Where exactly was the Bell Inn, Cornhill (Ipswich)?

[gobbitt]

I now have another book by R. L. Cross, Ipswich Markets and Fairs (1965), containing the attached extract from Edward White's 1849 plan of Ipswich. It's a little more extensive than the one published in 1975. The ink-blot on the Westgate Street properties is unfortunate but doesn't entirely prevent comparison with a modern plan of that vicinity, made for one of the shops in the old Crown & Anchor Hotel building (https://d27fgtedci4u6r.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Ipswich-10A-Westgate-Street.pdf).

The electoral registers at Findmypast would indeed be more useful if the houses were numbered, but they do indicate that Charles Newton had moved from Princes Street to Westgate Street prior to December 1853 and perhaps several months earlier (July being the "qualification date" and December the "effective date" given under "Electoral Register Dates" at Electoral Register Codes). I believe he would have become eligible to vote in Ipswich by May 1853, having resided in the town for 12 months [Suffolk Chronicle (SC) 29 May 1852].

By the 1870s, the numbers 2 and 4 were used by the occupants of the first two shops on the northern side of Westgate Street next to the Cornhill, such as homeopathic chemist Edwin Clifton at 2 and photographer Robert Cade at 4 in White's 1874 directory [page 100]. A jeweller, Samuel A. Aviolet, was at no 2 before Edwin Clifton [1871 census + Ipswich Journal (IJ) 6 Nov. & 18 Dec. 1869]. He was preceded by George F. Alderson, a chemist who had been in business for decades "on the Corn Hill" [e.g. SC 29 March 1851 & 27 March 1869] though enumerated with Westgate Street (in the parish of St Mary le Tower) for the censuses of 1841, 1851 and (at no 2) 1861.

The address of 2 Westgate Street, opposite Waterloo House [SC 2 Oct. 1852], was claimed by Joseph Bird until he moved to no 7, opposite the Crown & Anchor Hotel, in 1853, when he described himself not only as a tobacconist but also a Dealer in Foreign and British Cigars and British wines [IJ 20 Aug.]. Although no number is specified in the 1851 census return, he is next to the innkeeper on the southern side of the road (in St Matthew's parish) so his house seems most likely to be the one occupied by Charles Newton from 1853.

Cigar manufacturer F. Scrivener's shop at 3 Westgate Street (to the west, near Henry Batley) was opposite Ransomes' warehouse [SC 17 Dec. 1853], which adjoined Waterloo House [SC 18 Aug. 1849]. The location of Morris Hart's shop (Asher Barnard's until 1852), opposite Footman & Co.'s Waterloo House, is advertised as 4 Westgate Street in the SC up to 2 November 1861 but it suddenly becomes 7 Westgate Street from 9 November with no mention of removal. This was the site of another fire, shortly before Charles Newton's. In the IJ's report [5 Aug. 1854] I think the words right and left should be transposed or understood in the heraldic sense, as if facing the other side of the road:

"The scene of the calamity was the house of Mr. Hart, hardwareman, opposite the Crown and Anchor Inn.  The whole of the neighbourhood was placed in great peril; the premises of Mr. Hart being bounded on the right by the premises of Mr. Batley, gas-fitter, and Mr. Scrivener, tobacconist; and on the left by the premises of Mr. Turner, butcher, and Mr. Harmer, grocer; in the rear by the stabling of the Golden Lion Inn, and by the warehouse of Mr. Manning, spirit merchant."

In the 1851 census Robert Harmer follows Asher Barnard (Morris Hart's predecessor). John Turner's new shop, opposite Waterloo House, was announced in 1852 [SC 10 Jan.]. Robert Harmer's three Westgate Street shops etc., with a frontage of 45 feet and depth of 19 feet, had been in his occupation for 25 years when they went on the market in 1852 [SC 15 May]. At least one of his properties (at 7 Westgate Street, opposite the Crown & Anchor Hotel) was taken by Joseph Bird who had "removed from opposite Waterloo House" in 1853 [IJ 20 Aug.].

John Warren, a goldsmith and watchmaker, signalled a similar move in the other direction, going "four doors nearer the Cornhill" to be "immediately facing the New Waterloo House" in his "more commodious premises ... 3 doors from the Cornhill" in 1860 [IJ 24 March & 14 April]. In 1861 he gave his address as 5 Westgate Street [SC 26 Oct.].

I suspect the Bell's landlord William Suthers was born in Ipswich c.1820 and buried at Hadleigh St Mary in October 1874, a few months after the death of an Ipswich hardwareman and toy dealer with the same name (possibly his father?) who was born in Bury, Lancashire, c.1795.

Bankrupt fishmonger Edmund Mullett (1820-1866?) of 1 Westgate Street told Ipswich County Court he left the Bell Inn on 9 December 1864 [IJ  27 May 1865]. His brother Samuel (1809-1878?) was among the creditors. Edmund was soon in court again [SC Supplement 5 Dec. 1865], charged with causing damage to a door and fixtures in Fore Hamlet, estimated at 50 shillings by builder John Pells.

David

[Geordie daughter]

By the looks of it, I've kept you very busy unravelling the numbering system, David, with a fair bit of success on your part, by the looks of it! The modern map you found is immensely helpful for comparison, not just for the numbering, but also because I can still see echoes of the original layouts of the buildings, even though the courtyards have been absorbed into the buildings. The difference in the width of Westgate Street in the two maps is very marked.

Charles's original Princes Street premises were what first led to my query about the Bell Inn: the discovery of the May 1852 advert for his cork-cutting business there enabled me to pin-point his whereabouts and dig up the report of the 1854 fire. I've never been able to trace him in the 1851 census (it didn't help that the majority of the census returns state only that he was born in Middlesex, or that as a journeyman cork cutter he could have been just about anywhere in the country at that stage), so up to that point, all I knew about him was that he had got married in Ipswich on 31 August 1853, and then by 1861, was back in Middlesex, with his wife and growing family. The move to Westgate Street probably occurred not long before Charles and Priscilla's marriage given not only the information you have provided about the electoral registers, but the fact that Joseph Bird advertised the move to his new premises in the Ipswich Journal on 27 August 1853. I suspect that the move to Joseph Bird's old premises was a big deal for Charles, being probably larger and also more expensive than his previous place in Princes Street, so it must have been awful for him to watch everything he'd worked so hard for, go up in flames a year later. Possibly the fact that there had been those two such damaging fires in Westgate Street in such a short space of time is what finally prompted Ipswich Borough to set up the proposed new municipal water scheme mentioned at the beginning of White's 1855 Directory.

As far as I can ascertain, after the fire, Charles was employed by William Jackson Chaplin in the cork manufactory attached to the Barley Mow, further up Westgate Street. The later addresses in the electoral registers all appear to be in the vicinity of the Barley Mow. Chaplin's unexpected death after a nasty fall in 1857 is what seems to have precipitated Charles and Priscilla's return to London. They appear to have left Ipswich very quickly because their daughter Annie (born just weeks after Chaplin's death) never had her birth officially registered, as I discovered after years of fruitless searching and a final desperate email to the register office in Ipswich.

The 1844 entry for William Suthers may possibly have been referring to the elder William, then, although it's not entirely unlikely that he could have switched from that to running a pub, given that pub landlords frequently carried on another business on the side, such as shoe-making or carpentry.

[Shane H]

I just came across this chat and what fantastic detail it contains, thanks. I've a special interest, as William Beach/Beachy Head, the innkeeper of the 'American Stores' around 1850, formerly the Bell, is my partner's great-great-great-grandfather, or so I believe. 'Mary Lovett', listed as a barmaid with William at the Westgate Street premises in the 1851 census, full name Esther Maria Lovett, had an illegitimate son that year, who she named William Beach Head Lovett, which would seem pretty good evidence for his father's identity.

As mentioned above in the chat, William senior was fined by the Ipswich magistrates in 1849 for "harbouring bad characters" at the property, so the impression is of him running a bit of a rough establishment.

As also noted, he moved onto running the Victoria Hotel, Berners Street, Ipswich, in 1856.

In 1861, he pops up as an innkeeper in Walton on the Naze, with a wife (not Esther Maria) and two children, then in 1871 he appears as "Hotel Proprietor" of the massive Imperial Hotel at Blackpool, which opened up under his stewardship in 1867.

So, a big step up. Appearances can be deceptive, though, and it seems he was made bankrupt twice, first by 1863 and secondly in 1871 with the failure of the Blackpool hotel.

After that, he appears to have moved onto further hotels in Matlock, Derbyshire, then Lytham, Lancashire, dying at Lytham in 1877.

[Shane H]

Just to say that William B Head of the Bell/American Stores in 1851, as above-mentioned, is the 3x great grandad of my partner, Tina. By 1871 he pops up as the hotelier of the Imperial Hotel at Blackpool.