Many people reading this will have heard of the Christmas meal for 22,500 people which took place at Ham Yard near Piccadilly Circus on Christmas Day 1851.

But I bet you haven’t heard of the Palace of Pudding which was based at a Salvation Army hostel in Quaker Street off Brick Lane in the early 1900s.

A discovery when scoping a walk

Searching the British Newspaper Archive for Christmas related stories for a walk I was doing in Spitalfields I struck lucky with the story of the Palace of Pudding although nothing remains today.

Courtesy of the Salvation Army International Heritage Centre. Ref: MSW-2-2-3

Courtesy of the Salvation Army International Heritage Centre. Ref: MSW-2-2-3

Between 1908 and at least 1910, this was the destination for hundreds of Christmas puddings, their ingredients and the money to buy the ingredients sent there by Daily Mirror readers. These were being gathered to feed thousands of hungry children across London.

The site can be seen on this historic OS map towards the top.

The site today. It’s close to the junction with Grey Eagle Street.

Daily Mirror 21st December 1908, page 4“The Palace of Pudding at 41a Quaker Street, Spitalfields E., will be one of the busiest places in London right up to Christmas Day. All day and all night great steamers are crammed with relays of puddings, the ingredients of which are due to the generosity of our readers, whether sent direct in bulk or purchased with the money sent to us for that purpose. Those steamers must not be idle for a moment during the next four days, and there must not be an empty corner of any one of them if all the hungry little mouths that are depending upon those magic Christmas parcels are to be fed….”

On Christmas Eve that year the Mirror reported that 25,000 children in every part of London would share in the distribution of the Daily Mirror’s Christmas parcels. Tickets were to be distributed entitling the bearer to a Christmas parcel. On Christmas Day 1908 at the hour and place mentioned the child would receive their parcel. Apart from Christmas pudding every parcel contained some fruit, a toy and a Christmas card.

After another last minute request the paper reported that the puddings from His Majesty the King (Edward VII) and Queen Alexandra were chief among the thousands sent to Quaker Street. 1000s more had been made in the kitchens on the premises. Donations had come from a wide range of organisations – from Claridges Hotel to Walthamstow Grange Football Club (on the site of the later dog track).

The Prince of the Palace of Pudding

The officer in charge of the Palace of Pudding from 1908 to 1909 (possibly longer) was Lt Col Iliffe.  Searching for more information about him has taken me into a long research quest which I haven’t resolved. I had intended to publish this on Christmas Eve but hadn’t counted on the amount of work needed to find out the history of this person.

Using Ancestry and other sources I thought I had found the correct person but the records don’t correlate and after much time spent on this I fear that I have to give up. The crux of my problem is places of birth shown on census documents for a W H Iliffe as being Ulverston, then in Lancashire but several newspaper reports at his death in 1938 say he was a native of Northampton.

Northampton Mercury – 16th September 1938. Page 8. “Lieut. Commissioner W H lliffe of the Salvation Army, who died on Sunday aged 70 at Clacton-on-Sea, became an officer from his native town of Northampton in 1886.

After retiring from the “Army” Commissioner Iliffe acted as expert for a group of London papers, supervising free dinners to the poor and other forms of relief.” This would appear to be the correct person but I can’t be sure.

There is a photo of a William and Margaret Iliffe on this blog – but is it the right one? I will get in touch with the writer and update if I can. https://armyancestry.blogspot.com/2017/01/alfred-iliffe-comes-home.html

Back to the Puddings!

On 1st January 1910 the Mirror reported that there had been 38,000 recipients of the Christmas parcels the previous month, 5,000 up on the total for 1908.  Page 15 of the same edition listed all the recipients of the parcels which were mostly Salvation Army halls and also shelters. These included the Oxford Street S.A. Hall (I’m guessing the Regent Hall which still stands) which received 200 parcels. The Regent Hall has been connected with the Salvation Army since 1882. It was previously a roller skating rink!  700 were distributed locally in Spitalfields.

A 400lb pudding for Christmas 1910

Headline: Four girls to carry a monster plum pudding. 24th December 1910, page 13.

“The largest pudding to be given to The Daily Mirror Fund was ceremoniously conveyed yesterday from Olympia Skating Rink, where it was made, to the Palace of Pudding, in Quaker Street, Spitalfields. Four girls could scarcely carry it.”

On Christmas Eve 1910 the Mirror reported that a van drawn by two horses took the 400lb pudding across London and it took 4 men to place it into the van.

Further research has found a report in the Mirror of 18th December 1908 of a monster pudding being created that year at Olympia. It was reported then that you could stir the pudding for a donation of a penny; the cost had risen to 6d by 1910!

On Christmas Eve 1908 the Mirror reported that the  “… procession passed at a walking pace along the entire route … and traversed the distance between Olympia and 41a Quaker Street in rather less than 3 hours.”  On arrival the pudding which had been transported in a van in a large stock pot borrowed from a firm of caterers was tipped into a large tin bath!

What happened next

Although the Mirror has been digitised for the period beyond 1910 I could find no other reference to the Palace of Pudding but discovered in 1913 that they were still doing charity Christmas Pudding appeals but by this time had moved to Leopold House at 199 Burdett Road in Stepney which was then being used by the Salvation Army as a homeless shelter.

By 1913 the parcels contained a plum pudding, an orange, an apple, dates, sweets and a toy and the man in charge was Commissioner Sturgess.

Obviously there were and still are many charity drives every Christmas but for one short period in the 1900s a small part of Brick Lane was the magical sounding Palace of Pudding.

If you want to find out more about Christmas food and see some of the best decorations of the capital why not join me on my virtual ‘Foodie themed Christmas Lights Tour’ this Monday 29th December at 6pm UK time. More details about my walks and tours.