George, West Harding Court, Fetter Lane

In the minutes of a LCS General Committee meeting, held on 23 July 1795, it was reported that Div 13, would branch to the George, West Harding Court, Fetter Lane on the following Wednesday, where  Ward, Canty, Rawson, Hastie, Oxlaid would act as deputies (Add MSS 27813, fos. 76v-82; Thale 268).

Horwood's Map. Click to Enlarge.

Fetter Lane is a north-south artery that connects Fleet Street with Holborn. John Strype reported in his Survey of 1720 that the houses in Fetter lane were generally good and "well inhabited". West Harding Street, towards the south end of Fetter Lane, was a small street of around 10 buildings, connected to East Harding Street, which Strype identifies as one of the nicer streets of this relatively affluent neighborhood, in part because it is "open." This was a stronghold of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, and was part of the area known as Goldsmiths Rents. In 1794 the committee of the Goldsmiths Company announced that they would sit at their hall to receive proposals for "repairing the Leases" of Nos. 3, 4 and 5 in West Harding Street. (Oracle and Public Advertiser, October 9, 1794). West Harding Street is part of the maze of small streets and alley's near where Samuel Johnson lived, that I have described elsewhere. I have been unable to locate any record of a pub called the George on this street outside the LCS meeting minutes themselves.

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The area, especially the north end of Fetter Lane, was severely damaged by bombing during the second world war, and much of it was redeveloped in the post-war period. None of the eighteenth-century buildings on West Harding Street survived and both sides of this narrow lane are now occupied by large modern office buildings.

West Harding Street today.

George, Compton Street

Following the passage of the Two Acts in 1795, certain sections of the reform movement grew increasingly disillusioned with the possibility of a peaceable parliamentary reform, and began to adopt a more aggressive policy to overthrow the government. The United Irishmen had long advocated a more direct approach to instigating a political revolution, and began to forge closer links with likeminded English radicals. The United Englishmen, a society modeled on the United Irishmen and committed to insurrectionary politics, was particularly strong in the north of England, especially in Manchester, but similar groups -- calling themselves the United Britons and True Britons also had cells in London, where they met at Furnival's Inn on the Strand and in the house of Thomas Evans in Plough Court, Fetter Lane. In 1798 Evans also served as the secretary of the LCS, and in April  he used his contacts within the LCS to attempt to establish a new division of the United Englishmen, at a public house that was already being used by a division of the LCS.

The first meeting took place on 18 April 1798 at the George on Compton Street, Clerkenwell (not to be confused with Compton Street, Soho, where the LCS also frequently met). Evans had urged many LCS members (including Francis Place, Edward Despard, Benjamin Binns and the spy James Powell) to bring with them as many acquaintances as possible. Some (including Joseph Nagle and William Webb) clearly thought they were going to a meeting of the LCS. Others, including Francis Place, knew full well that Evans was trying to promote a revolution and stayed away. Wisely, it turns out. The government were fully aware of what was afoot, and once Evans had arrived, promptly arrested everyone present.

An unsigned deposition provided by an attendee, gives an account of the meeting:

About  the later end of the year 97 the divison [of the LCS that I attended] was moved to St Johns lane Green man where it continued till the later end of march 98 when it was moved to the Georg the corner of compton Street the wich house iatended the division two or three tims when evans called on me and told me there wold be ameeting on wendesday in the evening & desired would com and bring with me as many of my acquantance as icould iatended the meeting which ibelieve from the test found upon him he ment to to propose to be a meeting of true britains which test idid not take we being all takeing into custody five minutes after Evans came into the room (PC 1/43/A153; Thale 429).

The Report of Committee of Secrecy (1799) provides the texts of the "tests" that Evans had on him at the time of his arrest. This was an oath, which read as follows:

I ____ do truly and sincerely engage to defend my Country should Necessity require; for which Purpose am willing to join the Society of True Britons to learn the Use of Arms, in order that equal Rights and Laws should be established and defended.

The name of the Society given in the oath, the True Britons, rather than the True Englishmen, attests to the continuities between various London radical groups in the final years of the 1790s. The names the societies were given were largely insignificant given the widely overlaps in both personnel and meeting places. (Although it should be noted that -- at least in retrospect -- Francis Place was keen to associate himself with the London Corresponding Society, but attempted to distance himself as much as possible from the insurrectionary tactics of the United Englishmen).

Along with this oath, The Report of Committee of Secrecy also provides the text of another oath that was found on the Floor of the George after the arrests of the members:

Report of Committee of Secrecy, 1799, Appendix, p.75.

The focus of this oath is on secrecy -- on not giving evidence against any other members of this or any other society -- testifying to the assumed joint venture of the various radical societies in the late 1790s, and also to their (justified) paranoia that they were being infiltrated by spies. Place was convinced that the main reason the United Englishmen continued their existence was because they were encouraged by the spies who had infiltrated the society and were reporting back to the government. Certainly James Powell (who Place claimed had thrown this second oath under the table, and who he described as a "easy silly fellow," Autobiography 179) was very active in the establishment of the division of United Englishmen.

Also significant in this second oath is the emphasis on religious toleration, which was no doubt inherited from the (largely Catholic) United Irishmen, but which also undermines  the frequent (in the period) association between sedition and godlessness. Many members of the LCS -- as Williams Hamilton Reid's Rise and Dissolution of the Infidel Societies, made clear -- were religious, including Thomas Hardy and Evans, though they tended towards dissenting traditions rather than state-sanctioned Anglicanism, hence the emphasis on toleration.

Click to enlarge

The George was located in Clerkenwell, at the junction of Compton Street and St. John's Street. It was owned by the Dickinson and Co brewery, which operated out of St John's Street. There had been a brew house attached to the Unicorn inn since at least the 1670s, which had become known as the Horseshoe by the 1740s. The Dickinsons acquired the Horseshoe brewery, which occupied the site to the south of Compton Street along with other property in the area in 1764 and began expanding operations, changing the name, once again, to St John of Jerusalem.

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In 1818, the brewery was sold to Harvey Combe and Joseph Delafield.  The sale included the beer, hops, malt, horses, drays, casks, the brewhouse and the several public houses owned by the brewery. The deeds which were acquired included those to the George which was described as being "on the west side of St John Street and the north Compton Street, St James, Clerkenwell." A new lease was signed for the George on 2 March 1798, six weeks before the United Englishmen met there, and during the time the LCS were meeting there (City of Westminster Archives 789/246). 

Under the stewardship of Combe and Delafield most of the properties formerly belonging to the Dickinsons were broken up and sold on. The site of the Horseshoe brewery became part of the Cannon brewery, which was acquired by the Taylor Walker Group in 1930, subsequently taken over by Ind Coope. The site was seriously damaged during the 1940-1 Blitz, and though it recommenced operations after the war, it was finally closed in 1955 (See Survey of London, vol. 46).

The site of the George became part of a distillery, which was built in 1828 by John and William Nicholson.  The Nicholson distillery expanded throughout the nineteenth century, with the St John's Street frontage becoming offices in the 1870s and 80s and further expanded in the 1890s. The Nicholsons distillery was, like the Canon brewery taken over by Ind Coope after the second world war, and put up for sale in 1961. The former distillery was redeveloped into apartments, known as St Paul's Square in 1997-8 (see Survey of London, 46).

187-205 St John's Street, former offices of Nicholson's Distillery

Opposite the site formerly occupied by the George, at 180 St John Street, is now (2013) a pub called the Well. Until fairly recently it operated under the name the George, and dates back until at least the early nineteenth century, when presumably it was associated with the Canon Brewery (see pubshistory.com). I mention this because for a while I assumed that this George was the alehouse in which the LCS met. The deeds in the Westminster Archive that locate the George on the west side of St John Street and the North of Compton Street are in fact the only records I have found that contradict this location, and it remains possible that the records are inaccurate -- especially given that the unsigned deposition quoted above locates the George on Compton Street, not St John Street. 

I have decided to treat the Westminster archives as accurate, however, because they are contemporaneous with the LCS records, whereas the records for the George on the east side of the street all date from after the turn of the nineteenth century, and it was common practice for houses to adopt the name of public houses that had previously existed nearby. 

The George at 180 Compton Street was demolished at the turn of the twentieth century, and was rebuilt in 1901 by the architect W.A. Aickman for the publican H.H. Finch.

Friend at Hand, Little North Street

On 8 November 1792, with the LCS around six months old, three new divisions were set up, including division 19, which had splintered from division 6. The new division first met on 26 November 1792, at the Friend at Hand on Little North Street in Knightsbridge with John Richter elected as the delegate to the General Committee (Thale 26n; BL Add MSS 27812, for 24-4v). On 30 October 1794, at the trial of Thomas Hardy, evidence was given that 6 members were present at the first meeting of the division (ST vol. 24 col. 574).

The Friend at Hand has proven stubborn to identify, in part because in the late eighteenth century Knightsbridge remained a relatively small village outside of London between Chelsea and Kensington. Finding a reliable contemporary map has proven a challenge, it was not, for example, sufficiently large to merit inclusion on Horwood's Map of 1792-9, which only made it as far west as Kensington. Nor have I been able to find any records of a "Little North Street" in Knightsbridge, though there was a North Street (now Basil Street), which presumably was connected with Little North Street. Things are further confused by the fact that the house was at the junction of North Street, Queen Street, and Elizabeth Street, all of which have changed their names at least once, and the address is variously given as being on one of these streets, with very little consistency of address. The confusion is compounded by the fact that "Knightsbridge" did not designate a district so much as a street name until the twentieth century, earlier it was more properly considered a part of Brompton.

Greenwood Map of 1830

A classified ad for the lease for the Friend at Hand appeared in the Morning Post and Daily Advertiser on 15 September 1791. The listing describes a "well established public house" with a "house adjoining," and describes its location as "desirably situate the corner of North and Queen-Street, near Sloane Square." The estate was sold by auction by Mr. Christie, who had established his auction rooms thirty years earlier in the 1760s, and which is today the world's largest auction house.

Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 15 September 1791.

Like many other public houses of the eighteenth century the Friend at Hand occasionally served as an auction house itself. In June 1791 a large collection of fire arms consisting of "double and single barreled fowling pieces, rifle bullet guns, pistols and blunderbusses" was sold there by auction.

Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 28  June 1791.

On 6 April 1797 the address of the Friend at Hand was given in a classified ad in the Morning Post and Fashionable World as "Elizabeth-Street, Hans-Place," rather than Queen Street. And while it's tempting to think that perhaps the house had moved to an alternative nearby location, later addresses continue to list it at Queen Street, suggesting that it had not moved, but that addresses were given with rather more latitude around the turn of the nineteenth century.

According to the Sun Fire Office Records a "Friend at Hand" was insured to "Edward Bates, at the Friend at Hand, Queen Street Brompton" in August 1810 (London Metropolitan Archives MS 11936/453/846997).

By August 1820 the Friend at Hand on Queens Street, Brompton was insured to a William Vinall (LMA MS 11936/483/970363). The same address and the same owner is provided in the Sun Fire records office until 12 March 1823 (LMA MS 11936/498/1001908). From the 1826s on the Friend at hand appears in various directories with the address 1 Elizabeth Street (see pubshistory.com). In January 1830, for example, Michael Collins of the Friend at Hand, Elizabeth Street, Brompton, was declared bankrupt (Law Advertiser 8.1 (1830): p1). The address is given consistently as Elizabeth Street until 1886, when Queen Street and Elizabeth Street were renamed Hans Road, which is the name by which it still goes.

The Survey of London (vol. 41) reports that "at the comer of North (Basil) Street next to the entrance to the Queen's Gardens School, the Friend at Hand public house was rebuilt in a cheerful stripey style by Dear and Winder, architects, in 1894." Again, there is no guarantee that this was the same "Friend at Hand" that the LCS met in one hundred years previously, but if not they must have been very close to the same location.

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The Survey of London says that all of the buildings on the former Queens Road that were developed at the end of the nineteenth century, including the new stripey Friend at Hand, disappeared in 1908–12, as the Harrods department store (initially based on Brompton Road) bought up the leases and expanded on to the sites. One of the last mentions of the Friend At Hand occurs in the Post Office Directory of 1910, where the landlord is listed as Edwin Cash, and the address is given as 37 & 39 Hans Road.

Harrods viewed from corner of Hans Road and Basil Street

Unsurprisingly, given the fame of Harrods there is a substantial archive of photography which document the history of the area. A search for "Hans Road" on Collage brings up numerous images of Hans Road from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, documenting the growth and development of the department store.

Harrods, Brompton Road: by Hans Road looking east.
Photograph from 1892; London County Council Photograph Collection at the LMA.

Frustratingly, however, most of the images are from the Brompton Road end of Hans Road, looking east and none show the junction of Hans Road with Basil Street (where the Friend at Hand still existed into the early twentieth century). The Friend at Hand, like many of the alehouses in which the LCS met remains just out of shot, proximate to, but never quite present in the recognizable images of the metropolis.

French Horn, Lambeth Walk

French Horn in 1965, courtesy of London Borough of Lambeth.

At a meeting of the General Committee on the 6 August 1795 it was reported that "Div 13 branches to the French Horn Lambeth Walk to be No 44 Neale, Peirce, Williams" (Add MSS 27813, fos. 94-101; Thale 280). By September, however, the division's meeting place had to be moved from the French Horn to the Queens Arms Kennington Lane,  (PC 1/23/A38; Thale 305). Spy Powell later reported from a meeting of the General Committee held on 29 October 1795 that the Landlord had lost his license "on account of a Division meeting there" and that "a deputation [was] appointed to enquire into the character of the House" (PC 1/23/A38; Thale 318).

The report is intriguing as it suggests that the General committee were willing to provide funds to help support landlords who had lost their licenses due to LCS activities, though they would not do so indiscriminately. The need for a deputation to enquire into the character of the House suggests it was not well known to the members of the General Committee, and required further investigation to find out whether it was solely the fault of the LCS that the landlord has lost his license, or whether they had been a pretext for the magistrate to take away the license of a public houses that was already of ill-repute. It suggests some of the complications the General Committee faced in the relatively prosperous years between the 1794 Treason Trials, and the Two Acts.

The French Horn in 1989, Courtesy of Steve White2008, under Creative Commons License.

Peter Walker's The Pubs of North London (P. Walker, 1989), claims that the pub was founded in circa. 1750 and rebuilt in 1890. In 1989 he describes it as a “nice family pub”, remarking that “the new tenant has been making some good internal improvements, removing some of the less attractive partitions and exposing the earlier surfaces.” The later building still stands, but no longer operates as a public house.

For much of the eighteenth century Lambeth Walk was a small country lane known as Three Coney Walk. The area became significant thanks to Lambeth Wells which opened towards the end of the 17th century, principally to provide water to St Thomas's Hospital. The fields in the area became a popular resort and people would come for the water, and concerts and dancing were held for their entertainment, and the Wells became a well-known pleasure garden for about fifty years. By the 1750s however it was condemned as a nuisance and the Great Hall in which the entertainments were held was denied a dancing license, when it became a Methodist meeting room, (see Warwick Wroth, Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century, 1896 pp. 279-80 and The Vauxhall Society website).

The French Horn seems to have been built at about the time that Lambeth Wells was closing, and indeed may well have taken its name from the musical entertainments that were popular at the pleasure garden. The earliest record of it I can find dates from February 1774, when the lease was up for auction. The advertisement for the auction described it as "that old-accustomed Public House," suggesting that it had existed for some time. "The Premises" the advertisement promised, "are greatly improved, and upwards of 200l. have been laid out on them within these two years." Again the suggestion is that it had been standing some time, but that it had gained a reputation that only a substantial facelift could improve.

Daily Advertiser (London, England), Monday, February 21, 1774

The public house is mentioned again in the Times on October 13 1788, where an article mocking the pointless fad of collecting, describes "a person at the French Horn, in Three Coney Walk, [who] has spent twenty years collecting a variety of stuffed birds and cockle shells, which he now call a Museum."

Times, October 13, 1788.

Three Coney Walk must have changed its name to Lambeth Walk shortly after this article was published, as it is known as by the latter name by 1795 in the LCS papers. Subsequent records suggest that it was originally at number 113 Lambeth Walk, on the corner of Walnut Tree Walk.

Horwood, Map of London 1799. Click to enlarge.

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Records from the Sun Fire Office show that the French Horn in Lambeth Walk was insured to a John Beeby from 1820 to 1829 (London Metropolitan Archives MS 11936/478/964197, 14 February 1820;  MS 11936/521/1088293, 12 March 1829). The Will of Elizabeth Beeby (National Archives, PROB 11/1843/367) lists the French Horn as her address in March 1835. The pub history website reports records a series of landlords between 1869 and 1884, by which point the street numbering had changed, the address now listed as 49 Lambeth Walk. By now Lambeth Walk was the home to a thriving street market, described by Henry Mayhew as having 164 costermongers' stalls. The market continued to flourish until the end of the Second World War.

In June 1998 the it was proposed that Lambeth Walk and China Walk be designated a Conservation area. "In the 1950's" the proposal claimed, "massive clearance schemes robbed the area of much of its character, sweeping away late Georgian and Victorian properties and replacing them with medium rise blocks of flats and open grassed areas. However, an interesting group of about two dozen properties survived agains the odds - many are in a various states of disrepair [sic], but together form an important reminder of the old historic and architectural character of Lambeth Walk."

No. 49 Lambeth Walk was one of the historic buildings that the report singled out as architecturally significant, describing it as "an attractive four storey building, formerly the French Horn Public House... It has stock brick elevations with re-brick banding and Edwardian style painted timber sash windows - on the first floor surmounted by subtle red-brick pediment detailing."The report comments that the public house had a similar architectural treatment to  numbers 77-87, which it estimates was built in about the 1910s.

At the time of writing the building has been converted into offices by the "Lambeth Tavern Management Company,"so the later building remains, though, despite the misleading sign it does not function as a public house. 

Fox and Hounds, Sydenham, Kent

At a meeting of the LCS General Committee on 13 August 1795 it was reported that a letter had been received from Thomas Holmes of Division 27 stating "We wish to form a division on 16 July at 2pm at the Fox and Hounds, Sydenham, Kent." The new division was to be  number 52, and several of the leaders of the LCS -- Hodgson, Haselden, Place, Higgins, B. Binns, Saml Smith, Morris, and Dyer were to attend.

Photograph by  Ewan Munro per Creative Commons License.

There remains a pub, called Fox's, on the site of the Fox and Hounds, on the corner of present day Wells Park Road and Kirkdale. The current building was erected in the 1880s to designs by Thomas Haliburton Smith, and was notable for its saloon bar -- one of the first of its kind -- which has since been demolished.

Image of the newly rebuilt Fox and Hounds, with ground floor plan,  February 1890

There was a Fox and Hounds on the site, much earlier than this, as shown on Stanford's Library Map of London and it's Suburbs from 1862.

No image of the first building remains, however, and there is much confusion over when it was built. One local historian claims that "The Fox and Hounds was first licensed in 1826, and was thus one one the earliest buildings in the High Street." The mention of it in the LCS records, however, suggests that it predated this "first licensing" by at least thirty years. The LCS records are not the only evidence of the earlier existence of the Fox and Hounds, however, on 17 September 1798, a Robert Phillips took out a classified advertisement in the Morning Post and Gazetteer, complaining of a horse that had been left at the Fox and Hounds nearly a year previously, which he had been forced to look after at his own expense.

There is also mention of a "Fox and Hounds" on Sydenham Common, Lewisham in a document dating from 10 July 1769, when it was described as a house belonging to William Cooper (Kent History and Library Center, Lewisham  Q/RH/1/5W 1769). Other descriptions of Sydenham Common dating from the same period suggest that there were very few buildings in this area at the time, suggesting that the town of Sydenham was developed around the original Fox and Hounds building. It's population grew considerably in the nineteenth century, after the opening of the canal 1801. In 1854 the Crystal Palace, originally erected to house the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, was moved to Sydenham.

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Fourteen Staries, Rosemary Lane

In his report on a meeting of the General Committee that took place on 17 September 1795, Spy Powell reported that Division 10 was to move from "14 Stairs Rosemary Lane to the Queens Arms Crutched Friars"

The Fourteen Stairs was insured to John Withers, victualler, on 26 June 1794, (Records of the Sun Fire Office, London Metropolitan Archive, MS 11936/397/628684). It was still operating in 1800 when it was insured to "Earl." The records from the Sun Fire office lists the address as "10, 11, 12 Rosemary Lane" suggesting that is occupied the site of three separate buildings to the west of Rosemary Lane, next to the Tobacco Warehouse.

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Rosemary Lane, now Royal Mint Street, ran from Cable Street to the Tower of London. The poet Edmund Spenser was born here in 1552, and endowed a group of cottages on the north side of Rosemary Lane as almshouses. Though a relatively short street, Rosemary Lane was well known as the site of Rag Fair, which is mentioned frequently in literary works of the eighteenth century. Daniel Defoe's Colonel Jack (1722), for example, went with his companions to Rag Fair and "bought two pairs of shoes and stockings for 5d., and went on to a boiling Cook's in Rosemary Lane where they found cheap fare."  Rag Fair also appears in Pope's Dunciad as one of the areas in which journalists liked to gather. Pope provided the note: "Rag-fair is a place near the Tower of London, where old cloaths and frippery are sold."

Rag Fair had a particular reputation for selling goods that had been stolen, and the cheapness of the goods was frequently remarked upon. According to Thomas Pennant in his book Of London (1790), "The articles of commerce by no means belie the name. There is no expressing the poverty of the goods, nor yet their cheapness... It was here, we believe, that purchasers were allowed to dip in a sack for old wigs -- a penny a dip."

In his Every-Day Book (1826) William Hone describes the activities of Sir Jeffrey Dunstan (c1759-96), "a dwarf with knock knees and a disproportionately large head" who "earned his living by supplying dealers with second-hand wigs":

When Sir Jeffery raised the cry of 'old wigs', the collecting of which formed his chief occupation, he had a peculiarly droll way of clapping his hand to his mouth, and he called 'old wigs, wigs, wigs!' in every doorway. Some he disposed of privately, the rest he sold to the dealers in 'Rag-fair'. In those days, 'full bottoms' were worn by almost every person, and it was no uncommon thing to hear sea-faring persons, or others exposed to the cold, exclaim, "Well, winter's at hand, and I must e'en go to Rosemary-lane, and have a dip for a wig." This 'dipping for wigs' was nothing more than putting your hand into a large barrel and pulling one up; if you liked it you paid your shilling, if not, you dipped again, and paid sixpence more, and so on. Then, also, the curriers used them for cleaning the waste, &c. off the leather, and I have no doubt would use them now if they could get them.

Thomas Rowlandson's drawing of Rag Fair shows a busy street scene bustling with traders and buyers with clothes littering the ground, hanging from windows and suspended from poles protruding from upper-floor windows.

(For more on Rag Fair see Rictor Norton The Georgian Underworld.)

It seems the LCS connection with the Fourteen Steps was a brief one. It only appears once in the LCS records, in the spy report by Powell, and there it appears as a site which the LCS was moving away from. Precisely why the LCS had to remove from this area can only be a matter of speculation. Perhaps by September 1795 the LCS was sufficiently disreputable that they couldn't be accommodated even in Rosemary Lane.  Or perhaps the LCS no longer wanted to be associated with an area so closely associated with criminal activity. Regardless, the Fourteen Steps, is characteristic of the kind of "low" alehouse that the LCS divisions often met in, that has left only the slightest trace on the historical record.

Fountain, Virginia Row, Shoreditch

The minutes from a meeting of the LCS General Committee on 27 August 1795 report that:

The following wish to establish a Divn at Fountain Virginia Row Shoreditch -
Wednesday
Wm Weston              I Dykes
J Downing                I Keene
P Dykes                    R J Lester
N Hammersley         N Clayton
J Drior                      S Davies
Joseph Thompson    W Smith
Thos Carter              J Salter
D Barking                John Croft
J Young                   C Hartley
J Jones                     H Fox
John Kniblet            J Devonshire
C Bower

A Citizen said that it would be best for those Citizens to enter into a Division on the spot which there was one at Bethnal Green, & then they might branch to that house -- And there was a Person named Dykes amongst them as he believed was not a good Citizen as he belonged to the Loyal Britons  On the other hand it was stated that we ought to appoint a deputation & let them establish a Divn for it we ought to give all encouragement possible to Citns wishing to become Members & that they had as good a right to open a Divn by themselves, as to tun to some Place a distant from their habitations to join one
Citn Place said he had once being a Loyal Briton, but he did not think himself any worse for it, & he said he knew that Dykes -- & beleived him to be a very good Citizen -- Citn Wilson informed the Commee he had once belonged to the Loyal Britons -- & he made no doubt but the Citn was fully convinced of his error
To be 55 Deputed B Binns Dyall, Cardinall Webb, Canty (Add MSS 27813, fos. 113v-21; Thale 291. See also PC 1/23/A38; Thale 296 for Powell's spy report from the same meeting).

In May 1766 the lease for the Fountain was sold by auction, when it was described as a "well-known and good-accustomed Public House, known by the Fountain in Verginina-Row behind Shoreditch church, with a large new erected drinking-room, and three bed-chambers over ditto; there are three skittle grounds, one bear ditto, two gardens, and a plat [sic?] of ground... The whole premises are subject  to the rent of 35l." (Gazatteer and New Daily Advertiser, 24 May 1766).

Gazatteer and New Daily Advertiser, 24 May 1766.

Apparently the auction did not go well, as it was put of for sale again by the same auctioneer, Thomas Skinner,  less than two months later (Daily Advertiser, 18 July 1766).

In July 1783 the lease was auctioned again, after the death of its previous owner, Samuel Newton, who still had 11 years left on his lease at the time of his death (Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser 10 July 1783).

Skittles appears to have been a particularly popular past time in the area. The History of the County of Middlesex reports that "Gambling with cards and shuffleboard, especially on Sundays, were included in charges against disorderly alehouses in 1818. Gambling at cards and skittles in beershops were the principal recreations around Virginia Row in 1875."

In 1800 and again in 1807 the Fountain was insured to a "gentleman" named John Johnson from Canal Row in Rotherhithe. (Sun Fire Office Records, Guildhall MS 11936/418/706377; MS 11936/441/809048). And in March 1811 it was insured to a large brewing company Messers Clowes and Co, of Stoney Lane, who owned around fifty other public houses in East London around Whitechapel,  Shoreditch and Bermondsey. (Guildhall MS 11936/452/854816).

In December 1827 it was insured to Henry Fearon (Guildhall MS 11936/514/1069271).

It continued functioning throughout the nineteenth century. The website deadpubs has traced the Fountain in various post office directories until 1915. The London Metropolitan Archive holds a box of "secretaries papers" relating to buildings formerly owned by Courage and Company Limited, including  one dated the 13th August 1923 that agrees to the sale of the building. The consent of debenture agrees to sell the "aforesaid formerly used as a public house know as "The Fountain" but now unlicensed" to Louis Harr for £125. The building is listed as number 93 Virginia Row, though according to deadpubs, in the eighteenth-century it had been 13 Virginia Row Shoreditch.

The area is now occupied by a post-war housing development.



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