Bridewell

Bridewell

A place erected by Henry VIII. to the west of Fleet River, between the river and Whitefriars (S. 70), c. 1522.

In 1531 Sir Wm. Weston, prior of St. John's Hospital, Clerkenwell, made a grant of one tenement and fifteen gardens, on which site parcel of the place called "Brydewell" was built, 1531 (L. and P. H. VIII. V. 120).

In 1532 an exchange was effected with the Knights of St. John of the manor of Bridewell (ib. 581).

There was a gallery from the Palace leading to the Blackfriars. The attendants of Chas. V. were entertained here (S. 397), and King Henry and Queen Katherine lodged here, 1529 (S. 398).

It was given by Edward VI. to the City for a workhouse.

Found burdensome as attracting vagrants to London. Burnt in the Fire and rebuilt 1668. Apprentices trained there. United to Bethlehem 1729, and used as a prison for vagrants, idle apprentices, etc., and house of correction.

There was a chapel in Bridewell, injured in the Fire, but rebuilt.

The name is said to have been derived from a well in the neighbourhood known as St. Bride's Well, which may be identical with a now disused well and pump built into the eastern wall of the churchyard in Bride Lane.

Sold 1863, and site laid out in streets, Bridewell Place, Tudor Street, etc.

See Bridewell Precinct.

During recent excavations in Water Street and the neighbourhood remains of brick arches have been found, and it has been suggested that these were the remains of a tower or castle which existed on this site in Norman times and later (Trans. L. and M. Arch. Soc. II. (1), p. 86), and are referred to by Stow in the following terms: "Another Tower or Castle also was there in the west parts of the Cittie, pertayning to the King. For I reade that in the yeare 1087, the 20 of William the first, the Cittie of London with the Church of S. Paule being burned, Mauritius, then Bishop of London, afterwards began the foundation of a new Church, whereunto king William sayeth mine Author, gave the choyce stones of this Castle standing neare to the banke of the riuer Thames, at the west end of the Citie" (S. 69.) Stow goes on to say that this castle stood on the site of Bridewell, and after the destruction of the Tower the house was still used by the kings as a residence, and that the law courts were held there in consequence, in accordance with the practice of that time when the courts followed the person of the king and were held in his royal residence. For instance, in 1295 an agreement between the Abbot of Ramsey and Wm. de Haliwelle was made "in curia domini regis apud Sanctam Brigidam" (Cart. Mon. de Ramsey, II. 387). It afterwards fell into decay until rebuilt by Henry VIII. in 1522.

In connection with this statement it must not be forgotten that the moat of the castle included in the king's gift for the enlargement of St. Paul's is expressly stated in the Liber Custumarum to be "Baynard's Castle," so that it is doubtful whether Stow's remarks can be regarded as an authentic reference to a castle on this site. It is difficult to see how the moat of a castle on the site of Bridewell could be given for the enlargement of St. Paul's.

Bridewell Hospital, Bridge-street, Blackfriars', is about twelve or thirteen houses on the west or right hand side of that street, going towards the bridge, and has a handsome gateway and entrance nearly opposite the Crescent. On the site of this building stood, in ancient times, even before the Norman invasion, a royal palace wherein King John subsequently held his court. Within the precincts of this royal residence was a well of the purest water, dedicated, as was the practice of the ancient church of Rome, to St. Bridget or St. Bride, and which gave its name to the precinct, the parish and the church. This spot was part of the arx palatina, which stood near the river Fleet. The palace of Bridewell was rebuilt by Henry VIII., in 1522, for the reception of the Emperor Charles V., and it continued as a royal residence, with few intermissions, till the reign of Edward VI. who presented it, in 1553, to the mayor, commonalty and citizens of London, to be a working house for the poor and idle persons of the city. This building was almost totally destroyed by the fire of 1666, and was rebuilt in 1668. It contains a hall, in which is a painting of Edward VI. delivering its charter to Sir George Barnes, the Lord Mayor, a chapel, a prison and other buildings. The affairs of this hospital are governed by the same committee that manages Bethlem, to which it is united as one of the five royal hospitals of the city, and its president and other officers are the same.—[See Bethlem Hospital.

Bridewell, a house in Bride Lane so called "a stately and beautiful house,"¹ built by Henry VIII., in the year 1522, for the reception of Charles V. of Spain and suite. Charles himself was lodged in the Blackfriars, but his nobles in this new-built Bridewell, "a gallery being made out of the house over the water [the Fleet], and through the wall of the City into the Emperor's lodgings at the Black- friars."¹ The whole Third Act of Shakespeare's Henry VIII. is laid in "The Palace at Bridewell." This is historically true, for "in the year 1528," says Stow, "Cardinal Campeius was brought to the King's presence, being then at Bridewell, whither he had called all his nobility, judges, and councillors; and there, November 8, in his great chamber, he made unto them an oration touching his marriage with Queen Katheren, as ye may read in Edward Hall."¹ The subsequent history of Henry's house is related in the next article.

At Brydewell (his place) that season hee laye,
   And theare was also goode Grysilidis;
Thoughe in his presence shee came nyght nor daye,
   Shee must theare attende, his pleasure so is.¹

Wolsey had a house allowed to him in the Bridewell.

Wolsey found the means to be made one of the King's council, and to grow in good estimation with the King, to whom the King gave a house at Bridewell in Fleet Street, some time Sir Richard Empson's.—Cavendish's Wolsey, p. 79, etc.

Bridewell, a manor or house, so called—presented to the City of London by King Edward VI., after an appeal through Mr. Secretary Cecil, and a sermon by Bishop Ridley, who begged it of the King as a Workhouse for the Poor, and a House of Correction "for the strumpet and idle person, for the rioter that consumeth all, and for the vagabond that will abide in no place."

GOOD MR. CECIL—I must be a suitor to you in our Master Christ's cause. I beseech you be good unto him. The matter is he hath lyen too long abroad, as you do know, without lodging, in the streets of London, both hungry, naked, and cold.... Sir, there is a wide large house of the King's Majesty's called Bridewell, that would wonderful well serve to lodge Christ in, if he might find such good friends in the court as would procure in his cause.... There is a rumour that one goeth about to buy that house of the King's Majesty and to pull it down. If there be any such thing, for God's sake speak you in our master's cause....—Yours in Christ,

NIC. LONDON.

Froude, vol. v. p. 396; Lansdowne MSS. 3.

The gift was made on April 10, 1553, and confirmed by charter on the 26th of the following June, only ten days before the death of the King. Subsequent events occasioned a delay; Queen Mary, however, confirmed her brother's gift, and in February 1555 the Mayor and Aldermen entered Bridewell and took possession.

                             Thus,
Fortune can tosse the world; a Prince's Court
Is thus a prison now.—Dekker, The Honest Whore, pt. ii. 1630.

But the gift was found before long to be a serious inconvenience. Idle and abandoned people from the outskirts of London and parts adjacent, under colour of seeking an asylum in the new institution, settled in London in great numbers, to the great annoyance of the graver residents. The citizens became alarmed, and Acts of Common Council were issued against the resort of masterless men "upon pretence to be relieved by the almes of Christ Church and Bridewell." In 1579 "it was the intention of the City to employ the place for the stowage of corn and other such public uses." On January 21, 1612, the Lords of the Council wrote to the Lord Mayor, saying that "special order should be taken that the granaries at the Bridge House and Bridewell should be ready for the stowage of corn," and in 1624 order was given for the delivery of 2000 quarters of wheat from the storehouses at Bridge House, Bridewell, and elsewhere for victualling the navy.¹

Milton's friend, Thomas Ellwood, the Quaker, gives in his Autobiography many particulars of Old Bridewell. He was taken there, 1661, from the Bull and Mouth [which see]. "The hall," he says, "was one of the largest I was ever in.... The room in length was threescore feet, and had breadth proportionable to it. In it on the front side were very large bay windows, in which stood a large table. It had other very large tables in it with benches round, and at that time the floor was covered with rushes, against some solemn festival which I heard it was bespoken for." The house was destroyed in the Great Fire, "together with the whole precinct thereunto belonging, whence arose about two-thirds of its revenue; however, by the charitable benefactions of the citizens, it was soon after rebuilt [1668] in a much more magnificent and convenient manner than formerly; and wherein at present (1739) are maintained and brought up in divers arts and mysteries a considerable number of apprentices; besides a great number of poor indigent vagrants and strumpets, that are kept at work."² At that time, on an average of seven years, the number of "vagrants and strumpets" annually committed to Bridewell was 421 (but in one year, 1732, it had been as high as 673); apprentices maintained 93. The annual charge in 1729 was £1891: 7: 6. The hospital was united to Bethlehem, and both establishments placed under the same managing body. [See Bethlehem Hospital.] The prisoners were vagrants, harlots, and idle and disobedient apprentices, sentenced to short terms of imprisonment. Their chief employment seems to have been in beating hemp and picking oakum.

Foible. O that ever I was born, O that I was ever married—a bride, aye I shall be a Bridewell bride.... O Madam, my Lady's gone for a constable; I shall be had to a Justice, and sent to Bridewell to beat hemp.—Congreve, The Way of the World, 4to, 1700.

When men have here [at Bridewell] done their work, they are sure of their wages—a whip.—London and the Country Compared, by G. Lupton, 1632.

The flogging at Bridewell, for offences committed without the prison, is described by Ward in his London Spy. Both men and women were whipped on their naked backs, before the Court of Governors. The president sat with his hammer in his hand, and the culprit was taken from the post when the hammer fell. The calls to knock, when women were flogged, were loud and incessant "O good Sir Robert, knock! Pray, good Sir Robert, knock;" which became at length a common cry of reproach among the lower orders, to denote that a woman had been whipped as a harlot in Bridewell.

If there must be strumpets, let Bridewell be the scene.—Collier's Reply to Congreve.

This labour past, by Bridewell all descend,
As morning prayers and flagellations end.

Pope, The Dunciad.

"There are no whores," says Sir Humphrey Scattergood, in Shadwell's play of The Woman Captain, "but such as are poor and beat hemp, and whipt by rogues in blue coats."¹ Nor has Hogarth overlooked, in his Harlot's Progress, the peculiar features of the place. The fourth plate of that moral story told by figures is a scene in Bridewell. Men and women are beating hemp under the eye of a savage taskmaster, and a lad too idle to work is seen standing on tiptoe, to reach the stocks, in which his hands are fixed, while over his head is written, "Better to work than stand thus!" Madam Creswell, the celebrated bawd of King Charles II.'s reign, died a prisoner in Bridewell. She desired by will to have a sermon preached at her funeral, for which the preacher was to have £10; but upon this express condition, that he was to say nothing but what was well of her. After a sermon on the general subject of mortality, the preacher concluded with saying, "By the will of the deceased, it is expected that I should mention her, and say nothing but what was WELL of her. All that I shall say of her therefore is this: She was born well, she lived well, and she died well; for she was born with the name of Creswell, she lived in Clerkenwell, and she died in Bridewell."² There is a portrait of her among Tempest's Cries; and the allusions to her in our Charles II.'s dramatists are of constant occurrence.

Of late years Bridewell was a "house of correction for persons of either sex sentenced by the City Magistrates to imprisonment for terms not exceeding three months. The cells were constructed for seventy male and thirty female prisoners. Attached to Bridewell, but removed many years since to the grounds of Bethlehem Hospital, was a "House of Occupation," in which 200 indigent boys and girls were taught useful callings by "Arts-Masters." Bridewell Prison occupied two sides of a large quadrangle, the other sides of which were formed by the hall, a spacious and handsome court-room; the chapel, modern and mean; the very comfortable-looking offices, and the residences of the president and other officials. On the erection of the City Prison at Holloway, 1863, the materials of the Bridewell Prison were sold by auction and cleared away by the following year. The chapel was demolished in 1871. The large area occupied by these buildings has been laid out in streets and covered with offices. [See Bridewell Place.] But the hall, court-room, and governor's house have been retained, as well as the gateway, now No. 14 New Bridge Street, with the head of Edward VI. over it, which formed the principal entrance. Over the chimney in the court-room a large picture attributed to Hans Holbein, representing Edward VI. delivering the Royal Charter of Endowment to the Mayor.

Holbein has placed his own head in one corner of the picture. Vertue has engraved it. This picture, it is believed, was not completed by Holbein, both he and the King dying immediately after the donation.—Horace Walpole.

As the Charter was only given in 1552, and Holbein is now known to have died towards the end of 1543, he could not have painted it. Mr. Wornum suggests that Guillim Stretes, King Edward's painter, "was probably the painter of the Bridewell picture ... but the picture originally was not as it is now."¹ It has, in fact, been extensively repainted, and has suffered much in the process; it is, however, still interesting for the costumes. There are besides a fine full-length of Charles II., by Sir Peter Lely; full-length of Sir W. Turner, Lord Mayor in Charles II.'s reign, by Mrs. Beale; and full-lengths of George III. and his Queen, after Sir Joshua Reynolds. Atterbury, when a young man, was minister and preacher of Bridewell. In the cemetery attached to the Hospital Robert Levett, an old and faithful friend of Dr. Johnson's, and an inmate of his house, was buried in 1782. Thomas Coxeter (1689–1747), author, buried.

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¹ Stow, p. 147.

¹ William Forrest's History of Grisild the Second (a narrative in verse of the divorce of Queen Katharine of Arragon).—Roxburghe Club, 1875, p. 82.

¹ Analytical Index to Remembrancia, pp. 264, 383, 390.
² Maitland, p. 661.

¹ Shadwell, vol. iii. p. 355.
² Granger, ed. 1775, vol. iv. p. 219.

¹ Wornum's Holbein, p. 339.