THE HISTORY OF SOUTH HAMPSTEAD

"There is often no stronger proof than rumour concerning historical anecdotes and speculation - and often no stronger proof is needed"

Max Arthur, OBE, in "Lost Voices of the Edwardians"

Leighton House: by Geoffrey S. Fletcher

Prior to its demolition in 1971, Leighton House, 103 Alexandra Road, had long been associated with Lillie Langtry - a celebrated Victorian beauty, socialite, actress and between 1877 and 1880, the paramour of the Prince of Wales - the later King Edward VII.

Prof. Jane Ridley in "Bertie - A Life of Edward VII", p. 208

A lifelong friend of the Prince, Lillie was invited to his coronation in 1902 - and to his funeral in 1910.

Lillie Langtry

How did Leighton House become associated with Lillie?

It is a long story and a controversial one at that; not least because legends, gossip and rumors cannot always be proved beyond a doubt; and inferences made from leases, electoral registers, census records and such, do not always prove conclusive.

In May 2021, unable to find Lillie Langtry's name on any record they had come across, local historians assumed the house's association with Lillie was a ruse - a myth concocted in 1965 by a resident "Greek actress" to try and prevent its demolition - if you believed that!

The Press nescient of the flaws in their research, bought into it and headlines followed but, as Oscar Wilde could have told them: "The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

Dr. Jane Ridley - a Professor of Modern History at the University of Buckingham - gives us another angle to the story:

Prof. Jane Ridley in "Bertie - A Life of Edward VII", p.21

Albert Edward : Prince of Wales (circa 1879)

Maybe Lillie did not buy or lease Leighton House herself. Perhaps arrangements were made; maybe Lillie lived there for a relatively short period or only used the house or part of it, occasionally (...)

A passage from James Brough's classic:"The Prince and the Lily", adds weight to such hypotheses:

James Brough in "The Prince and the Lily" p. 187

It is also important to bear in mind, that as a married woman living in the Victorian era, Lillie would not have been in a position to buy or rent Leighton House, or any other house for that matter, not until The Married Women’s Property Act was passed in 1882 - before then, arrangements had to be made (...)

By the same token, one would not be able to find her name (Emilie Charlotte Le Breton-Langtry) or, that of any other woman, on the Electoral Registers - and much less on Poll Books (discontinued in 1872) - as women were not allowed to vote until The Representation of the People Act in 1918.

One thing seems certain; the moment Lillie was seen entering or leaving the house - with or without the Prince - rumors would have started and, as the saying goes, "a tale never loses in the telling".

The question remains:

Was the legend invented, as some 'storians have suggested?

Or did they overlook evidence to the contrary?

Please read on ...

________________________________________________________

Leighton House: Main entrance© North London Press, 1968

Leighton House: Entrance Hall © The Daily Telegraph, 9 October 1971

Leighton House: Window in stained-glass and staircase.

Leighton House: Ceiling high harp fret with a molded plaster

bust adorned with flowers and feathers - possibly representing

The Jersey Lillie. On the left a standing screen with a suggestive motif.

The bust compared with a photo of Lillie Langtry taken in the mid 1870s

Leighton House: Details of a standing screen with a smaller harp fret in front

Leighton House: Wall panel

Leighton House: Full wall panel (painted canvas) © Andrew Yaras, 1971

Leighton House: Full wall panel (painted canvas) © Andrew Yaras, 1971

Leighton House: The last stand ...

REFERENCES

"Bertie - A Life of Edward VII" - Prof. Jane Ridley/Random House Inc.

"Lillie Langtry: Manners, Masks, and Morals" - Laura Beatty/Chatto & Windus.

"The Prince and the Lily" - James Brought/Hodder and Stoughton, 1975 edition. Page 187

"The Marlborough House Set" - Anita Leslie/Doubleday, 1973 edition.

"Lost Voices of the Edwardians" - Max Arthur/Harper Perennial. 2007.

"The Importance of Being Earnest" - Oscar Wilde/ Internet Archive.

("The truth is rarely pure and never simple" - quote)

"St. John's Wood - An Abode of Love and the Arts" - Stella Margetson/Home and Law Publishing.

"The London Nobody Knows" - Geoffrey S. Fletcher/The History Press, Ltd.

> Next: "Would the Area Have Been Suitable for Lillie Langtry?"

Dick Weindling (local historian) quoted by Dominic Penna in the “Daily Telegraph” 3 June 2021

Perhaps Mrs. Yaras did not "decide on Lillie Langtry", as Mr. Weindling gratuitously seems to have assumed ...

Lillie's residence in the "high class areas of Mayfair and Belgravia" pertained to an earlier period of her life; namely to 1876-1878 (Belgravia's Eaton Square) and to 1878-1880 (Mayfair's Norfolk Street - off Park Lane).

But by the Summer of 1880, secretly pregnant, her husband disaffected and bankrupt; bailiffs knocking at her door in Mayfair, and the contents of the house being auctioned off, Lillie was facing a serious existential predicament ...

in "Lillie Langtry - Manners, Masks and Morals", p.180, Laura Beatty/Chatto&Windus, 1999

She had begun to contemplate a career on stage, but first and foremost, she needed an alternative place to stay, preferably, given the "circumstances", well away from Mayfair and the glitterati but, her native Jersey aside, where?

in "Lillie Langtry - Manners, Masks and Morals", p.180, Laura Beatty/Chatto&Windus, 1999

Could Alexandra Road have been a "suitable" place for Lillie's overnight trysts with the PoW - or as a discrete hideout later? It is possible!

Alexandra Road was part of St. John's Wood's Eyre Estate - a legendary neighborhood known as "An Abode of Love and the Arts".

The sophisticated and quietly discreet atmosphere of the area, would have suited her. Academics, actors, architects, musicians, painters, playwrights, poets, psychoanalysts, sculptors, suffragettes, theosophists, writers, not to mention other royal mistresses, have resided in St. John's Wood since its inception in the early nineteenth century ...

Image courtesy of the Lords Cricket Ground Museum

A painting by Sir Robert Ponsonby Staples and George Hamilton Barrable (1887) illustrates this. It depicts a match at the Lord's cricket ground in St. John's Wood - a short ride from Alexandra Road by Hansom cab (approx. 1,3 mi or 2,1 km).

The Prince and Princess of Wales - later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra - are seen standing by the pitch on the right; the Princess is holding a white parasol.The lady at the front (left of the painting) holding a note in her hand is Lady de Grey - another close friend of Oscar Wilde. Some five seats to her right, sitting in front of that grey-bearded gentleman and wearing a yellow dress and red bonnet, is none other than Lillie Langtry. Prince Albert, with whom Lillie also had an affair, is the top-hatted gentleman seen a couple of seats to her right.

But more to the point …

What kind of people lived in Alexandra Road - particularly around the time Lillie was supposed to have lived or stayed there? Here is a shortlist:

● William Leighton Leitch (1804-1883)

Lived at 124 Alexandra Road between 1872-1883.

A Drawing Master to Queen Victoria for 22 years; Vice President of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours in London, for twenty years. Many members of the aristocracy were amongst his pupils - the Princess of Wales (1863-1901) being his last. (9)

William Leighton Leitch Alexandra: Princess of Wales

● Frederick Tully Lott (1828-1899)

Lived at 119 Alexandra Road until 1899.

A painter from St Helier, Jersey, lived at this address at least between 1881 and 1888. His name and address appears in the 1881 Census and is listed in the Post Office Street Directory of 1888. (1)(7)(8)

Frederick Tully Lott (c.1874)

Rue de l'Horloge in Dinan with the church of St. Saviour in the background

● Charles Richardson Knowles (18??-1950)

Lived at 87 Alexandra Road until his passing in 1950 (2)

Charles Richardson Knowles, an opera singer who performed with the Denhof Company and sang in the the Royal Opera House in the early 1900s: also in the Royal Albert Hall 1899-1901, 1906, 1919-1920 and 1925 Proms' concerts.

Charles Richardson Knowles

● Rosa Nouchette Carey (1840-1909)

Lived at 57 Alexandra Road in the 1870s-1880s (10)

A children's writer - and as a novelist in the tradition of Jane Austen - her works reflected the values of the age and were thought of as wholesome for girls. Her book "Nellie's Memories" sold over 50,000 copies!

She was brought up in London at Tryons Road, Hackney, Middlesex and in South Hampstead. She was educated at the Ladies' Institute, St John's Wood, where she was a contemporary and friend of the German-born poet Mathilde Blind.

Miss Carey lived with her niece, nephews and two servants. The poet Helen Marion Burnside came to live with her in 1875 and stayed there until at least 1881 (Census).

Rosa Nouchette Carey © The National Portrait Gallery

● Catherine Amy Dawson Scott (1865-1934)

Lived at 125 Alexandra Road.

An English writer, playwright and poet who in 1917, founded the To-Morrow Club, which aimed to draw the "writers of tomorrow", i.e. the "literary youth", and connect them with established writers to exchange ideas, advice, and comments.

Dawson Scott would sometimes invite the literary agents and editors she knew to attend dinners, while encouraging the young writers to meet them.

The dinner meetings-cum-lectures soon became a weekly event at 125 Alexandra Road.

Among those associated with such meetings were John Galsworthy, May Sinclair, Radclyffe Hall, Vera Brittain, EM Forster, WB Yeats, Joseph Conrad, HG Wells and George Bernard Shaw ...

She is best known as a co-founder in 1921 of English PEN - which stands for "Poets, Essayists, and Novelists" - one of the world's first non-governmental organizations and among the first international bodies advocating for human rights, and the founding center of PEN International, a worldwide association of writers.

In her later years she became a keen spiritualist and founded “The Survival League” with Desmond Shaw in 1929. She joined the International Institute for Psychical Research in 1934.(11)

Catherine Amy Dawson Scott

● Joseph Charles Holbrooke (1878-1958)

Lived at 55 Alexandra Road

Was a composer, conductor, and virtuoso concert pianist who was quite well-known at the start of the 20th century. This was his address between 1940 and 1958, when he died.

His son, Gwydion Brooke (1912–2005), became one of the most prominent English bassoonists of his era, serving as principal bassoonist for the Royal Philharmonic and Philharmonia orchestras. (13)

Joseph Charles Holbrooke

Others:

● 32 Alexandra Road

Lived Miss Hawkins, an associate of Trinity College, London. (4)

● 70 Alexandra Road

Lived Miss Garden, a pianist and organist also associate of Trinity College.

● 81 Alexandra Road.

Lived Miss Streetly-Smith, editor and associate of the "Hampstead News".

● 105 Alexandra Road Right next door to 103 (Leighton House) lived William Lobb (around 1900). Photo above. A wealthy craftsman who made footwear for the British and European royalty and the well-to-do. He had a shop in Regent Street, presently at 88 Jermyn Street. King Charles III is known to be a fan of Lobbs' shoes. William's father - John Lobb - was King Edward VII shoemaker. (12)

● 111 Alexandra Road

Miss Pratt ran a school for "daughters of gentlemen" here around 1883 (5)

● 112 Alexandra Road

Lived Miss Stanley-Lucas. A member of the Royal Society of Musicians and Associate of the Royal Philharmonic Society who also sang with the North London Orchestral Society (3)

The list goes on ...

● Last but not least, Jane Belmont, "who claimed to have been the last mistress of King George IV, in his last years", is said to have lived in Loudoun Road - a perpendicular to Alexandra Road - "where she gave elegant parties and teased her young admirers with stories of the royal favour she had enjoyed."(6)

● Another resident in nearby Loudoun Road seems to have been Mary "Molly" Meers, "the daughter of a Leicester blacksmith, had become a successful actress by the age of sixteen, but gave up acting for the life of an adventuress.

She eventually garnered the protection of a wealthy, widowed and elderly banker, who set her up in her own villa in St. John’s Wood.

It is believed that many of Molly’s real-life adventures were the inspiration for William Makepeace Thackery’s most memorable character, Becky Sharp, the heroine of his novel, Vanity Fair" (quote/unquote)(6)

Mrs. Meers' house in Loudoun Road

St. John's Wood Memories' website

In sum, it seems Alexandra Road was not, after all, a place where the likes of Lillie Langtry would "never, ever, be seen dead" (...)

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple"

(Oscar Wilde in “The Importance of Being Earnest”)

> Next: "Why Is the Evidence So Scarce?"

< Previous: Alexandra Road's Leighton House - A Revisit

Sources (abbreviated):

(1) https://jtrforums-research.org/resources/POD1888/a_streets.pdf"Commercial Gazette", 31 October 1894 also in the "Hampstead News" - both in the British Newspaper Archive. Also, F.T. Lott is recorded as still living St. Helier, Jersey in the 1850s namely at 33 Belmont Road. He exhibited in London from 1852 to 1879.

(2) "Hampstead News", 26 October 1950 in the British National Archive.

Also: http://operascotland.org/person/7619/Charles+Knowles

And: https://catalogue.royalalberthall.com/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Persons&id=DS%2fUK%2f1628. Also screenshot below: