Leicester Square

Leicester-Square,—is op. the E. end of Panton-st. from 25, in the Hay-market, communicates with St. Martin's lane at 88, by Cranbourne-st. and St. Martin's court.

Leicester-Square, is a spacious square between St. Martin's-lane and the Hay-market. It was formerly called Leicester-fields, from the large house on the north side, still called Leicester House which was formerly the mansion of the Earls of Leicester, and afterwards the residence of the Princess of Wales, mother of George III., at the time of that king's accession to the throne, and at the front of which he appeared and was welcomed as King of England. It is now principally noted for the exhibition of Miss Linwood's pictures in needle-work, and the Panoramas.

Leicester Square, previously Leicester Fields, built circ. 1635, and so called from Leicester House; the south side was not completed till 1671.

Leicester Fields, a very handsome, large square, enclosed with rails, and graced on all sides with good built houses, well inhabited, and resorted unto by gentry, especially the side towards the north, where the houses are larger; amongst which is Leicester House, the seat of the Earl of Leicester, and the house adjoining to it, inhabited by the Earl of Aylesbury.—Strype, B. vi. pp. 68, 86.

Other noblemen and prelates had houses here. Dr. Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph, was living here in 1681; in 1683 the (second) Earl of Strafford writes from Leicester Fields to the (second) Earl of Clarendon; and in 1698 the Marquis of Carmarthen gave a ball at his house in Leicester Fields.

Dryden in 1690.

Neither has he so far foigotten a poor inhabitant of his suburbs, whose best prospect is on the Garden of Leicester House.—Dryden, Ded. to Don Sebastian

Lord Chancellor Somers (d. April 26, 1716).

The late Lord Somers's Dwelling House in Leicester Fields to be disposed of, with or without the goods. There are about eighteen years to come of the Lease. Enquire, etc.—Advt. in Daily Courant, August 1, 1716.

In 1699, when the pious Robert Nelson brought his wife into town from Blackheath to be attended by Dr. Radcliffe, they "lodged at the Blue Posts in Leicester Fields."¹ David Loggan, the engraver, lived "next door to the Golden Head in Leicester Fields," and there died in 1693.

And in the front of all his senseless plays
Makes David Loggan crown his head with bays.
Dryden, Art of Poetry, Canto ii.

Swift was lodging here in 1711.² Mary Tofts, the rabbit-breeding woman of Godalming, whose silly story filled so many credulous people with wonder, was brought (1726) to "the Bagnio in Leicester Fields," to be delivered in the presence of Sir Hans Sloane and other medical worthies. Leicester Fields was in great favour with artists in the last century. William Aikman, the portrait painter, lived here, and here, as Mark Noble has it, "the universal tyrant seized his prey, June 7, 1741," but other and earlier authorities date his decease just ten years earlier, and there can be little doubt they are right, and that Aikman died in 1731. Sir James Thornhill lived here till within a few weeks of his death in 1734. His son-in-law, William Hogarth, is however more intimately associated with Leicester Fields. Hogarth's house was on the east side of the square, in what was afterwards the northern half of the Sablonière Hotel The house was distinguished, in the painter's time, by the sign of "The Golden Head," a bust of Vandyck, cut by the painter himself from pieces of cork, glued and painted together. "I well remember," says Smith, "that it was placed over the street door." "It is long since decayed," says Nichols, writing in 1783.¹ The house, with its sign, is shown in a good contemporary engraving of the square by Parr. It appears by the rate-books that Hogarth came to live here in 1733, and that in 1756 he was rated to the poor at £60. Captain Coram died at his lodgings in this square, March 29, 1751.²

When I sat to Hogarth, the custom of giving vails to servants was not discontinued. On taking leave of the painter at the door, I offered his servant a small gratuity, but the man very politely refused it, telling me it would be as much as the loss of his place if his master knew it. This was so uncommon and so liberal in a man of Hogarth's profession at that time of day, that it much struck me, as nothing of the kind had happened to me before.—Cole's MS. Collections.

On the south side, close to Hogarth, lived Theodore Gardelle, the enamellist and portrait painter, who, on February 19, 1761, murdered his landlady, Mrs. King, under very singular circumstances.³ Edward Fisher, the celebrated mezzotinto engraver, "at the Golden Head on the south side of Leicester Sqyare." He was living here when, in 1762, he published his fine engraving, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, of Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy, and here he engraved the noble full-length of the Marchioness of Tavistock. James [Athenian] Stuart lived "on the south side of Leicester Fields; he had built a large room at the back of his house, in which were several of his drawings, particularly those he had made for a continuation of his work: they were in body colours, and in style resembled those of Marco Ricci."⁴ John Gwynn (d. 1786), the architect of lh& English Bridge at Shrewsbury and Magdalen Bridge, Oxford, the friend of Dr. Johnson, and the author of the quarto volume published in 1766 under the title of London and Westminster Improved, in which nearly all the great improvements that have been accomplished in the metropolis during the last hundred years were set forth, fully explained and advocated, and many others suggested which remain to be achieved, lived near Leicester Fields. John Hunter (next house to Hogarth—but after Hogarth's death). The Hunterian Collection, which forms the basis, and still a large proportion, of the contents of the present Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, was originally arranged in a building which its founder, John Hunter, erected for it, in 1785, behind his house in this square.

In 1783 he took a house, upon a much larger scale, in Leicester Square, aboat the middle of the eastern side, which extended through into Castle Street. This was fitted up in a very expensive manner; and here he established an extensive room for his Museum; another for a public medical levee on every Sunday evening; another for a lyceum for medical disputation; another for his course of lectures; another for dissection; another for a printing warehouse and a press; and another for vending his medical works. ... Soon as he was settled in this new bouse, he sent out cards of invitation to the faculty to attend on Sunday evenings during the winter months, at his levee; and they were regaled with tea and coffee, and treated with medical occurrences.—Foot's Life of John Hunter, pp. 255, 270.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, at No. 47, on the west side, from 1761 till his death in 1792, in the house subsequently the Earl of Inchiquin's, afterwards the Western Literary and Scientific Institution, and now the rooms of Messrs. Puttick and Simpson, book auctioneers.

His painting room was of an octagonal form, about twenty feet long, and about sixteen in breadth. The window which gave light to the room was square, and not much larger than half the size of a common window in a private house, whilst the lower part of this window was nine feet four inches from the floor. The chair for his sitters, was raised eighteen inches from the floor and turned round on castors. His palettes were those which are held by a handle, not those held on the thumb. The sticks of his pencils were long, measuring about nineteen inches. He painted in that part of the room nearest to the window; and never sat down when he worked.—Northcote's Life of Reynolds, vol. i. p. 102.

He rose early, breakfasted at nine, entered his study at ten, examined designs or touched unfinished portraits till eleven brought a sitter, painted till four, then dressed, and gave the evening to company.—Allan Cunningham's Life of Reynolds, p. 248.

In St. Martin's Street, on the south side of the square, was the house of Sir Isaac Newton; afterwards inhabited by Dr. Burney. [See St. Martin's Street] William Cumberland Cruikshank, the eminent surgeon, died at his house in Leicester Fields, June 27, 1800. Mrs. Inchbald was living here at the end of the last and beginning of the present century. She left in 1803. The Prince of Condé lived next door. A female friend came every day to walk with her in the enclosure. She was visited here by Curran.

Leicester Fields or Square and its neighbourhood have always been with foreigners a favourite place of temporary residence. M. Grosley, when he came to make his philosophical observations on England and its inhabitants in 1765, lodged near Leicester Fields, a "quarter of the town in the neighbourhood of Westminster, consisting of several small houses two storeys high, which belong to one principal landlord. He lets out to strangers the apartments, which are very slightly furnished, and consist of two or three little rooms in the first storey, at the rate of a guinea a week, and in the second of about half a guinea."¹ It has been successively the home of the refugees from the first Revolution; of the Republicans after 1848; of the Communists of a few years back, and of the Socialists and Nihilists of the present day. But it has also been the brief abode of many eminent foreigners. Talma, the great actor, on his visit to London in 1817 stayed at Brunei's Hotel in Leicester Square; Kosciusko and the Countess Guiccioli are numbered among the guests of the Hotel Sablonière; and Cuvier in 1830 dates his letters from Leicester Square.

The equestrian statue of George I. which stood in the centre of the square came from Canons, the seat of the Duke of Chandos. It is said to have been cast by Van Nost, was erected here by Frederick, Prince of Wales—Walpole says to vex his father, George II.—and uncovered with some ceremony on November 19, 1748. When the building for "Wyld's Great Globe" was erected (1851) in the enclosure, from the design of H.R. Abraham, the statue was taken down and buried, but on the removal of that structure in October 1862 it was again set up, but minus a leg, and otherwise disfigured. The statue was sold May 22, 1872, for £16. The enclosure remained a discredit to the neighbourhood till 1873–1874, when, having succeeded in purchasing the proprietors' rights, Mr. Albert Grant converted the enclosed space into a Public Recreation Ground, of its kind the most ornamental then in London, Mr. J. Knowles, architect, and Mr. J. Gibson, landscape- gardener, furnishing the designs and superintending the laying out of the area in lawns, banks of evergreens, flower-beds, and broad walks with seats. The cost is said to have been about £30,000. In the centre is a large marble fountain surmounted with a colossal statue of Shakespeare by Fontana. At the four corners of the square are colossal busts of famous residents—Newton, by W.C. Marshall; Hogarth, by Durham; Reynolds, by Weekes; and John Hunter, by Woolner.

Saville House, on the north side of the square, was the residence of Sir George Saville, and in the Gordon Riots "the rails torn from Sir George's were the chief instruments of the mob."¹ For many years Miss Linwood's exhibition of pictures in needlework was held in Saville House. It was destroyed by fire, February 28, 1865, and the rooms underground, which escaped the fire, were converted into wine "Shades." The site remained unbuilt upon for some years. About 1880 the house was rebuilt for a panorama, but this not succeeding the place was adapted with large additions as the Empire Theatre. A little east of Saville House was Burford's Panorama, a most interesting and instructive exhibition, which after many years of varying success was finally closed, and the building converted into the School of Notre Dame de France. The Alhambra Theatre and Music Hall on the east side, with a fantastic Saracenic façade, was built for the Panopticon, a scientific rival of the Polytechnic. South of it is Archbishop Tenison's School. On the south side are the Dental Hospital, the office of the Odontological Society, and St. John's Hospital for Diseases of the Skin.

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¹ Life, p. 182.
² Journal to Stella, November 28, 1711.

¹ Smith's Nollekens, vol. ii. p. 209: Nichols's Anecdotes of Hogarth, p. 102.
² > J. Ireland's Hogarth Illustrated, vol. iii. p. 55.
³ Gentleman's Magazine, 1761, p. 137. Gardelle's gibbet is noticed in Foote's Mayor of Garret.
⁴ Smith's Nollekens, vol. i. p. 38.

¹ Grosley, Tour to London, vol. i. p. 23.

¹ Horace Wal;p;ole to Rev. Wm. Cole, June 15, 1780.