Newport Market

Market (Newport) is by Leicester fields, betn Porter str. E. and the end of Gerard str. and betn Lichfield str. and Newport alley, the Center is from Cha+ N. 600 Yds.

Newport Market, made very commodious for that Use, having a good Market-house, with Shambels for Butchers in the Midst, with Shops round about it: But at present is not so well served with Provisions as in Time it may be by the Resort of Country People to it with their Necessaries, Clare Market much eclipsing it.

Newport Market, Litchfield street, a square with shops round it, with a market house in the middle, in which are shops for butchers, &c.

Newport-Market, Great Newport-Street,—by the W. end of it, near Long-acre and St. Martin's lane.

Newport-Market, Great Newport-street, is at the westward of that street, near Long Acre and St. Martin's-lane.

Newport Market. [See Newport Street] About 1725—1726 John Henley, a clerk in priest's orders, hired a large room over the market-house in Newport Market, and registered it as a place for religious worship. He then, by advertisements in the papers, invited all persons to come and take seats for twopence a piece, promising them diversion under the titles of Voluntaries, Chimes of the Times, Roundelays, College Bobs, etc. Great numbers of people flocked to witness his idiotic and indecent buffooneries, until at last they were put a stop to in this place by a presentment of the Grand Jury of Middlesex in January 1729. His next appearance was at "The Oratory" in Clare Market. Horne Tooke was the son of a poulterer named Horne in Newport Market. When asked what his father was by some of his schoolfellows, he is said to have replied, "A Turkey merchant." Frederick, Prince of Wales, at this time kept his court at Leicester House, and some of his household desiring to have a back-way to Newport Market, without any ceremony caused an opening to be made in the wall and a door placed in it, the way thence being through Horne's premises. Horne remonstrated, but no notice being taken of his protest, he applied to the law courts and obtained "an order for the immediate removal of the obnoxious door."¹ In Newport Market and its neighbourhood there were formerly from forty to fifty butchers, and several slaughter-houses, and these butchers used to kill weekly upon an average from 300 to 400 bullocks, from 500 to 700 sheep, according to circumstances, and from 50 to 100 calves; 1000 to 1100 sheep have been known to be killed in one week. By the erection of Sandringham Buildings and the alterations caused by the new thoroughfare of Charing Cross Road the place has almost entirely disappeared.

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¹ Life of Horne Tooke, vol. i. p. 11 (quoted in Lord John Russel's Essay on the English Constitution, etc., p. 317.

Newport Market

By letters patent dated 27 April 1686 James II granted to John Bland, of London, gentleman, a licence to hold a market in Newport Garden on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays in every week, for all merchandise except live cattle. (fn. 60) John Bland was a trustee for Barbon who, by indenture dated 1 July 1686, leased to Bland the ground 'on which a Markett house was designed to be built and in some short time after was built', measuring forty-five feet in breadth and ninetythree feet in depth, together with the piece of ground which lay to the north of the intended market-house, measuring eighty-five feet square. These two pieces of ground formed the central market place and were leased to Bland from Midsummer Day, 1686, for sixty-one years, at a rent of a peppercorn for the first year, and £15 per annum subsequently. (fn. 46) The actual building of the market-house was done by James Friend of London, builder, under articles of agreement dated 27 August 1686. In consideration of his building the market-house, Barbon agreed that it should be lawful for Friend to pull down, carry away and convert to his own use 'All the Stones, Brick, Timber, Lead, Glasse, Iron, Tiles and all other matterialls whatsoever (except wainscott) in that peece or parte of a house then standing Comonly Called Newport house'. (fn. 61) (fn. 5)

Like all property held by Barbon, the leasehold of Newport Market and the privileges granted by the letters patent were quickly mortgaged. On 23 August 1686, when the markethouse can hardly have even been completed, Barbon and Bland mortgaged the market rights to Richard and Francis Marsh of London, merchants, for £1,000, and the two pieces of ground to Richard Marsh, John Foster, esquire, and James Rudge of London, merchant, for a similar sum. After various transactions of everincreasing complexity, both the leasehold and the market rights were eventually purchased by Sir Nathaniel Curzon of Kedleston, Derbyshire (the second baronet), on 25 January 1692/3 for £2,149 10s. which was the money then outstanding on the mortgage. (fn. 46) This purchase was subject to Nicholas Barbon's equity of redemption, and in his will Barbon, who died in 1698, left this to his executors, Mrs. Rebecca Hayes, John Asgill and John Bland. (fn. 62) On 9 December 1698 John Bland released his interest to John Asgill, and on 26 June 1699 Sir Nathaniel Curzon bought out the remaining two executors for £2,000. Curzon then brought a series of suits in Chancery in an attempt to obtain the reversion of the market on the determination of the sixtyone-year lease, on the grounds that Barbon had made some private agreement with James Ward (son and heir of Sir James Ward, one of the original mortgagees of the Newport Ground freehold) to re-purchase the freehold of the market. (fn. 46) This claim was successfully repudiated by James Ward, but the Curzon family held the leasehold of the market and the market rights until 1828. (fn. 58)

In 1725 Daniel Defoe described Newport Market as one of the principal meat markets of London. (fn. 63) The butchers there bought their cattle at the live cattle markets and drove them to Newport Market to be slaughtered and sold. At the end of the seventeenth century the nearest live cattle market to Newport Market was at Brookfield, to the east of Hyde Park, where the market rights were also owned by Sir Nathaniel Curzon, (fn. 64) and where Nicholas Barbon also seems to have been involved. (fn. 62)

From 1699 to 1704 the weekly profits of the market were over five pounds, and by 1708 they had risen to about eight pounds. These profits comprised the percentages taken by the Curzon family on merchandise sold in the market; they did not include receipts from rents paid by the owners of shops in the market or the rents of cider and wine vaults. (fn. 65) Against these profits Sir Nathaniel Curzon had to count various constant expenses in the running of the market, such as parish rates and Crown taxes, sweeping the market, which cost eighteen pence a week, paying for a militia horse, and paying for a clerk to collect the tolls and rents. (fn. 66) Curzon also paid for repairs and upkeep. In December 1702 he 'Paid Mr. Lanes bill for paveing ye Markett ... £12–0–0', in April 1703 he paid 'ye Slator for Slateing all ye Shopps on ye Westside of Newport Markett house & two on ye North ... £9. 19. 0', and in August 1709 he paid 'Oram ye Plaisterer for mending & white washing ye markett house ... £11. 3. 0'. (fn. 65) (fn. 6)

In 1720 Strype described Newport Market as having 'a good Market-house, with Shambels for Butchers in the Midst, with Shops round about it: But at present is not so well served with Provisions as in Time it may be by the Resort of Country People to it with their Necessaries, Clare Market much eclipsing it'. (fn. 67) However, by March 1742, when Sir Nathaniel Curzon (the fourth baronet) was granted a new lease of the market for fifty-nine years by Sarah Bucknall and Joanna Dillingham (the freeholders), this deficiency had evidently been remedied, for the lease mentions 'the shops in the country market'. (fn. 68) This country market was the smaller building in the central market-place, to the north of the main market-house, and is shown on Horwood's map of 1792–9.

When the Curzon family surrendered their interest in the market in 1828 Robert Curzon, in whom it was then vested, sold the market rights to the then owner of one moiety of the freehold, John Dyneley. On 10 December 1830 John Dyneley granted a lease of all the customs and tolls to William Cooper of Little Chelsea, gentleman, and Stephen Munday of Leadenhall Market, meat-salesman, for sixty-two years from 29 September 1830 at a peppercorn for the first one and three quarter years and then at £40 per annum. William Cooper rebuilt the country market, which appears in the ratebooks in 1840 as the new market-house, while the original market-house became known as the old markethouse. (fn. 58) There was evidently still some surviving retail meat or food trade, but it cannot have amounted to very much. In 1840 the old markethouse was occupied by Edmund Crosse and Thomas Blackwell. By 1860 William Cooper was dead and the new market-house was occupied by Comfort Cornish, a manufacturer of plateglass. (fn. 69) But the slaughter-house, which was on the west side of the market square backing on to premises in Grafton Street, appears in the ratebooks as such even after it had been bought by the Metropolitan Board of Works, and a pound is shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1869–74 (Plate 6), at the corner of Grafton and Litchfield Streets.

An attempt to revive the market was made in 1872. A company called The Newport Market Company was formed under the authority of a private Act of Parliament for the purpose of 'making and maintaining a General Market on or near to the site of the old Newport Market, and certain new Streets and Improvements in connexion therewith'. (fn. 70) The company was to undertake not only the erection of a markethouse and shops 'for the sale of fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, hay, corn, and other marketable commodities', but also the widening of Cranbourn Street and the construction of two new streets, which would improve communications in the area. One street was to start at the junction of Cranbourn Street and Great Newport Street and end at a point on the southern side of King Street (now part of Shaftesbury Avenue) nearly opposite the south end of Greek Street, which would have cut directly across the site of the old market. The second street was to start on the north side of Leicester Square and end on the southern side of King Street, also near the south end of Greek Street, presumably rather to the west of the first street. (fn. 70) The company evidently considered the possibility of constructing a market in Leicester Square, but nothing came of the project.

The Act gave the company five years to put its plans into effect, and at the end of that time the powers granted by the Act expired. (fn. 70) Probably the directors failed to raise the necessary money, and in 1877 the the Metropolitan Street Improvements Act gave the Metropolitan Board of Works powers to construct Shaftesbury Avenue and the Charing Cross Road, and to sweep away the market.

By the mid nineteenth century the Newport Market area had degenerated into a slum which was a haunt of thieves and prostitutes. In the 1860's a group of wealthy and well connected philanthropists had established the Newport Market Refuge 'for the object of affording nightly shelter and sustenance to the really destitute and houseless with the special view of making enquiries into their characters and of providing for the ultimate benefit of such as shall seem worthy of assistance'. Its distinguished committee included W. E. Gladstone, who was particularly interested in the work of reclaiming prostitutes, Sir Henry Hoare of Stourhead, baronet, Charles Lindley Wood, esquire, the Rev. John Chambers of St. Mary's, Crown Street, and Cowell Stepney, esquire, of the Foreign Office. In 1866 the trustees of the Refuge obtained leases of both the new and the old market-houses and of the market rights and tolls, as well as various vaults and sheephouses. (fn. 58) The Refuge occupied the old market-house, (fn. 7) which was used not only as a shelter for destitute men and women, but also as an industrial school for starving and homeless boys. (fn. 71) The charity continued in Newport Market until its premises were bought in 1882 by the Metropolitan Board of Works for the formation of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. (fn. 58)

In April 1881 the vestry of St. Anne's resolved 'to call the attention of the Chief Commissioner of Police to the state of those parts of the Parish abutting on Newport Market, rendering it a disgrace to any civilized community'. The area was described as 'dangerous to the Ratepayers and other respectable persons who frequent those parts owing to the assaults and robberies which took place'. In November of that year the police reported that they had strengthened their forces in that part of the parish and that, during the past five months, out of 388 arrests in the whole parish, 233 had taken place in the neighbourhood of Newport Market. In April 1882 one of the churchwardens had an interview with the Home Secretary, in which he complained of the great injury to the parish caused by 'the delay in destroying the houses in Newport Market and Porter Street and constructing the proposed new street from Charing Cross to Tottenham Court Road'. A few days later a police report to the Home Secretary stated that the area was 'now a veritable focus of every danger which can menace the health and social order of a city. The houses, from their insanitary condition, are horribly disgusting, and can only be fitly designated as well prepared propagating ground for every kind of contagious and loathesome disease ... The grossest immorality flourishes unabashed from every age downwards to mere children ... It would be an act of true philanthropy to break up this reeking home of filthy vice ... and remove this festering sore from the centre of London life'. (fn. 72) The Metropolitan Board of Works was of course already engaged in purchasing the ground necessary for the construction of the Charing Cross Road, and the delay of which the parish authorities complained was caused by the Board's statutory obligation to rehouse all the workingclass inhabitants displaced by compulsory purchases. These obligations were relaxed by an Act of 1883, and Charing Cross Road was finally opened in February 1887.

The old market-house appears in two of J. P. Emslie's watercolours (fn. 73) as a much altered and extended building. The nucleus was a plain brick structure of oblong plan and two lofty storeys, the northern part being covered with a tiled roof of M-section, and the southern with a high-ridged roof hipped on the south side, probably an alteration to the original M-roof. A single-storey addition with a lean-to roof is shown as a shallow projection along the west side of the main building, stopping short of the south end where a high arch contained two tiers of three-light windows, serving the industrial school (Plate 56a). The east side was, no doubt, very similar. A strange assortment of chimney-stacks and ventilation shafts rose out of the roof, the high slope of which contained a series of skylights and dormers, probably lighting the school's dormitories.

The small market-house to the north, also recorded by Emslie (Plate 56c), was presumably that erected in 1840. It is shown as a single-storeyed building of oblong plan with splayed corners. Generally the lower part of the walls appears to have been of plain brickwork and the upper part contained large sash-windows in plain architraves set in a stucco face. Doric pilasters with plain brick shafts dressed the angles, and the roof rose in a gentle slope surrounding a central clerestory lantern of oblong form.

Religious Communities in Newport Market-House

In 1693 a congregation of Huguenots arrived from Weld House, St. Giles in the Fields, (fn. 74) and occupied a room over the market-house. For this reason this chapel is often called 'L'Église de la Boucherie'. The first minute in the Actes du Consistoire, dated 30 April 1693, is from Newport Market, and concerns an agreement between MM. Gonmarc and Fleury, ministers of the new congregation, and MM. Morin and de la Place, ministers at Weld House, about benches which were moved from Weld House to Newport Market. This congregation remained in Newport Market until 1700, when it moved to a new chapel on the north side of West Street, in the parish of St. Giles in the Fields, because of 'incommodités pour le peuple et pour les ministres' at Newport Market. (fn. 75)

In 1700, after the West Street chapel was opened, part of the congregation seceded under the leadership of Jean Pons, and formed the second congregation in the market-house. This was joined by another under M. de la Prade, and in November of that year both moved to another chapel in Ryder's Court (fn. 76) (see page 351). A third congregation, founded by Henry Daubigny, arrived in the market in 1701. This called itself 'Le Petit Charenton', and its solemn opening took place on 13 April 1701. In July 1701 it was joined by M. de la Prade who, having left Ryder's Court, founded a church in Milk Alley, Wapping, and it seems that some sort of connexion was formed between Le Petit Charenton and the Wapping church. However, both Daubigny and de la Prade left Newport Market in 1702 and the congregation dwindled gradually until, in April 1705, it merged with the West Street chapel. (fn. 75)

There is no trace of any of these congregations in Newport Market in the ratebooks for the period, but they appear in the accounts of Sir Nathaniel Curzon, who held the leasehold of the market, and to whom they paid a small rent for their room in the market-house. Although the register of Le Petit Charenton ended in April 1705, references to the 'French Church' appear in Curzon's accounts for several years after that date. A curious entry of 17 January 1708/9, 'Recd of Cordea [?] for three quarters rent for Spining in ye french Church to Christmas last £07 07 0', (fn. 65) suggests that the room was being used for other purposes, and was still called the 'French Church' even though the congregation had left. From 1714 to 1716 the ratebooks contain the entry 'Jos. Harrington for meeting house'.

The 'Oratory' at Newport Market was founded in 1726 by the eccentric divine usually known as Orator Henley. John Henley was born on 3 August 1692 at Melton Mowbray, where his father was vicar. (fn. 77) Henley was ordained and came to London in 1721, where he received a lectureship in the City, and where, according to himself, he 'preach'd more Charity-Sermons about Town, was more numerously followed, and raised more for the poor Children at those Sermons than any other Preacher'. (fn. 78) But Henley's vanity and eccentricity did not recommend themselves to those in influential positions in the Church, and in 1722 he was 'toss'd into a Country-Benefice', from which, however, he soon resigned and returned to London. (fn. 79)

In 1726 he rented a room over Newport market-house (almost certainly the same one as the Huguenots used), where he not only preached on religious and theological subjects, but also ran an academy of literature and science. Here, in what became known as 'The Oratory', seats were advertised as being available at a shilling each, (fn. 80) and medals were struck to be used as tickets by regular attenders. (fn. 81)

The purpose of Henley's 'Week-Days universal Academy' was, he claimed, 'to teach indifferently Persons of all Ranks, Ages, Conditions, and Circumstances, either singly, or in Classes, in Proportion to their Genius and Application, by proper Masters, under my Inspection, what they desire to learn in all Parts of divine and human Knowledge, Languages, Arts and Science, in the most concise, just, elegant, agreeable, and perfect Manner.' His methods of teaching would 'bring Home to any Person all the Benefit of Schools, Universities, Tutors, Academies and Professors, with more than can be reap'd from them'. (fn. 82) As for religion, Henley claimed that the 'Oratory' services would represent a return to the practices of the early church. (fn. 83)

Henley advertised his activities in order to attract a crowd. He is reputed to have gathered a large audience of shoemakers by promising to show them a new and wonderful way of making shoes. The method, he afterwards explained, was to cut the tops off boots. (fn. 84) The hard core of his audience was formed by the butchers of Newport Market, for whose benefit he preached a special sermon known as 'The Butcher's Lecture' at Newport Market on Easter Day, 6 April 1729. On this occasion he described the religious history of the butchers' trade and quoted passages in the Bible relating to it. He also gave a list of the sons and relatives of butchers who had occupied high positions in Church and State. However, he was careful to add the reminder that, though 'It is the Lot of Man to go forth to his Labour, and to his Work, until the Evening, he is not to labour so much for the Meat that perisheth, as for that which endures to everlasting Life'. (fn. 85)

At about this time Henley was presented by the Grand Jury of Westminster for using his room for purposes other than religious worship, and for promising people 'Diversion ... Under the Titles of Voluntaries, Chimes of the Times, Roundelays, College-Bobs, Madrigals, and Operas'. (fn. 86) Probably as a result of this presentment Henley moved the Oratory, on Low Sunday 1729, from Newport Market to Lincoln's Inn Fields (outside Westminster). (fn. 85) A contemporary pamphlet commented that 'A Quarrel has happen'd between Henley and the Butchers of Newport-Market, which may afford us some Mirth. The Butchers have been jealous for some time least the Orator should, by his mad Preambulations, introduce that Part of the old Levitical Law, which made the Priests Butchers, and so overturn their Business, by putting it in the Hands of Ecclesiasticks; and indeed they have some Cause to suspect him on this Head; for when a Man can, without Conscience, murder Religion, he would Scarce boggle at murdering Cows, Sheep and Oxen, especially when he can produce the Example of the Ancients, as a Pattern to go by: But whether this Suspicion of the Butchers has any real Foundation, or is built only on Surmise, we cannot assuredly say; but certain it is, that the Orator has taken a House in Lincoln's-Inn-Field, and is going to remove from Newport-Market in a very short Time, for fear the Butchers should scare him'. (fn. 87)

After Henley's departure the ratebooks for Newport Market contain the following entries, several of which probably refer to congregations of Baptists: (fn. 88) meeting-house, 1730–3; Thomas Barnett, meeting-house, 1734–6; Mr. Palmer, meeting-house, 1737. This last entry was made for several subsequent years, but no rates were paid and in 1744 the meeting-house was marked 'empty'.

Notes

6. This was probably William Oram who had a building site on the north side of Litchfield Street, and also did work in St. James's.

7. It does not seem that the Refuge ever used the new market-house, which continued to be occupied by Comfort Cornish, plate-glass manufacturer.

46. P.R.O., C6/333/41.

47. G.L.R.O., C/96/622.

48. M.L.R. 1725/6/55.

49. G.L.R.O., C/96/622; G.E.C.

50. G.L.R.O., C/96/610, 622.

51. P.C.C., 66 Plymouth.

52. Ibid., 68 Potter.

53. Ibid., 172 Lisle.

54. G.L.R.O., C/96/1127; Colvin.

55. P.C.C., 260 Bettesworth.

56. Ibid., 63 Howe.

57. G.L.R.O., C/96/1149.

58. G.L.C., Legal and Parliamentary Dept. deeds.

59. G.L.R.O., C/96/622.

60. P.R.O., C66/3284, no. 6.

61. Ibid., C8/388/32.

62. P.C.C., 19 Pett.

63. Daniel Defoe, A Tour Thro' London about the year 1725, ed. Sir Mayson Beeton and E. Beresford Chancellor, 1929, p. 40.

64. H.M.C., House of Lords MSS., 1699–1702, 1908, pp. 154–5.

65. P.R.O., C5/251/11.

66. Ibid., loc. cit.; R.B.

67. John Strype, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, 1720, vol. II, bk. vi, p. 86.

68. M.L.R. 1742/1/79.

69. R.B.; P.O.D.

70. 35 and 36 Vict., c. 82, local and private.

71. Thomas Archer, The Terrible Sights of London and Labours of Love in the Midst of Them, 1870, pp. 322, 388.

72. J. H. Cardwell and others, Two Centuries of Soho, 1898, pp. 137, 140.

73. G.L.C. Print Collection.

74. Survey of London, vol. V, 1914, pp. 93–7.

75. Pubs. Hug. Soc., vol. XXXII, 1929, Introd. by William and Susan Minet, pp. ix–xiii.

76. Procs. Hug. Soc., vol. VIII, 1905–8, p. 48.

77. John Henley, Oratory Transactions 1728–1730, no. 1, p. 1 (B.M. pressmark 8406 d 44(1)).

78. Ibid., pp. 10, 12.

79. Ibid., pp. 12–14.

80. John Henley, Oratory Transactions 1728–1730, no. 1, pp. 47–8; no. v, pp. 24–33.

81. Insert bound in at the end of B.M. copy of Henley's Oratory Transactions 1728–1730, no. v.

82. John Henley, Oratory Transactions 1728–1730, no. 1, pp. 47–8.

83. John Henley, The First Sermon Preach'd at the Opening of the Oratory, 1726 (B.M. pressmark 694 e 11(10)).

84. D.N.B.

85. John Henley, The Butcher's Lecture, 1729 (B.M. pressmark 699 g 16(3, 2)).

86. John Henley, Oratory Transactions 1728–1730, no. v, pp. 32–3.

87. The Case Between the Proprietors of NewsPapers and the Coffee-Men of London ... To which is annex'd, Henley the Orator and the Butchers, ? 1740 (B.M. pressmark 12330 f 26(6)).

88. W. T. Whitley, The Baptists of London, N.D., pp. 127, 130.