Paternoster Row is a street in the City of London that was a centre of the London publishing trade, [1] [2] with booksellers operating from the street. [3] Paternoster Row was described as "almost synonymous" with the book trade. [4] It was part of an area called St Paul's Churchyard. In time Paternoster Row itself was used inclusively of various alleys, courts and side streets. Largely destroyed during aerial bombing in World War II, the street's area is now the site of much of Paternoster Square.
The street was devastated by aerial bombardment during World War II. In 2003 the area was pedestrianised with Paternoster Square, the modern home of the London Stock Exchange, at the west end and a paved area around St Pauls' Coop and an entrance to St Pauls tube station at the East, bounded by St Pauls Churchyard, New Change, Cheapside and Payner Alley. The route of Paternoster Row is not demarcated across the open areas, although there is a road sign at the south of the eastern area, perhaps designating the area as Paternoster Row. Between Payner Alley and Queen's Head Passage/Cannon Alley the road is clearly marked as Paternoster Row. The building to the south, Paternoster House has an address in St Pauls Churchyard (the pedestrian way north of the bounds of the churchyard proper), where its south face is. There are no signs on the next segment up to Paternoster Square, nor around the square. The exit from the south-west corner of the square, along, or very close to. the previous route of Paternoster Row, debouching on Ave Maria Lane – Warwick Avenue opposite Amen Corner, is signed as Paternoster Lane.
The street is supposed to have received its name from the fact that, when the monks and clergy of St Paul's Cathedral went in procession chanting the great litany, they would recite the Lord's Prayer (Pater Noster being its opening line in Latin) in the litany along this part of the route. The prayers said at these processions may have also given the names to nearby Ave Maria Lane and Amen Corner. [5]
Another possible etymology is that it was the main place in London where paternoster beads were made. The beads were popular with the laity, as well as illiterate monks and friars at the time, who prayed 50 Pater Noster prayers (Latin for "Our Father") three times a day as a substitute for the 150 psalms recited a day by literate monks. [6] [7]
Houses in St. Paul's Churchyard were damaged in the Great Fire of London in 1666, burning down the old St. Paul's Cathedral. When the new St. Paul's Cathedral was erected, booksellers returned after a number of years. At the same time Pissing Alley which linked Paternoster Row to St. Paul's Churchyard was rebuilt and renamed Canon Alley the name it still bears, although it was also referred to as Petty Canons.
A bust of Aldus Manutius, writer and publisher, can be seen above the fascia of number 13. [8] The bust was placed there in 1820 by Bible publisher Samuel Bagster. [9]
It was reported that Charlotte Brontë and Anne Brontë stayed at the Chapter Coffeehouse on the street when visiting London in 1847. They were in the city to meet their publisher regarding Jane Eyre . [10]
A fire broke out at number 20 Paternoster Row on 6 February 1890. Occupied by sheet music publisher Fredrick Pitman, the first floor was found to be on fire by a police officer at 21:30. The fire alarm was sounded at St. Martin's-le-Grand and fire crews extinguished the flames in half an hour. The floor was badly damaged, with smoke, heat and water impacting the rest of the building. [11]
This blaze was followed later the same year on 5 October by 'an alarming fire'. At 00:30 a fire was discovered at W. Hawtin and Sons, based in numbers 24 and 25. The wholesale stationers' warehouse was badly damaged by the blaze. [12]
On 21 November 1894, police raided an alleged gambling club which was based on the first floor of 59 Paternoster Row. The club known both as the 'City Billiard Club' and the 'Junior Gresham Club' had been there barely three weeks at the time of the raid. Forty-five arrests were made, including club owner Albert Cohen. [13]
On 4 November 1939, a large-scale civil defence exercise was held in the City of London. One of the simulated seats of fire was in Paternoster Row. [14]
Trübner & Co. was one of the publishing companies on Paternoster Row.
The street was devastated by aerial bombardment during the Blitz of World War II, suffering particularly heavy damage in the night raid of 29–30 December 1940, later characterised as the Second Great Fire of London, during which an estimated 5 million books were lost in the fires caused by tens of thousands of incendiary bombs. [15]
After the raid a letter was written to The Times describing:
'...a passage leading through "Simpkins" [which] has a mantle of stone which has survived the melancholy ruins around it. On this stone is the Latin inscription that seems to embody all that we are fighting for :- VERBUM DOMINI MANET IN AETERNUM' [The word of God remains forever]. [16]
Another correspondent with the newspaper, Ernest W. Larby, described his experience of 25 years working on Paternoster Row: [17]
…had he [Lord Quickswood] worked for 25 years, as I did, in Paternoster Row, he would not have quite so much enthusiasm for those narrow ways into whose buildings the sun never penetrated… What these dirty, narrow ways of the greatest city in the world really stood for from the people's viewpoint are things we had better bury.
— Ernest W. Larby
The ruins of Paternoster Row were visited by Wendell Willkie in January 1941. He said, "I thought that the burning of Paternoster Row, the street where the books are published, was rather symbolic. They [the Germans] have destroyed the place where the truth is told". [18]
Note: Before about 1762, premises in London had signs rather than numbers.
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Fleet Street is a street in Central London, England. It runs west to east from Temple Bar at the boundary of the Cities of London and Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the London Wall and the River Fleet from which the street was named.
Paternoster Square is a former historic square, renamed from Newgate Market c. 1872, and now a post-war urban redevelopment, owned by the Mitsubishi Estate, next to St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London. The area was previously named Paternoster Row, after the street of the same name, once centre of the London publishing trade and was devastated by aerial bombardment in The Blitz during World War II. It is now the location of the London Stock Exchange which relocated there from Threadneedle Street in 2004. It is also the location of investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill and Nomura Securities, and of fund manager Fidelity Investments. The square itself, i.e. the plaza, is privately owned public space. In 2004, Christopher Wren's 1669 Temple Bar Gate was re-erected here as an entrance way to the plaza.
Holy Sepulchre London, formerly and in some official uses Saint Sepulchre-without-Newgate, is the largest Anglican parish church in the City of London. It stands on the north side of Holborn Viaduct across a crossroads from the Old Bailey, and its parish takes in Smithfield Market. During medieval times, the site lay outside ("without") the city wall, west of the Newgate.
Henry Colburn was a British publisher.
St Paul's Church is a Church of England parish church located in Bedford Street, Covent Garden, central London. It was designed by Inigo Jones as part of a commission for the 4th Earl of Bedford in 1631 to create "houses and buildings fit for the habitations of Gentlemen and men of ability". Initially serving as an auxiliary chapel for the St. Martin-in-the-Fields parish, it was raised to a parish church with a dedication to Saint Paul in 1646, as the Covent Garden district expanded. The church is nicknamed "the actors' church" by a long association with the theatre community, particularly in the West End.
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St Benet Fink was a church and parish in the City of London located on what is now Threadneedle Street. Recorded since the 13th century, the church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London of 1666, then rebuilt to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren. The Wren church was demolished between 1841 and 1846.
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St Faith under St Paul's in Castle Baynard Ward was an unusual parish within the City of London. It originally had its own building to the east of St Paul's Cathedral, serving as a parish church for the residents of St Paul's Churchyard and Paternoster Row, but this was removed in 1256 to allow for the eastern expansion of the Cathedral. The parishioners were instead given a space to worship within the cathedral crypt.
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Jackson and Walford, later Jackson, Walford, and Hodder from 1861 was a London publishing firm and predecessor firm of Hodder & Stoughton. at 18 St Paul's Churchyard and 27 Paternoster Row in 1871 The publishers with their successive name changes were one of many London publishers that operated around St. Paul's Churchyard and Paternoster Row. They published the Congregational Year Books, which were the publications of the "Congregational Union of England and Wales, and the Confederated Societies." Matthew Hodder apprenticed there from the age of fourteen and became a partner in 1861. Upon the retirement of Messrs. Jackson and Walford in 1868, Thomas Wilberforce Stoughton joined Hodder and the firm was renamed Hodder & Stoughton. The firm then published both religious and secular works and has survived into the present day as an imprint of Hodder Headline.
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St Paul's Churchyard is an area immediately around St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London. Historically it included St Paul's Cross and Paternoster Row. It became one of the principal marketplaces in London. St Paul's Cross was an open-air pulpit from which many of the most important statements on the political and religious changes brought by the Reformation were made public during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Only one execution is recorded as taking place in St Paul's Churchyard; that of Henry Garnet, one of those found guilty of the Gunpowder plot. As of 2024 the alley to the north of the cathedral grounds is named St Paul's Churchyard.
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This is a list of the etymology of street names in the City of London.
Samuel Gellibrand (1614–1675) was a London bookseller and son of physician Henry Gellibrand (1568–1615) and Mary Faversham, along with brothers John, Edward, Thomas and Henry, a mathematician appointed Gresham Professor of Astronomy. Samuel apprenticed under Henry Featherstone from 1630 to 1637, set up shop at the sign of the Brazen Serpent in St. Paul's Churchyard and published Mathematical Magick in 1648.
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