Ellen of the Seven Dials
A life well lived among the flowers of Covent Garden.
Welcome to your Friday newsletter for paying subscribers, with a generous teaser for everyone else.
Ever heard of Ellen Keeley? Her name was plastered all over Covent Garden for much of the 20th century, but today she is largely forgotten. It’s time her story flowered once again.
That’s for the main section. First a quick announcement and the History Radar.
📣📣 Want to join our visit to the Cinema Museum in Kennington? It’s happening on the afternoon of Saturday 29 June. The museum’s packed with exhibits relating to cinema and movie history, all in an historic former workhouse where Charlie Chaplin once lived. I’d initially limited the visit to paying subscribers, but we have quite a few spaces left so I’ll now open this up to anyone (including plus-ones). If you’d like to come along, please email matt@londonist.com for details. There’ll be a £10 entrance fee, payable on the day. I’ll no doubt lead a contingent to the pub afterwards, so it’s also a good excuse for a natter about London history with likeminded people.
History Radar
Upcoming events of interest to London history fans.
🚌🚍 BUS HISTORY: The London Bus Museum is a double oddity in that it’s (a) not in London but Surrey, and (b) nested within another museum, the Brooklands Museum. Both are blooming excellent, and this Sunday (23 Jun) is a particularly good time to visit as the Bus Museum has a summer festival. Go on vintage bus rides around the area, peruse a market, visit the children’s play area (if relevant), and enjoy various activities themed around the Windrush Generation.
💥⛪️ ST PAUL'S IN WARTIME: On Tue 25 Jun, City of London Guide & Lecturer Jill Finch gives a free talk about how St Paul's Cathedral survived the incessant bombing of the second world war, telling the stories of those who bravely defended and protected it. You can watch in person at Guildhall Library, or online.
🏞️💦 OBSCURE RIVERS: On Wed 26 Jun, Tom Bolton gives a morning talk, appropriately at Walbrook Wharf, about some of the more obscure tributaries of the Thames. The event also includes a screening of Jack Thurgar’s ‘The Swamp’, a short film about a patch of the Quaggy. Part of London Rivers Week.
🌍🏙️ ATLAS OF IMAGINED CITIES: Bit of a blow-your-own-trumpet, as Thu 27 Jun sees the rescheduled launch of my new book Atlas of Imagined Cities. I’ll be giving a talk with my co-author Rhys B. Davies and illustrator Mike Hall at Stanfords in Covent Garden. The book plots thousands of locations from film, TV, books and comics onto vintage-looking maps (including four pages of London maps) to illustrate which fictional characters live where. Do come and say hello, and perhaps join me down the pub afterwards.
👑🏛️ ROYAL REVELRY: The Society of Antiquaries in Burlington House has a new art exhibition to mark 150 years at the venue, with new works inspired by its historic collections. A special Late event gives you the chance to wander around this remarkable building (as I did only yesterday!) to admire the art. There will be live music and refreshments, and I’m told that Henry VIII himself will make an appearance, on this his birthday.
🚧🏭 BRUTALISM: Or you could ignore my event and instead go to this month’s London Salon, which this time is themed around brutalism. Simon Phipps and Thaddeus Zapancic look at London examples of the concrete-heavy architectural style, which is loved and hated in equal measure. The talks, as always, are in the very-unbrutalistic Horse Hospital in Bloomsbury.
Ellen of the Seven Dials
“Seventy-eight years ago, a five-year-old girl sat near St Paul’s Cathedral selling flowers — she was doing so until three days before she died last March.”
So ran an obituary to Ellen Keeley in 1949. It commemorated a remarkable life, surrounded by flowers and mystery.
“Ellen of the Seven Dials” they called her, or simply “The Flower Girl”. The little woman with the big heart. She was a popular character around Covent Garden for decades, selling posies, wreaths and bouquets from her small shop in Shorts Gardens.
But there was more to this flower girl than met the eye. Hardly anyone knew it, but Ellen had a second job; one that had made her rich. And much of that money was redirected to local good causes. “They didn’t know,” ran another news report of her death, “that white-haired, simply dressed Ellen was the E. Keeley whose name was painted on almost every Covent Garden market barrow.”
Like Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion and My Fair Lady, Ellen was a flower-seller made good. But hers was a very different rags-to-riches tale, with no leg-up from high society.
Sub-rosa barrow making
Covent Garden in the first half of the 20th century was a riot of colour. It was one of the world’s biggest markets for flowers, fruit and vegetables. Most of the traders sold from barrows — basically tables with iron wheels, which could easily be moved to and from the market.
Many of these barrows — the yellow and green ones — were manufactured or leased out from E. Keeley and Co. of 33 Neal Street. This was a respected family business that stretched back decades. Some sources even claim the Keeleys invented the costermonger’s barrow, though I’ve not been able to verify this.
The Keeleys had initially set up in Dublin in 1830 but moved to London soon afterwards as refugees from the Irish potato famine. Covent Garden, with its thriving market and existing Irish population, was the obvious place to settle. A couple of generations later, and the firm was in the hands of Ellen Keeley, not that she ever talked about it.
Business boomed in the early 20th century, and Ellen became rich. She would go on long holidays to the continent without ever revealing where she’d been. According to news accounts after he death in 1949, she not only owned the flower shop and the barrow-lending business, but also five houses in the Covent Garden area. But nor did she keep all her earnings to herself…