A memorial to Joseph Hume 1856

Willis’s Rooms, St James’s

There are three parties in the field desirous of raising a memorial to the late Mr. Hume. In April last, a body of working men met and took steps towards raising funds : in September, there seems to have been a simultaneous but independent move by a section of the House of Peers; and a number of persons who held a meeting in Marylebone, over which Sir Benjamin Hall presided. Earl Fortescue and Lord Hatherton were instrumental in collecting the signatures of thirty Peers to a circular convening a meeting held a short time since in Willis’s Rooms ; and at an earlier date Sir Joshua Walmsley and others got together the signatures of 250 Members who express a desire that the monument erected should be one set up in the House of Commons. On Saturday last, representatives of all the parties met at Willis’s Rooms. Earl Fortescue occupied the chair. Earl Granville, Lord Panmure, Lord Hatherton, and the Duke of Somerset, represented the Peers; Sir Benjamin Hall, Sir Joshua Walmsley, Mr. William Ewart, Mr. Edward Ellice, Lord Robert Grosvenor, represented the Commons ; and Mr. Wall, the Secretary of the Working Men’s Association, represented that body. In the course of the proceedings, each party described the share it had respectively taken, and a common understanding was arrived at. It was resolved that Mr. Hume had a claim to a “lasting record of the gratitude of his countrymen” for forty years of disinterested services ; that a subscription should be opened for the erection of some public monument in his honour ; that no sum subscribed should exceed ten pounds; that a committee should be entrusted with the promotion of the subscription ; and that Sir Benjamin Hall, Colonel Sykes, and Mr. Roebuck, the trustees of the Working Men’s Association, should be the trustees of the Committee.

The above text was found on p.5, 23rd February 1856 in “The Spectator” 

[Close by the St. James’s Theatre, on King Street, St James’s (almost opposite Christie’s) are “Willis’s Rooms,” a noble suite of assembly-rooms, formerly known as “Almack’s.” The building was erected by Mylne, for one Almack, a tavern-keeper, and was opened in 1765, with a ball, at which the Duke of Cumberland, the hero of Culloden,(a rather curious choice of words) was present. Almack, who was a Scotchman by birth, seems to have been a large adventurer in clubs, for he at first “farmed” the club afterwards known as “Brooks’s.” The large ball-room is about one hundred feet in length by forty feet in width, and is chastely decorated with columns and pilasters, classic medallions, and mirrors. The rooms are let for public meetings, dramatic readings, concerts, balls, and occasionally for dinners. Right and left, at the top of the grand staircase, and on either side of the vestibule of the ball-room, are two spacious apartments, used occasionally for large suppers or dinners.] from Old and New London: Volume 4. Originally published by Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London, 1878.