Conduit Street

Conduit-Street, Hanover-Square,—extends from 100, Swallow-st. to 22, New Bond-st.

Conduit-St., Hanover-square, extends from Regent-street, across Mill-street, into New Bond-street.

Conduit Street, Regent Street and New Bond Street, was completed in 1713, and so called from a conduit of sweet water in Conduit Mead, a field of which, when the street was built, no more definite description could be given than that it consisted of 27 acres, and lay between Piccadilly and Paddington. On March 7, 1666, a lease of the Conduit Mead was granted to the Earl of Clarendon by the City of London for ninety-nine years at a nominal rent of £8 a year.

July 18, 1691.—I went to London to hear Mr. Stringfellow preach his first sermon in the new erected church of Trinity in Conduit Street, to which I did recommend him to Dr. Tenison for the constant preacher and lecturer. This church being formerly built of timber on Hounslow Heath by King James for the mass-priests, being begged by Dr. Tenison, rector of St. Martin's, was set up by that public-minded, charitable, and pious man.—Evelyn.

In the Works Accounts of the Crown for 1667–1668 the sum of £550: 19: 1 is entered for the "Chapel for His Majesty's Service at the Camp on Hounslow Heath." It was built of wood and slated. Pennant gives a highly-coloured history of the chapel, but it is inaccurate and not worth quoting. In 1700 the chapel stood at the top of what is now Old Bond Street.¹ It was rebuilt of brick—a dull respectable-looking barn—by Archbishop Tenison, and lasted till 1877, when it was pulled down to make way for the showy shop of Messrs. Benjamin the tailors.

The late Carew Mildmay, Esq., who, after a very long life, died a few years ago, used to say that he remembered killing a woodcock on the site of Conduit Street, at that time an open country. He and General Oglethorpe were great intimates, and nearly of the same age; and often produced proofs to each other of the length of their recollection.—Pennant.²

The architect Earl of Burlington was the first to build on Conduit Mead. The quarrel between Lord Camelford and Captain Best, on account of Lord Camelford's mistress, a woman of the name of Symons, occurred at the Prince of Wales's Coffee-house in this street. The duel was fought next day (March 7, 1804) in the grounds behind Holland House. Lord Camelford was killed. But this was not Lord Camelford's first quarrel in this street. It was here that he wantonly insulted Captain Vancouver, the discoverer, under whom he had served in the voyage round the world. The result is represented in No. 154 of Gillray's Caricatures. Charles James Fox was born in this street, January 24, 1749. Boswell was in lodgings here in 1772, and it was here Johnson went home to tea with him, and delivered himself, among other literary and social dicta, of his famous but questionable opinion on biography, "Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him."¹ Before the summer of 1786 Wilberforce was in lodgings in this street; Pitt at the same time living in Savile Street. No. 37 on the south side was for some years (1802-1803, etc., during the Addington administration) the residence of George Canning; and afterwards for many years of Dr. Elliotson, rebuilt after the latter's death. No. 36 was the residence of Sir Walter Farquhar, Bart., Pitt's friend and physician. At No. 39 Sir Astley Cooper, the great surgeon, died February 12, 1841. It was in assisting to remove the valuable library of his friend, Frederick North, endangered by its proximity to No. 61 (now Messrs. Lewis and Allenby's), then on fire, that the statesman Windham, in July 1809, received the injury which resulted in his death in the following May. The Coach and Horses in this street (No. 16, still standing) was the favourite resort of Thurtell, the murderer of Weare, and he drove from this house in his gig to pick up his intended victim on the day of the murder. No. 25 is Limmer's Hotel, a first-class private hotel, recently rebuilt. No. 9, on the north side, is the office of the Royal Institute of British Architects. The Architectural Association and kindred societies, the Society of Biblical Archaeology, and other artistic and antiquarian institutions, hold their meetings in this building.

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¹ Mordan and Lea's Map, I. Harris, delin. et sculp., 1700.
² The first Marquis Camden caught a woodcock in the area of his house in Arlington Street, next door but one to Piccadilly.—Croker.

¹ Croker's Boswell, p. 235.