No. 22 Soho Square
In 1680 William Marchant of London,
merchant, who was possibly one of Richard Frith's
mortgagees, leased this house for twenty-one years
to Thomas Wharton, later first Marquess of
Wharton and a prominent Whig politician. The
rent was £90 per annum for the house and £4
per annum for the coach-house and stables behind
it in George (now Goslett) Yard. (ref. 168)
The ratebooks record Wharton as living here in
1683, but in October 1686 he assigned the house
to Susanna Lady Powlett (or Poulett), who lived
here until her death in about 1693. (ref. 169)
The house subsequently passed to Sir Robert
Rich, second baronet, as the result of a complicated Chancery lawsuit. Rich's claim to the
property was derived from his mother-in-law,
Dame Elizabeth Rich. She had married, as her
second husband, one John Berners or Barners,
to whom William Marchant was said to have assigned the house. Thomas Wharton's counterclaim, though based on an earlier sub-lease from
Marchant, was unsuccessful. (ref. 170)
Sir Robert Rich was one of the Lords of the
Admiralty and occupied the house in 1695–6,
when he moved to an official residence and let his
own house in Soho Square. Referring to the
many abuses perpetrated by the Admiralty, the
Secretary of State, Robert Harley, complained that
this official house had cost the King £3,000 'at a
time when there was an extraordinary scarcity of
money'. (ref. 171) Later inhabitants of No. 22 included
Sir Robert Rich, fourth baronet, M.P. and Field
Marshal (younger son of the second baronet),
1716–26; Captain Paule, 1738; Sir Henry
Coltrop,? Sir Henry Calthorpe, K.B., of Elvetham, Hampshire, 1739–46, and Captain
Jennings, 1748–50. (ref. 33)
Alderman William Beckford, Lord Mayor of
London in 1762 and 1769, lived at No. 22 from
1751 to 1770. The rateable value of No. 22
during most of these years was £68, considerably
less than the rental of £90 per annum paid by
Thomas Wharton, the first tenant of the house,
nearly a century before. Unlike his brother
Richard at No. 1 Greek Street (now the House
of St. Barnabas, in the south-east corner of Soho
Square), Beckford did little to improve the house.
Instead, he spent his energy and money in ceaseless political activity, most of which must have
emanated from his house in Soho Square. He was
a prominent supporter of John Wilkes, whose
release from prison in April 1770 he celebrated
by decorating the front of the house with a banner
described by Horace Walpole as being 'embroidered with "Liberty" in white letters three
feet high. Luckily the evening was very wet,
and not a mouse stirred'. (ref. 172)
Alderman Beckford died at No. 22 Soho Square
in June 1770. His only legitimate son, William
Beckford the younger, later celebrated as the
author of Vathek and as the builder of Fonthill
Abbey, had been born here in 1759. (ref. 60)
After Alderman Beckford's death the house
was taken in 1772 by Dr. George Armstrong as
premises for his Dispensary for Sick Children,
which had outgrown its previous home near
Red Lion Square. Armstrong was a pioneer in
paediatric treatment and teaching. He strongly
deprecated putting the sick children of the poor
into the public hospitals and so parting them from
their parents. Instead, with the help of a number
of charitable subscribers, he provided them with
free medical treatment at his public dispensary. (ref. 173)
The opening of this institution in Soho Square
was announced on 9 October 1772 in The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser. 'On Tuesday
next the 13th instant the Dispensary for the Relief
of the Infant Poor will be removed from East
lane to Soho-square, the house last occupied by
the late Mr. Alderman Beckford—Dr. Geo[rge]
Armstrong over the door. The Doctor attends
constantly on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, from eleven to one o'clock, to administer
advice and medicines gratis to such poor children
as are brought to the Dispensary. He gives advice
to private Patients on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and
Saturdays, at the same hour. N.B. The poor are
desired to come the back way to the Dispensary,
that is, by George-yard'. (ref. 174)
Financial difficulties forced Armstrong to remove the dispensary from Soho Square in 1780,
when it was stated that 'The number of Patients
relieved by this humane Institution from its
Commencement in April 1769 [near Red Lion
Square] to the present Time, is near Thirty-five
thousand'. The dispensary moved to King
Street, Seven Dials, but closed in 1781 when
Armstrong had a stroke. (ref. 175)
The existing nondescript seven-storey block of
showrooms and offices on this site was erected in
1913–14 to the designs of F. Taperell and
Haase (ref. 176) (Plate 71b, fig. 5).