Theophilus Salmon, 1785 – 1849
Theophilus Salmon served the Chartist cause as secretary to the City of London Charter Association and its Scientific and Political Institute. Already well into his fifties by the time the Charter appeared, he had a long and colourful life behind him when he turned to radical politics.
Theophilus Salmon was born to Robert and Rachael Salmon at Ferring in West Sussex and baptised on 5 June 1785. Aged 20, on 23 August 1805 he married Ann Goodman at the church of St Nicholas Cole Abbey on what is now Queen Victoria Street in the City of London. Ann died within a year, and in 1806, Theophilus remarried.
In 1807, Theophilus was witness to the horrific Old Bailey Disaster, when a huge crowd that had gathered outside Newgate Prison to watch a triple hanging was destabilised by the collapse of a wooden cart, leading to a panic in which as many as thirty people were trampled and crushed to death1.
Then staying at the King of Denmark public house (otherwise known as the Magpie and Stump) immediately opposite the prison2 and run by his brother in law, William Wilde, Theophilus was called by the coroner to give evidence. He said he had been watching from a first-floor window when he saw ‘a general motion’ in the crowd after the call ‘hats off’ as the first of those to be hanged ascended the scaffold. He saw several people fall, and others forced to step on and over them to avoid falling themselves. Other accounts say that it took an hour to clear the crowd. Theophilus told the coroner that by the time he was able to leave the building, ‘a cart was employed in carrying away the dead; and several that were maimed were conveyed on shutters or doors to the Hospital, as he supposed’ (General Evening Post, 26 February 1807, p1).
Licensed victualler, bookkeeper and ticket porter
By 1810, Theophilus had followed his brother into the licenced trade and was running the Blue Post at 7 Holborn. His second wife, Susannah, died the following year. He would appear to have married for a third, and a short-lived son, also named Theophilus, was born at Blackfriars in 1818. The next sighting of Theophilus comes in 1824 later when Theophilus and Ann Salmon had their son, William, baptised in Oxford. Theophilus gave his occupation as bookkeeper.
He must have returned to London soon after. In 1825, he was licencee of the Red Lion in Red Lion Street, Southwark. However, he was soon to leave the pub trade. By 1827, when called to give evidence in a court case at the Old Bailey, he was working as a ticket-porter. Men like Theophilus were a common sight on the streets of the city, where they could be relied on to carry goods, documents or messages across town in accordance with a fixed scale of charges. Licensed and regulated by the City of London Corporation, ticket-porters typically wore a distinctive white apron and wore a pewter badge carrying the City’s arms. Many worked from a regular spot on the city’s streets.
Perhaps the most famous London ticket porter is the fictional Toby Veck, the poor but good-hearted and hard-working character at the centre of Charles Dickens’ 1844 Christmas story The Chimes.
In the real world, and in evidence before the magistrates in 1824, Theophilus said that on 14 August he had been at Fleet Market. At quarter to five in the morning, he had left five baskets of apples while he unloaded other goods at the top of the market when he heard an alarm3. Realising that a basket was missing, ‘I looked up Ludgate-hill, and saw the prisoners carrying it away – it contained about three pecks; each had hold of a handle, and had got about one hundred yards. I overtook them at the corner of St. Martin’s-court – they said they had paid 6s. 6d. for it, but it was not for sale.’ Elizabeth King and Ann Lane admitted to stealing a basket, value 2s 3d, and three pecks of apples, value 4s, both of which belonged to Theophilus, and were gaoled for a month.
Ann Salmon died in 1827, and Theophilus married once again on 6 September 1828 at St George, Hanover Square, this time to Sarah Lewis. Their daughter, Sarah Rachel Salmon, was baptised at St Martin in the Fields, on 6 June 1830. Theophilus now described himself as a ‘merchant’s clerk’. In the years that followed, he appears to have tried his hand at a number of different jobs, including running a marine story and then a coffee shop at 25 Bride Lane, Fleet Street. But in May 1839, Theophilus Salmon ‘labourer’ of Harp-alley, Farringdon-street, was declared bankrupt and consigned to a debtors’ prison (Perry’s Bankrupt Gazette, 18 May 1839, p314 & 15 June 1839, p377).
Chartism and the Scientific and Political Institute
Clearly there were Chartists in the City of London from the very start. The radical printer and publisher John Cleave had premises just off Fleet Street and was actively involved in the local as well as the national movement for some years. But there is no mention in the Northern Star of a Chartist association there before January 1840 (NS, 25 January 1840, p5). Theophilus must have been involved in the locality from its early days. In the spring of 1841, the City Chartists set up a Scientific and Political Institute at least in part to manage their new meeting place at 55 Old Bailey; Theophilus was its co-secretary, serving alongside George Wyatt, and with John Cleave as treasurer. Later, when John Campbell, the secretary of the National Charter Association, provided a list of nearly 300 localities, he named both Salmon and Wyatt as secretary to the City Chartists (24 December 1841). Both now and for some months to come, Salmon gave 15 Harp-Alley, Farringdon-street as his home address (see, for example, NS, 22 January 1842, p5). He was living there at the time of the 1841 census, taken on 6 June, with his wife Sarah, son William and younger daughters Sarah and Isabella. In all, fifteen people lived in the building, which was shared with several other families.
By the end of the year, they had moved to 5 New-court, Farringdon-street. But Theophilus continued to serve as secretary (NS, 24 December 1842, p3).
William Salmon shared his father’s politics. The two are frequently to be found in reports of the City of London Chartist Association’s meetings seconding one another’s resolutions. And in the autumn of 1841, seventeen-year-old William as secretary and Charles Westry as chairman issued an ‘address of the youths of the National Charter Association, residing in the City of London, to their brethren of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales’ in which they urged ‘all you who have arrived at the age of fourteen (the age of discretion)’ to come forward and join the Chartist cause (NS, 23 October 1841, p6).
For the most part, Theophilus is mentioned in the Northern Star carrying out his administrative responsibilities: sending in money on behalf of the City locality to the various funds set up to support the Chartist prisoners and their families, to help pay for Chartist conferences. Some contributions, including subscriptions to the National Land Company, may have been his own money.
In the summer of 1842, Theophilus was called on to chair a meeting of the London Delegate Council called to wind up the accounts of that year’s national convention (23 July 1842, p7). He must also have been kept busy at Christmas 1842 when the Scientific and Political Institute took new rooms at Turnagain Lane. There was a great deal of work to be done in raising the necessary money, negotiating the lease and fitting up the rooms so that they could be used for meetings and social events, and to house a coffee shop and library. Managing the building, which was used extensively for public meetings called by Chartist and other groups, would also have been time-consuming and demanding.
In recognition of the work involved, the Institute agreed to pay its secretary 30 shillings a week (NS, 20 May 1843, p1). But Theophilus stood down from the post in favour of Thomas Martin Wheeler, who was also reluctant to take the job, but agreed to do it until someone else could be found. After this date it becomes difficult to distinguish in newspaper reports between Theophilus and William, though from the occasions on which William is named as ‘Mr Salmon jun’, it seems to be the case that both men remained politically active in the years to come. By 1848, however, they were part of the Finsbury locality. Theophilus Salmon was in the chair when that body met at the Star coffee house in Old Street to elect delegates for the district council, and William was one of those elected (NS, 24 June 1848, p1).
Theophilus died at his home, 32 Duke Street, South St Giles, on 29 July 1849. William was present and reported the death. Theophilus’s death certificate records that he was 64 years old, a porter by trade, and had been suffering from ‘organic disease of the heart’ for the past nine months. He was buried at St Giles in the Fields on 3 August 1849.
Notes and sources
I am grateful to Margaret Cassidy, the great-great-great granddaughter of Theophilus Salmon for sharing the results of her research, which have added a great deal to what is known of his life.
All newspapers referenced in the text above are taken from the British Newspaper Library. After the first mention, the Northern Star is cited as NS with the relevant publication date.
Birth, baptism, marriage, census, death and burial records are taken from Ancestry UK and FindMyPast.
1. ‘1807: The execution of Holloway and Haggerty: tragedy upon tragedy’, by Naomi Clifford on naomiclifford.com. Accessed here, 11 March 2025.
2. ‘The hanging pub’, by Mike Paterson for the London Historians’ Blog. Accessed here, 11 March 2025.
3. Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 9.0) September 1827. Trial of ELIZABETH KING , ANN LANE (t18270913-331). Accessed here, 11 March 2025).