Resurrection Men in Lambeth

If you have visited the Garden Museum in the deconsecrated church of St Mary at Lambeth, you have probably looked at the impressive tombs of Captain Bligh and the Tradescants.  But in the 18^th century this churchyard had become so crowded, filled with approximately 26,000 bodies, a new burial ground was consecrated in the nearby High Street.  In 1814 this burial ground, now called Paradise Row, was extended, but it was not a peaceful spot to lay in rest.

Many graves were being disturbed to supply the young doctors at Guys and St Thomas’ Hospitals with fresh bodies, so watchmen were frequently employed to protect the newly buried.  In November 1817, the sexton, John Seager, employed two men to keep watch over the graves at night but the “grave snatching” continued.  Suspecting that they were not doing their job properly, John told the men one night that they were not needed, although they knew 5 people had been buried earlier in the day.

  John, his son and a young man called John Sharp, hid and after a while they heard the squeak of the gate and spotted two figures.  Two concealed man traps were set off without causing injury.  Seager recognised the men as Thomas Duffin and William Marshall, the very people he had employed to protect the graves.  Waiting until Duffin and Marshall had stolen spades from the Bone House and started to dig up a coffin, Seager and his assistants moved in to catch them.  But the robbers did not intend to be caught.  Swinging his spade, Marshall swore his intent to murder Seager and knocked him to the ground.  Seager’s son was armed with a pistol which he aimed at Marshall, shooting him in the arm.  Meanwhile Duffin swung a cutlass at Sharp who fought back with a poker.  After some time, Duffin and Marshall were taken to the Watch House where a surgeon tended their wounds and they appeared before the Magistrates next morning.

One of the Magistrates believed that the men’s actions made them subject to an archaic law which would mean the removal of their ears and branding as a punishment, but he was over-ruled.  They were kept in custody until the following August, when they were tried at the Crown Court in the Guildhall at Guildford, accused of assaulting John Sharp with intent to kill and murder.  The jury found Duffin and Marshall guilty and sentenced them to two years’ imprisonment.  Twenty years later, in 1838, John Seager died in the Workhouse, at the age of 70, and was buried in the graveyard at Lambeth High Street where the struggle had taken place.  Only two years later, 60 year old Thomas Duffin was also buried there.

Fishermen thieves of #Lambeth #Thames

Standing outside the Garden Museum in St Mary’s church, by the side of Lambeth Palace it can seem like a peaceful spot which time has forgotten but Lambeth has seen many dramatic changes reflecting the use of the river Thames.

Until the 18^th century there were very few people living on the marshy land of Lambeth but the gently sloping beach was an ideal spot to keep boats and barges and soon the fishermen were joined by potteries, factories and saw mills.        

 Most people adapted to the new industrial opportunities but the fishermen were severely affected by a rapid depletion in fish stocks.  Living in small cramped houses with sewage discharged directly onto the beach they were tempted to find less honest means of making a living.  Pretending to fish they would dredge for coals fallen from lighters or plunder the barges.  Their apprentices were often mistreated and trained to be thieves both on the river and on land. 

In 1832 the newspapers ran detailed accounts of a probable murder involving fishing apprentices.  Two gentlemen, Mr Smales, a respectable printer and stationer, and his friend, Mr Wilkinson set out from Blackfriars in a small “funny” boat at 9 pm on July 17th rowing towards Vauxhall Bridge.  At about 10 minutes to ten, when they were through the bridge towards the Spread Eagle at Millbank, 15 feet from the Middlesex side of the river, a skiff came alongside containing two young men.  One youth held the boats alongside each other while the other stole the older men’s jackets, which were lying in their boat.  Mr Smales tried to hit the thief with his oar but the other boat turned away so Wilkinson tried to jump across.  Falling into the river, he swam to the skiff and took hold of the gunwale.  At that point, according to Smales, both young men struck Wilkinson on the head with their sculls giving him several blows until he let go and sank down into the river.  Crying out, “Murder,” Smales tried to row towards his drowning friend but with one small scull and one longer oar the boat turned back on itself.

The scene was witnessed by John Rowan, a jack-in-the-water at the Spread Eagle.  His job was to attend at the dockside stairway to help secure boats. This was his testimony at the trial,

“I was on the causeway till ten minutes before ten o'clock, when the last boat went away; I was then standing at the water edge, about forty yards from the house; I took my stool to the house; and about five minutes past ten I heard cries of Murder! - I got out of a boat's head, in which I was laying, but did not attend to the cry, till I heard it a second time - I heard a guggling; I knew then it was somebody drowning; I ran to the house, and as I ascended the stairs, I heard the guggling a second time - I called the waiter - he came instantly with me to the causeway, got into a gentleman's boat, and before we took twenty strokes, we came alongside of a boat, with Mr. Smales standing up in it - he put his hands together, and said, "My friend is gone!"

The perpetrators of the crime might never have been discovered had it not been for a tip off by Kitley, another youth, a fellow fisherman’s apprentice.  To ensure he was not under suspicion he suggested that the constables visit a costermonger, Robert Gare, who might have information about the stolen coats.  At first Gare denied all knowledge of the incident but after the officers found one of the coats hidden under ashes in the dustbins at Gare’s mother’s house, he admitted that William Brown, a young apprentice, whom he had known at school, had asked him to look after the coat.  Kitley also gave information about the other stolen jacket which was found in a barge's head at Robert Talbot's premises at Fore Street, Lambeth, under the head sheets.

They soon identified the other youth as William Kennedy and the two young men were brought to trial at the Old Bailey, indicted for the wilful murder of William Wilkinson.  Mr Bodkin, conducting the prosecution used the testimony of James Kitley to incriminate the accused.

“I was employed in the barge, Hieron, which was under repair at Lambeth; I know both the prisoners - Kennedy had been sleeping on board that barge for some time before the 17th; on Tuesday, the 17th, about ten o'clock, I think, but cannot tell, as I never looked at the clock, Kennedy came to me for the key - my barge laid about a mile and a quarter from the Spread Eagle; he appeared to me to be in a muck sweat I told him I was going myself directly, but he pressed me to give him the key - I did, and he went towards the barge by himself - I went myself in less than half an hour, and slept on board that night.  I did not see Kennedy when I went into the cabin, but he must have been there, for he got up with me in the morning, and he and I, went to a beer-shop kept by Bean; I asked Bean's son for a light.  Kennedy pulled out some papers and a book out of his pocket - he tore some of the papers, saying he wanted to burn them, and I tore some of them, not knowing what they were; the pieces were thrown into the grate of the room we were in. Flack lighted his pipe, and threw the paper which he lighted it with into the grate, and the papers caught fire; I cannot say whether they were partly or entirely burnt - I was going out in about an hour, when the officers came and took Kennedy into custody; they afterwards called me - I went to them, and went before the Magistrate with them, and after we had been before the Magistrate, Kennedy told me, that he and Brown were guilty.  We were all in custody under suspicion at the time, but Kennedy said we need not fear, for he would turn us up - he told me he had put one of the coats in a barge at the back of a barge-builder's place, but the barge-builder had moved away; I informed a gentleman at the office of it and I described where the barge was.”

Unburnt sheets from the pocket-book were handed over to the Thames police and Mr Smales identified his friend’s handwriting.

Further evidence was given that Brown and Kennedy had been seen nearby shortly before a skiff was stolen from Moore’s boat builders in Lambeth that night.

Both William Brown and William Kennedy confessed to stealing the coats from the boat but denied the murder of William Wilkinson.  Five witnesses gave Kennedy a good character.  The judgement was that both men were guilty and they were condemned to death but were later respited during His Majesty's pleasure.  Meanwhile two young apprentices made a violent attack on Thomas and Elizabeth Woodcock, William Kennedy’s Master and his wife, in their house in Fore Street, Lambeth, maintaining they had badly mistreated their apprentice and a mob burnt an effigy of the couple on the street.  The jury who had tried Brown and Kennedy were not convinced that the young men had even injured Wilkinson so they drew up a petition against their death penalty, resulting in commutation of the punishment.  There were many letters in the newspapers both condemning the harsh sentence and maintaining it should be carried out but finally Brown and Kennedy were reprieved.

The Changing Face of Pedlar’s Acre #Lambeth #History

The London Eye and County Hall

The Thames embankment where the London Eye now stands has been the location of constantly changing landmarks.  Until the 16th Century, this area was foreshore to the Thames, overgrown with rushes and willows and subject to flooding at high tides. The road behind the Royal Festival Hall, Belvedere Road was the Narrow Wall, a road built on the embankment to the Thames.  By the end of the 18th century this area was packed with timber yards and wharfs.

The land running from Belvedere Road to the river between Waterloo and Westminster Bridges, once known as Pedlar’s Acre was originally a small strip of one acre and nine poles, located alongside the Narrow Wall and belonged to the parish of Lambeth for over 400 years.

One landmark you can always spot in pictures, after its construction in 1826, is the Shot Tower which was built as part of the lead works for the production of lead shot.  From the gallery, molten lead was dropped to form large shot.  Half way down the tower was a floor where molten lead could be dropped to make smaller shot.  The Shot Tower was demolished shortly after the Festival of Britain in 1951.

In 1837 the Lion Brewery, built on the site of a former Water Works, commissioned a locally made Coade stone lion which was mounted so as to be clearly visible from the river. The building was damaged by fire in 1931 and after being used for a short time for storage, it remained derelict until it was demolished in 1949 to make way for the construction of the Royal Festival Hall. The redundant lion was painted red and put on a plinth at the Waterloo Station entrance to The Festival of Britain.  The lion was subsequently relocated to the end of Westminster Bridge and stripped back to its original colour.

Pedlar’s Acre is said to have been given by a grateful pedlar, on condition that his portrait and that of his dog should be preserved for ever, in painted glass, in one of the windows of Lambeth parish church.  By 1504 Pedlar’s Acre already belonged to St Mary’s at Lambeth as rent of £250 a year for the land is listed in the Parish records.  The story of the Lambeth Pedlar is connected with the tale of the Pedlar of Swaffham.  The Pedlar of Swaffham in Suffolk dreamt that if he travelled to London Bridge he would find a huge fortune, but in London his only luck was the advice given him there to return and dig for treasure at home.  He followed this advice, digging up a pot of money in Swaffham and then digging further down to find a bigger pot with even more money!  The story in Lambeth is that he rewarded the kindness he received when a penniless pedlar by returning with a fortune and donating land and money to the parish in return for the immortality of his portrait in glass.  In 1884 a cynical vicar removed the glass portrait but it was later replaced.

In 1908 Pedlar’s Acre was sold for the construction of County Hall.  Objections were raised that the land belonged to St Mary’s Lambeth but no documentation before 1826 was considered relevant.  When the land was excavated for the foundations a boundary stone was discovered on which was written, Lambeth Boundary of Pedlar’s Acre 1777.

A Bundle of old Letters #19thCentury #History

Yesterday, when my daughter began to sort through my grandfather’s stamp collection which had been kept in shoeboxes, she made an exciting discovery.  She found family letters dating back to 1829.

The letters are all from members of our Hopkins family, who were lightermen on the Thames, living in Lambeth.  The oldest letter was neatly written by 9 year old William Hopkins, from his school, Lambeth Marsh Academy to his father, Robert Hopkins.  The neatness and formal vocabulary suggest that this was a school exercise and a year later he wrote a very similar letter to his mother Elizabeth Mary Hopkins (formerly Norris).

The next letter, chronologically, was written on December 26^th 1838 by Elizabeth Palmer, my great grandmother, to the same William Hopkins, who by this time, was 18.  Three and a half years later they were married.  It is not exactly a love letter, as it describes, in detail, her journey, accompanied by her aunt, from Lambeth to Woodford in north London. As the coaches were all full they had to take a Fly and then walk a good distance, in wet weather.  However Elizabeth does remark that she cannot keep from writing to William, remembering their evening of playing cribbage together.  Pretending to her aunt that she is writing to her mother, she hopes that William “will favour her with a few lines.”  She concludes “with her kind love, Yours Affectionately.”  Her address was that of her uncle, Mr Goldsmith, the Postmaster, near the Castle Inn in Woodford.

The next letter from E. Clutterbuck in Lewisham to Miss Palmer in Lambeth was written in 1841.  With the aid of Elizabeth and William’s marriage certificate and perusing the census returns for Lewisham, I established that this was 20 year old Emma Clutterbuck, a friend of Elizabeth who was a witness at her wedding.  Writing on May 6^th, Emma accuses Elizabeth of having forgotten the route to her house.  She writes at length about the sweet briars she is nurturing as a present for her.  She suggests that Elizabeth bring William with her, “for fear anyone else should take a fancy,” to Elizabeth!  Emma remarks that she intends to stay single as she has not seen anyone she fancies.  In fact Emma Clutterbuck never did marry.  I found her in Hackney on the 1871 census, still single, living with her unmarried sister Jane and her widowed sister-in-law Harriet.  In 1881 Emma died in Hackney.

Finally there is a letter posted in 1879 from my great uncle Ted Talbot, aged 8, to his grandmother Mrs Hopkins, the aforementioned Elizabeth Palmer Hopkins.

Building Thames barges

My interest in family history was sparked by the stories my Grandma told me of the forest of masts she could see over the roofs when she grew up in Rotherhithe in the 1890s.  She was very proud of her father and brothers who built barges and lighters but she also told me more about how the family first started this occupation in Berkshire in the 18th century.

Every descendent of Robert Talbot has been told the story of how he and his brothers brought the family barge building business up to London from Berkshire on a stage coach.  Certainly there was a stagecoach route from Thatcham to London along the Bath Road and some time before 1799 Robert and Richard moved to London, as they were both married there in 1799.  There is no evidence of any other living brother accompanying them.  As Richard and his wife Elizabeth Jenkins do not appear to have had any children, Robert Talbot is seen as the founder of the barge building dynasty.

Robert and Richard were born in the beautiful village of Pangbourne, on the river Thames in Berkshire, the sons of John Talbot and Mary Ivey.  Their other brother Edward died in 1792 and their sisters married in Pangbourne.  Although there is no proof that John Talbot was a barge builder, there were other Talbots who built barges in Pangbourne at that time.  As yet no family connection to these other Talbots has been made.  After the death of Mary Ivey in 1795, John Talbot married Mary Kirton and had seven more children before his death in 1837 at the age of 92.

Robert Talbot married Ann Proud at St Andrew by the Wardrobe, near St Paul’s cathedral in 1799.  At first they lived in Shadwell, a crowded dock area between Limehouse and Wapping, but by the time of the birth of their second child, Thomas Talbot in 1804 they were living by the Thames in Fore Street, Lambeth.  Fore Street, as its name signifies lay on the foreshore of the river Thames.  It was a very busy area of boat builders, whiting works and potteries including Doultons, later Royal Doulton. 

By 1839 Robert had moved his barge building business to the up and coming boat building area of Rotherhithe Street.  It is probable that all their premises were rented.  Leaving Fore Street was wise, as by 1866 it was disappearing beneath the Albert Embankment.                               

Robert and Ann Proud had 8 children, before Ann’s death in 1830.  Robert married again twice; to Ann Richards, a widow, in 1833 and to Cricey Finley in 1848, the year before his death of Asiatic cholera.  Robert Talbot was buried in a graveyard on Lambeth High Street, near St Mary at Lambeth (The Garden Museum).  The stones were moved against the walls by 1950 and have since eroded but it is a peaceful park with a children’s playground.

Four of Robert’s sons, Thomas, Robert, Richard and Edward followed their father, becoming barge builders while Charles became a stationer and printer, with premises in Tooley Street. 

The barge building sons undertook 7 year apprenticeships with the Worshipful company of Watermen and Lightermen, and 16 members of the extended family became important officials of the Shipwrights company, including Edward James who was a liveryman of the Shipwrights company and a Freeman of the river Thames.  His uncle Edward L. Talbot was Master of the Shipwrights company in 1869, as was John William Talbot in 1880.

Lucy Talbot and Sons 1866

Rotherhithe in Victorian times, was a vibrant part of the Pool of London, teeming with Irish labourers, boat builders and sea captains.  The “Fighting Temeraire” sailed into port to be broken up here in 1838 and the Mayflower had set sail from Rotherhithe in 1620.  There were rope makers, sail makers and oar makers like George Henry Leggett.  Large quantities of timber were unloaded here.  Grain was unloaded into the flat-bottomed lighters made by the Talbots and other barge builders.  The wife of Edward James Talbot, Elizabeth Palmer Hopkins came from several generations of lightermen.

 

Later Richard Talbot (b. 1813) moved his barge building business to Caversham in Reading, returning to Berkshire where his wife had been born.  It was said that this was because so many of his children died in the unhealthy atmosphere of Rotherhithe.  Robert Talbot (b. 1828) based his business at Strand on the Green and Percy Sutton Talbot established his at Wood wharf, Greenwich.

This article first appeared in http://russiadock.blogspot.co.uk/  in September2013.