Sarah Valentine, No Great Expectations: Part 1

By Philip Valentine Coates

This volume is the first in a trilogy, a fascinating historical biography about the authors great-great-grandmother, Sarah Valentine. Born in 1819 in the deprived East End of London, she led a life filled with heartache and adversity. England was in a deep depression, along with the whole of Europe, brought on by the Napoleonic wars. This was, of course, during the time of Charles Dickens, who would have known the area well. Some of Sarah Valentines experiences mirrored those of Dickenss characters, in that she was taken in by a Fagin of the time and fell into thievery. She was later thrown into the Shoreditch workhouse, where she fell afoul of a number of feral girls, who were quite happy to inflict serious harm to anyone who got in their way.
In his in-depth biography, Philip Coates offers remarkable insight into the daily struggles of a real-life, penniless young woman who survived a depraved and dangerous environment. His meticulous research has produced a unique portrait of a family member who was born in a turbulent time in Londons history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524665418

Philip Valentine Coates

Philip Valentine Coates was born in Sheffield, England and attended the University of Surrey, where he obtained his master’s degree. He has written comprehensive technology papers for publication and holds many patents registered in a variety of countries. He and his wife Jennifer have five children and fifteen unruly grandchildren, who are the loves of his life.

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© 2016 Philip Valentine Coates. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 11/03/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-6542-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-6540-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-6541-8 (e)

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Contents

The Author

Introduction

London In The Early 1800’S

Prologue    A Seven Year Old Rebel

Chapter 1    The Beginning, Thursday 23rd December 1819

Chapter 2    The Robbery

Chapter 3    Spitalfields Market

Chapter 4    Meeting New Friends, 1820

Chapter 5    The Realities Of Essex Street And Rose Lane, 1821

Chapter 6    Sarah Tests The Boundaries, 1822

Chapter 7    A New Baby, 1825

Chapter 8    Another Baby, 1826

Chapter 9    Bad Times, 1828

Chapter 10    The Poor Law, 1832

Chapter 11    Sarah’s First Day At The Workhouse

Chapter 12    Agnes’s Anguish

Chapter 13    Home Again

Chapter 14    Two Girls on the Street

Chapter 15    Facing Life’s Challenges

Chapter 16    The Tailor’s Shop, 1835

Chapter 17    Trouble In The Workhouse, 1836

Chapter 18    Put In The Madhouse, 1837

THE AUTHOR

T his is the first book for general public release written by Philip Valentine Coates. However it is certainly not the first written article he has produced. He spent many years as a highly qualified professional technologist specialising in advanced thermal imaging and image processing systems.

He has written many comprehensive technology papers for publication in specialist journals and has presented technical papers at many prestigious International Conferences. He even has acclaimed technical papers held in the British Library.

He is also the holder of many Patents registered in a wide variety of countries.

This experience has given him a unique skill in the in-depth researching of topics which has enabled him to produce a unique and revealing detailed insight into the remarkable life of a poor woman who was born 200 years ago in a deprived and dangerous Dickensian London.

He was born in Sheffield, England and attended The University of Surrey where he gained his Masters Degree.

He is married. He and his wife Jennifer have five children and fifteen unruly grandchildren who are the love of his life (if more than a little demanding!!)

INTRODUCTION

T his book is the first part of a trilogy of books comprising a biography of the harrowing life of Sarah Valentine.

When my grandfather, Charles Valentine died, my mother and I visited my grandmother Florence Valentine regularly, at her home in East London, and when she was too old to live on her own, she came to live her last days with us. She was crippled with arthritis, but she was sharp as a tack and very talkative. Like most elderly people, her short term memory often failed her, but her memory of the past seemed to be enhanced, particularly about her husband’s family, the Valentines’. Many times she regaled me, an impressionable schoolboy, with tales of old ancestors. One ancestor, in particular, intrigued me, as she clearly did my grandmother. This was my grandfather’s grandmother, my great, great, grandmother, Sarah Valentine. She was born in the early 1800’s in one of the roughest areas of East London. She came across as a dark and mysterious figure who lived a difficult, but colourful, life, in turbulent times, struggling against great adversity.

It was almost certainly these tales that prompted me, in later life, to look into my family history. When I located Sarah Valentine in the records I was astonished to find that the documents verified much of what I had been told. She was very much a woman of her time and as I uncovered more and more records a remarkable story unfolded.

One day, looking at the sterile pile of documents recording the individual events, I decided that I wanted to bring her, her family and her times, to life, making her more of a real person. I wanted to get a more complete picture of her day to day existence, to fill in the details between the documented facts. However, no one that was actually there survives today, so to do this I have combined family history, with evidence drawn from contemporary writers, such as Henry Mayhew and Edwin Chadwick, who have written extensively of people and conditions in the poor parts of East London during the 1800’s.

Sarah Valentine and her family lived in a notoriously bad area of London at a time of great change and major influx of people of various nationalities, creating a local mass of deprived humanity. In addition, England was in a deep depression, along with the whole of Europe, brought on by the Napoleonic wars. These conditions are well documented by contemporary authors and journalists. In particular, the Essex Street, Rose Lane area of Whitechapel, where Sarah Valentine was born, is particularly well documented, being the scene of a major early slum clearance initiative resulting in, what we now know as, Commercial Street.

In putting this narrative together my role has not been that of an author devising a plot; history itself has fabricated the plot which has unravelled with each document uncovered and is there for all to see, written indelibly in the old documents of East London Parishes. My role has been that of a chronicler, and the truth is indeed both stranger and more compelling than any fiction I might have dreamed up. But, it has not been an easy task, in fact, I have re-written it several times as further startling information came to light. She has proved to be a complicated character and I would not be surprised if there were yet more unknown revelations waiting to be unearthed.

This book is part 1 of the trilogy and focuses on the single girl, Sarah Valentine, as she grows from child to maturity, covering her birth in December 1819 to her coming of age in 1837, during which she was coming to terms with her turbulent world. She clearly led a rich and interesting life with significant lows and some highs, which I have attempted to capture as faithfully as possible. The neighbours, work colleagues and friends are also drawn from actual records of real people living there at the time; we can be sure that the events are recorded with as high a degree of verisimilitude as possible.

I have all the records to support the people and locations described in this narrative. Most of these were obtained from the Public and General Record Offices in London and Kew, the newspaper archives at Colindale and various libraries in East London. These are available to all.

As you read this account, you must keep in your mind that it is not some made up work of fiction, these events actually happened.

Philip Valentine Coates

LONDON IN THE EARLY 1800’S

L ike most major cities, London evolved around a major river, the Thames, which loops and curls through the city from west to east, exiting into the North Sea on England’s East Coast. In the 1800’s, as now, the geographical centre of the city could be regarded as being Charing Cross, with the Palace of Whitehall and the Houses of Parliament close by. The most built up areas lay to the north of the river in the old county of Middlesex. There was comparatively little to the south, which was in the county of Surrey.

From the city centre, on the north of the river, if we travelled east, along the Strand and Fleet Street, after about two miles we would have reached the Tower of London and the old London Bridge (replaced later by Tower Bridge). This marked the start of the East End. Just to the east of the Tower lay Wapping and the new docks. To the north of the docks was Whitechapel and the main thoroughfare to the east, the Whitechapel Road. Spitalfields was just to the north of the Whitechapel Road and in the early 1800’s, Essex Street was a narrow alleyway running from the north side of the High Street end of the Whitechapel Road up into Spitalfields, leading to Rose Lane and Red Lion Street. This area was a rabbit warren of decrepit run down housing, some dating back to before the great fire of London in 1666. Rife with disease, teeming with thieves, footpads and paupers; it is in this area that Sarah Valentine was born, lived her life and died.

Image1.jpg

Cary’s map of London 1837

PROLOGUE

A Seven Year Old Rebel

Petticoat Lane Market, June 1827

S arah Valentine was seven-years-old; she looked up at a clear blue sky, not a cloud in sight. She was reasonably turned out for a young girl in the East-End of London, even having worn, but matching, shoes on her feet. A dark shawl was draped round her and a pretty bonnet sat on her head; exactly as Mary Barker wanted her. She pushed a strand of her long dark black hair out of her deep brown eyes and glanced round her; the market was in full swing. Then she spotted him; he was a smartly dressed gentleman, a new expensive coat was open in the warm air revealing a jolly waistcoat with gold pocket watch. He was strolling idly between the stalls, not really concerned with the wares on display, clearly just ‘taking the air’. Sarah looked across at Mary Barker; she merely nodded back and gestured across to Billy. Sarah moved forward casually towards the gentleman.

Mary Barker was a well organised thief, skills developed by necessity and honed by experience. She never worked alone, that was far too dangerous. Indeed these days she did not get her hands dirty at all. Her young followers took all the risks; that included young Sarah Valentine. Her pattern was not unique, but well tried and tested. One person would distract, the ‘mark’. At that point another would pick his pockets, or ‘dip’, rapidly passing the goods to a third, who would ‘collect’ and beat a hasty retreat. That way, even if the original perpetrators were caught, no incriminating evidence would be found. If necessary, Mary herself, who would have taken no part in the activity, could claim to be an independent witness to the fact that it was someone completely different who committed the crime.

Sarah approached the gentleman. On reaching him, she moaned and fell at his feet, in a seeming dead faint. As Mary had calculated, Sarah, young, passably well dressed and with her long, dark, nicely groomed hair, cut a sympathetic figure sprawled on the floor. The gentleman immediately bent down to render assistance. Whilst he was tending to Sarah, his watch and wallet were skilfully removed by the first of Mary’s young boys, the dip. He quickly passed them to the second boy, the collector, who disappeared from the market in a flash. Sarah pretended to come round from her faint and rose slowly to her feet. Thanking the gentleman for his help, she started to move away. She had barely taken two steps when the gentleman let out a howl of rage.

My watch! My watch! he yelled, it’s gone! Someone’s taken my watch!

Sarah’s blood froze, he had realized his watch had gone far too quickly, she was acutely aware that hers was by far the most dangerous role, being so close to the mark. She knew better than to run; that would clearly give her away as one of the perpetrators. She slowly continued to walk away. But a market trader had seen the event and knew well how the game was played, having seen it many times before. He rushed from behind his stall and stood in front of Sarah, barring her path. He was a large heavily built man; she looked up into a massive florid face wearing an angry expression. He roughly grabbed her arm; her eyes were wide with fear as she tried in vain to pull away from him, but his grip was harsh and painful. Sarah looked round, a crowd was gathering, drawn by the gentleman’s shouts. She caught a glimpse of Mary Barker; as their eyes met, Mary turned away and walked off. Far too big a crowd had gathered for her to intervene; besides, her team had the spoils and Sarah was expendable, easily replaced.

As Sarah watched Mary’s back disappear into the crowd, she became desperate; she had to get away somehow before the redbreasts arrived. Struggling in the market trader’s iron grip, she started to scream. Help me! Help me! I am being assaulted! He is trying to rob me!

A nearby group of men turned and looked at her as she screamed; she fell to the floor, continuing to yell, waving at the men with her free hand. Now he is kicking me! Someone please, please, help me!

The men ran over and grabbed the market trader. As he remonstrated with them, his grip on Sarah slackened. Seizing her opportunity, she wrenched her arm free, leaped to her feet and sprinted off; her slight frame slipping rapidly between the massed crowds. After a few minutes she slowed to a fast walk, rubbing her arm where the market trader had gripped her.

As agreed previously, they all met up back at Mary Barker’s lodgings in Flower and Dean Street. The collector, a young boy named Billy, already had the spoils displayed on the table. Mary was examining the goods. She glanced up as Sarah entered, still rubbing her painful arm. Mary smiled, her damaged face turning the smile into more of a grimace. Thought you’d be smart enough to get away, then she turned back to the spoils, ignoring Sarah who was glaring malevolently at her. Mary picked up the gold pocket watch and examined it carefully. It was a fine item and had no personal marks or engravings; it would sell easily and fetch good money. The wallet was a find indeed! Crammed with bank notes.

Billy was dispatched to procure bottles of gin and they all proceeded to celebrate. Sarah was soon merry and dancing in the street with Billy, a bottle of gin clutched in her hand. She knew that she would get a severe thrashing from her dad when she finally tottered home. But she pushed that to the back of her mind. She was enjoying herself and he could go to hell.

Mary Barker had given Sarah some money for her efforts in the theft; that, and the gin she had consumed had pacified her, the market trader was forgotten. After finishing the gin Billy had procured, they adjourned to a dingy tavern at the end of Flower and Dean Street, where they spent the rest of the day drinking and singing loudly.

It was quite late when, having spent all her money, Sarah staggered out of the tavern, tripped and fell into a pile of rotting fish bones and oyster shells that had been unceremoniously dumped on the pavement. Trying to get to her feet she had stumbled over in her drunken stupor and hit her face on a wall. Her nose had started to bleed profusely, covering her face and the front of her dress with blood. Her once beautiful hair was now matted with slime from the rotting fish bones.

Reaching her home, she staggered through the door and stopped in the doorway; instantly, all eyes were turned upon her. Her brother Jimmy’s mouth fell open at the sight of her. Sister Charlotte’s eyes widened. Her mother was holding a sickly pale looking Joseph and yelled at her. My Gawd! Look at the state of yer!

Sarah’s father got up from the chair at the table where he had been sitting and strode over to her. His face was dark as thunder and set in an angry grimace. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her until her teeth rattled. Where the hell you bin? he snarled.

Sarah, unbalanced by her father shaking her, grabbed the side of the table for support. The small three legged table tipped under her weight and she fell sprawling on the floor. She pushed herself up into a sitting position and tried to stand up. Furious now, her father grabbed her hair and yanked her up off the floor. She howled in pain as her long hair was pulled hard. Now on her feet, she looked into her father’s angry face. Had a li’l drink dad, she slurred.

But, she was cut short by her father pushing her to the, still wide open, front door. On reaching it, he slapped his daughter hard round the face and pushed her out into the court where she tumbled over, falling onto the grimy dirt. You want to behave like street filth! he screamed, you can live in it!

With that he slammed the door on her. She rolled over and tried to get up. She got to her knees, but when she tried to rise to her feet, she fell back on the dirt. She lay there, on her back. She could taste blood from her nose and a cut lip, where her father had slapped her. She put her finger to her injured mouth and stifled a cry of pain. She tried to lift her head, but the court swam before her eyes and she let it fall back onto the dirt; she felt weary. After a while she drifted off into a disturbed sleep. She dreamed that she was being chased by hundreds of huge rats.

Suddenly, she was jerked awake by a stabbing pain in her hand. She turned her head to look at her hand. She had a throbbing pain in her head and had trouble focussing her eyes. Then she saw the huge rat chewing at the dried blood on her finger. Her eyes widened with fear and she jerked her hand away from the rat. To her intense relief the rat scuttled away. Then she became aware of movement on her lips and in her mouth. She put her hand to her mouth and her fingers touched small moving objects. She picked at one. It wriggled in her grasp. With sudden horror she realised that her mouth was full of writhing beetles, attracted by her blood. Screaming she sat up spitting out insects. Her mouth must have been open when she fell into her drunken stupor. She could feel one moving right at the back of her throat and with an overwhelming sense of nausea found that she was unable to prevent herself from swallowing it. Coughing and choking she crawled to her front door. She sat down with her back against the door and looked out across the court, fear in her eyes. She sat there shivering in the chill night air. She pulled her dress closer round her. The court seemed full of strange noises. She could hear men shouting and arguing over the far corner, by the privy. There was the sound of a scuffle, followed by a cry of pain, the sounds of breaking glass. She lent back into the doorway, hunkered down into the shadows, trying not to be seen. She remained there, unmoving for, what seemed like, hours. The sky was just starting to lighten when she fell into another disturbed sleep.

Just before dawn, her father opened the door and she fell backwards into the room at his feet. He looked down at her. Her face was covered in blood and dirt, her lip was swollen where he had hit her. Her long hair was matted and full of dirt from the court. She looked a pitifully wretched sight. With a resigned shrug of his shoulders, he took her under her arms and pulled her inside. He laid her gently down in the corner of the room, still asleep. Then he left for the docks and another day’s hard graft.

Shortly after, Sarah’s eyes opened, her head was pounding and her throat felt so dry that she could hardly breathe. She looked around her, struggling to focus her eyes. Then she realized where she was; the dismal, run down hovel her family called home; she felt dreadful. The thought that this vermin filled room was where she was born and had spent all of her short life deepened her evil mood.

CHAPTER 1

The Beginning, Thursday 23rd December 1819

H er screams filled the small dingy room, echoing back from the bare crumbling brick walls. The pain was intense; it had been coming in waves for, what seemed, hours now. It was bitter cold in the room, but the girl lying on the dirty straw mattress, on the uncovered stone floor, barely noticed that as her screams faded to a series of racking sobs.

The old crone sitting cross legged next to her peered down, t’wont be long now dear, hold on to me.

There was a stab of pain and the girl let out an involuntary cry. The two onlookers, scruffy, dirty faced boys of about seven and nine-years-old, took their hands from their ears and put them to their mouths. They were standing on the steps, more a ladder than real stairs, leading up to the floor above, staring wide eyed at the girl on the floor below.

The old crone continued. Don’t fight it dear, just relax and let it come naturally. The girl was gripping the old crone’s arm tightly, staring into deep set black eyes buried in the wrinkles of a time-worn face, the colour of parchment. Then, she felt something give; gritting her teeth, she pushed down. The old one shrugged her arm free from the tight grip, and bent down between the girl’s legs. Push a little more dear. That’s good. Now hold it! After a few moments the old woman emerged with a bloody shape clutched in her claw-like fingers. She put it over her shoulder and patted its back; next minute there was a loud cry as the new-born announced its presence. She carefully wrapped the baby in a scrap of dirty, stained cloth and placed it in the mother’s arms.

There was the sound of heavy footsteps from the floor above and a large figure appeared at the top of the steep, narrow steps. Ger up ere you two! addressed to the young boys still standing agog on the steps. They could not take their eyes off the scene below.

The old crone was busying herself with the afterbirth. She rose from between the girl’s splayed legs with a bloody mass, which she tossed in the piss pot sitting on the floor beside her, for later disposal in the street. The stray cats, dogs and rodents would feed well on that nourishing morsel.

Meanwhile, the large man at the top of the steps, having been ignored by his two boys, reached down and grabbed the right ear of the nearest lad. Gripping it firmly, he dragged the yelping boy up the steps. Then, he turned and stepped down to his second son. But, having seen what had just happened to his brother, the second lad was already climbing up the steps. With a brief glance at the spread legs of the girl on the mattress, the man retreated to the upstairs room.

Having disposed of the afterbirth, the old crone turned her attention to the girl. When she looked at her the girl was holding the baby at arms length and staring at it as if it was an alien being just deposited in her arms from some distant world. The old one put her arms round mother and child, pushing the child closer to her mother. Cuddle her tight, it’s bloody cold in ’ere and she needs yer warmth.

Finally, relaxing with her new bundle, the mother smiled happily into her baby’s bright blue eyes; then a thought came into her head, she looked up at the crone with a frown on her face. That’s funny, she said, the Valentines’ all have brown eyes.

The old one cackled, then coughed with a phlegmmy rattle and spat in the corner. All new-borns’ ’ave blue eyes; they will go brown when she gets older, you’ll see.

The mother stared at her child with wonder. Is that really so?

After a while, the old one asked, so, what will you call ’er?

It took no thought at all, it was long family tradition. As my first girl she will take my name of course.

So, said the old crone, "she will be known as Sarah Valentine then."

It was a bitterly cold December in the year of 1819, in Whitechapel, London. The new mother lay on her old straw mattress in the cold empty room that she and her husband, James Valentine, called home. She was alone now as the old crone had left to join her drunken husband in the nearby Rose and Crown Tavern. She held her new bundle close and listened to the thumping sounds and raised voices of the family upstairs. The large man, whose name she did not know was arguing with his wife, whilst their two boys were yelling at their older sister. Closer to her, she could hear the scuffling of nearby rodents, she put her arms protectively round her new infant and smoothed its matted black hair with her hand, rocking gently back and forth.

She was barely twenty, of short stature and very slight build. Skinny due to lack of nourishing food, with dark, unkempt, medium length hair and deep brown eyes; somewhat plain in appearance, rather than good looking, not helped by the trails that her tears had left in the dirt of her, otherwise smooth, face. But, she was strong, fit and healthy, which was the major requirement in this deprived part of London. Many could not lay claim to those particular attributes.

Smallpox had claimed her mother, along with many others, while she was still quite young. She could still remember vividly the terrible sight of her mother as the dreaded disease ran its inexorable course. Great eruptions of pustules had covered her body, her face became unrecognisable as their increasing density distorted her features. She watched as her mother, raging with fever, clawed at her itching arms, legs and face with an intensity that drew blood. The resulting secondary infections had added further crusty swollen patches which left her hardly recognisable as human. No one in the house had any sleep as her mother spent the nights screaming with agony. It was in some ways a blessed relief, when her mother was discovered one morning, lying stiff on her mattress. They could not afford a funeral and the body lay decomposing in their small room for many days before it was finally taken away; the smell was unbearable. Her last memory of the woman who had given her life was through tearful eyes as she, along with all the neighbours, watched her mother humiliatingly wheeled through the street, on a hand cart, arms and legs splayed over the sides, pale, sightless eyes staring from a hideous caricature of what was once a pretty face.

London was rife with disease and plagues. The current problem was Typhus fever, endemic in the poorer areas for the last three years. It was carried through the slums by lice. Here, diarrhoea was the constant, normal condition. She shivered involuntary with the chill in the air. She had but the one lumpy straw mattress and a threadbare blanket. She looked around at her surroundings; the room was small, less than ten feet square. On the floor, at the opposite corner of the small room, lay the mattress shared by the old crone and her perpetually drunk husband. There were two further mattresses, in the two remaining corners of the room, One had been occupied by an old Irish labourer. That was until yesterday, when the landlord and two ‘heavys’ turned up and threw him and his few belongings into the street, presumably for non-payment of the rent. However, it would soon be occupied by some other poor soul; there was precious little room to spare in this part of the great city. The last mattress was shared by two sisters aged about six and eight-years-old respectively. Both their parents had been taken by one of the incessant plagues and they had no living relatives to turn to. For them normal childhood was not an option. Despite their young ages, they made a precarious existence selling ‘creases’. Each morning they got up in the dark to get to Farringdon Market by 5:00am. There they bought as many bunches of watercress as they could afford that day, at halfpenny a handful. After washing them under the pump they formed them into small sprigs. They then walked the streets of London, barefooted, trying to sell the creases at four sprigs a farthing. It was bitterly cold work in the winter months and their hands were frozen blue by the evening. They made a pitiful sight when they returned, sometimes only making a few pence for twelve hours walking the streets. Often, they barely made the money for the rent, most days they starved, preferring a roof over their heads at night to being tossed out into the cold dangerous streets.

One very small window, set high in the front wall provided what little natural light filtered in, revealing the dirt and rubbish scattered across the floor. The broken window glass had a large hole, covered with paper to keep out the chill winter wind. The room was the small ground floor of a two storey, poorly built, structure, in a row of similar dwellings. The front door led straight onto the steep narrow stair leading to the upper floor. This was a room shared by a family of five and an Irish labourer and his wife. There was a dirty curtain, strung on a line across the room to screen off a small space each side in some desperate attempt at privacy for the two families.

The young mother’s eyes continued to scan her surroundings. They came to rest on the piss pot, recently used to dispose of the afterbirth; the old crone had left it just behind the front door, at the bottom of the stair. All bodily functions were carried out in this one room, the pot serving them all. It was emptied into the yard in the morning; a similar pot sat at the top of the stair for the use of those in the room above. Without having to look, she knew that the vista outside the front door was, if anything, less prepossessing than the one inside. There was a filthy yard covered in dirt and littered with rubbish, the detritus of masses of poor people living in too small an area. It was closed in on all sides by inferior, poorly built, dwellings, most giving the impression that it was only God’s will that kept them standing.

The area where the young mother and her husband lived was known as the Essex Street, Rose Lane, rookery. It was just to the east of London town and bursting to overflowing with the masses of people who had flocked to London to get work. Most failed in this endeavour as they were living in an England that was deep in economic recession following the end of the Napoleonic wars. The wars had cost the Country dearly, even necessitating the first ever ‘income tax’ to be levied on the Nation. The Royal Family was universally hated; the King, George lll, was insane and his sons openly led a life of debauchery.

Their home was just off the High Street end of the Whitechapel Road, which was the main thoroughfare running west to east out of the city. It was an area that would gain notoriety in later years as the haunt of ‘Jack the Ripper’. They lived in a court off Essex Street, which ran north from the Whitechapel High Street, up to Wentworth Street. The entrance to Essex Street was a small gap, no more