The Victorian City

by Judith Flanders

  The vanquisher of Napoleon was the man people remembered. Forgotten was the execrated politician, the public face of anti-Reform sentiment of the 1820s and 1830s. Forgotten was the man who was known to have long been on intimate terms with a married woman who was not his wife. In the late 1820s, one American tourist had seen him in the street, a man, he commented, ‘who might have rendered himself the idol of the nation’, but whose name, instead, was ‘scarcely ever mentioned’ except accompanied by ‘some epithet of reproach’, even his ‘military talents’ being condemned, ‘so strong is the dislike he has incurred’ by his ‘domestic habits’. At that time, there had been no admiration, much less veneration. In 1830, on the way to the Abbey for the coronation of William IV, his carriage ‘rolled on in solemn silence, as if to a funeral’, while that of Lord Brougham, the populist reforming chancellor, was ‘hailed by the shouts and acclamation of all’.

  By 1852, this had been forgotten and the old duke was once more part of the city’s landscape. Apsley House, at Hyde Park Corner, his home since 1817, was known as ‘Number 1, London’, and by now people assumed that it was so-called because of its famous owner. (More prosaically, it had simply been the first house on the very western edge of the city in the eighteenth century.) Long forgotten too, or at least regarded as a foible of age, was the reason why the windows of Apsley House had been covered with sheets of iron since 1831. In that year the government’s rejection of Reform had seen a mob surge down Piccadilly, breaking windows. Stones had been thrown at the windows of Apsley House, too, until the butler came out to remonstrate: the Duchess of Wellington had just died, and her body still lay inside, awaiting burial. The mob passed on, but the bitter, furious duke – who had been famously unpleasant to his wife throughout their marriage (‘I was not the least in love with her. I married her because they asked me to do it’) – ostentatiously had great iron shutters nailed over the windows and left them there for the remainder of his life. In 1852, many full-grown adults could not remember Apsley House with open windows, but they were seeing him now not as a statesman of disastrous political ineptitude but as the soldier, the hero of Salamanca and of Vittoria, of Badajoz and, of course, of Waterloo.

  Yet, when the end finally came, on 14 September, at the duke’s home at Walmer Castle, near Deal, in Kent, the public response was initially muted. Lord Stanley, parliamentary under-secretary at the Foreign Office, wrote to Disraeli that the duke’s death had not produced ‘the slightest impression out-of-doors...no crowd of enquirers round Apsley House...We telegraphed down to Balmoral without delay: but I don’t imagine the Chief [the Earl of Derby: both prime minister and also Stanley’s father] will find it worth his while to come up [to London].’ It was another week before it was announced that a state funeral would take place, but that the date was to be decided by Parliament, which was in recess and would not reconvene until 11 November.

  While the public initially displayed an interest that was devoid of emotion or excitement, the newspapers viewed it as a bigger event. The day after it was decided to hold a state funeral, the Illustrated London News was already advertising that its ‘Regular Subscribers will receive GRATIS splendid large ENGRAVINGS of the PROCESSION and PUBLIC FUNERAL of the DUKE OF WELLINGTON, a lasting memorial of the national mourning’. Other papers were more ambivalent, at least at first. The Daily News noted that before Nelson’s funeral in 1805 the vergers of St Paul’s were said to have made over £1,000 by taking payments to let people in to see the preparations. And, it reminded its readers, that funeral had cost the country £14,698. It added, without comment, that the duke was earning nearly £10,000 a year. (This was made up of his salary as commander-in-chief, an allowance as colonel of the Grenadier Guards, a salary as colonel-in-chief, Rifle Brigade, a salary as Lord Warden, Cinque Ports, a salary as Constable of the Tower, and a ‘Forage Allowance’ of £700 a year. The article left unmentioned the fact that more than £400,000 had been voted him by Parliament as reward for his role in the Napoleonic wars, or the quarter of a million pounds paid by the nation for his country estate.) Instead, the newspaper stressed that the funeral should be in keeping with ‘the simple, the severe spirit of the man’, although, it added hastily, it didn’t ‘grudge’ a ‘penny’. Not that anyone knew how much anything would cost, because it was nearly two months before the Earl Marshal announced even the date of the funeral or its route.

  Perhaps those intervening two months of uncertainty were what drove the public into such a frenzy. About ten days after the duke’s death, advertisements began to be placed for Wellington-related entertainment: the Gallery of Illustration (a quasi-theatre, for people whose religious scruples did not permit them to attend real theatres) mounted ‘The Diorama of Wellington’s Campaigns’, showing twice daily. Portraits and engravings, biographies and histories of his battles went on sale, together with a ‘N A T I O N A L S O N G’ dedicated to his memory, and a copy of an equestrian sculpture (in plaster for five guineas, or bronze at fifty guineas), a Minton bust and likenesses in gold or silver, suitable for mounting in mourning rings and other jewellery.

  By the middle of October, newspapers were running advertisements for seats along what was expected to be the procession’s route. ‘FUNERAL of the GREAT DUKE . – The Nobility and Gentry are informed that any number of SEATS or FLOORS, to view the Procession, may be obtained of MR. THEARLE, the masonic jeweller, 198, Fleet-street, near Temple-bar’ was a fairly representative example. By the end of October, a single room in the Strand was offered for an astonishing 100 guineas, while a grocer in St Paul’s Churchyard was reputed to have rented out the upper storeys of his house for £500. Most papers were carrying two or three of these advertisements daily; by early November, this had risen to half a dozen or so, and the tourist market was not overlooked: ‘Sitze für die Beerdigung des Herzog von Wellington’. A lack of solemnity was apparent: those taking rooms, advertised Messrs Purssell of Cornhill, ‘can be supplied with REFRESHMENTS of any kind, including wines, and the use of china, glass, cutlery, &c.’

  The churches were determined not to be left behind. St Mary-le-Strand advertised one-guinea seats in a gallery to be erected in front of the church. St Clement Danes joined in in early November, its seats ‘exclusively [for] ratepayers of the parish’ for the first week, then available to the public at large. (At the end of the year St Clement’s divided its takings of £223 among seven charities and made donations of ‘many other...smaller amounts’, all from this sale of seats for the funeral.)

  An advertisement in the Morning Post warned, ‘It has been computed that one million of individuals will visit London to witness the melancholy procession of departed greatness, and at this inclement season of the year ... it is most important that the feet should be kept free from damp’, for which, happily, it provided the solution: ‘AMERICAN OVER-SHOES should be worn, both by those attending the funeral and those waiting, perhaps for hours, to see the procession pass.’ Glenny’s Irish Hand-knit Stockings and Socks reminded readers that ‘THE FUNERAL of the DUKE OF YORK was attended with loss of life to several illustrious Statesmen, in consequence of taking cold in the feet.’ Other establishments attempted to appear less openly commercial: Moses and Son, a well-known City firm selling ready-made, inexpensive men’s clothing, produced a rare black-bordered notice: ‘E. Moses and Son are no way desirous of making this a business affair, but, prompted by a disposition to offer every accommodation to their patrons...they have prepared for this occasion a Stock of Mourning Habiliments.’

  It was becoming clear that this was an occasion that hundreds of thousands did not want to miss. Train schedules were revised to depart from towns and cities in the middle of the night, to get spectators to London first thing on the morning of the funeral. Even shipping was affected. The Mount Alexandra line announced that its packet ships, due to sail to Australia that week, would ‘In consequence of the request of many of the passenger ... not leave the East India Docks until after the day of the funeral of the Duke of Wellington’.r />
  For by now the funeral was turning into an extravaganza. On 10 November the embalmed body of the duke was conveyed to London by special train from Kent. It arrived at the Bricklayers’ Arms after midnight, a time when no spectators might have been expected. Nevertheless, ‘a very considerable number of persons’ waited there for hours, as they did all along the route, even though the train made only two stops, chugging without pause through the other stations. Even those platforms were ‘lined with railway officials holding lamps in their hands, which served to show further back groups of spectators...every one...in mourning’.

  The duke’s body was taken, with military escort, to the Great Hall of Chelsea Hospital, where the hall was hung with his ‘trophies of great military achievements ... from the banners of the “Mysore Tiger” to the Eagles of the “Grand Army”’. The staging was dramatic: a vestibule was draped in black, with ‘an enormous plume of black feathers, descending in the form of a chandelier’, while the inner hall was lit by eighty-three candelabras displaying sable hangings that entirely covered the walls and ceiling. The niches were lined with soldiers from the duke’s regiment in pairs, their arms reversed. A passageway led to a dais covered with cloth of gold under a canopy of black velvet, spangled with silver stars and a silver fringe, with, at the front, a heraldic mantle, the arms in gold, lined with black-spangled silver fabric, all looped up in festoons. The coffin itself was placed on a raised platform with ‘an ornamental fence, massively silvered’ around it, with lions rampant carrying shields on pedestals. Ten hollow columns, made to resemble bundles of spears bound with laurels, marched down the hall, containing reflectors to light the bier, on which stood another dozen smaller silver candelabra. Behind hung the flags of the conquered from all Wellington’s battles; in front were displayed his military insignia and decorations, including the ones given by foreign governments, his marshal’s batons and Waterloo sword. At the head of the coffin chairs were placed for the chief mourner and two ‘assistant mourners’, who changed by rota, the places being filled by ‘some of the most distinguished personages in the kingdom’.

  The first day of the lying-in-state was quiet, probably because potential visitors feared massive crowds; when none manifested, everyone came the following day. By seven in the morning, it was estimated that there were 100,000 people waiting. The actor Fred Belton commented, ‘Barriers had been erected, and as soon as the first barrier was withdrawn another mob were [sic] admitted; then the shrieks, cries, and yells, were terrific. I felt that to stumble or fall would be death...When we entered by the hall ... my wife’s dress [was] in ribbons.’ Even as this crowd was funnelled through the single narrow exit, packed steamers continued to drop off more and more passengers at Cadogan Pier, pressing the growing multitudes into the railings. Some people were saved only by being lifted over the high wrought-iron railings by Life Guards; two died.

  Those who were to take part in the actual funeral procession were instructed on appropriate dress: ‘in mourning, without weepers, but with mourning swords’. Those who had seats in St Paul’s were to wear ‘mourning frock dress’, while their ‘Servants (not in mourning) attending the carriages’ should still have silk or crape hatbands and black gloves. Even those watching were advised as to appropriate dress: according to the Post, there had been ‘considerable doubt’ whether women were expected to continue to wear general mourning in the street after the funeral (it went without saying that mourning was expected on the day itself ). Now, the editorial went on, ‘we are in a position to state, upon the highest authority’, that mourning should be worn for the single day, while ‘The introduction of crape as a prominent feature of dress’ could be ‘left to the discretion’ of each wearer, while ‘velvet, we are informed, may be worn in cloaks’.

  The buildings along the funeral route were equally carefully adorned for the occasion, with banners appearing, embroidered with ‘Non sibi, sed Patriae’ (‘Not for himself, but for his country’). Along Pall Mall and St James’s, clubs draped their façades in black cloth and other appropriate decorations: the Oxford and Cambridge Club’s balconies were ‘tastefully hung with black cloth, festooned with silver lace, the letter “W.” enclosed in laurel wreaths, being inserted in temporary hatchments’. Other clubs, as well as some of the mansions of the rich in this area, did not meet public expectations, with only a ‘few mean and scanty black cloths...shabbily decorated’. That could not be said of Temple Bar: both sides of the stone gateway were ‘covered with black cotton velvet, which was decorated with appropriate fringes. Each side was arranged with Roman cornices and frieze, in imitation of silver. On the summit was an immense funeral urn (of silver gilt), surrounded with 12 flambeaux of funeral torches. At each corner...was a funeral urn...somewhat smaller than ... the central one...O n the drapery were several monograms, with the initials “W.A.”,’ for Arthur Wellesley, together with shields and flags of the countries that had made the duke an honorary officer, with orders suspended from them. The whole was lit from 6 a.m. on the morning of the funeral by gas lighting that had been specially piped in.

  At St Paul’s, the great building contractor William Cubitt had been commissioned to build an interior grandstand to seat the thousands of mourners, as well as hanging the galleries and walls with mourning draperies. The City Corporation had laid down three large gas mains to ensure that the nave, the cornice and the Whispering Gallery above would be suitably lit: nearly 7,000 lamps were installed. St Paul’s – as it had with Nelson, and as the newspapers had warned – had become a tourist site: Greville went to take a look two days before the funeral. He judged that the effect of the lights was very good ‘but it was like a great rout [ball]; all London was there strolling and staring about in the midst of a thousand workmen going on with their business ... all the fine ladies [were] scrambling over vast masses of timber, or ducking to avoid the great beams that were constantly sweeping along’.

  On 17 November, the duke’s remains were taken from Chelsea Hospital to the Audience Room at Horse Guards, the starting place for the funeral procession. The police had barred all traffic from the parade ground, and on the 18th the roads around St James’s and Green Park were closed from 7 a.m. Those with tickets for St Paul’s were permitted to drive through until fixed times, graded by their proximity to the cathedral. Everyone else in London had to walk that day. Sophia Beale and her family in central London ate breakfast at five to be in their places at Ludgate Hill before the barriers came down at eight.

  At seven o’clock on the morning of the funeral, the ceremonial gilded coach of the Speaker of the House of Commons, together with six carriages of state each pulled by five horses, drew into Horse Guards to represent the royal family. At 7.45, ‘the seventeen minute guns, which were the military salute due to the remains of the Duke of Wellington from his rank as a fieldmarshal, began to be fired’. Church bells throughout the city started to toll, as they would once every minute for the rest of the morning. The funeral car was uncovered, and its twelve horses harnessed three abreast. The catafalque itself was astonishing. Of solid bronze, it measured twenty-seven feet long and ten feet wide, with a carved and gilded canopy seventeen feet high, the sides of which carried the names of Wellington’s victories, with replicas of some of his battle trophies and his coronet. On the car itself rested the bier, covered by a ‘magnificent pall, with a silver fringe, six inches deep, and powdered with ornaments in the same metal’, on which had been placed the coffin, covered with scarlet velvet, on which lay the duke’s sword and cap. A silver and gold cloth formed a canopy above, supported by halberds. In even the most laudatory images, the car looks like a mobile shop window, gaudy and overstuffed, with the coffin diminished by the size of the car into a tiny little bump on the top of an excess of plush. One foreign correspondent merely wrote, ‘I will not speak of it out of respect for him it carried.’

  As the sides of the catafalque were drawn up to show the bier, the soldiers presented and then reversed their arms to a roll of muffled drums. Fin
ally, at eight o’clock the procession began to move. The band of the Rifle Brigade, playing the ‘Dead March’ from Handel’s Saul, went first, with troops following in sections eight deep with their arms reversed, followed in turn by ‘13 trumpets and kettle drums, two pursuivants-at-arms in a mourning coach’, then by the long line of mourning coaches of the public bodies, ambassadors and state officials. The procession was so extensive that it was nearly an hour and a half before the funeral car itself moved out of Horse Guards, followed by the new Duke of Wellington and other family members, as well as Wellington’s own horse, led riderless, saddled and with the duke’s boots reversed in the stirrups. As more soldiers fell in behind, the procession moved slowly and steadily until it reached the Mall, where the funeral car became bogged down in a rut in the street. (It took ten minutes of the ‘active exertions’ by the police and soldiers on duty to extricate it and get on the move again.)

  The nearby parks – St James’s and Green Park – were relatively empty, having been kept locked, reserved for the use of grandees. In the grounds of St James’s Palace, scaffolding had been erected to create seating for the families and friends of the royal family, while the grounds of Marlborough House were filled with ‘rows of seats...extending from the gate to Pallmall back to the Chapel Royal’. At Stafford House, the family and friends of the Duke of Sutherland, ‘dressed in deep mourning, watched...from an enclosed building raised at the bottom of the garden’. Before eight o’clock, Queen Victoria, in deep mourning, had emerged onto the central balcony of Buckingham Palace to stand with Prince Albert, their children and other foreign royals. She remained there as the procession passed – nearly two hours from start to finish – but after the mourning coaches had passed the Prince Consort and some of the other men in the party left to join in the procession themselves. After it had continued into Green Park, the queen and her family went to St James’s Palace, to take up a new viewing position.