Brompton.

“Yours ever,
“Richard Steele.” [38a]

Now is Brompton all built or being built over, which makes the precise locality of crescents and rows puzzling to old gentlemen.  Its heath is gone, and its grove represented by a few dead trunks and some unhealthy-looking trees which stand by the road-side, their branches lopped and their growth restrained by order of the district surveyor; and Brompton National School, nearly opposite to New Street, a building in the Tudor style, was, in 1841, wedged in there “for the education of 400 children, after the design of Mr. George Godwin, jun.;” so at least the newspapers of the day informed the public.

Brompton Row on the north, or right-hand side of the main Fulham Road, now consists of fifty-five respectable-looking houses, uniform, or nearly so, in appearance; and, according to the statements in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ [38b] and Mr. Faulkner’s ‘History of Kensington’ [38c] here died Arthur Murphy.  But although this was not the case, in Brompton Row have lived and died authors, and actors, and artists, whose performances deserve full as much consideration from posterity.

No. 14 Brompton Row was the abode for more than ten years (1820 to 1831) of John Vendramini, a distinguished engraver.  He was born at Roncade, near Bassano, in Italy, and died 8th February, 1839, aged seventy.  Vendramini was a pupil of Bartolozzi, under whom he worked for many years, and of the effect he produced upon British art much remains to be said.  In 1805 Vendramini visited Russia, and on his return to England engraved ‘The Vision of St. Catherine,’ after Paul Veronese; the ‘St. Sebastian,’ after Spagnoletti; ‘Leda,’ after Leonardo da Vinci; and the ‘Raising of Lazarus,’ from the Sebastian del Piombo in the National Gallery.

No. 14 Brompton Row, in 1842, was the residence of the late Mr. George Herbert Rodwell, a favourite musical and dramatic composer, who died January 22nd, 1852.

At No. 23 Brompton Row resided Mr. Walter Hamilton, who, in 1819, published, in two volumes 4to, ‘A Geographical, Statistical, and Historical Description of Hindostan and the Adjacent Country;’ according to Lowndes’ ‘Bibliographer’s Manual,’ “an inestimable compilation, containing a more full, detailed, and faithful picture of the whole of India than any former work on the subject.” 

Mr. Hamilton subsequently lived for a short period at No. 8 Rawstorne Street, which street divides No. 27 (a confectioner’s shop), and No. 28 (the Crown and Sceptre) Brompton Row, opposite to the Red Lion (a public-house of which the peculiar and characteristic style of embellishment could scarcely have escaped notice at the time when the annexed sketch was made, 1844, but which decoration was removed in 1849.)  Soon after his return to his house in Brompton Row, Mr. Hamilton died there in July or August, 1828.

Rawstorne Street leads to Montpellier Square (built about 1837).  In this square, No. 11, resides Mr. F. W. Fairholt, the distinguished artist and antiquary, to whose pencil and for much valuable information the editor of these pages is greatly indebted; and No. 38 may be mentioned as the residence of Mr. Walter Lacy the favourite actor.

Mrs. Liston, the widow of the comedian, resided at No. 35 Brompton Row, and No. 45 was the residence of the ingenious Count Rumford, the early patron of Sir Humphry Davy.  The Count occupied it between the years 1799 and 1802, when he finally left England for France, where he married the widow of the famous chemist, Lavoisier, and died in 1814.  Count Rumford’s name was Benjamin Thompson, or Thomson.  He was a native of the small town of Rumford (now Concord, in New England), and obtained the rank of major in the Local Militia.  In the war with America he rendered important services to

the officers commanding the British army, and coming to England was employed by Lord George Germaine, and rewarded with the rank of a provincial lieutenant-colonel, which entitled him to half-pay.  In 1784 he was knighted, and officiated for a short time as one of the under-secretaries of state.  He afterwards entered the service of the King of Bavaria, in which he introduced various useful reforms in the civil and military departments, and for which he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general, and created a count.  At Munich, Count Rumford began those experiments for the improvements of fire-places and the plans for the better feeding and regulation of the poor, which have rendered his name familiar to every one,

“As his own household hearth.”

No. 45 was distinguished some years ago by peculiar projecting windows, now removed, outside of the ordinary windows—an experimental contrivance by Count Rumford, it is said, for raising the temperature of his rooms.

The same house, in 1810, was inhabited by the Rev.

William Beloe, the translator of Herodotus, and the author of various works between the years 1783 and 1812.  In his last publication, ‘The Anecdotes of Literature,’ Mr. Beloe says, “He who has written and published not less than forty volumes, which is my case, may well congratulate himself, first, that Providence has graciously spared him for so long a period; secondly, that sufficient health and opportunity have been afforded; and, lastly, that he has passed through a career so extended and so perilous without being seriously implicated in personal or literary hostilities.”  It is strange that a man who could feel thus should immediately have entered upon the composition of a work which appeared as a posthumous publication in 1817, under the title of ‘The Sexagenarian; or, the Recollections of a Literary Life;’ and which contains the following note:—

“Dr. Parr branded Beloe as an ingrate and a slanderer.  He says, ‘The worthy and enlightened Archdeacon Nares disdained to have any concern in this infamous work.’  The Rev. Mr. Rennell, of Kensington, could know but little of Beloe; but, having read his slanderous book, Mr. R., who is a sound scholar, an orthodox clergyman, and a most animated writer, would have done well not to have written a sort of postscript.  From motives of regard and respect for Beloe’s amiable widow, Dr. Parr abstained from refuting B.’s