EDWARD WELLER FRGS

Mr Blood, as I trust, is today busily engaged behind the counter, popping pictures into brown paper bags, or else wrapping them, pour pret a porter, in sheets of carefully creased kraftline manilla. His mind, I know has been engaged of late with his lecture to the Greenwich Historical Society on the subject of 'Greenwich Blitzed'.

If not, he would be writing an introduction here to the Marine Stores, the new b'low decks addition to Warwick Leadlay Gallery:

All that therefore, will have to wait till another day, but it leaves me this opportunity to describe to you Edward Weller and his map of Greenwich and its Environs, circa 1860: a pleasant enough task.

This is a map of Greenwich (London SE10) dating from around 1860. Specifically, it is a black and white lithograph (let wikipedia take you on that excursion) - to which colour has been expertly added, so describing the lie of the land. It is drawn at a scale of nine inches to the mile which allows for generous detail to be shown when it comes to identifying houses, shops, pubs and offices, etc., that were then in existence.

What of Edward Weller himself? Exactly when he was born is obscure, but it is known he died in 1884. He worked as an engraver, publisher and cartographer based in London; His main office was in Red Lion Square, later he moved in Duke Street, Bloomsbury.

Weller produced a number of atlases; his target audience being primarily schools and other educational establishments. Probably his greatest work was the ‘Dispatch Atlas’ of 1863. This gathered together all those maps published in the Weekly Dispatch since 1856. During that period something like 118 maps had been issued, each one bearing the distinctive sign of a half globe with the figure of wing-ed Mercury above.

Weller usually saw to the engraving himself, otherwise he worked in partnership with John Dower. 'The Dispatch Atlas' contained, as well as country and county maps, a few of cities on a large scale similar to this one that are not often otherwise seen. His ambition to cover the whole of London in this magnificent scale, it would seem was never achieved. He came near to it with this one, but as you will notice, like many other maps of the Metropolis, it falls gasping, just short of reaching Greenwich.

Here is central Greenwich: one will notice the town was centred around the church, St Alphege (sic - but I wonder when the spelling changed to present-day Alfege?) - seen here right in the middle of image below. Leading away to the east, Nelson Street (nowadays Road) still exists, albeit greatly burdened by traffic. (Interesting how 'Street' suggests the pedestrian; 'Road', the infernal combustion engine). Likewise, Clarence Street has nowadays become College Approach - maybe they should rebrand yet again to become 'University Drive'? In this detail the Market survives (by the skin of its stalls) to this day, but Thames Street is radically different today to the complex of alleys and ginnels that we see here. Roughly a generation later George E. Arkell, one of Charles Booth's investigators ventured here and jotted notes which leave us a brief but colourful sketch.

Weaving away to the south west is London Street (nowadays 'Greenwich High Road'). The present day visitor to Greenwich may well be bewildered by what they encounter - or rather, fail to encounter - if they arrive in town at the mainline railway station that lies at the far end of this stretch and make their way along it towards the town centre. Their Victorian predecessors would have made their way along a street lined with all manner of shops in which they might have gazed and pondered. All gone!

At the top right of this image we get a glimpse of the infirmary of the Seamen's Hospital and the outlying buildings of the the Royal Greenwich Hospital itself. Here they are in greater detail:

To the bottom of this image, clustered around the Queen's House, stand the buildings of Royal Naval School; on the grounds in front you may see the training ship 'Fame'. Over the years three ships stood here in succession. The first Fame was installed here in 1843, mainly at the instigation of John Rous, an M.P., sportsman and ex Royal Naval officer. She was built at Chatham, a good deal of her masts and yards, etc scrounged from salvage. Her figurehead came from the Centurion, Admiral Anson’s flagship at the time of his circumnavigation of the globe between 1740-44. The Illustrated London News reported:

The upper school consists of 400 boys, the sons of officers, seamen, and mariners in the royal service, and the sons of officers and seamen in the merchant sea-service, who receive an excellent practical education in navigation and nautical astronomy; 400 boys and 200 girls are received into the lower school, and instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, &c. … She has ten ports of a side, with bridle ports, eight long guns of a side, and a figure-head; and she may be set sail for teaching rigging and unrigging, gunnery, &c.

This first vessel was judged to have become unsafe during early 1860 and she was replaced the year after by Fame II. However, as this ship was in large part constructed from the timbers of her predecessor she lasted only ten years before she too was scrapped and, in 1871, replaced by Fame III.

Across Trafalgar Road stand the four Quarters of the Royal Hospital itself, clockwise from top left: Charles, Anne, William and Mary. Again, this map is published at a crucial moment in the history of this institution; before the decade was out it would cease to perform the role of charitable home to peg-legged veterans of the Royal Navy as it had for the last century and a half and would instead, in 1873, open its gates as the Royal Naval College - the navy's university. To the right hand side of this image we get a glimpse of the traces that Nelson left on Greenwich with a couple of pubs named in his honour - The Victory and The Lord Nelson itself.

But if it's a drink you're after, then Greenwich at this time was the place to be as there are pints and quarts and gallons of them throughout the town, all with wonderful names: The Man in the Moon, The Star and Garter and (best of all?) The Good Intent. Nearly all these watering holes, and many more, have now run dry.

Proceeding eastwards we travel down Trafalgar Road that cuts a straight line through East Greenwich, packed with dwellings on both sides. The Old Woolwich Road to its northern side, much more ancient, wriggles like a serpent through the place. Both lead to the same destination; at the far end stands the Union Workhouse. Built in 1840 in response to the legislation that came about from the New Poor Law Act of 1834, it was described by its architect as 'plain but cheerful and almslike', but nevertheless a place of last resort to the poor of the parish and a far cry from the spacious and leafy suburban of Blackheath we see at the other end of this map:

Within a generation, as aforementioned, another map would be published by the great social investigator Charles Booth that sought to denote by means of a colour code the relative wealth and poverty of London. The Greenwich sheet is particularly fascinating in its diversity. For better or for worse, so it remains to this day ...

Edward Weller's, 'Greenwich' is sometimes available for sale; please call for further details.

ALL A MATTER OF SIZE ...

Herewith, a charming – and as it turns out – educative item, that recently arrived from the U.S. A map in two parts, the lower half being the COMPARATIVE SIZE OF CITIES, and above it, ditto, the HEIGHT OF MOUNTAINS.It is a wood-engraving published by William c. Woodridge – ‘Late Instructor in the American Asylum’ – of Hartford, Connecticut, in or about 1823.

The plans of the cities of New York and London in particular are beautifully engraved; the wharves of Lower Manhattan like alligator's snout cutting through the Hudson and East Rivers; the cut of London, to my mind reminiscent of an old ten-bob note, is enhanced by the flow of the Thames as it curls through its midst, culminating in the loop formed as it bends round the Isle of Dogs. And look how the engraver has enjoyed making tiny depictions of the shipping and craft, including the forest of ships’ masts that crowd around Millwall waiting entry to the docks. All very redolent of trade and commerce, no doubt.

At a glance it is a simple thing, and as aforesaid, pleasing to the eye but revealing little more than its titles suggest. There is no obvious intent in the design to give anything more than the salient details of the streets, and certainly it isn’t going to oblige with directions from A to B. But a dip beneath its surface soon reveals its complexities. It is in fact, as you might expect of a leaf from a School Atlas, a receptacle of quite copious amounts of information; a sort of early nineteenth century Google page.

The key is in the word ‘comparative’. Comparison lends itself to universality, i.e. an understanding of the relative size of places, and in the case of mountains, things, also gives some idea of the numerous dimensions and intricacies of the world around.Thus, from this visual we learn that London is roughly five times the size of New York; ditto its population. Furthermore, the notes in the margin provide further information regarding comparison to other major cities: New York’s inhabitants are equal to those of Manchester and Moscow, for instance, whilst many of cities of the east were up to three times larger. Pekin ‘is estimated by some’ to have a population a whopping eight times larger – the Big Apple had some growing yet to do.

The same method of comparison is employed in the chart illustrating the varied height of mountains above. They range from Gibraltar (c.1500 ft) in the foothills to the snow-capped ‘Himmalay’ up aloft at 29,000 ft – a remarkably accurate estimate given that no one had been near its summit at this date. (Though attempts were already underway).

Also shown, no doubt for our edification, in the spaces in between is the absolute height at which a grape will grow (9000 ft approximately); trees (17,500 ft), as well as ‘the greatest height attained by man’ (22,000 ft). Only two things ascend above this height: the soaring condor (c. 23,000 ft), and at roughly the same, M. Gay Lussac, who according to this, on the 8^th September 1804, went up from Paris in a hot air balloon, and in doing so broke all previous records.

All this and more informative features - on a sheet of paper approximately 10” x 8”.

All yours: £115.00.

THE RIOT ACT

Our latest publication, a reconstruction of a Riot Act broadside, such as might have been held up to the crowd at Peterloo. 100 copies printed for us by Typoretum of Coggeshall, Essex, hand-set in wooden type on antique paper - so as near to the genuine article as you are likely to find.

Here's a short history of the Act, beginning with the text itself ...

Our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the Act made in the first year of King George the First, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies.

GOD SAVE THE KING!

The Riot Act was enacted by Parliament in 1715 to discourage persons deemed ‘unlawfully, riotously and tumultuously assembled’. The act provided that if 12 or more people gathered unlawfully or for purposes of disturbing the peace, the Act would be read to them, and if the assembled did not disperse by one hour after this reading, they would be guilty of felony, punishable by death.

In a town or city it could be read by the mayor, bailiff or 'other head officer', or a justice of the peace. Elsewhere, it could be made by a justice of the peace or the sheriff or under-sheriff.

However, it met with only limited success in controlling a series of disturbances that punctuated eighteenth century England, including the 1743 Gin Riots, the St George’s Massacre, 1768 and the Gordon Riots in 1780. One problem was making it heard in the midst of a serious disturbance. After the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester in 1819, most of the demonstrators who were convicted claimed that they had not heard the Riot Act being read. Broadsides like this might therefore have been displayed, but would only be understood by the literate among the mob:

'Please, yr Honour, I can't read neither!'

The Riot Act drifted into disuse; ironically, the last time it was read in this country was on 3 August 1919 in Birkenhead – to a crowd of recalcitrant, striking policemen! It was finally repealed in July 1973. Meanwhile it had entered the English language and was, and still is, reached for and uttered when occasion arises.

Every home should have one, so get 'em while you can!

Unframed copies: £25.00

Framed: from £85.00

(smashed glass on demand)

TWAS IN TRAFALGAR'S BAY

Today is the anniversary of Lord Nelson's victory over the Combined Fleets of France and Spain in October 1805. The Battle of Trafalgar was a bitter-sweet affair; it was fought and won against superior numbers; it was of momentous importance in its consequences - Britannia would rule the waves for a hundred years and more and any impending threat of a French invasion of these shores was immediately extinguished. However, when it was understood that it was won at the cost of Lord Nelson's life, there was little or no public rejoicing at the news, and only a peel of dumb bells was rung by way of muted celebration.

Here is Robert Southey, poet-laureate and early biographer of Nelson on the subject:

The death of Nelson was felt in England as something more than a public calamity; men started at the intelligence, and turned pale, as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend. An object of our admiration and affection, of our pride and of our hopes, was suddenly taken from us; and it seemed as if we had never, till then, known how deeply we loved and reverenced him. What the country had lost in its great naval hero--the greatest of our own, and of all former times--was scarcely taken into the account of grief. So perfectly, indeed, had he performed his part, that the maritime war, after the battle of Trafalgar, was considered at an end: the fleets of the enemy were not merely defeated but destroyed; new navies must be built, and a new race of seamen reared for them, before the possibility of their invading our shores could again be contemplated. It was not, therefore, from any selfish reflection upon the magnitude of our loss that we mourned for him: the general sorrow was of a higher character. The people of England grieved that funeral ceremonies, and public monuments, and posthumous rewards, were all which they could now bestow upon him, whom the king, the legislature, and the nation would have alike delighted to honour; whom every tongue would have blessed; whose presence in every village through which he might have passed would have wakened the church bells, have given schoolboys a holiday, have drawn children from their sports to gaze upon him, and "old men from the chimney corner" to look upon Nelson ere they died. The victory of Trafalgar was celebrated, indeed, with the usual forms of rejoicing, but they were without joy; for such already was the glory of the British navy, through Nelson's surpassing genius, that it scarcely seemed to receive any addition from the most signal victory that ever was achieved upon the seas: and the destruction of this mighty fleet, by which all the maritime schemes of France were totally frustrated, hardly appeared to add to our security or strength; for, while Nelson was living, to watch the combined squadrons of the enemy, we felt ourselves as secure as now, when they were no longer in existence.

The banner above is one that used to hang in Madron church, in the wild west of Cornwall. It is said to have been commissioned by local fishermen who had got the news of the battle along with that of the death of Lord Nelson off His Majesty's schooner Pickle, the little boat that carried the news home. According to the story they took this news into Penzance where they disturbed Mayor Giddy at his Guy Fawkes banquet; he in turn seized the scoop by announcing it from the minstrel gallery of the Union Hotel in Chapel Street. The same fishermen were likewise inspired to have this banner made and lodge it reverentially in the local church. Anywhere other than Cornwall this story would be called a legend - officially the news was landed along the coast at Falmouth, from whence it travelled with Lt. Lapenotiere, RN, post haste up the long, rutted road to the Admiralty in London. But if ever you find yourself in Penzance, do you mind you keep this under your hat.

Two hundred and six years later, let us un-muffle the bells and have a Happy Trafalgar Day!