Richard Lemmon Gregory – librarian

Richard Lemmon Gregory (1767-1851), was neither a wealthy man nor a great property owner, but he was described enthusiastically by J.G Bishop ^[i]Brighton Herald 17^th May 1851 No.2356 as ‘a Brighton character’ and two quality images of him survive. Richard Gregory first worked at the Circulating Library of Mr John Dulot, in The Steine, who obtained the business in 1787. Circulating libraries at this time were lively centres of social activity, and their proprietors provided a selection of facilities to supplement the income they received from subscriptions.. An anonymous writer, a Mr J___H____ , of 1770 ^[ii]New Brighthelmstone Directory; or sketches in miniature of the British shore. London, T.Durham. 1770 had described the same library in picturesque verse: He warned against eaves-droppers: ‘wives that will listen and seem but to read’. He disliked the constant band music, found the chatter of children and barking of dogs distracting, and disapproved of the gambling.

'To the sound of this music, I march'd to a shop
I saw stuff'd with volumes from bottom to top;
Where books of all languages and of all sizes
Were set up in lots and delivered as prizes
To him who could best shake his elbow at dice
Not him who best read, or expounded them nice.'

Richard Lemmon Gregory worked for Dulot until 1793, when the library was taken over by Richard’s brother, James, who was two years his senior. James was a businessman who already owned at least one lodging house, a coal merchant’s business in Middle Street, and a perfume and medicine warehouse and toy shop in North Street. James was, it seems, attracted by any business that could make money from the ever increasing number of visitors to Brighton, and the Circulating Library was an attractive addition. During his tenure at the library, James Gregory used the premises to sell ‘quack’ medicine such as Dr. Solomons’s Balm of Gilead and Dr. Brodum’s Nervous Cordial. And in case of the failure of either of those it could be said, he also sold life insurance! James and Richard were both married at this time to sisters, Deborah and Fitness Currey. Deborah eventually left James and ran away to Boston, Massachusetts, where she died in 1847.

In 1804, James with his eye on larger investments, sold the library in The Steine to John Donaldson, who undertook a substantial refurbishment of the premises. While James extended his property empire, Richard found work at Thomas Choat’s library at 136, North Street, and later with Robert Loder, who moved the library to 170, North Street, where it later became Folthorp’s and subsequently Wakeling’s. George Wakeling^[iii]George Wakeling. Catalogue of the Royal Library, Brighton. Brighton, 1864 wrote that Choat’s library was an altogether more serious affair than other circulating libraries had been, with a bookstock of about 12,000 volumes, and regular reading aloud by the proprietor, of the London newspapers, of which the library kept a full set. Thomas Choat, from a Suffolk Quaker family, would probably have looked askance at the music and gambling of Richard Gregory’s previous establishment, but welcomed him as a valuable assistant and one who entertained the readers with anecdotes and gossip.

Gregory’s obituary stated that he ‘knew everybody that came to Brighton , and most of them, from ‘The Man in Green’ to Macnamara knew him. He could tell numberless tales about the American War when he was a boy; about the first revolution in France; and how he had seen the priests who came over in shoals and landed at Newhaven. His laugh was a sort of crowing – so clear, sharp, cheering that we doubt that he ever knew what ‘the blues’ are….’

Thomas Choat died in 1820 age 29. His family sold the Brighton business to Robert Loder, a successful printer and publisher, also from Woodbridge, Suffolk. Loder moved the library to 170 North Street, and continued to employ Richard Gregory, using his reputation as ‘a local character’ to promote the business. For this reason, unusually for those of modest means at this time,we have two portraits of Richard Gregory, which must have been expensive to commission, and were no doubt sold at the library.

But life was by no means easy for Richard Gregory. The bankruptcy notices of his brother James show that James had amassed a great deal of property, and multiple premises were offered for sale, including the cottage in Market Street where Richard and Fitness lived with their four children. James had gone to great deal of trouble and expense to secure land that had belonged to their great grandfather, Captain Richard Lemmon Snr. James sold a farm and land in Jevington in 1810 for £1,250, but subsequently, he would appear to have overstretched himself and declared bankruptcy in 1826.

Richard and Fitness eventually had to move out of Market Street to a house in Nelson Street, apparently owned by Richard, but which only just about qualified him to vote, as the owner of a house worth more than £10 a year. Nelson Street was one of many of small dwellings to the rear of Circus Street rapidly put up to house artisans and labourers necessary to service the needs of the wealthy Brighton population. The area had no proper sanitation or adequate drinking water and featured in a public health report of the 1840s^[iv]G.S.Jenks. Report on the sanitary state of the residences of the labouring classes in the town of Brighton and on the causes and prevention of fever. Brighton 1840 which identified the contamination of drinking water by unemptied cesspools as a major cause of disease in the area. Richard and Fitness were outlived by only one of their children: Elizabeth died age 22 at Market Street; Richard Jnr died age 30 at Bond Street; and Ann died age 39 at Nelson Street. Only James, the youngest, survived, and became a carpenter who set up a successful undertaker’s business in Bond Street, where Richard lived until he died, Fitness having predeceased him by two years.

Richard Lemmon Gregory was 84 when he died and his obituary in The Brighton Herald noted that he had continued to enjoy good health.
“It was quite joyous to see the capers he cut when above eighty; to show that he was as agile as ever, that he could play cricket, of which he was very fond, as well as any boy; and he would challenge any man half his age to run a mile”
James Gregory Junior and family carried on a successful business in Bond Street. The family grave at the Brighton Extra Mural Cemetery is testament to their prosperity. It would appear that undertakers could and did afford a very decent burial.