Robert George Alabaster
by Justin More
Reading Shirley Rowe's interesting article on Robert George Alabaster (Chronicle No. 26, pages 26-30) prompted me
to dig out some Alabaster memorabilia from the depths of an old suitcase, and I can add a little to what she had
reported from an article in the Hackney Express and Shoreditch Observer.
That article mentioned the recognition of his strenuous services to the Shoreditch Vestry (a forerunner of the Borough
Council) by the 'magnificent presentation of Plate and Furniture from his fellow citizens'. I think that this refers to a
Presentation Dinner held at the Guildhall Tavern on 27th April 1891, and I have the original menu of that dinner,
which is illustrated here.
By that time Robert George was over 60, but that does not seem to have prevented the assembled multitude, chaired
by the Chairman of the Board of Guardians of St Leonard, Shoreditch, from consuming no fewer than eight substantial
courses, singing nine popular songs and joining in eight toasts and responses. It must have been a long night!
Before that Robert George had come to the attention of Charles Booth, who was conducting a survey of the East End
of London in order to record the poverty which predominated at that time. On 23rd May 1887 Booth walks through
Finsbury Market in Shoreditch and finds Robert Alabaster J.P. collecting rents from his tenants in Alabaster Buildings,
a tenement block which he had erected near his public house. The entry in his journal is illustrated.
At that time, as the Observer records, Robert George Alabaster was living in his 'quiet retreat' at The Hawthorns, 54
Amhurst Park, Stamford Hill, a house he had had built for himself following his acquisition of Batey & Co. in 1881 and
the subsequent success of that company. I have an extract of the census return for the same year, 1891, which is also
illustrated. It shows him 'living on own means' with his wife Jane, his son Robert James, who by then was the
Managing Director of Batey's, and his daughter Martha Clara. There were also two servants.
On 7th September 1898, Clara Alabaster marries Hermann Sipf, an insurance broker from Frankfurt-am-Main in
Germany. The Order of Service for the ceremony, which took place at St Andrews, Stoke Newington, shows some of
the choices of music: Mendelssohn's Wedding March and Bridal Music from Wagner's Lohengrin. But the couple's
happiness is short-lived - Clara's mother Jane dies 10 days later on 17th September. The 1901 census has Robert
George living in the Hawthorns with his son Robert James, daughter Clara, son-in-law Hermann, their baby of two
months Gwendolin Edith (she is to die on 13th November of that year), two servants and a nurse.
The quiet retreat noted by the Observer turned out not to be so quiet after all, however - on the night of 1st March
1910 PC John Coles follows three suspects along Amhurst Park towards Stamford Hill Station, where they are
apprehended and found to be in possession of a jemmy, a candlestick and a cigarette paper with writing on it: 'Mr
Alabaster, Amhurst Park, N.' The villains surrender with the immortal words, "All right, gov`nor, I will come quiet." and
are each sentenced to three years penal servitude.
Robert George Alabaster died at his Stamford Hill home on 4th January 1915 at the age of 85 after what the Observer
called a full and useful life. He had had five children, three of whom died young, and six grandchildren, five of whom
survived him. My father was the youngest of these.
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