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Furnival's Inn was an
Inn of Chancery The Inns of Chancery or ''Hospida Cancellarie'' were a group of buildings and legal institutions in London initially attached to the Inns of Court and used as offices for the clerks of chancery, from which they drew their name. Existing from a ...
which formerly stood on the site of the present Holborn Bars building (the former Prudential Assurance Company building) in
Holborn Holborn ( or ), an area in central London, covers the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Camden and a part (St Andrew Holborn (parish), St Andrew Holborn Below the Bars) of the Wards of the City of London, Ward of Farringdon Without i ...
,
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, England.


History

Furnival's Inn was founded about 1383 when William de Furnival, 4th Lord Furnival leased a boarding facility to Clerks of Chancery, who prepared writs for the king's courts, assisted by apprentices who, as such, received a preliminary legal training. By the 15th century the Inns of Chancery had become preparatory schools for students wishing to be called to the bar by the Inns of Court. In 1548 it was affiliated to
Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, commonly known as Lincoln's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for Barrister, barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister ...
through a long-term lease. Sir Thomas More was Reader at the Inn from 1504 to 1507. By the seventeenth century, the Inns of Chancery began to turn into societies for attorneys and solicitors; they became residences, offices and dining clubs.Parker, David. "Dickens, the Inns of Court, and the Inns of Chancery", ''The Literary London Journal'', March 2010
/ref> The greater part of the old Inn was taken down in Charles I's time, and a new building erected in its stead. Although it survived the
Great Fire of London The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Wednesday 5 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old London Wall, Roman city wall, while also extendi ...
, the Inn, together with the other Inns of Chancery, ceased to exist in the 19th century. According to the ''Gentleman's Magazine'' of June 1818, "'Furnival's Inn Cellar' was a place well known to the professional gentlemen, where a good dinner may be had at a reasonable price." The Inn was dissolved as a society in 1817 when Lincoln's Inn did not renew its lease and the medieval building was demolished in 1818. The building was rebuilt as apartments by a new owner who retained the old name.
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...
rented rooms here between December 1834 and throughout the first year of his marriage, until 1837. He began the '' Pickwick Papers'' while a tenant there. The character John Westlock in ''Martin Chuzzlewit'' lives in Furnival's Inn, and describes it as
"...a shady, quiet place, echoing to the footsteps of the stragglers who have business there; and rather monotonous and gloomy on summer evenings. ... there are snug chambers in those Inns where the bachelors live, and, for the desolate fellows they pretend to be, it is quite surprising how well they get on".
J.M. Barrie lived in a set of chambers at No. 7 Furnival's Inn from 1888 to 1889.Denis Mackail, ''The Story of J.M.B.'' (Peter Davies, 1941) The site was redeveloped again, in 1879, as the headquarters of the Prudential Assurance. A plaque marks the site where Furnival's Inn stood.


Governance

Furnival's Inn was an area for local government partly in the
City of London The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...
and partly in
Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...
. It was an extra-parochial area and became a
civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...
in 1858 within the Holborn
Poor Law Union A poor law union was a geographical territory, and early local government unit, in Great Britain and Ireland. Poor law unions existed in England and Wales from 1834 to 1930 for the administration of poor relief. Prior to the Poor Law Amendment ...
. The part within the City of London was transferred to St Andrew Holborn in 1900. The remaining parish was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Holborn from 1900 and was abolished as a civil parish in 1930. It was unpopulated after the construction of Holborn Bars.


See also

* List of demolished buildings and structures in London


References


Sources

*D. S. Bland, ''Early records of Furnival's Inn'', 1957.


External links


"Dickens in Furnival's Inn", ''The New York Times'', April 4, 1886
*Contemporary note of the demolition in 1897: http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/issue_pdf/frontmatter_pdf/s9-II/49.pdf {{coord, 51.5182, -0.1099, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title 1380s establishments in England Former buildings and structures in the City of London Former civil parishes in the London Borough of Camden Inns of Chancery Buildings and structures demolished in 1818 Demolished buildings and structures in London Lincoln's Inn