Henry Hunt,(1773-1835) is associated with several locations in the UK including Bristol where he owned a brewery in 1809/10,Manchester where he was the speaker at what became known as the Peterloo Massacre on 16th August 1819 and Preston where he was MP between 1830 and 1833.
He also lived in London and when an MP had a house in Stamford St, Waterloo,just south of the Thames.
This makes a brief intervention in a Parliamentary debate about the building and cost of access to the new London Bridge (opened August 1831, replaced 1973) by Hunt of some interest.
The debate took place on 13th February 1832. John Briscoe the MP for Surrey (all of it, this was the Unreformed ‘rotten Boroughs’ Parliament) had complained that the construction of the new bridge had shut out the view on the south side (by what is now Borough Market) of part of Southwark Cathedral (as its now called)the Lady Chapel. The Church had been restored between 1818 and 1830.
Hunt did not agree that the matter was worthy of consideration and felt that enough consideration
said, that the Bill was for the London side of the bridge, and moreover the Committee had given those at the Surrey side all they had asked for. He was no Antiquarian, and though he might be considered Gothic, he must say that, in his opinion, what was called the Lady Chapel was a nuisance, by shutting out the view of the beautiful church.
Note the distinction that Hunt makes between the ‘London side of the bridge’ and the ‘Surrey side’. Clearly Hunt was no fan of South London as it now is
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