Henry Fleming and Disraeli

I am becoming convinced that someone should do a thesis about Henry Fleming. Perhaps they already have.


So far he is a footnote, literally, in the papers of a number of prominent people. In his role as a trusted gossip, he seems to have been an important part of the communication channels of his day, from the 1840s until his death in 1876.


As I've mentioned before, his social life and his work for the Poor Law Board were in one way quite incongruous: champagne and gruel. On the other hand, in a paternalistic society, so notoriously class-stratified as 19th century England was, it's not surprising that the fates of the poorest were in the hands of people who had no direct personal experience of poverty.

In these two cuttings from letters of then Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, Fleming is mentioned. It seems from these two notes that Fleming had the opportunity to chat with Disraeli if they should meet; that he was a familiar, more than a nodding acquaintance.

I will let those who understand the history of the British Parliament in the 1870s explain further, in the many books and papers published about this period. Even to try and give a sketchy background is a bit of a daunting task.

In late January 1876, when the first letter was written, Parliament was about to resume sitting. Some of the contentious matters of the day involved the Suez Canal and Bosnia, names familiar in the news of our own time.

I quickly and the opposite of thoroughly checked Hansard for a debate where Gladstone and Lowe took a particularly active role, but I didn't locate one.

I did find this lovely picture and a connection to W. S. Gilbert.

(Copied from Wikipedia. Original credited to the Illustrated London News of March 22, 1873.)
"The Happy Land" was a musical by W. S. Gilbert and Gilbert Arthur à Beckett. It broke the rules about portraying public characters: here, as shown is a parody of then Prime Minster Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer Lowe, and First Commissioner of Works, Ayrton.

More from Disraeli's letters, under the heading "DISSENSIONS IN THE CABINET".

I'm assuming that this is the same Fleming, Henry Fleming "The Flea", as there are no other Flemings appearing in these letters. It would be in character for Henry to fill Disraeli in on the goings-on at the Easter Sunday church service.

Or, as Disraeli put it, "Fleming having, of course, prepared a rich discourse for my edification." Sounds like him.

John Burgoyne Blackett at 2 Charles Street in the late 1840s

This is a listing from the Northumberland Archives, via Access to Archives, a very useful service indeed.

Here's exactly what's on the screen:

"Notebook (vol. IV) comprising copies of letters from J[ohn] B[urgoyne] Blackett, initially at 2 Charles Street, Berkeley Square, then at 10 Eaton Place to Congreve, May 1848-Dec. 1851. Concerning politics, literary matters, mutual friends, foreign affairs, university reform, possible personal insolvency, retrenchment in standard of living. A group of undated letters at the end, perhaps c.1844, predate the main section. ZBK/C/1/B/3/1/9 [n.d.]"
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=155-zbk_3-1&cid=1-1-2-3-1#1-1-2-3-1

Why it matters to our story

You may notice that in 1848 when the letters started, Blackett was living at 2 Charles Street. He was also the Member of Parliament for Northumberland South from 1852 to 1856. His successor as the MP for the riding was George Ridley, who lived at 2 Charles Street later.

Maybe No. 2 was rented for whomever represented Northumberland South from time to time. But, the dates of the letters from Blackett at No. 2 don't match the dates of his time as an MP. Perhaps the connection is more to do with being from the nobility of Northumberland.

It raises the question of what Henry Fleming was doing there on census night in 1871, though. Guest of an absent MP, perhaps?

Blackett later lived at 10 Eaton Place, London, and for some reason I think I have run across Eaton Place in this research already. Will have to keep my eyes open.


Connection between Blackett and the March family (of No. 1 Charles Street, in 1871)

This is one of those "the world is a pretty small place" things, but that's what happens when you have people descended from William the Conqueror, Plantagenets, and so on.

The name "Umfreville" appears in both the Blackett and March families. For the Blacketts, it's way back around the 1500s. For the Marches, one of Thomas Charles March's sisters married a Yorkshire clergyman (of a titled family, if I remember correctly), and their sons had Umfreville as a middle name. The spelling varies, Umfreville, Umfraville.

A distant connection.





 

Who was Henry Fleming? A dandy? A heartless villain? Both? Neither? More history from Charles Street, Berkeley Square

At No. 2, Charles Street, which runs from the southwest corner of Berkeley Square in London, in 1871, there lived a bachelor, Henry Fleming, and two servants. Perhaps more people actually lived there, but that's who was home on census night.

Map, Google Street View, and the census return details for No. 2 Charles Street

Henry Fleming in 1871: Secretary of the Poor Law Board

It's there in black and white on the census form, Secretary of the Poor Law Board.

Your mind should immediately be racing to thoughts of Oliver Twist and gruel, poor people (both in the sense of lacking wealth and in the sense of suffering hardship), misery, and the workhouse.

This was 1871, about 32 years after the publication of Oliver Twist, but the poor were still liable to be taken into the workhouse, a place no one wanted to be.

Henry Fleming's involvement with the Poor Law Board dates back into the 1840s, closer to Dickensian times.

Thom's Irish Almanac and Official Directory, 1850, shows, at page 16, that the English Poor Law Board's office was at Somerset House, in London. Henry Fleming, Esq. is one of two Assistant Secretaries.




This was a time when Henry's star was rising.

A few years earlier, on July 15, 1844, Thomas Carlyle, the writer, sent a letter to his wife (one of over 9,000) mentioning callers stopping by that day.

 Old Stimabile, Darwin; then after dinner, Fleming3 on horseback to ask If Mrs Carlyle was home?—perhaps by Mrs Buller's order? He would not come in, tho' I by message invited him. 

(From Volume 18 of the collected letters, on  The Carlyle Letters Online, a website from Duke University Press.)

The footnote says:

"Henry Fleming (d. 1876); asst. sec. of poor law board, 1848–59; permanent sec., 1859–71. Introduced into society by Charles Buller, he “made his way by his pleasant manners and amusing gossip. It was said that when Lady Palmerston wanted to know which way the political wind blew, she sent him out on a horse in the Park. He was very good-looking, and [no one could] … guess his age. He wore an undeniable brown wig, and had a lovely complexion and brilliant teeth, how much due to art no one could tell” (Mary C. M. S. Simpson, Many Memories of Many People [1898] 115).

According to another account Fleming was “a kindly little man, … commonly known as the ‘Flea.’ … He was well known in society, a friend of Charles Buller's, and an  habitué of Lady Palmerston's house. He was much made up; and when Lady Ashburton was told of his house being entered by burglars, ‘It was hard on him,’ she said; ‘for he could not move, having unfortunately left his backbone on the dressing-table’” (Algernon West, Recollections 1832 to 1886 [1899] 1:86–87).

His obituary in the Times, 3 March 1876, said: “He was a welcome member of society which his official chiefs [of the poor law board] could often not aspire to enter. … As no one seemed to know his age, it was a constant subject of jocose speculation. His familiarity with Lord Palmerston was attributed to the alleged fact that Lord Palmerston had been his fag at Harrow.”


End of the footnote.


In fact, there are about 20 letters on the Duke University Press Carlyle website where Thomas or Jane (his wife) mentions Henry Fleming.


Our peek at the houses of Charles Street, Berkeley Square in 1871 began at No. 1: Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria.

Before that, we started with the Stoker family: Bram Stoker, author of Dracula in public records: BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death).

Next time: what the Carlyles said about Henry. Thomas Carlyle and his wife Jane mentioning Henry Fleming in their letters to each other. (For what it's worth, I found it pretty funny what they had to say, and how fragrantly they could throw mud at people.)

No. 2 Charles Street Berkeley Square, Mayfair, London, in 1871

The last seven posts, starting with

Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria

have looked closely at the family who occupied No.1 Charles Street according to the 1871 census.

Charles Street runs from the south west corner of Berkeley Square, and from what I've seen, it was a pretty good neighbourhood back in 1871.

We continue the exploration with the second house on the street.  Here's the Google Maps image as it now is.


View Larger Map

And the current Google Street View picture, with No. 1 on the right (Thomas C. March house in 1871) and No. 2, the blue one, on the left.


View Larger Map



Link in case map isn't visible: 2 Charles Street, Mayfair, and the link to the Street View.

Living at No. 2, in 1871, the census says this.

No. 2: Henry Flemming, 59, unmarried, Civil Servant, Secretary of the Poor Law Board
1 Family, namely Henry himself.
2 Servants, James Austen, 50, and Martha Newman, 17, both unmarried.

Citation from Ancestry.co.uk: Class:  RG10; Piece:  102; Folio:  75; Page: 31; GSU roll:  838762.

There's a mention here on p. 522 of The British Medical Journal, May 23, 1868:

"IO. Mr. Flemming, Secretary of the Poor-law Board, acknowledges
on February 20th, I867, the receipt of Mr. Trevor's last letter."

The spelling of "Flemming", however, is not consistent in the records. In the majority of cases I've seen so far, it's been spelled with only one "m", "Fleming".

Henry Fleming was a rather interesting fellow, from another interesting family. This family will take us to the poorhouse and to the last gasps of the slave trade.


Our peek at the houses of Charles Street, Berkeley Square in 1871 began at No. 1: Thomas March of 1 Charles Street: One degree from Queen Victoria.


Before that, we started with the Stoker family: Bram Stoker, author of Dracula in public records: BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death).

Next: Who was Henry Fleming? A dandy? A heartless villain? Both? Neither? More history from Charles Street, Berkeley Square.