Tim Hunkin’s Air B’n’Bug Machine
On a quiet Sunday morning in Holborn, I went along to visit the inventor Tim Hunkin at Novelty Automation, his magical arcade of handmade slot machines and automata just off Red Lion Sq, where he was installing his latest masterpiece. While peace prevailed in the empty streets, Tim was hard at work indoors, perfecting his AIR B’N’BUG machine.
Inspired by the ubiquitous and controversial website that enables people to rent their homes to guests, and by an outbreak of bedbugs that occurred recently in Holborn, Tim’s creation is an animated diorama comprising a series of mechanised tableaux dramatising the comic adventures of a pair of bed bugs setting out to explore the world through AIR B’N’B.
Once the machine was ready, I enjoyed the honour of being the first to savour its delights in advance of the grand unveiling next Thursday. Afterwards, Tim explained to me the genesis of his unlikely invention.
“I had been watching a lot of German Expressionist films and I was thinking of different ways of using machines to tell stories, and I accidentally made a version of it when I was working at the Exploratorium in San Francisco recently. I was experimenting with making dioramas in shoeboxes with LEDs and I thought of putting several together. So I made a story to link these random boxes and put them inside a bigger box. I liked it but I thought nobody would take a cardboard box seriously. A while later, I realised I could build a machine that was like a page of a comic and each of the scenes could light up one after another. Then I was hooked!
I was looking for a story and it materialised here in Holborn. The flat upstairs got infested with bed bugs. I got bitten and had an allergic reaction. Then a nearby hotel got infested as well and I was able to observe how they got rid of them.
I must confess I have never stayed in an AIR B’N’B property, although I think it is good idea and I would stay in one. It is a phenomenon of our times. I was thinking about it because a lot of my friends rent out rooms and it seems to put them in a state of constant anxiety.
It was a lot of fun to have an excuse to experiment with all the different visual ideas that are possible in this format. I collaborated with Paul Spooner who makes automata, he made our dream machine at Novelty Automation. I love working with him and we teach each other tricks. Once I had divided the space, I sent him some boxes to fill. He made all the carved figures, while I explored the use of video.
It took much longer than I expected. I wrote a story at the beginning of last year and went down to see Paul. Then I set to work seriously in April and I tested it on Southwold Pier during last year’s autumn half term in October. I am not used to working on this tiny scale and there’s so much of it, I had to be systematic about how everything is connected.
When I first got it on the pier, I hated it – it really didn’t work for me. So I left it for three months while I got on with other things and then went back to it with fresh enthusiasm. I simplified the story.
An important part of my original idea was that the person using the machine was going to get bitten by a bug through the headphones. I just could not get it to work, because the headphones conduct so much sound that it distracted from the sensations. I tried building in a poking device and puffing air through the headphones too, but the noise of the machine is so intense that people did not notice.
Finally, I added the curtain placing the user in a confined space with the machine and it completely transformed people’s reactions. I was amazed and delighted! It is satisfying to make something that is completely different from everything else I have made.”
All are welcome to join Tim Hunkin at the unveiling of AIR B’N’BUG at Novelty Automation next Thursday 11th October from 6:30pm until 8pm
Tim Hunkin’s arcade is situated in the last remaining Tudor house in Holborn
[youtube jYBZxozcOfM nolink]
Novelty Automation, 1 Princeton St, Holborn, WC1R 4AX. Open Wednesday- Sunday 11am-5pm, with late opening until 8pm on Thursdays.
You may like to read my other stories about Tim Hunkin
A Cockney Sikh
Spitalfields Life Books will be publishing A MODEST LIVING, Memoirs of Cockney Sikh by Suresh Singh in October. Here is the fifth instalment and further excerpts will follow over coming weeks.
In this first London Sikh biography, Suresh tells the story of his family who have lived in their house in Princelet St for nearly seventy years, longer I believe than any other family in Spitalfields. In the book, chapters of biography are alternated with a series of Sikh recipes by Jagir Kaur, Suresh’s wife.
You can support publication by pre-ordering a copy now, which will be signed by Suresh Singh and sent to you on publication.
Click here to order a signed copy of A MODEST LIVING for £20
Suresh Singh & Jagir Kaur at 38 Princelet St this summer (Photograph by Patricia Niven)
There was a lot of violence at Daneford School for Boys in Bethnal Green in the seventies. ‘Paki-bashing’ they called it. There were punch-ups in class, boys would bring bike chains to school to protect themselves and teachers got beaten up on a regular basis.
The years at Daneford were the scariest time of my life in England. When I was twelve I got my nose broken in Buxton Street in the shadow of the Truman Brewery. It was dark and there was a smell of hops in the air. I was cornered by five white National Front thugs of sixteen and seventeen years old. Two were skinheads in Harrington jackets and knee-high steel toe-capped Dr Martens bought on Cheshire Street. They saw me looking at their boots and said, ’What are you looking at?’ When I replied, ‘Nothing,’ they said, ‘You smell and you look like a Paki.’ One grabbed my arms from behind and the other punched me with his fist on my nose. They all laughed. I crumpled to the ground and they all kicked me before running away. I said nothing the whole time. Mum cleaned me up with Dettol and my cousin took me to Outpatients at the Royal London Hospital. We never reported the incident to the police.
It hurt Mum that her son had been attacked, and brought it home to her that we were in a foreign land where her son could be beaten up for the colour of his skin. She believed we had no choice but to continue working to make life better. She also knew that not all white people were racists.
The pain of that evil encounter will stay with me forever. The Sikhism I learned from Dad gave me the strength to protect myself physically and spiritually. I learned how to avoid violence. I worked out which routes to take and which not to take, and which times of the day it was safe. Sundays were the worst because that was when the National Front sold their newspapers at the top of Brick Lane.
My white mates would say, ‘Oh Singhy, you’re all right because you’re one of us.’ They adopted me, even though I came from Brick Lane where the Bengalis lived. I started to go to the pie and mash shop in Bethnal Green Road with them, but I did not like the way they treated my Brick Lane Bengali friends.
I could exist in both worlds because I was neither white nor Bengali. When the white kids said, ‘They can’t speak English properly,’ I thought, ‘It’s back-fired!’ My Bengali friends spoke in broken English, but there I was talking the Cockney lingo. The white boys would say to the Asians, ‘Go back to your own country’ and hit them – bang! I decided I could not accept this, I stood my ground and said, ‘I’m not go- ing to listen to you,’ but it was always, ‘We’ll leave you alone but we’ll beat this one up.’
I left Daneford School with one O Level in Art. I had a lovely art teacher, Christopher Price who ran an antiques stall in Camden Passage. We called him Chris. He used to dress well, smoke in class and tell us ghost stories to calm us down. I had to do a fifteen-hour painting for my O Level exam and Chris encouraged me to use colour like Matisse. Even though I did not like Matisse because I was looking at punk graphics, I took his advice because I knew it would get me a qualification. I may have moaned about it at the time but I enjoyed it too.
At Daneford, there were boys from many different cultures. My schoolmates were Isaac Julien and Mark Banks. We went to jumble sales together, a black kid, a white kid and an Asian kid. We were the best dressed boys in the school. We enjoyed the discourse with our Maoist, Socialist Worker Party, Christian Socialist and International Marxist teachers about politics, sexuality and music. Isaac and Mark became soul boys but I stayed a punk. I was the most rebellious of the three of us. My Sikhism made me fearless.
Me, Mark Banks & Isaac Julien, 1977 (Reproduced courtesy of Isaac Julien & Victoria Miro)
Suresh Singh will be in conversation with Stefan Dickers at the Write Idea Festival at the Whitechapel Idea Store on Saturday November 17th at 1pm. CLICK HERE TO BOOK A FREE TICKET
How To Make A Chapati
Spitalfields Life Books will be publishing A MODEST LIVING, Memoirs of Cockney Sikh by Suresh Singh on 18th October.
Today we present one of Jagir Kaur’s recipes from the book, as photographed Patricia Niven. These recipes have been eaten by Suresh & Jagir’s families for generations in the Punjab and they still cook them today in the East End.
I was lucky enough to eat many chapatis cooked by Jagir while we were working on the book and the magic of watching them inflate like balloons never ceased to delight me.
In this first London Sikh biography, Suresh tells the story of his family who have lived in their house in Princelet St for nearly seventy years, longer I believe than any other family in Spitalfields. Chapters of biography alternate with Punjabi recipes by Jagir.
You can support publication by pre-ordering a signed copy now, which will be sent to you on publication.
Click here to order a signed copy of A MODEST LIVING for £20
Suresh Singh & Jagir Kaur in their Spitalfields kitchen
Chapatis are the grain staple of the Punjab where most of the grain harvest of India is cultivated. We always include rotis and they are part of our blessed ceremony.
Makes about fifteen chapatis
3 cups atta (wheat) flour
1 cup cold water
1–2 teaspoons of oil (optional)
butter, ghee, or vegetable oil for coating the finished roti (optional)
Knead the flour, water, and oil (if you are using it) into a smooth dough. Then let the dough rest in the fridge for at least half an hour.
Take half-handfuls from the dough and shape them into round saucers with your palms, these shapes are known as ‘perras.’
Flatten out the perras from the centre using your thumbs to make thick, disc-like shapes, using a rolling pin to further flatten them out. Shape the chapati by tossing it back and forth from one hand to the other, making a clapping sound.
Use a tawa (flat cooking plate) to cook the chapatis. Set the tawa on a medium heat and place the flattened-out dough on the hot plate, flipping the chapati every fifteen to twenty seconds.
Towards the end of the cooking process, the chapati may be toasted briefly on the naked flame to puff it up like a balloon. This also helps cook it more evenly. You can dab a little butter or ghee on the finished chapatis to keep them fresh. Be careful not to get any grease on the cooking plate as this will make your kitchen very smoky.
Keep the chapatis warm by wrapping them in a clean tea towel.
For yellow chapatis, which are eaten with Sarson da Saag, use corn flour instead of atta (wheat) flour, and hot water instead of cold water.
Makes about ten chapatis
2 cups of fine corn flour
3⁄4 cup boiling water (start with half a cup, and add a tablespoon at a time to get the right consistency)
Mix the ingredients with a spoon until the corn flour absorbs all the liquid, making a sticky (not runny) dough. Add more water or corn flour as needed. Then knead with your hands into a ball.
Divide the dough into five equal portions. Wet your hands and flatten the dough by tossing it between your hands, making a clapping sound.
Place the tawa on high heat and place the flattened-out dough on the hot plate. Toast for about three minutes, turning frequently until brown on both sides and puffing up in the middle.
You can dab a little butter or vegetable oil on the finished chapatis to keep them fresh.
Chapati ready for cooking
Turning the chapati
Flipping the inflated chapati
A finished chapati
Buttering the chapati
Jagir Kaur with her cat Lohri Ji at 38 Princelet St
Photographs copyright ©Patricia Niven
Click here to order a signed copy of A MODEST LIVING for £20
You may also like to read these other extracts from A MODEST LIVING
The Tailor Of Horsleydown
I am delighted to publish these extracts of THE TAILOR OF HORSLEYDOWN from A London Family, written by The Incidental Genealogist, a graduate of my blog writing course. The Genealogist worked briefly as a probate genealogist thirty years ago and now she is using her professional skills to uncover her own family’s history. Click here to follow A London Family
We are now taking bookings for this autumn’s course, HOW TO WRITE A BLOG THAT PEOPLE WILL WANT TO READ on November 10th & 11th. Come to Spitalfields and spend a weekend with me in an eighteenth century weaver’s house in Fournier St, enjoy delicious lunches from Leila’s Cafe, eat cakes baked to historic recipes by Townhouse and learn how to write your own blog. Click here for details
If you are a graduate of my course and you would like me to feature your blog, please drop me a line.
St John’s, Horsleydown
When James Skelton, my great-great grandfather, married his first wife, Sarah, in Bermondsey in 1823, three years into the reign of George IV, the couple were not yet in their mid-twenties. They took their oaths at St John’s Church, in the parish of Horsleydown on Tuesday 14th October, after a summer which had been one of the coolest since observations began in 1659.
Thanks to the meticulous records of Luke Howard (the ‘godfather of clouds’), we know that their special day was one which was relatively mild for the time of year – dry and sunny, but unmistakeably autumn, with a gentle breeze and a light scattering of yellowing leaves. As they crossed the churchyard, the earth damp under their feet from the previous day’s rain, I hope they paused for a moment and allowed themselves to feel a thrill at being alive at this time and place, unaware that they would have only a limited time together.
Despite the old rhyme which says Tuesday for health, their choice of wedding day did not bring longevity. Twenty-five years later, Sarah would be struck down with an undiagnosed womb disease after raising their five children, precipitating a crisis that sent James in search of ‘fulfilment’ elsewhere. As I sat with their birth, marriage and death certificates, and those of their children and grandchildren, laid out before me like some macabre game of Happy Families, I felt privy to a horrible secret, imagining them arriving at St John’s, all nervous excitement, without knowing what was in store for them.
But on that mild Tuesday in 1823, the church was only ninety years old and yet to be hit by a bomb from the air in an unimaginable future war. To James and Sarah, the Hawksmoor church already seemed like an antiquity. It had become a joke on account of its strange weathervane. This huge iron construction was meant to represent a comet whizzing through the heavens but it reminded the parishioners of the wriggling body of a louse. Locally, the church was often referred to as ‘St John’s Lousydown’, or simply ‘The Louse Church’. No doubt James and Sarah found it amusing because – like everyone then – they would have been familiar with the common problem of body lice. But to a traveller from the twenty-first century it requires a leap of imagination to morph the iron ‘comet’ into the legs and body of a parasite they have rarely encountered.
Walking through the churchyard today, all that remains of St John’s are the foundations and crypt, controversially built over in the seventies and used as offices by the London City Mission. The graveyard is now a dreary public park, frequented by dog walkers and pram-pushing mothers, while the last remaining headstones lean forlornly against the foundations of the church.
Whenever I imagine Sarah and James walking up the wide stone steps of the church, I cannot help but see them in typical late-regency outfits: Sarah in a fashionably high-waisted dress with bonnet, gloves and shawl – James in a smart dark dress coat and waistcoat, his legs encased in the new style of long trousers (all of which he probably made himself) and his youthful hair covered with a top hat made by a Bermondsey hatter. Sarah congratulated herself on marrying a smart young man who knew the cut of cloth and had attained the rank of a master tailor, thus giving him the freedom to set up his own business and take on apprentices.
Tailoring was a common profession at the time, with most based in the communities they served. Notions of separating work from home were new and, like many skilled artisans, records show James lived over the shop. The whole family were involved in the business, from running messages to greeting customers, and their young domestic servant would have provided much-needed help for Sarah – especially once the babies came along. This spot by the Thames was where the family lived for twenty years before their move out of an increasingly-industrialised Bermondsey to the more genteel semi-rural suburb of Brixton in the eighteen-forties.
As soon as I discovered the existence of these forebears, I set off to visit the evocatively-sounding Horsleydown Lane to see if I could discover any traces of their old neighbourhood for myself. This was the first time I had been in the capital to do any fieldwork since my last foray to South London in 1992. I knew that Horsleydown Lane still existed but I had no idea of what it would look like in the twenty-first century.
It is a strange feeling to walk through streets where your ancestors once set foot, moving ever closer to the place where – for better or worse – they carved out a living. In Horsleydown, some things have not changed – the old watermen’s stairs at the foot of the lane where the Thames covered and uncovered the slipway twice a day, the glimpse of the imposing White Tower from that spot and the Anchor Tap which still has beer on tap. Yet many things had changed too and I was disappointed that so much from that time had gone, but I was delighted to come across some unexpected tangible reminders of the family’s life.
The cobblestones on Horsleydown Lane continued to reverberate with the clatter of the drayhorses and their wagons from the Anchor Brewery until the final demise of workhorses in the mid-twentieth century. Nowadays, Horsleydown Lane is relatively quiet, as visitors tend not to stray much from Shad Thames and the prevailing sound is the thrum of traffic on Tower Bridge Rd.
Popping into the Anchor Tap for an impulsive mid-afternoon pint, I grew even more confused – time seemed to telescope as I stepped through a series of interlinking rooms. The barman encouraged me to look around the place, intrigued by my genealogical search. As I wandered through the pleasing muddle of spaces and headed up the narrow twisting staircase towards the deserted dining room, I experienced the sensation of walking in my ancestors’ footsteps. All at once I realised that they might also have struggled with the demands of such steep stairs too.
Walking out of the dark pub afterwards, I blinked and narrowed my eyes in the bright spring sunshine. For a moment, I could imagine that I have stepped into the bustling street of the eighteen-thirties. I sat watching the Thames as it surged and swirled, past the neo-gothic wonder of Tower Bridge. The thought occurred to me that I myself was like a ghost – a ghost from the future trying to find a way back into the past.
Then suddenly it struck me that the Tower of London, partially seen from those algae-covered steps, has not changed over the years that separated me from my ancestors. My great-great grandfather, James, waited on this same slippery spot for a penny ride over the river from a waterman. He also felt in awe of the ancient building across the water that symbolised the power of the city he now called home. He knew the same legend about the ravens and passed it on to his children – in the same way my father had told me the story as a child. At that moment, I felt the centuries roll back to connect us.
The White Tower
Horselydown Lane 1830
Horselydown Old Stairs
The Anchor, Horselydown Lane
Images courtesy A London Family
You may also like to read these other story of Bermondsey
Derek Brook’s East End
Take a walk around the East End on a foggy day in the sixties with Derek Brook, courtesy of his pictures which are published here for the first time today.
Derek Brook was a commercial photographer who came from Australia to London and photographed the explosion in fashion and music, including The Beatles. Yet he also recorded political protests, and came one day to capture his impressions of the East End in these considered and atmospheric pictures.
Whitechapel Rd
Whitechapel Rd
Whitechapel Rd
Whitechapel Rd with Royal London Hospital in the distance
Whitechapel Rd
Whitechapel Station
Whitechapel Station
Whitechapel Market
Mile End
Mile End
Mile End
The Anchor, Mile End Rd
The Railway Tavern, Commercial Rd, Limehouse
The Oporto Tavern, West India Dock Rd
The Prince Alfred, Poplar High St
Wood St, off Cheshire St
Great Eastern Buildings, Quaker St
Brick Lane
On the steps of the synagogue, Brick Lane
Spitalfields
Middlesex St
Middlesex St
Middlesex St with The Bell
Middlesex St
Photographs courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
You may also like to take a look at
Adam Dant’s Map Of St James’ Sq
Adam Dant introduces his Map of St James’ s Sq, completed this spring just in time for inclusion in his MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND. An exhibition of Adam’s maps opens at Rich Mix, Bethnal Green Rd, E1 6LA, this Thursday 4th October from 6-8pm and runs until 21st December. All are welcome.
Click image to enlarge and study the details
“Unlike many other public squares in London, St James’s Square is in possession of a certain aloof – an upper crust aura in keeping with the private finance offices and gentlemen’s clubs that hide behind its well attended facades.
Dirty, smelly dogs are no more permitted into the gardens here than they would be in The London Library, The East India Club or the headquarters of British Petroleum – although my own dog is welcomed as a regular visitor at the nearby Christie’s auction house, possibly by dint of his diminutive size, impeccable manners and Scottish heritage.
Whilst sketching from a bench in the square beneath the statue of King William III, I noticed that not very much appeared to be going on in this square. Such an atmosphere of restraint in a public arena prompts all manner of fanciful notions as to the real identities, activities and motivations of passers-by. Much in the same vein as a novel by London Library habitué Grahame Greene, visitors to St James’s square assume the mantle of the Russian spy visiting a dead letterbox, the covert couple conducting an illicit affair or the minor royal jogging incognito. The real action here has to be invented as nobody is giving anything away.
Secrecy is the order of the day at The Royal Institute of International Affairs, better known as Chatham House whose famous ‘Chatham House Rules’ guarantee speakers at their events the requisite anonymity to encourage the sharing of sensitive information. Until recently, the church of Rome managed to keep their ownership of a handsome townhouse in the square under wraps, having purchased it with shady money from Mussolini.
It is in the same spirit that this topographical depiction of the square prompts the viewer to speculate as to the general goings-on among the characters portrayed and animate their stories, according to the roster of St James’s ‘types’ shown around the border.”
Adam Dant
Adam Dant at Rich Mix 4th October – 21st December
CLICK TO ORDER A SIGNED COPY OF MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND BY ADAM DANT
Adam Dant’s MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND is a mighty monograph collecting together all your favourite works by Spitalfields Life‘s cartographer extraordinaire in a beautiful big hardback book.
Including a map of London riots, the locations of early coffee houses and a colourful depiction of slang through the centuries, Adam Dant’s vision of city life and our prevailing obsessions with money, power and the pursuit of pleasure may genuinely be described as ‘Hogarthian.’
Unparalleled in his draughtsmanship and inventiveness, Adam Dant explores the byways of English cultural history in his ingenious drawings, annotated with erudite commentary and offering hours of fascination for the curious.
The book includes an extensive interview with Adam Dant by The Gentle Author.
Adam Dant’s limited edition prints are available to purchase through TAG Fine Arts
You may like to take a look at some of Adam Dant’s other maps
Map of the History of Shoreditch
Map of Shoreditch in the Year 3000
Map of Shoreditch as the Globe
Map of the History of Clerkenwell
Map of the Journey to the Heart of the East End
The Coles Of Brushfield St
Kate Cole wrote this account of her ancestors who once lived in Brushfield St. “When I started my family research in the mid-eighties, I quickly discovered the connection to Spitalfields Market,” Kate told me, “And, even though I have visited the redeveloped market, when I think of Spitalfields it is the old market that stays in my mind and which led me to tell the story of my Victorian grocer.”
Kate Cole and her daughter Rose outside the former Cole’s grocery shop in Brushfield St.
I must be amongst a very rare number of twenty-first century Londoners who can visit the East London home of my ancestors and walk in their steps. Many of my Victorian ancestors lived in Bishopsgate in the City of London and Brushfield St in Spitalfields. Whilst I can no longer visit my ancestors’ substantial Bishopsgate home and factory, as it was compulsory purchased and swept away in the 1880s by the Great Eastern Railway so they could build the mighty Great Eastern Hotel in its place, I can still visit my ‘ancestral’ home in Brushfield St on the edge of Spitalfields Market.
Up until the 1870s, Brushfield St was known as ‘Union St East’. Halfway down, on the right-hand side – if you are walking from Bishopsgate – is a parade of shops all dating from the eighteenth century. Many readers may be familiar with the lovely restored Victorian frontage of the food shop A.Gold and the women’s fashion shop next door, Whistles. But have you ever looked above their signage and spotted a small plaque on the wall in between the two? This is from 1871, marking the parish boundary of Christ Church Middlesex and there on the wall, for all of London to see, is the name of my great-great grandfather, R. A. Cole.
In the 1850s, Robert Andrew Cole was a grocer and tea-dealer, living above his shop and trading from the premises which is now Whistles. Robert Andrew, along with his wife, Sarah Elizabeth (née Ollenbuttle) and their five children, William, Sarah, Margaret, Robert and Arthur, all lived in this terrace – first at 23 and then at 25 – for some thirty years from the 1850s until the 1880s, when the market was redeveloped and Robert Andrew Cole retired to Walthamstow. As an aside, I do find it ironic that today’s swanky redeveloped Spitalfields Market is now known as Old Spitalfields Market. In Robert Andrew Cole’s day, it was a brand spanking new, and perhaps an unwanted market with posh new buildings. Its very existence and construction was probably one of the reasons why the Coles gave up their shop and retired to the countryside of Walthamstow.
For many years, Robert Andrew Cole was also a churchwarden of Christ Church, Spitalfields and also the Governor and Director of the Poor of the parish. So he must have been amongst the wealthiest of this East London parish. In circa 1869-1870, Union St East was renamed Brushfield St, and it is possibly the renaming of this street which lead to the church boundary being marked in the wall in 1871. Hence, churchwarden R. A. Cole’s name was recorded for posterity in the brick-work. He must have been a very proud man when his name was unveiled on the terrace where he lived.
However, despite their standing in the community, the Coles’ time in Brushfield St was not entirely happy. Two of the Cole children, Sarah Elizabeth and William Henry, succumbed to a devastating outbreak of scarletina – then a deadly infectious disease. Both children were buried in Tower Hamlets Cemetery on 2nd August 1857. William was aged only twenty-two months and Sarah was a month short of her fourth birthday. One can only imagine the pain and horror experienced by their parents, along with the fear that their only surviving child, Robert, then aged five, might also fall victim to the terrible disease.
It must have been an awful time for this one Victorian family living in the shadows of Christ Church Spitalfields and the Fruit & Vegetable Market. However, their son Robert, did not become another victim (for, if he had, I would not be writing their story, as he is my great-grandfather). Eight months after burying their two children, a new child, Margaret was born, and a further year later, Arthur. Sadly, Margaret also did not survive childhood and once again, in 1869, the Cole family of Union St East buried another one of their own in Tower Hamlets Cemetery.
I have often pondered the fate of this small East End family. Of the five children, only two survived into adulthood and, of those two, only one had children of his own. Arthur Cole died a bachelor in his fifties and was buried in the second Cole family grave in Tower Hamlets Cemetery alongside his mother, grandparents, great-aunts, and great-uncles – true Londoners who worked, lived and died in the East End of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Robert Andrew Cole, grocer and tea-dealer of Spitalfields Market, was buried in the same grave as his three children who had not survived childhood. While Robert Cole, the only child of Robert and Sarah Cole who went on to marry and father his own children, married Louisa Parnall, a member of a fantastically successful Welsh family of industrialists and philanthropists who had a substantial clothing factory on Bishopsgate.
When you are next in Brushfield St, stand and look up at the plaque marking the parish boundary of Christ Church, Middlesex. Then look down into the windows of Whistles clothes shop. The funeral processions of the Cole children must have stopped here on their way to Christ Church, before going to Tower Hamlets Cemetery. Imagine the tragedy and triumph that went on between those four walls and the drama of the daily family life of the Victorian grocer and tea-dealer, Robert Andrew and Sarah Elizabeth Cole.
Robert Andrew Cole, born 10th February 1819, Anthony St, St George in the East, baptised 7th March 1819 in the parish church of St George in the East. Married 25th December 1850 St Thomas’ Church, Stepney to Sarah Elizabeth Ollenbuttle. Died March 1895 in Walthamstow. Buried in one of two Cole family graves in Tower Hamlets Cemetery. Grocer and tea-dealer of Spitalfields Market for over thirty years. Churchwarden of Christ Church Spitalfields and Governor and Director of the poor of the parish.
Robert Cole, eldest child of Robert Andrew and Sarah Elizabeth Cole, born 4th May 1852 in Tunbridge Wells. Married 11th January 1880 to Louisa Parnall (great-niece of Robert and Henry Parnall of Bishopsgate). Died 17th June 1927 in Raynes Park, South London. Buried in Putney Vale Cemetery. Grocer and teadealer.
Margaret Cole, baptised 28th March 1858 at Christ Church, Spitalfields. Buried 20th January 1869 in Tower Hamlets Cemetery aged eleven years. The child in this photo looks to be about seven or eight years old, which dates all three photos to approximately the mid-1860s.
Robert Cole in 1879.
Louise Parnell – This tintype photo and the one of Robert above were possibly taken at their betrothal, before their marriage in January 1880.
The locations of the Coles’ business in Brushfield St and the Parnell’s business in Bishopsgate.
Philip Marriage’s photo of Brushfield St in 1985 with the former Coles premises indicated by the awnings.
Brushfield St in 1985, looking from the east.
The boundary stone with R. A. Cole’s name is on the top left of this picture from the eighties.
The boundary stone of 1871 in Brushfield St with the name of R.A.Cole.
Kate and her daughter Rose are the sixth and seventh consecutive generations of their family to work in the Bishopsgate area. Kate works in Finsbury Sq and Rose has just started in Finsbury Circle.
Archive photographs of Brushfield St © Philip Marriage
Cole family photographs © Kate Cole
You might like to take a look at Kate Cole’s blog Voices of Essex Past
