I've had an image floating around for a while and now I've been reminded of it I ought to use it.
The other night, beer in hand, I sat down to watch an episode of QI, and in the programme Sandi Toksvig posed the question, "What is a velocipede?"
Somewhat predictably, Alan Davies replied, "A fast centipede." Yes, centipedes are considerably faster than their myriapod cousins the millipedes, but probably not as fast as a velocipede. Equally predictably the klaxon sounded in response to the wrong answer.
Human-powered two-wheeled transport has developed a bit over the last century and a half, but if I were to race the gentleman in the picture I'm sure that he'd probably still win.
Now, it's not the above picture of the velocipede that I've had around for a while. I had to rummage around t'internet to find that one. It's this image of the Velocipede that I was referring to. The Velocipede at 80 Coutts Road in Mile End.
It's a photograph taken by Charrington's surveyors as part of an audit of their estate and shows George Booth as the landlord of the boozer that was to be found where Coutts Road met Canal Road.
George, or to give him his full Sunday name, Edmund George Booth, was in residence in 1925 as noted in the Post Office's directory of London.
Digging up information about this bygone hasn't been the simplest of tasks. As a beer house, and not a fully licensed pub, it wasn't named in any directories and in many cases was recorded solely by the name of its licensee at the time. Some directories did list residents by street name which made things a bit easier, but the bulk of the information came from the Electoral Registers of firstly Mile End and then later Stepney and Stoke Newington.
Unsurprisingly, George was not the first to have the Velocipede. The earliest landlord that I've been able to pin down is Frederick Garbett who was there in 1878...
...but had departed by the following year.
William Webster didn't stay long...
...and neither did Charles Killick.
In fact, the turnover of landlords was so great that I really can't be bothered to list them all here. For those of you who may be interested, I'll put all that I've managed to unearth at the end of the post.
One person who did manage to stay for a while was John Phillips. He'd arrived by 1898...
...and was still there seventeen years later.
If Frederick Garbett is the first landlord that I've managed to track down, the last is Robert Johnson who, along with his wife Amy, had arrived by 1933...
...and they were still there in 1939 when some significant world event commenced.
Was the Velocipede, like so many of the pubs in east London, lost as a result of the Luftwaffe's visitations, I don't know. I can't find any record of it being hit, but if German bombs didn't get it, then post-war redevelopment did. The buildings on Coutts Road were demolished in the early 1970s to allow for the formation of Mile End Park. The site where the Velocipede used to stand now lies under the south-east corner of the park's Astro Turf football pitch.
For those of you who don't want to see the details of, literally, the ins and outs of the Velocipede, take your leave now. For those who are even sadder than I am...
Earliest Date Found | Latest Date Found | Name | Source(s) |
1878 | 1878 | Frederick Garbett | ER |
1879 | 1879 | William Webster | ER |
1880 | 1881 | Charles Killick | ER PO |
1883 | 1883 | William Parker | ER |
1885 | 1889 | Thomas Vince | PO ER |
1888 | 1891 | George Gammon/Gannon | ER PO |
1895 | 1895 | John Westbury | PO |
1898 | 1915 | John Phillips | ER PO Census |
1920 | 1921 | George Metson | PO Census |
1925 | 1925 | George Booth | PO |
1929 | 1929 | Ellen Maynard | ER |
1931 | 1932 | Arthur Bond | ER |
1933 | 1939 | Robert Johnson | ER PO REG |
PO= Post Office directory | ER=Electoral Register | Census=Census! | REG=1935 Register |
The photograph of the pub is reproduced under this licence.
The Ordnance Survey map extract is copyright and has been reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland under the terms of this CC BY licence.
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