The Directors' House, Truman Brewery

The Directors' House forms part of a remarkably complete group of buildings that once constituted Truman, Hanbury and Buxton's Black Eagle Brewery. The complex straddles Brick Lane in Spitalfields, with the Directors' House on the west side.

This building served the dual function of private residence and company headquarters, with offices on the ground floor and residential accommodation above. John Price, who had recently rebuilt the brewhouse, is thought to have enlarged an early 18th-century counting house around 1745 for Benjamin Truman. Major alterations followed in the 1770s, also for Truman, by then Sir Benjamin. Further modifications occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and a major restoration with a new entrance range was carried out around 1971–5 by Arup Associates.

Exterior

The building is constructed of stock brick with red brick dressings to the projecting ends of the Brick Lane elevation, under slate roofs. It comprises a regular two-storey range with a corridor to the front. At the rear, the southern end contains a staircase; the northern end houses a distinguished first-floor suite of rooms arranged off a corridor set at right angles to the main block.

The principal façade presents a seven-bay front with round-headed first-floor windows at the ends; the remaining openings are regular sashes with glazing bars set in earlier flush moulded boxes beneath gauged brick heads. A rendered first-floor band runs below a cornice under the parapet. The single-bay projecting ends feature first-floor Venetian windows with reticulated glazing set between giant pilasters; a narrow blind bay appears to the north. The former entrance consists of projecting double panelled doors within a Gibbs surround beneath heavy voussoirs, though this doorway is no longer in use. The sign of the Black Eagle Brewery hangs from the first storey of the projecting north bay.

The return elevation was restored around 1971–5 with renewed French windows opening into a courtyard. The building is now entered through a 1970s mirror-glazed screen that links it with the Brewmaster's House.

Interior

The principal rooms occupy the first floor, reached by a 19th-century stair with a cast-iron balustrade. A series of rooms displays sunken panelling and box cornices typical of the 1740s, though some also feature heavy modillion cornices more elaborate than customary for the period. The present reception room, historically the directors' dining room, has a simpler dentilled cornice purer in its style.

This room is reached off a second corridor to the north, reconstructed in the 1770s with five-bay circular arched vaults rising alternately into domes between fluted Ionic pilasters. Fluted and pedimented doorcases throughout are accompanied by much formalised floral plaster decoration.

At the end of this corridor lies the former boardroom, originally Sir Benjamin's drawing room, approached through a screen of marble Corinthian columns. The room features heavily moulded plaster panels on the walls, with a floreated modillion cornice and formal floral band. Late 18th-century fluted doorcases and a fireplace complement the fine rococo ceiling, said to be much renewed but still authentic in composition.

History

A brewhouse was built on land west of Brick Lane by Thomas Bucknall around 1666 and purchased by Joseph Truman in 1679. The Black Eagle Brewery produced porter, a heavy black beer robust enough to withstand the hazards of large-scale production, long storage, and distribution. The brewery prospered enormously during the 18th century under the direction of Sir Benjamin Truman, and much of the surviving building dates from this period. Expansion began around 1730, and the premises were enlarged further in 1742–3, possibly with John Price as surveyor. The interior of the Directors' House, principally dating from around 1745, was extensively remodelled in the 1770s.

According to Sir Benjamin's will, these improvements were undertaken to encourage his great-grandsons 'to spend some part of their time in Spitalfields, especially during the winter season', which perhaps explains why several of the interiors are reminiscent of a country mansion rather than a town house. Nevertheless, Sir Benjamin's descendants declined to follow the trade.

Following his death, the business was taken over by one of his partners, Sampson Hanbury, and in 1835 by Thomas Fowell Buxton, when the company's name became Truman, Hanbury, Buxton & Co. In 1873 the company built new premises in Burton upon Trent, also called the Black Eagle, and production gradually shifted northward. The Brick Lane brewery eventually closed in 1988.

The remaining buildings form a remarkably complete example of an 18th- to 20th-century brewery complex. The former Engineer's House, vat house, and stables—all 18th or early 19th century—are listed. Also listed is the former Brewmaster's House, which stands across a courtyard to the north of the Directors' House. These two houses are linked by the former brewhouse, rebuilt around 1973–7 by Arup Associates with a façade of mirrored glass—an early use of the material and an impressive contextual modern design overall.

In 1972, following criticism of the recent demolition of a Georgian terrace in Hanbury Street and its replacement by a brick wall for Truman's Brewery, it became clear that Truman's development of its frontage to Brick Lane required better conception. Arup Associates were commissioned the same year to provide new offices, canteen and recreation facilities, and warehousing. Their solution for Brick Lane placed different functions in tiers over six floors, with three storeys of offices over the recreational floor and two storeys of warehousing beneath. The new building linked the Directors' House and Head Brewer's House and reflected the Vat House and Engineer's House opposite, elegantly completing the square of listed buildings. In 2008, the brewery buildings were redeveloped as an arts, fashion and commercial enclave.

Thomas Fowell Buxton

The Directors' House was the principal residence of Thomas Fowell Buxton, later Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786–1845), from 1808–15; he continued to stay there occasionally in later years. A leading figure in the international movement to eradicate slavery, Buxton was the son of an East Anglian squire; his mother was a Quaker. He was educated at Charles Burney's school at Greenwich and at Trinity College, Dublin.

In 1807 he married Hannah Gurney, whose Quaker family had an important influence on his spiritual life and political career—Elizabeth Fry, the prison reformer, was his sister-in-law, and Joseph John Gurney, the anti-slavery advocate, his brother-in-law. Buxton himself remained a member of the Church of England. In 1808 he joined Truman, Hanbury & Co, Sampson Hanbury being his maternal uncle, and moved into the Directors' House ('it is a very nice house and will save the rent of another', he wrote). In 1811 Buxton became a partner in the company. He oversaw the improvement of the brewing process and converted the works to steam power; in 1835, on Sampson Hanbury's death, he took over the business.

The brewery was renowned for treating its workers well—providing free schooling for their children, for example. The 19th-century blend of business and philanthropy which Buxton exemplified, and which in his case was to flower so effectively in the campaign against slavery, was fostered at Truman, Hanbury & Co. Involved in charitable activities in Spitalfields, at a national level Buxton was an advocate of legal and penal reform, and served as MP for Weymouth from 1818 to 1837.

But his greatest political contribution was as an abolitionist. He was an active member of the African Institution, which had been founded in 1807 to ensure that the legislation outlawing the trade in slaves was adhered to, and in 1821 William Wilberforce asked him formally to become his partner, and then successor, in the great crusade. In 1823 Buxton joined with Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, Zachary Macaulay and others in forming the Anti-Slavery Society. That same year, Buxton began the parliamentary campaign against colonial slavery by introducing a motion in the House of Commons for the gradual abolition of slavery, and undertook extensive research to support his recommendations.

After the 1833 Act bringing about the end of slavery in the colonies, Buxton concerned himself with the treatment of aboriginal peoples in South Africa, the foreign slave trade, and the enforced temporary apprenticeship of former slaves in the West Indies. His investigations into the system of apprenticeship contributed to its termination in 1838, earlier than originally intended.

Buxton's devotion to the elimination of slavery continued; in 1839 he published 'The African Slave Trade', and in 1840, 'The Remedy'—books advocating Christianity, civilisation, and commerce as bulwarks against slavery. In 1839 he established the Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade and the Civilisation of Africa. Of his own achievements, Buxton said: 'With ordinary talents and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.'

Following Buxton's death in 1840, Prince Albert headed a movement for a public tribute to his memory; donations came from the West Indies and from Africa, and a statue by Frederick Thrupp was placed near the monument to Wilberforce in the north transept of Westminster Abbey. In 1865–6 Buxton's son, Charles Buxton, erected a drinking fountain in Parliament Square to celebrate the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 and the achievement of his father and associates in bringing it about. The fountain, designed by S.S. Teulon assisted by Charles Buxton, was moved to Victoria Tower Gardens in 1957. Buxton's name is preserved in Buxton Street, adjacent to the brewery, and in 2007 an English Heritage blue plaque was erected on the Directors' House commemorating Buxton's residence there.