Ormond Street

Ormond street, a str. of fine New Buildings, on the N. side of Red Lion square, about 250 Yds distance there-from, betn the N. ends of Red lion str and Devonshire str. L. 140 Yds.

Ormond street, Red Lion street, Holborn.

Ormond-Street (Great), Lamb's-Conduit-Street,—at 50, the fifth coach-turning on the L. from 71, High-Holborn, along Red-lion-st. it extends to Queen-square.

Ormond-St., Great, Lamb's, Conduit-street, is the fifth coach turning on the left hand going from High Holborn.

Ormond Street (Great), runs from Queen Square into Lamb's Conduit Street. Hatton, in 1708, describes it as "a street of fine new buildings." "That side of it next the fields," says Ralph, writing in 1734, "is beyond question one of the most charming situations about town." Eminent Inhabitants.—Dr. Hickes, author of the Thesaurus. "Direct to me," he writes to Thoresby, "at my house in Ormond Street, in Red Lion Fields." Robert Nelson, the author of Fasts and Festivals, removed here from Blackheath in 1703. Soame Jenyns, whose Free Inquiry was so mercilessly criticised by Dr. Johnson, was born in this street at the exact hour of midnight between December 31, 1703 and January 1, 1704; he chose the latter for his birthday and year. Sir Constantine Phipps, after his dismissal from the post of Lord Chancellor of Ireland and return to England to practice at the Bar in Westminster Hall, had his residence in Great Ormond Street, and thither, on more than one occasion, he was escorted in triumph by a Jacobite mob after pleading in defence of the Jacobite lords, 1715–1718. Somewhat curiously the Earl of Hardwicke lived in this street at the time he presided as Lord High Steward at the trial of the Jacobite lords in 1746, and went from his house to Westminster Hall in great state, in a procession of six coaches, each drawn by six horses, besides his own state carriage, behind which stood ten tall footmen.¹ [See Powis House.] Dr. Stukeley, "next door to the Duke of Powis," from whence he dates his Itinerarium Curiosum (folio, 1724). Dr. Mead, at No. 49, the corner of Powis Place, where is now the Hospital for Sick Children. This celebrated physician died here in 1754. There was a good garden behind the house, at the bottom of which was a gallery and museum filled with pictures, statues, engraved gems, coins and medals, drawings by eminent masters, engravings, Greek and Latin MSS., and a fine collection of rare and choice books—altogether, as was supposed, a collection unrivalled by any private possessor. Lord Chancellor Thurlow, at No. 45. The Great Seal of England was stolen from this house on the night of March 24, 1784, the day before the dissolution of Parliament. The thieves got in by scaling the garden wall, and forcing two iron bars out of the kitchen window. They then made their way to the Chancellor's study, broke open the drawers of his lordship's writing-table, ransacked the room, and carried away the Great Seal, rejecting the pouch as of little value, and the mace as too unwieldy. On March 27 a reward of £200, with free pardon to an accomplice, was offered for the discovery of the thief. The thieves were discovered, but the Seal, being of silver, was passed through the melting-pot, and patents and important public documents were delayed until a new one was made. Sheridan, as representing Fox, sat with Lord Thurlow till two o'clock in the morning, just two nights before the Chancellor declared that if ever he should forget his king he trusted God would forget him!¹ Here the young George Crabbe dined with the Chancellor, and on parting was told that "by God he was as like Parson Adams as twelve to a dozen." The house is now the Working Men's College. Dr. Hawksworth was living in this street in 1773. John Howard, the great prison reformer, was resident here in May 1780 when Hayley sent him the poem he had addressed to him. Lord Eldon, when first entering Parliament (1783), was living in this street He left it about 1792. Chief Justice Sir J. Eardley Wilmot (d. 1792) was also a resident. Southey's friend, Charles Butler, died here June 2, 1832. At No. 50 Macaulay with his father and family settled in 1823. "A large rambling house," says his biographer, "at the comer of Powis Place, and was said to have been the residence of Lord Chancellor Thurlow at the time when the Great Seal was stolen from his custody."² This is a mistake; it was part of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke's, Lord Thurlow's being No. 45. Macauiay remained here till 1831. The house is now the east wing of the London Hom&ligoe;opathic Hospital (founded in 1849), a large building, including Nos. 50–52. The Working Men's College is also a large establishment, having some 300 members, and evening classes in modem languages, history, science and art. The class-rooms are in what was Lord Thurlow's house, whilst a lecture hall and large and well-lighted art class-room have been built in his lordship's garden. At Nos. 48 and 49 (the latter Dr. Mead's house) is the Hospital for Sick Children, an admirable institution and admirably conducted. The hospital was founded in 1852 for the medical and surgical treatment of poor children between the ages of two and twelve years in the house, and of children from birth as out-patients. The extent of relief has steadily grown in proportion to the increase of subscriptions, till now upwards of 1000 are received as in-patients annually and 11,500 as out-patients. A supplement to the hospital has been established in the Convalescent Home, Cromwell House, Highgate, where fifty-two beds are provided and nearly 400 children are received yearly. Dr. Mead's house formed a good starting-place for the hospital, and in 1875 the first half of a new hospital was completed from the designs of Mr. E.M. Barry, a cheerful red brick and terra cotta building, in which the results of twenty years' experience and the teachings of sanitary science have been skilfully embodied. No. 13 Great Ormond Street is St. George the Martyr Working Men's Club and Mission Hall. At Nos. 46 and 47 are the Roman Catholic Church, Convent and Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem.

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¹ Doran's Jacobites.

¹ Rose, vol. ii. p. 166.
² Trevelyan, Life of Lord Macauley, vol. i. p. 127.