Harley Street

Harley Street, Cavendish Square to Marylebone Road, was so called after Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, the founder of the Harleian Library (d 1741).

Eminent Inhabitants.—William Pitt wrote to his mother from Harley Street describing the funeral of his father. Viscount Bridport was living at No. 7 as early as 1772. Count Woronzow at No. 36 in 1792. Robert Orme, the Indian historian, at No. 11, 1792–1796. About the same time Sir Ralph Milbank was residing at No. 11, General Richard Smith at No. 5, and Sir Richard Hill, M.P., at No. 28 Upper Harley Street. Dean Milles, Walpole's antagonist in behalf of Chatterton, died here in 1784. Allan Ramsay, principal portrait-painter to George III., had his royal portrait manufactory here.

'His [Ramsay's] residence was in Harley Street, on the west side, just above the Mews; and his studio consisted of a set of coachmen's rooms and haylofts gutted, and thrown into one long gallery. . . . When he was busy with his first portrait of Queen Charlotte all the crown jewels, and the regalia, too, were sent to him; the painter said, such a mass of jewels and gold deserved a guard, and sentinels were accordingly posted day and night in front and rear of his house.—Allan Cunningham's British Painters, vol. v.  p. 40.

Ramsay's professional labours were brought to a sudden close by the dislocation of his right arm through falling from a ladder in showing his household how to escape by the roof if the lower part of the house were on fire. Ramsay went to Rome, having contracted with his pupil, Philip Reinagle, to paint "fifty pairs of Kings and Queens at ten guineas each." The price for the later ones was raised to thirty guineas, "but the dose of portraiture was so strong, that when, after the toil of six years, he completed his undertaking, he never could think of that department again without a sort of horror."¹ Ramsay died, August 1784, on his way back to his Harley Street home. Colonel John Ramsay, his son, was living at No. 67 in the year 1799. James Stuart, author of the Antiquities of Athens, in the house No. 45, built by himself. Admiral Lord Keith, who captured the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch in 1795, and married Miss Esther Thrale, the Queeney of Johnson, also resided at No. 45. No. 64 was Turner's first house. He removed here in 1803 from his father's shop in Maiden Lane, and remained here till his removal to Queen Anne Street West in 1812. Major-General Sir Arthur Wellesley, K.B. and M.P., was living at No. 11 in 1807–1809. Sir William Beechey, R.A., at No. 18 firom 1818 to 1835, and after his death by Frederick Richard Say, portrait painter for many years. Frances Dowager Viscountess Nelson, widow of the great Nelson, died in this street on May 4, 1831, aged sixty-eight. On April 27, 1831, a fire broke out in No. 57 Upper Harley Street, when George de Grey, third Lord Walsingham, was burnt to death, and Lady Walsingham killed by jumping out of a back window. All the servants were saved. John St. John Long, the famous rubbing empiric, practised at No. 41 from about 1829. Lord Strangford, the translator of Camoens—

Hibernian Strangford! with thine eyes of blue, —

died at No. 68, May 29, 1855. Barry Cornwall (Bryan Waller Proctor) resided with his family "for many years at No. 13 Upper Harley Street,—a house which will long be remembered with pleasure and regret by the many distinguished men and women who frequented its dinners and "at homes." No. 86 was for some years the residence of the Right Hon. Sir Stafford Northcote (afterwards Earl of Iddesleigh); and No. 73 that of the Right Hon. William Ewart Gladstone. The Queen's College for Ladies occupies Nos. 43 and 45, and the Governesses Benevolent Institution No. 47.

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¹ Cunningham, vol. v. p. 42.