The records of the Parish Church, St. Ann’s, Soho, bear witness that a little later the label “Frederick Vincent” was attached to me in solemn form, and certain promises were made on my behalf in which Miss Castell, a girl friend of my mother, took part: for a long time I thought that her name had been added to the others.
At school I was always known as “F.V.C. Brooks”, which my schoolfellows used to suggest savoured of a redundance not wanting in other directions : but on going to the Church Registry many years after I found that the extra name was a myth.
I had been preceded in the family history by my brother Alfred William whom, although, I am rejoiced to say still alive, had never had very robust health, and my parents seem to have considered that now they were getting a family around them they might with advantage follow the idea then forming in the minds of the younger members of the business community, that it was no longer necessary to follow the example of their forebears and live “over the shop” ; the matter was being much discussed, for the new idea was spoken of by others as “putting on airs”, but my father then as ever was with the reformers and made the plunge.
So the day that I first recollect, the one on which the Duke of Wellington was buried – November 1852 – found us living at Grafton Place, Kentish Town, a row of houses now merged in the Prince of Wales’ Road: this day is well fixed in my memory as my maternal grandfather, William Wybrow, was left in charge of me while my parents witnessed the procession from Prouts, the well-known Chemists closely adjoining to Temple Bar on the south side of the Strand.
My worthy grandfather had by that time developed a habit which frequently took him upon licensed premises, and the usual method of procedure when we reached such an establishment was to exclaim “Oh Fred, I believe they sell very nice Rock Cakes here”; and this process having been repeated several times I was very poorly indeed when my father and mother arrived home.
The stuttered explanations of my old grand-dad I well remember, and I should now imagine that he was in a condition little better than his charge.
I suppose that my temper had by this time unduly developed for one day when I had a few friends to tea, my uncle, to whom I had given the name of “Mr Funniman”, arrived at the door in a cab: great was the excitement when the children gathered at the window, saw him alight: dressed up in a white tie and a black gown, and a face that might have been modelled on a miniature harp, he made a most impressive entrance into our midst, and requisitioning a large flower-pot, a cork ( most important ) and an old tray, he announced himself as having come for the internment of the temper that had been the source of so much trouble. The cork having been inserted in the hole at the bottom of the flower-pot, and my mother having certified that it was well and securely fixed, the work of getting the temper out of me and between the pot and the tray was completed by a variety of comic passes that were intended as a burlesque of one of Professor Mesmer’s séances, and we formed a small and admiring procession to the end of the garden where the last rites were performed to the satisfaction of everyone. I still believe that this little farce did me good as a child, and I am firmly convinced that it has done me good as a father by suggesting alternative and sometimes humorous ways of enforcing my views upon my offspring.
Shortly after this incident, my father having taken premises with good living accommodation attached at 40, King Street, Covent Garden, we migrated there.
Well do I recollect our regina. It took place in a Clarence cab; closely packed inside were my mother, a maid, whose name I forget but whom I looked upon for many years as my guardian angel so many scrapes did she get me out of, my brother and self, with about two parcels each and with boxes to match on top.
Coming down Tottenham Court Road I was much struck by the Omnibuses, yellow then as now: they certainly appeared of a size not less than a tram-car would appear to me at the present time and I was amused to hear them described as “mustard pots” a name for these yellow vehicles that has not quite disappeared.
Two things stand out during our residence at King Street, Covent Garden, and they are the fire at the Opera House, which we witnessed from our back windows, and which I find by reference took place on March 5th, 1856, after a Bal Masque during the management of Professor Anderson, known as “the wizard of the North”, and the other a very serious fall that my mother had for which I fear I was responsible.
My home life here was rather dull although I was sent to school in Wells Street, Jermyn Street, kept by Mrs Castell, the mother of the Miss Castell before referred to. Mr and Mrs Castell were kindly natured people, but the latter had a sister whom I still look upon as the very incarnation of cruelty : one of her methods was to supply me for dinner with a huge portion of potatoes baked under the meat which I was quite unable to eat on account of the sharp edges cutting my gums, and then compelling me on the ground that I was obstinate to sit with these in front of me all the afternoon while the other boys and girls attended to their lessons. I have since heard of many educational methods but surely none quite so ineffective as this.
Mr Castell was a highly cultured man and a much respected reader for the press in the employment of Messrs Clowes & Son. He greatly prided himself that he had for a number of years been responsible for the corrections of that important work the “Nautical Almanac” : he lived to a ripe old age, and in the seventies he was a persona grata on the balcony of the then newly built London Rowing Club Boat House at Putney, where he was familiarly known as “Grandpa”.
The dullness of my child life was largely caused by my mother’s intensely nervous disposition and her extreme devotion to house-work : whenever I try to recall her memory, as at this time, I see her with a duster in her hand – there was intense energy all the morning and a sort of Early Victorian primness as the tea hour approached; the ugly furniture, of which I still hold a sufficient stock, was the object of veneration. I once said “Mummy is it possible to worship tables and chairs?” “No, my child: why?” “Because I sometimes think you do,” was the reply. The number of “don’ts” that I had to put up with each day under these conditions may be imagined, while over all there was an intense religious element, with prayer in the morning and grace before and after each meal, so that only an energetic youngster could feel that “joy of living” that is so natural to childhood.
I do not by these words wish to suggest any irreverence or a dislike for observances : my aspect to religion is far otherwise ; but there is a form of dull Calvinism which I have never been able to appreciate.
About this time I fear I must of got on my mother’s nerves, I certainly got on her dress and caused a very serious fall down a long flight of stairs. My terror and dismay as I saw her hurtling down will never pass from my mind, and when I found that the result was a dislocated shoulder my grief and agony of self-reproach were unbounded.
I at once rushed into the office at the foot of the stairs where I found my father showing a first proof of a lithograph, three-quarter length portrait to Earl Stanhope, [who was then I think Minister for War], they both rushed out and carried my mother within, while a doctor was sent for. Over this there was some delay as all the doctors were out on their rounds, so his Lordship who was intensely kind went off in his brougham and fetched one that he knew.
In those days there were no anaesthetics and my mother often spoke of the intense pain caused by the resetting of the joint.
It is perhaps little to be wondered at that shortly after this there were suggestions of sending me to boarding school. Some very old friends of my parents, Mr and Mrs Jacob, had upon retirement gone to live on Mitcham Common, so a school in that neighbourhood was selected and at the early age of eight I was admitted a pupil at The Poplars, Figs Marsh, Mitcham, then kept by a Mr Spencer. It was selected on account of it’s nearness to the Jacob’s and very kindly did look after me, Mrs Jacob paying me many visits at the school and frequently inviting me to her beautiful little cottage on Saturday afternoons and Sundays. Sometimes these excursions were especially interesting by reason of a drive in their pony carriage to Croydon.
I shall never forget my feeling of home-sickness when my father and mother turned their backs to leave me on the first day. I felt as if my heart would break, and no consideration would lead me to place so young a child away from home. For some time I was inconsolable, and being much taunted by the other boys it was little wonder that when dear Mrs Jacob came to see me for the first time I was described as looking “puny”.
As there were in those days no scientific body-building foods, Mrs Jacob prescribed half a pint of London porter daily and she said that it should be sent in from the “Three Kings”.
Great was the excitement on the following day when the pot boy was seen coming up the poplar avenue in front of the house, that gave the school its name, and solemnly delivering “Master Brooks’ beer”. Mercifully it was taken to the kitchen door, and I have ever felt that it was due to the timely intervention of the cook that I have been saved from habits of intemperance. Certainly it was “small beer” by the time it reached me, and the flavour seeming to be approved by the domestic aforesaid the so-called half pint was always a diminishing item.
Soon after this incident the school changed hands and was taken over by a Mr Albert Grover, a really first rate teacher of the young who, I believe, is still engaged in tuition at Broadstairs although he must, of course, be a very aged man.
I believe that Grover grounded me thoroughly in my studies, for in each succeeding school I was placed in class higher than my age would have suggested : he was a stern disciplinarian but possessed of much kindness and tact. A curious habit he had was to compose rhymes, certainly of rather doubtful merit, and make the boy who had offended repeat them over and over again at the midday meal ; this in fact punished all to a certain degree, for the offender worried all, much as the turning on of a gramophone would at the present time, the desire to avoid infliction improved the tone of the school. I have always believed that this rhyming habit induced a similar habit with me of which more may be said hereafter, for I have never been able to refrain from breaking out into verse, like Silas Wegg, on both suitable and unsuitable occasions.
How different were the schools of those days in the home comforts to what they are now? But then I imagine that the fees were much lower. For example we always had a plentiful supply of pudding, chiefly of a roly-poly sort, before meat and never did we see a particle of fire till November 1st, by which time we had got so to long for it that we sat round our first fire of the season almost worshipping it, as so many little Parsees might do.
The school was on the direct road to Epsom and the Derby Day was a great event with us. We were habitually formed in a row looking over the fence, as I now believe, as much by way of an advertisement of the school as for our pleasure, and many were the trifling presents we had thrown at us by the merry throng.
On one of these occasions two men dressed up in green veils, white hats and dust coats, just as you see the men in Leech’s and Phiz’s pictures, came along in a dog cart and pulled up at our school gate: to my great surprise it turned out to be my sporting uncle and a friend who wanted to take me along with them. My master, quite reasonably as I can now see, declined the suggestion having no authority from my parents and the sportsmen drove off in considerable dudgeon; their hats decorated with the wooden dolls that were then so customary, and brought with them quite good-naturedly a huge basket filled with oranges, nuts, and dolls for me to distribute to my little friends who were all loud in their declaration that he was “something like an uncle”. I am not certain as to the date of this event but the curious in such matters can look it up for themselves for “Blink Bonny” had won and placed her name among the few mares who have secured the Blue Ribbon of the Turf.
Living close by the school and subsequently at the school-house itself was a widow lady named M’Rae whose husband had been in the Indian Army : she had several sons who were my principal friends while here, especially do I recollect Archibald and Henry who both became Colonels in the Indian Service to which their father had belonged. Colonel Archibald Spiers M’Rae did nearly all his preparation for a commission under Mr Grover, to whom his pupil’s success in getting through the entrance exam, was a great pride and joy, for they were sincerely attached to each other and continued so till the Colonel’s death in 18__.
Well do I recollect the evening that Archibald M’Rae, my brother and I spent together a few days before M’Raes departure to take up his commission ; my good friend John Mitchell, of the Royal Library, Bond Street, to whom in after life I was so much indebted, placed at my disposal, the well known “Cocker” box at Drury Lane Theatre.
At that time the popularity of the pantomime began to wane it was customary to shorten it by lopping off the Harlequinade and by outing some standard piece on in front, and that evening we had indeed a full bill, viz., Mr Samuel Phelps as Sir Pertinax Mac sycophant in the “Man of the World”, and the Pantomime, I think “King Pippin”, with Master Percy Roselle in the title part. “Master Roselle” was in no way young at the time but was very successful in keeping up his juvenility.
From our point of vantage, the box immediately adjoining the stage on its prompt side, we could see the easy familiarity of the so-called boy with the ladies of the Company, so that when shortly after his entry he exclaimed in a childish treble :
To keep our parents pliant,
And of we find we don’t succeed
There will be time to get a giant.”
The effect on our section of the audience was not very convincing.
Phelps as Sir Pertinax was magnificent, M’Rae especially approved of his Scotch accent.
In 1859 my father moved his business from King Street, Covent Garden, to 1, Chandos Street close by, the corner now occupied by the Civil Service Stores, taking over the remainder of the lease that had been granted by the Duke of Bedford to Mr Griffiths, the very celebrated silk mercer, a relic of Georgian times.
He was a benevolent and dignified looking person who is immortalized by Mulready in his celebrated painting “Choosing the Wedding Gown” where he appears in the wig and the habit as he lived.
The business had so extended that space could not be found in these new premises for the household and my father and mother came to live at a house called the Hut on Mitcham Common and I became a day scholar at the Poplars to my great joy.
This arrangement only last for a year, as the journey to town was found to be too trying; a bleak walk across the common and a poor service of trains when repeated twice a day formed a very serious addition to the labours of one whose working hours were already arduous and long.
While I had been at school at Mitcham my brother Alfred had been at various farms and small schools in the country as it was felt to be better for his health. Among these places was Oxted to which he used to go in a carrier’s cart starting from Scotland Yard, Whitehall, and with the aid of “memory’s sweet but brief encore” I can now see him seated in his cart-contained chair preparing to start.
Our next home was at Sussex Villa, Clapham Rise, where we had a large and productive garden well-planted with pear and other trees of considerable size, the fruit trees seeming at the less crowded time to flourish well on the London clay. There I went to the Stockwell Grammar School of which the Rev. Watson was the head master; it was in some way associated with King’s College, Strand, and I imagine that a fairly high standard of classical reading was taken in the higher forms, for compositions in Greek and Latin verse were very much in evidence on the Speech Day. When I went there I was only eleven years of age, but was rather popular with the bigger boys. This popularity may have arisen from the fact that I was even then able to give them useful help in the production of the Prologues and Epilogues that were custom on the occasion of the annual prize giving. In fact they were nearly all mine on the year that I last attended the function.
I am afraid that I was rather artful even in those days, for having but “little Latin and less Greek” I who was helping the bigger boys was myself helped by a ripe scholar living in Kennington who supplied me with the classical allusions, references to the Pierian Spring, etc. , that were such essential features in these productions.
This gentleman was Mr Townsend and I retained his friendship till his death. He was a literary man of some distinction and with a very kindly heart to any aspiring youth ; his chief work on which he spent many years was “The Manual of Dates”, a sort of Haydn on a new system, which formed a most valuable book of reference.
On its completion he brought me a copy in recognition of some work I had been able to put in his way through my friend Mr S.O.Beeton, who was such a pioneer in popular publications for boys.
On that day we strolled down Holborn and my friend seemed very distressed and told me that he was much worried with money matters, that his portly volume had been such a prolonged task that he had already drawn all and more than was due to him. By the time we got to Chancery Lane we were preparing to part company. At that time a very first rate confectioner’s was at one corner and The Radnor, then as now a much frequented dining house. At the other, so I suggested a glass of wine at either of the establishments; he said he would rather have a bun!
I at once took in the situation and suggested a lunch at The Radnor over which we lingered for a considerable time and had much pleasant talk. A few days later I was startled by a paragraph reporting an inquest on my friend : he had died apparently from starvation at his room near Kensington Gate.
The cause of my leaving Stockwell Grammar School was that in the summer term of 1862 when I was approaching fourteen years of age I was the victim of an entirely undeserved and unmerciful flogging from the headmaster, who was a man of absolutely uncontrollable temper and quite unsuited for a schoolmaster.
A window was broken in the playground during play time : we all took to our heels and ran to the other side of the building, but the drill master and caretaker, a certain Sergeant Tully, caught me and ran me in to the “Head”. In vain did I plead that I had not thrown the stone but had only run away with the rest, my master was boiling over with rage and either could or would hear nothing.
Dr. Watson at once proceeded to birch me in the most brutal manner, while the sergeant held down my head : so excited did the master become that in his passion he tore his gown with the hand that was free. When he was exhausted he changed places with the sergeant and the agony of the fresh and stronger man “laying on” was unbearable and blood flowed freely.
This took place more than a mile from my home and when dismissed I started my journey there on foot as I had no money and felt unequal to facing my school-fellows to borrow any. Fortunately when about half way home I was overtaken by my form master, Mr Mansell, whom I remember as at all times a most gentle and kindly man : he was very sympathetic, put me in a cab and handed me over to the care of my mother more dead than alive.
My father, although a man of great kindness, was of a Spartan disposition in regard to bearing pain and I imagine never fully realised the agony I had been through. He, however, wrote a strong letter and removed me from the school.
It would indeed have been better if he had taken Police Court proceedings, though he would in those days have had difficulty in getting a summons granted, for shortly afterwards Dr. Watson’s temper again got the better of him ; this time it was at his home and he killed his wife with a carving knife in a paroxysm of rage while they were seated at the table.
The evidence at the trial showed that he had buried the body under the floor but eventually got a carman to take the box elsewhere. For some time the disappearance of Mrs Watson was a great mystery, but a large reward being offered the carman came forward and cleared it up.
Watson was convicted and sentenced to death, but great efforts were made for a reprieve; these were successful at the last moment, and after great pressure upon the Home Secretary Sir George Grey.
Had the execution taken place it would have been one of the two last at Horsemonger’s Lane Gaol. I remember that a man named Samuel Wright was executed on the day appointed, Jan. 12th 1864, and after the law had taken its course in his case there were persistent shouts for Watson.
Considerable protests were made in the press for it was felt that he had been spared on account of his cloth. The Doctor was sent away into penal servitude for life, but his detention was not to be prolonged for he committed suicide by jumping from a circular staircase – a truly appalling end to a life rich in opportunities.
While I was at Stockwell the first great craze for collecting stamps broke out and many of the boys after school were in the habit of tramping to town and back to attend a market that was held after business hours in the wide part of Birchin Lane. The venue was well chosen for there was little traffic through the Lane, and it was an interesting sight to see some hundreds of diminutive connoisseurs plying their trade. The plan was not without its advantages, for there was distinct code that regulated the dealing, and the lads, I have often thought, attained to precise and business habits that in after life stood them in good stead. On one of there journeys to town we witnessed the great Tooley Street fire in which the chief of the Brigade, Mr Braidwood, was killed : it continued for many days and the scene from London Bridge was very striking.
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