Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/18

 12

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vm. JULY 6, 1007.

of his tenancy, later editions of Boyle's ' Court Guide ' than those I had seen show that, in 1826, the number was changed to 32. A few years ago this house was pulled down, and the present building is entirely new.

It follows, therefore, that the next-door house, now No. 31, which retains much of its eighteenth-century character, in spite of some alterations, was the original No. 23, where my great-great-grandfather lived : not the present No. 23, as I long believed.

That Nos. 31 and 32 occupy the exact sites of the old 23 and 24 I have satisfied myself by a study of R. Horwood's ' Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster ' (1799), and of W. Faden's fourth edition of the same work (1819). In this fine produc- tion, which is on a scale of 25 inches to the mile, and is a credit to the map-engravers of the period, each house is separately shown, and the earlier number is clearly indicated.

A desire for accuracy has impelled me to send this second communication. It is to be wished that a tablet could be affixed on No. 32, to the effect that George Romney occupied the house, No. 24, which formerly stood on the same spot.

EDWY G. CLAYTON.

10, Old Palace Lane, Richmond, Surrey.

HOUSES OF HISTORICAL INTEREST (10 S. v. 483 ; vi. 52, 91, 215, 356, 497 ; vii. 312, 413, 472). I am glad to say that the work of indicating houses of historical interest is going forward with considerable rapidity, a tablet having been recently affixed to No. 1, Orme Square, Bayswater, in which Sir Rowland Hill resided from 1839 to 1845. He had previously resided at 2, Burton Crescent, Euston Road. He lived at Ber- tram House, Hampstead, from 1848 until his death in 1871. The latter residence of the postal reformer had been indicated by the Society of Arts, but the premises have since been demolished. With reference to the house in Burton Crescent, it was pro- posed to place a tablet thereon ; but the lessee refused her consent, in consequence of which there was no course open but to place the tablet upon the house in Orme Square, where for three years, from 1839 to 1842, Rowland Hill was engaged in the heavy work of introducing and supervising the complicated machinery incidental to bringing uniform penny postage into opera- tion. Between the years 1845 and 1848 he resided at Brighton, engaged in reorganizing the Brighton Railway Company.

It is pleasurable to record that a memorial tablet was, on Thursday, 20 June, placed upon No. 54, Great Marlborough Street, W., with an inscription recording that Sarah Siddons, the great actress, lived there. It is regrettable that a slip should have oc- curred in the ' D.N.B.,' for it is there stated that " from 1790 to 1802 Mrs. Siddons had resided at Great Marlborough Street ; thence she seems to have moved to Gower Street, where the back of her house was ' effectually in the country.' '' This would appear to be contrary to what Mrs. Siddons has stated, for in a letter written after her return from Ireland in the autumn of 1784, she tells us : " We have bought a house in Gower Street. . . .the back of which is most effectually in the country." This letter is quoted in full in Kennard's ' Mrs. Siddons.' The correct order of her residences is given in the capital book on ' The Kembles ' by Percy Fitzgerald, for he says : " She had lived in the Strand, had removed thence to Gower Street, from Gower Street to Great Marlborough Street."

It would appear from a paragraph in The London Argus of 22 June that the numbers of the houses in Great Marlborough Street have been changed, for it is there stated that

"in Boyle's 'Court Guide' for 1792 and following years the name of ' W. Siddons ' appears against No. 49, the last such entry occurring in 1784. A comparison between Horwood's map of 1799 and the street-numbering plan of 1882 snows that no alteration in the number of the house had taken place in the meantime. In the latter year the number was altered to 54, and has not since been changed."

Virtually the house is now as it was in the days of Mrs. Siddons ; but some changes have been made, including the addition of a story. It was in this house she resided when at the height of her professional career ; here her youngest child, Cecilia, was born in 1794 ; and here her daughter Sally died in 1803, so the house is in many ways worthy of its commemorative tablet. W. E. HARLAND-OXLEY.

I really cannot follow my friend MR. ABRAHAMS at all. Unless my memory is very bad, the topography of the particular spot is all against him, as I daresay he now realizes from the remarks made by COL. PRIDEATTX over his own. Unless there has since been some volcanic eruption, the canal must have been at precisely the same level then that it is now. MR. ABRAHAMS imagines that on account of the steep declivity Dyer must have broken his neck.