Symbols & Secrets – Page 80 – Walking the City of London

From Sam Pepys’s dinner plate to the Essex Auroch

On 8th October 2020

Yes, I have again been taking advantage of the wonderful fact that the Museum of London has reopened and is free to enter with a timed ticket.

I was thrilled to see a new exhibit connected to my hero Samuel Pepys – naval administrator, Member of Parliament and, of course, famous diarist. The item is a silver dinner plate made in 1681/82 and engraved with his coat of arms. Scratched by knives and forks, it is one of only three that now survive of the full dinner service …

By the time he commissioned this he was already a wealthy man and took great pleasure in entertaining at home. I like this boast from his diary dated 8th April 1667 and his remark about Mrs Clarke made me laugh out loud …

We had with my wife and I twelve at table and very good and pleasant company, and a most neat and excellent, but dear dinner; but, Lord, to see with what envy they looked upon all my fine plate was pleasant, for I made the best show I could, to let them understand me and my condition, to take down the pride of Mrs Clarke, who thinks herself very great.

Being a man of intense curiosity, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, Pepys would almost certainly have heard of this discovery made during the rebuilding of St Martin’s Church on Ludgate Hill in 1669 …

It’s the third century tombstone of a Roman centurion wearing a tunic, a military belt and a long cloak draped over his left shoulder.

Amazingly, the inscription is still legible …

To the spirits of the departed and to Vivius Marcianus of the 2nd Legion Augusta, Januaria Martina his most devoted wife set up this memorial.

I think modern illustrations like this are mainly for the benefit of children, but I love them …

Incidentally, and still on a Roman theme, nearby is a fine mosaic floor dating from AD 300 and discovered in Bucklersbury in 1869 …

Pepys witnessed and wrote about the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the Museum has a rare depiction of the City before the fire. It dates from around 1630, three years before he was born …

Nearby is a dramatic oil painting of the conflagration at its height …

The view is taken from the west with the Cathedral, fiercely ablaze, dominating the scene. John Evelyn described what happened when the fire reached St Paul’s …

The stones of St Paul’s flew like grenades, the lead melting down the streets in a stream, and the very pavements of them glowing with fiery redness.

The cathedral was thought to be safe and the nearby printers and booksellers stored their entire stock in the crypt. Unfortunately the fire caught hold of wooden scaffolding put up for repairs and the cathedral and all its contents were consumed.

Since his home was at risk, Pepys hired a cart ‘to carry away all my money, and plate, and best things’ and buried his valuable Parmesan cheese in the garden.

Such was the intensity of the blaze that these two iron padlocks and key melted together in a lump. The owner of the premises, an 80-year-old watchmaker, chose to hide in his cellar rather than flee (presumably to protect his stock from looters). These items were found beside his body …

Referring to a giant who was supposed to have lived in the building, this figure, known as Gerald the Giant, stood in a niche on the front elevation of Gerard’s Hall in Basing Lane and dates from around 1670 …

I like his daintily decorated shoes …

There is also some lovely stained glass dating from 1660 – 1700 …

Dragging myself away from the 17th century, there were two paintings I really enjoyed studying. The first is entitled Eastward Ho! and was painted by Henry Nelson O’Neil in 1857. It became his most popular work …

Soldiers are shown boarding a ship at Gravesend, leaving to fight in the ‘Indian Mutiny’ – the first Indian war of independence. In a poignant scene they are saying farewell to their loved ones and it is a very emotionally charged picture. For the men we can only see in their faces optimism and patriotism whilst in the faces of the women we see fear and a sense of foreboding.

The Times newspaper commented …

Hope and aspiration are busy among these departing soldiers, and if mothers and wives, and sisters and sweethearts, go down the side sorrowing, it is a sorrow in which there is no despair, and no stain of sin and frailty…

A year later he painted Home Again …

The soldiers are seen coming down the gangway of their troop ship. The main character appears to be the bearded soldier in khaki uniform with his Kilmarnock ‘pork-pie’ cap under a white cotton Havelock, which was worn to afford the wearer’s neck protection from the blazing and merciless Indian sun.

When the paintings were exhibited together in London thousands of Victorians queued to see them.

The Times had this to say about Home Again …

The crowd round the picture delight to spell out the many stories it includes – its joyous reunitings, its agonies of bereavement; the latter kept judiciously down …

And, of course, I mustn’t forget the Aurock. Its colossal skull confronts you soon after you enter …

A beast that’s been extinct for nearly 400 years, this particular skull dates from the Neolithic period (4,000 -2,200 BC) and was discovered in Ilford, East London, where herds of this creature once roamed.

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A few more things that made me smile

By The City Gent

On 1st October 2020

In Architecture, Art, Memorials, Sculpture

In these difficult times, I’d like to share some miscellaneous things I have encountered recently that cheered me up.

I am going to start with the extraordinary, eccentric Stanley Green, ‘the protein man’, who regularly patrolled Oxford Street with his billboard. This may seem strange since he died in 1993, but I have chosen him as my first story because I came across his billboard last week at the Museum of London …

He began his mission in June 1968, initially in Harrow on Saturdays, becoming a full-time human billboard six months later on Oxford Street. He cycled there from Northolt with his board attached to his bicycle, a journey that could take up to two hours, until he was given a bus pass when he turned 65. From Monday to Saturday he walked up and down the street until 6:30 pm, reduced to four days a week from 1985. Saturday evenings were spent with the cinema crowds in Leicester Square. He would go to bed at 12:30am after saying a prayer. ‘Quite a good prayer, unselfish too’, he told the Sunday Times in 1985. ‘It is a sort of acknowledgment of God, just in case there happens to be one’. He was 78 when he died in December 1993 and, presumably because he distrusted ‘passion’, he never married.

The Museum’s decision to put his message on display introduces him to a new audience …

His self-published and printed booklet, Eight Passion Proteins, went through 84 editions and the Museum holds 36 of them. You can read more about him here and here.

You will no doubt be pleased to know that Royal Wedding teabags are still available in a Ludgate Hill tourist gift shop – hurry, hurry while stocks last …

Don’t they look lovely.

By way of contrast, I thought these models in a shop on Eastcheap were decidedly spooky …

Like creatures out of a Dr Who episode.

Covid humour at the pharmacy …

Covid humour at the wine bar …

Cocktail Bar humour …

A less complicated message …

Pretty camera camouflage on Holloway Road …

Street art meets spinal column in Hoxton …

Sadly over-optimistic signage …

Finally caught the reflection I wanted – street sculpture with red London bus and St Paul’s …

When construction workers use their imagination to brighten up the site – good for them …

What a positive message …

A great hero of mine and one of my favourite London statues – Sir John Betjeman at St Pancras International Station …

Many of Pimlico Plumbers’ vans have ‘witty’ number plates …

Even the scooters are wearing masks around here …

City pigeons simply don’t believe this statement …

We spent a really nice few days in Norfolk recently and here are some of the pictures I took.

Local delicacies – rabbit and pigs ears, giant trotters and chicken feet …

Sow and buffalo ears …

Houghton Hall has a stunning collection of work by Anish Kapoor. Some are in the grounds like this one, Sky Mirror …

Others are in the house …

Kings Lynn is a lovely, interesting town. I even caught a glimpse of Bad King John …

At the charming and incredibly interesting True’s Yard Fisherfolk Museum, a Victorian seafarer struggles to come to terms with the pandemic …

And the place has a Wimpy! I thought they had disappeared decades ago. I didn’t pop in for a ‘Bender’ though (fellow Baby Boomers will know what I am referring to) …

There is some beautiful architecture to enjoy as well …

Now that going abroad is problematic it’s great to be exploring England again.

And finally to the Sandringham Estate where we came across these poignant little headstones commemorating the last resting place of three of Her Majesty’s corgis. Heather’s inscription tells us she was the great granddaughter of Susan (on the far left) …

I’ll be back walking the City again next week but hope you enjoyed this little excursion.

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The brave policemen of Postman’s Park

By The City Gent

On 24th September 2020

In Architecture, Memorials

Postman’s Park contains what is, in my view, one of the most interesting, poignant and rather melancholy memorials in the City – The G F Watts Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice. This plaque nearby contains a useful mini-history …

I have written about it before along with some of the people commemorated and you can access the blog here.

I visited again last week and was moved to write about the bravery of four of the police officers whose names and details of their courageous acts are recorded on the Memorial.

George Stephen Funnell served for over seven years in the 2nd Battalion of the Oxford Light Infantry. He was discharged on 16th February 1893 and joined the Metropolitan Police the following October.

In this picture one of the medals he is wearing is probably the India General Service Medal with a Burma clasp …

About 1:00 am on Friday 22nd December 1899 a fellow officer had noticed a fire at the Elephant & Castle pub in Wick Road and PC Funnell was one of the constables who came to his assistance. When the barman opened the door to let them in a massive draft of air escalated the fire dramatically. On hearing that there were three women in the building, Funnell and his colleague Thomas Baker rushed in to help rescue them amidst thick black smoke and exploding bottles of spirits.

Funnell led the first woman to the door and then went back to pick up and carry the second to safety. By then badly burned himself, on hearing another woman screaming, he went back in a third time and apparently collapsed when trying to find an alternative way out. The barmaid he was trying to help, Minnie Lewis, somehow managed to escape.

George was taken to the nearest infirmary but never regained consciousness and died on 2nd January 1900. He was 33 years old. This is his memorial plaque …

Five officers were awarded bronze medals by the Society for the Protection of Life from Fire but controversy arose over the treatment of Funnell’s 27-year-old widow Jane and his two young sons. The Globe was one of a number of newspapers who campaigned for the public to contribute to a fund for them, one journalist writing …

He leaves a widow, who receives a pension of £15 a year and £2 10s. for each of her two little boys until they reach fifteen. That is a miserable pittance indeed, and an appeal is made for public help.

I haven’t been able to discover how much was raised but it was probably substantial.

Extra funds were also raised for the widow of PC Alfred Smith …

PC Smith, 37 years old, was on duty in Central Street when the noise was heard of an approaching group of fourteen German bombers. One press report reads as follows …

In the case of PC Alfred Smith, a popular member of the Metropolitan Force, who leaves a widow and three children, the deceased was on point duty near a warehouse. When the bombs began to fall the girls from the warehouse ran down into the street. Smith got them back, and stood in the porch to prevent them returning. In doing his duty he thus sacrificed his own life.

Smith had no visible injuries but had been killed by the blast from the bombs dropped nearby. He was one of 162 people killed that day in one of the deadliest raids of the war.

His widow was treated more generously than Mrs Funnell. She received automatically a police pension (£88 1s per annum, with an additional allowance of £6 12s per annum for her son) but also had her MP, Allen Baker, working on her behalf. He approached the directors of Debenhams (whose staff PC Smith had saved) and solicited from them a donation of £100 guineas (£105). A further fund, chaired by Baker, raised almost £472 and some of this was used to pay for the Watts Memorial tablet, which was officially unveiled on the second anniversary of Alfred’s death.

Another memorial to Alfred was unveiled 100 years later in June 2017 where the factory once stood …

Tragically another police constable, Robert Wright, died in vain …

He responded to a colleague’s whistle and arrived at the scene where a shop, known to contain large quantities of flammable and explosive material, was quickly being consumed by flames.

He and another PC, Edward Barnett, were clearing dangerous material from the yard at the back of the shop when Barnett thought he heard screaming and shouted to Wright ‘Quick, there is a woman in the house!‘ They managed to get upstairs through heavy smoke and with burning oil dripping through the ceiling – and found no one, the residents having gone on holiday. Barnett managed to jump to safety through a window but Wright was overcome by the smoke and was later declared dead on arrival at hospital. Although he was badly scalded the cause of death was given as smoke inhalation …

Police Constable Robert Wright (1864 – 1893) from Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper 7th May 1893. Copyright, The British Library Board.

Serious accusations of fire brigade incompetence and drunkenness were made at the inquest. The brigade was stationed only 300 yards down the road and it was claimed that a message was sent to them at 1:10 am but that they didn’t arrive until 1:45 am. It was also claimed that at least two brigade members were so drunk they could not carry out their duties. The senior fire officer, Engineer Bowers, conceded that this was true but, by way of some kind of explanation, said that one of them was a retained man and the other from the volunteer brigade. The coroner suggested that the men should ‘…receive the attention of the Corporation’.

Incidentally, Wright’s widow’s pension was £15 a year plus an extra £2 10s for her daughter Ada until she was 15.

For some reason I had never heard of the Silvertown explosion that claimed the life of PC Edward George Brown Greenoff …

Edward joined ‘K’ Division of the Metropolitan Police on 7 December 1908 Less than three weeks after joining the police, he married Ada Mina Thorpe, and they went on to have three children, Edward Arthur Cecil (born 1909), Elsie Irene (born 1912) and Albert George (born 1914).

On his beat was a factory manufacturing TNT – although that had not been its original purpose and it was in the middle of a built up area. As he passed the site around 6:00 pm on 19th January 1917 he noticed flames billowing from the premises and a fire engine in attendance. Being fully aware of the danger, Greenoff ran towards the building to help in the evacuation and at the same time persuade the crowds who had gathered to watch to move back.

At 6.52 pm precisely there was a massive explosion as approximately 50 tons of TNT ignited. The blast destroyed a large part of the factory, buildings on the southern side of the Royal Victoria Dock and many houses in the surrounding streets. Debris, amongst it red-hot chunks of rubble, was strewn for miles around. These images give some idea of the destruction …

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The death toll was 73 with more than 400 people injured.

Edward was found seriously hurt in the rubble and died on 29th January aged 30. On 26 June 1917, he was awarded the King’s Police Medal for Gallantry. The citation reads …

Died from injuries received on 19 January from an explosion at a fire in a munitions factory at Silvertown where, despite the imminent danger, he remained at the scene to warn others and evacuate the area.

He was also commemorated in an ornate memorial plaque originally erected in North Woolwich Police Station. It contains this photograph, which was probably taken on his wedding day given the flower in his buttonhole …

If you are interested, you can read much more about the Silvertown explosion here.

There is a nice small statuette in the middle of the Memorial of Mr Watts himself that was installed in 1905, the year after he died. There was originally a plan to cover it with a protective grille but his widow refused and said the public should be trusted …

He holds a scroll on which is inscriber the word HEROES.

For the definitive life histories of the Watts Memorial heroes treat yourself to a copy of John Price’s book Heroes of Postman’s Park – Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Victorian London.

There is also a very useful guide on the London Walking Tours website.

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