JM Barrie in Bloomsbury, London - Details required for Blue Plaque

[Lord Richard]

I understand that JM Barrie came to Bloomsbury, London, in 1885 to start his writing career, in earnest. He stayed briefly on Guilford Street and then moved more permanently to 8, Grenville Street, WC1.

I am preparing a case for a Marchmont Associaton Blue Plaque at the Grenville Street site.

Does anyone have any references which will tell me how long he stayed at Grenville Street. In particular, what was his next address? When did he move to this next address?

I don't need precise dates, but I do need to know he stayed at Grenville Street for a reasonable length of time. And I do need to know if his stay extended beyond 1885 and to which year, if applicable.

Many thanks.

[GOSH]

The best reference book for detailed information about Barrie's life, particularly in his early years in London, is Denis Mackail's THE STORY OF JMB, published in 1941.

It seems that Barrie kept his lodgings at 8 Grenville Street from 1885 until 1888, but had frequently left them for prolonged stays back in Scotland or in summer houses around the country. In the summer of 1888, he moved into a set of chambers at 7 Furnival's Inn, off Holborn - this building was demolished in 1897 and replaced with the Prudential Assurance head office, now renamed Holborn Bars. The chambers were the first step-up from what must have been basic lodgings at Grenville Street.

The house in Grenville Street also seems a likely candidate as the setting of the Darlings' house in Bloomsbury: in the introduction to Act 1 of Peter Pan (the play), Barrie explains he placed their house in Bloomsbury because he once lived there and describes it as a corner house, overlooking a 'leafy square', which could well be Brunswick Square (at the time, part of the Foundling Hospital grounds).

[Lord Richard]

Dear GOSH

You are a star. Thank you so much. This gives me all the final confirmation I need to present the case for a Marchmont Association blue plaque.

I did have the Mackail book on order from Amazon - with much else besides - but it has not yet arrived. I can't wait to explore it.

Many, many thanks, again.

[Smee]

Mylord:

If you can't wait for the Mackail Book, there are free copies in PDF format in some internet sites. Just look in Google for it.

Happy New Year! 

[Lord Richard]

Thank you for your kind suggestion. However, I just tried two sites but neither worked - either 'error' or 'not available' came up . . .

Denis Mackail
unjobs.org/tags/denis-mackail
Barrie The Story of J M ... 21) Denis Mackail The Story of J M B. London Peter Davies 1941 chap 17 ... http://medhist.kams.or.kr/2004/94.pdf ...

AND

Denis Mackail
unjobs.org/tags/denis-mackail
Barrie The Story of J M ... 21) Denis Mackail The Story of J M B. London Peter Davies 1941 chap 17 ... http://medhist.kams.or.kr/2004/94.pdf ...

Did you ever get a working link?

[GOSH]

I wonder if the reason you can't access these sites is because Mackail's works are still in copyright in the UK and technically shouldn't be offered free on the internet, at least in this country?

[Smee]

I got the book -the last year- from the "Internet Archive" site but apparently is no longer available in open access. I've been trying to download without success.

The file is not the Peter Davies edition but the american from Charles Scribner's sons / New York, and was printed in 1941. I guess Peter let the rights to Scribner because the book seems to be complete: 736 pages like the english edition.

Unfortunately the file is too big to mail (50 Mb compressed). I'm sorry 

[GOSH]

Peter Davies as publisher would have licensed US rights to Charles Scribner but not the copyright which remains the property of the author of the work (unless legally assigned by the author to a third party). My guess is that the work is in the public domain in the US, because of different copyright legislation, but not in the EU, where the copyright term is 70 years after the author's death, regardless of year of publication. This would explain why the US edition was available on the Internet for a while, before someone (Mackail's estate?) pointed out this would be an infringement of copyright within Europe - so it's probably only accessible in English-speaking countries such as the US, Canada and Australia where the copyright has expired.

Anyway, second hand copies of the book can be found quite easily and fairly cheaply on various booksellers' sites and eBay.

[Lord Richard]

Thank you for all this very useful information.

I would expect my copy of Mackail to be arriving very soon now. Meanwhile I am enjoying the Dunbar (1970) biography.

I wondered if any J.M.B. scholar had detailed knowledge of his relationship with Jerome K. Jerome. They were both living in Bloomsbury at around the same time and became friends, as I understand it.

Once again, I am interested in this for blue plaque purposes. Jerome's autobiography says he moved into No. 19, Tavistock Place in 1885. However, in a letter of 1886, Jerome writes from No. 33, Tavistock Place. 33, Tavistock Place has been the address widely quoted - on the internet, and so on, for his Tavistock Place address.

Thus far my efforts to clear up this puzzle have led nowhere. No Jerome scholar seems to have an explanation, other that the fact that Jerome was notoriously cavalier with matters of detail.

[Myrta99]

Both authors, said blue plaques historian Dr Susan Skedd, "drew on their personal experiences during their time in London to create the stories and fictional worlds inhabited by their characters", with Bowen writing "one of the most compelling portraits of life in London.


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[Nicholas]

You probably know this already but 8 Grenville Street no longer exists as a distinct property: its probable site is now occupied by Downing Court, a clunky block of pre-war flats.  The other side of this short street is taken up by the grim back entrance to a student hall of residence but with a flourish of whimsy the mews to Grenville street is called Colonnade.  The neighbourhood must have been very different when Barrie was living there, a subject he mentions in The Greenwood Hat, but now it has a transient population of students and tourists, tourists, tourists, but few, it seems, families.
Closer inspection reveals that only nos. 11 and 12 Grenville Street are original buildings - the others (apart from Downing Court, which is pseudo-Tudor) being modern copies of the 19th century style.  The exotically named Cafe Romano (in fact a sandwich bar) occupies the ground floor of no. 11, the upper stories appear derelict.

Barrie wrote: "[My room] looked out on to a blank wall, two or three yards away, with a dank tree between [me] and the wall".  From Colonnade you can see the remains of a court yard enclosed by a wall which is close up to where the rear of no.8 would have been.  But life in the giant forms of the Russell Hotel, GOSH and the tube station is not interested in the past and all turn their bruised and ugly backs on Grenville street and Colonnade (with its bizarre Horse Hospital) and leave JMB and the Darlings to dwell in our  imaginations.

[GOSH]

Indeed, the house situated at 8 Grenville Street is no longer there, having been pulled down in the late 30s and replaced by Downing Court in 1938. It might not look very impressive from the outside but by all accounts the flats inside are very nicely built. I don't know about any flourish of whimsy, but the mews mentioned by Nicholas have been called The Colonnade since the late 18th Century, when they were part of the Foundling Hospital who intended it as the only commercial development on their estate - so Barrie would definitely have known it as it is now, albeit with more shops and carriages. He would also have known the Horse Hospital, built in the 18th century and now Grade II listed. One last detail about The Colonnade: it had assembly rooms where Dr Roget, author of the famous Thesaurus and resident of Bloomsbury, used to lecture. Barrie specifically mentions in the first scene of Peter Pan that one of "the reason Bloomsbury is chosen [as the place where the Darlings lived] is that Mr Roget once lived there". 

The Cafe Romano has been there for many many years, and is probably a leftover from the thriving Italian community which settled in Bloomsbury and Clerkenwell in the late 19th century up to WW2.

As for the student hall of residence, this is International Hall, the largest of University of London's Students Hall, which was opened in 1962, replacing the original 18th Century houses which had been war damaged. There is no denying it is a grim building, but hopefully it will be refurbished or rebuilt more sympathetically one day...

Finally, may I try to correct Nicholas's impression of Bloomsbury? While it is undeniably full of students (it is the heart of University of London with all its colleges, after all) and full of tourists (being the home of the British Museum, the Dickens Museum, and close to the Soane Museum, King's Cross, St Pancras etc), it also has a thriving community with many local shops and lots of families living in the area, and an active historical association which ensured that Bloomsbury is now a conservation area and which treasures its literary heritage. I work in Bloomsbury and love it for its diversity, both in population and architecture (well, perhaps not the 60s stuff...).

(With thanks to Ricci de Freitas, chair of the Marchmont Street Association for all the historical information, to be included in his forthcoming book Tales of Brunswick Square.)

[Nicholas]

Colonnade and the Horse Hospital not whimsical?  I wasn't around in the 18c so I'll take your word for this,  but I still think Grenville Street  is depressing.  Campden Hill Square is a much happier (imaginary) site for the Darlilngs' house.

[GOSH]

No, there's no denying that Grenville Street and part of Guilford Street are now a bit grim - but  fortunately there are lots of streets in the area (around Doughty Street and John Street) that make up for it. There is no comparison with Campden Hill Square which is indeed beautiful and in the nicest part of Kensington - but would probably have been too posh for the Darlings, even in 1904!