Tag Archives: hazlitt

Survived in Soho

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IN SEPTEMBER 1940, a 17th century church in London’s Soho was destroyed by fire because of aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe. All that remained intact was the tower at the west end of the church, St Anne’s Soho. Today, the tower still stands and overlooks a small but interesting churchyard.

St Anne’s was completed in 1686 during the period when Soho was becoming urbanised as London grew in a westerly direction. It had been designed either by (more likely) Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723) or by William Talman (1650-1719), or maybe they collaborated (www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vols33-4/pp256-277). According to John Timbs, writing in “Curiosities of London”, published in 1867, when the church was standing:

“The interior is very handsome and has a finely painted window at its east end.”

Sadly, this no longer exists. The tower, which we see today, was built in about 1806 to the design of Samuel Pepys Cockerell (1753-1827), great-great nephew of the diarist Samuel Pepys, to replace an earlier one that had become unstable.

The pleasant rectangular churchyard that extends from the tower to Wardour Street measures approximately 150 feet by 80 feet. It contains several fascinating memorials, some of which used to be inside the church before it was bombed. Standing near the northern edge of the churchyard is the prominent gravestone for the essayist William Hazlitt (1778-1830), one of my favourite writers, who died in a house in Frith Street, not far from the church. His gravestone bears an extremely lengthy inscription, which might have been composed by a lawyer and poet called Charles Jeremiah Wells (c1800-1879; http://www.lordbyron.org/persRec.php?choose=PersRefs&selectPerson=ChWells1879), who had become a “devoted acolyte” of Hazlitt (according to his biographer AC Grayling). Amongst many other positive attributes, the inscription describes Hazlitt as:

“… The unconquered Champion of Truth, Liberty, and Humanity…”

There is a second monument to Hazlitt, which is attached to the wall of the tower. This has less of an inscription, but includes the words:

“Restored by his grandson February 1901”.

Near to this and also attached to the tower, there is a small rectangular metal plate in memory of the Welsh philosopher David Williams (1738-1816), who founded The Royal Literary Fund in 1790, lived in Gerrard Street, and is buried somewhere in the churchyard.

The most curious memorial in the churchyard is to Theodore, King of Corsica. The monument informs that Theodore died in the Parish of St Annes soon after his release from the King’s Bench Prison in 1756.  This man, Theodore Anthony Neuhoff, who was born in Prussia, disembarked from an English vessel on the coast of Corsica in Spring 1836. He had with him a considerable supply of arms and money. He led the Corsicans in a successful revolt against their Genoese rulers and was crowned ‘King of Corsica’. After a short time of peace, the Genoese returned, and Theodore travelled around Europe trying to seek foreign supplies and aid. His journey took him to Livonia, France, and Holland, where he managed to obtain a frigate armed with 52 guns and an army of 150 men. Sadly, the Neapolitans arrested him and imprisoned him in the north African town of Ceuta. Unable to help his Corsican subjects, he fled to London, where problems with debt landed him in prison (for full story, see: “The Patrician, Vol. 1”, 1846, edited by Bernard and John Burke). His memorial states that after getting into debt, he “registered the Kingdom of Corsica for use of his creditors”.  His memorial was financed by the writer and politician Horace Walpole (1717-1797), whose words about Theodore, who died a pauper, are inscribed on the stone:

“The grave, great teacher, to a level brings

Heroes and beggars, galley-slaves and kings;

But Theodore this moral learn’d ere dead;

Fate pour’d its lesson on his living head,

Bestow’d a kingdom, and denied him bread.”

The bodies of Hazlitt, Williams, and the King of Corsica, are amongst the 60,000 corpses buried in the graveyard, which his why the level of the ground in the churchyard is much higher than the pavement in Wardour Street that runs alongside it.

Hidden from sight because it is below the ground floor of the tower are the ashes of the author Dorothy L Sayers (1897-1957), who was a churchwarden at St Anne’s between 1952 and 1957. I have not yet discovered her connection with Soho.

More recent monuments are also of interest. There is a list of those of the parish, who died in WW1. Beneath that there is one to those who died in active service in WW2, which includes several with probably non-English surnames: Rosenfeld, Grossman, Kosky, and Masser. This monument also remembers those in the parish who died during the Blitz. A small plaque on a post in a flower bed records the names of three young people who were killed on the 30th of April 1999 when the Admiral Duncan pub in nearby Old Compton Street was bombed by a racist homophobe, David Copeland (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47216594). A triangular wooden bench near the monument to the victims bears a plaque that reads:

“This triangular bench represents Brixton, Brick Lane, and Soho, three places brought together by acts of hate, made stronger by acts of love. 17 – 24 – 30 April 1999”.

The three places were all sites of horrific nail bombings that April.

So much for the churchyard, but what about the church? After many years of having used the site of the bombed church as a car park, which I can dimly recall, a new building that contains social housing as well as a small chapel was built in the early 1990s. The new church is entered from Dean Street. Apart from being a site of many historical associations, the churchyard is a peaceful haven in the heart of a normally busy part of central London.

Hunting for Hunt: poets in Hampstead

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I MUST CONFESS THAT I knew nothing about Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) until I became interested in the history of Hampstead in North London. What triggered my interest in Hunt was seeing a house named Vale Lodge in a part of Hampstead called The Vale of Health. Vale Lodge, a late Georgian (early 19th century, pre-1831) house modernised in the 20th century, is difficult to see from the lane by which it stands because it is surrounded by a high wall.

Vale Lodge

People, who have lived in Vale Lodge include the writer Edgar Wallace (1875-1932); the Russian-born industrialist Sir Leon Bagrit (1902-1979); and the banker Sir Paul Chambers (1904-1981). One source (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1379083) mentions that Vale Lodge was:

“… home of Edgar Wallace, writer, and probably also the residence of Leigh Hunt, poet.”

Well, that got me interested because I had read that Leigh Hunt lived in the Vale of Health from 1816 onwards for a few years.

Hunt, a radical, was a critic, essayist, and poet. He was a co-founder and/or collaborator of several periodicals including “The Examiner”, “The Reflector”, “The Indicator”, and “The Companion”. In about 1812/13, Hunt and his two brothers, also involved with “The Examiner”, were imprisoned for libelling the Prince Regent (the future King George IV). Whilst incarcerated in the Surrey County Jail, Hunt was visited by his eminent friends including:

“…Lord Byron, Thomas Moore, Lord Henry Brougham, and Charles Lamb … When Jeremy Bentham called on him, he found Hunt playing battledore.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Hunt).

On his release from prison in 1815, Leigh:

“… went to live in the Vale where he stayed until 1819, returning again for a brief period in 1820-1.” (www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol9/pp71-73)

Hunt’s home in the Vale of Health not only inspired him to write some poetry extolling the virtues of Hampstead, but also attracted several of his contemporaries who were notable literary figures. These included the poets Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Bryan Waller Procter (1787-1874) and John Keats (1795-1821) as well as the painter Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846) and the essayist William Hazlitt (1778-1830). When I was studying at University College, I read some of Hazlitt’s essays. Some words he wrote about the fear of death made a great impression on me:

“Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when we were not: this gives us no concern – why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be? I have no wish to have been alive a hundred years ago, or in the reign of Queen Anne: why should I regret and lay it so much to heart that I shall not be alive a hundred years hence, in the reign of I cannot tell whom?” (from “Table Talk”, published in 1821).

The poet Keats, who had slept in Leigh Hunt’s home in the Vale of Health, took a great liking to Hampstead and settled there in 1817. He lived in Wentworth House, which was later renamed ‘Keats House’. The house was built in about 1815 (https://keatsfoundation.com/keats-house-hampstead/) and divided in two as is common with modern semi-detached houses. One half was occupied by Charles Armitage Brown (1787-1842), a poet and friend of Leigh Hunt and the other half by Charles Wentworth Dilke (1789–1864), a literary associate of Hunt and a visitor to his home in the Vale of Health. Keats became Brown’s lodger. Keats had first visited the house when the poet and playwright John Hamilton Reynolds (1784-1852), who was part of Leigh Hunt’s circle of friends, introduced him to Dilke, Brown’s friend and neighbour.

While living in Hampstead, Keats wrote much poetry including “Ode to a Nightingale” (and other “Odes”), “Isabella”, Hyperion”, “St Agnes”, “La Belle dame sans Merci”, and began working on “Endymion”.  It has been suggested that Keat’s poem “I Stood Tiptoe Upon a Little Hill” was inspired by his experience of Hampstead (www.hamhigh.co.uk/lifestyle/heritage/rare-keats-handwritten-poem-inspired-by-hampstead-heath-goes-up-3438636). Another of his works, “Dedication. To Leigh Hunt esq” relates directly to his friend Hunt (words: www.bartleby.com/126/1.html). His poem “Sleep and Poetry”, according to Leigh Hunt (http://spenserians.cath.vt.edu/TextRecord.php?textsid=36069):

“… originated in sleeping in a room adorned with busts and pictures … ‘On Sleep and Poetry,’ was occasioned by his sleeping in one of the cottages in the Vale of Health, the first one that fronts the valley, beginning from the same quarter.”

The house was that of Leigh Hunt (https://www.bartleby.com/126/1000.html#31).

There is no doubt that many now famous literary and artistic people congregated around Leigh Hunt while he has living in the Vale of Health, but there appears to be some uncertainty as where exactly he resided. One suggestion, already mentioned, is Vale Lodge. However, a 19th century writer, William Howitt, wrote of Hunt’s residence in his “The Northern Heights of London” (published in 1869):

“The house, which he occupied … was pulled down to make way for the great hotel just mentioned.”

The site of the hotel, which has also been pulled down, is now occupied by a block of flats called Spencer House. If that is the case, then Vale Lodge can be remembered for at least one literary figure, Edgar Wallace, if not also Leigh Hunt.