George Landmann's Woolwich childhood

 

Now that my book about George Livesey is finished and published (please buy it!) I thought I might move on to do a biography of George Landmann.  He was the Royal Engineer who built the Greenwich Railway -  the railway between London Bridge and Greenwich which we all still use and which was the first commuter railway in the world. George was born and brought up in Woolwich and a couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece here about his father, Isaac Landmann, who was recruited by the British government from France to teach artillery and fortification at the newly established Royal Military Academy.

George was born in 1779 in staff accommodation in the building called ‘The Academy’ or Building 40’ and used by the entertainment complex which replaced the Greenwich archive and museum . Designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor it was used by the Royal Military Academy in 1731. George described it as ‘ancient’. 

The RMA building was had been built on the site of a 16^th century mansion,Tower Place  and the tower remained. George says it was the home of a Mrs. Simpson ' the widow of Thomas Simpson mathematics master at the RMA.   The Tower was 'considered unsafe' and  George saw it rocking to and fro in a high wind.  - His father showed him how to carry out tests on what he had seen by 'suspending a plummet to the ceiling' - and, yes, the Tower did rock two inches either way. This illustrates of how George was educated from his earliest years  by his father – and was also  surrounded by an intellectual and scientific elite.

 Cadets in the Academy were taught ‘ writing, arithmetic, algebra, Latin, French, mathematics, fortification, attack, defence, gunnery, mining, laboratory work, fencing, dancing.’ Staff appointments included some of the most distinguished scientists of the day - and it was the foremost educational establishment for technical subjects in the country.

There were also many distinguished visitors to the RMA who were met with George’s father. - George III himself was a frequent visitor and special displays would be put on by the cadets and members of the artillery. I described in a earlier article how the Landmanns entertained the French virtuoso Chevalier St. George.  Another visitor was  'Madame la Princess de Lamballe' – ‘the intimate friend of Marie Antoinette... with - "a train full five yards long...borne by a young black page ‘.  She ate a lunch prepared by George’s mother- and  it is disturbing to learn of her end, years later- raped, violently killed, mutilated, her head paraded around Paris on a pike.  Otherwise and more normally visitors were dignatories like The Duke of Richmond (Master General of the Ordinance),  General Sir W. Green (Chief Royal Engineer), Major Blomfield, (Inspector of Artillery),and of course  Nevil Maskelyne (Astronomer Royal)

George was sent to school at the age of six and this is somewhat of a mystery. He says he was sent to a school run by a M. Dufort, a Frenchman although M.Dufort has so far proved untraceable. He also says it was’ later a school conducted by the Reverend Dr Watson ‘ –This must be the school advertised in the Kentish Gazette  “SHOOTERS - HILL SCHOOL WILL open on Monday, the 22nd of January, 1787. where young Gentlemen will be genteelly boarded, and taught the Greek, Latin, and French Languages, Writing, Arithmetic, Vulgar and Decimal; Book-keeping, Mensuration, Geography, &c. &c. By SAMUEL WATSON, A. B. Student of Christ-church, and able Assistants. Terms, Twenty Guineas per Annum, and Two Guineas Entrance.  Drawing, Dancing, &c. by eminent Masters.”.  Rev. Samuel Watson was also ‘Senior Chaplain of the Ordnance Department in Woolwich Garrison, Rector of Gravesend, and a Magistrate” The Gravesend diarist, Robert Pocock, remembered  that the Rector had been master at The Shooters Hill Academy.

Georg also says that he met William Congreve at school. I don’t doubt that Congreve and Landmann were friends as adults but Congreve’s biography gives no hint of him attending a school in Woolwich. He was also a few years older than George- and such a gap is important when one of you is only six –and so it is unlikely they were at school together. George says in his autobiography that some of  his ‘ memories; are extracts from his father's 'commonplace book' and admits they may be out of order.   

Living on what became the Arsenal site meant that he saw a lot of foundry and other work which involved weaponry, its manufacture and testing. For instance tests on firing guns in different wind speeds were carried out two hundred yards from the front of the barracks - sometimes with alarming results.  He describes how a batch of new cannon - a hundred or so received from the Carron Company -  were all lined up pointed at a butt and then set off.  It was 'no very uncommon occurrence' for cannon to burst - and on this occasion one bursting set off its neighbour sending a cannon ball flying in the direction of Woolwich Church. 

Even outside the Arsenal he couldn’t get away from explosions.  Out for a walk with his mother and sister one day they visited the battery on Plumstead Common. A mortar was fired and they were struck with a shower of something like gravel. The gun had burst on firing and the artillery men around it had been all knocked down.

Of Woolwich itself around 1780  he says- "the inhabitants there was very respectable - but only three kept carriages'  The first of the three he lists is Squire Martin, an 'opulent and independent farmer'. He then lists 'Squire Bowater' - the Bowater family are well documented and owned huge areas in the western part of Woolwich. There is also however a bit of a problem. If we take it that George's memories are of his childhood - say 1780-1790 - then the inheritor of the Bowater estate, John, was in Europe avoiding those looking to recover vast debts from him, having fled the country in 1778. There also seems to have been a certain amount of scandal attached to his marriage. Although, I suppose, young George might not have known about all this.

He also mentions a 'Mr.Whitman who 'kept a carriage' and  built a house  ‘on the northern declivity of Shooters Hill". George adds hat the house was later owned by "General Cuppage" . I was very disinclined to believe that anyone of such a strange name existed but it turns out that following a distinguished career the General settled in Shooters Hill. He was Irish from a family with close ties to Edmund Burke and had been educated at the Royal Military Academy.  His Shooters Hill house is said to have extended considerable hospitality to 'educated and scientific men'.  George says it was 'in front of a piece of water which owing to its peculiar position on the side of the hill appears to be out of level'.

George remembers someone with many social contacts, including 'Lord Eardley of Belvedere' - although  Samson Gideon was not created Baron Eardley until 1789, but George's account is, of course, retrospective.

He devotes a couple of pages to the work of Sergeant Bell concentrating on the Sergeant's suggestions for raising the Royal George wrecked at Portsmouth. John Bell was indeed based at Woolwich - and had actually witnessed the wreck of the Royal George. His ideas for raising the ship were demonstrated - in front of a distinguished audience and  Landmann describes other devices invented by him. Bell is one of the many people in this period who developed new methods of working - but not one of the ones which will get mentioned in accounts of 'great inventors' or the 'industrial revolution'.

George wrote about many other childhood memories  - and  his memories are sometimes a bit imperfect. He was a privileged child who met interesting and important people in circumstances where other children might have been sheltered. The people he met were from an overwhelmingly military background - but one which was intellectual, cosmopolitan and more than a bit eccentric.

When he was about 10 years old the family left Woolwich and moved to the posher bit of Greenwich, as we will see.