A Walk from London to Fulham Part 7

"At Little Chelsea stands a regular handsome house, with a n.o.ble courtyard and good gardens, built by Mr. Mart, now inhabited by Sir John Cope, Bart., a gentleman of an ancient and honourable family, who formerly was eminent in the service of his country abroad, and for many years of late in Parliament, till he voluntarily retired here to end his days in peace."

And here Sir John Cope died in 1721. Can he have been the father of the

"Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye wauking yet, Or are ye sleeping, I would wit?

O haste ye, get up, for the drums do beat; O fye, Cope! rise up in the morning!"

-of the Sir John Cope who was forced to retreat from Preston Pans in "the '45," and against whom all the shafts of Jacobite ribaldry have been levelled?

Faulkner says that this house, which was "subsequently occupied by the late Mr. Duffield as a private madhouse, has been pulled down, and its site is now called Odell's Place, a little eastward of Lord Shaftesbury's;" that is to say, opposite to Manor Hall, and Sir John Cope's house was not improbably the residence of two distinguished naval officers, Sir James Wishart and Sir John Balchen. The former was made an admiral, and knighted by Queen Anne in 1703, and appointed one of the lords of the Admiralty, but was dismissed from the naval service by George I. for favouring the interests of the Pretender, and died at Little Chelsea on the 30th of May, 1723. In the 'Daily Courant,' Monday, July 15, 1723, the following advertis.e.m.e.nt appears:-

"To be sold by auction, the household goods, plate, china ware, linen, &c., of Sir James Wishart, deceased, on Thursday the 18th instant, at his late dwelling-house at Little Chelsea. The goods to be seen this day, to-morrow, and Wednesday, before the sale, from 9 to 12 in the morning, and from 3 to 7 in the evening. Catalogues to be had at the sale.

"N.B. A coach and chariot to be sold, and the house to be let."

Admiral Sir John Balchen resided at Little Chelsea soon after Sir James Wishart's death. In 1744, Admiral Balchen perished in the Victory, of 120 guns, which had the reputation of being the most beautiful ship in the world, but foundered, with eleven hundred souls on board, in the Bay of Biscay.

On the 31st of March, 1723, Edward Hyde, the third Earl of Clarendon, died "at his house, Little Chelsea;" but where the earl's house stood I am unable to state.

Mrs. Robinson, the fascinating "Perdita," tells us, in her autobiography, that, at the age of ten (1768), she was "placed for education in a school at Chelsea." And she then commences a most distressing narrative, in which the last tragic scene she was witness to occurred at Little Chelsea.

"The mistress of this seminary," Mrs. Robinson describes as "perhaps one of the most extraordinary women that ever graced, or disgraced, society. Her name was Meribah Lorrington. She was the most extensively accomplished female that I ever remember to have met with; her mental powers were no less capable of cultivation than superiorly cultivated. Her father, whose name was Hull, had from her infancy been master of an academy at Earl's Court, near Fulham; and early after his marriage, losing his wife, he resolved on giving this daughter a masculine education. Meribah was early instructed in all the modern accomplishments, as well as in cla.s.sical knowledge. She was mistress of the Latin, French, and Italian languages; she was said to be a perfect arithmetician and astronomer, and possessed the art of painting on silk to a degree of exquisite perfection. But, alas! with all these advantages, she was addicted to one vice, which at times so completely absorbed her faculties as to deprive her of every power, either mental or corporeal. Thus, daily and hourly, her superior acquirements, her enlightened understanding, yielded to the intemperance of her ruling infatuation, and every power of reflection seemed absorbed in the unfeminine propensity.

"All that I ever learned," adds Mrs. Robinson, "I acquired from this extraordinary woman. In those hours when her senses were not intoxicated, she would delight in the task of instructing me. She had only five or six pupils, and it was my lot to be her particular favourite. She always, out of school, called me her little friend, and made no scruple of conversing with me (sometimes half the night, for I slept in her chamber) on domestic and confidential affairs. I felt for her very sincere affection, and I listened with peculiar attention to all the lessons she inculcated. Once I recollect her mentioning the particular failing which disgraced so intelligent a being. She pleaded, in excuse of it, the unmitigable regret of a widowed heart, and with compunction declared that she flew to intoxication as the only refuge from the pang of prevailing sorrow."

Mrs. Robinson remained more than twelve months under the care of Mrs.

Lorrington,

"When pecuniary derangements obliged her to give up her school. Her father's manners were singularly disgusting, as was his appearance, for he wore a silvery beard, which reached to his breast, and a kind of Persian robe, which gave him the external appearance of a necromancer. He was of the Anabaptist persuasion, and so stern in his conversation, that the young pupils were exposed to perpetual terror; added to these circ.u.mstances, the failing of his daughter became so evident, that even during school-hours she was frequently in a state of confirmed intoxication."

In 1772, three years afterwards, when Mrs. Robinson was fourteen, her mother, Mrs. Darby, was obliged, as a means of support, to undertake the task of tuition.

"For this purpose, a convenient house was hired at Little Chelsea, and furnished for a ladies' boarding-school. a.s.sistants of every kind were engaged, and I," says Mrs. Robinson, "was deemed worthy of an occupation that flattered my self-love, and impressed my mind with a sort of domestic consequence. The English language was my department in the seminary, and I was permitted to select pa.s.sages both in prose and verse for the studies of my infant pupils; it was also my occupation to superintend their wardrobes, to see them dressed and undressed by the servants, or half-boarders, and to read sacred and moral lessons on saints' days and Sunday evenings.

"Shortly after my mother had established herself at Chelsea, on a summer's evening, as I was sitting at the window, I heard a deep sigh, or rather groan of anguish, which suddenly attracted my attention. The night was approaching rapidly, and I looked towards the gate before the house, where I observed a woman, evidently labouring under excessive affliction. I instantly descended and approached her. She, bursting into tears, asked whether I did not know her. Her dress was torn and filthy; she was almost naked, and an old bonnet, which nearly hid her face, so completely disfigured her features, that I had not the smallest idea of the person who was then almost sinking before me. I gave her a small sum of money, and inquired the cause of her apparent agony. She took my hand, and pressed it to her lips. 'Sweet girl,' said she, 'you are still the angel I ever knew you!' I was astonished. She raised her bonnet; her fine dark eyes met mine. It was Mrs. Lorrington. I led her into the house; my mother was not at home. I took her to my chamber, and, with the a.s.sistance of a lady, who was our French teacher, I clothed and comforted her. She refused to say how she came to be in so deplorable a situation, and took her leave. It was in vain that I entreated-that I conjured her to let me know where I might send to her. She refused to give me her address, but promised that in a few days she would call on me again. It is impossible to describe the wretched appearance of this accomplished woman. The failing to which she had now yielded, as to a monster that would destroy her, was evident, even at the moment when she was speaking to me. I saw no more of her; but, to my infinite regret, I was informed, some years after, that she had died, the martyr of a premature decay, brought on by the indulgence of her propensity to intoxication-in the workhouse of Chelsea!"

Mrs. Robinson adds, that-

"The number of my mother's pupils in a few months amounted to ten or twelve; and, just at a period when an honourable independence promised to cheer the days of an unexampled parent, my father unexpectedly returned from America. The pride of his soul was deeply wounded by the step which my mother had taken; he was offended even beyond the bounds of reason.

"At the expiration of eight months, my mother, by my father's positive commands, broke up her establishment, and returned to London."

Nearly opposite to the workhouse is the West Brompton Brewery, formerly called "Holly Wood Brewery," and immediately beyond it an irregular row of six houses, which stand a little way back from the road, with small gardens before them. The first house is now divided into two, occupied, when the sketch was made in 1844, by Miss Read's academy (Tavistock House) and Mrs. Corder's Preparatory School; the latter (Bolton House) to be distinguished by two ornamented stone-b.a.l.l.s on the piers of the gateway, was a celebrated military academy, at which many distinguished soldiers have been educated. [Picture: Bolton House gateway] The academy was established about the year 1770, by Mr. Lewis Lochee, who died on the 5th of April, 1787, and who, in 1778, published an 'Essay on Castrametation.' "The premises," says Mr. Faulkner, "which were laid out as a regular fortification, and were open to view, excited much attention at the time." When balloons were novelties, and it was supposed might be advantageously used in the operations of warfare, they attracted considerable notice; and, on the 16th of October, 1784, Mr. Blanchard ascended from the grounds of the Military Academy, near Chelsea. The anxiety to witness this exhibition is thus described in a contemporary account:-

"The fields for a considerable way round Little Chelsea were crowded with horse and foot; in consequence of which a general devastation took place in the gardens, the produce being either trampled down or torn up. The turnip grounds were totally despoiled by the mult.i.tude.

All the windows and houses round the academy were filled with people of the first fashion. Every roof within view was covered, and each tree filled with spectators."

Mr. Blanchard, upon this occasion, ascended with some difficulty, accompanied by a Mr. Sheldon, a surgeon, whom he landed at Sunbury, from whence Blanchard proceeded in his balloon to Romsey, in Hampshire, where he came down in safety, after having been between three and four hours in the air.

After Mr. Lochee's death, his son, Mr. Lewis Lochee, continued the establishment which his father had formed, but, unfortunately for himself, engaged in the revolutionary movements which agitated Flanders in 1790; where, "being taken prisoner by the Austrians, he was condemned to be hanged. He, however, obtained permission to come to England to settle his affairs, upon condition of leaving his only son as a hostage; and, upon his return to the Continent, he suffered the punishment of death." {120}

"His son, a schoolfellow of mine," adds Mr. Faulkner, "afterwards married a daughter of the late Mr. King, an eminent book auctioneer of King Street, Covent Garden, and, lamentable to relate, fell by his own hands,"

8th of December, 1815.

The residence beyond Mr. Lochee's Military Academy is named WARWICK HOUSE-why, unless, possibly, the name has some reference to Boyle's brother-in-law, the Earl of Warwick, I am at a loss to determine. The next house is Amyot House. Then comes MULBERRY HOUSE, formerly the residence of Mr. Denham, a brother of the lamented African traveller, Colonel Denham. The fifth house is called HECKFIELD LODGE, an arbitrary name bestowed by its late occupant, Mr. Milton, the author of two clever novels, 'Rivalry,' and 'Lady Cecilia Farrencourt,' recently published, and brother to the popular auth.o.r.ess, Mrs. Trollope. And the sixth and last house in the row, on the west side of which is Walnut-tree Walk, leading to Earl's Court and Kensington, is distinguished by the name of Burleigh House, which, some one humorously observed, {121} might possibly be a contraction of "hurley burley," the house being a ladies' school, and the unceasing work of education, on the main Fulham Road, appearing here for the first time to terminate. [Picture: Burleigh House (1844)]

The following entry, however, in the parish register of Kensington, respecting the birth of the fourth Earl of Exeter, on the 21st of May, 1674, may suggest a more probable derivation:-"15 May. Honble. John Cecill, son and heir apparent of the Rt. Honble. John Lord Burleigh and the Lady Anne his wife born at Mr. Sheffield's."

William Boscawen, the amiable and accomplished translator of Horace, resided at Burleigh House; and here he died, on the 6th of May, 1811, at the age of fifty-nine. He had been called to the bar, but gave up that profession in 1786, on being appointed a commissioner for victualling the navy. An excellent cla.s.sical scholar, and warmly attached to literary pursuits, Mr. Boscawen published, in 1793, the first volume of a new translation of Horace, containing the 'Odes,' 'Epodes,' and 'Carmen Saeculare.' This, being well received, was followed up by Mr. Boscawen, in 1798, by his translation of the 'Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry,'-completing a work considered to be in many respects superior to Francis's translation. As an early patron and zealous friend of the Literary Fund, Mr. Boscawen's memory will be regarded with respect.

Within five days of his death, he wrote a copy of verses for the anniversary meeting, which he contemplated attending:-

"Relieved from toils, behold the aged steed Contented crop the rich enamell'd mead, Bask in the solar ray, or court the shade, As vernal suns invite, or summer heats invade!

But should the horn or clarion from afar Call to the chase, or summon to the war, Roused to new vigour by the well-known sound, He spurns the earth, o'erleaps the opposing mound, Feels youthful ardour in each swelling vein, Darts through the rapid flood, and scours the plain!

"Thus a lorn Muse, who, worn by cares and woes, Long sought retirement's calm, secure repose, With glad, though feeble, voice resumes her lay, Waked by the call of this auspicious day."

Alas! the hand which on May morning had penned this introduction to an appeal in the cause of literary benevolence,-that hand was cold; and the lips by which, on the following day, the words that had flowed warmly from the heart were to have been uttered,-those lips were mute in death within a week.

On the 16th of April, 1765, Mr. James House Knight, of Walham Green, returning home from London, was robbed and murdered on the highroad in the vicinity of Little Chelsea; the record of his burial in the parish register of Kensington is, "Shot in Fulham Road, near Brompton." For the discovery of the murderers a reward of fifty pounds was offered; and, on the 7th of July following, two Chelsea pensioners were committed to prison, charged with this murder, on the testimony of their accomplice, another Chelsea pensioner, whom they had threatened to kill upon some quarrel taking place between them. The accused were tried, found guilty, hanged, and gibbeted; one nearly opposite Walnut-tree Walk, close by the two-mile stone, the other at Bull Lane, a pa.s.sage about a quarter of a mile farther on, which connects the main Fulham Road with the King's Road, by the side of the Kensington Ca.n.a.l. In these positions, for some years, the bodies of the murderers hung in chains, to the terror of benighted travellers and of market-gardeners, who

"Wended their way, In morning's grey,"

towards Covent Garden, until a drunken frolic caused the removal of a painful and useless exhibition. A very interesting paper upon London life in the last century occurs in the second volume of Knight's 'London;' in which it is observed that "a gibbet's ta.s.sel" was one of the first sights which met the eye of a stranger approaching London from the sea.

"About the middle of the last century, similar objects met the gaze of the traveller by whatever route he entered the metropolis. '_All_ the gibbets in the Edgware Road,' says an extract from the newspapers of the day in the 'Annual Register' for 1763, 'on which _many_ malefactors were being hung in chains, were cut down by persons unknown.' The _all_ and the _many_ of this cool matter-of-fact announcement conjure up the image of a long avenue planted with 'gallows-trees,' instead of elms and poplars,-an a.s.semblage of pendent criminals, not exactly 'thick as leaves that strew the brook in Valombrosa,' but frequent as those whose feet tickling Sancho's nose, when he essayed to sleep in the cork forest, drove him from tree to tree in search of an empty bough.

"Frequent mention is made in the books, magazines, and newspapers of that period, of the bodies of malefactors conveyed after execution to Blackheath, Finchley, and Kennington Commons, or Hounslow Heath, for the purpose of being there permanently suspended. In those days the approach to London on all sides seems to have lain through serried files of gibbets, growing closer and more thronged as the distance from the city diminished, till they and their occupants arranged themselves in rows of ghastly and grinning sentinels along both sides of the princ.i.p.al avenues."

This picture is not over-coloured; and it is to the following occurrence in the main Fulham Road that the removal of these offensive exhibitions is to be attributed. Two or three fashionable parsons, who had sacrificed superabundantly to the jolly G.o.d at Fulham, returning to London, where they desired to arrive quickly, had intellect enough to discover that the driver of their post-chaise did not make his horses proceed at a pace equal to their wishes, and, after in vain urging him to more speed, one of them declared that, if he did not use his whip with better effect, he should be made an example of for the public benefit, and hanged up at the first gibbet. The correctness of the old saying, that "when the head is hot the hand is ready," was soon verified by the postboy being desired to stop at the gibbet opposite Walnut-tree Walk, which order, unluckily for himself, he obeyed, instead of proceeding at a quicker pace. Out sprung the inmates of his chaise; they seized him, bound him hand and foot, and throwing a rope, which they had fastened round his body, over the gibbet, he soon found himself, in spite of his cries and entreaties, elevated in air beside the tarred remains of the Chelsea pensioner.

The reverend perpetrators of the deed drove off, leaving the luckless postboy to protest, loudly and vainly, to "the dull, cold ear of death,"

against the loathsome companionship. When the first market-gardener's cart pa.s.sed by, most l.u.s.tily did he call for help; but every effort to get free only tended to prolong his suspense. What could the carters and other early travellers imagine upon hearing shouts proceeding from the gibbet, but that the identical murderer of Mr. Knight had by some miracle come to life, and now called out, "Stop! stop!" with the intention of robbing and murdering them also? And they, feeling that supernatural odds were against them, ran forwards or backwards, not daring to look behind, as fast as their feet could carry alarmed and bewildered heads, leaving the fate of their carts to the sagacity of the horses. Finding that the louder he called for help the more alarm he excited, the suspended postboy determined philosophically to endure the misery of his situation in dignified silence. But there he was suffered to hang unnoticed; or, if remarked, it was only concluded that another criminal had been added to the gibbet, as its second ta.s.sel. The circ.u.mstance, however, of a second body having been placed there speedily came to the knowledge of a magistrate in the neighbourhood, who had taken an active part in the apprehension of Mr. Knight's murderers; and he proceeded, without delay, to the spot, that he might satisfy himself as to the correctness of the report. Judge, however, his astonishment on hearing himself addressed by name from the gibbet, and implored, in the most piteous manner, to deliver from bondage a poor postboy, whose only offence was that he would not goad on two overworked horses to humour a pair of drunken gentlemen. These "drunken gentlemen" are said to have been men of rank and influence: their names have never transpired, but the outrage with which they were charged led to the immediate removal from the Fulham Road of the last pair of gibbets which disgraced it.

Upon the ground which was occupied by the gibbet where the kind-hearted postboy was strung up, a solitary cottage stood some years ago; and tradition a.s.serted, that both the murderer and his gibbet were buried beneath it. [Picture: Solitary cottage] This cottage is now pulled down; Lansdowne Villas and Hollywood Place have been erected on the spot, and villas and groves continue to the 'Gunter Arms,' a public-house that takes its name from Richard Gunter, the well-known confectioner, by the side of which is Gunter Grove. This is now the starting-point of the Brompton omnibuses, which formerly did not go beyond Queen's Elm. Edith Grove, a turning between Lansdowne Villas and Gunter Grove, is in a direct line with Cremorne Gardens.

Proceeding on our road towards Fulham, the next point which claims attention is the extensive inclosure of the West of London and Westminster Cemetery Company,-a company incorporated by act of parliament 1st of Victoria, cap. 180. The burial-ground was consecrated on the 12th of June, 1840, and extends from the Fulham Road to what is called, generally, "Sir John Scott Lillie's Road," and sometimes "Brompton Lane Road," which, in fact, is a continuation, to North End, Fulham, of the line of the Old Brompton Road,-the point, as the reader may recollect, that we turned off from at the Bell and Horns, in order to follow the main Fulham Road to Little Chelsea. The public way on the east of the burial-ground is called Honey Lane, and on the west the boundary is the pathway by the side of the Kensington Ca.n.a.l. The architect of the chapel and catacombs is Mr. Benjamin Baud. The cemetery is open for public inspection, free of charge, from seven in the morning till sunset, except on Sundays, when it is closed till half-past one o'clock. The first interment took place on the 18th of June, 1840, from which time, to the 22nd of November, there were thirty-four burials, the average number being then four per week. It is scarcely necessary to add, that a considerable average increase has taken place; but the first step in statistics is always curious.

One of the most interesting instances of longevity which the annals of the West of London and Westminster Cemetery Company present occurs on a stone in the north-east corner of the burial-ground, where the age recorded of Louis Pouchee is 108; but this does not agree with the burial entry made by the Rev. Stephen Reid Cattley-"Louis Pouchee, of St.

Martin's in the Fields, viz., 40 Castle Street, Leicester Square, buried Feb. 21, 1843, aged 107."

This musical patriarch, however, according to a statement in the 'Medical Times,' {128} was admitted as a patient to St. George's Hospital November 24, 1842. January 4, went out, and died, about three months afterwards, of diarrhoea and dysentery.

Another instance of longevity, though not so extraordinary, is one which cannot be contemplated without feeling how much influence the consciousness of honest industry in the human mind has upon the health and happiness of the body. A gravestone near a public path on the south-east side of the burial-ground marks the last resting place of Francis Nicholson, landscape-painter, who died the 6th March, 1844, aged 91 years.

Mr. Nicholson originally practised as a portrait-painter, but the simplicity and uprightness of his heart did not permit him to tolerate or pander to the vanities of man (and woman) kind. To flatter was with him an utter impossibility; and, as he could not invariably consider the "human face divine," he was incapable of a.s.suming the courtly manners so essential in that branch of the profession. He never, indeed, quite forgave himself for an approach to duplicity committed at this time upon an unfortunate gentleman, who sat to him for his portrait, and who squinted so desperately, that in order to gain a likeness it was necessary to copy moderately the defect. The poor man, it seemed, perfectly unconscious of the same, on being invited to inspect the performance, looked in silence upon it a few moments, and, with rather a disappointed air, said-

"I don't know-it seems to me-does it squint?"