Abstract
This chapter is an account of Cavendish’s houses on Clapham Common and Bedford Square; this account supersedes previous ones.
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Notes
- 1.
Thomas Thomson wrote that Cavendish’s “apartments were a set of stables, fitted out for his accommodation.” Thomson, History of Chemistry 1: 159. Converted stables were not uncommon in London at the time. Thomson was only nine when Cavendish moved away from his father’s house, and so he would not have seen Cavendish’s living quarters but only heard about them. We have an account of what Thomson probably heard about. Behind Charles Cavendish’s house was a garden, at the end of which was an apartment with a passageway to the house. The apartment was described in 1725 as “beautiful” and “newly built,” adjoining the coach houses and stabling, with its own entrance and street number, its own plumbing, an underground kitchen, and four rooms on the single floor above. A building at the end of the garden is shown on Richard Horwood, Horwood’s Plan of London … 1792–99 (London: London Topographical Society, 1966) (Fig. 3.6).
- 2.
“Henry Cavendish to Mr Joshua Brooks. Counterpart Lease of a Messuage or Tenement with the Appurts. No. in Marlborough Street in the Parish of St James Westminster County Middlesex,” 1788, Devonshire Collections, L/38/35. London County Council, Survey of London, vol. 31: The Parish of St. James Westminster, pt. 2, North of Piccadilly, general ed. F. H. W. Shepherd (London: Athlone Press, 1963), 256.
- 3.
Cavendish’s first appearance on the rate books was on 3 January 1782, his last on 19 September 1785. “Hampstead Vestry. Poor Rate,” Holborn Public Library, London.
- 4.
Charles Cavendish appears on the poor rolls of Westminster Parish of St. Margaret’s in 1728, paying £5.5.0 annually, which is what the duke of Kent, his father-in-law, who had a house in the parish, paid. Westminster Public Libraries, Westminster Collection, Accession no. 10, Document no. 343. Charles Cavendish’s address in 1729–32 was 48 Grosvenor Street, a three-story brick terraced house, with four windows on each floor, and with touches of elegance: extensive paneling, marble chimney pieces, and a “Great Stair Case” in the entrance hall. British History Online, “Grosvenor Street South,” http://www.british-history.ac.uk.
- 5.
Daniel Lysons, The Environs of London: Being an Historical Account of the Towns, Villages, and Hamlets, within Twelve Miles of That Capital, vol. 1: County of Surrey (London, 1792), 159–61. In the legal documents, the land Cavendish bought is said to be fifteen acres, not fourteen. Historically, Clapham Common was common land for two parishes, Clapham and Battersea. Anon., “Clapham Common,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapham_Common.
- 6.
T. C. Dale, “History of Clapham,” in Clapham Antiquarian Society, Clapham and the Clapham Sect (Clapham: Clapham Antiquarian Society, 1927), 1–28, on 1.
- 7.
Map of Clapham Common, with names of all of the residents. “Perambulation of Clapham Common, in 1800. From C. Smith’s ‘Actual Survey on the Road from London to Brighthelmston,’” in J. H. Michael Burgess, The Chronicles of Clapham [Clapham Common]. Being a Selection from the Reminiscences of Thomas Parsons. Sometime Member of the Clapham Antiquarian Society (London: The Ramsden Press, 1929), opposite page 112. Reproduced by permission of the Bodleian Library.
- 8.
Verner W. Crane, “The Club of Honest Whigs: Friends of Science and Liberty,” William and Mary Quarterly 23 (1966): 210–33, on 215.
- 9.
Christopher Baldwin to Henry Cavendish, 15 June 1784, Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth, 86/comp. 1.
- 10.
Christopher Baldwin to Henry Cavendish, 3 May 1784, ibid.
- 11.
Henry Cavendish to Christopher Baldwin, n.d. [After 3 May and 2 June 1784], drafts. Christopher Baldwin to Henry Cavendish, 2 and 7 June, 3 July 1784, ibid.
- 12.
“Abstract of the Title of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire to the Estate at Clapham Common and in the County of Surrey,” 2 November 1784, Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth, 38/78. Blagden and Alexander Dalrymple, hydrographer of the British Admiralty, are named trustees in this document. In a second document with the same date, Alexander Aubert, governor of the London Assurance Company and astronomer, is named a third trustee.
- 13.
“Statement of Leases by the Honourable Henry Cavendish of Messuages and Lands at Clapham in Surrey,” 1795–1805, Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth, 34/10. “Henry Cavendish Esquire and Messrs Hanscomb, Fothergill and Poynder. Articles of Agreement for a Building Lease,” 1791, ibid., L/31/45. “Abstract of the Title of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire to the Estate at Clapham Common in the County of Surrey,” ibid., L/38/78. The builders each paid £200 per year rent to Cavendish.
- 14.
Henry Cavendish to Christopher Baldwin, n.d. [After 3 May 1784]. Mrs. Mount’s house is referred to in Henry Cavendish, “Plan of Drains at Clapham & Measures Relating to Bason,” Cavendish Scientific Manuscripts, Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth.
- 15.
Baldwin to Cavendish, 3 May 1784.
- 16.
In favor of this alternative might be his interest in buying Mrs. Mount’s house while he was negotiating with Baldwin about buying the fifteen acres. Also Thomas Hanscomb who dealt with Baldwin as Cavendish’s agent would be a builder of houses for Cavendish on the 15 acres.
- 17.
Clapham Antiquarian Society, “Cavendish House,” Occasional Sheet, August 1957. Eric E. F. Smith, Clapham (London: London Borough of Lambeth, 1976), 78. Burgess, Chronicles of Clapham, 60.
- 18.
Clapham “Land Tax Assessment for Land Alone June 1793,” Lambeth Archives.
- 19.
Surrey Deeds (Index), Lambeth Archives, 14.171.
- 20.
Before Cavendish’s arrival on the Common, a scientific experiment had been performed on Mount Pond by Cavendish’s colleague in electricity Benjamin Franklin, who was at the time staying with Christopher Baldwin on the Common. Brown’s will is in the National Archives, PROB 11/1011/362. Clapham Antiquarian Society, “Cavendish House,” Occasional Sheet (August 1957). Michael Green, “Mount Pond, Clapham Common: Archaeology and History,” The Clapham Society Local History Series 7, http://www.claphamsociety.com/Articles/article7.html.
- 21.
In our biography Cavendish (1999), we said that Cavendish rented his house on Clapham Common. We correct ourselves here: Cavendish bought the house. I am grateful to Colin Thom for clarifying the purchase.
- 22.
James Edwards, Companion from London to Brighthelmston (London, c.1790), 11. Burgess, Chronicles of Clapham, 57.
- 23.
There is a document at Chatsworth I originally thought applied to the house Cavendish bought at Clapham Common, which if so would give us an idea of the number of rooms in the house. But now I doubt that it applies. The inventory is a room-by-room list of bookcases, curtains, stoves, and the like, which were to be valued to the person who bought the estate. The year was 1732. In pencil, Cavendish located each room in the house: “west wing back,” etc. Mr. and Mrs. E. Collinson had lived in the house. The fixtures belonged to Mr. Collinson and Mr. Tritton of Clapham. The name Tritton suggests a connection to Cavendish’s house: Anna Maria Brown, daughter of Henton Brown, thought to be the first owner of Cavendish’s house, married Thomas Tritton (1717–86); she lived on Clapham Common. If the inventory was of fixtures not in Cavendish’s house, but in another, Cavendish might have been interested in buying some of them for his house. There is a list of fixtures in his house on Clapham Common, but it is very short, only four items. The puzzling document is “An Inventory of Fixtures Belonging to Messr Collinson and Tritton of Clapham in Surrey to be Valued to the Purchaser of the Estate May 13th, 1732,” Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth, 86/comp. 1. “An Inventory of Fixtures in the House Purchased by Mr Cavendish of Mr Robertson,” ibid. “Anna Maria Brown,” “The Peerage.”
- 24.
Wilson, Cavendish, 164.
- 25.
Edwards, Companion, 11.
- 26.
Henry Cavendish to Joseph Priestley, 20 December 1784, draft, in Joseph Priestley, A Scientific Autobiography of Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), ed. R. E. Schofield (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1966), 239–40, on 239. In 1784, Cavendish would have been moving the contents of his apartment at his father’s house to his new house at Hampstead.
- 27.
Charles Blagden to William Lewis, 20 June 1785, draft, Blagden Letter book, Yale.
- 28.
Charles Blagden to John Michell, 13 September 1785, draft; in McCormmach, Weighing the World, 395–400, on 399.
- 29.
Charles Blagden to P. S. Laplace, 16 November 1785, draft, Blagden Letters, Royal Society 7:733.
- 30.
Ibid.
- 31.
R. de M. Rudolph, “The Clapham Sect,” in Clapham Antiquarian Society, Clapham and the Clapham Sect, ed. E. Baldwin (Clapham: Clapham Antiquarian Society, 1927), 89–142, on 89.
- 32.
Smith, Clapham, 78.
- 33.
In his will, Charles Cavendish left his personal estate to Henry; he said nothing about his real estate. He named Henry as his sole executor. In Henry Cavendish, “List of Papers Classed,” under “Mine,” there is an entry “agreement about house in M.S.,” probably “Marlborough Street,” where his father’s house was. Charles Cavendish’s will, signed 1 August 1756, probated 28 May 1783, Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth, L/69/12.
- 34.
London County Council, Survey of London, vol. 5: The Parish of St. Hiles-in-the-Fields, part 2, ed. E. Riley and L. Gromme (London: London County Council, 1914), 162.
- 35.
Lord John Cavendish to Henry Cavendish, 25 August 1785. Henry Cavendish to Lord John Cavendish, n.d., draft, Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth.
- 36.
Bedford estate archive, NMR 16/21/3.
- 37.
Middlesex Deed Register, MDR/1784/2/353.
- 38.
Charles Blagden to John Blagden Hale, n.d., draft, Blagden Letterbook, Yale. In this letter Blagden told his brother that he was moving his house to Gower St. at the end of next week. He said that he watched Blanchard’s balloon on the day he wrote the letter, which dates it, 17 October 1784.
- 39.
George Rudé, Hanoverian London 1714–1808 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1971), 14.
- 40.
London County Council, Survey of London, vol. 5, pt. 2, p. 150. Anon., “Bloomsbury Squares & Gardens. Bedford Square,” http://bloomsburysquares.wordpress.com/bedford-square.
- 41.
“J. Willcock’s Valuation of House & Stables in Bedford Square,” 30 December 1813, Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth.
- 42.
3 and 4 March 1810, Charles Blagden Diary, Royal Society, 429, 429 (back), 430.
- 43.
“6 Sept. 1810. Mr Paynes Valuation of Books £7000.” “29 April &c. 1814 Account Respecting the Sale of a Leasehold House at the North East Corner of Bedford Square,” Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth.
- 44.
“Willcock’s Valuation of House & Stables in Bedford Square.”
- 45.
Barrow, Royal Society, 148.
- 46.
“Inventory of Sundry Fixtures, Household Furniture, Plate, Linen &c. &c. The Property of the Late Henry Cavendish Esquire at His Late Residence in Bedford Square. Taken the 2nd Day of April 1810,” Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth, 114/74. “The Particulars of a Capital Leasehold House, and Offices Situate at the North East Corner of Bedford Square… Sold by Auction, by Mr. Willcock on Friday the Twenty-ninth of April 1814,” Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth. There were in addition to the five family portraits in the house ten damaged ones in the lumber room over the stables.
- 47.
“Extracts from Valuation of Furniture &c.,” Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth.
- 48.
Ibid.
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McCormmach, R. (2014). Cavendish’s Houses: Clapham Common and Bedford Square. In: The Personality of Henry Cavendish - A Great Scientist with Extraordinary Peculiarities. Archimedes, vol 36. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02438-7_14
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