Exeter Change.—[p. 175.]
Thomas Clark, “the King of Exeter Change,” took a cutler’s stall here in 1765 with £100 lent him by a stranger. By trade and thrift he grew so rich that he once returned his income at £6000 a year, and before his death in 1816 he rented the whole ground-floor of the Change. He left nearly half a million of money, and one of his daughters married Mr. Hamlet, the celebrated jeweller. Some of the old materials of Exeter House, including a pair of large Corinthian columns at the east end, were used in building the Change, which was the speculation of a Dr. Barbon, in the reign of William and Mary.
Trafalgar Square.—[p. 221.]
The fountains were constructed in 1845, after designs from Sir Charles Barry.
Morley’s Hotel (1 to 3 at the south-east corner) is much frequented by American travellers, who may be seen on summer evenings calmly smoking their cigars outside the chief entrance. The late proprietor, who died a few years since, left nearly a hundred thousand pounds to the Foundling and other charities.
The Union Club.—[p. 226.]
The Union Club House, which stands on the south-west of Trafalgar Square and faces Cockspur Street, was built by Sir Robert Smirke, R.A. The club, consisting of 1000 members, has been in existence forty-four years; its expenditure is about £10,000 a year. Its trustees are the Earl of Lonsdale, Viscount Gage, Lord Trimleston, and Sir John Henry Lowther, Bart. The entrance money is thirty guineas, the annual subscription six guineas. Mr. Peter Cunningham, writing in 1849, describes the club as “the resort chiefly of mercantile men of eminence;” but its present members are of all the professions.
Drummond’s Bank.—[p. 227.]
This bank is older than Coutts’s. Pope banked there. The Duke of Sutherland and many of the Scottish nobility bank there.
St. Martin’s Lane.—[p. 252.]