Beaver House London

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Entrance portal (1961)

The Beaver House (German: Biberhaus), also Beaver Hall , was a building erected by the Hudson's Bay Company in central London . In addition to office space, the magnificent building contained an exhibition hall and an auction room for 700 buyers, in which fur skins were traded.

The area around Garlick Hill Street , with Beaver House in Great Trinity Lane, was once a world center for the fur, hide and leather trade with many relevant companies, and was still the world's largest trading center for fur skins after the Second World War. London was the main hub for raw hides from North and South America and Australia.

history

From 1668, even before the Royal Charter was granted to the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), London was the company's business center. This remained so when HBC became a Canadian company in May 1670. The British capital was home to their administrative offices, warehouses, suppliers, bankers, customers, shareholders and auction rooms. At least towards the end of the 18th century, fur skins were not only imported for the English market, but also exported. Buyers from mainland Europe embarked on the journey to London, which at the time often lasted several weeks, the canal crossing initially on a sailing ship.

HBC's London offices were located in what was already commonly known as Hudson's Bay House. Offices with this name were first mentioned in the company minutes of December 30, 1682 and referred to the rented premises of the "Scriveners' Hall" on the corner of Noble Street and Oat Lane. For the next hundred years, these offices were in a variety of locations including 3-4 Fenchurch Street and 1. Lime Street. Peter C. Newman wrote of the Frenchurn Street property in Company of Adventurers, describing: “On the across the street from Elephant Inn, where the painter William Hogarth paid his rent in his apprenticeship years with four murals in the taproom - one of his themes was "The Hudson's Bay servants go to dinner" ". The final version of Hudson's Bay House, Bishopsgate 60-62-64, was designed by Mewes and Davis and built in 1926.

In 1925, the 255th year after the Hudson's Bay Company was founded, the newly built Beaver House opened on Great Trinity Lane, near the Bank of England, which is no longer there. Previously, most of the fur auctions had been held in the rooms of the tobacco company CM Lampson & Co. on Queen Street. The Hudson's Bay Company had enjoyed the hospitality of the world's largest tobacco goods trading company until the company took over Lampson shortly before the Second World War. While Lampson's goods could be viewed in the surrounding buildings, Hudson's Bay had previously used the East India Company's old silk warehouse on Lime Street. In 1940 the main office was moved from Hudson's Bay House to Beaver House; the Hudson's Bay House was sold around 1948. The new Beaver House housed the offices, refrigerated storage rooms and the auction room. Beaver House remained the official headquarters of the HBC until it was moved to Canada in 1970. In mid-1978, the tobacco merchant Francis Weiss observed an apparently major renovation on or within the building.

Garlick Hill, the district in which the Beaver House was located, was declared a "Conservation Area" in 1980, which means that no building may be destroyed without the consent of the town planners. The Beaver House was approved for demolition in 1982, and the property was redeveloped in the mid-1980s by Markborough Properties , a real estate subsidiary of the Hudson's Bay Company. The new complex, now known as the Royal Bank of Canada Center , was completed in 1987 and now consists of two connected office buildings. A special feature is the atrium, which includes planted areas and lets light into the inward-facing offices. The original entrance facade of the Beaver House is also integrated into the atrium. A memorial plaque from 1987 and an old wind vane also commemorate the Hudson's Bay Company, which was located here.

Not far away is Skinners Hall , the seat of the Skinners' Company , one of the oldest guilds in town (Skinner = tanner , also known as fur dresser ). In earlier times it supervised the refining , production and sale of furs for its members , which were mainly used for trimming the clothes of high-ranking people, and controlled the training conditions in the furrier trade. Today the company is mainly active in the public interest. At the foot of Garlick Hill, on the corner of Skinners Lane and diagonally across from the Royal Bank Center, is the parish church of St. James Garlickhythe with two plaques commemorating the employees of the London Hudson's Bay Company who lost their lives in both world wars . On the initiative of the fur trader Francis Weiss , who wrote about the history of the fur trade, Maiden Lane was given the new name Skinners Lane (Gerbergasse) at the end of the 20th century .

The Hudson's Bay Company, originally founded as a fur trading company, is now primarily active in the retail sector. The large tobacco auctions are now mainly held in Denmark by the Copenhagen Fur breeders' association .

Auctions

Fur traders outside Beaver House in their white coats (1964)

The Beaver House was known beyond the industry for its remarkable hall with the large windows that let in the northern lights, which are particularly suitable for the important evaluation of goods. The hall was so impressive that the commercial building itself was often referred to as "Beaver Hall". During the preview of the goods, the buyers in their white coats were characteristic, and until the end of the 20th century they were still the typical clothing of the entire fur industry.

Up until the beginning of the 20th century, auctions were not as thoroughly rationalized as they were in the following decades - now the largest tobacco auctions can also be bid digitally or by telephone. Emil Teichmann introduced the first changes to Lampson in the 1880s. In addition to other improvements, since then one no longer has to look at every single skin, but rather the buyers viewed show lots , small bundles that correspond to the quality of the goods offered in this lot. The extensive auction catalogs with detailed descriptions and exact details of the origins were not yet available. The mainly European, but also American buyers had to have a high level of specialist knowledge and, still without a calculator, be able to calculate quickly and convert into their home currency. The quantities offered in each case were enormous and the auctions often lasted longer than a month. A buyer needed a full week to inspect the goods. The tobacco retailer Francis Weiss recalled: “ Francis Edward Goad was the chief auctioneer for Lampson and Hudson's Bay until his death in 1951. »Frank« was much more deliberate than today's hammer magicians and always very patient and very fair, knew a lot about goods and had an admirable feeling for the hall and the market situation ”.

In the 1920s, the main types of fur traded here were American opossum and Australian opossum , wallaby , muskrat and red fox , each in millions. Persian and mink skins were still insignificant; fur farming had only just begun. When the first breeding silver fox skins from Canada came to London for auction, the consignors were still hiding the fact that they did not come from the wild. The skins fetched an astonishing average price of 275 pounds in 1910, while the most expensive black variant fetched 540 pounds.

The Hudson's Bay Company's last auction in London ended on May 31, 1989 at 10:30 a.m.

Web links

Commons : Garlick Hill  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Commons : Hudson's Bay Company  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alexander Tuma: Pelz-Lexikon. Fur and Rough Goods, Volume XVII . Alexander Tuma, Vienna 1949, p. 71 , keyword “Beaver House” .
  2. ↑ Elizabeth Ewing: Fur in Dress . BT Batsford Ltd, London 1981, p. 144 (English).
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Hudon's Bay Company: Beaver House . Last accessed on October 7, 2019.
  4. ↑ Emil Brass : From the realm of fur . 2nd improved edition. Publishing house of the "Neue Pelzwaren-Zeitung and Kürschner-Zeitung", Berlin 1925, p. 275 .
  5. ^ A b c Francis Weiss: Mutatis mutandus . In: Winckelmann Pelzmarkt No. 346, July 23, 1976, Winckelmann Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 1-5.
  6. ↑ Alexander Tuma: Pelz-Lexikon. Fur and Rough Goods, Volume XVII . Alexander Tuma, Vienna 1949, p. 154 , keyword “English tobacco and fur industry” .
  7. ^ Deidre Simmons: Keepers of the Record: The History of the Hudson's Bay Company Archives . Mc'Gill-Queens University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-7735-3291-5 . Last accessed on November 12, 2019.
  8. ^ Johanna Kroll: On June 1, 1974: 100 years of Fima Max Weiss & Son, London . In: Pelz-International No. 6, June 1974, p. 47 ff.
  9. ^ Francis Weiss : From Adam to Madam . From the original manuscript part 2 (of 2), (approx. 1980 / 1990s), in the manuscript p. 194 (“191”) (English).
  10. ^ Francis Weiss: The romantic fur trade . In: End of the year 74 , Fränkische Pelzindustrie - Marco Pelz (Hsgr.), P. 38.
  11. ↑ Momentous decisions in London . In: Winckelmann International Fur Bulletin No. 2175, Winckelmann Publications Ltd., London, June 9, 1989, p. 1 (English).