Around the Monopoly board with the Hand in Hand Registers — Part 2 — Pall Mall
Part two of our trip round the Monopoly board starts (and ends) at Pall Mall. I’ve spotted so many houses Hand in Hand insured here, mostly on the south side of the street, that it has to have a post all of its own. The most prestigious Pall Mall property in the registers is probably Carlton House which was insured for £2000 by Edward Godfrey under policy 75727 in March 1755, for Augusta Dowager Princess of Wales, (the widow of George II’s son, Frederick).
The property was renewed in 1767 for £21,625 and insurance was increased again in 1787 when Carlton House was covered for £30,000 by Henry Lyte on behalf of George Prince of Wales (later King George IV). The registers don’t record whether it was renewed when the insurance became due again in 1794 but a note in the company’s minute book for that year records that the clerk, Mr Rouse, was “directed to meet the secretary of Prince of Wales to say they are prepared to reduce the existing value of Carlton House currently insured at £30,000 to £20,000 and that if His Royal Highness desired to take this up the premium would be 24/-%” [£240 or the equivalent of £434,500 today].
Carlton house faced the south side of Pall Mall Gardens next to St James Park (the site of the current Carlton House Terrace) and was demolished in 1826 with the proceeds used towards cost of Buckingham Palace.
A more modest property, described as against the west passage into St James Square, was insured by the Dupuis family of milliners. The Dupuis were Huguenot refugees whose surname caused problems for the Hand in Hand clerks with various spellings including Dupee and Dupuy over the years. The policy, number 12556, was first taken out by Philip Dupuis in February 1700 and gives his address as the sign of the unicorn on Pall Mall. The property and the insurance passed to his widow, Margaret, in 1703 and by 1720 to their son, Abraham, who had the title captain and is believed to have fought in the battle of Dunblane or Sheriffmuir. Abraham was married to Anna nee Stainsby or Stanisby who, according to a later family history, was court milliner to the Dowager Princess of Wales, mother of George III (their near neighbour at Carlton House). The family history suggests she held this position prior to her marriage which would not fit with the Princess of Wales being a dowager, but she was clearly working as a milliner in Pall Mall two years after her marriage to Abraham and she is recorded taking on an apprentice there in 1718. When Abraham died in 1737 the house and the insurance passed to Anna who continued to operate the millinery business taking on new apprentices (one of whom married her son) and referring to her stock in trade in her will, which was written in 1754. From 1713, the Dupuis family also insured the property next door to their house and shop with Hand in Hand. This property was the Cocoa Tree Chocolate House, one of London’s original Chocolate Houses which later became a private gentleman’s club. While the premises were insured by the Dupuis family, the Cocoa Tree was a favourite haunt of the author Jonathan Swift and became known for its popularity with Tories and Jacobites. Both properties were insured by the family until February 1761.
Hand in Hand also insured another popular drinking establishment on Pall Mall — the Star and Garter Tavern which was first insured by Richard MacDowall in May 1742 for £1000. The landlord at that date was John Stevenson but later entries refer to it being in the possession of James Fynmore who was landlord in 1765 when the Dilettanti Club, established to promote the arts in England by young men who had travelled extensively in Italy, regularly met at the tavern. That same year, following a meeting of the Nottinghamshire Club, Lord Byron (the great-uncle of the poet) killed his distant cousin and neighbour, William Chaworth, in one of the Star and Garter’s upstairs rooms after a row over whose estate had the most game. The Star and Garter was also host to the club which set out the first laws of cricket in 1774.
The less famous Garter Tavern off Pall Mall was also insured in this period under policy 65738 which was taken out in August 1739 by Alexis Clayton on behalf of Dame Elizabeth Hanmer (who had scandalously left her older husband, Sir Thomas Hanmer, to live in sin with his cousin the Honourable Thomas Hervey). At the same time, policy 65737 was taken out for Dame Elizabeth with £1000 of cover on a house on the south side of Pall Mall against Market Lane. The house was then in the possession of Lamb who is possibly the same Aaron Lamb, an auctioneer, who is named as the occupier in 1761. When the policy was renewed in 1768 the premises were occupied by Richard Dalton who, according to the Survey of London, had trained as an artist and was librarian to the Prince of Wales, (later George III). He had apparently acquired the sublease of the house in 1765 intending to establish a print warehouse. When this venture was unsuccessful, he persuaded the King to establish an academy in the rooms, so they became the first home of the Royal Academy in 1768 and hosted the first annual Royal Academy Exhibition in 1769. At some point, Dalton’s former print warehouse became the home of Christie’s Auction rooms — the Christie’s website states that the first sale was held there in 1766 while the Survey of London gives a date of 1771 for the assignment of the lease and suggests that Christie had occupied premises further west in Pall Mall before that date. The Hand in Hand registers continue to describe the property as in the possession of Dalton until sometime after the renewal in 1789 when the name Dalton is crossed through and replaced with Christie. When the policy was renewed again in 1796 the property was described as an auction house in the possession of Christie.
In May 1761 the Garter Tavern and the future Christie’s auction house were both renewed by the politician Thomas Hervey (who had inherited them from his lover Elizabeth Hanmer). That year Hervey also took out new insurance on our final property on Pall Mall which was the home of Samuel Drybutter.
I made a note of the insurance because of the unusual surname and have since found that Samuel Drybutter was himself unusual as an openly gay man in Georgian England. He was a jeweller and bookseller who moved to Pall Mall in 1761 to take over a shop previously run by his late mother. He was first arrested for the then crime of sodomy in January 1770 and again in September that year for soliciting a man in St James’ Park. Incidents such as these made him a target and led to him being proposed as a petty constable for the parish of St Margaret Westminster as a joke in 1771. It was when he was due to be sworn in as petty constable that he publicly announced his homosexuality. According to reports, he stood up and said: “you know I am the detestation of all mankind; every man who hears me, hates, detests, and abhors me; I am presented to the office partly out of joke, and partly from malice; they who have presented me know what I am, and you, all of you know, that I am not a fit person to be put into this office.” He was then asked by the Deputy Steward of the court to explain what he meant, and replied, “The world calls me a Sodomite; I am one.” In July 1774, Drybutter and another man were arrested for an attempted “horrid crime” against Junius Sims from Norfolk who was picked up under a railway arch and taken to Drybutter’s home where he was given alcohol and, according to contemporary papers “Drybutter fastened the Door and proceeded to behave towards the lad in a Manner too indecent and shocking to describe”. Sims was able to leave before a crime could be committed and another charge against “the notorious Drybutter” the following year was dismissed because the young postillion, James Jenks, who Drybutter had “assaulted in an indecent manner” had beaten him with a large stick and was judged to have “done himself ample Justice upon the occasion.” The papers reported that after this incident Drybutter had “departed amidst the hisses of the populace” and there are records of him suffering beatings and other humiliations in this period. When insurance was renewed in 1775 the register doesn’t record who was then living in the property and Samuel Drybutter seems to have moved to France where his will was written in 1887 in which he appears to accuse his niece of trying to kill him.
If you have enjoyed finding out about some of the properties Hand in Hand insured on Pall Mall then why not see what you can discover for yourself on our mapping website amicablecontributors.com
