The Streets of Old Westminster: Green Park and Spencer House.

A visitor to London, exploring the City of Westminster, and having viewed Saint James's Park and Buckingham Palace, can enter Green Park via Canada Gate, immediately to the north. Green Park is one of three Royal Parks in close proximity to one another (the others being Saint James's and Hyde Park). It has no buildings or lakes (although the Tyburn Stream runs beneath it), and no flowerbeds, just grass, mature deciduous trees, and, in the spring, daffodils.

Canada Gate. Photo by Jordan 1972 (image is in the Public Domain).

Green Park. Photo by David Iliff (License CC BY-SA-3.0).

The park was first enclosed, in the Sixteenth Century, by the Poultney family, and passed into the hands of the Crown in 1668. It was landscaped, in something like its present form, by John Nash, in 1820, the favoured architect of George IV, who shaped much of what we now think of as the "West End."

Green Park. Phto by Jordan 1972 (image is in the Public Domain).

Even before Nash's time, however, the fringes of Green Park had become fashionable as a location for the residences of the wealthy and powerful, those who had every reason to locate themselves in close proximity to the Royal Court. As the Eighteenth Century progressed, and the memories of Civil War faded, it became increasingly common for aristocratic families to spend at least part of the year in London. The idea of the "social season" was born: the German composer, George Frideric Handel, set up residence at London in 1713, anticipating the arrival of his patron, George, Elector of Hanover, soon to be crowned as George I of England. Handel brought with him new tastes in Italian opera, which many young aristocrats would have encountered in the course of their Grand Tours. Now they could enjoy it at the heart of their own capital city, and share the experience with their wives and families. Opera, however, was just one element of the social season, the main point of which was to see and be seen.

Green Park, c 1833, by W. Schmollinger (image is in the Public Domain).

Green Park. Photo b Jordan 1972 (image is in the Public Domain).

There is one aristocratic house overlooking Green Park, which can (in ordinary times, which these are not) be visited on Sundays. This is Spencer House, commissioned, in 1756, by John, the 1st Earl Spencer (an ancestor of the late Princess Diana). The exterior of the house was designed by John Vardy (a pupil of William Kent), and the interiors (largely) by James Stuart, recently returned from a sojourn in Athens, where he had drawn inspiration from ancient art and architecture that was beyond the reach of most "Grand Tourists." Tours of the house which must be booked in advance, take in the "State Rooms" (Ante-Room, Library, Dining Room, Palm Room, Music Room, Lady Spencer's Room, Great Room, and Painted Room), which, together, make up one of the earliest and finest examples of Neo-Classical domestic architecture in the British Isles (I am unable to post photographs of the interior here, but a virtual tour may be had on the Spencer House website).

Spencer House in c 1800, by Thomas Malton Jr (image is in the Public Domain).

The "social season" changed the face of London: aristocratic families arrived with retinues of servants, but word soon got around that there were opportunities in service in the capital, and the flow of migrants from the countryside to the capital increased. There were opportunities, too, in retail, and in related industries, such as dress-making and millinery. Great houses had much need of groceries, porcelain, glassware, furniture, and fabrics, and streets such as Piccadilly, Jermyn Street, and Saville Row, grew up to meet these needs. A handful of the businesses established at the time, such as Fortnum & Mason, are still trading today.

The world of Eighteenth Century London was one in which there were few restrictions on business, or limits to ambition, but it was also one without social protection or safety nets. In the words of John Gay's (1728) Beggar's Opera (itself a parody of the Italian operas playing in the West End): "The gamesters and lawyers are jugglers alike/If they meddle your all is in danger/like gypsies, if once they can finger a souse/Your pockets they'll pick and they'll pilfer your house/And give your estate to a stranger."

Mark Patton is a published author of historical fiction and non-fiction, whose books can be ordered from Amazon.

The Streets of Old Westminster: "Strange Woods:" - St James's Park & Buckingham Palace

A visitor to London, having walked along the Victoria Embankment, can walk along the northern side of Parliament Square, and cut through Great George Street into St James's Park. One of the many things that I love about living in London, in comparison with other great World cities, is the expanses of green space and mature trees to be found even at the heart of the metropolis. St James's is just one of the eight Royal Parks of London (though there are many other green spaces), and covers an area of almost 57 acres, with a stretch of fresh water running down its centre.

St James's Park, looking east towards Whitehall. Photo: Colin, licensed under CCA.

Originally an area of marshland, on either side of the River Tyburn (a left-bank tributary of the Thames, now almost completely invisible), the land was purchased by Henry VIII, and drained during the reign of James I. In James's time, it housed a menagerie, through which camel, crocodiles, and an elephant roamed. "Birdcage Walk," which runs along the southern edge of the park, is named for the aviaries that once lined its route. It was through St Jame's Park that his son, Charles I, too his last walk, from St James's Palace to his execution at Whitehall, guarded by Oliver Cromwell's soldiers.

When Charles II came to the throne in 1660, he had the park redesigned by the French landscape architect, Andre Mollet (a contemporary of the more famous, and more expensive, Andre Le Notre), with a canal at its centre. Charles was known to promenade his mistresses here, and it soon became the custom that favoured gentlemen of the court were given keys  to the park, so that they might use it for similar assignations. It was the Russian Ambassador to the court of Charles II who first presented pelicans to live in the park, and there are still pelicans there today, although they may not be descended from the original birds.

Mollet's original drawing of the layout of St James's Park (Image is in the Public Domain).

St James's Park in c 1680, reproduced by F.T. Smith in 1804 (Image is in the Public Domain).

The courtier, libertine, and poet, John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester, summed up the park's Seventeenth Century reputation in his poem, "A Ramble in St James's Park:"

"Much wine had passed, with grave discourse
Of who f****s who, and who does worse
(Such as you usually do hear
from those that diet at The Bear),
When I, who still take care to see
Drunkenness relieved by lechery,
Went out into St James's Park
To cool my head and fire my heart.
But though St James has th'honour on't,
Tis consecrate to p***k and c**t.
There, by a most incestuous birth,
Strange woods spring from the teeming earth ...
...Each imitative branch does twine
In some loved fold of Aretine,
And nightly, now, beneath their shade
Are buggeries, rapes, and incests made ..."

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, by Peter Lely, c 1677. Photo: Victoria & Albert Museum 491-1882 (Image is in the Public Domain).

In the Eighteenth Century, the eastern end of the canal was filled in to make way for Horse Guards' Parade; and the entire park was redesigned by the architect, John Nash, in the Nineteenth - the straight canal became a more sinuous "lake," and an ornamental bridge was added. The bridge was in the Oriental style popular at the time, and had a pagoda at its centre, which burned down when a fireworks display, to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon, went catastrophically wrong. 

St James's Park, by Joseph Nickolls, 1771-72. Photo: Royal Collections Trust (Image is in the Public Domain).

The Pagoda and Bridge in Saint James's Park (Image is in the Public Domain).

St James's Park in 1833, by W. Schmollinger (Image is in the Public Domain).

The Ornithological Society of London endowed the park with a much wider assortment of exotic wildfowl, as can be seen today, and also built the Birdkeeper's Cottage, which still stands.

The Birdkeeper's Cottage. Photo: Peter K. Burton (licensed under CCA).

At the western end of the park, a series of opulent Seventeenth Century residences were replaced, in 1703, by a single estate, known as Buckingham House. This was bought by George III, in 1761, as a retreat for his Queen, Charlotte. When George IV ascended the throne, he employed John Nash to convert it into a palace worthy of a King. Nash's works included the Marble Arch, which was moved to its present location (where the Tyburn gallows had once stood) in 1847, to make way for a new East Wing to the Palace, which is the main facade presented to the public today.

Buckingham House in 1710 (Image is in the Public Domain).

Buckingham Palace in 1837, by John Woods (Image is in the Public Domain).

Buckingham Palace from St James's Park. Photo: Pointillist (Image is in the Public Domain).

Mark Patton is a published author of historical fiction and non-fiction, whose books may be purchased from Amazon.

The Story of London in 50 Novels: 13 - "The Giant O'Brien," by Hilary Mantel

London's seasonal fairs, of which Bartholomew Fair was the best known, had, since Medieval times, been a focus for public entertainment, as well as social interaction and commercial transactions. Storytellers and performing bears, jugglers, musicians, and fortune tellers, all vied for the attentions of stall-holders and revelers. Later, as "London" became more than just "The City," and as burgeoning theatres and shopping arcades attracted increasing numbers of people to "The West End," entrepreneurs from across the British Isles, and from further afield, began to think in terms of "curiosities" that they could "exhibit" for the entertainment of an eager (and sometimes gullible) public.

Throughout the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, there were "sapient pigs," trained to perform calculations, spell out words, and even tell fortunes, by picking up cards with their mouths; "mermaids," created by stitching together the desiccated torsos of monkeys with the tails of fish; and a whole host of bearded ladies, hermaphrodites, and "freaks of nature."

Advertisement for "Toby the Sapient Pig," 1817 (image is in the Public Domain).

Often suffering from disabilities or serious illnesses, the living "exhibits" were mercilessly exploited for the profit of others. Some "exhibitions" were overtly racist, as in the case of Sara Baartmans ("the Hottentot Venus"), a woman from southern Africa, who was exhibited in London and Paris between 1810 and 1815.

Caricature by William Heath (1810), of Sara Baartman, with the politicians, Richard Sheridan (in green), and Lord Grenville (image is in the Public Domain).

Charles Byrne (1761-83), the "Irish Giant," was born in County Tyrone, and arrived in London in 1782. He was 7'7" (2.31 metres) tall, the result (we now know) of the pituitary tumour that would take his life just a year later. He was exhibited at Spring Garden-gate, Piccadilly, and Charing Cross, and, on his death, his body was acquired, contrary to his own wishes (he had asked to be buried at sea), by the surgeon, John Hunter. Despite recent attempts to secure a burial for his remains in accordance with his wishes, his skeleton is still on display in the Hunterian Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields (the remains of Sara Baartman, by contrast, were returned to South Africa for burial).

Charles Byrne (centre), flanked by the Knipe brothers (twin giants), by John Kay, National Portrait Gallery D14755 (image is in the Public Domain).

The Hunterian Museum, with Charles Byrne's skeleton at the end. Photo: Paul Dean (StoneColdCrazy) - licensed under GNU.

John Hunter, portrait by John Jackson (1815), after a lost original (1786) by Sir Joshua Reynolds: National Portrait Gallery 77 (image is in the Public Domain).

Hilary Mantel's novel, The Giant O'Brien is based on Byrne's life story, but, by changing the name, she gives herself free license to invent the many details that history has not remembered about the real man (we know almost nothing of Byrne's background, character, or life in London beyond his public appearances).

In the novel, the life-stories of the giant, Charles O'Brien, and that of the surgeon, John Hunter, are juxtaposed. Both are outsiders in London, but, whilst the dour Scot is a calculating man of science; the Irish giant is a man steeped in traditional story-telling and folklore, a generous and engaging character with an original perspective on London life. Whether this reflects the personality of the real Charles Byrne is open to question (he is unlikely to have had much learning of any kind, and may have suffered from mental impairment as a result of his condition), but what is certain is that London in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries was a meeting place for people from many different backgrounds, and with sharply contrasting outlooks on the world.

"London is like the sea and the gallows. It refuses none. Sometimes on the journey, trapped in the ship's stink and heave, they had talked about the premises they would have at journeys end. They should be commodious, Vance said, and in a fashionable neighbourhood, central and well-lit, on a broad thoroughfare where the carriages of the gentry can turn without difficulty. 'My brother has a lodging in St Clement's Lane,' Claffey said, 'I don't know if it's commodious.' Vance blew out through his lips. 'Nest of beggars,' he said. 'As to your perquisites and embellishments, Charlie, they say a pagoda is the last word in fashion'  ... 'Will you have a story?' the Giant soothed them. For the time must be passed, must be passed" ... The Giant did not stop to ask what kind of story they would like, for they were contentious, like fretful children, and were in no position to know what was good for them. 'One day,' he began, the son of the King of Ireland journeyed to the east to find a bride.' 'Where east?' Vance asked, 'East London?' 'Albania,' the Giant said. 'Or far Cathay.'" 

"Seventeen forty-eight saw John Hunter, a set-jawed red-head astride a sway-backed plodder, heading south towards the stench of tanneries and soap-boilers. He came to London across Finchley Common, with the gibbeted corpses of villains groaning into the wind ... At the top of Highgate Hill he came to the Gatehouse Tavern, and observed London laid out before him. The evening was fine and the air mild." 

"London is ringed by fire, by ooze. Men with ladders carry pitch-soaked ropes in the street, and branched globes of light sprout fro the houses. Pybus thinks they have come to a country where they do not have a moon, but Vance is sure they will see it presently, and so they do, drowned in a muddy puddle in Chandos Street." 

"That summer the Giant grew rich. He washed in Castille soap, and made the purchase of some decanters. His followers ate green peas and strawberries. Joe Vance played with the writing set, and Pybus, Claffey, and Jankin haunted the skittle-alleys, the cock-fighting, the prize-fighting, the dog-fighting, and the bull-baiting. 'If we go on so,' said Claffey, grinning, 'we will have tamboured waistcoats like the quality, and silver buckles to our shoes.' 'What do you mean, if we go on so/ I am not likely to shrink.'

Mark Patton is a published author of historical fiction and non-fiction, whose books can be purchased from Amazon.

The Streets of Old Westminster: Precincts of the Palace of Whitehall

A visitor to London, exploring the City of Westminster, and having explored Parliament Square, can walk northwards, along Whitehall, to Trafalgar Square. Whitehall today is lined, as it has been since the Seventeenth Century, by government buildings (HM Treasury, The Ministry of Defence, The Scottish and Welsh Offices), and by statues of some of the leading figures in British military history. Downing Street, where the Prime Minister of the day resides, leads off from it, as does Scotland Yard, formerly the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police from 1829. Whitehall also forms part of one of the most important ceremonial routes in the life of the nation: Royal coronation, wedding, and funeral processions pass this way (replacing the Medieval and Early Modern processional route from the Tower of London through the City); and it is at the heart of the annual commemoration of British and Commonwealth War dead.

Whitehall in 1953, decorated for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Photo: Ben Brooksbank (licensed under CCA).

Whitehall today, looking south, with the Monument to the Women of World War II; and the Cenotaph in the background. Photo: Tbmurray (licensed under CCA). 

In the Thirteenth Century, the area lay outside the precincts of the Palace of Westminster. Most of the English bishops and archbishops kept palaces in London, allowing them to participate in the life of the Court, including the House of Lords. This was York Place, the London palace of the Archbishops of York. As such, it was occupied by Cardinal Wolsey, but was later seized from him by Henry VIII.

Sketch of the Palace of Whitehall, c 1544, including a water-gate (image is in the Public Domain).

During the reigns of Edward VI, Mary I, and James I, the two palaces (Westminster and Whitehall) functioned, in effect, as a single complex. Henry VIII added a bowling green and tennis court, and James I commissioned Inigo Jones to design what is now "The Banqueting House."

Inigo Jones's plan for a new Palace of Whitehall, c 1638 (image is in the Public Domain).

The "Banqueting House." Photo: ChrisO (licensed under GNU).

The ceiling of the "Banqueting House," painted by Peter Paul Rubens, and commissioned by Charles I as a memorial to his father, James I. Photo: The Wub (licensed under CCA).

In 1606, Shakespeare's Macbeth, with its dark themes of regicide and ensuing chaos, received its first performance in this building, in front of James I and his Queen, Anne of Denmark; yet just forty-three years later, the same building witnessed a true regicide, as their son, Charles I, stepped out from one of its windows onto the scaffold, witnessed by a young Samuel Pepys, who recalled a single Biblical verse: "The memory of the wicked shall rot."

The execution of Charles I, c 1649 (image is in the Public Domain).

Pepys had been taken to witness the execution by his father's cousin, the Republican, Sir Edward Montagu, and, during the Commonwealth era, the Palace of Whitehall was occupied by Montagu's patron, Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. A few decades on, both Montagu and Pepys were Royal servants, playing key roles in the Navy of Charles II.  Pepys began his career as a Naval administrator living, effectively, as Montagu's servant, in his grace and favour apartment in Axe Yard; and later had his own home and offices nearby. There were bars and restaurants in New Palace Yard, where Pepys wined and dined his business contacts and his mistresses; and a theatre, where he enjoyed plays.

The Palace of Whitehall in 1680 (image is in the Public Domain.

New Palace Yard in 1647, by Wenceslas Hollar (image is in the Public Domain).

The old Palace of Whitehall, by Hendrick Danckaerts, c 1675, with the "Banqueting House" on the left (image is in the Public Domain).

Whitehall was re-modeled as a public street in the Eighteenth Century, and the elements of the former palace were gradually dismantled, leaving only the "Banqueting House" as a reminder of its former glories.

Whitehall in 1740, looking south, by John Maurer: the "Banqueting House" is on the left (image is in the Public Domain). The "Holbein Gate" at the centre was builtin 1532, and demolished in 1759.

The Horse Guards Building was designed by William Kent (better known for the interiors and gardens of stately homes), and built, after his death, between 1750 and 1759. Photo: Alistair Welkin (licensed under CCA). 

The modern layout of Whitehall (Ordnance Survey, image is in the Public Domain).

At the Northern end of Whitehall stood Charing Cross, built between 1291 and 1294 to commemorate the funeral procession of Eleanor of Castille, Edward I's Queen. This was destroyed as an "idolatrous" symbol during the era of Cromwell's Commonwealth (the copy that now stands outside Charing Cross Station in The Strand was built during the Nineteenth Century). An equestrian statue of Charles I was erected, in its place, in 1675, and has stood there ever since.

Charing Cross, from John Rocque's map of 1746 (image is in the Public Domain). Northumberland House was the London residence of the Percy family, Dukes of Northumberland. 

Charing Cross and Northumberland House, by Canaletto, 1752 (image is in the Public Domain).

The pillory at Charing Cross, by Thomas Rowlandson & Augustus Charles Pugin, 1809 (image is in the Public Domain).

Trafalgar Square as we know it today was laid out between 1842 and 1843, the present National Gallery standing on the site of a succession of royal stables, the earliest of which seems to have been built in the Thirteenth Century, to house the King's falcons, as well as his horses. Trafalgar Square is, in a very real sense, the symbolic heart of London, a venue for both public celebrations and political protests.

The Royal Stables at Charing Cross, designed by William Kent, and completed in 1793 (image is in the Public Domain).

Trafalgar Square before the building of Nelson's Column, by James Pollard, c 1839. Berger Collection, Denver, Colorado (image is in the Public Domain).

Trafalgar Square taken by Sir Norman Lockyer from a helium balloon, 1909 (image is in the Public Domain).

Mark Patton is a published author of historical fiction and non-fiction, whose books can be purchased from Amazon.

The Story of London in 50 Novels: 12 - "The Quality of Mercy," by Barry Unsworth

Eighteenth Century London was the hub of a continually expanding network of global contacts. At its wharves and quays, ships arrived bearing lacquer-ware, porcelain, and tea from China; cotton fabrics from India; tobacco from North America; chocolate from Mexico; coffee and spices from Indonesia; and sugar from the Caribbean; smaller ships brought coal from the north-eastern ports of England, which was increasingly burned as a fuel in London, in preference to wood, the nation's forests having been depleted for the building of ships. The new commercial system was underpinned by innovations in banking, insurance, and corporate governance; but it was also underpinned by something more tangible, yet less visible to most Londoners: the trade in human beings.

Coal merchant's advertisement (image is in the Public Domain).

The Pool of London, by John Wilson Carmichael (image is in the Public Domain).

Advertisement for a coffee house in London (image is in the Public Domain).

Almost every spoonful of sugar consumed in London, and every tot of rum carried on the ships for the benefit of their crew-members, had been produced on plantations in colonies such as Jamaica or Barbados, on the basis of slave-labour. The slaves were Africans, who had been shipped to the Caribbean, often on British ships, with British captains; they were the property of British plantation owners; yet very few of them ever came to Britain itself. Although tens of thousands of ordinary Britons owned shares in companies that formed part of the supply chain, slavery itself was largely out of sight and out of mind.

"Slave Dance," by Dirk Valkenburg, Dutch Brazil (image is in the Public Domain).

May Morning," by John Collet, 1770: Museum of London (image is in the Public Domain). A black servant joins the celebrations: under English law, he would not have been a slave.

From the mid-Eighteenth Century, movements emerged in Europe, committed to the abolition of slavery. Within Britain, these campaigns were often led by Evangelical Christians, and by religious dissenters, including Quakers and, later, Methodists. In 1777, a key ruling at the Old Bailey determined that a fugitive slave who had arrived in England, was a free man, since English law included no provision for the institution of slavery, and that, in the words of Lord Justice Mansfield,  "[slavery] is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law" (in other words, an Act of Parliament, which never actually came to pass).

Portrait of Lord Mansfield's nieces, Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Lindsay, Scone Palace, Scotland, 1778 (image is in the Public Domain). Dido was the daughter of a slave mother and a planter father, and lived as a member of Lord Mansfield's household.

Design for an Abolitionist medallion, by Josiah Wedgwood, 1795 (image is in the Public Domain). 

The first book published by an African author in English, 1782 (image is in the Public Domain). Direct testimony by individuals with first-hand experience of slavery played an important part in the Abolitionist movement. 

With so many vested interests, however, the process of abolition was a slow and painful one. Slavery was formally abolished by the newly created French Republic in 1794, but this was revoked by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802. In England, William Wilberforce's act of 1807 outlawed the Transatlantic Slave Trade, but British plantation owners continued to make use of slave labour until 1833.

Illustration from Voltaire's "Candide" (widely read across Europe). His protagonist meets a maimed slave in Surinam: "it is at this price that you eat sugar in Europe," the caption reads. Image: Jean-Michel Moreau, 1787 ((image is in the Public Domain).

Barry Unsworth's novel, The Quality of Mercy, is based around an imagined conflict (though closely based on historical circumstances), between a ship-owner, Erasmus Kemp, whose slave-ship has been taken over by its crew,and run aground in Florida; and the abolitionist, Frederick Ashton, who accuses Kemp of insurance fraud (in claiming for the value of slaves allegedly thrown overboard on the orders of the Captain), and seeks to demonstrate, in the courts, that, as human beings, the slaves had never been Ashton's lawful property. The situation is complicated by a love-interest between Kemp and Ashton's sister; and by the position of Sullivan, the ship's Irish fiddler, one of the few men who might actually know what happened on the ship, and who is, unbeknown to Kemp or Ashton, making his way on foot to a mining community in County Durham, with a message for the family of a murdered ship-mate.

"On finding himself thus accidentally free, Sullivan's only thought was to get as far as he could from Newgate prison while it was still dark. Fiddle and bow slung over his shoulders, he set off northwards, keeping the river at his back. In Holborn he lost an hour, wandering in a maze of courts. Then an old washer-woman, waiting outside a door in the first light of day, set him right for Gray's Inn Lane and the northern outskirts of the city ... An hour's walking brought him to the rural edges of London, among the market gardens and brick kilns north of Gray's Inn Road ... At a junction of lanes here was a huddle of houses and a small inn. He was hungry but he did not dare to stop. One way led to Watford the other to St Albans. He took a shilling from his new purse and tossed it. It came down heads. St Albans then."

"'I had hoped the business might be settled privately between us,' Van Dillen said. 'The outcome must be doubtful in law and if we go to the extent of a hearing there are costs to be thought of. Why should we fatten the lawyers, Mr Kemp?' He was not finding the interview easy. He was physically uncomfortable, for one thing; the seat of his chair was too small for a man of his bulk, and the weather was unseasonably hot. The room had only one window, and the morning sun, strong despite the clogging air of London, slanted through it and lay directly on him. He felt overheated in his bob-wig and broadcloth suit ... He felt an itch on the side of his neck, some insect crawling there ... the windless days and early heat had produced a plague of small black beetles that flew about blindly, getting tangled in wigs and snared in the corner of eyes, copulating and dying, leaving a scurf of corpses ... 'What can be predicted are the legal costs,' Van Dillen said. 'My good sir, the facts are not in dispute, at least as regards the central fact of the Negroes being cast overboard and the necessity thereof.' 'It is precisely the necessity of it that the insurers will dispute if it comes before a court."

"Slavers throwing overboard the dead and dying," by J.M.W. Turner, 1840, Museum of Fine Art, Boston, 1840 (image is in the Public Domain). Slavery was already illegal in British territories at this time, but Turner was campaigning for its global abolition.

"The insurance claim on eighty-five African slaves, cast overboard while still alive from the deck of the 'Liverpool Merchant' on grounds of lawful jettison, was heard at the Guildhall, Justice Blundell presiding. In contrast to the long course of postponements and delays that preceded it, the hearing itself was brief, occupying no more than three hours of the court's time. The insurers were represented by an elderly lawyer named Price, who had a large experience of such cases. Kemp's lawyer, Pike, had wished to hold his fire for the criminal trial at the Old Bailey, which was due to be held at a date not yet specified; he had recommended a young barrister named Waters to represent the ship's owner."      

Mark Patton is a published author of historical fiction and non-fiction, whose books can be purchased from Amazon.