The Fortune of War, Smithfield

Last updated

The Fortune of War was a pub in Smithfield, London, on the junction of Giltspur Street and Cock Lane. The location, originally known as 'Pie Corner', [1] is where a statue of the Golden Boy of Pye Corner marks the place where the Great Fire of London stopped. The statue was initially built in the front of the pub. [2]

Contents

History

In 1761, the tenant of the house Thomas Andrews was convicted of sodomy and sentenced to death, but was pardoned by King George III in one of the first cases of public debate about homosexuality in England. [3]

Until the 19th century, the Fortune of War was the chief house of call north of the River Thames for resurrectionists, being officially appointed by the Royal Humane Society as a place "for the reception of drowned persons". [4] The landlord used to show the room whereon benches round the walls were placed with the snatchers' names waiting till the surgeons at St Bartholomew's Hospital could run round and appraise them. The London Burkers were known to use this pub. [5]

The pub was demolished in 1910.

The pub is mentioned in William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair (1848) in a chapter entitled "How to Live Well on Nothing a Year" (ch. 37):

The bill for servants' porter at the Fortune of War public house is a curiosity in the chronicles of beer. Every servant also was owed the greater part of his wages, and thus kept up perforce an interest in the house. Nobody in fact was paid. Not the blacksmith who opened the lock; nor the glazier who mended the pane; nor the jobber who let the carriage; nor the groom who drove it; nor the butcher who provided the leg of mutton; nor the coals which roasted it; nor the cook who basted it; nor the servants who ate it: and this I am given to understand is not infrequently the way in which people live elegantly on nothing a year.

It is also mentioned by Charles Dickens in his novel A Tale of Two Cities , where Jerry Cruncher of Tellson's Bank moonlights as a body snatcher. The Italian Boy by Sarah Wise has an account of the murder by Williams, Bishop and May to provide anatomical subjects for surgeons.

It is referenced along with the King of Denmark pub in the 2006 song The Resurrectionist by the Pet Shop Boys.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wolfenden report</span> Departmental committee report (1957)

The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution was published in the United Kingdom on 4 September 1957 after a succession of well-known men, including Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Michael Pitt-Rivers, John Gielgud, and Peter Wildeblood were convicted of homosexual offences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hyde Park Corner</span> Road junction in London, England

Hyde Park Corner is between Knightsbridge, Belgravia and Mayfair in London, England. It primarily refers to a major road junction at the southeastern corner of Hyde Park, that was originally planned by architect Decimus Burton. The junction includes a broad green-space roundabout in its centre, which is now the setting for Burton's triumphal Wellington Arch.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guy's Hospital</span> Hospital in central London

Guy's Hospital is an NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in central London. It is part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and one of the institutions that comprise the King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Body snatching</span> Secret removal of corpses from burial sites

Body snatching is the illicit removal of corpses from graves, morgues, and other burial sites. Body snatching is distinct from the act of grave robbery as grave robbing does not explicitly involve the removal of the corpse, but rather theft from the burial site itself. The term 'body snatching' most commonly refers to the removal and sale of corpses primarily for the purpose of dissection or anatomy lectures in medical schools. The term was coined primarily in regard to cases in the United Kingdom and United States throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. However, there have been cases of body snatching in many countries, with the first recorded case dating back to 1319 in Bologna, Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golden Boy of Pye Corner</span> Sculpture in the City of London

The Golden Boy of Pye Corner is a small late-17th-century monument located on the corner of Giltspur Street and Cock Lane in Smithfield, central London. It marks the spot where the 1666 Great Fire of London was stopped, whereas the Monument indicates the place where it started. The statue of a naked boy is made of wood and is covered with gold; the figure was formerly winged. The late 19th-century building that incorporates it is a Grade II listed building but listed only for the figure.

Pye Corner may refer to:

There are a number of passages in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament that have been interpreted as involving same-sex sexual activity and relationships. The passages about homosexual individuals and sexual relations in the Hebrew Bible are found primarily in the Torah. The book of Leviticus chapter 20 is more comprehensive on matters of detestable sexual acts. Some texts included in the New Testament also reference homosexual individuals and sexual relations, such as the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Luke, and Pauline epistles originally directed to the early Christian churches in Asia Minor. Both references in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament have been interpreted as referring primarily to male homosexual individuals and sexual practices. though the term homosexual was never used as it was not coined until the 19th century.

Golden Boy or The Golden Boy may refer to:

The London Burkers were a group of body snatchers operating in London, England, who apparently modeled their activities on the notorious Burke and Hare murders. They came to prominence in 1831 for murdering victims to sell to anatomists, by luring and drugging them at their dwelling in the northern end of Bethnal Green, near St Leonard's, Shoreditch in London. They were also known as the Bethnal Green Gang.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giltspur Street</span> Street in the City of London

Giltspur Street is a street in Smithfield in the City of London, England, running north–south from the junction of Newgate Street, Holborn Viaduct and Old Bailey, up to West Smithfield, and it is bounded to the east by St Bartholomew's Hospital. It was formerly known as Knightsriders Street, from the knights riding at the tournaments in Smithfield.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paedophile Information Exchange</span> British pro-paedophilia activist group

The Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) was a British pro-paedophile activist group, founded in October 1974 and officially disbanded in 1984. The group campaigned for the abolition of the age of consent. It was described by the BBC in 2007 as "an international organisation of people who trade obscene material".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Partridge</span> British surgeon

Richard Partridge FRS, FRCS was a British surgeon. Although he became President of both the Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, he is best known for his part in apprehending the London Burkers gang and for failing to spot a bullet lodged in Giuseppe Garibaldi's leg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Machine Gun Corps Memorial</span> Memorial in Hyde Park Corner, London, England

The Machine Gun Corps Memorial, also known as The Boy David, is a memorial to the casualties of the Machine Gun Corps in the First World War. It is located on the north side of the traffic island at Hyde Park Corner in London, near the Wellington Arch, an Equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, the Royal Artillery Memorial, the New Zealand War Memorial, and the Australian War Memorial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cock Lane</span> Street in the City of London, England

Cock Lane is a small street in Smithfield in the City of London, leading from Giltspur Street in the east to Snow Hill in the west.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Resurrectionists in the United Kingdom</span> People employed to exhume bodies during the 18th and 19th centuries

Resurrectionists were body snatchers who were commonly employed by anatomists in the United Kingdom during the 18th and 19th centuries to exhume the bodies of the recently dead. Between 1506 and 1752 only a very few cadavers were available each year for anatomical research. The supply was increased when, in an attempt to intensify the deterrent effect of the death penalty, Parliament passed the Murder Act 1752. By allowing judges to substitute the public display of executed criminals with dissection, the new law significantly increased the number of bodies anatomists could legally access. This proved insufficient to meet the needs of the hospitals and teaching centres that opened during the 18th century. Corpses and their component parts became a commodity, but although the practice of disinterment was hated by the general public, bodies were not legally anyone's property. The resurrectionists therefore operated in a legal grey area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Old Pack Horse</span> Public house in Chiswick, London

The Old Pack Horse is a Grade II listed public house in a prominent position on the corner of Chiswick High Road and Acton Lane in Chiswick, London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Salisbury, Covent Garden</span> Pub in Covent Garden, London

The Salisbury is a Grade II listed public house at 91–93 St Martin's Lane, Covent Garden, London which is noted for its particularly fine late Victorian interior with art nouveau elements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Yorkshire Grey</span> Old name for public houses in England

The Yorkshire Grey was a common name for public houses in England, some still survive but most have now closed or changed their name. They were named for the Yorkshire Grey Horse, a breed commonly used to pull brewery drays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red Lion, Westminster</span> Pub in Whitehall, London

The Red Lion is a Grade II listed public house at 48 Parliament Street, London SW1. The pub is known for its political clientele and has been described as "the usual watering hole for MPs and parliament staffers" and "much-plotted-in" due to its proximity to UK political institutions including Whitehall, the Palace of Westminster, and 10 Downing Street.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greene Man</span> London tavern

The Greene Man is a public house in London's Euston Road. It was formerly known as the Green Man and before that, the Farthing Pie House or Pye House as mutton pies could be bought there for a farthing. When it was established in the 18th century, the area was rural and so the surroundings were farm fields and pleasure gardens. The place was then frequented by notable artists and writers including William Blake and Richard Wilson.

References

  1. Ebenezer Cobham Brewer (1898). "Pie Corner (London)". Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Retrieved 17 February 2008.
  2. , History Magazine - The Golden Boy of Pye Corner
  3. Rictor Norton, ed. (2004). "The First Public Debate about Homosexuality in England: Letters and Editorials in the London Evening Post concerning the Case of Captain Jones, 1772". Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook. Archived from the original on 5 March 2008. Retrieved 17 February 2008.
  4. Forbes, Thomas Rogers (1978). "Crowner's Quest". Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. 68 (1). American Philosophical Society: 1–52. doi:10.2307/1006152. JSTOR   1006152.
  5. "Executed". Leicester Journal. 9 December 1831. p. 8.

51°31′02″N0°06′06″W / 51.51716°N 0.10157°W / 51.51716; -0.10157