Mr Thomas Lord

Thomas Lord was born in Thirsk, Yorkshire on 23rd November 1755 in what is now the town museum, but the family later moved to Diss in Norfolk where Thomas was brought up. As a young man, Lord moved to London and got a job as a bowler and general attendant at the White Conduit Club in Islington. In 1786 Lord was approached by the Earl of Winchilsea, and the Duke of Richmond, who were the leading members of the White Conduit Club. They wanted him to find a more private venue for their club and made a guarantee against any losses he might suffer. In May 1787 Lord acquired seven acres off Dorset Square in Mary-le-Bone and started his first ground. White Conduit relocated there and soon afterwards formed, or merged into, the new Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).
The lease on thist ground ended in 1810. Lord's second venue, the subject of our book, was built by 1809. However this land was acquired for the Regent's Canal, which was to cut through the site and thereby necessitating a further move. Lord then moved his ground to the present site in St John's Wood, literally taking his turf with him. It opened in 1814. Lord was not, however, making enough money and therefore obtained permission to develop part of the ground for housing. To counter his plan, Lord was bought out for £5,000 by prominent MCC member William Ward, a noted batsman who was also a director of the Bank of England. Despite the change of ownership, the ground has continued to bear Lord's name.
Lord remained in St John's Wood till 1830 when he retired to West Meon in Hampshire, where he died in 1832. He is buried in the churchyard of St John's Church at West Meon. The village has a public house named after him and is just a few miles from Hambledon, home of the famous Hambledon Cricket Club.

Jane Mahomet neé Daly

Was the mixed marriage of Sake Dean Mahomet and Jane Daly unusual in late 18th-century Ireland? Undoubtedly. Yet many people had personal experience of Asia: as soldiers, officials, merchants, or travellers. Some had Indian mistresses and Anglo-Indian children, and newspapers periodically published lists of Nabobs. One image of India prevalent at the time remained that of the exotic. Traveling carnivals and circuses, books, plays, and newspaper articles all presented India and Muslims as alien curiosities. There were plays in which the "Sultan" would kidnap a European woman into his harem, only for the plucky white woman to persevere and become the queen. So a Musselman like Sake Dean Mahomet being "converted" to Christianity by Jane on marriage might not have been seen as unknown in polite Irish society. Indeed, it was probably more acceptable than a Protestant and Catholic marrying.
While little is known of Jane's character, to leave her middle-class home and elope at the age of 16 with an exotic Indian suggests a head-strong and determined character, and she seems to have played an active part in all Mahomet's subsequent business activities.

The Hon. Basil Cochrane and other Nabobs

The sixth son of the 8th Earl of Dundonald, Basil Cochrane was born in April 1753. As a younger son Cochrane was born with limited prospects. In 1769 young Basil was placed as a clerk in the East India Company based in Madras, and when he returned to England forty years later was fabulously wealthy. This was due to contracts he negotiated to supply the Royal Navy in the Eastern oceans, and the size of these contracts raised more than an eyebrow in Parliament. So Cochrane’s first task on returning to England had been to defend his wealth from charges of embezzlement – something of an occupational hazard for East India Company men. Cochrane's mansion in Portman Square was reputed to be the largest and so reflected others around the square; imposing front doors opened onto a marbled main hall, from which a delicate staircase swept majestically upwards towards the reception rooms on the first floor. 

Colonial adventurers like Cochrane were often referred to as Nabobs, a corruption of the Indian title of Nawab. Frowned on for their acquisition of wealth by dubious means, on their return they had settled in some numbers in the newer developments to the west end of London and away from the traditional centres of power. A common fear was that these individuals – the Nabobs, their agents, and those who took their bribes – would use their wealth and influence to corrupt Parliament. A number of prominent Company men underwent inquiries and impeachments on charges of corruption and misrule in India. Warren Hastings, first Governor-General of India, was impeached in 1788 and acquitted in 1795 after a seven year-long trial. And Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive of India, was forced to defend himself against charges brought against him in the House of Commons. The portrait of Cochrane (above) was painted by John Smart in India in 1789. Below is the home of Clive of India at 45 Berkeley Square,a few minutes south of Portman Square.

Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth

Henry Addington was the son Anthony Addington, who was physician to William Pitt, the 1st Earl of Chatham and Prime Minister during the Seven Years War against the French in the 1760s. Young Henry therefore was a childhood friend of William Pitt the Younger, who was to dominate the political landscape during the wars against Napoleon. And this friendship was to later lead Henry to climb to the top of the greasy pole.
In 1784 he became Member of Parliament for Devizes, and within five years Speaker of the House of Commons. in 1801 Pitt the Younger fell out with George III over Catholic emancipation – Pitt wanted it, the King didn't – and so Pitt nominated his childhood friend to take over as Prime Minister. Addington's first task was to negotiate peace with Napoleon - the Treaty of Amiens – which gave him time to recover the country's finances, build a string of defensive towers along the south coast of England and create a large standing army of 600,000 men. Thus emboldened he re-declared war of France. Addington's greatest failure was to cultivate a strong following in Parliament, and when in 1804 Pitt and others decided his time was up, Addington was forced to step down. He instilled more loyalty in the King, however, who created him Viscount Sidmouth and Deputy Ranger of Richmond Park.
He returned to government in 1812, first as Lord President of the Council and later as Home Secretary, where he was tasked with countering sedition in the country.

Mrs Sarah Siddons

Portrayed by Sir Thomas Lawrence (left) and Sir Joshua Reynolds (right)


Born on 5th July 1755 in Brecon, Wales, Sarah Kemble was the eldest daughter of Roger – manager of the touring theatre company The Warwickshire Company of Comedians – and his wife Sarah "Sally" Ward. In 1773, at the age of 18, she married the actor William Siddons. She gave birth to seven children but outlived five of them, and her marriage to William became strained and ended in an informal separation. He died in 1803. During the late 1770s Sarah gradually built her reputation on the London stage, before becoming a sensation in 1882 when performing the lead role in David Garrick's Isabella or The Fatal Marriage at the Drury Lane theatre. It was beginning of a 20 year reign as queen of Drury Lane, but her most famous role was that of Lady Macbeth.

Mrs Siddons formally retired from the stage in 1812 but made several guest appearances until 1819. She died in London in 1831 and was interred in St Mary's Paddington Green, where there is a statue to Britain's greatest ever actress.


(Nearest tube Edgware Road.)

Gentleman Jackson's boxing academy

John Jackson won the title Champion of England in 1795 at the age of 26, beating the celebrated boxer Daniel Mendoza at Hornchurch in Essex. Jackson was five years younger, 4 inches taller, and 42 lbs. heavier. The bigger man won in nine rounds, paving the way to victory by seizing Mendoza by his long hair and holding him with one hand while he pounded his head with the other. Mendoza was pummelled into submission in around ten minutes. Since this date boxers have worn their hair short.
Following this fight Jackson, who was friendly with the fencing master Henry Angello, set up a boxing academy for gentlemen at 13 Bond Street, London and which was next to Angello's fencing school, from where many gentlemen were directed. Jackson's Saloon soon became popular with the nobility and gentry. Lord Byron relates in his diary that he received instruction in boxing from Jackson.

Jackson died in 1847 and his memorial can be seen in Brompton Cemetery 

(Nearest tube Green Park for 13 Bond Street and Earl's Court or West Brompton for the cemetery).

Sake Dean Mahomet

Born in Patna in 1759, around the age of eleven Mahomet was taken on by a young Irishman, Godfrey Evan Baker, who was quartermaster of the 3rd European Regiment of the Bengal Army – the British East India Company's military force in India. As a follower of Mr Baker, Mahomet rose through the ranks to become a subadar (a mid-ranking officer and the highest an Indian could achieve). When Baker returned to Ireland in the 1780s Mahomet joined him, settling to run Baker's small estate outside Cork. During this time he became the first Indian to write and publish a book in English – The Travels of Dean Mahomet. Here he fell for and eloped with a "pretty Irish girl of respectable parentage", Jane Daly. They married in Dublin when Mahomet converted to Christianity. After the untimely death of Mr Baker, Mahomet journeyed to London where he managed the household of the Nabob, the Honourable Basil Cochrane. He opened The Hindostanee Coffee House in 1810, which purveyed Indian dishes "allowed by the greatest epicures to be unequalled to any curries ever made in England".