istory•

,, VOLUME ONE In this issue - Pepys and Hackney: how Samuel and Elisabeth Pepys visited Hackney for rest and recreation - two ( or one and the same?) Homerton gardens visited by Pepys and Evelyn - The Tyssen family, Lords of the manor in Hackney since the 17th century-how Victorian nonconformists went shop­ ping for 'off the peg' church architecture- silk manufactur­ ers, the mentally afflicted, and Victorian orphans at Hackney Wick-the post-war development ofhigh-rise housing across the borough ...

Hackney History is the new annual volume ofthe Friends of Hackney 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, and are invited to participate in visits, walks and an annual lecture. Hackney History is issued free ofcharge to subscribers to the Friends. In 1995 membership is£6 for the calendar year. For further details, please telephone O171 241 2886.

ISSN 1360 3795

£3.00 'r.,,. free to subscribers HACKNEY History

volume one

About this publication 2

Abbreviations used 2

Pepys and Hackney Richard Luckett 3

The Mystery of Two Hackney Gardens Mike Gray 10

The Tyssens: Lords of Hackney Tim Baker 15

Unitarian Gothic: Rebuilding in Hackney in 1858 Alan Ruston 20

A House at Hackney Wick Isobel Watson 25

The Rise of the High-Rise: Housing in Post-War Hackney Peter Foynes 29

Contributors to this issue 36

Acknowledgements 36

THE FRIENDS OF HACKNEY ARCHIVES 1995 About this publication

Hackney History is published by the Friends of Hackney Archives. This is the first in what is intended to be an annual series dedicated topublishingoriginal research into the history of the area comprised in the London borough of Hackney (the former metropolitan boroughs of Hackney, Stoke Newington and Shoreditch). PEPYS AND HACKNEY The Friends of Hackney Archives were formed in 1985 to act as a focus for local history and to support the work of Hackney Borough Counci I's Archives Department. Member­ ship is open to all.

Members receive the Archives Department's newsletter, The Hackney Terrier, three times a year, and Hackney History annually. In 1995 the subscription is £6 for the calendar year (£12 for mailing to an overseas address). Richard Luckett

Enquiries and correspondence should be addressed to the Friends of Hackney Archives, c/ o Hackney Archives Department, 43 de Beauvoir Road, London NI 5SQ; telephone (01 71) 241 2883, fax (0171) 241 6688. Contributions to Hackney History are welcome; prospective contributors are invi ted to get in touch with the editor before putting text into final form. Jf A childhood acquaintance somewhere - Ashstead in Surrey, Horseferry near Deptford - and suddenly, with him, we Edited by Isobel Watson 25th April 1664 ... the young ladies going out see the boy that he knew but whom, however to visit, I took my wife by coach out through the Cover design by John Finn, Artworkers, ECl intimately we know the man, we can never City, discoursing how to spend the afternoon -and Printed by Sackville Printers, Heddon St WI know In this instance we get the merest conquered, with much ado, a desire of going to a glimpse. Hackney was one of a group of three play. But took her out at White-chapel and to Bednell-green; so to Hackny, where I have not roughly contiguous places, along with been many a year, since a litt le child I boarded Kingsland, where he remembered playing'rov­ ISSN 1360 3795 there. Thence to Kingsland by my nurse's house, ers' with bows and arrows in the fields, and © Friends of Hackney Archives and contributors, 1995 Goody Lawrence, where my brother Tom and I Newington Green, where his aunt Ellen Kite were kept when young. Then to Newington-green was in service with Mrs Herbert at the big and saw the outside of Mrs Herbert's house where house, to which he had at various times been she lived, and my aunt Ell en with her. But Lord, sent for the sake of his health. As a child this how in every point I find myself to over-value was poor; he suffered from an uncomfortable things when a child. Thence to Islington, and so to St John's to the Red bull and there saw the latter prickly rash in summer and from distressing part of a rude Prize fight - but with good pleasure symptoms- a swollen nose and suppression of ABBREVIATIONS enough. urine - of what would later emerge as a serious kidney stone disorder, in winter. He came The foll owing abbrev iations are used in the Notes - It is a striking thought that if, on th e 1st from a weakly family· of his eleven brothers February 1664, Samuel Pepys had not made a and sisters only three, besides himself, sur­ HAD Hackney Archives Department vow that he would refrain from going to the vived into adulthood. At the age of seven he theatre more than once a month, he might was the old est. It was natural for his father, a GHMS Guildhall Lib rary (Manuscripts section) never have renewed his childhood acquaint­ tailor in Salisbury Court off Fleet Street, to look ance with Hackney, a renewal from which was eastward to Hackney, notable fo r good soil GLRO Greater London Record Office to blossom an intimate friendship (but that and good air (there were famous girls' schools can't be quite th e right word, and I'm not sure there) as a place to board a sickly child. PRO Public Record Office. the English language has one. A neighbourli­ ness?). 11th June 1664 ... after dinner by coach with my All publications cited are published in London unless But first of all that childhood acquaint­ wife, only to take the ayre, it being very warm and otherwise indicated. ance. One of the fascinations and fru strations pleasant, to Bowe and old Ford and thence to Hackny; there light and played at shuffle board, eat of the diary is Pepys' s rediscovery, from time cream and good cherries; and so with good re­ to time, of an earlier self, a rediscovery that is freshment home. almost invariably prompted by place: he visits

This paper was given as the annual Sutton House lecture in November 1994.

3 HACKNEY History Pepys and Hackney

11th July 1664 [with his boy Will Hewer] .. to see which the outcome would depend, to sea. So gardens were a feature of Hackney; glad of, wishing the like at our church at London, the [Barnet] Wells ... and there I drunk three glasses What had originally been almost a whim, a they were not specifically why Pepys ' loved' and would give £50 towards it. So, very pleasant and went and walked, and came back and drunk decision to keep his vow about playhouses, the place; indeed, he is apparently going into a and hugging of Mercer in our going home, we two more. The woman would have had me drink perhaps allied to the reflection that the eight Hackney garden for the first time. But they home. three more; but I could not, my belly being full-but shillings he would thereby save (two seats in a must have been an essential part of the feel of this wrought very well; and so we rode home by box) would give him the fi ve shillings he would the village even if you never went inside one; Pepys's own church, St Olave's Hart Kingsland, Hackny and Mi le end, till we were spend on coach-hire and something over, has and they were a part of its fame. Street, had had its organ destroyed or removed quite weary - and my water working at least seven directed him to a discovery, small enough in Other eyes, but eyes well-known to Pepys, in 1644, and would not get another for a hun­ or eight time upon the roa d, which pleased me dred and fifty years, Pepys's intentions not­ well. And so home weary ... ' its way, but one that signified in his pattern of had seen and reported on the Brookes' twelve li fe; which is what we learn from - years earlier - withstanding. St Augustine' s, Hackney, which must also have lost its organ, if it had one, in I think you can see, as Pepys returns twice 11th May 1666. After dinner to the setting some 8th May 1654. I went to Hackny to see my Lady the Civil War, in 1664 acquired an instrument within two and a half months, the old associa­ by 'Dallams and Schmidt' 3 'Schmidt' was tions of salubriousness at work; you can also things in order in my dining-room; and by and by Brooks Ga rdens, w hich was one of the neatest, & comes my wife home, and Mrs Pierce with her, so presumably 'Father' Smith, a builder who had detect what I can only describe as the origins, most celebrated in England: The House al o well I lost most of this afternoon with them; and in the furnish'd, but a despicable building; returning come to England from the Netherlands at the for Pepys, of the Hackney habit. This becomes evening abroad with them, our long tour by coach visited one Mr Tombs's Garden, it has large noble Restoration, 'Dallams' one of the Dallam fam­ clearer on 5th April 1665. Pepys has been to to Hackney, so to Kingsland, and then to Islington, Walks, some modern statues; but what was pretti­ ily, who during the Civil War had gone to Woolwich and Deptfo rd, where he - there entertaining them by candle-light very well. est was the Vine-yard planted in Strawberry-bor­ work in Brittany, returning in 1660. If this ders, staked at 10 foote distance : Also the Ba nquet­ really was a collaboration, rather than work by Did a very great deal of business. And then home, 'Our long tour' ing house of Cedar, where the Couch seates were and there by pro mi se find Creed, and he and my So now it has become what it remains carv'd a !'antique. 2 the two different makers on the same instru­ wife, Mercer and I, buy coach to take the ayre; and until the diary closes, 'our long tour', 'our ment butatdifferenttimes, it would beof great historical interest: but we shall never know where we have fo rmerly bee n, at Hackny, did Tour' In that year, 1666, Pepys and lisabeth (A banquet, I should say, in 17th century I because the instrument was removed and re- there eat so me pullets we carried with us and some and friends, Elisabeth usually taking'her maid, English, was a collation of fruit and wine. We other things of the house; and after a game or two should call this house a summer-house.) placed early in the 19th century at shuffleboard home ... and to sleep- being the first went six times. Why? Partly of course because a walk or a drive which one invents and re­ St Augustine's must have been a rich time I have been so much at my ease and taken so parish, or have had rich patrons, to acquire an much fresh ayre these many weeks or months. peats is a marvellous shared possession, That was John Evelyn, of whom Pepys at unencumbered by the usual problems of pos­ this time was seeing a good deal, since Evelyn organ so soon after the Restoration. That this was so is confirmed by Pepys on his next visit, There you have the voice of the Clerk of sessions, something intimate and private and was a commissioner for the sick and wounded two and a half weeks later, and, of course, on the Acts to the Navy Board, a month after war wholly individual. But there were other things, in the Navy The friendship they forged was to had been declared on the Dutch; he had been as we find on the 25th June, when Margaret last all their lives, deepening as they grew involved in Herculean labours to get a fleet, on Penn, daughter of Pepys's colleague Sir older; but they probably never knew about William, and 'as ugly as heart could wish' each other's diaries. They unwittingly agreed Pepys thought (but it didn't stop him caressing about the Brookes' House, which stood on the her), in her father's coach - west side of Upper Clapton Road, between Brooke and Kenninghall Roads. It survived, carried us to two gardens at Hackeny (which I altered, until 1952, when there was still a bit of every day grow more and more in love with) - Mr garden with ancient mulberry trees - a very Drakes one, where the garden is good, and house Restoration taste, because bound up with the and the prospect admirable - the other, my Lord attempt to introduce a silk industry, as well as Brookes's, where the gardens are much better, but being a favourite colour. What Evelyn noted, the house not so good, nor the prospect good at all and Pepys would never have done - the dis­ - but the gardens are excellent; and here I first saw tance between the vines - reminds us that oranges grow, some green, some half, some a quarter, and some full ripe on the same tree ... I Evelyn was th e author, amongst so many in­ pulled off a little one by stealth (the man being fluential books about a civilised existence, of mighty curious of them) and ea t it; and it was just the Calendarium Hortense, whilst Pepys re­ as other green small oranges are; as big as half the mained, in matters pertaining to gardens, irre­ end of my little finger. Here were also great variety mediably urban. But there were things that of other exoticque plants, and several Labarinths Pepys would notice and Evelyn not. and a pretty Aviary. Having done there with very great pleasure, we away back again, and called at Church and schools the Taverne in Hackny by the church and there drank and eat'; and so in the cool of the evening, 4th April 1667 Maundy Thursday ... took up Mrs home - this being the first day of my putting on my Anne Jones at her mother's door; and so to take the black stuff Bombazin suit, and I hope to feel no ayre to Hackny, where good neat's tongue and inconvenience by it, the weather being extremely things toeatand drink, and very merry, the weather hot. being mighty pleasant; and here I was told that at their church they have a fair pair of Organs, which Samuel Pepys, by John Hayls plays while the people sing; which I am mighty Elisabeth Pepys, from a portrait by Hayls

4 5 HACKNEY History Pepys and Hackne-y

was asked to give this talk, that Pepys' s acqui­ the 'Lordsday', 21st April 1667, when he also girls, and was such a prodigy that she learned her. She is pretty, and a girl for that, and her investigated another thing which was more accounting. John Batchiler's summary of relation, which I love. sition of a coach was intimately bound up with his interest that Evelyn's. Pepys and Elisabeth Susanna's life, to which we owe our knowl­ his visits to Hackney The first mention of the had dinner with Mercer - edge of her mother's academy, is professedly It is clear that Pepys envisaged that Betty project occurs on 21st April 1667, the day of the an exemplary work, but there is no doubt that could be taken in as part of the 'Tour', and visi t to Hackney church. That morning he had ... with design to go to Hackney to church in the in its essentials his description is correct.5 An­ equally clear that he felt that a Hackney school got John, a hackney coachman - more about afternoon ... then took coach to Hackney church, other celebrated Hackney establishment was was a suitable place for a girl whom he liked this in a moment-who had previously worked where very full; and fo und much difficully to get that of Mrs Salmon, whom John Aubrey de­ and to whose parents he was attached. for Sir William Penn and who indeed might pews, I offering the sexton money and he could not scribed as 'a famous schoolmistris, Presbyte­ have driven Margaret Penn and the Pepyses to help me - so my wife and Mercer ventured into a rian', and it was there that, between 1640 and pew, and I into another. A knight and his lady very 'Abroad with our coach' Hackney the previous June, to look at a plot of ci vil to me when they came, and the like to my wife 1647, Katherine Philips, 'the most applauded In the meantime the tour itself acquired a land near Pepys's house at the Navy Office, in hers, being Sir George Viner's; and his lady ric h Poetess of our Nation', was educated. new dimension - and advise as to whether it would do for a in Jewells, but most in beauty; almost the fi nest The number of such schools for girls coach-house, 'for I have had it much in my woman that l ever saw That which we went chiefly around London is often forgotten. Pepys tells 7th May 1669. Thence with my wife abroad with thoughts lately that it is not too much for me to see was the young ladies of the schools, whereof us in passing of instances at Hackney and our coach, most pleasant weather, and to Hackny now, in degree or cost, to keep a coach; but there is great store, very pretty; and also the orga n, Putney, and there were others at Tottenham, and into the marshes, where I never was before, contrarily, that I am almost ashamed to be seen which is handsome and tunes the psalms and Bow, Clerkenwell (to which Margaret Penn and thence round about to Old ford and Bow. in a hackney' (It has been hotly contended plays with the people; which is mighty pretty and went), and at Chelsea, which in some ways whether 'hackney' in the sense ofa hired horse makes me mighty earnest to have a pai r at our was to the City of Westminster what Hackney I should underline the opening of that or coach has anything to do with Hackney the church, I having almost a mind to give them a pair entry· 'Thence with my wife abroad with our place. A respectable body of opinion believes if they would settle a maintenance on them fo r it - was to London: a village conveniently reached by coach, distinguished by large but not grand coach' Pepys had acquired a coach, so it is ' our that it does - see the Concise Oxford Dictionary; I am mightily taken with them. So church done, we Tour' in 'our coach', with the additional free­ to coach and away to Kingsland and Islington and houses often owned by gentlemen with mer­ and suggests that the place provides the origi­ there eat and drank at the old house [the King's cantile connections (Sir George Vinefti n Hack­ dom that possession of a private vehicle con­ nal of the word: but the whole business is as Head]. ney church would be a case in point. a baronet ferred. Hence the detour of exploration to speculative as to argue whether there was from a goldsmith's family) and having large Hackney Marshes. some sub-conscious association in Pepys's Young ladies of the schools gardens. Here plants could be grown that It is a common experience for readers of mind.) It had been such an outing that Pepys, on would not survive on city soil or under the Pepys to return to what they had imagined Five days later: 'My mind is mightily of his return, made a vow of diligence. But it pall, which John Evelyn so detested, of city familiar, and then notice something, find it late upon a coach' But Pepys decided to put off should not be assumed that there was any smoke, close to meadows where good pastur­ staring them in the face in fact, that they had the matter until the next year, though deter­ particular self-indulgence in going to quiz the age gave good clean milk, and hence ideal for never seen before. I had not realised, until I mining to act then. schoolgirls, even if Pepys, with characteristic girls' schools. thoroughness, went next Sunday by water' as We should not dismiss what these schools high as Bame Elmes; and there took one tum could accomplish. Josiah Priest's, at Chelsea, ~ .2 ---~-- ; --· j '.,.••,· :: ,•',',•,•• •·\;,, ' ' .',,'/ ' I .'·• .,,. •, ,, ~ tQOt N)c alone and then back to Putny church, where I put on John Blow's Venus and Adonis and what -,~•_,,11 ._, -L!J,._.,•.,or:,,. . saw the girls of the schools, few of which was probably the premiere of Purcell's Dido pretty' In 1693 F. Colsoni, an Italian teacher of and Aeneas.6 But it was Hackney that was the :.:~;_,_ ~~ :g,• :-~~ '&;;Y:111- -;:i '?\:::•Wt::\{ /;'FXX~\\'./> ::" - ~ -- -...; ~ - ~ "'--"--=-=:~ ,,,;•,r~ ·I , , .I,,, ,. ., .. , ,,. , , , ' , , • :. •. ', ' , •·•, , . ,, . , • ·• English, French and Italian who also kept a place par excellence for this kind of establish­ 1 chocolate house and had 'two Good Billiard ment, where the daughters of country gentle­ Tables', published, in French, a succinct Guide men and city merchants who desired them to de Landres, addressed to 'noble and worthy be finished, if not educated, but could not travellers' Hackney is commended as one of afford domestic tutors or felt them undesir­ the 'beaux villages' around; and' A Hackney', able, could, for something like twenty pounds we are told, 'Les bonnesecolessont fo umiesde ·:,'.,: a year, be boarded and taught. There were ' ,' . quantite de pensionnairs, qu' on exerce ' .. ' plenty of jokes about them, and even a whole .·::, .. ' noblement', and adds encouragingly 'II n'y a play, Love for Money, or the Boarding School, ,__, que trois milles de Londres' 4 That's all. The Thomas d'Urfey's revenge after he had quar­ schools were the thing to see, the particular rell ed with Priest. In 1669 Pepys's friends and attraction of Hackney distant relatives, John and Jane Turner, moved In 1661 an Englishman with more serious from London to Yorkshire, since John, a law­ intentions than Colsoni had been using the yer, was Recorder of York. Pepys took a char­ wonder of foreign visitors as proof of the im­ acteristic interest in their children, particularly portance of Mrs Perwich's school for young as the Turners were neighbours of his parents ladies at Hackney In seventeen years eight in Salisbury Court. The youngest was a girl, hundred girls passed through. Subjects taught Betty - were scripture-reading, cookin g, housewifery, dancing and music: in these last two there 7th Apri l 1669. This day I do hear that Betty Turner were sixteen tutors. Mrs Perwich's daughter, is to be left at school at Hackny; which I am might­ Susanna, led a consort chosen from among the ily pleased with, fo r then I shall now and then see

6 7 HACKNEY History Pepys and Hackney

Even so, it was not until 31stJuly 1668that which much amused him - about one of the Hackney 'tour' (the occasion of Barnet Wells he and Elisabeth being' mightily taken' with a most notable of them, he was unaware of the and the diuretic waters), now a man of emi­ Notes little chariot that they saw in the street, were connection. What he heard was that the Dean nence, wealth and taste and Pepys' s very cl ose All quotations from Pepys are from Robert Latham and 'resolved to have ours like it' Then they make of Lichfield, having been publicly excommu­ fri end, had acquired a house there- the house, William Matthews (ed.) The DinnJ of Samuel Pepijs, XI the 'Tour' on 3rd August, and on Sunday the nicated by his bishop in the course of a service, in fact, where Pepys died. So I think it is vols, 1970-83. 9th, once more: 'after dinner, I took wife and had carried on taking part in it as though this legitimate to wonder, given what we know of 1. I take this tavern to be the (Old) Mermaid. Deb round by Hackny up and down to take the dire event had not occurred.7 The Dean was his feeling for the place, wheth er, had Hewer 2. E. S. de Beer (ed .) The DianJ of John Evelyn, VI vols., ayre' But still Pepys fails to match thought Thomas Wood, and despite this fracas he was not been established at Clapham, Pepys might, Lo ndon 1955, III, 96. with deed, and it was not until 20th October made Bishop in 1670. Wood frequently found as a place for retirement, have chosen Hack­ 3. J. H . Sperling MSS, Roya l Coll ege of Organists, II, 18. ney? 4. W H. Godfrey (ed.) Le Guide de Landres (1693) by F that he finally bought one, for £50, which himself at variance with life. He courted his Colsoni, Ca mbridge 1951, 19. proved not to serve at all. Nevertheless, by the wife for thirty years; having at last achieved But I want to conclude w ith th e diary fo r 5. Jo hn Ba tchiler, The Viigin's Pa ttern, London 1661, 1-2. end of November a custom-built vehicle was his goal he threatened to' lie alone because she th e way it closes. On 31 st May 1669 Pepys 6. R. Luckett, 'A New Source fo r Venus and Adonis', The in the coach-house, even the coachman's liv­ puts her arms out of bed, & lets the cold into it' wrote the very affecting final entry, w hich Musical Times, February 1980, 76-9. ery had arrived, and Pepys's friend Sir William He was a native of Hackney, which he pre­ begins - 7 The Diary of S 11 111 uel Pepys, LX, 45. Thomas Wood was the Warren, a contractor for naval supplies 'tells ferred to Lichfield, and at his house in Hack­ benefactor of Bishop Wood's almshouses at Clapton me, as soon as he saw my coach yesterday, he ney he spent most of his time sawing logs, And thus ends all that I doubt I shall ever be able Pond. wished that the owner might not contract envy since this saved money When Archbishop lo do with my own eyes in the keeping of my by it' Pepys replied that 'after imployments Sancroft ordered him, in July 1681, to visit his journall, I being not able to do it any longer, having done now so long as to undo my eyes almost every like mine for eight years, it were hard ifI could neglected diocese, he said he would go 'when time that I take a pen in my hand ... not be justly thought to be able to [keep a the weather was somewhat cooler' Conse­ · coach]' What Warren feared, I regret to say, quently the Archbishop suspended him, so The recent weeks have been dark not only was that people might think that Pepys' s afflu­ Wood was able to reside and saw logs undis­ in the obvious sense, but because of Elisabeth's ence stemmed from contracts in which they turbed in his favourite spot until hi eath in discovery of Pepys's amours (his word) with were mutually involved. In part, it did. 1693. Deb Willet, her fury and misery, his guilt, and But that takes us away from Hackney, to When Pepys himself was old he chose to also his sense of loss. But just eight days before which I must now retu rn. I hope that I have live for the summer months in a place of big his record ends we have this entry· shown it to have played an important part in houses and gardens, though they were new his life: but fo r him it is purely a place of houses where those of Hackney were old. This 23rd May, Lords Day .. . In the afternoon, carried recreation. He does not seem to have known place was Clapham. He did so because Will [Roger Pepys and his son] to Westminster and any residents, and when he heard a story - Hewer, once his 'boy' and companion on the myself to St James; where not finding the Duke of York, back home and with my wife spent the evening taking the ayre about Hackny with great pleasure, and places we had never seen before. ~ :;,_ ~ -~--:i,c:;;;·-=~-~~~=-,__. -~ ~~~- - ~ -=--= ~ :~-~~<~~~~~_:¥~.'.°~~~;_ ~-;~

Brooke House from the south-east: a view of 1750, by Chatelain, which would have been recognisable to Pepys

8 9 Two Hackney Gardens

make'himself away', in July 1655, just a month the Crown after his suicide, and many people or so after Evelyn' s visit to his house?4 petitioned the King fo r what they felt was due The impli cations of Evelyn's diary are to them. A good exam ple of this is to be fou nd that Tombes was a wealthy and educated man in a 19th century copy of a Public Record Office with a good collection of paintings, a well-laid document in the Tyssen collection: out garden and a banqueting house (in those days, the equivalent ofa summer house) where The humble petition of Elizabeth Dowager guests would gather to eat sweetmeats after Countesse of Arrundell and Surrey. .. William THE MYSTERY OF dinner. We also know from a document in the Tombes of Hackney in the County of Midd. Esq. Hackney Archives5 that he was from 1649 to dyed deodant and felon whereby his whole estate 1654 the owner of the ancient Temple Mills on became confiscate to your M'yte [Majesty] and a TWO HACKNEY GARDENS part thereof doth sti ll remaine in the hands of Hackney marshes. In 1649 a John Trafford diverse persons unaccompted for .. . Shee most hum­ bly prayeth your Ma'tie will be graciously pleased did demise grant barga ine and sell unto William to grant unto her the remayning part of the Estate Toomes of London Esq ... all those two watermills of the said W Tombes ... whereby shee might re­ called Rockholt Mills ['Temple Mills' is added over lieve herselfe of those incumbrances that the Mike Gray in the original] being under one roofe in the par­ malignity of these times has brought upon her. 8 ishes of Leyton and Hackney upon a river called the Sheare. Other references in the State papers9 link Tombes with a certain Sir Paul Pindar. It is It is possible, therefore, that the garden Pindar's entry in the Dictionary of National was out at what is now called Temple Mills Biography which succinctly explains the cir­ Mr Tombes's garden Lane, where the M11 link road, against much cumstances of Tombes' s drastic action. J' opposition, is being built today However, a In the year of the Great Fire of London, large & noble walks, some modern statues, but Sir Paul Pindar was a wealthy city mer­ manuscript in the Guildhall Library6 describes 1666, Samuel Pepys visited two gardens in what was pretiest was the vineyard planted in chant and diplomat with a magnificent tim­ Strawberry-borders, staked at 10 foote distance: the sale, in 1644, of a lease by Sir John Rulls to Hackney Richard Luckett, in this journal, has ber-framed house in Bishopsgate. Among other also the Banqueting house of Cedar, where the a Mr Peter Calfe of shown that Hackney featured prominently in Couch &seates were carv' d a I' antique: Some good generous acts he gave £10,000 to repair the old Pepys's life during the decade recorded in his St Paul's Cathedral. Pindar died in August Pictures in the House, especially one of Van dykes all that capita II messuage or tenement of brick with diary He visited the Church, where he ad­ 1 1650 leaving legacies of £9,500 to various Lon­ being a Man in his Shirt, also some of Steenewich. th'appertences sytuate and being in Homberton mired the organ and the schoolgirls. He ate Stree te in Hackney ... now in the occupation of don hospitals and prisons. Despite the fact that neat' s tongue and played shuffleboard in the Is it possible that the two gardens are the William Tombs or his assignees and of all tene­ his assets amounted to £236,000 in 1639, it was Old Mermaid inn, and even went to view the same, and thatDrake took overTombes's house ments and buildings thereunto belonging ... found at his death that he had little left, having, Hackney marshes in his new carriage. But it is and garden some time after May 1655? as it turned out, unwisely lent, befo re the civil his description of the Hackney gardens where, The editor of Evelyn' s diary, E. S. de Beer, It does seem very likely that this was the war, large sums of money to King Charles I. fo r instance, he surreptitiously plucked and suggests that the Tombes mentioned was in house w ith the garden that so impressed His cashier and executor was H ackney's ate a little unripe orange, that perhaps best fact a William Tombes of Hackney, referred to Evelyn. William Tombes, who for five years tried vainly evokes the Hackney of the 17th century in Robinson's History", although it must be said Robinson's material suggests that the to recover the estate, but eventually commit­ Two gardens are mentioned, Lady that Evelyn d oes not specifically say that house was on the north side of Homerton High ted suicide having paid off none of the debts or Brooke'sand 'Drakes' There is no doubt about Tombes' s garden was in Hackney However, Street, where part of a farm called Scotland legacies. This circumstance left William's the location of Lady Brooke's garden. Brooke other documents clearly establish that a William Farm abutted "on the south Mr Toom s [sic: cousin and heir, Richard Tombes, in an unen­ House, dating back to the 15th century, sur­ Tombes lived in the parish, indeed in clearly an error of transcri pti on] dwelling house viable position., "being heir and sued at law for vived until 1954 when, sadly, it was demol­ Homerton, at the time of Evelyn' s visit. It does and brick wall and upon the lands of the sa id Mr great sums." 10 13 years later he published a ished, to make way fo r a school. Hackney seem reasonable to assume that the location of Tooms west and north. " 7 Toombes' s house was pamphlet to explain the "true State of the case Community College stands on the site today, the house and garden was Homerton, the ham­ a little to the west of a lane from Homerton between R. Toomes, administra tor of W Toomes near the Lea Bridge Road roundabout in let to the east of Hackney churchyard, stretch­ Street to Millfie ld Lane (presumably what is (executor of Sir P Pindar) and R. Etherington." Clapton. Where, however, was 'Drakes' gar­ ing out to Hackney marshes, along what was now called Brooksby's Walk). Rocque's map, Reverberations of the affair continued for at den? The purpose of this article is to review then called Humberton or Homberton Street. d rawn, admittedly, about90years later, shows, least twenty years after William Tombes's what evidence is available to establish the What do we know about Mr William in the appropriate area, a substantial garden death. Anotherpublication,of1675, to be found whereabouts of this other Hackney garden. Tombes? that indeed appears to have ' la rge and noble in the British Library, is entitled "To the Knights, In May 1655, eleven years before Pepys' s Perhaps the name that he was born with walks' Citizens and Burgesses in Parlia.ment. .. The hum­ visit to the pleasant Hackney gardens, John encouraged in him a certain morbid disposi­ ble petition of G. Carew, administrator of the goods Evelyn, Pepys' s good fr iend, also visited - tion: whether or not, it is very clear from the Pindar's legacy ... ofSirP Pyndarunadministred byW. Toomes." 11 State Papers3 that Tombes was a felo de se - in William Tombes's name appears fre­ Returning now to the question of Drake's my Lady Brookes garden, which was one of the other words, he committed suicide. In the 17th quently in the State Papers between the time of garden, we encounter a much greater problem neatest & most celebrated in England; [and on] century, when life seemed so perilous anyway, his death in 1655 up till 1672, when his estate of identification. returning visited one Mr Tombs garden, it has what with revolution and plague, suicide seems was granted to Lord Buckhurst. The reason for a pretty desperate measure. What d rove him to this was that his property was confiscated by

10 11 HACKNEY History Two Hackney Gardens

Drake or Drax? later map, just to the east of Bridge Street. We are told by Burke's Landed Gen try (1952) However, the fact that the hearth tax collector that a Sir Ja mes Drax was living in Hackney in entered only Drake's surname suggests that 1697 He was the son of Sir James Drax of there was some doubt about his or her Chris­ Barbados, who had won fame by improving tian name, or title. This in turn suggests that thequalityofBarbadossugars. The name Drax, he/she was a new occupier, and therefore in the uncertain spelling of the day, might well unlikely to have been there in 1666 at the time signify the man Pepys called Drake(s). of Pepys' s visit. There was also a Roger Drake who had It is however possible that there is some Hackney connections. He was described as a other reason for the omission of Drake's title, "Doctor of Phisicke" who had studied at Leyden and that the tax-collectors zig-zagged across

University A doctor of physic, of course, might the road between groups of houses in 1674. It ''·1 well have had a garden, at a time when herbal certainly seems an extraordinary coincidence II , , remedies predominated. However, in 1646 he that the name Drake should appear in ,, ., •~ 11 1 1 ,,o lff/ NI

gave up medicinetoentertheministry He was Homerton, apparently close to Tombes's gar­ '"' , ,. ~ a rigid presbyterian, and was arrested in 1651, den, just eight years after Pepys' s visit to accused of involvement in what was called "Drakes garden" in Hackney Perhaps after all ,, ,,,' 'Love's Plot' against the Commonwealth. He the gardens were the same, and either Sir married his cousin Susanna, who came from James Drax or Dr Roger Drake had taken over · Dalston, and died there in 1679. Roger himself Tombes' s house and garden. had died ten years earlier, but would still have In the end, however, it must be admitted been alive at the time of Pepys' s visit to Hack­ that the verdict is' not (yet) proven' L, 's hope ney in 1666. It is said, however, that towards that further research will elucidate t e matter! the close of his life he lived in Stepney 12 Only one other clue to the whereabouts of Postscript the Drake garden has so far been fo und. That is Subsequent research has found a 'Mr in the record of hearth-tax payments made in Drake' in a hearth tax record for 1671 15 Here Hackney in 1674.13 Here at the end of the list of the order of names varies from the 167 4 record, tax payers in Greater Homerton is the follow­ suggesting a rather random method of collect­ ing sequence: ing. These two facts tend to support the notion Detail.from John Rocque's 1745 map o_f Hackney parish. Prominent is the mid-18th century garden of that the garden visited by Pepys and known as John Leigh 2 hearths Drakes was indeed in Homerton, and could Hackney House ('A'); a possible site of Tombes 's garden is to the south-east ('B '). Sutton House and Drake 9 have been the garden earlier in the possession the 'Tan House' are at 'C' Widow Cox 1 Widow Cavill 4 of William Tombes. John Roades 2 - Wheeler 2 Henry Chitty 13 Notes Sarah Freeman 24 1. de Beers, (ed .)The Dia,-y of John Evelyn (1955) III, 96. 12. GLRO BRA 329 / 1/ 1-8 and Dictionary of National Biography 2. William Robinson, Histo,-y and Antiquities of the Parish of (describing Roger Drake 1608-1669 as a physician and divine, William Jameson 9 Hackney, I, 414, 433. son of Roger Drake, mercer, of Cheapside.) 14 Symon Middleton 3. Domestic State Pa pen,, Dec. 1672 13.PRO E 179 / 143 / 370 (transcription in HAD, D / F / TYS). Mr Dawson 8 4. ib. Jan 22, 1656. Aparently thi s was Tombes's second attempt 14. See forthcoming monograph on Sutton House, to be pub­ Richard Deane 5 at suicide: see Domestic State Pa pers 1656-58, Feb. 25 no. 16, "to lished in 1996 by English Heritage in association with the consider particularly the case of Mr Boone, surgeon to Toomes, National Trust. Simon Middleton was the son of Sir Hugh We know from research into the history who received no satisfaction for curing him of hi s first attempt Middleton, creator of the New River. He lived near Mrs Free­ of Sutton House that Mrs Freeman (who kept to destroy himself." man's school in a house formerly owned by Sir Thomas Sutton 5. HAD M.796. known as the old tanhouse. See GLRO M79 / LH/ 46, 1680, 1681 a school in the House) and Middleton lived 6. GH MS 20,572. 15. GLRO Xl / 152. near each other at the corner of what is now 7.Robinson, op. cit., 1,414. Tombes is also mentioned as owner of UrswickRoad and Homerton High Street, and this estate in HAD M. 1279 and 3675 (1696). on the south side.14 The usual practice of tax 8. HADD/ F/ TYS/15. 9.e.g. Domestic State papers, June 30, 1653 (Tombes's petition as collectors of the period was to list the occupiers Pindar' s executor). insequencealongonesideand then backagain 10. Domestic State pape1s Jan. 27, 1657. One claimant on Tombes's along the other side. If that is the case here, estate, a Mr Peter Speght, claimed that Tombes had deprived then Drake's house with its nine fireplaces is him of an estatevalu ed at£2,000, left him by Pindar "by accusing him to Cromwell as being of the King's Party": ib., addendum, likely to have been somewhere in the region of 1660-1670, 729. Bridge Street (now Ponsford Street) on the 11. British Library Catalogue. Sir Paul Pindar's house in south side of Homerton High Street; possibly Bishopsgate (near the present pub 'The Si r Pa ul Pindar') was the house with the garden, shown on Rocque' s demoli shed to make way for Liverpool Street Sta tion, and the front elevation re-erected in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

12 13 HACKNEY His tory

Holders of the Hackney manors from 1697

Francis Tyssen (I) d. 1699 THE TYSSENS: Francis TyJsen (II) d.1710 LORDS OF HACKNEY I Francis Tyssen (III) d. 1717 I Francis John Tyssen d. 1781 Tim Baker r------J---,------~ Mary m. Capt. John Amhurst Francis Francis John d . 1800 d. 1813 d. 1814 I Founding fathers Amelia m. William George Daniel In the Middle Ages the lordship of most mon land, until the lord's rights were bought of Hackney was held by the Bishop of London by the Metropolitan Board of Works under an d. 1851 d. 1838 (from 1814 Oaniel-Tyssen) as part of his vast manor of Stepney, w hich at Act of 1881.4 the Reformation passed to the Wentworth fam­ The Tyssens, besides holding the lord­ I 1 William George Tyssen Daniel-Tyssen ily, later earls of Cleveland. From the 1630s ships, were rich enough for both senior and the Wentworths' debts, made heavier by their junior branches to acquire additional land, d. 1885 (from 1852 Tyssen-A mhurst) punishment as royalists, led to the separation w hose development enabled the family, by I of Hackney (which had long had its own courts) then the Tyssen-Amhursts, to leave a lasting William Amhurst Tyssen-Amhurst (from 1877 Tyssen-A mherst) and the dispersal of their property After dec­ mark on Hackney. It is not intended here to er. Baron Amherst of Hackney 1892; d . 1909 ades of litigation some of the lands, w ith juris­ trace the accumulation and disposal of their dictions apparently covering the whole of property, a task which has yet to be attempted Mary Rothes Margarl t (Lady William Cecil) Hackney, passed to a few wealthy Londoners, in detail. Theirs was Hackney's largest estate c. w ho in 1697 completed their transfer to a sin­ 1830, mainly in the north-western part of the Baroness Amherst of Hackney d.1919 gle family The jurisdicti ons were the main parish. a round Hackney D owns and I manor, soon to be called Lordshold, w ith w hich Shacklewell Lane, along Kingsland High Street Captain William Amherst Cecil d. 1914 went the right to present to the rectory, whi ch and its continuations to Stamford Hill, and I had its own manor called the Rectory or also across much of Upper Clapton to the Lea. William Alexander Evering Cecil Grumbolds, and the smaller med ieval manor It would take long to identify all the places of of Kingshold. The purchaser, on behalf of his worship, schools, public houses, halls, and Baron Amherst of Hackney d . 1980 son and namesake, was the73-yearold Francis shopping parades which owe their location to I Tyssen. agreements with the Tyssens, or even to iden­ William Hugh Amherst Cecil The lord of the manor's authority was by ti fy all the avenues w hich are named after their then giving way to that of the parish vestry East Anglian estates or the Amhursts' Kentish Baron Amherst of Hackney Manorial courts, however, continued to meet connections. The present concern is the de­ fo r transactions of copyhold property (giving scentofthe Hackney manors and thecheckered historians an invaluable means of tracing own­ history of the holders, a story complicated by ership before enfranchisement), frequently their changes of name. During the lifetime of Francis John Tyssen's illegitimate children, until the mid 19th century and thereafter more Francis Tyssen (I) was a naturalised mer­ 2 between 1781 and 1814, manorial courts were held in the name of the Revd. Peter de Bea uvoir. e rratically until the 1920s. Fines fo r chant from Flushing in Zeeland, one of the enfranchisements themselves proved lucra­ United Provinces, who had married at Lon­ tive, as building spread; between 1836 and don's Dutch church at Austin Friars in 1649.5 1877 they yielded over £23,000, of which over His will of 1690,6 nine years before his death, £7,000 was paid by railway companies in 1872- made bequests to that church, of which he was 3.3 Manorial agents, moreover, could still pro­ an elder, and its poor, and to a church and voke riots by excavating and inclosing corn- several relatives in Flushing. When granted

14 15 HACKNEY History The Tyssens arms in 1687 he had paid a fine to be excused four mothers. He made his will in 1781 as of plied the Tyssen-Amhersts' wealth, the com­ they cou Id meet as patrons of worthy causes or fromofficeassheriffor lord mayorofLondon.7 Shacklewell, but was probably the last lord to mentator must have guessed that the new peer as donors of sites for institutions. It was no His fortune is unexplained, but may have had live in Hackney, the Manor House being partly would hardly wish to be known solely in con­ longer, however, a suitable place of residence American origins, in that he advanced money demolished in the 17 40s. Special provision nection with an increasingly working-class for people of the Tyssen-Amhersts' standing. for French protestant emigrants to Carolina in was made for his later mistress Elizabeth Pres­ suburb. Francis Tyssen (I) had acquired land at Some landed families, including the Benyons 16798 and was later described as an agent for ton of Gloucester Street, Bloomsbury, and for Foulden in western Norfolk, south-east of (the de Beauvoirs' successors), the Middletons the Carolina proprietors; he left land in Anti­ Eleanor Deane of N ewington 'now living with Downham Market. W G. T Daniel-Tyssen in southern Dalston, and the Glyns of gua to his surviving son,9 together with prop­ me' The Hackney manors were left in trust to lived mainly at Foulden Hall; he married Mary Homerton, never lived locally, while by the erty in London, where his house was in Philpot the Revd. Peter de Beauvoir and others for the FountaineofNarford Hall, nearSwaffham, the mid 19th century the Grahams' heirs had left Lane, and in Middlesex and other counties. testator's eldest son Francis Tyssen, whose birthplace of his son, whose own seat was still Dalston and the Norrises of South Hackney There was capital to risk: in 1691 he was asso­ mother Mary Dickenson had died in 1756. If closer at the newly purchased Didlington Hall. 17 and the Powells of Clapton were moving away ciated with a proposed Company of the Royal Francis should marry without the trustees' Narborough Hall, near Swaffham, was the Corporation, to set the poor to work, and over consent or, no better than his father, leave only seat of Samuel Tyssen (d.1800), another son of The connoisseur and his steward the next three years with companies to mine children born out of wedlock, the manors were Francis John by Elizabeth Preston, and Such detachment, if inevitable, was the copper, recover wrecks, and facilitate bills of to pass on similar terms to Elizabeth Preston's Northwold Lodge near Foulden was also a Tyssen-Amhersts' undoing. The family had exchange. 10 son Francis John Tyssen, with remainder to family home. It was in Norfolk, where he already produced a noted collector in Samuel Tyssen first appeared in Hackney in 1685 Francis's sister Mary, wife of Captain John owned over 10,000 acres18 and employed over Tyssen (d.1800), whose books, prints and coins as purchaser of the Shacklewell estate of the Amhurst of East Farleigh, Kent. 14 Francis died 300 labourers, that the first Lord Amherst of had been sold over several days in 1802.23 The Rowes, a distinguished London family which unmarried in 1813 and his half-brother Francis Hackney was most prominent. Possibly the first Lord Amherst, in addition to performing had so declined that some twenty years later John, leaving an illegitimate son, in 1814. Mary peerage owed something to royal favour, since his conventional role, was a connoisseur, most one of its last representatives was to seek relief Amhurst having predeceased them, the man­ there were social advantages in being close to notably a bibliophile, whose estimated income as a pauper. Could the newcomer have known ors passed to her daughter Amelia, wife of Sandringham: Didlington Hall contained a of £100,000 a year in 189224 allowed him to of a tenuous link with Hackney in that his William George Daniel of Westbroot;.House suite fitted up for the Prince of Wales. A de­ stock a purpose-built museum of Egyptian mother Appolonia had been the daughter of (U pwey, Dorset), who immediately 'took the scription of Lord Amherst as a benevolent and other antiquities25 and a magnificent li­ Bald win Ri dley of Flushing, a nephew of surname Dan iel-Tyssen. landowner and pillar of local Conservatism brary at Didlington. 'The Amherst Papyri', Nicholas Ridley, the last bishop to hold the makes no mention of any income derived from both Egyptian and Greek, were the subject of 19 manor? Probably it was his son whowenton to Tyssens and A mhersts Hackney publications, as, when they came to be sold, become a vestryman, and, in 1690, to take over W G. Daniel-Tyssen was succeeded in Cadets of the family retained links with were 'The Amherst [Babylonian] Tablets', a theRowes' pew in church. Apparently he lived, 1838 by his eldest son Wi lliam George Tyssen Hackney until the mid-19th century All three like his successor, at the Rowes' old seat on the Daniel-Tyssen, who in 1852 took the surname brothers of Francis Tyssen (III), John Tyssen of 20 north-west side of Shacklewell green, which Tyssen-A mhurst. Presumably he did so to Shacklewell, William, and Samuel, while in­ thereby came to be known as the Manor House. stress a remote kinship with the Kent A mhersts heriting property elsewhere, were buried in It already had, or was soon given, a pair of who in 1776 had acquired a barony and in 1826 the parish, as were some of Samuel's descend­ Dutch gables. an earldom. 15 His son William Amhurst ants even after the rebuilding of the church in Francis (I) was buried at Austin Friars. Tyssen-A mhurst took a step further in 1877 by the 1790s. Samuel's daughter Sarah having Francis (II), also an elder, was buried in 1710 at changing the spelling to Tyssen-A mherst. He married Richard Boddicott of Homerton, their Hackney, having left all his property there to succeeded his fa ther in 1885, and was created daughter Sarah married Samuel Tyssen of his eldest surviving son Francis (III) . This Baron Amherst of Hackney, with special re­ Narborough Hall, whose son Samuel addi­ youngest Francis married Rachel, daughter of mainder to Mary Rothes Margaret, the eldest tionally held a large estate near Clapton com­ Richard de Beauvoir of the neighbouring es­ of his seven daughters and wife of Lord William mon probably until his death in 1845. John tate of Balmes, beginning a long association Cecil, in 1892. Robert Daniel-Tyssen, an attorney and Fellow between their two families. Baby sons, both The creation was recommended by the of the Society of Antiquaries ofLondon21 acted named Francis, were buried in 1715 and 1716. outgoing prime minister Lord Salisbury, whom as manorial steward for his elder brother W G. Their father, having languished from 'irregu­ Tyssen-A mherst had supported as a Conserva­ T Daniel-Tyssen from 1829 until 1852. The lar drinking', was only 27 when he died on 7th tive M.P It earned a vindictive footnote in the early 19th-century Manor House in Church November 1717 11 The corpse was carried Complete Peerage: Lord Amherst of Hackney Street (now no. 387 Mare Street) was so called from Shacklewell to lie in state at the Gold­ was reported to be very rich and had long as John Robert's residence from 1845 until his smiths' Hall in London, 12 before proceeding voted for his party without making any mark, move to Brighton in 1858. It was his executor's through crowded streets, as if the centrepiece his claim to the exceptional favour of a special gift to the parish of manorial records, known of a lord mayor's procession, for burial next to remainder was impossible to determine, and, for years as the Tyssen Library, which formed his father. Such ostentatious mourning, at a not being an Amherst by male descent, he the basis of Hackney's local history collection. cost of at least £2,000, was criticised as unfi t­ ought not to have been allowed to chose a John Robert was almost the last repre­ ting fo r a commoner. The Tyssens' motto trans­ name already enj oyed by a fa mily which had sentative of any substantial landowning fam­ lated as 'Our virtue fl ourished after death' 13 rendered really eminent public service; he ily to have a close personal knowledge of Hack­ 22 On 14th November a posthumous son, Francis could 'perfectly well have taken the simple ney It remained a source of profit for ground John, was born. title of'Hackney', where much of his property landlords, who stipulated the type of housing The infant inheritor of the Hackney man­ was situated' 16 to be put up, and the needs of its growing ors never married, although he left child ren by While the spread of building had multi- population might still constitute a claim, which The first Lord Amherst

16 17 HACKNEY History The Tyssens sumptuous library catalogue was planned in On Cheston' s death in 1906 he was found Notes 1905, only to be turned into a sales handlist. 26 to have misappropriated funds costing Lord Lack of time nonetheless forced Lord Amherst Amherst £1/ 4 mi llion, besides further sums l. This article expands part of the sections on 'Manors, 25. He employed Howard Carter, later discoverer of and Local Government' in the Victoria County HistonJ of Tutankhamun's tomb: Who Was Wh o, 1929-40, 230. Lord to decline the honour of serving on the council for which his indulgent client was liable as a Middlesex, X (1995) . References are given only for mate­ Amherst's wife Margaret Susan wrote A Sketch of Egyp­ 27 of the Society of Antiquaries. He had his trustee. Lord Amherst, who already had mort­ ri al not used in that account or not in W Ro binson, tian HistonJ (1904). country estate, his residence in Mayfair, his gaged much property in order to meet fa mily History and Antiquities of the Parish of Hackney, (1842) i. 26. Accounts of collections by P F. Newberry (1899), B. yacht 'The Dream', and eventually a new villa settlements, was forced to disperse his treas­ 322-3. P Grenfell and A. S. Hunt (1 900-1) and T G. Pinches near St. Raphael in the south of France. 28 ures, including what may have been the coun­ 2. Records of all three manors in GLRO M79 / LH, M79 / (1908); handlist of books and mss. by S. de Ricci (1 906). Management of affairs at Hackney was try's fin est private collection of manuscripts KH, and M79 /G. 27 Proceedings of the Society ofAntiq uaries, 2nd series, xiv left to Chester Cheston, a City solicitor who in and early printed books. He died in London in 3. GLRO M79 / LH/ 42. 365. 1845 had a house in Clapton Square and who 1909, his end probably hastened by the sales 4. VCH Middlesex, X, section on 'Public Services' 28. Post Office Directory, London, (1879, 1902); HAD DI succeeded John Robert as manorial steward. which he had recently attended at Sothebys 5. Records of the fami ly in Zeeland, beginning with a FI AMHl 6-161, 303-23 . His son Ernest Constantine became steward in and those w hich were proceeding at copy of the will of William Thys in 1611, are in HAD D/ 29. Chester: FRIB A, architect of of St Mark's, Sandring­ FI AMH/ 1-5. For the career of Francis Tyssen, see Rose­ ham Road, consecrated in 1870 on land given by the 1885, and another son, Charles, also a soli citor, Didlington. There was widespread disappoint­ mary Weinstein, T11e Strangers' Progress (Proceedings of future Lord Amherst, who complained about its great later acted as deputy steward and receiver for ment that seventeen works by Caxton, eleven the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland, (1995) size. Horace: younger, and a better-known architect: the manors. Charles Cheston, although lat­ of them perfect, had been bought beforehand XXVI no. 2), 257 RIBA, DirectonJ of British Architects 1834-1900 (1993). terly living in style in Knightsbridge, bought by J. Pierpont Morgan and so, through the 6. Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, NS, ii i .392-3. Records of the Tyssen-Amherstestate are in GLRO M79 I or obtained leases of many new houses at defalcations of a Hackney agent, fo und their 7 ib. 379-80. TA. Stamford Hill and Upper Clapton, as did two way to the financier's library in New York.31 8. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America & West Tndies, 30. HAD HILD 713; cf ib. DIF ITYSl59ll-3 fo r earlier other brothers, Chester and Horace. 29 The Hackney manors passed with Lord 1677-80, 428 . He claimed money from the ex-buccaneer reports on De Beauvoir v Rhodes. The early 19th century had furnished one Amherst's peerage to his eldest daughter.32 In Sir Henry Morgan in 1681 . ib . 1681-5, 29. 31. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 2nd series, instance of a lawyer acting as steward who, 1908 the Court of Appeal had upheld a limita­ 9. Francis (II) left the Bridge plantation in Antigua to a xxiii, 472; The Times, 18 Ja nuary 1909, 13d; 13 February younger son Samuel: PRO PROB / 11 / 518, f. 365; Mary 1909, 13.f;24 March 1909, 10b; 29 March 1909 lOa. Caxtons with his son, had tried to take advantage of an tion of his liability against claims by his moth­ Dickenson, mother of Francis John Tyssen's daughter described in Pall Mall Gazette, 3December 1908, 2.d. Cf. ib. 33 absentee landowner. The loser then would er's family, the Fountaines. Having Id both Mary Amhurst (below), came from a family with prop­ 4 December 1908, 13b; 7 December 1908, 3a. 34 have been the Revd. Peter de Beauvoir' s heir, Didlington and Foulden, the Tyssen­ erty in Philadelphia and in Jamaica: W Berry, County 32. Author of Bird Notes from the N ile (1 904 ). Her younger who with difficulty had thwarted plans to Amhersts retained some property in Hackney, Genealogies, Pedigrees of Herts. Families (1842), 93. sister Alicia Amherst (later Baroness Rockley) wrote a develop the Balmes estate after the old man chiefly at Stamford Hill, Upper Clapton and 10. Cal. State Papers Domestic, 1690-1, 422, 459, 505, 522, successful Histo1y of Gardening in England (1895) and had granted a lease on the advice of the stew­ Shacklewell, which was presented in 1920 as 536; ib. 1693, 207 other works on gardens and botany. ard Thomas Tebbutt, who was also acting for having been settled by Lady William Cecil on 11 . HAD DIFI TYS l 12l 2, 192. 33. The Times, 9 December 1908, 3a; 25 June 1909, 3b. the speculators.3° Charles Cheston's behav­ her son and his male heirs.35 Manorial courts, 12. As neither he nor his father had been goldsmiths, 34. ib. 30 November 1910, 12f; 1 August 1911, 15a . iour proved far more damaging. which since the 1880s had dwindled to meet­ presumably the hall had been hired . Didlington Hall was demolished in 1950: Burke's and 13. J. Fairbairn, Book of Crests, i. (1905), pt. 2, 63. Savills Guide to CountnJ Houses, iii. (1981), 103-4. ings in lawyers' chambers, petered out with 14. PROPROB 1111082, f.454 .John'sgrandfat her Nicholas 35. GLRO M79ITAl 21. compensation agreements between the lord '• ··~t Amhurst (d . 1715), of an ancient Pembury (Kent) fami ly, 36. ib. AR/TPl2l 419. and fo rmer copyholders after the had married Susannah Evering; hence Pembury and extiguishment of his rights by the Law of Prop­ Evering roads. His pedigree, set out in Burke, l.nnded erty Act 1922. Agents fo r the estate, alarmed at Gen by (1886), is misleadingly abbreviated in Burke, Peer­ social changes and fa lling values, continued to age (1959) . treat with the local authorities before and after 15. The East Farl eigh branch and the earls had a common the Second World War,36 although almost all Tudor ancestor: Burke, umded Gen try (1886) . the sites had been sold by 1990. 16. G.E .C., Complete Peerage, i. 125. Lady Amherst, whose eldest son had been 17 W White, History of Norfolk, (1883), 232. 18. R. H. Mason, Histo1y of Norfolk (1884), 5. killed in 1914, was succeeded in 1919 by her 19. C. A.ManningPress,NorfolkNotabilities (1893),66-75. grandson William Alexander Evering Cecil as 20 . Chief mourner at Francis's magnificent funeral and third Baron Amherst of Hackney His son bankrupted by the South Sea Bubble. He married a William H ugh Amherst Cecil, who succeeded daughter of the first Sir Caesar Child, Bt., and denied his in 1980, is the present lord of the Hackney mother-in-law any part in his own son's upbri nging, the manors, by virtue of which he is also patron of younger Sir Caesar having learnt 'lying, swearing, whor­ the parish church of St John, and of the daugh­ ing, and drinking'· PRO PROB 11 1640, f.266. ter rectories of South and West Hackney. 21. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 2nd series, ix . 305. He left many books to the society and provided much information on his family, including the grant of arms of 1687 and several brass rubbings, to Miscellanea Genealogica et Hemldica,, N.S. iii-v 22. One of his sons, Ridley Daniel-Tyssen, was rector of South Hackney 1871-85. 23 . Sales catalogues in British Library. 24 . HADHI LD7l ll. J. R. D. Ty ssen, manor steward and Ha ckney's benefactor

18 19 Unitarian Gothic

one way then the other; his position was clearly untenable. Two successors were considered but both declined; in same year Rev T L. Marshall (1825-1919) was appointed without candidating for the pulpit. One of the refusals was because of the poor stipend, and Marshall ..: ,_.. . was asked to come as soon as possible because of "difficulty in supplying the pulpit", which is likely to have been due to the limited nature UNITARIAN GOTHIC: of the remuneration. The church committee minutes record seemingly endless wrangles m REBUILDING IN HACKNEY, 1858 over the quality of music during worship serv­ - ~~~ ices. It was against this context that the congre­ -~i-4°~(~~-. gation decided to rebuild. The chapel before rebuilding Choosing the architect The need for a new building John E. Clennell, the church treasurer, Alan Ruston To rebuild at a time of relative decline and who was the moving force behind the rebuild­ dispute might seem an unwise thing to do, but ing7, lost no time once the decision had been it is likely to have been undertaken in the hope made to rebuild, and by October 1856 had that a new building in the latest style, reflect­ assembled no less than seventeen plans from ing the latest trends in worship, would attract architects. These are detailed in the Committee episode also demonstrates that the momen­ new, active and able members. There was a minutes of9 October, and show that drawings What amateur or dilettante would ever think of tum to erect a certain type of ecc siastical general dissatisfaction with the existing build­ for a gothic revival church building could be exploring such neighbourhoods as Shoreditch, building brings other things in its wake. ing, but this was first noted in the Committee obtained" off the peg", with just minor adjust­ Hoxton or Plaistow in search of architectural minutes only in May 1851. Repair was needed ments to fit the finance available, taste, or beauty? Yet these outlying regions in the far east of at a cost of £900, so suggestions for someth ing London contain some of the largest and most re­ A pe1iod ofgreatness theological and liturgical preference. The model From the late 1780s to the 1840s, the New new were put in train. Arguments over the gothic architectural plans listed below, most markable churches which have been built during minister put these ideas into abeyance until the (Gothic) Revival.1 Gravel Pit Chapel was amongst the leading with a Latin brand name, show that the intense Nonconformist congregati ons in the country the middle of 1853. The account of what hap­ denominational differentiation and rivalry of Sir Charles Eastlake, an early historian of Its ministers were successively Richard Price, pened was set down in the Christian Reformer, the time did not spread to building design; all the 19th century architectural gothic revival in Joseph Priestley, Thomas Belsham and Robert July 1857, although some of the details may churches seemed to be content with a variety the church building, is correctly alluding to Aspland, all of whom achieved national re­ well have been supplied in retrospect: of medievalism whatever their polity or theol­ Anglican and to a lesser extent Roman Catho­ pute and have entries in the Dictionary of Na­ ogy lic churches: there are superb examples in tional Biography. The congregation was also Ecclesiastical architecture was in the beginning of the century at its lowest point of debasement, and 1. Veritas. Style: Gothic. To seat 630 people, present Hackney, for example St Chad's, Haggerston. distinguished: it included Sir John Bowring, neither in design norexecution did the New Gravel­ cost £1500. Architect: F Barff However, he and some later historians ig­ David Ricardo, J T Rutt, William Frend and Pit chapel raise the standard of architectural taste 5 2. Difficilia qune pulchra. Gothic with two spires. To nored the Nonconformists and their activity in Daniel Whittle Harvey - to name but a few and skill. Before twenty years had passed, it was seat 610 persons. Present cost £2000. Architect: that remarkable era when structure and deco­ Robert Asp land, minister from 1805 until found that substantial and costly repairs were Darbishire.8 ration in medieval style was considered the his death in 1845, was one of the leaders in the necessary, which were made at a cost of £2000 . 3. Experience. Gothic. To seat 522 people, present only appropriate architecture for churches in During the ministry of Mr Boucher a settlement of successful agitation for the repeal of the Test cost £2200. Architect: Ashpitel.9 2 the walls took place, and Messrs Lawford and England. There were numerous examples of and Corporation Acts in 1827, which gave civil 4.Detailsas for3above. To seat 550 people, present Heneker, thearchitects,adviseda rebuilding,rather Nonconformist and Methodist gothic revival rights to dissenters in general. He presented cost £2300. than another attempt at repairing. The scheme was building. Many were notable, although con­ the loyal address on behalf of the dissenters to 5. l.nbor et spes. Gothic with spire. To seat 600 entertained, and would, had Mr Boucher contin­ structed in a more restrained manner than the the monarch on the accession of King William people, present cost £2000. Architect: R Wright. ued the minister, have probably been carried into 6. Details as for 5 above. Gothic without spire. To often florid work of Church of England archi­ IV in 1830. His death, and that of many of the execution. Owing to the unsettled state of affairs in tects.3 leading figures in the congregation, combined the society, nothing was done. In 1855, a new seat 600, present cost £1950. This article is an account of the prelimi­ with the moving away of the more prosperous school-room and vestry were built at the back of 7 Details as for 6 above, but cost £1900. naries leading to the erection of the decorated families, led to congregational decline in the the chapel, in place of those originally constructed 8. Oum spiro, spero. Style: Italian. To seat 360 peo­ gothic church for the Unitarians in Chatham later 1840s. on the same site. It was then discovered that the ple, present cost £2750. No architect stated. 9. Non sine spe. Gothic with steeple. Number of Place, Hackney in the period 1856-1858. They After Asp land's long and successful min­ whole building was in a ruinous and very danger­ ous state. Mr Sancton Wood, the architect, was people seated not stated, present cost £2500 brick. had worshipped in a very different building istry, the appointment of Rev John Boucher Pencilled in against this entry and presumably for on the same site since 1810.4 The reasons for (1819-1878) as minister in 1846 had turned called in, and his opinion was so decided that the congregation felt that they had no alternative, but the one which follows for architect is "Green" rebuilding were mixed, although presented as sour by 1852. He reported to the church com­ must rebuild their chapel. clear cut and obvious at the time, and an analy­ mittee that "he had for some time become sis of them shows the tensions existing within aware that a feeling of dissatisfaction existed the congregation and the attitudes amongst in the congregation as to his doctrines" 6 He the richer Hackney families in the 1850s. The resigned after several votes which went first

20 21 Unitarian Gothic HACKNEY History

10. Details presumably as 9 above but present cost More changes 32 votes to 26. The atmosphere must have been Postscript shown as £2580 Kentish rag. The prospect of a new building prompted very poor when Marshall left in September Did the changes work and was the new 11 . Divine Unity. Lombardian: tower and steeple. the desire for a new minister. Marshall, who 1856. The minutes of 11 October state that he building filled with worshippers, so placing To seat 572 people, present cost £2200. Architect: had started as minister in 1853, apparently was given a testimonial of £106, his written the finances on a firm footing? The answer is Ebbels. 10 kept up congregational numbers, and various response to this being to point out that "I definitely in the negative. By February 1861 12. Details as for 11 above. Present cost £1900 by minutes of 1854show that they appreciated his cannot regard this present as in any way a the committee were complaining that they omissions. services. On 26 May 1856, however, the com­ compensation fo r wounded feelings and a deep fo und it difficult to pay the minister but did 13. Mente et Mnnu. Gothic with spire. To seat 565 17 11 mittee recorded that there had been a falling sense of wrong and injusti ce." not go as far as to suggest that Aspland' s salary people, present cost £2150. Architect: Laws. 18 14. Details as for 13 above. To seat 560 people, off of subscriptions for the last two years, and A temporary minister was obtained (Rev be reduced. In September the same year it present cost £2000. the minister should be told that they could not Hugh Hutton) and R. B. Aspland's appoint­ was concluded that the congregation was still 15. Nee eupins, nee me11 tuns. Go thic. To seat 636 continue to pay him a salary of£250 perannum. ment was secured within months at a salary of in decline, and the deficiency the following people, present cost £2250. Architect again pre­ Within weeks the congregation had resolved at least £300 fo r three years. At th e same time yearwas£44. In 1864theywerebemoaningthe sumed to be Laws. to rebuild, knowing the high cost involved and it became clear there would be an outstanding loss of subscribers but still decided to put in a 16. Clerieus. Gothic. To seat 600 people, present cost that they were short of even the sum required debt on the new building. Aspland was in stained glass window By 1881 the treasurer £1850 brick. Architect: Bartleet. 12 at the start. Some members of the congregation place fo r the opening services on 21 March was having to meet repair bills from his own 17 No details. To seat 600 people, present cost had misgivings, but these were brushed aside. 1858. The normal fo rm of service was also pocket. £1950 Stone. Architect: R Wright. It is hardly surprising that Marshall did changed to fi t in with the gothic building; a The church was rarely filled, and in the The architect appointed not like this turn of events. The committee liturgy was seen as essential fo r the morning 20th century, like the majority of Non conform­ The Committee sifted the number down minutes of 18 July 1856 record that the Treas­ service and this was adopted in place of the ist churches in Hackney, was in steep decline. to five, and resolved that H. A. Darbishire' s urer offered to resign "in consequence of the simpler open fo rm based on hymns, prayers A bomb fell in the burial ground in 1940 (the plan ('Difficilia quae pulchra') should be ac­ severe strictures passed upon his conduct by and readings. last interral took place in 1927), which put the cepted over 'Divine Unity' by eight votes to the minister last Sunday morning in the pres­ building out ofcommission. Repairs were com­ six. One of the main factors in the acceptance ence of the congregation" Marshal1 !so com­ The new building pleted in 1953, and the small congregation must have been that the architect chosen came plained, quite reasonably, that the'committee The Christian Reformer for April 1858 de­ used the church intermittently because of the from one of the most well known Unitarian had said nothing to him about the decision to scribes the building in detail and at a greater cost of heating, preferring to meet in the length than can be included in this article. The Aspland Hall, erected in 1912. families in Manchester. 13 The choice under­ rebuild. They immediately passed a resolution fo ll owing are the chief points, written by some­ The last service of worship to take place in lines the statement by Marcus Binney that that he had no right to interfere in the secular one with a background in architecture: the church was held on 2nd October 1966 to relatively few church architects seem to have matters of the congregation. mark the 300th anniversary of the original crossed the denominational barriers until the Within days Marshall was forced to apolo­ The new chapel is cruciform in plan and accommo­ foundation. I was present on this occasion and 20th century, and seldom even then - an inter­ gise" for want of courtesy" in his remarks the dates 500 sittings on the ground floor, and about 50 recall the very poor state of the leaking and esting comment on the operation of patron­ previous Sunday, and the deputy treasurer read over to him what the committee had in the gallery over the western entrance. The total unheated building, which was barely usable. age.14 Indeed at the opening in 1858, the Rev external length is 81 feet 9 inches; external width Charles Beard, one of the most distinguished concluded. The committee told Marshall for­ A compulsory purchase order was made by across nave and aisles43 fe et; external width across the Greater London Council in 1969 on the scholars and Unitarian ministers of his day, mally about the drop in subscriptions in De­ transepts 65 feet 6 inches. The exterior of the build­ stated that the architect was one of his oldest cember, and he agreed to his salary being ing is built with Kentish rag-stone and Bath-stone whole site, and the buildings were pulled down friends, and the playmate of his childhood and reduced to £200 in January 1857, while the dressings; and as the adopted style of architecture the fo llowing year. With the former burial a companion of his youth.15 congregation were disputing whether or not is geometrical Gothic, the traceries of the windows ground, the site is now an open space in front Darbishire later became the designer of they should pay the extra for spires. and the moulded jambs of the doors, executed in of a block of flats. several edifices in the area, some at least of The crunch came in April 1857 when Rev the warm-coloured freestone, contrast well with the plane surfaces of the cool grey walls. This which may have sprung from his work in R. Brook As pland (1805-1869) was approached to be the opening preacher in the new build­ variety in the colour of the materials contributes Chatham Place. He designed the Victoria Park largely to its effect, inasmuch as it possesses little Fountain, Hackney (1861), Columbia Market, ing. This was the man they now wanted as minister, at the time serving at Dukinfield, ornament or architectural enrichment; a spirelet (1866-68) and Columbia Square, Bethnal Green which is 64 feet in height at the south angle of the (1857-60), Peabody Trust flats in Commercial Lancashire. He was one of leading Unitarians west front being almost the only prominent feature Street, Spitalfields (1862-64), and Greenham of the day, and most important of all the son of to redeem it from mediocrity. There are some Street, Islington (1866-68). 8 their former minister whom they had known effectively carved heads, bosses and finials to the The projected cost of the building was since his boyhood. Marshall offered his resig­ gablets, which connect the square base of the spire let nation to the committee on 16th April, but with the octagonal superstructure, and some char­ £2000, with the addition oflighting£150, archi­ acteristic crosses terminating the east and west tect £150, foundations £350, front wall £100, realising that there might be dissent, the treas­ urer wanted this in writing before calling a gables, and the gables of the transepts, which clerk of works £100, the total with extras to deserve remark, as being the only decorative sculp­ come to £3000. They had £1947 towards this special meeting of the congregation. The resig­ tures on the exterior of the building. sum. The final bill in March 1858 came to nation letter stated that there was" dissatisfac­ £4939, which the congregation could only pay tion within my publicservices ... afterwhatsev­ by taking out a loan. 16 It is not just a modern eral members of the committee had written to feature for buildings to cost far more than me, I have no other alternative but to resign." estimated or for extras to be added on during The special meeting held on 24 May was building. clearly stormy as a motion asking Marshall to stay was moved, which was only defeated by

22 23 HACKNEY History

Notes 1. Charles L. Eastlak.e,A Hist01yoftheGothicRevival, 1872, 13. H . A. Darbishire was baptised in Cross Street Chapel 363. (Presbyterian/ Unitarian) Manchester on 8 September 2. For example see Basil Clarke, Church Builders of the 19th 1825, the son of Ja mes and Mary. His father, and probably centun;: a study of the Gothic Revival in England, 1938. his grandfather, were trustees of the Chapel. See R. 3. Horton Davis, Worship and Theology in England 1850 - Wade, RiseofNonconfonnity in Manchester and sketch of the 1900, from Newman to Martineau, Oxford, 1962, 42-64 hist01y of Cross Street Chapel, Manchester, 1880. At the gives the background to the Gothic Revival covering stonelaying in Chatham Place, James Aspinall Turner Methodist and Nonconformist examples. R. P Jones, MP, also a member at Cross Street Chapel, stated that the Nonconformist Church Architecture, 1914 has a chapter on architect was the son of an old friend of his, James the Gothic period and concentrates on Unitarian exam­ Darbishire of Manchester (Chri stian Refonner, 1857, 521) . A HOUSE AT HACKNEY WICK ples, 37-42. H . A. Darbishire, DL, JP died on 4 June 1899 at Oakdene, 4. The foundation stone for the building was laid on 16 Cowden, Kent, aged 74 (obituary, The Inquirer , 1899, October 1809, and the completed building brought into 390.) use the following year. Thearchitectwas Edmund Aikin, 14. M Binney and P Burman, Change & Decay: 11ie Future and Seabrook the contractor (Christian Refomzer, July of Our Churches, 1977, 25 . Darbishire however did design 1857, 520-522). the Anglican church of St.James, Moore Park Road, 5. See Alan Ruston, Unitarianism and Early Presbyterian­ Fulham. ism in Hackney, Watford, 1980 for a history of the Gravel 15. Christian Reformer, April 1858, 249. Isobel Watson Pit Chapel, its ministers and leading members. 16. Minute Book, above, Committee meeting 21 March 6. Minute book, New Gravel Pit Chapel, 1846-1860, Com­ 1858. mittee Meeting27March 1852 (HAD D/E/257 NEW) . 17 T.L. Marshall subsequently became the editor of The 7 Minute book, above, Committee meeting 3 July 1864. Inquirer, the chief Unitarian newspaper, and a kindly The minutes contain a tribute to Clennell, who had just elder statesman. By the 1880s the Hackney congregation Silk and snuff the mou ming silks; and for snuff mills. Leny died, and confirms he was the main mover for the re­ was consulting him on contentious issues, ani his advice At the corner of Hassett Road and Smith had taken over from William by 1790, building. His main supporters had been V I. Collier and was regularly requested in later decades. He-preached on Walter C. Venning, who took over as treasurer. several occasions and the congregation readily forgot the Kenworthy Road, near Hackney Wick, stands soon after which any connection with the 8. Henry Astley Darbishire (FRIBA 1856; 1825 - 1899) had shameful way they had treated him. It says much for a high brick wall. Just visible, behind the wall, snuff business seems to have been given up. an office at 4 Trafalgar Square and was" one of the most Marshall that he was willing to do likewise. is an elegant stock-brick house with high, Smith's silk business was, at his height, obscure, original Victorian architects ... between 1857 and 18. Minute book 1860-1883, Committee meeting 10 Feb­ rounded Regency window-arches. This, with claimed to be the largest in the country His 1868 he designed some of the earliest and best working ruary 1861(HAD). its outbuildings and annexes, forms the Con­ London premises, established about 1789 in class tenements, [notably for the Peabody Trust]. For his vent of the Sacred Heart, which has been here Bread Street, and later transferred to Pater­ principal patron Angela, Baroness Coutts he built Holly for more than a century But the house which noster Row, bought and sold. Apart from an Village Hampstead, a model village of villas in formal is at the core of the convent complex is ap­ establishment stated to consist in 1800 of gardens built for clerks of Coutts Bank, and the Gothic market hall of polychromatic brick, iron and glass at proaching its bi-centenary It began as the el­ some six or seven hundred weavers, mostly Columbia Market, Shoreditch."(Mncmillan Encz;clopedia egant home of a successful silk manufacturer, women, based in Taunton, he is said to have of Architects, 1, 402). Directon; of British Architects 1834- and as such has an important place in the story employed 'nearly the same' number in Hack­ 1900 (DBA), RIBA, 1993, 233 gives the location of his of Hackney merchant-manufacturers. It also ney in throwing the silk (preparing it for the unpublished papers. ranks among many Hackney houses which, loom) and in 'craping' it after weaving, a 9. Arthur Ashpitel (FRIBA 1851, 1807 - 1869) had offices after affluent residents have moved on to more process described as dressing it and fitting it in Old Broad Street and Regent's Street. He was born in fashionable locations, have served a wider for the wearer. Mechanisation consisted of Hackney and buried at the parish church (St . John's): social purpose as a refuge for one or other two steam engines 'of improved construc­ DBA, above. disadvantaged group, or as a place for educa­ tion' 3 A chaise was kept in a livery stable at 10. This architect is presumably Robert Ebbles, who is tion. 'Sydney House', as its builder called it Coleman Street for the purpose of carrying known to have specialised in church building in the Wolverhampton area in the 1830s and 1840s:DBA,above. (perhaps after the then late Viscount), has in its the dressed silk from Hackney to the City 4 11 . Charles Laws ( AR IBA 1859), died 1874, had offices in time been both. warehouse. Clements Inn and Doughty Street: DBA, above. The house was built in 1808-9 by Leny In a tax dispute Smith described his 12. William Gibbs Bartleet (ARIBA 1859; 1829-1906) had Smith, a silk manufacturer. The Smith busi­ workers as 'day labourers' It is interesting to offices in Old Street and Herne Villa, Brentwood: DBA, ness specialised in the production of crepe for speculate from how far afield some of them above. mourning wear and the undertaking trade. In must have come. A few - who cannot have the poor rate records for 17871 William Smith is been casuals - were provided with housing. shown as occupying land at Hackney Wick Before 1814 there were four workers' cot­ consisting of a house and mills, formerly occu­ tages along 'Silk Mill Row' on the northern pied, in succession, by Mower, Margrave and side at the end of what later became Cass land Thomas Morgan.2 Before the Smiths it is not Road; Baker's Row, back to back housing known what these mills at the Wick produced; near the south side of Well Street Common, and the succession from William to Leny Smith originally a development on leasehold land may be merely coincidence, as there is no of the Well Street baker William Gigney, was established family connection between the two. rebuilt by Smith in 1822.5 From 1787 there were assessments both for the Between 1792 and 1801 Smith was relin­ main premises, which presumably supplied quishing, and acquiring, other property in

24 25 HACKNEY History A House at Hackney Wick the area, but it was not until 1808 that his By the end of the Napoleonic wars Parlia­ such places as Hoxton, or in hidden corners of unusual Christian name of Gohn) Leny; and 'considerable manufacture in silk' had pros­ ment and government were concerning them­ suburban St John's Wood, to provide the spa­ there is the teasing postscript to a business pered sufficiently to support not only a new selves with the practices of the profit-making cious grounds of which the Commissioners letter w ritten by John Ballance to John house large enough fo r his considerable house­ asylums engaged in the 'trade in lunacy', and approved. It seems permissible to infer that Heudebourck at Taunton, in December 1814. 6 hold (11 males and 12 females in 1811) , but the attentions of the Metropolitan Commis­ Tuke was, in fo unding the Sidney House asy­ I quote this at length because of its charm­ extensive new building at the mills. But the sioners in Lunacy were turned on Sidney lum at precisely the time of reform in the ingly gossipy and sardonic tone: Smith fortunes declined, and by 1828 condi­ House, as on other such establishments. A public administration of mental health, es­ tions in the silk trade were such that the mill handful of their reports survive, for the period pousing aims and objects sympathetic to those If report has married you, I suppose it is true you of his namesakes in York. As early as 1833, have begun to court... News oflate has abounded lay idle - ' mothballed', in the modern phrase. between July 1829 and May 1830. The house here as with you. Take the follg. instances. - Smith's affairs were soon in the hands of mort­ was licensed to take up to ten patients, but however, DrTuke removed his business to the Manor House at Chiswick, where he was suc­ Miss E. Williams is about to be married -to whom gagees, the Hope Insurance Company; and the does not seem to have had more than five say you? I will tell you - to a Cheesemonger of splendid house was given up. Its new occu­ during this period, and often had fewer. It ceeded by his son, Thomas Harrington Tuke Shoreditch about 40 - Ah! but then he is rich, pant, who came in during 1828, was Edward does seem as if this Dr Tuke specialised in the M.D., who became better-known than his fa­ and that stops our mouth- he has taken a lease Francis Tuke, MD. From Tuke's day onwards illness of the very rich. ther in the profession, and who married into in the Forest and his Carriage is on the Stocks - the family of the director of the first state-run Hear again - The first week in Janr. L. Smith Esqr 'Sydney House' was just as often spell ed as The Commissioners concerned them­ 8 'Sidney House', and indeed Kenworthy Road selves principally with cleanliness and, in their asylum at Hanwell. is to be married to a young Lady of 36 - of very was known until 1938 as Sidney Road. eyes almost as important, godliness. They gave Domestic habits. And I have rec' d a commission Smiths and Ballances from him to make this known to you as it is too much less attention to treatment or activity for delicate a subject to talk of himself - Bashful Dr Tuke's asylum the patients. On all counts, nonetheless, they Sidney House came into the possession of Thomas Ba llance. It is unlikely to be coinci­ Man. - Now forthwith for your congratulations As Starling's map tell s us, in 1831, Dr found no fault with what was evidently a most and those of your family ... 11 [emphasis added] Tuke ran a ' lunatic asylum' Th e name of Tuke select establishment: "The house is commodi­ dence that the Ballances, like the Smiths, were is famous in the treatment of the insane: Dr E. ous and the airing grounds very extensive," silk manufacturers, also specialising in mourn­ On 12th December 1814 an Archbish­ F. Tuke's Quaker contemporary Samuel Tuke they commented; and again "The 1lt1use and ing silks. There appear to have been social as op's licence was granted for the marriage of had succeeded his father Henry at the highly grounds are excellent and the only pfi.tient here well as business links between the families. Leny Smith to his second wife, Caroline influential and innovative Retreat for the treat­ seems to be as comfortable as she is capable of The Ballances also had business interests in Laforest. 12 ment of the insane at York. But E. F. Tuke's being ... This is an excellent establishment and Somerset, as well as City premises, ultimately in Spital Square and White Lion Street. The connection with the York family, if any, is not in every respect calls for the approbation of the A place for children established, and very little personal informa­ Commissioners."7 Sidney House was much family descended from Spitalfields weavers, Mary and Thomas Ballance took seven and Thomas's father John, who married tion about him is available. better-placed than many of its competitors in children with them to Sidney House, and Homerton-born Elizabeth Heudebourck, had another seven were born there - almost one a been in business in Steward Street as a manu­ 9 year over fifteen years. The grounds, to which facturer of black silk since 1806. There is no Thomas Ballance added by a judicious pur­ clear evidence that the Ballances used the mill chase of surplus land from the North London buildings at the Wick for the business; their Railway, contained some nine acres of gar­ silk was 'thrown' in Taunton. If they did, this den, ideal for such a large and healthy family must have ceased by 1840, when Robinson Some disaster struck the family finances in notes that the silk business had ended and the the 1850s, forcing Thomas to mortgage the premises were used for making scarlet cloth. property; it can be no coincidence that Oriel OtherevidencesuggeststhatThomasandMary Road began building, although sporadically, Ballance may not have moved to Sidney House on the property before 1855. From the col­ from their previous home at the Paragon until 10 lapse of the silk trade following the Anglo­ between 1839 and 1841. French Treaty of 1860 the Ballance finances Thomas Ballance and his wife (and cousin) never fully recovered. Thomas died at Sidney Mary Smart were Hackney born and bred, House in 1867, and the family moved to with many relatives in the area, especially at Clapham. Most of the land had to be sold off Cambridge Heath and around Shore Place. for development (as the 'Sidney Park estate') John Ballance, Thomas's father and head of the to fund the numerous family legacies. Sew­ family during the great days of the Spitalfields ers for Ballance and Hassett Roads were put business, lived in a house he had built for in in 1870, and the 1871 census found the himself (Stanley House, now demolished) near house itself in the occupation of the site fore­ Clapton Pond. They were connected through man and his family By 1873 the new devel­ the marriage of John's daughter Eliza to the opment was substantially complete, and the paint-making Berger (Steigenberger) family of remainder of Oriel Road built up. The princi­ Homerton, and later to the local architect James pal builder-speculators were Josiah Goodman Edmeston. There is also evidence of social and Joseph Wilkinson, major builders in the links between the Ballances and their pred­ Bow area, though a number ofother builders ecessors at Sidney House, the Smiths. A undertook house construction. Samuel Prout Heudebourck cousin was distinguished by the Sidney House from the south-east, in the time of the Ballance family

26 27 HACKNEY History

Newcome, the enterprising schoolmaster and Notes photographer formerly of Lower Clapton 1. HAD P /J / CW / 11 5-11 7; P /J IP 156. Leny Smith (1761- (whose Priory School will be known to readers 1839) was the son of Christopher Smith, carpenter/ shop­ of Hackney Terrier 30), was a leading financier keeper, of Yorkshire descent. Information on the Smiths of the project. 13 was kindly supplied by C.R. F. Potter. The Convent of the Sacred Heart fi nally 2. Ga ps in the tax records make it unclear whether these took over the house, seemingly in the early are the same mills as were occupied by Heneage Robinson 14 in the 1750s. There were other mills in the neighbourhood, 1870s. In 1882 it began building extensive both then and later, and the Temple Mills receive separate extensions to the house (designed by C. G. mention in the records. Wray), for the housing and schooling of the 3. Lysons, Environs of London, Vol. 5 (supplement), 163 THE RISE OF THE HIGH-RISE: orphans in its care.15 (1800). In 1891 there were 50 nuns (all but eight 4. HAD M.4335. POST-WAR HOUSING IN HACKNEY of them from Ireland) and 109 orphan gi rls 5.HAD P/ J/ P/ 167; GLRO MDR 1830 / 1/434: M79 /LH / aged between 2 and 18, all but two of their 22 p. 178. See also Benjamin Clarke, Glimpses of Ancient families ori ginating in the central London par­ HacknetJ and Stoke Newington (1894) 160. ishes, most frequently Poplar or Limehouse. 16 6. HAD P/J/ Misc / 1/ 4. 7.PRO HO/ 44 / 51. Though the Convent remains, there is no 8. Munk's Roll (Lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Peter Foynes longer an orphanage, and parts of these build­ Physicians of London, 1826-1925, G H Brown 1955). ings have in recent years been removed. New 9.Parliamentary Papers XIX 474 (1831 / 2) Gohn Ballance's housing has been built on the southern part of evidence to the Select Committee on the silk trade); Kent's the remaining sliver of 'Sidney Park', as last directory 1809. 10. See generally D. B. Ballance, The Ballances (MS); copy century it was built on the north and west. In The County Plan caused by the war gave this process a new the centre of it all, the silk manufacturers' at HAD. 11. Copy in the possession of D. B. Ball;\ ce, whose No visitor to, or resident of, the London impetus; removing " property that cried aloud house still stands. 2 permission to publish is gratefully acknowledged. Borough of Hackney, ca n but be struck by the for redevelopment" The blueprint for rede­ 12. Information from C. R. F. Potter. impact that local authority housing has made velopment was the County of London Plan, 13. GLRO MDR 1869/ 2/38, 1871 9/654, 21 / 783-4; H AD upon the area. This article attempts a survey of devised by the LCC in the later years of the LBH / 7//5. the main factors which in fl uenced the policies war. 14. 'Catholicity in Homerton', in The Lamp, n.d., HAD that gave shape to post war housing poli cy and The Plan outlined fo ur main problems in Y4096/221. development, in particular the fa ctors that lay London: overcrowded and out of date hous­ 15.The Builder, 7 October 1882. behind what became known as the 'high rise ing; inadequate and maldistribution of open 16. PRO RG 12/ 203 . boom' of the 1960s. spaces; compression of houses and industry; It would be foolish, within the limits of traffic congesti on. To address these problems a this article, to attempt to describe the com­ number of strategies were to be employed. The plexities of the post war history of an area population of the inner London area was to be reaching from Stamford Hill in the north to kept static or declining. A green belt was to be Old Street in the south, bounded on the east by established around this area, to arrest urban the River Lea and on the west by Islington. spraw l. Surplus population, by which was Nonetheless, in terms of local authority hous­ meant population above a preordained den­ ing the area does share important characteris­ sity, were to be moved out, or'decanted', as the tics. Since 1965 it has been the London borough phrase had it, beyond the green belt, to the new of Hackney that has been responsible for pub­ and expanding towns. Within the conurba­ lic housing provision. The London borough ti on, zoning was to be employed to end the itself was created by the amalgamation of the unsanitary juxtaposition of homes and schools metropolitan boroughs of Shoreditch, Stoke with industry Areas were zoned exclusively Newington and Hackney, which themselves for housing, for industrial use, for recreational were in the county of London and came within use etc. New roads were to be built to relieve the jurisdiction of the London County Council. traffic congestion, new open spaces were to be The LCC and the metropolitan boroughs shared created to improve the quality of life for inner responsibility for public housing provision, city residents. Everything was to be done to a but it was the LCC that set the context and higher standard.3 shape of that housing provision. To under­ Every part of the county was included in stand post-war Hackney, and indeed, post­ the plan. Any divergence from the plan, even war London, it is necessary to understand the for a single address, necessitated lengthy dis­ wider context set by the LCC. cussion. The regulation and management of the The plan was to be implemented by the 'Great Wen' that was London1 was one of the LCC in conjunction with the metropolitan bor­ primary reasons behind the establ ishment of oughs. The statutory basis fo r the plan envis­ the LCC. Never an easy task, the upheaval aged the LCC as both the dominant house

28 29 HACKNEY History The Rise of the High-Rise

builder and the major planning authority, but a smaller number of more substantial develop­ the LCC's Woodberry Down scheme, and the Where the LCC, the metropolis-wide local in practice the LCC and the boroughs acted, ments, a reflection of the greater availability of seven storey blocks that were included in the authority (nursery of Cabinet Ministers) led, not always in concert, as house builders. Hack­ derelict space in the borough and the smaller LCC developments at Frampton Park Road the boroughs followed. In addition the LCC ney, for example, agreed a division of respon­ number of owner occupiers. The Colville, and Buckland Street, planned in 1947, were made available its designs to other local au­ sibility with the LCC, the LCC taking the area Kingsland, St Mary's, Pitfield and Wenlock regarded very much as experiments: and were thorities, free of copyright charges, a signifi­ south of the North London Line, Hackney Barn estates all date from this period. 5 In Stoke treated with great suspicion by both the local cant incentive to their wider use. taking the area north of it. Although the rela­ Newington the LCCbuiltthe Woodberry Down populace and elements within the LCC. The widespread shortage of building tionship between the LCC and the other two estate, which, when completed in 1948, had By 1955, however, the LCC had 91 schemes land was also a significant factor in the increas­ boroughs was more fraught the sixteen years over 2,000 dwellings. (completed, under construction or planned) ing use of taller blocks of flats. The Hackney between 1945 and 1961 saw an unprecedented Not only was there a substantial increase which included blocksofeightstoreysormore. Borough Guide of 1960 phrased the problem rate of housing construction in the three bor­ in the number of dwellings being built in the By 1957, developments with 20 storey blocks rather plaintively· oughs: the metropolitan borough councils and post-war period, the standard of the dwellings were in preparation. In 1959 Hackney borough the LCC combined built 17,827 dwellings, an was improving. The account in the Hackney council opened its first estate comprising 15 Housing development ... is conditioned very much average of over 1,000 dwellings per year. Borough Guide of 1954-55 is typical of the storey blocks, the Trelawney Estate in Morn­ by the lack of building sites and the ever increasing In this period Hackney was particularly period: ing Lane.8 cost of site purchase. This has left the Council with 10 active, completing5,864 permanent dwellings, There were a number of factors underly­ no alternative but to build higher. the second most active borough in London. On all the more recent estates electricity has been ing this increasing use of tall blocks. This pressure on land arose from a number The scale of construction varied from small employed to the utmost extent. Each dwelling is Attitudes of architects towards tall blocks of sources, but the fundamental problem was developments, such as four maisonettes at serviced for either gas or electric cooking. Gas, of flats, 'vertical building', as a 1952 corre­ the changing structure of the population of Adley Street, to substantial estates like the electricity and solid fuel appliances have been spondent in the Daily Telegraph called it. The London. Although the absolute population Parkside estate, which had 152 dwellings. The installed for space and water heating according to 'High Paddington' scheme, a notional devel­ the circumstances of each estate. The living-rooms figures in London turned out largely as the Mapledene, Beecholme, Summit and Beckers opment to house 8,000 people in three blocks and bedrooms are fitted with plug points for the County Plan predicted, 11 the number of house­ developments4 all date from this period. of over thirty storeys, published in 1952, at­ purpose of supplying electricity to ra~ sets, elec­ holds within the population, which is the im­ 6 tracted great attention, including a talk on the Development in Shoreditch followed a tric fires, irons, kettles and similar apparatus. portant figure for housing provision, in­ different pattern, being oriented more towards Third Programme. The Press release for an creased.12 Later developments, like the Trelawney RIBA symposium on tall flats in February 1955, estate in Morning Lane, had underfloor heat­ chaired by the Architect to the LCC, noted that Demographic trends ing. Developments often included community Broad trends within the general popula­ halls and tenants' meeting rooms, communal ... the high cost of land, the encroachment of build­ ing on agricultural land and - too often - the fea­ tion were, in part, responsible for this change. workshops and recreation space on the larger Smaller families, longer life expectancy and estates, and storage space for bicycles, prams tureless spread of housing estates beyond the con­ fines of their cities are compelling a growing increasing divorce rates meant that household ~ etc. Internally, the flats were, by the standards iff.,, number of local authorities to consider the contri­ numbers increased generally Longer life ex­ .,...-; of the day, well appointed, certainly suffi­ bution that the building of high flats can make to '!'1;: pectancy, for example, meant that elderly cou­ J,,IL ciently so for the councils to trumpet their their housing and reconstruction programme. ples would be inhabiting perhaps a four bed­ virtues in official publications. room dwelling, in which they had reared their Internal modifications in the flats being -- Some local authority planners began to family, for decades after the family had - built were matched by innovations in the ap­ see positive elements in the use of taller blocks left.Councils were, understandably, reluctant -; I pearance of the buildings. The standard local of flats. r ; -__,..,, to ' relocate' such people. Increasing divorce .-~ authority brick, three to five storey, blocks . Low rise developments were thought to rates meant that whereas, before the war, there continued to be built, with some modifica­ use up too much of the available land, leaving would have been one household, now there -:t !Iii} tions. Sash windows were replaced with' con­ T:1'- J very little green space for the residents. They were two. • tinental style' steel window frames. Individual also led to the "monotony of repetitive blocks In addition to these general trends, Lon­ 9 balconies and gallery access were frequently of similar height and appearance" The solu­ don underwent a huge expansion in white included as a feature. tion proposed was to mix the densities on any collar and service employment. Office space given estate, juxtaposing high rise with low grew from 87 million square feet, before the Vertical building' rise, so that at least some residents would have war, to 132 million by the early 1960s. The The post-war era also saw the introduc­ the possibility of living in a house with a authors of the County Plan, who thought of tion of taller buildings, a development that garden. However, the loss of accommodation employment largely in industrial terms, did was to have significant consequences for Hack­ involved in building low rise, two or three, or not, and could not, have anticipated this. 13 This ney in the 1960s. even five storeys, had to be compensated for employment explosion attracted people into While the LCC had toyed with the idea of by building other parts of the estate high-rise. the inner London area, mostly people who tall blocks of flats before the war, developing a The first 'mixed density estate' - as this style were young or single, with a consequent in­ scheme for Drysdale Street that included nine came to be known - with 11 storey blocks, was crease in the number of households, but a storey blocks, tall blocks of flats were not part the Alton East estate, in Roehampton, opened reduction in their average size. Smaller house­ of early post-war thinking.7 Hackney borough in 1954. By 1966 the LCC [or its successor from holds use space less efficiently than larger Burtonwood House, Woodberry Down (1948). A council announced in 1948 that it intended 1965, the Greater London Council] had built24 ones. One bathroom and one kitchen will, in Scandinavian design, borrowed whosesale by the never to build above three storeys again. The storey blocks on the Pepys Estate at Deptford. the ordinary course of events, be sufficient for LCC to save time; an unprecedented eight storeys. four eight storey blocks that were included in

30 31 HACKNEY History The Rise of the High-Rise a family of six. It will also be the minimum clearance plans of the LCC discouraged in­ requirement for a household of two. vestment in areas designated for clearance, Although a significant majority of this even if that clearance was not to be for a immigrant population to London did not have decade. The effect was to discourage invest­ a direct impact on local government provision ment in the private rented sector by existing or of housing, increased demand for living space potential landlords and to reduce the avail­ was to drive up the price of land. ability, while accelerating the dilapidation, of Aspects of the County Plan exacerbated properties in that sector. this trend. The zoning of land for the exclusive This was occurring at a time when local use of schools, roadways and industry reduced authorities had residence criteria for admis­ the amount of land available for house build­ sion to their housing lists. Both Shoreditch and ing. The slum clearance programme, which Hackney councils expected proofofthree years' was one of the largest in Europe, by definition residence in the borough before even being reduced the number of dwellings on a given allowed onto the housing waiting list. In Hack­ site, assuming no change in the height of the ney no case would even be considered until buildings. The inclusion of better facilities, twelve months after admission to the list. 15 such as community halls and storage sheds, The effect of this situation on the eco­ and the higher standard of accommodation on nomically weaker of those immigrants into new developments, all reduced the land avail­ London in the late 1950s and 1960s was pre­ able for house building. Homes for Today and dictable. They had no choice but to crowd into Tomorrow, 14 the 1961 report of the Parker Mor­ an increasingly deteriorating private rented ris Committee established to agree minimum sector. standards for local authority housing, acceler­ A committee of enquiry set up \ij investi­ ated the trend towards increasing the size and gate the housing situation in London - best­ amenities of local authority housing, recom­ known, after its chairman, as the Milner-Hol­ mending that floor space should be increased land committee- portrayed a situation scarcely by a minimum of 10%. The net effect of these credible after fifteen years of the largest house­ developments was that land for local authority bu ii ding programme the ea pi tal had ever seen. A Shored itch interior of the 1950s building became increasingly scarce, while de­ In Hackney, the numberof dwellings with mands on that land increased. Councils had fewer than six rooms, which had been divided System building To paraphrase: if the chosen scheme of Industrialised, or system, building tech­ design and construction is system-built mixed little choice but to build higher. into three or more household spaces, more niques were imported, originally from Scandi­ density, then estate will be large, repetitive By the early 1960s, then, local authorities than doubled between 1951 and 1961. Almost navia, in the early 1960s.16 The principle be­ and concrete, incorporating high and low rise. had accepted, more or less reluctantly, the half (48%) of Hackney households of three or hind industrialised building was that compo­ The first estate constructed entirely using in­ necessity for building tall blocks of flats in a more persons were in such multi-occupied nent parts were prefabricated, either on or off dustrialised methods was the Morris Walk mixed density environment to meet inner city dwellings in 1961. More than two thirds (68 %) site, and the building assembled with a crane. Estate in Greenwich, opened by the LCC in housing need. Other factors had to come into of households lacked or shared at least one of It was neither particularly new nor cheap, but 1964. 17 play, however, before the ' high rise boom' of the basic domestic facilities of hot and cold it had the advantage of not requiring the tradi­ Encouragement to use system building the sixties could truly take hold. water, bath or W.C. In Shored itch 7% of house­ tional building trades, which were expensive, came from all quarters. The Evening Standard holds of more than three persons were living at and in short supply in the 1960s. Industrialised ofNovember1962trumpeted "Rapid Housing The private sector more than 1.5 persons per room, while 8% of building was, strictly speaking, a technique, - homes put up in less time than it takes to eat The first of these was the deterioration of households had no si nk or stove. Shoreditch but its use had implications for the type of lunch" The Ministry of Housing and Local conditions within the private rented sector, shared with Hackney the distinction of being dwellings built. The architect to the LCC re­ Government encouraged the standardisation among the half dozen areas within Greater caused, in part, by central and local authority ported in 1965 - of components to facilitate system building. London with highest housing stress, that is, policies. The Labour Party Manifesto of 1966 stated that Successive administrations had taken a areas where the extent of sharing of dwellings Concrete is used exclusively because there is no "In order to combine labour saving and stand­ jaundiced view of this sector. Conservative was highest, and physical condition poorest. other material that can be prefabricated in large ardisation ... we are requiring local authorities governments encouraged owner occupation Stoke Newington, though less distressed, was units, at an acceptable cost, to give the standard of by tax incentives, drawing the better off out of regarded as having a" fairly high" proportion to rely increasingly on modern system build­ sound insulation called for between dwellings ... A ing technique". In 1965 a group ofart students the private rented sector and reducing the of shared accommodation. typical new housing scheme in the County com­ number of properties available for rent. La­ The publication of Milner Holland in 1965 prises mixed development at high density. The form Homsey College called for government­ bour governments encouraged local authority and the revelation of the situation in London system best suited fort he construction of the multi­ owned factories for producing prefabricated housing and, at one period supported the'mu­ created substantial political pressure for a re­ storey blocks must call the tune, since the perform­ buildings. nicipalisation' of the private rented sector, that newed assault on the housing problem. This ance standards for these blocks are highest... In­ By the early 1960s, living conditions for a is the acquisition of properties by local au­ coincided with the introduction of new build­ vestment in the capacity to repeat carries with it an significant minority of the population were obligation to accept a minimum level of repetition thorities. Both parties restricted rent rises in ing methods. deteriorating. Building land was scarce and without any change in the design. local authorities felt they had no option but to rent controlled premises. There was, for exam­ build high to alleviate those conditions. Archi­ ple, only one rent increase in controlled tectural orthodoxy favoured mixed density premises between 1939 and 1960. The slum

32 33 HACKNEY History The Rise of the High-Rise estates, including high rise towers. Industrial­ construction rate of over 1,000 dwellings, this ised building, favouring large, repetitive con­ plan envisaged the building of a Holly Street crete developments, was seen as the fastest estate every year for ten years. 19 and most economic way of proceeding. In these circumstances it is not surprising The election of a Labour government in that the late sixties saw an upsurge in the 1964 allowed these factors to combine. Whilst building of high rise tower blocks which has it is important not to overstate the extent to left its mark on the landscape of Hackney Of which party politics affected housing develop­ the 78blocks of nine stories or higher in the ment in the 1960s (there was a good deal of borough, 35 are 16 or more storeys high. Of the common ground between the parties on the 35 such blocks, 31 were completed between housing issue and the institutional continuity 1969 and 1971, indicating that they were of the Ministry of Housing and Local Govern­ planned between 1965 and 1967 The majority ment remained), the Labour Party saw local of these blocks, 22 of the 35, are on five estates, authorities as having a major role in the alle­ De Beauvoir, Holly Street, Nightingale, viation of housing stress. As the 1965 White Trowbridge and Clapton Park. To put it an­ Paper put it, "We are faced with an ever­ other way, just under half of the sixteen storey growing shortage of accommodation within or more blocks in Hackney were planned in the means of poorer families and the growth of the two years between 1965 and 1967 Two owner occupation can do very little to relieve thirds of those are on only five estates. The it. The only remedy is an increase in public high rise boom had arrived. sector building." 18 A tangible expression of this change was the plan to build 11,000 dwell­ ings produced by the newly-created London borough of Hackney With an annual average

Detail of the architects' model for the second phase de Beauvoir estate, 1971, marking a shift from high rise and mixed density to low rise while still using system building.

Notes 1. The LCC's own term: P Abercrombie and J. H . 10. MBH, Official Guide, 1960, 3. Forshaw, County of London Plan (1943), iii; hereafter 11. The area which in 1965 became the London borough 'County Plan' ofHackneywas predicted to have a populationof280,000 2. ib, 1. in 1971. it was actually 220,000. 3. County Plan; Royal Commission on Local Govern­ 12. The account which follows of London housing in the ment in Greater London, 1959, Memoranda of Evidence late 1950s and early 1960s is taken from the Report of the from Government Departments, 119. Committee 011 Housing in Greater London (1965), Cmnd. 4. 84,104,103 and 148 dwellings respectively. Metropoli­ 2605 (the Milner Holland Committee). tan Borough of Hackney (MBH), Official Guide, 1961, 100- 13. London: Employment, Housing and Land (1963), Cmnd. 101 . 1952, 2-4. 5. 326, 128, 324, 184 and 960 dwellings respectively. 14. Ministry of Housing and Local Government, 1961. 'Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch' in Surveys - A 15. MBH, Official Guide, 1960, 99; HAD S/H/31, 327 publication of the Ideal Press Technical Group, (1951 ), vol. 1, 16. The account of system building which follows is 3-23. based on LCC Committee files, GLRO LCC/ CL / HSG / 6. MBH, Official Guide, 1954-5, 74. 1/ 91. 7 The account that fo llows of the LCC and tall blocks is 17 Home Sweet Home: a Visual Histon; of LCC/GLC Hous­ based on LCC committee files, GLRO LCC/ CL / HSG/ ing, (1975), 10. 1/ 94. 18. Housing Programme 1965-1970. 8. MBH, Official Guide, 1960, 93. 19. HAD LBH/CA/ 2. 9. W E. Jackson, Achievement: a Short Histan; of the LCC (1965), 94-95.

The de Beauvoir estate (1972), the last of such develapments in Hackney: this view shows the varied block heights and repetitive style characteristic of mixed density estates.

34 35 Contributors to this issue

Tim Baker is Editor of the Victoria County History of Inner Middlesex, and the author of volume X, dealing with the parish of Hackney, to be published in 1995.

Peter Foynes is Senior Assistant Archivist in the Archives Department of the London borough of Hackney.

Mike Gray is an established writer, lecturer and guide, and co-author of a forthcoming monograph on Sutton House, to be published by English Heritage in association with the National Trust.

Dr. Richard Luckett is Pepys Librarian, Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Alan Ruston has w ritten extensively on ecclesiastical and theatrical history, and edits Hertfordshire People and Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society.

Isobel Watson has w ritten about Hackney in Gentlemen in the Building Line and Hackney and Stoke Newington Past, and elsewhere about Camden, Westminster and Mile End.

Acknowledgements

The illustrations in this issue appear by permission of the council of the London bor­ ough of Hackney, Archives Department, with the exception of those on pages 4, 5 and 7, which are reproduced by permission of the Master and Fellows, Magdalene College, Cam­ bridge.

The editor gratefully acknowledges the assistance and advice of David Mander and Peter Foynes of Hackney Archives Department; generous support from John Finn; Mike Gray's invaluable expertise in producing images fit to print; the kind co-operation of the Sutton House Society; and research and material made freely available by David Ballance and Chris Potter.

36