London Uncovered: Sixty Unusual Places to Explore by Daly Mark

Author:Daly, Mark [Daly, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Published: 2016-11-02T16:00:00+00:00

L. Cornelissen’s green frontage has been its signature for more than a hundred years .

In the calligraphy section, four different types of quills are offered .

The drawers and cabinets for canvas, parchment and paper date from the 1860s .

VISITING INFORMATION

L. Cornelissen & Son, 105A Great Russell Street, WC1B 3RY

http://www.cornelissen.com

Open 9.30am–6pm Monday–Saturday.

Truefitt & Hill

The world’s oldest barber has just five exclusive chairs. The portrait in the salon is of Naval Lieutenant, later Admiral Charles Holmes Everitt Calmady by William Pars, dating from around 1773, bewigged in the style of the day .

William Francis Truefitt opened a gentlemen’s barber shop in 1805 at 2 Cross Lane, Long Acre. By 1811 he had moved the business with its sole employee, his brother Peter, to 40 Old Bond Street, and became established as Court Hair Cutter and Court Head Dresser. He was soon also Wigmaker by Royal Appointment to His Majesty, King George III.

In the early years of the nineteenth century, when regular visits to the barber were essential to prepare the head for the wearing of wigs by gentlemen, the Truefitts’ barber shop flourished and Old Bond Street became increasingly fashionable. It may be fact or legend that the good fit of Truefitts’ wigs gave the raise to the English phrase ‘right as a trivet’, which was a corruption of Truefitt, referring to anything that was a perfect fit. The business was poised to move to the shaving of faces and the cutting of hair.

George III was destined to be the last British monarch to wear a wig, and after his death in 1820 the wig quickly disappeared from society outside the legal profession. High fashion for men was already favouring a neo-classical style of natural hair with a closely clean shaven face, as pioneered by Beau Brummel. Lord Byron and the Duke of Wellington had that style, and Truefitt was the barber to all of them. Later in the Victorian age, Gladstone was a Truefitt client and so was Oscar Wilde. Branches were established in Brighton and in Aldershot and Sandhurst, the grooming of military personnel being good business. In the high Victorian period, male fashion shifted to permit the full beard, chin-strap beard or full moustache, all requiring grooming.

Truefitt opened a ladies’ salon in Bond Street in 1870. In 1878 it started commercial manufacture and marketing of the products used in its shops. This included colognes, pomades and hair tonics. Known by this time as H.P. Truefitt, it described itself as a ladies’ and gentlemen’s hairdresser, perfumers and ornamental hair manufacturer.

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