Category: Kristine Hughes

Boodle's Club

During the Regency and Victorian eras, Boodle’s Club, in St. James’s Street, was noted for the number of baronets who were members. It’s been recorded that when a waiter called out “Sir John, you are wanted,” a whole host of gentlemen would at once respond. This is rather a quaint anecdote, but it must be remembered that the club was established chiefly for “county people,” who had a proper respect for their own importance. Until the late 19th century, before Boodle’s came under the management of a committee, there was a kind of secret tribunal, the members of which were fictitiously supposed to be unknown. “This conclave conducted its proceedings with great secrecy, and its very existence was only inferred from the fact that at intervals, varying from six months to fifteen years, some printed notices appeared in the club rooms.” But these notices only referred to dogs or strangers, who were looked upon by the ancient members as very objectionable intruders.
Another rule was that members dining in the coffee room must wear evening dress. However, there was another apartment for those who found it necessary to keep to their morning clothes. Boodle’s was very strict and chaste on etiquette laws. Boodle’s Club was originally known as the “Savoir Vivre,” and took its particular name from the founder, and was established, like many of the other famous clubs of the day, in St. James’s Street.Gaiety and the joy of good living marked its early career very conspicuously, as may be gathered from “the Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers,” I773:
For what is Nature ? Ring her changes round,
Her three flat notes are water, plants, and ground ;
Prolong the peal, yet, spite of all your clatter,
The tedious chime is still ground, plants and water ;
So, when some John his dull invention racks,
To rival Boodle’s dinners or Almack’s,
Three uncouth legs of mutton shock our eyes,
Three roasted geese, three buttered apple pies.
White’s, Brookes’s, and Boodle’s for many years fought for supremacy, with masquerades, dinners, and “ridottos.” Boodle’s outside appearance is still very unpretentious, and perhaps sombre, from an architectural point of view, but the interior has a number of interesting features, especially in regard to some of the pictures by Gillray and others.
Among the exceedingly eccentric members of the club, two at least are deserving of passing comment. Michael Angelo Taylor, at one time M.P., and John, the tenth Earl of Westmorland. Taylor was “Paul Pry ” personified, and was an everlasting gossip. The Earl was very thin. Coming in one day, says Edward Walford in “Old and New London,” Taylor found Lord Westmorland, who had just dined off a roast fowl and a leg of mutton. “Well, my lord,” said Taylor, “I can’t make out where you have stowed away your dinner, for I can see no trace of your ever having dined in your bare body.” “Upon my word, I have finished both, and could now go in for another helping,” replied Westmorland. Walford adds that his lordship was notorious for his prodigious appetite, and on several occasions was known to have eaten the better part of a good joint and a couple of fowls.
The Club house, at No. 28 St. James’s Street, was designed by the Adams brothers and erected by John Crunden about 1765. The saloon on the first floor at Boodle’s is still noted for the stateliness of its appearance, opening from which on each side are two small apartments. One of these, according to tradition, was, in the Regency days of high play, managed by a cashier who issued counters and occupied himself with the details connected with the game; while the other room was reserved for special gambling members who wished to play in quietude.
It was not an easy matter to be elected a member of Boodle’s, and when Mr. Gayner became the manager, he would sit in state in a small chamber adjacent to the principal saloon, or front room, which, of course, was sacred to the members. Says Ralph Nevill, “When a candidate was proposed they (the members) walked across and deposited their black or white balls, after which they retired again to the front room. After a short time Mr. Gayner would shout ‘elected’ or ‘not elected,’ as the case might be, the ceremonial being gone through separately for every candidate.” But Mr. Gayner, it is said, took no account of the balls, but scrutinized all who were proposed from his peep-hole, and if they did not meet with his approval the black ball predominated.

Mr. Gayner, notwithstanding, was a very liberal and kind man, and prevented many a young fellow from getting into the hands of the money lenders and usurers who were in constant wait for the young unfledged geese who were ready to be plucked, by advancing them the wherewithal to assist them out of impending difficulties. There are several anecdotes in regard to his generosity and kindness in such cases. He always kept a large amount of cash in his safe, and at his death is said to have been owed no less than £10,000, which, however, by a clause in his will, was not to be demanded from the borrowers. After his death, Mr. Gaynor’s sister succeeded him in the proprietorship of Boodle’s. She died in 1896, when the club was purchased by its members.

The Source of Madness in Alice in Wonderland

We all know and love Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and the audacious characters therein, like the Queen of Hearts and the Mad Hatter. But with the release of the latest film version of the tale comes a discussion on just how the Mad Hatter got his name – even Johnny Depp chimes in on the speculation. Was the name really meant to be the “Mad Adder?” Or did the Hatter’s madness have to do with mercury poisoning, a pitfall of the trade in the 19th century? You can read the full article here.

Waterloo Bridge

At the time of its completion in 1816, and for many years afterwards, Waterloo Bridge was unquestionably the noblest bridge in Europe, and one can appreciate the opinion of that great artist Canova, who in his enthusiasm exclaimed that to see this bridge alone was worth a journey from Rome to London.

The year 1809 was especially distinguished for the prevalence of one of those gambling fevers that seem to have periodically seized the inhabitants of these isles for many centuries, and the idea of a bridge from the Strand, near Somerset House, to the Surrey side of the Thames at Lambeth appears to have originated in the brain of an investor who had been infected with this fever. A company was formed with a capital of £100,000 and sanction was sought from Parliament to build a temporary wooden bridge : the idea of the promoters being that a permanent stone bridge could be built later out of the large profits to be obtained from the tolls on persons and vehicles passing over.
Owing to the opposition of the representatives of the City Of London, who opposed the plan for three successive sessions in Parliament; the company was finally compelled to abandon the project of a wooden bridge and undertake the construction of a stone one. It is interesting to note here that in order to do this the promoters were compelled to increase their capital by an additional £400,000, but so sanguine were they of the ample remuneration to be derived from the toll that this large sum was immediately raised among themselves, and the shares were at a guinea premium the next day.
The first plan for the bridge was prepared by Mr. George Dodds, a well-known engineer of the day, but the managing committee were apparently not satisfied with his design, and referred it to Mr. John Rennie and Mr. jessop for their opinion. These gentlemen reported that for the most part it was a copy of M. Peyronnet’s celebrated bridge at Neuilly, with modifications rendered necessary by the difference of situation, and the greater width of the river to be spanned. They also pointed out several objections to Mr. Dodd’s design, as well as to the plan he proposed for founding the piers, and as a result of their reprt Mr. Dodds’s plan was abandoned.

When eventually an Act was passed in 1809 authorising the “Strand Bridge Company ” to build a stone bridge from ” some part of the precinct of the Savoy, to the opposite shoreat Cupar’s Bridge in Lambeth,” the committee again applied to Mr. Rennie, and this time they requested him to furnish them with the design of a suitable structure. John Rennie was the son of a farmer of Phantassie, in Haddingtonshire (Scotland), and appears to have obtained his taste for mechanics from Andrew Meikle, a tenant on his father’s estate. This Andrew Meikle, according to the authority of Smiles, was the inventor of the threshing-machine and numerous other inventions. John Rennie became successively a country schoolmaster and master millwright. He then joined Messrs. Watt and Boulton as a confidential assistant. Rennie was now rapidly rising to the front rank in his profession, and his services were continually in demand, and numerous bridges, canals, and docks scattered over the country still give evidence of his industry and ability, for, like Wren and other great engineers, he built for posterity.
Rennie prepared two designs for the Strand Bridge, one of seven equal river to be spanned. They also arches and the other of nine; the pointed out several objections to Mr. latter being eventually chosen by the Dodds’s design, as well as to the committee as the less costly.
The first stone of the bridge was laid on October 11, 1811. One interesting story concerning the construction of the bridge is well worth recording, and it is given here practically as it occurs in Smiles’ “Lives of the Engineers.” Most of the stone required during the construction of the bridge was hewn m some fields adjacent to the erection on the Surrey side. It was transported on to the work upon trucks drawn along railways, in the first instance over temporary bridges of wood; and it is a remarkable circumstance that nearly the whole of the material was drawn by one horse, known as ” Old Jack,” a most sensible animal and a great favourite. His driver was, generally speaking, a steady and trustworthy man, though he had a weakness for a dram before breakfast. As the railway along which the trucks were drawn passed in front of a public-house door, the horse and truck were usually pulled up while Tom entered for his morning dram. On one occasion the driver stayed so long that await the next anniversary of the ” Old Jack,” becoming impatient, oked his head into the open door, and taking his master’s coat-collar between his teeth (Smiles tells us this that year we find the following account was done in a “gentle sort of manner”), pulled him out from the midst of his companions and thus forced him to resume the day’s work.
As the work neared completion, its name was changed from Strand to Waterloo Bridge for reasons which are thus expressed in the Act of Parliament of 1816, which relates to the matter: “Whereas the said bridge, when completed, will be a work of great stability and magnificence, and such works are adapted to transmit to posterity the remembrance of great and glorious achievements, and whereas the company of proprietors are desirous that a designation should be given to the said bridge, which shall be a lasting record of the brilliant and decisive victory (Waterloo), achieved by his Majesty’s forces, in conjunction with those of his allies, on the 18th day of June, 1815.”
The bridge was completed soon after this, but the same patriotic reason that had influenced Parliament in changing its name caused them to await the next anniversary of the victory at Waterloo, and so the bridge was not opened until June 18, 1817. In the “Gentleman’s Magazine” of that year we find the following account of the opening ceremoniy: “June 18, 1817 – This day . . the magnificent new bridge which crosses the Thames from the Strand was opened with appropriate ceremonies. In the forenoon a dtetachment of the Horse Guards posted themselves on the bridge, and about three o’clock a discharge of two hundred and two guns, in commemoration of the number of cannon taken from the enemy, an nounced the arrival of the Prince Regent, and other illustrious person ages, who came in barges from the Earl of Liverpool’s at Whitehall. The royal party passed through the central arch, and landed on the Surrey side, a where the procession formed. It was lasting rheaded by the Prince Regent; with the Duke of York on his right and the Duke of Wellington on his left, in the uniform of field-marshals; followed by a train of noblemen, gentlemen, ministers and members of both Houses of Parliament. On reaching the Middlesex side of the bridge, the company re-embarked and retured to Whitehall. Every spot commanding a view of the bridge was crowded with spectators.”