No. 24 Queen Anne's Gate

XXXIV.—No. 24 QUEEN ANNE'S GATE (Formerly No. 1 Park Street).

Ground Landlord.

The freehold is the property of Christ's Hospital.

General Description.

The exterior is in plain brickwork, and the front area railings have an interesting iron lamp-standard on each side of the entrance. The rooms are large and lofty, but contain no features of any special interest.

Condition of Repair.

The premises have recently been redecorated.

Historical Notes.

According to the ratebooks, the occupants of this house up to 1840 were as follows:—

Thomas Johnes was born at Ludlow in 1748. He sat in Parliament from 1774 to the end of his life, representing at first Radnorshire and afterwards Cardiganshire. He was lordlieutenant of the latter county, and auditor for life of the land revenue of Wales. He carried out large improvements on his Cardiganshire estate, ameliorating the conditions of the tenantry and planting some millions of trees. In a cottage amongst the hills he set up a private printing press, from which he issued several of his works, including the translation of Froissart's Chronicles, the production by which he is best known. He died in 1816. It can hardly be doubted that he was the Thos. Johnes shown in the ratebooks as living at No. 1 Park Street, in 1783 and 1789–92. It should, however, be noted that according to the Universal British Directory, his town residence in 1790 was in Princes Street.

George Augustus William Shuckburgh-Evelyn, eldest son of Richard Shuckburgh, of Limerick, was born in 1751, and succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his uncle in 1773. In 1780 he was elected M.P. for the county of Warwick, and continued so until his death. He was a distinguished mathematician, his investigations relating principally to the determination of the heights of mountains by means of the barometer and the relations between measures of length, capacity and weight and certain invariable standards. In 1793, on the death of his father-in-law, James Evelyn, he assumed the additional surname of Evelyn. He died in 1804. He occupied two houses in Park Street, No. 1 from 1783 to 1788 and No. 4 from 1793 until his death in 1804.

John Trotter, born in 1757, became head of a firm of army contractors, a business which developed into that of storekeeper-general. This he carried out at first in a private capacity, and afterwards as a Government official. In 1815 he established the Soho Bazaar, designed with the idea of assisting widows and daughters of army officers, but eventually proving a source of wealth. He died in 1833.

Sir Edward Vaughan Williams was born in 1797 at Queen's Square, Bayswater. He was called to the Bar in 1823, and the publication in the following year of a new edition of his father's notes on Sanders's Reports brought him into notice. In 1832 he published his Treatise on the Law of Executors and Administrators which is still a standard authority. In 1846 he was made a puisne judge of the Court of Common Pleas, where he soon acquired a great reputation, and in the following year he was knighted. He retired from the Bench in 1865 and was made a Privy Councillor and a member of the Judicial Committee. He died in 1875 in his house at Queen Anne's Gate, which had formed his residence for nearly 40 years.