Bazaars and Bazaar Buildings in Regency and Victorian London’, the Georgian Group Journal, Vol
Kathryn Morrison, ‘Bazaars and Bazaar Buildings in Regency and Victorian London’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xV, 2006, pp. 281–308
text © the authors 2006 BAZAARS AND BAZAAR BUILDINGS IN REGENCY AND VICTORIAN LONDON
KATHRYN A MORRISON
INTRODUCTION upper- and middle-class shoppers, they developed ew retail or social historians have researched the the concept of browsing, revelled in display, and Flarge-scale commercial enterprises of the first discovered increasingly inventive and theatrical ways half of the nineteenth century with the same of combining shopping with entertainment. In enthusiasm and depth of analysis that is applied to the devising the ideal setting for this novel shopping department store, a retail format which blossomed in experience they pioneered a form of retail building the second half of the century. This is largely because which provided abundant space and light. Th is type copious documentation and extensive literary of building, admirably suited to a sales system references enable historians to use the department dependent on the exhibition of goods, would find its store – and especially the metropolitan department ultimate expression in department stores such as the store – to explore a broad range of social, economic famous Galeries Lafayette in Paris and Whiteley’s in and gender-specific issues. These include kleptomania, London. labour conditions, and the development of shopping as a leisure activity for upper- and middle-class women. Historical sources relating to early nineteenth- THE PRINCIPLES OF BAZAAR RETAILING century shopping may be relatively sparse and Shortly after the conclusion of the French wars, inaccessible, yet the study of retail innovation in that London acquired its first arcade (Royal Opera period, both in the appearance of shops and stores Arcade) and its first bazaar (Soho Bazaar), providing and in their economic practices, has great potential. covered venues for the fashionable shopping It may persuade us to modify our views on the promenade when extreme weather or excessive ground-breaking character of later nineteenth- traffic rendered Bond Street inhospitable. In both century retailing, and may even shed new light on the arcade and the bazaar a large number of retailers the genesis of the department store. was assembled beneath one roof, controlled by a This article sets out to convey something of the single proprietor. This concept was not completely scale and ambition of early to mid- th-century new. Medieval selds seem to have been organised in a retailing by examining London’s long-vanished similar manner, as were the long shopping galleries, and long-forgotten bazaars. These were permanent or pawns, of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century establishments, and should not be confused with exchanges. temporary charity bazaars, or ‘fancy fairs’. Architecturally, arcades and bazaars were very Pevsner dismissed bazaars as ‘merely a fashion in different from older retail building types, and from nomenclature’, but they were much more than this. one another. Arcades aspired to be streets, rather To indulge the tastes, pastimes and aspirations of than rooms, and evolved from the idea of the covered
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XV BAZAARS AND BAZAAR BUILDINGS pavement, represented by the Rows in Chester or the remained at the opposite end of the retail spectrum Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells. While walkways in to bazaars. exchange galleries had been lined by open stalls, those Bazaars were exclusive private enterprises, with in arcades were flanked by small, glass-fronted shops, counters rented out to traders on a franchise basis, with accommodation for the shopkeepers above. much like present-day department stores. It required Bazaars more closely resembled exchanges and, for a large capital sum to set up a bazaar and, over the that matter, modern department stores. Their years, many entrepreneurs suffered heavy losses, capacious open-plan interiors were equipped with even bankruptcy, when their ventures failed or their solid counters (or ‘standings’), rather than flimsy premises burnt down. Despite such risks, the stalls or shops, and provided fluid circulation routes rewards from a successful bazaar could be great. (or ‘promenades’) for customers (invariably ‘visitors’). Financial gain was doubtless the primary motivation While both the arcade and the bazaar offered behind the setting up of bazaars, but proprietors opportunities to shop, promenade or lounge, bazaars were eager to publicise their philanthropic intent in also staged a tantalising array of entertainments and order to win support. They portrayed their exhibitions for the amusement and edification of businesses as benevolent establishments, offering an their patrons. outlet for goods produced in their homes by The origins of the arcade lie in France, where the respectable people who could not afford to rent and building type was created at the Palais Royal in furnish a shop, including impoverished tradespeople – , but the bazaar took root in London, where and artisans. In particular, the first bazaars were the Soho Bazaar of February was the first of its concerned to assist disadvantaged women, such as war kind. The term ‘bazaar’, borrowed from the Arab widows. Nowadays most shop assistants are female, word for market, had been used periodically to but in the early nineteenth century apprenticeships describe European markets since at least the in London drapers’, haberdashers’ and even fourteenth century. Interest in eastern culture was milliners’ shops were offered almost exclusively to stimulated by Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt during men, so bazaars presented a rare opportunity for the s, to the extent that one of the very first respectable and relatively independent retail Parisian arcades was called the Passage du Caire. In employment to women without substantial capital. the poet Robert Southey described the last of But not every bazaar counter was run as a fledgling London’s seventeenth-century exchange shopping business by an enterprising female. Advertisements galleries, Exeter Change, as ‘precisely a bazar’, in London newspapers reveal that many standings probably suggesting nothing more than a passing were managed as branches of larger businesses and resemblance to an oriental market. With the opening staffed by assistants. And the largest bazaar enterprises of the Soho Bazaar, however, the term acquired a – sometimes occupying separate rooms or suites – much more precise definition, and a standardised were invariably run by men. English spelling. For small-scale retailers it was less of a risk to take Aside from their names, the Soho Bazaar and its a counter in a bazaar than to rent a shop. For a couple followers had little in common with the noisy and of shillings a day, a trader with a satisfactory character colourful eastern bazaar. The closest English reference and a stock of goods could rent a stretch of equivalent to this was the public provisions market counter and make a decent living. Although the rent which, in the course of the nineteenth century, was was calculated on a daily basis, most standings were taken over by municipal authorities and, to some held for months or years. But bazaar retailing was not extent, sanitised and improved. Markets, however, without its dangers: in the entire stock of
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traders (mostly women) in the Western Exchange J. M. W. Turner does not seem to have displayed Bazaar on Old Bond Street was destroyed by fire, finished paintings in bazaars, but he recalled: ‘... leaving them destitute and dependent on charity. there was a stall in the Soho Bazaar where they sold The first bazaars portrayed themselves as drawing materials, and they used to buy my skies. patriotic as well as benevolent, thus garnering even They gave me s. d. for the small ones, and s. d. greater public support. At the Soho Bazaar articles of for the larger ones! ... There’s many a young lady foreign manufacture ( e.g. French gloves) could not has got My sky to her drawing’. Turner’s skies be sold without special permission: those disobeying apart, bazaar paintings were of notoriously inferior this rule would be ‘prosecuted with the utmost rigour quality. of the law, as an enemy to the whole community’. All bazaars were strictly governed. Rules and Similarly, the Western Exchange was set up primarily regulations, based on those of the Soho Bazaar, were for ‘British Manufacturers, Artists and Dealers’. drawn up by the proprietor and implemented by a But, as the memory of the French wars abated, manager and supervisors. It was invariably stipulated bazaars began to stock foreign goods. In the that goods had to be marked with fixed prices and Baker Street Bazaar announced that foreign articles sold for ready money rather than credit, something would be admitted for sale, and in the Royal that had become increasingly common in cities and Bazaar on Oxford Street was said to sell ‘ bijouterie fashionable resorts in the second half of the and nic-nacs, the Nouveautes de Paris and Spitalfields eighteenth century. Haggling was banned, ensuring – Canton in China, and Leather-lane in Holborn’, that exchanges between vendors and customers were perhaps with the implication that the provenance of polite, civilised and short; there was ‘no clamour – some goods was questionable. In the s the no useless noise, or confusion’. The traders had to Chinese Hong sold ‘all sorts of Chinese curiosities’ at dress plainly and neatly, and were not permitted to the Pantechnicon Bazaar in Belgravia, and in the receive goods in the bazaar. To enforce this, s and s the Portland or German Bazaar on persons carrying parcels, bundles or loads were Langham Place specialised in German toys. banned from most establishments, and wholesale Although many bazaars had furniture showrooms, transactions had to be conducted outside bazaar most merchandise fell into the category of fancy or hours, usually meaning before o’clock in the artistic goods, and if conventional shops occupied morning, or after o’clock at night. On one special the street frontage of a bazaar, fittingly, they were occasion in May the Soho Bazaar remained usually let to milliners or jewellers. In the writer open until o’clock at night to accommodate a George Augustus Sala described the counters of the private visit from the elderly Queen Charlotte and Pantheon ‘laden with pretty gimcracks, toys, and her entourage. papier maché trifles for the table, dolls and children’s The pains taken to maintain the respectability of dresses, wax flowers and Berlin and crochet work, bazaars, through a plethora of rules and the regular prints, and polkas, and women’s ware of all sorts’. supervision of traders, reflects the fact that exchanges While much of this merchandise would have been had acquired an unsavoury reputation. In the late the product of ‘cottage industry’, some was seventeenth century, the Middle Exchange was undoubtedly mass produced, with manufacturers nicknamed ‘Whores’ Nest’, and by the eighteenth and wholesalers targeting bazaar retailers in their century the social standing of the clientele of advertising. As well as selling fancy goods, bazaars surviving exchanges had declined, as had the cachet had picture galleries where artists could display their of the areas in which they were situated, the City and work free of charge but paid commission on sales. the Strand. Even Bond Street had acquired a
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XV BAZAARS AND BAZAAR BUILDINGS dubious reputation, and by the early nineteenth Furthermore, it is plain that respectable women felt century it was very much a man’s street, where able to visit bazaars without a chaperone. Customers respectable ladies preferred to be chaperoned. While do not seem to have been deterred by the fact that undesirable characters could not be prevented from supervisors asserted the right to search visitors frequenting Bond Street, Oxford Street or Regent suspected of stealing, even insisting that clothing was Street, it was relatively easy to exclude them from removed. Shoplifting appears to have been a bazaars by positioning intimidating doorkeepers at particular problem at the Soho Bazaar, with several entrances. Porters clearly had diverse duties: in cases coming to court. the Western Exchange advertised for ‘a strong active As in modern malls and department stores, man, age , who can drive, look after horses and shoppers were encouraged to linger through the knows town well’. At the Soho Bazaar porters were provision of ‘dressing rooms’ (probably lavatories) empowered to bar ‘persons meanly or dirtily dressed, and refreshment rooms. These amenities were or otherwise calculated to lessen the respectability of provided principally for the benefit of female visitors. the place’. Customers could also enjoy attractions such as Despite scaremongering by their critics, the conservatories, aquariums, aviaries and menageries, controlled environments of the best bazaars where the living exhibits could be purchased. In succeeded in imbuing them with an air of gentility. addition to this, for the price of s. (usually reduced to Mayhew reported that a room over a ‘friendly bonnet d. for children), visitors could gain access to special shop’ in the Burlington Arcade was used for exhibitions, including panoramas, dioramas, prostitution: nothing like this could happen in bazaars, cosmoramas, physioramas, old master or epic which had no living quarters for shopkeepers. paintings and models. In many ways, this fashion Yet it was always possible for vendors to make picked up where Exeter Change had left off, as the assignations when the supervisor’s back was turned. upper floor of that establishment had hosted many This, of course, was discouraged, and in Sala intriguing exhibitions in the late eighteenth century, described the intimidating demeanour of ‘the young eventually being taken over as a menagerie. ladies who serve behind the counters at the Panoramas were particularly associated with the Pantheon’ as follows: Baker Street Bazaar and the various short-lived bazaars that occupied Savile House on Leicester To their lady customers they behave with great affability. The gentlemen, I am pleased, though Square. The main draw at the Royal Bazaar on mortified to say, they treat with condescension mingled Oxford Street was the British Diorama, which with a reserved dignity that awes the boldest spirit ... opened in March . On May , however, Yet I have known a man with large whiskers ... to the special effects used in Clarkson Stanfield’s whom a young lady assistant in the Pantheon, on a very dioramic depiction of ‘The City of York, with the wet day, once lent a silk umbrella. But he was always a Minster on Fire’ set the bazaar alight. The Lowther bold man, and had a winning way with the sex. Bazaar on the Strand relied heavily for its revenue on The most desirable bazaar customers were no doubt the ‘Magic Cave’, a subterraneous exhibition with fashionable aristocrats, even royalty, but most hailed cosmoramic views that was frequently visited by from the well-to-do middle classes. Contemporary Louis Philippe between and . Another literature suggests that bazaars were particularly popular bazaar exhibition was Madame Tussaud’s popular with mothers and young children, and with waxworks (Fig. ) which moved, in , from the ‘the fops of Bond Street and the dashing bucks of Bazaar on Gray’s Inn Road to the Baker Street St James’s’ who were attracted to the sales assistants. Bazaar. Tussaud’s expensively fitted Golden
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Fig. . Baker Street Bazaar. Interior of Madame Tussaud and Son’s in , showing the exhibition of George IV’s coronation and state robes in the ‘golden chamber’ (from J. Mead [pub.], London Interiors , ). British Library, shelfmark .f. .
Corinthian Saloon appears to have been transferred was the Glaciarium, an artificial ice rink surrounded from one establishment to the other, together with by Alpine scenery. the waxworks. One of the strangest bazaar exhibits, In sum, bazaars must have been amongst the shown in August at the Royal Bazaar, was a largest and most stimulating retail businesses in three-year-old French girl, in whose irises could be Regency and early Victorian London, allowing read the words ‘Napoleon Empereur’ and ‘Empereur visitors to buy a wide range of goods, to see and be Napoleon’, a phenomenon explained by her mother seen, to indulge in social discourse, to be entertained, ‘earnestly looking at a franc-piece of Napoleon’s’ and even educated. The architecture of many of the during pregnancy. Over and above such attractions, buildings which housed these establishments was bazaars hired bands and staged balls, concerts and innovative and exciting, contributing to the thrill and shows. Every December between and the theatricality of the bazaar experience and proving Baker Street Bazaar hosted the Smithfield Club eminently suitable for a style of retailing that was Cattle Show, and an extra attraction in winter centred on display.
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of all government stores during the French wars. The structure extended west to Dean Street, and from there continued north, almost reaching Oxford Street. This vast building became redundant with the conclusion of war, and so Trotter came up with the enterprising notion of adapting it to create a bazaar. At first Trotter proposed that the government should run the enterprise, but when his overtures were spurned he financed it by himself, opening his new bazaar on February . Despite this momentous undertaking, Trotter is seldom counted amongst the great retail innovators of the nineteenth century. The interiors of Trotter’s austere warehouse were transformed by red hangings, large mirrors and solid furnishings. The aura of high-class domesticity, however, was undermined by inscriptions on the beams of every room, promulgating the regulations of the establishment. The main rooms were equipped with numbered mahogany counters which were rented out to vendors. The construction of these counters intrigued contemporary writers, possibly because the idea of counter flaps was then a novelty. Although traders were not allowed to introduce fixtures, they were provided with lockers and drawers under the counters. In addition to the Fig. . Soho Bazaar, – Soho Square, sales rooms, a parterre and a long room called ‘The photographed in . Ron Baxter . Grotto’ were filled with plants for sale, a gallery was set aside for the exhibition of works of art, and ladies were provided with a ‘Dressing-Room’ (presumably fitted with a water closet), one of the earliest BAZAARS AND THEIR BUILDINGS documented examples of this kind of facility in a The Soho Bazaar was the first of its ilk, and although retail establishment. A kitchen, probably in the the building did not offer an architectural template basement, served as a mess room for stallholders for future bazaars, it certainly set the standard for and apartments were provided for watchmen, or their interior design and established their position in caretakers. the social hierarchy of the London retail world. In the year following the opening of the Soho The four-storey brick building at – Soho Bazaar, approximately new bazaars were Square still stands (Fig. ) but has been converted established in London. In a postscript to his into offices. It was erected in – as a warehouse pamphlet, The Bazaar , which was published in by John Trotter, the head of a firm of army May , the Rev. Joseph Nightingale listed no less contractors who, as storekeeper-general, took control than bazaars, ten of which had recently opened,
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XV BAZAARS AND BAZAAR BUILDINGS and six which were about to open. Further Leicester Square. This house had been built in investigation reveals that most of these were obscure – for Mary Linwood and her co-owners. and short-lived businesses which occupied modest Linwood was a needlework artist who displayed her buildings and never appeared in directories or work – needlework copies of well-known paintings – guidebooks. Nightingale conceded that most ‘are, in on the first floor, while other parts of the building fact, shops of tradesmen, who have, by a different were sub-let. Nothing more is heard about the arrangement of counters, converted them into little Venetian Bazaar, but in the building housed the stands, which they let out both to men and women Royal Westminster Bazaar then, in the s, the indiscriminately’. Clearly London shopkeepers Savile House Bazaar. These bazaars were not the were attempting to capitalise on the fashion for primary draw at Savile House, but they benefited bazaars, adopting their modus operandi in superficial from proximity to other attractions, such as William ways, and on a small scale. Green’s shooting gallery. The building continued Despite having a transient existence and dubious to accommodate a wide range of ephemeral status, some of the bazaars established in are of entertainments after the death of Mary Linwood in considerable interest. Little is known about the , but it was gutted by fire in . The site was St James’s Bazaar on St James’s Street, but in March subsequently devoted exclusively to entertainment twenty of its vendors were arrested for trading rather than retailing: it was redeveloped in – without hawking licenses. The magistrate hearing as the Royal London Panorama, remodelled as the the case was sympathetic to the idea of bazaars and, Empire Theatre in –, and rebuilt as a cinema in although the sale of licenses to bazaar traders . throughout London had already generated a revenue The London Bazaar on Bond Street, yet another of £, , he ruled that the vendors should be exempt establishment listed by Nightingale, may have been a from hawker’s duty. This must have given great predecessor of the Western Exchange, known from impetus to bazaars. One of several establishments as the Western Exchange Bazaar, at Old which opened in subsequent months was the Bond Street. The caption of a coloured aquatint Metropolitan Bazaar at Fleet Street, close to showing the interior of this establishment (Fig. ) St Bride’s. Occupying a relatively new four-storey reveals that it opened on January . Soon building, heated by the Marquis de Chabannes’s afterwards it was carpeted in preparation for a visit Patent Warming System, it provided counters for from the royal family, and in it acquired a men on the ground floor and for women on the secondary entrance inside the new Burlington upper floors. The bazaar traded from July Arcade. According to Punch , this entrance was ‘most until February , but burnt down – to the deep ingeniously concealed, to puzzle novices and afford a suspicion of the Eagle Assurance Company – in May little harmless perplexity, in a pastry-cook’s shop’. . Other bazaars which existed fleetingly in The three-bay, three-storey façade of the Western and included the London Bazaar at Fleet Exchange was unpretentious and conventional. At Street, the Royal Cobourg Excambium and Leipzig ground-floor level, a castellated archway stood to the Emporium at Strand, the Piccadilly Bazaar at left of a modest shopfront. The interior, however, was Piccadilly and the Grand City Bazaar at revolutionary in terms of shop design, anticipating Cheapside. Of their architectural arrangements, the stereotypical spatial arrangements of department however, nothing is known. stores by more than half a century. It comprised a Another obscure bazaar listed by Nightingale spacious room, lined by an arcaded gallery and lit by was the Venetian Bazaar in Savile House on a rooflight. The architectural details, including
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Fig. . A Bazaar . Coloured etching by George Cruickshank, . Guildhall Library .
columns, capitals and arches, were Gothic in style. While the Soho Bazaar and the Western Exchange From their appearance, some of the simpler columns enjoyed success, most of the smaller bazaars set up in may have been of cast iron, a material that was and failed, and a mere handful of new already revolutionising spaces within industrial and establishments opened between and . One of public buildings. The counters in the centre of the these was the Regent Bazaar of , which occupied a room were devoted to small feminine knick-knacks, Gothic chapel on New (now Marylebone) Road, on a while those around the periphery, some staffed by site taken over by Madame Tussaud’s in . men, specialised in silverware, porcelain and, Typically, the Regent Bazaar lasted no more than a paintings. The Western Exchange is also known to year. As it turned out, not everyone welcomed this have sold furniture, and to have had a bureau de new approach to retailing, and early bazaars generated spectacle for the sale of theatre tickets. It was strong opposition which must have influenced enlarged by the addition of a ‘new bazaar gallery’ in potential customers. Anticipating modern protests , and a ‘grand saloon’ in . Although it concerning multiples and malls, most of their closed temporarily after a fire in , the Western detractors were activated by concerns that bazaars Exchange continued in business until August , would compete unfairly with small shops in their when the building was damaged by a freak summer vicinity. Indeed, in May , , housekeepers and hailstorm. It may never have reopened following tradesmen presented a petition to Parliament, this setback, and by the premises had been complaining about bazaars. Opponents provoked and taken over by a woollen draper. In a exploited fears that bazaars would encourage sexual correspondent to Country Life recalled visiting the immorality. This is evident in several contemporary woollen draper’s as a boy, and confirmed that traces caricatures (Fig. ), and in literary efforts such as of the original gallery could still be seen inside the Humphrey Hedgehogg’s poem of , The London premises of Armstrong Siddeley. The site was later bazaar, or where to get cheap things , which implied redeveloped. that saleswomen in bazaars were involved in
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Fig. . Royal Bazaar, Oxford Street, – . Westminster Archives Centre, Ashbridge Collection .
prostitution. The effects of such attacks were more significant as a potential model for British countered by several publications, some of which may architects was the Bazar de l’Industrie which was built have been instigated by John Trotter. Nightingale’s on Boulevard Poissonnière, between and , to pamphlet, mentioned above, included a highly favourable a design by Paul Lelong. In plan, the building account of the Soho Bazaar. Two years later A Visit to resembled a church, its nave and semi-circular apse the Bazaar , an illustrated children’s book, took its surrounded by metal galleries housing an upper young readers on a tour through a bazaar, explaining shopping level, and its central hall lit by a lantern the nature of its diverse trades in an educational positioned on the ridge of a coved ceiling. Equally manner. This seems to have been calculated to impressive was the Galerie de Fer, or Bazar de bolster the respectability of such establishments. Boufflers, on the Boulevard des Italiens, which was Bazaars did not become really popular until the designed by Antoine Tavernier and opened around late s and early s, when the opening of several . In the same year, the Bazar Montesquieu, or Parisian establishments enhanced their standing. One Bazar de Fer, by Victor Lenoir, opened. Now that Paris of the first Parisian bazaars, the Grand Bazar on the rue was rich in bazaars, giving the final seal of approval to Saint-Honoré, opened in ; it occupied three their status, a great many new bazaars were established rooms, but lasted no longer than five years. Much in London and provincial English towns.
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Fig. . Queen’s Bazaar, Oxford Street. Aquatint by Benjamin Read, . Guildhall Library .
Contemporary with the Bazar de l’Industrie was two-storey well, lit from above by part-glazed the Royal Bazaar at Oxford Street. Until this cupolas and a lunette set into a deeply coved large site was occupied by Mr Leader’s coachworks, ceiling. Additional light was provided by a sometimes described as a carriage depository. The tripartite window hung with chinoiserie blinds. The buildings, including a ‘spacious showshop, elegant walls behind the counters were painted to create the gallery (and) showrooms’, had been ‘recently erected illusion of a conservatory, with trees and sky at a very considerable expense’ and were considered depicted behind a grid-pattern of fake glazing bars. ‘well adapted ... for a bazaar of the first Just before the fire a suite of rooms on Castle Street, consequence’. Despite this, the property was behind the Great Room, was fitted up for the sale of rebuilt by the new owner, Thomas Hamlet, a rich household furniture, prompting one reviewer to jeweller and cutler who had begun his career in wonder why one could hire a chair and a newspaper Exeter Change. The Royal Bazaar opened on in Parisian bazaars, but not in their English March , but was extensively damaged by fire on counterparts. These new furniture showrooms May , and had to be reconstructed. A view escaped the fire, and were made available to vendors showing the Great Room of the short-lived until the rest of the bazaar could be reconstructed. building (Fig. ) reveals that a gallery surrounded a The Royal Bazaar had been insured for £ , ,
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Fig. . Horse Bazaar, Baker Street. The Auction Room in . Westminster Archives Centre, Ashbridge Collection . and was rebuilt quickly. It reopened on March is said to have been ft long, and the tall, twinned , and was visited by Princess Victoria and her columns which lined it may have been of cast iron. A mother a month later. In it was renamed the doorway opening off a landing at the top of the stairs Queen’s Bazaar in honour of Queen Adelaide. The led to the British Diorama. Other rooms included Oxford Street façade of the new building was ‘dressing and retiring rooms’, a furniture department, relatively modest, being only two bays wide and a kitchen and dining-room for the stallholders, and a three floors high, but impressively surmounted by house for the resident manager, Mr Wright. the royal arms. The interior was more elaborate The Queen’s Bazaar was put up for auction in than before. According to The Mirror of Literature : April (one month before the Pantheon Bazaar ‘the columns and supports painted to imitate bronze, opened across the street), and again in , but each and above all, the stained-glass ceiling have a time it failed to find a buyer. On the verge of ruin, remarkably novel and pleasing effect’. A view of Hamlet attempted to run it as a theatre, and in this interior (Fig. ) was published by the tailor and – the property was rebuilt as the Princess’s printer Benjamin Read in . This depicted the Theatre. The present building on the site was ornate architecture merely as the backdrop for a designed by Elcock & Sutcliffe in the s, with a group of men and women modelling winter fashions, Woolworth store on the lower floors, and warehouse but the gallery can clearly be seen behind them, with space for Waring & Gillow, the furnishers, above. elegant figures posing by the balustrade. This gallery Since it has accommodated a branch of HMV.
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Fig. . Baker Street Bazaar. The Panklibanon in the s. Westminster Archives Centre, Ashbridge Collection, /Bel .
Another fancy bazaar founded in the mid- s, horses, carriages and/or furniture. Most of these the variously-named ‘New Bazaar’, ‘Ladies’ Bazaar’ businesses, usually called repositories, were situated or ‘Miscellaneous Bazaar’, formed an adjunct to the in wealthy residential areas, some distance from the Horse Bazaar on Baker Street. This was the first of a main shopping thoroughfares of the West End and series of bazaars connected with establishments the City. The association of fancy bazaars with horse primarily devoted to the sale and/or storage of and carriage repositories, however, was far from
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XV BAZAARS AND BAZAAR BUILDINGS universal. The principal London repositories, A furniture department was installed on the upper Tattersall’s at Knightsbridge Green, Aldridge’s on floor of the south range, while carriages continued to St Martin’s Lane, Dixon’s at the Barbican and be sold on the upper floor of the west range. By Sadler’s on Goswell Street, never branched out in the subscription room over the riding school had this direction. become ‘a splendid saloon for the reception and With the backing of the MP John Maberly, the display of works of art’. All of this combined to Horse Bazaar was set up by George Young on King make the Baker Street Bazaar – as it was now called – Street, behind Baker Street, in May . It occupied a fashionable venue for the well-to-do. Indeed, if a stables and a riding house which had been erected in department store is defined by the range of goods for the nd Regiment of Life Guards. These sold, this was a proto-department store in all but brick buildings formed a quadrangle, arranged name, selling: around a parade, with a gatehouse to the south (King Horses, carriages, saddlery, furniture and looking Street), ranks of back-to-back stables to east and glasses, pictures, plate, china and glass, watches, west, and a tall riding house to the north. Unusually, jewellery, cutlery and hardware, turnery, perfumery the riding house had an upper storey, thought to and toys, millinery, haberdashery, furriery, hosiery, have originated as a mess room. An L-shaped yard woollendrapery, linen, lace, silks, hats, shoes and boots, tea and coffee, &c. or ride bordered the west and north sides of this complex, with additional stabling to the north Throughout the s and s the establishment (Dorset Street). Initially the bazaar had stalls for continued to change. In Madame Tussaud’s nearly horses and, above these, space for waxwork exhibition was installed in the saloon carriages. In addition, large harness and saddlery (see Fig. ) and in horse sales ceased. saloons occupied the gatehouse range on King Street The furniture department expanded to include while a riding school and private subscription rooms workshops, and its proprietor was somewhat irked for the Turf were accommodated in the riding house. to find that furniture stores in other parts of London Elsewhere on the site were a waiting room, offices began to assume the name ‘bazaar’. In the and coffee rooms, and many customers appear to auction room in the north-west corner of the site have treated the establishment as a club. An engraving (see Fig. ) was converted to accommodate a of (Fig. ) shows an auction room with a cast- furnishing ironmongery called the Panclibanon or iron viewing gallery, an iron roof with light trusses, Panklibanon (Fig. ). This seems to have retained and a glazed ridge light. This space, created from a the existing roof, although the galleries and staircase covered stable yard in the north-west corner of the were rebuilt. site, was clearly influenced by riding house By the late s the Baker Street Bazaar was architecture. In later years similar auction rooms, beyond any doubt the largest and, together with the with carriage galleries, were built for Aldridge’s on Soho Bazaar, the most successful establishment of its St Martin’s Lane ( ; for a time owned by the same kind in the metropolis, boasting a fancy bazaar (run by proprietor as the Horse Bazaar) and Tattersall’s on William Boulnois, now owner of the entire premises), Knightsbridge Green ( ). The best known an ironmongery (the Panklibanon), a glass showroom surviving example of this building type is Cooper’s (Pellatt, Apsley & Frederick), a furniture department Repository in Newcastle, built in . (Charles Druce & Co), a harness department The Horse Bazaar soon evolved into a much (George Collins) and a carriage department (William more complex establishment. In the upper floor Boulnois). Although the fancy bazaar had closed of the east range was converted into a fancy bazaar. by , the business continued to sell carriages and
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Fig. . London Horse and Carriage Repository, Gray’s Inn Road, c. (from Thomas H. Shepherd and James Elmes, Metropolitan Improvements , London, – , opp. p. ).
to warehouse furniture into the th century. After the benefit of the Spanish Refugees’. By January Second World War, the buildings were demolished the Royal London Bazaar, managed by Mr Dalberg, to make way for the head office of Marks & Spencer, was located here. This was succeeded, in a company which had started out in the s as a December , by the Institution of the Industrious ‘penny bazaar’. Classes or Equitable Exchange Bazaar, which was The London Horse and Carriage Repository established ‘on the principle recommended by (Fig. ), or Horse Bazaar, which opened on the west Mr Owen [ i.e. the philanthropist, Robert Owen] for side of Gray’s Inn Road, near King’s Cross, in , co-operation and equitable exchange, without the was similar to the Baker Street Bazaar, but purpose- intervention of the coin of the realm’. The built. It was designed by the architect John Institution issued its own notes for goods deposited. Parkinson for the proprietor William Bromley. The goods were priced to return d. per hour for the Arranged around an open quadrangle, the stables time and labour of the person who made them. The could accommodate about horses, while the scheme failed and in March the building came galleries, fronted by a continuous ‘balcony promenade’, up for auction. By the early s it had become could hold about carriages. In January the the North London Depository, for the sale and Grand Room in the south front, originally designed storage of carriages and furniture; today a garage as a subscription room, was used as a bazaar ‘for the occupies the site.
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The Pantechnicon on Motcombe Street in Belgravia, which opened in June , was undoubtedly inspired by the existing establishments on Baker Street and Gray’s Inn Road, and was probably the only business to be designed from the outset as a combined repository and bazaar. It was divided between two very different, but equally impressive, buildings. Positioned on opposite sides of the street, these buildings had been designed in the fashionable Greek revival style by the architect Joseph Jopling, with guidance from the owner, the speculative builder Seth Smith. The grandly- conceived façades contrasted sharply with the more humble exteriors of earlier bazaars, raising the building type to the same level as gentlemen’s clubs, theatres and other public buildings. Behind offices and reading-rooms in the street range of the north building of the Pantechnicon was a cast-iron warehouse of four floors, the lower floors devoted to the sale and warehousing of carriages, while the upper floors provided fireproof warehousing, in iron-lined rooms, for household goods. The south building (Fig. ), which opened Fig. . Pantechnicon, Motcombe Street, south side. in October , had wine cellars, a double arcade Photograph taken in by E.J. Mason. and a bazaar, a combination which may have been English Heritage. NMR. unique. The two arcades, lined by shops, ran through the building from Motcombe Street to new St James’s Bazaar – sometimes called Crockford’s Halkin Street, while large rooms on the two upper Bazaar – covered two floors connected by a floors housed the bazaar and various exhibitions. magnificent staircase with gilded balustrades, but This lasted until , when the building was taken accounts fail to specify whether or not there was a over as a warehouse. The interiors of both of the gallery. The counters were ‘serpentine, ovals and Pantechnicon buildings were remodelled in the circles, composed of beautiful polished mahogany’; s, but the façades survive. shelves were inlaid with mirror glass, and the Returning to the West End, the St James’s Bazaar building was lit by expensive plate-glass windows. (Fig. ), a stately classical building on the corner of Despite its grandeur, the St James’s Bazaar was not a St James’s Street and King Street, was an early work commercial success. Initially traders may have been by the architect James Pennethorne, who was then deterred by the charge of d. , rather than the usual John Nash’s principal assistant. It was built for the d. , per foot of counter daily, but trade does not seem millionaire club-owner William Crockford, at a cost of to have picked up after this figure was reduced to d. £ , , and opened in April . The St James’s in summer . The bazaar continued for no more Bazaar of (see above) must have been a quite than four years, if that, and by had been separate institution rather than a predecessor. The reinvented as the St James’s Wine Establishment.
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Fig. . St James’s Bazaar, print of c. . Museum of London .
The building still survives, although altered: in Street, with a side entrance on Poland Street. The particular, the lofty saloon ( ft by ft) on the core of the building, the so-called Basilical Hall upper floor is known to have been divided into two ( ft by ft, and ft high), was constructed storeys, to create office chambers, in the s. with a two-storey well surrounded by galleries Commercially, the St James’s Bazaar was and lit from above by curved skylights set into a outstripped by the Pantheon Bazaar (Figs. and ) barrel vault. If this vast space was created with on Oxford Street. James Wyatt’s late eighteenth- the help of cast iron, it was decorously concealed century Pantheon had been largely rebuilt in , and contemporary commentators kept quiet and again in , as a theatre. The idea of converting about it. Much of the decoration was in papier it into a ‘splendid promenade and bazaar’ was maché by C.F. Bielefeld, who also created the mooted as early as , but was not carried out ornamentation of Madame Tussaud’s saloon at until –, when the building was gutted and the Baker Street Bazaar. According to Punch , the reconstructed by Sydney Smirke, who retained only Pantheon combined ‘the attractions of the the main façade of Wyatt’s original structure. The Zoological Gardens and National Gallery. with a new Pantheon occupied the full depth of a block, condensed essence of all the most entertaining stretching from Oxford Street to Great Marlborough shop-windows’. After closing in it became
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Fig. . Pantheon, Oxford Street, c. s. Guildhall Library .
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Fig. . Pantheon, Oxford Street. Interior of conservatory, c. s. Guildhall Library . the head office of the wine and spirit dealers, W. & enlarged and novel plan’ in –, with iron girders A. Gilbey’s, who floored over the galleries. In and a fashionable plate-glass shopfront. Also like Gilbey’s sold the Pantheon to Marks & Spencer’s, true bazaars, the Lowther Bazaar displayed who built a new store on the site. exhibitions and was fitted out with counters selling Confusingly, not every early nineteenth-century all manner of fancy goods. But in Knight’s business bearing the title ‘bazaar’ followed the bazaar London confirmed that it was ‘simply a large shop, system of retailing. Both the widely-advertised carried on by one owner’. London Stove Grate Bazaar on Fish Street Hill, and The founder of the Pantheon Bazaar, William the popular Lowther Bazaar at Strand were Walker, sold his interest in the enterprise for £ , managed along conventional lines. The Lowther in , and sought to replicate his success with a Bazaar, however, assumed many characteristics of a new venture, the Langham Bazaar on Langham bazaar. The shop was originally described as a Place, in . The site had been occupied from ‘public lounge and fancy repository’, but was by the riding house and stables of the st Troop of dubbed ‘bazaar’ from . The building may have Grenadier Guards. The riding house was extended resembled true bazaars: it was reconstructed ‘on an in the s; it was Stacey’s Repository in the s,
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Fig. . London Crystal Palace Bazaar, Oxford Street, (from Illustrated London News , November , ).
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Hall’s Riding School in , and Marks & Son’s The Crystal Palace itself had a strong influence London Carriage Repository thereafter. Although on the design of its namesake, the London Crystal the carriage repository had been rebuilt in , Palace Bazaar (Fig. ), which was located in the Walker employed the architect Mr Beasley (perhaps north-east quadrant of Oxford Circus. This bazaar the theatre architect Samuel Beazley) and the builder was built in to a design by Owen Jones, who Mr Woods to convert it into a bazaar, which opened had been responsible for the interior decoration of in July . Business failed to thrive and by June the great exhibition building. Occupying the site of a Walker was insolvent. Under a new former stable yard, the London Crystal Palace Bazaar proprietor, the bazaar was renamed the Portland had an L-shaped plan, with entrances on Oxford Bazaar. This establishment specialised in ‘the Street and John Street. It was covered by a barrel greatest variety of toys in the metropolis, besides vault filled with coloured glass; additional light was the usual miscellaneous articles for which such provided by star-shaped gas pendants. As well as the establishments are so well known’, and by the late usual conservatory, aquarium and aviary, it s a large part of the building was occupied by accommodated the studios of the photographer Green & Co’s furniture galleries and showrooms. M. Laroche, and had a ladies’ refreshment room and In it changed hands again, becoming the lavatories. The importance of department-store German Bazaar, though continuing to specialise in restaurants in providing public meeting places for toys. No interior views have come to light, but women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth descriptions make it clear that the building was centuries has been recognised by many historians, constructed of cast iron, with galleries that were but it is seldom acknowledged that bazaars had particularly spacious and well lit. Claims that the blazed the trail. The London Crystal Palace Bazaar structure was fireproof, however, were disproved in was taken over by Peter Robinson’s drapery August when a destructive fire bent the girders emporium in the s; it was integrated with the and distorted the columns. The Queen’s Hall, store in , and rebuilt about . Today, the site built on the site in –, was destroyed by an is occupied by Top Shop. incendiary bomb in , and later rebuilt as the Bazaars founded in the s and s boasted St George’s Hotel. customer facilities of a standard usually attributed to The Langham was not the only bazaar to open in later department stores. The grandest but most the year of the Great Exhibition, no doubt taking short-lived of these was the Corinthian Bazaar advantage of the influx of visitors to London. The (Fig. ), built in to a design by Owen Lewis, on Prince of Wales Bazaar opened in March in the the site of Argyll House, off Oxford Street. The exhibition rooms of the Cosmorama at – Pantheon Bazaar had just closed and its traders Regent Street. Intriguingly, advertisements claimed moved here. The Corinthian Bazaar comprised a that it was ‘fitted up in a style of decoration never lofty single-storey hall, rather like a market hall. before attempted in this or any other country’. Descriptions are difficult to understand: the The proprietor of the Prince of Wales Bazaar individual stalls were ‘arranged as pyramids’, giving appears to have shared Walker’s fate, becoming visitors a ‘bird’s-eye view’ of the whole bankrupt in . The Islington Bazaar, described as establishment. The effect was enhanced by tall an ‘elegant and extensive building’, opened in mirrors against the walls. Advertisements drew August . It appears to have done rather better attention to the comfortable free seats scattered than its two contemporaries, continuing to trade until throughout the building, the cloakrooms, the at least . lavatories, and the refreshment counter where ladies
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Fig. . Corinthian Bazaar, Argyll Street façade in (from The Lady’s Own Paper , August ). British Library .
could partake of lunch or ‘effervescing’ drinks. agreeable resting place’ for visitors to the city, the Despite such services the bazaar failed in summer bazaar boasted a refreshment saloon run by Hill & , and two years later the building was fitted up Son, cooks and confectioners to Her Majesty, as a circus. Its cement-rendered Corinthian façade ‘Faulkner’s Lavatories’ and ladies’ cloakrooms. now fronts the London Palladium, which was built It cannot have succeeded: the premises were sold off in . in , and the site redeveloped after the Second One of the last bazaars, St Paul’s Bazaar, situated World War. between St Paul’s Churchyard and Paternoster Row, The St Paul’s Bazaar was probably the last true opened in October and had a very brief bazaar to open in London. In the late Victorian and existence. Like the Corinthian Bazaar, this Edwardian eras, arcades experienced something of a establishment attempted to sell itself by stressing its revival, but the age of the bazaar was over. By amenities. Described as ‘a most convenient and most of London’s bazaar buildings had been
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XV BAZAARS AND BAZAAR BUILDINGS demolished or converted to new uses, with their not surprising, as such buildings occupied some of great central halls floored over. Before long bazaars the largest and most affordable sites in London’s were forgotten by retailers, architects and the public central districts, expanding behind expensive street alike. Even the word ‘bazaar’ changed meaning, frontages and proving eminently suitable for being applied indiscriminately to a wide variety of redevelopment as bazaars. Despite this obvious different – usually lower-class – retail formulas. explanation, it is worth considering whether such an inheritance affected bazaar architecture. Riding houses, in particular, may have suggested the form later assumed by bazaars. These were single-storey AN ANALYSIS OF BAZAAR halls covered by particularly wide trussed roofs, and ARCHITECTURE they often included a spectators’ gallery and Any assessment of nineteenth-century bazaar skylights. This form was later adopted for auction buildings is hampered by the absence of surviving rooms in horse and carriage repositories, where structures, and the paucity of interior views and galleries sometimes doubled as carriage showrooms. descriptions. Nevertheless, the information which The auction rooms at the Horse Bazaar at Baker we possess makes it clear that bazaars pioneered and Street and Aldridge’s on St Martin’s Lane had developed the spacious, top-lit, galleried interior as rooflights and galleries, and it is probable that these an effective form of retail architecture, and this at a features were widely adopted for this class of time when the most prestigious drapery emporia building. Leader’s carriage depository in White Hart simply comprised suites of small rooms. The first Yard off Oxford Street included a gallery that may known example of this new retail architecture was have influenced the form of its successor, the Royal the Western Exchange of , followed by the first Bazaar. And in a reversal of the usual developmental Royal Bazaar, the second Royal Bazaar, the pattern, the premises of the Western Exchange Pantheon, the Panklibanon, the Langham Bazaar, the Bazaar were taken over in the later nineteenth London Crystal Palace Bazaar, and possibly others. century by the coachbuilders Morgan & Co., Though most provincial bazaars were makeshift followed by Armstrong Siddeley, providing further affairs, a few similar bazaar buildings were erected evidence that bazaars and carriage repositories had outside London, for example in Norwich and similar architectural requirements. Edinburgh. Although we can speculate about the Parallels can also be drawn between bazaars and impact of French bazars (which seem to post-date exhibition halls. In particular, galleries (albeit the Western Exchange) and cast-iron construction considerably more shallow than those of bazaars) (which was used overtly in bazaars from the s, and rooflights were features of several London but perhaps covertly as early as ), we have museums and exhibition buildings, such as the main disappointingly little evidence which might saloon of the Egyptian Hall ( ) on Piccadilly, the illuminate the processes and influences that led Adelaide Gallery ( ) on the Strand, the bazaar architects and proprietors to develop this Polytechnic Institution ( ) on Regent Street and, type of building. Bazaars do, however, seem to have the ultimate exemplar, the Crystal Palace ( ) in shared ideas with other building types designed Hyde Park. The possibility that bazaar proprietors principally to show and display objects. and architects looked to exhibition buildings for One of the most striking aspects of London ideas is highly likely, considering the style of bazaar bazaars is their association with riding houses and retailing and the association of bazaars with a wide horse and carriage repositories. In many ways this is range of attractions, but direct connections (through,
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XV BAZAARS AND BAZAAR BUILDINGS for example, the employment of the same architects demonstrated, despite obvious and striking parallels or shared business interests) remain elusive. with later department stores. As we have seen, these Finally, it is striking that, despite the widespread parallels include a relaxed, open-plan layout with adoption of the term ‘bazaar’, none of these solid counters rather than stalls; fixed, marked prices establishments is known to have adopted an oriental and a ready-money policy; a great variety of style of architecture or interior decoration. One or merchandise; attractive displays encouraging two prominent shopfronts were designed in a browsing (and, incidentally, shoplifting); refreshment Moorish style in the s and s, but none of rooms and lavatories for customers; impressive, well- these seems to have belonged to a bazaar. The style lit interiors with galleries, and an array of peripheral was later popularised by Liberty, and was widely amusements. All of this made the bazaar, and later adopted, especially for department-store tea rooms, the department store, an attraction in its own right, in the s. encouraging customers to linger, and to regard their visit as an enjoyable outing which may or may not result in a purchase. Gordon Selfridge wanted shoppers to treat his store as a club; bazaar THE IMPACT OF BAZAARS proprietors seem to have had the same idea, almost Approximately bazaars existed in nineteenth- a century earlier. century London, including several which have not Despite their family resemblance, it is clear that been cited in this article because so little is known bazaars had fallen out of fashion by the s, when about them. Temporary charity bazaars, such as the William Whiteley of Bayswater transformed himself bazaar ‘for the benefit of the Spanish refugees’ of into the Universal Provider, James Smith built the (see above) and the Anti-Corn-Law League Bon Marché in Brixton, and the British department Bazaar which was held at Covent Garden Theatre in store was born. Architecturally, none of the first , became increasingly common in the mid- purpose-built department stores modelled nineteenth century. It was with this kind of bazaar themselves on bazaars, instead taking the traditional that the word became most associated from the drapery shop as their starting point. It was only in s, although ‘bazaar’ was also used to describe the late s that large drapery emporia and special displays of cheap gifts sold in large stores in department stores began, at first modestly, to December (‘Christmas bazaar’), and to describe incorporate galleried wells, although some popular small market stalls and shops which sold a outfitters had seized the potential of that architectural miscellany of inexpensive objects (‘penny bazaar’). form as early as the s, followed by furniture In this way, the debasement of the term ‘bazaar’ ran dealers and ironmongers in the s and s. parallel to the decline of the original concept. The latter trend may have been influenced by the Bazaars simply ceased to be fashionable and their galleries of the Baker Street Bazaar, which can be place was soon filled by the new department stores. seen, in this respect, as prototypes. The only Although at least two well-known provincial London bazaar to be used as a department store in bazaars (in Bath and Manchester) metamorphosed later years was the London Crystal Palace Bazaar, into large drapery emporia, and subsequently which became part of Peter Robinson’s in . became department stores, this was not typical, and Its transformation into a department store was, never happened in London. Any direct influence therefore, the result of a straightforward takeover by which bazaars, either individually or as a group, may a neighbouring business, rather than an evolutionary have had on modern retailing cannot easily be process.
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The situation in France was quite different. NOTES There the form of the grand magasin can be traced To date, the most detailed overviews of London back to that of the early nineteenth-century bazar bazaars have been : J. Geist, Arcades: The History of a Building Type , Cambridge, Mass., and London, and magasin des nouveautés . After the demise of the , – ; Stella Margetson, ‘Toys, traitors and bazaar, London had nothing to rival the vast and tablecloths. Shopping bazaars in London’, Country spacious interiors of Parisian stores until Whiteley’s Life November , – and Kathryn A. was built in . The architectural lineage of Morrison, English Shops and Shopping , New Haven Whiteley’s spectacular light wells and glass roofs can and London, , – . Bazaars were also only be tracked back to British bazaars, such as the mentioned in Alison Adburgham, Shops and Shopping, – , London, , – , . Pantheon, via the agency of French and American Studies of some individual bazaars can be found in stores, such as the famous Bon Marché in Paris and the relevant volumes of the Survey of London . Marshall Fields of Chicago. The memory of Nikolaus Pevsner, A History of Building Types , London’s great bazaars may, however, have lingered, London, , . and there may have been a consciousness that this For exchange shopping galleries see Claire Walsh, ‘The Newness of the Department Store: A View was not an entirely foreign style of retail architecture. from the Eighteenth Century’, in Geoffrey Crossik Today only four of London’s nineteenth-century and Serge Jaumain (eds.), Cathedrals of Consumption : bazaar buildings survive – the Soho, the Pantechnicon, the European Department Store, – , the St James’s and the Corinthian – but as shells, Aldershot, , – and Morrison op. cit. , , their interiors having been redeveloped to fit them – . The last exchange shopping gallery, Exeter for other uses. Although the age of the bazaar has left Change on the Strand, closed in . Latterly it had specialised in cutlery. little tangible evidence of its short and colourful Arcades have captured the imagination of cultural heyday on London streets, the study of these analysts and architectural historians alike. See establishments has the potential to inform us about Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project , Cambridge, important social issues, such as the employment of Mass., and London, ; Geist op. cit., ; women and the growth of shopping as a leisure Margaret MacKeith, Shopping Arcades: a Gazetteer of Extant British Arcades, – , London and pursuit, as well as economic concerns, such as the New York, , and Morrison op. cit., , development of a ‘modern’ retail system and the – . emergence of large-scale retail businesses. Allegations that the Soho Bazaar was ‘formed on the Furthermore, the role of bazaars as precursors for model of the Palais Royal’ were refuted in [Rev. the department store, both in terms of their retail Joseph Nightingale, The Bazaar: Its Origin, Nature methodology and their architectural setting, deserves and Objects , London, , (British Library .g. )]. In fact, these establishments had little recognition and further exploration. in common. Robert Southey, Letters from England , London, (first published ), . The use of the term ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ‘bazaar’ at the Soho Bazaar was ‘novel’ according to I would like to thank my former colleague Katherine Nightingale op. cit., , . John Timbs, Curiosities of London , London, , d’Este Hoare for helping me to carry out research on ; Nightingale op. cit., , . bazaars in the course of English Heritage’s Shops For the (ostensibly) female perspective on this issue Project, between and . I am also grateful to see Repository of Arts, Literature, etc ., rd series, Ron Baxter, John Greenacombe and Harriet April , – . Richardson, who kindly read drafts of this article and Counters were rented at d. or d. per foot per day offered many helpful suggestions. at the Soho Bazaar [Nightingale op. cit., , and ]. Counters were still rented at d. per foot in the
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Queen’s Bazaar in [London, Westminster The Mirror of Literature , August , . Archives Centre, Ashbridge Collection, ], but This seems to have been repeated with different cost d. in the St James’s Bazaar in [London, scenery the following year [ Punch , , ; Guildhall Library, A Collection of Prints, etc ., vol. London, City of Westminster Archives Centre, XIII, newspaper cutting]. A mere twelve inches of Ashbridge Collection ]. counter, however, was never sufficient, and most Nightingale op. cit., , – . counter holders paid a couple of shillings a day. For example A Visit to the Bazaar , by the author of Outside London charges varied from d. in Bath to ‘The Little Warbler of the Cottage, etc.’, London, d. in Brighton. , [London, British Library CH. / ]; The Times , March . Similarly, in Thomas Allen, The History and Antiquities of counter holders in the Royal Bazaar lost goods London , In London, , . worth approximately £, in a fire [ The Times , Furthermore, ‘Peregrine Plainway’ claimed that June ]. numerous bazaars had opened in London by Nightingale op. cit., , . August [Repository of Arts, Literature, etc. , rd See caption to fig. . series, August , – ]; in Timbs stated The Mirror of Literature , April , . that bazaars flourished for a short time after the The Times , June . opening of the Soho Bazaar, ‘to the injury of George August Sala, Twice Round the Clock , shopkeepers’ [Timbs op. cit., , ]. London, , . Nightingale op. cit., , . M. L. [Mary Lloyd), Sunny Memories , privately The Times , April . printed, London, , – . Republished as The Times , June , January . ‘A Memoir of J.M.W. Turner, R.A. by M. L.’, in The Times , May , January . Turner Studies , no. , , . Survey of London, Parish of St Anne Soho , XXXIV According to Knight’s London , , , the London , . pictures displayed in the Pantheon were ‘of rather Illustrated London News , March , and moderate merit’. A rather dismissive article in Jan , . Punch , , stated: ‘an ancient attendant The Times , April . perfectly recollects the sale of one of these pictures Punch , , . some years back’. See also Sala op. cit., , . Peter Jackson, John Tallis’s London Street Views Nightingale op. cit., , . – , London, , . A fire in appears to Ibid. , , . have destroyed the rear range, but left the façade The Times , May . unharmed. The Times , Sept . The Times , April , May , June , Nightingale op. cit., , . Oct and Feb . Henry Mayhew (ed.), London Labour and the London The Times , March , March . Poor , London, (first published ), . London, Guildhall Library, A Collection of Prints, Sala op. cit., , – . etc . vol. XIII,. This fire spread into the Burlington Nightingale op. cit., , – . Arcade, through the pastry cook’s shop. It took six The Times , Nov , Dec and Dec months to repair the building. . The Times , and August . For a description and account of panoramas, Post Office Directory , . dioramas and cosmoramas, etc., see: Richard Altick, Country Life , Feb , . The Shows of London , Cambridge, Mass., and Nightingale op. cit., , ; The Times , May London, and Ralph Hyde, Panoramania! The . Opposition to bazaars continued sporadically Art and Entertainment of the ‘All-Embracing’ View , for decades. It can be detected, for example, in the Exhibition Catalogue, Barbican Art Gallery, tone of articles published in Punch in the s. London, . For example, George Cruikshank, A Bazaar , June Altick op. cit., , , , . ;Thomas Tegg (pub.), Genius, or Bazaar Timbs op. cit., , . Arrived at London , May ; J. Sidebotham The Times , December . (pub.), A London Bazaar .
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Humphrey Hedgehogg (pseud. for John Agg), The the hands of Bell, Massey & Co. [Post Office London Bazaar, or, Where to Get Cheap Things. Directories, – ]. A Humorous Pindaric Poem , London, William Boulnois was the proprietor of the [London, British Library C. .d. ( )]. Pantheon Bazaar by and must have been one of A Visit to the Bazaar cit . the most successful bazaar entrepreneurs of the age Bernard Marrey, Les grands magasins des origines à [The Times , Feb ]. , Paris, , . Morrison op. cit., , – . The Times , March ; November . See The Times , March ; Thomas H. Shepherd also Ralph Hyde and Pieter Van Der Merwe ‘The and James Elmes, Metropolitan Improvements , Queen’s Bazaar’, Theatrephile , , . London, – , – . Various views of the The Mirror of Literature , March , . exterior may be seen in the Noble Collection, London, Westminster Archives Centre, Ashbridge Guildhall Library, London. Collection . Shepherd and Elmes op. cit., – , . The Mirror of Literature , April , . Bell’s Weekly Messenger , No. , May ; The Times , April . The Times , Jan . Jackson op. cit., , (Tallis, – ). London, Guildhall Library, Noble Collection, The Mirror of Literature , April , . cutting B.H /GRA/roa, Sept . See also London, Guildhall Library, A Collection of Prints, The Times , Dec and Dec . etc ., XIII, Sales Particulars, March . Guildhall Library, Noble Collection, cutting Timbs op. cit., , . Hamlet was declared B.H /GRA/roa, . bankrupt in March . Mechanics Magazine , August , . London, London Metropolitan Archives, Christopher Hussey, ‘Future of the Pantechnicon’, GLC/AR/BR/ / . Country Life , March , – , with Several such sites were built in the late eighteenth photographs of the interior. century. [Giles Worsley ‘A History and Catalogue of London, Guildhall Library A Collection of Prints, the British Riding House’, Transactions of the etc ., vol. XIII, [newspaper cutting]. Ancient Monuments Society , XLVII, , – ]. Robson’s Directory , . Ibid. , Worsley , , stated that riding houses The Times , December . never had two storeys, so this building may have Timbs op. cit., , . been quite unusual. Alternatively, the floor could Punch , , . have been inserted. The Times , March , May and June Hermione Hobhouse, Lost London , London and . Basingstoke, , – . Charles Knight (ed.), London V , London, , . The Times , Nov , Jan . Worsley, op. cit., , and fig. . Thomas Smith, A Topographical and Historical Horwood’s map of London, – ; Worsley, op. Account of the Parish of St Marylebone , London, cit., , ; Jackson op. cit., , (Tallis , . – ) The Times , January . The Times , June . The Horse Bazaar was purchased in by The Times , Nov and Dec . Matthew C. Allen, following the bankrupcy of the The Times , August , November and original owner, John Maberly MP. In Allen April . acquired Aldridge’s Repository, and from January The Times , September . concentrated all horse sales there [ The Times , The Times , Aug and January . January ], although sales of carriages and The Times , Aug and May . saddlery continued at Baker Street until at least Bradshaw’s Guide Through London , n.d. (circa when the owner, the MP Edmund Boulnois, ). By this time the Pantheon also included a died. photographic department [Sala op. cit., , ]. The Builder , June , . The first proprietor This became the London School of Photography, of the Panklibanon, which opened in , was which relocated to the Soho Bazaar upon the Fallows, Thorpe & Co, but in – it passed into closure of the Pantheon.
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XV BAZAARS AND BAZAAR BUILDINGS
Survey of London, The Parish of St James, Piccadilly , Part II North of Piccadilly, XXXI, , – ; London, Westminster Archives Centre, Box , No c, Corinthian Bazaar, illustrated advertisement. The Times , July ; The Lady’s Own Paper , Aug , . The Times , Oct . The Times , January . The Times , November . Morrison op. cit. , , – ; The Times , October . Worsley op. cit. , . Morrison op. cit. , , – . By some definitions Peter Robinson’s would be classified as a large drapery establishment, rather than a department store.
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XV Detail from Queen’s Bazaar, Oxford Street. Aquatint by Benjamin Read, . Guildhall Library . The Georgian Group Journal VOLUME XV
The Georgian Group Journal publishes new historical research on British architecture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and on related aspects of material culture in the same period.
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Right: Storrs Temple. Detail showing doorway, tablets and added timber parapet. © Crown copyright. NMR. Endpapers: Left: Stained glass at Storrs Hall, with the arms of John Bolton ( – ). © Crown copyright. NMR. Right: Stained glass at Storrs Hall, with the arms of Elizabeth Bolton, née Littledale ( – ). © Crown copyright. NMR.