I have been fascinated by old things for as long as I can remember. Get me into an antiques shop, and it’s pretty hard to get me out. My family can attest to that.
Furniture, knickknacks, old books, vintage postcards, photographs, jewelry, and clothing all have a story to tell. I love imagining who owned each item, what it meant to them, and what secrets they hold.
There have always been people who make a living doing this, and one of them changed what we know about London’s past.
His name was George Fabian Lawrence, but the laborers demolishing old buildings to make way for new ones in the city knew him as Stoney Jack. His fascination with objects and their stories made him, depending on your point of view, either the savior of London’s buried history or an unwitting vandal.
Aside from maintaining a salaried position at the newly founded London Museum, Stoney Jack collected and sold antiques from a small, cluttered shop at 7 West Hill in Wandsworth—a busy, understated stretch of south London. A severe asthmatic, he was a frail, unglamorous man whom most people never noticed. Those who did remembered him by his throaty wheeze rather than by the mish-mash of treasures in his cabinet of curiosities.
