Update to Curtain Road (below): it takes its name from the curtain wall (a defensive wall) of the priory.
Update to Pall Mall (more below): it is also possible that there is a connection between Pall Mall and the expression ‘pell mell’ generally taken to mean disorderly confusion or reckless haste.
Today’s blog will start yesterday in the sense that on 28 January 1807, London’s Pall Mall became the first street to have public lighting by gas. Continuing the Pall Mall theme, however, on 29 January 1801 Lady Emma Hamilton, Horatio Nelson’s mistress, gave birth to a daughter christened Horatia. So with two Pall Mall connections, we should revisit that street briefly.
Pall Mall takes its name from a French game, paille-maille (also known as palla a maglio), mentioned as early as the reign of James I, who recommended the game for his eldest son, Prince Henry. The game was similar to croquet, involving a “wooden hammer set to the end of a long staff to strike a boule with”. Pall Mall was allegedly constructed by Charles II especially for the playing of this game.
The expression ‘pell mell’ has been linked with the street; although they have different derivations there are, apparently, early records of both being called ‘pell mell’.
The disorderly confusion comes from the Old French to mix and, as The Phrase Finder puts it: “Whether the game was disorderly and confused and the name was coined from that is speculative. It may be that the similarity between the two is merely coincidence, backed up by indifferent spelling.”
Schaumburg House, at number 82 Pall Mall, has a number of historical connections, but most fascinating was its use as a ‘Temple of Health and Hymen’ or, not to put too fine a point on it, sex therapy clinic and fertility centre. The ‘temple’, established by James Graham, employed at one stage a young girl, known as Vestina, Goddess of Health. She was Emy Lyon, later better known as Emma Hart and then even more famously as Lady Hamilton.
(Incidentally, Horatia was born in a house at 23 Piccadilly – another street name with many theories about its derivation.)
But back to today’s date, and from Nelson to Shakespeare: according to some sources, Romeo and Juliet was staged for the first time on 29 January 1595 in the unimaginatively named Theatre theatre. By happy coincidence, the theatre was on what is now Curtain Road in Shoreditch and, though Curtain is a great name for a lane with a theatre, it was the land, belonging to the priory of Holywell, which was called the ‘Curtayne’. The origin of the name, apparently, is uncertain.
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3 responses to “Pall Mall, Emma Hamilton, and Curtain Road”
Another top selection.
I had always believed that ‘Pell-mell’ was not associated with the game of a similar name, as there are older reports of the use of the phrase, before the reign of James I. It is certainly referred to in descriptions of battles during the Wars of the Roses, and also used in Shakespeare.
Of course, I know both Pall Mall and Curtain Road well, but then I would…
Best wishes, Pete.
I would be surprised if you didn’t know them well, Pete! Not to mention Piccadilly.
[…] was baptized there, and Lord Nelson, who worshipped in the church, had his only child – daughter Horatia – baptized […]