Dr. Akenside for several west side, the first house borough," lived, 1803 etc., at No. 30. An apartment in his house went by the name of "Paley's Room," being reserved for the Archdeacon when he paid a visit to London. years. Isaac D'Israeli, at No. 6, on the from Hart Street; here he compiled his Curiosities of Literature. The house was designed by Isaac Ware (d. 1766), the editor of a translation of Palladio's work on architecture. Edward Lodge (Lodge's Portraits) died at his house in Bloomsbury Square in 1839. Anthony Panizzi, on retiring from his post as Principal Librarian of the British Museum in 1866, took the house No. 31 in this Square, "a very unfashionable quarter, though very respectable," as he wrote; and here he died, April 8, 1879. Creswick the actor lived here for several years. Sir The Rev. Thomas Hartwell Horne died at No. 47 in 1862. Charles King and John Gray were executed in the Square for complicity in the Gordon Riots, 1780. The bronze statue of Charles James Fox on the north side of the square, facing Bedford Place, is by Sir Richard Westmacott, R.A., and is greatly admired by the historian of the parish, who explains that "the head is inclined forward expressive of attention, firmness, and complacency; whilst dignified severity is depicted on the countenance." "2 18 Bloomsbury Street extends from Great Russell Street to Broad Street, crossing New Oxford Street, and so named in 1845; originally two streets, Charlotte Street and Plumtree Street. Here, next to each other, on the west side, are Bedford Chapel; Bloomsbury Baptist Chapel; the French Protestant Episcopal Church, first established in the Savoy; and the French Protestant School. In 1885 several houses to the south of the French chapel, including those at the then corner of Broad Street, which had been designed 1844-1845 by Sir James Pennethorne at the previous improvements, were pulled down to make room for Shaftesbury Avenue [which see]. No. 36, the Swedenborg Society; on the ground floor is their publishing office. 11% Blossoms Inn, LAWRENCE LANE, CHEAPSIDE. Lane.] [See Lawrence Blowbladder Street, now the east end of NEWGATE STREET. Stow calls it "Bladder Street, of selling bladders there." It extended from Butcher Hall Lane, Newgate Street, to the Conduit, Cheapside. [See Butcher Hall Lane; St. Nicholas Shambles.] Blowbladder Street had its name from the butchers, who used to kill and dress their sheep there, and who, it seems, had a custom to blow up their meat with pipes to make it look thicker and fatter than it was, and were punished there for it by the Lord Mayor.-De Foe, Plague Year, ed. Brayley, p. 342. But a more obvious derivation is from the practice of the vendors of bladders inflating them to their utmost dimensions and then suspend 1 Lord Campbell's Life of Lord Ellenborough. VOL. I 2 Dobie's Bloomsbury, p. 178. ing them on poles or cords to dry, and at the same time to notify their wares to purchasers. Long strings of such inflated bladders of all sizes might be seen a few years ago in bye-streets about Newgate Market and Smithfield, and quite lately in the neighbourhood of the Central Meat Market. In 1720 the butchers and bladder-sellers had left Blowbladder Street. Blowbladder Street is taken up by milliners, sempstresses, and such as sell a sort of copper lace, called St. Martin's lace, for which it is of note.—Strype, B. iii. p. 121. Theodore Hook introduces Blowbladder Street into one of the happiest of his jingles about Queen Caroline : And who were the company, hey maʼam, ho ma'am? Who were the company, ho? We happened to drop in, with gemmen from Wapping, Ladies from Blow Bladder Row, row. But Samuel Foote had been before him. The Alderman's wife, Lady Pentweazel, in that amusing comedy Taste (8vo, 1752), lived here, and says to her husband, "Let us have none of your Blow Bladder breeding. Remember, you are at the Court end of the town." Blue Anchor (The) must have been one of the most popular of the London signs. In Dodsley's London (1761) are entered thirteen Blue Anchor Alleys; three Blue Anchor Courts; one Blue Anchor Road; and six Blue Anchor Yards. Seventy years later Elmes1 enumerates six Blue Anchor Alleys; four Blue Anchor Courts; two Blue Anchor Lanes; one Blue Anchor Road; and three Blue Anchor Yards, in all, seven less. The Postal Guide and the Post Office Directory mention only three in all, but they mention only the more substantial places. The Blue Anchor was the sign of Henry Herringman (d. 1703), the publisher, temp. Charles II. Blue Anchor Road, BERMONDSEY, was named from a tavern sign, and the name was changed to Southwark Park Road in 1878. Colonel Chester, the celebrated genealogist and antiquary, lived here for several years until his death, on May 26, 1882. Blue Boar Inn, on the south side of HIGH HOLBORN. It is mentioned in the burial register of St. Andrew's, Holborn (in which parish it stood), as early as 1616. Richard Duke of York, father of Edward IV., had for one of his badges of cognisance, "a blewe Bore, with his tuskes, and his cleis, and his membres of gold." It was also the badge of the Veres, Earls of Oxford. [See Cannon Street.] "The reason," says he [Cromwell to Lord Broghill], "why we would once have closed with the king was this: We found that the Scots and the Presbyterians began to be more powerful than we; and if they made up matters with the king, we should be left in the lurch: therefore we thought it best to prevent them, by 1 Top. Dict. of London, 1831. But while we were offering first to come in, upon any reasonable conditions. busied in these thoughts, there came a letter from one of our spies, who was of the king's bedchamber, which acquainted us, that on that day our final doom was decreed; that he could not possibly tell what it was, but we might find it out, if we could intercept a letter, sent from the king to the queen, wherein he declared what he would do. The letter, he said, was sewed up in the skirt of a saddle, and the bearer of it would come with the saddle upon his head, about ten of the clock that night, to the Blue Boar Inn in Holborn; for there he was to take horse and go to Dover with it. This messenger knew nothing of the letter in the saddle, but some persons at Dover did. We were at Windsor, when we received this letter; and immediately upon the receipt of it, Ireton and I resolved to take one trusty fellow with us, and with troopers' habits to go to the Inn in Holborn; which accordingly we did, and set our man at the gate of the Inn, where the wicket only was open to let people in and out. Our man was to give us notice, when any one came with a saddle, whilst we in the disguise of common troopers called for cans of beer, and continued drinking till about ten o'clock: the centinel at the gate then gave notice that the man with the saddle was come in. Upon this we immediately arose, and, as the man was leading out his horse saddled, came up to him with drawn swords and told him that we were to search all that went in and out there; but as he looked like an honest man, we would only search his saddle and so dismiss him. Upon that we ungirt the saddle and carried it into the stall, where we had been drinking, and left the horseman with our centinel: then ripping up one of the skirts of the saddle, we there found the letter of which we had been informed and having got it into our own hands, we delivered the saddle again to the man, telling him, he was an honest man and bid him go about his business. The man, not knowing what had been done, went away to Dover. As soon as we had the letter we opened it; in which we found the king had acquainted the queen, that he was now.courted by both the factions, the Scotch Presbyterians and the Army; and which bid fairest for him should have him; but he thought he should close with the Scots, sooner than the other. Upon this," added Cromwell, "we took horse, and went to Windsor; and finding we were not likely to have any tolerable terms from the king, we immediately from that time forward resolved his ruin.”—Memoirs of Roger, Earl of Orrery, by Rev. Mr. Thomas Morrice, his Lordship's Chaplain, (Earl of Orrery's State Letters), fol. 1742, p. 15.1 what be your Zek. Homespun. So here we be, at last, in London, at the sign, young man ? Waiter. The Blue Boar, Sir; one of the oldest houses in Holborn. : Zek. Oldest! why as you so say, young man, it do seem in a tumble-downish kind of a condition, indeed !-Colman's Heir at Law, Act i. Sc. 2. It stood, however, till 1864, when it was pulled down to make way for the Inns of Court Hotel. There was, as early as 1690, another noted coach and posting inn with the sign of the Blue Boar, on the north side of Aldgate. remained till railway times a great house for Essex coaches. site (No. 31) is now a tobacco manufactury. Blue Boar's Head Inn. [See King Street, Westminster.] Bluecoat School. [See Christ's Hospital.] The Blue Coat School, WESTMINSTER, at the east end of James. Street. The school (for boys) was instituted in 1688, and in 1714 a school for girls was added. 1 On the subject of this intercepted letter of the king's, see Richardsoniana, 8vo, 1776, p. 132. 212 BLUE GATE FIELDS It is the Blue Gate Fields, RATCLIFF HIGHWAY (but now Blue Gate Fields, is called RATCLIFF STREET, and Ratcliff Highway, ST. GEORGE'S STREET), the first turning east of St. George's Church. favourite haunt of degraded Lascars, Malays, and Chinamen, who may, in some of the dens, be seen smoking opium in the fashion common in Eastern Asia, and described by Dickens. Here Blue Maid Alley, ST. MARGARET'S HILL, SOUTHWARK. Timothy Fielding, the actor of Drury Lane Theatre who has been confused with Henry Fielding, the great author, set up his booth at Southwark Fair in 1728. At FIELDING and REYNOLDS's Great Theatrical Booth, at the lower end of Blue Maid Alley, on the Green in Southwark, during the time of the Fair, will be performed The Beggar's Opera by the Company of Comedians from the Haymarket. All the songs and dances set to music, as performed at the Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. N.B. There is a commodious passage for the Quality, and coaches through the Half Moon Inn, and care will be taken that there shall be lights, and people to conduct them to their places. Blue Posts Tavern, No. 13 CORK STREET. [See Cork Street.] Blue Posts Tavern, No. 59 HAYMARKET, a house that continued for two centuries in favour for dinners. Beauregard. Run like a rogue as you are, and try to find Sir Jolly, and desire him to meet me at the Blue Posts in the Haymarket, about twelve; we'll dine together. Sir Jolly Jumble. The maw begins to empty; get you before and bespeak dinner at the Blue Posts.-Otway, The Soldier's Fortune, 4to, 1681. October 4, 1686.-I entertained the Bishops of Oxon and St. David's, Mr.Ashton, Mr. Brookes, my son, Mr. Callis, etc., at the Blue Posts in the Haymarket.— Bishop Cartwright's Diary. The close of the last week, one Mr. Moon and one Mr. Hurst quarrelled at the Blue Posts in the Haymarket; and as they came out at the door they drew their swords, and the latter was run through and immediately died. he began the fray and drew first, pressing the other gentleman to fight.-The Post It appears that Boy, ending July 23, 1695.1 Blue Posts Tavern, SPRING GARDENS, a great resort of the Jacobites during the reign of William III. and his fellow-conspirators met for breakfast, February 22, 1696, before It was here that Charnock starting for Turnham Green in order to assassinate the King, and whilst at their meal received intelligence which convinced them that their plot was discovered. When, on the death of James II. and public recognition of his son as King of England by Louis XIV. a royal messenger was sent from Kensington to order M. Poussin, the French Ambassador, to leave the country without delay, he was found to be supping at the Blue Posts in Spring Gardens, along with three of the most prominent Jacobite members of the House of Commons. "This supper party," says Macaulay, "was during some weeks the chief topic of conversation." 2 1 See also Diary of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 153, and Comparison between the Two Stages, 12mo, 1702, p. 68. 2 History of England, vol. vii. p. 296; vol. viii. p. 294. Board of Control, or BOARD OF THE COMMISSIONERS FOR THE AFFAIRS OF INDIA; established by Act of Parliament in 1784, it lasted till the transfer of the Government of India to the Crown in 1858, when the Board merged in the Indian Department of the Government. The Office was the building with an Ionic portico on the east side of Canon Row, Westminster; of which William Pilkington was the architect about 1816 (it is often attributed to W. Atkinson). It was originally designed for the Transport Office, but was found too small for the business of the department. It is now the Office of the Civil Service Commission. Board of Green Cloth, BUCKINGHAM PALACE, the office of the Lord Steward of Her Majesty's Household, and so called from the table at which the Lord Steward and his officers usually sit. The Board took cognisance of "all matters of Government and justice within the King's Court Royal." Its jurisdiction extended over what is called "The Verge of Court," or twelve miles round the residence of the Sovereign, wherever the residence may be, and was even extended to "progresses," though not to "huntings." This limit was first defined by 13 Rich. II., stat. I. c. 3. All offences were tried within what was called "The Session of Verges," and all committals were made to the Marshalsea, of which "The Court of Verge" was a branch. [See Verge, Court of The.] To the Board belonged the sole right of arresting within the limits and jurisdiction of the Palace. The Countess of Dorset, wishing to arrest a person of the name of Kirk, who had sought shelter within the precinct of the palace at Whitehall, applied to the Board for permission to arrest him, which permission was granted May 2, 1684. In 1630 Maurice Evans was imprisoned for serving a subpoena in the King's House upon John Darson. In 1631 Peter Price was committed to the Marshalsea for serving a subpoena upon George Ravenscroft in the Council Chamber; and in 1632 John Perkins, a constable, was imprisoned for serving the Lord Chief-Justice's warrant upon John Beard in St. James's Park.1 Offences committed within the jurisdiction of the Board were punished with a severity peculiar to the Court that tried them. Baker describes one very graphically :— On June 10, 1541, Sir Edmund Knevet of Norfolk, Knight, was arraigned before the officers of the Green Cloth, for striking one Master Cleer of Norfolk, within the Tennis Court of the King's House; being found guilty he had judgment to lose his right hand, and to forfeit all his lands and goods; whereupon there was called to do execution, first the Serjeant Surgeon, with his Instruments pertaining to his office, then the Serjeant of the Wood Yard, with a mallet and a block to lay the hand upon, then the King's Master Cook with a knife to cut off the hand, then the Serjeant of the Larder to set the knife right on the joint, then the Serjeant Ferrier with searing irons to sear the veins, then the Serjeant of the Poultry with a Cock, which Cock should have his head smitten off upon the same block and with the same knife; then the Yeoman of the Chandry with Sear cloaths, then the Yeoman of the Scullery, with a pan of fire to heat the Irons, a chafer of water to 1 Warrant Book in the Lord-Steward's Office, Anno 1677, fol. 381. |