Whitechapel

“ With Whitechapel constantly in mind, it was difficult not to advise these young people to use some of this muscular energy of which they were so proud, in cleaning neglected alleys and paving soggy streets. Their stores of enthusiasm might stir to energy the listless men and women of East London and utilize latent social forces. ”

“ Adams, 17; cf. ch. xiii (Duke of York’s) . The further suggestion of Adams, 8, that Rawlidge in 1628 (cf. p. 360) wrote ‘Whitefriars’ for ‘Whitechapel’ is less plausible. Rawlidge is only dealing with play-houses within the City.
[1327] Adams, 17, identifies the site with Boar’s Head Yard, between Middlesex Street and Goulston Street, Whitechapel. But this is the house of 1557 (v. supra) within the liberties. Rocque (1746) shows an oval site, just east of Church Lane and south of the church of St. Mary, Whitechapel, which rather suggests an amphitheatre, but may be merely a churchyard. ”

“ A newspaper paragraph has reminded me of a sign with a history, which I once saw in the Minories. In the year 1719 a boy was born of humble parentage in Whitechapel, who, as Benjamin Kenton, vintner and philanthropist, achieved a considerable reputation. He was educated at the charity school of the parish, and in his fifteenth year apprenticed to the landlord of the Angel and Crown in Goulston Street, Whitechapel. Having served his time, he became waiter and drawer at the Crown and Magpie in Aldgate High Street, not long since pulled down. ”

“ It is always full. The steams of beer and spirits perpetually ascend to the ceiling, and, being condensed by the heat, roll down the walls like rain; there are more old suits of clothes in it at one time, than will be offered for sale in all Houndsditch in a twelvemonth; more unwashed skins and grizzly beards than all the pumps and shaving-shops between Tyburn and Whitechapel could render decent, between sunrise and sunset. ”

“ The letter itself, however, when examined, gives no indication whatever of Eastcheap, and other evidence shows conclusively that the inn was situated in Whitechapel just outside of Aldgate.
[3] See especially The Acts of the Privy Council and The Remembrancia of the City of London.
[4] There is some error here. The city had no jurisdiction over Whitefriars, or Blackfriars either; but there was a playhouse in Blackfriars at the time, and it was suppressed in 1584, though not by the city authorities. Possibly Reulidge should have written "Whitechapel." ”

“ This class includes the upper portion of the Whitechapel Group, and the two lower strata of the Clapham Group. The Whitechapel Group is the most elevated layer of the inferior series. The Shabby Genteel stratum occupies a wide extent on the Surrey side of the water—it is part of the Clapham Group, and is found in large quantities in the neighbourhood of Kennington, Vauxhall, and the Old Kent-road. A large vein of it is also to be met with at Mile-end and Chelsea. It is the lowest of the secondary formation. ”

“ For, although part of the street between Aldgate and Whitechapel is sometimes called, as in Ogilby’s map of 1677 and Rocque’s of 1746, ‘Whitechapel Street’, yet Whitechapel proper lay outside the liberties, farther to the east [445] along the Mile End Road. [1327] The only other contemporary record of the Boar’s Head is a letter to Edward Alleyn from his wife Joan on 21 October 1603, in which she says, ‘All the companyes be come hoame & well for ought we knowe, but that Browne of the Boares head is dead & dyed very pore, he went not into the countrye at all’. ”

“ Canon Barnett’s Church in Whitechapel is an example of what may be done with a parish composed entirely of working-people. They do not attend his services, I believe. But he has educated them into an audience which listens intelligently to the best and most thoughtful and most cultivated scholars and teachers of the day; they flock every year to a Loan Exhibition of Pictures which he collects for them ”

“ How many settlers in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland also were recruited from it, I know not; but the reader may have it at second-hand from me, as I had it at firsthand from my genealogist, that some Virginian names of the first quality originated in Whitechapel, which, in the colonizing times, was a region of high respectability, and not for generations afterwards the perlieu it became, and has now again somewhat ceased to be. ”

“ The Earl and Countess of Whitechapel had the honour of entertaining at dinner last night the Marquess and Marchioness of Scilly, the Countess (Dowager) of Broadhem, the Earl of Broadhem and Lady Ursula Newlyte, Mr and Lady Jane Helter, Lord Grandon, the Honourable Spiffington Goldtip, and Mr Scraper. ”

“ His sermons attracted working men by plain appeals to their good sense and right feeling. On 3 Nov. 1851, on the recommendation of Lord John Russell, he was appointed to a canonry in St. Paul's, and the dean and chapter of that cathedral in 1860 gave him the vicarage of St. Pancras, a benefice at one time held by his grandfather. The rectory of Whitechapel had been held by him during twenty-three years, and on his removal he received many valuable testimonials and universal expressions of regret at his departure. ”

“ In the Minories, however, we look in vain for the ruins of the nunnery, though these were undoubtedly still standing at the time. Petticoat Lane, running into Wentworth Street, is the only street leading out of Whitechapel. On the north of Wentworth Street are the Spittle Fields; the Cloister and Cross of St. Mary Spital are visible. Lines of houses run north along Bishopsgate Street as far as Shoreditch Church.
North-east of Moorfields are Finsbury Fields. Cripplegate Without and Clerkenwell are thickly populated, including the Barbican, Chiswell, Red Cross, White Cross, and Grub Street. ”

“ From Stepney Green to the Trinity Almshouse is not a long way; you have, in fact, little more than to pass through a short street and to cross the road. But the road itself is noteworthy; for, of all the roads which lead into London or out of it, this of Whitechapel is the broadest and the noblest by nature. Man, it is true, has done little to embellish it. There are no avenues of green and spreading lime and plane trees, as, one day, there shall be ”

“ There is a single street of houses with large gardens outside Aldgate, which is now Whitechapel. The north side of Houndsditch is already built. A street of houses runs north of Bishopsgate. No houses stand between this street and two or three streets outside Cripplegate. Moorfields are really fields. There are windmills, gardens with summer-houses, pasture-fields with cows, a large 'dogge house,' and fields where women appear to be laying out clothes to dry. ”

“ Those who have cared to come and see for themselves what is being done, to stay in the house and join in its work, know that Toynbee Hall, Whitechapel, is a place where twenty University men live in order to work for, to teach, to learn of the poor. Since 1884 the succession of residents has never failed. Men of varied opinions and many views, both political and religious, have lived harmoniously together, some staying as long as fifteen years, others remaining shorter periods. All have left behind them marks of their residence ”

“ High Street, Whitechapel, is of great width and contains some large new brick and stone buildings. The Three Nuns Hotel, an immense red-brick building erected 172in 1877, and recently added to, stands near the station. By Crown Place, No. 23, is an old bow-windowed chop-house. On the east the chief feature is the large number of shops or stalls open to the street, covered by an awning or by a glass roof. These belong chiefly to butchers, and have a characteristic aspect. The last five or six houses before Mansell Street are all of considerable age and very picturesque. ”

“ The revival of religion in London, to which we adverted in a former chapter, produced permanent results. During the last half of the century, Christian godliness continued to advance. Whitefield's labors, as often as he visited the metropolis, produced a deep impression on the multitudes who, in chapels or the open air, were eager to hear him. Whitefield died in America, but a monument is erected to his memory in Tottenham-court Chapel, the walls of which often echoed with his fervid oratory. ”

“ Knight says, in her beautiful volume, "Lady Huntingdon and her Friends," "not to be beaten from his ground, yet hoping to escape some of its annoyances, Whitefield resolved to build a chapel of his own. Hence arose Tottenham Court-road chapel, which went by the name of 'Whitefield's soul-trap.'" Admirably does he say, "I pray the Friend of sinners to make it a soul-trap indeed to [94] many wandering creatures. My constant work is preaching fifteen times a week. Conviction and conversion go on here, for God hath met us in our new building." ”

“ The hall, a fine specimen of Palladian architecture, 111 feet in length and 551⁄2 feet in breadth and height, has ceiling paintings by Rubens representing the apotheosis of James I. and scenes from the career of Charles I. Whitehall was the scene of Wolsey's disgrace, Henry VIII.'s death, the execution of Charles I., who was led to the scaffold from the banqueting hall, and the deaths of Cromwell and Charles II. The hall was converted by George I. into a royal chapel. The street leading from Trafalgar Square to Westminster, in which the palace stood, is known as Whitehall. ”

“ The population of Whitehaven has greatly increased within the last ten years. The neighbouring villages, farms, and pastures, all indicate progressive advancement in the several branches of domestic industry. The land is highly cultivated, and in many instances fertile and productive; while the orchards and gardens, by the nature and abundance of their produce, bear friendly testimony to the mildness of the climate.
To the Lowther family, who have a handsome castle here, Whitehaven owes its foundation as a borough, and much of its prosperity as a trading port. ”

“ The land between was low and marshy, and even at the present day, when there has been so much levelling up, the statue of Charles I. is upon ground ten feet higher than Parliament Street. If, standing on the future site of Whitehall we looked to the westward, we saw nothing but a vast tract of low green meadow-land. If we looked to the south, we might have seen the new buildings of Westminster Abbey, unless when the Danes had been on the warpath. If we looked to the eastward, we found that the Thames washed up close to our feet. ”

“ George Whitefield, was an instrument in the hand of God of effecting in the metropolis, before the close of the first half of the century, an unprecedented religious awakening. He came up to officiate in the Tower in 1737, but his first sermon in London was delivered in Bishopsgate church. On his second visit, crowds climbed the leads, and hung on the rails of the buildings in which he was engaged to minister, while multitudes went away because not able to get anywhere within the sound of his voice. Nothing had been seen like it since the days of such men as Baxter and Vincent. ”

“ New-England before his coming was but the slaughter-house of heretics. He was admired by the oppressed episcopalians, the trembling Quakers, the bleeding Baptists, &c., &c. He was followed by all sects and parties, except the Sober Dissenters, who thought their craft in danger. He made peace where was no peace, and even his enemies praised him in the gate. Whitefield did what could not have been done without the aid of an Omnipotent arm: he planted charity in New-England, of which the increase has been a thousand-fold. He is lauded where the wicked cease from troubling ”

“ Whitehall, once the daily resort of the noble and the powerful, the beautiful and the gay, the place to which fops came to show their new peruques, men of gallantry to exchange glances with fine ladies, politicians to push their fortunes, loungers to hear the news, country gentlemen to see the royal family, was now, in the busiest season of the year, when London was full, when Parliament was sitting, left desolate. ”

“ George Whitefield, chaplain to the Right Hon. the Countess of Huntingdon, etc., was, by a sudden mandate, summoned to the bosom of his Saviour. He had been preaching in divers parts of this province since his arrival from the southward, with his usual diligence and energy; was now from a tour to the province of New Hampshire on his return to this town, but being seized with a violent fit of the asthma, was in a short space translated from the labors of this life to the enjoyment of a better. ”

“ Elizabeth made much use of Whitehall, but her buildings and improvements at Windsor must have proved a powerful attraction. She went about a good deal, and her State papers are signed in a great variety of places. She left no mark on Whitehall, although, at the very [Pg 21] end of her reign, instead of Henry the Eighth’s “palace of Westminster,” we have “Whitehall,” pure and simple, one or twice. We have seen how York Place became the Palace of Westminster. How it again changed its name, and became Whitehall, we do not know. ”

“ One of them was the creation of Methodist chapels, which were intended, not to oppose or replace, but to be supplemental and ancillary to, the churches, and to secure that the doctrine of the new birth should be faithfully taught to the people. The other, and still more important event, was the institution by Whitefield of field-preaching. The idea had occurred to him in London, where he found congregations too numerous for the church in which he preached, but the first actual step was taken in the neighborhood of Bristol. ”

“ Franklin, whom he employed as printer, had advised him on economic grounds to build the house at Philadelphia, and refused to contribute to the Georgia scheme. But, hearing Whitefield preach, he ‘began to soften,’ and concluded to give copper; ‘another stroke’ decided him to give silver; at the finish he ‘emptied’ his ‘pocket into the collector's dish, gold and all.’ His followers in Philadelphia founded there (1743) a presbyterian congregation. Whitefield himself projected ‘a school for negroes in Pennsylvania;’ five thousand acres of land were bought for the purpose. ”