THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE.
The Topographical Article is so familiar as to need but little introduction.... Personally, I do not recommend it; it involves a considerable labour; alone, of all forms of historical writing, it demands accuracy; alone, it is invariably un-paid.
Nevertheless, there are special occasions when it will be advisable to attempt it; as—in order to please an aged and wealthy relative; in order to strike up a chance acquaintance with a great Family; in order to advertise land that is for sale; in order to prevent the sale, or to lower the price (in these two last cases it is usual to demand a small fee from the parties interested); in order to vent a just anger; in order to repay a debt; in order to introduce a “special” advertisement for some manure or other; and so forth. Most men can recall some individual accident when a training in Topographical Writing would have been of value to them.
There even arise, though very rarely, conditions under which this kind of writing is positively ordered. Thus, when the Editor of the Evening Mercury changed his politics for money on the 17th of September, 1899, all that part of his staff who were unable to drop their outworn shibboleths were put on to writing up various parts of London in the legal interval preceding their dismissal, and a very good job they made of it.
Never, perhaps, were the five rules governing the art more thoroughly adhered to. A land-owning family was introduced into each; living persons were treated with courtesy and affection; a tone of regret was used at the opening of each; each closed with a phrase of passionate patriotism; and each was carefully run parallel to the course of English History in general; and the proper praise and blame allotted to this name and that, according to its present standing with the more ignorant of the general public.[11]
It was in this series (afterwards issued in Book form under the title, London! My London) that the following article—which I can put forward as an excellent model—was the contribution of my friend, Mr. James Bayley. It may interest the young reader (if he be as yet unfamiliar with our great London names) to know that under the pseudonym of “Cringle” is concealed the family of Holt, whose present head is, of course, the Duke of Sheffield.
DISAPPEARING LONDON: MANNING GREEN.
At a moment when a whole district of the metropolis is compulsorily passing into the hands of a soulless corporation, it is intolerable that the proprietors of land in that district should receive no compensation for the historical importance of their estates. Manning Green, which will soon be replaced by the roar and bustle—or bustle and confusion, whichever you like—of a great railway station, is one of those centres whence the great empire-builders of our race proceeded in past times.
For many centuries it was a bare, bleak spot, such as our England could boast by the thousand in the rude but heroic days when the marvellous fortunes of the Anglo-Saxon race were preparing in the slow designs of Providence. For perhaps a generation it was one of those suburban villages that are said by a contemporary poet to “nestle in their trees.” Doubtless it sent forth in the sixties many brave lads to fight for the liberties of Europe in Italy or Denmark, but their humble record has perished. Such a thought recalls the fine lines of Gray:—
“Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest;
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.”
Twenty to twenty-five years ago the advancing tide of the capital of the world swept round this little outlying place; it was submerged, and soon made part of greater London.
Relics are still to be discovered of the period when Manning Green had something rural about it, as Highgate and South Croydon have now. Thus “The Jolly Drover” (whose license was recently refused because it was not a tied house) recalls the great sheep-droves that once passed through the village from the north. It is now rare indeed to meet with a countryman driving his flock to market through the streets of London, though the sight is not absolutely unknown. The present writer was once stopped in the early morning by a herd of oxen south of Westminster Bridge, and what may seem more remarkable he has frequently seen wild animals in the charge of negroes pass through Soho on their way to the Hippodrome. It is as Tennyson says:—
“The old order changes, giving place to the new,”
until at last
“Beyond these voices there is peace.”
Another relic of the old village of Manning Green is the Court Baron, which is still held (how few Londoners know this!) once a year, for the purpose of providing a small but regular income to a relative of the Lord Chancellor. This Court was probably not held before the year 1895, but it is none the less of extreme interest to antiquarians.
The first mention of Manning Green in history is in a letter to Edward Lord Cringle, the pioneer and ally of the beneficent reforms that remain inseparably associated with the name of the eighth Henry. This letter is written from prison by one Henry Turnbull, a yeoman, and contains these phrases:—
“For that very certainly, my good Lord, I never did this thing, no, nor met the Friar nor had any dealing with him. And whatever I did that they say is treason I did it being a simple man, as following the Mass, which I know is welcome to the King’s Majesty, and not knowing who it was that sang it, no, nor speaking to him after, as God knows. And, my dear Lord, I have had conveyed to you, as you know, my land of Horton with the Grey farm and the mere called Foul Marsh or Manning, having neither son nor any other but my own life only, and for that willingly would I give you this land, and so I have done; and, my good Lord, speak for me at Court in this matter, remembering my gift of the land....”
This Turnbull was afterwards executed for treason at Tyburn. There is still a Turnbull in the parish, but as his father’s name was Weissenstein he is very unlikely to have any connection with the original family of yeomen.
The land (if land it could then be called) did not, oddly enough, remain long in the Cringle family. It was sold by Lord Edward to the Carmelites, and on the dissolution of that order was returned by the grateful monarch to its original owner. We next find “Manning” or “Foul Marsh” drained during that period of active beneficence on the part of the great landlords which marked the seventeenth century. We are acquainted of this fact in our agricultural history by an action recorded in 1631, where it appears that one Nicholas Hedon had gone to shoot snipe, as had been once of common right in the manor, and had so trespassed upon land “now drained at his lordship’s charges, and by him enclosed.” Hedon lost both ears, and was pilloried.
Manning is probably alluded to also in a strong protest of the old Liberal blood[12] against ship-money, to which exaction it contributed 1s. 4d. The sum need not excite ridicule, as it represents quite 4s. of our present currency. The vigorous protest of the family against this extortion is one of the finest examples of our sterling English spirit on the eve of the Civil War. The money was, however, paid.
In the troubles of the Civil Wars Manning ( now no longer a marsh, but a green) was sold to John Grayling, but the deed of conveyance being protested at the Restoration, it was restored to its original owners at the intruder’s charge by an action of Novel Disseizin. After Monmouth’s rebellion, Manning was in danger of suffering confiscation, and was hurriedly sold to a chance agent (William Greaves) at so low a price as to refute for ever all insinuations of rapacity upon the part of its now ducal owners. It was happily restored by a grateful nation as a free gift after the glorious Revolution of 1688, and the agent, who had only acquired it by taking advantage of the recent troubles, was very properly punished. King William congratulated the family in a famous epigram, which a natural ignorance of the Taal forbids us to transcribe.
In 1718, Manning being still pasture of a somewhat spongy nature (Guy, in his report, calls it “soggy and poor land, reedy, and fit for little”), there was a rumour that the New River canal would pass through it, and it was sold to Jonathan Hemp. The New River was proved, however, in the pleadings before both Houses of Parliament, to have no necessity for this canal, and Hemp was compelled (as it was a mere speculation on his part) to sell it back again to its distinguished owner at a merely nominal price.
Nothing further can be traced with regard to Manning Green (as it was now commonly called) till the report in 1780 that coal had been found beneath it. Such a deposit so near the metropolis naturally attracted the attention of merchants, and the Family sold the place for the last time to a merchant of the name of Hogg for £20,000.
The report proved false; yet, oddly enough, it was the beginning of Mr. Hogg’s prosperity.
We have no space to dwell on this interesting character. “Hogg’s Trustees” are an ecclesiastical household word in our principal watering-places, and the “Hogg Institute” at Brighton is a monument of Christian endeavour. He was a shrewd bargainer, a just man, and upon his mantel-pieces were to be discovered ornaments in alabaster representing Joshua and Richard Cœur de Lion.
The growth of the metropolis entered largely into Mr. Hogg’s enlightened prevision of the future, and he obtained promises from a large number of people to build houses upon his land, which houses should, after a term of years, become his (Hogg’s) property, and cease to belong to those who had paid to put them up. How Mr. Hogg managed to obtain such promises is still shrouded in mystery, but the universal prevalence of the system to-day in modern England would surely prove that there is something in our Imperial race which makes this form of charity an element of our power.
Mr. Hogg’s only daughter married Sir John Moss, Lord Mayor; and Mr. Moss, the son, was the father of the present Lord Hemelthorpe. Thus something romantic still clings to poor Manning Green, of which Lord Hemelthorpe was, until his recent bankruptcy, the proprietor.
There is little more to be said about Manning Green. The Ebenezer Chapel has a history of its own, written by the Rev. Napoleon Plaything, son of Mr. Honey Q. Plaything, of Bismark, Pa. The success of the boys’ club has been detailed in God’s London, by Mr. Zitali, of the “Mission to the Latin Races.” The book is well worth buying, if only for this one essay, written, as it is, by a brand saved from the burning. Mr. Zitali was for a long time in the employ of Messrs. Mañanâ, the restaurant keepers, and no one is better fitted to deal strenuously with the awful problems of our great cities.
Manning Green is about to disappear, and all its wonderful associations will become (in the words of Swinburne)
“Smoke, or the smoke of a smoke.”
But until it disappears, and until its purchase price is finally fixed by the committee, its historical associations will still remain dear to those who (like the present writer) are interested in this corner of the Motherland. That men of our blood, and men speaking our tongue—nay, that those neither of our blood, nor speaking our tongue, but devoted to a common empire—will remember Manning Green when the sale is effected, is the passionate and heartfelt prayer of
James Bayley.
ON EDITING.