THE ROLLS AND THE RECORD OFFICE
A fine new building in Chancery Lane, extending to Fetter Lane, stands on the site occupied by an ancient institution called The Rolls. The early history of the Rolls has yet to be written. It is intimately connected from the first with that of the Jewish Colony which came to England from Rouen with William I. At that time the canon law forbade Christians to take usury. The Jews were the licensed usurers of the King. A masterly essay, prefixed to the Catalogue of the Jewish Exhibition in 1887, explains the situation in a few words: “the exchequer treated the money of the Jews as held at the pleasure of the King.” Special Justices were appointed to preside in the Jews’ Exchequer; all deeds, contracts, bonds, and other documents relating to monetary transactions had to be registered and placed in charge of the Rolls Court or Record Office at the King’s palace at Westminster. The Hebrew word Shetár, which means a legal document, gave its name to the Star Chamber, and long after the Jews had left England the court held there retained the old name. We may assume that the chief of the justices of this Rolls Court was the principal controller of the whole colony, and that, when Henry III. opened the House for Converts, it fell naturally under the same jurisdiction. Accordingly we find from the first that the Master of the Rolls was also connected with the House of Converts. A similar house was founded at Oxford, but this one in London owed its continued existence to the fact that the Master of the Rolls lived in it. When the law was relaxed and the Jews ceased to be the only usurers, the Master’s jurisdiction extended to the Lombards and Italian bankers, and when, sixty years after the foundation of the house, the Jews were expelled, the double office continued to exist and in the same place. Converts were still received there till the reign of Charles II. Meanwhile, under the Commonwealth, the laws of 1290 against the Jews had been in great part rescinded; but the Master of the Rolls continued to be called “Keeper of the House of Converts” down to 1873, when Sir George Jessel, himself a Jew, was appointed Master of the Rolls but not Keeper of the House.
The history of the house has been detailed by Mr. W. J. Hardy. It became ruinous early in the eighteenth century, and a new building of good proportions was erected by Colin Campbell in 1717. This, in its turn, was pulled down to make way for the Record Office. With it also perished the chapel, usually called “The Rolls Chapel,” of which Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte, who holds the office of Deputy Keeper, instituted in 1837, has written an account, appended to the Fifty-Seventh Annual Report in 1896.
The first Master of the Rolls who is known to have also been Keeper of the House of Converts was Adam de Osgodeby, appointed in 1307. The next Master was William Ayremyne, who also held both offices, but they were not formally united till 1378. The house stood in Chancery Lane, a little to the north of the present principal entrance of the Record Office. Henry III. endowed it with 700 marks a year, calling it “the house in New Street in the suburbs of London which he had founded for converts from Judaism.” It was rebuilt by William Burstall, Master in 1372, together with the chapel. Here, and in the subsequent house, the successive Masters held their court and also lived. At the opening of the new law courts all the space was surrendered to the Records, the house disappeared, and, though a strong effort was made to save it, the chapel too, except the monuments. The present great building, begun in 1856, from designs by Pennethorne, in a very stiff style of Gothic, was completed in 1897. The Rolls and other documents have gradually been housed in it, comprising all those which were previously in the Tower, the Chapter House, Westminster, Carlton Ride, St. James’s, and the State Paper Office, including the paybooks of the Navy, the registers of the Duchy of Lancaster, and many other sets of manuscripts. The final designs were made by Sir John Taylor of the office of Works, and though the Chancery Lane front harmonises very well with Pennethorne’s work it is a good deal less stiff. Two statues on the inner face of the entrance tower represent Henry III. and Edward III., and the removal was effected in October 1895. All the floors are now fireproof, and the cases to contain the Rolls are of steel with slate shelves. The Chancery Lane front is 225 feet long and 84 feet high. There are two great public reading-rooms where both legal and historical researches are daily carried on, with the learned assistance of a large staff of clerks, trained to decipher the most crabbed writing and to translate mediæval Latin and law French, as well as to calendar thousands of documents bearing on the ancient official correspondence here preserved—such subjects as Chancery and Exchequer proceedings, court rolls, colonial letters and despatches, domestic state papers, accounts, and a hundred other kinds of affairs of public and private interest and importance.
The most interesting part of the Record Office used to be the Rolls Chapel. An arch of the fourteenth century, probably of Burstall’s building, has been set up in the garden against an east wall. The site of the destroyed chapel is on the left as we pass through the principal entrance from Chancery Lane. Here a handsome hall, with five fine windows in the Perpendicular style, has been built for a museum. On the north side very nearly as they stood in the chapel are two most interesting monuments, and a third which was formerly on the opposite side. The rest of the space is taken up with the desks and cases described below. The museum is open free every afternoon.
The monuments comprise those of Masters of the Rolls and of members of their families whose graves were underneath the flooring of the chapel. The most ancient is that of John Yong, Master from January 22, 1508. Three converts, we are told, one man and two women, were received during his keepership of the house, which lasted till his death. Yong was Dean of York, and an eminent diplomatist under Henry VIII. He was a friend of Erasmus, who dedicated a book to him of Colet and the other early reformers. He died of the “sweating sickness” on April 25, 1516, the day on which he had made his will, enjoining upon his executors that he should be buried in the Rolls Chapel. The monument is by Pietro Torregiano, who was employed at Westminster at the time on the effigy of Henry VII. Yong is represented recumbent in a long red gown with tippet and hood and a square cap, such as we see in Holbein’s portraits. Behind the figure are the heads of Christ and two cherubs, all of which show traces of colour and gilding as well as the sarcophagus below, and Yong’s arms, Lozenge vert and argent, on a chevron, azure, 3 annulets, or, on a chief of the second, a goat’s head erased between two scallop shells, gules. This motto is on the sarcophagus: “Dominus firmamentum meum.” In his report (1896) Sir H. Maxwell Lyte proves that the whole monument was removed probably from the chancel of the chapel when it was pulled down in the seventeenth century. The cherubs’ heads he considers later than the rest of the sculpture. A brief inscription mentions the date of Yong’s death and adds that “his faithful executors” placed this monument in 1516, the year of his death. It is curious to observe that there were living in 1516 three men of the same name, John Yong, all scholars of Winchester, all fellows of New College, Oxford, and a fourth who was Norroy King of Arms. Of them one, who was suffragan to Fitzjames, the Bishop of London, who had become blind, and Bishop of Gallipoli, in partibus, is usually confused with his namesake the Dean of York, who was Master of the Rolls; indeed, Sir H. Maxwell Lyte remarks that neither the tomb nor the epitaph gives any indication that “he was titular bishop of Gallipoli.” Bishop Yong, who does not seem to have shared his namesake’s reforming views, survived him for ten years. Two other fine monuments with effigies are to Richard Alington, who died in 1561, and to Edward Bruce, Lord Bruce of Kinloss, who died in 1611. There are several tablets, a statue of George I., and a bust of Lord Romilly.
The cases contain typical manuscripts, many of them finely illuminated. Among them are examples of royal charters, (A); letters patent, (B); volumes like the “Black Book of the Exchequer,” (C); Rolls with pictures, (D); and on the centre table the two volumes which contain the celebrated “Domesday Survey,” completed in 1086. In case E is the great book which contains the agreement between Henry VII. and the Abbot of Westminster concerning the masses to be celebrated “for ever” in the King’s chapel. Some very fine illuminations are in the treaty of peace with Francis I. (Case F). Letters and despatches of interest will be found in the remaining cases, such as the account of Nelson’s death (Case I); Great Seal for Virginia and for New York, and a letter of George Washington to George III. (Case M); besides boxes and coffers made for the preservation of important books or documents.
Of Fetter Lane Stow says: “There is Fewter Lane which stretches south into Fleet Street, by the east end of St. Dunstan’s Church and is so-called of fewters (or idle people) lying there as in a way leading to gardens; but the same is now of latter years on both sides built through with many fair houses.”
Others derived the name from the fetters of criminals or the fetters or rests on the breastplates of the knights riding through to forays in Fickett’s Field (Lincoln’s Inn Fields) adjoining (see p. [370]). Tom Payne, who wrote The Rights of Man, lived at No. 77, and it is said that Dryden lived at No. 16, now demolished.
Crane Court is lined by rows of old buildings mingled with some warehouses of more modern date. The tiled roofs and projecting parapets, with rows of little windows peeping out under the roof, are in contrast with the new red brick of the building belonging to the Scottish Corporation erected in 1880. This is at the north end of the court, facing the entry, and is on the site of the building temporarily occupied by the Royal Society. The earlier building was built by Sir C. Wren, and contained a fine hall with richly stuccoed ceiling; the walls were hung with pictures by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Wilkie, etc., but unfortunately it was destroyed by fire, November 1877, together with all relics. The Scottish Corporation originated in a Society formed shortly after the accession of James I. for relieving the unfortunate poor among those of the Scottish nation who had followed their king to England.
In 1782 the premises in Crane Court were bought from the Royal Society for £1000. The fire which destroyed the hall destroyed almost all records. On July 21, 1880, the present hall was opened by the Duke of Argyll. On the ground-floor is a spacious chapel in which are held the monthly religious services, and where the pensioners are accommodated on pay days; above are the offices and the hall for the meeting of the governors. Professor T. L. Donaldson was the architect, and he has tried to infuse as much of the national sentiment as possible into the design.
SUPPOSED HOUSE OF DRYDEN, FETTER LANE
In Johnson’s Court Dr. Johnson lived (1766-76) at No. 7. The Court, however, is not named after him. The Society of Arts was founded in this court.
In Bolt Court are several old stucco buildings. One at the north end contains the London County Council Technical Education Board. Another on the east has a curious old doorway with “The Medical Society of London” in well-worn letters running round the upper part of a bas-relief. The house belonged to Dr. Lettsom, who was the founder of the Medical Society. Johnson lived in Bolt Court at No. 8, but the house was burned down in 1849. The present technical schools are on the site.
As already stated, Johnson’s Court was not named after the learned doctor, though he lived here, in No. 7, from 1766 to 1776. James Ferguson the astronomer died at No. 4 in 1776. William Cobbett also lived in Bolt Court.
Pictorial Agency.
DR. JOHNSON’S HOUSE.
Gough Square is also associated with the name of the great lexicographer. The Society of Arts have placed a circular tablet on the wall of the house, No. 17, which faces eastward. Johnson lived here from 1741 to 1758. The house is an old eighteenth-century brick one, not very large, and not remarkable in any way. A printer and a publisher share the ground-floor, and above is a reading club. The doorway is slightly decorative, and the heavy woodwork of the door itself and the massive chain remain as they were in Johnson’s time. The Club was founded by a Mr. Campbell in 1887 for the recreation and assistance of working lads and girls in the district. There are now one hundred members. The remainder of the Square varies in character. On the south side, and at the east end, there are old eighteenth-century brick houses of the usual pattern. One or two of the doorways have carved brackets, and one fluted pilasters. Over the entry from Goldsmith Street is another house similar in character, but the rest of the north side is of obtrusively new brick buildings. The Square continuing southward contains some warehouses and a few old houses.
The name of Water Lane was changed to Whitefriars Street. Thomas Tompion (d. 1713), the “father of English watch-making,” lived at the corner.
Salisbury Square occupies the site of the courtyard of Salisbury House, the residence of the Bishops of Salisbury, afterwards called Dorset House. In Dorset Gardens beside the river was the Duke’s Theatre. Betterton, Harris, Underhill, and Sandford, actors, lived in this court. Here also lived for a time John Dryden, Shadwell, and Lady Davenant, widow of Sir William Davenant. But the chief glory of Salisbury Court or Square is its memory of Richardson, novelist and printer. His house was in the north-west angle, his printing offices on the east side; here he wrote Pamela; here, for a time, Goldsmith was his press corrector. The theatre called the Salisbury Court Theatre was constructed in 1629 out of the barn or granary at the lower end of the court. It was the seventeenth theatre opened in London within a period of sixty years. The house was pulled down in 1649: rebuilt in 1660, and occupied by the Duke’s Company until their new theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields was ready for them. It was destroyed in the Great Fire. The Duke’s Theatre in Dorset Gardens, opened on November 9, 1671, stood facing the river on a different site. In Salisbury Square is the headquarters of the Church Missionary Society.