Mapped out

I don't want to get too soppy about my wonderful readers, but thanks to HB for solving the mystery of the pub that used to sit on the site of Broadcasting House extension.

It was called The Devonshire Arms, and at the time of our ancient map, in the 1890s, fronted onto Duke Street (now Hallam Street) more or less exactly at the entrance to the 1960s extension to Broadcasting House, now superceded by Sir Richard MacCormac's redevelopment.

The landlord in 1891 was Joseph Maslen, 50, originally from Bethnal Green. He ran the pub with his wife, Eliza, 48, and son James, 25, who was a barman. They employed Posie Hughes, 17, from Ramsgate as a barmaid and Florence Brett, 18, from Aldershot as a general servant. Also there were Joe's daughter Eliza, 19, and son Charles, 17, who were both students.

Before taking the Devonshire Arms,Joe Maslen was a carman driving a horse-drawn delivery wagon, probably for a railway company, and the family had lived in Chelsea and then Southwark. In 1881 they were at Sutherland Square in Newington, and Joe was a commercial traveller selling mineral water. He probably made a fair amount of money from The Devonshire because, by 1901, he'd gone up in the world and was a cab proprietor living at Gibson Square in Islington.

The Devonshire Arms was still going strong in 1935 and by then, the landlord, Arthur Walter Jones, was serving customers from the BBC, which had moved to the newly-built Broadcasting House three years earlier; it was the closest pub to BH, a matter of significance to this day.  Next door was the Hallam Motor

Plugge

Club, and at 11 Duke Street was the International Broadcasting Company, set up in 1931 as a commercial rival to the BBC. Owned by Tory MP Captain Leonard Plugge, it made programmes which were aired by radio stations on the continent, including Radio Luxembourg and Radio Normandy (early employer of Roy Plomley).

Which begs the question: Were the elite of the Corporation sitting down for a beer with their downmarket rivals or glaring at each other from opposite ends of the bar?