
Ten metropolitans in preaching well."
And Pope's friend, Lord Bolingbroke, an avowed Deist, commended Foster
for the false aphorism--"Where mystery begins religion ends." Dr. Foster
attended Lord Kilmarnock before his execution. He wrote in defence of
Christianity in reply to Tindal, the Freethinker, and died in 1753. He
says in one of his works:--"I value those who are of different
professions from me, more than those who agree with me in sentiment, if
they are more serious, sober, and charitable." This excellent man was
the son of a Northamptonshire clergyman, who turned Dissenter and became
a fuller at Exeter.
At Grocers' Hall we stop to sketch the history of an ancient company.
The Grocers of London were originally called Pepperers, pepper being the
chief staple of their trade. The earlier Grocers were Italians, Genoese,
Florentine or Venetian merchants, then supplying all the west of
Christendom with Indian and Arabian spices and drugs, and Italian silks,
wines, and fruits. The Pepperers are first mentioned as a fraternity
among the amerced guilds of Henry II., but had probably clubbed together
at an earlier period. They are mentioned in a petition to Parliament as
Grocers, says Mr. Herbert, in 1361 (Edward III.), and they themselves
adopted the, at first, opprobrious name in 1376, and some years later
were incorporated by charter. They then removed from Soper's Lane (now
Queen Street) to Bucklersbury, and waxed rich and powerful.
The Grocers met at five several places previous to building a hall;
first at the town house of the Abbots of Bury, St. Mary Axe; in 1347
they moved to the house of the Abbot of St. Edmund; in 1348 to the
Rynged Hall, near Garlick-hythe; and afterwards to the hotel of the
Abbot of St. Cross. In 1383 they flitted to the Cornet's Tower, in
Bucklersbury, a place which Edward III. had used for his money exchange.
In 1411 they purchased of Lord Fitzwalter the chapel of the Fratres du
Sac (Brothers of the Sack) in Old Jewry, which had originally been a
Jewish synagogue; and having, some years afterwards, purchased Lord
Fitzwalter's house adjoining the chapel, began to build a hall, which
was opened in 1428. The Friars' old chapel contained a buttery, pantry,
cellar, parlour, kitchen, turret, clerk's house, a garden, and a set of
almshouses in the front yard was added. The word "grocer," says
Ravenhill, in his "Short Account of the Company of Grocers" (1689), was
used to express a trader _en gros_ (wholesale). As early as 1373, the
first complement of twenty-one members of this guild was raised to 124;
and in 1583, sixteen grocers were aldermen. In 1347, Nicholas Chaucer, a
relation of the poet, was admitted as a grocer; and in 1383, John
Churchman (Richard II.) obtained for the Grocers the great privilege of
the custody, with the City, of the "King's Beam," in Woolwharf, for
weighing wool in the port of London, the first step to a London Custom
House. The Beam was afterwards removed to Bucklersbury. Henry VIII. took
away the keepership of the great Beam from the City, but afterwards
restored it. The Corporation still have their weights at the Weigh
House, Little Eastcheap, and the porters there are the tackle porters,
so called to distinguish them from the ticket porters. In 1450, the
Grocers obtained the important right of sharing the office of garbeller
of spices with the City. The garbeller had the right to enter any shop
or warehouse to view and search for drugs, and to garble and cleanse
them. The office gradually fell into desuetude, and is last mentioned in
the Company's books in July, 1687, when the City garbeller paid a fine
of L50, and 20s. per annum, for leave to hold his office for life. The
Grocers seem to have at one time dealt in whale-oil and wool.
During the Civil War the Grocers suffered, like all their brother
companies. In 1645, the Parliament exacted L50 per week from them
towards the support of troops, L6 for City defences, and L8 for wounded
soldiers. The Company had soon to sell L1,000 worth of plate. A further
demand for arms, and a sum of L4,500 for the defence of the City, drove
them to sell all the rest of their plate, except the value of L300. In
1645, the watchful Committee of Safety, sitting at Haberdashers' Hall,
finding the Company indebted L500 to one Richard Greenough, a Cavalier
delinquent, compelled them to pay that sum.
No wonder, then, that the Grocers shouted at the Restoration, spent L540
on the coronation pageant, and provided sixty riders at Charles's noisy
entrance into London. The same year, Sir John Frederick, being chosen
Mayor, and not being, as rule required, a member of one of the twelve
Great Companies, left the Barber Chirurgeons, and joined the Grocers,
who welcomed him with a great pageant. In 1664, the Grocers took a
zealous part with their friends and allies, the Druggists, against the
College of Physicians, who were trying to obtain a bill granting them
power of search, seizure, fine, and imprisonment. The Plague year no
election feast was held. The Great Fire followed, and not only greatly
damaged Grocers' Hall, but also consumed the whole of their house
property, excepting a few small tenements in Grub Street. They found it
necessary to try and raise L20,000 to pay their debts, to sell their
melted plate, and to add ninety-four members to the livery. Only
succeeding, amid the general distress, in raising L6,000, the Company
was almost bankrupt, their hall being seized, and attachments laid on
their rent. By a great effort, however, they wore round, called more
freemen on the livery, and added in two months eighty-one new members to
the Court of Assistants; so that before the Revolution of 1688 they had
restored their hall and mowed down most of their rents. Indeed, one of
their most brilliant epochs was in 1689, when William III. accepted the
office of their sovereign master.
[Illustration: EXTERIOR OF GROCERS' HALL.]
Some writers credit the Grocers' Company with the enrolment of five
kings, several princes, eight dukes, three earls, and twenty lords. Of
these five kings, Mr. Herbert could, however, only trace Charles II. and
William III. Their list of honorary members is one emblazoned with many
great names, including Sir Philip Sidney (at whose funeral they
assisted), Pitt, Lord Chief Justice Tenterden, the Marquis of
Cornwallis, George Canning, &c. Of Grocer Mayors, Strype notes
sixty-four between 1231 and 1710 alone.
The garden of the Hall must have been a pleasant place in the old times,
as it is now. It is mentioned in 1427 as having vines spreading up
before the parlour windows. It had also an arbour; and in 1433 it was
generously thrown open to the citizens generally, who had petitioned for
this privilege. It contained hedge-rows and a bowling alley, with an
ancient tower of stone or brick, called "the Turret," at the north-west
corner, which had probably formed part of Lord Fitzwalter's mansion. The
garden remained unchanged till the new hall was built in 1798, when it
was much curtailed, and in 1802 it was nearly cut in half by the
enlargement of Princes Street. For ground which had cost the Grocers, in
1433, only L31 17s. 8d., they received from the Bank of England more
than L20,000.
The Hall was often lent for dinners, funerals, county feasts, and
weddings; and in 1564 the gentlemen of Gray's Inn dined there with the
gentlemen of the Middle Temple. This system breeding abuses, was limited
in 1610.
In the time of the Commonwealth, Grocers' Hall was the place of meeting
for Parliamentary Committees. Among other subjects there discussed, we
find the selection of able ministers to regulate Church government, and
providing moneys for the army; and in 1641 the Grand Committee of Safety
held its sittings in this Hall.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF GROCERS' HALL.]
In 1648 the Grocers had to petition General Fairfax not to quarter his
troops in the hall of a charitable Company like theirs. In 1649 a grand
entertainment was given by the Grocers to Cromwell and Fairfax. After
hearing _two_ sermons at Christ's Church, preached by Mr. Goodwin and
Dr. Owen, Cromwell, his officers, the Speaker, and the judges, dined
together. "No drinking of healths," says a Puritan paper of the time,
"nor other uncivill concomitants formerly of such great meetings, nor
any other music than the drum and trumpet--a feast, indeed, of
Christians and chieftains, whereas others were rather of Chretiens and
cormorants." The surplus food was sent to the London prisons, and L40
distributed to the poor. The Aldermen and Council afterwards went to
General Fairfax at his house in Queen Street, and, in the name of the
City, presented him with a large basin and ewer of beaten gold; while to
Cromwell they sent a great present of plate, value L300, and 200 pieces
of gold. They afterwards gave a still grander feast to Cromwell in his
more glorious time, and one at the Restoration to General Monk. On the
latter feast they expended L215, and enrolled "honest George" a brother
of the Company.
The Grocers' Hall might never have been rebuilt after the Great Fire, so
crippled was the Company, but for the munificence of Sir John Cutler, a
rich Grocer, whom Pope (not always regardful of truth) has bitterly
satirised.
Sir John rebuilt the parlour and dining-room in 1668-9, and was rewarded
by "a strong vote of thanks," and by his statue and picture being placed
in the Hall as eternal records of the Company's esteem and gratitude.
Two years later Grocers' Hall was granted to the parishioners of St.
Mildred as a chapel till their own church could be rebuilt. The garden
turret, used as a record office, was fitted up for the clerk's
residence, and a meeting place for the court; and, "for better order,
decorum, and gravity," pipes and pots were forbidden in the court-room
during the meetings.
At Grocers' Hall, "to my great surprise," says vivacious Pennant, "I met
again with Sir John Cutler, Grocer, in marble and on canvas. In the
first he is represented standing, in a flowing wig, waved rather than
curled, a laced cravat, and a furred gown, with the folds not
ungraceful; in all, except where the dress is inimical to the sculptor's
art, it may be called a good performance. By his portrait we may learn
that this worthy wore a black wig, and was a good-looking man. He was
created a baronet, November 12th, 1660; so that he certainly had some
claim of gratitude with the restored monarch. He died in 1693. His
kinsman and executor, Edmund Boulton, Esq., expended L7,666 on his
funeral expenses. He served as Master of the Company in 1652 and 1653,
in 1688, and again a fourth time."
In 1681 the Hall was renovated at an expense of L500, by Sir John Moore,
so as to make it fit for the residence of the Lord Mayor. Moore kept his
mayoralty here, paying a rent of L200. It continued to be used by the
Lord Mayors till 1735, when the Company, now grown rich, withdrew their
permission. In 1694 it was let to the Bank of England, who held their
court there till the Bank was built in 1734. The Company's present hall
was built in 1802, and repaired in 1827, since which the whole has been
restored, the statue of Sir John Cutler moved from its neglected post in
the garden, and the arms of the most illustrious Grocers of antiquity
set up.
The Grocers' charities are numerous; they give away annually L300 among
the poor of the Company, and they have had L4,670 left them to lend to
poor members of the community. Before 1770, Boyle says, the Company gave
away about L700 a year.
Among the bravest of the Grocers, we must mention Sir John Philpot,
Mayor, 1378, who fitted out a fleet that captured John Mercer, a Scotch
freebooter, and took fifteen Spanish ships. He afterwards transported an
English army to Brittany in his own ships, and released more than 1,000
of our victualling vessels. John Churchman, sheriff in 1385, was the
founder of the Custom House. Sir Thomas Knolles, mayor in 1399 and 1410,
rebuilt St. Antholin's, Watling Street. Sir Robert Chichele (a relation
of Archbishop Chichele), mayor in 1411-12, gave the ground for
rebuilding the church of St. Stephen, Walbrook, which his descendant,
Sir Thomas (Mayor and Grocer), helped to rebuild after the Great Fire.
Sir William Sevenoke was founder of the school and college at Sevenoaks,
Kent. Sir John Welles (mayor in 1431), built the Standard in Chepe,
helped to build the Guildhall Chapel, built the south aisle of St.
Antholin's, and repaired the miry way leading to Westminster (the
Strand). Sir Stephen Brown, mayor, 1438, imported cargoes of rye from
Dantzic, during a great dearth, and as Fuller quaintly says, "first
showed Londoners the way to the barn door." Sir John Crosby (Grocer and
Sheriff in 1483), lived in great splendour at Crosby House, in
Bishopsgate Street: he gave great sums for civic purposes, and repaired
London Wall, London Bridge, and Bishopsgate. Sir Henry Keble (mayor,
1510) was six times Master of the Grocers' Company: he left bequests to
the Company, and gave L1,000 to rebuild St. Antholin's, Budge Row.
Lawrence Sheriff, Warden 1561, was founder of the great school at Rugby.
"The rivulet or running water," says Maitland, "denominated Walbrook,
ran through the middle of the city above ground, till about the middle
of the fourteenth century, when it was arched over, since which time it
has served as a common sewer, wherein, at the depth of sixteen feet,
under St. Mildred's Church steeple, runs a great and rapid stream. At
the south-east corner of Grocers' Alley, in the Poultry, stood a
beautiful chapel, called Corpus Christi and Sancta Maria, which was
founded in the reign of Edward III. by a pious man, for a master and
brethren, for whose support he endowed the same with lands, to the
amount of twenty pounds per annum."
"It hath been a common speech," says Stow (Elizabeth), "that when
Walbrook did lie open, barges were rowed out of the Thames, or towed up
so far, and therefore the place hath ever since been called the _Old
Barge_. Also, on the north side of this street, directly over against
the said Bucklersbury, was one antient strong tower of stone, at which
tower King Edward III., in the eighteenth of his reign, by the name of
the King's House, called _Cornets Tower_, in London, did appoint to be
his exchange of money there to be kept. In the twenty-ninth he granted
it to Frydus Guynisane and Lindus Bardoile, merchants of London for L20
the year; and in the thirty-second of his reign, he gave it to his
college, or Free Chapel of St. Stephen, at Westminster, by the name of
his tower, called Cornettes-Tower, at Bucklesbury, in London. This tower
of late years was taken down by one Buckle, a grocer, meaning, in place
thereof, to have set up and builded a goodly frame of timber; but the
said Buckle greedily labouring to pull down the old tower, a piece
thereof fell upon him, which so bruised him, that his life was thereby
shortened; and another, that married his widow, set up the new prepared
frame of timber, and finished the work.
"This whole street, called Bucklesbury, on both sides, throughout, is
possessed by grocers, and apothecaries toward the west end thereof. On
the south side breaketh out some other short lane, called in records
_Peneritch Street_. It reacheth but to St. Syth's Lane, and St. Syth's
Church is the farthest part thereof, for by the west end of the said
church beginneth Needlers Lane."
"I have heard," says Pennant, "that Bucklersbury was, in the reign of
King William, noted for the great resort of ladies of fashion, to
purchase tea, fans, and other Indian goods. King William, in some of his
letters, appears to be angry with his queen for visiting these shops,
which, it would seem, by the following lines of Prior, were sometimes
perverted to places of intrigue, for, speaking of Hans Carvel's wife,
the poet says:--
"'The first of all the Town was told,
Where newest Indian things were sold;
So in a morning, without boddice,
Slipt sometimes out to Mrs. Thody's,
To cheapen tea, or buy a skreen;
What else could so much virtue mean?'"
In the time of Queen Elizabeth this street was inhabited by chemists,
druggists, and apothecaries. Mouffet, in his treatise on foods, calls on
them to decide whether sweet smells correct pestilent air; and adds,
that Bucklersbury being replete with physic, drugs, and spicery, and
being perfumed in the time of the plague with the pounding of spices,
melting of gum, and making perfumes, escaped that great plague, whereof
such multitudes died, that scarce any house was left unvisited.
Shakespeare mentions Bucklersbury in his _Merry Wives of Windsor_,
written at Queen Elizabeth's request. He makes Falstaff say to Mrs.
Ford--
"What made me love thee? Let that persuade thee, there's something
extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot cog, and say thou art this and
that, like a many of these lisping hawthorn-buds, that come like
women in men's apparel, and smell like Bucklersbury in simple-time;
I cannot; but I love thee, none but thee, and thou deservedst it."
(_Merry Wives of Windsor_, act iii. sc. 3.)
The apothecaries' street is also mentioned in _Westward Ho!_ that
dangerous play that brought Ben Jonson into trouble:--
"_Mrs. Tenterhook._ Go into Bucklersbury, and fetch me two ounces of
preserved melons; look there be no tobacco taken in the shop when he
weighs it."
And Ben Johnson, in a self-asserting poem to his bookseller, says:--
"Nor have my title-leaf on post or walls,
Or in cleft sticks advanced to make calls
For termers, or some clerk-like serving man,
Who scarce can spell th' hard names, whose knight less can.
If without these vile arts it will not sell,
Send it to Bucklersbury, there 'twill well."
That good old Norwich physician, Sir Thomas Browne, also alludes to the
herbalists' street in his wonderful "Religio Medico:"--"I know," says
he, "most of the plants of my country, and of those about me, yet
methinks I do not know so many as when I did but know a hundred, and had
scarcely ever simpled further than Cheapside."