[‘The most fashionable place in London’: The Clarendon Hotel, Bond Street; Foreign 'Great and Good@] Around 180 entries in the hotel guestbook, on extracted leaves, the greater part of them signatures of ‘Nobility and Gentry, and Foreigners of rank’.

The Clarendon Hotel was once - as ‘Routledge’s Popular Guide to London’ stated in 1862 - ‘the most fashionable place in London’, and the present collection of autograph signatures from its guestbook, all of them said to date from 1831, bear witness to the fact that - as ‘Gilbert’s Visitor’s Guide to London’ (1851) states - it was ‘frequented by the Nobility and Gentry, and Foreigners of rank’. Its reputation had been made during the Regency period, and in 1820 ‘Leigh’s New Picture of London’ stated that it ‘and Jaquiers are now one hotel’. The hotel’s fame is indicated by the fact that two years after the date of the present collection, in 1833, the its pretensions were ridiculed from Scotland by ‘Blackwood’s Magazine’: ‘“I hope,” said M‘Goul, “it’s a goot house - no sand crunching upon the floor, nor the rafters plack with peat reek.”’ Walter Besant provides information regarding the hotel in his ‘Survey of London’ (1911), ‘At No. 169, on the west side [of Bond Street], was the Clarendon Hotel, formerly the town house of the Dukes of Grafton, and afterwards the residence, about 1741, of the elder Pitt. The hotel was closed in 1877, and replaced by a row of shops.’ The revised ‘Survey’ (1980) provides more information. The present collection of material consists of a large number of autograph signatures, on gilt-edged leaves extracted from the Clarendon Hotel guestbook: a total of seven full leaves, dating from between 15 October and 2 November [1831], and nine slips cut from leaves, seven of them dating from the April [1831]. The material is in good condition, with minor signs of age. Accompanying the material are two Typed Letters Signed to Mrs I. McArthur of Croydon, from the City of Westminster Public Libraries. The first, from the City Engineer and Surveyor W. W. Ratcliff, 28 January 1953, refers her to the author of the second, written three days later, from the Archivist G. F. Osborn, which states: ‘The Clarendon Hotel was situated on the west side of New Bond Street. Its number in 1831 was 169, but the building of that date covered the approximate frontage now taken up by Nos. 173-178 New Bond Street. At one time, in the 1830s, but not, I think, as early as 1831, it extended backwards and included No. 20 Albemarle Street.’ An autograph postscript reads: ‘Asprey (corner of Bond St. & Grafton St.) is 165 New Bond St. It must have been between Grafton St & the Bond St. entrance of the Royal Arcade, backing on to what is now the Royal Institution (21 Albemarle St.)’. Also present is a meticulous collection of manuscript material relating to the autographs, presumably the work of Mrs. McArthur or associate, including a four-page transcription of the material (not entirely accurate, dated by the writer to the year 1831) in a neat close hand, an alphabetical index of names (2pp, 4to), and six pages of biographical information (6pp, 4to) relating to signatories. There are around 180 entries of names and titles, with addresses occasionally added in another hand. A small percentage (for example Talleyrand and Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy) are clearly NOT the signatures of the parties named (in these cases apparently entered by the same hotel staff who added the addresses), but the range of variation between the different entries, coupled with some spot-checking, indicates that most are genuine signatures of the parties named, although on some occasions the names of women are given in the hand of the ‘head of the family’. A few individuals (for example the Count of Montara, Sir Brook Taylor and the future prime minister Palmerston) sign several times. An entire list of the names is as follows: [the first four among the non-signatures] Lord Southampton; Lord Godrich; Prince de Talleyrande; ‘Mr Wood 13 <?> St.’; Lt. Colonel Henry Webster; Lord Palmerston; Mr Ashley; Sir Robert Chester; Sir George Seymour; Sir Charles , Inspector General of Cavalry; Major Sullivan, 3rd Dragoon Guards, ‘Aidecamp’; Earl Bathurst; Viscount Villiers; ‘The Lord Chancellor’; ‘Koscheleff’; Sir James Graham; Vice Admiral Sir Edward Codrington; Mr Bradshaw; Earl of Jersey; Mr A Vail; Sir Gore Ouseley; General Viscount Combermere; Sylvain Van De Weyer; ‘Colonel Hill Royal Horse Guards’; [the following two not signatures] Sir John Elley; Lord Cavendish; [the following three marked as ‘not autographs’] Marquis Salisbury; Sir A. W. Clifford; Lord W. Russell; note in French by ‘Le Docteur de (93 Strand, corner of Beaufort Buildings)’, paying compliments to ‘S. E. le Comte d’Orloff’; Major General Sir John Macdonald; Mr George Villiers; Lieut General Sir James Kempt; Earl of Beverley; Le Comte de Rochechouart; Lieut. General Sir Hudson Lowe; ‘Lord Grosvenor 15 Grosvenor Sq’; [the following five on a slip headed ‘Clarendon Hotel Friday October 14th.’] ‘Le Baron Hy. de Bode general Major et Commandeur de l’Arsénal de St. Petersbourg’, ‘Major Wernick <?> Russian Vice Consul / 44 Great <?> Street Hanover Square’, ‘Mrs Stuart 13 Bolton Row Piccadilly’, ‘The Marquess of Winchester 27 Cavendish Square’, ‘Earl of Albemarle N[orth] B[ritain]’; Sir Brook Taylor (‘55 Portland Place’); Earl of Erroll; Earl of Munster (‘13 Belgrave Street’); ‘His Royal Highness The Duke of Sussex’ (‘Kensington Palace’); Le Baron de Ralamb, Charge d’Affaires de Suede et de Norvege’; ‘Lt Colonel Fox Gren. Guards (‘Kensington Square’); Alexy de Wahl; Count Rechberg; [second signature] ‘Lt Colonel Fox Gren. Guards Ecuyer de S M’; Baron de <?>; Cher. d’A<?> L<?>; Lord Burghersh; Lord Fitzroy Somerset; [second signature] Alex [sic] de Wahl; ‘Miss S. Wyngard Kensington Palace’; Captn Sir Geoarge Seymour RN; Dr Francis Seymour Guards; Earl of Morley; Marshal Lord Beresford; Sir William Fremantle; Lady Mary Taylor; [both in same hand] ‘Earl of Albemarle / Countess of Albemarle’; Lt. Colonel Webster; ‘Duchess Dowr. of Richmond’; Marchioness of Winchester; Countess Bathurst & Lady Georgiana Bathurst; ‘Le Comte D’Aglie Ministre de Sardaigne’; Captain a Court RN; Cte Dietrichstein; [second time] Marshal, Lord Beresford; Cte Donkoff; Earl of Carnarvon; [the following three in the same hand, and not that of Sir Thomas Hardy] Lady Hardy; The Miss Hardy; Sir Thomas Hardy; ‘Mr C W Chastin’; Earl of Denbigh; Earl and Countess of Carlisle; Lord Hill; [all in one hand] ‘l’ambassadeur des Pays Bas et Md. Falck / le Baron de <?> de Wynvelt / Ambassadeur des Pays bas pres de la Sublime porte / la Barone. de Zuylen’; ‘Le Ministre d’Espagne, et Mme. de <?> B; The Marchioness of Stafford; [following two in same hand] Countess Gower; Earl Gower; Countess of Sandwich; [following two in the same hand] Lord Dover; Lady Dover; ‘Lord & Lady William Russell; ‘Lord & Lady Fitzroy Somerset.’; Lord St Helens; Baron de Bode; Lady Mary Fox; Sir Robert Chester; Countess Mengden; Lord Palmerston; ‘Mr. de Gersdorft, Ministre-Resident de S. M. le Roi de Saxe’, Mr Temple; ‘The Bavarian Minister & Baroness de Cetto’; Lod Wharncliffe; Lord Clanwilliam; Lord Dudley; Lord Lothian; Ld Stuart de Rothesay; Lady Wharncliffe; Earl Bathurst; Marquess of Landsdowne; Le Baron de Neumann; Lord Falkland; [next two in same hand] Lord Frederick FitzClarence; Lady Frederick FitzClarence; Lord Holland; [next two in same hand] Marquis of Clanricarde; Marchioness of Clanricarde; ‘Colonel Porter Aide de Camp to H R H the Duke of Cumberland’; M de <?>; [next three in same hand] Lord Beverley; Countess of Beverley; Lady Louisa Percy; Count de Mortara; Colonel Trench; Sir Stratford Canning; Countess Cowper; Earl Cowper; Lady Ann Beckett; Lord Arthur Lennox; Le Chevalier du Zea Bermudez; Sir V<?> L; [next two in same hand] Viscount Falkland; Viscountess Falkland; [next two in same hand] Lady Frederick FitzClarence; Lord Augustus FitzClarence; Count Mandelsloh; [next two in same hand] Countess of Grey; Earl of Grey; ‘L’Ambassadeur de France / La Duchesse de Dino’; [next two in same hand] Lord Lilford; Lady Lilford; [next three in same hand] Earl of Beverley; Countess of Beverley; Ladies Percy; Earl of Mulgrave; The Marchioness of Stafford; ‘Le Prince Frederic de Hohenlohe Oehringen’; ‘Le Baron Bockelberg, Chamberllan de S M. le Roi de Preuss [sic]’; Lord Howard of Effingham; Earl of Burnley; [second] Le Comte de Mortara; Lord Arthur Lennox; [second] ‘The Chevalier du Zea Bermudez’; ‘Sir F: ; P. Esterhazy; [second] ‘Prince Frederic de Hohenlohe Oehringen’; [second] ‘Le Baron de Bockelberg, Chambellan de S. M. le Roi de Prusse’; [third] Le Comte de Mortara; [second] Sir Brook Taylor; ‘the Bavarian Minister’; Le Prince de Leiven; Sir John Brooke Pechel; ‘Lt. Col. Greenwood / 2nd Life Guards’; Count Ruhberg; [third] Prince Frederic de Hohenlohe Oehringen’; [third] ‘Le Baron de Bockelberg’; [fourth] Le Comte de Mortara; ‘le Comte Michele Woronzow’; Mr John Talbot; [fifth] Le Comte de Mortara; [third] Sir Brook Taylor; Lady Frederick Bentinck; Mrs. L. Fox; ‘Marquess & Marchss. of Westminster’; ‘Le Baron et la Baronne de Bülow’; ‘Le Baron de Neu<?>; [second] Sir John Brooke Pechel; Lord Marcus Hill; ‘Benkhausen’; ‘Tolstoy’ [father of the novelist]; [second] Prince Esterazy; ‘Major Genl. Sir George Quentin Kerr’; [second] Count Mandelsloh; [second] le Prince de Lieven; ‘ de Paliansky gentilhomme de la Chambre de S. Mé. L Empereur de toutes les Russies’; ‘Le Comte de Ruhberg’; ‘Le Comte De Morel’; ‘Count Danneskiold-Samosoè’; [sixth] Le Comte de Mortara.