Harrison Barber—Horse Slaughterers

[Gary Barnett]

https://www.islingtontribune.co.uk/article/can-cally-be-new-creative-capital

[Gary Barnett]

It seems that Mrs. Catherine Halsey did not die calcined at that time. It seems that she died of old age in 1922

Halsey's workshop was in Pleasant Grove

Thanks, Jose, any interesting stories about Belle Isle are welcome. For obvious reasons I tend to focus on the horse slaughtering ones, but there was a lot more to the poisoned Isle than that.

One ?x great uncle of mine (Joseph Barnett?) lived in Pleasant Grove at one time.

Edit: It was Robert Barnett who was living at 1, Pleasant Grove in 1859 when his son Henry was Christened. Robert had been born in Ducking Pond Lane, Whitechapel in 1820. He was a horse slaughterer, as were his father, Robert, and brothers, George Robert and Joseph.

In 1841, Robert was living in Hope Place, off Little North (Winthrop) Street, Joseph was living in North Place, off Little North Street, and George Robert was living in Little North Street itself alongside William Monk. William Barber was living in Raven Row, directly opposite North (Brady) Street across Whitechapel Road.

[Jose Oranto]

Thanks, Jose, any interesting stories about Belle Isle are welcome. For obvious reasons I tend to focus on the horse slaughtering ones, but there was a lot more to the poisoned Isle than that.

One ?x great uncle of mine (Joseph Barnett?) lived in Pleasant Grove at one time.

I know, I follow your story very closely 😉

[Gary Barnett]

I can’t recall if I’ve asked this before, but can anyone decipher the occupation applied to Jack Atcheler on the 1841 census?

[Jose Oranto]

I can’t recall if I’ve asked this before, but can anyone decipher the occupation applied to Jack Atcheler on the 1841 census?

Zootomist: "One who dissects the bodies of animals; one who is versed in zoötomy; a comparative anatomist"

[Gary Barnett]

Zootomist: "One who dissects the bodies of animals; one who is versed in zoötomy; a comparative anatomist"

Thanks, Jose!

I thought it looked like ‘zootamist’ and might have been a made-up word. Obviously Jack was a knacker with pretensions, describing himself as he did as, ‘Horse slaughterer to Her Majesty’ and ‘Purvidor extraordinary of provisions to Her Majesty’s canine race.’

Dickens couldn’t have created a more amusing character.

I was looking at the occupations of the residents of St. Sepulchre in 1841, and the proximity of Smithfield Market was fairly evident. In Sharp’s Alley there were:

8 Butchers
6 Harp string makers
3 Violin string makers
2 Zootamists (knackers)
1 Bow string maker
1 Gut spinner
1 Ostler
1 Horse dealer

The various string makers would have used animal (horse/cattle) intestines as their raw material. One of the butchers was Thomas Lansdown, the sausage maker.

[Gary Barnett]

The next alley along Cow Cross from Sharp’s Alley was Red Lion Alley. The 1841 census again recorded the Smithfield effect:

8 Butchers
3 Drovers
2 Farriers
1 Harp string maker
1 Bow string maker

One of the 8 butchers was Nicholas Shippy. He had been born and lived most of his life in Whitechapel, in and around Little North Street. When he died in Little North Street in 1849, his occupation was recorded as ‘horse slaughterer’, so presumably he was another of William Monk’s employees. His son, also named Nicholas and also a horse slaughterer, would follow George Robert Barnett to Bilston/Wolverhampton and then relocate to Manchester and connect with Henry Tomkins. These connections intrigue me. Knackerdom was a very small world.

[Gary Barnett]

If we were to write a book about ‘The Five’ knackers (just to pluck a number out of the air), we’d be more justified in claiming that Jack Atcheler had a connection to the fictional Fagin and his boys than Polly Nichols. Oliver Twist was first serialised in Bentley’s Miscellany in 1837, while Atcheler was operating out of Sharp’s Alley. Here’s Dickens’s description of Oliver’s and the Dodger’s route to Fagin’s lair.

As John Dawkins [Dodger] objected to their entering London before nightfall, it was nearly eleven o’clock when they reached the turnpike at Islington. They crossed from the Angel into St. John’s-road; struck down the small street which terminates at Sadler’s Wells Theatre; through Exmouth-street and Coppice-row; down the little court by the side of the workhouse; across the classic ground which once bore the name of Hockley-in-the-Hole; thence into Little Saffron-hill; and so into Saffron-hill the Great.

Fagin’s bolt hole was described as being at the end of Saffron Hill, just before it reached Field Lane. The fragrance of Atcheler’s/Ford’s yard would have permeated its very fabric (had it actually existed).

[Jose Oranto]

If we were to write a book about ‘The Five’ knackers (just to pluck a number out of the air), we’d be more justified in claiming that Jack Atcheler had a connection to the fictional Fagin and his boys than Polly Nichols. Oliver Twist was first serialised in Bentley’s Miscellany in 1837, while Atcheler was operating out of Sharp’s Alley. Here’s Dickens’s description of Oliver’s and the Dodger’s route to Fagin’s lair.

As John Dawkins [Dodger] objected to their entering London before nightfall, it was nearly eleven o’clock when they reached the turnpike at Islington. They crossed from the Angel into St. John’s-road; struck down the small street which terminates at Sadler’s Wells Theatre; through Exmouth-street and Coppice-row; down the little court by the side of the workhouse; across the classic ground which once bore the name of Hockley-in-the-Hole; thence into Little Saffron-hill; and so into Saffron-hill the Great.

Fagin’s bolt hole was described as being at the end of Saffron Hill, just before it reached Field Lane. The fragrance of Atcheler’s/Ford’s yard would have permeated its very fabric (had it actually existed).

All those inns that appear on the map were "galleried inns" (coaching Inns). Today the only remaining galleried Inn in London is the George Inn, in Borough High Street, where a sign at the entrance states that Dickens often frequented it (just like Shakespeare). I used to work very close to this pub and visit it often. If it is of any interest, a visit could give a good idea of what those inns were like.

Horsetail hair was widely used for making instrument strings as well as for fishing line.

[Gary Barnett]

All those inns that appear on the map were "galleried inns" (coaching Inns). Today the only remaining galleried Inn in London is the George Inn, in Borough High Street, where a sign at the entrance states that Dickens often frequented it (just like Shakespeare). I used to work very close to this pub and visit it often. If it is of any interest, a visit could give a good idea of what those inns were like.

Horsetail hair was widely used for making instrument strings as well as for fishing line.

I doubt they were all galleried, but some were. I used to visit the George in the 1970s. The last time I went there was a couple of years ago, but the old atmosphere seemed to have departed. Externally it looked much the same, but internally it felt different.

Horse hair was used for bow strings and as an upholstery material. The strings themselves were made of ‘catgut’. By law the manes and tails of horses were supposed to be cut as soon as they entered a knacker’s premises, presumably so as to identify them as knackers horses and make it difficult to sell them on.

[Gary Barnett]

I think I may have just discovered why the Tomkins’s relocated to Newton Heath after being banished (probably) from Belle Isle. The outskirts of Manchester are a long way from Islington and it’s always puzzled me why William Tomkins couldn’t (or didn’t) find work closer to London.

What I’ve discovered this morning is that Nick Shippey was already in Newton. I’d been unable to find him on the 1871 census previously because he had been recorded under the wrong name. His full name being Nicholas Thomas Shippey, he appears on the 1871 census as just Nicholas Thomas… His occupation, age, place of birth and the details of his family make it certain that it is the right man. So it seems William Tomkins may have had a contact in Newton Heath before he left Islington.

I’m always looking for explanations as to why working people in the 19th century relocated significant distances and why they chose their destinations. Here, I suspect three families were involved and I’ve worked out most of the reasons for the moves and the locations. All three families were involved in the knacker trade and lived and worked side by side at various times. Here are the geographical overlaps. I’ll work on the precise dates later.

Tomkins

Islington (Belle Isle) 1859-1872

Manchester (Newton Heath/Miles Platting) 1873-1887

Whitechapel 1888 - 1891


Shippey

Whitechapel 1830 -1850
Bilston/Wolverhampton 1851-1870
Manchester (Newton Heath)1871-1880


Barnett

Whitechapel 1822-1848
Wolverhampton/Bilston1849 -1860
Islington (Bell Isle)1860 -1880


Sod’s law, there are plausible explanations for most of the moves/destinations of Shippey and the Tomkins’s, but not for the Barnetts. One of their later moves is particularly mystifying: from rural Bedfordshire to Dublin circa 1912.

Edit: I should mention here that the Leach/Leech family of knackers who employed Nick Shippy in Wolverhampton subsequently opened a yard in Newton Heath, so perhaps that’s why he relocated to Manchester. It seems highly likely that Shippy was working for the same firm as Henry Tomkins while he was boarding with him in 1881, which would mean that Tomkins, and possibly his brother and father, had a Wolverhampton connection.

[Gary Barnett]

One slight mystery concerning the Shippeys is why they moved briefly from Whitechapel to Cow Cross for a few years circa 1840. The reason for moving to Cow Cross isn’t a mystery, Shippey was a knacker/butcher and he moved to the next alley along from Jack Atcheler in what was then the epicentre of London’s butchery/slaughter trade. But he was Whitechapel born and bred, so I’m curious about why he left there for those few years. I think a couple of his kids died while he was in St Sepulchre. It would be interesting to see what caused their deaths. If it was some contagious disease or other, perhaps that triggered his return to Whitechapel.

The other mystery of this kind that intrigues me is why Jesse Croot moved from Islington to Wolverhampton. While in Islington he had been a gardener and his brother, being a manure dealer, potentially had connections in Belle Isle. Jesse had been a gardener in Islington, but in Wolverhampton he became a horse dealer. There’s probably no connection between Croot and the Whitechapel/Belle Isle knackers, but I think I’ll delve into his background a bit more deeply. There’s some info on here about his background - Dusty Miller dug out some interesting stuff I seem to remember.

[Gary Barnett]

The Shipp(e)ys

John Shippy, a Whitechapel butcher, was born in 1776. He produced two sons, William (b. 1804) and Nicholas (b. 1807).


The 1841 census has a dealer named William Shippy of the right age living in Lyons Place, St. Pancras. He has a wife, Mary, and two daughters, Elizabeth, 12, and Mary 6. By 1851, the family, minus Elizabeth and now called Shippey, are living in Hamilton Row, Pentonville. William, a greengrocer is 47, his wife is 45 and his daughter Mary is 18. The place of birth of the two parents is Whitechapel but Mary's, intriguingly, is Belle Isle, Kings X.

In 1849, a child named Lydia Ann Shippy had been Christened in St Mary's Whitechapel. Her parents were William, a horse dealer, and Mary. Their address was Hamilton Row, Battle Bridge, which was at the southern end of Maiden Lane.

Putting all this together, I suspect William may have been the W. Shippey, licensed horse slaughterer of Vale Royal, Maiden Lane, whose partnership with T. J. Fishpool was dissolved in June, 1848. At the time, Vale Royal was the name for the part of Maiden Lane that bordered Belle Isle.

https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/brow...ppey#highlight

https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/brow...ppey#highlight


While William moved away from Whitechapel, Nicholas remained, marrying Lucy Goff in Bethnal Green in 1831. The couple had several children, all of whom were Christened in St. Mary, Whitechapel:

Nicholas Thomas
20/11/1831 - North Street

Lucy
03/11/1833 - North Street

John Phillip
25/09/1836 - North Street

Mary Ann Margaret
03/02/1839 - North Street

William Robert
23/01/1842 - 19, Bath Street

Sarah Elizabeth
20/10/1844 - 2, Little North Street

(North Street was the previous name of Brady Street and Little North Street that of Winthrop Street.)

The 1841 census, however, shows Nicholas and his family in Red Lion Alley, Cow Cross Street. At the time, Jack Atcheler, the celebrity 'Royal knacker', was still operating from nearby Sharpe's Alley. It was Jack's move from there to Maiden Lane in 1852 that sealed Belle Isle's reputation as the capital of London knackerdom. Judging by the Christening addresses, this can only have been a brief spell away from Whitechapel for the Shippys - between 1839 and 1842 at most.

Nicholas Shippy Snr died in Little North Street, Whitechapel in 1849 and the following year his widow, Lucy, moved her family to Bethnal Green, where she applied for Parish relief for herself and the four of her children still living with her: Nicholas, 18; Lucy, 15 (the girl who had stolen the money, cap, parasol and decanters from her employer); William, 6; and Sarah, 3. Since her husband's death, Lucy and her family had been surviving on the largesse of Whitechapel parish in the form of 1/- and two loaves of bread a week.

However, by 1851, Nicholas Jnr had left Bethnal Green and moved to Bilston, Staffordshire, claiming to be 21 years of age and giving his occupation as 'groom' on the census of that year. A short distance away, in Wolverhampton Road, Bilston, was living an old neighbour from Whitechapel, another horse slaughterer/butcher named George Barnett, who had arrived in Bilston the previous year, having moved there from Little North Street via Bilston Road, Wolverhampton. It seems unlikely that it was a coincidence that a 19-year-old Whitechapel slaughterman's son should travel to the Black Country and find himself living close to the family of a Whitechapel slaughterman who had been his neighbour, and probably his father's work colleague, for the first 17 or so years of his life.

Nicholas married Elizabeth Woodall on 31st May, 1858 at St. Mark's Ocker Hill, Staff. His occupation was given as horse slaughterer and his address simply as Lea Brook. The first witness was George Robert Barnett. Three months later, on the 30th August, a daughter, Ann, was born at Lea Brook.

The Barnetts moved back to London within a few years and settled in the Maiden Lane area, where they remained until 1911.

Nicholas stayed in the West Midlands. Various press reports show he worked for a local knacker named George Leach and got himself into a few scrapes (see posts below). By 1861, he was living in Wesley Street, Wolverhampton with his wife, Elizabeth, daughters Anne and Lucy and a 5-year-old named Harriet, who was recorded as his 'Dau in Law' (actually stepdaughter). His occupation was shown as horse slaughterer.

Wolverhampton had a large livestock market and seems to have been a hub of the knackering trade. One local knacker, Joseph Leech/Leach (I'm not sure at this stage whether he was related to Nicholas's employer George Leach) was notorious for his mistreatment of animals and for importing diseased animals from far and wide to Wolverhampton, where he slaughtered them and boiled them down for the London market.

As well as the livestock market, there was a horse repository and auction house in Bilston Street. Bilston Street was where Kate Eddowes' family lived. Her cousin Sarah lived there with a horse dealer named Jesse Croot, who had Maiden Lane connections himself.

On 29th November, 1862, Nicholas was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment for his part in a burglary at the Boat Inn, Lea Brook.

On 15th August, 1863, Elizabeth and her children Harriet, Annie and Lucy entered Whitechapel workhouse, having been passed there from Wednesbury. The cause of their admission was given as 'debt'.

The 1871 census shows a Nicholas Shipply, described as a 'horse killer', lodging with a family named Airey in Sheffield. I haven't yet found his family in 1871, but the Manchester Rate Books show he was living in Newton Heath between 1869 and 1872, so it's possible he went to Sheffield on a buying trip.

Then in 1881 we find Nicholas and his 15-year-old son, Thomas, living with Henry Tomkins in Newton Heath. Both Nicholas and Thomas are described as butchers, as indeed is Tomkins. As we know, Tomkins' origins were in the Maiden Lane area, and within a few years (probably late 1887/early 1888) he himself would move to the East End to work in Harrison, Barber's yard in Little North Street (by then renamed Winthrop Street).

Nicholas's daughter, Lucy, married in June, 1881 at St. Luke's, Miles Platting, the church the Tomkins' favoured for their weddings and Christenings. Her son, Thomas Nicholas (Nicholas Thomas?) had been born the previous August. Her father's occupation was given as 'tanner'.

The move to Manchester was permanent for Nicholas. He died in Manchester Workhouse infirmary in January, 1891. His occupation was given as 'journeyman tanner'.


There are still a number of loose ends to tie up, but it's clear that many of the London slaughtermen were connected, by blood, location and trade. Maiden Lane seems to have been at the heart of it all, fully justifying Charles Booth's description of Belle Isle as the 'Chief seat of the London horse-slaughterers.'

I’d completely forgotten I’d put this together.

The 1871 census discovery of Nick Shippy in Newton under the name of Nicholas Thomas just confirms what I suspected.

What I neglected to mention above was that in 1851, Shippy was living in Oxford Street, Wolverhampton, two doors away from Robert Hodgkinson, a prominent local knacker and currier for whom George Barnett was working at the time. Shippy was was a groom then, and subsequently a horse slaughterer, so it’s likely he was also an employee of Hodgkinson.

[Gary Barnett]

Thanks, Jose.

Yes, the Great Northern Cemetery Station was just to the south of Belle Isle.

I’ve recently discovered the individual who I believe was Jack Atcheler’s immediate predecessor in Belle Isle - a woman named Elizabeth Parmenter. Another addition to the select guild of the sistersofthepoleaxe.

She was recorded in Maiden Lane in 1841 when her occupation was given as ‘horse slaughterer’. It seems she had recently been widowed, so perhaps it was her husband who had been the knacker and she inherited the business. Judging by the press report below, from 1843, she may not have been up to the job.

Anyway, she died in 1847 and her Will was proved in April, 1848. A month later, Atcheler was granted a knacker’s licence to operate in Islington.

I have her death certificate on order.

Evidently Elizabeth Parmenter was Jack Atcheler’s immediate predecessor at 1, Maiden Lane. And the informant of her death, Richard Throp, was instrumental in securing an Islington knacker’s licence for Atcheler.

Throp was a house agent.

[Gary Barnett]

Before we leave Throp, I found this interesting notice in the Morning Advertiser of 25th Jan 1855. Ebenezer Stronach was one of the Brandon Road Stronachs who would have been Jack Atcheler’s business rivals in Belle Isle at the time. Perhaps his family harboured a grudge at how slickly (seemingly) Atcheler moved into Belle Isle. Bearing in mind his somewhat dubious reputation in and around Smithfield, it makes you wonder whether a few coins changed hands to smooth the progress of old Jack’s license application.