Help with street name please

[AlanBoyd]

Here it is on the 1851 map
https://tinyurl.com/3v8detff

and this side-by-side view of a later OS map shows that Great Hermitage Street, or at least part of it, is now Hermitage Wall.
https://tinyurl.com/54wcf9ku

[nellie d]

Thank you Hanes and Alan

[elliot]

Could be Great Hermitage Street.

Thank you fiddlerslass, I wondered that too, but on
https://www.maps.thehunthouse.com/Streets/New_to_Old_Abolished_London_Street_Names.htm#G
It says that Great Hermitage Street was called Russell’s Buildings pre 1912 😬

NELLIE
Thank you for this very useful website thehunthouse.com. which is new to me.  So many lost addresses!
Great Hermitage Street appears to run West-East, and the Russell's Buildings runs off South-North.

7 Russell's Buildings overlooking the dock entrance is where my GGfather [James POPE 1809-1888] lived most of his working life as he was a Lighterman. [1851, 1861, 1871, 1881]

[AlanBoyd]

@elliot

No. 7, Russell's Buildings has a claim to fame in that it appears in the details of the Tichborne Case. You can read the full story here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tichborne_case?wprov=sfti1#

A very brief summary is that, in 1866, a butcher from Australia called Thomas Castro came forward claiming to be Roger Tichborne, the lost heir to the Tichborne family fortune. A protracted investigation and two court cases concluded that he was actually Arthur Orton (born 1834 according to Wikipedia)), the son of a Wapping butcher, who had run away to sea and ended up in Australia. One piece of evidence linking the man, generally referred to as "The Claimant", back to Wapping was a pocket book in his possession which included the entry:

"Miss Mary Anne Loder, No. 7 Russell's Buildings, High Street, Wapping."

Furthermore there were letters found written by Arthur Orton to Mary Anne Loder in 1852 and 1853, and I believe that Mary Ann was found and that she identified the claimant as Arthur Orton.

Looking at the 1851 census I see that No. 7 Russell's Buildings is shared by your ancestor James Pope with his family, plus a Thomas Belgrave. Next door at No. 6 is another shared house with one of the families being a Charles Orton, (28), butcher. And at No. 8 There is Abraham Loader (41) whose wife is Mary Ann, and children aged from 13 downwards, but no sign of Mary Ann.

There is however, a baptism: Mary Ann Loader, 27 Nov 1836, St John, Wapping. Parents Abraham and Mary Ann. And I think I have identified Charles Orton as the Charles Orton baptised at Wapping, 1822, son of George Orton, butcher. I can't find any record of Arthur Orton to tie him to the same parents, however.

So, despite a few discrepancies, it looks as if your ancestor was a bystander in a famous court case.

[AlanBoyd]

As I mentioned in reply #9, Great Hermitage Street corresponds to the modern Hermitage Wall. I assumed that this would be a recent name but in fact it is pre-WWII. The first newspaper mention of " Hermitage Wall" is in the 31 January 1936 edition of the East End News and London Shipping Chronicle, in an article about the proposed renaming of streets in Stepney that includes Great Hermitage Street to be renamed Hermitage Wall. Then the first newspaper reference to an address in Hermitage Wall is in January 1936, and Hermitage Wall is a street  in the 1939 register.

Also in that article about renaming, it is proposed to rename Little Hermitage Street (at the west end of Great Hermitage Street) to Orton Street after the Tichborne claimant, as described in my reply #12. And indeed, it is Orton Street today.

[elliot]

ALAN BOYD,
Many thanks for your excellent and wide rangeing research and your linking with the interesting history of Russell's Buildings.
I seem to recall a recent radio dramitization of the Tichbourne Case as some aspects of your post seems to ring bells for me.

I shall now read the long Wiki article and see if I can follow the mystery machinations!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tichborne_case

Today I used Google Streetview and 3D aerial View, trying to identify the view from Russell's Buildings overlooking the Wapping Basin entrance and how this compared with the older maps.  Pier Head South of Wapping High Street [that confusingly runs both sides of the basin entrance] but I wonder if the hansome buiildings 1-4 Pier Head date from this era or a modern look-a-like.

https://tinyurl.com/54wcf9ku

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/23+Pier+Head,+Wapping+High+St,+London+E1W+1PN/@51.5039992,-0.0732552,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x4876033a1373ad4f:0xadf4485bec390f41!8m2!3d51.5039863!4d-0.0629554!16s%2Fg%2F11cskkpfc4?entry=ttu

[AlanBoyd]

Good luck with the article, it is really a very confusing case.

Looking at the map for the Land Valuation Survey ("Lloyd George Domesday Book") of 1910-1915 the buildings in Russell's Buildings are recorded as addresses in Great Hermitage Street, Nos. 76-88, (even numbers only) i.e. seven addresses. In earlier censuses where Russell's Buildings appears as an address the numbering is Nos. 5-11 ( ie seven addresses) and the enumerators route suggests that they were numbered from north to south. This indicates that No. 7 Russell's Buildings would match to No. 80 Great Hermitage Street.

Maps of that era all  indicate that there was a terrace of five houses, which corresponds to Nos. 76-84 Great Hermitage Street. In the Land Valuation Survey,these are all rented out by a single freeholder, and because of this only No. 76 has a detailed description:

Old 3 storey house. Front recently repointed, but bulged. Back in rather poor order. Pantile roof. Accom: Gd Floor 2 rooms & scullery. 1st Floor 2 rooms and 1 above. Fair size yard in rear with washhouse.
weekly tenancy: rent £28.12s

That annual rent is 11 shillings per week. According to the converter at the National Archives this is £43 at today's value and was about one day's wages for a skilled tradesman.

In the valuation records these addresses have all been amended to Hermitage Wall in red ink (presumably much later), and the accompanying valuation map (based on an 1896 OS map) has also been altered to indicate this change, although Russell's Buildings has not been crossed out.