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Public Houses

Tags: Arundel Street, Campion Bakery, Cobden Arms, Duke of Clarence pub, Henry Brickwood, Queen Street, Red Lion

“I was born in the Red Lion. My Grandfather built it and we lived in it for three years. My mother was the manageress of Campion bakery”- Comment submitted by a Portsmouth resident.

“I remember the George and the Dragon Pub. We had some coach Stables at the rear of the pub. As a youngster, I would ride the horses through the bar of the pub out into the high street where we would ride the horses up and down the high street”- Comment submitted by Kim, a Portsmouth resident.

The records of the Court Sessions for 1859 have details of a crime taking place in the Cobden Arms, Arundel Street, owned by Henry Brickwood. Two women, Elizabeth Arrowsmith and Eliza Phillips robbed one of the patrons, Isaac Ash, of his purse containing two pounds and three shillings as he slept in the tap room of the pub. They went to the milliner’s shop of Henry Fuller in Commercial Road and bought two bonnets, as witnessed by Fuller’s employee Agnes Breach. Both women were arrested by Police Constable William Hawkes. They pleaded guilty at the Sessions and were sentenced to two months hard labour. – (1859 Sessions documents No 418, available to view at Portsmouth History Centre.)

An odd theft took place at the Duke of Clarence in Queen Street, also in 1859. The witness, Jane Robinson describes being in the pub and seeing what happened:

“I was in the Tap Room of the Duke of Clarence Public House . . . whilst I was there the prisoner Ellen McNelly came in with another woman and a man.
They had a quart of ale betwen them and whilst they were there the servant at the Duke of Clarence came into the Tap Room and put a kettle down
just against the door and then the prisoner got up and took the kettle and went away with it.”

She informed the landlord, Mr William Stephens who called a Constable.

“I applied to the police and went with Police Constable Poole to the Prisoner’s house in King’s Bench Alley and saw him find the kettle in the Privy.”

Ellen McNelly pleaded guilty at the Sessions and was sentenced to twenty one days hard labour.
(1859 Sessions documents No 402, available to view at Portsmouth History Centre.)

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