THE NEW BLOOMSBURY.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 76, 29 March 1924, Page 13

THE NEW BLOOMSBURY.

HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS

RETREAT OF AUTHORS. HOrsEBUILDERS BUSY. '.From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, February 20. The thousands of Differs who know thrir Bloomsbury, within the heart of which was housed their London l.eadquartnrs, would he surprised to see it now. The house-breaker, nnd in his turn ilie housebuilder, has boon very busy of late and it is a moment n> register something of its past associations and the new developments promised. For that reason wo welcome a description which has been sent in to our oflice by a lovor of Bloomshury. who has studied not merely its stone and mortar, but many of the personalities who have made this stone live in the memory ot pood Londoners. The author is -Mr. Charles Pearce who among other books to his credit has one on "Polly Peachura" (the heroine of "The Beggar's Opera"! and "Madame Vestris and Her Times."

Bloomsbury has been the retreat of authors from the days of Colley Cibher (perhaps earlier), who was born in .Southampton Street, opposite Southampton House in Holborn. Luminaries of the law favoured Russell Square, and here lived Sir Samuel Romilly and Sir Thomas Lawrence. Bloomsbury Square can likewise boast of famous lawyers, among them Lord Mansfield and Lord Ellenboroupll. Lord Chesterfield had his homo here before he moved to the hou.-p now the town residence of rrincess Mary and Lord Laseelles, and so had Sir Richard Steele, and Sir Hans Sloane. Other literary men were Charles Knight, the pioneer of good and cheap reading, and Isaac Disraeli. Bloomsbury Square is not without its publisher resident, for here died Benjamin Cadell, who brought out the first edition of (.iibbons'"Decline and Fall." Morris and Cowper. Further south we have Red Lion Square, where as a tablet records, William Morris began his artistic and poetucareer. Turning to Southampton Row, which promises to be one of Iho handsomest and most imposing streets in London, we find that William Cowper while articled to a solicitor spent most of his time njt the home of a relative living in the Row. In the lower end of Southampton Row, then known as Upper King Street, Mudies, the biggest circulating library in the world, had its origin in a very modest way, and it is interesting to recall that the founder Mr. C. E. Mudie, was \lso a publisher and was responsible for the first English edition of James Russell Lowell's poems (1S14).

"With Upper Woburn "Place, a continuation of Southampton Row, one comes into touch with the Tavistock, Cordon Woburn, and Torrington Squares. Here at one time lived a goodly company of authors. Charles Dickens heads 'the list. In Tavistock House (once also the residence of James Terry, a famous editor of the "Morning Chronicle") Dickens commenced "Bloak House," and in Tavistock Place resided at No. 34 the notorious Mary Anno Clarke, who. in ISOO, made things so uncomfortable for the Duke of York. If Mrs. Clarke had a hand in the compilation of her "Memoirs" she too has, in a way, a claim to be considered an authoress. At No. 37, Tavistock Place, Francis Baily. president of the Royal Society, in ISSI, ascertained the weight of the" world. The house stood isolated in a garden "so as to be free from any material tremor from passing carriages' , —they little recked of the motor bus. In the present day Tavistock Place is associated with the late Mrs. Hnmphrpy Ward, at whose instance the institute known as the "Mary Ward Settlement - ' was founded by Mr. Passmore, the newspaper proprietor. Hard by Tavistock Place is Groat Coram Street, where Thackery was living when he contributed to "Frascr's Magazine," while the name of Kdward Irving, the visionary preacher, is indissolubly associated with the ornnte Catholic and Apostolic Church in Gor.don Square. • The British Museum. Dominating the- bookish repose of Bloomsbury where it may be said the midnight oil has constantly been kept burning, is the stately dome of the greatest literary hive in the world—the British Museum. It is fitting that its neighbour should "be the University College. A short distance now only separates them, and if the projected plans for the extension of the University materialise that distance will practically disappear.

The Euston Road, of which Endsleigli Gardens forms a part, has had a chequered history. When the New Road as it was originally named, was proposed about the middle of the eighteenth century, the Duke of Bedford, enraged at the idea of the road dust coming between him and his nobility, violently opposed the scheme. The Duke of Grafton, on the other hand, supported it, and ultimately the work was carried out with the restriction that no building should be erected within 50 feet of the road. This restriction accounts for the long gardens in front of many of the houses and also for the exceptional width of the road. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was open country to the north of the New Road stretching away to Hampstead. Euston Square, opposite Endsleigh Gardens, was built in 1825 on ground which had been previously a nursery garden.

An amusing entry in C'rahb Bohinson's diary tells us, "Went to a large musical party at Aders in Euston Square. . . . Wordsworth, Monkhousr, and their ladies, the Flaxinans Coleridge and Rogers with some friends. I noticed a great difference in the enjoyment of the music, which was first rate. Wordsworth declared himself perfectly delighted and satisfied, but ho sat alone and silent, and his face covered, and was generally supposed to be asleep. Flaxman too, declared he could not endure fine music for long. It exhausted him. But Coleridge's enjoyment was lively and openly expressed." East of Eu«ton Square, William Godwin and Mary Wolstonecroft lived after their marriaee, in separate houses.

It only remains to say that though a greater part of the ornamental ground in front of the eight houses known as Endsleigh Gardens will shortly be covered by a stately pile of buildings forming the new headquarters of the Society of Friends, the amenities will be preserved by the maintenance of the present shrubbery at either end.