University of Virginia Library

Samuel Richardson's London Houses
by
T. C. Duncan Eaves and Ben D. Kimpel [*]

It has long been known that Samuel Richardson at least as early as the end of 1723 had his dwelling and his printing office just off Fleet Street, in the Parish of St. Bride's, in the neighborhood of Salisbury Court.[1] He later also rented country houses near London, which will not be considered in this article, but from that date his home and his business were always in the Salisbury Court neighborhood. The various houses he occupied, and the periods during which he occupied them, have not, however, been made entirely clear.

Professor Alan Dugald McKillop says (pp. 288, 291) that "according to his biographer in the Universal Magazine" Richardson "set up for himself in 1718 or 1719 in 'a court in Fleet Street'" and that the entry of Richardson's marriage in the Charterhouse Chapel, November 23, 1721, describes him "as of St. Bride's Parish"—"the first known record of his lifelong association with the Fleet Street neighborhood." He also cites rate books of St. Bride's Parish for 1724-1727 (GH MS 78),[2] which show that by 1724 Richardson occupied a house in Blue Ball Court at the southeast corner of Salisbury Square. Professor William Merritt Sale, Jr., citing the same records, says that he moved

to Blue Ball Court "in 1719 or a little later," and that he brought his first wife, Martha Wilde, there in 1721 and lived in the same house in which he set up his presses.[3]

Both Sale and McKillop correctly locate the dwelling and printing plant which Richardson was renting in the early 1720's. But Sale's conjecture as to when Richardson "set up in business for himself" in the Salisbury Court area is not confirmed by the parish records.

The date 1718 or 1719 apparently rests on two sources: Richardson's well-known letter to Johannes Stinstra of June 2, 1753, and the memoirs of Richardson in the Universal Magazine for January, 1786, written, if not by Richardson's son-in-law Edward Bridgen, at least with his and Anne Richardson's approval.[4] In his letter to Stinstra, Richardson writes:

The account of this period of Richardson's career given in the Universal Magazine (LXXVIII, 18) is as follows: The correspondence of Anne Richardson and her sister Martha Bridgen during the early 1780's clearly shows that they knew little, if anything, more of their father's early career than what he himself had written in his letter to Stinstra,[6] and this letter doubtless formed the basis of the assertions of the writer of the article in the Universal Magazine. The letter to Stinstra, then, is actually the only authority for the date

on which Richardson "began for" himself. The only detail that the Universal Magazine account adds is that the beginning was "in a court in Fleet-street." This address is probably based on the fact that Richardson's daughters had heard about the Blue Ball Court house; unless (as seems unlikely) Richardson had an earlier business in some other court near Fleet Street or in some other place of which his daughters had never heard, the Blue Ball Court house must have been the site of his first printing plant.

Since Richardson was apprenticed to John Wilde on July 1, 1706, his seven-year apprenticeship would have expired in 1713.[7] But the parish records for St. Bride's, which are very full for this period and for the rest of Richardson's life, do not list him as a householder in 1718, 1719, or 1720. If Richardson started business for himself in the house in Blue Ball Court, the discrepancy between his assertion that he "began for" himself "Five or Six Years" after the expiration of his apprenticeship and the fact that, as we shall show below, the Blue Ball Court house is first listed in his name in 1721 can be explained in several ways. It may be that Richardson had forgotten exactly how many years he did service in other men's presses. It may be that in writing to Stinstra Richardson was thinking not of the actual expiration of his apprenticeship, but of the date he took up his freedom, on June 13, 1715.[8] Or it may be that Richardson's association with the printing business of John, Elizabeth, and James Leake, which he later took over, was of such a nature that, in looking back more than thirty years later, he thought of his first association with that business as the date on which he "began for" himself. We believe that the information we present in this article suggests that the third alternative is not unlikely.

The Blue Ball Court house which Richardson occupied in the early 1720's is easy to identify in the records: Dorset Street ran south from the southeast corner of Salisbury Court or Square, and just at the corner was a small court running east called Blue Ball Court; a short distance south of this court another small court, called Half Paved Court, ran east off Dorset Street; the St. Bride's records list first the houses on Half Paved Court, then four houses on "Street," and then the houses on Blue Ball Court. The fourth of the houses on "Street" is the one listed in Richardson's name. In a few records there are only

three houses on "Street" between the two courts, in which case the Richardson house is listed as the first house in Blue Ball Court.

In 1719 this house was occupied by a James Tomlin.[9] A Land Tax Ledger for 1720 (GH MS 3424/9), assessed September 8, 1720, first lists it as "Empty": this is struck through and "Mr. James Leake" is written in. The records of St. Bride's for 1719 do not mention Leake as a householder in that parish. At that time he was presumably living in the Parish of St. Martin's Ludgate, since between November 28, 1719, and May 5, 1720, he was advertising as a bookseller in Stationers Court.[10] During this same period his parents were carrying on a printing business in the Parish of St. Vedast. When his father, John Leake, bound an apprentice on April 6, 1719, he gave his address as Old Change, and when his will was proved on February 29, 1719/20, it was noted on the will that he died in the Parish of St. Vedast. On August 1, 1720, James Leake's mother, Elizabeth, bound an apprentice, giving her address as Old Change. But when James Leake bound an apprentice on October 3, 1720, he gave his address as Salisbury Court.[11]

In April, 1721, Elizabeth Leake died. Her husband had left two-thirds of his estate to her and one-third to their children. In her will, dated April 4, 1721, and proved April 13, 1721, she states that she is of the Parish of St. Bride's, and her estate, including "my Printing Presses and Letter Utensils of trade," is bequeathed half to her son James and half to her daughters Mary and Elizabeth. Among other legacies is one of £5 to "Mr. Samuel Richardson of the said Parish of St Brides London," and Richardson is also named co-executor, with James Leake, of the will.[12] Her burial is recorded at St. Bride's with "certificate," although it is also recorded at St. Vedast's.[13]

In a return of Inhabitants for St. Bride's for Jury Duty, November

27, 1721 (Corporation of London MS 83.3), "Mr James Leake, Printer," is listed as renting the Blue Ball Court house. He is also so listed in the assessment for the Second Poor Rate for 1721, assessed March 14, 1720/21 (GH MS 3435/R51). In four assessments (listed together) for 1721 (Scavenger's, July 18; Workhouse, April; Orphans, June 24; Poor, August 24) his name is struck through and Samuel Richardson's is written in (GH MS 3435/R48). A Land Tax Ledger, assessed February, 1721/22 (GH MS 3424/11), also has "James Leake" struck through and "S Richardson" written in. It is not clear when the names were altered, but presumably it would have been done between the date of first assessment and the date of payment, that is late in 1721 or early in 1722, and at around this time Richardson must have taken over Leake's former house.

On April 23, 1721, when James Leake married Hannah Hammond, he stated that he was of St. Martin's Ludgate.[14] It therefore appears that although he had rented the house in St. Bride's he kept his older establishment. The implication seems to be that James Leake continued as a bookseller in Stationers Court, while his mother moved, with the printing business, to Blue Ball Court. Elizabeth Leake's legacy to Samuel Richardson (as large as the legacies to her sisters Mary Antrobus and Anne Ladyman) and especially the fact that he was made co-executor indicate a close association, and the possibility suggests itself that James Leake, already a bookseller, was not interested in his father's printing business (which, in any case, he soon abandoned) and that Elizabeth Leake therefore took Richardson as manager of the business. Perhaps he had already been serving as such during John Leake's lifetime. Richardson's being of St. Bride's in April, 1721, before he was a householder, may well mean that he already lived in the Leake house in Blue Ball Court. He is also said to be of St. Bride's in his marriage license allegation, November 22, 1721, and in the record of his marriage at the Charterhouse Chapel, November 23,[15] but by this date he may have been renting a house of his own there.

McKillop has conjectured that Richardson was early connected with the Leake family, citing the fact that on August 6, 1722, he took over the three apprentices that had been bound respectively to John Leake, Elizabeth Leake, and James Leake in 1719-1720, and guessing

that he also took over at least part of the Leake family business.[16] Sale also points out (pp. 15, 288) that Richardson used a printers' ornament that John Leake had probably used earlier, The fact that Richardson took over Leake's house further strengthens McKillop's conjecture. It is not, however, certain that, as McKillop says, Richardson "already had his own business, of course." The only evidence for this, the letter to Stinstra, has already been discussed. The first book known to have been printed by Richardson is the Reverend Jonathan Smedley's Poems on Several Occasions, dated 1721.[17] Richardson was admitted to the livery of the Stationers' Company on March 5, 1721/2.[18] By this time, according to McKillop, James Leake had moved his bookselling business to Bath.[19] The evidence is not conclusive, but it seems highly probable that Richardson took over the Leake business, for which he had earlier been working, when he took over the house; there is no evidence except the letter to Stinstra that he had had a business of his own earlier, and his connections with the Leake business and residence in St. Bride's before he became a householder there are hard to reconcile with the idea that he was in business for himself earlier than late in 1721, although he may well have been running the printing-shop from the time of Elizabeth Leake's death and his position even during her lifetime may have been such that he already contemplated acquiring the business and later considered that he had begun for himself some time before the building in which the shop was located was registered in his name.

At any rate, Richardson continued to occupy the Blue Ball Court house for a number of years, and is constantly listed as in this house in the St. Bride's records between 1722 and 1735.[20] The rent for the house is given as £26.

In 1728 Richardson rented a second house in Blue Ball Court. This house was evidently across the street from the first, since it is the last house listed as on Blue Ball Court before the rate books again list under "Street"; nine houses are listed between the two houses under Richardson's name. In the Tithes Register for 1727-1728 (GH MS 3437/6) it is first listed (for the half year due at Michelmas, 1727) as rented by a Mr. Badger, with "Clark ent Mids[umm]e[r]" written above the name; for the half year due at Lady Day, 1728, the name Samuel Richardson is written above Clark's; the rent is given as £16. In another Tithes register (GH MS 3437/7) it is listed as empty until Michelmas, 1728, and under Richardson's name from Michelmas, 1728, until Lady Day, 1729. In all of the St. Bride's records mentioned in note 20 from 1729 on, it is listed as Richardson's, and is still so listed in the first part of 1736 (GH MS 3437/13: Tithes, 1735-1736); in the Tithes for 1736-1737 (GH MS 3437/14) it is listed under the name Thomas Brown.

In the First and Second Poor Rates for 1734 (GH MS 3435/R117) and the Tithes for 1734-1735 (GH MS 3437/12) a third house in Blue Ball Court, three doors down from the first, is listed as Richardson's. The rent is £14. In 1733-1734 it was rented by William Rennolds (GH MS 3437/11: Tithes). The Tithes record for 1735-1736 (GH MS 3437/13) describes it as "Samll Richardson's workho." It continues to be listed under Richardson's name into early 1740.[21] In the Second Poor Rate for that year (GH MS 3435/R137) it is listed as empty, and in the Scavenger's Ledger for Christmas, 1740-Christmas, 1741 (GH MS 3429/9), is the entry "Mr Richardson. Work ho: is now Danll Brown"; in a Constable's-Scavenger's Ledger for the same period (GH MS 3430/7) Daniel Brown's name is written above Richardson's.

It is almost certain that these two houses were used by Richardson for business purposes and that he continued to reside in the first Blue Ball Court house. Sale says that it cannot be determined when he left this house for the western side of Salisbury Court, but that all evidence

suggests the 1730's, perhaps when he married Elizabeth Leake in 1732 (actually Richardson was married in 1733).[22] The Salisbury Court house is the "House of a very grand outward Appearance" which Lætitia Pilkington saw inthe 1740's.[23]

In the Tithes from Michelmas, 1735, to Lady Day, 1736 (GH MS 3437/13), the house at the corner of Blue Ball Court and Dorset Street is listed as Mary Badsey's, a widow, "En: Ladyday 1736"; in the same record the Salisbury Court house is first listed under Richardson's name, with the notation "Ent Xmas 19th"—presumably the nineteenth day of the Christmas Term. Richardson is listed as paying £65 rent, but in the Tithes for 1736-1737 (GH MS 3437/14) the rent is changed from £65 to £57. This house had been occupied by William Ventris through the Poor Rate due Lady Day 1732 (GH MS 3435/R104), and was afterwards listed as empty.[24]

The Salisbury Court house is listed under Richardson's name in all of the rate books from 1736 through 1755.[25] In the First Poor Rate for 1756 (GH MS 3435/R305) it is listed as empty.

In the Constable's and Scavenger's Ledger from Christmas, 1740, to Christmas, 1741 (GH MS 3430/7), after the entry for Richardson in Salisbury Court there is added in a different hand "and two backhouses." These houses are also listed as Richardson's in the First Poor Rate for 1741 (GH MS 3435/14) and are listed as his in the subsequent records cited in note 25. They were evidently rented about the time he gave up the third Blue Ball Court house, and were located on Hanging Sword Alley, which ran south of Fleet Street to the west of Dorset Street. Since they are referred to as "backhouses," they must have been

directly behind the Salisbury Court house. The rent is occasionally given as £10 for the two. Under Salisbury Court there frequently appears an entry such as "Sam1 Richardson & 2 Ba: ho" (GH MS 3435/R146: Poor, 1741) or "Samuel Richardson 2 hos" (GH MS 3437/19: Tithes, 1746-1747). He is paying a total rent of £72 for his house and the backhouses. The backhouses are still in Richardson's name in 1756 and 1757,[26] but are not listed as his in the Poor Rate for the first quarter of 1758 (GH MS 3435/R332).

The fact that these houses are referred to as "backhouses" is the clearest indication that Richardson's first Salisbury Court house was on the west side of the square: Hanging Sword Alley ran due west of the square. Richardson's second Salisbury Court house (see below) was located on the north side of the northwest corner of the square and was two doors from the first; it is listed before the first Salisbury Court house in the rate books. These rate books first list houses on White Lyon Court, then houses on "Street" (presumably Fleet Street), and then houses on Salisbury Court: it appears then that the Salisbury Court entries ran down the street which connected Fleet Street and Salisbury Square and then around the square, beginning with the north side and continuing with the west. If this is actually the order of listing, it is a further indication that Richardson's first Salisbury Court house was on the west side. Richardson's neighbor "Miss P." describes his house as in the center of the square.[27]

In 1752 Richardson rented a second house in Salisbury Court. From 1739 until sometime between Michelmas, 1751, and Lady Day, 1752, this house is listed as empty.[28] In the Tithes for the second half year due at Lady Day, 1752 (GH MS 3437/21), the house is first listed as "E" with a rent of £26; then the entry has been altered in pencil to "Sam Richardson" with a rent of £10. It is listed under Richardson's name in the First Poor Rate for 1752 (GH MS 3435/R250). It was two doors from his first Salisbury Court house, on the north side of the square, at the northwest corner.[29] The one intervening house, in the late 1740's and early 1750's, was occupied by the Sons of the Clergy. Richardson's second Salisbury Court house is listed under his name from 1752 through 1761.[30] In the Tithes for the last quarter of 1761 (GH MS 3437/32d), Richardson's name is struck through and "Wm Richardson & Sam1 Clarke" is written in.

Richardson's last change of residence, in 1755, is fully described in his correspondence. His former dwelling, he wrote to Lady Echlin, had "stood near its Time," and the "very great Printing Weights at the Top of it, have made it too hazardous for me to renew an expiring

Lease." He therefore rented "a Court of Houses, Eight in Number, which were ready to fall, . . . pulled them down, and on new Foundations, . . . built a most commodious Printing-Office; and fitted up an adjoining House which I before used as a Warehouse for the Dwelling-House."[31] To Lady Bradshaigh he wrote, "It is the Printing Office only that is new-built; That is distinct from, tho' adjoining to, the Dwelling-Part, which two Families of my Workmen occupied, for a few Years past, one on one Floor, the other on another, while I made use of the rest in my Business."[32]

"The Dwelling-Part" evidently refers to the house which Richardson had rented in 1752. The new business premises ran along two sides of a paved court, "97 Feet long one Range, 60 Feet the other, joined together by a kind of Bridge thrown over a tolerably paved Passage of about 12 Feet wide." The new house was "less handsome and less roomy [than the old]; but infinitely more convenient, it adjoining to, and as I have managed it, opening into, the paved Court that separates my double-winged Building, and, at the same Time, giving me a very convenient Passage into Fleet-street; as I have another into Salisbury Court, next Door but one (tho' in a Corner) to the House I am to quit. . . . I have a sixty years Lease of the Ground I have built upon, at an easy Ground Rent. . . . Parson's-Green must supply to my Wife and Girls the Difference, as to Appearance, between the two Dwelling-houses. Yet the new one will be a comfortable Dwelling; and as it will, tho' connected with the Business Part, be intirely separate from it, and no Part of the Business done in it, my Family will have more Convenience, than it had before; because a great Part of the other larger House (and yet the new one is 45 feet deep) was taken up in the Business. Every-body is more pleased with what I have done than my Wife: But that, I flatter myself, is because she has not seen either the Offices or the House she is to live in, since the former were little better than a Heap of Rubbish (8 Houses being demolished to make Room for them) and the latter was a dirty Warehouse."[33]

The new business premises were on White Lyon Court, which ran south off Fleet Street towards the northwest corner of Salisbury Court. His lease on the ground on which they were built must have been taken before he began building in the summer of 1755, but the entry "Samuel Richardson's Workshops" first appears under White Lyon Court in the

Poor Rate for the fourth quarter of that year (GH MS 3435/R291).[34]

By July, 1755, Richardson had begun reconstruction,[35] and he continued to devote most of his time to it during the summer and fall: "My Imagination . . . seems entirely quenched. Bricks, Mortar, and Works of Wood seem utterly to have extinguished what little I had of it!"[36] By December it was completed, and his printing materials were in the reconstructed building.[37] Reconstruction and removal to the new house cost over £1400, although at one time he had hoped to do the reconstruction for as little as £500.[38]

He was not, however, able to move so soon into the new dwelling house: because of his wife's opposition he remained "like a Man setting out on a needful Journey, & arrested when he had got within Sight of ye End of it."[39] Mrs. Richardson proved so fond of the old house and so averse to change that it was late March before he was able to move. He would have preferred to move dwelling and business at the same time, but was "weakly prevented . . . doing the Whole at once," and waited until he had gotten his wife and family to Parson's Green. "I have a very good Wife. I am sure you think I have: But the Man who has passed all his Days single, is not always and in every thing, a

Loser."[40] By April 4 he had moved, and his wife and girls "threatened to return to Town next Thursday." Mrs. Richardson was still not satisfied: "She must stay till the new one becomes an old one; and then she will—Such is the Force of Constancy with her. . . . She intends not now, she says, to be perverse. I believe not, I tell her: But must conclude in her Favour, that it is natural to—and she can't help it."[41] By late April Mrs. Richardson was less dissatisfied: "My Wife says, she begins to be reconciled to her new Habitation. I think, if she hasten not her entire Reconciliation I have a Way to effect it. It is but hinting to her, that we must probably leave it in a very little Time for some other [My Tenure is precarious, as to the Dwelling-Part I mean,] she will then see all its Conveniencies at once. . .."[42]

notes