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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => London and Middlesex => England => London & Middlesex Lookup Requests => Topic started by: Eilleen on Sunday 21 November 10 19:16 GMT (UK)
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Hi :)
I have been trawling this board, hoping to find some mention about a
Asylum for homeless poor , Clayhouse yard, White Cross street,
I'm looking for imformation on where to find the 1851 census for this place ???
big thank you from Eilleen.
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Hello,Eillen,
I have checked White Cross Street in the 1851 census & cannot find a Clayhouse Yard but there is a Playhouse Yard, probably a mistranscrirption somewhere.
1851 census
Playhouse Yard White Cross Street St Luke
HO105/1522 folios 175-180
145-150
I checked thro' these folios but could not identify a school for the homeless, the occupants all seemed to be general workers & traders.
Hope this helps,
Meliora
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Hi
As a large institution it should be returned separately at the end of the area's schedule with any other institutions
Certainly seems to be Playhouse Yard as Meliora has found for you.
http://www.victorianlondon.org/mayhew/mayhew26.htm
Regards
Valda
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Yes, Valda,
Schools & Institutions are generally shown at the end of the Street Index but on the 1851 they are shown within the list of streets under Schools.
I did check the end of the Streets index & also the list of Schools but still no School for the Homeless was shown.
PLayhouse Yard is also shown under the City of London 1851 census as Playhouse Yard, Water Lane,
HO107/1258 folios 78-79.
Whitecross Street is also within this piece no.. I checked the Street Index but there is no School for the Homeless shown either at the end of the list or under Schools.
Perhaps an enquiry would help at the Guildhall Library for the City of London Playhouse Yard, I am not too sure whether the St Luke one would come under the London Metrpolitan Archives or the Guildhall.
Meliora
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Hi Eilleen
Are you looking for anyone in particular?
Ray
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Hi Meliora
I wasn't thinking a school when I read the description (from link given). It doesn't seem to indicate a school, more a homeless nightly refuge?
Asylums for the Houseless Poor.
'Those who wish to be taught in this, the severest school of all, should pay a visit to Playhouse-yard, and see the homeless crowds gathered about the Asylum, waiting for the first opening of the doors, with their bare feet—blue and ulcerous with the cold—resting for hours on the ice and snow in the streets, and the bleak stinging wind blowing through their rags. To hear the cries of the hungry, shivering children, and the wrangling of the greedy men, scrambling for a bed and a pound of dry bread, is a thing to haunt one for life. There are four hundred and odd creatures utterly destitute—mothers with infants at their breasts— fathers with boys holding by their side—the friendless—the penniless—the shirtless—shoeless—breadless—homeless; in a word, the very poorest of this the very richest city of the world.'....'reports of the Asylum for the Houseless Poor, shows the different callings of the parties who have frequented these places of nightly shelter for the last seventeen years....'
The asylum can be found on the 1861 census (RG9 207 - quite some pages are missing so maybe the whole is missing in 1851?) listed as 'Asylum for Homeless Poor' in 1861. There seems to be about 400 people of all ages listed for the night of the census in 1861.
If this is the Society who ran this institution the records are at the LMA and Guildhall Library (worth checking first because some collections formerly at the Guildhall Library are now at the LMA)
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/searches/subjectView.asp?ID=O74674
'The Houseless Poor Society was founded in 1819 to provide warmth, food and shelter for London's homeless and destitute during winter...The Houseless Poor Society's establishments were later taken over by the Church Army, a church mission founded in 1882..'
Taken from the Workhouse website though it doesn't mention a refuge in Playhouse Yard run by this society.
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/
The section on the website is under the heading ' Charity Refuges'
Regards
Valda
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Valda ,
excellent , thank you , this seems to be the place I am looking for .
meal is on table will be back soon
Eilleen
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http://london1850.com/
Hope this link works, I need more help ::)
on this map what area do I need to be in to findPlayhouse yard.
Eilleen
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Hi Eileen, on your wonderful map, go to approx the middle green area (Islington and Clerkenwell) scroll down to Clerkenwell Green/Old Street, Whitecross Street is just below with Golden Lane beside it, brings back memories of my time working in Hatton Garden, and walking to Whitecross Street market!
Keyboard86
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Hi
Not that you can see much now...
Google streetview for whitecross street.
(Using the 1850.com or 1868.com) "Shrewsbury" is still there (in name)
I reckon that geographically "PlayhouseYd" is "now" Fortune.
(it's easy to think that the shape of the alley behind the shops and the block of flats "mirror" the layout of playhouseyd)
The main thing is that GoldenLane is "still there" and it shows how small PlayhouseYd would have been.
I read on one census enumerators return that the area was "thickly populated".
Ray
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Keyboard86
Talking of HattonGarden..............
the OldMitre pub in ElyCt ........best unspoilt pub in London.
Ray
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Keyboard86
Talking of HattonGarden..............
the OldMitre pub in ElyCt ........best unspoilt pub in London.
Ray
Hi Ray, The Mitre is actually in Ely Place, the alleyway that leads to Ely Court from Hatton Garden, great pint of Bass!!
Keyboard86
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keyboard86 and Croxleygreen,
Thank you both for you help,
London is like a different continent to me, ??? but I'm interested.
I come from Lincolnshire , lots of little places , rather that thousands of little streets .
Eilleen.
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Eilleen
(Valda, Dawnsh, Sorry about the off-topic bit)
http://london.randomness.org.uk/wiki.cgi?Old_Mitre%2C_EC1N_6SJ
Visit this place if ever you are near.
(Don't forget, some London City pubs don't open at weekends)
Seems most sites' addresses place it in both ElyPlace AND ElyCourt.
KB86 you walk from HattonG n I'll walk from ElyCt, see you there in ElyPlace?
Ray
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Hi
'8-16 Fortune Street (formerly Playhouse Yard) and 13 Shrewsbury Court. Includes The Refuge for the Destitute off Whitecross Street: formerly part of the property of the Prebend of Finsbury LCC/CL/GEN/08/C/76/243-249 1769-1921'
'At the end of Fann Street to the left lies Fortune Street (once called Playhouse Yard), leading into White Cross Street, where in late November 1600 Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn the actor (1566-1626) opened the Fortune Theatre '
'The geography of the asylum for the houseless is somewhat difficult to make out to those whose knowledge of London extends no [-10-] farther eastwards than the Royal Italian Opera House, or even Exeter Hall.
There are some streets that even the most experienced cabmen have to descend from their box half a dozen times, in order to ferret out the road to; and Playhouse-yard-the locality of the refuge-is one of these.
The way lies up a long, narrow street, rendered still narrower by a double flank of stalls trestled along the kerb. At the corner of every turning hereabouts is a gin-palace, with a monster lamp suspended over the entrance, and a long, shell-fish stall in front of the door, set out with a trefoil arrangement of pen'orths of oysters, as big as muffins. Outside the bakers' shop-windows are stuck large bills, always announcing the grateful intelligence that bread is "DOWN AGAIN TO EVEN MONEY ;" and at the tea-dealers' there are comic placards, designed and coloured by ticket-writers, setting forth either the advantages of joining their "pudding club," or the dangerous strength of their "gunpowder tea." Pawnbrokers, too, abound in the neighbourhood; and at their door hang blankets and patchwork counterpanes, suspended from one corner, as in auction-rooms, while the watches, ranged in the windows, are as big and thick as the bull's. eye to a dark lantern. Nor is there any lack of coal and potato sheds; and at these the current price of fuel is always quoted in chalk on a board at so much "per cwt." Here, too, on every Sunday in the summer season, the light spring-van, which at other times is used for enabling the neighbours to indulge in that exciting lunatic sport known as "shooting the moon," puts on curtains, and starts with a party of pleasure and a beer barrel for Hampton Court.
The yard christened Playhouse is a lane that it is ridiculous to dream of entering in a cab. Accordingly, two or three street-stalls have to be disarranged, in order to allow your vehicle standing-room, and never was such commotion among the coster trucks and apple. stalls as when your Hansom endeavours to draw up to the kerb. As you turn the corner, you enter even a poorer district than before. Here pawnbrokers will not flourish, and "dolly-shops" are found to prevail instead, where even the pledges which have been refused by the "cruel uncle" are not rejected by those ebony "babes in the wood that" swing over the door as signs of the Black Doll. The baker's shop, the grocer's, and the coal warehouse have severally disappeared, and been rolled into one omnium-gatherum store in "the general line."
The old Fortune Theatre stood in this same Playhouse-yard some two centuries and .a half ago, and never was more pathetic drama performed there, under the auspices of the blind goddess, than that which is nightly represented at the asylum for the houseless; for, rightly viewed, the scenes and changes enacted there are but a portion of the treat play of fortune, and the ragged crowd within the walls but the wretched mummers to whom Fate has east the sorriest parts.
It is impossible to mistake the asylum if you go there at dark, just as the lamp in the wire cage over the entrance-door is being lighted; for this is the hour for opening, and. ranged along the kerb is a kind [-11-] of ragged regiment, drawn up four deep, and stretching far up and down the narrow lane, until the crowd is like a hedge to the roadway.'
Further description of the refuge here
http://www.victorianlondon.org/mayhew/paved-romancepreceeding.htm
Regards
Valda
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Valda, thank you so much for all your help.
really interesting reading.
Eilleen.