This appears to have been a large, late 17th of four bays, of four storeys over a cellar.
With a finely carved shell hood over the front door (see illustrations below).
No. 96 was demolished
in the 1880s to make an
entrance to Burleigh Mansions. I have not been able to locate any photographs but a sketch by George Scharf appears below
............................
It was in the occupation of Dr Edmund Dickinson (1624 - 1707) until 1707.
Dr Dickinson was elected honorary fellow of the College of Physicians in December 1664, but was not admitted a fellow till 1677. In 1684, he came up to London and settled in St. Martin's Lane.
Baron Bloomberg 1707 - 14.
Lady Ecron 1715 - 16.
Tobias Jankins 1717.
John Rose 1718 - 31.
Lady Bloomer 1732.
Dr Misaubin 1732 - 34 - his widow carried on the business "Martha Misaubin, widow of Dr Misaubin continues to sell his famous anti venereal pills at her house in St Martins Lane".
She moved houses in St Martins Lane in 1739 and 46 and died in 1749.
info above from Hugh Phillips pub. 1964.
By 1774 the house was occupied by Edward Powell, The Colourman.
Undated sketch by George Scharf.
British Museum.
As far as I can gather apart from the sketches etc of Old Slaughters this is the only drawing of a house on the Pavement on the west side of the north end of St Martin's Lane.
...................................
Edward Powell, Colourmen.
Edward and Martha Powell.
96 St Martins Lane.
*Edward Powell senr. (active 1724 -1744), St Martin-in-the-Fields parish, London. Colourman.
Edward Powell married Martha Vaughton at Lincoln’s Inn Chapel in 1724. They had six children christened in the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields, of whom three appear to have reached maturity, Edward (b.1727), John (b.1730) and Martha (christened 1734). Edward Powell, colourman of the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields, died in 1744.
In his will, made 13 July 1741 and proved 9 March 1744, he refers to his wife Martha and children John, Martha and Edward.
He is presumably the Powell who supplied colours to Arthur Pond in 1734 (Lippincott 1983 p.92, Lippincott 1991 p.223).
He may possibly have been the Mr Powel, Chandois St, who stocked W. Mayer’s Prussian Blue in 1730 (Country Journal or The Craftsmen, 2 May 1730). The business may have been carried on over more than one generation and a link has been suggested to the later business of Edward Powell (see below) (Whitley 1928, vol.1, p.332).
An example of his billhead as oil and colourman, dated 1791, can be found in the British Museum (Heal coll. 89.117).
By 1814 Powell’s premises had been taken over by Edward Prascey Allen (d.1854), sometimes listed as E.P. Allen, colourman, who remained in business until 1838.
In 1828 Powell's premises were described as 'one of the oldest colour-shops in London' (John Thomas Smith, Nollekens and his Times, 1828, vol.2, p.226);
The shop front was drawn by several artists, including George Scharf senior in 1829 (British Museum, repr. Peter Jackson, George Scharf’s London, 1987, p.32, naming him as Edward Prascey Allen).
...........................
Contemplations on the Beauties of Creation, and on All the ..., Volume 3 By John Ryland. 1782 has Edward Powell, Colourman at 96 St Martin's Lane listed as a subscriber.
Kent's Directory 1803 still has Edward Powell, Oilman at 96 St Martin's Lane. His mother had a grape vine growing in the garden which provided a pipe of wine.
..........................
Edward Prascey Allen (1770 - 1854).
Edward Allen traded as a
colourman, a specialist supplier of art materials. Initially he had premises at Round
Court, north of the Strand near present-day William IV Street.
Around 1814 he took over the business at 96 St Martin’s Lane, which was described in 1828 as ‘one of the oldest colour-shops
in London’. Edward was sometimes listed in directories as E.P.Allen, colourman, and
remained in business until 1838.
96 St Martin's Lane. Dated watercolour drawing of 1829, whilst Scharf was still living at 3 St Martin's Lane.
Allen Colourman, 'Laydies' School Plate on the front door of the house.
George Scharf.
Image and passage below courtesy British Museum.
This house was previously the home of Huguenot 'Dr' John Misaubin (1673 -1734).
"Allen’s Colourman, situated a few doors away from Scharf’s house, at No. 96, was run by one Edward Prascey Allen. The shop, which is recorded as an artists’ supply shop from the 1790s at least, was located in the converted ground floor of one of the fashionable residences that had developed along St Martin’s Lane in the late 1600s.
The ornate doorcase, to the right, in all probability dates to the period of residence by John (Jean) Misaubin (1673 - 1734) who had employed the French painter Andien de Clermont (active 1716-1783) to decorate the staircase of the impressive townhouse supposedly at a cost of 500 guineas.
When Scharf painted this view, a mid / late eighteenth-century shop front had been inserted into the façade of the once fashionable residence with jars of colours and brushes clearly displayed in the window.
A sign on the door of the house announces that the rest of the house has been taken over by a school for ladies, run by one Sarah Watts. It has been suggested that the figures of the adult man and boy might be Scharf and his son George.
see - P. Jackson, 'George Scharf’s London: Sketches and Watercolours of a Changing City. 1820-50' (London, 1987)".
.....................
The front door of 96 St Martin's Lane with a brass plate for St Martin's Commercial School.
On the door frame is another brass plate for the Provident Society of Dancers Hand in Hand ... Assurance.
96 St Martins Lane, c.1850.
Watercolour by John Wykeham Archer (1806 - 64).
Image courtesy Water Colour World.
https://www.watercolourworld.org/collections/24153a86-aca4-3e98-88b0-704f2a9a33c0/?s%3DSt%2BMartin%2527s%2BLane&pos=5
...................................
Mid 19th Century Woodcut?
Image used with kind permission of London Picture Archive.
I suspect this image has been adapted from the Wykeham watercolour drawing below.
..........................
Extract from Haunted London, Walter Thornbury Pub 1865.
A source not entirely to be trusted.
Ref. 96 St Martins Lane.
The house No. 96, on the west side of St Martin's Lane (Powell the colourman's in
1828), had then a Queen Anne door-frame, with spread eagle and carved foliage
and flowers, like the houses in Carey Street and Great Ormond Street, and a
shutter sliding in grooves in the old-fashioned way. Mr. Powell's mother made, for many years an annual pipe of wine from the produce of a vine nearly a
hundred feet long.
This had originally been published in Nollekens and his Times
This house had a
large staircase, painted with figures, in procession, by a French artist named Clermont,
who claimed one thousand guineas for it and received five hundred. Behind the
house was the room which Hogarth has painted in " Marriage a la
Mode."
The quack is Dr. Misaubin, whose vile portrait the satirist
has given. The savage fat woman is his Irish wife. Dr. Misaubin, who lived in
this house, was the son of a pastor of the Spitalfields French Church. The
quack realized a great fortune by an (in) famous pill.
His son was murdered; his grandson squandered his money, and
died in St. Martin's Workhouse.
..................................
John (Jean) Misaubin (1673 - 1734).
John Thomas Smith, states in - Nollekens And His Times: Comprehending A Life Of That Celebrated Sculptor; ...... that the house, No. 96, on the west side, " has a large staircase, curiously painted, of figures viewing a procession, which was executed for the famous Dr. Misaubin, about the year 1732, by a painter named Clermont, a Frenchman.
Behind the house there is a large room, the inside of which is given by Hogarth in his 'Rake's Progress,' where he has introduced portraits of the doctor and his Irish wife."
..............................
For Misaubin and Freemasonry see -
https://www.thesquaremagazine.com/mag/article/202108the-much-maligned-dr-john-misaubin/
------------------------------
James Bramston took a satirical swipe at Dr Misaubin in his poem The Man of Taste, published in London in 1733:
Should I perchance be fashionably ill,
I’d send for Misaubin, and take his pill.
I should abhor, though in the utmost need,
Arbuthnot, Hollins, Wigan, Lee, or Mead:
But if I found that I grew worse and worse,
I’d turn off Misaubin and take a Nurse.
How oft, when eminent physicians fail,
Do good old women’s remedies prevail?
...................................................
John Misaubin (1673 - 1734) with his father and family.
John Misaubin with is father and family.
His father was a minister and preached at the French Church in Spitalfields.
His son Edmond aged 23, was murdered in 1740.
Joseph Goupy.
Gouache.
Wellcome Collection.
........................
Take the Pills, Take the Pills.
John Misaubin.
Engraving by Arthur Pond after Watteau.
Misaubin was born in Mussidan, in the Dordogne in France in 1673. His father was a Protestant clergyman who later preached in the French Church in Spitalfields. John Misaubin qualified as a medical doctor in Cahors.
Marthe Misaubin ne Angibaud.
Martha (Marthe) Angibaud married Huguenot apothecary John (Jean) Misaubin, in 1709.
Martha was the daughter of Charles Angibaud, formerly Louis XIV's apothecary and also a Huguenot who had left France in 1681, shortly before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Angibaud was later master of the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries in 1728.
Charles Angibaud (d.1733) left France in 1681, with his wife and three children, moving to London to avoid religious persecution, a few years before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.
He became a naturalised British subject. He became a freeman of the Society of Apothecaries on 6 October 1685, enabling him to practice his profession in London.
He established his business at the sign of the La Renommee (fame) in St Martin's Lane, one strand of which was selling his Pectoral lozenges de Blois made from licorice.
...................................
'The Troches, or Juyce of Liquorice of Blois, very good for Coughs and other Distempers of the Breast, as also for Consumptions. Prepared by Monsieur Angibaud late of Paris, Apothecary ... at his Shop in St. Martin's Lane . . . at the sign of the Fame. . .' (Lond. Gazette, 29 October 1683).
"This is to acquaint the Publick that Charles Angibaud, Apothecary, who lately liv'd at the Angel the lower end of St. Martin's Ie ... has left off Business, applying himself entirely to Surgery, and lives at Mrs. Misaubin's, his Aunt, (Widow of the late Dr. Misaubin) near Slaughter's Coffee-House the upper end of St. Martin's Lane where he continues to sell the famous Pectoral Lozenges of Blois . . .' (Daily Advertiser, 1743. British Museum, Burney 279b).
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/9284E00FEB576C1C39D4909508EFBF97/S002572730001961Xa.pdf/div-class-title-london-s-immigrant-apothecaries-1600-1800-a-href-fn01-ref-type-fn-a-div.pdf
.....................................
Quackery Unmasked published by George Bickham in May's Buildings. East side of St Martin's Lane 1748.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1849-1003-34
Mistress Misaubin on the left.
..............................
Some Notes on Colourmen in London in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries.
The subject demands a separate post of its own.
But I will post here for my own convenience until I can repost a more detailed study.
.........................
Ralph of 108 St Martin's Lane. On the Pavement opposite the entrance to Mays Buildings.
The shop was previously occupied by George Wilson a fan maker from about 1795
For an excellent look at fan making in London in the 18th century see the thesis
George Wilson and the Engraved Fan.
by Rosanna Harrison 2019.
https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/8824/8/Harrison2019PhD_Vol_1.pdf
...........................
CARTER, Thomas. Carter, London, father (dates unknown), and son Thomas Carter (active
1680, died 1747/8). Colourmen.
Carter senior was employed by Charles Beale (qv), 1677, 1681 (Talley 1981 pp.271, 286,
289). The son was depicted as a young man in red chalk drawings by Charles Beale the
younger (Edward Croft-Murray and Paul Hulton, Catalogue of British Drawings, vol.1: XVI
& XVII Centuries, British Museum, 1960, pp.159-60).
He was known to George Vertue,
perhaps in about 1741 (Vertue vol.5, pp.14, 20). He is probably to be identified with Thomas
Carter, colourman of St Paul Covent Garden, who died in 1747 or 1748, leaving a will, made
3 June 1746 and proved 26 January 1748, bequeathing various specified paintings to his
nephews and nieces and their children and bequeathing his utensils and colours to Samuel
Willard, colourman of St Paul Covent Garden.
info here from - https://www.kenspelman.com/ARTBIB/ARTBIB%20C.pdf
..........................
Nathan Drake - Colourman,
Successor to Robert Keating.
By 1769 he was at the sign of the White Hart.
79, Long Acre, Covent Garden.
“White Lyon” address,
where he was established from 1750. He later succeeded Robert Keating (fl
1749-1758), also a “colour-man”, at the “White Hart in Long Acre”, ie number
52, in about 1763.
The London Directory for 1777 records him still at this
address.
Nathaniel Drake
(1727-87), also known as Nathan Drake, was arguably the leading artists’
colourman in London, from the 1750s to the 1780s. He was a cousin of the York
painter of the same name, Nathan Drake (1726-78).
Shortly before his
death, “Nathan Drake was bequeathed £100 by Redmond Simpson, musician and
portrait collector.
In his own will, made 17 January and proved 12 March 1787,
Nathan Drake left a life interest in much of his estate to his wife, Jane, and
then to his son Richard. He specifically permitted his wife to carry on his
trade as colourman, which she may have done for a period since directory
listings continue until 1790.
A sale was advertised in March 1788 of his
household furniture, plate, linen, china, pictures, prints and books (but not
his stock-in-trade), to take place on his premises at 52 Long Acre. His wife
died the following year.
Keating was at the White Hart in 1749
............................
....................................
Sandys and Middleton.
Colourmen.
Charles Sandys 1755-c.1772, Sandys & Middleton c.1772-c.1775. At
Dirty Lane, Long
Acre, London 1755-1760, Long Acre from 1761, 79 Long Acre 1773-1774,
81 St Martin’s Lane
(‘next door to new Slaughter’s Coffee House’) 1778. Artists’ colourmen.
.................
Trade Card engraved by Darling of Newport Street.(c.1770 -1780's).
Charles Sandys prepared canvases for Joseph Wright of Derby.
Trading as Sandys and Middleton c.1770.
John Middleton d. 1818.
.....................
The Middleton Family
Anon
c.1790.
Museum of London.
This painting is a
portrait of the artists’ colourman, John Middleton, sitting at home with his
family. His housekeeper is to the left and to the right are his children Jesse,
Anna, Sarah and Joshua. Jesse, the eldest son, took over his father's business
when the latter died in 1818.
Middleton was one of
London's most successful colourmen. Although colourmen primarily manufactured
and sold paint, Middleton even diversified into the wallpaper trade.
His
business was situated at 80-81 St Martin's Lane, on the West side of the street.
He sold paint to a number of well known artists of the time,
including Benjamin West and Thomas Lawrence. The room in which he and his
family are posing was probably above his shop. The paint would also have been
prepared onsite, probably in a workshop at the back of the building.
https://collections.museumoflondon.org.uk/online/object/104595.html
Middletons, Colourmen.
81 St Martin's Lane.
Info below from - https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/research/programmes/directory-of-suppliers/suppliers-m/
John Middleton c.1775-1809, J. Middleton & Son
1809-1818, Jesse Middleton 1819-1830. At Long Acre, London 1774, 81 St Martin's
Lane (‘next door to new Slaughter’s Coffee House’) by 1778-1830, 80 St Martin's
Lane 1791-1830, during rebuilding at 4 Long Acre 1792. Artists’ colourman; also
paperhanging manufacturer from 1789.
John Middleton (d.1818) and his son Jesse Middleton
(1779-1862) were leading artists' suppliers over a period of more than fifty
years. John Middleton worked initially for Charles Sandys, marrying his
sixteen-year-old daughter, Ann, in 1771 (when described as a linen draper), and
becoming a partner in the business, which was renamed Sandys & Middleton,
although often described as Sandys & Co.
He was listed as a colourman in
Long Acre in 1774 (Westminster poll book p.50). The Sandys & Middleton
partnership came to an end in about 1775, by which time Middleton was trading under
his own name.
The Middleton business was listed in trade directories as
colour manufacturer and paper hanging warehouse at 80 and 81 St Martin’s Lane,
see Ian Maxted, The London book trades 1775-1800: a topographical guide,
formerly at Exeter Working Papers in Book History. In 1798, Middleton
advertised that a newly built house between the Slaughters’ coffee houses in St
Martin’s Lane was to let, instructing readers to enquire next door at his
colour manufactory (The Times 4 September 1798).
John Middleton played an important role as an artists’
colourman. He advertised colours in his 1785 trade list, ranging in price from
blue black and ivory black at threepence a bladder to Ultramarine at 3 guineas
an ounce or, for the best quality, 10 guineas; black lead pencils at sixpence
each, brushes from a penny to a shilling each, according to size, and various
canvases (Whitley 1928, vol.1, p.334).
He continued to advertise his colours,
for example in 1796 and his ultramarine in 1799 (Morning Chronicle 21 July 1796
and 27 March 1799, see the Whitley papers vol.3, p.290). He was mentioned by
Ibbetson as a man of great knowledge of colours, and one of the few who could
prepare ultramarine properly, which could be had from him ‘in perfection… of
all degrees of value or depth’ (Julius Caesar Ibbetson, An accidence, or gamut,
of painting in oil and water colours, etc, 1803, p.17).
Some of his prices in
1809 were quoted in Ackermann's Repository of Arts: 'Ultramarine is £4 or £5
and upwards, according to its goodness, per ounce’ (Repository of Arts, vol.2,
October 1809, pp.222-3; for other colours, see Whitley 1928(1) pp.155-6).
Further details are given: ‘Canvas for painting is about 2s.6d or 3s. for the
size of a portrait, that is, the head and shoulders; for a larger portrait,
5s.; half-lengths, 8s.; whole-lengths, about a guinea, more or less, according
to the size’, also mentioning easels, pallets, pallet-knives and brushes.
Middleton was consulted by the Royal Society of Arts in 1804
on the merits of an improved mill for grinding painters’ colours, devised by
James Rawlinson (qv). Paul Sandby’s biographer in 1811 claimed that it was
Sandby ‘who first set Middleton… to prepare [watercolours] in somewhat like the
present state, now brought to so great perfection by Reeves, Newman, and
others’ (Monthly Magazine 1 June 1811, see Burlington Magazine, vol.88, 1946,
p.146), although Reeves is now generally credited with these improvements.
Middleton supplied oiled umbrellas in the 1780s (Whitley
1928, vol.1, p.334; Morning Chronicle 23 May 1781 and 24 May 1787). He stocked
Swiss crayons (Morning Herald 24 January 1787), which may be the ‘free and
mellow’ crayons made by Mr Hudson of 18 Angel Court, Princess St, Westminster
(‘Press Cuttings from English Newspapers’, vol.2, p.315, c.1787, V&A
National Art Library, PP.17.G).
He began dealing in wallpaper in 1789, when he
advertised ‘A New Warehouse for Paper Hangings, English and French’, on the
first floor of his premises at 81 St Martin’s Lane (The World 30 July 1789). In
1792, presumably while the premises in St Martin’s Lane were being rebuilt,
‘Middleton’s Colour Manufactory and Paper Hanging Warehouse’ was advertised
from 4 Long Acre (The Times, 31 May 1792).
A family group, John Middleton with
his family in his Drawing Room, dating to the mid-1790s (Museum of London), was
perhaps painted to mark the completion of Middleton’s new premises.
Middleton was awarded a silver medal from the Society of
Arts for ‘Improvements in printing paper hangings’ in 1806 (Transactions,
vol.24, see Galinou 1996 p.140). ‘Mr. John Middleton lately communicated some
improvements in the printing of paper hangings to the Society of Arts’ (John
Mason Good, Pantologia. A New Cyclopaedia, 1813, vol.9 under paper hangings,
see E.A. Entwistle, A Literary History of Wallpaper, 1960).
Middleton’s links with artists: Middleton claimed that he
had ‘for many years… served the principal Artists with their Cloths, Oils,
Colours, &c’ (The World 30 July 1789) and this is borne out by the range of
his customers. He received payments in 1774 (£52) from Thomas Gainsborough
(Sloman 2002 pp.70, 207) and, as J. Middleton, from Allan Ramsay on 19 August
1780 (£9.12s.6d) and 2 September 1782 (£5.12s) (Ramsay bank account). He was
described as the source of colours for Joshua Reynolds (Whitley 1928, vol.1,
p.334, referring to the Repository of Arts). ‘Mr Middleton’ received payment of
£9.5s from Ozias Humphry on 10 July 1793 (British Library, Add.MS 22952,
Humphry’s bank book). Middleton was owed the very substantial sum of £400 by
Thomas Lawrence in 1801 (Farington vol.4, p.1525); he supplied the canvas for
Lawrence’s Homer reciting his Poems, 1790, and Lady Georgiana Fane, c.1806
(both Tate, information from Joyce Townsend). Middleton was also a supplier to
the 3rd Earl of Egremont, 1799-1801 (Petworth House Archives PHA/7558, 8064,
10491). He seems to have supplied colours in 1805 to John Holland, a friend of
Joseph Wright of Derby (Barker 2009 p.213 n.124).
Middleton called on Joseph Farington to solicit his orders,
following the death of James Poole, speaking much of some new prepared
canvases with absorbing grounds, 1801 (Farington vol.4, p.1580). Artists using
his canvas included Mather Brown for Sir James MacDonald, c.1800 (Ackland
Memorial Art Center, Chapel Hill, NC, see Dorinda Evans, Mather Brown, 1982,
p.218), John Constable for A Lane near Dedham, 1802 (Yale Center for British
Art, see Cove 1991 p.495), J.M.W. Turner, c.1798-1809, and perhaps as late as
1827 (Townsend 1993 p.18, Townsend 1994 pp.146-7; Gage 1980 pp.108-9), Benjamin
West, 1803, who used canvases with a slight sized ground (Farington vol.5,
p.1983), James Northcote for his full-length, Sir William Templer Pole, 7th Bt,
1808, stamped: J. MIDDLETON .../... BRITISH LINEN (Antony, Cornwall, see
National Trust collections database), Thomas Sully's Robert Walsh, 1814
(National Gallery of Art, Washington, see Torchia 1998 p.144, where the mark is
misread), George Dawe for P.F. Zheltukhin, c.1820-5 (Hermitage Museum, St
Petersburg, see Renne 2011 p.72) and Thomas Stewardson for George Grote, 1824,
stamped: J. MIDDLETON, 81, St./ Martin’s Lane. BRITISH LINEN (National Portrait
Gallery). For illustrations of Middleton’s canvas stamps, see British canvas,
stretcher and panel suppliers’ marks. Part 1, 1785-1831.
Constable also used an egg-based priming from Middleton for
outdoor sketches in 1802 (Cove 1991). Middleton supplied turpentine to P.J. de
Loutherbourg, 1804, who preferred Legge’s white to Middleton's (Farington
vol.6, p.2317) and he sold John Linnell Ultramarine in 1817 and canvas in 1811
and 1820, as Linnell’s account book and journal show (Fitzwilliam Museum, MS
20-2000, 5-2000). He supplied pigment samples to George Field (qv) for testing
(Harley 1979 p.81).
Middleton was referred to by Raeburn in a letter dated 10
October 1822 as ‘the gent[tlema]n with whom I deal’ (Whitley 1928, vol.1,
p.334; James Greig, Sir Henry Raeburn, R.A., 1911, p.xxxvii). Datable Raeburn
portraits bearing Middleton’s stamp include Lt-Col. Lyon, 1788 (National
Gallery of Scotland), Mrs Eleanor Bethune, 1790s (Hermitage Museum, St
Petersburg, see Renne 2011 p.167), Lord Newton, 1810 (Dalmeny House,
Edinburgh), Henry Mackenzie, c.1810, marked: J [MID]DLETON 81 S[t] M[artin’s]/
Lane BRITISH LINEN (National Portrait Gallery), Thomas Kennedy of Dunure,
c.1812 (Scottish National Gallery, recorded by Harry Woolford) and Hugh William
Williams, c.1818 (National Portrait Gallery); see also John Dick, ‘Raeburn’s
Methods and Materials’, in Duncan Thomson, Raeburn: The Art of Sir Henry
Raeburn 1756-1823, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, 1997, p.45 n.16.
Jesse Middleton: John Middleton died in 1818, dividing his
estate between his sons, Jesse and Joshua, his daughter Anna, and the children
of his other daughter, Sarah, and her husband, Robert Aspland; a sale of his
household furniture and pictures was held later the same year (Morning
Chronicle 15 May 1818). The business was carried on by Middleton’s son, Jesse,
who was variously listed in directories as J. Middleton and Jesse Middleton.
The demise of the business in 1831 is documented by
newspaper advertisements in The Times over two years (2 July 1829, 21 August
1830, 18 April and 4 June 1831). Jesse Middleton advertised his premises and
stock for sale in 1829 and again in 1830, on both occasions apparently without
success; on the latter occasion the premises were described as comprising a
spacious shop and an extensive and lofty workshop, with other accommodation, at
80 and 81 St Martin’s Lane, near Long Acre, with a frontage of more than 30 ft
and with one half of the premises having a depth of 106 ft, the other of more
than 71 ft, having been built by his late father under a 61 year lease from the
Marquis of Salisbury from 25 December 1794 (1791 in the earlier newspaper
advertisement) at the ‘small annual ground rent of £28 10s’. In addition to the
business premises, they were two private dwellings (The Times 18 April 1831).
Middleton’s advertisement for the contents of his shop (‘the
oldest established business’), and workshops is worth quoting at length: ‘There
are, among the variety of miscellaneous materials and implements used in
picture painting and drawing, brown linens and tickens(?), unprepared and
primed; the numerous stock of priming frames, for a manufacturer; French hogs’
hair tools; badger ditto; white lead flakes, flake white dry; colours in …
powder; cake colours, for water; drawing papers; colours not ground, for
picture and house-painting; for paper staining, colours manufactured, and
materials from which they are made. The remaining stock of paperhangings and
borders at low prices’. Evidently these attempts to sell the business failed
because in April 1831 Messrs Geo Robins sold the lease of the St Martin’s Lane
premises at auction and in June 1831 they announced the sale on the premises on
6 and 7 June of Middleton’s stock following his retirement from business.
Robson’s 1833 directory lists Jesse Middleton at 81 St
Martin’s Lane and 1a Charing Cross, the only directory to do so, but there is
no other evidence that he was still in business.
Caroline Wood, artists’
colourman, was listed at 79 St Martin’s Lane in 1832 and 1833; she may have
worked for Middleton since her future husband, W.D. Steevens, subsequently
described his own business as ‘late C. Wood from Middletons’.
Jesse Middleton was recorded in the 1861 census as a retired
colourman, age 81, living in London with wife Elizabeth, age 73. He died the
following year, leaving an estate worth under £7,000, with two members of his
sister’s family, the Asplands, as executors.
Middleton was owed £400 in 1801 (Frarington) and £256 by Thomas Lawrence in 1807.
