A Celebration Of Colin O’Brien
This week, we are making the final plans for our celebration of the life & work of photographer Colin O’Brien (1940-2016) next Thursday 17th November at St James’ Church, Clerkenwell, and I hope that as many readers who are able will join us at this candlelit event, comprising a sequence of photographs, readings, reminiscences, films and live music, followed by drinks and a reception in the crypt. Bells will ring from 5:30pm and we will commence at 6pm. All are welcome.
Colin O’Brien’s words introducing his monograph of photographs from 1948-2015, LONDON LIFE
My mother and father both came from large families of some six or seven children, as was usual in those days. Many did not live beyond infancy, dying from diseases they would survive today, and my mother often talked about her beautiful sister Eileen, who died from pneumonia when she was nine years old. Families were poor and people often went hungry. Children walked long distances to school and shoes were a luxury.
My parents grew up in Clerkenwell, which was called ‘Little Italy’ because of the Italian immigrants living there. St Peter’s Roman Catholic Church was the focus of their early lives, along with a building called ‘The Red House’ – with a distinctive red brick exterior still visible in Clerkenwell Road today. This was where they went when they needed a handout of food or clothing.
I was born on May 8th 1940 in Northampton Buildings in Northampton Street in the now-defunct London Borough of Finsbury. Soon after my birth, we moved from there to Victoria Dwellings, a sprawling series of tall Victorian buildings which ran along the junction of Clerkenwell Road and Farringdon Road. Then Edward, my father, left to serve in the Second World War, travelling to Germany, France and Italy before returning when I was five years old. And I cried when I saw him again because I wondered who this strange man was.
When my father came back from the war with no prospects, little money, and a son and a wife to support, he may well have wished he was back in the army but, eventually, he got a job sorting letters at Mount Pleasant. I remember finding a diary of his after he died. One entry read, “Five shillings short on the rent this week, I don’t know what I shall do,” yet he must have found the money from somewhere. He came to one of my early exhibitions at the Morley Gallery and wrote in the comments book, “I am very proud of my son and I enjoyed the exhibition very much.”
My mother, Edith, never had a career. She looked after me and her mother, Ada Kelly, who was crippled with arthritis and sat in a chair beside the radio, chuckling at Wilfred Pickles or listening to Mrs Dales’ Diary. My mother and her sister, Winnie, occasionally went ‘up west’ to look in the stores and try things on, even though they could not afford to buy them. I took some photographs of my mother trying on hats in British Home Stores in Oxford Street and laughing her head off when she saw herself in the mirror. My mother loved bright colours and flowery patterns. She made the effort to brighten up the drab surroundings in Victoria Dwellings, but it all felt so cosy that, as I grew up, I never questioned how we lived. To me it was our home, it was where I felt safe.
‘The Dwellings’ – as we called them – had survived the bombing, but were surrounded by derelict buildings and dangerous structures. For us children, these sites became our playgrounds with many exciting adventures to be had. It was part of life that we were allowed to go and play on our own in dangerous places. Our parents were too busy earning a living to worry about us overly. We learned to look after ourselves, but local people also looked out for us and, occasionally, a policeman would clip us round the ear if we were doing something wrong. We stayed out all day and played until we were exhausted, then came home to our tea before we went to bed and sank into a dream world of fantasy and romance.
Our flat was number 118, at the top of the building, and the view from the living room became my first window on the world. It was from here I looked down onto the junction of Clerkenwell Road and Farringdon Road – where I took images of violent car crashes and fatal accidents, and of a window cleaner perched precariously on a high ledge opposite in a snow storm. It was from my window that I saw the annual Italian procession in which I walked as a train bearer when I was six years old.
From this aerial perspective, I photographed ‘The Steps’ across Clerkenwell Road in Onslow Street, our usual meeting place as children before setting off for a day’s play on the bomb sites. From the living room, I watched trolley buses, delivery vans and women chatting. One of my photographs captures an almost-deserted crossing on New Year’s Eve with snow falling, taken while we sat during a power cut to see in the New Year by the light of a candle in 1962.
Early pictures show me carrying a box camera around and my first real photograph was of two boys leaning against a car in Hatton Garden. This is where my interest started – there in Clerkenwell in Little Italy in the London Borough of Finsbury, where I grew up with my mum and dad, and my aunts and uncles, and all my friends and acquaintances.
My uncle, William Kelly, was a taxi driver and a bit of an outsider. He rarely turned up for family gatherings but, at Christmas when I was six years old, he arrived with a parcel containing some bottles of chemicals, a printing frame and a couple of dishes. We mixed up the chemicals, took a box camera negative and put it in contact with light sensitive paper held in a small wooden frame. After we exposed it to daylight, we dipped the paper into the developer and I can still remember that moment when I first saw an image appear as if from nowhere.
My first photographic impulse was to capture the childhood world that surrounded me in Clerkenwell but, as my universe expanded and I travelled further afield, I continued to take pictures without ceasing. Shaping my perceptions and approach to existence, it was the life I recorded with my camera in Clerkenwell that made me the photographer I became.
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Colin O’Brien’s Last Assignment
Last Days Out With Colin O’Brien
Mike Seaborne’s Isle of Dogs, Then & Now
No part of the East End has changed more in the last generation that the Isle of Dogs. Between 1983 & 1986, photographer Mike Seaborne recorded it prior to redevelopment, as part of a project with the Island History Society, and then returned in 2014 to capture the same views as they are today.
View from Alice Shepherd House, looking across Manchester Rd towards West India Docks
Canary Wharf, looking east
South West India Dock, looking east
View east from the Plate House belfry, Burrell’s Wharf
View north from the Plate House belfry, Burrell’s Wharf
View south from the Plate House belfry, Burrell’s Wharf
View from Montrose House
Westferry Rd to the south of the old entrance to Millwall Docks, looking north
The Blacksmith’s Arms at the junction of Westferry Rd and Cuba St, now converted into a restaurant
Westferry Road opposite Burrell’s Wharf, looking west
Castalia Sq, Jill Skeels & Madelaine Harvey still working at the hairdresser’s in 2014
Mellish St at the junction with Alpha Grove
Castalia Sq, Ray Whiting, who ran the greengrocer’s in the eighties, still lives locally
Westferry Rd opposite Gaverick St (later Mews), looking south
At the junction of Westferry Rd & Deptford Ferry Rd, The Vulcan has been converted into flats & a restaurant
Arethusa House, Westferry Rd – in the early eighties Norman’s Nosh Bar was popular with workers clearing the Mast House Terrace site opposite
At Burrell’s Wharf
Junction of Westferry Rd & Manilla St, looking south. The Anchor & Hope closed in 2005 & was still empty in April 2014
Maconochies Wharf, a derelict industrial site acquired in the early eighties by the Great Eastern Self-Build Association
Billson St – the ‘temporary’ Orlit pre-fabricated houses built after WW2 still survived in 2014
Pier St, looking west – view of the entrance to the Mudchute from Urmston House
Cubitt Town Junior School
Westferry Rd, looking south from the junction with Cuba St
Glengall Grove from Finwhale House, looking north
Looking east from Montrose House towards Westferry Rd & Millwall Outer Dock
Photographs copyright © Mike Seaborne
You can see more of these photographs at www.80sislandphotos.org.uk
A Date With Joseph Merceron
Today, join biographer Julian Woodford for a stroll around the East End on film in the footsteps of THE BOSS OF BETHNAL GREEN, Joseph Merceron, the Godfather of Regency London.
Tomorrow, Tuesday 8th November at 7pm, Julian will be giving an illustrated lecture at Waterstones Piccadilly. Email piccadilly@waterstones.com to book a free ticket.
On Wednesday 3oth November at 7pm, Julian will be speaking at a candlelit event at The Society Club, 3 Cheshire St, Spitalfields, E1
On Thursday 15th December at 1:15pm, Julian will be giving a lunchtime lecture at the National Portrait Gallery.
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You may like to read Julian’s piece introducing his book
The Alphabet Of Lost Pubs H-L
You will be in need of refreshment once you have contemplated H-L in the third part of my series of The Alphabet of Lost Pubs, but let us not arrange to meet in the King’s Arms or the Lord Nelson unless we have agreed which one. This time-travelling pub crawl is presented in collaboration with Heritage Assets who work in partnership with The National Brewery Heritage Trust, publishing these historic photographs of the myriad pubs of the East End from Charrington’s archive for the first time.
The Hallsville Tavern, 57 Hallsville Rd, Canning Tow, E16 (Opened before 1862 and closed in 2012 to become a restaurant)
The Hare & Hounds, 278 Lea Bridge Rd, Leyton, E10 (Opened before 1862 and open today)
The Harrow, 84 High St, Stratford, E15 (Opened before 1823 and now demolished)
The Hat & Tun, 15 Hatton Wall, Hatton Garden, EC1 (Opened in the eighteenth century, renamed ‘Deux Beers’ in 2000 and open today)
The Hatchet, 28 Garlick Hill, St Michael Queenhithe, City of London, EC4 (Opened before 1773 and open today)
The Heathcote Arms, Grove Green Rd, Leytonstone, E11 (Opened before 1905 and open today)
The Hemsworth, 69 Hemsworth St, Canning Town, E16 (Opened before 1891 then badly damaged by enemy action on 19th July 1944 and demolished in October 1944)
The Hoop & Grapes, 67 Aldgate High St, EC3 (Opened 1593 and open today)
The Horse & Groom, 28 Curtain Rd, EC2 (Opened before 1803 and open today)
The Horse & Groom, 255 Mare St, Hackney, E8 (Opened before 1593, closed in 2013 and now a restaurant)
The Huntingdon Arms, 66 Burke St, Canning Town, E16 (Opened before 1881, closed in 1986, became a laundrette and now empty)
The Katherine Wheel, 50 1/2 St Peter’s Rd, Mile End, E1 (Opened before 1854, closed in 2000 and now flats)
The Kenton Arms, 38 Kenton Rd, Hackney, E9 (Opened in 1858 and still open)
The King Edward VII, 47 The Broadway, Stratford, E15 (Opened before 1765 as ‘The King of Prussia,’ but changed to current name in 1914 and open today)
The King Harold, 116 High Rd, Leyton, E15 (Opened 1887, changed name to ‘The Leyton Star’ in 2016 and open today)
The King’s Arms, 18 Kingsland High St, E8 (Opened before 1636 and demolished in 2009 for construction of East London Line)
The King’s Arms, 514 Commercial Rd, Stepney, E1 (Opened before 1851, renamed ‘Mariners’ in 2002 and now a coffee shop)
The King’s Arms, 27 Wormwood St, Bishopsgate Churchyard, E1 (Opened before 1762, rebuilt as part of a tower block in 1972 and open today)
The King’s Arms, Rawstorne St, Clerkenwell, EC1 (Opened before 1839 and now demolished)
The King’s Arms, 141 Houndsditch, EC3 (Opened before 1792, closed 1938 and now demolished)
The King’s Head, 128 Commercial Rd, E1 (Opened 1820, closed 2000 and now demolished)
The King’s Head & Lamb, 49 Upper Thames St, St Michael Queenhithe, EC4 (Opened before 1809, damaged by enemy action on the 16th April 1941 but reopened on the 3rd November 1941, then closed and demolished in the seventies)
The King’s Head, 11 Church St, West Ham, E15 (Opened before 1826 and recently became a guest house)
The Lamb & Flag, 69 Homerton High St, E9 (Opened before 1826, closed in 1944 and now demolished)
The Lamb, 36 Wilmot St, Bethnal Green, E2 (Opened before 1824, closed in 1993 and is now residential)
The Langton Arms, 22 Norman’s Buildings, St Lukes, EC1 (Opened before 1842, closed around 1989 and now in residential use)
The Libra Arms, 53 Stratford Rd, Plaistow, E13 (Opened before 1871, closed 2006 and is now a Costcutter)
The Lion, 72 Angel Lane, Stratford, E15 (Opened before 1871 and now demolished)
The Lion & Key, 475 High Rd, Leyton, E10 (Opened before 1300, closed 2009 and now a hotel)
The Little Driver, 125 Bow Rd, E3 (Opened before 1820 and open today)
The Little Driver, 125 Bow Rd, E3 (Opened before 1820 and open today)
The Liverpool Arms, Liverpool Terrace, 14 Barking Rd, Canning Town, E16 (Opened before 1870, rebuilt 1930-32, damaged by enemy action and closed on 20th September 1940, reopened on the 6th January 1941, damaged again by enemy action on 10th May 1941 and closed, reopened again on 13th June 1941, shut in 1966 and demolished)
The London Tavern, 92 Rendlesham Rd, Clapton, E5 (Opened before 1866 and open today)
The London Tavern, 393 Manchester Rd, Milwall, E14 (Opened 1860 and demolished in 1954)
The Lord Clyde, 10 Lee St, Haggerston, E8 (Opened before 1881 and destroyed by enemy action 7th April 1941)
The Lord Henniker, 119 The Grove, Stratford, E15 (Opened before 1862, closed in 2003 and converted to residential)
The Lord Nelson, 37 Cranbrook St, Bethnal Green, E2 (Opened before 1861 and now demolished)
The Lord Nelson, 230 Commercial Rd, E1 (Opened 1865, rebuilt 1892, closed 2005 and now a restaurant)
The Lord Nelson, 1 Manchester Rd, Millwall, E14 (Opened before 1855 and open today)
The Lord Rodney’s Head, 285 Whitechapel Rd, E1 (Opened before 1806, closed in 2004 and now a clothing shop)
Photographs courtesy Heritage Assets/The National Brewery Heritage Trust
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Maurice Evans, Collector Of Fireworks
Maurice Evans has been collecting fireworks since childhood and now over eighty years old, he has the most comprehensive collection in the country – so you can imagine both my excitement and my trepidation upon stepping through the threshold of his house in Shoreham. My concern about potential explosion was relieved when Maurice confirmed that he has removed the gunpowder from his fireworks, only to be reawakened when his wife Kit helpfully revealed that Catherine Wheels and Bangers were excepted because you cannot extract the gunpowder without ruining them.
This statement prompted Maurice to remember with visible pleasure that he still had a collection of World War II shells in the cellar and, of course, the reinforced steel shed in the garden full of live fireworks. “Let’s just say, if there’s a big bang in the neighbourhood, the police always come here first to see if it’s me,” admitted Maurice with a playful smirk. “Which it often isn’t,” added Kit, backing Maurice up with a complicit demonstration of knowing innocence.
“It all started with my father who was in munitions in the First World War,” explained Maurice proudly, “He had a big trunk with little drawers, and in those drawers I found diagrams explaining how to work with explosives and it intrigued me. Then came World War II and the South Downs were used as a training ground and, as boys, we went where we shouldn’t and there were loads of shells lying around, so we used to let them off.”
Maurice’s radiant smile revealed to me the unassailable joy of his teenage years, running around the downs at Shoreham playing with bombs. “We used to set off detonators outside each other’s houses to announce we’d arrived!” he bragged, waving his left hand to reveal the missing index finger, blown off when the explosive in a slow fuse unexpectedly fired upon lighting. “That’s the worst thing that happened,” Maurice declared with a grimace of alacrity, “We were worldly wise with explosives!”
Even before his teens, the love of pyrotechnics had taken grip upon Maurice’s psyche. It was a passion born of denial. “I used to suffer from bronchitis and asthma as a child, so when November 5th came round, I had to stay indoors.” he confided with a frown, “Every shop had a club and you put your pennies and ha’pennies in to save for fireworks and that’s what I did, but then my father let them off and I had to watch through the window.”
After the war, Maurice teamed up with a pyrotechnician from London and they travelled the country giving displays which Maurice devised, achieving delights that transcended his childhood hunger for explosions. “In my mind, I could envisage the sequence of fireworks and colours, and that was what I used to enjoy. You’ve got all the colours to start with, smoke, smoke colours, ground explosions, aerial explosions – it’s endless the amount of different things you can do. The art of it is knowing how to choose.” explained Maurice, his face illuminated by the images flickering in his mind. Adding, “I used to be quite big in fireworks at one time.” with calculated understatement.
Yet all this personal history was the mere pre-amble before Maurice led me through his house, immaculately clean, lined with patterned carpets and papers and witty curios of every description. Then in the kitchen, overlooking the garden lined with old trees, he opened an unexpected cupboard door to reveal a narrow red staircase going down. We descended to enter the burrow where Maurice has his rifle range, his collections, model aeroplanes, bombs and fireworks – all sharing the properties of flight and explosiveness. Once they were within reach, Maurice could not restrain his delight in picking up the shells and mortars of his childhood, explaining their explosive qualities and functions.
But my eyes were drawn by all the fireworks that lined the walls and glass cases, and the deep blues, lemon yellows and scarlets of their wrappers and casings. Such evocative colours and intricate designs which in their distinctive style of type and motif, draw upon the excitement and anticipation of magic we all share as children, feelings that compose into a lifelong love of fireworks. Rockets, Roman Candles, Catherine Wheels, Bangers, and Sparklers – amounting to thousands in boxes and crates, Maurice’s extraordinary collection is the history of fireworks in this country.
“I wouldn’t say its made my life, but its certainly livened it up,” confided Maurice, seeing my wonder at his overwhelming display. Because no-one (except Maurice) keeps fireworks, there is something extraordinary in seeing so many old ones and it sets your imagination racing to envisage the potential spectacle that these small cardboard parcels propose.
Maurice outgrew the bronchitis and asthma to have a beautiful life filled with fireworks, to visit firework factories around Britain, in China, Australia, New Zealand and all over Europe, and to scour Britain for collections of old fireworks, accumulating his priceless collection. Now like an old dragon in a cave, surrounded by gold, Maurice guards his cellar hoard protectively and is concerned about the future. “It needs to be seen,” he said, contemplating it all and speaking his thoughts out loud, “I would like to put this whole collection into a museum. I don’t want any money. I want everyone to see what happened from pre-war times up until the present day in the progression of fireworks.”
“My father used to bring me the used ones to keep,” confessed Maurice quietly with an affectionate gleam in his eye, as he revealed the emotional origin of his collection, now that we were alone together in the cellar. With touching selflessness, having derived so much joy from collecting his fireworks, Maurice wants to share them with everybody else.
Maurice with his exploding fruit.
Maurice with his barrel of gunpowder
Maurice with his grenades.
Maurice with two favourite rockets.
Firework photographs copyright © Simon Costin
Read my story about Simon Costin, The Museum of British Folklore
At The Royalty Theatre, Wellclose Sq
It is my pleasure to introduce the last of four features written by Julian Woodford, celebrating the publication of his biography of East End gangster & corrupt magistrate, Joseph Merceron, The Boss of Bethnal Green. Email piccadilly@waterstones.com to book a free ticket for Julian Woodford’s lecture and signing at Waterstones Piccadilly next Tuesday 8th November.
John ‘Plausible Jack’ Palmer as Count Almaviva
In the eighteenth century, vested interests and heavy-handed licensing laws restricted the production of drama outside the Drury Lane, Covent Garden and Haymarket Theatres. These ‘Patent Theatres’ were aggressive in protecting their monopoly and penalties for transgression were severe. But, in 1785 a leading Drury Lane actor and consummate self-publicist, John ‘Plausible Jack’ Palmer, decided to put the law to the test by creating his own theatre, the Royalty. Controversially, he chose to site it in Wellclose Sq, Shadwell – serious drama was coming to the East End!
The logic behind Palmer’s choice of location was twofold. First, the East End held a huge and hitherto untapped potential audience. Yet, more importantly, Wellclose Sq lay within the Liberty of The Tower of London, meaning it was outside the jurisdiction of either the City of London or the County of Middlesex. This, argued Palmer, granted freedom from the restrictions of the Patent licensing laws, provided he obtained a licence from the magistrates of the Tower Hamlets and permission from the Constable of the Tower.
The Royalty Theatre was designed and built by John Wilmot, County Surveyor for Middlesex and – conveniently – brother of Davy Wilmot, senior Tower Hamlets magistrate. At its completion in 1787, the theatre, seating some 2,600 people, was reportedly as impressive as its West End rivals, possessing ‘an elegant lightness’ and ‘constructed of the very best materials,’ with galleries ‘infinitely superior to any belonging to the various theatres in the kingdom.’
Things quickly started to go wrong. Plausible Jack decided to push his luck by opening on 20th June 1787 with a production of As You Like It – a play restricted to the Patent Theatres by licensing guidelines. The owners and operators of the Patent Theatres, led by the politician-playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan and backed by the Middlesex County magistrates, protested fiercely and intimidated several of Plausible Jack’s cast into withdrawing at the last minute by threatening never to employ them again.
Yet, because of the Royalty’s location, the Middlesex magistrates’ right to intervene was dubious. Nevertheless, their opposition was such that it was only when Plausible Jack threw the opening night as a benefit for the nearby London Hospital that he was able to go ahead. For the people of the East End, a new theatre on their doorstep was a cause for great celebration and they flooded to Wellclose Sq in their thousands. Plausible Jack himself took the lead role of Jaques and the next day’s papers reported that ‘we were never witness to such repeated and universal bursts of approbation.’
Despite his initial success, the threats to Plausible Jack and his fellow players were sufficient that he dared not provoke the authorities further. After the opening performance, the Royalty closed briefly before reopening with a repertoire limited to pantomime and other light pieces. Plausible Jack was ruined. After a spell in a debtors’ prison, his career never recovered and he died onstage in Liverpool in 1798. ‘Plausible Jack’ lived up to his nickname to the end, since the audience believed his collapse to be part of the act.
Davy Wilmot could have been forgiven for having divided loyalties when his fellow magistrates strove to close down the Royalty which had been designed and built by his own brother, and situated almost in his own back yard. At this time, he was also facing other difficulties too. One of his official roles was as Treasurer of the Parish of Bethnal Green, a lucrative position which Wilmot had milked for years through a series of corrupt schemes. Recently, a young upstart named Joseph Merceron, a twenty-three-year-old rent collector and son of a Brick Lane pawnbroker, had poked his nose into Wilmot’s accounts and was raising awkward questions about the destination of monies collected for the poor.
The young Merceron was developing an insatiable appetite for money and power. Seeking to establish a power base in the government of the East End, he was already sufficiently confident to try his hand against the ageing magistrate. If Wilmot was at the the opening night of the Royalty Theatre on 20th June 1787, in the audience for As You Like It, he might have caught a prescient glimpse of his own fate in Shakespeare’s lines. Before too many weeks would pass – thanks to the malevolent influence of Joseph Merceron – ‘the justice, in fair round belly with good capon lined’ would be on his way to retirement, ‘the lean and slipper’d pantaloon’ and, within just two more years, ‘sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything.’
Arena of the Royalty Theatre, 1815
The foundation stone of the Royalty was laid on Boxing Day, 1785
Bollards on the pavement in Ensign St, Wellclose Sq, mark the site of the theatre – they are marked RBT for Royal Brunswick Theatre, the later name for the Royalty
A poem celebrating the achievement of John ‘Plausible Jack’ Palmer
The fate of the Royalty Theatre, later known as the Brunswick Theatre in 1828 (Courtesy East London Theatre Archive)
The site of the Royalty Theatre in Ensign St, Wellclose Sq, today
You may also like to read more about Wellclose Sq
In the Debtors’ Cell, Wellclose Sq
David Mason, Wilton’s Music Hall
or these other East End theatres
At Shakespeare’s First Theatre
At the City of London Theatre, Norton Folgate
At the Pavilion Theatre, Whitechapel
A Stick-Up At Six Mile Stone
It is my pleasure to introduce the third of four features this week written by Julian Woodford, celebrating the publication of his biography of East End gangster & corrupt magistrate, Joseph Merceron, The Boss of Bethnal Green.
Click here to reserve one of the last tickets left for The Boss of Bethnal Green launch tonight, Thursday 3rd November, at the Hanbury Hall or email piccadilly@waterstones.com to book a free ticket for Julian Woodford’s lecture at Waterstones Piccadilly next Tuesday 8th November.
Drawing by Thomas Rowlandson, c. 1794
The Great North Road out of London to York, Edinburgh and all points in between, began at Smithfield Market. Distances to the north were measured from Hicks’ Hall, the former courthouse of the Middlesex magistrates at the southern end of St John St, and marked by milestones along the road. Travellers passed the first stone at Islington Green, milestones two and three were found at Highbury Corner and Holloway, before they met Four Mile Stone at the foot of Highgate Hill and then, after a steep climb, Five Mile Stone was to be discovered on North Hill – one of the few stones surviving today.
It so happens that I live off the Great North Road, in East Finchley, just yards from the site of Six Mile Stone. In the eighteenth century, this area was known Finchley Common, the most dangerous place in London for highwaymen. This was where Jack Sheppard, Spitalfields’ notorious son and model for MacHeath in The Beggar’s Opera, was recaptured while disguised as a butcher after his amazing escape from Newgate in 1724. Just up the road, Oak Lane commemorates Turpin’s Oak, an ancient tree where Dick Turpin was said to linger. At Six Mile Stone itself was a gibbet where the bodies of executed highwaymen were hung in chains and left to rot for the birds to feed upon, as a discouragement to other miscreants from attracted to this malevolent trade:
Thy common, Finchley, next we measure,
Whose woodland views would give us pleasure,
But that they many a wretch exhibit,
Too near the high road, on a gibbet.
The records of the Old Bailey, Newgate Calendar and other journals of the period abound with tales of these bloodthirsty rascals and the fates they suffered when apprehended. In one example, shortly after 5pm on Thursday 11th March 1773, Henry Cothery was driving his wife and four-year-old daughter Ann in a small one-horse chaise across the common towards their home in the City of London. Cothery was master of The Green Man livery stables on Coleman St, near the Guildhall and the family had spent the day visiting his elderly father in Barnet. As they neared Six Mile Stone, they were clumsily overtaken by a man on horseback. Cothery was remarking that the man must be drunk when he turned, whipped out a pistol and yelled ‘Stop, your money!’
Cothery’s attempts to fob off the highwayman with a couple of coins backfired when the fellow grew more aggressive. Little Ann Cothery became tearful and the man softened, saying ‘Don’t be frightened, Ma’am,’ but persisted in his demand. The Cotherys had only a few pounds. Fearing for their lives, they handed over the money and the robber galloped away towards London, as Cothery yelled ‘A Highwayman, A Highwayman!’
Some passersby on horseback gave chase. As the pursuit careered down Highgate Hill and into Holloway, the posse grew larger and a mad chase ensued, with the highwayman flying through turnpike gates and occasionally turning to fire his pistol. Eventually, his horse tiring, he was cornered in a brickfield to the north of Shoreditch and forced to surrender. Identifying himself as Thomas Broadhead, he was dragged to the magistrates’ office in Worship St and confronted by Justice Davy Wilmot, the much-feared and satirised magistrate of Bethnal Green.
Wilmot was an illiterate builder and slum landlord who had risen to the dizzy heights of the magistracy through a corrupt trade in verdicts, pardons and bribes. Broadhead was charged with committing multiple highway robberies that afternoon and, when he was tried a few weeks later at the Old Bailey, Henry Cothery and his wife were witnesses. The evidence was conclusive and, despite six character witnesses in his favour, Thomas Broadhead was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was executed in Newgate and we may presume his body was carted back to East Finchley and exhibited upon the gibbet at Six Mile Stone.
In July 1787, Justice Davy Wilmot was usurped as the leader of Bethnal Green’s local government by the twenty-three-year-old Joseph Merceron, the son of a Brick Lane pawnbroker. Then, on 21st May 1791, at St Stephen’s church, Coleman St, Joseph Merceron was married to Henry Cothery’s daughter Ann.
Hicks’ Hall, St John Street, Clerkenwell, 1730
The surviving Five Mile Stone at North Hill, Highgate
Map of Finchley Common
The gibbet on Finchley Common c.1800, by Graham Pope
Jack Sheppard, born in Whites Row, Spitalfields
Dick Turpin, reputedly served an apprenticeship in Whitechapel
Joseph Merceron’s marriage certificate
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