Patrick Comerford
When I was in London last week, I visited Quemerford Street in Islington, wondering whether its name was linked with Quemerford in Wiltshire or the Quemerford origins of the Comerford family in Ireland, and I then went to the City, searching for the Jamaica and Jonathan’s, two of the oldest coffee houses in London, dating back to the mid-17th century.
The Jamaica Wine House is in Saint Michael’s Alley and Jonathan’s was in Change Alley, two of the many parallel narrow laneways running from Cornhill at the north end to Lombard Street at the south end, within three or four minutes of the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England in heart of the City.
Exchange Alley or Change Alley is a narrow alleyway that was once home to some of the best-known early coffeehouses in the City of London. Change Alley is not just one alley but a collection of at least five interconnected labyrinthine passages that have changed shape and direction down the centuries and with five access points: two off Cornhill, two off Lombard Street and one leading out of Birchin Lane.
The 17th and 18th century coffeehouses of Exchange Alley, especially Jonathan’s and Garraway’s, were early venues for lively trading in shares and commodities, leading to the formation of both the London Stock Exchange and Lloyd’s of London.
Change Alley was one of the main stages of the South Sea Bubble of 1720, when feverish buying and selling of South Sea Company stock sent prices soaring to over £1,000 a share before a dramatic collapse ruined many investors.
A fire on 30 March 1748 that began in a wigmaker’s shop in Exchange Alley destroyed between 90 and 100 houses and premises in the alley and nearby streets, killing several people. The blaze consumed many coffeehouses and taverns, including Jonathan’s, Garraway’s, the Swan, the Fleece and the George and Vulture, and the area had to be extensively rebuilt.
The shops that once lined Exchange Alley included ship chandlers, makers of navigation instruments such as telescopes, and goldsmiths from Lombardy in Italy, and the King’s Arms Tavern, where the Marine Society was founded in 1756.
But Change Alley was also the home for at least four generations in an interesting branch of the Comerford family in London, which was involved in book collecting for three generations and in medicine for two generations.
Although there are some traditions that this branch of the Comerford family originated in Coventry, family tradition insists that the family originated in Ireland and moved to London in the mid-18th century, and traces the family back to Thomas Comerford (1738-1812), who may have been born in Ireland and is the first-known ancestor of this family.
Despite family tradition that Thomas Comerford came from Ireland, Ashworth-Hill, in his paper on the Bosworth Crucifix, which was in the possession of James Comerford’s family from around 1810, wonders whether this Comerford family was related to the Comerford family who lived in Saint Michael’s Parish in Coventry in the first half of the 19th century.
Thomas Comerford was a tobacconist in London. He was twice married and married his first wife Alice Davenport (1735-1769) on 26 October 1759 in Saint Mary’s Church, Whitechapel. They lived in Leman Street, Whitechapel (1759-1768), and they were the parents of three sons:
1, William Davenport Comerford (1763-1763), died in infancy.
2, James Comerford (1764-1833), of whom next.
3, Thomas Comerford (1769-1810), draper, of Bond Street, who married Charlotte Watson (1772-1851), and has a large number of living descendants.
Alice died in childbirth in 1769, and Thomas Comerford married his second wife, Ann Underwood (1734-1807), in Saint Botolph’s Church, Aldgate, on 28 October 1770. Thomas and Anne Comerford were the parents of two more children, a daughter and a son:
4, Mary (1775-1839)
5, Charles Comerford (1784-1849), solicitor. He married Elizabeth Edings Morgan (1797-1867) in Saint Luke’s Church, Chelsea, on 1 May 1813. He lived at East Street, Lamb’s Conduit Street, off Great Ormond Street in Bloomsbury (1807), 16 Clement’s Inn, off the Strand in Saint Clement Danes parish(1838-1840), 72 Old Broad Street (1848), and 21 Oxford Square, Paddington (1849).
Thomas Comerford died on 29 June 1812 in the Parish of Saint Botolph, London. Hissecond but eldest surviving son was:
James Comerford (1764-1833) lived and worked for much of his life in Change Alley, where he traded as a tobacconist and snuff maker. He was born in 1764 and was baptised on 22 November 1764 at Saint Mary’s, Whitechapel. He was living at Tower Hill, London, on 7 November 1780, when he was indentured to a seven-year apprenticeship as a cooper. By 1790 he was a tobacconist and snuff maker at 50 Holywell Street, subsumed into the Strand years later when the street was widened. He then lived at Bayley’s Place, Tower Hill (1791-1795), before moving his home and his business to Change Alley.
James Comerford and his wife Elizabeth (1773-1833) were the parents of at least two sons:
1, William Comerford (1785-1801)
2, James Comerford (1787- )
When James Comerford died in 1833 at the age of 68, he was a tobacconist, living at Change Alley. He was buried at Saint Mary Woolnoth Church, close to Change Alley. His remains and those of four other people were removed on 14 December 1892 and reburied at Ilford Cemetery.
His second named son:
James Comerford (1787- ) was born on 26 October 1787 and was baptised at Saint Botolph Without Aldersgate Church on 28 January 1788. He married in Saint Andrew’s Church, Holborn, on 6 March 1805 Sarah (or Anne) Suffolk, then living in Saint Andrew’s Parish.
A family tradition says Anne Suffolk may have had a Jewish mother, and there was a tradition in the family – later dismissed – that her father was one of the many illegitimate sons of King George III.
This James Comerford started the book collection that his son, also James Comerford continued.
His son:
James Comerford (1807-1881) was a Victorian book collector, antiquarian and notary. He was born on 7 November 1807, in Castle Street, now Furnival Street, Holborn, and was baptised in Saint Andrew’s Church, Holborn, in March 1808.
James first practised as a notary public in partnership from December 1827 with TS Girdler as Comerford and Company at 27 Change Alley, which may have been his grandfather’s former tobacco shop. Later, he practised from premises at 7 Tokenhouse Yard, Lothbury, close to the Bank of London. He was also a magistrate or Justice of the Peace (JP). James Comerford was secretary to the Society of Public Notaries of London in 1833. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquarians (FSA) on 27 December 1840. His heraldic bookplates, with the motto So Ho Ho Dea Ne, are much sought-after collectors’ items.
James married Sarah Anne Bissett (1809- ), daughter of Captain James Bissett, in Wilmington, Sussex, on 16 July 1828. Her father was a sea captain who died in the American War in 1812. Her eldest sister, Anna Maria Bissett, married the Revd Robert Philip Blake (1801-1841), curate of Wilmington and of Stoke, near Guildford, who drowned at Niton, Isle of Wight, while swimming with his son; this son, the Revd Professor John Frederick Blake (1839-1906), was lecturer in Comparative Anatomy, Charing Cross Hospital, London (1878-1881) and Professor of Natural Science, University College Nottingham (1881-1888).
After their wedding, Sarah and James Comerford took a honeymoon during the Belgian/Dutch civil war. From 1829 and 1851, James and Sarah Comerford and their family were living at No 7 Saint Andrew’s Place, Regent’s Park, London. By 1872, the family had moved to Framfield, Sussex.
Family tradition says James was something of a rake, took fencing lessons from a well-known fencing master named Angelo, and fought a duel with a man named Atwood over his future wife.
James Comerford is best remembered as a book collector and antiquarian. He built on his father’s earlier book collection, and amassed a library that included a large collection of county histories, local topographies and books of Catholic religious piety.
James Comerford died on 8 March 1881 in the last cholera epidemic in London. After his death, Sotheby’s sold his library at auction on 16-20 November 1881, realising a sale total of £8,372 13 s. His books occasionally come back on the market, but more often they are valued for his heraldic bookplates than as antique books.
The Bosworth Crucifix … the most notable antiquarian item in James Comerford’s private collection, is now in the collection of the Society of AntiquariansThe most notable object of antiquarian interest in Comerford’s private collection was the ‘Bosworth Crucifix’, a 15th-century bronze processional crucifix, measuring 585 mm x 280 mm, now in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries of London. The Bosworth Crucifix is said to have been dug up on the Field of Bosworth in Leicestershire around 1778, and came into the possession of the Comerford family around 1810.
The crucifix was owned by the Carter family of Saint Michael’s Parish, Coventry, before it passed to the Comerford family – probably James Comerford’s father. However, it is still unclear how the crucifix passed from Joseph Carter, sexton of Saint Michael’s Church, Coventry, who died in June 1808, and whose will was granted administration in the Consistory Court of the Diocese of Lichfield on 7 October 1808. The cross may have been bought from Carter’s widow Mary between 1808 and 1810.
Sarah and James Comerford were the parents of two son and a daughter:
1, James William Comerford (1829-1917), who shared many of his father’s antiquarian interests, and of whom next.
2, Charles Frederick Comerford (1831- ), born on 2 July 1831, at Change Alley.
3, Emily Sarah (1842-1909). She was born in 1842, and was married twice: (1), Henry Burchett, and (2) the Revd Hamilton Brand in 1873and she was the parents of six children, with descendants living in Australia and South Africa.
James Comerford died on 8 March 1881. His elder son:
Colonel James William Comerford (1829-1917), was born in Change Alley on 6 November 1829, and was baptised on 19 January 1830 in Saint Mary Woolnoth. James and his siblings, who were born in Change Alley, were the last generation of the family to have an immediate connection with Change Alley, meaning four generations of the family members of four generations of Comerfords had a link with Crown Alley.
James W Comerford was a notary public, of 7 Tokenhouse Yard, London. By 1871 he was living at Coleshill Street, London, now Eaton Terrace. Following his father’s death, he sold his father’s and grandfather’s book collections in 1881. At the end of that year, in December 1881, James William Comerford exhibited and presented the Bosworth Crucifix to the Society of Antiquaries ‘in the name of his late father, James Comerford, Esq, FSA.’
James William Comerford lived at 38 Cambridge Street, London, and Saint George’s Road, London. He was a lieutenant-colonel and honorary colonel in the 13th Middlesex (Queen's Westminster) Volunteer Rifle Corps. He married Marianne Rouse (1829-1900) and their descendants included another generation of notaries public and athree or four generations of distinguished medical practitioners and surgeons.
James Comerford’s bookplates have become collectors’ items … they perpetuate the claims of the Comerford family in Ireland to descent from the Comberford family of Staffordshire