Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

LONDON

PAST AND PRESENT ©

ITS HISTORY, ASSOCIATIONS, AND

TRADITIONS

BY

HENRY B. WHEATLEY, F.S.A.

BASED UPON

THE HANDBOOK OF LONDON

BY THE LATE

PETER CUNNINGHAM

IN THREE VOLUMES-VOL. II

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET

1891 w

[blocks in formation]

LONDON:

PAST AND PRESENT.

Eagle Tavern, CITY ROAD, a tea-garden and place of public entertainment, erected 1838, near to the "Shepherd and Shepherdess," a tea-house and garden noted in the early years of the present century. In the gardens of the Eagle Tavern stands the Grecian Theatre, which since 1882 has been a centre of the Salvation Army. Earl Street, Westminster. This street, as also Marsham Street and Romney Street, was named after Charles Marsham, Earl of Romney, the owner of the property.

Earl's Court, KENSINGTON, a district named after the residence of the Lords of the Manor (the Veres, Earls of Oxford), who held their courts here.

Blackmore himself, for any grand effort

Would drink and dose at Tooting or Earl's Court,

Pope's Second Epistle of the Second Book of Horace.

In 1764 John Hunter, the famous surgeon, purchased two acres of land in this village from the Earl of Warwick, and built a house on it, where he lived till his death in 1793. The materials of Earl's Court House were sold by auction, February 16 and 17, 1886. One lot was the historical copper (with shaped doors and coving over as fixed) in which the remains of Byrne O'Brien, the Irish giant, were boiled by Hunter.

East India Docks, BLACKWALL. Originally constructed chiefly for the ships of the East India Company, but after the opening of the trade to India the East India Dock Company united, 1838, with the West India Dock Company. The first stone of these docks was laid March 4, 1804, and the docks were opened for business August 4, 1806. The import dock has an area of 19 acres, the export dock of 10 acres, and the basin of 3, making a total surface of 32 acres. The export dock has been considerably extended and improved W VOL. II

B

recently, and a new entrance lock constructed. Under the authority of "The London and St. Katharine and East and West India Docks Act 1888," the undertakings of the East and West India Docks Company and the London and St. Katharine Docks Company are now under the management of a joint Committee of Directors of the two companies. The gates are closed at three in the winter months, and at four in the summer months. The mode of admission for visitors is now no stricter than at any of the other docks. These docks are the chief depôts for the noble lines of ships to Australia and New Zealand, and the Brunswick Tavern overlooking the docks -of old famous for Whitebait dinners-has been converted into a home for emigrants to the latter colony. [See Blackwall.]

East India House, LEADENHALL STREET,-South side, between Leadenhall Market and Lime Street,—was the House of the East India Company, once the largest and most magnificent Company in the world. The house, built originally in 1726, was enlarged by the addition of a central hexastyle Ionic portico and an eastern wing by R. Jupp, in 1799, and subsequently further enlarged and altered from designs by C. R. Cockerell, R.A., and W. Wilkins, R.A. A museum of much interest was added, 1857, by M. Digby Wyatt. The pediment (a poor thing) was the work of the younger Bacon. A statue of Britannia crowned the pediment, and figures of Europe and Asia occupied the sides.

was !

Passing along Leadenhall Street I saw some ships painted upon the outside of a great wall, which occasioned me to enquire of my schoolfellow what place that He told me 'twas the house belonging to the East India Company, which are a corporation of men with long heads and deep purposes.-Ned Ward's London Spy, pt. i. See the Cornhill Magazine, vol. ii. p. 114, for a print of the old house described by Ned Ward.

We beat Rome in eloquence and extravagance; and Spain in avarice and cruelty; and, like both, we shall only serve to terrify schoolboys, and for lessons of morality! Here stood St. Stephen's Chapel; here young Catiline [Fox] spoke ; here was Lord Clive's diamond house; this is Leadenhall Street, and this broken column was part of the palace of a Company of Merchants who were sovereigns of Bengal.-H. Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, April 9, 1772.

Walpole's prophecy is, in part, more than fulfilled already. St. Stephen's Chapel and the place where Fox spoke-the Houses of Lords and Commons-are gone, and other houses mark their site, but in Leadenhall Street not even a broken column remains to show where stood the palace of the company who were sovereigns of Bengal.

The East India Company was incorporated by a Charter dated December 31, 1600. For two centuries and a half it governed India from its House in Leadenhall Street; and it was not till after the experience of the Indian Mutiny that the sovereignty was, by the Act of September 1, 1858, transferred to the Crown, and the Company virtually dissolved. In July 1861 the East India House was sold and taken down, and an immense pile of offices, with a frontage over 300

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »