CHAPTER I
Estate and Parish History
Volumes XXXIII and XXXIV of the
Survey of London describe the parish of St.
Anne, Soho, which was formed out of
part of the parish of St. Martin in the Fields in
1686 (fig. 1). The ground on the east and south
sides of Leicester Square, which was never in the
parish of St. Anne, has also been included in
order to present a complete account of the Leicester estate, of which it formed part.
The Northern Part of the Parish
The area to the north of Shaftesbury Avenue
was bounded on the north by Tyburn Road (now
Oxford Street), on the east by Hog Lane (later
Crown Street, now Charing Cross Road), on the
south by the road from St. Giles's towards St.
James's (later King Street, now Shaftesbury
Avenue) and on the west by Colman Hedge Lane
(now Wardour Street). This area was known
in the sixteenth century as St. Giles's Field (see
the plan of 1585 reproduced on Plate 1a). The
greater part of this ground, later called Kemp's
Field and Bunch's Close or Soho Fields, belonged
in the Middle Ages to the Master of the Hospital
of Burton Saint Lazar in Leicestershire, who was
custodian of the leper hospital of St. Giles in the
Fields. The remainder, a long narrow strip on
the east side of Colman Hedge Lane, belonged to
the Abbot and Convent of Abingdon. In 1536
the lands of both the Master of the Hospital of
Burton Saint Lazar and of the Abbot and Convent of Abingdon were surrendered to Henry
VIII for the formation of a royal park for the
Palace of Whitehall, and later became part of the
Bailiwick of St. James. (ref. 1)
(fn. a)
The whole of the Bailiwick of St. James was
subsequently given by Charles I to Queen Henrietta Maria. After the Restoration Henry
Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans, who had accompanied
Henrietta Maria into exile in France in 1644,
became possessed of Soho Fields and other lands
within the bailiwick by successive grants from the
Queen and from Charles II for a term expiring
at Michaelmas 1734. (ref. 2) In 1673 St. Albans and
his trustees leased nineteen of the twenty-two
acres of Soho Fields to Joseph Girle of St. Marylebone, brewer, (ref. 3) who three years later obtained a
royal licence to build there. (ref. 4) In 1677 Girle
disposed of both his lease and his licence to Richard Frith, citizen and bricklayer of London, (ref. 3) who
with a number of associates was responsible for
building development here (see Chapter II). In
1698 William III granted the Crown freehold of
the greater part of this area to William, Earl of
Portland. (ref. 5) The Crown freehold of most of the
remainder, comprising land in Dean Street in
which the Pitt family had had a leasehold interest,
was disposed of in 1830 by exchange for other
lands elsewhere in the West End of London, and
by sale in 1833 (see Chapter IX). The only part
of the nineteen acres retained by the Crown after
1833 was the site of Monmouth House on the
south side of Soho Square, which was disposed of
piecemeal, the last portion in 1955. (ref. 6)
The three acres of Soho Fields which were not
included in St. Albans's lease of 1673 to Joseph
Girle became, after an exchange, the site of St.
Anne's Church (Chapter X) and of the Greek
Church and St. Martin's almshouses in Crown
Street (Chapter XI). The Crown freehold of the
latter was granted in 1684 to Thomas, Lord
Jermyn, in trust for the parish of St. Martin,
to whose trustees he conveyed it in 1686; (ref. 7) the
site is now occupied by the St. Martin's School of
Art in Charing Cross Road.
To the west of Soho Fields lay the long narrow
strip of ground referred to above, which until its
surrender to the Crown in 1536 had belonged to
the Abbot and Convent of Abingdon. The Abingdon lands continued to be held together for many
years under leases granted by Henry VIII and his
successors, but in February 1721/2 the freehold
of part of these lands in Soho was conveyed to
the trustees of the will of Sir William Pulteney,
in whom the leasehold interest was then vested. (ref. 8)
In 1830 the Crown disposed, by exchange, of
some of its remaining land here to Sir Richard
Sutton, who had inherited the Pulteney family
estate. (ref. 9) The rest of this strip on the east side
of Wardour Street, whose history is described
in Chapter XII, is still in the possession of the
Crown and is now vested in the Crown Estate
Commissioners.
Figure 1:
Estate boundaries in the late seventeenth century
The Southern Part of the Parish
The area to the south of Shaftesbury Avenue
was bounded on the north by the road from St.
Giles's towards St. James's (later King Street,
now Shaftesbury Avenue), on the east by the road
leading from St. Giles's Church to St. Martin's
(later Upper St. Martin's Lane and West Street),
on the south by the royal mews, and on the west
by Colman Hedge Lane (now Whitcomb Street
and Wardour Street). This area formed part of
St. Martin's Field (see the plan of 1585 reproduced
on Plate 1a). Its early history is not altogether
clear, but the greater part of it (or possibly all
of it) came into the possession of Henry VIII
between 1536 and 1547. The previous owners
included the Abbot and Convent of St. Peter's,
Westminster, the Abbot and Convent of Vale
Royal in Cheshire, the Abbot and Convent of
Abingdon (?), John Digby and the Countess of
Oxford (the latter as heiress to the ground previously held by the Beaumont family).
Most of these lands in the southern part of the
parish only remained in the possession of the
Crown for a very few years, and only two acres
were ever described as being within the Bailiwick
of St. James. In 1554 Queen Mary sold two
portions, containing some seven acres in all, (ref. 10)
and other Crown grants of the freehold were made
in 1590 (ref. 11) and 1623. (ref. 12) The last piece of Crown
land, consisting of two acres of the Military
Ground, was granted by Charles II in 1676
to Charles, Baron Gerard, (ref. 13) who in the following
year leased the whole of the Military Ground to
Dr. Nicholas Barbon, the building speculator, and
John Rowley, timber merchant (ref. 14) (Chapter XVI)—the only case within this area where the Crown
grantee was in any way concerned in the subsequent development. Everywhere else in this
southern part of the future parish of St. Anne
there were intermediaries through whom the
ownership of the ground ultimately coalesced to
form (in addition to Gerard's Military Ground)
three estates—that acquired by Robert Cecil,
first Earl of Salisbury, in 1609 (ref. 15) and 1610 (ref. 16)
(Chapter XIV), that acquired by Robert Sidney,
second Earl of Leicester, in 1630 (ref. 17) and 1648 (ref. 18)
(Chapters XVII–XXI) and that acquired by Mountjoy Blount, Earl of Newport, in 1634 (ref. 19) and
1654 (ref. 20) (Chapter XV). Part of the ground acquired by the Earl of Salisbury now belongs to the
Salisbury Settled Estates, but the Sidney family's
ground was sold at the end of the eighteenth
century while that of Lord Newport was sold
by his heir in 1682 to Dr. Nicholas Barbon, (ref. 21)
who already held the lease of the adjoining
Military Ground estate.
The Parish and Vestry of St. Anne
The lands which later comprised the parish of
St. Anne had in medieval times been within the
parishes of St. Margaret, Westminster, and
St. Martin in the Fields. St. Martin's Field (the
area to the south of Shaftesbury Avenue) had
been partly in St. Margaret's and partly in St.
Martin's, while further north a small piece of St.
Giles's Field had also been in St. Margaret's
parish. (ref. 22)
Henry VIII's westward extension of the Palace
of Whitehall across the road from Charing Cross
to Westminster resulted in the 1530's in travellers
having to pass through the precincts of the palace,
and the bodies of the parishioners of St. Margaret's
who died in the part of the parish to the north and
east of Whitehall had to be carried through the
palace for burial at the parish church. In order
to avoid risk of infection from the bodies of those
parishioners who 'doe Dye of any Desease Pestilence Ague or any other Contagious Sickness',
Henry VIII in 1534 directed the Abbot of Westminster that all 'Parishioners of Your Parish
of St. Margarett dwelling within . . . St. Martins
. . . by North & East Our said Mannor [i.e., the
King's Palace of Whitehall] be Seperate . . . from
the Parish & Parishioners of St. Margaretts &
. . . from henceforth . . . taken for Parishioners
of St. Martins'. (ref. 23) By letters patent of 1542
Henry VIII rearranged the boundaries of the
two parishes, and transferred all the area between
the Church of St. Clement Danes and the royal
palace of Westminster, formerly part of St.
Margaret's, to the parish of St. Martin in the
Fields. (ref. 24)
(fn. b) Thus when the westward expansion of
London in the latter part of the seventeenth
century required the building of a new church for
the Soho district, the parish of St. Anne was
formed by detaching part of the parish of St.
Martin, and St. Margaret's was unaffected.
The building of a new church in Soho seems
to have been first contemplated in 1676 (see
page 256), one year before Richard Frith began
to develop Soho Fields. In February 1676/7 ten
gentlemen from St. Martin's and the intended
new parish of St. James met to discuss the bounds
of that new parish, (ref. 26) which was also to be formed
out of St. Martin's. By August 1677 the site of
the new church in Soho had evidently been
decided, for in that month trustees acting on
behalf of St. Martin's parish exchanged the small
piece of land in Soho Fields which the Earl of St.
Albans and his trustees had leased to them in 1674
for two other pieces of ground which later became
the sites of St. Anne's and of the Greek Church
and St. Martin's almshouses (ref. 27) (see page 256).
In February 1677/8 the vestrymen of St.
Martin's were meeting ('by seaven of the clock
in the morning') to discuss the boundaries of the
new parish intended for 'the Church now in
building by the Bishopp of London in Kemps
Feild' (i.e., Soho Fields), (ref. 28) and in March a Bill to
establish the new parish was introduced into the
House of Commons. (ref. 29) By this time the dedication
to St. Anne had also been decided, (ref. 30) possibly as a
compliment to the thirteen-year-old Princess
Anne whose mentor was the Bishop of London.
This first Bill was sent to committee after its
second reading in May, but no more was heard of
it and in that month leave was given for the
introduction of a second Bill with the same
purpose, which received the royal assent on 15
July 1678. (ref. 31) The Act set forth the boundaries
of the intended new parish and provided that this
'precinct' should become a separate parish on the
Lady Day (25 March) following the consecration of the church. The inhabitants should then
become subject to the general laws in force for the
choice of churchwardens, overseers of the poor,
surveyors of the highways and scavengers, the
first of whom were to be chosen by the vestry of
St. Martin shortly after the consecration of St.
Anne's Church. At the same time the Westminster Court of Burgesses was to appoint constables and beadles and make rules for watch and
ward. (ref. 32) The provisions in the Act for the completion of the church are described on page 259.
The establishment of the new parish and
vestry depended upon the completion of the
church. From 1678 to 1684 nothing is known
about the progress of this work, but on 30 April
1685 Bishop Compton established a twelve-man
commission to be 'supervisors of and for the building of the said church', and recommended that if
there were not enough money for the church, the
commissioners should seek statutory power 'to
raise money of the Inhabitants and Owners'
within the future parish. (ref. 33) Shortly afterwards the
commissioners decided to act on the bishop's
advice and on 3 June 1685 the House of Commons gave leave for a Bill to be brought in to
'build' the church at the cost of the inhabitants. (ref. 34)
The Bill received the royal assent on 27 June. (ref. 35)
The Act directed the bishop within thirty
days to appoint thirty 'of the best and most discreet Inhabitants in the said Precinct' to complete
the church, and after its consecration to be
(together with the rector and churchwardens) the
vestrymen of the new parish, with power to fill
vacancies as they occurred. (ref. 36) On 8 July 1685
Compton appointed this second commission, (ref. 37)
which on 21 March 1685/6, the date of consecration of the church, (ref. 38) became the Select Vestry
of the parish of St. Anne. (fn. c)
In March 1741/2 a number of the principal
inhabitants of the parishes of St. Anne, St.
George, Hanover Square, St. James, St. Margaret
and St. Martin in the Fields, all of which were
governed by Select Vestries, presented a petition
to the House of Commons protesting against the
'managing the Affairs of the said Parishes, exclusive of and without the Knowledge and Concurrence of, the rest of the Inhabitants.' (ref. 39) The
petition was referred to a committee, but leave to
bring in a Bill for the reform of Select Vestries
was refused. (ref. 40) At St. Anne's, however, the reformers did not give up, and on 24 January 1743/4, when the Select Vestry was holding a meeting to fill vacancies caused by death, 'several other
Inhabitants of this Parish came into the said
Vestry Room and opposed their proceeding to an
Election, asserting that there was no Select
Vestry legally Constituted . . . but that all parish
Business there ought to be done in an open or
General Vestry'. The vestrymen decided to
seek counsel's opinion. (ref. 41) What happened next is
not clear—many years later the vestry clerk stated
that 'certain inhabitants entered the vestry-room,
and turned out the gentlemen who were acting as
select vestrymen, and burnt their books' (ref. 42) —but
by 21 May 1744 an Open Vestry, at which all
ratepayers could attend, had taken over the
management of the parish. (ref. 43)
This Open Vestry survived until 1855. Polls
at which all ratepayers (including female ratepayers (fn. d) ) were entitled to vote were frequently
held, usually for the appointment of parish
officers, but (although some 1,400 persons were
qualified to attend and vote) the affairs of the
parish were said in 1829 to have been conducted
in an orderly manner. (ref. 42) After 1818 both the
polls and the proceedings of the vestry appear to
have been conducted under the system of plural
voting established by the Act of that year (ref. 46) for the
regulation of parish vestries, (ref. 42) but the vestry of
St. Anne decided not to adopt the Act of 1819 (ref. 47)
authorizing the establishment of Select Vestries
for the management of the relief of the poor. (ref. 48)
Hobhouse's Act of 1831 for the better regulation
of vestries was not adopted at St. Anne's. (ref. 49)
The Act of 1855 which established the Metropolitan Board of Works provided that the vestry
of St. Anne should in future consist of the rector,
two churchwardens and twenty-four vestrymen,
the latter to be elected by all ratepayers who had
been assessed for the relief of the poor for at least
one year. The Act also provided for the unification of the parishes of St. Anne, St. Paul, Covent
Garden, St. Mary le Strand, St. Clement Danes,
the Precinct of the Savoy and the Liberty of the
Rolls, which together were to form the Board of
Works for the Strand District. The members of
the board were to be elected by the constituent
vestries and liberties. (ref. 50)
The main functions of these local boards were
the paving and cleansing of the streets, the
maintenance of sewers (other than main sewers)
and the making of minor street improvements.
Under the provisions of the London Government
Act of 1899 all the vestries and district boards of
works ceased to exist, and their powers were transferred to the twenty-eight newly established
metropolitan borough councils, of which the
Westminster City Council was one. (ref. 51)
Watching
The history of the parish watch-house is
described on page 276. Until 1736 the parish
beadles and the unpaid constables had been
responsible for the maintenance of law and order,
but this arrangement had proved inadequate, and
by five Acts of Parliament passed between 1734
and 1736 all the parishes of Westminster except
St. Clement Danes and St. Mary le Strand obtained power to raise a watch rate and employ
watchmen to guard the streets by night. One
of these Acts, passed in 1736, recited that the
beadles in the parish of St. Anne had proved to be
'of great charge and little use' and that the method
of raising money to pay them had 'been also precarious and unwarrantable'. The Act therefore
authorized the vestry to appoint watchmen and
pay them out of a watch rate not exceeding sixpence in the pound. (ref. 52) In 1739 there were six
constables, four beadles and twenty watchmen. (ref. 53)
In 1829 the parish watch came under the
jurisdiction of the new Commissioners of
Metropolitan Police.
Paving, Cleansing and
Lighting
An Act of 1762 established commissioners for
paving, cleansing and lighting the streets of
Westminster and certain adjoining parishes. (ref. 54)
By an Act of 1771 the Westminster Paving
Commissioners' powers were considerably diminished, each vestry being authorized to elect a
committee to supervise newly paved streets,
except the so-called 'optional' streets where the
occupants preferred to remain under the authority
of the commissioners. (ref. 55) In 1783 another Act
transferred the sole power to pave, clean and light
all the streets in the parish of St. Anne (including
the optional streets) to a twenty-one-man committee whose members were to be elected annually
by the inhabitants in vestry assembled. There
were also ten trustees, who had to have an estate
worth at least £300 per annum, or personalty of
at least £10,000, and who were to supervise the
committee. (ref. 56) The streets were maintained under
this Act until 1855, when responsibility was
transferred to the Board of Works for the Strand
District.
The Origin of the Name Soho
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word
Soho as 'an Anglo-French hunting call, probably
of purely exclamatory origin', and cites examples
of this usage from the early fourteenth century
onwards. The first known use of Soho as a placename in this locality occurs in 1636, as a heading
in a list of ratepayers in the parish of St. Martin in
the Fields. (ref. 57) In October 1641 Anna Clerke, 'a
lewd woman', was bound over to keep the peace
after 'threteninge to burne the houses at So:ho', (ref. 58)
and in September 1642 William Colley, yeoman,
was accused of using foul language against Noah
Cliffe, one of the parish constables, and of
'threateninge to burne the houses at Sohoe'.
In the same month John Walker, yeoman, was
arrested by Cliffe for 'quarrellinge at 3 of the
clocke in the night at Soho'. (ref. 59)
A parliamentary survey of Crown lands made
in 1650 describes 'the severall tenements situate
at a place called So:ho' and makes it clear that
they were on the east side of the modern Wardour
Street and extended from Oxford Street southward to Bourchier Street. The southernmost of
these houses, evidently at or near the north corner
of Wardour and Bourchier Streets, was built of
brick and tile and was valued at four pounds
per annum. It contained three rooms below
stairs, a chamber and garret above, and was
'commonly called or knowne by the name of
So:ho'. (ref. 60)
The field at the north end of the west side of the
modern Wardour Street was known in the seventeenth century as Doghouse Close, (ref. 61) and although
no evidence of a canine association has been found,
it is evident that hunting took place over the lands
to the west of Wardour Street. The Lord Mayor
and aldermen of the City of London used periodically to inspect the water conduits, including that
leading 'from the Town of Tyburn [i.e., Marylebone] by Pipes of Lead into the City'. An
account of one such expedition, in 1562, records
that 'the Lord Mayor . . . Aldermen, and many
worshipful Persons, and divers of the Masters
and Wardens of the twelve Companies, rid to the
Conduit Heads for to see them, after the old
Custom: And, afore Dinner, they hunted the
Hare, and killed her, and thence to Dinner at the
Head of the Conduit [at the Lord Mayor's
banqueting house, formerly on the site of Stratford Place]. There was a good Number, entertained with good Cheer by the Chamberlain.
And, after Dinner, they went to Hunting the Fox.
There was a great Cry for a Mile; and, at length,
the Hounds killed him at the end of St. Giles's.
Great Hallowing at his Death, and Blowing of
Horns: And thence the Lord Mayor, with all his
Company, rode through London to his Place in
Lombard-street'. (ref. 62)
This evidence suggests that in the 1630's and
40's the name Soho denoted a particular house or
group of houses, probably at the north corner of
Wardour and Bourchier Streets, and was soon
used to describe the range of adjoining houses
extending as far north as Oxford Street. (fn. e) By the
1680's the northern part of the street was also
known as Wardour Street (from Edward Wardour, who owned ground on the west side), but
the short stretch between Meard and Old Compton Streets is marked on Rocque's map of 1746
(Plate 4) as 'Old Soho'. This name was used
by the rate collectors until 1841, when it was
superseded by Wardour Street. Possibly the house
described in 1650 as 'commonly called or knowne
by the name of So:ho' was an inn used as a
hunting rendezvous. (fn. f)
In common parlance Soho now denotes the
large area bounded on the north by Oxford Street,
on the east by Charing Cross Road, on the south
by Leicester Square and Coventry Street, and
on the west by Regent Street; it thus includes part
of the parish of St. James as well as almost all of
St. Anne's. In the second half of the seventeenth century the greater part of the parish of
St. Anne to the north of the modern Shaftesbury
Avenue was known as Soho Fields, and after the
completion of building development here this
area was often referred to as Soho. But the parish
was referred to throughout the eighteenth century
as St. Anne's, Westminster, although in the
second half of the century the church was sometimes called St. Anne's, Soho, presumably because
of its proximity to the original area of Soho. By
1829 the parish was also being called St. Anne's,
Soho, (ref. 42) and ten years later Soho was described as
'an extensive tract of ground, occupied by numerous streets in the neighbourhood of Leicesterfields, up to Oxford-street, and abutting on
Golden-square on the western side'. (ref. 65)