Sweet Hampstead and Its Associations

by Caroline A. White

I have not seen it mentioned in the History or ‘Records of Hampstead,’ but find in a paragraph of the Lady’s Magazine, December, 1812, that ‘the Lancastrian school which Mr. Hoare, the banker, has erected at his own expense at Hampstead was opened a few days ago with about a hundred children. The establishment is capable of accommodating about one hundred and fifty, and promises to be soon filled up.’

Some years before his father’s death, Samuel Hoare junior had married one of the famous Earlham sisters, Louisa, daughter of John Gurney, banker, of Norwich, and had gone to reside at the Hill, North End (the house a wedding-gift from his father). Later on Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, who had married Hannah, another of the Miss Gurneys, also resided for some time at North End, at a house now known as Myrtle Wood, a delightful event for the sisters, their relatives, and friends. It is of Hill House, during the residence of Sir Fowell and Lady Buxton in its near neighbourhood (1820), that the celebrated Severen of Cambridge wrote: ‘More of heaven I never saw than in the two families at Hampstead’ (the Hoares and Buxtons).

Of course, the same circle of friends were received at the houses of both father and son; but when the death of Samuel Hoare senior occurred, though his widow and daughter continued to occupy Heath House, the delightful reunions that have made it memorable ceased.

Like his father and his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Samuel Hoare the second entered heartily into the views of his friends, Clarkson and Wilberforce, and gave their great scheme for the abolition of slavery his steady help and influence. He lived long after the cause they battled for so pertinaciously had been won, and, with his sympathetic wife, inaugurated various projects for bettering the condition of the poor of Hampstead, some of which I am told are still actively beneficial.

There are just two or three old inhabitants of Hampstead who remember the tall figure of the second Samuel Hoare, who used to go down to town on horseback followed by his servant; later on I am told the servant’s place was changed, and he rode very close to—indeed, side by side with—his master, who towards the end of his life was subject to sudden seizures.

This gentleman died December 26, 1846, at the comparatively early age of sixty-four, and Hill House became the property of his son Samuel, who did not live very long to enjoy it, dying in the twenty-sixth year of his age, October 27, 1833. The present Sir Samuel Hoare, Member for Norwich, is the fourth of the name, and the great-grandson of the first Samuel Hoare of Heath House, of which he is the owner, as well as of the Hill, and other property at Hampstead.

Mrs. Hannah Hoare, the second wife and widow of Samuel Hoare of the Heath, continued to reside there with her step-daughter for many years in the near neighbourhood of their relations at the Hill. There is something touchingly suggestive in the fact that they both died in the same year, the widow on January 21, and her step-daughter on October 21, 1833. Mr. Gurney Hoare, son of the second Samuel Hoare, lived at Hill House many years, and died there. The only representatives of this family now at Hampstead (1899) are Mrs. MacEnnis and her sister, Miss Greta Hoare, who reside at Wildwood Avenue.

WENTWORTH PLACE, JOHN STREET.

The now frequented thoroughfare of John Street has been long in coming into its inheritance—namely, the interest it derives from the fact that, after the death of his brother, John Keats resided here for nearly twelve months, and the last month of his life in England was spent here.

Wentworth Place lies on the right side of the road going from St. John’s Chapel (on Downshire Hill) to the station. It consisted of two adjoining houses, one of them occupied by Charles Armitage Brown, the personal friend and sympathetic admirer of the poet; the other by the Dilkes—Charles Wentworth Dilke, the critic, who was afterwards editor and part proprietor of the Athenæum, and his brother William.[299] A lady, born at Hampstead, and who resided there till twenty-two years of age, remembers that a low fence encircled the garden, within which was a hedge of laurustinus and China roses; latterly it was railed round.