Opening of Lincoln's Inn Fields by Sir John Hutton, Chairman of the Council, on Saturday, 23rd February, 1895, at 2.30 p.m.

  • London County Council.
Date:
[1895]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Opening of Lincoln's Inn Fields by Sir John Hutton, Chairman of the Council, on Saturday, 23rd February, 1895, at 2.30 p.m. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    It is strange that this museum, which is open free to the pubHc, should be as little known as it is. Parallel with this side of the fields, and between it and Holborn, is a narrow roadway known as Whetstone-park. It derives its name from William Whetstone, a tobacconist, and also overseer of this parish in the time of Charles I. and the Commonwealth. The name of park certainly seems out of place as applied to a row of buildings chiefly consisting of stables and workshops. It has borne in times past a very bad name, owing to the resort here of loose characters. Several references to these are to be found in the plays of Dryden, and other allusions in Butler's Hudibras and the London Spy. But Whetstone-park can boast at least one distinguished inhabitant. Milton moved in 1645 from a house in Barbican to a smaller house in Holborn, which opened backward into Lincoln's Inn Fields.* In this case his garden must have been built over by these houses of ill-fame. In giving these particulars about the most important buildings surrounding the fields, we have incidentally mentioned some of the eminent inhabitants. The list is a very lengthy one, including several Lord Chancellors, Chief Justices and Sir William Blackstone among the legal world, the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough, John Locke, William Pitt, and several other members of the nobility. Nell Gwynne was lodging in Lincoln's-inn-fields wdien her first son, after- wards Duke of St. Albans, was born. Such then are some of th.3 names which have helped to make Lincoln's-inn-fields famous, and though now shorn in many respects of its former eminence, it may well be content to live in its past records. * Philips' Life of Milton. Jno. J. Sexby, Chief officer, Parks 8ub-Be'partment.