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juvenile institution acquits itself very creditably, In the school-room is a harmonium, usually presided over by the teacher, whose performances naturally excite the delight of these civilised British Bedouins."

As we have intimated above, various trades are taught, and, when fit, the boys are put out into real life as may suit each. With all these young men a constant intercourse is kept up after they have left the Home by letters and visits, and a register of all cases is kept at the Home by which the history of every one from his admittance can be traced. To show the class of boys rescued, the particulars of one or two cases will suffice :

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Ragged schools have done great things for this destitute class, but to the Boys' Home we look for really and permanently raising a lad out of the slough of depravity, and landing him safely and firmly on the rock of honest industry.

It may be stated here that the boys admitted to the Home are chosen by joint vote of the Committee on account of their extreme destitution and want. Those who have neither parent alive stand the first chance of admission, those who have lost their father stand next, and those who have lost their mother are last on the roll of candidates. Many of them, however, never knew that they ever had either father or mother, or a home of any kind whatsoever.

G. L., aged ten years, but looking much younger, was received on the 22nd of August, 1862. This The latest report of Her Majesty's inspector poor boy was described in the paper sent to the states :-"My inspection of the school this day Home from the office of the Reformatory and has given me much satisfaction. I have found all Refuge Union, as "awfully filthy and neglected," in good order. The boys look healthy and cheerful. and was stated to have been in the casual-ward They appear to be managed with good sense and of several workhouses for single nights. He was good judgment. They have passed a very creditin a sad condition when he entered the Home-able examination. The dictation and arithmetic shoeless, dirty and tattered, footsore and hungry. of the upper classes were above the average. The The boy's father was a clown in some itinerant school appears to be doing its work well, with show, and had deserted his mother. The mother, most encouraging results." who was of anything but good character, wandered to London, where the child was found destitute in the streets. The case coming strictly within the operation of the "Industrial Schools' Act," the boy was sent to the Home by the presiding magistrate of the Thames Police Court.

J. P., aged fourteen, was a message-boy at the barracks, Liverpool. Believing him to be an orphan, the soldiers persuaded him to conceal himself on board a ship bound with troops to Gibraltar, from which place, by similar means, he contrived to find his way to China. When at Hong Kong he was allowed to ship as second-class boy on board H.M. line-of-battle ship Calcutta, in which, a few days after, he met with so severe an accident by scalding, that he was removed to the hospital-ship stationed at Hong Kong. His life was despaired of, and for nearly a year he suffered from the effects of this disaster. Recovering in some degree from this accident, he was shipped in a man-of-war for England, and landed at Portsmouth, discharged from the navy only half-cured and destitute. He was indebted to the active benevolence of a chaplain of the navy for his admission into the Boys' Home, where, by the assistance of good living, a comfortable and cheerful home, and good medical help, he soon became a healthy boy again. He recently re-visited the Home as an able-bodied seaman, with a good

character.

It is not intended that the Boys' Home should be dependent upon alms; the object of the promoters is to make it self-supporting. But whilst the grass is growing, we all know the steed may starve. Yet such need not be the case if the public would buy the brushes, book-stands, worktables, &c., made by the boys' hands, and employ the little fellows themselves in carpenters' jobs, and in cleaning boots and shoes in the neighbourhood.

Passing from the Boys' Home by the Gloucester Road, a short walk brings us to the "York and Albany Hotel," which is pleasantly situated, overlooking the north-eastern corner of the Regent's Park. The house, which has at the back some extensive tea-gardens, forms the starting-point of a line of omnibuses to the west and south of London. It may be mentioned here that the bridge over the Regent's Canal, between the "York and Albany and Gloucester Gate, having been long considered too narrow and ill-constructed to suit the requirements of the present day, the Metropolitan Board of Works in the end decided upon rebuilding it upon a much larger scale, at a cost of about £20,000. It is surmounted by groups of statuary, and now forms a very handsome approach and entrance to the Regent's Park on the eastern side. In Regent's Park Terrace, close by Gloucester Gate, Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, was living in 1859.

Albany Street.]

SIR GOLDSWORTHY GURNEY.

Albany Street, like the hotel above mentioned, takes its name from royalty-the late Duke of York having been Duke of Albany as well; it extends from this point to the Marylebone Road, near the top of Portland Place, and close to the south-east entrance of the Regent's Park. At the top of this street, almost facing the east window of the chapel of St. Katherine's Hospital, are spacious barracks, which are constantly used, in turn with others, by a regiment of the Guards. Together with the drill-ground and the various outbuildings, they occupy no less than seven or eight acres. To the north of this lies Park Village East, a collection of detached villas, built in a rustic style; and close by is the basin of an arm of the Regent's Canal.

At the end of the canal basin is Cumberland Market, or, as it is sometimes called, Regent's Park Market. It was established for the sale of hay, straw, and other articles, removed, in the reign of George IV., from the Haymarket, as already stated by us,* between Piccadilly and Pall Mall; but it has never been very largely attended.

Munster Square, as a poor group of houses built round a plot of market ground close by is called, derives its name from one of the inferior titles inherent in the Crown; and the reader will remember that William IV. created his eldest natural son, Colonel Fitzclarence, a peer, by the title of the Earl of Munster.

In Osnaburgh Street-which, by the way, is likewise named after a member of the royal family, the late Duke of York having also been "Bishop of Osnaburgh," in the kingdom of Hanover-is the St. Saviour's Hospital. Here tumours and cancerous growths are treated in such a manner as to dispense with the use of the knife. In this street, too, is another institution for the exercise of charity and benevolence; it is called the St. Saviour's Home and Hospital for the Sisters of Charity.

In Albany Street the late Sir Goldsworthy Gurney was practising as a medical man about the year 1825, employing his spare time in making practical experiments, more especially in manufacturing a steam-carriage, which, under many difficulties, he perfected sufficiently to make a journey along the high road to Bath, in July, 1829, two months before the successful efforts of George Stephenson in the North to solve the question of steam conveyance. Miss Gurney thus describes the difficulties under which her father laboured before carrying out his invention:-"Our house was in Argyle Street, Regent Street, where my

* See Vol. IV., p. 217.

299

father was in practice as a medical man, at the same time making experiments of all sorts; and his steam-carriage was begun at that house, but a manufactory was soon taken, and he found it necessary to be there and to have his family with him. We occupied rooms which were probably intended for Sir William Adams, a celebrated oculist, for whom this building was erected as an eye infirmary, in Albany Street. From a window of my room I looked into the yard where my father was constructing his steam-carriage. The intense combustion caused by the steam-blast, and the consequent increase of high-pressure steam force acting on the jet, created such a tremendous current or draught of air up the chimney that it was something terrific to see or to hear. The workmen would sometimes throw things into the fire as the carriage passed round the yard-large pieces of slate or sheet-iron-which would dart up the chimney like a shot, falling occasionally nearer to the men than was safe, and my father would have to check their enthusiasm. The roaring sound, too, sometimes was astounding. Many difficulties had to be overcome, which occupied years before 1827. The noise had to be got rid of, or it would have frightened horses, and the heat had to be insulated, or it might have burnt up the whole vehicle. The steam machinery was at first contrived to be in the passenger-carriage itself, as the turnpike tolls would have been double for two vehicles. My father was forcibly reminded of this fact, for there was then a turnpike-gate immediately outside the manufactory. This gate was first on the south side of the doors, and the steamcarriage was often exercised in the Regent's Park barrack-yard; then the gate was moved just a few yards to the north, between the doors and the barracks. But perhaps the greatest difficulty— next to that of prejudice, which was strong against all machinery in those days-was to control the immense power of the steam and to guide the carriage. It would go round the factory yard more like a thing flying than running, and my father was often in imminent peril while making his experiments. He, however, at last brought the carriage completely under control, and it was perfected. One was built to carry the machinery, the driver, and stoker only, and to draw another carriage after it. My father could guide it, turn it, or back it easily; he could set it going or stop it instantly, up hill or down; it frequently went to Hampstead, Highgate, Edgware, Barnet, Stanmore, and its rate could be maintained at twenty miles an hour, though this speed could only be indulged in where the road was straight and wide, and the way clearly

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GROUND PLAN OF NEW ROAD FROM ISLINGTON TO EDGWARE ROAD (1755).

fourteen miles an hour. This journey from London | entablature, project, and give a very extraordinary to Bath, the first ever maintained with speed by any steam locomotive, was made in July, 1829, on the common turnpike road, in the face of the public, and two months before the trial at Rainhill."

At the south end of this street, with Osnaburgh Street on its east side, is Trinity Church, which was built from the designs of Sir John Soane. The principal front consists of a portico of four columns of the Ionic order, approached by a small flight of steps; on each side is a long window, divided into two heights by a stone transum (panelled). Each of the windows is filled with ornamental iron-work,

relief in the perspective view of the building. The upper part consists of a circular peristyle of six columns, the example apparently taken from the portico of the octagon tower of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, or tower of the winds, from the summit of which rises a conical dome, surmounted by the vane. The more minute detail may be seen by the engraving (page 294). The prevailing ornament is the Grecian fret. The Rev. Dr. Chandler, late Dean of Chichester, was for many years rector of this church, in which he was succeeded by Dean Elliot, and he again by the Rev. William Cadman.

Middlesex

Hospital

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To Hampstead

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CAMDEN TOWN, FROM THE HAMPSTEAD ROAD. MARYLEBONE, 1780. (See page 305)

CHAPTER XXIII.

EUSTON ROAD, HAMPSTEAD ROAD, AND THE ADJACENT NEIGHBOURHOOD.

"Not many weeks ago it was not so,

But Pleasures had their passage to and fro,
Which way soever from our Gates I went,

I lately did behold with much content,

The Fields bestrew'd with people all about;

Some paceing homeward and some passing out;

Some by the Bancks of Thame their pleasure taking,

Some Sulli-bibs among the milk-maids making;

With musique some upon the waters rowing;

Some to the adjoining Hamlets going,

And Hogsdone, Islington, and Tothnam (sic) Court,

For Cakes and Cream had then no small resort."-Britain's Remembrancer.

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Pastoral Character of the Locality in the Last Century-The Euston Road-Statuary-yards-The Adam and Eve" Tavern-Its Tea-gardens and its Cakes and Creams-A "Strange and Wonderful Fruit "-Hogarth's Picture of the "March of the Guards to Finchley "-The "Paddington Drag"-A Miniature Menagerie-A Spring-water Bath-Eden Street-Hampstead Road-The "Sol's Arms" TavernDavid Wilkie's Residence-Granby Street-Mornington Crescent-Charles Dickens' School-days-Clarkson Stanfield-George CruikshankThe "Old King's Head" Tavern-Tolmer's Square-Drummond Street-St. James's Church-St. Pancras Female Charity School-The Original Distillery of "Old Tom "-Bedford New Town-Ampthill Square-The "Infant Roscius "-Harrington Square.

THERE was, till the reign of William IV., a rustic character which invested the outskirts of London between King's Cross and St. John's Wood. But, thanks to the progress of the demon of bricks and mortar, the once rural tea-gardens have been made in every suburb of London to give way to the modern gin-palace with its flaring gas and its other attractions. Chambers draws out this "change for the

worse" in his "Book of Days: "-"Readers of our old dramatic literature may be amused with the rustic character which invests the (then) residents of the outskirts of Old London comprehended between King's Cross and St. John's Wood, as they are depicted by Swift in the Tale of a Tub. The action of the drama takes place in St. Pancras Fields, the country near Kentish Town, Tottenham

66

The dramatis persona," palaces round about you-Southampton House seem as innocent of and Montagu House.' 'Where you wretches go and fight duels,' cries Mrs. Steele."

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Court, and Marylebone. continues Mr. Chambers, London as if they were inhabitants of Berkshire, and talk a broad country dialect. This northern side of London preserved its pastoral character until a comparatively recent time, it not being very long since some of the marks used by the Finsbury archers of the days of Charles II. remained in the Shepherd and Shepherdess Fields between the Regent's Canal and Islington. . . The prætorium of a Roman camp was visible where now stands Barnsbury Terrace; the remains of another, as described by Stukely, were situated opposite old St. Pancras Church, and herds of cows grazed near where now stands the Euston Square Terminus of our North-Western Railway, but which then was Rhode's Farm. At the commencement of the present century the country was open from the back of the British Museum to Kentish Town; the New Road from Battle Bridge to Tottenham (Court Road) was considered unsafe after dark; and parties used to collect at stated points to take the chance of the escort of the watchman in his half-hourly round." In 1707 there were no streets west of Tottenham Court Road; and one cluster of houses only, besides the "Spring Water House" nearly half a century later, at which time what is now the Euston Road was part of an expanse of verdant fields.

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In the reign of George IV., as Mr. Samuel Palmer writes in his "History of St. Pancras," "the rural lanes, hedgeside roads, and lovely fields made Camden Town the constant resort of those who, busily engaged during the day in the bustle of . . . London, sought its quietude and fresh air to re-invigorate their spirits. Then the old 'Mother Red Cap' was the evening resort of worn-out Londoners, and many a happy evening was spent in the green fields round about the old wayside house by the children of the poorer classes. At that time the Dairy, at the junction of the Hampstead and Kentish Town Roads, was a rural cottage, furnished with forms and benches for the pedestrians to rest upon the road-side, whilst its master and mistress served out milk fresh from the cow to all who came." In fact, as we have already noticed in our account of Bloomsbury Square and other places, down to the close of the last or even the beginning of the present century, all this neighbourhood was open country; so that, after all, Thackeray was not far wide of the mark when he put these words into the mouth of Mr. St. John in "Esmond: "-"Why, Bloomsbury is the very height of the mode! 'Tis rus in urbe; you have gardens all the way to Hampstead, and

But it is time for us to be again on our perambulation. Leaving Trinity Church, we now make our way eastward along the Euston Road, as far as the junction of the Tottenham Court and the Hampstead Roads. The Euston Road-formerly called the New Road-was at the time of its formation, about the middle of the last century, the boundaryline for limiting the "ruinous rage for building" on the north side of the town. It was made by virtue of an Act of Parliament passed in the reign of George II. (1756), after a most violent contest with the Duke of Bedford, who opposed its construction on the ground of its approaching too near to Bedford House, the duke's town mansion. The Duke of Grafton, on the other hand, strenuously supported it, and after a fierce legal battle it was ultimately decided that the road should be formed. In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1755 there is a "ground plan" of the New Road, from Islington to Edgware Road, showing the then state of the ground (and the names of the proprietors thereof) between Oxford Street and the New Road. The Act of Parliament for the formation of this great thoroughfare, as we have already had occasion to observe, directs that no building should be erected "within fifty feet of the New Road." In Gwynn's "London Improved," published about the beginning of this century, it is stated that "the present mean appearance of the backs of the houses and hovels have rendered this approach to the capital a scene of confusion and deformity, extremely unbecoming the character of a great and opulent city." Down to a comparatively recent date, Mr. Gwynn's remarks would have applied very aptly to that quarter of a mile of the New Road which lies between Gower Street North, where the old Westgate Turnpike formerly stood, and the eastern entrance to the Regent's Park. Here the road was narrow, and perpetually obstructed by wagons, &c., that might be unloading at the various timber and stone yards, which occupied the ground that an Act of Parliament had ordered should be "used only for gardens." "The intention of this judicious clause," says the author of a work on London about half a century ago, "was, no doubt, to preserve light, air, and cheerfulness, so highly necessary to a great leading thoroughfare. Such it has hitherto been, and with increasing respectability, excepting at the point I am about to mention-many great improvements have taken place, such as the Regent's Park and Crescent, the new Pancras Church and Euston Square, &c.

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