The Geffrye Museum
When Shoreditch’s Geffrye Museum opens the doors on its new extension this November, it will be just the latest chapter in a story spanning four centuries.
The tale starts with a poor Cornwall lad who came to London to seek his fortune.
Robert Geffrye was born in 1613 in the parish of Landrake, Cornwall, the son of a smallholder. The family had no money, and sons were expected to leave to make their own way in the world. So at the age of 15, the young Robert left and headed, Dick Whittington style, to the big city.
The commercial explosion that was to make London the biggest and most important business centre in the world was just beginning.
For a would-be trader to make his mark, membership of a company was essential, and Geffrye soon entered a seven-year apprenticeship to Richard Peate, and became a freeman of the Ironmongers Company in 1637.
Geffrye certainly never worked as an ironmonger, but his company was a descendant of medieval trade guilds, who operated a closed-shop. With his freeman’s status, he was set to make his fortune.
The astute businessman invested heavily in the new trade routes opening up to and from Africa and India, but as well as making shrewd business moves, he also demonstrated a sharp political sense.
In 1664 he was elected Warden, and in 1667 Master of the company, his political campaigns helped by his Royalist sympathies.
Charles II had just returned to the throne and the Stuarts exerted a strong hand when it came to controlling the City of London. His election as the capital’s Deputy Alderman opened the doors to an even more influential world.
Loyal to the Royals
He filled the posts of Sheriff of London, and eventually Lord Mayor, in 1685. He had proved just as loyal to the new king, James II, but now felt powerful enough to shrug aside royal patronage.
Geffrye turned increasingly to good works, acting as president of the Bethlehem and Bridewell Hospitals.
These were houses of correction as much as dispensers of medicine, and the severity of the floggings Sir Robert dealt out to the miscreants and prostitutes brought before him was legendary.
He fell out of political favour with the accession of William and Mary to the throne in 1688, but it did his finances no harm. When he died in 1704, at the astonishing age of 91, he left a sizeable fortune of £13,000.
£400 of it went to the acquisition of land and property to set up the Geffrye Almshouses – home to the modern-day museum.
These trusts were very popular with the nobility and gentry of the 17th and 18th century – endowments and good works were seen as a shortcut to heaven – and a suitable site in the country district of Shore-ditch was eventually found.
As the 19th century drew on though, the almshouse found itself marooned in one of the most squalid and overcrowded quarters of the capital.
The trustees found themselves increasingly tempted by the real estate value of what was now prime building land – and the gardens were the only remaining open space in Shoreditch High Street.
A battle ensued between the trustees, who wished to move out to the suburbs, and charity commissioners and the old London County Council who wanted the site preserved.
At the time, the Victoria and Albert Museum was working on the idea of having mini-museums dotted around the capital, marking each area’s excellence in individual crafts –a diamond museum for Hatton Garden, a cigar museum for Whitechapel, one in Clerkenwell for watch-making.
Council collection
Ultimately only one came about. Shoreditch Borough Council scraped together the £16,000 to buy the site and set up a craft museum in 1914 – dedicated to marking the history of the area and its status in the furniture trade.
In the 80 years since, the museum has grown and developed. In 1992 the herb garden was completed and a new entrance building was finished in 1993.
And plans are in place for a series of 20th century gardens, along with four new period rooms, a temporary exhibition centre and a design gallery.
By the time the work is finished, the museum will have doubled in size and the work will have cost £5.3m.
It’s a far cry from Geffrye’s original endowment – but that £400 has proved an investment that is still paying dividends 300 years on.
The Geffrye Museum is in Kingsland Road, E2. Tel: 0171 739 9893 or www.geffrye-museum.org.uk or www.made-in-hackney.co.uk