Queen Square

Queen square ... There is also another Square of this Name designed, at the N. end of Devonshire str. near Red lion square.

Queen's square, Ormond street, by Red Lion street, Holborn. This, as a late writer justly observes, is an area of a peculiar kind, it being left open on one side for the sake of the beautiful landscape formed by the hills of Highgate and Hampstead, together with the adjacent fields. A delicacy worthy, as it is an advantage to the inhabitants, and a beauty even with regard to the square itself.

Queen-Square, near Bloomsbury—at the N. end of Devonshire-st. and of Drake-st. from Red-lion-square and the W. end of Great Ormond-st. from 50, Lamb's-conduit-st.

Queen-Sq.—is near Great Ormond-street and Southampton-row. This square was formerly open to the north, and had a fine view of the beautiful landscape formed by the hills of Highgate and Hampstead, and of the adjacent country, but the genius of speculation has closed it up with a dead wall of modern brick houses.

Queen Square, Bloomsbury, was so called out of compliment to Queen Anne, in whose reign it was erected.¹ The north side "was left open for the sake of the beautiful landscape formed by the hills of Highgate and Hampstead, together with the adjacent fields."² In 1756 Maitland calls it "Queen's Square, Red Lion Fields."

Eminent Inhabitants.—Alderman Barber, the printer, who died here in 1741 (the individual to whom Butler owes a monument in Poets' Corner). In January 1771 Barber's house was occupied by Dr. Charles Burney. Madame D'Arblay speaks of "the beautiful prospect of the hills, ever verdant and smiling, of Hampstead and Highgate, which at that period, in unobstructed view, faced the Doctor's dwelling in Queen Square."³

In February [1772] I had the honour of receiving the illustrious Captain Cook to dine with me in Queen Square, previously to his second voyage round the world. Observing upon table Bougainville's Voyage autour du Monde he turned it over and made some curious remarks on the illiberal conduct of that circumnavigator towards himself when they met and crossed each other; which made me desirous to know, in examining the Chart of M. de Bougainville, the several tracks of the two navigators; and exactly where they had crossed or approached each other. Captain Cook instantly took a pencil from his pocket-book, and said he would trace the route, which he did in so clear and scientific a manner that I would not take fifty pounds for the book. The pencil -mark having been fixed by skim-milk will always be visible.—Mem. by Dr. Burney, Memoirs, vol. i. p. 270.

It was on this occasion arranged that the Doctor's eldest son James (afterwards Admiral Burney, the friend of Charles Lamb) should accompany the great navigator in his approaching voyage. Charles Churchill, the poet, in 1758, after the death of his father, was engaged by Mrs. Dennis, who had a boarding-school in this square, to give "lessons in the English tongue to the young ladies," and, as Dr. Kippis says, "conducted himself in his new employment with all the decorum becoming his clerical profession." This school was at No. 31, and became so famous as to earn the name of "The Ladies' Eton." Boswell's daughter Veronica was there in 1789, and he writes of her with no small pride as his "Queen Square daughter." It continued to be a school of some note for nearly a century, and was finally closed about 1855. The house in the north-west corner was Heidegger's, who left it on his death in 1749 to his only daughter, the wife of Admiral Sir Peter Denis. Dr. Stukeley, who died here in 1765, was rector of the small brick church of St. George the Martyr, on the south-west side of the square [which see]. Dr. John Campbell, author of The Lives of the Admirals, and chief contributor to the Biographia Britannica, lived here for many years and here died, December 28, 1775.

Campbell's residence for some years before his death was the large new-built house, situate at the north-west corner of Queen Square, Bloomsbury, whither, particularly on a Sunday evening, great numbers of persons of the first eminence for science and literature were accustomed to resort for the enjoyment of conversation.—Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 210.

Johnson. I used to go pretty often to Campbell's on a Sunday evening, till I began to consider that the shoals of Scotchmen who flocked about him might probably say, when anything of mine was well done, " Ay, ay, he has learnt this of Cawmell."—Boswell, by Croker, p. 142.

Dr. Anthony Askew (d. 1774), famous as a physician, and in his own day still more widely famous as a Greek scholar. Dr. Mead gave to Askew the gold-headed cane which he had received from Radcliffe, and which, after Askew, was successively carried by Pitcairn and Baillie; it is now preserved in the Royal College of Physicians. Askew's house was a favourite resort of the leading scholars of the day, among them being enumerated Archbishop Markham, Sir William Jones, Dr. Parr, and Richard Farmer, the Shakespearian annotator.

Dr. Askew's house in Queen's Square, was said to be the most classical in London; for every passage was lined with Greek or Latin books. He had a Greek servant reckoned the finest copyist in the world.—Cradock's Lit. Memoirs, vol. iv. p. 135.

George III., wishing to secure the library entire, offered £5000 for it, but the family decided to submit it to auction. The sale took place in 1775 and lasted twenty days. A considerable portion of the library (including the large purchases by the King and Mr. Cracherode) came eventually to the British Museum. The Rev. George Croly, LL.D., author of Salathiel, was living at No. 9 Queen Square till his death in November 1860.

Queen Square has long ceased to be a fashionable place of residence, and several of the larger houses have been appropriated to commercial, educational or benevolent uses. Nos. 17–19, the Alexandra Hospital for Children with Hip Disease; Nos. 23–25, the National Hospital for the Paralysed and the Epileptic; No. 29, the College for Men and Women; Nos. 32 and 33, the School of Ecclesiastical Embroidery; No. 41, the Italian Hospital; No. 43 is the Government (District) School of Art for Ladies. General Strode erected a statue of Queen Charlotte in the centre of the square.

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¹ Hatton, p. 67.

² Dodsley, 1761, vol. v. p. 240.

³ D'Arblay's Memoirs of Dr. Burney, vol. i. p. 290.