St Peters Italian Church, Clerkenwell

I visited this beautiful Roman Catholic Church this week nestled in the City of London on Clerkenwell road, Holborn.

As a little girl my Nanny Rose said it was beautiful in there, and this was my very first time visiting. 

As I climbed up the steps from the main road there is a carved memorial in the shape of a ship dedicated to the Arandora Star which shows 3 drowning men reaching up to the cross from the waves. It was erected to remember those Italians that were killed when the Anadora Star sank in July 1940. Arandora Star's final voyage, was the transport of Italian and German internees as well as German prisoners of war to Canada. She was sunk by a German U-boat with a large loss of life, 865 is the estimated figure.

Above the façade is a 33 metre-high bell tower, built in 1891 which houses a bell known as "The Steel Monster".

As I then opened the double door, my Nanny Rose for sure was right I was in total awe the church is absolutely stunning. It opened in 1863, it was at the time the only church in Britain designed in the Roman basilican style. 

The Irish architect John Miller Bryson worked from plans drawn by Francesco Gualandi of Bologna, modelled on the Basilica of San Crisogno in Rome. It has a tranquil feel and i could have easily spent hours there, soaking up the prayerful atmosphere and admiring the stunning painted ceilings and artwork.

During World War II when Italian immigrants were interned, Irish Pallottines made use of the church. In 1953 it was returned to Italian control, since then it has been substantially remodelled during 1996.

The church has been the main gathering and reunion venue for the "Little Italy" community of Clerkenwell, and is a central feature of the annual procession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel held in mid July this is Little Italy’s most important event. Except during wartime it has taken place annually since at least 1896. According to the church’s historian, “it appears to have been the first outdoor Roman Catholic manifestation of faith in England since the time of Henry VIII’s Reformation”. 

Queen Victoria is said to have granted special permission to the local police chief in Holborn for the parade to take place.

St Peters Italian church is now one of my favourite churches in London.

St Peters Italian church is a listed Grade II building by Historic England and was first listed on 14 May 1974.

Ingersoll, Clerkenwell

This building situated on St John street & Skinner street used to be the factory of the watch makers Ingersoll.

The factory was built during the 1930s by an architect Stanley Waghorn (the brother of Gilbert Waghorn, who designed several factories around Barking and Stratford) modified slightly around the edge of the building on the St John Street façade to incorporate the green and off-white mosaic with the logo of Ingersoll at the top of the building.

Ingersoll Watch Company began in New York City in 1882 by brothers Robert and Charles Ingersoll. The first Ingersoll watches, 'Universal', were introduced in 1892. These were small spring-driven clocks fitted into watchcases.

Production of Ingersoll watches in Clerkenwell stopped when the new factory of the Anglo-Celtic Watch Co. Ltd opened near Swansea, in the late 1940s. Ingersoll Ltd was one of the two shareholders of the Anglo-Celtic Watch Co. Ltd.

In the 1950s, the Clerkenwell factory was bought by Condé Nast and became the pattern factory for fashion magazine Vogue. As a result, the building is now known as Pattern House rather than the Ingersoll building. In the mid-1990s, after 60 years of industrial use, it was converted into lofts then today it is now industrialised flats.

Sweet Fanny Adams

The phrase ‘Sweet Fanny Adams’ came into popular usage in Victorian England to mean nothing or very little, but was there a real Fanny Adams? The answer is yes, and her story is anything but sweet. The phrase also appears today as "sweet F.A. Maybe we should think before using this saying ...... and this is why.

Fanny Adams born on 30 April 1859 was an English girl who was murdered by solicitor's clerk Frederick Baker in Alton, Hampshire on 24 August 1867. The murder itself was extraordinarily brutal and caused a national outcry in the United Kingdom. On that day Fanny was out playing with her friend Minnie Warner and her sister Lizzie Adams.

As the girls were walking towards Flood Meadows and into a hop garden they met Frederick Baker, a 24-year-old solicitor's clerk. He was wearing a frock coat, light-coloured trousers and a tall hat on his head. Baker had moved to work and live in Alton about two months prior, which allegedly made him unfamiliar with the town.

Baker gave Minnie and Lizzie three halfpence to spend on sweets and Fanny another halfpenny. The girls had seen Baker before at church meetings and were thus unconcerned to take money from him. Baker then watched the girls run up and down The Hollow (a lane leading to the nearby village of Shalden) as they played and ate the blackberries he had picked for them.
An hour later, Lizzie and Minnie decided that they had had enough and opted to go home. Baker then approached Fanny and asked her to accompany him to Shalden. Fanny refused, and it was then Baker picked her up and carried her into the nearby hop garden near her home.

She was then brutally murdered and her body cut into several pieces, with some parts never being found. Further investigations suggested that two small knives were used for the murder, but it was later ruled they would have been insufficient to carry out the crime and that another weapon must have been used.

Sometime between 7-8pm the discovery was made by a labourer
Thomas Gates who found the head of Fanny Adams stuck on two hop poles while he was tending to the crops. An ear had been severed from the head which had two large cuts, from mouth to ear across the temple. Further investigation discovered the remains of the child; the head, arms and legs were separated from the trunk. There were three incisions on the left side of the chest, and a deep cut on the left arm, dividing her muscles. Fanny's forearm was cut off at the elbow joint, and her left leg nearly severed off at the hip joint with her left foot cut off at the ankle point. Her right leg was torn from the trunk, and the whole contents of her pelvis and chest completely removed. Five further incisions had been made on the liver, the heart cut out, and vagina missing. Both of her eyes were cut out and found in the nearby River Wey.

Baker was eventually found guilty and on Christmas Eve 1867 Baker was hanged outside Winchester Gaol. The crime had become notorious and a crowd of 5,000 attended the execution. This was the last public execution held at that gaol.

Fanny Adams was buried in Alton cemetery Hampshire. Her headstone was erected by voluntary subscription, reads:
Sacred to the memory of Fanny Adams aged 8 years and 4 months who was cruelly murdered on Saturday August 24th 1867.
Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell. Matthew 10 v 28

The image of a young girl which appears to have a studio feel to it, in this instance is supposedly used to capture the innocence in a child. There was an alternative photo which is also supposed to be Fanny Adams, which I have included in this post.


Such a horrific sad story which I only learnt this month.
God Bless Fanny Adams

Northampton Institute, Clerkenwell

Although not situated in the town of Northampton but on St John street Clerkenwell. It was named the Northampton institute as it was built on land in 1894 presented by the Marquess of Northampton, close to the centre of the British manufacturing optics industry. It opened for classes in 1896.

The first principal was Dr Robert Mullineaux Walmsley born in 1854 and lived until 1924 he was an electrical engineer with a keen interest in optics and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers known as the SMC. A point of personal interest is that he lived in the next road to the notorious Dr Crippen. In August 1898 this was the very first institution in the UK to provide systematic educational courses in technical optics.
These were:
*      Optical and scientific instruments
*      Applied optics and heat and its applications      for opticians
*      Visual Optics

Over time the name has changed from The Northampton Polytechnic Institute to Northampton College of Advanced Technology,
then became The City University in 1967.
City joined the University of London federation on 1st September 2016. The University of London was founded by Royal Charter in 1836. City changed its name to 'City, University of London' to reflect this change, its logo including the strapline 'Est 1894'. In January 2017 it was announced that The College of Optometrists had accredited City, University of London as a provider of its professional certificate in paediatric eye care.

Sources for this post include:
college-optometrists.org.uk
Images: Google/archives

The Musical Coalman

Thomas Britton (14 January 1644 – 27 September 1714) was an English charcoal merchant best known as a concert promoter. Remembered today as ‘The Musical Coalman’.

Britton moved to London at a young age and apprenticed himself to a small coal-man (a charcoal merchant) in Clerkenwell. He learnt the trade and returned to his home village of Rushden Northamptonshire, but soon returned to London in search of bigger and better opportunities. Setting up a business that rivalled his former master, he turned a stable off Aylesbury Street in Clerkenwell into his store and home.

In London, Britton became known for his singing voice. His business proved successful, and he spent much of his spare income on building up a library. In doing so he became known to other book collectors, and people who shared his passion and was able to meet and discuss literature with various nobles.

In 1678, Britton fitted the loft of his Clerkenwell house out as a tiny concert hall, fitting a harpsichord and an organ with only five stops. This was an unglamorous venue, accessible only by an external staircase, the relative novelty of a series of concerts, coupled with the support of Roger L'Estrange, who inaugurated the venue with a performance on the viol, known also as Viola  da gamba attracted a considerable audience.

Britton's knowledge of literature and the arts became well known, and his modest and honest nature and acceptance of his social position was often noted. These were qualities appreciated by contemporaries who considered themselves socially superior. His concerts became regarded as the premier venue for chamber music in London, with an audience drawn from a wide social spectrum. The concerts were free at first, but Britton later requested an annual subscription of ten shillings, considered exceptionally low even at the time.

By 1712, Ralph Thoresby was able to note: "On our way home called at Mr. Britton's, the noted small-coal man, where we heard a noble concert of music, vocal and instrumental, the best in town’.

Britton's social successes sparked some jealousy, and his concerts were alleged to be meeting places for religious dissenters, atheists, or forums for political intrigue. However, their accessibility and the popularity of Britton gradually put paid to these rumours.

In 1694, Britton auctioned a substantial part of his library. Despite his social successes and considerable income, he continued to work as a small coal-man all his life.
The concert series ran for thirty-six years and was the longest-lasting in the late seventeenth century.

In September 1714, Justice Robe, a Middlesex magistrate, decided to play a practical joke on the superstitious Britton. He employed a ventriloquist named Honeyman to project his voice and tell Britton that his end was near and that he should fall to his knees and repeat the Lord's Prayer. The elderly Britton did so, and was so affected that he died within a couple of days.
Following his death, Britton's widow sold his collection of music, which was mostly purchased by Hans Sloane.

Today in Aylesbury street at the junction with Jerusalem Passage in Clerkenwell a green plaque marks the location of Thomas Britton’s house.

There are 8 portraits of Thomas Britton the one featured in this post is by John Wollaston
oil on canvas dated 1703 which is on display at the Handel House Museum, in London.

Tamzine

At the Imperial War Museum this week I saw this very special civilian fishing boat called Tamzine which was built in Margate, Kent in 1937.
The boat was named Tamzine, after a sailing skipper's eighteen year-old wife who was drowned in a shipwreck off the Scilly Isles in the 1700s, and is buried in the St Mary's Cemetery, Isle of Scilly.
Tamzine is the smallest surviving little ship that helped rescue The British Army from Dunkirk in May and June 1940.

In May 1940 the Germans advanced quickly through Holland, Belgium and France. The French and British fell back to the coast, where as many soldiers as possible rescued at Dunkirk. Hundreds of British ships and small boats crossed the Channel to work the beaches, carrying men to larger warships moored further off the coast.

Characteristics:
Length:14ft 7.5ins
Beam:5ft 1.5ins
Draught:1ft 6ins

Photo 1: Bow view of Tamzine

Photo 2: Side View

Photo 3: Shows Plaque of the Arms of Dunkirk and plaque denoting Battle Honour " Dunkirk 1940"

Annie Chapman, Whitechapel Murders

The Illustrated Police News was a weekly illustrated newspaper which was one of the earliest British tabloids. It featured sensational and melodramatic reports and illustrations of murders and hangings and was a direct descendant of the execution broadsheets of the 18th century. Founded in 1864 ceased publication in 1938.

Annie Chapman was born Eliza Ann Smith, c. 1840  and died a horrific death on 8 September 1888. Annie was a victim of the notorious still unidentified to this day serial killer Jack the Ripper. The Ripper killed and mutilated several women in the Whitechapel area of London from late August to early November 1888.

Annie Chapmans body was discovered by resident John Davis in the yard of 29 Hanbury street Whitechapel.

In 1888, 29 Hanbury street consisted of eight rooms with a total of seventeen people living inside. The ground floor was occupied by Mrs. Harriet Hardiman and her 16 year old son. Both of them slept in the front room which doubled as a shop where they sold cat's meat. The rear room was used as a kitchen.
The first floor front room belonged to Mrs. Amelia Richardson and her 14 year old grandson. She had lived here for 15 years. Her business was making packing cases, employing her son, John, who did not live on the premises. She also rented the cellar, which was used in manufacturing, and the yard. The first floor back room was shared by a Mr. Waker, a maker of tennis boots, and his adult son who had a mental disability but at the time was referred to as a retard.
The second floor front room contained a family consisting of a carman named Thompson who worked at Goodson's in Brick Lane, his wife and adopted daughter. The back room was shared by two unmarried sisters named Copsey who worked in a cigar factory.
The third floor attic front room was occupied by an elderly man, John Davis who was also a carman and a market porter and his wife and three sons. the attic rear belonged to Sarah Cox, an elderly woman whom Mrs. Richardson kept out of charity.

Dr George Bagster Phillips, the police surgeon, described Annie Chapman’s body as he saw it at 6:30 a.m. in the back yard of the house at 29 Hanbury Street:
The left arm was placed across the left breast. The legs were drawn up, the feet resting on the ground, and the knees turned outwards. The face was swollen and turned on the right side. The tongue protruded between the front teeth, but not beyond the lips. The tongue was evidently much swollen. The front teeth were perfect as far as the first molar, top and bottom and very fine teeth they were. The body was terribly mutilated ... the stiffness of the limbs was not marked, but was evidently commencing. He noticed that the throat was dissevered deeply; that the incision through the skin were jagged and reached right round the neck ... On the wooden paling between the yard in question and the next, smears of blood, corresponding to where the head of the deceased lay, were to be seen. These were about 14 inches from the ground, and immediately above the part where the blood from the neck lay. ...
The instrument used at the throat and abdomen was the same. It must have been a very sharp knife with a thin narrow blade, and must have been at least 6 to 8 inches in length, probably longer. He should say that the injuries could not have been inflicted by a bayonet or a sword bayonet. They could have been done by such an instrument as a medical man used for post-mortem purposes, but the ordinary surgical cases might not contain such an instrument. Those used by the slaughtermen, well ground down, might have caused them. He thought the knives used by those in the leather trade would not be long enough in the blade. There were indications of anatomical knowledge ... he should say that the deceased had been dead at least two hours, and probably more, when he first saw her; but it was right to mention that it was a fairly cool morning, and that the body would be more apt to cool rapidly from its having lost a great quantity of blood. There was no evidence ... of a struggle having taken place. He was positive the deceased entered the yard alive ...
A handkerchief was round the throat of the deceased when he saw it early in the morning. He should say it was not tied on after the throat was cut.

Annie Chapman was buried on 14 September 1888. At 7:00 am that day, a hearse supplied by Hanbury Street undertaker H. Smith went to the Whitechapel Mortuary in Montague Street, the utmost secrecy having been observed, and none but the undertaker, police, and relatives of the deceased knowing anything about the arrangements. Her body was placed in a black-draped elm coffin and was then driven to Harry Hawes, a Spitalfields undertaker, who arranged the funeral. At 9:00 am, the hearse (without mourning coaches so as not to attract the public's attention) took the body to the Manor Park Cemetery, Sebert Road, Forest Gate, London, where she was buried in a public grave.
Her relatives, who paid for the funeral, met the hearse at the cemetery and, by request, kept the funeral a secret and were the only mourners to attend. The coffin bore the words "Annie Chapman, died Sept. 8, 1888, aged 48 years." Chapman's grave no longer exists; it has since been buried over. In 2008, the cemetery authorities decided to mark her grave with a plaque.

Ridley Road Market, Hackney

Ridley Road Market has been an East London institution since the late 1880s, at that time it was in Kingsland High Street as well as a fair it moved around the corner to Ridley Road when a tramline was installed. The area was owned by Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London from 1550 to 1553, hence the name Ridley Road.

Capturing the area's rich history of immigration and cultural diversity. During 1947 and 1949 when it was the site of clashes between Oswald Mosley-led fascists and the Jewish anti-fascist 43 Group.

After the second world war, pre-war fascist leader Oswald Mosley, freed from his wartime prison in 1943, tried to rebuild the fascist movement he had led in he 1930s. A core of former British Union of Fascist leaders, joined by younger men, took up the largely anti-semitic agitation they had revelled in before the war.

Jewish areas of London, or areas where a mix of Jews and other communities mixed, were seen as areas for street meetings and rallies, this was to pick up support from and to foster, local xenophobic sentiment, and to intimidate and provoke.

Ridley Road, in Dalston, East London, was one of the regular battlegrounds between fascists and 43 Groupers, as it had been between the BUF and their enemies in the ‘30s, and would be again in the 1960s. A bustling street market, in an area with a large Jewish community, saw repeated fascist meetings and anti-fascist response.
This scene was repeated numerous times in Ridley Road, and in other areas of London seen as targets by the post-war fascists. Although in 1948 Mosley and the fledgling fascist groups combined to form the Union Movement, the constant battering they took from the 43 Group, with weekly fights all over town, took its toll on them.

Moseley stood for Parliament twice in the postwar era, gaining very little support. He was politically disgraced by his association with fascism, then moved abroad in 1951, spending the majority of the remainder of his life in Paris. The agitation had largely faded out by 1952.
However the core of the nazi movement and the underbelly of racism it fed on then resurfaced over following decades, though new migrant groups would become the object of the fascists’ main venom.

Today the market mirrors Hackney’s diverse population, with stalls full of Turkish, Jewish, Asian, African, Caribbean and local goods, from exotic fruit and vegetables to clothes and household wares.