Bygone London

by Frederick Ross

The collegiate lectures were not properly appreciated, and became almost sinecures to the professors, until in 1768-70 the Government, wanting an excise office in the City, agreed with the trustees to take a perpetual lease of the site, at the absurdly low rental of £500 per annum, the trustees to take down the buildings, to do which cost them £1,800. The lectures were then removed to a dull, upper room in the Exchange, where they were delivered until the destruction of the Exchange by fire, in 1838, when they were given in the City of London School, until the opening of the New Gresham Lecture Hall, in Basinghall Street, in 1843.

Dashwood House stood westward of St. Botolph's Churchyard, and was the City mansion of the Dashwood family; afterwards it is supposed to have been the residence of Lady Jane Grey. It was subsequently converted into the Ottoman Bank, and Consular and Mercantile Offices; has recently been taken down, and a colossal block constructed for suites of offices.

There are many other fine old houses in the ward, dating from before the Fire, whose fronts have been modernised by building up the space beneath the overhanging upper floors and removing the gables, but which retain many of their olden time features at their backs, and are still adorned in their interiors with fine balustraded staircases, carved chimney pieces, and timber-work ceilings.

Another house of a somewhat different but very useful character stood in Bishopsgate Street. In 1649 the Corporation of London founded a house called the London Workhouse, "for the entertainment of the greatest objects of commiseration, but likewise to receive a great number of the miserable and unhappy vagrant orphans known by the infamous name of 'blackguard,' the pest and shame of the City, pilfering and begging about the streets by day, and lying therein, almost naked, in all seasons of the year by night." In 1662 a charter of incorporation was granted, under the name of "The President (always the Lord Mayor) and Governors of the Poor of the City of London." In 1700 a large house was built for the reception of these objects of charity, and in 1704 it is recorded that "368 children were fed, clothed, and taught to work and the principles of religion;" besides whom there were "maintained and employed 653 vagabonds, sturdy beggars, and other idle and disorderly persons." It was taken down early in the present century, the Poor law administration rendering it superfluous.

In the Parish of St. Helen's there lived and died a man of eccentric opinions and evil reputation, very different in character from his neighbours, the merchant princes of Bishopsgate. His name was Francis Bancroft, and his vocation that of a summoning officer in the Lord Mayor's Court, in which capacity he made a large fortune by issuing false summonses, "not only pillaging the poor, but likewise many of the rich, who, rather than lose time in appearing before the said magistrate, gave money to get rid of this common pest of the citizens." He was so much detested that at his funeral the populace nearly jostled his coffin off the shoulders of the bearers, and they set the bells ringing "for joy at his unlamented death."

He entertained an eccentric notion that in a certain number of years after his death he should return to life and occupy his original position in the City, and in accordance with this idea had a vault, with folding doors and glass in the panels, constructed in St. Helen's Church, and a coffin with hinges only, not screwed down, so that when he came to life he would have nothing to do but to step out of his coffin, open the doors of the vault, and walk out. His name is remembered by his having bequeathed £27,000 for the foundation of almshouses for twenty-four poor almsmen, a chapel, a school for one hundred poor boys, and houses for two masters. The money was left in trust to the Drapers' Company, who erected the buildings at Mile-end in 1735. There was a proviso in the will that the trustees should visit his tomb and look upon his body, in May every year for ever, failing which the money to be diverted to other purposes. They have long discontinued the custom, but still hold the trust, and although the testator has now lain 150 years in his unfastened coffin, he has not come forth yet to rectify this direliction of duty on the part of the Drapers.

From a very early period has Bishopsgate Street and Ward been a centre of Nonconformity. Maitland, writing 1725-36, refers to three Presbyterian, two Independents, and one Quaker's meeting houses in the parishes of St. Botolph and St. Helen. The Devonshire Square Baptist church was, excepting one in Kent, the oldest in England, and in its early years suffered much from persecution. It migrated hither from Wapping in 1638, and occupied a part of Devonshire House, or, as it was popularly called, Fisher's Folly. The chapel was built in 1653, which was taken possession of by the Episcopalians after the fire, and used for Church of England services until the churches of London were rebuilt. It continued to flourish until, the Metropolitan Railway requiring the site, it was taken down and a new Gothic chapel, with spire, built at Stoke Newington out of the proceeds of the sale, at a cost of £11,000. It has had several notable ministers, the most remarkable being William Kaffin, who made an eminent figure among the Antipœdo-Baptists of the 17th century.

Crosby Hall Independent Church. The Rev. Thos. Watson, whose chief work was "A body of Divinity," consisting of 176 sermons, fol., 1792, posth. Stephen Charnock, B.D. Benjamin Grosvenor, D.D., a very eminent man, who held the pastorate from 1704 to 1749, one of the most popular preachers in London; and was also lecturer in the Old Jewry, at the Weigh House, and at Salters' Hall. Portrait in Dr. Williams' library. Edmund Calamy, B.D., son of Dr. Edm. Calamy, author of the "Nonconformist Memorial." On the expiration of the lease in 1799, the congregation was dispersed, and the chapel was rented by James Relly, a rough and uncultured Welshman, but a powerful preacher, who established a church of Rellyanists or Rellyan Universalists, who held a species of anti-nomian doctrine. He was author of some controversial works, now altogether forgotten.

A Presbyterian meeting-house was erected in Little St. Helen's in 1672, under the Indulgence, which became a place of importance in the annals of Nonconformity. Within its walls the first public ordination of Nonconformist ministers took place, and the Coward Lecture preached there from 1721, till the demolition of the chapel. There was also a seven o'clock morning lecture, preached every Sunday in the summer months, to commemorate the accession of the House of Hanover. The first minister, he who took out the licence and collected the congregation, was the learned and pious Samuel Annesley, LL.D., the ejected of St. Giles's Cripplegate, formerly rector of Cliffe, Kent, and of St. Matthew's, Friday Street, London, lecturer at St. Paul's, and one of the preachers at Whitehall during the Protectorate. He was first cousin to Arthur Annesley, Earl of Anglesey; was a popular preacher, and author of some published sermons and other works. He continued in the pastorate until his death in 1694. Anne, his daughter, a very superior woman in every respect, in piety, intelligence, and sound discretion, was married to the Rev. Samuel Wesley, vicar of Epworth, and bore him nineteen children, amongst whom were John and Charles Wesley, the founders of Methodism.

Benj. Robinson occupied the pulpit from 1701 to 1724, a Derbyshire man, of great reputation, and Merchant Lecturer at Salters' Hall. After him the church gradually dwindled down until 1790, when Mr. Brown preached there for two years, and removed with his congregation to Shoreditch; after whom Christian Frederick Trieber, with a Lutheran congregation, occupied it for two years, and on the expiration of the lease removed to Cheapside. Some other ministers of various denominations preached in the chapel for short periods until 1799, when it was taken down and houses built on the site.