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Theatre) was built in 1732, and the Bow Street Police Office, celebrated in the annals of crime, established in 1749. Eminent Inhabitants.-Edmund Waller, the poet, on the east side of the street, from 1654 to 1656; here then he was living when he wrote, in 1654, his famous panegyric upon Cromwell. Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, was born in this street, October 5, 1661. William Longueville, the friend of Butler, on the east side. The witty Earl of Dorset, in a house on the west side, in the years 1684 and 1685. Major Mohun, the famous actor, in a house on the east side, from 1671 to 1676 inclusive. Dr. John Radcliffe, on the west side, from 1687 to 1714: the house was taken down in 1732 to erect Covent Garden Theatre. Grinling Gibbons, in a house on the east side (about the middle of the street), from 1678 to 1721, the period of his death. The house was distinguished by the sign of "The King's Arms." 1

On Thursday the house of Mr. Gibbons, the famous carver, in Bow Street, Covent Garden, fell down; but by a special Providence none of the family were killed; but 'tis said a young girl, which was playing in the court [King's Court?] being missing, is supposed to be buried in the rubbish.—Postman of January 24, 1701-1702.

Grinlin Gibbins gen. and wife

Mr. Gibbons more for a fine refusing to take upon him the
office of an assessor

5 Children-Eliz., Mary, Jane, Katherine, and Ann

Appr. Robert Bing [King in another place]

Servts. {Mary Guff

Lodger Madam Titus
Her servant

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Poll Tax Bks. of St. Paul's, Cov. Gar., anno 1692. Marcellus Laroone (" Captain Laroon "), who drew the Cries of London, known as "Tempest's Cries," in a house on the west side, three doors up, from midsummer 1680 to his death in 1702. William Wycherley, the dramatist, in lodgings (widow Hilton's, on the west side), three doors beyond Radcliffe, and over against the Cock. King Charles II. paid him a visit here, when ill of a fever; and here, when seventy-five and too unwell to attend the church, and only anxious to burden the estate descending to his nephew, he was married in his own lodgings to a woman with child. He died eleven days after his marriage (in 1715); but his widow had no child to succeed to the property Edmund Curll, "next door to Will's Coffee-house." 2 Robert Wilks, the actor, "Gentleman Wilks" (d. 1732), at No. 6, the sixth house on the west side walking to Long Acre. Wilks built the house, next door but one to the Theatre,3 and in it, in 1742, Macklin, Mrs. Woffington, and David Garrick lodged. They took it by turns to keep house, and it was here that Johnson heard Garrick blame the Woffington's extravagance in having the tea "as red as blood." Spranger Barry, the actor, in 1749, in the corner house on the west side, formerly Will's 3 T. Dibdin's Autobiography, vol. ii. p. 18.

1 Black's Ashmole MSS. col. 209.

2 Advertisement of Ashmole's "Berkshire," in Daily Post Boy, February 7, 1729-1730.

4 Fitzgerald's Garrick, vol. i. p. 132.

Coffee-house. Dr. Johnson, for a short time. Henry Fielding, the novelist, and acting magistrate for Westminster, in a house (destroyed in the Gordon riots of 1780, it being then in the occupation of Sir John Fielding), on the site of the late Police Office (No. 4). It was Fielding (d. 1754), and his half-brother, Sir John Fielding (d. 1780), who made Bow Street Police Office and Bow Street officers famous in our annals. Here the former wrote his Tom Jones.

A predecessor of mine used to boast that he made one thousand pounds a year in his office; but how he did this (if, indeed, he did it) is to me a secret. His clerk, now mine, told me I had more business than he had ever known there; I am sure I had as much as any man could do.—Fielding, Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon.

He [Rigby] and Peter Bathurst t'other night carried a servant of the latter's, who had attempted to shoot him, before Fielding; who to all his other vocations has, by the Grace of Mr. Lyttelton, added that of Middlesex Justice. He sent them word that he was at supper with a blind man, three Irishmen, and a whore, on some cold mutton and a bone of ham, both in one dish, and the cursedest Dirty cloth. He never stirred nor asked them to sit. Rigby who had seen him so often come to beg a guinea of Sir C. Williams, and Bathurst at whose father's he had lived for victuals, understood that dignity as little, and pulled themselves chairs, on which he civilised.-Horace Walpole to H. W. Montague, May 18, 1749.

On Thursday night they pulled down Fielding's house and burnt his goods in the street. . . . Leaving Fielding's ruins they went to Newgate to demand their companions who had been seized demolishing the chapel.-Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, June 9, 1780.

George M. Woodward, caricaturist, died in 1809 at the Brown Bear public house, and was "buried by the humane landlord."

Till the passing of Sir Robert Peel's Police Act, the Bow Street police officers-Bow Street Runners, or Red-breasts (from their red waistcoats), as they were commonly called by the populace-were chiefly charged with the detection and apprehension of criminals.

At home our Bow Street gemmen keep the laws,

says Lord Byron in Beppo; but now they are an extinct genus.

I have actually come to Bow Street in the morning, and while I have been leaning on the desk, had three or four people come in and say, "I was robbed by two highwaymen in such a place;" "I was robbed by a single highwayman in such a place." People travel now safely by means of the horse patrol. That Sir Richard Ford planned. Where are the highway robberies now?—Townsend, the Bow Street Officer (Evidence before the House of Commons, June 1816).

To the list of celebrated personages living in lodgings in this street may be added the name of Sir Roger de Coverley.1 Remarkable Places. Will's Coffee-house; No. 1, on the west side. [See Will's Coffee-house.] The Cock Tavern, about the middle of the street, on the east side.

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Their lodgings [Wycherley and his first wife the Countess of Drogheda] were in Bow Street over against the Cock, whither if he at any time were with his friends, he was obliged to leave the windows open, that the lady might see there was no woman in the company, or she would be immediately in a downright raving condition.-Dennis's Letters, p. 224.

1 Spectator, No. 410.

Here Wycherley has laid two of the best scenes in The Plain Dealer (4to, 1677). Here Sedley, Buckhurst, and Ogle exposed themselves in very indecent postures to the populace; Sedley stripping himself naked, and preaching blasphemy from the balcony. Here Sir John Coventry supped for the last time with a whole nose, being waylaid, by order of Charles II., on his way home from the Cock to his brother's in Suffolk Street, and his nose cut to the bone.1 The house was kept, when Sedley exposed himself, by a woman called "Oxford Kate." 2 Jacob Tonson's printing office.

The Bow Street Police Court, the wretched den in which the chief magisterial business of the Metropolis was for so many years carried on, was on the east side of the street, but a very large space was cleared on the opposite side and a new court erected, more convenient for the officials and the public and more suitable to the important character of the functions performed there. The new Police Courts and Station possess the advantage of being in great part detached, having frontages also to Broad Court and Cross Court. They cover nearly half an acre.

The courts are placed on the northern portion of the ground, with the necessary rooms for the attorneys, etc. The magistrates' rooms are on the first floor, where is placed the second court intended for extradition and special cases. The police station occupies the southern end, and has series of rooms for all concerned, including living and sleeping accommodation for 100 policemen. The whole is of fire-proof construction, and was admirably arranged by Mr. John Taylor, architect, of H.M. Office of Works and Public Buildings. The building was completed in 1881 at a total cost of about £40,000.

Remarkable Circumstances.—" At the large rooms at the upper end of Bow Street, nearly opposite the Play House passage," Bonnell Thornton, in the name of "The Society of Sign Painters," opened on the same day as the exhibition of the Royal Academy an exhibition of sign-paintings, a piece of inoffensive drollery in which Hogarth did not disdain to lend the aid of his pencil. The Catalogue, in imitation of that of the Royal Academy, was in 4to, price is. The painters treated the affair seriously and the burlesque was not repeated.

At the Garrick's Head, facing the Theatre, the disreputable Renton Nicholson, editor of The Town, held for some years his meetings of "Judge and Jury," when he styled himself "Lord Chief Baron."

18 Bowl Yard, ST. GILES'S-IN-THE-FIELDS, a narrow court on the south side of High Street, St. Giles's, over against Dyot Street, St. Giles's, cleared away when Endell Street was formed out of Old Belton Street.

At this hospital [St. Giles's] the prisoners conveyed from the City of London towards Teyborne, there to be executed for treasons, felonies, or other trespasses, were presented with a great bowl of ale, thereof to drink at their pleasure, as to be their last refreshing in this life.-Stow, p. 164.

1 See Marvell's Letters, and article "Haymarket." 2 Pepys, July 1, 1663; Shadwell, vol. i. p. 45.

The morning that he [Raleigh] went to execution, there was a cup of excellent sack brought him, and being asked how he liked it, "As the fellow," said he, "that, drinking of St. Giles's bowl as he went to Tyburn, said,—That were good drink if a man might tarry by it."--John Chamberlain to Dudley Carleton, October 31, 1618. Parton, in his History of the parish, mentions a "Bowl" public house. ve Bowling Alley, now Bowling Street, leading from DEAN'S YARD to TUFTON STREET, WESTMINSTER. Colonel Blood, who stole the Crown from the Tower in the reign of Charles II., died (August 24, 1680) in a house at the south-west corner of this alley, and was buried in the adjoining churchyard of the New Chapel, Tothill Fields. But so numerous had been his tricks that after the funeral many people began to suspect that the real Colonel Blood had never died at all. The coffin was taken up, and opened before the coroner and jury, and the corpse was identified by the extraordinary size of one of the thumbs. The house, of course, is no longer the same; but drawings of it exist. In the Overseer's Books of St. Margaret's parish for 1565 the "Myll next to Bowling Alley" is rated. There are other Bowling Alleys, and a Bowling Green Lane in Clerkenwell and another in Southwark.

Bowyers' Hall. The bowyers or bowmakers were an ancient guild; and in the days when the long-bow was a powerful military weapon, and its use was inculcated as a duty on all citizens, theirs was an important craft, but they were not incorporated till the 18th year of James I. (May 28, 1620),1 long after the bow had fallen into disuse as a weapon of offence. When Stow wrote the Bowyers' Hall was by the corner of Monkwell Street.2 Before the Great Fire it is usually said to have been in Noble Street, but Strype gives a different account: "Their Hall anciently was in Hart Street, in the ward of Cripplegate Within and before the Great Fire, upon St. Peter's Hill, in the ward of Castle Bainard. Since the Fire they use to meet at some public house to confer about their affairs."4 They are still without a hall; but have a livery.

16 Bowyer's Row, LUDGATE STREET.

Ordinance by the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's concerning some houses lately erected in Ludgatstrete, commonly called “Bowiarresrowe" by the executors of the wills of John de Tenersham, Nicholas Housebonde, and John de Claktone, late Minor Canons of St. Paul's, A.D. 1359.—Historical MSS. Comm., Ninth Report, Appendix, p. 49.

Boyle Street, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, was so called from the Boyles, Earls of Burlington. [See Burlington House.] In this street was built the Burlington Charity Schoolhouse about the year 1720. The school was originally founded in 1699 for the maintaining, clothing, and educating sixty girls belonging to or residing in the parish of St. James's. The Schoolhouse was enlarged a few years ago for the purpose of accommodating a middle class girls' school.

1 Strype's Stow, App. 2, p. 6.

2 Stow, p. 112.

3 Maitland, p. 602.
4 Strype, B. v. p. 217.

Bozier's Court, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD, a foot passage leading into Oxford Street, formed by a narrow block of houses erected between it and the opening of the road into Oxford Street.

Braziers' Hall. [See Armourers' and Braziers' Hall.]

Bread Street (Ward of), one of the twenty-six wards of London, taking its name from Bread Street, the chief street within the ward. Friday Street and part of Watling Street are within this ward, as are the Church of St. Mildred the Virgin, in Bread Street, and Cordwainers' Hall, in Distaff Lane. The Compter in Bread Street was, in 1555, moved to Wood Street. The Church of St. John the Evangelist, in Friday Street, described by Stow, was destroyed in the Great Fire and not rebuilt. The Church of Allhallows, Bread Street, was pulled down in 1878, and the Tavern, which occupied the site of Gerard's Hall, Basing Lane, in 1852.

Bread Street, CHEAPSIDE, the third turning on the south side from St. Paul's churchyard. It crosses Cannon Street and terminates in Queen Victoria Street. The cooks of Bread Street are particularly referred to in ordinances of the 14th century.

So called of bread in old time there sold; for it appeareth by records, that in the year 1302, which was the 30th of Edward I., the bakers of London were bound to sell no bread in their shops or houses, but in the market; and that they should have four hall-motes in the year, at four several terms, to determine of enormities belonging to the said Company.-Stow, p. 129.

Bread Street is now wholly inhabited by rich merchants; and divers fair inns be there, for good receipt of carriers and other travellers to the city. It appears in the will of Edward Stafford, Earl of Wylshire, dated March 22, 1498, and 14 Hen. VII., that he lived in a house in Bread Street in London, which belonged to the family of Stafford, Duke of Bucks afterwards; he bequeathing all the stuff in that house to the Lord of Buckingham, for he died without issue.-Strype, B. iii. p. 199. Milton was born in this street (December 9, 1608), and baptized in the adjoining church of Allhallows (pulled down in 1878), where the register of his baptism is still preserved. Aubrey, a contemporary, tells us that "The only inducement of several foreigners to visit England was to see the Protector Oliver and Mr. John Milton, and they would see the house and chamber where he was born." 2 The poet's father was a scrivener in this street, living at the sign of "The Spread Eagle," the armorial ensign of his family. The first turning on the left hand, as you enter from Cheapside, was called "Black Spread Eagle Court," and not unlikely from the family ensign. Aubrey says the father "had also in that street another house, the Rose, and other houses in other places." A bust of Milton has been set up in the wall with this inscription: "Born in Bread Street. 1608, baptized in Church of All Hallows, which stood here ante 1878." It stood on the east side, at the corner of Watling

1 Taylor, the Water Poet, enumerates three: The Star, The Three Cups, and The George. The Star is mentioned in "A Chronicle of London of the 15th Century," ed. Nicolas, p. 126. None of them exist now.

2 A fire broke out in Bread Street on November 12, 1623, when the poet was in his fourteenth year. Laud, in his Diary, calls it "a most grievous fire. Alderman Cocking's house with

others burnt down."

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