[Old South Sea House and the Harvey family of Chigwell.] 113 manuscript items from the papers of William Peacock, John Read and James Swaine, attorneys tto William and Mary Harvey family, landlords, including 100 receipts, some itemized.

This collection of 113 items, dating from the middle of the eighteenth century, relates to a notable London landmark. Until the end of the nineteenth century the Old South Sea House, headquarters of the South Sea Company (Company of Merchants Trading to the South Seas and other Parts of America), stood on the corner of Threadneedle Street and Bishopsgate Street. A young Charles Lamb worked here for nearly six months in 1792, and wrote the first of the ‘Essays of Elia’ about the place. Walter Thornbury describes the part of the building known as the Old South Sea House in ‘Old and New London’ (1878): ‘At the north-east extremity of Threadneedle Street is the once famous South Sea House. The back, formerly the Excise Office, afterwards the South Sea Company's office, thence called the Old South Sea House, was consumed by fire in 1826.’ From the end of the seventeenth century the Harvey family had been landlords of the Old South Sea House. In 1688 the site of the Old South Sea House had been leased to Sir Eliab Harvey (1635-1699), ‘a Turkey merchant’ and son of ‘one of the wealthiest Royalists in the City’. The property passed to his son the MP William Harvey (1663-1731) of Chigwell. Three of the items in the present collection, dating from 1735, are signed by William Harvey’s son William Harvey (c.1682-1742) of Chigwell, Essex, and Wincelow Hall, Hempstead, and 54 are signed by his wife Mary, daughter of Ralph Williamson of Berwick, Northumberland. The younger William Harvey was the father of three Tory MPs: William Harvey (1714-1763) of Chigwell, Eliab Harvey (1716-1769) of Claybury Hall, Barking, Essex, Lt-Gen. Edward Harvey (1718-1778) of Cleveland Court, Westminster, all three of whom, with several other members of the family, have biographies in the History of Parliament. There are papers relating to the Harvey family and their substantial holdings of property, in the Essex Archives (‘Rents of estates in Old South Sea House and Tower Hill, City of London’) and the London Metropolitan Archives. The South Sea Bubble occurred in 1720, and by the time of the present material, the South Sea House was largely being let to private tenants. (According to an entry on the LMA papers, the tenants of South Sea House in 1738-89 included ‘Mr Cantillon (presumably Richard Cantillon, a banker and economist, d. 1734), Charles Lockyear (M.P. for Ilchester, d. 1752) and York Buildings Company’.) The present material consists, as one of the items specifies, of receipts and disbursements for the Harvey’s property Old South Sea House, from the papers of the family attorneys: firstly in 1735 William Harvey’s attorney William Peacock, then briefly after Harvey and Peacock’s deaths in 1742 John Read, and finally from 1743 James Swaine, to whom the large majority of items is addressed. The receipts are in good condition, one on an 8vo leaf, the others on slips ranging from 18 x 14 cm to 13.5 x 5.5 cm, with a handful having spike holes. The other thirteen items (mostly wrapping material) are on aged and creased paper. There is a total of one hundred receipts, with three from 1735 and ninety-six from between 1742 and 1757 and one undated (‘March 3d’). A full yearly breakdown is given at the end of this entry. William Harvey’s three 1735 receipts are to William Peacock, whom one would presume was his attorney, whilst almost all of the 54 from Harvey’s widow Mary are for payments by her attorney James Swaine, most, one can assume, for collection of Old South Sea House rents. The other 43 receipts, from nine individuals, are for payments to Mary Harvey or Swaine, although there is one for payment by ‘Mrs: Peacock’ (1742) and another from ‘Mr Read’ (1743). They comprise: receipts from James Everest, parish clerk, for payment of the quarterly tythes due to the vicar Dr Burton; two sets of receipts from watchmen; itemized bills from the butcher, the baker and ‘for dressing Meat & Lodging’; a receipt for drawing and ingrossing leases; receipts on Mary Harvey’s behalf from her child Eliab and servant Sarah Greene. The full breakdown is as follows: Mary Carey (‘Mrs Carey for dressing Meat & Lodging’), 1748, 1 (itemized); James Everest (including one ‘Evrest’) (for ‘Tythes Dew [...] for the use of the Revd. Dor Burton’), 1754-7, 4; Sarah Greene (Mary Harvey’s servant, ‘on account for Mrs Harvey’), 1757, 1; John Hancock (watchman, ‘for watching the Old South Sea house’), 1743-8, 8; Eliab Harvey (‘on Acct. of my Mother’), 1745 and 1747, 2; Mary Harvey, 1843-57 and one undated, 54; William Harvey (‘Will: Harvey’), 1735, 3; Anthony Hill (‘Mr Hill Baker’), 1748, 6 (all itemized); Francis Tudman (‘Fras: Tudman’) (watchman, ‘Watch Rate due’), 1742-56, 19; Ann Wall (‘Mr Wall Butcher’), 1748, 1 (itemized); [‘Sam Walsh [‘Walch’?] (‘for drawg & ingrossing the Leases of [?] House’, 1, 1753. All but two of Mary Harvey’s 54 receipts (one to John Read in 1743, the other without recipient and date) are to her attorney James Swaine, for sums ranging from sixteen shillings to one hundred pounds, several ‘on Acct: of Rents of the old South Sea House’. They include, on 27 November 1744, ‘Mr Swaine / pray pay to Lady Bacon fifty pd: on my Acct:’, and on 4 June 1752; ‘Recd: of Mr Swaine on Acct: 18-12-6 being money due to Mr Staniforth on acct: of Wine’. The letter to Swaine’s wife from Mary Harvey’s servant reads: ‘Dear Mrs Swaine my Mrs is not yet up and I would not [kepp Temracy?] so I opened the Letter and have sent a recept which I sopose will do if it will not I will send one from her she is not very well so I do not care to wake her / March ye 29 1757 / Recd. of Mr Swaine the Sum of Thirty pounds on account for Mrs Harvey / pd Sarah Greene’. On the reverse of a receipt from ‘Will: Harvey’ to ‘Wm Peacock’, 18 April 1735, are eight lines in another hand (Peacock’s?) from a draft of a contract (‘[...] of all such sum & sums of mony which now is and which shall herefter grow dew & oweing to me for Rent for the said sd Les. / 4. And also to cause such reparaions to be dew to all & singular the sd Les also my sd Attorney shall think necessary and convenient.’). The yearly breakdown (with those dates between New Year and Lady Day given on face value) is as follows: 1735, 3; 1742, 1; 1743, 7; 1744, 6; 1744/5, 1; 1745, 6; 1745/6, 1; 1746, 7; 1747, 7; 1747/8, 1; 1748, 12; 1749, 5; 1750, 1; 1751, 2; 1752, 3; 1753, 6; 1754, 6; 1755, 10; 1756, 11; 1757, 3. The remaining thirteen items are wrappers on grey and white paper, and accompanying slips, with such docketing as ‘A Years Accts: of Receipts & Disburmts: for the old S-Sea House half a yr from Micms: 1742 to Lady day 1743 by Mr Read & / from Lady day 1743 to Micms: 1743 by Mr Swaine’ and ‘Vouchers for Paymts. since Mr Peacocks death - / by Mr Read’.