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Gimbert and Swingland
A bill-head issued by the London cork-cutter Richard Gimbert advertised that he was the holder of a royal appointment to the households of King George III and his son and heir George, the Prince of Wales.
Bill-head dated London, 1794
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from
Heal Collection,
British Museum  .
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By the year 1774 Richard Gimbert was established as a cork-cutter in Piccadilly, a road not far from the Queen’s House (named for Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III), formerly Buckingham House, later to be known as Buckingham Palace. In this year he was registered as a voter in the British general election that was held in October (1). The right to vote was restricted to men who paid property taxes – an exclusive group as fewer than five percent of the population qualified for this political right (2).
Kent’s London Directory for 1780 listed Richard Gimbert’s cork-cutter shops in Piccadilly and 72 Watling Street. By 1783 his head office was 37 Piccadilly and the firm ‘Swingland & Freeman’ had taken over the cork-cutting business at 72 Watling Street (3). The trade card of Swingland & Freeman gave the notice ‘Cork-Cutters to his Majesty’ and, at top center, the Royal Arms, lion and unicorn.
Trade Card, London, about 1785
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| from
Heal Collection,
British Museum .
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The Gimbert and Swingland families were connected by marriage – in 1781 the cork-cutter Joshua Swingland married Catherine Moore Gimbert, the youngest sister of the Piccadilly cork-cutter Richard Gimbert (4).
In eighteenth century London, three generations of Swingland were active as cork-cutters. The brothers Joshua and Newbrough, sons of George Swingland, were young boys when, after their mother Mary (née Newbrough) passed away, they left their birthplace in the district of Stourbridge, Worcestershire, and, with their father, settled in London. In 1712 Newbrough Swingland was signed up for a seven-year term as an apprentice to John Savage, a member of the Haberdashers’ Company of London. At about the same time, Joshua Swingland served an apprenticeship with a master of the Pewterers’ Company of London (5).
John Savage, the supervisor of Newbrough Swingland, operated a cork-cutter shop in Rood Lane near the church of St Margaret Pattens in the City of London. Cork-cutters, such as John Savage, do not appear to have formed their own trade association and instead allied themselves with other trades. The London trade guilds, established in the middle ages, strived to promote the interests of their trade, set quality standards and provide support for their members. From the late seventeenth century, it became common that many members of a guild had a different profession from the one originally associated with the guild (6).
On the death of John Savage in 1720, Newbrough Swingland, now himself a member of the Haberdashers’ Company, stepped in to become the new manager of the Rood Lane cork-cutting enterprise. In December 1720 he took on an apprentice for the shop. The records of the Haberdashers’ Company of London document that, over the years, Newbrough Swingland accepted new apprentices at regular intervals (7).
Joshua Swingland, who like his brother Newbrough went into the cork-cutter trade, settled with his family in the Holborn district of London. He was buried at St Andrew’s Church, Holborn, on 21 November 1736, leaving behind a six-year-old son named Newbrough. In October 1744, Newbrough, now aged 14, was taken on as an apprentice to his cork-cutter uncle Newbrough Swingland (8).
Newbrough Swingland and his nephew and namesake became business partners. The 1759 Kent’s London Directory gave an entry for Swingland and Company, ‘cork-cutters & glue-makers’, Rood Lane.
The senior Newbrough Swingland, as a respected businessman, was active in serving his community. In 1730 he was a churchwarden and overseer of the poor of St Margaret Pattens (9). In 1744, in the role of parish clerk of St Margaret Pattens, he gave a gift to the church of a silver Communion cup and cover (10). At his burial on 21 May 1761 the parish register entry remembered him as the parish clerk. He was survived by his wife Catherine; they had no children (11).
The younger Newbrough Swingland had the training and business skills to ensure that the Rood Lane cork-cutting shop continued to thrive after the death of his uncle. In the 1760s and 1770s, annual London trade directories listed Newbrough Swingland, cork-cutter, 10 Rood Lane (12). He also succeeded his uncle as the parish clerk of St Margaret Pattens (13).
On 19 January 1756 Newbrough Swingland and Elizabeth Taylor were married at St Margaret Pattens Church. Their two eldest children were Joshua and Samuel, born respectively on 3 January 1757 and 16 November 1757. In July 1771 Joshua became an apprentice to his father to learn the cork-cutter trade. In October 1772 Samuel Swingland enrolled as an apprentice with a master of the Turners’ Company of London (14).
The two brothers were both accepted as members of the Haberdashers’ Company in April 1780 – Joshua qualified by completing a seven year apprenticeship; Samuel was entitled to membership as the son of a member. By the end of the year, their father Newbrough Swingland was dead. He was buried at St Margaret Pattens Church on 17 December 1780. He was predeceased by his wife Elizabeth who died in 1775.
Joshua Swingland was the heir to the business at 10 Rood Lane. On 10 February 1781, at the church of St Margaret Pattens, he married Catherine Mooore Gimbert, the sister of Richard Gimbert, who in Kent’s London Directory for 1781 was the manager of cork-cutter shops in Piccadilly and 72 Watling Street.
It appears that Richard Gimbert helped Joshua’s brother Samuel Swingland get started in the cork-cutter trade in Watling Street – there is a record that Samuel Swingland was a cork-cutter in Watling Street when he took on a new apprentice in December 1781. Richard Gimbert’s focus was on running his business at the Piccadilly location. According to Kent’s London Directory, the partnership of ‘Swingland & Freeman’, cork-cutters, traded at 72 Watling Street from 1783 to 1785. One of their trade cards has been preserved in the collections of the British Museum.
The business alliance of Swingland and Freeman was short-lived. From 1786 and onwards, London trade directories name John Freeman as the proprietor of the cork-cutter shop at 72 Watling Street. Samuel Swingland moved to the Poplar district of East London; baptisms of his children with his wife Sarah (née Wise) were entered in the parish register of St Dunstan’s Church, Stepney. At the baptism of his first-born child Joseph, on 23 September 1784, Samuel Swingland reported his occupation as a cork-cutter. However, he called himself an oilman of Poplar at the baptisms of his children born over the period 1786 to 1796.
Like both his father and great-uncle before him, Joshua trained apprentices at the Rood Lane cork-cutter shop. One apprentice, who began his training at the age of 14 in June 1781, was John Gilbert, the nephew of Joshua’s wife. John Gilbert’s parents were Philip Gilbert, a shipwright of East London, and Ann (née Gimbert) who was the sister of Catherine Swingland (15).
Joshua Swingland’s tenure at 10 Rood Lane was coming to an end. In 1788 his wife Catherine inherited a property in Farmer Street, Shadwell, in East London, as a gift from her aunt Elizabeth Gimbert (16). Shadwell became the new home of the Swingland family. Farmer Street was the address of Joshua Swingland, ‘cork-cutter and Citizen and Haberdasher of London’ when he took on a new apprentice in December 1792. In the 1792 Kent’s London Directory the occupant of 10 Rood Lane was W. Wilson, ‘Manchester Warehouseman’ (17) (a wholesaler of linen and cloth made in the factories surrounding Manchester).
Joshua Swingland, aged 59, of Farmer Street, Shadwell, was buried on 22 February 1816 at the church of St Margaret Pattens where his father and great-uncle had served as the parish clerk.
A tribute to Richard Gimbert as ‘Lord Cork of Piccadilly’ was published in his obituary in The Gentleman’s Magazine, April 1802: (18)
| At his country residence near Hammersmith, turnpike agent aged about 60, Mr Richard Gimbert, cork-cutter to his Majesty, commonly called ‘Lord Cork of Piccadilly’; who, by a series of indefatigable industry during a number of years, had acquired considerable property; and was much esteemed as a social neighbour and a warm friend. |
Richard Gimbert, Esquire, was buried on 10 March 1802 at All Saints’ Church, Fulham. He was survived by his second wife Catherine; his will mentioned no surviving children (19).
Next: Cork-Cutters by Royal Appointment: Hardy and Page
General References
Databases, with browsable document images, hosted by Ancestry online:
- London Directories, London Metropolitan Archives and Guildhall Library.
- London parish registers, London Metropolitan Archives:
- Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538–1812
- Marriages and Banns, 1754–1932
- Deaths and Burials, 1813–2003
- Westminster parish registers, City of Westminster Archives Centre.
Notes
- Notes on the Freeman Family
- Notes on the Gimbert Family
- Notes on the Swingland Family || Outline Descendant Tree
(1) Westminster Pollbooks, online database at the London Lives website.
(2)
Power, Politics and Protest: The Growth of Political Rights in
Britain in the 19th Century,
The
National Archives online resource.
(3) Kent’s London Directory: 1780, 1782 and 1783 (London Directories, Ancestry online).
(4) The wills of Elizabeth Gimbert, probated 1788 (PCC Will, National Archives), and Richard Gimbert, probated 1802 (Consistory Court of London accessed from London Wills and Probate, London Metropolitan Archives, Ancestry online), give family connections.
(5)
Apprentice records were found in the FindMyPast online databases:
The Haberdashers’ Company of London: Apprentices and Freemen; and
London Apprenticeship Abstracts, 1442–1850.
Family history was confirmed from a number of sources.
The Pewterers’ Company apprentice record for Joshua Swingland,
dated 1714, stated that he was the son of George Swingland of Stourbridge.
Baptisms, marriage and burials for the Swingland family of
Old Swinford, Worcestershire, in the Stourbridge district, were
found in the online databases of FreeREG and FamilySearch.
Mary, the wife of George Swingland, was buried on 30 July 1711 at
St Mary’s Church, Old Swinford.
The will of George Swingland, of Whitechapel [London], was probated
12 October 1714 in the Commissary Court of London
(London Wills and Probate, London Metropolitan Archives, Ancestry online).
In the will he named his two sons Joshua and Newbrough Swingland, and,
as one of the executors, he appointed John Savage of London, cork-cutter.
(6)
An introduction to the London trade guilds is given at the
London Lives
website ; and the FindMyPast description of
London
Apprenticeship Abstracts .
(7) Newbrough Swingland acted as a witness for the will of John Savage, Haberdasher of London, probated on 19 July 1720 (PCC Will, National Archives). Subsequently, when Newbrough Swingland took on a new apprentice, the Haberdashers’ Company’s records described him as a cork-cutter of Rood Lane. Therefore, it is assumed that he took over John Savage’s Rood Lane cork-cutting shop.
(8) Newbrough, the son of Joshua and Mary Swingland, was baptised on 1 January 1729/30 at St Andrew Holborn, London. The occupation of Joshua Swingland as a cork-cutter was stated in the Haberdashers’ Company’s apprentice record for his son Newbrough, dated 1744.
(9) The National Archives online catalogue, reference C 11/2608/5, dated 1730.
(10) The Archaeological Journal, Royal Archaeological Institute, Volume 42, 1885, p. 387 (Google books online).
(11) Newbrough Swingland’s widow Catherine was buried at the church of St Margaret Pattens in March 1769. The will of Catherine Swingland, widow of Rood Lane, Fenchurch Street, dated 23 August 1765 and probated 14 March 1769, mentioned her nephew Newbrough Swingland, cork-cutter of Rood Lane (PCC will, National Archives).
(12) Trade directories, that cover the second half of the eighteenth century, are Kent’s London Directory, and Lowndes’s London Directory (digitized at London Directories, London Metropolitan Archives and Guildhall Library, Ancestry online).
(13)
A document dated 1765 mentions Newborough [Newbrough] Swingland,
parish clerk of St Margaret Pattens, London; nephew of Newborough
Swingland (Miscellaneous Biographical and Literary Memoranda by
Thomas Birch, 18th century, British Library Manuscript reference:
Add MS 4244, folio 60; description accessed online).
A reference to Newbrough Swingland as the parish clerk is the entry
in the burial register of St Margaret Pattens recording the burial of
his wife on 12 March 1775: ‘Elizabeth Swingland, the wife of
Newbro Swingland, Parish Clerk, was buried in the Church’.
At the burial of Newbrough Swingland on 17 December 1780
the burial register stated that he was the parish clerk.
(14) Apprentice records were found in the FindMyPast online databases: The Haberdashers’ Company of London: Apprentices and Freemen; and London Apprenticeship Abstracts, 1442–1850.
(15) The Haberdashers’ Company of London: Apprentices and Freemen (FindMyPast online database). The will of Elizabeth Gimbert, probated 7 July 1788 (PCC Will, National Archives) named her nieces, the two sisters Ann Gilbert and Catherine Moore Swingland. John Gilbert, ‘son of Philip Gilbert of Poplar, shipwright & Ann’, was baptised on 10 February 1767 at St Dunstan, Stepney (London parish registers, London Metropolitan Archives, Ancestry online).
(16)
The will of Elizabeth Gimbert was probated 7 July 1788
(PCC Will, National Archives).
Elizabeth Gimbert of Farmer Street was buried on 8 July 1788 at
St Paul’s Church, Shadwell.
On a map dated
1775 Farmer Street runs south off Ratcliff
Highway, to the east of New Gravel Lane (later renamed to Garnet Street).
(17) For a fire insurance record dated 30 July 1790 William Richard Haynes of Desborough, Northamptonshire was the property owner of 10 Rood Lane, London (London Metropolitan Archives online catalogue, and the National Archives online catalogue).
(18)
The Gentleman’s Magazine, April 1802,
Google
Book online .
(19) The marriage of Richard Gimbert, Esquire of Fulham, widower, and Catherine Atkins, widow, took place on 28 July 1796 at St George, Hanover Square. The will of Richard Gimbert was probated 26 March 1802 (Consistory Court of London, London Wills and Probate, London Metropolitan Archives, Ancestry online).
Text Copyright © WhistlerHistory 2021.