It is relatively easy to have a good understanding of certain aspects of 17^th century London, partly thanks to the artist Wenceslaus Hollar. His pictures or their derivatives are more famous these days than the man himself, often seen on printed material depicting ‘old London’ of the time.

Wenceslaus (or Vaclav) Hollar was born in Prague in 1607, at that time the capital of Bohemia, into a middle-class family, his father a lawyer and court bureaucrat. Hollar began sketching miniatures and maps in his youth. It was in his hometown that he learnt the skills of copper engraving and the new technique of etching in which more subtle graduations of tone and texture can be achieved. He additionally produced minute detail in his works – such as hair or fur – by hand-engraving onto a plate that he had already etched.

The 20-year old Wenceslaus left Prague and spent several years travelling around what is now Germany, and during 1634 lived in Antwerp, everywhere filling sketchbooks with illustrations. By 1636 he was in Cologne, a city of rich merchants where he was probably able to obtain commissions for work. At that same time Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, was passing through the city with his entourage. Part of the English royal court, Arundel was en-route to the Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna on a diplomatic mission on behalf of Charles I. He invited Hollar to join his party to record the journey in pictures. The group travelled up the Rhine, through war-torn areas of Germany, back through the Lowlands and on to London, Hollar sketching as they went.

Howard lived at Arundel House on the Strand between London and Westminster and close to the royal palace at Whitehall. He was one of the great connoisseurs and collectors of antiquities of his time, a patron of the artists Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony Van Dyke, both of whom he had attracted to London. Hollar arrived in a country of peace and tranquillity compared with those he had left behind and London a town not too dissimilar to his boyhood home of Prague. At what was a small Tudor palace filled with works of art and an open-house to artists and writers, it is not difficult to understand the attraction to the young man of remaining in the city on Arundel’s staff, probably working in return for food, lodging and clothing. (He produced two etchings of Arundel House showing the inner courtyard and surrounding buildings).

Hollar soon began to make drawings of his adopted homeland and his first published work here was a ‘long-view’ of the tranquil countryside, looking towards London from what is now Greenwich Park. On the left stands the old Duke Humphrey’s Tower (the site of the later Royal Observatory) on the hill, with the new Queen’s House and old riverside Tudor palace to the right.

During his first six years Hollar worked on drawings for a catalogue of his collection that Arundel intended to publish. It was during that period that he filled his sketch-books with drawings of London that would eventually find their way into print in later years. At the same time he began producing work for publication. There was a growing number of merchants, gentry and aristocrats – such as the men who formed the Royal Society – with an interest in purchasing books for the knowledge they contained and they were published by various printers based around or close to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Pictures started to appear in both books and as individual prints and the country’s first major publisher of prints was Peter Stent at the ‘sign of the White Horse’ beside the River Fleet. It was he who began publishing prints of work by Hollar.

While working at Arundel House Hollar made the acquaintance of Lady Arundel’s lady-in-waiting Margaret. In 1641 they were married. The country was moving towards civil war and in that year Hollar drew his well-known picture of the execution at the Tower of London of the Earl of Strafford and later one of the trial of Archbishop Laud. In 1642 King Charles fled Whitehall. The Earl of Arundel sent much of his collection to Antwerp while he went into exile in Italy, leaving his London home to be trashed by Parliamentary troops. He died in Padua in 1644. For Hollar six happy and productive years at Arundel House were at an end. In 1644, with the Civil War at its height, Hollar moved with his family across the North Sea to Antwerp.

Ben Jonson is primarily remembered as a London playwright who came to prominence during the latter years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Yet he also excelled in other forms of writing, including poetry, philosophy and history. His folio of work paved the way for that of his better-known fellow thespian, William Shakespeare, with whom he was very favourably compared by contemporaries. It was in his collaborations with Inigo Jones for the court of King James that Jonson reached the peak of his career. However, he was also to find himself in trouble with authorities on a number of occasions.

Born in London in 1572, one month after the death of his clergyman father, Jonson grew up in humble accommodation in an alleyway between the Strand and the Thames. He learnt to read and write at the St. Martin-in-the-Fields elementary school, followed by Westminster School. His teacher there was the noted classical scholar William Camden who, observing his literary gifts, was able to encourage him and provide a first-class education in Latin and Greek. It was during that time that Jonson gained his love of drama and verse.

Jonson took up a place at Cambridge University but had to return to London after only a few weeks to help his step-father with brick-laying during construction work at Lincoln’s Inn. A lasting practical benefit, however, was that he was able to claim citizenship of London thereafter as a member of the Tylers & Bricklayers’ Company, whereas most other actors of the time required the legal patronage of an aristocrat.

In the early 1590s Jonson left to join English forces fighting against the Spanish in the Low Countries. After returning to London he took up acting and writing, perhaps in a travelling company. In 1594 he married at St. Magnus the Martyr church at the north end of London Bridge but seems to have often lived apart from his wife during their lifetimes.

Jonson’s earliest surviving play, The Case is Altered, was first performed by the Pembroke Company in 1597. The co-authored The Isle of Dogs was premiered at the new Swan theatre at Bankside later that same year. For reasons unknown today it caused offence, being considered lewd, and, in response, the Privy Council ordered the closure of all London theatres. Jonson and two of the actors were arrested, charged and imprisoned in Marshalsea gaol. Following interrogation, Jonson was released but the Pembroke Company did not survive and some members joined Philip Henslowe’s Admiral’s Men company that performed at the Rose theatre. For several years Jonson worked as one of the regular writers for that company. Most of his works from that time are now either completely lost or known only by their title.

The first major success came with Every Man in His Humour, first performed by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men at the Curtain theatre at Shoreditch in 1598 with Richard Burbage and William Shakespeare in leading roles.

At that same time Jonson was involved in a duel at Hoxton Fields during which he killed his opponent, the actor Gabriel Spencer, one of those with whom he was imprisoned the previous year. He was tried at the Old Bailey but spared the death sentence because he was able to read the Bible (known as ‘benefit of clergy’) and was punished leniently by having his thumb branded and his possessions forfeited. While in prison he converted to Catholicism.

Between 1599 and 1601 various plays by Jonson were performed at the new Globe theatre and the Blackfriars theatre. Some were performed at the court of Queen Elizabeth but were generally not well received there.

Following the succession of King James to the English throne in 1603, however, Jonson composed a number of speeches and poetry for royal and civic occasions. In 1605 he and the designer Inigo Jones collaborated on The Mask of Blackness at Banqueting Hall, Whitehall Palace. Its success ensured that it was to be the first of a number of masques (musical fantasies performed by members of the royal court) that the pair were to work on together over many seasons.

During the 17^th century several new developments and large mansions were established to the west of the old City of London, where aristocrats and the wealthy could be near to the royal palaces. One of those developments was the new suburb of St. James’s.

The areas of land to the north and west of Charing Cross had been held by the Hospital of St. Giles during the Middle Ages but came into the ownership of the Crown in 1536 at the dissolution of the monasteries. Subsequently Charles I granted them to his wife, Queen Henrietta Maria.

Henry Jermyn was a controversial and not universally trusted member of the royal court, believed to be the secret lover of both Henrietta Maria – mother of Charles II – and one of her maids of honour. He had been given the title of Earl of St. Albans at the Restoration. “My Lord Henry Germain, Earl of St. Albans, who, above all other individuals” wrote Count Lorenzo Magalotti in 1669, “has been loaded with benefits by her majesty.” From 1660 the Queen Mother began leasing to Jermyn parts of the former St. Giles lands. In 1665 he leased until 1740 (which was later renewed) the remainder of 45 acres of land known as St. James’s Fields. It was bordered on the north by Piccadilly, the east by Haymarket, west by St. James’s Street and the south by Pall Mall.

Jermyn applied to the King to develop St. James’s Fields but faced opposition from the City of London who obtained some of their water from there. Despite that opposition he persuaded the monarch on the basis that there was a local need for houses fit for members of the court. He petitioned Charles: “Ye beauty of this great Towne and ye convenience of your Court are defective in point of houses fitt for ye dwellings of Noble men and other persons of quality…”. The plan involved a number of grand mansions facing a central garden, named St. James’s Square, similar to the Earl of Southampton’s Bloomsbury but in this case exclusively for aristocrats. However, the proposed development was on land leased by Jermyn from the Crown for a fixed period and he found that wealthy members of the court had no interest in building grand palaces for the relatively short periods he could offer. The start of the scheme was also delayed by the Great Plague and Great Fire. Jermyn therefore changed course and leased out plots of land to prominent builders such as Nicholas Bourbon and Richard Frith who then built somewhat smaller town-houses, with work starting in 1665. The final development was quite similar to Bloomsbury, including a market and church.

Together with other associates, such as Sir Thomas Clarges, Jermyn laid out various streets – Jermyn, King, Charles II, Duke, Duke of York, Ryder and Babmaes Streets (the latter named after the King’s servant Baptist May). He also established St. Alban’s Market (more commonly known as St. James’s Market). Plots of land were sub-leased to these speculative builders to construct terraced houses for aristocratic tenants.

The local people of the area commissioned Sir Christopher Wren to design a new parish church between Piccadilly and Jermyn Street to hold 2,000 parishioners, the only Wren church on a completely new site. It was consecrated in 1684, although still not then complete. Wren’s initial steeple design was rejected and the vestrymen instead commissioned a local carpenter to build one. No doubt Wren was quietly amused when the original had to be taken down after it was found to be unsafe once the bells had been installed and in 1700 he was asked back again to complete the work.

Some of the finest houses were those on the south side of Pall Mall that faced across St. James’s Park and that is where the King’s mistress Nell Gwyn and the Countess of Ranelagh lived.

The street of Pall Mall at St. James’s was laid out on a former alley that ran between two rows of elms. It had been used to play a game similar to croquet by the name of ‘palle-maille’ (which in turn was a French adaptation of the Italian ‘pallo a maglio’ meaning ball and mallet). The game had probably been brought to Scotland by Mary, Queen of Scots, and then to England by James I (who is also reputed to have brought golf with him) and was by the mid-century all the rage in France. It was played on a soft surface but carriages were increasingly using the unpaved alley, throwing up dust as they went, so the game was therefore relocated to a new site to the south in 1661. The old alley was upgraded into a street that was initially called Catherine Street after Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II, but continued to be known as Pall Mall and was eventually officially changed to that name. The new palle-maille area to the south eventually became the Mall. The close proximity of Pall Mall to St. James’s Palace and the royal park made it a highly desirable location and properties built along it were much sought after.

Charles II gave Henry Bennett, Earl of Arlington an area of land on the corner of St. James’s Street and Piccadilly. He leased it on to a builder named Pym who erected houses of such poor quality they soon had to be demolished. Nevertheless, Arlington Street and Bennett Street were soon fashionable addresses. By the end of the 17^th century every small plot of land on either side of St. James’s Street had been built upon.

By the latter part of the 17^th century the district of St. James’s between St. James’s Palace and Piccadilly, then north up to and beyond Oxford Road (Oxford Street, around the modern Oxford Circus) and westwards as far as Bond Street, had been developed. There was thereafter a lull in new developments to the west of London that lasted until the succession of George I in 1714 and the creation of Mayfair.

Sources include: John Summerson ‘Georgian London’; Liza Picard ‘Restoration London’; Peter Whitfield ‘London: A Life in Maps; Lisa Jardine ‘On a Grander Scale’; Count Magalotti ‘Travels of Count Cosmo III Grand Duke of Tuscany’ (1669); Adrian Tinniswood ‘By Permission of Heaven’; ‘The Diary of Samuel Pepys’.

< Back to Late-Stuart London

The creation of the suburb of Covent Garden in the early 17^th century started a trend of fashionable housing for aristocrats and the wealthy on the west side of London. Development was interrupted by the Civil War but began apace following the Restoration of 1660.

Until the Great Fire, the old City of London, contained within its walls, remained as it had evolved since Saxon times. Many houses, taverns and workshops were built of wood and plaster in Tudor style. Most churches and civic buildings were of stone, originally constructed during the medieval period. Streets led this way and that and buildings jutted out in irregular fashion with little uniformity in their planning.

It was the ambition of Charles I to build magnificent new palaces and buildings for London similar to those being created in Paris during the first half of the 17^th century but he lacked the funds to initiate any grand schemes. His great contribution to the topography of London was to agree to the development of Covent Garden by the Earl of Bedford, designed by the Royal Surveyor Inigo Jones. Two other smaller schemes followed nearby in the 1640s that strengthened the influence of the Jonesian style in London, that of Lindsey House on the west side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields and the south side of Queen Charlotte Street between Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Long Acre. From then on there was little development of any note in or around London in the decade of Civil War and Commonwealth. During that time almost all building on a large scale took place at the country estates of aristocrats.

Bedford had planned Covent Garden with its piazza in the 1630s but many of the type of aristocrats and gentry he had in mind to rent properties moved away from London into exile or to lie low in the countryside at the start of the Civil War in 1642. From the time of the Restoration in 1660 they were back in force, many owning country estates but also with the requirement for a family-sized pied-á-terre in the capital. It stimulated a new housing boom and transformed the area to the west of the old City. These fashionable suburbs were convenient for those aristocrats wishing to be close to the royal palaces of Whitehall and St.James’s, those connected to Parliament at Westminster, or for the professional classes with business at the Inns of Court around the Strand. They were away from the narrow and congested City, having street widths planned with carriages in mind. Also they were up-river and – on more days than not – up-wind of the smoky and smelly industrial areas that the polluted Thames flowed past. Importantly for those who lived there they were a sign of their social standing.

A division had grown within London, with the wealthy aristocratic, professional and merchant classes generally having their homes in the west; and the poorer working classes in the north, east, and at Southwark. There were exceptions in both cases.

In 1659 the carpenter and property developer Abraham Arlidge started a new scheme north of Holborn on what had formerly been the grounds of Sir Christopher Hatton’s Hatton House, which eventually numbered almost four hundred houses. Hatton Garden was designed for merchants who wanted to live in the quieter suburbs and near the surrounding fields but still close to the City. It took almost forty years to complete.

The manor of Blemonsbury to the north of Holborn was acquired in 1545 by the then Chancellor, Thomas Wriothesley, and was used for orchards and market gardens. At around the same time as the Earl of Bedford was creating Covent Garden in the 1630s, his descendent, Thomas Wriothesley, 4^th Earl of Southampton, considered creating a new mansion on the land – by then called Bloomsbury – to replace his Southampton House in Holborn, as well as laying out a square surrounded by housing. Charles was agreeable to the scheme and work started on the new house but the King failed to issue a licence for the entire development before the outbreak of the Civil War. The mansion was finally completed in 1661 and the idea of the square was then resurrected.

Rather than speculate his own money on erecting and selling properties, Southampton granted leases to builders who then had to take on the risk of construction and sub-leasing (or selling the leases) on the houses. At the end of the lease, usually forty two years, the houses became the property of Wriothesley. This system evolved in the following years, with longer leases being given, up to ninety nine years, but with an annual ground rent being charged by the landowner. Bloomsbury Square and the streets to its west evolved as part of that development. It soon became a fashionable place to live, with its houses around the central garden, creating a trend that established many squares in London during the following century.

The ending of monopolies in the 1820s, granted to the early 19^th century London docks, brought an opportunity to create the St. Katharine Docks beside the Tower of London. Yet their arrival signaled the beginning of a new competitive era for the docks and lower profits for their owners. It was the workers who were to ultimately pay the cost.

The expanding British empire and the Industrial Revolution generated an immense amount of trade passing through the Port of London. Until the beginning of the 19^th century all goods were landed or loaded at wharves on the open river. In order to alleviate shipping congestion on the Thames, as well as to combat the theft of cargoes by criminal gangs, a group of merchants dealing with the Caribbean, primarily importers of sugar and rum, created new enclosed, tide-free docks for their ships. The West India Docks opened downstream of London on the Isle of Dogs in 1802. Other general merchants quickly followed suit, opening the London Docks at Wapping in 1805. The long-established East India Company opened their own docks at Blackwall, to the east of the West India Docks, in 1806. On the south side of the river several groups of timber merchants were developing a series of docks at Rotherhithe.

At the same time Parliament passed a new law that deferred customs duty on imports until goods left the port. That allowed for the first time the possibility of cargoes being trans-shipped without payment of duty. London thereafter became an entrepôt, whereby goods could pass through the port on their journey from one part of the world to another and thus further increase trade in the docks and wharves.

In return for their considerable investment in creating the docks, the owners of the West India, London and East India Docks were each granted by Parliament a twenty-one-year monopoly on certain goods to and from particular areas of the world. Those monopolies were due to expire in the mid-1820s. Tonnage passing through the port had continued to rise and several groups of investors and engineers (including Isambard and Marc Brunel) began to make speculative plans for new sets of docks along the Thames to take advantage of the forthcoming free trade.

Immediately to the east of the Tower of London and the City, along the riverside, lay the ancient district of St. Katharine’s. It traced its beginnings back to the early 12^th century when Matilda, wife of King Stephen, founded a hospital, meaning a place of shelter and rest for travelers, the sick and the elderly, where they could be cared for by the resident brothers and sisters. From the mid-13^th century, during the time of Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward I, the Foundation of St. Katharine came under the patronage of either the queen consort or reigning queen and was thus a Royal Peculiar. The hospital had its own church and during the Middle Ages its surrounding land – or ‘liberty’ – developed into a densely-populated community immediately outside London.

Prior to the creation of the early-19^th century docks, all goods had to pass through a limited number of wharves on the north bank of the Thames in the City of London. This was for the convenience of the collection of customs duties and they were known as the ‘Legal Quays’. As trade grew this caused increasing congestion so in 1663 a number of ‘Sufferance Wharves’ were allowed as additional landing places, including the ‘Great Wharf’ and ‘Little Wharf’ at St. Katharine’s.

The first threat of redevelopment of St. Katharine’s came in 1796, when the City of London Corporation applied for an Act of Parliament to convert the district into a wet dock. Protected by Queen Charlotte, consort to George III and patron at that time, the attempt failed and, as we have seen, the city merchants instead created their new docks at Wapping, the Isle of Dogs and Blackwall.

Since the 19^th century Daniel Defoe has primarily been remembered as an author, in particular for his novels Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders and Roxana. His original ambition was to be a businessman but following bankruptcy, imprisonment and the pillory he transformed to a lonely and secretive writer of pamphlets and novels and a government spy. A committed Dissenter, he was highly opinionated, and during his lifetime was better-known for several of his satirical pamphlets, which often led him into trouble.

Daniel was the son of James and Alice Foe of the parish of St. Giles in Cripplegate, most likely born in 1660. His father was a tallow chandler and member of the Butchers’ Company in the City of London and Alice died when her son was still young. Daniel grew up in a moderately prosperous and devoutly religious household and was instilled with a Protestant work ethic from a young age.

Those earliest years in London were a turbulent time and one of momentous historic events as the Commonwealth period ended and the return of Charles II took place. As non-conformists Daniel’s early years would have been difficult ones for the Foe family, following the introduction of the Clarendon Code that set many limits on the lives of Dissenters. As he reached five years of age London suffered from the Great Plague, which in his old age he was to document in the semi-fictitious A Journal of the Plague Year. The following year the City was all but totally destroyed in the Great Fire but their house was one of only three in the neighbourhood still left standing after the devastation. Daniel certainly would have watched as the new City was rebuilt around him during his youth.

In 1670 Daniel’s father sent him to a school for non-conformists at Dorking run by Dr. James Fisher. He was also known to have attended the academy of Charles Morton at Newington Green, at that time a village several miles north of London. Unlike the other great literary men of his age – Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Richard Steele, John Dryden and Joseph Addison – Defoe never received a formal classical education and therefore always remained an outsider, unable to comfortably mix with his contemporary writers.

Daniel began his career in 1681 as a wholesale hose-factor in the City, trading in hosiery for men and women. His garments were manufactured around the countryside, requiring him to travel far and wide. He set up both home and warehouse in Freeman’s Yard at Cornhill, a district of clothes merchants that was also close to Drapers’ Hall and a non-conformist meeting place. In 1684 he married Mary, the daughter of a wealthy cooper who owned a barrel-making business, and their marriage brought them a large dowry of £3,700. They had six children between 1687 and 1703.

If Dissenters felt threatened during the reign of Charles II they believed it would get even worse when his brother James came to the throne. When James’s illegitimate nephew, the Duke of Monmouth, landed in Devon in November 1688 it seems Foe rode west to join the rebel army. The rebellion was thwarted at the Battle of Sedgemoor and Daniel was extremely lucky not to be rounded up with the other perpetrators, tried by Judge Jeffreys and hanged. He never publicly acknowledged his involvement – it only came to light because he received a pardon in 1687 from William III – but wrote an apparently fictional account of it in his later novel Captain Jack. King James sought ways to repeal anti-Catholic laws and, in order to do so, looked for support from non-conformists. As a warning to his community to beware of false hope Foe published his first political pamphlet in 1687 in the form of a fictitious letter.

It was a great relief to non-conformists when William of Orange landed in the West Country and James fled the country. Although there is little knowledge of how and why, it seems Foe had the acquaintance of the new King and Queen and visited them at their new homes at Hampton Court, Windsor Castle and Kensington Gardens.

During the Tudor period the unloading of goods arriving in London was restricted to a few wharves within the City of London on the north bank of the Thames. As trade increased throughout the 18^th century the river increasingly became clogged with ships. Cargoes sat unprotected on quaysides waiting to be processed by Customs and carried to their destination within the City. It was not a satisfactory situation for merchants and ship owners.

The expanding British Empire and improving manufacturing techniques, and an increasing population, created an immense amount of commerce during the 17^th and 18^th centuries compared with previous times. Trade with the colonies and other parts of the world was such that congestion in the Port of London reached a new peak, even at the time that the nation was engaged in the Napoleonic Wars when almost the entire Continent was closed to British shipping. Yet due to ancient regulations, created at the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth in the 16^th century in order to ensure efficient collection of customs duties, all imports landed at London were obliged to pass through a small number of ‘Legal Quays’ between London Bridge and the Tower of London within the City. By the latter part of the 18^th century this had created a troublesome bottleneck. When it was their turn, cargoes were offloaded from the ships onto lighters, to be transported up the river to a wharf where duty could be paid. Wharves on the South Bank and St. Katharine’s, known as ‘Sufferance Wharves’ were additionally licensed for lower-value goods. Yet still, hundreds of ships lined up along the centre of the river at any time waiting to unload at the quays, a process that could take weeks.

As ships waited to unload, a significant proportion of cargo was stolen by gangs that preyed on the unguarded moored vessels. Goods standing on crowded and chaotic quaysides were also at risk from criminals, sometimes in collusion with Customs officers. The magistrate, social reformer and statistician Patrick Colquhoun published his Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis in 1796 in which he proposed the creation of a police force for London. He was introduced to John Harriott who, understanding the scale of criminal activity on the river, proposed a specialist force. That led to the creation of the Marine Police Establishment, based at Wapping, the forerunner of London’s Metropolitan Police.

While the introduction of the Marine Police Establishment went some way to protecting cargoes, it did not solve every problem. In 1793 William Vaughan, a London insurer and heir to West Indian plantations, published his treatise On Wet Docks, Quays and Warehouses for the Port of London, with Hints Respecting Trade. Vaughan’s ideas started a campaign to create a new wet dock off the river. Enclosed docks off the tidal river were not new to London: The Brunswick yard at Blackwall had originally been created by the East India Company in the early 17^th century, followed by the Howland Wet Dock at Rotherhithe, but those were to shelter and repair ships. Vaughan’s idea was for a dock to load and unload cargoes and to protect the goods within their high walls. It was the start of a vast network of docks that would transform the area to the east and turn London into a major trading city.

A subscription was launched in December 1795 that promised £800,000 from 634 subscribers, headed by two City aldermen, George Hibbert and Sir John Eamer, together with Vaughan. The proposal was to create a dock at Wapping. Hibbert was a West India merchant and opponent of the anti-slavery movement. Eamer was an alderman of the City, married to the daughter of a sugar refiner, who would go on to become Lord Mayor in 1801.

The plan to divert trade downriver and away from the Legal Quays was initially opposed by the City of London Corporation. They profited from the wharves along their stretch of the river and represented the interests of all those involved, such as wharf owners, Thames lightermen who ferried cargoes from ship to shore, porters who carried the goods from the quayside into the City, and others who worked at the wharves such as coopers.

In 1796, under increasing pressure, particularly from importers of sugar and rum from the West Indies, Parliament formed the Select Committee for the Improvement of the Port of London, which included Prime Minister William Pitt, to consider the problem. Ideas were invited for reform of the port and eight separate schemes were considered.

A large proportion of the goods arriving in London was sugar and rum produced on the slave-plantations of the British West Indian colonies, particularly Jamaica and Barbados. The merchants involved in the importation, together with absentee plantation owners living in England, were a powerful lobby group known as the West India Planters & Merchants. As a body they ensured their interests were protected and fought against any threat to the slave trade.

The idea of an enclosed dock greatly interested the West India men so in 1797 they formed a committee to consider the matter. They agreed that a wet dock was their preferred solution but across the top of the Isle of Dogs instead of Wapping, in partnership with the City of London, and exclusively for the West India trade. That alienated the merchants and ship owners who were not involved in the West India trade and resulted in a split of the original subscribers into two groups: on one side were most of the West India merchants, in alliance with the City Corporation; and other merchants and ship owners in the other camp who sought docks open for all trade.

Thus, two Bills were presented to Parliament to create new docks on the north side of the Thames to the east of London. The West India Dock Act was passed in July 1799 to create docks at the Isle of Dogs, and the London Dock Act in 1800 for docks at Wapping. Each of the sets of docks was to be created as private enterprises by the West India Dock Company and the London Dock Company. In return for its investment the West India Dock Act stipulated that, for a period of 21 years, all ships bringing goods from the West Indies were obliged to be landed at the West India Docks, with the exception of tobacco. Similarly, the London Dock Act stipulated a monopoly for 21 years on the landing of all tobacco, brandy, wine and rice, except any from the West Indies.

When shipbuilder Captain Thomas Coram returned from America he was horrified by the poverty of London. Many young children were living rough on the streets, often surviving through begging or by petty crime. Parents often had no choice but to abandon new-born babies because and were so poor they were unable to afford basic food, clothing and shelter for the child. An unmarried working woman who gave birth would most likely be cast out from her employment and both she and the baby stigmatized for the remainder of their lives. Around a thousand babies were abandoned each year in London.

Born in Lyme Regis in Dorset in 1668 Coram’s formal education was limited. He went to sea at the age of eleven and was apprenticed to a London shipwright at sixteen. He was commissioned to buy oak for the navy during the wars against France during the 1690s and then he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, intending to set up a shipyard.

Coram returned to England in 1715 with his new wife and by 1720 was semi-retired, living in the shipping hamlet of Rotherhithe on the south bank of the Thames between Southwark and Deptford. He would travel into the City from Rotherhithe on business, passing the dead bodies of babies abandoned on the roadside overnight, or children dying on the streets in and around one of the wealthiest conurbations in the world.

In theory such children were the responsibility of the parish of their mother but first she had to be found and proven as a long-term resident, which in London, with so many people arriving from around the country, was not necessarily the case. Most parishes had limited funds, gained from the Poor Rate, a levy that was resented by most parishioners, many of whom believed it only encouraged paupers to be lazy and women in wantonness and prostitution. Those children who were taken in had to endure an upbringing in the parish poor-house or, after 1722, workhouses where they were often harshly treated. Ninety percent of children born in London and kept in workhouses died before they were five. Yet there were provisions for abandoned babies in a number of the other main cities of Europe, including the Hôpital des Enfans-Trouvés in Paris from 1670. Christ’s Hospital in London had taken in genuine orphans since Tudor times but illegitimate children were frowned upon.

By 1722 Coram had formed an idea to create a hospice, or ‘hospital’, where such children – ‘foundlings’ – could be housed and educated. To establish such a non-profit making, independent and secular institution required finance. However, Coram – pugnacious, poorly spoken, and rather rough in character – was not the type who could easily mix with nobility and the higher levels of society so was initially unable to persuade anyone of any wealth to fund the venture. Those he approached had the opinion that to take in unwanted and illegitimate children would only further encourage women in “wickedness”. He was, however, an energetic man who persevered in the face of adversity.

After many years of campaigning the tide began to turn when Queen Caroline, wife of George II, became interested in the Hospital for Foundlings in Paris. Another factor was that the population of the country had declined, in contrast to those of France and Spain, and there was a growing feeling that the poor could somehow be used more profitably for the benefit of the nation, particularly in the armed forces. These things legitimized the idea of a hospital, opening the door for Coram to approach fashionable and aristocratic ladies who were sure to follow the thinking of the Queen. A break-through came in 1729 when the Duchess of Somerset took an interest. Coram began creating petitions to the King. First came a ‘Ladies Petition’ of friends and relatives of the Duchess. From 1734 Coram began to persuade noblemen, gentleman, justices of the peace, professionals and merchants to add their support. Already in his seventies, but still without financial backing, he spent his time walking around London, covering up to 12 miles each day to visit anyone of wealth and respectability. Coram argued that it was better to raise children to take up a respectable life of labour rather than leave them to drift into one of begging on the streets and thieving.

Finally, in October 1739 the King signed a royal charter for the “Education and Maintenance of Exposed and Deserted Young Children”. Coram drew up a list of 375 potential governors, from which was formed a large Board of influential and wealthy individuals that included the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London, thus ensuring both financial support and powerful influence. In November 170 governors attended a ceremony at Somerset House when Coram officially handed the charter to the Duke of Bedford, the hospital’s first president.

A week after the ceremony a General Committee, including Sir Hans Sloane and the Speaker of the House of Commons, met at the Crown and Anchor tavern in the Strand to discuss plans. The first tasks they set themselves were to investigate the organization of similar hospitals abroad, to raise funds, and to find a building. The artist William Hogarth created a letterhead for an official fund-raising letter and donations began to arrive, including £120 from Hogarth himself. At a further meeting the following year it was agreed that 60 children should be taken into care at the earliest time.

While the governors planned the hospital, a temporary house was leased at Hatton Garden, nurses and cooks hired, and all the necessary furniture and provisions purchased. A shield was painted by Hogarth and hung over the door. A notice was issued that any parent was able to deposit a child on the evening of 25^th March 1741, without any questions asked, in order that mothers could remain anonymous. Coram, Hogarth and two other governors were there to watch over proceedings. A large crowd of women arrived with babes in arms and each child was inspected by the hospital’s doctor. The process took four hours, until by midnight all available places were taken and the mothers sent away, many leaving a small message or token to stay with the child, which still remain with the hospital today. The capacity of the original building was just 30 children. One of the governors had to explain to those mothers who were unsuccessful that more would be accepted as soon as places became available and begged them not to abandon the children. Unfortunately, it was already too late to save some of the undernourished babies and two died within the first three days. Each baby who was admitted and survived was baptized and named after one of the benefactors, with the first two given the names Thomas and Eunice Coram after the captain and his wife. Others were named after benefactors of the hospital.

In the days before the creation of London’s dock system ships waited for lengthy periods to be unloaded on the open and crowded River Thames. During that time their valuable cargoes, brought from around the world, were prey to theft. That led to the creation of the country’s first organized police force.

By the late 18^th century the Port of London was handling a vast amount of cargo, accounting for two thirds of the nation’s maritime trade. Yet customs regulations dating back to the mid-16^th century during the reign of Queen Elizabeth dictated that all imports must pass through a small number of ‘Legal Quays’ in the City of London measuring a mere 1,400 feet in length. This caused a major bottleneck and at any time hundreds of ships were lined up along the Thames, often for weeks on end, waiting to unload. Even in the early part of that century the writer Daniel Defoe wrote of the Thames being a sea of masts as ships anchored alongside each other. Such was the congestion that it was impossible for ships to actually reach the designated quays. Cargoes had to be offloaded onto smaller boats that then negotiated their way around the other moored vessels to reach the designated spot where goods were required to be landed. Yet the congestion did not end there: the quaysides and surrounding streets were also full to bursting and cargoes sat waiting to be inspected for lengthy periods before they could be carted away.

Valuable cargoes were left on moored ships for days or weeks on end, guarded by skeleton crews. They were then shifted to the quay by low-paid lightermen of often dubious character, and sat on the quaysides in chaotic circumstances waiting to be checked. In such conditions it is not surprising that theft was rife. Thousands of port labourers and even customs officers were profiting from dishonesty controlled by receivers – apparently respectable businessmen – known as Copemen.

John Harriott, originating from Essex, returned from America in 1795 and settled at Goodman’s Fields just to the east of the City. He was an active man, having by then served in the Royal Navy from the age of 13, as a seaman in the merchant navy, lived with indigenous North Americans, was wounded while fighting for the East India Company, and, as a farmer, had reclaimed land from the sea in Essex. Harriott had a close relationship with his uncle, John Staples, a London stipendiary magistrate with a great knowledge of crime on the river. Discussions between the two led Harriott to draw up plans for a police force to protect shipping on the river. When approached with the idea the Lord Mayor of London gave the opinion that this was not the business of the City. The plan advanced no further with the Home Secretary, the Duke of Portland, when it was presented to him in October 1797.

Shortly afterwards Harriott was introduced to the magistrate, social reformer and statistician Patrick Colquhoun. The previous year Colquhoun had published the first of two editions of his Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis in which he argued for a centrally-organized police force for London, separated from the judiciary, with publicly salaried officers as was the case in France. It was widely read, not least by George III. Colquhoun originated from Dumbarton in Scotland and was a successful merchant in Virginia before being elected as Lord Provost – mayor – of Glasgow. In 1789 he and his family moved to London and three years later he was appointed as a magistrate. Colquhoun was a prolific writer of pamphlets on social issues and also established a soup kitchen at Spitalfields. He worked together with the social philosopher Jeremy Bentham to form his views.

Colquhoun’s theories and observations in his Treatise led to him being approached for advice on theft-prevention by London merchants trading with the Caribbean. He estimated that there were 8,000 vessels within four miles below and two miles above London Bridge at any time; and that the amount of property afloat to be £75,000,000, all of which was vulnerable to theft. He listed the various categories of thief working in the port with the slang terms in use. A corrupt revenue officer was a ‘game’; ‘river pirates’ bribed watchmen before making off with a ship or lighter’s cargo; ‘night plunderers’ were gangs who stole from unprotected lighters at night; ‘light horsemen’ were organized gangs who worked with the help of corrupt customs officers; ‘scuffle-hunters’ offered their assistance as porters but simply pilfered goods and made away. Colquhoun’s estimate of goods plundered from the port during 1797 was valued at slightly over half a million pounds. He argued for the establishment of a river police force and the creation of docks where goods could be unloaded behind high walls and security managed, away from the congested, chaotic and insecure Legal Quays.

The Committee of West India Merchants and Planters was a powerful and influential group of plantation owners, sugar and rum merchants, slave-traders, and ship-owners. Many of its members sat in the House of Commons and the Lords. At the end of January 1798 they considered Colquhoun’s proposal for a river police that could protect their cargoes on the Thames. They agreed that the plan should proceed providing it had approval from the government. In March the Duke of Portland wrote to confirm that the Exchequer would contribute financial assistance for the scheme, most likely because the government itself was losing import duties when cargo was stolen. Colquhoun was duly requested by the West Indies Committee to put the plan into operation.

In July 1798 the West India Merchants and Planters Marine Police Institution came into being, essentially a private security force, operating from a riverside building at Wapping New Stairs. Wapping was where many ships were moored and it was to that area that large amounts of the stolen cargoes were taken. The Institution initially consisted of 12 staff, patrolling continuously by boat day and night from London Bridge down to Blackwall. The force was part-funded by the government but most of the running cost was paid by the West India merchants. Its primary task was to protect the ships carrying cargoes from the West Indies but their presence on the river was reported as immediately reducing theft from all craft, estimated at over £100,000 in the first six months.

In 1799 an Act of Parliament was passed authorizing the creation of the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs, specifically stating that they should be protected by high walls. Colquhoun created a set of strict rules and regulations for the labourers working within there. With the creation of their docks the West India merchants no longer required protection from the security force. Yet its success on the open river led the government to pass the Police Act in 1800, transforming it into a public body called the Marine Police Establishment covering all shipping on the tidal Thames and its tributaries. It is said to be the world’s first organized police force.

The magistrates attached to the station had to deal with crimes covering a large area and were obliged to take oaths of each of Kent, Surrey, Essex and Middlesex. Harriott was appointed as the first stipendiary magistrate in residence, a post he held until his death in 1817.

The introduction of the Marine Police Establishment was naturally unpopular with those who had much to lose in illegal income. A riot involving several hundred erupted when a coal heaver was arrested for stealing a sack of coal and the case was being dealt with by Harriott in the courtroom in October 1798. Colquhoun and Harriott read the Riot Act on Wapping High Street and ordered them to disperse. Shots were fired by the police but one of the constables, Gabriel Franks, was hit and died two days later, the first British policemen to die while carrying out his duties. The ringleader of the rioters was hanged and six men transported to the colonies for life.

Colquhoun wrote of the success of the force in his The Commerce and Policing of the River Thames, which was influential in creating new police bodies in several cities around the world. The London-wide Metropolitan Police was created over 30 years after the establishment of the Marine Police, with which the river force merged in 1839 as the Thames Division. The Thames police continue to be based at their original location in Wapping.

Sources include: Dicky Paterson & Joz Joslin ‘The Thames Police History’; John Pudney ‘London’s Docks’; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. With thanks to Rob Jeffries of the Thames Police Museum at Wapping for fact-checking and additional information and to Olwen Maynard.

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In past times petroleum was yet to be available as a fuel, and plastic still to be invented. Oil derived from whale blubber, and materials created from whale bone, were used instead. Sailing ships were sent out into the Atlantic to bring back the mammals for processing. For about a hundred years, from the early 18^th century, London was a leading whaling port. Perhaps ten thousand whales and very large numbers of seals were killed and brought back to London during that time.

Blubber from Arctic Right whales, seals, and walruses can be rendered to produce oil that was used to make soap, paint and varnish, as a general lubricant, and for domestic and street lighting. The feeding apparatus from the mouths of whales, used for filtering plankton, is known as baleen. It is a flexible material that can be split, bonded and moulded and was therefore used in those products where plastics or steel would be used today. Larger bones became gateposts and arches, and left-over residues were used as fertiliser. Right whales were so named because they were the right species to hunt but were also known as Greenland or Bowhead whales.

In the 16^th century ladies of fashion wore farthingales, a hooped underskirt that provided a wide shape to the lower body. The structure of farthingales was provided by whalebone. Hooped petticoats remained in fashion until the middle of the 18^th century. Whalebone was used in stays, the predecessor of corsets, which were worn by women of all classes for around a hundred years from the late 17^th century. Hooped bonnets were another item of ladies-wear that used the material. Other items that required whalebone included spectacle frames, whips, umbrella ribs, fishing rods, fencing, seat backs and bottoms, carriage springs, and combs. This all created a very large demand for baleen.

There are surviving records of those involved in the whalebone trade in London. They include whalebone merchants and whalebone cutters. Many were directly connected to haberdashers, other manufacturers that made use of baleen, or oil merchants. Initially these tradesmen were clustered around Cheapside in the City of London. Later examples were located further afield, from Hammersmith to Hackney but particularly around Covent Garden.

In the 16^th century whaling ships sailed from several British ports. The first London ships to attempt whaling were those of the Muscovy (or Russia) Company, which was founded in 1555 for trading with Russia. Their yard on the Thames was at Blackwall. From 1575 their whaling activities were focussed around Bear Island in the Barents Sea between Spitsbergen and Norway where they had success catching walruses. In 1611 they sent two ships in search of whales but both sank and the crews had to be rescued by another British whaling vessel in the area. By the following season the company had received a royal charter giving them a monopoly for whaling by British ships in the Spitsbergen area. They protected their right by sending a small fleet of whaling ships, together with a gunship to deter interlopers from other ports such as Hull. King James authourised the company to annexe the island of Spitsbergen but that led to decades of territorial conflict with ships of the Dutch Northern Company. At the same time there was hostility between ships of the Muscovy Company and those from other British ports. The company declared bankruptcy in 1617.

Ships involved in whaling in the Arctic north off Norway normally sailed from London at the end of March or beginning of April to arrive in May when whales swam near the surface. Those sailing to the Davis Straits to the east of Greenland left earlier. During the early period, the mammals’ bodies were cut into large pieces on the decks of the ships at sea and then processed at temporary facilities on the shore. If far from the shore, processing was undertaken on the ship itself, which was a very messy and unpleasant business. One ton of blubber produced about 150 gallons of oil. Casks of oil and bundles of whalebone were brought back to the Muscovy Company’s yard at Blackwall. Seals, walruses, narwhals and bears were also brought back in addition to whales.

The Muscovy Company was re-founded in 1618 and sent 13 armed whaling ships to Spitsbergen. They were forced to leave by Dutch whalers, however, and returned without a catch. To add to the company’s woes, merchants from Hull were granted a whaling monopoly off Jan Meyen Island to the south-west of Spitsbergen, considerably closer to Britain. With mounting losses, the company was liquidated and its rights sold to the associated Greenland Company. An agreement was made with the Dutch for each to operate in different areas around Spitsbergen but the Greenland Company continued to encounter hostilities from ships of other British ports. There were continuous financial losses. To stimulate the trade the British government gave tax incentives and trade preferences but to little effect. The Dutch and Germans were much better organised and skilled, with between 400 and 500 ships visiting Spitsbergen each year in the decade after 1660. British activity ceased for the remainder of the century.

The signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 put an end to years of war. The succession of George I and the defeat of the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 brought about a certainty and stability in both monarchy and religion. The coinciding of these events created a new sense of confidence in the country and with it a renewed wave of major development on the western outskirts of London. During the reigns of George I and II, until the start of the Seven Years’ War in 1754, London expanded west as far as the eastern edge of Hyde Park.

London’s first planned suburb was Covent Garden, which was developed in the 1630s by the architect Inigo Jones on behalf of the Earl of Bedford. During the final 25 years of the 17^th century the concentration was on rebuilding the City following the Great Fire but London also spread westwards, with the creation of the smart new suburbs of Bloomsbury, St. James’s and Soho. There were few major developments thereafter for a period of time. The continuing expansion during the late 17^th and early 18^th centuries was mostly small-scale and piece-meal, largely confined to Soho, changing that area from open fields to the network of small streets that remain today.

In 1713 Richard Lumley, 1^st Earl of Scarborough, a retired general who had fought for William III at the Battle of the Boyne, acquired the freehold of two acres of land to the west of Soho. Adding to that, he leased a much larger area, up to the Oxford Road (the modern Oxford Street). On those fields he created a rectangular space that he named Hanover Square in honour of the new King George. He then leased out plots to builders, on 50 or 100 year leases, who agreed to pay a ground rent and erect high-quality town-houses.

From the square, two thoroughfares led out to the east, which Lumley named Princes Street and Hanover Street. To the west, Tenterden Street (originally a continuation of Princes Street) and Brook Street (named after the River Tyburn) were laid out. However, the distinguishing feature of the scheme was the single streets that led into and out of the south and north. George Street on the south was deliberately widened as it opened into Hanover Square. From there, through the square and along Harewood Place, was an uninterrupted view to the Hampstead Hills in the distance, one of the few prolonged vistas in London at that time.

As with the Bloomsbury and St. James’s developments, most of the plots of land around Hanover Square and the streets that led from it were leased individually or in groups to builders who erected houses as speculative ventures. Nevertheless, there was a general, although not total, uniformity in the architecture of the buildings in what was known as ‘German’ (although actually more French), as well as Palladian styles. The original house immediately to the south of the church in Hanover Street still remains and on that same block Lumley had one built for himself. He was successful in attracting senior Whig military commanders, who had fought alongside the Duke of Marlborough and in the defeat of the Jacobites, to take up properties as the first residents of Hanover Square.

A new Anglican church was added to the scheme in George Street. St. George’s was designed by John James between 1721 and 1725, under the control of the Commissioners of the Fifty New Churches Act. James created a pleasing Corinthian portico fronting the building, which projects out into the angled street.

As the Earl of Scarborough was developing Hanover Square the young Earl of Burlington was laying out the Burlington Estate on his land a short distance to the south, to the north and east of his house on Piccadilly. The land had been part of the Earl of Clarendon’s great Clarendon House Estate during the Restoration period and Burlington received the necessary permission for the scheme in an Act of 1717 when he was just 23-years old. The result of his development was the network of Saville Row, New Burlington Street, Old Burlington Street, New Burlington Place, Burlington Gardens and Sackville Street.

Burlington was himself an amateur architect and patron and collaborator of others who practiced the Palladian style, such as Colen Campbell, Giacomo Leoni, Henry Flintcroft and William Kent. Between them his associates designed or owned a number of the properties on the estate while Nicholas Hawksmoor, a practitioner of the English Baroque style of architecture, also built a house on Old Burlington Street.

The Burlington Estate was adjacent to the earlier developments by Sir Thomas Bond and his associates who created a group of streets around Bond Street in the late 17^th century. Between the Hanover Square and the Burlington developments the Conduit Mead Estate developed New Bond Street, Conduit Street, Brook Street and various others in the 1720s.

Until the 17^th century Soho – now one of the busiest areas of Central London – was still a series of open fields. Aristocrat land-owners and property developers gradually transformed it into a suburb that mixed grand homes for the gentry with workshops for artisans.

The development of Soho into a densely-packed suburb occurred between the mid-1670s and the end of the century, from when Golden Square was laid out with houses for aristocrats, gentry and ambassadors. The streets around Wardour Street and Old Compton Street mostly came into being during the 1680s, with many in modern times still retaining the names of developers, land-owners, patrons or prominent people of that period.

During the Middle Ages the area to the north of Charing Cross, then known as St. Giles’s Fields, was held by the Hospital of St. Giles and in 1536, at the dissolution of the monasteries, it came into the ownership of the Crown. It was used as a hunting ground by local gentry who are reputed to have used “soho” as a hunting cry and the whole area gained the name ‘Soho Fields’. A survey of 1650 mentions “a highway leading from Charing Cross towards So Hoe”. The southern part of Soho Fields was gradually acquired from the Crown by the Earl of Leicester. He created Leicester Fields in 1635 when he built a large house for himself on what is now the northern side of Leicester Square.

Over twenty years earlier the tailor Robert Baker had acquired the land north of what is now Piccadilly Circus where he built his Piccadilly Hall that gave the area its name. Inspired by the development of St. James’s to the south west of their land, in 1673 his great-nephews John and James Baker obtained a licence and over the following year or two began laying out a new square. They specifically developed it with the intention of attracting tenants of the aristocratic and gentry classes and in order to do so changed the name from Gelding Close, by which the area had formerly been known, to the more attractive Golden Square. Houses were built of brick and stone, with substantial pavements and adequate sewers. The two brothers fell out regarding the development and each side of the square and the streets that lead into it were created separately. On the west side John employed the bricklayer John Emlyn and named his streets Upper and Lower John Streets while James employed the carpenter James Axtell and his streets on the east are named Upper and Lower James Streets. In the following decades Golden Square became home to peers, army officers and foreign embassies.

In 1661 the Queen Mother, Henrietta Maria, granted the Kemp’s Field and Bunch’s Field sections of Soho Fields – the area in the north-east of the modern Soho – to the Earl of St. Albans. He subsequently sub-leased to the builder Robert Frith who began the development of the area around Soho Square. The first houses were erected in Frith Street and Greek Street in 1680 and by the early 1690s almost all the thoroughfares in that section had been developed, including (Old) Compton, Romilly (originally Church), King and Dean Streets. Fareham and Manette Streets were added during the 1690s.

Soho Square was initially known as King’s Square. From around 1682 the Duke of Monmouth began building an extravagant residence on its south side, where he lived only briefly prior to his execution. In the north east corner stood Fauconberg House, home of the Earl of Fauconberg from 1683 to 1700. (The small mews tucked behind the junction of Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road is still named Falconberg Mews). The Countess of Carlisle resided in a large residence on the west side of the square that gave its name to Carlisle Street.

Many other Soho streets retain their original names from the latter 17^th century, reminding us of the entrepreneurs who laid them out, their patrons, or simply well-known people of the time. The two James Streets of Golden Square were laid out parallel to an older thoroughfare to their east that was renamed Bridle Lane after the carpenter Abraham Bridle who developed houses along it in the 1680s. To the north of Golden Square lie Beak Street and Broadwick Street. Beak Street, laid out around 1680, is named after its developer Thomas Beake who later became a servant of Queen Anne. Broad Street was laid out in 1686 but the name was changed in 1936 to Broadwick Street to distinguish it from others of the same name.

Rupert Street was created in 1676 and named after Prince Rupert of the Rhine, nephew of Charles I and one of the Royalist commanders during the Civil War. Compton Street was built up between 1677 and 1683 and named after Henry Compton, Bishop of London, gaining the suffix ‘Old’ in the 1820s. Compton is probably also celebrated in the name of Dean Street, from his time as Dean of the Chapel Royal. Off Dean Street is the small cul-de-sac of Richmond Buildings and Richmond Mews named after the carpenter and former wax-chandler Thomas Richmond who developed them.

Colman Hedge Lane was an ancient byway that ran between the fields of Soho. The area was acquired in 1631 by Sir Edward Wardour, an official at the Exchequer. His grandson Edward developed the area using the services of bricklayer Richard Tyler, plasterer Richard Hopkins and paviour Thomas Green. They are all still remembered in the names Wardour Street and nearby Tyler’s Court, Hopkins Street and Green’s Court.

A yard had been established in 1615 for military training north of Leicester Fields. Charles, Baron Gerard of Brandon seized it in 1661 in a land dispute, with the help of a gang of former soldiers. In the 1680s he leased the ground to Nicholas Barbon who laid out Gerard Street (the modern-day China Town).