Bridewell – Multicultural London:|The Literature of Migrants and Immigrants

March 1, 2021August 14, 2021

Bridewell and Surroundings: Antiquities of London (1791-1800)

London constantly reinvents itself; John Thomas Smith’s Antiquities of London goes back in time to the first invention and builds the city back up from its relics and ruins. Within the confines of Bridewell and the surrounding area, this guidebook is able to highlight just how critical this place has consistently been for the city at large.

“Engravings of King Lud and his Sons [in the Bone-House of St. Dunstan’s Parish (Fleet Street)]”

The engraving depicting the oldest piece of history in this section of the map is about King Lud and his sons. In the caption to the engraving, it is mentioned that King Lud lived around the same time as Julius Caesar, and the phonetic degradation of Lud’s Town is what gave London its name. The king’s legacy is not just present in the name of the city, but Ludgate Hill and Street are also named after him. Importantly, Smith notes that the intended place for the statues was currently occupied by a statue of Elizabeth I, and since there is not enough space for three statues even if they replaced Queen Elizabeth’s statue with King Lud’s, Elizabeth’s statue would be staying where it was. There is a transition from the old to the new, from past monarchies to a more current one that follows the broader idea of reinvention. Nonetheless, there still remains a tradition of sorts within the reinvention. The monarchical family changes, but the area associated with the monarchy and the monarchy itself do not.

Smith’s engravings preserve previous versions of the city, but they also are a reminder that each reinvention of the city carries traces from past selves. At the end of the 18^th century when he is making these engravings, the ruins of the London Wall—which were a part of the ancient city wall—are still there. Despite a devastating fire that burnt down nearly the whole city in 1666, Mr. Holden’s family vault in St. Bride’s Churchyard is still there.

“Entrance to Mr. Holden’s family vault in St. Bride’s Churchyard”

There is a great attention to conveying the historical meaning of an engraved structure; therefore, when there is a certain engraving which misses this key trait, there are more questions raised by it than there are answered. One such engraving is the one of Mrs. Salmon’s Wax Work. The building appears to have been damaged given the fading, cracked paint on the top floor, and the fact that the building is not completely straight. Rather, it looks like certain components of the building that ought to be parallel are not because of some historical event or another. Smith’s guide, by documenting the remnants of the city’s past underlines the fragility and impermanence of the city at any one point in time as no moment in antiquity can be replicated entirely. This representation of the City of London, and Bridewell and the surrounding areas in particular shows the fleeting nature of a map of Bridewell.

March 1, 2021August 14, 2021

The Humans of Bridewell and Surroundings

The area around Bridewell brings together people from all walks of life as one might expect from a place with a garden, two prisons, multiple churches, countless wharves, and a royal history. In addition, the small houses cramped together in the spaces left in between the various institutions suggests that the area was probably relatively densely populated. This makes sense as everyone might have a different reason for living there.

“A Whistling Shop. Tom & Jerry visiting Logic ‘on board the Fleet'” from Pierce Egan’s Life in London (1821)

Someone could be in Fleet Prison because they are in debt; another might be working at the prison. The drawing of the inside of a whistling shop from Egan’s Life in London shows the range of people who are living here. Within the same room, there is a man in tattered clothes warming himself by the fire, a woman with children, some card players, and almost everyone is drinking. The clothes of the people—especially the colours and cuts of their clothing, and the types of hats they are wearing—implies that most of these people are not from the same socioeconomic class; however, it is also clear that no one is from the upper-upper class, and there are very few from the lower-upper class, if indeed there are any. How much would things have changed in, say, fifteen years from the time this drawing was made in 1821?

“The Warden’s Room,” Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, image from chapter 41.

Charles Dickens could help us see that the answer is not that much. In his earliest novel, The Pickwick Papers, Mr. Pickwick ends up in Fleet Prison, and Dickens’s description wouldn’t appear strange to someone familiar with the prison from Horwood’s Plan.

Charlotte Brontë references another prison in this area during a game of charades in Jane Eyre: Bridewell. This prison starts off as a Tudor palace and is later converted into a hospital and prison during the reign of Edward VI. While the purpose of this building has changed over time, the various structures surrounding Bridewell are a reminder of its history through names like King Edward Street, St. Bride’s Church Yard, St. Bride’s Wharf, Crown Court, Tudor Street, Bride Lane, Bride Court…

“Poor Sweep, Blackfriars Bridge” from Mapping Modern London (1804)

Bridewell during the late 18^th and early 19^th century has significantly changed since its days as a royal palace. The Pass-Room from Ackermann’s Microcosm of London shows a Bridewell where women are sleeping on hay because there are not enough beds. It is probable that some of these women are single mothers since there are children in the middle of the drawing.

In addition to the prisons and people who live in the area because they are in some way connected to the prison system, another demographic to keep in mind is children working to survive. We see Blackfriars Bridge as a spot where crossing sweepers work in Modern London. This suggests there are also middle class people who are coming in and out of this part of the City of London since someone must be paying for this service provided by children. Bridewell and its surroundings is a point of entry into the district, and therefore it makes sense that the place be populous and host people from different socioeconomic backgrounds.

March 1, 2021August 14, 2021

Bridewell and Surroundings: The Importance of Nature

The seam joining the Thames with the rest of the City of London is the wharves: just within the area surrounding Bridewell there are over fifteen of varying sizes. This abundance makes sense with the context given in Fores’s list that London harbours over ten thousand boats. As a result, however, the boundary between the natural and built environment is blurred even more than it already was; after all, where does the river end and the district begin if the boats are part of the city?

Blackfriars Bridge as depicted in Malton’s Picturesque Tour (1792-1801)

The natural environment—most notably the Thames—influences the built environment both in terms of the types of structures that need to exist to make this district the heart of the larger city, and in terms of the names of these structures. In addition to the wharves, a point of contact between this part of the City of London and the river is Blackfriars Bridge. Without the bridge and the wharves, not only would access to the area be far more limited, but this shift away from being a hub would fundamentally change the area’s identity since multiple structures have names referring to this symbiotic relationship between the natural and the built. The two most prominent streets that connect other smaller streets together are aptly named Fleet Street and New Bridge Street. The prison located right next to the intersection of these streets is also called Fleet Prison. There are numerous other smaller streets that highlight this Thames-based identity such as Little Bridge Street and Water Street.

Another important meeting point between the natural and the built environments is the Temple Gardens. The natural body of water directly next to the garden plays into the style of English gardens that contrasted from the jardin à la française. As can be seen in the image of Temple Gardens from 1809, the artificially created nature is still meant to look realistic to an extent. This is a heightened form of nature, but is, nonetheless, reminiscent of undisturbed nature. There is a deliberate attempt to work with nature—unlike the symmetrical and perfectly trimmed topiary common in French gardens—that makes this garden stand out as quintessentially English.

The gardens of Versailles; an example of a French garden for reference

Bridge Street, Blackfriars from Papworth’s Select Views (1816)

When we look at changes between Horwood’s Plan and Faden’s 1819 revision, we see there is a new and much smaller garden that is built right next to Bridewell. In addition to the garden, Bridewell also has a new chapel in its premises. Another change is the obelisk located in the intersection between Fleet Street and New Bridge Street. The obelisk must have been there since 1816 at the latest given the image of Bridge Street from Papworth’s Select Views includes the obelisk. The most substantial change in the area that alludes to technological developments of the time is the replacement of the New River Office and Yard with the Gas Light Company. The existence of the company suggests that using gas light must have been popular enough to sustain a business as early as 1819.