In the house next above that wherein Mr. Roberts lived, for some little time resided—carrying on the business of a butcher,—James Ings, who on the 23rd of February, 1820, was, on the information of a confederate, apprehended with eight others, in a hay-loft, in Cato Street, Paddington, for being concerned in a plot to destroy the Ministers of the King, while at a cabinet dinner that evening in Grosvenor Square, London, at the residence of the Earl of Harrowby, the President of the Council. The plot is known as the Cato Street Conspiracy, wherein Ings took so conspicuous a part that it was arranged that on their leader, Arthur Thistlewood, presenting a parcel at the door of Lord Harrowby’s house, he should head the rest of the conspirators, rush in where the company were assembled, and massacre the whole of them indiscriminately. Just previous to their apprehension Ings prepared himself for the desperate enterprise, by putting a black belt round his waist and another over his shoulders; he also put on two bags like haversacks, and placed a pair of pistols in his belt. Then looking at himself with an air of exultation he exclaimed, uttering an oath, “I’m not complete now; I have forgot my steel;” whereupon he seized a large knife, about twelve inches long, and, brandishing it about, swore he would bring away two heads in his bags, and one of Lord Castlereagh’s hands, which he would preserve in brine, as it might be thought a good deal of hereafter. The whole of the conspirators were found guilty of High Treason, and on the morning of the first of May, Thistlewood, Ings, and three others were hanged and decapitated at Newgate; the rest of the traitors were transported.
The executioner of these misguided men was James Botting, a native of Brighton, and son of Jemmy Botting, the possessor of some small property at the back of West Field Lodge, immediately to the west of the bottom of Cannon Place, and known as Botting’s Rookery, from its being the resort of tramps of the lowest order. Botting also, on the 30th of November, 1824, at Newgate, carried out the last penalty of the law upon Henry Fauntleroy, the banker, who formerly had his residence at the west end of Codrington Place, Western Road, and was found guilty of uttering a forged deed with intent to defraud Frances Young of £5,000 Stock, and a power of attorney to defraud the firm of Marsh, Stacey, Fauntleroy, and Graham, Bankers, Berner’s Street, London, of which house he was the acting partner.
For several years previous to his decease, which took place at Brighton, October 1st, 1837, Botting, in consequence of paralysis retired from his situation as public hangman, the latter days of his existence being eked out by a pension of five shillings a week, granted by the Court of Aldermen of the City of London, for whom, in the course of his duties, he had deprived 175 “parties”—as he termed them—of their lives; as during his career executions at Newgate were very common, the offences for which life was forfeited being so numerous that in one week thirteen persons, namely, eight on Wednesday, November 23rd, and five on the Tuesday following, November 29th, 1821, suffered, none of the crimes for which they were executed—thanks to the enlightenment of our legislators,—now exacting as a penalty the life of a fellow creature. Botting, in his latter days, was a well known character about Brighton, the streets of which he was accustomed to traverse by means of a chair, which he alternately used as a species of crutch, and as a seat, but he always appeared isolated from the world, as no grade of society seemed ambitious of the acquaintance of Jack Ketch.
The most commodious and commanding family mansions of the Old Town are in West Street, wherein have resided, during the past forty years, several of the magistrates and the clergy, and many members of the medical profession of Brighton. At the present time several of the houses are occupied by opulent families: and the lanes and courts which formerly on its west side detracted from the general respectability of the street, having been demolished, the property thereabouts has become considerably enhanced in value, and is much sought after.
Chapter XXIX.
THE PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS, CHARITIES, AND ENDOWMENTS.
It is the pride of the inhabitants that no town in the kingdom possesses so many Public Institutions for the general well-being of the community, as Brighton.
Foremost amongst these, though a National Institution and but co-equal with similar other branches to complete its general working throughout the kingdom, is the Post Office, which, in all probability, originally formed a part of the General Postal systems as established in 1657 and 1660. We have no authority as to the primitive mode of conveyance of letters, but doubtless it was on horseback, and afterwards by mail cart, as “A Description of Brighthelmston” [337] mentions:—“During Summer the post sets out from Brighthelmston for London every morning (excepting Saturday) at nine o’clock; and arrives there every evening (excepting Monday) about seven. In the Winter season the post goes out at eleven o’clock at night on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays; and returns from London about eight on Thursday and Saturday mornings.” The Post Office was then at Widgett’s, afterwards Crawford’s, and then Fisher’s Library, Old Steine, the present premises of Mr. Shaw, confectioner, from whence, upon the throwing of the Promenade Grove into the Royal Domain, in 1803, it was removed to premises constructed in the Grove gateway at the top of Prince’s Place, when Mr. J. Redifer was appointed the Post Master. During the time that Crawford was Post Master, his son, one of the present Members of Parliament for the city of London, was the only letter-carrier in Brighton. Mail coaches between London and Brighton were not put on the road till 1807. On the 22nd September, 1822, the Post Office was removed to 67, East Street, where it continued till June, 1827, when the premises, 149, North Street, were appropriated for the business. From thence, on the 23rd of September, 1831, it was removed to the house immediately south of the Unitarian Chapel, New Road, Mr Ferguson being the Post Master.
The uniform charge for letters of one penny per half ounce,—introduced in 1840, by Mr. Rowland Hill,—and afterwards the abolition of the newspaper duty, when the postage of the public journals, and subsequently and now all printed works passing at the rate of one penny for four ounces, rendering the premises in the New Road inadequate to the increase of business, the Post Office, on the 26th of March, 1849, was removed to the present site, opposite Trinity Chapel, in Ship Street. The premises there were very narrow and contracted, till August, 1858, when the present commodious structure was erected. Mr. Charles Whiting, the present Post Master, entered upon his duties in October, 1850. Previous to the postage reduction, letters in the out districts of Brighton were collected every evening by bellmen, who, for one penny, conveyed letters to the General Office. Branch offices superseded the bellmen, or collectors; and now, pillar-boxes, placed with great discretion in all parts of the town, have rendered the branch offices in some localities wholly unnecessary. The first pillar letter-box in the kingdom was erected at the corner of Fleet Street and Farringdon Street, London, in March, 1855. The Post Office Savings Bank opened at Brighton on the 10th of March, 1862.
The first Bank in Brighton—the Old Bank,—immediately opposite the premises subsequently and now the Union Bank, was established in 1787, under the firm, Messrs. Shergold, Michell, Rice, and Mills. It withstood the panic of 1825; but a few years after, transferred its declining business. The New Bank was the next established, the firm being Messrs. Wigney, Rickman, Stanford, and Vallance. Wigney, who was also a brewer, happening one day to meet the builder of the sea wall of the Junction Road, Mr Bennett, upon whom Dame Fortune rather frowned than smiled, said, “Why, Bennett, surety, if I remember right, you also, were once a brewer?” “Yes,” said Bennett, “but I made a sad mistake, Wigney; I turned at the same time a builder instead of, as you did, a banker; thus I have always continued a needy man, from not having other people’s money to speculate with.” The rejoinder was very significant, as the sequel proved. The Bank was at first in Steine Lane, with a second public entrance by the side way to the Pavilion Shades; from whence, in 1819, it was transferred to the apartments, now the coffee room of the Pavilion Hotel, Mr. Edmund Savage, who had obtained the license in 1816, having arranged with the bankers that they should rebuild the house in the Castle Square front, so that they might have the Bank on the ground-floor of the new building, and give up the rooms in Steine Lane, in exchange. The room where the banking business had been transacted, Mr. Savage then appropriated to a smoking-room, and converted the clerks’ room into a Gin-shop. But as Mrs. Fitzherbert was then living immediately opposite, in Steine Lane, he was fearful of offending her by placing any writing on the house; the thought, however, struck him, that, inasmuch as the height of Mrs Fitzherbert’s house, to the south of him, prevented the sun from shining upon his house, he would adopt the word “Shades,” and place it over the door, where had before been written “Bank,” that being the only word used to publish the place. An immense trade was soon carried on in that little room, where three young men found full employment in serving at the counter, and two as porters were engaged besides. The extensive trade thus obtained soon induced other publicans to adopt the word “Shades” to their bars; and at the present time there is scarcely a public-house in the kingdom but uses the term. The only place previously where the word “Shades” was adopted was at a Vault near Old London Bridge, where nothing was sold but wine measured from the wood.
When known as Wigney’s Bank, from the other partners having withdrawn from the firm, the banking business was carried on at the premises which occupied the western entrance of the Avenue in East Street. Mr. Isaac Newton Wigney, M.P., who was then sole proprietor, to the dismay and ruin of many of the inhabitants, stopped payment on the 4th of March, 1842. The chief clerk of the New Bank, as it was originally constituted, was Mr. Thomas West, who, on the 1st of August, 1805, with Messrs. Browne, Hall, and Lashmar, founded the Union Bank, their neighbour, Mr. Daniel Constable, being the first person to open an account with them; Messrs. Hall, Lloyd, Bevan, and West constitute the present firm. Mr. Lashmar left the Union Bank, and, in conjunction with Mr. Mugridge, opened the Sussex Bank, in St. James’s Street, which closed its doors on the pressure of the panic of 1825.