PART OF THE OLD HOUSE IN GREAT ST. HELEN’S,
FROM A MEASURED DRAWING.

In Allen’s ‘History of London,’ vol. iii., p. 157, I find a statement that this brick mansion (identified by mention of its initials and date) was ‘formerly the residence of Sir J. Lawrence, Lord Mayor in 1665.’ This appears to be the origin of the idea that the house was built for him, and that he kept his mayoralty there, which has of late been usually accepted as a fact. There is no doubt that Nos. 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s was his property in 1665, but he was living in a house of totally different appearance—an illustration of which, by T. Prattent, published in 1796, forms the frontispiece to vol. xxix. of the European Magazine. As there shown, it had elaborate plaster decorations in front, with the City arms and the arms of Lawrence, and last, though not least, the inscription sr jl—k & a. 1662. Sir John Lawrence’s residence is marked by name in the map of Bishopsgate Street Ward accompanying Strype’s Stow, where a slight sketch of it is also given; the present Jewish synagogue in Great St. Helen’s is a little bit west of the site.

Having looked up the history of the Lawrence family, and its connection with this parish, I think I can show that the initials on the pilaster of Nos. 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s were not those of Sir John Lawrence and his wife Abigail, but of his uncle Adam and his uncle’s wife. The Lawrences, like many other eminent mercantile families, were originally Dutch or Flemish. The name was spelt in various ways, as Laurens, Laureijns, Laurents, etc., until, when its possessors became thoroughly anglicized, it took the English form. Le Neve, the herald, says that a Marcus Lawrence, from Flanders, who had married Gertrude Huesen, came and settled in London. He had, among other children, a son Abraham and a son Adam. The latter was baptized at the Dutch Church, Austin Friars, September 8, 1584;[94] and one may fairly assume that it was he who there married, May 28, 1610, Judith Van den Brugghe, of Norwich, where there was then a strong settlement of people from the Low Countries. He was appointed deacon of the Dutch Church in 1628, and became an elder in 1632. Eleven years later he had taken up his residence in Great St. Helen’s, as we learn from an entry in the parish register,[95] which suggests the forlorn condition of the homeless poor in those days. On the 23rd of April, 1643, ‘a female infant, found dead at the dore of Mr. Adam Lawrence, merchant, was buried in the churchyard’ there. What house he was then living in I am not able to determine; but in the year 1646 the house just now destroyed was doubtless either built or altered for his own residence, and on it was placed an inscription, according to the custom of the country whence he sprang.

I have previously pointed out that in inscriptions of this kind the initial of the husband’s Christian name is almost invariably on the left, the wife’s on the right, and that of the surname above. The letters in question would therefore have stood for ‘Adam and Judith Lawrence.’ In 1650 came the inevitable ending to their long married life. On the 9th of April it is recorded that Judith ‘Laurents’[96] was buried in the church of Great St. Helen’s. Adam died in October, 1657. His will describes him as a merchant, and he seems to have been a very prosperous one. He desires to be buried near his wife, in Great St. Helen’s, and leaves £100 to the poor of the Dutch congregation in Austin Friars, and £100 towards the maintenance of the ministry there; also similar legacies for the parish of Great St. Helen’s, and £100 to the poor children of Christ’s Hospital. Amongst numerous nephews, he singles out for special favour John, who seems to have been a son of his brother Abraham. To him he leaves several houses and gardens in the parish, amongst others his ‘now dwelling-house, with the yards, garden edifices, appurtenances, and hereditaments whatsoever thereunto belonging.’ This, no doubt, was Nos. 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s, unless after his wife’s death he had shifted into another residence. Adam also left to his nephew John his share in the ‘sister’s thread trade,’ whatever that may mean, which he had in partnership with Abraham Cullen,[97] the elder, and Philip Van Cassole; and £1,500 to Abigail, his nephew’s wife, who died in 1681, and whose monument still exists in Great St. Helen’s Church, where it is recorded that she was ‘the tender mother of ten children. The nine first, being all daughters, she suckled at her own breasts; they all lived to be of age. Her last, a son, died an infant. Shee lived a married wife 39 years, 23 whereof she was an exemplary matron of this Cittie,[98] dying in the 59th year of her age.’ This lady was eldest daughter of Abraham Cullen, who appears to have been nearly related to the Lawrence family. One paragraph of Adam’s will is worth quoting, because it seems to indicate that pretentious public funerals were then not uncommon in the City, and that he, at any rate, was free from a taste for vulgar display. He says: ‘Lastly, my desire is that my funerall be decently performed without anie pompe or ceremonie of mourners, and that my corps be carried from my own dwelling house, not troubling any publique hall.’

John Lawrence, the nephew, seems to have been a pattern City merchant. He had begun life as a Bluecoat boy, hence, perhaps, his uncle’s legacy. In 1658 he served the office of Sheriff. On June 16, 1660, he was knighted by Charles II., when that monarch, accompanied by his brothers, the Dukes of York and Gloucester, and some of the nobility, was entertained at supper by the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Alleyne. In 1662 Sir John Lawrence appears to have built a new house for himself, the one before alluded to, which was drawn by Prattent, not unlikely on a ‘garden plot’ mentioned in his uncle’s will. In 1664 he was elected Lord Mayor, and Evelyn speaks of a ‘most magnificent triumph by water and land’ on that occasion. Evelyn also attended the Lord Mayor’s banquet, and tells us that it was said to have cost £1,000. He dined at the upper table with the Lord Chancellor, the Dukes of Albermarle, Ormonde and Buckingham, the French Ambassador and other great personages. The Lord Mayor twice came up to them, ‘first drinking in the golden goblet his Majesty’s health, then the French King’s as a compliment to the Ambassador’; they ‘returned my Lord Mayor’s health, the trumpets and drums sounding. The cheer was not to be imagined for the plenty and rarity, with an infinite number of persons at the tables in that ample hall.’ Sir John Lawrence showed both courage and liberality whilst the Great Plague was raging in the following year. He stuck to his post, ‘enforced the wisest regulations then known,’ and, when multitudes of servants were dismissed through fear of contagion, he is said to have ‘supported them all, as well as the needy who were sick; at first by expending his own fortune, till subscriptions could be solicited and received from all parts of the nation.’ Dr. Erasmus Darwin, in his ‘Loves of the Plants,’ canto ii., devotes a few lines to ‘London’s generous Mayor.’ Five deaths only are recorded in Great St. Helen’s during the year 1665, which suggests that those connected with the Church showed less courage than the chief parishioner, and that the register was neglected.

In 1684 the house of late numbered 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s was in the occupation of one William Moses. That year Sir John Lawrence, who so far had not handed over his uncle’s legacy for the poor of the parish, agreed to discharge his obligation by payment of £250, and to give £100 in addition for leave to make a family vault in the church. In 1690 Sir John was living in Putney, as appears from the churchwardens’ accounts.[99] He died January, 1691-2, and was buried on the 29th of that month, in the family vault which had been constructed for him under the church of Great St. Helen’s, but no monument to his memory exists. The Rev. J. E. Cox, D.D., in his ‘Annals of St. Helen’s’ tells us that at the church restoration of 1865-8 ‘a quaint piece of carved work, which had been set up to sustain the Lord Mayor’s sword and mace, was removed to the pillar dividing the choir from the Chapel of the Holy Ghost.’ The following is a description of it taken almost verbatim from Allen: ‘It consists of two twisted Corinthian columns, supporting an entablature highly enriched, and an attic panel. The shafts of the columns are set off with a wreath of foliage running round them. On the frieze are the arms of Sir John Lawrence, in the attic are the City arms, and the whole structure is crowned with the arms of Charles II., supported by two gilt angels, and surmounted with the royal crown.’ I hope that this interesting memento of a great City worthy, though not ‘Gothic’ in style, will be carefully preserved during the far more wholesale restoration which is now in progress.

Sir John Lawrence’s arms were: argent, a cross raguly gules, a canton ermine.[100] Peter le Neve says that they were granted to him September 18, 1664, and to his brothers James and Abraham, sons of Abraham Lawrence deceased; but it must have been earlier, as they appear on his house associated with the date 1662. Faulkner, in his ‘History of Chelsea,’ no doubt deceived by the fact that their arms were identical, assumes that Sir John Lawrence belonged to the ancient English family of the same name, whose memory is perpetuated by various monuments at the end of the north aisle of Chelsea old church. Both he and Dr. Cox[101] go so far as to say that Sir John was buried there; but his namesake, ‘Sir John Lawrence, Knight and Baronet,’ to whose memory a tablet was placed against the east wall of Chelsea Church, belonged to Iver, in the county of Bucks, and died in 1638, aged fifty years, as appears by the inscription. For several generations the descendants of the famous Lord Mayor continued to own the house which became Nos. 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s. It afterwards passed into the hands of the Guise family, from whom it was inherited by an ancestor of the last possessor, Mr. John Cosens Stevens. Peace be to its memory!