“When shower’d
The death-bolts deadliest the thinn’d files along,
Even where the thickest of war’s tempest lour’d,
They reach’d no nobler breast than thine, young gallant Howard.”
Byron’s staunchest friend, Hobhouse—now Lord Broughton—lived about No. 7, when colleague with Burdett in the representation of Westminster; so also did Lady Ossory, the correspondent of Horace Walpole. Writing to her, on February 1st, 1775, he says:—“I hope this is the last letter I shall send you before you land at Hyde Park Corner turnpike. You will have a very good neighbourhood there; Lord and Lady Apsley are mighty agreeable people.”
No. 15 in 1773 was the Duke of Athol’s; the Marquis of Titchfield, Lord-Lieutenant of the County fifty years ago, also resided in Grosvenor Place, as did Mr. Orby Hunter, a leading man in the ton in the days of George IV.
No. 44 is the residence of the Hanoverian Minister, and here his Sovereign stayed during his visit to London in 1853. No. 24 is the Bishop of Worcester’s, and No. 46 Sir James Graham’s. Earl Stanhope, the historian, resided some years at No. 41, but now at No. 3, Grosvenor Place Houses. The centre of these three is Sir Anthony Rothschild’s, the other Lord Harry Vane’s.
Near to the south end of Grosvenor Place stood, for above a century, a small hospital for invalided soldiers. The poet Armstrong, friend of Thomson, was in 1746 appointed physician to it. The establishment was closed when the improvements here were contemplated about 1846. Adjoining to it was “The Feathers,” to which a curious anecdote is attached. A Lodge of Odd Fellows, or some similar society, was in the habit of holding its meetings in a room at “The Feathers,” and on one occasion when a new member was being initiated in the mysteries thereof, in rushed two persons, whose abrupt and unauthorised entrance threw the whole assemblage into an uproar. Summary punishment was proposed by an expeditious kick into the street; but, just as it was about to be bestowed, the secretary recognised one of the intruders as George, Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. Circumstances instantly changed: it indeed was he, out on a nocturnal excursion; and accordingly it was proposed and carried that the Prince and his companion should be admitted members. The Prince was chairman the remainder of the evening; and the chair in which he sat, ornamented, in consequence, with the plume, is still preserved in the parlour of the modern inn in Grosvenor Street West, and over it hangs a coarsely executed portrait of the Prince in the robes of the order. The inn, the hospital, and various small tenements were removed in 1851, when the present stately erections were immediately commenced. On the ground being cleared away, various coins, old horse-shoes, a few implements of warfare, and some human remains were discovered.
At the intersection of the cross-roads at the end of Grosvenor Place, suicides were subjected to the revolting burial then awarded by the law. The last person on whom the law was carried out here was named Griffiths, the son of a colonel in the army, who had first murdered his father, and then destroyed himself. This took place on June 27th, 1823.
Halkin Street.—The north side is chiefly occupied by Mortimer House, the residence of the late Earl Fitzwilliam, and by Belgrave Chapel, built in 1812. Its ministers have been the Rev. John Pitman, author of “Practical Lectures on the Gospel of St. John,” the Revs. J. Thackeray, J. Jennings, and the present minister, the Rev. W. Thorpe, D.D.
The detached mansion at the corner, numbered as 49, Belgrave Square, finished in 1850, is the residence of Mr. Sidney Herbert. The premises now occupied by Messrs. Wimbush were those in which the same business was conducted by Mr. Vernon, the munificent patron of modern British art.
Halkin Street West contains a small chapel, now belonging to the National Scottish Church, and in which Dr. Cumming occasionally preaches. Its present minister is the Rev. L. Macbeth. Built by Mr. Seth Smith, it was originally attached to the Church of England, under the ministry of the Rev. J. Gibson.
Lock Hospital (The), which formerly stood on the site of Grosvenor Place Houses, was built in 1746, and patients admitted on January 31st, 1747, for the first time. The Institution included an asylum for the reception of penitent females, founded in 1787, and a chapel, built in 1764, with the primary view of aiding the income by its pew rents. The chapel was always celebrated for the powerful and popular preachers who occupied its pulpit, among whom may be mentioned Martin Madan, Thomas Scott, editor and commentator of the Scriptures, and C. E. De Coetlogon; while Legh Richmond, Romaine, Rowland Hill, and the celebrated Dr. Dodd, have often preached here. Of these, the one most connected with this locality was the Rev. Martin Madan.