After the death of the Duchess of Kingston, her mansion at Knightsbridge became the residence, successively, of Sir George Warren, Lord Stair, Lord Listowel, and the Marquis of Wellesley, brother of the great Duke of Wellington, and himself one of the foremost statesmen of the time. He resided at Kingston House some years, living in great retirement, and died in it September 26th, 1842, in his 83rd year. [170b]
Kingston House was, after Lord Wellesley’s death, again the residence of the Earl of Listowel, to whom the freehold belonged; and it is at present inhabited by his son, the present earl. [170c]
Queen’s Buildings, commenced about 1770, and was named after Queen Charlotte. That part of it between Sloane Street and Hooper’s Court was originally called Queen’s Row, the remainder Queen’s Buildings, Knightsbridge, and at one time Gloucester Buildings.
First, I will notice Queen’s Row. Here, in 1772, the celebrated engraver, William Wynne Ryland, resided. Ryland was born in 1732, and, inclining towards the profession of an engraver, became a pupil of Simon Revenet, then established in this country. On quitting him, his godfather, Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, sent him to Paris, where he studied under Francis Boucher, and J. P. Le Bas. After four years sojourn he returned to England, and was appointed engraver to the King. He was the first person who introduced into this country the style of engraving in the chalk manner, applying himself chiefly to the pictures of Angelica Kauffman. This system he greatly improved, and in it had no equal.
Strutt laments that his “mercantile engagements should have occupied so valuable a part of his precious time, and prevented his pursuing the art with that alacrity his genius required, which seemed formed for great and extensive exertions.” He commenced business originally in Cornhill, but here became bankrupt. He afterwards came to Knightsbridge, where he resided till the dreadful act was discovered which consigned him to the gallows.
On July 26th, 1783, he was tried before Judge Buller, for forging a bill of exchange for £200. He well-nigh escaped; the forgery being so beautifully executed that it was only the evidence of the paper-maker which convicted him. Great exertions were made to save him, but fruitlessly; and he was executed at Tyburn, August 29th, 1783. A few months after, the stream being cleared of some of its mud, in order to widen the roadway within the Park, a tin box containing some of the unfortunate man’s plates for counterfeiting banknotes, was discovered. [172]
No. 14 (corner of Hooper’s Court) was from 1792 to 1797 the residence of Mr. J. C. Nattes, an artist of celebrity in his time. About the year 1800 this house became the residence of the celebrated Arthur Murphy.
Arthur Murphy was born at Cork in 1727. Early in life he was sent to St. Omer’s, where he studied till his eighteenth year, when he returned to Cork, and passed two years as clerk in a merchant’s counting-house. At the end of this time he came to London, and entered a banking-house in a similar capacity. But literature captivated him, the drama especially, and it soon absorbed his mind.
His first publication, the “Gray’s Inn Journal,” commenced October 21st, 1752, and continued for nearly two years. But his prospects changing by an uncle’s death, he, in October, 1754, betook himself to the stage, appearing at Covent Garden, and performing Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, &c. But it was apparent an actor’s life he could not follow; Churchill severely lashed him in the “Rosciad,” and Murphy retaliated in an ode, an effusion as coarse as his opponent’s attack.