Life and Times of Alfred Boydell Lambe

Beginnings

Alfred Boydell Lambe, pictured below,¹ was born January 11, 1811 to Alfred and Ann (Philpot) Lambe.² He grew up at 149 New Bond Street,³ where, according to Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, his father had allegedly entertained King William IV to taste wine.⁴ (Lord Fisher's mother, Sophia Lambe, was Alfred Boydell Lambe's sister.) Alfred B. may, therefore, have come into contact with royalty. Note that Lord Fisher's recollections are not entirely reliable,⁵ but that as a young boy of 6 years, in about 1847, Lord Fisher did go to England to stay at 149 New Bond Street.⁶

Career

Based on London directories, Alfred B. spent his career in England following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather as a wine merchant. These Lambe wine merchants conducted their business primarily on New Bond Street in Mayfair, part of London.⁷ The will of Alfred B.'s great aunt, Charlotte Boydell, shows that he took over the New Bond Street premises in 1838, when his father, Alfred Lambe, moved to Bethnal Green, also part of London.^{8, 9}

On August 8, 1839, Alfred Boydell Lambe married Mary Eliza Austin in Canterbury Cathedral.¹⁰

What would we have seen if we paid a visit to Alfred B.'s shop? A recent picture of today's 149 New Bond Street is shown below right.¹¹ The building appears to predate the nineteenth century. Photograph of 149 New Bond Street Although we have no description of the appearance of the inside of the shop, we know that the premises would have to have been lit without electricity, and that the wines would have been kept in casks or glass jugs. We also know what sort of wares he carried. The following were advertised in 1840:¹²

Sherry,
Pale Dinner Wine,
Madeira,
Hocks,
Moselle,
Port (inlcuding Fonseca's, a brand that is still available today),
Champaigne,
Claret,
Chateaux Margaux and Lafite (also still available today),
Burgundy,
Marsals,
Cape, and
Constantia.

He adverised his business as being 80 years old in 1840, which proves to be a slight overstatement. Most interesting in this list is what is missing - no mineral water or spruce beer, which were key to his grandfather's busniess.¹³

Trials and Tribulations

Alfred B.'s life was not without difficulty. In 1857, renovations of his premises at the Royal Exchange Vaults caused him to take on too much debt, and he was forced to transfer the business to a creditor and, by some accounts, work as an employee.¹⁴ Life went from bad to worse when the new owner accused him of stealing sherry and selling it to his own customers. At his criminal trial, his capable defence lawyer brought out the fact that the man employed by the accuser to keep inventory records had been previously dismissed for poor record keeping, and Alfred B. was acquitted.^{15, 16}

In the 1860s he was appointed a vice president of the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys, suggesting a return to respectability.^{17, 18}

Immigration to Canada

Finally, in 1871, he, along with his wife and most of his grown children, made the decision to immigrate to Canada. Unlike most immigrants to Canada, the Lambes seemed to be relatively well off. Yet almost the entire family immigrated.¹⁹

Alfred B. and his family probably immigrated to Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Based on the 1881 census, the Lambes lived a few doors away from the Clarksons, so it was hardly surprising that three Clarkson children married three Lambe children.²⁰

Alfred Boydell Lambe died on January 9, 1881 in Hamilton, Ontario, perhaps while helping his son Harold establish a tea merchant business.²¹

Footnotes

¹Alfred Boydell Lambe (older), date unknown, courtesy of Laurie Wallace and Anna Lambe.

²Christening Record of Alfred Boydell Lambe, St. Mary, Marylebone, July 24, 1811.

³See, for example, the entry "Lambe Alfred, wine mercht. &c. 149, New Bond street" in Kent's Directory, 1827, p. 210.

⁴Bacon, Admiral Sir R. H., The Life of Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, Admiral of the Fleet, London: Doubleday, 1929.

⁵See, for example, Notes and Queries, vol. 156, 1929.

⁶Morris, Jan, Fisher's Face, London: Viking, 1995, p. 18.

⁷See, for example, the entry "Lambe Alfred, wine mercht. &c. 149, New Bond street" in Kent's Directory, 1827, p. 210. Also see the entry for "Lambe Alfred B." in Watkins's Commercial and general London directory and court guide, 1855.

⁸Will of Charlotte Boydell as reported in the records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, catalogue reference Prob 11/1932.

⁹1841 UK Census Record for Alfred Lambe and family, Borough of Tower Hamlet, Parish of Bethnal Green, p. 15.

¹⁰"Mariages" Times, August 20, 1839, p.7 col. 6.

¹¹149 New Bond Street, photograph by Andrew G. Clarkson, March 12, 2006

¹²"A.B. LAMBE, 149, New Bond-street" Times, October 23, 1840, p.1 col. 5.

¹³See page on his grandfather, John Lambe, for a discussion of the different wares sold by the two.

¹⁴In fact, there was a disagreement about whether Alfred Boydell Lambe was an employee or a partner.

¹⁵"Police", Times, May 7, 1859, p. 11 col. 3.

¹⁶"Third Court" Times, May 13, 1859, p. 11 col. 5.

¹⁷The newspaper report of this appointment refers to "Alfred Lambe", which is presumed to be Alfred Boydell Lambe, since his father Alfred Lambe by then was quite old and probably lived in Yorkshire, so would not likely have been able to render services to the institution.

¹⁸"Royal Masonic Institution for Boys", Times, April 10, 1866, p. 1 col. 3.

¹⁹Records for A.B. Lamb travelling on the Severn and the Prussian, July 27 and 29, 1871, respectively, in the Toronto Emigrant Office Assisted Immigration Registers Database on the Archives of Ontario website, accessed July 12, 2005.

²⁰1881 Canadian Census Records for Mary A. Clarkson and Mary E. Lamb, St. Thomas Ward, Toronto p. 19 and p. 20, respectively.

²¹Province of Ontario Death Registration for Alfred Boydell Lambe, January 15, 1881.