King William Street (Fisher Lane 1823-41) Near the Pier

Greenwich

Above print showing the steamer, pier and tavern, circa 1840s.

Only found this mentioned in the Census of 1841 and 1851 to date.

Information from Pieter van der Merwe suggests that this was part of the "Ship Hotel."

Further information from Pieter says the following:- An unusual vignette view of Greenwich Pier, probably in the 1840s, by a firm that specialised in making such vignettes of places of popular resort. Greenwich Hospital is in the background with a flag flying over the Governor's House at the north end of the King Charles Court. The larger flag (no design visible on either of them) is on a mast on Greenwich Pier promenade where a Thames passenger paddle-steamer is pulling in to a lighter converted as a floating pontoon, allowing passengers to embark and disembark at whatever state of the tide. This was reached down steps recessed in the face of the pier behind, not shown but still there, though today the pontoons are further out and accessed by inclined ramps. A long building, with a clock turret, on the promenade is likely to be the passenger waiting room and one survived on the same footprint (minus the turret) until the land-side pier redevelopment of the late 1990s: so did the smaller kiosk, gates and pillars shown further right. A crowd there suggests it was the steamer ticket office.

The large building at far right behind is the 'Ship Torbay' tavern designed by the architect G.W. Mayhew of 38 Upper John Street, Fitzroy Square, London, who exhibited the design for it at the Royal Academy exhibition of 1839 (no. 1179). Its construction was probably prompted by the building of the steamer pier in 1836 and it was complete by 1841. It took its name from Augustus Keppel's ship at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in November 1759 (though the reason is no longer clear other than that Keppel was a popular radical hero) and it stood on what is now site of the obelisk, within the Old Royal Naval College railings, commemorating naval casualties of the Maori War,1863-4. It was superseded by the much larger "Ship Hotel" that appears to have been finished and opened in 1855 by Thomas Quartermaine (then also proprietor of the "Crown and Sceptre" on the river at the east end of Crane Street, Greenwich). This stood about 25 metres further west, on the west side of the pier gates and Garden Stairs down to the river, until destroyed by Second World War bombing.

One of the older waterfront inns is to left of the 'Torbay', showing the print was made before the full clearance of Fisher Lane behind in the later 1840s. This may be the "Lord Ligonier's Head", which was there from at least 1782 to 1845, but only 'Head' in the name and 'Taylor Co Entire' as supplying brewer are readable in its inscription. 'Ship Tor-Bay' is clearly written in the roof-balustrade entablature of that building, with 'Hoare & Cos. Entire' as its supplier above the upper windows. 'T.Godsell', at roof level on the corner bay, is the first proprietor/landlord, Thomas Godsell, recorded there from 1841 when he was 45 though only Elizabeth, his wife, and a daughter appear in the 1851 census and the building may have been cleared away in the 1850s.

The building shown as white with a flat-roofed corner turret, between the '...Head' tavern and the east (left) dome of Greenwich Hospital may be its in-house brewery, within the grounds and supplying only its Pensioner inmates and staff.

The paddle-box of the steamer arriving at the pier pontoon bears its name, 'Father Thames'. This was built in 1844 with another slightly smaller called 'Sons of the Thames' for the Thames Steamboat Company, both running between Hungerford Market (now the site of Charing Cross Station) and Gravesend. It was 141 ft 6 in. long x 19 ft in the beam, of 254 tons and 70 nominal horse-power. Both vessels were withdrawn from service in November 1845 'in view of the opening of the North Kent Railway' to Gravesend (via Lewisham, not Greenwich), when 'Father Thames' was taken over by the Diamond Steam Packet Company and continued running with them to the mid-1850s.

Above information from Dr Pieter van der Merwe, MBE, DL. Royal Museums Greenwich https://www.rmg.co.uk/

LICENSEE LIST

NEVILL C 1823+

GODSELL Thomas 1841+ (age 45 in 1851) Listed as "Torbay."

GODSELL Caroline 1851+ (age 55 in 1851)

GODSELL Elizabeth 1851+

From the Pigot's Directory 1823

Census