INNER COURT OF THE FIRST ROYAL EXCHANGE
The purchase of stock is thus described by anhabitué. "Suppose I went," he says, "to buy £100 stock in the Four per Cents. I soon know whether the funds are better, or worse, or steady; for this is the language of the place. If they arebetter, they are on the rise from the preceding day; ifworse, they are lower than on that day; ifsteady, they have not fluctuated at all, or very little. To render the matter as intelligible as possible, wewill suppose the price to be 80-1/8, that is, £80 2s. 6d. sterling for £100 stock. Upon my asking the price of the Four per Cents., the answer probably is, "Buyers at an eighth, and sellers at a quarter;" that is, the jobbers who either buy or sell will have theturn, or 1/8. Now if I leave the purchase to a broker, he probably gives, without the least hesitation, 80-3/8, because he may have a friendly turn to make to his brother broker, for a similar act of kindness the preceding day. Well, but I donotleave the purchase to a broker; I manage it myself. I direct my broker to buy me £100 stock at 80¼. He takes my name, profession, and place of residence; he then makes a purchase, and the seller of the stock transfers it to me, my heirs, assigns, &c., and makes his signature. On the same leaf of the same book in which thetransferis made to me, there is a form of acceptance of the stock transferred to me, and to which I also put my signature; the clerk then witnesses the receipt, and the whole business is done. The seller of the stock gives me the receipt, with his signature to it, which I may keep till I receive a dividend, when it is no longer any use. Thepayment of the dividend is an acknowledgment of my right to the stock; and therefore the receipt then becomes useless."
SIR THOMAS GRESHAM
The usual commission charged by a broker is one-eighth (2s. 6d.) per cent. upon the stock sold or purchased; although of late years the charge has often been reduced fifty per cent., especially in speculators' charges, a reduction ascribed to the influx into the market of a body of brokers who will "do business" almost for nothing, provided they can procure customers. The broker deals with the "jobbers," a class of members, or "middle-men," who remain stationary in the stock market, ready to act upon the orders received from brokers.
There is, moreover, a fund subscribed by the members for their decayed associates, the invested capital of which, exclusive of annual contributions, amounts to upwards of £30,000.
The Stock Exchange has numbered amongst its subscribers some valuable members of society, including David Ricardo and several of his descendants, Francis Baily the astronomer, and many others, down to Charles Stokes, F.R.S., not long ago deceased. Horace Smith and the author of the "Last of the Plantagenets"—himself in his prosperity a munificent patron of literature—also for a long time enlivened its precincts. The writer of the successful play of "The Templar," and other elegant productions, was one of the body.
The managers, in 1854, expended about £6,000 in securing additional space for the Stock Exchange prior to the commencement of the works, and the contract was taken at £10,400, some subsequent alterations respecting ventilation having caused the amount to be already exceeded.
The fabric belongs to a private company, consisting of 400 shareholders, and the shares were originally of £50 each, but are now of uncertain amount, the last addition being a call of £25 per share, made for the construction of the new edifice. The affairs of this company are conducted under a cumbersome and restrictive deed of settlement, by nine "managers," elected for life by the shareholders, no election taking place till there are four vacancies. The members or subscribers, however, entirely conduct their own affairs by a committee of thirty of their own body. Neither members nor committee are elected for more than one year.
The number of members at present exceeds 1,700. The subscription is paid to the "managers," who liquidate all expenses, and adopt alterations in the building, upon the representations of the committee of the members, or even on the applicationof the subscribers. Of the 400 shares mentioned above, the whole, with scarcely an exception, are held by the members themselves. No one person is allowed to hold, directly or indirectly, more than four.
The present building stands in the centre of the block of buildings fronting Bartholomew Lane, Threadneedle Street, Old Broad Street, and Throgmorton Street. The principal entrance is from Bartholomew Lane through Capel Court. There are also three entrances from Throgmorton Street, and one from Threadneedle Street. The area of the new house is about 75 square yards, and it would contain 1,100 or 1,200 members. There are, however, seldom more than half that number present. The site is very irregular, and has enforced some peculiar construction in covering it, into which iron enters largely.
THE ROYAL EXCHANGE
The Greshams—Important Negotiations—Building of the Old Exchange—Queen Elizabeth visits it—Its Milliners' Shops—A Resort for Idlers—Access of Nuisances—The various Walks in the Exchange—Shakespeare's Visits to it—Precautions against Fire—Lady Gresham and the Council—The "Eye of London"—Contemporary Allusions—The Royal Exchange during the Plague and the Great Fire—Wren's Design for a New Royal Exchange—The Plan which was ultimately accepted—Addison and Steele upon the Exchange—The Shops of the Second Exchange.
The Greshams—Important Negotiations—Building of the Old Exchange—Queen Elizabeth visits it—Its Milliners' Shops—A Resort for Idlers—Access of Nuisances—The various Walks in the Exchange—Shakespeare's Visits to it—Precautions against Fire—Lady Gresham and the Council—The "Eye of London"—Contemporary Allusions—The Royal Exchange during the Plague and the Great Fire—Wren's Design for a New Royal Exchange—The Plan which was ultimately accepted—Addison and Steele upon the Exchange—The Shops of the Second Exchange.
In the year 1563 Sir Thomas Gresham, a munificent merchant of Lombard Street, who traded largely with Antwerp, carrying out a scheme of his father, offered the City to erect a Bourse at his own expense, if they would provide a suitable plot of ground; the great merchant's local pride having been hurt at seeing Antwerp provided with a stately Exchange, and London without one.
A short sketch of the Gresham family is here necessary, to enable us to understand the antecedents of this great benefactor of London. The family derived its name from Gresham, a little village in Norfolk; and one of the early Greshams appears to have been clerk to Sir William Paston, a judge. The family afterwards removed to Holt, near the sea. John Gresham married an heiress, by whom he had four sons, William, Thomas, Richard, and John. Thomas became Chancellor of Lichfield, the other three brothers turned merchants, and two of them were knighted by Henry VIII. Sir Richard, the father of Sir Thomas Gresham, was an eminent London merchant, elected Lord Mayor in 1537. Being a trusty foreign agent of Henry VII., and a friend of Cromwell and Wolsey, he received from the king five severalgifts of church lands. Sir Richard died at Bethnal Green, 1548-9. He was buried in the church of St. Lawrence Jewry. Thomas Gresham was sent to Gonville College, Cambridge, and apprenticed probably before that to his uncle Sir John, a Levant merchant, for eight years. In 1543 we find the young merchant applying to Margaret, Regent of the Low Countries, for leave to export gunpowder to England for King Henry, who was then preparing for his attack on France, and the siege of Boulogne. In 1554 Gresham married the daughter of a Suffolk gentleman, and the widow of a London mercer. By her he had several children, none of whom, however, reached maturity.
It was in 1551 or 1552 that Gresham's real fortune commenced, by his appointment as king's merchant factor, or agent, at Antwerp, to raise private loans from German and Low Country merchants to meet the royal necessities, and to keep the privy council informed in the local news. The wise factor borrowed in his own name, and soon raised the exchange from 16s. Flemish for the pound sterling to 22s., at which rate he discharged all the king's debts, and made money plentiful. He says, in a letter to the Duke of Northumberland, thathe hoped in one year to save England £20,000. It being forbidden to export further from Antwerp, Gresham had to resort to various stratagems, and in 1553 (Queen Mary) we find him writing to the Privy Council, proposing to send £200 (in heavy Spanish rials), in bags of pepper, four at a time, and the English ambassador at Brussels was to bring over with him £20,000 or £30,000, but he afterwards changed his mind, and sent the money packed up in bales with suits of armour and £3,000 in each, rewarding the searcher at Gravelines with new year presents of black velvet and black cloth. About the time of the Queen's marriage to Philip Gresham went to Spain, to start from Puerto Real fifty cases, each containing 22,000 Spanish ducats. All the time Gresham resided at Antwerp, carrying out these sagacious and important negociations, he was rewarded with the paltry remuneration of £1 a day, of which we often find him seriously complaining. It was in Antwerp, that vast centre of commerce, that Gresham must have gained that great knowledge of business by which he afterwards enriched himself. Antwerp exported to England at this time, says Mr. Burgon, in his excellent life of Gresham, almost every article of luxury required by English people.
Later in Queen Mary's reign Gresham was frequently displaced by rivals. He made trips to England, sharing largely in the dealings of the Mercers' Company, of which he was a member, and shipping vast quantities of cloth to sell to the Italian merchants at Antwerp, in exchange for silks. A few years later the Mercers are described as sending forth, twice a year, a fleet of 50 or 60 ships, laden with cloth, for the Low Countries. Gresham is mentioned, in 1555, as presenting Queen Mary, as a new year's gift, with "a bolt of fine Holland," receiving in return a gilt jug, weighing 16½ ounces. That the Queen considered Gresham a faithful and useful servant there can be no doubt, for she gave him, at different times, a priory, a rectory, and several manors and advowsons.
Gresham, like a prudent courtier, seems to have been one of the first persons of celebrity who visited Queen Elizabeth on her accession. She gave the wise merchant her hand to kiss, and told him that she would always keep one ear ready to hear him; "which," says Gresham, "made me a young man again, and caused me to enter on my present charge with heart and courage."
The young Queen also promised him on her faith that if he served her as well as he had done her brother Edward, and Queen Mary, her sister, she would give him as much land as ever they both had. This gracious promise Gresham reminded the Queen of years after, when he had to complain to his friend Cecil that the Marquis of Winchester had tried to injure him with the Queen.
Gresham soon resumed his visits to Flanders, to procure money, and send over powder, armour, and weapons. He was present at the funeral of Charles V., seems to have foreseen the coming troubles in the Low Countries, and commented on the rash courage of Count Egmont.
The death of Gresham's only son Richard, in the year 1564, was the cause, Mr. Burgon thinks, of Gresham's determining to devote his money to the benefit of his fellow-citizens. Lombard Street had long become too small for the business of London. Men of business were exposed there to all weathers, and had to crowd into small shops, or jostle under the pent-houses. As early as 1534 or 1535 the citizens had deliberated in common council on the necessity of a new place of resort, and Leadenhall Street had been proposed. In the year 1565 certain houses in Cornhill, in the ward of Broad Street, and three alleys—Swan Alley, Cornhill; New Alley, Cornhill, near St. Bartholomew's Lane; and St. Christopher's Alley, comprising in all fourscore householders—were purchased for £3,737 6s. 6d., and the materials sold for £478. The amount was subscribed for in small sums by about 750 citizens, the Ironmongers' Company giving £75. The first brick was laid by Sir Thomas, June 7, 1566. A Flemish architect superintended the sawing of the timber, at Gresham's estate at Ringshall, near Ipswich, and on Battisford Tye (common) traces of the old sawpits can still be seen. The slates were bought at Dort, the wainscoting and glass at Amsterdam, and other materials in Flanders. The building, pushed on too fast for final solidity, was slated in by November, 1567, and shortly after finished. The Bourse, when erected, was thought to resemble that of Antwerp, but there is also reason to believe that Gresham's architect closely followed the Bourse of Venice.
The new Bourse, Flemish in character, was a long four-storeyed building, with a high double balcony. A bell-tower, crowned by a huge grasshopper, stood on one side of the chief entrance. The bell in this tower summoned merchants to the spot at twelve o'clock at noon and six o'clock in the evening. A lofty Corinthian column, crested with a grasshopper, apparently stood outside the north entrance, overlooking the quadrangle. The brick building was afterwards stuccoed over, to imitate stone. Each corner of the building, and the peak of every dormer window, was crowned by a grasshopper. Within Gresham's Bourse were piazzas for wet weather, and the covered walkswere adorned with statues of English kings. A statue of Gresham stood near the north end of the western piazza. At the Great Fire of 1666 this statue alone remained there uninjured, as Pepys and Evelyn particularly record. The piazzas were supported by marble pillars, and above were 100 small shops. The vaults dug below, for merchandise, proved dark and damp, and were comparatively valueless. Hentzner, a German traveller who visited England in the year 1598, particularly mentions the stateliness of the building, the assemblage of different nations, and the quantities of merchandise.
WREN'S PLAN FOR REBUILDING LONDON
Many of the shops in the Bourse remained unlet till Queen Elizabeth's visit, in 1570, which gave them a lustre that tended to make the new building fashionable. Gresham, anxious to have the Bourse worthy of such a visitor, went round twice in one day to all the shopkeepers in "the upper pawn," and offered them all the shops they would furnish and light up with wax rent free for a whole year. The result of this liberality was that in two years Gresham was able to raise the rent from 40s. a year to four marks, and a short time after to £4 10s. The milliners' shops at the Bourse, in Gresham's time, sold mousetraps, birdcages, shoeing-horns, lanthorns, and Jews' trumps. There were also sellers of armour, apothecaries, booksellers, goldsmiths, and glass-sellers; but the shops soon grew richer and more fashionable, so that in 1631 the editor of Stow says, "Unto which place,on January 23, 1570, Queen Elizabeth came from Somerset House through Fleet Street past the north side of the Bourse to Sir Thomas Gresham's house in Bishopsgate Street, and there dined. After the banquet she entered the Bourse on the south side, viewed every part; especially she caused the building, by herald's trumpet, to be proclaimed 'the Royal Exchange,' so to be called from henceforth, and not otherwise."
Such was the vulgar opinion of Gresham's wealth, that Thomas Heywood, in his old play,If You know not Me, You know Nobody, makes Gresham crush an invaluable pearl into the wine-cup in which he drinks his queen's health—
"Here fifteen hundred pounds at one clap goes.Instead of sugar, Gresham drinks the pearlUnto his queen and mistress. Pledge it, lords!"
The new Exchange, like the nave of St. Paul's, soon became a resort for idlers. In the Inquest Book of Cornhill Ward, 1574 (says Mr. Burgon), there is a presentment against the Exchange, because on Sundays and holidays great numbers of boys, children, and "young rogues," meet there, and shout and holloa, so that honest citizens cannot quietly walk there for their recreation, and the parishioners of St. Bartholomew could not hear the sermon. In 1590 we find certain women prosecuted for selling apples and oranges at the Exchange gate in Cornhill, and "amusing themselves in cursing and swearing, to the great annoyance and grief of the inhabitants and passers-by." In 1592 a tavern-keeper,who had vaults under the Exchange, was fined for allowing tippling, and for broiling herrings, sprats, and bacon, to the vexation of worshipful merchants resorting to the Exchange. In 1602 we find that oranges and lemons were allowed to be sold at the gates and passages of the Exchange. In 1622 complaint was made of the rat-catchers, and sellers of dogs, birds, plants, &c., who hung about the south gate of the Bourse, especially at exchange time. It was also seriously complained of that the bear-wards, Shakespeare's noisy neighbours in Southwark, before special bull or bear baitings, used to parade before the Exchange, generally in business hours, and there make proclamation of their entertainments, which caused tumult, and drew together mobs. It was usual on these occasions to have a monkey riding on the bear's back, and several discordant minstrels fiddling, to give additional publicity to the coming festival.
PLAN OF THE EXCHANGE IN 1837
No person frequenting the Bourse was allowed to wear any weapon, and in 1579 it was ordered that no one should walk in the Exchange after tenp.m. in summer, and nine p.m. in winter. Bishop Hall, in his Satires (1598), sketching the idlers of his day, describes "Tattelius, the new-come traveller, with his disguised coat and new-ringed ear [Shakespeare wore earrings], tramping the Bourse's marble twice a day."
And Hayman, in his "Quodlibet" (1628), has the following epigram on a "loafer" of the day, whom he dubs "Sir Pierce Penniless," from Naish's clever pamphlet, and ranks with the moneyless loungers of St. Paul's:—
"Though little coin thy purseless pockets line,Yet with great company thou'rt taken up;For often with Duke Humfray thou dost dine,And often with Sir Thomas Gresham sup."
Here, too, above all, the monarch of English poetry must have often paced, watching the Antonios and Shylocks of his day, the anxious wistful faces of the debtors or the embarrassed, and the greedy anger of the creditors. In the Bourse he may first have thought over to himself the beautiful lines in the "Merchant of Venice" (act i.), wherehe so wonderfully epitomises the vicissitudes of a merchant's life:—
"My wind, cooling my broth,Would blow me to an ague, when I thoughtWhat harm a wind too great might do at sea.I should not see the sandy hour-glass run,But I should think of shallows and of flats,And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,Vailing her high top lower than her ribs,To kiss her burial. Should I go to church,And see the holy edifice of stone,And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks?Which, touching but my gentle vessel's side,Would scatter all her spices on the stream;Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks;And, in a word, but even now worth this,And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thoughtTo think on this; and shall I lack the thought,That such a thing, bechanced, would make me sad?"
THE FIRST ROYAL EXCHANGE
Gresham seems to have died before the Exchange was thoroughly furnished, for in 1610 (James I.) Mr. Nicholas Leete, Ironmonger, preferred a petition to the Court of Aldermen, lugubriously setting forth that thirty pictures of English kings and queens had been intended to have been placed in the Exchange rooms, and praying that a fine, in future, should be put on every citizen, when elected an alderman, to furnish a portrait of some king or queen at an expense of not exceeding one hundred nobles. The pictures were "to be graven on wood, covered with lead, and then gilded and paynted in oil cullors."
In Gresham's Exchange great precautions were taken against fire. Feather-makers and others were forbidden to keep pans of fire in their shops. Some care was also taken to maintain honesty among the shopkeepers, for they were forbidden to use blinds to their windows, which might obscure the shops, or throw false lights on the articles vended.
On the sudden death of Sir Thomas Gresham, in 1579, it was found that he had left, in accordance with his promise, the Royal Exchange jointly to the City of London and the Mercers' Company after the decease of his wife. Lady Gresham appears not to have been as generous, single-minded, and large-hearted as her husband. She contested the will, and was always repining at the thought of the property passing away from her at death. She received £751 7s. per annum from the rent of the Exchange, but tried hard to be allowed to grant leases for twenty-one years, or three lives, keeping the fines to herself; and this was pronounced by the Council as utterly against both her husband's will and the 23rd Elizabeth, to which she had been privy. She complained querulously that the City did not act well. The City then began to complain with more justice of Lady Gresham's parsimony. The Bourse, badly and hastily built, began to fall out of repair, gratings by the south door gave way in 1582, and the clock was always out of order. Considering Lady Gresham had been left £2,388 a year, theseneglects were unworthy of her, but they nevertheless continued till her death, in 1596. As the same lady contributed £100 in 1588 for the defence of the country against the Armada, let us hope that she was influenced not so much by her own love of money as the importunities of some relatives of her first husband's family.
THE SECOND ROYAL EXCHANGE, CORNHILL
"The Eye of London," as Stow affectionately calls the first Royal Exchange, rapidly became a vast bazaar, where fashionable ladies went to shop, and sometimes to meet their lovers.
Contemporary allusions to Gresham's Exchange are innumerable in old writers. Donald Lupton, in a little work called "London and the Country Carbonadoed and Quartered into Severall Characters," published in 1632, says of the Exchange:—"Here are usually more coaches attendant than at church doors. The merchants should keep their wives from visiting the upper rooms too often, lest they tire their purses by attiring themselves.... There's many gentlewomen come hither that, to help their faces and complexion, break their husbands' backs; who play foul in the country with their land, to be fair and play false in the city."
"I do not look upon the structure of this Exchange to be comparable to that of Sir Thomas Gresham in our City of London," says Evelyn, writing from Amsterdam in 1641; "yet in one respect it exceeds—that ships of considerable burthen ride at the very key contiguous to it." He writes from Paris in the same strain: "I went to the Exchange; the late addition to the buildings is very noble; but the gallerys, where they sell their pretty merchandize, are nothing so stately as ours in London, no more than the place is where they walk below, being only a low vault." Even the associations which the Rialto must have awakened failed to seduce him from his allegiance to the City of London. He writes from Venice, in June, 1645: "I went to their Exchange—a place like ours, frequented by merchants, but nothing so magnificent."
During the Civil War the Exchange statue of Charles I. was thrown down, on the 30th of May, 1648, and the premature inscription, "Exit tyrannorum ultimus," put up in its place, which of course was removed immediately after the Restoration, when a new statue was ordered. The Acts for converting the Monarchy into a Commonwealth were burnt at the Royal Exchange, May 28, 1661, by the hands of the common hangman.
Samuel Rolle, a clergyman who wrote on the Great Fire, has left the following account of this edifice as it appeared in his day:—"How full of riches," he exclaims, "was that Royal Exchange!Rich men in the midst of it, rich goods both above and beneath! There men walked upon the top of a wealthy mine, considering what Eastern treasures, costly spices, and such-like things were laid up in the bowels (I mean the cellars) of that place. As for the upper part of it, was it not the great storehouse whence the nobility and gentry of England were furnished with most of those costly things wherewith they did adorn either their closets or themselves? Here, if anywhere, might a man have seen the glory of the world in a moment. What artificial thing could entertain the senses, the fantasies of men, that was not there to be had? Such was the delight that many gallants took in that magazine of all curious varieties, that they could almost have dwelt there (going from shop to shop like bee from flower to flower), if they had but had a fountain of money that could not have been drawn dry. I doubt not but a Mohamedan (who never expects other than sensual delights) would gladly have availed himself of that place, and the treasures of it, for his heaven, and have thought there was none like it."
In 1665, during the Plague, great fires were made at the north and south entrances of the Exchange, to purify the air. The stoppage of public business was so complete that grass grew within the area of the Royal Exchange. The strange desertion thus indicated is mentioned in Pepys' "Notes." Having visited the Exchange, where he had not been for a good while, the writer exclaims: "How sad a sight it is to see the streets empty of people, and very few upon the 'Change, jealous of every door that one sees shut up, lest it should be the Plague, and about us two shops in three, if not more, generally shut up."
At the Great Fire the King and the Duke of York, afterwards James II., attended to give directions for arresting the calamity. They could think of nothing calculated to be so effectual as blowing up or pulling down houses that stood in its expected way. Such precautions were used in Cornhill; but in the confusion that prevailed, the timbers which they had contained were not removed, and when the flames reached them, "they," says Vincent, who wrote a sermon on the Fire, "quickly cross the way, and so they lick the whole street up as they go; they mount up to the top of the highest houses; they descend down to the bottom of the lowest vaults and cellars, and march along on both sides of the way with such a roaring noise as never was heard in the City of London: no stately building so great as to resist their fury; the Royal Exchange itself, the glory of the merchants, is now invaded with much violence.When the fire was entered, how quickly did it run around the galleries, filling them with flames; then descending the stairs, compasseth the walks, giving forth flaming vollies, and filling the court with sheets of fire. By and by the kings fell all down upon their faces, and the greater part of the stone building after them (the founder's statue alone remaining), with such a noise as was dreadful and astonishing."
In Wren's great scheme for rebuilding London, he proposed to make the Royal Exchange the centre nave of London, from whence the great sixty-feet wide streets should radiate like spokes in a huge wheel. The Exchange was to stand free, in the middle of a great piazza, and was to have double porticoes, as the Forum at Rome had. Evelyn wished the new building to be at Queenhithe, to be nearer the waterside, but eventually both his and Wren's plan fell through, and Mr. Jerman, one of the City surveyors, undertook the design for the new Bourse.
For the east end of the new building the City required to purchase 700 or 800 fresh superficial feet of ground from a Mr. Sweeting, and 1,400 more for a passage. It was afterwards found that the City only required 627 feet, and the improvement of the property would benefit Mr. Sweeting, who, however, resolutely demanded £1,000. The refractory, greedy Sweeting declared that his tenants paid him £246 a year, and in fines £620; and that if the new street cut near St. Benet Fink Church, another £1,000 would not satisfy him for his damage. It is supposed that he eventually took £700 for the 783 feet 4 inches of ground, and for an area 25 feet long by 12 wide.
Jerman's design for the new building being completed, and the royal approbation of it obtained, together with permission to extend the south-west angle of the new Exchange into the street, the building (of which the need was severely felt) was immediately proceeded with; and the foundation was laid on the 6th of May, 1667. On the 23rd of October, Charles II. laid the base of the column on the west side of the north entrance; after which he was plentifully regaled "with a chine of beef, grand dish of fowle, gammons of bacon, dried tongues, anchovies, caviare, &c., and plenty of several sorts of wine. He gave twenty pounds in gold to the workmen. The entertainment was in a shed, built and adorned on purpose, upon the Scotch Walk." Pepys has given some account of this interesting ceremony in his Diary, where we read, "Sir W. Pen and I back to London, and there saw the King with his kettle-drums and trumpets, going to the Exchange, which, the gatesbeing shut, I could not get in to see. So, with Sir W. Pen to Captain Cockes, and thence again towards Westminster; but, in my way, stopped at the Exchange, and got in, the King being nearly gone, and there find the bottom of the first pillar laid. And here was a shed set up, and hung with tapestry, and a canopy of state, and some good victuals, and wine for the King, who, it seems, did it."
James II., then Duke of York, laid the first stone of the eastern column on the 31st of October. He was regaled in the same manner as the King had been; and on the 18th of November following, Prince Rupert laid the first stone of the east side of the south entrance, and was entertained by the City and company in the same place. (Vide"Journals of the House of Commons.")
The ground-plan of Jerman's Exchange, we read in Britton and Pugin's "Public Buildings," presented nearly a regular quadrangle, including a spacious open court with porticoes round it, and also on the north and south sides of the building. The front towards Cornhill was 210 feet in extent. The central part was composed of a lofty archway, opening from the middle intercolumniation of four Corinthian three-quarter columns, supporting a bold entablature, over the centre of which were the royal arms, and on the east side a balustrade, &c., surmounted by statues emblematical of the four quarters of the globe. Within the lateral intercolumniations, over the lesser entrance to the arcade, were niches, containing the statues of Charles I. and II., in Roman habits, by Bushnell. The tower, which rose from the centre of the portico, consisted of three storeys. In front of the lower storey was a niche, containing a statue of Sir Thomas Gresham; and over the cornice, facing each of the cardinal points, a bust of Queen Elizabeth; at the angles were colossal griffins, bearing shields of the City arms. Within the second storey, which was of an octagonal form with trusses at the angles, was an excellent clock with four dials; there were also four wind-dials. The upper storey (which contained the bell) was circular, with eight Corinthian columns supporting an entablature, surmounted by a dome, on which was a lofty vane of gilt brass, shaped like a grasshopper, the crest of the Gresham family. The attic over the columns, in a line with the basement of the tower, was sculptured with two alto-relievos, in panels, one representing Queen Elizabeth, with attendant figures and heralds, proclaiming the original building, and the other Britannia, seated amidst the emblems of commerce, accompanied by the polite arts, manufactures, and agriculture.The height from the basement line to the top of the dome was 128 feet 6 inches.
Within the quadrangle there was a spacious area, measuring 144 feet by 117 feet, surrounded by a wide arcade, which, as well as the area itself, was, for the general accommodation, arranged into several distinct parts, called "walks," where foreign and domestic merchants, and other persons engaged in commercial pursuits, daily met. The area was paved with real Turkey stones, of a small size, the gift, as tradition reports, of a merchant who traded to that country.
In the centre, on a pedestal, surrounded by an iron railing, was a statue of Charles II., in a Roman habit, by Spiller. At the intersections of the groining was a large ornamented shield, displaying either the City arms, the arms of the Mercers' Company, viz., a maiden's head, crowned, with dishevelled hair; or those of Gresham, viz., a chevron, ermine, between three mullets.
On the centre of each cross-rib, also in alternate succession, was a maiden's head, a grasshopper, and a dragon. The piazza was formed by a series of semi-circular arches, springing from columns. In the spandrils were tablets surrounded by festoons, scrolls, and other enrichments. In the wall of the back of the arcade were twenty-eight niches, only two of which were occupied by statues, viz., that toward the north-west, in which was Sir Thomas Gresham, by Cibber; and that toward the south-west, in which was Sir John Barnard, whose figure was placed here, whilst he was yet living, at the expense of his fellow-citizens, "in testimony of his merits as a merchant, a magistrate, and a faithful representative of the City in Parliament."
Over the arches of the portico of the piazza were twenty-five large niches with enrichments, in which were the statues of our sovereigns. Many of these statues were formerly gilt, but the whole were latterly of a plain stone colour. Walpole says that the major part were sculptured by Cibber.
We append a few allusions to the second 'Change in Addison's works, and elsewhere.
In 1683, the following idle verses appeared, forming part of Robin Conscience's "Progress through Court, City, and Country:"—
"Now I being thus abused below,Did walk upstairs, where on a row,Brave shops of ware did make a shewMost sumptious."The gallant girls that there sold knacks,Which ladies and brave women lacks,When they did see me, they did waxIn choler."Quoth they, We ne'er knew Conscience yet,And, if he comes our gains to get,We'll banish him; he'll here not getOne scholar."
"There is no place in the town," says that rambling philosopher, Addison, "which I so much love to frequent as the Royal Exchange. It gives me a secret satisfaction, and in some measure gratifies my vanity, as I am an Englishman, to see so rich an assembly of countrymen and foreigners consulting together upon the private business of mankind, and making this metropolis a kind of emporium for the whole earth. I must confess I look upon High 'Change to be a great council in which all considerable nations have their representatives. Factors in the trading world are what ambassadors are in the politic world; they negociate affairs, conclude treaties, and maintain a good correspondence between those wealthy societies of men that are divided from one another by seas and oceans, or live on the different extremities of a continent. I have often been pleased to hear disputes adjusted between an inhabitant of Japan and an alderman of London; or to see a subject of the great Mogul entering into a league with one of the Czar of Muscovy. I am infinitely delighted in mixing with these several ministers of commerce, as they are distinguished by their different walks and different languages. Sometimes I am jostled among a body of Armenians; sometimes I am lost in a crowd of Jews; and sometimes make one in a group of Dutchmen. I am a Dane, Swede, or Frenchman at different times; or rather, fancy myself like the old philosopher, who, upon being asked what countryman he was, replied that he was a citizen of the world."
"When I have been upon the 'Change" (such are the concluding words of the paper), "I have often fancied one of our old kings standing in person where he is represented in effigy, and looking down upon the wealthy concourse of people with which that place is every day filled. In this case, how would he be surprised to hear all the languages of Europe spoken in this little spot of his former dominions, and to see so many private men, who in his time would have been the vassals of some powerful baron, negotiating, like princes, for greater sums of money than were formerly to be met with in the royal treasury! Trade, without enlarging the British territories, has given us a kind of additional empire. It has multiplied the number of the rich, made our landed estates infinitely more valuable than they were formerly, and added to them an accession of other estates as valuable as the land themselves." (Spectator, No. 69.)
It appears, from one of Steele's contributions to theSpectator, that so late as the year 1712 the shops continued to present undiminished attraction. They were then 160 in number, and, letting at £20 or £30 each, formed, in all, a yearly rent of £4,000: so, at least, it is stated on a print published in 1712, of which a copy may be seen in Mr. Crowle's "Pennant." Steele, in describing the adventures of a day, relates that, in the course of his rambles, he went to divert himself on 'Change. "It was not the least of my satisfaction in my survey," says he, "to go upstairs and pass the shops of agreeable females; to observe so many pretty hands busy in the folding of ribbons, and the utmost eagerness of agreeable faces in the sale of patches, pins, and wires, on each side of the counters, was an amusement in which I could longer have indulged myself, had not the dear creatures called to me, to ask what I wanted."
"On evening 'Change," says Steele, "the mumpers, the halt, the blind, and the lame; your vendors of trash, apples, plums; your ragamuffins, rake-shames, and wenches—have jostled the greater number of honourable merchants, substantial tradesmen, and knowing masters of ships, out of that place. So that, what with the din of squallings, oaths, and cries of beggars, men of the greatest consequence in our City absent themselves from the Royal Exchange."
The cost of the second Exchange to the City and Mercers' Company is estimated by Strype at £80,000, but Mr. Burgon calculates it at only £69,979 11s. The shops in the Exchange, leading to a loss, were forsaken about 1739, and eventually done away with some time after by the unwise Act of 1768, which enabled the City authorities to pull down Gresham College. From time to time frequent repairs were made in Jerman's building. Those effected between the years 1819 and 1824 cost £34,390. This sum included the cost of a handsome gate tower and cupola, erected in 1821,from the design of George Smith, Esq., surveyor to the Mercers' Company, in lieu of Jerman's dilapidated wooden tower.
The clock of the second Exchange, set up by Edward Stanton, under the direction of Dr. Hooke, had chimes with four bells, playing six, and latterly seven tunes. The sound and tunable bells were bought for £6 5s. per cwt. The balconies from the inner pawn into the quadrangle cost about £300. The signs over the shops were not hung, but were over the doors.
Caius Gabriel Cibber, the celebrated Danish sculptor, was appointed carver of the royal statues of the piazza, but Gibbons executed the statue of Charles II. for the quadrangle. Bushnell, the mad sculptor of the fantastic statues on Temple Bar, carved statues for the Cornhill front, as we have before mentioned. The statue of Gresham in the arcade was by Cibber; George III., in the piazza, was sculptured by Wilton; George I. and II. were by Rysbrach.
The old clock had four dials, and chimed four times daily. The chimes played at three, six, nine, and twelve o'clock—on Sunday, "The 104th Psalm;" Monday, "God save the King;" Tuesday, "The Waterloo March;" Wednesday, "There's nae Luck aboot the Hoose;" Thursday, "See the Conquering Hero comes;" Friday, "Life let us cherish;" Saturday, "Foot Guards' March."
The outside shops of the second Exchange were lottery offices, newspaper offices, watchmakers, notaries, stockbrokers, &c. The shops in the galleries were superseded by the Royal Exchange Assurance Offices, Lloyd's Coffee-house, the Merchant Seamen's Offices, the Gresham Lecture Room, and the Lord Mayor's Court Office. "The latter," says Timbs, "was a row of offices, divided by glazed partitions, the name of each attorney being inscribed in large capitals upon a projecting board. The vaults were let to bankers, and to the East India Company for the stowage of pepper."
The Second Exchange on Fire—Chimes Extraordinary—Incidents of the Fire—Sale of Salvage—Designs for the New Building—Details of the Present Exchange—The Ambulatory, or Merchants' Walk—Royal Exchange Assurance Company—"Lloyd's"—Origin of "Lloyd's"—Marine Assurance—Benevolent Contributions of "Lloyd's"—A "Good" and "Bad" Book.
The Second Exchange on Fire—Chimes Extraordinary—Incidents of the Fire—Sale of Salvage—Designs for the New Building—Details of the Present Exchange—The Ambulatory, or Merchants' Walk—Royal Exchange Assurance Company—"Lloyd's"—Origin of "Lloyd's"—Marine Assurance—Benevolent Contributions of "Lloyd's"—A "Good" and "Bad" Book.
THE PRESENT ROYAL EXCHANGE
The second Exchange was destroyed by fire on the 10th of January, 1838. The flames, which broke out probably from an over-heated stove in Lloyd's Coffee-house, were first seen by two of the Bank watchmen about half-past ten. The gates had to be forced before entrance could be effected, and then the hose of the fire-engine was found to be frozen and unworkable. About one o'clock thefire reached the new tower. The bells chimed "Life let us cherish," "God save the Queen," and one of the last tunes heard, appropriately enough, was "There's nae Luck aboot the Hoose." The eight bells finally fell, crushing in the roof of the entrance arch. The east side of Sweeting's Alley was destroyed, and all the royal statues but that of Charles II. perished. One of Lloyd's safes, containing bank-notes for £2,500, was discovered after the fire, with the notes reduced to a cinder, but the numbers still traceable. A bag of twenty sovereigns, thrown from a window, burst, and some of the mob benefited by the gold. The statueof Gresham was entirely destroyed. In the ruins of the Lord Mayor's Court Office the great City Seal, and two bags, each containing £200 in gold, were found uninjured. The flames were clearly seen at Windsor (twenty-four miles from London), and at Roydon Mount, near Epping (eighteen miles). Troops from the Tower kept Cornhill clear, and assisted the sufferers to remove their property. If the wind had been from the south, the Bank and St. Bartholomew's Church would also have perished.
BLACKWELL HALL IN 1812
An Act of Parliament was passed in 1838, giving power to purchase and remove all the buildings(called Bank Buildings) west of the Exchange, and also the old buildings to the eastward, nearly as far as Finch Lane. The Treasury at first claimed the direction of the whole building, but eventually gave way, retaining only a veto on the design. The cost of the building was, from the first, limited to £150,000, to be raised on the credit of the London Bridge Fund. Thirty designs were sent in by the rival architects, and exhibited in Mercers' Hall, but none could be decided upon; and so the judges themselves had to compete. Eventually the competition lay between Mr. Tite and Mr. Cockerell, and the former was appointed by the Committee. Mr. Tite was a classical man, and the result was aquasi-Greek, Roman, and Composite building. Mr. Tite at once resolved to design the new building with simple and unbroken lines, like the Paris Bourse, and, as much as possible, to take the Pantheon at Rome as his guide. The portico was to be at the west end, the tower at the east. The first Exchange had been built on piles; the foundations of the third cost £8,124. In excavating for it, the workmen came on what had evidently been the very centre of Roman London. In a gravel-pit, which afterwards seemed to have been a pond(perhaps the fountain of a grand Roman courtyard), were found heaps of rubbish, coins of copper, yellow brass, silver, and silver-plated brass, of Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, Domitian, &c., Henry IV. of England, Elizabeth, &c., and stores of Flemish, German, Prussian, Danish, and Dutch money. They also discovered fragments of Roman stucco, painted shards of delicate Samian ware, an amphora and terra-cotta lamps (seventeen feet below the surface), glass, bricks and tiles, jars, urns, vases, and potters' stamps. In the Corporation Museum at the Guildhall, where Mr. Tite deposited these interesting relics, are also fine wood tablets, and styles (for writing on wax) of iron, brass, bone, and wood. There are also in the same collection, from the same source, artificers' tools and leather-work, soldiers' sandals and shoes, and a series of horns, shells, bones, and vegetable remains. Tesselated pavements have been found in Threadneedle Street, and other spots near the Exchange.
The cost of enlarging the site of the Exchange, including improvements, and the widening of Cornhill, Freeman's Court, and Broad Street, the removal of the French Protestant Church, and demolition of St. Benet Fink, Bank Buildings, and Sweeting'sAlley, was, according to the City Chamberlain's return of 1851, £223,578 1s. 10d. The cost of the building was £150,000.
The portico, one of the finest of its kind, is ninety-six feet wide, and seventy-four feet high. That of St. Martin's Church is only sixty-four wide, and the Post Office seventy-six. The whole building was rapidly completed. The foundation-stone was laid by Prince Albert, January 17th, 1842, John Pirie, Esq., being Lord Mayor. A huge red-striped pavilion had been raised for the ceremonial, and the Duke of Wellington and all the members of the Peel Cabinet were present. A bottle full of gold, silver, and copper coins was placed in a hollow of the huge stone, and the following inscription (in Latin), written by the Bishop of London, and engraved on a zinc plate:—