commended by Downes for his excellence in this character); Anthony Leigh, as the Spanish Friar; Colley Cibber, as Lord Foppington, by Grisoni; Griffin and Johnson, in The Alchemist, by P. Van Bleeck; School for Scandal (the Screen Scene), as originally cast; Mrs. Pritchard, as Lady Macbeth, by Zoffany; Mr. and Mrs. Barry, in Hamlet; Rich, in 1753, as Harlequin; Garrick, as Richard III., by the elder Morland; King, as Touchstone, by Zoffany; Weston, as Billy Button, by Zoffany; King, and Mr. and Mrs. Baddeley, in The Clandestine Marriage, by Zoffany; Moody and Parsons, in The Committee, by Vandergucht; Garrick and Mrs. Cibber, by Zoffany; Macklin, as Sir Pertinax Macsycophant, by De Wilde; Scenes from New Way to pay Old Debts with Edmund Kean as Sir Giles, by Clint; Love, Law, and Physic (Matthews, Liston, Blanchard, and Emery), by Clint; Powell, Bensley, and Smith, by J. Mortimer; Mathews, in five characters, by Harlowe; Farren, Harley, and Jones, in The Clandestine Marriage, by Clint; C. Kemble and Fawcett in Charles II., by Clint; Munden, E. Knight, Mrs. Orger, and Miss Cubitt, in Lock and Key, by Clint; Dowton, in The Mayor of Garratt; busts, by Mrs. Siddons -of herself and brother; Macready, by Jackson, R.A.; bust of Shakespeare, found, bricked up, in pulling down old Lincoln's Inn Theatre in 1848. The Stanfield paintings were cut out of the walls of the old club before the removal to the present house. The smoking-room is decorated with paintings by Stanfield, Roberts, and Louis Haghe, all members of the club. The pictures are on view every Wednesday (except in September) on the personal introduction of a member of the club. The Garrick Club had for its predecessor a Garrick Society, which was founded by Baddeley, shortly after Garrick's death, and at first consisted chiefly of personal friends of the great actor. In time it became a select theatrical club, and after some fluctuations gradually died out, or merged in the Garrick Club. Garrick Street, COVENT GARDEN. A new street formed in 1864 at the end of King Street, and leading to St. Martin's Lane and Long Acre. The Garrick Club was removed to this street from No. 35 King Street. Garrick Theatre, CHARING CROSS ROAD, built for Mr. John Hare from the designs of Mr. Walter Emden, architect. It is situated at the end of the road, nearly opposite the back of the National Gallery and St. Martin's Church, and was opened on the evening of April 24, 1889. Gate House, a prison near the west end of Westminster Abbey, by the way leading into Dean's Yard, Tothill Street, and the Almonry. And now will I speak of the Gate-house and of Totehill Street. The Gatehouse is so called of two gates, the one out of the College Court towards the north, on the east side whereof was the Bishop of London's prison for clerks convict; and the other gate, adjoining to the first, but towards the west, is a gaol or prison for offenders, thither committed. Walter Warfield, cellarer to the monastery, caused both these gates, with the appurtenances, to be built in the reign of Edward III.— Stow, p. 176. Strype adds1 that College Court was the same as Great Dean's Yard, and that the said prison "was of late years removed to King Street, by the New Palace Yard." Gate House, a prison in Westminster, or rather two, the Old and the New. The Old Gate House is situate near the west end of the Abbey, entering into Tuttle Street and the Almery; the other was situate near the south end of King Street as you enter the New Palace Yard, now demolished. The first is the chief prison for the City of Westminster Liberties, not only for debt but treason, theft and other criminal matters: the Keeper has the place by lease from the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.-Hatton, New View of London, 1708, p. 745. Sir Walter Raleigh was led from his last prison, in the Gate House, at Westminster, to the scaffold, in Old Palace Yard. In his Bible, the night before he left the Gate House, he wrote the well-known lines "Even such is time," etc. When Frances Viscountess Purbeckthat daughter of Sir Edward Coke and Lady Hatton whose marriage with the wretched elder brother of Buckingham was the cause of so much dissention-was discovered in an intrigue with Sir Robert Howard, 1635, the knight was committed to the Fleet, and the lady to the Gate House in order to undergo the sentence which had been passed upon her by the High Commission, of standing in a sheet in the Savoy Church and going thence barefooted to St. Paul's. She managed, however, to break out of the Gate House in man's apparel and escaped to France. Sir John Eliot, another prisoner of note in the reign of Charles I., was committed to the Gate House in June 1627, and released in January following. John Selden was committed to the Gate House with other members of the House of Commons in the spring of 1630, but afterwards transferred to the Tower. Here Richard Lovelace composed his divine little poem, "To Althea, from prison" :— Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take If I have freedom in my love, "2 When Sir Henry Savile carried a challenge to the Duke of Buckingham from Sir William Coventry, the Principal was sent to the Tower, but the Second to the Gate House: much to the wrath of the Duke of York that a gentleman in his service should be sent "to the Gate House among the rogues.' In June 1690 Samuel Pepys was committed to the Gate House on a charge of being in communication with the exiled James II.; but in consideration of his ill-health, he was admitted to bail, and does not appear to have been troubled again. 1 Strype's Stow, B. vi. p. 64. 2 Pepys, March 4, 1669. The Lady Broughton, Keeper of the Gate-house Prison in Westminster, was informed against; and upon Not Guilty pleaded she was found Guilty; and her Crime was Extortion of Fees, and hard Usage of the Prisoners in a most barbarous manner: And after she had by her Councel moved in Arrest of Judgment, and could not prevail, she had Judgment given against her, viz., she was fined one hundred Marks, removed from her Office, and the Custody of the Prison was at present delivered to the Sheriff of Middlesex till the Dean and Chapter should farther order the same, salvo jure cujuslibet.—Term. Mich. 24 Car. II.-Raymond's Reports, 1696. Marchmont Needham, the notorious writer of Mercurius Britannicus, for the Presbyterian cause, Mercurius Pragmaticus, for the King's cause, and Mercurius Politicus, for the Independent cause, was for some time a prisoner in this house; as was also Sir Jeffrey Hudson, the celebrated dwarf, upon suspicion of his being privy to the Popish plot. In 1692 Jeremy Collier was committed to the Gate House on a charge of being in correspondence with the adherents of James II., and refusing to give bail was removed to the King's Bench. Savage, the poet, and his companions were committed to the Gate House, November 21, 1727, for the murder of a Mr. Sinclair at Robinson's Coffee-house, Charing Cross, but transferred to Newgate the same evening. It was the custom at the Gate House, as at other prisons, to have an alms-box at the prison door to receive the offerings of the benevolent for the benefit of the prisoners; and when a Westminster boy was found playing with money during school hours, the rule was to send him "under a trusty guard" to put it into the prisoners' box at the Gate House door.2 Dr. Johnson was in some measure instrumental to the removal of the Gate House, by his paper on the Coronation of King George III., or "Reasons offered against confining the Procession to the usual track." "Part of my scheme," he says, "supposes the demolition of the Gate House, a building so offensive that, without any occasional reason, it ought to be pulled down, for it disgraces the present magnificence of the capital, and is a continual nuisance to neighbours and passengers." The Gate House was ordered to be pulled down, together with the adjoining almshouses, by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster in July 1776, and the materials to be sold; but a wall was standing as late as 1836. Gayspur Lane. Beneath this church [St. Mary, Aldermanbury], have ye Gayspur Lane, which runneth down to London Wall.-Stow, p. 110. Gazette Office. [See London Gazette.] General Post Office. [See Post Office.] Elec Geographica 1Society (Royal), I Savile Row, established 1830, for the improvement and diffusion of geographical knowledge. tions by ballot. Entrance fee, £3; annual subscription, £2. There is a good geographical library, and a large collection of maps, added 1 Wright, History of Rutland, fol. 1684, p. 105. 2 Memoirs of Philip Thicknesse, vol. i. p. 16. to by means of an annual grant from Government, to which the public are admitted free. Meetings, at which papers are read on geographical subjects, are held every alternate Monday evening, from November to July, in the theatre of the University of London, Burlington Gardens. Geological Society of London, BURLINGTON HOUSE. Established 1807, Charter granted in 1826. Removed in 1874 from Somerset House. The Museum of geological specimens, fossils, etc., not only British, but from all quarters of the globe, is extensive and interesting. It may be seen by the introduction of a member. The museum and library are open every day from eleven to five. The number of fellows is over 800; and the meetings for reading and discussing papers are held at half-past eight o'clock in the evening of alternate Wednesdays, from November to June inclusive. The Society has published its Transactions, but these now take the form of a quarterly journal. Entrance fee, 6 guineas; annual subscription, 3 guineas. George Court, a short passage leading from Piccadilly to Little Vine Street. The name was changed to Piccadilly Place in 1862. George Inn, BOROUGH. One of the "many fair inns" noted by Stow in 1598.1 The owner in 1558 was Humfrey Colet, Member of Parliament for Southwark in 1553, but no part of the present inn is older than 1676.2 George Street, ADELPHI. Built circ. 1675,3 and so called after George Villiers, second and last Duke of Buckingham of the Villiers family. It is now called York Buildings, but the old name is preserved in George Court, which connects it with the Strand. [See York House; Villiers Street, etc.] George Street, BLACKFRIARS ROAD, east side, the second turning north of Surrey Chapel. In 1787, when Mary Wollstonecraft entered upon her literary career, she took a house in this street in which she resided for some years. Here she wrote the Rights of Women, and her Answer to Burke. George Street (Great), WESTMINSTER, was built as an approach from St. James's Park to Westminster Bridge, and opened to the public on November 18, 1750. The previous approach to Palace Yard from the Park was by a series of dirty lanes, the chief of which was Thieving Lane. John Wilkes was residing in this street when, on the night between the 29th and 30th of April 1763, three King's messengers entered the house under the authority of a warrant, in which his name was not mentioned, and seized his person and his papers. He was carried to the Tower, and when brought before the Judges under a writ of the Habeas Corpus, they waived the question of the illegality of General Warrants, but declared his arrest to be in contravention of his 2 Rendle and Norman's Inns of Old Southwark, pp. 156-168. 3 Rate-books of St. Martin's. 1 Thoms's edition, p. 154. privileges as a Member of Parliament. Immediately on his release he established a printing-press in his house in this street, and set the Government at defiance. In the following December he brought an action against the Under Secretary of State for the illegal seizure of his papers, and this gave an opportunity to Lord Chief-Justice Pratt to deliver his memorable charge. On November 13 Sir Joshua Reynolds records an engagement to dine "at Mr. Wilks' with the Beef Steak Club." Goldsmith's Lord Clare had a house here at which the poet was a frequent guest.1 Bishop Watson was living at No. 33 in 17921796, and in 1799 at No. 34. Bryan Edwards, author of History of the West Indies (d. 1800), was living at No. 9 in 1799. At No. 7 the Right Hon. G. Tierney; the Right Hon. P. Vansittart in 1807; and 1816 Peter Moore, a well-known M.P. in his generation. Romilly thus records what makes his residence memorable : Sir Samuel When I arrived at Peter Moore's house in George Street, to which the body of Richard Brinsley Sheridan had been removed as being nearer to Westminster Abbey, where it was to be buried, I was astonished at the number and description of persons assembled there. The Duke of York, Lord Sidmouth, Lord Musgrave, Lord Anglesea, Lord Lynedoch, Wellesley Pole, and many others whose politics have been generally opposite to Sheridan's. . . . How strange a contrast! for some weeks before his death he was nearly destitute of the means of subsistence. He Lord Byron's body lay in state for two days at No. 25 in this street, then the residence of Sir Edward Knatchbull, now the Institution of Civil Engineers. On the day of the funeral the street was blocked by the spectators from a very early hour. Captain Marryat, the famous novelist, was born in this street, July 10, 1792.2 No. 15 was the last London residence of Lord Chancellor Thurlow (d. 1805). In 1809 W. Garrow, jun., was living at No. 27. During 1840, whilst Secretary for War, Lord Macaulay occupied a house in Great George Street; and Great George Street was one of Daniel O'Connell's London addresses. From 1841 to 1857 Sir Charles Barry lived at No. 32 in this street, "in order to be near his great work (the New Palace of Westminster) while in progress." Here, October 8, 1862, died James Walker, the eminent civil engineer. Lord Chancellor Hatherley (Sir William Page Wood) lived at No. 31 for many years, and died there, July 1881. was one of the last of the private residents of that class. No. 29 was the first home of the National Portrait Gallery. The collection, then comprising only fifty-six portraits, was opened to the public on January 15, 1859. The collection remained at Great George Street till 1870, when the Government decided on the removal of the gallery to South Kensington. [See National Portrait Gallery.] No. 25 is the Institution of Civil Engineers, and Great George Street may be considered as the grand centre of the profession, a very large proportion of the leading engineers having their offices in this street, or its immediate vicinity; railway contractors, parliamentary agents and solicitors, all more or less closely connected with railways and other engineering undertakings, have offices here. At the south-east corner of the street is a costly 1 Forster's Goldsmith, vol. ii. p. 364. 2 Notes and Queries, 7th S., vol. vii. p. 294. |