As Grave As The Grave

I’ve just finished reading John Bennett’s excellent book, Krayology, which examines the rise and fall of the notorious 1960s London Gangsters Ron and Reggie Kray. Well worth a read if that’s your sort of thing.

So far I’ve limited my guided audio walking tours to the confines of the City walls and the environs on the western side, but I’m starting to put together some background for an East End walking tour and thought reading this book might help. This new tour will definitely not contain “Jack the Ripper” as London needs another one of these tours like I need a hole in the head. A phrase that has its roots in the Yiddish “Ich darf es vi a loch in kop”  (I need it like a hole in the head) and very pertinent to the area of the East End. Sorry, I digress, back to the book.

In the book, Bennett mentions The Grave Maurice, which was an East End pub in the Whitechapel Road and had been in existence from 1723 until its closure in 2010. It was apparently one of the Krays favourite hostelries during their heyday.

Quite a strange name and one that I was looking forward to seeing in the form of the usual pub sign hanging outside the premises. I envisioned a stern looking jowly old gentleman probably with bushy side whiskers and beard. In fact what I got was a rather jaunty, man about town sort of character adorned in a ruff. There could be the hint of a sneer hiding beneath his moustaches, but grave? Definitely not.

So I did a little bit more digging to see if I could find out firstly who this Maurice was, and secondly what had happened to make him so grave.

Well it turns out that solemnity has nothing to do with it. Its that usual suspect, a corruption of a name that was probably too difficult for the locals to get their tongues round. The pub is named after Graf Maurits van Nassau who was Prince of Orange in 17th century Netherlands. Slightly surly looking rather than grave.

Maurice served under his brother Prince Rupert with the Royalist cavalry in support of his Uncle Charles I during the English Civil War and took part in several battles including Edgehill and Naseby. His brother fell from favour with the King after his surrender to the Parliamentarian troops at Bristol and was banished along with Maurice to France. On the restoration of the monarchy having served Charles II while exiled in France they were both recalled to England. Maurice became a Vice Admiral and went down with his ship, the HMS Defiance during a hurricane near the Virgin Islands in 1652.

So why some seventy years later would the pub take on the name of someone who at best played a bit part in the civil war. Well I can only theorise. One is that the pub based in Whitechapel is only about a mile away from the river areas of Shadwell and Wapping, which in the early 18th century would have had many Dutch sailors either visiting or even living in. As with another pub, The Seven Stars, representing the seven regions of the Netherlands situated near the Thames, it was named to try and attract custom from Dutch nationals.

However, another that has just come to me concerns the corruption of the name. Between 1780-1784 Britain was at war with the Netherlands and I wonder if the corruption to the name Grave Maurice was a bit of a slight, intended to upset any Dutch sailors following the end of hostilities? Slurs about the Dutch abounded these shores in that period, Dutch courage, to gain nerve in battle by being plastered. The Dutch military were widely portrayed as always being drunk in British newspapers. To speak Double Dutch, probably referring to the English inability to understand any foreign tongue, but it could also allude to the fact that the Netherlands had once been an untrustworthy ally. To go Dutch or splitting the bill was another common dig at their perceived frugality and meanness.