ST. MARTIN, LUDGATE
This church was rebuilt in 1437 for Sir John Michael, then mayor, but was destroyed by the Great Fire, and rebuilt from the designs of Wren in 1684. The benefice was united with the united benefices of St. Mary Magdalene, Old Fish Street, and St. Gregory by St Paul’s, by Order in Council, 1890. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1322.
The patronage of the church, long before 1322, was in the hands of: The Abbot and Convent of Westminster; Henry VIII., who seized it and granted it to the Bishop of Westminster, January 20, 1540-41; the Bishop of London, by grant of Edward VI., 1550, confirmed by Queen Mary, March 3, 1553-54, in whose successors it continued.
Houseling people in 1548 were 476.
The interior of the church is noticeable as being broader and higher than it is long, its width being 66 feet, height 59 feet, and length 51 feet. The appearance is rendered cruciform by four composite columns, which, with pilasters on the walls, support entablatures at the angles of the church. The ceiling is lowered in the quadrangular corners thus formed. The tower rises at the centre of the south front, and contains three stories; this is concluded by a cornice, above which there is a narrow stone stage surmounted by an octagonal cupola, with a lantern and balcony. The steeple is completed by a tapering spire, with ball, finial, and vane; its height is 158 feet. It is said to have been especially built by Wren to form a foreground to the towering dome of St. Paul’s.
Chantries were founded here by: William Sevenoke, whose endowment fetched £3 : 6 : 8 in 1548; Michael de London and John le Hatte, augmented by Roger Payn, William Pows, Simon Newell, and Thomas Froddashame, to which John de Derby was admitted as chaplain, January 11, 1392-93, on being vacated by Roger Shirrene; William Alsone, who also founded chantries in Northants and Derbys.
William Sevenoke, grocer, who founded a free school and almshouses in the town of Sevenoaks, Kent, Mayor of London, 1419, was buried here and commemorated by a monument. The other monuments recorded by Stow are of little note. No benefactors are recorded by Stow.
Sixty boys and fifty girls, belonging to the charity school of the ward, were clothed and disposed of (when fit) by subscriptions from the inhabitants.
William Glyn (d. 1558), Bishop of Bangor, was rector here; also Richard Rawlins (d. 1536), Bishop of St. David’s.
Photochrom Co., Ltd.
LUDGATE CIRCUS AND LUDGATE HILL
On Ludgate Hill we find also Stationers’ Court, where is the Stationers’ Hall.
THE STATIONERS COMPANY
The Company was incorporated in 1557, but it is believed that a brotherhood or society existed upwards of a century and a half previously, called the Brotherhood or Society of Text-writers.
There was a Gild of Stationers as early as the beginning of the fifteenth century. It appears to have been a branch of the Scriveners, and to have left them to carry on the preparation of legal documents while they themselves took over the production of books. The charter of the Company shows that it was regarded as a company of printers, and that Queen Mary intended it to be especially a guard against the issue of heretical doctrines.
Drawn by Thos. H Shepherd.
STATIONERS’ HALL IN 1830
The original charter was destroyed in the Fire of London, but the Company have a copy of it; also of the charter granted by William and Mary, confirming the privileges granted by the charter of 1556.
The Company has continued ever since its incorporation, and still is, a trade guild consisting exclusively of members of the trade of a stationer, printer, publisher, or bookmaker, and their children, and descendants born free. The greater number of printers’ apprentices in the City of London are bound at Stationers’ Hall, and the Company’s pensioners, and the recipients of the charities under their control, are principally journeymen printers, compositors, and pressmen.
The Company was originally established for the purpose of fostering and encouraging the trade of a printer, publisher, and stationer, and from the time of its original foundation to this date a limited number of liverymen of the Company have carried on at Stationers’ Hall the trade of a publisher for their own benefit, and a division of profits has been annually made amongst the partners. Other portion of the profits has been distributed annually amongst poor freemen of the Company, applied towards the necessary expenses of the Company, and invested in the purchase of the hall and premises adjoining. The capital for this trade was originally subscribed by the members of the Company in certain proportions or shares, and these shares have been regularly transmitted from time to time since 1605, as in the case of shares of trade companies.
The copyright registry was first established by the Company at the commencement of the sixteenth century or even earlier. It would appear from the ancient records that a register of copies had existed previous to the incorporation. In 1565 rules were made by the Company regulating the transmission of copies upon the decease of the owner, and requiring them to be entered in the books of the Company. In 1584 the Privy Council (through the Lord Mayor) ordered that all copies should be entered in the Company’s register, and copyrights were from time to time transferred by entries in these registers. Between 1580 and 1615, there are letters from the Lords of the Council and the Lord Mayor calling attention to the publication of certain books of a traitorous or mischievous tendency. There is no mention of any power or authority belonging to the Stationers Company for the suppression of these books. On one occasion the Wardens of that Company are ordered to produce the printer of a certain pamphlet with the person who was circulating it. Various orders were from time to time issued by the Lords of the Privy Council and High Commissioners, regulating printing. In 1660 a committee of the House of Commons was appointed to prepare a Bill regulating printing, and in 1662 the Bill was passed, and was known as the Licensing Act. It required all printed works to be registered at Stationers’ Hall. This Act expired in 1681, and in 1710 the first copyright Act was passed, which has been superseded by the Act of 1842. The Act of 1710 required copies to be entered at Stationers’ Hall before publication, and the Act of 1842 makes entry at Stationers’ Hall a condition precedent to the title to sue for protection against infringements. As a printer, not as a novelist, Samuel Richardson was a member.
The most ancient hall stood in Milk Street, Cheapside, but in 1553 the Company moved to St. Peter’s College, near the Deanery of St. Paul’s, and in 1611 they purchased Abergavenny House in Stationers’ Court. This was burnt in the Great Fire. The present building was erected in 1670, and in 1805 the exterior was cased in Portland stone, according to a design by the Company’s architect, Robert Mylne, F.R.S.
The present livery is 284; the Corporate Income is but small, and the Trust Income £1200.
The Company formerly published almanacks, primers, “A.B.C.’s,” psalters, and school books, in which they maintained a valuable monopoly until the middle of the eighteenth century, when it was declared illegal.
The Company established a school at Bolt Court, Fleet Street, in 1861; this is now at Ridge Road, Hornsey. The school has accommodation for more than three hundred boys.
This corner of London to the south of Ludgate Hill was covered with narrow lanes and courts into which light was admitted by the construction of Queen Victoria Street. It is the site of the Blackfriars’ Precinct. This house was in the hands of the Dominicans. See Mediæval London, vol. ii. p. 354.
Church Entry marks the site of
St. Anne, Blackfriars, standing adjacent to the walls of Blackfriars’ Monastery; it was consecrated in 1597 by Edmund Stanhope, Doctor of Laws, by virtue of a commission from the Bishop of London. It was enlarged on the south side in 1613, which was consecrated by the Bishop of London in 1617. The church was burnt down in the Great Fire and not rebuilt, but the parish was annexed to St. Andrew by the Wardrobe. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1597.
The patronage was in the hands of the Crown and parishioners alternately, since the Great Fire when it was burnt down, and the parish was annexed to St. Andrew by the Wardrobe; before this the parishioners presented.
Isaac Oliver, miniature painter, was buried here.
STATIONERS’ HALL (INTERIOR)
The charities and reliefs recorded in this parish were few. John Bobhurst was a donor of £2 per annum, also Edward Corbet and Mrs. Miller. The greatest benefactor was Peter Jorge, who founded a free school, appointing Sion College trustees.
Forty boys and thirty girls were to be taught reading and writing, and some useful work besides. All were to be given clothing once a year and two to be put out as apprentices. The school was endowed with £150 a year, and salaries for teachers. As there were many tailors among the foundation, the children of such were to have preference of admission (Stow and Strype).
St. Anne’s had some notable vicars, among them William Gouge (or Goughe), D.D., forty-six years minister of the parish. In November 1633 “Mr. William Goughe, Doctor of Divinity, prayed to be admitted freeman of the Society of Apothecaries, and was so.”
On the west is an open space fairly wide, with asphalt centre and scrubby bushes round. This is jealously guarded by iron rails and wall from all intruders. It was sacred ground, the churchyard, though there are no monuments or stones left to bear testimony. Close beside the churchyard in a carpenter’s shop are certain old arches belonging to the Dominicans’ Buildings.
Westward there is a small court, called Fleur-de-Lys, on the west side of St. Anne’s churchyard, which escaped the Fire, though here the Fire had raged most hotly. A little consideration will show the reason. An open space called Church Entry lay between the backs of the Fleur-de-Lys Houses and St. Anne’s Church and churchyard. Now the church stood high, and during the continuance of the Fire the wind blew steadily from the east. The view of the City after the Fire shows that the walls of the churches and of many houses were still standing. Therefore, even though the roof was burned, the flames blew over this court, while, when the roof had fallen, the walls of the church sheltered the little court on the other side. I dare say that, had we a more exact account of the Fire, it would be found that many houses or courts escaped in the same way.
“Eminent inhabitants—(of Blackfriars), Isaac Oliver, the miniature-painter. He died here in 1617, and was buried in St. Anne’s, Blackfriars. Lady Ayres, wishing to have a copy of Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s picture to wear in her bosom, went ‘to Mr. Isaac the painter in Blackfriars, and desired him to draw it in little after his manner.’—Cornelius Jansen, the painter (d. 1665). He lived in the Blackfriars for several years, and had much business, but left it a little before Van Dyck’s arrival. Sir Anthony Van Dyck, from his settlement in England in 1632, to his death in 1641. The rent of his house, ‘at a moderate value,’ was estimated, in 1638, at £20, and the tithe paid £1 : 6 : 8. His daughter Justina was born here December 1, 1641, and baptised in St. Anne’s, Blackfriars, December 9, 1641, the day of her father’s death. Ben Jonson, who dates his dedication of Volpone or The Fox ‘from my house in the Blackfriars, this 11th day of February, 1607.’ Here he has laid the scene of The Alchemist. The Earl and Countess of Somerset were living in the Blackfriars when Overbury was murdered. The precinct no longer exists, but is now a part of the ward of Farringdon Within. I have not been able to trace any attempt to assert its privileges later than 1735, when in the July of that year the Court of Common Council brought an action against Daniel Watson, for opening a shop and vending shoes in the Blackfriars without being free of the City. The court of King’s Bench gave it in favour of the City. The sheriffs could arrest here many years before” (Cunningham).
Note that the Earl of Northumberland had a town house in 1612 in the unfashionable precinct of Blackfriars.
FLEUR-DE-LYS COURT
Within the precinct were—and are—several places of interest. The Blackfriars Theatre was built in 1576. It was rebuilt or extensively repaired in 1596 when Shakespeare and Richard Burbage were sharers. In 1633 it was let by Cuthbert and William Burbage for a rent of £50. The building was pulled down in 1655 and tenements put up in its place. Playhouse Yard preserves the memory of the theatre.
Standing at the western end of Queen Victoria Street and taking a general view we see St. Paul’s Station of the L.B. and S.C. Railway. Water Lane runs by the railway. Here is the Apothecaries’ Hall.
THE APOTHECARIES COMPANY
Two opposite forces acted upon the City Companies: one separating them and multiplying Companies for different parts of the same trade or craft; the other uniting in one Company crafts which were related chiefly by using the same material. Thus the Barbers divided into Barbers and Surgeons; the Grocers into Grocers and Apothecaries; while at one time the Weavers included in their body all those trades which had to do with woven stuffs, and were so powerful that they threatened to rule the whole City. It happened sometimes that some trades were injured by the inability of the Company to look after them. Thus it was quite natural that the Grocers who imported drugs and spices and oils used by Apothecaries should include these persons in their own livery. But, the wardens not being skilled in the use of medical prescriptions and preparations, could not look after their own people. Consequently complaints became general of the ignorance and incompetence of Apothecaries for want of proper supervision. Towards the end of the sixteenth century these complaints were brought forward categorically. It took time for the matter to be understood, and it was not until 1617 that James bestowed a separate charter upon the Apothecaries in spite of the remonstrances of the Grocers.
The objects of this charter, concisely stated, are to restrain the Grocers (the former associates of the Apothecaries) or any other City Company from keeping an apothecary’s shop or exercising the “art, faculty, or mystery of an apothecary within the City of London or a radius of seven miles.” To allow no one to do so unless apprenticed to an apothecary for seven years at least, and at the expiration of such apprenticeship such apprentice to be approved and allowed by the master and wardens and representatives of the College of Physicians, before being permitted to keep an apothecary’s shop, or prepare, dispense, commix, or compound medicines. To give the right of search within the City of London or a radius of seven miles of the shops of apothecaries or others, and “prove” the drugs, and to examine within the same radius all persons “professing, using, or exercising the art or mystery of apothecaries.”
It also confers the power to burn “before the offender’s doors” any unwholesome drugs, and to summon the offenders before the magistrates.
And to buy, sell, or make drugs. Up to the passing of the Apothecaries Act, 1815, so far as the prescribed radius extended, the three first-stated objects of the charter and the existence of the society in relation to its members were identical. A member of the Society of Apothecaries and an apothecary of the City of London or within seven miles were convertible terms.
As regards the fourth object prescribed by the charter, the Society, doubtless from its want of means, has never itself until the present time bought, sold, or made drugs, but owing to the great difficulty of its members obtaining pure drugs it allowed them to raise money themselves and create stock or shares for that purpose, and to carry on such trade in the name of the Society for their own personal profit as a private Company or partnership under various titles. Owing to such trade having ended in a loss, this private partnership was dissolved in 1880, and the Society is now itself carrying on the trade at its own risk.
As regards the three first-stated powers of the charter, the Society (by means of the Apothecaries Act of 1815) extended them so greatly as to effect not only a revolution in their own sphere of operations, but also in the medical profession and in the relations subsisting between the latter and the general public.
This Act (after placing the right of search referred to in the third-stated power of the charter on a more precise and practical basis, but to which it is unnecessary to allude as having fallen into necessary desuetude by the various Pharmacy and Poisons Acts) created a court of 12 examiners to be appointed by the master, wardens, and court of assistants, who were to examine all persons in England and Wales as to their skill and ability in the science and practice of medicine, and five examiners to examine assistants for the compounding and dispensing of medicine. It authorised the Society to receive fees for granting the respective licences, and (saving the rights of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons) it empowered the Society to recover penalties for practising or compounding without such licences.
The Apothecaries Act, 1815, contained, however, two restrictions which were removed by the Apothecaries Act Amendment Act, 1874, namely, (a) the obligation of the 12 examiners being members of the Society of Apothecaries, and being of at least 10 years’ standing, and (b) of candidates for examination having served an apprenticeship of five years to an apothecary.
The Act of 1874 also contains other provisions which relate more to questions of medical legislation than this present inquiry. Shortly the effect of the Act of 1815 was to make the Society of Apothecaries one of the three great medical licensing bodies for England and Wales [the number of its present licentiates is between 8000 and 9000], and of the Act of 1874 was to throw open the Society’s examinerships, and to confer on it a freedom in reference to future medical reform to an extent not exceeded by any other body.
The Company consists of about 400 members including the court, the livery, and the yeomanry or freemen.
The hall, which stands on the eastern side of Water Lane, formerly consisted of the town house of Lady Howard of Effingham. It was, of course, destroyed by the Fire, but the buildings which were erected after the Fire have a delightful air of quiet and peace, such as belongs very fitly to a scientific society. The hall stands behind a small paved court; on the left hand is the shop, at the north end of the hall are the offices, the library and the court rooms. The Physic Gardens at Chelsea also belong to the Apothecaries on certain conditions, especially that the Company should every year present to the Royal Society fifty dried specimens of plants growing in these gardens, till the number of 2000 was reached. As this was in 1731, that number has long since passed and the Company’s debt is paid.
Among the more eminent members of this Company have been William and John Hunter, Jenner, Smollett, Humphry Davy, Dr. Sydenham, Erasmus Wilson, and Sir Spencer Wells. Oliver Goldsmith and Keats were also members.
Printing House Square contained the King’s Printing House.
“The first I have discovered was John Bill, who, ‘at the King’s Printing House in Black Friars,’ printed the proclamations of the reign of Charles II., and the first London Gazette, established in that reign. Charles Eyre and William Strahan were the last King’s printers who resided here, and in February, 1770, the King’s Printing House was removed to New Street, near Gough Square, in Fleet Street, where it now is. The place still continues to deserve its name of Printing House Square, for here every day in the week (Sunday excepted) The Times newspaper is printed and published, and from hence distributed over the whole civilized world. This celebrated paper, finding daily employment on the premises for between 200 and 300 people, was established in 1788,—the first number appearing on the 1st of January in that year.” (Cunningham.) The Times office is a very notable feature in Queen Victoria Street by reason of its great height and conspicuous clock. Queen Victoria Street and Upper Thames Street gradually diverge at a very acute angle. The former is on a lower level than the latter, and is divided from it for about seventy yards by a low wall only, with an open space crossed by steps. In Queen Victoria Street on the left is the square tower of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe, outlined in white stone, and thrown into relief by a rather ornamental red-brick building which stands in front.
St. Andrew’s Hill was sometimes called Puddle Dock Hill. In Ireland Yard stood the house bought by Shakespeare in 1612, and bequeathed by him to his daughter Susanne Hall. In Green Dragon Court there stood, until a year or two ago, one of the oldest of the London taverns from which the court took its name.
The Wardrobe.—On the north side of St. Andrew’s church stands a small square which, with its trees and the absence of vehicles or shops, is one of the most quiet spots in the whole City. This square was formerly the court of the town house built by Sir John Beauchamp (d. 1359), whose tomb in St. Paul’s Cathedral was commonly called Duke Humphrey’s tomb. Before his death the house became the property of King Edward III. who made it a Royal Wardrobe House, and so it remained until the Great Fire. James I. gave the collection of dresses—called by Fuller a “Library of antiquaries wherein to read the fashion and mode of garments in all ages”—to the Earl of Dunbar, by whom they were all sold and dispersed. The wardrobe was taken after the Fire to the Savoy and then to Buckingham Street, Strand. The last keeper was Ralph, Duke of Montagu (d. 1709).
When Charles V. came to England in 1522, among the lodgings assigned to his suite was the house of Margaret Hanley, “under the Wardrobe side, having two chambers and two beds.”
Wardrobe Place is a delightful spot with an air of brooding quietness. The houses are nearly all old “post fire,” dating from about 200 years ago. That on the east side of the entry is black with age, and the lines in the brickwork waver as they cross its front. Next to it on the east side of the court is a plaster-fronted one, and then a row of three dark-brick houses with the so-called “flat arch” of brighter red bricks glowing above the rectangular windows. Nearly a dozen twisted plane trees, all young, and measured by inches only in circumference, straggle irregularly from the cobblestones of the courtyard. On the west side there are charming houses in the same style as the above-mentioned. The largest of these, No. 2, is wainscotted from floor to ceiling, and has in many rooms great projecting fireplaces forming recesses on either side half the width of the rooms. From the south-east corner there is a covered-in passage leading to the back of the Old Bell Hotel, and with Wardrobe Chambers opening into them.