Proprietor of Mother H’s – Early life – Tragedy at 34, St. James Street – Broom Lane, Fulham – The Golden Cross Brighton – Smithfield Bars – Bankruptcy again – A plea from Whitton – Retirement at 19 Essex Street.
I introduced Isaiah Smart in the previous post http://Mother H and Thomas Hodgkins in Doncaster) as the new proprietor of Mother H’s when Ann King married Amon Wilds and retired to Brighton. His tenure of 13, Brydges Street Covent Garden lasted until 1834 when he was declared bankrupt.
This satirical illustration by George Cruikshank could also be called ‘The income streams of Isaiah Smart’. In the foreground, two men are betting on fighting cocks, on the left is a tavern with dancing on the first floor, and next door is a money lender’s ‘The Fence’. On the right is a night house advertising ‘coffee at three every morning’ with a distraught woman on the doorstep. Next door is a gambling hell where one customer is being thrown from the upstairs window. It all takes place against a background of horse-racing.
In the 21st century, we would describe Isaiah Smart as a career criminal. In Regency England, Smart was too often described as ‘Gentleman’, and the courts took particular note of his smartly tailored clothes and his ability to pay expensive lawyers. Regency justice meted out heavy punishments for fraud, theft, and forgery, and businesses that neglected to pay excise duty were particular targets. It is possible to map the career of Isaiah Smart through court cases reported in the Press, often changing his name to ‘Josiah’ Smart, ‘James’ Smart, or even sometimes ‘John Smith’.
Smart aged 32 in 1822, was working as an Innkeeper in Shrewsbury, and as waiter at The White Lion, Chester. Remuneration in the trade however was not sufficient for Isaiah Smart, and he entered into a partnership with John Shenton and one Connor at the Flour Mill, Stapleford. Their unlicensed enterprise in tobacco manufacture attracted the attention of the excisemen, and they were closed down. [i]Morning Advertiser 14 July 1824
Smart moved with Mary, his wife and their three children to London, where he took over the occupancy of the notorious ‘Mother H’s’ night house at 13 Brydges Street, Covent Garden. His experience in the hospitality trade served him well, and he was soon running the establishment that made a fortune from gambling and prostitution right under the nose of the authorities. Selling wine and brandy without a licence seems trivial by comparison, but it was this crime that usually landed him in court.
On 17th September 1830, Smart was charged with receiving the sum of £1,700 or more, stolen from the agents at The Doncaster Betting Rooms.
The lease of the Doncaster Betting Rooms was held by Ann Wilds, previously Ann King, who was also the leaseholder of 13, Brydges Street, Covent Garden. After being held in gaol in York, Smart managed to acquit himself of the charges by confusing the court with clever arguments and casting the blame onto others. In 1834 he sued for bankruptcy again, complaining to the court that it was impossible to make a living when the Excise were continually demanding money! He also mentioned that he had paid Ann Wilds £3,000 for the goodwill of the tavern and £300 a year rent. At this time, Mother H’s temporarily closed and Smart moved on.
He took a house in Broom Lane, Fulham, where in the large garden at the rear, organised cock-fighting attracted a crowd of 60-70 people. Isaiah Smart was fined £5 in 1840 for breaching the 1835 Cruelty to Animals Act. It is difficult to see how a fine of £5 would have even dented the amount to be made on multiple cockfights with such a large company assembled.[ii]Southern Star 3 May 1840
Having recovered from his bankruptcy declared in 1834, Smart set up a gambling house at 34 St James’ Street, Piccadilly, a street which since the mid 18th century had been the gaming centre of the West End. Although not on the scale of such famous houses as Boodles at no 28 or White’s at no 37, Smart profited from the ever addicted gamblers who frequented the Piccadilly establishments. In 1842, he was named in bankruptcy proceedings against a Mrs Edmunds, to whom he had advanced money on bills of exchange to the value of £2350.[iii]Bell’s Weekly Messenger 17 Dec 1842 Although he denied Mrs Edmunds’ having played at his premises, this was a well known additional source of income where gambling houses would lend gamblers money to cover their losses at interest. Smart went on to develop a trade in bills of exchange in future years.
But a terrible retribution was about to catch up with Smart in 1843, when his gambling house at 34, St James Street was raided by police. Henry Smart, his youngest son, who was in bed at the time, escaped onto the roof, but fell 60 feet to his death with the police in pursuit. It may be that this family tragedy looked like being a turning point for Smart, and two years later, he became proprietor of The Golden Cross, Pavilion Street, Brighton.
The Golden Cross was a well-appointed coaching inn providing accommodation and entertainment for gentlemen. It had 20 rooms, including seven bedrooms, four sitting rooms and a ballroom. The ballroom had been used for regular events including the weekly meeting of the Brighton Catch and Glee Club founded by Charles Incledon, a celebrated singer who retired to Brighton and died in 1824. Isaiah Smart, who appears in Brighton directories as the landlord from 1845, opened the large room for betting on Brighton race meeting days.[iv]Bell’s Life and Sporting Chronicle 27 July 1845
4,Old Steine, on the corner of Pavilion Street and Old Steine, and next door to The Golden Cross. Here, the Smart family lived at the time of the marriage of their daughter Amy to Charles Stewart Pollard at St Nicholas Church Brighton on 1 Feb 1846.
Some time before 1848, Smart was joined by the brothers James and William Tomsey Creech. The Creech brothers advertised[v]The Era 3 Sept 1848 ‘a new style of entertainment for the Brightonians – the same as ‘Evans’ and some first singers are engaged’ (Evans Music and Supper Rooms in King Street, Covent Garden, was a venue open to gentlemen only and known for it’s risqué material).
The Golden Cross however did not make as much money as either Smart or the Creech brothers had hoped. The coming of the London to Brighton railway had gradually altered the Brighton clientele from Regency swells to Victorian trippers. Such coaching inns as transport hubs offering desirable accommodation, by 1848 were in decline. Smart and his surviving son William admitted to making money from ‘discounting bills of exchange’. This involved raising a cash loan on a promise to pay the capital plus interest within a certain time. Although it was perfectly legal, the system was open to fraud and abuse.
Although a legitimate bill of exchange could be redeemed by a bank, there was a thriving trade in selling on such bills, particularly when they had been obtained fraudulently.
William Smart was involved in one such case that came to court on 24 August 1848[vi]London Evening Standard 28 Aug 1848when fraudulently obtained bills of exchange totalling £1,000, were sold on through a network of crooked dealers in London. In the case of August 1848, no money had been advanced to the debtor in the first place. Walter Scott Lockhart Scott, (grandson of the novelist), who was the defrauded plaintiff, took the dealers concerned to court in an attempt to recover his money. William Smart, heavily implicated in the fraud along with William Moreton, William Ferris, Lewis Levi, and others, was closely questioned and recounted information that confirms Isaiah Smart’s involvement in such scams. He admitted he had been helping his father for four years and travelled from Brighton to London four or five times a week on business for him. At the same time as the fraud case, more schemes were hatched in Brighton to salvage the failing business at The Golden Cross. James Creech, Isaiah Smart’s associate, raised a loan from a Sarah Martin for £500 + 5% on the surety of the contents of the hotel. The deed [vii]The Keep. ESRO AMS6610/9 raised to obtain the loan is a most elaborate and costly-looking document listing every item at The Golden Cross from mahogany bedsteads down to the last fish kettle. In the following February, 1849, Sarah Martin and James Creech’s brother William Tomsey Creech sold on the deed to Thomas Barrett Lennard brother of the lawyer who had drawn up the original deed, for £200 at 5% interest. There is no evidence that Sarah Martin had ever paid the supposed £500 in the first place, and it may be that this was an elaborate fraud executed with or without the knowledge of Isaiah Smart.
In any event, the scheme backfired on the Creech brothers, who were declared bankrupt, and the contents of the Golden Cross seized by Lennard in order to recover his loan.
Isaiah Smart, then out of business, left Brighton and set up as an eating-house keeper at 4, Smithfield Bars, just outside the City of London. William Tomsey Creech, also reappeared in the same area, as landlord of the “The Golden Cross”, 110 St John’s Street, Clerkenwell, a public house usually known as The Gun. Both Smart and Creech were once again bankrupt shortly afterwards. Creech served a sentence in the Middlesex debtors’ prison and subsequently emigrated to Australia. Smart, by then 62 years of age, was also sent to the debtors’ prison in April 1852. How long he spent there is uncertain, but in April 1860, he was once again in prison serving a six months sentence. A request for leniency of sentence came from a surprising source: Colonel Charles Edward Murray, owner of Whitton Park, Hounslow. This tantalizing connection between C.E.Murray and Isaiah Smart probably relates to Louis Kyezor, ‘King of Whitton’ and erstwhile brother in law of the infamous Murray brothers who took over ‘Mother H’s’ night house in Covent Garden from Smart. I have been unable to work out what exactly the connection was!
By the time of the 1861 census, Smart and his wife were living at 19 Essex Street, Strand, the premises of a firm of solicitors. In 1871, still at that address, Smart described himself as ‘housekeeper’, indicating that in his retirement he was a live-in caretaker, but probably not the landlord.
Mary Smart, his wife of 52 years died in 1862, and Isaiah, now 72, married Louisa Agnes Bazley née Drake, the widow of a fishmonger from Charles Street, Covent Garden.
Smart died at 19 Essex Street in the Summer of 1876, aged 85.
As far as I know, Isaiah Smart left no descendants to tell his story, unless, of course, you know otherwise…
