Around the Monopoly board with the Hand in Hand registers — part 3 Electric Light Company to Vine Street
Part 3 of our trip around the monopoly board begins with the electric light company. Although the registers are a bit too early for Hand in Hand to be insuring an electric light company, we have found references to insurance of companies providing gas light to London. In April 1816, the Chartered Gas Light and Coke Company insured its offices at 19 New Bridge Street under policy 91409 for £3000. This was the first company set up to supply London with gas (made from the coking process) which was primarily used for lighting. The Chartered Gas Light and Coke Company also ran the first UK gas works. Hand in Hand also insured the Phoenix Gas Light & Coke Company, which provided gas for Southwark, Greenwich, Brixton, and Deptford, and took out cover for £10,150 in 1853.
Moving on to Whitehall, we find Hand in Hand insuring Grantham House which was described as fronting Whitehall Gate. The property was first insured in March 1724 for £1500 by the politician George Treby who was then Secretary at War. The house and insurance were later transferred to the diplomat Sir Thomas Robinson who later became Lord Grantham thus giving the house its name.
Another property which caught my eye was a house described as near the waterman’s plying place at Whitehall. Insurance was renewed in 1744 for £2000 when it was the home of Audrey, Viscountess Townshend. Lady Audrey had separated from her husband (who apparently spent his time at Raynham with his mistress); she was described at the time as a “frolicsome dame” who had friendships with powerful men of the day including the politician Thomas Winnington.
Hand in Hand also insured a property which is still standing in Whitehall today, Dover House, now the headquarters of the Secretary of State for Scotland. The house was first insured in 1756 by the politician Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh and the register entries show the increase in cover required by the alterations he made, with the 1765 renewal noting that the house was “finished in the best manner”.
As Northumberland Avenue had not been built in the time covered by the registers, our next properties are on Bow Street. The first house I spotted on Bow Street was originally insured in 1705 under policy number 8636. The house, 24 Bow Street, was described as 4 stories high and was insured by Thomas Kyneston. In 1754 the insurance was assigned by Thomas Kyneston’s son, also Thomas, to the excellently named actor Spranger Barry who lived there with the actress Maria Nossiter. The pair were then appearing together in the nearby Covent Garden Theatre. The property appears in the registers up to 1810 and was also the home of William Dickey, secretary of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons, and of John Higginson whose occupation is given as whalebone cutter.
Another Bow Street property first insured in 1705 belonged to the sculptor Grinling Gibbons who insured his house there for £700 under policy 8814 in August 1705.
Our final Bow Street property, №4 Bow Street, was first insured in 1733 and became the home of the magistrate Thomas De Veil and the Bow Street Magistrate Court. From here brothers Henry and John Fielding, who took on the house and the insurance, set up the famous Bow Street Runners, England’s first police force. Henry was also known for his writing including the novel ‘The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling’, and John, who renewed the insurance in 1763, had been blind since the age of 19 and was known as the “blind beak” who could recognise criminals just by their voices.
Jumping over Community Chest, the next square on the Monopoly board is Marlborough Street — which doesn’t actually exist. It is assumed that the game’s manufacturers were thinking of Great Marlborough Street so that is where I have looked for Hand in Hand customers. Insurance on Great Marlborough Street included policy number 26733 which was taken out in 1714 by the diplomat Sir Lambert Blackwell of Sprowston Hall near Norwich as his London home and was insured by the family until 1745. It is sometimes described in the registers as being next door to Lord Byron (at №15 Great Marlborough Street). Lord Byron [William 4th Baron Byron] was also insured with the Hand in Hand, under policy 13831 which had first been taken out in 1707 by the woodmonger John Kempe. The house on the other side (№14) was also insured with Hand in Hand in 1707 by the joiner Joshua Stead and later renewed by Sir John Cust, the Speaker of the House of Commons.
Our final stop on this side of the board is Vine Street where Hand in Hand insured the Vine Tavern after which the street is believed to have been named. The tavern was one of four neighbouring properties on Vine Street first insured in 1717 by the carpenter John Chamberlain and is not described in the registers as the Vine Tavern until insurance was renewed by Joseph Andrews in 1738. The property, later described as the Vine Inn, was insured by the Andrews family up to 1803 and was still insured with Hand in Hand in 1809 although by then it seems to have stopped being used as a pub.
In 1718, Hand in Hand also insured stew houses and malt houses on Vine Street which belonged to the Minories brewery of John Pycraft who built a fortune through his brewing interests. The properties were still insured in the 1750s and were then owned by Sarah Hucks, widow of the brewer Robert Hucks.
Our final properties on Vine Street are a workshop and house first insured under policy 66376 and 66560 in 1740 by Isaac Clark, an undertaker. When the policies were renewed in 1747 the sculptor Peter Scheemakers, was in residence. Scheemakers, who is probably best known for creating the memorial to Shakespeare (designed by William Kent) which is at Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey, continued to insure the workshop even after he had retired to Antwerp in 1776.
