Old and New London Part 62

The Grocers of London were originally called Pepperers, pepper being the chief staple of their trade. The earlier Grocers were Italians, Genoese, Florentine or Venetian merchants, then supplying all the west of Christendom with Indian and Arabian spices and drugs, and Italian silks, wines, and fruits. The Pepperers are first mentioned as a fraternity among the amerced guilds of Henry II., but had probably clubbed together at an earlier period. They are mentioned in a pet.i.tion to Parliament as Grocers, says Mr. Herbert, in 1361 (Edward III.), and they themselves adopted the, at first, opprobrious name in 1376, and some years later were incorporated by charter. They then removed from Soper's Lane (now Queen Street) to Bucklersbury, and waxed rich and powerful.

The Grocers met at five several places previous to building a hall; first at the town house of the Abbots of Bury, St. Mary Axe; in 1347 they moved to the house of the Abbot of St. Edmund; in 1348 to the Rynged Hall, near Garlick-hythe; and afterwards to the hotel of the Abbot of St. Cross. In 1383 they flitted to the Cornet's Tower, in Bucklersbury, a place which Edward III. had used for his money exchange.

In 1411 they purchased of Lord Fitzwalter the chapel of the Fratres du Sac (Brothers of the Sack) in Old Jewry, which had originally been a Jewish synagogue; and having, some years afterwards, purchased Lord Fitzwalter's house adjoining the chapel, began to build a hall, which was opened in 1428. The Friars' old chapel contained a b.u.t.tery, pantry, cellar, parlour, kitchen, turret, clerk's house, a garden, and a set of almshouses in the front yard was added. The word "grocer," says Ravenhill, in his "Short Account of the Company of Grocers" (1689), was used to express a trader _en gros_ (wholesale). As early as 1373, the first complement of twenty-one members of this guild was raised to 124; and in 1583, sixteen grocers were aldermen. In 1347, Nicholas Chaucer, a relation of the poet, was admitted as a grocer; and in 1383, John Churchman (Richard II.) obtained for the Grocers the great privilege of the custody, with the City, of the "King's Beam," in Woolwharf, for weighing wool in the port of London, the first step to a London Custom House. The Beam was afterwards removed to Bucklersbury. Henry VIII. took away the keepership of the great Beam from the City, but afterwards restored it. The Corporation still have their weights at the Weigh House, Little Eastcheap, and the porters there are the tackle porters, so called to distinguish them from the ticket porters. In 1450, the Grocers obtained the important right of sharing the office of garbeller of spices with the City. The garbeller had the right to enter any shop or warehouse to view and search for drugs, and to garble and cleanse them. The office gradually fell into desuetude, and is last mentioned in the Company's books in July, 1687, when the City garbeller paid a fine of 50, and 20s. per annum, for leave to hold his office for life. The Grocers seem to have at one time dealt in whale-oil and wool.

During the Civil War the Grocers suffered, like all their brother companies. In 1645, the Parliament exacted 50 per week from them towards the support of troops, 6 for City defences, and 8 for wounded soldiers. The Company had soon to sell 1,000 worth of plate. A further demand for arms, and a sum of 4,500 for the defence of the City, drove them to sell all the rest of their plate, except the value of 300. In 1645, the watchful Committee of Safety, sitting at Haberdashers' Hall, finding the Company indebted 500 to one Richard Greenough, a Cavalier delinquent, compelled them to pay that sum.

No wonder, then, that the Grocers shouted at the Restoration, spent 540 on the coronation pageant, and provided sixty riders at Charles's noisy entrance into London. The same year, Sir John Frederick, being chosen Mayor, and not being, as rule required, a member of one of the twelve Great Companies, left the Barber Chirurgeons, and joined the Grocers, who welcomed him with a great pageant. In 1664, the Grocers took a zealous part with their friends and allies, the Druggists, against the College of Physicians, who were trying to obtain a bill granting them power of search, seizure, fine, and imprisonment. The Plague year no election feast was held. The Great Fire followed, and not only greatly damaged Grocers' Hall, but also consumed the whole of their house property, excepting a few small tenements in Grub Street. They found it necessary to try and raise 20,000 to pay their debts, to sell their melted plate, and to add ninety-four members to the livery. Only succeeding, amid the general distress, in raising 6,000, the Company was almost bankrupt, their hall being seized, and attachments laid on their rent. By a great effort, however, they wore round, called more freemen on the livery, and added in two months eighty-one new members to the Court of a.s.sistants; so that before the Revolution of 1688 they had restored their hall and mowed down most of their rents. Indeed, one of their most brilliant epochs was in 1689, when William III. accepted the office of their sovereign master.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EXTERIOR OF GROCERS' HALL.]

Some writers credit the Grocers' Company with the enrolment of five kings, several princes, eight dukes, three earls, and twenty lords. Of these five kings, Mr. Herbert could, however, only trace Charles II. and William III. Their list of honorary members is one emblazoned with many great names, including Sir Philip Sidney (at whose funeral they a.s.sisted), Pitt, Lord Chief Justice Tenterden, the Marquis of Cornwallis, George Canning, &c. Of Grocer Mayors, Strype notes sixty-four between 1231 and 1710 alone.

The garden of the Hall must have been a pleasant place in the old times, as it is now. It is mentioned in 1427 as having vines spreading up before the parlour windows. It had also an arbour; and in 1433 it was generously thrown open to the citizens generally, who had pet.i.tioned for this privilege. It contained hedge-rows and a bowling alley, with an ancient tower of stone or brick, called "the Turret," at the north-west corner, which had probably formed part of Lord Fitzwalter's mansion. The garden remained unchanged till the new hall was built in 1798, when it was much curtailed, and in 1802 it was nearly cut in half by the enlargement of Princes Street. For ground which had cost the Grocers, in 1433, only 31 17s. 8d., they received from the Bank of England more than 20,000.

The Hall was often lent for dinners, funerals, county feasts, and weddings; and in 1564 the gentlemen of Gray's Inn dined there with the gentlemen of the Middle Temple. This system breeding abuses, was limited in 1610.

In the time of the Commonwealth, Grocers' Hall was the place of meeting for Parliamentary Committees. Among other subjects there discussed, we find the selection of able ministers to regulate Church government, and providing moneys for the army; and in 1641 the Grand Committee of Safety held its sittings in this Hall.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF GROCERS' HALL.]

In 1648 the Grocers had to pet.i.tion General Fairfax not to quarter his troops in the hall of a charitable Company like theirs. In 1649 a grand entertainment was given by the Grocers to Cromwell and Fairfax. After hearing _two_ sermons at Christ's Church, preached by Mr. Goodwin and Dr. Owen, Cromwell, his officers, the Speaker, and the judges, dined together. "No drinking of healths," says a Puritan paper of the time, "nor other uncivill concomitants formerly of such great meetings, nor any other music than the drum and trumpet--a feast, indeed, of Christians and chieftains, whereas others were rather of Chretiens and cormorants." The surplus food was sent to the London prisons, and 40 distributed to the poor. The Aldermen and Council afterwards went to General Fairfax at his house in Queen Street, and, in the name of the City, presented him with a large basin and ewer of beaten gold; while to Cromwell they sent a great present of plate, value 300, and 200 pieces of gold. They afterwards gave a still grander feast to Cromwell in his more glorious time, and one at the Restoration to General Monk. On the latter feast they expended 215, and enrolled "honest George" a brother of the Company.

The Grocers' Hall might never have been rebuilt after the Great Fire, so crippled was the Company, but for the munificence of Sir John Cutler, a rich Grocer, whom Pope (not always regardful of truth) has bitterly satirised.

Sir John rebuilt the parlour and dining-room in 1668-9, and was rewarded by "a strong vote of thanks," and by his statue and picture being placed in the Hall as eternal records of the Company's esteem and grat.i.tude.

Two years later Grocers' Hall was granted to the parishioners of St.

Mildred as a chapel till their own church could be rebuilt. The garden turret, used as a record office, was fitted up for the clerk's residence, and a meeting place for the court; and, "for better order, decorum, and gravity," pipes and pots were forbidden in the court-room during the meetings.

At Grocers' Hall, "to my great surprise," says vivacious Pennant, "I met again with Sir John Cutler, Grocer, in marble and on canvas. In the first he is represented standing, in a flowing wig, waved rather than curled, a laced cravat, and a furred gown, with the folds not ungraceful; in all, except where the dress is inimical to the sculptor's art, it may be called a good performance. By his portrait we may learn that this worthy wore a black wig, and was a good-looking man. He was created a baronet, November 12th, 1660; so that he certainly had some claim of grat.i.tude with the restored monarch. He died in 1693. His kinsman and executor, Edmund Boulton, Esq., expended 7,666 on his funeral expenses. He served as Master of the Company in 1652 and 1653, in 1688, and again a fourth time."

In 1681 the Hall was renovated at an expense of 500, by Sir John Moore, so as to make it fit for the residence of the Lord Mayor. Moore kept his mayoralty here, paying a rent of 200. It continued to be used by the Lord Mayors till 1735, when the Company, now grown rich, withdrew their permission. In 1694 it was let to the Bank of England, who held their court there till the Bank was built in 1734. The Company's present hall was built in 1802, and repaired in 1827, since which the whole has been restored, the statue of Sir John Cutler moved from its neglected post in the garden, and the arms of the most ill.u.s.trious Grocers of antiquity set up.

The Grocers' charities are numerous; they give away annually 300 among the poor of the Company, and they have had 4,670 left them to lend to poor members of the community. Before 1770, Boyle says, the Company gave away about 700 a year.

Among the bravest of the Grocers, we must mention Sir John Philpot, Mayor, 1378, who fitted out a fleet that captured John Mercer, a Scotch freebooter, and took fifteen Spanish ships. He afterwards transported an English army to Brittany in his own ships, and released more than 1,000 of our victualling vessels. John Churchman, sheriff in 1385, was the founder of the Custom House. Sir Thomas Knolles, mayor in 1399 and 1410, rebuilt St. Antholin's, Watling Street. Sir Robert Chichele (a relation of Archbishop Chichele), mayor in 1411-12, gave the ground for rebuilding the church of St. Stephen, Walbrook, which his descendant, Sir Thomas (Mayor and Grocer), helped to rebuild after the Great Fire.

Sir William Sevenoke was founder of the school and college at Sevenoaks, Kent. Sir John Welles (mayor in 1431), built the Standard in Chepe, helped to build the Guildhall Chapel, built the south aisle of St.

Antholin's, and repaired the miry way leading to Westminster (the Strand). Sir Stephen Brown, mayor, 1438, imported cargoes of rye from Dantzic, during a great dearth, and as Fuller quaintly says, "first showed Londoners the way to the barn door." Sir John Crosby (Grocer and Sheriff in 1483), lived in great splendour at Crosby House, in Bishopsgate Street: he gave great sums for civic purposes, and repaired London Wall, London Bridge, and Bishopsgate. Sir Henry Keble (mayor, 1510) was six times Master of the Grocers' Company: he left bequests to the Company, and gave 1,000 to rebuild St. Antholin's, Budge Row.

Lawrence Sheriff, Warden 1561, was founder of the great school at Rugby.

"The rivulet or running water," says Maitland, "denominated Walbrook, ran through the middle of the city above ground, till about the middle of the fourteenth century, when it was arched over, since which time it has served as a common sewer, wherein, at the depth of sixteen feet, under St. Mildred's Church steeple, runs a great and rapid stream. At the south-east corner of Grocers' Alley, in the Poultry, stood a beautiful chapel, called Corpus Christi and Sancta Maria, which was founded in the reign of Edward III. by a pious man, for a master and brethren, for whose support he endowed the same with lands, to the amount of twenty pounds per annum."

"It hath been a common speech," says Stow (Elizabeth), "that when Walbrook did lie open, barges were rowed out of the Thames, or towed up so far, and therefore the place hath ever since been called the _Old Barge_. Also, on the north side of this street, directly over against the said Bucklersbury, was one antient strong tower of stone, at which tower King Edward III., in the eighteenth of his reign, by the name of the King's House, called _Cornets Tower_, in London, did appoint to be his exchange of money there to be kept. In the twenty-ninth he granted it to Frydus Guynisane and Lindus Bardoile, merchants of London for 20 the year; and in the thirty-second of his reign, he gave it to his college, or Free Chapel of St. Stephen, at Westminster, by the name of his tower, called Cornettes-Tower, at Bucklesbury, in London. This tower of late years was taken down by one Buckle, a grocer, meaning, in place thereof, to have set up and builded a goodly frame of timber; but the said Buckle greedily labouring to pull down the old tower, a piece thereof fell upon him, which so bruised him, that his life was thereby shortened; and another, that married his widow, set up the new prepared frame of timber, and finished the work.

"This whole street, called Bucklesbury, on both sides, throughout, is possessed by grocers, and apothecaries toward the west end thereof. On the south side breaketh out some other short lane, called in records _Peneritch Street_. It reacheth but to St. Syth's Lane, and St. Syth's Church is the farthest part thereof, for by the west end of the said church beginneth Needlers Lane."

"I have heard," says Pennant, "that Bucklersbury was, in the reign of King William, noted for the great resort of ladies of fashion, to purchase tea, fans, and other Indian goods. King William, in some of his letters, appears to be angry with his queen for visiting these shops, which, it would seem, by the following lines of Prior, were sometimes perverted to places of intrigue, for, speaking of Hans Carvel's wife, the poet says:--

"'The first of all the Town was told, Where newest Indian things were sold; So in a morning, without boddice, Slipt sometimes out to Mrs. Thody's, To cheapen tea, or buy a skreen; What else could so much virtue mean?'"

In the time of Queen Elizabeth this street was inhabited by chemists, druggists, and apothecaries. Mouffet, in his treatise on foods, calls on them to decide whether sweet smells correct pestilent air; and adds, that Bucklersbury being replete with physic, drugs, and spicery, and being perfumed in the time of the plague with the pounding of spices, melting of gum, and making perfumes, escaped that great plague, whereof such mult.i.tudes died, that scarce any house was left unvisited.

Shakespeare mentions Bucklersbury in his _Merry Wives of Windsor_, written at Queen Elizabeth's request. He makes Falstaff say to Mrs.

Ford--

"What made me love thee? Let that persuade thee, there's something extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot cog, and say thou art this and that, like a many of these lisping hawthorn-buds, that come like women in men's apparel, and smell like Bucklersbury in simple-time; I cannot; but I love thee, none but thee, and thou deservedst it."

(_Merry Wives of Windsor_, act iii. sc. 3.)

The apothecaries' street is also mentioned in _Westward Ho!_ that dangerous play that brought Ben Jonson into trouble:--

"_Mrs. Tenterhook._ Go into Bucklersbury, and fetch me two ounces of preserved melons; look there be no tobacco taken in the shop when he weighs it."

And Ben Johnson, in a self-a.s.serting poem to his bookseller, says:--

"Nor have my t.i.tle-leaf on post or walls, Or in cleft sticks advanced to make calls For termers, or some clerk-like serving man, Who scarce can spell th' hard names, whose knight less can.

If without these vile arts it will not sell, Send it to Bucklersbury, there 'twill well."

That good old Norwich physician, Sir Thomas Browne, also alludes to the herbalists' street in his wonderful "Religio Medico:"--"I know," says he, "most of the plants of my country, and of those about me, yet methinks I do not know so many as when I did but know a hundred, and had scarcely ever simpled further than Cheapside."

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

THE MANSION HOUSE.

The Palace of the Lord Mayor--The old Stocks' Market--A Notable Statue of Charles II.--The Mansion House described--The Egyptian Hall--Works of Art in the Mansion House--The Election of the Lord Mayor--Lord Mayor's Day--The Duties of a Lord Mayor--Days of the Year on which the Lord Mayor holds High State--The Patronage of the Lord Mayor--His Powers--The Lieutenancy of the City of London--The Conservancy of the Thames and Medway--The Lord Mayor's Advisers--The Mansion House Household and Expenditure--Theodore Hook--Lord Mayor Scropps--The Lord Mayor's Insignia--The State Barge--The _Maria Wood_.

The Lord Mayors in old times often dwelt in the neighbourhood of the Old Jewry; but in 1739 Lord Mayor Perry laid the first stone of the present dull and stately Mansion House, and Sir Crisp Gascoigne, 1753, was the first Lord Mayor that resided in it. The architect, Dance, selected the Greek style for the City palace.

The present palace of the Lord Mayor stands on the site of the old Stocks' Market, built for the sale of fish and flesh by Henry Walis, mayor in the 10th year of the reign of Edward I. Before this time a pair of stocks had stood there, and they gave their name to the new market house. Walis had designed this market to help to maintain London Bridge, and the bridge keeper had for a long time power to grant leases for the market shops. In 1312-13, John de Gisors, mayor, gave a congregation of honest men of the commonalty the power of letting the Stocks' Market shops. In the reign of Edward II. the Stocks let for 46 13s. 4d. a year, and was one of the five privileged markets of London. It was rebuilt in the reign of Henry IV., and in the year 1543 there were here twenty-five fishmongers and eighteen butchers. In the reign of Henry VIII. a stone conduit was erected. The market-place was about 230 feet long and 108 feet broad, and on the east side were rows of trees "very pleasant to the inhabitants." On the north side were twenty-two covered fruit stalls, at the south-west corner butchers' stalls, and the rest of the place was taken up by gardeners who sold fruit, roots, herbs and flowers. It is said that that rich scented flower, the stock, derived its name from being sold in this market.

"Up farther north," says Strype, "is the Stocks' Market. As to the present state of which it is converted to a quite contrary use; for instead of fish and flesh sold there before the Fire, are now sold fruits, roots and herbs; for which it is very considerable and much resorted unto, being of note for having the choicest in their kind of all sorts, surpa.s.sing all other markets in London." "All these things have we at London," says Shadwell, in his "Bury Fair," 1689; "the produce of the best corn-fields at Greenhithe; hay, straw, and cattle at Smithfield, with horses too. Where is such a garden in Europe as the Stocks' Market? where such a river as the Thames? such ponds and decoys as in Leadenhall market for your fish and fowl?"

"At the north end of the market place," says Strype, admiringly, "by a water conduit pipe, is erected a n.o.bly great statue of King Charles II.

on horseback, trampling on slaves, standing on a pedestal with dolphins cut in niches, all of freestone, and encompa.s.sed with handsome iron grates. This statue was made and erected at the sole charge of Sir Robert Viner, alderman, knight and baronet, an honourable, worthy, and generous magistrate of this City."

This statue of Charles had a droll origin. It was originally intended for a statue of John Sobieski, the Polish king who saved Vienna from the Turks. In the first year of the Restoration, the enthusiastic Viner purchased the unfinished statue abroad. Sobieski's stern head was removed by Latham, the head of Charles subst.i.tuted, and the turbaned Turk, on whom Sobieski trampled, became a defeated Cromwell.

"Could Robin Viner have foreseen The glorious triumphs of his master, The Wood-Church statue gold had been, Which now is made of alabaster; But wise men think, had it been wood, 'Twere for a bankrupt king too good.

"Those that the fabric well consider, Do of it diversely discourse; Some pa.s.s their censure of the rider, Others their judgment of the horse; Most say the steed's a goodly thing, But all agree 'tis a lewd king."

(_The History of Insipids; a Lampoon, 1676, by the Lord Rochester._)

The statue was set up May 29, 1672, and on that day the Stocks' Market ran with claret. The Stocks' Market was removed in 1737 to Farringdon Street, and was then called Fleet Market. The Sobieski statue was taken down and presented by the City in 1779 to Robert Viner, Esq., a descendant of the convivial mayor who pulled Charles II. back "to take t'other bottle."

"This Mansion House," says Dodsley's "Guide to London," "is very substantially built of Portland stone, and has a portico of six lofty fluted columns, of the Corinthian order, in the front; the same order being continued in pilasters both under the pediment, and on each side.

The bas.e.m.e.nt storey is very ma.s.sive and built in rustic. In the centre of this storey is the door which leads to the kitchens, cellars, and other offices; and on each side rises a flight of steps of very considerable extent, leading up to the portico, in the midst of which is the door which leads to the apartments and offices where business is transacted. The stone bal.u.s.trade of the stairs is continued along the front of the portico, and the columns, which are wrought in the proportions of Palladio, support a large angular pediment, adorned with a very n.o.ble piece in bas-relief, representing the dignity and opulence of the City of London, by Mr. Taylor."