Gray's Inn

Gray's Inn

On the north side of Holborn, outside the City boundary, west of Gray's Inn Road. Gateway at No. 22 High Holborn.

One of the Inns of Court, to which were attached Staple Inn and Barnard's Inn (q.v.).

Identified with the old prebendal manor of Portpool, belonging to St. Paul's, and possessed in consequence of certain privileges and exemptions.

It was in the possession of the de Greys as early as the 1 Ed. II., held under the D. and C. of St. Paul's, and continued in the family until 21 H. VII. (Ch. I. p.m.).

It appears to have been let to students of the law at least as early as the 14th century, though the exact date of the first lease cannot be ascertained (Harl. MS. 1094, f. 75).

In 10 H. VI. Thos. son of John Coventre was sent to "Greysyn" to be instructed under Richard Hungate, but for what purpose does not appear (Cal. L. Bk. K. p. 143).

Divided into courts and chambers at least as early as temp. Elizabeth.

Present hall erected 1555–60. Library founded in the 16th century. New building erected 1738, enlarged and remodelled 1841.

New library built 1883. Gardens first planted 1597–1600.

Comprises Field Court, Gray's Inn Square, and South Square within the precincts.

Area 30 acres.

Chapel supposed to occupy site of original foundation mentioned in grant to John de Grey, 1315 (Douthwaite, 144).

Enlarged 1619. Repaired 1699.

Grays Inn. This is one of the 4 Inns of Court for the Study and Education of Gentlemen in the Knowledge and Practice of the Laws of England. It is called so because Anno 1315, and afterward the ancient and noble Family of the Grays resided here until toward the latter end of the Reign of King Hen. the 7th. But notwithstanding this Residence of the Grays it is observed from very good Authority, that the Students of the Law held this House by Lease from the Lord Gray of Wilton in King Eds. the 3d's time and since; and about 8 Years after a Bargain and Sale of the Manner of Port Pool (or Grays Inn) made to Hugh Denys, the Prior and Monks of Shene near Richmond got Licence to purchase Lands in Mortmain to the value of 100 l. per Ann. and accordingly they had granted to them the said Mannor with the Appurtenances, 4 Messuages, 4 Gardens, 1 Croft, 8 Acres of Land &c. which the said Prior and Monks of Shene possessed, and which they devised to the Students of the Law for the Rent of 6 l. 13 s. 4 d. per Ann. as appears by the Register of the House, and which they so held till the general Dissolution of Monasteries by Parl. 30 H. 8. which then coming to the Crown was granted to them soon after by the said King in Fee-farm in the 32 H. 8. and the said Rent of 6 l. 13 s. 4 d. was paid to the Kings use for 1 whole Year, and so hath been ever since, as per the Accounts of the Treasures. Vid. Orig. Jur. p. 1?2.

Gray's Inn, so called, as belonging formerly to the Family of Lord Gray; which having its chief entrance out of this Street, shall be here taken notice of, although seated much backward; and likewise taking up almost all the West side of Gray's Inn lane, into which it hath a passage. This is another of the four Inns of Courts, and is very spacious; containing several Courts, surrounded with good Buildings, taken up by Barresters and Students of the Law. The chief Courts are Holbourn Court, Chappel Court, and Cony Court. But since the taking down the middle Row of old Chambers, which severed Cony Court from Chappel Court, both are laid open together; only a separation of a Palisado Pail running cross, to keep the Coachmen from driving their Horses into Cony Court; which since the levelling and gravelling, is kept very handsome. And this Court being the best situate, as to an open Air, especially the West and North Sides, which looks into the Garden and adjacent Fields, is of most Esteem, and hath the best Buildings. The Hall where the Gentlemen of the Society Dine and Sup, is large and good; but the Chappel adjoining is too small; and I could with that the Society would new build it, and to raise it on arched Pillars, as Lincoln's Inn Chappel, and then there would be a good dry Walk underneath, in rainy Weather. Besides these Courts, there is another more Westward, having the Garden Wall on the North side, and Buildings on the West, with some part of the South. Out of this Court there is a passage, down Steps, into Holbourn Court, another passage into Chappel Court,, another into Fulwood's Rents, and another into the Fields.

The chief Ornament belonging to this Inn, is its spacious Garden, with curious Walks, as well those that are shady by the lofty Trees, as those that are raised higher, and lie open to the Air, and the enjoyment of a delightful prospect of the Fields. And this Garden hath been, for many Years, much resorted unto, by the Gentry of both Sexes.

Gray's Inn, on the north side of Holborn, near the Bars, is so called from its being formerly the residence of the ancient and noble family of Gray of Wilton, who in the reign of Edward III. demised it to several students of the law. It is one of the four Inns of Court, and is inhabited by Barristers and Students of the law, and also by such gentlemen of independent fortune, as chuse this place, for the sake of an agreeable retirement, or the pleasure of the walks.

The members of the house are to be in commons a fortnight every term, for which they pay 16s.

The officers and servants belonging to the Inn, are, a Treasurer, a Steward, a chief and three under butlers, an upper and under cook, a pannier man, a gardener, the steward, the chief butler's men, and two porters.

This Inn has its chief entrance out of Holborn through a large gate, though it is seated far backwards, and though with its gardens it takes up almost all the west side of Gray's Inn lane. It consists of several well-built courts, particularly Holborn court, Coney court, and another at the entrance into the garden. The hall where the gentlemen of the society dine and sup is large and commodious; but the chapel is too small; it is a Gothic structure, and has marks of much greater antiquity than any other part of the building.

The chief ornament belonging to this Inn, is its spacious garden, the benefit of which is enjoyed by the public, every body decently dressed being allowed the recreation of walking in it every day. This garden consist of gravel walks, between vistas of very lofty trees, of grass plats, agreeable slopes, and a long terras with a portico at each end; this terras is ascended by a handsome flight of steps. Till lately there was a summer-house erected by the great Sir Francis Bacon, upon a small mount: it was open on all sides, and the roof supported by slender pillars. A few years ago the uninterrupted prospect of the neighbouring fields, as far as the hills of Highgate and Hampstead, was obstructed by a handsome row of houses on the north; since which the above summer-house has been levelled, and many of the trees cut down to lay the garden more open. The part represented in the print is the lower side of Coney court, containing the chapel, hall, &c. and is the principal square of this Inn (which is a very considerable one) belonging to the gentlemen of the long robe.

Gray's-Inn,—is on the N. side of Holborn, op. Middle-row and on the W. side of Gray's-inn-lane, principal entrance at Holborn-court.

Gray's-Inn, is on the north side of Holborn, opposite Middle-row, and on the west side of Gray's-inn-lane. Gray's-inn derives its name from having been formerly the residence of the ancient and noble family of Gray of Wilton, who, in the reign of Edward III., demised it to several students of the law. It occupies the site of the mansion of the ancient manor of Portpool, one of the prebends belonging to St. Paul's Cathedral, which, in 1515, becoming the residence of the before-mentioned family, it received from it the name of Gray's inn. It reverted, however, to the monks till the dissolution of the religious houses, when it was granted by Henry VIII., in 1541, to the students and their successors.

The principal entrance to Gray's-inn is from Holborn, and it consists of several spacious courts, a large square, opening into Gray's-inn-lane, some airy gardens wherein was the favourite summer-house of Sir Francis Bacon, and two very handsome rows of new buildings northward.

It is one of the four inns of court, and is inhabited by barristers, solicitors and students of the law, and by gentlemen of other professions and of independence, for the sake of studious retirement.

The present officers of Gray's-inn, are Thomas William Carr, Esq., Treasurer; the Rev. M.F. Ainslie, Dean of the Chapel; the Rev. George Shepherd, D.D., Preacher; the Rev. Edward Chaplain, M.A., Reader; Mr. Thomas Griffith, Steward; and Mr. Robert Dennison, Sub-steward.

Gray's Inn, an Inn of Court, with two Inns of Chancery attached—Staple Inn and Barnard's Inn; "a goodly house," says Stow, "by whom built or first begun I have not yet learned, but seemeth to be since Edward III.'s time."¹ The early records of the Society are lost, but Pearce² quotes a MS. in the Harleian Collection to the effect that William Skepworth was the first reader at Gray's Inn, and he was Justice of the Common Pleas in the reign of Edward III. The manor of Portpoole, otherwise called Gray's Inn, four messuages, four gardens, the site of a windmill, 8 acres of land, 10 shillings of free rent, and the advowson of the chantry of Portpoole were sold in 1505, by Edmund, Lord Gray, of Wilton, to Hugh Denny, Esq., his heirs and assigns. From Denny's hands the manor passed into the possession of the prior and convent of East Sheen, in Surrey, by whom it was leased "to certain students of the law," at an annual rent of £6: 13: 4; and the same lease was renewed to the students by Henry VIII., when at the dissolution of religious houses Gray's Inn became the property of the Crown. The name of Portpoole survives in Portpoole Lane (running from the east side of Gray's Inn Road into Leather Lane), and Windmill Hill still exists to mark the site of the windmill mentioned in the deed of transfer from Lord Gray. When the first hall was built is unknown; but Dugdale records the erection of the present hall between the years 1555 and 1560. The library was built in 1738, with steward's offices, .etc., by the surveyor, F. Wigg; enlarged and remodelled in 1841. A new library was built in 1883. [See Gray's Inn Walks.] The gardens were first planted about 1600. The inn was originally divided into four courts—Coney Court; Holborn Court, south of the hall; Field Court, between Fulwood's Rents and the walks; and Chapel Court, between Coney Court and the chapel. It now comprises Field Court, Gray's Inn Square, and South Square, between which are the hall, chapel, library and steward's office, and the garden, or Gray's Inn Walks, with Raymond's Buildings on the west and Verulam Buildings on the east side, overlooking Gray's Inn Road. With its gardens Gray's Inn covers an area of nearly 30 acres, and reaches from Holbom northwards to the King's (now Theobald's) Road. The entrance from Holborn is by a gateway under a mean stuccoed house, and narrow passage which opens into South Square. [See Gray's Inn Gate.] Gray's Inn Square, the larger of the two, is beyond; Field Court, on the left.

Eminent Members, Students and Residents,—Sir William Gascoigne, Lord Chief-Justice (d. 1413), who laid Falstaff by the heels, was reader of Gray's Inn; so was Spelman, 1516. Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, admitted 1524. Edward Hall, the chronicler. George Gascoigne, the poet.

The Jocasta of Euripides was translated by George Gascoigne and Francis Kinwelmersh, both students of Gray's Inn, and acted in the refectory of that society, in the year 1566.—T. Warton, ed. 1840, vol iii. p. 302.

Lord Burghley was admitted in 1541, and his signature is attached to some of the earliest existing records of the Society. Nicholas Bacon, Lord-keeper, and father of Francis Bacon, was admitted in 1532. And Francis Bacon himself, the chief glory of Gray's Inn, was, November 21, 1577, "admitted to the Grand Company with his four Brothers, and not to be bound to any vacations."¹ Bacon's earliest letter extant from his chambers in Gray's Inn, is dated July 11, 1580; subsequent letters so addressed are numerous. That curious one in which, shortly after his disgrace, he begs for the vacant post of Provost of Eton as peculiarly fit for him, was written from Gray's Inn, April 7, 1623. He was greatly attached to Gray's Inn; filled in succession most of the ofiices; directed the laying-out of the garden; helped the students in preparing their revels and receptions, and is believed by Mr. Spedding to have written the Masque with which James I. was entertained here. During all changes of fortune he retained his chambers at Gray's Inn, and it was from them he drove "to take the air," April 2, 1626, when he took instead the chill which caused his death a week later. In his Ancilla Memoriæ written at "Fulwood's House," about 1608, he notes:—

To remember the renewing of my lease of my Chambers: and the leaving owt the limitacion.

To remember the taking in the grownd beyond y^e wall and a lease of the hyther part, and to build me a howse therupon si videbit.

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The Furniture of my Chamber at Graes Inne, with Bookes and other Impl^ts. ... £100.—Spedding's Bacon, vol. xi.

The lease of his chambers he valued at £50. Early in 1592 Anthony Bacon came to live with his brother in Gray's Inn. Between 1592 and 1663 Bancroft, Juxon, Laud, Sheldon, and Whitgift were admitted into the Society. Henry Cromwell, "second sonne to his Highness Oliver, Lord Protector," was admitted, February 22, 1653, when he had been a colonel in the army for two years. Bradshaw, who sat as president at the trial of Charles I., was a bencher of the Inn. Lord Chief-Justice Holt; his father was Treasurer of the Inn. Dr. Richard Sibbes, preacher at Gray's Inn, and author of The Bruised Reed, which led to the conversion of Richard Baxter, and which Isaak Walton bequeathed to his children, died in 1635 in his chambers at Gray's Inn. In No. 8 Holborn Court (now South Square), against the south wall of the chapel, and since pulled down, lived and died Joseph Ritson, the eminent English antiquary. Goldsmith, Forster tells us, found "temporary lodgings in Gray's Inn," March 1764. Warburton had lodgings near to if not in Gray's Inn, and was in close connection with one who lodged there. "I was very much a boy," he writes to Bishop Hurd, January 3, 1757, "when I wrote that thing about Prodigies,¹ and I never had the courage to look into it since. ... But since you mention it I will tell you how it came to see the light. I met many years ago with an ingenious Irishman [Concanen by name] at a coffee-house near Gray's Inn, where I lodged. He studied the law and was very poor. I had given him money for many a dinner; and, at last, I gave him these papers, which he sold to the booksellers for more money than you would think, much more than they were worth."² The future bishop was twenty-nine at the date of this curious transaction, and probably found the vicinity of Gray's Inn and the society of Concanen convenient in the preparation of The Legal Judicature in Chancery Stated, which he was at that time writing for (and in the name of) Mr. Burrough. Robert Southey was lodging here in 1797, and Southey's critic some thirty years later. In "No. 8 South Square, Gray's Inn,"—since pulled down to make way for a library,—writes his biographer, were the chambers in which Thomas Babington Macaulay "ought to have been spending his days, and did actually spend his nights, between the years 1829 and 1834."³

Shallow. The same. Sir John, the very same. I saw him break Skogan's head at the Court Gate, when he was a crack, but thus high, and the very same day did I fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer behind Gray's Inn.—Second part of Henry IV., Act iii. Sc 2.

Charles Lamb loved to saunter in the gardens of Gray's Inn, and has gossiped pleasantly upon them. [See Gray's Inn Walks.] The Inn itself has been sketched by Dickens in sombre colours:—

Indeed I look upon Gray's Inn generally as one of the most depressing institutions in brick and mortar known to the children of men. Can anything be more dreary than its arid Square, Saharah Desert of the law, with the ugly old tiled tenements, the dirty windows, the bills To Let, To Let, the door-posts inscribed like gravestones, the crazy gateway giving upon the filthy lane, the scowling iron-barred prison-like passages into Verulam Buildings, the mouldy red-nosed ticket-porters with little coffin-plates, and why with aprons, the dry hard atomy-like appearance of the whole dust-heap?—Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 82.

The annual Lee prize of £25 was founded by the investment of money left by John Lee, LL.D., in 1864. In 1873 the Society founded two scholarships, to be called respectively the Bacon and the Holt Scholarship, for proficiency in "The History of England, Political and Constitutional;" to be tenable for two years, and of the value of £45 and £40; also in 1876 annual Arden Scholarships of the value of £60.

On July 7, 1887 (in honour of the Queen's Jubilee) the Benchers of Gray's Inn presented to a distinguished audience gathered in their hall the Masque of Flowers, which had been performed before James I. on Twelfth Night, 264 years previously.

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¹ Stow, p. 163.
² Pearce, Hist. of the Inns of Court.

¹ Gray's Inn Registers, quoted in Spedding's Life of Bacon.

¹ Enquiry into the Causes of Prodigies and Miracles, 12mo, 1727. ² Bp. Hurd, Letters from a Late Eminent Prelate, p. 218.
³ Trevelyan, Life of Lord Macaulay, vol. i. p. 139.