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2- 34-6
3rfor in Stoke flrtuington,
VVITH NOTES,
BY
F. FORBES ROBINSON, B.A.
(CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.)
“No man hath tasted differing fortunes more,
And thirteen times have I been rich and poor."
LONDON :
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY W. L. PREw ER,
374, MARE STREET, HAckNEY.
ſ MDCCCLXXXIX,
\-
: V - W., º
34 O Go
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ſº. 4.e., ré & #4, #42.26
2 - 14-, * 24-
NOTE.
The following is an attempt to trace the ‘footprints' of
Defoe during his long stay in this neighbourhood. For
permission to copy (Documents I and II and for the
substance of the note on II) I am indebted to J. R.
Spratling, Esq. For much kindness and for information
as to local details, I have to thank E. J. Sage, Esq.
OUTLINES.
HERE must always be something of
interest in the birthplace of any great man
—and the less that is known of the hero, the
more room for romance will there be. So it is
to the place of his smallest beginnings that the
crowd of enthusiasts come. This, at the least,
is quite natural and perhaps it will ever be so.
But surely the scene of a man's life work, the
true birth-place of his thought and the real
centre of his plans, should not yield in its
interest to any.
Everyone knows that Defoe was the son of
a butcher and born in the parish of St. Giles,
Cripplegate.* -
But few could tell us that he was living at
R
*}ames Foe, the son's change of name is curious and unexplained.
He writes—Daniel Defoe, Mr. De Foe, Daniel de Foe, De Foe, de FOE,
D. Foe, D.D.F., and lastly D.F. Deffoe (written thus)-De Foe.
*

><- 34-6
; Stoke Newington when his masterpiece was
given to the world: yet so it was, for Defoe was
settled there with a wife and six children when,
at the age of 58, he published his “Robinson
Crusoe.”
Defoe was sent when I4 years of age to
the School upon Newington Green.
Some fifty years ago, within the memory
of at least one inhabitant, this place consisted
of a few good houses which stood facing the
Green with gardens and ‘fields of waving corn'
behind. And still further back, at the beginning
of this century, when anyone chanced to cross
the Green, or if a carriage passed, after mid-
day, the few inhabitants would flock to their
windows to see who it was. From Church
Street a pretty path led through cornfields to
the Green and this still exists, but entirely
surrounded by houses.
Here it was that young Daniel de Foe received
R. good lessons in plain Saxon; for contrary to the
><- A-f

; usual custom at that time all the dissertations
and exercises were written and delivered in the
native language. Thus it happened that the
scholars became “Masters of the English
tongue.” Nor was this all that he gained at
that time: He says, “From a boxing young
English boy I learned this piece of early
generosity not to strike my enemy when he is
down.” In after life this lesson was never
forgotten and Defoe applied it in more senses
than one.
Amongst his fellow students we notice with
interest the names of Mr. Timothy Cruso and
Mr. Samuel Wesley, (father of the two Wesleys)
and at a later time Isaac Watts.
At the age of 40 Defoe remembered his
former “academy’ and defends it against the
attacks of Samuel Wesley.
It is probable that he never lost his affection
for Newington and its associations. He was
R. much addicted to its literary society and it has

:*~~ 14-f
; been said, that this at one time led to the neglect
of his ordinary business and thus to a period
of bankruptcy.
During at least twenty-years of his life
(1709-1729) Defoe made Stoke Newington his
head-quarters. His labours as an author
include the following topics: Two Journeys to
the Moon,-A Voyage Round the World,—A
System of Magick,--"Jack Sheppard,”—Bank-
ruptcy, Idiots (cf. the early Dutch notion—
• An Hospital for Fools’)—The National Debt,
— Insurance,— Savings Banks,— A Standing
Army, The Higher Education of Women,_
“Registration of Seamen,” &c., &c. In all he
wrote some 250 books and pamphlets, and of
these more than half come into our period.
It sems probable that the large house and
grounds (including stable, outhouses, orchard,
and a great garden) which he occupied as a
tenant in 1709 were afterwards purchased and .
R improved by himself. It must be admitted that

the house (of which we give an engraving) was
a poor specimen of Queen Anne's style. It is
possible that whereas Mr. Baker in 1724 calls
this house newly built, it had only been added
to. Defoe may have given it the ‘wings”
without which it would look still more intolerably
heavy.*
Modern changes have long since destroyed
the house and pleasure grounds of Defoe. A
massive brick wall remains (of about 120 yards
in length,) and this was the boundary of the
garden.f There is now a ‘Defoe Road” on the
spot where the house and garden stood.
Perhaps the Americans have a greater
reverence for Antiquity than our present
generation of Englishmen—at least they show
it in a more original manner.
R
*It was a gloomy and irregular pile of red brick—a dreary and
pretentious building—remarkable for its number of doors with massive
locks and bolts. Its walls were thick, having deep window seats and
curious cupboards in the recesses.
#A narrow pathway runs beside it from Church Street to Oldfield
Road.
%
º *
|
R.
*~~ 14-f
Many years ago when the old house was
yet standing" a party of Americans in a hired
carriage drove up to the door and asked to see
the occupant. On his appearing they made a
short speech saying that “they supposed them-
selves now in the house of D. Defoe and that
they waited on the occupant of that mansion
impelled by respect for his illustrious prede-
cessor in order to beg the favour of spending
a little time in the dwelling place of so eminent
a man.’ Assent being given they declare that
they had already anticipated permission—
accordingly a hamper is brought from the
coach into the garden, where presently was to
be heard the explosion of corks and other signs
that our American cousins were enjoying their
literary repast after a somewhat material fashion.
*}ohn Forster relates this story—The house was pulled down some
five and twenty years ago.
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>}~ 32-f

THIS document shows that in 1709 Defoe rented a large
house and grounds in Stoke Newington. .
In 1719 the Rolls of the manor mention Defoe as
living in Church Street and we may conclude that upon
the death of Nicholas Clarke (in 1715) he purchased the
property.
In the year 1713 he fortified his house ‘like Robinson
Crusoe's castle' and from thence he was carried into
custody by ‘officers, constables, . . . . and a great many
other persons to their assistance.’ The doors of the
house were many—to allow of escape—but they were
well fitted with bars and bolts—to exclude unwelcome
guests. Personally Defoe was brave enough and could
wield his “Protestant flail '' to some effect; but he had
learned from bitter experience that, once within the
clutches of his enemy, the prison gates were hard to
open. From this confinement he was soon released when
Queen Anne declared in Council that he had been
prosecuted thro’ nothing but personal pique.
Thus (in the year 1719) we find him in quiet at home,
able to afford time for the disposal of South Sea Stock
as well as for the publishing of Robinson Crusoe.*
*The two parts were followed in the next year by the “Serious
Reflections” in which he says that ‘Robinson Crusoe’ is the allegory
of his own life story—that his servant (“a Savage and afterward a
Christian ") was called Friday—and “It is most real that I had a
parrot, and taught it to call me by my name.”

:
I.
1709. Extract FROM will of Nicholas
CLARKE,” DATED MARCH 9TH, 1709,
PROVED MAY 5TH, 1715.
“. . . . Imprimis, I give and devise to my wife
Susanna Clarke and to her heires for ever all
that my coppyhold brick messuage, or Tenement
sometime since in the tenure or occupation of
Salem Osgood and now or late in the tenure or
occupation of Daniell Defoe And also all and
Singular Stables Outhouses Gardens Orchards
and Yards thereunto belonging with their and
every of their appurtenances situated and
being in Stoke Newington in the county of
Middlesex.”
R
* The same who is addressed in the lines of Dr. Watts beginning
“'Twas in the vale where osiers grow"—" The murmuring streams"
probably refer to the Hackney Brook which passed through Stoke
Newington, º

IT was not an unknown thing—in those days—for the
parish, when in want of money, to elect a wealthy person
with a view to the fine paid for escaping from office—
Thus Defoe finds his election an expensive compliment—
His contribution towards the debt of sixty pounds must
have been truly welcome as they were considering “how
to rate the money.' They do not press him to take office
and he, on his part, was glad to be free from local claims ;
to be left to his study, his horses, and his gardening. The
incident shows, however, that Defoe was, at this time, a
man of consequence amongst his neighbours.

II.
1721. ExTRACT FROM THE MINUTEs of
THE STOKE NEWINGTON VESTRY.
“Atta Vestery holden for the parish of Stoke
Newington in the county of Middlesex This
Ioth day of April 1721 Being Easter Monday
for ye choosing Churchwardens and Overseers
of ye Poor for ye year ensuing—the choyce fell
upon
Captain Jno. Whitty
Mr. Dan Deffoe
A motion being made to make an Estimate of
ye Debts of parish It was accordingly dun and
it was found to amount to Sixty Pounds or
thear about. Referd to conceder how to rate
ye Money next Vestery. Mr. Daniel d foe
haveing desired to be admitted to a fine to
excuse him all offices upon paymº of Tenn
pounds. It is agreed to accept of it.”
N.B.-This fine was duly paid.
THE son-in-law of Defoe was one Henry Baker (natural
philosopher and quondam bookseller.) He was married
in the year 1729 and the diary (written in the 3rd person)
gives an account of his courtship.
We have now (1729) come to the end of Defoe's life
at Stoke Newington. The house and its pleasure grounds
were held in the name of his 2nd son on behalf of his
wife and daughters. The troubles that overtook Defoe
rendered him an exile from home and family. (He retired
to a hiding place some two miles from Greenwich, and
ended his days in lodgings at Cripplegate.) But the
evidence shows that he was not reduced to absolute
poverty.
*~~ 34:
;
}
$
|
|
III.
I724. ExTRACT FROM H. BAKER's DIARY.
“Mr. Defoe had newly built (there) a very
handsome house as a retirement from London,
and amused his time, either in the cultivation
of a large and pleasant garden, or in the pursuit
of his studies, which he found means of making
profitable. He was now at least sixty years
of age, suffering from bodily infirmity (brought
on by overmuch study, ) but retaining his mental
faculties entire. Mr. Baker was so pleased
with his conversation that he seldom came to
Newington without paying a visit to Mr.
Defoe.”
The diarist mentions some pleasant tea-parties in
the house and entertainment in the garden when the
weather permitted. He continues (and, with a modesty
unusual to writers of a diary, uses the 3rd person in
speaking of himself, throughout).
“Mr. Baker very soon discovered the superior
excellencies of Miss Sophia, the youngest
daughter, of whose person and manner he
speaks in strains of the highest eulogium.”
With a shrewdness which may also be admired,
Mr. Baker discusses the question of a marriage portion
and is unwilling to accept the gratuitous but wholly
irrelevant statement that—
“Mr. Defoe could confide in the honour of
Mr. Baker.”
It was evident that Defoe could part with no ready
money for the purpose and ultimately this house at
Stoke Newington was engaged as security for the pay-
ment of £500 in dowry.

*—— Nº
IT is indeed pleasant to reflect that when prosperity
visited Defoe he was not forgetful of humbler brethren
(not of his own community) at Stoke Newington.
This extract is from a letter speaking of Defoe (in
1725) at the age of 64. He and his daughters (his wife
was probably an invalid) would seem to have tended
faithfully and provided liberally for the poor. He wrote
a tract headed "giving alms no charity” but yet another
of his was called “Charity still a Christian virtue.” And
amongst his more brilliant qualities we are to think of
him as one who loved and was beloved by the poor and
needy ones in the parish of Stoke Newington.
IV.
1725. Letter FROM THoMAs WEBR (QUAKER).
“. . . And poor distressed I, left alone, and no
one to go and speak to, save only Mr. Deffoe,
who hath ačted a noble and generous part
towards me and my poor children. The Lord
reward him and his, with the blessings of
upper and nether springs, with the blessings of
his basket and store, &c.”