Chelsea

by G. E. Mitton

After the death of the Earl of Devonshire, Shrewsbury House became the residence of his widow until her death in 1643. It then was held by the Alstons, from whom it took its secondary name, and was finally in the possession of the Tates, and was the seat of a celebrated wall-paper manufactory. “The manufacture of porcelain acquired great celebrity. It was established near the water-side.... Upon the same premises was afterwards established a manufactory of stained paper.” This seems to point to Shrewsbury House as the original home of the celebrated Chelsea china. But, on the other hand, all later writers point authoritatively to Lawrence Street, at the corner of Justice Walk, as the seat of the china manufacture. There seems to be some confusion as to the exact site of the original works, for in “Nollekens and his Times” it is indicated as being at Cremorne House, further 33 westward. One Martin Lister mentions a china manufactory in Chelsea as early as 1698, but the renowned manufactory seems to have been started about fifty years later. The great Dr. Johnson was fired with ambition to try his hand at this delicate art, and he went again and again to the place to master the secret; but he failed, and one can hardly imagine anyone less likely to have succeeded. The china service in the possession of Lord Holland, known as Johnson’s service, was not made by him, but presented to him by the proprietors as a testimony to his painstaking effort. The first proprietor was a Mr. Nicholas Sprimont, and a jug in the British Museum, bearing date “1745 Chelsea,” is supposed to be one of the earliest productions.

The first sale by auction took place in the Haymarket in 1754, when table sets and services, dishes, plates, tureens, and épergnes were sold. These annual sales continued for many years. In 1763 Sprimont attempted to dispose of the business and retire owing to lameness, but it was not until 1769 that he sold out to one Duesbury, who already owned the Derby China Works, and eventually acquired those at Bow also.

The Chelsea china was very beautiful and costly. An old tradition is mentioned in the “Life of Nollekens” that the clay was at first brought as ballast in ships from China, and when 34 the Orientals discovered what use was being made of it, they forbade its exportation, and the Englishmen had to be content with their own native clay. Nollekens says that his father worked at the pottery, and that Sir James Thornhill had furnished designs. The distinctive mark on the china was an anchor, which was slightly varied, and at times entwined with one or two swords. Walpole in 1763 says that he saw a service which was to be given to the Duke of Mecklenburg by the King and Queen, and that it was very beautiful and cost £1,200.

From the corner of Oakley Street to the church, Cheyne Walk faces a second garden, in which there is a statue of Carlyle in bronze, executed by the late Sir Edgar Boehm and unveiled in 1882. This locality is associated with many famous men, though the exact sites of their houses are not known. Here lived Sir Richard Steele and Sir James Northcote, R.A. Somewhere near the spot Woodfall, the printer of the famous “Letters of Junius,” lived and died. A stone at the north-east corner of the church (exterior) commemorates him. In the Chelsea Public Library is preserved the original ledger of the Public Advertiser, showing how immensely the sales increased with the publication of these famous letters.

In this part there was a very old inn bearing the name The Magpie and Stump. It was a 35 quaint old structure, and the court-leet and court-baron held sittings in it. In 1886 it was destroyed by a fire, and is now replaced by a very modern structure of the same name. Further on there are immense red-brick mansions called Carlyle Mansions, and then, at right angles, there is Cheyne Row, the home for many years of one of England’s deepest and sincerest thinkers. Carlyle was the loadstar who drew men of renown from all quarters of the civilized globe to this somewhat narrow, dark little street in Chelsea. The houses are extraordinarily dull, of dark brick, monotonously alike; they face a row of small trees on the west side, and Carlyle’s house is about the middle, numbered 24 (formerly 5). A medallion portrait was put up by his admirers on the wall; inscribed beneath it is: “Thomas Carlyle lived at 24, Cheyne Row, 1834-81.” The house has been acquired by trustees, and is open to anyone on the payment of a shilling. It contains various Carlylean relics: letters, scraps of manuscript, furniture, pictures, etc., and attracts visitors from all parts of the world. There is no need to expatiate on the life of the philosopher; it belongs not to Chelsea, but to the English-speaking peoples of all countries. Here came to see him Leigh Hunt, who lived only in the next street, and Emerson from across the Atlantic; such diverse natures as Harriet 36 Martineau and Tennyson, Ruskin and Tyndall, found pleasure in his society.

At the north end of Cheyne Row is a large Roman Catholic church, built 1896. Upper Cheyne Row was for many years the home of Leigh Hunt. A small passage from this leads into Bramerton Street. This was built in 1870 upon part of what were formerly the Rectory grounds, which by a special Act the Rector was empowered to let for the purpose. Parallel to Cheyne Row is Lawrence Street, and at the corner, facing the river, stands the Hospital for Incurable Children. It is a large brick building, with four fluted and carved pilasters running up the front. The house is four stories high and picturesquely built. In 1889 it was ready for use. The charity was established by Mr. and Mrs. Wickham Flower, and had been previously carried on a few doors lower down in Cheyne Walk. Voluntary subscriptions and donations form a large part of the income, and besides this a small payment is required from the parents and friends of the little patients. The hospital inside is bright and airy. The great wide windows run down to the ground, and over one of the cots hangs a large print of Holman Hunt’s “Light of the World,” a gift from the artist himself, who formerly lived in a house on this site and in it painted the original. The ages at which patients are received 37 are between three and ten, and the cases are frequently paralysis, spinal or hip disease.

Lawrence or Monmouth House stood on the north side of Lordship Yard. Here Dr. Smollett once lived and wrote many of his works; one of the scenes of “Humphrey Clinker” is actually laid in Monmouth House. The old parish church stands at the corner of Church Street. The exterior is very quaint, with the ancient brick turned almost purple by age; and the monuments on the walls are exposed to all the winds that sweep up the river. The square tower was formerly surmounted by a cupola, which was taken down in 1808 because it had become unsafe. The different parts of the church have been built and rebuilt at different dates, which makes it difficult to give an idea of its age. Faulkner says: “The upper chancel appears to have been rebuilt in the fifteenth century; the chapel of the Lawrence family at the end of the north aisle appears to have been built early in the fourteenth century, if we may judge from the form of the Gothic windows, now nearly stopped up. The chapel at the west end of the south aisle was built by Sir T. More about the year 1522, soon after he came to reside in Chelsea. The tower was built between the years 1667 and 1679.”

The interior is so filled up with tombs and a great gallery, that the effect is most strange, and 38 the ghosts of the past seem to be whispering from every corner. There are few churches remaining so untouched and containing so miscellaneous a record of the flying centuries as Chelsea Old Church. A great gallery which hid Sir Thomas More’s monument was removed in 1824. Soon after the church was finished it was enlarged by the addition of what is now known as the Lawrence Chapel on the north side. This was built by Robert Hyde, called by Faulkner ‘Robert de Heyle,’ who then owned the manor-house. In 1536 the manor was sold to King Henry VIII., who parted with the old manor-house and the chapel to the family of Lawrence. There are three monuments of the family still existing in the chapel. The best known of these is that against the north wall, representing Thomas Lawrence, the father of Sir John, kneeling with folded hands face to face with his wife in the same attitude. Behind them are respectively their three sons and six daughters. This is the monument which Henry Kingsley refers to through the mouth of Joe Burton in his novel “The Hillyars and the Burtons.”

Not far from this is a large and striking monument to the memory of Sarah Colvile, daughter of Thomas Lawrence. She is represented as springing from the tomb clothed in a winding-sheet. The figure is larger than life and of white marble, 39 which is discoloured and stained by time. Overhead there was once a dove, of which only the wings remain, and the canopy is carved to represent clouds. The third Lawrence monument is a large tablet of black marble set in a frame of white marble, exquisitely and richly carved. This hangs against the eastern wall, and is inscribed to the memory of Sir John Lawrence. A hagioscope opens from this chapel into the chancel, and was discovered accidentally when an arch was being cut on the north wall of the chancel to contain the tomb of Lord Bray. This tomb formerly stood in the “myddest of the hyghe channcel,” but being both inconvenient and unsightly, it was removed to its present position in 1857. It possessed formerly two or three brasses, which have now disappeared. This is the oldest tomb in the church, dated 1539.

The Lawrence Chapel was private property, and could be sold or given away independently of the church. Between it and the nave—or, more accurately, over the north aisle, at its entrance into the nave—is a great arch which breaks the continuity of line in the arch of the pillars. This is the Gervoise monument, and may have originally enclosed a tomb. Of this, however, there is no evidence. In the chancel opposite to the Bray tomb stands the monument of Sir Thomas More, prepared by himself before his death, and 40 memorable for the connection of the word “heretics” with thieves and murderers, which word Erasmus afterwards omitted from the inscription. More’s crest, a Moor’s head, is in the centre of the upper cornice, and the coats-of-arms of himself and his two wives are below. The inscription is on a slab of black marble, and is very fresh, as it was restored in 1833. The question whether the body of Sir Thomas More lies in the family vault will probably never be definitely answered. Weever in his “Funeral Monuments” strongly inclines to the belief that it is so. “Yet it is certain,” he says, “that Margaret, wife of Master Roper and daughter of the said Sir Thomas More, removed her father’s corpse not long after to Chelsea.”