Carlisle House, Soho Square
Demolished
Until 1791 the ground comprising the site of
St. Patrick's Church and the adjoining presbytery
was occupied by Carlisle House, a large mansion at
the south corner of Soho Square and Sutton Street,
with back buildings in Sutton Street and stables in
Hog Lane, now Charing Cross Road.
The first certain occupant of the house, in
1685, was Edward Howard, second Earl of Carlisle, who had succeeded to the title in that year.
The Howard family occupied the house until
1753, (fn. a) when the fourth Earl sold his lease from
the second Duke of Portland to George Smith
Bradshaw and Paul Saunders of Greek Street,
upholsterers. (ref. 127) Bradshaw and Saunders retained
the stables and coach-houses in Hog Lane as their
own workshops, but they evidently sub-let the
house in Soho Square and some of the back
buildings in Sutton Street to the envoy of the
King of Naples, who occupied the premises from
1754 to 1758. (ref. 33) During this period part of the
buildings in Sutton Street (on the site of the present
St. Patrick's Church) was fitted up as a Roman
Catholic chapel for the use of the envoy and his
staff. (ref. 128)
In the summer of 1759 Carlisle House was
occupied by three special envoys who had been
sent to London by the Dutch government to
settle various shipping disputes arising from the
war then being fought between England and
France. (ref. 129) After their departure Carlisle House
was vacant until April 1760, when Saunders let
the house to Mrs. Cornelys, its most celebrated
tenant. (ref. 33)
Theresa Cornelys (née Imer), an opera singer,
actress and adventuress, was born in Vienna (ref. 130) in
1723. She embarked upon a successful career as
an entertainer and courtesan and eventually
married a dancer called Pompeati. She first came
to England in 1746 to sing at the King's Theatre
in the Haymarket, using the name Pompeati.
She did not meet with the success she expected and
returned to the Continent within a few months.
During the following years she toured other
European courts and opera houses, encumbering
herself in the process with two children, for one of
whom Casanova claimed paternity. During this
period of her career she called herself Madame de
Trenty, which, so she affirmed, was the name of
her family estate. In 1759 she was living in
Rotterdam as the mistress of a certain Cornelis
de Rigerboos, whose Christian name she later
used in England. She still sang at public concerts,
at one of which she made the acquaintance of a
fellow performer, a 'cello and double-bass player,
then calling himself John Freeman. He persuaded
her that he was a beneficed clergyman in the
Church of England and that if she followed him
to England they would both make their fortunes. (ref. 131)
Calling herself Mrs. Cornelys, Theresa arrived
in England in October 1759, her friend the
musical cleric passing himself off as 'John Fermor
esquire'. With his money she recommenced her
London career with a series of concerts at the
Little Theatre in the Haymarket. The concerts
were not a success, but Fermor had 'an Apprehension that a Concert and Assembly furnished
out in an elegant Manner and carried on by
Subscription in some commodious house for that
purpose would probably meet with Encouragement and be a profitable undertaking'. By this
time Mrs. Cornelys had made the acquaintance
of the notorious Elizabeth Chudleigh (later the
bigamous wife of the second Duke of Kingston)
who promised her patronage for such a project. (ref. 130)
In the winter of 1759–60 Carlisle House was
vacant. It was probably already furnished and,
with a suite of large reception rooms, provided an
admirable setting for the entertainments envisaged
by Mrs. Cornelys. With Fermor acting as her
agent (owing to her ignorance of the English
language), she came to an agreement with the
second Duke of Portland's lessee, Paul Saunders,
in April 1760, to rent Carlisle House at £180 per
annum, with an additional charge for the use of
Saunders's furniture. She took possession on 17
May and the entertainments began in October or
November. (ref. 132) At first these consisted of dancing
and card-playing, though later, after she had
extended the premises, operatic concerts and
extravagant masquerades were given. Admission
was limited to members of a 'Society' of subscribers, that is to persons of wealth and fashion
to whom she had previously sold tickets. (ref. 133)
Her initial success convinced Mrs. Cornelys
that she had at last found a way of making a
fortune and plans were immediately set on foot
for enlarging and refurbishing Carlisle House.
With Fermor again acting as her agent, she first
purchased the lease of the house from the assignees of Paul Saunders in May 1761 for £1,950. (ref. 134)
In the following month she entered into a building
agreement with Samuel Norman, of Sutton
Street, a cabinet-maker, who now occupied
Saunders's former workshop in Hog Lane. The
agreement provided for Norman to erect for her a
new building in Sutton Street to contain a concert
hall or ballroom on the first floor with a supper
room below. This was to adjoin Carlisle House
and to be built partly on the site of the existing
back buildings in Sutton Street, one of which had
been the Neapolitan minister's chapel, and partly
on the garden behind Carlisle House. The work
was estimated to cost £1,800, half to be paid when
the building was roofed in and half on completion.
Building work began at once and was complete by
December 1761. (ref. 135) A small copper plate was
built into the foundations on Mrs. Cornelys's
instructions. This was inscribed 'Not Vain but
Grateful In Honour of the Society [of her first
subscribers] and my first Protectress Ye Honble
Mrs. Elizabeth Chudleigh is Laid the First
Stone of this edifice June 19 1761 by me Teresa
Cornelys'. (ref. 136) The building tradesmen employed
by Samuel Norman included William Grantham
of Oxford Street, carpenter and joiner, Thomas
Clark of Wood Street, plasterer, Peter Beaton of
Wardour Street, slater, and Mr. Lee, bricklayer.
The work was superintended by Jacob Leroux
of Dean Street, surveyor, (ref. 135) who may be presumed
to have designed the building.
The building added to Carlisle House for Mrs.
Cornelys appears to have been very plain externally, presenting to Sutton Row a brick front
of three storeys with seven windows in each
(Plate 26b). The ground- and second-floor windows were almost square, and those of the first
floor very tall, all having sashes recessed in plain
openings with segmental arched heads. There
were two bandcourses, a wide one extending
above the arches of the first-floor windows, and a
narrow one below the parapet. The first-floor
room was splendidly decorated and furnished, and
something of its general appearance can be
deduced from the crude engraving reproduced as
Plate 26a. At one end, presumably the east, was an
apse for the musicians, its coffered semi-dome
framed by a moulded archivolt rising from Doric
columns. On either side of this apse were tall and
elaborately framed mirrors. The tall windows in
the side walls were draped with heavy curtains
hanging from shaped valances, and the walls were
finished with festooned garlands depending from
the entablature. The flat ceiling appears to have
been decorated with Rococo stucco-work arranged
in oval panels flanking a central circle within a
square frame. A large central chandelier was
supplemented by smaller ones hanging from the
corners of the ceiling, and another in the
musicians' apse.
Samuel Norman was paid partly in cash and
partly with fourteen hundred subscription tickets
for future entertainments at Carlisle House, at
five guineas each. Additional works on the new
building, and on improvements to the old house,
were to be paid for by Mrs. Cornelys with three
notes of hand for £210 payable in October 1762.
The rest of Norman's account was to be settled
by an umpire. Mrs. Cornelys also hired from
Norman a considerable quantity of new furnishings, chiefly seats and benches, chandeliers,
mirrors and girandoles, all manufactured 'in an
Elegant and Grand Manner' and valued at £1,209.
The furniture hired for the grand concert-room
alone was valued at £730. For all these Norman
charged an annual rent equal to fifteen per cent
of their total value. (ref. 135)
In June 1762 Mrs. Cornelys returned most of
the furniture to Norman (ref. 135) but he probably lost
the remainder when some of the contents of
Carlisle House were seized under distress warrants
by other creditors of Mrs. Cornelys in February
1762 and August 1763. (ref. 130) She also tried to
avoid payment of his other bills and employed 'Mr
Payne and Mr Chippendale' (presumably James
Paine the architect and Thomas Chippendale
the furniture maker) to examine the new building.
She complained that they found many defects
and valued the work at only £1,400 (i.e., £400 less
than Samuel Norman's price). (ref. 135) These complaints
do not seem to be borne out by later evidence,
for in 1891, when the building erected in 1761
was being demolished, the good workmanship
and 'splendid material' were still discernible. (ref. 137)
With the opening of her new rooms, Mrs.
Cornelys enjoyed a period of great success. The
entertainments were well advertised and admission eagerly sought. Even Horace Walpole
was attracted, despite the fashionable crush inside
the house and the mob obstructing the arrival of
the chairs and carriages outside. In Humphry
Clinker, first published in 1771, Tobias Smollett
referred enthusiastically to 'Mrs. Cornelys'
assembly, which for the rooms, the company, the
dresses, and decorations, surpasses all description'. (ref. 138) Mrs. Cornelys opened Carlisle House
once or twice a month, chiefly during the winter
season. For the concerts which she promoted,
many of the most celebrated foreign musicians
then in London were engaged, including John
Christian Bach, Karl Abel, Stephano Storace and
Karl Weichsell. (ref. 139) The refreshments for some of
the entertainments were provided by 'Mr
Welcher', probably Lewis Weltje, who subsequently kept Weltje's Club at No. 64 St. James's
Street and was in the domestic service of the
Prince of Wales (later George IV). (ref. 140) It was,
however, the extravagant masquerades staged at
Carlisle House which created the greatest stir.
The numerous contemporary accounts of these,
with elaborate descriptions of the company and
their costumes, all testify to the impact made by
Mrs. Cornelys on London society in the 1760's
and early 1770's. (ref. 141)
In addition to her financial difficulties, Mrs.
Cornelys had also to contend with the attractions
of rival establishments. Her first serious competitor was William Almack, who opened his
assembly rooms in King Street, St. James's, in
February 1765. (ref. 142) Horace Walpole, writing in
December 1764, says that 'Mrs. Cornelis,
apprehending the future assembly at Almack's,
has enlarged her vast room, and hung it with blue
satin, and another with yellow satin; but Almack's room, which is to be ninety feet long,
proposes to swallow up both hers'. (ref. 143) (fn. b)
Despite this competition and despite the
clamour of her creditors, Mrs. Cornelys continued to open Carlisle House once or twice a
month for balls or concerts. She endeavoured to
retain the favour of the fashionable world by
re-embellishing her rooms and by frequent advertisements. In June 1765 she caused a report
to be printed in the newspapers that 'the alterations and additions to Carlisle House in Soho
Square, performing by Messrs. Phillips and
Shakespeare, (fn. c) together with all the new embellishments and furniture adding thereto by Mrs.
Cornelys, will this year alone, amount to little
less than 2000 l. and that, when finished, it will
be, by far, the most magnificent place of public
entertainment in Europe.' A few months later
she announced that 'amongst her other elegant
alterations [she] has devised the most curious,
singular, and superb ceiling to one of the rooms
that ever was executed or even thought of. In
January 1769 a new gallery for dancing and a suite
of new rooms adjoining were opened. (ref. 144) These
later improvements may have included the
redecoration of two of the rooms in the Chinese
manner and also the erection of 'the Chinese
bridge', which connected the house in the square
with the principal rooms at the back and may have
been the work of the cabinet-maker Thomas
Chippendale, who was one of her creditors. (ref. 145)
Between 1767 and her bankruptcy in 1772
Mrs. Cornelys is said to have spent £5,000,
chiefly on 'the appartments known by the name
of the Gallery and China Room'. (ref. 145) With these
added attractions, she was able to retain the favour
of the fashionable world and her rooms became
more crowded than ever. In 1770 the young
Fanny Burney, visiting Carlisle House for the
first time, found that 'The magnificence of the
rooms, splendour of the illuminations and embellishments, and the brilliant appearance of the
company exceeded anything I ever before saw.
The apartments were so crowded we had scarce
room to move, which was quite disagreeable,
nevertheless, the flight of apartments both upstairs and on the ground floor seemed endless …
The Rooms were so full and so hot that nobody
attempted to dance … I must own this evening's
entertainment more disappointed my expectations
than any I ever spent; for I had imagined it would
have been the most charming in the world'. (ref. 146)
In January 1771 a new form of entertainment was introduced at Carlisle House when
Mrs. Cornelys began to stage a successful series
of operatic performances. Such public entertainments were illegal without royal licence, and she
soon became involved in a succession of vexatious court proceedings, instigated by her rivals,
the proprietors of the King's Theatre in the
Haymarket. Horace Walpole sent an account of
the whole affair to Sir Horace Mann, in a letter
dated 22 February 1771. 'In the meantime our
most serious war is between two operas. Mr.
Hobart, Lord Buckingham's brother, is manager
of the King's Theatre in the Haymarket. Last
year he affronted Guardagni, by preferring the
Zamperina, his own mistress, to the singing
hero's sister. The Duchess of Northumberland,
Lady Harrington, and some other great ladies,
espoused the brother, and without a licence
erected an Opera for him at Madame Cornelys's. … She took Carlisle House in Soho Square, enlarged it, and established assemblies and balls by
subscription. At first they scandalized, but soon
drew in both righteous and ungodly. She went on
building, and made her house a fairy palace, for
balls, concerts, and masquerades. Her Opera,
which she called Harmonic Meetings, was splendid
and charming. Mr. Hobart began to starve, and
the managers of the theatres were alarmed. To
avoid the Act, she pretended to take no money,
and had the assurance to advertise that the subscription was to provide coals for the poor, for
she has vehemently courted the mob, and succeeded in gaining their princely favour. She
then declared her masquerades were for the
benefit of commerce. I concluded she would
open a bawdy house next for the interests of the
Foundling Hospital, and I am not quite mistaken,
for they say one of her maids, gained by Mr.
Hobart, affirms that she could not undergo the
fatigue of making the beds so often. At last Mr.
Hobart informed against her, and the bench of
justices, less soothable by music than Orpheus's
beasts, have pronounced against her. Her Opera
is quashed.' (ref. 147)
From the accounts of the various court proceedings taken against Mrs. Cornelys, it is clear that
operas were staged at Carlisle House on 24 and
31 January 1771 (ref. 148) and that, at least on the latter
occasion, Thomas Arne's Artaxerxes had been
given, with Guardagni singing in one of the main
roles. (ref. 149) By 12 February Mrs. Cornelys had
been fined £50 for allowing the unlicensed 'exhibition of a dramatic performance in her house', (ref. 150)
and on 13 February Guardagni was also fined
£50 at Bow Street for appearing in an opera at
Carlisle House on 31 January. (ref. 149) The imposition
of these fines and the prospect of further penalties
did not deter Mrs. Cornelys from putting on
another opera on 12 February, her patrons having
'agreed to subscribe an additional crown towards
the payment of the 50 l. penalty, as often as the
Justices think proper to exact it'. (ref. 148) On 20
February Mrs. Cornelys was charged at Bow
Street on information laid by Peter Crawford
(one of the managers of the King's Theatre)
that she had caused 'to be Acted Represented and
performed for hire gains and reward a certain
Opera and Entertainment of the Stage in the
Italian Language called Artaserse' without licence
on 31 January. Hobart, giving evidence against
her, testified that he had bought tickets for the
performance openly and that he had seen the
opera at Mrs. Cornelys's house on a stage with
scenery, with an orchestra and the singers dressed
in character. Mrs. Cornelys was again fined
£50. (ref. 149) Later in the month a report appeared in
The Universal Magazine that two bills of indictment had been preferred to the Grand Jury
'against a certain Lady not far from Soho. —That
she does keep and maintain a common disorderly
house, and did permit and suffer divers loose, idle,
and disorderly persons, as well men as women,
to be, and remain, during the whole night, rioting, and otherwise misbehaving themselves.
—That she did keep and maintain a public masquerade, without any licence by her first had and
obtained for that purpose; and did receive and
harbour loose and disorderly persons in masks, in
the said house; and did wilfully permit and suffer
the last mentioned persons in masks to make a
great noise and tumult'. (ref. 151) No such indictment
has been found in the Middlesex or Westminster
Sessions records for these months.
It was therefore as her 'dernier resort' that
Mrs. Cornelys submitted a formal petition to the
Crown for a patent for 'the Exhibition of musical
dramatic Entertainments, by Private Subscription'. Her memorial stated that on arriving in
England and discovering 'that the most extensive,
most opulent, and most important City in Europe
was the only one of note that had not a settled
Entertainment for the select reception and
amusement of the Nobility and Gentry', she
successfully established such an institution with
great labour and expense; but 'after struggling
with a Siege of Troubles during a longer Period
than the Siege of Troy' and producing for the
nobility and gentry 'a species of a more elegant
dramatic musical Amusement than any they had
ever had before', she had become involved in
'vexatious and expensive Prosecutions, as interestedly litigious, as innocently incurred'. Her petition for the patent was not granted. (ref. 152)
The opening of the Pantheon in Oxford Street
in January 1772 proved a more serious blow.
Compared with this splendid new building,
Carlisle House and its proprietress seemed
tawdry and tarnished. By October 1772 she
had been arrested at the suit of her creditors and
incarcerated in the King's Bench prison. (ref. 153) In
November she was declared a bankrupt and
Carlisle House and its furniture was assigned to
four of her creditors, Samuel Spencer of St. Giles,
gentleman, Thomas Chippendale of St. Martin's,
cabinet-maker, James Cullen of Greek Street,
upholsterer, (fn. d) and Augustus Lesage of Suffolk
Street, jeweller and goldsmith. In the following
month the four assignees and nine other creditors
agreed amongst themselves that Carlisle House
and its contents should be sold by auction as one
lot and that they would bid for it jointly. They
decided to offer up to £15,000 for the whole
property and appointed John Cates and Simon
Lesage, close relatives of two of the assignees,
to act for them. (ref. 145) The house was advertised as
'All that extensive, commodious and magnificent
House in Soho-Square, lately occupied by Mrs.
Cornelys, and used for the Public Assemblies of
the Nobility and Gentry. Together with all the
rich and elegant Furniture, Decorations, China,
etc. thereunto belonging, too well known and
universally admired for their Aptness and Taste
to require here any publick and extraordinary
Description thereof'. (ref. 155) This advertisement did
not, however, attract many prospective purchasers.
Cates and Lesage were the only bidders at the
auction on 22 December 1772 and they were able
to purchase the lease of Carlisle House and all
Mrs. Cornelys's furniture for £10,200. Her other
creditors had not been consulted over these hasty
proceedings and tried unsuccessfully to nullify
the sale. (ref. 145)
For the next few years the group of creditors
who had purchased the lease used Carlisle House
for concerts, masquerades and other entertainments. (ref. 156) From 1773 to March 1777 Samuel
Spencer, the leader of this group, is recorded as
the ratepayer, although on two occasions there are
marginal notes 'apply to Mr. [James] Cullen'
(another member of the group), but in May and
June 1777, and again in May 1778 Mrs. Cornelys
paid the rates. (ref. 33) Contemporary newspaper
advertisements show that in 1776–8 she held
several masquerades at Carlisle House, (ref. 156) but at
one of them, in July 1777 'there were not however above Fifty Persons in the Rooms till Twelve,
and the whole Company did not exceed Three
Hundred, many of whom were in their modern
Cloaths, with Masks, and some without'. (ref. 157)
In 1779 there was a series of masked balls sponsored by Mr. Hoffman, (ref. 136) 'a celebrated confectioner of Bishopsgate Street', (ref. 158) but none of these
entertainments recaptured the former popularity
of the place. (fn. e)
In 1780 the proprietors attempted to establish
'an Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres' at
Carlisle House. There was to be a library 'for
ladies and gentlemen, where new books, from the
beginning of the year 1780, specimens of improvements in the arts, newspapers, periodical publications, will be found, for a subscription of three
guineas a year'. Instruction was to be provided,
principally for foreigners, by 'professors of several
sciences' in the 'language, constitution and
customs of England'. On Wednesday evenings,
there were to be public debates at what the proprietors called 'the School of Eloquence' on such
subjects as 'Whether the art of oratory be or be not
of any utility and importance?' and 'Is Pride in
the Class of the Virtues, or of the Vices?' The
proprietors were evidently not optimistic about the
chances of success for the Academy, for they continued to advertise that 'the usual rooms' might
still be hired 'for respectable assemblies, concerts,
and all other purposes, not inconsistent with the
perfect decorum, which is to [be] preserved in
every thing respecting Carlisle House'. (ref. 136)
On Sundays the rooms were open for public
receptions which seem to have been popular
because other places of entertainment were closed
on that day. There is a description of these
Sunday evenings at Carlisle House and also of
the house itself in the journal of Samuel Curwen,
an American loyalist then a refugee in London.
On 12 November 1780 he described how he
'After tea, called on Mr. Dalglish; whom, with
his friend, I accompanied in a coach to "Carlisle
House", at a Sunday evening entertainment,
called the promenade, instituted in lieu of public
amusement … The employment of the company
is simply walking through the rooms; being
allowed tea, coffee, chocolate, lemonade, orgeat,
negus, milk, etc.; admission by ticket, cost, three
shillings; dress, decent, full not required; some
in boots; one carelessly in spurs happening to catch
a lady's flounce, he was obliged to apologize and
take them off. The ladies were rigged out in
gaudy attire, attended by bucks, bloods, and
maccaronies, though it is also resorted to by
persons of irreproachable character: among the
wheat will be tares. The arrangement of the
house is as follows:—From the vestibule where
the tickets are received, the entrance is through a
short passage into the first room, of a moderate
size, covered with carpets, and furnished with
wooden chairs and seats in Chinese taste; through
this the company passes to another of a larger size,
furnished and accomodated as the former;
passing this, you enter the long-room, about eighty
feet by forty; this is the largest, and lighted with
glass chandeliers and branches fixed to side walls,
against which stand sofas covered with silk,—
floors carpeted. Hence tending to the left, you
cross the hall, and enter the wilderness or grotto,
having natural evergreens planted round the walls;
the centre, an oblong square, about twenty-five
feet long and fifteen broad, fenced with an open
railing, a few shrubs interspersed, flowering moss
and grass; in one of the angles is a natural well,
with a living spring, which the attendant told me
is mineral. Fronting the entrance, in the centre,
at the further end is a cave cased with petrifications, stones artificially cut into resemblance of
the former, and spars, with here and there a dim
lamp so placed as to afford but an imperfect sight
of the surrounding objects. To the top of the
arch leading to the cave, is an ascent of two flights
of steps on each hand, and over it a room not
unlike in form the cave below, painted in modern
style in oval compartments, containing hieroglyphics and ancient stories; on the same elevation
is a narrow gallery, continuing on either side to
about half the length of the room, fronting near
three feet high with an open Chinese fence or
railing:—this room is about fifty feet deep by
thirty wide, lighted as the others with variegated
lamps, but rather dim; next enter into two tea
rooms, each with tables for forty sets or
parties.
'So far for my imperfect description of this house,
wherein the well-known Mrs Cornelys used to
accomodate the nobility, etc., with masquerades
and coteries. Dress of the ladies differed widely;
one part swept their track by long trails, the other
by enormous size of hoops and petticoats. The
company usually resorting there about seven
hundred, as the ticket receiver told me;—this
evening the house was thronged … it was full
two hours before I could procure a dish of tea …
and when served, it was in a slovenly manner on a
dirty tea-stand. I never saw a place of public
resort where the company was treated with so
little respect by servants.' (ref. 160)
Concerts and masquerades were still being held
at Carlisle House in 1781 and 1782, (ref. 136) but in
September 1783 the whole property was advertised as 'To be let and entered on directly, with
all its elegant furniture', (ref. 161) and from March
1784 the ratebooks record it as empty.
By June 1789 Carlisle House was in the possession of Thomas Jefferys, a music publisher, and
in 1791 it was demolished. (ref. 162) The adjoining
buildings in Sutton Street, which comprised the
main assembly rooms, remained standing, but
two new houses with frontages to the square were
erected on the site of Carlisle House. These
were completed and occupied by 1794 and can
be seen on Tallis's view on fig. 5. In 1891 the
northern house, at the corner of Sutton Street,
was demolished to make way for the tower and
entrance of St. Patrick's Church, but the southern
house still survives.