No 123 of the CAMDEN HISTORY SOCIETY Jan 1991 The Irish in Camden Advance Notice Tues, 22 Jan, 7pm. Most of the talks and events for 1991 are St Dominic's Priory, Southampton Road, NW5 now planned, and many you can put in your crisp, unbattered new diaries. They are: Our talk in January is on The Irish in Camden, and it will be given by Aiden · Thurs, Mar 21, 7.30pm, at the Royal Flood, whose book on the subject has Veterinary College, Royal College Street, recently been published - it is on sale NWl. Talk on the 200th anniversary of the at Swiss Cottage and Holborn Local RVC. History libraries and will be available on the evening. There is no need to April (date to be fixed) The Streets of underline the importance of the Irish in Belsize. Symposium involving the the development of Camden but, curiously researchers on the new Belsize enough, not very much research has been publication of the CHS. done on the subject. Wed, May 22nd, Heath Branch Library, We are combining the talk with a visit to Keats Grove, NW3, 7.30pm. Julian Pooley the interesting building of St Dominic's on 'A Publisher's Daughter in Hampstead'. Priory in Southampton Road. we are being shown round·the building at 7pm; and the Mon, Jun 17, 6.30pm. Annual Meeting at talk begins at·7.30pm the Architectural Association in Bedford Square. Talk on the history of Bedford Celebration of the Penny Post Square by Andrew Byrne. Thurs, 21 Feb, 7.30pm July. Talk and walk related to the 200th Bartrams Hostel (part of the Royal Free anniversary of camden Town. Hospital), Rowland Hill Street, Haverstock Hill, NW3. (Behind the George Sat, 3 August. Annµal outing to Burghley pub) House and Georgian Stamford. Approx cost £11 per head including a cream tea. We are a few months late in celebrating Booking form will be in the March the launch of Sir Rowland Hill's Penny Newsletter. Post in 1840. However, we are sure that members would still like to hear about September. Gustav Milne on King Alfred's the man and his project, especially as he London. retired, full of honours, to a house on Conducted tours around the Soane Museum. the Royal Free site. Which explains the new venue for this rronth. Tony Gamrrons is Tues, Oct 22, 7pm, Holborn Library. our speaker on this unique British Margaret Richardson on Sir John Soane and contribution to the history of his collection of drawings. communicatior.is. Perhaps he may shed light on why a first class letter now costs 55 November. Penny Hatfield on the Eton old pence! · Estate. POTTER AT THE MUSEUM December, Burgh House. Literary Camden. A repeat of last year's successful readings Temporary exhibitions at the Museum of featuring Camden in literature. London include The Tale of London Past - Beatrix Potter's Archaeological Paintings (to 27 Jan), Images of London Blitz (to 5 May) and, from 5 Feb, Jewellery in London from Pre-Roman Times to the 1930s. Save St Pancras Camden Town 200 A strong leader in The Times on 29 As reported in our September Newsletter December berated the management of the the Society is acting as a catalyst to restoration of St Pancras Hotel. On our launch celebrations in 1991 for the 200th own doorstep one of Europe's finest anniversary of the formation of Carrden buildings is being allowed to deteriorate Town: the Mayor of Carrden and the as developers and borough council fail to Marquess of carrden have kindly agreed to agree. We quote: be patrons. An attractive logo has been designed, which we hope will soon be a 'The need for emergency work to protect familiar sight, and Lester May, who is Britain's finest and saddest grade one co-ordinating the early work is now busy listed building is tragic. Consultants seeing various organisations to put have had to be called in to prevent together a programme of events. If any winter doing further damage to the roof member wants to help, or has suggestions, of the former St Pancras hotel in London, please contact him at 24 Reachview Court, opened in 1873, closed in 1935, and Baynes Street, NWl. completely empty for most of the past decade. Plans to re-create the building as a hotel in the grand style remain DIARY OF A LONDON SCHOOLBOY shelved, and with-the downturn in the Many members will be familiar with the property market must be considered at Diary of a London Schoolboy, published by risk. the society some years back, which presented for the first time the diary of 'A masterpiece which in any other a young boy of the Pocock family, whose European capital would have been restored building developments stretched from to its original glory (like the Gare Kilburn to Islington. Particularly d'Orsay in Paris, for example) stands involved in the transcription, editing dirty and decaying on a prominent site and publishing of that book was Christina next to the proposed new European rail Gee. She-will be giving a talk on the terminal. subject to the Willesden Local History Society (Willesden is featured in the 'The treatment of st Pancras has been a Diary) on 20 February, 7.45pm at St fiasco, full of lessons for the conduct Mary's Parish Church Centre, Neasden of Britain's public sector. The first Lane. Members from our Society are fault lies with the owner, British Rail, welcome. who for years failed to allow the building to be used for commercial CONFERENCE OF LONDON ARCHAEOLOGISTS development in order to realise its The annual conference of London value ••• The result, mercifully, was that archaeologists will be held on Saturday, conversion into an office block was 23 March at the Museum of London Lecture postponed until developers became Theatre. The crowded programme of talks interested in restoring St Pancras as a .covers the excavation of a Roman cemetery hotel. But British Rail's property board at West Smithfield, a Saxon excavation at delayed further, as differing railway Barking Abbey, and an excavation in interests impeded the efforts of the Limehouse. Tickets (for non-members) are selected developer, Speyhawk, to carry £3.50. Apply to the LAMAS Archaeological out plans for a hotel ..•. Conference, c/o Museum of London, London Wall, EC2Y 5HN 'Then other villains entered the piece. The local council, Carrden, used St Pancras as a weapon in its ideological BURGH HOUSE EVENTS war on enterprise. Little concerned with Burgh House is holding an exhibition from jobs or with conservation, it imposed new Jan 2 to April 1 (Weds-Sundays, 12-5pm) delaying conditions on the plans. St of recent acquisitions at the Museum. On Pancras then became enmeshed, both display will be the recent Allingham financially and operationally, in the bequest. much bigger redevelopment of the King's Cross site, where it is now stuck •.. Christopher Wade is giving three more talks with numerous slides on The streets ' •.. Sir Gilbert Scott's great Gothic of Hampstead. These are on Fridays, Feb staircase, his splendid coffee room, the 8, 15, 22 at 2.30pm. Entry fee: 50p. magnificent bedrooms, dining rooms and massive vaults must remain empty and forlorn: a memorial to what Britain cannot do, dating from a time when it could.' ,Cobden and His Times influence the nature of the Cobden Cobden and his Kate, by Jean Scott memorial statue in Camden town, said to Rogers. (£13.95, hardback, 200pp inc be the worst statue in London. illustrations. ISBN O 948667 11 7. Publ. by Historical Publications Ltd) There is plenty to enjoy in the book, from accounts of family life arrong public This is a biography using the text of but not very well-off people, building l~tters mainly from Cobden to his wife and running their new house, education Kate, but also letters written by Kate, and health matters, and of course the over the twenty-five years of their major political changes of the early marriage. Our ex-member, Jean Scott Victorian period. Rogers, keeps the commentary to a minimum, letting the letters speak for Roger Cline themselves, but I would have welcomed a longer introduction giving details of the research that went into the book and of Where was Brickfield Terrace? things like the cross-written letters Holloway has few modern claims to fame, Kate occasionally writes. but one of them, often quoted in social histories, is that it was the location of Cobden was passionate about the repeal of the residence of the Pooters in the the Corn Laws (which maintained the price famous book, Diary of a Nobody, by the of corn for the farmers at the expense of Grossmith brothers. Robin Woolven now the labourers whose main food was bread) casts doubt on the real whereabouts of and about Free Trade. He travelled Brickfield Terrace: widely, leaving Kate on her own for much of the time, but wrote to her regularly George and Weedon Grossmith's Diary of a so that his letters become a diary. His Nobody first appeared in Punch in short travelling meant that his business had to sections in the late 1880s and was first be left in the hands of his less able published in book form, with additions brother and his health and wealth and illustrations by Weedon, in 1892. suffered as a result. Kate's letters in This Victorian classic, still in print particular worried about money, the cost today, purports to be the diary of City of replacing clothes that her son, away clerk Charles Pooter of The Laurels, 12 at school, had lost.