Kirby Street

30 Kirby Street, Hatton Garden,  

1795-1800

Hays lived in the home of the recently deceased bookseller and printer George Cole, whose residence and business was assumed by his daughter, Ann Cole (like Hays, she appears to have never married). Initial reference is in a letter of 1 October 1795; last mentioned in November 1798. During a portion of this time in  1796-97, Hays lived in Little Jon Street (near Gray's Inn Road) with Marianna Hays Palmer (her previously unknown youngest sister) and Edward Palmer, who were married in June 1796.   Nothing today remains of the homes that once graced Kirby Street; they have since been replaced by modern business buildings. At the time Hays was living there, another resident in the street was Thomas Smith, at that time the minister of the Particular Baptist congregation in Eagle Street, for former congregation of Andrew Gifford, one of the early librarians at the British Museum. Smith and many members of Eagle Street would have been known to Hays's brother-in-law John Dunkin, Jr., such as the printers William Otridge and Thomas Vernor and various members of the Bagster family.

Right images: Kirby Street as it looks today.

Below: Location of Ann Cole's residences in Kirby Street and Hatton Garden, 1795-1803.