Chantrey’s equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, which stands in front of the Royal Exchange, was uncovered, amidst much cheering. It cost £9,000 besides the metal.
On 23 Sept. Barry, a clown at Astley’s, fulfilled his promise of sailing in a washing-tub drawn by geese, from Vauxhall to Westminster. He successfully accomplished his voyage, and repeated it on Oct. 11, from the Red House, Battersea (where now is Battersea Park), to Vauxhall.
On 8 Oct. Louis Philippe, the King of the French, landed at Portsmouth on a visit to the Queen. He was made a Knight of the Garter, and generally fêted, and should have returned to France, from Portsmouth on the 12th, but the
sea was too rough, and he had to cross from Dover, instead; but even this trip was delayed by a great conflagration at New Cross Station, so that he really did not depart until the 13th.
I meet with the first mention of that eminent fertiliser, Guano, in a commercial point of view, in the Times of the 18 Oct., where it says that on 16th were put up for sale, at Liverpool, in lots of 10 tons each, 180 tons of the best African guano. But one lot of five tons was sold, and that fetched £5 12s. 6d. The next lot was not sold, in consequence of the price offered being under that, and the whole of the remaining lots were withdrawn, there being no probability of the reserved price being realised. It was then being fetched from Ichaboe, an island off the south-west coast of Africa—but it was afterwards procured in large quantities from the Chincha Islands, off the coast of Peru.
On 28 Oct. the Queen opened the New Royal Exchange, with great State, and the Lord Mayor (W. Magnay, Esq.) was made a baronet; the reading-room at Lloyd’s was made into a Throne room for the occasion, and a sumptuous déjeuner was served in the Underwriters’ room. It was a very imposing pageant and pretty sight; but, although the Exchange was formally opened, no merchants assembled within its quadrangle until the first of the following January.
Whilst on matters civic I must mention the very rare fact of Sir William Magnay’s successor in the office of Lord Mayor (Mr. Alderman Gibbs), being hooted and yelled at, on 9 Nov., whilst going to Westminster, and returning thence. He had been churchwarden of St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, and the popular mind was imbued with the idea that something was wrong with his accounts, so they virtuously insulted him. He had a hard enough time of it both by land and water, when going, what his returning was, is best told by a contemporary:
“The ceremony within the Court of Exchequer having terminated, similar uproarious shouts to those which had hailed the arrival of the new Lord Mayor, now marked his embarcation for the city; and, in his passage down the Thames, with but here and there a solitary exception, the civic barge was
the target of repeated vollies of yells and groans, levelled by no unskilful, or ineffective voices at it, from the banks and bridges of the river. The landing at Blackfriars was attended with a more concentrated attack of ‘public execration,’ for, there, an immense multitude was wedged together, anxious to be spectators of the scene, though not inactive ones. On the procession passed amid the continued manifestations of public disapprobation of the present, and respect for the retiring Lord Mayor. Many interrogations of a searching nature were repeatedly bawled forth, not that they could reach the right honourable ear, but they were exercises in that peculiar art, styled ‘talking at folks.’ The same description must apply to Ludgate Hill, St. Paul’s Churchyard, and Cheapside, in which place some merriment was created by a party chanting in appropriate style: