influence over the work people residing in the neighbourhood. I knew a lady who once had an encounter with Williamson wherein she came off victorious, and carried successfully her point. The affair is curious. This lady, about 1838 or ’39, wanted a house, and was recommended to go up to Edge-hill and endeavour to meet with Mr. Williamson and try to get on the right side of him, which was considered a difficult thing to do. She was told that he had always some large houses to let, and if she pleased him he would be a good landlord. Mrs. C---, accompanied by a lady, went up to Edge-hill and looked about as they were told to do for a handsome-looking man in a shabby suit of clothes. They were told that they were sure to find Mr. W. where men were working, as he always had some in his employ in one way or another in the neighbourhood. On arriving at Mason-street, sure enough, they espied the object of their search watching the operations of some bricklayers busily engaged in erecting the very house in Bolton-street just spoken of. Mrs. C---, who was a sharp, shrewd person, good looking and pleasant in her manners, sauntered up to Williamson and inquired of him if he knew of any houses to be let at Edge-hill. “Houses!” replied Williamson in his roughest and rudest style: “What should I know of houses, a poor working man like me!” “Well,” said the lady, “I
thought you might have known of some to let, and you need not be so saucy and ill-tempered.” Williamson roughly rejoined, and the lady replied, and thus they got to a complete wordy contest attracting the attention of the bystanders, who were highly amused to find that Williamson had met his match. The lady’s sarcasms and gibes seemed to make Williamson doubly crusty. He at length asked the other lady—who, by the way, was becoming nervous and half-frightened at what was going on—“what this woman,” pointing to Mrs. C---, “would give for a house if she could meet with one to her mind.” Mrs. C--- told him £30 per annum. Williamson burst out with an insulting laugh, and called all the men down from the house they were erecting, and when they had clustered round him he told them that “this woman wanted a house with ten rooms in it for £30 a year! Did they ever know of such an unreasonable request?” Of course the men agreed with their employer, and they were all dismissed after being regaled with a mug of porter each. Mrs. C--- narrowly watched Williamson and saw through him at once, and was not surprised on being invited to step into a house close by and see how she liked it. She found fault with some portions of the house and approved others. Williamson at length, after a short silence, inquired whether she really did want a house and would
live in Mason-street. Mrs. C--- replied that she did really require one and liked the street very much. Williamson then asked her if she was in a hurry. On being told she was not, he bade her return that day fortnight at the same hour and he would try then to show her a house he thought would suit her exactly. With this the ladies departed, Williamson saying:—“There now, you be off; you come when I tell you; you’ll find me a regular old screw; and if you don’t pay your rent the day it is due I shall law you for it, so be off.” Mrs. C--- then said, “My husband is a cockney, and I will bring him with me, and we will see if we can’t turn the screw the right way.” The ladies had no sooner arrived at the end of Mason-street, when on turning to take a last look of their singular friend they saw the men from the house in Bolton-street all following Williamson into the house they had just left, and as it eventually proved he had set them there and then to work to make the alterations she had suggested and desired.
On the termination of the fortnight the ladies called on their remarkable friend, and found him in waiting at the house with two great jugs of sherry and some biscuits on a table. He then took them over the house, and to their surprise found everything in it altered: two rooms had been opened into one, one room made into two, two
had been made into three, and so on, and he asked Mrs. C--- if she was satisfied and if the house would suit her? He appeared to have completely gutted the house and reconstructed it. Putting it down at an unusually low rent for what had been done, the bargain was struck between the parties, and the landlord and his tenant were ever after good friends. He told the lady he liked her for sticking up to him “so manfully” and “giving him as good as he sent.” Mr. Williamson took great delight in this lady’s children and made great pets of them. On her family increasing the lady and her husband frequently asked Williamson to build her an extra room for a nursery, reminding him that as he was always building something, he might as well build them an extra room as anything else. He, however, declined until one day the lady sent him a manifesto from the “Queen Of Edge-hill,” as he had been accustomed to call her, commanding him to build the room she wanted. Williamson, thereupon, wrote her a reply in the same strain, promising to attend to her commands.
A few mornings after his reply had been received the lady was busy in her bedroom dressing her baby, when she suddenly heard a loud knocking in the house adjoining, and down fell the wall, and amid the falling of bricks and the rising of dust Mr. Williamson himself appeared, accompanied by two joiners, who fitted a door into the opening,
while two bricklayers quickly plastered up the walls. Through the door next stepped the landlord. “There, madam, what do you think of this room for a nursery,” he exclaimed, “it is big enough if you had twenty children.” Mr. Williamson had actually appropriated the drawing-room in his own house to her use. She thanked him, but said he might have given her some warning of what he was going to do, instead of covering her and the baby with dust, but Williamson laughed heartily at his joke, while the lady was glad to get a noble room added to her house without extra rent. This lady told me that one night just previous to this event they had heard a most extraordinary rumbling noise in Mr. Williamson’s house which continued for a long time and it appeared to proceed from one of the lower rooms. On inquiring next day of Mr. Williamson what was the cause of the disturbance he took the lady into a large dining-room, where she found about fifty newly-painted blue barrows with red wheels all ranged along the room in rows. These had been constructed for the use of his labourers and were there stored away until wanted.
My acquaintance told me that one night they heard in the vaults below their house the most frightful shrieks and screams, and the strangest of noises, but they never could ascertain what was the cause of the commotion. The noises seemed
to proceed from directly below their feet, and yet they fancied they came from some distance. The cries were not those of a person in agony, but a strange mixture of most unaccountable sounds.
A good story is told of a quaint speech made to Williamson by the Rev. Dr. Raffles. The Doctor and the Rev. Mr. Hull, who were neighbours, and, I fancy, tenants of Williamson’s, were once met by him walking together, when W. exclaimed “I say, if I’d my way you two should be made bishops.” Dr. Raffles very quickly replied, “Ah, Williamson, you ought to be an archbishop!” alluding to his well-known predilection for vault building. He once invited a party of gentlemen to dine with him. The guests were shown into a bare room with a deal table on trestles in the middle, with common forms on each side. Williamson, with the utmost gravity, bade his friends take their seats, placing himself at the head of the table. Facing each of the guests was a plate of porridge and some hard biscuits of which they were invited to partake. Some of the party taking this as an insulting joke, rose and left the room. Williamson, with the utmost grace, bowed them out without explanation. When the seceders had retired, a pair of folding doors were thrown open, exhibiting a large room with a costly feast prepared, to which the remainder of the party adjourned, laughing heartily over the trick that had