FOOTNOTES
[1] The institution was being formed chiefly in 1831. There is a prospectus dated May 28, 1831.
[2a] On the owners of Cremorne House, built circa 1740, see Beaver, Chelsea, p. 156.
[2b] A double-barrelled gun made according to the Baron’s patent for preventing accidents is shown in a table-case in the Chelsea Public Library. It is inscribed, ‘Patent Gun Manufactory, Cremorne House, Chelsea.’
[2c] The fullest account of this extraordinary affair is in Atlay’s Trial of Lord Cochrane, in which the evidence is carefully brought together and sifted.
[2d] Cruikshank also illustrated a ‘Stadium’ prospectus which was published in the form of an attractive little book in 1834.
[3] In 1836 fireworks by Duffell and Darby. In 1837 a music and dancing licence was granted to ‘Charles Random.’ In 1837 and 1839 John Hampton’s balloon ascents and parachute experiments (cf. the Mirror, June 15, 1839). A fête-champêtre and Mrs. Graham’s balloon, June 16, 1838. ‘A fête-champêtre to the Foreign Ambassadors,’ July 21, 1838. Admission 5s. to 10s. 6d. Fête for the benefit of the Poles, 1840 (Bell’s Life, August 23, 1840).
[4a] See note by Cecil Howard and Clement Scott in Blanchard’s Life. Some details are differently given by Boase, Dict. Nat. Biog., art. ‘Nicholson.’ But I am not attempting a critical biography of this worthy.
[4b] A portrait of Nicholson by James Ward, formerly hanging at the old Judge and Jury, Leicester Square, was sold at Puttick’s on February 7, 1899.
[5] It is sometimes stated that Simpson bought the property in 1846, and put in James Ellis to act as manager. But other accounts speak of Ellis as the real lessee, 1846–1849, and this seems to be correct, because, when Ellis became bankrupt in 1849, execution for £8,000 was levied upon Cremorne. Ellis’s unsecured debts amounted to over £16,000, of which £250 was due to a confiding Cremorne waiter. The rent of the gardens had been £582 per annum, and there was an unpaid gas-bill for £665. Simpson was certainly proprietor from 1850 onwards to 1861.