The Morris Dancers at Chelsea on May Day or early in May would pay us a visit, generally consisting of from nine to twelve, all men or lads. They had the appearance of countrymen, dressed some in smock frocks, others in shirt-sleeves, breeches and gaiters, and all decked out in coloured ribbons tied round their hats, arms, and knees of their breeches, with long streamers, and others carrying short sticks with ribbons twisted round, and bows on top, or garlands of flowers tied on small hoops. They generally stopped outside the taverns in the roadway and danced to a drum and pan pipes, tambourine and triangle. They would form themselves into three rows, according to their number, about three feet apart each way, and would dance a sort of jig, and change places by passing in and out and turning round to face one another, striking their sticks and twisting their garlands to the time of the music, and then stamp their feet and give a sort of whoop or shout, and finish with a chant in honour of the month of May, and make a collection among the crowd.

The “Endeavour,” a wooden paddle boat, was the first to run three times a week from Dyer’s Hall Wharf, London Bridge, to Hampton Court; leaving London Bridge at nine and passing Chelsea at about a quarter past ten. The passengers had to be put on board in the wherries at a charge of threepence each. A signal was made from the Yorkshire Grey stairs for them to lay to to take them on board, as there was no pier at Chelsea at that time. The boat, always once or twice during the summer, would come to grief under Battersea Bridge by knocking its paddle-box off, and get a-ground once or twice before it got to Hampton Court. I have several times seen her a-ground just before you get to Kew Bridge, and lay there for two or three hours with no way of getting ashore but by being carried on men’s backs through the mud. The fare was three shillings and sixpence, and five shillings. They always advertised “Weather and Tide permitting.” If everything was favourable they would arrive about half past twelve and leave again at four. The passengers were not very numerous. The boat ran for about two years, and then one called the “Locomotive” started, a very much superior boat, and much quicker; and a start was made for a ider of a very primitive character at the Yorkshire Grey stairs—merely two old coal barges with gangways from the shore, and one from a landing stage. A company was then formed called the Chelsea Steamboat Company, with four small wooden boats, and a pier was built.

The Wellesley Street tragedy (now called Upper Manor Street), occurred on the left hand side about four or five doors from the top. The house was kept by an old lady who let the best part to lodgers, and on one Sunday evening about nine she had taken her supper beer from the potman at the Wellesley Arms, who came round in those days at meal times with a tray made for the purpose of carrying beer to be sold at the customers’ doors; and about eleven o’clock the people who occupied the upper part of the house came home and opened the door, but did not find any light as they expected, as it was usual for the old lady to leave a candle burning on the ledge of the staircase window. They went to a neighbour to get a light and returned and found the old lady at the foot of the stairs. She appeared to have been stunned and then strangled. The jug with the beer was standing on the stairs, the place had not been robbed, and nothing had been disturbed. The people in the house had been recently married, and it had been their practice to go away the whole of the Sunday and spend it with their friends. There were several arrests, but there appeared to be no clue, and the matter was never cleared up; the only theory was that it was a contemplated robbery, someone knocking her down and then strangling her, but got scared and took to flight without taking any thing.