Tag Archives: Almack’s

April 11, 2020 · 9:49 am

The Road to Waterloo – Week Seven. The Allied Sovereigns Snub Napoleon and Mr Barton Wallop Goes to A Ball

In Paris Napoleon was finding that the tide of popular acclaim that had swept to meet him on his journey to Paris was ebbing fast now that he was actually in power. There were threats of civil war in the south and west and his legislative reforms were in chaos, even though all the major public institutions had declared their loyalty to him. To be safe he had to keep the peace internationally while he consolidated at home, so he wrote to the Allied Sovereigns – but none of his letters were accepted. France was, therefore, put on a war footing while Napoleon tinkered with the constitution. The British Mercury commented gloomily that 300,000 French prisoners of war had been returned to France and were doubtless flocking to Napoleon’s banner to fight against Britain.

BON40706In London the social scene was buzzing and in the newspapers the “Fashionable Parties” and “Arrivals” columns were long. On Monday it was reported that, “Lady Castlereagh [shown left. She was one of the Patronesses of Almack’s] gave an elegant supper on the Saturday, after the opera, at her house in St. James’s-square to nearly 100 distinguished fashionables: among them were the Russian Ambassador and his lady, Prince and Princess Castelcicala, the Duke of Devonshire etc.”

“Lord Grantley, Sir John and Lady Lubbock, Lady Frances Wright Wilson, Mr. Anson, Mr. Barton Wallop, and a large company of distinguished friends, were entertained on Friday to dinner, by the Earl and Countess of Portsmouth, in Wimpole-street; and her Ladyship had a party in the evening which was a much enlivened by an elegant selection of music.” The magnificently named Mr Barton Wallop appears to have been Major William Barton Wallop (1781-1824) who was at one time in the Nova Scotia Fencibles. There can’t have been many men around with that name!

On Monday a marriage fated to become tragically famous was announced: “On Tuesday last, ColonWilliam_Howe_DeLanceyel Sir William de Lancey to Magdaline, second daughter of Sir James Hall of Dunglass, Bart. and Lady Helen Hall, sister to the Earl of Selkirk.” This was to prove a short-lived marriage, ending at Waterloo where Lady de Lancey nursed her dying husband [left] under terrible conditions.

In Parliament the House of Lords were almost entirely occupied with “The Crisis” while the Commons debated the Paving Bill, considered a number of petitions and gave the Chancellor of the Exchequer a hard time.

Employers everywhere probably shuddered at the report of the indictment of Elizabeth Fenning, for attempting to poison her employers (the household of Orlibar Turner – this seems to be the week for unusual names) with arsenic in elizabeth-fenning-book-1their dumplings because she was under notice of dismissal. She had, apparently, taken the arsenic out of a drawer where it was, rather conveniently, labelled “Arsenic, deadly poison.” She was found guilty and sentenced to death.

At Lambeth Street Magistrates’ Office the trial continued of Margaret Moore, accused of attempting to steal the crown from the Tower of London. She maintained that her motive was to relieve those who were in want. Her neighbours appeared to state that she was occasionally deranged.

1808 court dressOn Thursday the Queen held the Drawing Room which was “brilliantly attended”. The Morning Post reported that Her Majesty wore “a petticoat of jonquil starsnet covered with a beautiful Indian silver gauze, with draperies of the same gracefully intermerged with superb formed silver fringe, ornamented with handsome cords and tassels; robe to correspond ornamented with diamonds.” A long list of persons were to be presented and a one-way system was set up through the palace in order to manage the crowd. The image shows court dress – despite the fashion for high waists hoops were still compulsory, producing a truly odd silhouette.

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March 12, 2020 · 10:00 am

The Road to Waterloo – Week Three: the French King Dithers, Princess Charlotte Sniffles

While Napoleon held court in LLouis_XVIII_of_Franceyons, the alarmed Londoners must have fallen on the Sunday papers and would have been lulled into a false sense of security by reports from Paris that Napoleon had received no support following his landing. The weather in France had apparently made telegraphic signals difficult to use, but even so, the French court seems to have been trying to convince itself that all was well.
By all accounts King Louis XVIII (left) was driving his advisors distracted by his lack-lustre approach to the crisis. He had either deluded himself that all Frenchmen in their right minds would  be  ecstatic at the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty and that Napoleon had therefor no hope of securing support, or, more likely, he was simply so lacking in any sort of leadership qualities that he stuck his head in the sand and hoped it would all go away.
The date that Napoleon left Lyons is unclear, but the best estimate seems to be Monday 13th, the day that further falsely reassuring dispatches arrived in London. That same day, at the Congress of Vienna, the Great Powers of Europe (Austria, Great Britain, Prussia and Russia) and their allies declared Napoleon an outlaw. The possibility of a peaceful outcome seemed to be fading, especially as on Tuesday Napoleon proclaimed the Bourbons unfit to reign and Princess Charlottecalled on all French troops to join him.
Londoners who had been planning a visit to the continent, and who were reassured by the news from the Paris press, might have studied with interest an advertisement for packet boats from London via Gravesend to Ostend. They sailed every Sunday and, potential passengers were assured, took less than 24 hours. Private cabins were available.
Meanwhile, at Windsor, Princess Charlotte (right) was reported to be slightly indisposed and confined to Cranborn Lodge. She had been visited by the Queen & Princesses from Windsor Castle.
In London the Lord Mayor, as was usual, set the price of a wheaten quartern loaf at 11¾ d and the Earl & Countess of Jersey, one of the influential Patronesses of Almack’s, arrived in London for the Season from their Oxfordshire seat. Business as usual, in other words, and no sign of alarm.
On Thursday 1Ney6th Napoleon reached Avallon where two more regiments defected to his army and, finally, a more realistic report arrived in London from Paris to the effect that all troops sent against Napoleon had joined him, and that he had entered Lyons on 10th March. By Friday, the news was even gloomier – Bonaparte was in Paris, the papers declared, inaccurately, also reporting that the King had fled. Rioting over the Corn Law was reported from Norwich, but spirits rose on Saturday when another falsely encouraging report arrived from Paris.
Meanwhile Napoleon arrived in Auxerre where he was met by Marshal Ney (above) who had promised the King to bring the invader back to Paris “in an iron cage.” The two men embraced and Ney rejoined his old commander.
Despite the worrying news, or lack of it, from France, at least there was no rioting on the streets of London and audiences venturing out could be entertained to a rather strange combination of performances at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane – King Richard III, with Edmund Kean as the king, followed by “A new Farce called ‘Past Ten O’clock & a Rainy Night.’” Edmund Kean as Richard III The print to the right shows Kean in the role and below is a detail of the Ackermann’s Repository plate of Drury Lanethe theatre in 1809. The artist must have been standing right outside the Bow Street Runners’ HQ. The theatre is little changed today and you can visit it on walk 7 in Walking Jane Austen’s London.

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August 27, 2017 · 12:09 pm

St George’s Hanover Square – and Its Remarkable Neighbour, Trinity Chapel

 

A marriage between the aristocratic hero and his true love in St George’s Hanover Square forms the climax of many a romantic historical novel, and I’ve used that scene myself. The church, completed in 1724, was built to serve the new and expanding residential area between Piccadilly and Tyburn or Oxford Road (now Oxford Street). These handsome streets and squares were a magnet for the upper classes in Society and handsome St George’s was the perfect place to be married or to have your children baptised. The 5th Earl of Jersey, husband of Lady Jersey one of the famous Patronesses of Almack’s, was a churchwarden here, although their marriage was a private one by special licence in their Berkeley Square house.

In a detail from John Roque’s map of 1747 (below) the new church sits with Burlington House to the South and Berkley (as it was then spelled) Square to the South West.

True, it is not in Hanover Square at all, but on the East side of George Street and its position gives the West front a cramped outlook, almost but not quite, looking down Maddox Street. The view at the top of the post (1812, from Ackermann’s Repository) is probably the best angle, then and now.

It is sometimes easy to forget that the occupants of these fashionable squares, great mansions and elegant terraces were serviced by a multitude of tradesmen, servants and labourers, all of whom ‘lived in’ with their employers or set up shop close by or who lodged within easy walking distance of their employment. St George’s was their church too and in between the glamorous christenings and marriages the humbler parishioners were in and out, tying the knot, naming their babies and being buried.

This was brought home to me by discovering my great-great-great grandfather James Wood marrying Mary Baldwin at St George’s. This was a surprise – James was a humble labourer turned chair mender and caner from Berkhamstead in Hertfordshire. What was he doing in London, let alone getting married in Mayfair? Then I discovered that he was a ‘servant’ (no idea what kind) of the Earl of Bridgewater whose country house was at Ashridge, close to Berkhamstead. The Earl had a London home in Albemarle Street (bottom, centre on the map), so presumably James Wood was there serving his employer in some capacity.

After that discovery ancestors marrying or having children baptised at St George’s in the 18th and early 19th century started appearing in large numbers – all from the concentration of piano makers in Marylebone, just North of Oxford Street. Possibly St George’s was seen as an aspirational place to be married because the Marylebone piano key makers, piano string makers, piano striker coverers and occasional dolls’ eyes makers did have other options in the various chapels of ease that had been built to help ease the pressure on the churches in these new and crowded districts.

One of those chapels  can be seen on the map on Conduit Street facing up George Street. This was Trinity Chapel and had one of the strangest histories of any London place of worship. A Chapel of Ease was a chapel either built before a parish church was in existence or added later to take the strain in a very large or crowded parish. This one started life as a moveable Roman Catholic chapel on wheels used by King James II. After he fled the country in 1688 to be replaced by William and Mary, the chapel was abandoned on Hounslow Heath where James had abdicated. Probably he took mass there in one of his last acts as king. It was transported to Conduit Street and turned into an Anglican Chapel of Ease on the initiative of Archbishop Tenison. Later it was acquired by bookseller and High Bailiff of Westminster James Robson, who had it demolished and rebuilt in brick, but because it was on leasehold land it was not eligible to be a parish church, hence the need for St George’s to be built. Unfortunately no images of the remarkable ‘traveling tabernacle’ seem to have survived and Trinity Chapel was demolished in 1875, the owner of the ground having decided that secular buildings would be more profitable.

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