Merchant and banker. Born in Willesley, then in Derbyshire but now in Leicestershire. One of the first directors of the Bank of England. Lord Mayor of London 1700-01. That was an exciting time for him. He married his second wife Mary Gunston in 1700, and the following year she inherited what became Abney House and Park.
For thirty-six years Dr Isaac Watts was kept by the Abneys as their house guest, easily beating Dr Samuel Johnson who managed only 16 years with the Thrales.
This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Sir Thomas Abney
The quote "Ages unborn..." is presumably from one of Watts' hymns or psalms b...
From the picture source: "Site of a house since the 15th century, in 1754 William Pitt the elder, later Earl of Chatham, bought the property, subsequently rebuilding it. The birthplace of his son,...
Home to George Meredith, 1864-7. In response to our search Google presented this image but does not provide full access to the apparent source, "Selected Letters of George Meredith", so we cannot ...
Jonathan Thomas Carr. Founder of Bedford Park, the first garden suburb, in 1875. He lived in the suburb, first at Tower House, since replaced by St Catherine’s Court flats, which he left in 1904 to...
Researching this address unexpectedly turned up two terrific items. Firstly, the 1932 Wakefield High School Magazine. In the list of members (old girls, presumably) we find: "Hemingway, Maisie, N...
Wikipedia has a very useful map showing "Estate (freehold) ownership of land in Central London as of 2023". The Portman Estate is shown in yellow.
Poet and novelist. Born Ireland but brought up in London. His mystery novels were written under his pseudonym, Nicholas Blake. During the 1940s, while still married to his first wife, he had a long...
The Pythons were: John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle. Together they made 45 TV episodes over 4 series between 1969 and 1974 and went on to make fil...
Numbers 20-21 Wellclose Square which housed this consulate no longer exist so we were delighted to find this 1930 picture which shows the reliefs one on the front of each building. 2021: This Spit...
In our photo the Williams plaque can be seen low on the left-facing wall. The King of Corsica plaque is on the same wall, to the right. ...
The names on this plaque are difficult to read so take our transcription as tentative.
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