Berners Street Explained

Berners Street is a thoroughfare located to the north of Oxford Street in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, originally developed as a residential street in the mid-18th century by property developer William Berners, and later devoted to larger commercial and semi-industrial buildings or mansion blocks of flats. It has associations with Charles Dickens, and was the location of makers of musical instruments including pianos and harps, as well as furniture and film-makers.

Geography

Berners Street runs approximately 195 metres in a northerly direction from the junction of Oxford Street and Wardour Street to join up with Mortimer Street (formerly Charles Street) and the former Middlesex Hospital (now called Fitzroy Place). The street lies in an area known as Fitzrovia and is considered historically to be in East Marylebone. Twenty one trees were added to Berners Street in 2012.[1] [2]

History

Berners Street was originally developed as a residential street by the Berners Estate in the mid-eighteenth century.

John Slater, surveyor of the Berners Estate, wrote in 1918:

Edward Walford, wrote in Old and New London (Volume 4), published 1878:[3]

Walford records the proliferation of charitable and medical institutions in Berners Street during the 19th century:

Many of these institutions springing up in proximity to the Middlesex Hospital:

Edward Walford evokes something of the street market atmosphere at the corner of Berners Street and Charles Street so vividly described by Henry Mayhew in the 1840s and 50s:[4]

Jamaica connections

On 2 November 1756, Richard Bathurst delivered his resignation letter to the Board of the Middlesex Hospital, thus:

Genealogist Anne M. Powers wrote a study of the interchange between 18th-century Jamaica and mercantile London in her book and blog 'A Parcel of Ribbons', which gives some insight into Berners Street in colonial times:

Legacies of British Slave-ownership

The UCL Legacies of British Slave-ownership project[5] explores the mechanisms by which wealth flowed from Caribbean plantations to metropolitan Britain. One such mechanism was the payment by UK taxpayers of approximately £10 million to compensate slave-owners after the abolition of slavery in the United Kingdom's American possessions in 1834. A map of beneficiaries in Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia[6] shows beneficiaries in Berners Street included:

There were claims for two large estates in Jamaica by the heirs of John Elmslie, who had died in August 1822[7] (St George no 324 and St Thomas-in-the-East no 468, total of £9176 7s 10d for 508 enslaved). In addition, compensation for St Thomas-in-the-East no 469 was awarded to the executors and executrix of John Elmslie junior, who had died in July 1829 (£2566 4s. 5d for 133 enslaved). Among the heirs of John Elmslie senior listed in Boyle's Directory of 1835 were his eldest surviving son James Elmslie at 18 Upper Gower Street, London; Mrs Elmslie, widow of his second son John junior, at 9 Upper Gloucester Place, London; and William Elmslie, fourth surviving son, at 24 York Street, Portman Square, London.

Counterclaimed for 2 enslaved in Barbados (claim # 299) in right of his wife Ann Philips Boxill, stating that the late Rebecca Rowe who died in December 1831 bequeathed all her property to the said Ann Philips Boxill 'and two other persons' (T71/895). His address is given as 19 Berners Street. The award was made to the initial claimant, Thomas Boxill, as executor of Rebecca Rowe. Andrew Robertson of 19 Berners Street lodged another unsuccessful counterclaim with his wife Ann Phillips Robertson as legatee and annuitant under the will of Samuel Boxill (Barbados #264). This claim is for 122 enslaved on the Waterford Estate, Barbados. Samuel Boxill sold the enslaved to James D. Maycock, and the claim is awarded to Richard Deane as executor of John Higginson, surviving partner of Sir William Barton and George Irlam, creditors of Maycock.

Claimant in right of his wife Anna Maria Miller Killikenny of £60 4s 0d for 3 enslaved on Barbados (claim # 2432). Tentative identification as Rev Stephen Isaacson of Berners Street, on the provisional committee of the Cheltenam, Oxford and Brighton Junction Railway, and director of Galway & Ennis Railways (Times, 7 October 1845, p. 13). P. Kilkelly, 'merchant, of Barbadoes, Tavistock Square, is also on the provisional committee of the Barbados General Railway.

The UCL researchers commented:

Berners Street Hoax

The street was given notoriety by a practical joke, known as the Berners Street Hoax, perpetrated by the writer Theodore Hook in 1810.[8] Hook had made a bet with his friend, Samuel Beazley, that he could transform any house in London into the most talked-about address in a week, which he achieved by sending out thousands of letters in the name of Mrs Tottenham, who lived at 54 Berners Street, requesting deliveries, visitors, and assistance. Hook stationed himself in the house directly opposite 54 Berners Street, from where he and his friend spent the day watching the chaos unfold. The site at 54 Berners Street is now occupied by the Sanderson Hotel.

Charles Booth

In October 1898, Charles Booth took a series of walks with Police Constable R.J. French of the Tottenham Court Road subdivision of the D police division and recorded observations in his notebooks for Life and Labour of the People of London. On 21 October he walked with PC French around "District 3" including the area "bounded on the North by Mortimer Street and Goodge St. on the East by Charlotte St. and Rathbone Place, on the South by Oxford Street and on the West by Regent St. being part of the parishes of All Souls and All Saints." Setting out from the corner of Goodge Street and Charlotte Street he walked north up Berners Street noting only "4 1/2 storeys, centre for music establishments, piano, instrument, music publishers etc."[9]

Notable residents

Arts

Literature

Berners Street is strongly associated with the writer Charles Dickens. Dickens' maternal great aunt, Mrs Charles Charlton, ran a lodging house at 16 Berners Street, and Dickens was often taken here by his mother, and got a job as a result in 1827. One of the lodgers was a young lawyer called Edward Blackmore, who was impressed by the youngster and employed him as a solicitor's clerk at Ellis & Blackmore in Grays Inn at the age of 15 (for more than twice the pay of Dickens' dreaded, and latterly famous, blacking factory job).

It was in Berners Street that, as a boy, Dickens saw a wandering woman, upon whom the character Miss Havisham from Great Expectations was based. Dickens described her as "a conceited old creature, cold and formal in manner" who was "dressed entirely in white with a ghastly white plaiting round her head and face inside her white bonnet." He added that she "went simpering mad on personal grounds alone – no doubt because a wealthy Quaker wouldn't marry her. This is her bridal dress. She is always walking up here… we observe in her mincing step and fishy eye that she intends to lead him a sharp life." This was in his essay "Where We Stopped Growing" which was published in Household Words on 1 January 1853.[14]

Later in life, at 31 Berners Street, Dickens installed his secret young lover, the actress Ellen Lawless Ternan (nicknamed Nelly), who at 19 was 27 years younger than him, and the same age as his eldest daughter. It was September 1858 when she moved in accompanied by her mother Francis, who was an actress, and two sisters, Maria, another actress, and Fanny, a singer. After just a month Ellen and Maria reported to him that they were being pestered by a policeman, whom Dickens suspected of having been bribed by a man sexually interested in either or both of them. He complained of this "extraordinary, and dangerous and unwarrantable conduct in a policeman" whom he thought should be dismissed. But fear of publicity prevented him pursuing it. Perhaps that was why they all moved in March 1859 to Ampthill Square. Ellen had a habit of wearing scarlet geraniums and white heather in her hair. She was persuaded to give up acting by Dickens in August 1859, and received regular payments from his Coutts Bank account. On her death at the age of 75, she was buried in Southsea, close to where Dickens was born.

Other residents

By the end of the nineteenth century the area around Berners Street was no longer completely residential and development plots were being amalgamated for the erection of larger commercial and semi-industrial buildings or for mansion blocks of flats. Examples of such mansion blocks include the Edwardian Berners street mansions (34–36, Berners Street) and Lancaster Court.[18]

Businesses and organisations

Furniture industry

From the 19th century Berners Street was the home of notable cabinet makers, upholsterers and furnishing companies including

Hotels

During the 20th century several hotels became established on Berners Street including

Medical and charitable institutions

Women's suffrage movement

Elizabeth Crawford noted in her work on the Women's Suffrage Movement:

Musical instrument makers

Piano makers

Various piano makers were located in Berners Street between 1820 and 1860, including:[29]

Harp makers

Music publishing

Film industry

The London Project records several businesses involved in the early film industry located in Berners Street:[36]

Miscellaneous businesses and organisations

• Abbott & co of Lancaster had an office at 18 Berners street circa 1904

Bourne and Hollingsworth

Bourne & Hollingsworth was a department store on the corner of Oxford Street and Berners Street. Its building was originally built in the late nineteenth century, and the store moved into the building in the early 1900s, remaining there until it closed in 1983. Bourne & Hollingsworth is featured in the 1954 Adelphi film The Crowded Day, which follows one day in the life of a group of department store employees and was partially shot on location inside and outside the store.[37]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Fitzovia Community Centre Launched – Commemorative Tree Planted on Berners Street. w1wtrees. 18 May 2012. The W1W Tree Planting Initiative for Marylebone and Fitzrovia. 17 June 2019.
  2. Web site: 2019 Marylebone & Fitzrovia Tree Planting Update. w1wtrees. 7 June 2019. The W1W Tree Planting Initiative for Marylebone and Fitzrovia. 17 June 2019.
  3. Web site: Walford. Edward. Oxford Street and its Northern Tributaries. Old and New London: Volume 4. British History Online.
  4. [London Labour and the London Poor]
  5. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/ Legacies of British Slave-ownership
  6. https://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=200486230160387602346.0004871898b4c5a297bc9 Fitzrovia in the Slave Compensation Records
  7. Ancestry.com, London, England, Deaths and Burials, 1813–1980 [database online] shows John Elmslie of Berners Street aged 83 buried at Lewisham St Mary 31 August 1822; the will of John Elmslie of Berners Street was proved 2 November 1822, PROB 11/1663. Cited at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/46127 accessed 16 February 2016
  8. Web site: The Berners Street Hoax, 1810. Museum of Hoaxes.
  9. Web site: Booth. Charles. Life and Labour of the People of London. London School of Economics. 5 March 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304195125/http://booth.lse.ac.uk/notebooks/b355/jpg/77.html. 4 March 2016. dead.
  10. Book: Harris and Snodin. Sir William Chambers: Architect to George III. 25 February 1996. Yale University Press. 0300069405.
  11. http://riba.sirsidynix.net.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/?ps=xc8U7vkrVc/MAIN_CAT/35460022/9 Berners Street (Collins) Album
  12. Web site: Thomas Collins. Hendon and District Archaeological Society.
  13. Book: Füssli, Johann Heinrich. The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli. 1831. 284. fuseli berners street..
  14. Web site: Pentelow. Mike. Charles Dickens' Many Addresses in Fitzrovia. 29 April 2012 . Fitzrovia News.
  15. News: Blundell. Sue. The young actress Charles Dickens kept in a love nest. Fitzrovia News.
  16. Web site: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Blue Plaque. Open Plaques.
  17. Web site: Powers. Anne M. A Parcel of Ribbons. 8 April 2017 .
  18. Web site: Charlotte Street West Conservation Area Audit. Westminster City Council.
  19. Web site: English Heritage * Archives. https://archive.today/20130423190023/http://www.englishheritagearchives.org.uk/results/Results.aspx?t=Quick&cr=bedford&page=1545. dead. 23 April 2013. English Heritage Archives.
  20. Web site: Well Fire Company. English Heritage. 3 March 2013. https://archive.today/20130423191509/http://viewfinder.english-heritage.org.uk/search/reference.aspx?uid=220413&index=0&mainQuery=berners+street&searchType=all&form=home. 23 April 2013. dead.
  21. Web site: Percy Heffer and Company. English Heritage.
  22. Web site: Battam & Heywood. English Heritage.
  23. Book: Crawford, Elizabeth. The Women's Suffrage Movement. January 2001. Routledge. 500. 9780415239264.
  24. Web site: Marriott puts London Edition property on the market ahead of 2013 opening. Boutique Hotel News.
  25. Book: Altick, Richard Daniel. The Shows of London. 1978. Harvard University Press . 9780674807310.
  26. [Wikisource:Health and beauty by Caplin/Introduction]
  27. Book: Crawford, Elizabeth. The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 1866 -1928. January 2001. Routledge. 119. 9780415239264.
  28. Book: Crawford, Elizabeth. The Women's Suffrage Movement. January 2001. Routledge. 124. 9780415239264.
  29. Book: Clinkscale, Martha Novak. Makers of the Piano: Vol 2 1820–1860. 1993. Oxford University Press . 9780198166252.
  30. Web site: Piano Manufacture in Camden Town. Local History.
  31. Web site: Buswell harp pages. Buswell.
  32. Baldwin, Mike. The harp in early nineteenth-century Britain: innovation, business, and making in Jacob Erat’s manufactory. Doctoral thesis, London Metropolitan University (2017)
  33. James Duff Brown and Stephen Samuel Stratton. 'Henry Charles Banister', in British Musical Biography (1897), p. 24
  34. https://web.archive.org/web/20150216040929/http://mcgee-flutes.com/RC_Wshop1922.htm Rudall, Carte & Co
  35. Web site: Page. William. A History of the County of Middlesex. British History Online.
  36. Web site: The London Project. The Birth of the Film Business in London. AHRB Centre for British Film & Television Studies.
  37. Web site: The Crowded Day. Adelphi Films Limited.