J. B. Ellenor

“ It took eighteen watermen to row the barge, and I think they were paid one guinea each for the day. We used to think it a grand sight to see them in their scarlet coats and badges, breeches, low shoes and silk stockings. It used to be almost a holiday when they went out, as nobody could stick to his work. The land between the barge house and the brewery was a rare place to catch eels, and a favourite place for us boys to lay night lines, as it was always well ground-baited by the refuse from the brewery. I have taken twenty-four eels off twenty-five hooks on a night line. ”

“ One a stout, sombre-looking man, whose sole enjoyment appeared to be to sit out on the riverside of the Thames and smoke, drink beer, and read. I think I became rather useful to the boys as I could always find them bait, and knew where the best fishing was to be had, and would get them white mice. The other usher was a very much younger man, and better liked, as he would bring the boys to certain places and leave us to ourselves, with strict instructions to meet him at six. Usually the place of meeting was the Monster Tavern, at the end of the Willow Walk. ”

“ There was almost everything to be had on the course in the way of eatables and drinkables; occupants of carriages and drags began to have their lunches spread on the top of those vehicles; corks began to pop and a general onslaught was made on the provisions by everybody. The entertainments commenced their business. Sharpers in plenty, roulette tables, dice, three-card trick, pea and thimble, and the pricking in a curled up strap, and every phase of gambling without let or hindrance. ”

“ Once a year I used to go with the mother to pay the ground rent. We had to start after an early dinner and walk over Battersea Bridge along the road, with fields on each side to the top of Surrey Lane, pass Weller’s Farm, and strike off to the left by a pathway through cornfields to Long Hedge Farm—where the Chatham and Dover works now stand—and pass through some water meadows with bridges of planks across the dikes and penstocks, and up the hill by the side of some old cottages that brought you out in the Wandsworth Road ”

“ A crowd quickly surrounded us, and we were soon supplied with seconds, and were hustled by them through the large stable yard of the Castle tavern into a meadow at the back, attended by a large crowd of both men and women, and stripped for a regular fight. ”

“ There appears always to have been a radical element in Chelsea, for a large contingent met on Chelsea Common and marched to Kennington Common to give the Dorsetshire Labourers, Frost, Williams, and Jones, a grand reception on their return from imprisonment. They were drawn by four horses in a hackney carriage with outriders, and followed by a large number of vehicles occupied by their admirers, and a large crowd, when a meeting was held on Kennington Common, and violent speeches were made. ”

“ At Knightsbridge there used to be a toll collector, but I do not recollect any toll gate. A man used to come out of a gate in the fence to collect it, about where the Bank now stands, beside it the Cannon Brewery, a large building with a cannon at the top, with the back overlooking the park. That and White’s menagerie, adjoining the Fox and Bull tavern, were pulled down, and one of the first National Exhibitions was built on the ground. ”

“ At the bottom of the hill there was a large and busy crowd at that time in the morning although but a few visitors had arrived. The Grand Stand was there and the Enclosure, although very much smaller than at present. Tents and booths covered the ground extending at least one-third of the extent of the course, with the signs of well-known London taverns, long booths, fitted as stables with livery stable-keepers with familiar names attached. Boxing booths, single-stick and quarter-staff and wrestling booths. ”

“ The old man would let down gradually the pole, and the wife and daughter would wind it up. They were a terribly drunken lot; but the temptation to drink in those days in Chelsea was very much greater than at present, for since I can recollect, in that one road not much over a mile, from Battersea Bridge to Ebury Bridge on the canal, there have been eighteen public houses closed, and only one new license granted, and that is to the “Chelsea Pensioner.” ”

“ I know it was mine, and as soon as I could save up two-and-six pence and get a half holiday, I used to go up to Air Street, Piccadilly, to a tavern on the right hand side kept by a retired prize-fighter, there to have a lesson from a professional in the “noble art of self-defence,” as it was then called. There were always a lot of professionals waiting about who used to take it in turns to give the lessons, and a very shabby, disreputable lot they were. ”

“ The only part left uncovered by buildings is the Ashburton Nursery on the King’s Road front. Vauxhall Gardens had been closed some years so Cremorne was the only public gardens near London of any account.
A great impetus to all places of amusement was caused by the ’51 Exhibition in the Park. It was a grand year for all people in business in London for the visitors were immense from all quarters of the world, and you would meet in the streets the costumes of all the nationalities of the globe. ”

“ In getting nearer to London the crowd got thicker and the fun and horse-play became more furious, many of them halting at the taverns by the roadside, at all of which there was a large number stopping outside and in the fields provided for that purpose.
Getting towards Mitcham the pea shooting and the flour throwing commenced, and the men selling p. 69bags of flour there for sixpence, were doing a roaring trade. The pelting led to a good many disturbances, often ending in a fight. ”

“ Towards twelve o’clock the company began to arrive and get into place alongside the course, the four-in-hands drawn up, and carriages of every description, mostly taking out the horses to the stables in the tents, and formed a row two deep. The vans and other vehicles forming lower down in the same way, but further from the Grand Stand, and taking out the horses and tying them to the wheels, hundreds of loafers thus being busy selling pails of water and forcing their services to rub down and generally to extort a fee. ”

“ There would be as many as forty donkeys there of a morning and they would be driven in pairs by boys round to the customers and milked at their doors twice a day, which was a very large and profitable business.
On the Knightsbridge Road, opposite Gore House, stood an old tavern in the middle of the road with some old stables and sheds, a great place for the market carts and country wagons to stop at of a morning. Gore House became the residence of the Countess of Blessington, her daughter and Count D’Orsay, a very handsome and fashionable Frenchman. ”

“ 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 all had their gangs of harpies and hangers on, as the sergeant spent money freely, every recruit being worth five to six pounds to him. It was a common practice to get a lad half drunk over night, and in the morning to bounce him that he had enlisted, and there were always plenty to swear that he had done so. The recruits for the Spanish legion were a rare motley crew, and would go singing through the streets, half drunk, in gangs, that they were going fighting for the Queen of Spain, and collect drink and money. A good part of the crowd would be loafers and not recruits at all. ”

“ There was always a great crowd of amateur sportsmen outside waiting for a shot at any birds that escaped, and frequently a dispute would arise as to who shot the bird, often ending in a fight.
There were no buildings on the right hand side of p. 35the road, but some marshy ground and a row of willow trees between it and the canal as far as the basin, which was surrounded by a few shops and wharves, and where Victoria Station now stands. ”

“ Of all the slippery things to handle, a naked man beats everything. The noise we made brought his wife and the two women in, and with their assistance we got him on to the bedstead, and with strips of the sheet we tore up, we tied him down to the bedstead, and he appeared to be pretty well done up. By that hour it was time to open, as there were always early customers on a Sunday morning, as it was a noted house for Dog’s Nose and other early drinks at that time. ”

“ When we had got the patient comfortably settled, I had some p. 56breakfast and went home with five shillings in my pocket, but I do not think I felt like taking on another such job.
Funerals on the river in those days were a frequent occurence. I recollect one in particular. A young man invalided home from the East India Company Service in an advanced stage of consumption came to stay with a sister at Chelsea. The husband worked at the malt house on the river, and there the young man died. He was a native of Mortlake and they took him there by the river in a boat to bury him. ”

“ We had a fair stand-up fight, the only one I ever had in my life, and was well attended. I got terribly punished in the body, but not a crack on the face. It lasted nearly twenty minutes, when a master butcher that was well known in the neighbourhood, pushed through the crowd and said that “The young ’un has had enough of it,” and the crowd began to murmur, when the butcher turned round and said, “If any of you particularly want a fight, you can have one. ”

“ It was called Jews’ Row, bounded by White Lion Street on the east, Turk’s Row on the north, and Franklin’s Row on the west, and was inhabited by the very lowest and most depraved and criminal class both male and female, many low lodging houses and thieves’ kitchens, and the roadway was at least one foot six inches lower than the path, and all along the curb the low, loose women would sit and insult and rob the passers by. ”

“ The amount collected at a time would be as much as fifty or sixty pounds. There was a grand prize, a boat to cost twenty pounds, and various money prizes. The limit of entries was twelve, to be drawn by lot by Chelsea watermen, with certain restrictions. The race was in two p. 27heats, six in a heat, the first and second in the two heats to row in the final; the course from a point opposite the “Yorkshire Grey” stairs, round a boat moored opposite the “Adam and Eve,” back and round a boat moored opposite the Brunswick Tea Gardens at Nine Elms, and back to the starting point. ”

“ The King’s Road only took a second place in Chelsea proper. Paradise Row and Cheyne Walk were considered the busiest and most thriving parts of the village, as nearly all its industries were located on the river bank, and nearly all the best families lived in Cheyne Walk or Paradise Row, and in the p. 9Royal Hospital, where the old soldiers used to pass the board, and pensions were paid. ”

“ Opposite the Church in the corner by the Church draw-dock stood the cage, and by the side of it the stocks, then came Lombard Street, and the archway with shops and wharfs all along the riverside up to Battersea Bridge. At that time there were fishing boats, and fishermen got a living by catching roach, p. 31dace, dabs and flounders, and setting pots for eels all along Chelsea Reach, and between Battersea Bridge and Putney, and they would hawk them through the streets of a morning. ”

“ At Sutton a carriage containing four ladies and p. 68a foreign-looking old gentleman, all elegantly dressed, and a man sitting on the box, had the misfortune for the post boys to get so drunk that one of them fell off his horse and had to be left behind, and the other was so incapable that he had run into several traps and done damage and was stopped by a threatening crowd, when he got off his horse and wanted to fight and was quite unable to continue his journey. Just then a four-in-hand drove up and was appealed to by the lady occupants for assistance. ”

“ I was always fairly successful in getting employment, as I was always ready and willing to earn a few shillings, our circumstances being needy. I recollect sitting at home one Saturday evening when a friend of mother’s came in who kept an old tavern at the bottom of Church Street, and was in sad trouble. ”

“ Great precautions were taken, the military were all confined to barracks, and a large number of artillery with their guns from Woolwich were drafted into London overnight, and all the body of local reserve men—old soldiers with pensions—were kept under arms, and 100,000 special constables were sworn in.
p. 47The recruiting sergeant in Chelsea on Whitsun and Easter Mondays and during the regatta was very active. There would be two or three smart fellows from the cavalry with one or two young fellows, posing as recruits, for decoys. ”

“ All the shops and private houses had their windows decorated and full of visitors. It was reported that thirty thousand horses at that time went to Epsom on the Derby Day along the road at this point. The wayfarers to the Derby were mostly horsey-looking tramps with pails on their shoulders in twos and threes, very shabby and down-at-heel. Both men and women, with almost every toy or trinket you could mention ”