Albemarle Street

Albermarle Street, a Street of excellent new Building, inhabited by Persons of Quality, betn the Fields and Portugal str. right against the NW End of St. James's Street; L. 260 Yds. and from Ch+ [Charing Cross] near W. 960 Yds.

Albemarle-Street, Piccadilly,—at 62, op. St. James's, the fifth on the R. and ⅓ of a mile from the Haymarket, leading to Grafton-st. and New Bond-street.

Albemarle-St., Piccadilly, is a large handsome street opposite St. James's-street, and parallel to Bond-street. It leads from Piccadilly northwards to Grafton-street, New Bond-street. The island of houses between Grafton-street and Piccadilly, was formerly the mansion and garden of the Duke of Albemarle, who purchased them of the Earl of Clarendon, whose seat it had long been. On the disposal of the property by the duke on building leases, the present houses in Albemarle-street, and those at their back in Bond-street, formerly called Albemarle-buildings, were erected. The Clarendon Hotel in New Bond-street, is on part of the property, and so named from that cause.

Albemarle Street, Piccadilly, begun (circ. 1684) by Sir Thomas Bond, Bart., on the site of Clarendon House.

Which said House and Gardens being sold by the Duke of Albemarle [Christopher, the second Duke], was by the undertakers laid out into streets, who, not being in a condition to finish so great a work, made mortgages and so entangled the title, that it is not to this day finished, and God knows when it will. So that it lieth like the ruins of Troy, some having only the foundations begun, others carried up to the roofs, and others covered, but none of the inside work done. Yet those houses that are finished, which are towards Piccadilly, meet with tenants.—R.B., in Strype, 1720, B. vi. p. 78.

In the New View of London, 1708, it is described as "a street of excellent new building, inhabited by persons of quality, between the fields and Portugal Street (Piccadilly), right against the north-west end of St. James's Street."

Eminent Inhabitants.—Sir William Wyndham; his house was burnt in March 1712, and he and his family escaped without clothes. He had given £7000 for the house, and many valuable pictures were destroyed. Prince of Wales, afterwards George II., in (1717) the house of the Earl of Grantham, the Princess's Chamberlain. The next year the prince bought "that pouting place for our princes," as Pennant calls it, Leicester House. Dr. Berkeley, the celebrated Bishop of Cloyne, in 1724–1726.

I lodge at Mr. Fox's, an Apothecary in Albemarle Street, near St. James's.—Berkeley's Literary Relics, p. 99.

Dr. Richard Mead (d. 1754) here kept (1720) his celebrated collection of drawings by Italian masters, purchased by George III., and now in the Royal Library, Windsor. The Marquis of Hartington, on his marriage, April 1, 1748, to the only daughter of the Earl of Burlington, "hired the large house in Albemarle Street that the Earl Poulet lived in." Duc de Nivernois, 1763.

January 12, 1763.—I went with Maty to visit the Duke in Albemarle Street. ... (19th) The Duke received me very civilly, but (perhaps through Maty's fault) treated me more as a man of letters than as a man of fashion.—Gibbon's Journal.

This last touch reminds one of Congreve, Voltaire, and Walpole. Earl Waldegrave, K.G., died here, April 8, 1763, the day of Lord Bute's resignation (Walpole , vol. iv. p. 62). Lord Bute was living here in 1764. In the House of Commons, March 7, 1764, Mr. Calvert, an opposition member, exclaimed, "Where is Athens? What is become of Lacedæmon?" on which Sir John Glynn entertained the house by answering that "they had gone to Albemarle Street."¹ Whilst Bute lived here there was in the street a noted opposition Club that gave the Ministry much annoyance. It was founded in 1763, at a tavern kept by a man named Wildman, and named the Coterie.

The new Club, at the house that was the late Lord Waldegrave's in Albemarle Street, makes the Ministry very uneasy.—Walpole to Lord Hervey, January 1764. To this Croker appends the note—The opposition Club was in Albemarle Street; the Ministerial at the Cocoa Tree; and the papers of the day had several political letters addressed to and from these clubs."—Walpole, Letters, vol. iv. p. 173.

Zoffany lived here in 1780. Here Walpole came to see his picture of the Tribune of Florence, and a "delightful piece of Wilkes looking—no, squinting—at his daughter. It is a caricature of the Devil acknowledging Miss Sin in Milton."—Letters, vol. vii. p. 270. Glover, author of Leonidas, died here in 1785. Robert Adam, the architect, died here in 1792; and his brother James in 1794, at No. 13. C.J. Fox (the minister), on the left hand, a little way up as you go from St. James's Street; here he was living when Rogers first knew him. Louis XVIII., expelled from France in 1814, remained for some days at Grillion's Hotel before his return to Paris, April 1814. Here the Prince Regent, the Duke of York, and various distinguished persons waited upon him, and he invested the Prince with the Order of the Saint Esprit. The King held a formal levee here, and the Duchesse d'Angoulême a drawing-room; Grattan was a spectator, and Madame d'Arblay was introduced.

Grillion's Club was founded in 1805. The members dined together every Wednesday during the parliamentary session.

Sir James Mackintosh, on his return from India, 1811, at No. 26. Byron dated from Dorant's Hotel in this street in January 1807 and February 1808, at the time of the publication of the Hours of Idleness.

The Royal Institution and several excellent hotels (the Clarendon, the most famous of them, was closed a few years ago) are in this street. No. 50 is Mr. Murray's, the publisher, the son of the friend and publisher of Lord Byron, and the originator of the Quarterly Review. Here is Hogarth's picture from the Beggars' Opera (in the original frame); and the following portraits of authors: Byron, Scott, Southey, Crabbe, Campbell, Hallam, and Mrs. Somerville, all by T. Phillips, R.A.; Moore, by Sir T. Lawrence; Gifford, by Hoppner; Right Hon. J. Wilson Croker, after Lawrence; Lockhart, and John Murray (i), by Pickersgill; Washington Irving, by Wilkie. The dining-room is hung with portraits, by Jackson, R.A., of Parry, Franklin, Denham, Clapperton, Richardson, Barrow; Sir A. Burnes, by Maclise, and other celebrated voyagers and travellers. From 1812 to 1824, when clubs were less numerous, and none established expressly devoted to literature, Mr. Murray's literary friends were in the habit of repairing, in the afternoon, to his drawing-room. Here Byron and Scott were first made known to each other by him, and afterwards used to meet here. Hence the allusion to "Murray's four o'clock visitors" in Byron's letters.

Mr. Murray removed here in 1812 from Fleet Street. The office, warehouse, and place of business is at No. 50A.

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¹ Mrs. Harris to her Son.—Letters of the first Earl of Malmesbury, vol. i. p. 104.