istory• In this issue -

• Hackney and the restoration of Charles II

• Stoke Newington and the origins ofsuburban gardening

• Hackney and the improvement ofpublic health

• Town hall architecture - a new perspective on Shoreditch

• The business ofscientific instrument-making

Hackney History is the annual volume ofthe Friends ofHackney Archives. The Friends were founded in 1985 to act as a focus for local history in Hackney, and to support the work ofHackney Archives Department. As well as the annual volume they receive the Department's regular newsletter, The Hackney Terrier. Hackney History is issued free ofcharge to subscribers to the Friends. In 199 8 membership is £6 for the calendar year, rising to£8 in 1999.

For further information telephone 01712412886, fax 01712416688, e-mail [email protected].

ISSN 1360 3795

£4.00 free to subscribers HACKNEY History

volume/our

Abbreviations used 2

Hackney and the beginnings of nonconformity Philip W Plumb 3

Shirley Hibberd: Stoke N ewington' s forgotten gardener Anne Wilkinson 13

The Victorian values of Dr Tripe Carole Pountnry 23

Shoreditch Town Hall Chris Miele 29

Casella : the London progress of a scientific instrument-making company Jane Inslry 39

Contributors to this issue 47

Acknowledgements 47

About this publication 48

THE FRIENDS OF HACKNEY ARCHIVES 1998 Published by the Friends of Hackney Archives Hachney Archives Department 43 de Beauvoir Road Nl 5SQ HACKNEY AND THE BEGINNINGS OF For further details see page 48 NONCONFORMITY

Edited by Isobel Watson Cover design by Jacqueline Bradshaw-Price Printed by Sackville Printers, Heddon St Wl Philip W. Plumb

ISSN 1360 3795 The Tyssen Collection of sermons (see Hack­ Many loyalist incumbents attracted criticism © Friends of Hackney Archives and contributors, 1998 ney History 3) throws light on the beginnings for their neglect of pastoral duties, their per­ of Nonconformity. The books, collected by a sonal bad behaviour and particularly the abuses scholar with a deep interest in the religious arising from the widespread existence of plu­ history of the area, with many contacts and rality whereby clergy held simultaneously the the opportunity to collect rare and vital works livings of more than one care of souls, thus on the subject, allied with contemporary and enjoying the tithes from each. modern sources, portray a picture which shows Hackney to have been at the very centre of 'Malignant Priests' the rise of Nonconformity. Most prominent During the Long Parliament (1640-1660), among the Presbyterian leaders were Thomas John White, a barrister, member of parliament Manton, rector of Stoke Newington 1645-56, and strong opponent of episcopacy, was ap­ William Spurstowe, vicar of Hackney, 1643- pointed chairman of the House of Commons 62, William Bates, later to be minister of the Committee on Religion. He told the Com­ Mare Street meeting-house, 1694-99, Simeon mons that eight thousand of the clergy were Ashe, lecturer at Hackney, and Richard Baxter, 'unworthy and scandalous' and deserved to be ABBREVIATIONS a close friend of Spurstowe who always stayed cast out. During the 1640s clergymen were at his house during his many and important sequestered1 for more than one reason. All HAD Hackney Archives Department visits to London. clergy who espoused the King's cause were VCH Victoria County History The struggle between the Laudians, who treated as 'malignant' and in most cases ex­ defended the episcopacy as being in the di­ pelled from their parishes: those who were held All publications cited are published in London rect line of church government since the to be guilty of erecting rails before the com­ unless otherwise indicated. Apostles, and the Puritans, who considered munion table, or of bowing to the altar, were that this system would lead to a return to likewise deprived, while many others were Roman Catholicism, was complicated by the arraigned on account of their alleged moral support of the monarchs of the day for the deficiencies. If one type of charge could not bishops. An attack on the bishops could be be substantiated then another probably would. construed as anti-Royalist. When Charles I The number of ministers thus deprived has lost control of the country, the bishops be­ given rise to much controversy over the years, came increasingly vulnerable. but it was certainly at least two thousand.

3 HACKNEY History The Beginnings of Nonconjormiry

Parliament ordered later that the wives of titioned the Parliamentary Committee for church established in England. The Long Par­ system never fully operated over the whole sequestered ministers should receive about one Compounding that he had taken a lease on liament in June 1643 set up the Westminster country, and there were many problems in fifth of the amount of their livings so that land in Hackney on behalf of Edward Webb Assembly of Divines to reform the English those parishes which did operate under this their families should not starve; but often this but Webb was now disturbed by William Cut­ Church. There were 151 nominated members: regime. Some incumbents were unhappy at was not regularly paid. Bishop Hall, whose ler, of Hackney, who 'mowed the grass and 30 lay assessors and 121 divines. The latter sharing responsibility with the elders. Many writings had provoked the Smectymnuus pam­ keeps petitioner off the premises with armed were selected from widely divergent views and parishioners did not like the ways in which phlets of Spurstowe and others, had all his men'. In reply, Cutler claimed that he had, fell into four groups: the Episcopalians, who their elders exercised their responsibilities: in property seized, 'not leaving so much as a dozen six years previously, purchased 11 acres of played very little part in the proceedings, Bolton, for example, the elders tried to make trenchers or my children's pictures'. Puritans marsh land in Old Ford, Middlesex, but was largely out of loyalty to the King; Presbyteri­ all those wishing to receive holy communion who may have disliked ceremonial but were now interrupted by William Northey, pre­ ans, who included all the Smectymnuus au­ on the Sunday apply to them the previous guilty of reverence for the Crown did not es­ tended steward of Stepney and Hackney man­ thors as well as Anthony Tuckney, chairman Friday for a communion token. cape. The rector of Okerton was four times ors. Northey, 'on pretence that the lands be­ of committee (and later to marry Spurstowe's In London the system of classes was put into pillaged by Government troops, sent to prison longed to the Earl of Cleveland', got a lease widow), and Richard Vines; Independents, effect. The 13 7 parish churches of the capital thrice and lost all his possessions so that he of them for Webb in trust for himself. Cutler among whom was Philip Nye, one of the com­ were arranged in twelve classes with the had to borrow a shirt. Another sequestered begged leave to enjoy the land having paid bined lecturers at Hackney in 1669; and Chapel of the Rolls, the two Serjeants' Inns minister, John Haggar of Chilcomb, Hants, most of the purchase money. Erastians, who stood for the ascendancy of and the four Inns of Court together making who had a family, was so poor that he was There were other Hackney worthies in trou­ the state over the Church and were thus in up the thirteenth. The Ordinance of 20th reduced to roaming the streets looking for ble for supporting Charles I. Thomas Reston, opposition to the Independents who wished October 1645, which appointed William bread that might have been dropped there and, who compounded for delinquency in Septem­ to be completely free of the state. Spurstowe and George Clarke, of Hackney, as when finding some, 'hath dropt his Glove on ber 1646, in bearing arms against Parliament, Despite the many disputes between Presby­ Triers and Judges of the abilities of Elders in it, took it up, and eaten it with Greedines'. 2 'was taken a year ago and carried to Glouces­ terians and Independents, eventually a Pres­ London, shows that Hackney was in the eighth In Hackney, George Moor, who had been ter. By reason of sickness and great expense, byterian State Church was approved by Par­ classis together with St Andrew Undershaft, rector since 1622, refused to appear before the could not make his peace with Parliament. liament, and in 1646 the system began to be St Katherine Creed, St Helen's and Aldgate. House of Lords in December 1640 to answer Has taken the National Covenant and Nega­ established. Each parish had to elect elders to charges in the petition of Calibut Downing, tive Oath.' He was fined £54. Sir Henry Wood, exercise discipline in co-operation with the The Puritan Lecturers the vicar, but seems not to have been deprived. on 31st May, 1649, pleaded that he had been minister. The newly-formed presbyteries were The importance to the Puritans of preach­ The vicar of Stepney, William Stamp, was not from childhood in the house of the late King grouped together in classes to which each sent ing the gospel was often frustrated by the re­ so lucky. He was taken in custody to the House and for 24 years a sworn servant, which put a representative. Above these were regional luctance of many of the incumbents of livings of Commons in July, 1642, accused of being an extraordinary obligation on him to attend assemblies and finally a national assembly. The to satisfy the desires of the laity in this re- one of those interfering violently with the his Majesty, his wife, and children. 'In 1641 enlisting of volunteers to serve under the Earl was appointed to wait upon the Queen in of Essex, on Sunday, 22nd July, in Stepney Holland, for making and overseeing her ordi­ churchyard. He was imprisoned for 34 weeks, nary provisions of diet. Has so demeaned him­ fled to Oxford and eventually went abroad, self therein that he is not justly chargeable where he died at the Hague in 1653. William with doing anything offensive to Parliament, Heath, rector of Stoke Newington, was se­ nor has been charged with delinquency'. He questered in December, 1644, and his place was fined £273.3 was taken by Thomas Manton. Heath became vicar of Bengeo, Herts, in 1650. In 1660 he The Presbyterian State Church petitioned to secure profits at Stoke The abolition of episcopacy by Parliament, Newington. in January 1643, left a gap in the structure of the Church in England which was not a prob­ The Committee for Compounding lem for the Independents but was not to the It was not only the clergy who had prob­ liking of the Presbyterians. Furthermore, it had lems: many complications ensued when the been necessary for Parliament to enlist the manorial estates of the Earl of Cleveland, roy­ aid of the Scots to defeat Charles I, under the alist and debtor, were dispersed. In July 1653, Solemn League and Covenant,4 and in return William Northey, of the Middle Temple, pe- they expected to see a State Presbyterian

4 5 HACKNEY History The Beginnings of Nonconformity spect. Where patronage was in the hands of unity were not brought about. At this, Si'meon Meanwhile, an Act was passed for the con­ the Church and Court, the laity had no con­ Ashe 'burst into tears with joy, and could not firming and restoring of the ejected or seques­ trol over the appointment of ministers so a forbear expressing what gladness this promise tered ministers, many of whom were coming system of lectureships started in the sixteenth CHRIS~f of His Majesty had put into his heart'.7 forward to reclaim their former livings. This century. Ministers, often unordained, were THE Charles was probably sincere in promising meant that the ministers who had taken over appointed and charged with lecturing in Riches of eh e G o s v E L, that the re-established episcopal church would their benefices had themselves to move out. church on the Christian faith. They were fi­ AND THE encompass at least the Presbyterians. They had Spurstowe, who had been appointed Master nancially supported by the parishioners, who Hope of C H R I s T I A N S, been foremost in promoting his return to the of Catharine Hall, Cambridge, in 1645 ( while were usually responsible for their selection. In throne and desired to be part of the Church. remaining vicar of Hackney), lost this posi­ London, where the majority of advowsons were A SERMON The leading Presbyterian divines were offered tion in October, 1649, for refusing to sign al­ in the hands of the church and court, this led preferment, including Baxter and Calamy, who legiance to the existing government 'without to many parishes having a minister of loyalist M1 -WiOiam Spur/Jow the only Childe ot were offered bishoprics, and Bates and Manton a king or house of lords'. With the Restora­ views and a lecturer with more radical sympa­ Dr SpNri1n11 at H11ckney near Lorido11, Mar. 1 o. deaneries. They did not accept. tion, John Lightfoot, who had replaced him thies, with consequent hostility between the The Presbyterians hoped that such ceremo­ at Cambridge, offered to resign the mastership By S 11,1 •'ON As ii I Preacher of the Gofpel, two.5 In Hackney, during the Civil Wars and and Leet urer there. nies as kneeling at the Lord's Supper and the in his favour, but he declined. the Interregnum, this was not the case, par­ observance of saints' days would not be en­ The Parliament which took office in May Pn: !.. _3.13 :r: 1 forced, and that the use of the surplice, of the ticularly when William Spurstowe's lecturer I h.wt II d,firt to depart lo be r,ith Chrij/ -which u f•m 1661 was extravagantly Royalist and anti-Pu­ was Simeon Ashe. Ashe, one of the leaders of bmer, cross in baptism, and the custom of bowing at ritan. It became known as the Cavalier Par­ Forllll to live uChrijf, 4nd to die id Gmn. the London Presbyterians and a much re­ the name of Jesus, should be abolished, on liament, and lasted until February 1679. The LONDON, the grounds that these were not of great im­ spected preacher, had come to London in 1640 Printed by A. M. for G. Sa10bri~(t ~t 1hc Signe of 1he City of London returned two Presbyterians and as the Earl of Manchester's chaplain. During Bible on Ludg3te-hill, near Fleet-bridge. 1 654- .,.- portance to the Episcopalians but were greatly two Independents, but the rest of the country the 40s and 50s he held a number of lecture­ offensive to them. returned mostly strong Royalist Anglicans. A ships at London churches, and even when he On 22nd October 1660 a meeting was called Corporation Act was passed which required became the intruded rector at St. Augustine's, there was a great movement towards restoring at Worcester House in the Strand to discuss all holders of municipal offices to renounce Old Change,6 in January 1654/5, he offici­ Charles II to the throne in which the Presby­ these matters. The King, two dukes, two earls, the Solemn League and Covenant, which ated as 'preacher of the Gospel and lecturer' terians played a leading role. one lord and seven bishops were already as­ Presbyterians would not do, and thus lost all at Hackney, as is evidenced by the title page sembled when the six leading Presbyterian influence in corporations where they had been of the sermon he preached at the funeral of Restoration ministers, Baxter, Reynolds, Spurstowe, Wallis, politically powerful. William, aged 9, the only child of William Charles II made a Declaration, at Breda, even Ashe and Manton were received coldly, and and Sarah Spurstowe, in March 1654. before landing in England, that there should ushered in. After Clarendon, the Lord Chan­ The Act of Uniformiry be 'liberty to tender consciences, and that no cellor, had read his proposals on episcopal The Act of Uniformity was passed on 19th Regidde man should be disquieted or called into ques­ powers, he produced another paper saying that May 1662, and decreed that all ministers were In 1648, Charles I escaped to Carisbrooke, tion for differences of opinion in matters of the King had been asked by the Independents required publicly to accept the Book of Com­ Isle of Wight, expecting to be welcomed; but religion which did not disturb the peace of and Baptists to grant freedom of worship. mon Prayer before St. Bartholomew's Day, 24th the governor treated him as a prisoner. He the kingdom'. William Spurstowe preached a Charles proposed to insert a clause in the August, and to repudiate the National Cov­ continued, however, to negotiate with Parlia­ sermon at Hackney, 22 April, 1660, in favour projected Royal Declaration of Indulgence that enant of 1643. Ministers not episcopally or­ ment. William Spurstowe was one of the cleri­ of the King's return. The Declaration was read persons who were not members of the Estab­ dained were to be deprived. All ministers, cal commissioners appointed to confer with in both Houses on 1st May, 1660. As soon as lished Church should be permitted to meet tutors and professors in universities, and the King there, and is said to have warned Charles entered London, ten or twelve Pres­ for religious worship provided they did not schoolmasters in every school in the country him of the consequences of refusing to abol­ byterian ministers, among them Richard disturb the public peace. Baxter, although were required to make a declaration of the ish episcopacy completely. Baxter, Edmund Calamy ( one of the wanting liberty of worship for the Presbyteri­ illegality of taking up arms against the King. The trial of Charles I was opposed by the Smectymnuus authors), William Bates, and ans, did not want it for Unitarians and Catho­ The material aspects of refusing to conform Presbyterians, including particularly Thomas Manton, one-time vicar of Stoke lics as well, and said so. When the Declara­ were not negligible. Wives and families would Spurstowe, who joined in signing, in January Newington, were nominated as king's chap­ tion was published it did not contain this be made homeless, with no form of income 1649, a 'Vindication' organised by Cornelius lains and were introduced to the King. Baxter clause but made most of the concessions the except for those of the few ministers who were Burgess, protesting against the trial. wrote that the King not only gave them free Presbyterians wanted. However, Parliament men of property. Even teaching was now barred After Oliver Cromwell's death and the depo­ audience but 'gracious answer' and declared rejected the consequent Bill when it came to Nonconformists. Some 2,000 ministers re­ sition of his son, Richard, as Lord Protector, that it should not be his fault if ecclesiastical before it in November 1660. fused to conform, were therefore ejected from

6 7 The Beginnings of Nonconformiry HACKNEY History

merchants, many of them with Nonconform­ in Hackney. their livings, and found themselves in similar one of the leading spokesmen for the Presby­ ist sympathies, had their country residences. plight to the clergy evicted during the Civil terians. He was strongly in favour of Charles . Outside London, comparable groupings took William Bates War. Some of those ejected for refusing the II returning to the throne, and, together with place. In Exeter, grumbled Bishop Seth Ward, Perhaps the most important of these was Act of Uniformity had already been ejected other London ministers, used his influence himself ejected from Cambridge University William Bates, not only - as Pepys testified - a in 1660, following the restoration of seques­ to help bring about the Restoration. He was during the Civil War for writing against the good preacher, but skilled in Italian, and a tered incumbents, and had found themselves made a Royal chaplain in 1660, appointed a Covenant, twenty ejected ministers resided in great scholar, who lost books to the value of another living, sometimes in the same county. Commissioner for the Savoy Conference of that city, with nothing else to do 'but lie £200 in the Great Fire. He was licensed as Lecturers, assistants and curates serving chap­ 1661 and in the same year was made 0.0. by gnaweing at the root of government and reli­ Presbyterian on 8th May 1672. At Middlesex els of ease, heads of colleges, fellows. and col­ royal decree. He was offered the deanery of gion'. Sessions in November 1682 he was fined £100 lege chaplains from the universities, and Lichfield but refused. On 23rd May 1661, at Simeon Ashe would certainly have vacated for preaching thrice at Hackney the previous schoolmasters were also ejected. The plight a Lord Mayor's banquet, Pepys noted that his living as rector of St Austin's, London. month. The Toleration Act 1689 allowed of the nonconformist ejected was worse than Bates's 'singularity in not rising up nor drink Ironically, he died, and a few days later was Nonconformists their own places of worship, that of the Royalist clergy sequestered, as this the King's nor other healths at the table, was buried on the eve of St Bartholomew's Day. teachers and preachers, and in July 1694, he time Parliament did not order any money for very much observed'. Bates was also at odds He was a man of property, and had always certified the meeting-house in Mare Street, the families. with Sheldon, Bishop of London, who told been very hospitable to his fellow ministers, Hackney, as a place of worship. Bates and oth­ him and another Presbyterian, J acomb, that although charged with severity against con­ ers made various attempts to work out a Farewell Sunday if they would not read the Book of Common forming clergy. If Simeon Ashe did not live scheme of comprehension, 10 but without suc­ Sunday 17th August 1662 was 'Farewell Sun­ Prayer, nor order their curates to do so, he long enough to refuse to conform, other lec­ cess, mainly owing to the uncompromising day', the last Sunday before St Bartholomew's would send those that would. turers did conform, including Francis Raworth, attitude of the bishops. Day when the law would take effect. Samuel Bates was a popular preacher, described by who became the William Jones lecturer (sup­ Bates married for a second time on 1st July Pepys decided that he wished to hear Dr. contemporaries as 'silver-tongued', and Pepys ported by the Haberdashers' Company) at St 1664. Of his children, Margaret was buried at Bates's farewell sermon, and walked to St entered the church at 8 a.m. by a back door Bartholomew Exchange in 1662, after the dis­ Hackney, 7th October, 1669, as were Edward, Dunstan's in the West.8 before the main doors were opened. The missal of George Griffith, an Independent, 7th October, 1709, and William, a London Dr William Bates, born in Bermondsey in church was already half-full, but he managed who would not take the oath. Raworth also merchant, 3rd May, 1 720. Bates died on 14th 1625, was educated at both Oxford and Cam­ to get a good place in the gallery, next to the became vicar of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, but July 1699, and was buried a week later in the bridge and was Vicar of Tottenham in 1649. pulpit, and was able to hear very well. It was died of the plague in 1665, while Griffith be­ chancel of St John's, Hackney. His library was He became Vicar of St Dunstan's, among the a very good sermon but made little reference came a congregational minister in London and bought by Daniel Williams, founder of the richest churches in London, in 1654, and was to the occasion. In the afternoon, Pepys went lived and worked until he was in his eighties. great Nonconformist library, for over £500. to hear Bates again, but this time had to stand ~ ... .. , ...... --· William Spurstowe, described by Richard Calamy had an intriguing interview with Bates in a crowd, such was the throng. At the end Baxter as 'an ancient, calm, reverend minis­ in 1694, in which Bates refused to take any of his sermon, Bates departed from his habit ter', resigned his living at Hackney on 24th part in his or in any public ordination, owing of saying nothing extraneous to his text and August 1662. He had an independent fortune to a 'hindrance peculiar to himself', about business, to say, in effect, that his conscience and was able to go on living there until his which Calamy was bound to secrecy. was clear: 'I know no reason why men should death in 1666. He was a most charitable and Bates was assisted, gratis, at Mare Street by not pardon me in this world, and am confi­ kindly man, with whom Baxter stayed when Thomas Woodcock, who had been forced to dent that God will pardon me for it in the he came to London, and was hospitable to his leave his post as rector of St Andrew next'. Pepys wrote that he had heard that colleagues, especially those in need. He died Undershaft in 1660, on the restoration of the most of the Presbyters took their leave that intestate, and his widow was involved in sequestered minister. During the Plague he day 'and the City is much dissatisfied with Chancery proceedings over his estate in 1675. moved to Leicestershire, living near Anthony it'. Other ejected ministers had powerful friends, Tuckney. He went to live at Leyden, Holland, who helped them by employing them as chap­ for a time 'for the sake of his sons' but re­ The fate of the ejected lains, but many had to rely on friends and turned to England and lived in Hackney. He In general, the ejected mm1sters did not colleagues in more humble circumstances. A. was fined £ 100 for preaching three times in move far from their old parishes. Many of the G. Matthews, author of Calamy Revised,9 has October 1682, at the meeting-house, Hack­ 76 ejected from London and Westminster shown in that invaluable work how many ney. In 1690 he was preaching at his own house moved to the City parish of St Giles, ministers ejected not only from London but there. He was buried at Hackney, 3rd April Cripplegate, while others found refuge in from other parts of the country came to reside 1694. Extracts from his papers were published Hackney and Stoke Newington, where City William Bates, engraved after a portrait l!J Kneller 9 8 HACKNEY History The Beginnings of Nonconformity in the Camden Miscellan y. 11 Gordon 12 de­ The Five Mile Act saw them, by issuing the Declaration bf In­ The Combined Lecture 16 scribed them as 'often racy'! What can he Another repressive measure was made dulgence on 15th March 1672. This suspended The Episcopal Returns of 1669 show that mean? law in October 1665: the Five Mile Act sought 'all manner of penal laws in matters ecclesias­ at Hackney, in that year, seven non-conform­ Another of Bates's assistants, in 1678, to meet the perceived danger of the ejected tical against whatever sort of Nonconformists ist ministers held a lecture in concert. Three was Onesiphorus Rood, formerly curate of ministers settling in groups in towns like Ex­ or recusants', and under licence allowed a suf­ were Presbyterian: Peter Sterry, Thomas Tothill Fields Chapel, Westminster and one­ eter and London, and enacted that all who ficient number of places of worship for those Watson, and William Baxter. Four were lnde­ time chaplain to the House of Lords. Rood refused to take the oath of non-resistance to unwilling to conform. There were three forms penden ts (Congregational): Philip Nye, was fined £60 at Middlesex Sessions in No­ the sovereign, or to promise 'never at any time of licence: for a teacher of a particular con­ George Griffith, Thomas Brookes and John vember 1682, for preaching twice at to endeavour any alteration of the govern­ gregation with a further licence to teach in Owen. Philip Nye, one of whose sermons is conventicles in Hackney in September and ment in Church and State', should be forbid­ any other licensed place; a general licence to in the Tyssen Collection, had a varied minis­ October of the same year. In 1690 he was still den to come within five miles of a corporate teach in any licensed place; and a license for terial career. His nonconformity had got him living in Hackney, and possibly preaching at town and should not be allowed to teach in a place. Various groups of Nonconformist into trouble as early as 1633, when he was a the Compter ( there were two debtors' pris­ any public or private schools. The penalty was ministers presented addresses of thanks to the Lecturer at St Michael's, Cornhill. He was ons, one in the Poultry, the other in Wood a fine of forty pounds. King. Twenty-eight London ministers pre­ reported to be leaving for New England, but Street, for persons arrested within the City sented their gratitude in person, among them instead went to Holland, and became minis­ and Liberties. Rood was probably at the The Dons and the Ducklings being John Owen, William Bates and Thomas ter at Arnheim. His daughter, Dorothy, was former). By 1668, the Presbyterians were completely Manton. John Bunyan was released after however baptised at Hackney, on 1st June, divided over the alternative goals of compre­ twelve years of imprisonment, and a licence 1636. Later, as vicar of Kimbolton, he repre­ The Conventicle Act 1664 hension and toleration. The older leaders, was granted for him to preach in Bedford. sented Huntingdonshire at the Westminster The Act of Uniformity was designed to pre­ including William Bates, Thomas Manton and Licences were sought for preaching-places Assembly of Divines, and played a prominent vent Nonconformist ministers preaching. The Richard Baxter, whose influence was mostly in upper rooms, barns, malting-floors, gardens, role in religious and public matters. He ap­ Conventicle Act 1664 was aimed at laymen. with the gentry, wanted a re-union with the houses, buildings in orchards, halls belonging pears to have made powerful enemies, as he It declared illegal all meetings for worship, in Church, while the other wing, largely reflect­ to public companies, and anywhere else where was accused in 1662 of acquiring a great es­ private houses or elsewhere, of more than five ing the middle classes, whose leader was people might meet. Many bishops were wor­ tate by taking bribes, with one of his sons, for persons (in addition to the household) unless Samuel Annesley, vicar of St Giles' ried that with the disabilities lifted, the Non­ disposing of livings, and of using his personal held in accordance with the Book of Com­ Cripplegate until ejected in 1662,14 wanted conformists were increasing at an alarming mon Prayer. The penalties were severe: gaol toleration as did the Independents, Quakers, rate. Some authorities insisted that the Dec­ . 0Avrns 'Deliverance and

10 11 HACKNEY History influence with Oliver Cromwell to thwart Notes patrons of recourse to law. He defended him­ 1. Sequestration was the term applied to the seizure of the self, and survived the charges to maintain his estates of royalists and to clergy removed from their livings under the ordinance of March 1643. 'Intruders' were the pre-eminent position amongst Congregational ministers who took their place.Those who refused to con­ divines. form in 1662 were the 'ejected' or 'silenced'. After the Royal Indulgence of 1672, in 2. The principal source for details of the sequestered minis­ ters is J. Walker, The Sufferings ofthe Clergy, 1714, greatly which Charles II, to the annoyance of the revised and extended as Walker Revised ( Oxford, 1948) by SHIRLEY HIBBERD: Church party (in power in Parliament) sus­ A. G. Matthews. Walker's original work was an Anglican pended the penal laws against Dissenters, a retaliation to Edmund Calamy, Abridgement ofMr. Baxter's STOKE NEWINGTON'S History ofhis Life and limes, 1702. Calamy, the grandson of Tuesday morning lecture was established by Spurstowe's collaborator in the Smectymnuus series, had London merchants to he given at Pinners' included a very long chapter listing and detailing the men FORGOTTEN GARDENER Hall, Old Broad Street, the meeting place of who had been deprived of office for refusing to comply with the Act of Uniformity 1662. Calamy published a second a Congregational Church. This lecture series edition in 1713, in which this chapter had become a volume continued the co-operation founded in 1669 of 864 pages. Matthews, an English Congregational minis­ at Hackney by choosing three Presbyterians, ter, published his Calamy Revised in 1934 (Oxford). The two modern books are an indispensible contribution to our including William Bates and Thomas Manton, understanding of the religious struggles of the seventeenth Anne Wilkinson two Congregationalists, and Richard Baxter century, but the original works need to be consulted for (simply registered as Nonconformist) to preach much detail for which Matthews was unable to find space. 3. Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for Com­ in rotation. This inter-denominational accord pounding with Delinquents 1643-60, HMSO (1891), 1470, continued for over twenty years. 2166, 2072. 4. 25th September, 1643, the agreement between Parlia­ ment and the Scottish covenanters, whereby in return for The Happy Union? military assistance from Scotland, the English agreed to a Hackney's Victorian nurseries and market (1825-1890). He wrote the first comprehen­ The Toleration Act of 1689 brought to an Presbyterian system. The engagement of September 1650 gardens have been well researched in recent sive guide to gardening in towns and edited end all legal repression of dissent, and the imposed on all men over 18 an oath of allegiance to a gov­ years and have received welcome publicity. A ernment without king or lords, which even many Presbyteri­ the first journal for amateur gardeners. He Presbyterian and Congregational ministries ans could not in conscience swear. gardener and writer associated with Hackney, wrote 14 books on gardening, at least 10 on planned to amalgamate. All but three minis­ 5. Paul S. Seaver, The Puritan Lectureships (Stanford, 1970). well-known in the 19th century but now for­ other subjects, and edited three horticultural ters in and around London, more than eighty 6. Also known as St Austin's. gotten, was James Shirley Hibberd 7. Bolam, Goring, &c, The English Presbyterians, 1968, is a journals. He once commented that leisure was altogether, met together on 6th April 1691, detailed study of Presbyterian origins. A. Gordon, Freedom an enjoyment he knew nothing of. He was 17 in the large Stepney meeting-house, where after Ejection (Manchester, 1917), is a review of Presbyte­ ahead of his time in encouraging wildlife and the Congregational pastor, Matthew Mead, rian and Congregational nonconformity in the last part of thel 7th century, and J. Brown, Commonwealth England (Eras natural planting, as well as in persuading peo­ preached a famous sermon, 'Two Sticks Made of Nonconformity), 1904, and From the Restoration to the ple to attempt gardening in towns at all. He One'. The main objective of the union was Revolution (Eras of Nonconformity),1904, are concise but suggested that gardening could be used to al­ that congregations, in choosing their minis­ informative accounts from the dissenting viewpoint. 8. The Diary ofSamuel Pepys, (ed. Latham and Matthews), leviate stress, but he himself died of exhaus­ ters, should consult with, and obtain the agree­ 3, 166. tion at the age of sixty-five. His fellow jour­ ment of, neighbouring pastors. In the event 9. See note 2 above. nalists mainly agreed that they would miss a of disagreement, advice should be sought from 10. That is to say, inclusion: see note l above. 11. vol. xi., 1907. true friend and a respected colleague: his burial a specially-convened synod. This co-operation 12. See note 2 above. in Abney Park Cemetery was attended by became known as 'the Happy Union'. Un­ 13. Pepys, Diary, 7 August 1664. about 200 mourners. 1 happily, within a year, Daniel Williams, a Pres­ 14. His youngest daughter, Susanna, was to become the mother of John and Charles Wesley and seventeen other byterian, founder of the great nonconformist children. Roots library, caused great controversy with the pub­ 15. See note 5 above. James Shirley Hibberd was said to have been lication of his book Gospel Truth, based on 16. Ordered by Archbishop Sheldon, who belived that num­ bers of nonconformists were greatly exaggerated, and pre­ born in St Dunstan's parish, Stepney, in 1825, his Pinners' Hall lectures. His chief adversary served in Lambeth Palace Library (Tenison MSS, 639). and attended the Stepney Meeting House was Isaac Chauncy, Congregational, and the 17. A fragment of which still exists between Stepney Green School.2 His parentage and early life are ob­ main dispute was whether repentance or faith and Stepney Way, east of Garden Street, El. scure, but he may have been connected with took precedence in the order of grace. the Shirley family of Mile End, who were To outside observers, not a great deal to quar­ wealthy landowners in the early 19th century. Shirley Hibberd in later life rel over. On Hibberd's first marriage certificate his fa-

13 12 HACKNEY History Stoke Newington's forgotten gardener ther is named as James Hibberd, occupation ing that he did not believe there was any­ in circumference, and illustrated choruses from encourage Hibberd to go on writing about 'printer'. Almost the only references Hibberd thing beneficial about abstaining from meat. the oratorios of the creation and the seasons, gardening. makes to his father are in relation to his early He was more in favour of teetotalism for those by Shirley Hibberd'. Hibberd published another book in the same love of gardening: 'my father was an enthusi­ who had no self control, but did not feel it year: Brambles and Bay Leaves - essays on ast in the culture of monster melons, pump­ applied to himself. The next year he wrote an A Pentonville garden things homely and beautiful, which was more kins and blanched celery, as well as the more endorsement of a brand of sherry 'that a gen­ In November 1850 Hibberd married Sarah in line with the way he expected his career to refined departments of flower growing; and to tleman may drink with benefit to his health'.5 Elizabeth Voyer at St Andrews Church, develop. It included writing about nature and an appetite acquired in childhood I owe many Throughout his life, however, he spoke out Holborn. They were both living at 11 Little the countryside, descriptions of walks in Es­ of the choicest pleasures and associations of against cruelty to animals in slaughterhouses. Gray's Inn Lane, off Gray's Inn Road. Sarah's sex and Hertfordshire, chemistry, philosophy, my life since'.3 parents were George and Sarah Voyer, who religion and eastern and classical mythology. Hibberd was said to have been apprenticed Vegetan'anism and temperance lived at 10 Little Gray's Inn Lane; George He says the essays were written 'during the to a bookseller when young, instead of going How Hibberd got into vegetarianism and carried on business at 4 Little Gray's Inn Lane intervals of severe, though not uncongenial, into a 'medical' career, because of his father's quickly left it behind may be explained by a as a gold and silver chaser. Sarah had been duties' and he seems to have been working as early death. This would be logical through semi-autobiographical story which appeared baptised on 1st February 1824 at St Luke's a freelance writer and lecturer. However, in business connections if his father was a printer in a collection of essays, stories and poems he Church, Old Street, Finsbury. They met in about 1854 Hibberd appears to have gone and could explain his becoming a journalist. published in 1886.6 In the story a young man, the summer of 1850. In 1851 he published through some sort of family tragedy. In the However, he probably had scientific training. while away from home as a student, becomes 'Summer Songs', a book of love poems writ­ second edition of Brambles and Bay Leaves He emerges in about 1849 writing in The a member of the Pythagoreans, as vegetarians ten to Sarah and poems about flowers. The (1862), he writes,' When the first edition [of Vegetarian Advocate, the official newspaper were known before 1848. The sect is led by a Vegetarian Advocate had included some 'im­ the book] had been committed to the press, a of the Vegetarian Society (founded 1847). He charismatic figure who requires his followers proving' poems and rousing songs written by dark cloud overspread my domestic life and is not only the author of numerous articles on to abstain from meat, alcohol, salt, conven­ Hibberd, including 'The Two Streams' ( against rendered me altogether careless whether the 'the proper food of man', but a tireless public tional medicine and, where possible, clothes drink - one stream was water, one wine), 'The book should find readers ... The cloud has not speaker, lecturing all over the City and east of animal origin. The devotees delighted in Battlefield' (anti-war) and 'Hurrah for the cleared away, but has changed its form and London, including 'the Hackney Chapel' discussion of extravagant trifles, such as not Mighty Deep!' ( celebration of the sea). (probably the Independent chapel in Mare eating beans: the temptation to eat bacon with After their marriage, the Hibberds moved Street) and Dalston, taking part in discussions them being a good reason not even to eat to 42 Cumming Street, Pentonville (the house and appearing at vegetarian soirees and ban­ beans on their own! We can only guess how is no longer there). Experience in gardening quets. He is described as an 'operative chem­ much of the story is an exaggeration (prob­ there led Hibberd to write The Town Gar­ ist' and the author of Outlines ofChemistry - ably most of it), but his reasons for joining den, published in 1855. The first edition was a textbook for the use ofbeginners, published sound genuine enough: 'That I was drawn into literally pocket-sized, containing clear instruc­ in 1850. The term 'operative chemist' was used the net and made a full novitiate will not tions on how to make a garden 'where the at the time by those chemists and druggists surprise you, for you know how pliable and chimneys are more numerous than the trees who wanted to distinguish themselves as seri­ impressionable I am ... I had a secret liking for and the sky not of the most Italian blue'. 7 ous scientists, rather than simply dispensers all the singularities of the sect to which many Towns were filthy in the 1850s, and most peo­ of drugs. They often supplemented their in­ plausible persuasions had attached me'. In the ple gave up attempting to grow things because come by lecturing, particularly to medical stu­ story, the young man eventually falls into de­ of the thick film of soot which quickly cov­ dents.4 lirious fits through malnutrition and the leader ered plants, trees, the ground and all build­ Hibberd's articles in The Vegetarian Advo­ turns out to be a fraud and ex-mental patient. ings. He gives instructions on how to delay cate include descriptions of man's teeth and The Vegetarian Advocate ceased publica­ digging the garden until the spring because if digestive system, 'the chemistry of sleep' and tion in 1851 and was replaced by The Pio­ you dig in the autumn you will only have to the 'psychical' distinctions between man and neer and Weekly Record of Movements, a dig in the accumulation of soot all over again animals (by which he means that animals rely paper dedicated to temperance. Hibberd was before planting. He also advised on covering on instinct and intelligence, while man relies only mentioned as author of a poem, 'The the best plants with glass bell jars to keep on intelligence and conscience). There is a Empire of the Heart'. However, an advertise­ them clean. He recommended plants, such as strong element of religious faith, which re­ ment in it showed one way he was earning plane trees and ivy, which could survive soot, mains throughout his life. Not so vegetarian­ his living: 'at the Hackney Literary and Sci­ and even a few roses capable of growing within ism and its accompanying teetotalism. In 1874 entific Institution - two lectures on astronomy, 3 miles of St Paul's. The book received mixed he reviewed a book on vegetarianisJJl, explain- with an orrery, grand transparencies, fifty feet reviews but must have sold well enough to The entrance hall (with aquarium) at Stoke Newington

14 15 HACKNEY History Stoke Newington's forgotten gardener acquired a few additional touches of black­ and zoological interests. In an essay called 'A nowadays could be bothered to set up or main­ results during the summer. ness; though thank God, it has a golden fringe, Happy Family' published in the second edi­ tain an aquarium or Wardian case in the way Although the garden in Lordship Terrace so that there are gleams of light afar off'. Sarah tion of Brambles and Bay/eaves in 1862, he describes, nor keep the variety of marine (now covered by the Lordship Estate) was Hibberd was an invalid throughout her life, Hibberd described his home as being 'far life he collected, rather than just tropical fish. about 286 feet long, the increased experiments and eventually died of heart disease in 1880. enough from town to be free from tempta­ There were many books on these subjects in with fruit and vegetables, as well as flowers On her death certificate the heart disease is tions of pleasure, yet near enough to avoid the 1850s, but perhaps Hibberd's was the first and shrubs, meant Hibberd needed more space described as having existed 20 years. There­ lapsing into vapid dullness'. His wife gave sing­ to put a bit of everything in one place and to grow everything. He had a garden off Queen fore, by 1862 she would have been aware of ing lessons and although they had no chil­ connect it with poetry and good illustrations, Elizabeth's Walk, opposite Clissold Park, which it. Perhaps this is the 'changed form' of the dren, they had a talking parrot, 2 cockatoos, as well as a few personal anecdotes and prac­ later became Robert Oubridge's nursery, where cloud. They had no children, but as the trag­ 2 grey and 2 green parrots, 2 Australian ground tical tips for 'do-it-yourself' to save money. he grew fruit trees, and another garden off edy co-incides with a house move to Chelsea parakeets, 2 macaws, 2 lories, 2 Brazilian tou­ By 1858 Hibberd had made his name as a Park Street (now Yoakley Road). On the 1868 in 1855 it is possible that Sarah suffered a cans, a fresh water and sea water aquarium, writer and began to rely on gardening alone Ordnance Survey map you can see that there miscarriage or still-birth while there and then various jars of other aquatic curiosities, 40 song as his subject. He edited The Floral World was a convenient pathway going through from moved away to try to forget it. Sarah's mother birds in the attic, decorative poultry and tame and Garden Guide, a monthly newspaper 'for Lordship Road behind the houses to a large is listed in the 1851 census as having been jays and jackdaws in the garden, a bee house amateurs with moderate means and ambitions patch of open land where his garden in Park born in Chelsea, so she may have gone there with half a million bees, and a flock of An­ to excel in the various practices of horticul­ Street must have been. Here he grew vegeta­ to stay near relatives. gora goats on the neighbouring common. ture'. He moved to 6 Lordship Terrace, Stoke bles. Newington, and in The Floral World tells us Return to North London The suburban rustic why ( writing in the third person): Produce in abundance Whatever prompted the move to Chelsea, These interests were the basis for Hibberd's While at Lordship Terrace, Hibberd wrote by 1856 the Hibberds were back in North best-known book, Rustic Adornments for ... in consideration of the health of his wife, has Profitable Gardening, The Rose Book, The lately abandoned a garden in the country, and Fem Garden, New and Rare Beautiful-Leaved London, at a house and garden in Church Homes of Taste, published in 1856. It became taken a villa at Stoke Newington where the air Plants, Field Flowers ('a handy book for the Road Nursery, Tottenham (behind the Bruce much better known in its revised edition in suits her better than the marshy spot in which Castle Museum). Hibberd's interests were still 1870, where pictures of his Lordship Terrace he, years ago, pitched his tent. .. The look is free rambling botanist'), Clever Dogs, Horses etc. wide-ranging: in 1856 he reputedly gave a lec­ garden were included. In its first incarnation and uninterrupted, right away across the mead­ ( a curious book of tales about anii;nals doing ture at The Great Globe, Leicester Square, it included detailed descriptions of aquariums, ows, to Muswell Hill, with the Lordship Road brave deeds), as well as revised editions of reservoir, like a silvery mirror, intervening. on the Crimean War. He also published a book bird and bee keeping, and growing ferns and The Town Garden and Rustic Adornments, and he edited The Floral World and The on the subject in the same year: The Epitome other plants in indoor glass cases. The sec­ The house was semi-detached and probably Gardener's Magazine. The early issues of The of the War, from its outbreak to its close. tions on marine life and bee-keeping show built in the 1820s. The road was then called Floral World are an apparently random col­ The house at Tottenham gave both Hibberds Hibberd's scientific knowledge and are ex­ Meadow Street. He started the long process lection of articles by Hibberd himself and a more scope to indulge in their horticultural tremely precise: I doubt that many people of renovating and improving the garden and, group of local gardeners from Hackney and month by month, readers were given descrip­ its surrounding areas. Mr Chitty of Stamford tions of his rockery, fern house, rose garden, Hill writes about tender shrubs and greenhouse spergula lawn, jardiniere in the front garden plants, Mr Prior from Homerton specialises (contained in Ransome's patent stone) and in roses, and Mr Oubridge ('the master of fruit and vegetable experiments, as well as his fuschias [sic] on this side of London') and Mr Christmas decorations. He tirelessly extolled Williams from Holloway (orchid expert) be­ the virtues of the 'plunging system' whereby tween them provide expertise on every sub­ plants were kept in pots and used in the bor­ ject. The paper also includes answers to read­ ders when at their best, then replaced with ers' queries, book reviews and reports of shows something else coming into its prime. He used and exhibitions. Stoke Newington was re­ coconut fibre ( which has recently become nowned for its Chrysanthemum Society at the popular again as a substitute for peat) in which time, started by Robert James of the Rochester to stand the pots. He is the first to admit that Castle public house. this system requires hard work, but compares Hibberd is responsible for introducing or it favourably to the popular 'bedding' system promoting many plants we are familiar with employed in most gardens at the time which today which thrive in our pollution as they The front garden at Lordship terrace, with Jarcl/net' required even more work and only produced

16 17 HACKNEY History 5 toke Newington's forgotten gardener

readers, price one shilling. him a vast amount of ridicule from pr'actical Experiments Although Hibberd's own gardens have dis­ men, and which we cannot say was quite un­ Hibberd constantly held trials of different appeared, we can see his work in Islington deserved; at any rate, no one apparently cared vegetables to find the best varieties and was Green. He was paid £260 to lay it out in 1863 to see their trees loaded with brick-bats, and particularly interested in potatoes, partly be­ by St Mary's parish. He writes in The Floral so the system he advocated for bringing trees cause potato disease had so devastated life in 9 World of December 1869 that if readers wish into fruitfulness was never adopted'. His idea Ireland. He advocated growing potatoes on to see Irish ivy used as an edging plant they was that fruit trees should not be drastically tiles to help drainage and combat cold. He only need to look at 'The Green': 'you may pruned, but should have some branches bent dug a trench, put down a layer of downward find a moment's amusement in criticising said into a downward position by hanging weights curving tiles and then covered them with soil, writer's notions of town gardening'. There you from them, to promote growth. The illustra­ growing the potatoes on the tiles, thereby leav­ can still see the ivy, aucuba and plane trees tion in The Floral World for February 1876 ing an empty space under the plants. He recommended again and again by Hibberd in shows bells hanging from the branches like claimed he got much better yields on his heavy all his books and articles on town gardening. Christmas decorations, rather than broken soil. In 1878 Hibberd produced a book on The bee-shed at Lordship Terrace They seem ordinary now, but look how they bricks. He calls the method 'pulley-pruning'. Home Culture of the Watercress, when he did a hundred years ago. Aucuba japonica, have lasted! He also suggested that because fruit grew well discovered that running water, which was pre­ the spotted laurel, seen all over London, was By 1871 Hibberd had moved from the house against walls, as long as the sun was shining viously thought essential for growing water­ a plant he made popular. When it first came in Lordship Terrace, but may still have re­ to warm the wall and ripen the fruit, but could cress, was severely polluted. He explained how from China it was not thought particularly tained the garden. Builders started encroach­ be damaged by walls getting cold if there was watercress could be grown in pots plunged into frost at the wrong time, 'reversible' walls could exciting, as it had no berries. Much later, it ing on Park Street and Queen Elizabeth's water troughs in any garden. He was awarded be used. These were wooden fence panels was realised that there are separate male and Walk, and the character of the area was chang­ a gold medal by the Royal Horticultural Soci­ which could be fixed on one side of the tree female plants and in order to have berries you ing. By 1871 he was living at Bridge House, ety and also wrote a poem to the watercress or the other, depending which way the sun or must grow both. Hibberd obtained male and Hermitage Road, which runs between Green sellers of London, when he was acctised of wind was coming from. It looks a fairly cum­ female plants, propagated lots of cuttings and Lanes and St Ann's Road. In a story published putting them out of business. bersome process, which was probably why it then displayed them at a lecture and sold them in The Gardener's Magazine, December 1880, The experiment with watercress was part of never caught on. through a local nursery. Soon after that eve­ obviously autobiographical, called 'Life on a Hibberd's general interest in water supply. It ryone had them.8 Hibberd constantly advised Private Road', he describes how he found the town gardeners against trying to imitate parks house, how idyllic it first appeared, but how and large country gardens where there were he gradually had to put up with fog, floods, better facilities for raising bedding plants and gipsies, fruit and vegetable thieves, naked prize­ where a larger staff would be employed. He fighters and herds of grazing animals. The tells the amateur gardener to concentrate on building of houses and the coming of the rail­ mixing shrubs and bulbs with hardy herba­ way finally drove him out: 'and the end of it ceous plants. He seemed to be fighting a los­ was, the man had a year of rheumatism and ing battle as it was the end of the century the woman broke her heart. He survived to before this style of gardening became popular. find another home; she went to the grave, leaving him a lonelier and a thousand times Public and private less helpful [hopeful?] than when assailed day By the 1860s Hibberd's garden was becom­ and night by innumerable enemies in the pri­ ing so well known through his journalism that vate road.' It was a sad ending to what should he was constantly asked to let the public visit. have been a perfect life. These requests were refused on the grounds Bridge House appears on the 1864 Ordnance that it was a private garden, 'devoted to ex­ Survey map, not named, but next to a larger perimental purposes and utterly unsuited to house called 'The Retreat'. The lake north of the entertainment of visitors'. However, as a the house was part of his garden. Hibberd set compromise, a photographer was allowed in up a new experimental garden and had some and the resulting engravings gradually started unusual ideas about training fruit trees, which to appear in the magazines and books. A 'por­ not everyone agreed with. One of his obituar­ trait' of Hibberd himself was also offered to ies states that his system 'brought down upon Mrs Hibberd's fern house at Lordship Terrace

18 19 HACKNEY History Stoke Newington's forgotten gardener

,. Greenhouse and Conservatory, The Amateurs ing out cannabis at the age of 24. faithfully repeated the story as fact. Similarly, Kitchen Garden and Familiar Garden Flow­ Hibberd's death was sudden, although he was in Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall's book / vies ers, as well as The Ivy and The Seaweed Col­ in failing health. All his obituaries describe (1992) she states how Hibberd's book was the lector. The Ivy included history and folklore his last days in typical Victorian morbid de­ first comprehensive survey of ivies, but that connected with ivy, as well as descriptions of tail. He attended the annual show of the his 'esoteric approach to naming them' has the 200 varieties collected by Hibberd at Stoke Chrysanthemum Conference, on Tuesday 11th meant 'experts have been clearing up the Newington. The book is attractively illus­ November 1890, which took place in an un­ muddle ever since'. In his later years, Hibberd trated, every page having a border of ivy heated hall with everyone complaining about made some enemies by his forthright opin­ around it. the cold. On Thursday he organised and in­ ions on certain writers and members of the troduced the National Chrysanthemum Soci­ RHS committee, but the only subjects for his Domestic tragedy ety's dinner, giving a speech, but apparently anger through most of his life were cats and In March 1880, after thirty years of mar­ without his usual liveliness, and left early, jobbing gardeners. Although he loved and riage, Sarah Hibberd died of heart disease. She clearly ill. On Saturday he took to his bed respected most animals, he seemed to despise was buried in Abney Park cemetery. They had and early on Sunday died, of bronchitis and cats and in The Town Garden even gave a moved to 15 Brownswood Park, a terrace of exhaustion. His funeral a week later was at­ recipe for poisoning them. As to jobbing gar­ houses built in the 1860s overlooking Clissold tended by many of the well-known names in deners, he had no respect for men who wanted Park and just round the corner from Lordship the horticultural world. The drawing room of garden work as a quick way to earn money for Terrace. There was not much garden, but per­ his house was filled with floral tributes and beer. If a gardener did not follow his instruc­ haps by this time Hibberd had given up the the cortege took two hours to travel from Kew tions he got rid of him, or worse: 'a gardener practical side of gardening. He was then 55 to Stoke Newington. The service took place who cuts into the turf on the edge of the lawn and had suffered from rheumatism, bronchitis at All Saints' Church, Aden Grove, and the to make a finish ought to be compelled to eat and toothache, among other things. In March burial in Abney Park Cemetery in Sarah's all that he removes' .10 1884 Hibberd married Ellen Mantle, aged 28, The first edition grave. The gravestone is still to be found on Hibberd's legacy is his writing, almost all of who had been listed as his cook in the 1881 the left-hand side on Boundary Road South, which is out of print. It is extremely sad that was a topical issue because of the dangers of census. After the marriage they moved to 1 just up from the column to the left of the later writers, such as William Robinson (whose cholera and other waterborne diseases. In 1870 Priory Road, Kew. In January 1885 Ellen had main entrance. The inscription has worn away, early writing Hibberd praised and published he had reviewed a report on sewage in a daughter, also named Ellen, but called Nellie, but the stone is white, with a small cross and but who later became a rival), and Gertrude Tottenham in The Floral World He promoted but sadly died four days later of septicaemia. ivy leaves engraved round the gothic-shaped Jekyll, are better known because they designed the idea of each house having a system of So Hibberd once again missed his chance of a top. The Royal Horticultural Society commis­ larger country house gardens which have sur­ covered, preferably underground, tanks to col­ family life. He probably moved to Kew be­ sioned a portrait in his memory, which hangs vived. Hibberd is forgotten because his gar­ lect rainwater and dew and use it for all do­ cause of his increased activity in the Royal in their hall today. dens have gone, covered by rows of terraced mestic purposes, including drinking. He de­ Horticultural Society, sitting on several of their houses with gardens the size of his first one signed the system so that the first water fall­ committees and judging and organising shows Hibberd's legary ing on the roof would wash into one tank, and exhibitions. At the time their headquar­ The genius of Shirley Hibberd was that he taking dirt and soot with it, and then the next ters and gardens were in Chiswick, just over was a born communicator, able to analyse and flow of water ( which would be cleaner) would the river. write about anything that interested him, and be directed into a different series of tanks, Despite his domestic tragedy, Hibberd put it across simply and enthusiastically to all one of which would contain a filter for drink­ launched himself into work, still in constant classes of readers. From his early articles on ing water. Through his experience of keeping demand as a speaker and editing The Gar­ human physiology to instructions on setting marine life in aquariums, he had noticed that deners Magazine and, for three years, Ama­ up an aquarium or making compost, to his if water was kept still and in the dark it natu­ teur Gardening as well. In 1886 he published summary of the history and cultivation of ivy, rally cleared itself and remained fresh. His ideas The Golden Gate with Silver Steps, named he never ceased teaching and encouraging and appeared in 'Water for nothing - every house after a present Hibberd gave his young daugh­ was always an entertaining speaker. However, its own water supply' in 1879, and the same ter on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday his enthusiasm sometimes led other people system of tanks was shown in Amateur Gar­ party, and said to be for 'young people of all astray. His lecture on pelargoniums in 1880 dening on January 24th 1885. ages'. It contained many essays, stories and included speculation on how the first pelar­ While at Bridge House Hibberd also wrote poems previously published, some gonium came to Britain, which has long ago The Amateurs Flower Garden, The Amateurs semi-autobiographical, including one on try- been proved wrong, but many later writers The back garden (and proprietor?) at Stoke Newington

20 21 HACKNEY History

,. off Pentonville Road. Yet so much of what he wrote could be used as it stands today and is extremely entertaining. So many of us try to restore our houses to their Victorian splen­ dour, and it would be fitting if we used Hibberd's ideas to restore our gardens in the same way. When you notice the ivy and aucuba growing in your own or your neighbour's gar­ THE VICTORIAN VALUES den, imagine that it might be a descendant of the plants Hibberd started off in Stoke OFDR TRIPE Newington. If he materialised in any Hack­ ney garden today he would surely be pleased to see how gardening is thriving in towns, with bulbs in the spring and shrubs all the year round, ponds to attract small birds and insects and the flowers grown for bees. He Carole Pountney would marvel at the apparently clean air and envy the variety of roses and the perfection of pelargoniums. He would truly love self-service garden centres where all gardeners go as equals The geranium pyramid at Stoke Newington to pick out what they want ( whereas Jekyll or Robinson would probably send the head gar­ Notes dener with a shopping list). For Hibberd, gar­ l . The following articles were used as starting points for The Board of Works research: 'A Forgotten Floral World: Shirley Hibberd and For many people, not least Margaret dening was 'of all worldly occupations ... the his garden', The Hackney Terrier, 42 (1996); 'The Victorian noblest, the most useful, and the one which who said it all', Richard Gorer; Country life, 13 March Thatcher, 'Victorian values' have been con­ promises the richest mental and material re­ 1980; introduction by Anthony Huxley to The Amateur's sidered to be those of non-regulation, indi­ Flower Garden, facsimile reprint ( 197 5 ); introduction by John vidual responsibility and laissez faire. While wards' .11 Sales to Rustic Adornments, National Trust Classics reprint Finally, I leave you with his last words from (1987). They were mainly based on obituaries written by such values may have applied in some areas, Rustic Adornments. contemporaries of Shirley Hibberd, such as in The Garden­ and in the earlier part of Victoria's reign, they ers' Chronicle, The Gardeners' Magazine, The Garden, The had no place in the philosophy of the inesti­ Gardening World, (all 22 November 1890); Journal ofH or­ May your hours of rustic recreation profit you in ticulture, 20 November 1890; The Times, 17 November 1890. mable John W. Tripe MD MRCP, sometime body and soul. May your flowers flourish, your 2. Charles McNaught, 'Round about O ld East London', East president of both the Society of Medical Of­ bees prosper, your birds love you, and your pet London Observer, 3 Sept 1910. ficers of Health and the Royal Meteorologi­ fishes live forever. May the blight never visit the 3. The Town Garden (1st ed.), preface. cal Society, who was the medical officer of tendrils that make your arbours and porches leafy, 4. R. F. Bud and G. K. Roberts, Science versus Practice: your borders gay, or your fem-banks verdurous; Chemistry in Victorian Britain (Manchester, 1984 ). health for the Hackney District Board of 5. The Gardener's Magazine (1874) 301, (1875) 645. and may you find in every little thing that lives Works from 1855 until two weeks before his 6. The Golden Gate with Silver Steps: 'Beans without Ba­ and grows a pleasure for the present hour, and a con - a Pythagorean Romance' (1886). death in 1892. suggestion of things higher and brighter for con­ 7. The Town Garden (1st ed.), preface. John Tripe was born in the parish of St templation in the future. I herein reach my hand 8. New and Rare Beautiful-Leaved Plants (1868) 113 . George in the East in 1821, but obtained his towards you with an affectionate FAREWELL!' 9. The Gardening World, Nov. 22 1890, 185. 10. The Amateur's Flower Garden (facsimile reprint) 266. medical degree fr om the University of St 11. From 'The Joy of a Garden', Brambles and Bay Leaves Andrews. In 1867 he moved from Commer­ (2nd ed). cial Road to a rather smart semi-detached house in Richmond Road, Hackney 1 backing onto London Fields. Married to a wife twenty years his junior, he came late to parenthood, having a daughter, Mary, when he was 49 years old, and five years later a son, John Henry, who also took up medicine. The family ap­ pears to have lived fairly modestly, with only DrJohn Tnpe

22 23 HACKNEY History Victori.an Values one live-in general domestic servant, and from revaccination continued through the 1880s, the census returns it would appear that both and included repeated appeals to the Local the children were sent away to school. Government Board, which refused to pay for Hackney Board of Works at its inception in revaccination, and (unsuccessfully) to the 1855 appointed three chief officers: Or Tripe, School Board authorities to examine the ex­ Mr Lovegrove the district surveyor, and Mr tent of protection in schoolchildren. In 1883 Ellis the clerk. All three were still in place in he finally persuaded Board of Works to pay to 1892 ( this was unique in London local gov­ revaccinate 770 children between 10 and 14 ernment). By 1877 Tripe's salary had risen to years old, but felt bound to admit in his 1886 £450 a year, augmented by his appointment, report that this action did not 'appear to have at £75 a year, to his secondary post of public exerted any appreciable effect'. Concluding analyst for the district.2 This was rather less that a more extensive revaccin ation pro­ than Hackney paid the surveyor (£650), but gramme was needed, he convinced the Board rather more than the clerk received (£350). to pay for revaccination of children between By 1888, Tripe was earning £575, Lovegrove 12 and 15 years. This appears to have been £700. successful, since the Local Government Board During his thirty-seven years in Hackney, eventually decided to introduce a Dr Tripe's annual reports were models of clar­ revaccination programme for '12 or even ten­ ity, thoroughness and vigour, demonstrating year olds', and by 1891 Hackney had had no his quest to improve public health. When­ deaths from smallpox for four years. ever new legislation was enacted, he adopted it with enthusiasm; where he considered ex­ Epidemiology isting powers to be inadequate, he lobbied for His interest in epidemics led Dr Tripe to change - taking matters as far as the Home examine the periodic and geographical pat­ Secretary if necessary. Tripe, then, was no terns of disease. In his 1871 report he ad­ Conduit Place, off Northwold Road, c 1890: conditions of T npe's era, not redeveloped un(il the 19 30s advocate of laissez faire, since most of the vanced a theory that diseases had a 'tendency Tripe attempted to restrict the spread of other to complaints. The complaints procedure ena­ measures he adopted imposed costs and du­ to become epidemic every fourth year', listing epidemics, particularly diphtheria (he closed bled his team to identify and call for remedies ties on the ratepayers and on owners of indi­ the outbreaks of smallpox, measles, scarlet fe­ the Board School in Tottenham Road in 1881, in about 1,500 cases a year. The first major vidual properties. ver, whooping cough and (enteric) fever since following an outbreak there, then, in typical piece of legislation to enable Dr Tripe to de­ 1856 to demonstrate his point. By his 1890 fashion, he inspected all the schools in the velop a more proactive role was the Sanitary Smallpox epidemics report, he was predicting an imminent out­ district, and finding 'the sanitary arrangements Act 1866. Undoubtedly as a result of his ini­ As medical officer, Tripe had continually break of scarlet fever as it had been 'compara­ more or less defective in nearly all' required tiative, Hackney was the first district to ob­ to contend with epidemic diseases, including tively quiescent for three years'. 1 However, the remedies to be carried out). If some of Tripe's tain powers under section 35 of this Act, which smallpox, scarlet fever, diphtheria and chol­ frequency and ferocity of small-pox epidem­ ideas seem now a little odd (he ascribed the enabled metropolitan districts to draw up regu­ era. Many of his annual reports deal in depth ics throughout the 1870s led him to concen­ Clapton diphtheria outbreak of 1887 to 'the lations to control overcrowding in rented 6 with attempts to tackle these on a preventa­ trate on the significance of the location of peculiar infective power of sewer gas' ), he houses, and to ensure that these were main­ tive basis. A particular concern was the un­ the Homerton Fever Hospital, opened in 1871. clearly recognised defective drainage to be a tained in a 'cleanly and wholesome state'.7 necessary mortality resulting from smallpox. From 1872 Tripe observed that smallpox deaths contributory factor, and · initiated corrective Enforcement measures gave 'nuisance offic­ In his 1872 report he noted the good effect of were concentrated near the hospital, and in action, not only in the houses of the poor: by ers' new powers of entry to inspect such prop­ vaccination 'even when imperfectly per­ his 1881 report produced impress ive statistics the 1880s he was requiring the replacement erty at any time. formed', but revised this opinion after a se­ which demonstrated that proximity to the of the old bell-traps by yard-gully traps even There had been a major cholera outbreak vere outbreak in 1876, when many deaths hospital tripled the death rate.4 in the grander ( and older) houses of de in 1866, and the District Board had to ap­ occurred among those who had been vacci­ In 1883 he presented his findings to the Beauvoir Square. point extra, temporary, inspectors to deal with nated, but inadequately. His 1877 annual re­ Royal Commission on Hospitals for Infectious this emergency. Tripe succeeded in retaining port contains a detailed explanation of the Diseases ('my evidence was rather volumi­ House inspection two of these, and a clerk, on a permanent process of vaccination, including a discussion nous') leading to a change in general prac­ As medical officer, Tripe, with two inspec­ basis to set up a system for the inspection of of Dr Jenner's evidence to the House of Com­ tice5 as well as the local initiatives which Tripe tors, was required to inspect houses where in­ all houses with a rental value of less than £20 mons of 1802. Tripe's mission for adequate had initiated for cleansing and transporting fectious diseases had occurred or in response p.a.8 In the first eight months of its operation the sick.

24 25 HACKNEY History Victorian Values

4,285 nuisances were identified (see Table 1 ). roomed houses with no fireplaces' in }ohn's It must not be assumed that the removal of the In the first full year after the adoption of Place to remain 'for the present' as they pro­ nuisances will make them fit in all cases for habi­ Table 1 the regulations, the department measured and vided cheap, uncrowded accommodation to tation, as many of the houses were originally con­ inspected 5, 168 houses, which, Tripe claimed, Nuisances identified in Hackney single families with no unusual health or structed in such a bad manner, and on so vicious were all the poorer houses in the District. 1.8.1866 to Jl.J.1867 mortality problems, whose only alternative a plan as to make them more or less unhealthy Despite a continuing influx of 'a far larger would have been single rooms in model dwell­ residences at all times. Powers conferred upon Cesspools emptied, filled, linked to sewer 288 district surveyors should be much augmented by proportion of the ... working classes',9 Tripe's ings. Manure/refuse removed 138 Act of Parliament so as to prevent old mortar department continued to use the 1866 Act to Premises repaired, limewashed 1576 being used in rebuilding, to insist in all houses inspect about 6,000 houses a year until the Premises ventilated 913 Adequate housing built on made ground having the whole base­ 1880s. Clearly the measure was a useful mecha­ Pigs, sties removed 58 By the mid seventies, Tripe's range of inter­ ment covered with Portland or other cement and nism to restrict the worst excesses of inad­ Choked drains cleaned, repaired 408 est had moved on to the unsatisfactory con­ other improvements which I need not mention here. equate rented accommodation. It seems likely Other nuisances 2Q1 tribution some of the new housing was mak­ 4285 (MoH Report, 1875 p 25). that the mere threat of action was effective ing to the public health of Hackney: 'many with regard to overcrowding, particularly af­ of the small houses are built either on the Beyond Hackney Source: Hackney District Board of Works ter 1869, when Tripe resorted to the step of sod, or still worse, on rubbish foundations' 12 Annual Report 1868 ' In the following year he saw Cross, the Home naming publicly individual cases of 'indecent and of poor materials. Although defective Secretary, with a list of proposals to ensure overcrowding'. 10 drainage nuisances were declining in number that all new houses were built on sound foun­ 'Indecen:' overcrowding had virtually shows that progress had been rather slower (1872 MoH report, p 25), population density dations, and of sound materials. With some been eradicated by 1878, and by 1890 he was than this bald statement implies, as it had was leading to an increase in other forms of modification, Cross accepted these recommen­ able to claim (largely because of over-build­ been 'necessary to serve seven notices for each nuisance. Further, dations, although they did not become en­ ing) that 'overcrowding here is ... not of a house'. Progress remained slow: while the ten­ forceable until the Building Acts were glaring character'. ants of numbers 10 and 11 Lawrence Build­ amended in 1878 to enable the Metropolitan With regard to nuisances other than ings had left in September 1869, all the ten­ Board of Works to draw up a 'comprehensive overcrowding, most houses inspected were free ants of numbers 1 to 9 refused to leave, and and strict set of regulations' .13 of defects, while for the minority where nui­ could only be removed by court order. By his Tripe's public health interests went beyond sances were identified, most were 'abated' be­ 1874 report, Tripe concludes that strict en­ the bounds of Hackney. He took an active fore summonses were issued, so here again, forcement of the Torrens Act would only make part in Hampstead's litigation to close a fever the threat of action appears to have been a overcrowding worse. He did not mention it hospital, and was a member of public health valuable tool in Tripe's quest for adequate again until 1879, when he conceded that a associations of France and Belgium, and quoted housing, although periodically Dr Tripe iden­ proposed amendment might be useful. experience by other authorities ( in both Lon­ tifies properties where the owners preferred By the 1880s, further legislation afforded new don and Germany) in his reports on small­ closure to repair. opportunities to shame bad landlords. In 1886 pox. Requests for his papers on the 'periodic Tripe identified 33 properties whose owners disease wave theory' came from France and Slum clearance 'preferred shutting-up or pulling-down to re­ America. His evidence to the Home Secre­ From 1868, the Artizans' and Labourers' pairing' houses. As Tripe held 'a very strong tary and to various government investigations Dwellings Act ( the 'Torrens Act') enabled opinion that it is most unfair to the ratepay­ led to changes in practice and legislation to District Boards to demolish houses 'unfit for ers that they should be compelled to pay for cover all local authorities. Not one to hide human habitation'. In the previous year Tripe uninhabitable property which has been al­ his light under a bushel, in his 1885 report had already identified as unfit fifteen houses lowed by owners to get into a dilapidated state Tripe quotes at length 'so marked an eulogium' in Lawrence Buildings, Sanford Lane, West for want of substantial repairs', he used the from the Royal Commission on the Housing Hackney, and a further five houses 'at the new Act, which contained no such powers, of the Working Classes praising Hackney's back'. The District Surveyor reported that ten rather than that of 1868. Clearly, Dr Tripe practice in enforcement of housing standards. of these required structural alterations and that believed that house-ownership incurred du­ However it is through his annual reports to five should be demolished. In the 1869 an­ ties and costs beyond free market forces. His the district board that the full range of his nual report, the Board stated that some of these was, however, a balanced view: in 1884 he interests is shown.14 His obituary in the Hack­ had been pulled down and rebuilt, others re­ conceded that the landlords of Hackney were ney Gazette on 8th April 1892 acknowledges 11 paired and the remainder would 'shortly be not 'so much to blame' as the tenants, and this: in that year he allowed 'dusty, damp, low- closed' (p 6). Tripe's report forth~ same year The grave at Chingford Mount

26 27 HACKNEY History

4. During the 1880s Tripe's reports were accompanied by His annual reports were mas terpieces of ability maps showing the location of each outbreak to demonstrate and marked by statistical precision and fraught that smallpox was affected by the pro;{imity of the hospital, with both interest and instruction. while scarlet fever was not. 5. Smallpox cases were removed directly to isolation hospi­ tals or 'ships' instead of being brought initiall y to Homerton. From such examples, it is clear that Dr Tripe 6. Medical Officer of Health's (MoH) report, 25, in Hack­ was an inveterate campaigner for increased ney District Board of Works (DBW) 22 nd annual report, control over the actions of individuals, and a 1878. 7. The Hackney District Regulations, under section 35 of SHORED ITCH vigorous pursuer of 'remedies' whether paid the Sanitary Act 1866, reported in the DBW's 11th Annual for by the ratepayers or by individual land­ Report, 1867. Tripe reports that the Secretary of State con­ TOWN HALL sidered Hackney's proposed overcrowding standard (a mini­ lords. He seems, too, to have been an excel­ mum of 300 cubic fe et of air per person for sleeping accom­ lent boss: every year his report concludes with modation) to be rather low, but approved the measure none­ a commendation on the work of his inspec­ theless. 8. Tripe estimated that these made up about one third of all tors, with whom he appears to have had an Hackney's dwellings. affectionate' relationship: shortly before his 9. MoH report, 11, in DBW 12th annual report, 1868. death, he presented each of his staff with a 10. MoH report, 21, in DBW 13th annual report, 1869. For Chris Miele example, 13 Bath Row, 18 Rosina St, 22 Templar Rd, 16 suitably inscribed silver matchbox, 'a last evi­ Palace Rd etc. In 1875 he repeated this approach for (non­ dence of the thoughtfulness and considera­ indecent) overcrowding, eg at 32 Palace Rd, eight persons, tion he always had for those who worked un­ including children, per room of 864 cubic feet; at 13 Goring 15 St, eight persons (including children) per room of 843 cubic der his direction'. feet. 11. MoH report 1887, 31: 'the poorer classes are getting Notes more careful as regards the WCs than ,.. some years ago, Introduction when they so frequently blocked them up ... by throwing 1. Initially number 172 Richmond Road, the house was re­ Town halls - and the London subspecies, riod, and is an exceptionally fine, and com­ numbered to 232 in 1876. Unlike four other houses in this rnbbish into them.' block, it survived t he bombing of the second world war, but 12. MoH report 1876, 23: Tripe here meant 'rubbish' li ter­ vestry halls - are quintessentially Victorian plete, example of its type. This first phase of numbers 226 to 25 4 were later demolished to form an exten­ ally. Builders would carry away the sub-soil for use elsewhere, buildings, the direct expressions of the break­ building consists of the five bays to the left of and replace it with household refuse. This is the 'made ground' sion to London Fields. The site is roughly where the tennis neck pace of municipal legislation between the present tower range and is entered by a courts now stand. mentioned in the quotation from his 187 5 report. 2. The duty of the public analyst was to test products about 13. However, Tripe notes that 'considerable opposition [had] 1835 and 1914 and, just as significantly, of single-storey porch carried on paired Ionic col­ which the public complained, most of these related to poor been manifested by builders' - he thought amendment was the desire of local people to express their as­ umns. It was designed by the Shoreditch dis­ quality milk, but also included whisky, beer, coffee and even likely. 14. Even his meteorological interests are covered - a review pirations for local self-government. trict surveyor, Caesar A. Long. The single bay, opium. 1 3. In the event, a major epidemic did not materialise. of the local weather is included each year. Shoreditch Town Hall, with its three dis­ set back ranges to either side of this first build 15. Hackney Gazette, 8 April 1892. tinct building phases, perfectly embodies the were added before 1897, most probably in 1893 development of London local government. in order to meet safety standards imposed by There are no town halls in London which so the then newly formed London County Coun­ graphically record the steady, accretive growth cil. of local government as does this complex. Between 1898 andl902 the architect W. G. What is more, the first and second phases of Hunt incorporated the earlier vestry hall into Shoreditch Town Hall were significant works one coherent, monumental design. This phase, of architecture in their own day, setting a following on from the Local Government Act standard for other projects around the capi­ 1899, has a three-bay facade topped by a pedi­ tal. ment, the tympanum of which bears figure sculpture and the coat-of-arms of the newly An overview of the buildingphases established Metropolitan Borough of The surviving vestry hall (1863-68) was the Shoreditch. A two-stage tower with a niche result of increased duties imposed upon Lon­ features an allegorical female figure, identi­ don vestries by the Metropolitan Management fied as 'Progress,' holding a torch - a reference Act 1855. The present council chamber on to the Borough's innovative street-lighting and the ground floor survives intact from this pe- refuse-destructor scheme. One of the condi-

28 29 HACKNEY History S horeditch Town Hall tions imposed on the architect was the reten­ halls as expressing local identity, with the re­ Hall in Kennington Road is little bettet; al­ contemporary with Shoreditch and Hackney tion of the old vestry chamber for use as a sult that many were referred to, incorrectly, as though there is a monumental Tuscan portico was the vestry hall designed by Henry Jarvis council hall, as well as the massive public hall town halls. Obviously, since no single Lon­ with giant columns in antis. for St Mary's Newington (now Southwark on the first floor. This was at the time the don parish could rival Birmingham, Leeds, There was a spate of vestry hall building in Borough Municipal Offices, Walworth Road): largest public hall incorporated within a ves­ Manchester, or Northampton, no London the wake of the Metropolitan Management unusual for being in modern Gothic style. This try hall complex in London. In 1904 a fire vestry hall matches the scale or richness of Act 1855, most of it aiming to redress the is Shoreditch's nearest rival, since it incorpo­ completely gutted the old public hall, and the the architectural masterpieces that were built defects which Godwin found so palpable in rates later local government buildings includ­ interior was completely redecorated and given in these places.3 However, the best London Lockyer's Paddington Hall. Perhaps the best ing an Edwardian library and thirties Health a new roof. The odd broken pediment to the vestry halls could easily rival town halls m surviving example is the one built for Mile Centre. Jarvis, like so many other designers of left of the two-stage tower dates to this re­ middling-sized cities. End Vestry in Cable Street (1860-62) by the vestry halls, was also the District Surveyor for building of 1904-5. architect Andrew Wilson. This is an impor­ the area; as such he would have had offices in Phase three (1936-8) corresponds to the Ear?,, London vestry halls tant precedent for Shoreditch, because the the new building and a small staff. His South­ brick ranges to the rear of the Old Street block The earliest surviving vestry hall in London essential features of the elevation - a plain wark Vestry Hall is directly comparable in style and is entered by Rivington Place. is that built for the parish of St Martin in the rusticated base containing offices and a main to that of the Poplar District Board of Works Architecturally it is the least distinguished of Fields by John Nash in c.183 0, as part of the hall on the first floor divided into bays by a ( 1869-70), a sub-variant of the vestry hall type, the three, and it is not considered in this arti­ Charing Cross improvement scheme. What is pilastrade punctuated by large windows - was in Poplar High Street.5 It was designed by A. cle. most significant about this modest structure, repeated several years later on the Old Street and C. Harston ( one of the principals was .and what, ultimately distinguishes it from later site. The treatment of the entrance porch is District Surveyor). A separate Poplar 'Town A 'symbolic centre' examples, is its integration in a single block also vaguely similar. It is also interesting that Hall' (demolished) was completed in 1870 in The Municipal Reform Act 1835 was the with vicarage and parish school. It was this Mile End, like Shoreditch, chose to incorpo­ nearby Newby Place, and was also Gothic. impetus for the first wave of town hall build­ link with the ecclesiastical parish as an ad­ rate the original structure into a new build­ The series of surviving Vestry Halls is nicely ings in the provinces. At a stroke it created ministrative unit that later vestry halls would ing, thus demonstrating their pride in what rounded off by that in Hampstead (1877-8) 178 municipal corporations endowed with new seek to break in an attempt to assert the inde­ had been achieved more than twenty years by another District Surveyor, H. E. Kendall duties and powers. Unlike old-style town gov­ pendence of local government and adminis­ earlier. in partnership with F. Mew. It was listed as a ernment, most councils chose to build new tration from the Church of England. The The placement of the main hall on the first 'fine, early example of a London Vestry Hall' offices rather than share premises. They were somewhat earlier Marylebone Vestry Hall in floor, where the exterior elevation has been in August 1994. also able to fund building out of local rates, Marylebone Lane (c.1825; demolished) dou­ articulated into a pilastrade or continuous ar­ loans secured by rates, or even by issuing stock. bled as the court house. Again this linkage is cade, was quite common in London vestry halls Phase one: 1863-1868 This system of funding answered what one characteristic of the type before the Munici­ of the 1860s. A. P. Howell's 1862 design for Initially the Shoreditch vestry met in the historian has called 'the widespread desire for pal Reform Act. Greenwich 'Town Hall' (these the St James's Westminster Vestry Hall (de­ nearby Nonconformist Chapel in Old Street. a symbolic centre'. Indeed, in some places there words are emblazoned on the main front) is molished) in Piccadilly conformed to the type. Most of the £30,000 spent on the new town was a headlong rush to get projects up and another very early surviving example. An interesting, and outstanding, variation, and hall had been raised by borrowing from an running to give social form to the new statu­ James Lockyer's Paddington Vestry Hall, one which survives, is James Knight's Tower assurance society at 5% repayable over thirty tory entities.2 completed in 1853 (demolished), set an im­ Hamlets Vestry Hall in Bancroft Road. Here years. By 1868 close to £100,000 had been London vestry halls, required for the 38 sepa­ portant precedent, coming as it did on the the influence of Venice is stronger and the raised in this way. The willingness with which rately constituted vestries, were a distinctly eve of the 1855 Act, yet this was judged a architecture correspondingly richer, although Shoreditch borrowed was unusual among met­ different type, for the most part creatures of disappointment by George Godwin, the in­ as built much of the detail was simplified, a ropolitan vestries, and made possible substan­ the Metropolitan Management Act 1855, al­ fluential editor of The Builder. Nothing about fate which befell many vestry halls. In terms tial capital works executed in the 1860s and though some vestry halls had been built in the new vestry hall, he wrote, expressed the of architectural quality and interest, this and 1870s.6 the decades prior to the Act. Whereas town corporate authority of the more than 45,000 the Mile Vestry Hall are more nearly compa­ In September 1863 a sub-committee of halls outside London could be in any style of parish dwellers, even though the vestry had rable to the first phase of Shoreditch Town Shoreditch vestry, specially constituted to over­ architecture, London vestry halls were mostly more business to transact than 'two or three Hall, though the latter surpassed these in size see the construction of a new vestry hall, met classical in order to signal the vestry's inde­ very respectable provincial cities'.4 and cost. for the first time. 7 The Shoreditch district pendence from Church control. Nevertheless Instead, the handsome, substantial building The long-demolished Hackney Vestry Hall surveyor, Caesar A. Long (active 1860-70)8 the functional requirements of the two types showed not one trace of the huge wealth hid­ of 1864-6, by Hammack and Hammack, de­ was instructed to obtain a suitable site, but were broadly similar: a large hall, smaller com­ den behind the dull brick faces of houses in serves an important place in this chronicle of this was easier said than done. The parish was mittee rooms, and a variety of offices. And the surrounding squares and streets. The al­ Italianate vestry palaces, having had an ex­ heavily developed already and land was dear. Londoners did tend to think of their vestry most exactly contemporary Lambeth Vestry ceptionally vibrant, sculptural facade. Exactly At once he entered into negotiations with

30 31 S horeditch Town Hall HACKNEY History

side London in middling-sized towns, which London. Compo was suggested but your Gom­ community needs. Again, the manuscript min­ several different owners, but it took close to a mittee considered the saving in the cost by no utes are quite detailed on this point. The hall was only right, really. In the second half of means sufficient the use of a material which is year to strike a deal for the Fuller's Hospital was to be suitable for: site. Long bought it at auction in August 1864 the nineteenth century, the population of extremely perishable and continually requiring Shoreditch numbered roughly 120,000; there repair... for £4,850. There was also compensation to discussions of subjects of Local and National im­ the Hospital for the removal of their were 120 members of the vestry alone. Portland stone was specified, and the style portance, for the free expression of opinion upon almshouses fronting Old Street. After adding The vestrymen quite clearly wanted some­ the political, and social, questions of the day; was meant to be 'modem ... for the purpose of conveyancing charges, this brought the total thing to symbolise the London variety of and likewise to afford means for instructions and a public edifice'. spent on the site alone to £7,500, a consider­ modern municipal government. The brief amusement by Lectures, Concerts, and Entertain­ But the outstanding feature of the new build­ ments ... [we] hope and not unreasonably antici­ able sum, which, to give some sense of scale, drawn up for the design in January 1865 makes ing would be the massive public hall, capable pate that the use of the edifice may tend to fur­ exceeded the total budgets of most other Lon­ this intention clear: of seating up to 800 people and taking up the ther develop, strengthen, and perpetuate the don vestry halls of the period. Indeed, the municipal principle, and to secure to the Me­ entire width of the first floor. As built it was roughly £30,000 which Shoreditch vestry The Committee have concluded it necessary that tropolis, of the advantages of Local Self-Govern­ the design should be such as would indicate the larger than any which had come before, and wound up spending on their new building was ment for Centuries to Come. public character of the edifice, not extravagantly any built until the second wave of London far greater than what any other London ves­ ornamented but of a substantial and durable char­ Town Halls that followed on from the Local On a more mundane level, the building was try paid until the end of the century. The acter. They have rejected a mixture of brick and Government Act 1899. The Vestry envisioned to provide offices for the vestry clerk, the sur­ Shoreditch project was, in short, remarkable. stone [on the facade], which however pleasing in a truly multi-functional space, responsive to veyor, the rates clerk, accountants, and the Its scale and ambition made it comparable to appearance in rural or suburban districts, is un­ fitted for the dense atmosphere of the heart of the municipal offices and halls being built out-

The first vestry hall: a lithograph ry the architect, Caesar Long The new building, in August 1867, with the railwqy to the east and the new Fire Station to the west

32 33 HACKNEY History S horeditch Town Hail medical officer of health and his staff, in ad­ ing touches were being put to the great Hall's the first MOHs within the new metropolitan ment. The vestry clerk from 1870, Enoch dition to a large council chamber, ordinary decorations in summer 1867. area to adopt an innovative system for the Walker, who founded The Shoreditch Ob­ committee rooms, and a suite for the magis­ The Town Hall had the look of a proud notification of diseases, and with a team of server, is often thought to be responsible for trate. There was also a caretaker's flat. Renaissance palazzo, high and broad but oc­ dedicated inspectors he abolished cesspools, this retreat; under his direction the vestry Building for posterity was no easy task. It cupying only half of the site frontage avail­ repaired drains, and increased ventilation in concentrated its efforts on street improve­ required thought, money, and, perhaps most able. The architect had very wisely decided poorly designed tenement properties. One of ments. Bames's successor, Dr. H . G. Sutton, importantly, a good idea of what had been to run the long axis of the building to the Bames's most laudable achievements was to was no less eminent - he was an authority on done before. So, in November 1864 the spe­ south, thus freeing up the western portion of contain an outbreak of cholera in 1866, just diseases of the chest - but he had to face an cial Committee visited the new halls at Is­ the site to let to help offset the cost. The as the new vestry hall was nearing comple­ ever-mounting catalogue of intractable social lington, Paddington, Kensington, Chelsea, St Metropolitan Board of Works paid £1,550 for tion. Bames's offices were, incidentally, in the problems, overcrowding, poverty, unemploy­ James's Westminster, Lambeth, and Kensing­ a lease, and put a new Fire Brigade station vestry hall. As for the vestry, in addition to ment. And yet in 1877, almost against the ton Green. There would be the same desire there. its ordinary responsibilities, individual mem­ odds, the parish achieved a constant supply to do something 'state of the art' when it came The original Vestry Hall survives in its en­ bers worked together to rationalise poor re­ of water through his efforts, the first metro­ to the deciding the gas lighting of the Hall tirety, and is an outstanding example of the lief (prior to this there were seventy trustees politan parish to do so. and Chamber almost exactly two years later. type. It is worth concluding this section with of the poor - Shoreditch was famous for its The construction was too substantial to fund a description of the building as planned which almshouses). The Town Hall extension, 1898-1902 out of the rates, so the Public Works Loan was published in the Illustrated Times for 31 Poor relief accounted for the single largest A report was prepared in July 1898 to con­ Committee was approached for £22,000, August 1867: item charged on the parish rates, although sider alterations to Long's vestry hall, prob­ Long's initial estimate, in the first instance. the vestry sought to reduce this expenditure ably in anticipation of the 1899 Act.10 Alim­ Eventually a mortgage was secured with the The basement stories will be devoted to extra against the will of the workhouse guardians. ited competition was held for the new build­ offices, housekeeper's apartments, laboratories, Mutual Life Assurance Company. Long's de­ Still, these guardians were, like Dr. Barnes, · ing, and the four designs submitted were shown stores, strong rooms, lavatories, etc. The corridor signs were done in December 1864. The fi­ exceptionally enlightened. As early as 1855 11 [entered by the main entrance] is 15 ft. wide, is in the public hall in March 1899. In June nances were in place by June of the following in the Roman Doric style, and paved with they had built an industrial school at 1899 W. G. Hunt was declared the winner, year, when Long presented his contract draw­ Minton's tiles. The Council Chamber is Ionic in Brentwood in Essex for pauper children, and and, as was usually the case with competition ings, bills of quantities, and specifications. The style, with an inverted coned ceiling [coved ceil­ in 1863 the new workhouse commenced winners, asked to revise his design. The diffi­ ing] ... The story above is to be the great hall, builder, John Perry of Stratford, commenced building. It was unusual for its date in having culty of the job was the requirement to keep certainly one of the finest public halls east of at the end of August. He seems to have been a separate infirmary wing, with its own dis­ Temple Bar. It will have four staircases, and will the old Vestry Hall in use during the con­ appointed on Long's advice, as there is no be capable of seating about 2500 persons [halfof tinctive facade. (The Hoxton Street facade struction of the extension which was to be record of competitive tenders being sought. this number could be seated at a pinch]. The of the latter has been retained in the rede­ built on the site of the old Metropolitan Fire This made the members of the building com­ style of architecture adopted in this room is of velopment of the old workhouse site to the Brigade building. This entailed dividing the the Composite order, and it will be lighted by mittee suspicious, although there were no spe­ rear of St. Leonard's Hospital.) contract into two phases, with the 'cut­ four sun-burners. The building is fireproof, the cific allegations of impropriety, at least re­ This first reforming vestry was composed architect using Messrs. Fox and Barrett's patent through' being made only after the new con­ corded in the archival sources. Perry does seem flooring. The facade of the building is of classic mostly of prosperous tradesmen; in 1859 the struction was well advanced. Inevitably there to have abused his position somewhat, prima­ design, comprising Roman Doric and Corinthian largest occupational grouping was employed was wrangling over the design of the clock rily by preparing stonework on the Old Street orders, the [entrance] portico being Ionic. The in the local furniture trade. The next group tower, its single sculpture, described simply as site which was bound for one of his jobs in entire front will be of Portland stone; the sides were publicans, then people involved with a 'statue of Progress', and the sculptural group and back of brick, with stone dressings .... The the City. There was also a long-running dis­ the clothing industry and food trades as well gas arrangements have been intrusted [sic] to Mr. intended for the tympana of the pediment. pute over the quality of bricks used, although W. Lilley, gas engineer, Kingsland Road. as six builders. There were five surgeons, and Only three builders decided to tender, and this was decided more or less in Ferry's fa­ about one fifth of the vestry can be described every one came in well over Hunt's £20,000 vour. The survey after the fire of 1904 did not The first period of municipal reform as men of substance, merchants, wholesalers, estimate. To make matters worse, Hunt was quite conclude that the original workmanship The Shoreditch Vestry was quick to exer­ dealers in corns, coal, and tea. not prepared to vouch for any of them. There had been shoddy, rather that comers had been cise the new powers granted under the Met­ By 1870, after close to fifteen years of strenu­ were two problems. First, over the preceding cut. There were also problems with the hall ropolitan Management Act 1855. There was ous, progressive improvements, the pace eighteen months there had been a steep in­ roof arising from the decision taken in mid an extensive paving programme (amalgamat­ slowed and did not pick up again until the crease in the cost of labour and materials, and, stream to heighten the ceiling. In any case ing three separate, earlier authorities), drain­ mid 1880s, so that the grandeur and ambi­ second, in the architect's view it would have the foundation stone was laid on 29 March age works, and an aggressive public health tion of that first vestry hall by Long should been far better to invite tenders from a hand­ 1866 by Sir John Thwaite, Chairman of the policy promoted by Dr. Robert Barnes, the most definitely be seen as a monument to a picked list rather than simply advertise pub­ Metropolitan Board of Works, anq the finish- medical officer of health.9 Barnes was one of short but very intense period in local govern- licly, which had been done, apparently, against

34 35 HACKNEY History S horeditch Town Hall

wing was the 'residue from the Destructor Sta, When the new metropolitan borough of than Shoreditch. tion' in Haxton Market. Shoreditch was created in 1900, it adopted the motto 'More Light, More Power' in rec, The Edwardian rebuilding \ 14 'Model vestry' to municipal borough ognition of this great public work. On 15 August 1904 a fire started in the roof The radical movement of the 1880s trans, of the old hall, completely destroying it and formed Shoreditch vestry. 13 In 1885 the area The London town hall boom the surface decorations below. The structure returned two radical MPs, William Randall The Local Government Act 1899 extended remained, including the galleries. Fortunately Cremer for Haggerston and James Stuart for the scope of local government in London, the Council Chamber was not harmed, nor Haxton. The decrepit vestry surveyor was dis, creating the municipal boroughs which sur, was any substantial damage done to the ground missed in 1887, and in 1890 a new vestry clerk, vived until 1965, and providing the impetus floor. No life was lost, and every official docu, H. M. Robinson, replaced Walker. At his ini, for the construction of an entire new genera, ment saved. Hunt's addition suffered hardly tiative the vestry took control of refuse col, tion of local government buildings. Conse, at all. Although the accident had happened lection and street cleaning. It also acquired quently the years around the turn of the cen, while decorators were putting finishing touches the district's first public open space (Gold, tury saw a boom in municipal office building on the interior, they were exonerated in the smiths' Square) and adopted the Baths and which was analogous to that which followed investigation into the fire which followed. Washhouses Act. A public library was opened the earlier Metropolitan Management Act. Interestingly, this subsequent insurance pay, in disused gas company offices in Kingsland The new crop of town halls were grander, ment was the first made under the scheme of Road, and in 1893 the Shoreditch Technical taller, more expensive, more self,consciously mutual metropolitan insurance, which Institute, the first of its kind in London, was symbolic of local pride in self government than Shoreditch had been instrumental in estab, established offering training in furniture mak, even the grandest vestry halls had been. In lishing. 15 111 ing and the building trades. This moved to most cases the new buildings were constructed A. G. Cross of 17 Old Queen Street ,appar, the Aske's Hospital building in 1898, and in on entirely new sites, and in the outer bor, ently no relation to the more famous family I!I that same year the vestry undertook an ex, oughs , then technically urban district coun, of architects which included the great bath tensive scheme of local authority housing in cils , several services were even amalgamated designer A. W. S. Cross ,was called in to sur, The extension,Jrom a lithograph, c.1900 Nile Street (now demolished), the first such on one site, forming, in effect, a town centre. vey the damage, which was eventually esti, in London and predating the more famous This was not possible in Shoreditch, one of mated at £7,290, close to half of which was to his advice. A second set of tenders were ob, LCC Boundary Street to the south of St. the most densely populated and developed cover the cost of a new roof. Cross added the tained in this way, with Killby and Gayford Leonard's. But perhaps the most ambitious and boroughs in greater London; and in any case, present broken pediment with odd, block in, coming in lowest at £21,833. Construction noteworthy public work of this second phase as we have seen, the vestry had a sense of its set, that now spans Lang's original elevation. began in March 1901, and proceeded quickly of municipal reform was the complex con, own history and had taken the decision from After the roof the most expensive item was and without too many hiccups. structed to the north of Haxton Market which the very beginning to incorporate their old the rebuilding of the Hall's proscenium arch As the new building was nearing comple, combined refuse destructor, electricity gener, vestry hall into the new building out of a sense and its new decorations. Cross also replaced tion, there was an approving notice published ating station, library, baths, and a washhouse. of local pride. the old iron supports for the gallery with rein, 12 in The Builder for 1901. The anonymous There was an elegant economy to it all, since The style of Sir Edwin Cooper's Marylebone forced concrete beams. He also decided to span author commented on one of the most re, the burning of refuse was used to drive tur, Town Hall (1912,18) is more comparable to the Hall with a steel roof, to provide dressing markable features of the project, the decision bines that generated electricity ( to light the Shoreditch than the grandeur of Woolwich, rooms behind the stage area of the Hall and to incorporate the old Vestry Hall into the streets) and steam (that heated the baths and the flamboyant historical references of to link these via a passage to the rear, which new project. This was taken because the old library). As we have seen, the remains of refuse Deptford, or the picturesque favoured in sub, was apparently lacking in the old arrangement. Hall was seen 'from a political and social stand, burning were recycled further as aggregate for urban East Ham, Tottenham and Hendon. Prices had to be revised when it was realised point ... [as] historically interesting', and in, the concrete used in constructing the Town Shoreditch's new Town Hall complex was that sections of Lang's building were beyond deed it was. So the importance of the old Hall extension. Just before the old vestry was higher and more compact than Marylebone's, repair. The floor and some of the 1860s stone, Vestry Hall as a symbol of progressive local transformed into a municipal borough by the and more of its original urban context has work needed replacement because inferior government was apparent to a vestry which Local Government Act 1899, Lord Rosebery, survived. Bethnal Green Town Hall (Percy materials had been used in the initial con, was in the 1890s one of the most advanced briefly Liberal Prime Minister (1894) and pre, Robinson, 1910, and later) is also comparable struction. and experimental in London (see below). The viously a Chairman of the London County in terms of style and of course context, but article notes that Portland stone was chosen Council, presided over the opening ceremony the fact that its short elevation faces the main The Town Hall in its contexts to harmonise with the old wing and, of local of the refuse,destructor complex, praising road, Cambridge Heath Road, and that there How does Shoreditch Town Hall stand up significance, that the aggregate used in the Shoreditch as 'one of our model Vestries'. is open space nearby, makes it seem less urban against its London rivals? It is not equal in concrete for the fire,proof floors of the new

36 37 HACKNEY History quality to Chelsea, Deptford, East Ham or, 3. Cunningham, 15 -16. See also R. Holder, 'Conspicuous by the Absence: Town Halls in Nineteenth-Century London', the greatest of them all, Woolwich; but it is in English Architecture Public and Private, ed. J. Bold and not far off these high watermarks of munici­ E. Chaney (1993 ), 296-3 01. pal design. After all, Hunt had his work cut 4. 11 (1853 ), 753-4. 5. The Bwlder, 25 November 1871. out for him. Long's Italianate elevation could 6. F. Sheppard, 'St Leonard Shoreditch', in D. Owen and not simply be reproduced, as the style was out others, The Government of Victorian London, 1855-1889. of favour; classicism had moved on. Hunt's Th e Metropolitan Board of Works, the Vestries, and the City Corporation (1982), 324-346, at 333. design achieves a kind of dynamic harmony. 7. Unless otherwise noted the foll owing account is based on CASELLA: The different elements of the design answer the Town Hall Building Committee Minute Book, HAD T/ one another, and this strategy respond admi­ L/1, 1863-67 . THE LONDON PROGRESS OF 8. In The Architects, Engineers, and Building Trades Direc­ rably to the needs of the site. Hunt composed tory (1868) Long gave his two principal works as the with oblique views in mind: but the final prod­ Shoreditch Union Workhouse and the Vestry Hall. The A SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENT-MAKING uct would soon be disturbed. Builder index compiled by the Survey of London and former GLC London Region Historians Team records a series of What ultimately distinguishes Shoreditch minor works from 1861 to 1867 , all in or near Shoreditch: COMPANY Town Hall from its worthy competitors is its St Paul's Schools, Broke Road, Dalston; St Paul's Haggerston; tough, urban quality. But what is perhaps more the Infants School to St Matthew's Bethnal Green; St Andrew's Hoxton; and several houses and public houses in significant is that its original context has not Kingsland Road, the City Road, and Hackney Road. The been destroyed by subsequent redevelopment fact that his membership in the Royal Institute of British or planning, as has be·en the case in Architects (he was made ARIBA in 1861) lapsed in 1871 Marylebone. Though the trams, carts, and suggests that his career ended prematurely. 9. The following section is based on Francis Sheppard's out­ Jane Insley omnibuses are long gone, Old Street still bris­ standing chapter on St. Leonard Shoreditch in D. Owen tles with traffic, and the trains still boom by and others (above). See also D. Mander's admirable sum­ mary history of this period in More Light, More Power. An on the elevated line running out of Liverpool Illustrated HistoryofShoredicch (1996), 61-72. See also C. Street away from the town and into suburbs Miele, Haxton, Architecture and History ( 1993 ), 33-7 • near and far. The architecture stands up to 10. The following is based on HAD, L/T/8, L/T/9, and S/O/ Introduction tice at Casella's in the early 1960s, before be­ this remarkably well, managing coherence in 2 unless otherwise stated. In Hackney Archives Department is a col­ coming an instrument maker and restorer in 11 . A copy of the competition conditions can be found in lection of papers relating to the business deal­ the most hostile environment. the Royal Institute of British Architects Library, competi­ his own right, specialising in antique barom­ 5 tion file . ings of the firm of Casella, a company with a eters. Between them, these three take the 12. The Builder, 19 October 1901, 340. long history of manufacture of meteorological Casella story up to the point where it moved Notes 13 . Sources as mentioned in note 10. instruments and other scientific apparatus. 1 away from London. 14. The coat of arms is that, according to Mander, above, 1. This article is based on a report prepared as part of discus­ The Science Museum in South Kensington The partnership between Louis Pascal sions between English Heritage and Hackney Borough Coun­ 117, of John of Northampton, Lord Mayor of London in the cil as to the future use of the Town Hall. The research was fourteenth century and a former lord of one of the Shoreditch has over a hundred examples of their prod­ Casella and Cesare T agliabue began in the carried out with the generous assistance of Joanna Smith at Manors. ucts and a selection of trade literature. z Taken early 19th century, with premises in Hatton 15. The Shoreditch Observer, 20 August 1904, p.5 . the London office of the Royal Commission on the Histori­ together, this material gives a fascinating Garden. According to Miall, Louis P. Casella cal Monuments of England. Most of the documentary sources 16. HAD S/O/4, 19 August, 7 October 1904; S/O/5, 2 June, were consulted at HAD. 25 July, 9 and 17 October 1905. glimpse into the way the company was run; was the son of an Italian refugee who became 2. C. Cunningham, Victorian and Edwardian Town Halls for the purposes of this article, we shall focus a naturalised British subject and taught draw­ (1981), 8-11. The appendix to this book contains the most on the testimony of three people. ing or painting to some of the Royal Family. accurate list of town and vestry halls so far published. The first, Robert Miall, became the man­ Casella developed the business of scientific ager of C. F. Casella and Co Ltd in the au­ instrument making very successfully through tumn of 1906, a couple of years after its re­ the century, and eventually passed the com­ moval from 147 Holborn Bars to Rochester pany on to his two sons. By 1906, the younger Row. He described the vicissitudes of business son, Charles Frederick ('C. F.'), was in charge life up to the late 1920s in a typescript pre­ of the day-to-day running of the business, and served in the company's own records.3 The the elder son played little part, having busi­ second, William ('Mac') Barnes, was works ness interests elsewhere. However, he did agree manager in Fitzroy Square from 1952, and to guarantee the rent for the Rochester Row kindly agreed to be interviewed about his time premises, just behind the Army and Navy there.4 The last, Pat Marney, was an appren- store.

38 39 HACKNEY History Casella London

Robert Miall's story The waste of time in the office and in the busi­ The firm's accommodation was two small ness in general was almost incredible. Every in­ coming letter had a short precis of its contents flats, above the landlord, an ironmonger whose written on the outside or on the envelope, every shop occupied the ground floor. entry in the daybook was copied in detail into the ledgers, which were heavy brass-cornered The lower flat consisted of four smallish rooms, volumes and naturally occupied an enormous housing C. F.'s office, the general office, a kind of amount of space; every outgoing letter, whether store room and a show room. The upper flat had hand- or type-written, was copied in an old-fash­ three rooms; a glass shop, a metal shop and the ioned copying press. In theory the order books, packing room. There was no lift, and I felt sorry day books, ledgers and letter-books were indexed, i ,r.~:1 for the railway man who often had to carry a · but it was no single person's job to do it and in - · :, •.,, ,1 very heavy case, such as one containing twelve practice it didn't get done. To look up a previous levelling staves, down the narrow staircase. transaction or prepare an estimate in the absence of up-to-date catalogues, was quite likely to take C. F. Casella was no businessman; he was ex­ an hour or two. Office hours were a little longer ) ~ ~ "2';;;';i"'.'CC:".''-' -,1.t;~;;,~ tremely kind, and popular; he was short, thick­ of course, 9 to 7, with no elevenses or afternoon set and muscular, and played a good game of ten­ teas, but the tempo was much slower. ··· ~ .- - ··--: · .. ,:-.. • •- , :.: ~. · ·. · ••!, ·!-' -~~: ; ., - . =:f:y-::..-. . -. nis up to his sixtieth year. His chief recreations when I knew him were gardening, tennis and his The situation was hardly better on the tech­ club. In business he had one determination which nical side. There were eight work people in stood him in good stead; he would never let an the metal and glass shops, including two fore­ instrument leave the bench if he thought it was not as good in workmanship, performance and men. finish as it could be. I have known him hold up some pieces of apparatus for weeks for this rea­ From 1906 to my knowledge, and for many years son, when the customer would have taken it as it before according to report, Casella & Co.'s fi­ A range of 'weather instruments' offered ry the compaf!J, c. 1900, 'for the cottage, the garden, the farm, the dairy or the was and was frantic over the long delay. nances and their general business reputation had sea-coast' been in a parlous state, particularly their finances, and until the firm was reorganised they grew stead­ C. F. had a rather idiosyncratic way of con­ Casella, and began by submitting a few of ily worse. They had hardly any credit with their ducting business. As Miall remarked, he would Abraham's designs for new instruments to C.F., Eventually, in 1910, C. F. agreed to tum the arrive at the office each morning at 10 o'clock. suppliers, and orders and work in hand were con­ stantly delayed because they could not find the to the benefit of both parties. firm into a private limited company with him­ ready money demanded of them.... Another lit­ self and Miall as directors. Abraham contin­ First he went round the workshops, discussed tle event which illustrates the financial position Miall had tentatively brought up the sub­ ued his job as an engineer for a pneumatic things with the two foremen and talked to each was when all the men in the metal shop, includ­ ject of joining C. F. as a partner, but nothing railway signal company. That year was a very workman. This was very popular with the men ing Knox [the foreman], went back home because but it took at least an hour at a time when eve­ they had no material to work on, and when C.F. came of it, until the day when their Brazilian successful one, partly as the result of the new ryone in the office wanted to get at the post. The arrived at 10 o'clock the shop was empty. The agent, desperate for his account to be settled, catalogue. Miall had several hundred pounds ceremony of opening the letters took nearly all men, who were paid by the hour, were supposed threatened to transfer his agency to a keen standing to his credit, tackled C. F. once more the rest of the morning. Miss Juler, the typist, to arrive at 7am, but I soon discovered that they rival. The rival, J. J. Hicks, had been an ap­ about Abraham joining them, and this time read them out; we had a discussion on most of did not turn up till 9. the letters and C. F. wrote notes in his diary on prentice in Casella's before setting up his own he agreed. Abraham put up the same amount 6 of cash and joined the board. all the more important ones. I sat as a kind of Miall set to to attempt to bring some order business. As the supply of clinical thermom­ observer or consultant, not that I was really quali­ He was not only a born designer, but also to eters to Brazil was the largest source of such fied to be a consultant in those days. this. One of his first jobs was to prepare a new set of catalogues which resulted in more profits as the firm made, this would have been very enterprising and full of ideas for improv­ disastrous. 7 So Miall made his move. ing the business. The landlord at Rochester When this rigmarole was over Miss Juler and I and larger orders; the problem of finance be­ departed and C. F. telephoned to his brother, L. came more acute than ever. He had a small Row was persuaded to build another room over I told him that I had £400 and would lend it to M. Casella, a long daily call of about half an amount of capital, from savings and a gift from the workshops, turning the original two shops hour. At a quarter to one C. F. left for his lunch him ifhe would use it to pay Bruneau [the agent]. his father, and in the course of searching for a into one metal shop and using the roof addi­ at St Stephen's Club, returning to the office, C. F. accepted my offer ... This loan naturally tion as the glass shop. Abraham was also keen slightly fuddled, about 4 o'clock for an hour's work more rewarding way to improve his position, facilitated my future discussions as C. F. could no to have a proper works with proper equip­ or, more likely, chat. He never came to the office he met an engineering designer called R. M. more afford to repay me than Bruneau or his other on Saturdays and not always on Wednesdays. Abraham. Between them, they thought it creditors. When I told him, my father thought I ment. The old-fashioned lathes and other was mad, but in the end it was the best invest­ might be possible to 'make something' of machines horrified him as much as the busi­ ment I could possibly have made. ness arrangements had once horrified Miall. 40 41 HACKNEY History Casella London

Mr Barnes's story Englishwomen, being more pliable and less The search for suitable premises turned up an C. F. 's brother with a view to an amalgama­ Mr Barnes joined Casella in October 1952, brittle. unlikely candidate, which in fact was found tion with his own firm. This was agreed in at the age of 39, as works manager. There One of the most important new ventures to be more promising than expected. It was a principle, but the war ended before the nec­ were 40 to 50 people employed, with 25 to 30 during Mr Barnes's time was in air sampling, tumbledown place consisting of a small dwell­ essary refurbishments could be made to the on the manufacturing side, five or six appren­ in which Casella became one of the leaders ing-house in front with a yard and workshops premises in Walthamstow, and the removal did not take place until 1920. Unfortunately, tices, and the rest working on packing, sales, in the field. The genesis of the air sampling at the back. the amalgamation was not a success. Miall accounts, and commercial activities, such as instrument production stemmed probably from advertising and catalogue production. R. P. the Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell, who The workshop consisted of a central part one commented that the two organisations never story high, and two out parts two stories high, properly fused and there always persisted a Abraham was the managing director, in over­ had many problems with contaminated air, and in addition a sort of loft with a wooden out­ jealousy between the two sets of employees all charge on a day-by-day basis, and respon­ from both nuclear and other contamination, side staircase. All very dilapidated and gloomy, although they both belonged to one concern. sible for research and development. By then, and at their request Casella manufactured one and in a gloomy part of Walworth, but obviously The search for new premises was on again the accommodation was again no longer very of the first personal air samplers on the mar­ a set of buildings which, with some money spent appropriate, and as the firm expanded it was ket. This had a sampling head on the lapel of on them, could be made to serve our purpose. So when one day R.M.A. went to Fitzroy Square we asked my brother Dr Stephen Miall, a solici­ to see his brother in a nursing home. On his necessary to move, this time to Britannia the coat, and a battery-driven sampling in­ tor as well as one of our directors, to see the way he passed Regent House, then half pulled Walk, in 1961. The firm practically doubled strument which consisted of a suction pump receiver. He told him that we didn't think the down, and was surprised to see a notice that in size, with 40 or 50 people working as in­ which drew the sample through the sampling place was worth such a "fantastically high price" the freehold was for sale. strument makers, and approximately 10 ap­ head. as £500 but that if he would take £350 we would prentices. When Barnes retired as works di­ Another very large area of activity was for buy the lease. The receiver jumped at the offer. He told me that he thought it might suit us much rector in 1980, approximately 100 people were air sampling instruments used by the several The company moved to these premises in better.. .. After some weeks of haggling over the employed there. thousand coal miners working in the coal in­ 1913, and was thus very well placed to ex­ price, we bought Regent House, completed the His normal day stretched from between 8:15 dustry. Casella used to manufacture sophisti­ rebuilding, and in 1928 or 1929 closed the Par­ and 8:30 in the morning, to from 6 to 7 in cated dust sampling instruments which were pand output considerably when war broke out. liament Street office and moved to Fitzroy Square. The volume of manufactures was multiplied the evening, about half an hour longer than capable of distinguishing the size of a particle about 30 times while the war lasted - exports the average. The last half hour or hour of down to 7 or 8 microns - small enough to end declined heavily but soon recovered when every day would be spent talking over events up at the bottom of the lung and cause silico­ peace came. The previous year the firm had and making time for things that could not be sis and other disease. taken on skilled craftsmen with experience of BECKLEY'S ANEMOGRAPH. fitted in earlier in the day. The company would The day-by-day working of the company was dividing (engraving scales) on metal, to com­ have separate works orders for a diverse vari­ run through the board of directors, who were plement their existing skills of dividing on ety of instruments, and some of the orders all executive directors, implying that they were 1 would be only to make a sum total of 6 in­ / glass tubes. there 5 to 5 2 days a week. There would be struments at any one time. For bulk orders an official Board meeting every month. The We bought a straight-line and a circular dividing they often would produce instruments in agenda would be prepared, all members would engine from the Societe Genevoise, had them batches of 25 to 50. be asked if they had anything they would like calibrated from time to time by the National The company was renowned for instruments put on the agenda for discussion. The monthly Physical Laboratory, and it was not long before which were connected with the measurement meetings were generally very good-natured and we got a reputation for accurate dividing, and orders for standard Yards and Metres from vari­ of temperature and humidity. One of the best friendly affairs. The levels of pay were mostly ous Government departments. With Scott's ad­ known instruments was the thermohygrograph, considered once a year, when they would de­ vent we launched out more seriously into the which basically had two elements, one for tem­ cide what amendments would be made to peo­ making of theodolites and surveyors' levels, and perature, one for humidity. The temperature ple's pay, at all staff levels. R.M.A. designed a whole new series of these. He element was a bi-metal, and on assembly, the produced also, during his time, many other new In those days, inflation was with us more than it and ingenious instruments, the most important, element for humidity was comprised of hu­ is now, and every year it was necessary to in­ from the point of view of sales, being a rainfall man hair. Both these elements operated pens crease rates of pay so that the company was in a recorder and an improved Fortin barometer. which inscribed a written record on a clock competitive situation and was able to obtain all drum. The hair was specifically obtained from C. F. Casella died of consumption in 1916, grades of personnel and keep them - making it Italy, having been sold by Italian girls and worth their while to stay with the firm, or even at the age of 64; R.M.A. and Miall bought women. Their hair was way and above more join it. And I would like to say that we had many his shares and were then in sole control of advantageous to use than the hair of native people who had spent their entire livelihood with the business. In order to satisfy the demands the company - I can remember 3 who had been of the Air Ministry, an approach was made to From the compal!J'S catalogue, 1908

42 43 Casella London HACKNEY Histo ry

better or a little bit brighter, they'd give you an­ a long gas jet, the burner we nt right across the at the firm for 40 to 50 years and their long serv­ IIIYALUAIILB FOR BREWERIES, .l>l~TUJ,UIES. other job and so on. But even at that stage you six you see. The idea was that you would burn ice and loyalty was very much appreciated. CHEMICAL MAIIUFACTOR!Eo, .. ~UAl' .. IYOIUUI. POMPIIIG STATIONB,.;WATER .woRXS: were geared to a semi-sort of production line - if all the air out. So you start at the bottom, boil SHIPPING, elo .. otc. we were making for example rain gauges , we may the mercury and gradually move your gas jet I had lots of worrying times but looking back it be making fifty or a hundred of those, so if you to the top, and it all come out you see. was a very pleasant environment and very sin­ were set on what we called the pillar drills, you'd cere . have all your jigs and your castings and you could They would explode, yes. Quite often, so I mean be on there for weeks drilling holes , and tapping you can understand the old boy that used to boil There were occasional v1s1ts abroad. Mr holes, and that sort of thing. When you'd done those, and had been doing it for many years, he Barnes used to go to Belgium to see their Me­ that, that would go on to the machine shop, and knew the danger signs. My father had taught me teorological Office in conjunction with large they would have to do a bit of machining, and anyway because he used to boil tubes anyway. contracts with Casella for rainfall recorders. CMURPHfS PATENT DEPTH INDICUORl. then poss ibly the instrument would have to be finished and then go through to what we called But times were changing. The Director of the Belgian Meteorological the spray shop, to be spray-painted. Office. had the good fortune to be housed in The very first instrument I actually made was I did sometimes fall out with management, as I what was a former Royal palace, dust samplers for the Atomic Research Station, always felt, my father always had it in his facto­ they would make that sort of thing, and they ries, that he tried to rotate people around a lot ... and I remember to this day the very grandiose Sole Maker for Great BrUaln ...... would make instruments for flour grading, and quicker, so that you become a lot more familiar and luxurious surroundings in which he worked L. . CASELLA, agricultural things. Even in the early sixties they with everything .. . I used to always say to them, it and the parkland which surrounded his office. I Suroe~tng, .:l!rewtng anb Sctenlillc 3ne1r11men1 were coming away from the old met instruments would be rather nice if as an apprentice, you also remember his very good stock of liquor and lllaher, etc.,· etc., to tile ,artoue Qlooeniment•· · that they used to do. · . Jl)epartmente, went round a lot quicker to all the different sec­ cigars! 14-Z.. Ho!bom.:flaT11:....l,ONDQN, £.'C. tions. It was not a particularly highly paid job. The commercial relationship with the Na­ For Water, ·uus; :::;pmts; Acii;IS ~n9'.. l,,1q4\i;I§', of ;:all kinds; There was an unofficial hierarchy. tional Coal Board and the Atomic Energy When I started in 1962 I was paid £3/10/- for a Authority at Harwell was remembered with 42 hour week, and I had to travel all the way From an undated brochure, c. 1900 If you had to use the very expensive milling ma­ from just outside of Romford to say Britannia affection. chines, you would only be put on those if they Walk in London, and I think the train fare cost thought you were safe, and that you could cope me about £1/10/- , so there was about 30 bob to I had a very close working relationship with them. I remember one [supplier] who shall be nameless with it. At the end of the day, you could ruin go home. My poor mother didn't dare ask me for We often disagreed, but it took quite a lot of whom we were very dependent on for some sup­ either the machine, yourself or a lot of material! any money because there was none left! one's time up and it was a matter of some satis­ plies, who repeatedly promised to deliver certain faction to have got the contracts to manufacture items and repeatedly failed to deliver certain But work experience was supplemented by We were always on a bonus system, everything the instruments, and also some satisfaction to items. I remonstrated with them, and when I study. was bonus. A full man's wages at the time, to­ know they've been manufactured in such a man­ ended up having a first class row with them, in wards the end of my apprenticeship I think was ner that met with their requirements and ap­ the next post they sent me all my orders back, £13/10/- and that was why it was important we proval, and at the end of the day one had made torn in two! I was on a day-release for part of my apprentice­ ship, at Hackney Technical College, which I was had a monthly bonus which could be quite a bit a small profit on the job. doing my City and Guilds instrument making. I of money - even then I remember getting £30 or Pat Marney's story something, it was quite important, that was the Another memorable contract was to manu­ did opt out, but I went to help my father in his Pat Marney started his working life at twelve business. The apprenticeship was five years. incentive. What happened there was one month facture night sights, which brought Casella, years of age, going with his father to work on there was an absolutely dreadful bonus. I did a and Barnes in particular, into close proximity a Saturday morning, sweeping the floor, run­ Some jobs were kept for the mature men, drawing of the works manager of Casella's stand­ with the Ministry of Defence. He remembers ning errands, and watching craftsmen mak­ and some were specialised. ing outside, playing the violin and he's got his cap on the floor, and I put a little A-board sign it as a very pleasant and educational experi­ ing instruments. He always knew he wanted next to him saying 'Wife and Jaguar to support', ence - to follow in his father's footsteps, but first spent Bill Fenn, my foreman, had a section where he and I had his name, Mr Barnes, and I pinned it some time with Casella's, as an apprentice. would do the mercury tubes for the Fortin Ba­ up on the notice-board in the canteen, and I can There was a requirement for 1500 gun sights for He joined them in 1962, at the age of six­ rometers, and things like that - that was his spe­ say he wasn't at all impressed by that! ciality. Apart from keeping his eye on us appren­ use on mainly tanks, and the contract went out teen, at the works in Britannia Walk, near to competitive tender and the contract to manu­ tices he would spend his time there. And then We worked 8 o'clock to about half past five, that facture these sights was given to three companies City Road. there was another chap, that had a section where was the 4 2 hour week, Monday to Friday, and of which Casella was one .... MOD inspectors he would boil all the mercury tubes .. .. you used you had a half hour for lunch. You normally had would visit the works - and MOD accountants, When you first started, they had to assess your to have six tubes at an angle on holders, and you ten minute tea breaks, at 10 o'clock and four checking that our profits were not ..... exorbitant! ability, so you were given fairly mundane jobs. had a gas jet that you placed underneath the tube, o'clock in the afternoon. That was your day, and You work alongside somebody, and the foreman Not all the working relationships were so would monitor your ability and then if you were pleasant. 45 44 HACKNEY History

when you're standing filing or drilling castings fag and drink their tea, and the rest of it, and it for a few weeks, that can seem an awful long brought back lots of memories, and I was stand­ Contributors to this issue week! ing on the steps, and I couldn't believe it, this chap came along, and it was Mike, who I had Jane Insley is the Curator of Environmental Sciences and Technology at the But, I suppose when you look at it all it was very done day release with at Hackney Technical good schooling, because, what was good was that College. He told me he was still with the com­ N ational Museum of Science and Industry (Science Museum). Amongst other you were learning self discipline, and to work pany, he gave me his card, 'Production Manager, things she looks after the collection of meteorological instruments, many of which alongside other people, other craftsmen, and ap­ Director' and everything, but he said, "I'm here were made by the firm of Casella. Her article is part of ongoing work on the preciate their work. with about two staff in the offices, because we've company's history. all gone up to Milton Keynes, the factory has Things did occasionally get a little out of moved up on the Ml. It's all gone". Dr Chris Miele is an architectural historian who joined English Heritage hand. in 1991. He has published widely on Victorian architecture, and is currently Notes editing a collection of essays on William Morris and the conservation movement One Christmas Eve, you see, all the apprentices, 1. HAD D / B/CAS. for the Paul Mellon Centre for the Study of British Art. we went to the local pub, in fact we did a slight 2. The museum objects are kept in a dozen different collections pub crawl in our lunch break, but we got a little in the Museum; most are in the Meteorology collection. bit carried away, and instead of going back, I think 3. My thanks to Casella London for permission to use this docu­ Philip W. Plumb is a retired University librarian, JP, and incumbent chairman of we had half twelve to one as our lunch, and I ment. the W. S. Gilbert Society. He catalogued the Tyssen collection of sermons in don't think we got back before half two, three 4. Interview recorded 12 December 1997. o'clock in the afternoon, and we was all a little 5. Interview recorded 8 April 1998. Hackney Archives. He is a contributor to Hackney History J and a forthcoming bit worse for drink, and we crept into the back of 6. For a comprehensive study of J. J. Hicks and his work, see volume of reminisences of Burma. Anita McConnell, King of the Clinica/s - The Life and Times of]. ]. the factory, and all shot into the toilet basically Hicks (1837 - 1916),Cfork, 1998). to try to freshen up, and anyway the door opened 7. For a description of the lengths to which companies would go Carole Pountney's aim in Hackney was to extend, for an Open University up, and it was Mr Barnes. He said, You are in no to defend their business interests, see Jane Insley, 'Trickery in the doctorate, her Birkbeck MA research on the development of Battersea. She kept condition to go anywhere near machinery, and Trade: The Apprehension of Forged Thermometers in Sao Paulo, he basically slung us out - for our own good, I November 1928', Bulletin of the Scientific Instmment Society, (55), being diverted by Dr Tripe's excellent reports, which proved infinitely more think. December 1998, 23-25. interesting than the borough surveyor's, which she shouldhave been studying.

Pat Marney left his apprenticeship after three Anne Wilkinson is a shipping lawyer who lived in Hackney for 17 years. years, to join his father and eventually to take An interest in local history and urban horticulture led her to Shirley Hibberd. over the business as a conservator of antique She is now researching amateur gardening for an Open University Ph.D., barometers and other scientific instruments. and writing a Hibberd biography. However, there were obviously no hard feel­ ings. Ackowledgements Some years later, Mr Abrahams rang me up and arranged to come over with his wife to see me, The illustrations in this volume appear by permission of the Archives Depart­ and he brought a barometer which he thought ment of Hackney Borough Council, except those on pages 20, 27 and 43 which was by Tompion [a renowned seventeenth cen­ appear by permission of Anne Wilkinson, Roland House Research, and the tury clockmaker]. Unfortunately, it was a typical National Museum for Science and Industry respectively. mid-Victorian copy of a Tompion barometer. Of course, he was hoping it was going to be an origi­ nal one! Jane Insley extends grateful thanks to the firm of Casella for permission to use Robert Miall's manuscript, and to Mr W. Barnes and Mr P. Marney for their The end of the story kindness in agreeing to be interviewed.

One day some years ago, I took it into my head The editor wishes to thank Jacqueline Bradshaw-Price for the cover; Michael to visit the old factory, you see, to see who was Kirkland for assistance with the illustrations; John Finn; and all the staff of Hack­ there, totally out of the blue, I thought I must go ney Archives Department for technical support and general encouragement, not past Britannia Walk and see who's still in Casella's. The whole place was all deserted, all emptied, least for building bridges towards future editions of this publication. and I was standing on the steps, and I well re­ member the steps, because we always used to sit out there lunchtimes, and the boys would have a

46 47 About thi''s publication

Hackney History is published by the Friends of Hackney Archives. This is the fourth volume of an annual series dedicated to publishing original research into the history of the area of the London borough of Hackney ( the former metropolitan boroughs of Hackney, Shoreditch and Stoke Newington).

The Friends of Hackney Archives were formed in 1985 to act as a focus for local history and to support the work of the borough council's Archives Department. Membership is open to all.

Members receive the Archives Department's newsletter, The Hackney Terrier, three times each year, and Hackney History each summer. In 1998 the subscription for the calendar year is £6 for mailing to UK addresses, increasing to £8 in 1999.

Enquiries and correspondence can be addressed to the Friends of Hackney Archives, Hackney Archives Department, 43 de Beauvoir Road, London Nl SSQ, telephone (0171) 241 2886, fax (0171) 241 6688, e-mail [email protected]. Contributions to Hackney Historyare welcome. Intending contributors are invited to get in touch with the editor before putting text into final form.

Volume 1 Pepys and Hackney - two mysterious Hackney gardens - the Iyssens, Lords of Hackney- Nonconformist church­ building- the silk makers' house at Hackney Wick - the rise of the high rise

Volume2 Balmes House - highwcrys in Hackney before 1872 - letters from a homesick curate - Iyzacks, toolmakers of Old S tree/­ mysterious goings-on at Abney Park Cemetery

Volume} The Iyssen collection of sermons as a historical source - an 18th century Jewish resident and his place in the history of British coins and tokens- the development of the Middleton estate on the Shoreditch-Hackney boundary- Shoreditch vestry as pioneer housingproviders in the 1890s.

Copies of volumes 2 and 3 can be obtained from Hackney Archives Department, 43 de Beauvoir Road Nl SSQ (telephone 0171 241 2886) or the National Trust bookshop at Sutton House, 2-4 Homerton High Street, E9 (0181 986 2264).

48