This little book might easily, by a competent pen, be made the text to a volume, as large, if not as useful, as the huge “Post Office Directory,” of which it was the modest precursor. No such ambitious object as the production of a volume of that class is to be here indulged in. On the contrary, the purpose of the present short introduction is to offer a few suggestions upon topics obviously belonging to the contents of this commercial record of the merchants and goldsmiths of London in the second half of the seventeenth century. It will be found to demonstrate the It has, indeed, been so in all time. From Homer’s catalogues down to the knightly nomenclature of the “Roman de la Rose,” and other long-breathed poems of the middle ages; from the Battle-abbey Roll of the conqueror’s chiefs at Hastings, and from that of King Henry’s army at Agincourt to our modern musters, such documents elucidate acceptably the course of military heroism. The conjecture is as ingenious, as it is just, lately made about Shakespeare’s early life, that the Admiralty books, with their myriad of seamens’ names, may give his in some royal ship, and so account for his perfect sea phrases. The most interesting manuscript lists are those of the notabilities present at the Preston Guild for more than 500 years; and that of the founders of a Library in Hereford 200 years ago. The Guild is in existence still. The books given to the library by Viscount Scudamore, and some hundreds of the county people, were rotting on a damp floor not long since. It may be hoped they are now better cared for. Equally attractive are the lists still preserved of the zealous contributors to public loans to meet a national crisis. John Locke and Somers were among the first proprietors of the Bank of England. Those of the East India Company, or the like Stocks were the leading Tories. The founders of our early colonies—holders of even five-shilling shares—have thus their enduring record; and a diligent collector may enrich his library of tracts with the printed names of all the graduates of old Harvard College in New England in the seventeenth century—so zealously did the Puritans ground their sons in learning. The present production, although of more moderate pretensions, contains individual names of some historical weight. Its most striking feature is the severance of “Goldsmiths that keep Running cashes”—precursors of the modern bankers—from the mass of merchants of London, in 1677. Before that year the goldsmiths had really been bankers, and proper laws had long been advocated for their better establishment in the craft. This list fixes their residence chiefly Other banking names are striking, viz. the Cornish Bolitho, the Lancashire Hornby, the Yorkshire Duncomb. These men may be presumed to have enriched their descendants who are still conspicuous among us. The rest of the Goldsmiths of 1677 seem to have been little remarkable in the next generation, when, after the revolution of 1688, joint-stock banking, and safe facilities in paper currency took the start which constitutes an era in finance. The capitalists of London in the reign of Charles II. were sorely damaged by his iniquitous shutting of the Exchequer against their legitimate claims. They were content at last to be simply the first holders of stock in the national debt, into which their claims were turned. But Michael Godfrey, the first deputy-governor of the bank, and Sir N. James Heriot has a stronger association with a Scottish worthy of finance, George Heriot, the goldsmith, and the munificent benefactor of Edinburgh, who came south with his patron, King James; and, as his biographer tells us, he prospered here as he had prospered in the north. Besides his bequests to his native town, he left ample legacies to his brothers-german, of whom one was James; and their wealth and name were assuredly represented In it also stands John Peatterson, a merchant already, and so giving a body to the tradition in Dumfriesshire which places William Paterson of the Bank of England in the counting-house of a relation of his own name in London about 1677. The spelling of the two names Fowles and Peatterson is correctly phonetic, so as to show the Scottish nationality of the men; and in the latter case showing also the tact with which Eliot Warburton in his “Darien” makes a Scottish friend criticise his clumsy English pronunciation of the word Paterson. Another name in the general list, that of Alexander Pope of Broad Street, has an even more famous association, as Mr. Camden Hotten shows in his Adversaria for July, 1857. The locality was then a charming suburb of gardens; and although the poet Pope, when taken away with his father, the popish merchant, to be educated in Windsor Forest by a priest, may have been too young to know how genial a home he was losing, he need not Gresham’s garden was in Broad Street, with its lectures on music and all science. King Richard’s Crosby Hall, and Shoreditch with its unhappy leman of Edward IV, were hard by; whilst Milton’s birth-place, his retreat, and his grave were close at hand. The picturesque character of old London, graced by the sparkling Thames of olden time, is a circumstance not to be forgotten, when we are calling up the memories of any class of its inhabitants. In 1677 the city was full of fine residences for merchants; and in this list we meet with names of entertainers of wits of the time. Here is Fountain, doubtless father to the wealthy knight with whom Dean Swift was familiar, as shown in his letters to Stella. Here, too, is Kiffen, the Baptist Alderman whom James II. could neither affright nor seduce, with a less respectable name of the same class, that of William Lob. Here is Benjamin Bathurst, the founder of The “Richard Steele” in the list must have been related to Sir Richard, who was more successful in the advocacy of the rights of trade with his pen than in his multifarious commercial schemes. The special occupations of these merchants are not stated with much precision. After the Goldsmiths come the Black-well Hall factors, representing our ancient staple in woollens, whose privileges were the occasion of a great legal controversy shortly before the date of this little publication; and they were settled with prodigious learning in the Common Pleas by Chief Justice Sir Orlando Bridgman, as may be seen in his logical judgments. One particular address is very interesting. It is at “the Insurance Office,” then a new institution among us, and only extended with great success in the beginning of the next century, in the reign of Queen Anne. The Royal Exchange was a prominent place of business for our merchants of 1677. The Dutch walk, the Turkey walk, the Irish walk, The division of the merchants in their respective dignities is worth a passing reflection. Some are knights and baronets; some are aldermen; the mass are plain John or Thomas, with a considerable sprinkling of Misters—the master of olden times being an addition of worship. The Captains and Majors of the list were doubtless the officers of the train-bands, of no little historic fame in London, from King John and Magna Carta even to John Gilpin. The homes of many of the merchants named in this list were in the suburbs of London, and there they seem to have transacted their business, not in the City. We find them at Highgate, so well known before as the residence of the philosophic Earl of Arundel, where Lord Bacon died,—at Newington Green, Islington, Clerkenwell Green, Hackney, The Hogsden of the list (our Hoxton) is shown to have been pretty full of merchants; and we know how delightful a group of gardens that suburb possessed in the olden time. Not very long after 1677, its worthy horticulturist Fairchild there practised his art with eminent success; and not only founded the annual sermon still preached by distinguished divines every year upon the bounty of the Creator in the gifts of nature, but tried hard with his pen to teach the citizens to adorn London with gardens. This is a consideration well worth pursuing at this moment of London’s revival. Her seventy graveyards, so long festering charnel-houses, may, under wise direction, become centres of floral beauty and instructive recreation to our youthful London population. Some resided on “The Bridge,” the London Bridge for ages covered with dwellings, from one of which the daughter of a rich citizen fell into the Thames to be saved by the bold apprentice Osborne, who married her, and founded the ducal family of Leeds. The painted portraits of the more distinguished of these fathers of our trade would deserve a special study. Sir John Houblon’s may be seen at the Bank of England; Benjamin Bathurst’s is assuredly piously preserved by his ennobled family; Sir John Tulse, who has left his name perpetuated on the picturesque hill near the Crystal Palace, must have possessed good taste enough to be a portrait-painter’s patron; and the letter in the Spectator asserting our superior appreciation of that branch of art is well justified in the numerous portraits scattered all over the land. Our commerce is indeed exceedingly rich in materials of historical portraiture, and in its products. Without ostentatiously boasting of a superiority which is not to be pretended over the statesmen who grace so many halls, our merchants, from the pencils of Holbein and Antonio The topic of Gresham’s University has some elucidation from the list of 1677. Comparatively few merchants then resided in Broad Street, or in Bishopsgate Street. Rents were therefore low in that quarter. In 1760, when the Gresham property was sold, under an Act of Parliament, for the Excise Office, its income was less than 450l. a-year; and the government made it up to 500l. The sale, however, to the Gresham Chambers’ Company, a few years since, netted a very large sum to the Treasury. That surplus is believed to revert to the trusts of Sir T. Gresham’s will, The John Temple of this list was probably of Lord Palmerston’s lineage. The Palmers of the list, too, doubtless belonged to the family which almost monopolises the Mercers’ Company—Gresham’s trustees; and so Sir Roundell Palmer, the Solicitor-General, must not desert his duty. Nor will he have forgotten his own labour of love in Gresham’s lecture-room, when he helped his relative, Professor Palmer, to do justice to his charge. Earl Russell will not, on this occasion, refuse his powerful aid to the improvement of the citizens of London, so often the defenders of liberty, and the advocates of science. The City has indefeasible claims upon Earl Russell’s sympathies—if for nothing more—for the sad Finally, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Gladstone, will readily part with the large proceeds of the Gresham Charity-estate, which, by all the calls of conscience, and the kindred rules of equity, belong to an object which he, of all men, the most approves—the liberal instruction of our youth. The Harveys of the list are of a honoured stock. They are near kinsmen to Dr. William Harvey, famous in medical history as the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. He passed many of the last years of his eventful life with his brother Eliab, the merchant of London, who possessed “noble feats, and at least 3000l. a year,” says Aubrey. In those days the physicians, with their College in Warwick Lane, may be held to have been citizens. It was at the Royal Exchange that Drs. Mead and Ratcliffe fought their well-known duel. Three original copies of the list of 1677 are known. One is in the Bodleian library; one in the Manchester Free Library, bought for 5l., (from this, owing to the kindness of R. W. Smiles, Esq., the Librarian, the present reprint has been made); one was sold at the sale of the Rev. Mr. Hunter’s library for 9l., although imperfect. The volume—here reproduced as almost a fac-simile—is a curious little precursor of the London Directory, grown from its first edition of 1732 in 300 pages, to the huge volume, the Post Office Directory of the present day. In the Lambeth Library there is such a list in manuscript of thirty years earlier date. It is a list of all the inhabitants of London liable to pay tithes, with the amounts due from each. During the progress of this little volume through the press a most interesting fact relative to the history of trade has come to light. It appears from an old pamphlet that an “Office of Addresses” was started as early as 1650, by Henry Robinson, a well known writer on matters of commerce and finance during the commonwealth period. The ideas Decorative banner Licensed Octob. 11. 1677. Roger L’estrange. Decorative banner A COLLECTION OF THE NAMES OF THE MERCHANTS Living in and about The City of London; Very Usefull and Necessary. Carefully Collected for the Benefit of all Dealers that shall have occasion with any of them; Directing them at the first sight of their name, to the place of their abode. LONDON, Printed for Sam. Lee, and are |