The strange case of Napoleon Bonaparte, his grave, and the Bexleyheath laundry link…

 Bonjour, cher readers!

This week, the Blogbrarian goes to Napoleonic France, the icy Russian steppe, a windblown St Helena in the mid Atlantic, and …er… Pincott Road in Bexleyheath.



Let’s start at the beginning: a gentleman asked our excellent Local Studies and Archives Centre if – since it was 200 years since Napoleon’s disastrous retreat from Moscow (think 1812 overture and all that) – Bexley had any local links to mark the occasion…



Well, those bright young things at Local Studies discovered that, whilst we don’t have any Napoleonic remains as such (Martello Towers, prison ships or military barracks and such like), what we did have was a …laundry!



Intrigued? … Well, it’s complicated, but the Bexleyheath and District Laundry in Pincott Road was linked to the Torbett family, who, in Napoleonic times owned land on St Helena – the tiny island where the defeated Emperor was exiled, and died in 1821…

As Napoleon’s tomb became THE place to visit on St Helena (which, unsurprisingly, held few other attractions for the passing tourist) the Torbetts were awarded government contracts for public access to the site; they also sold tourist trinkets, food, and “cool mountain spring water” and reaped the financial rewards.



Back in London, the story is that the Torbetts wisely invested their wealth in a Bexleyheath laundry business (and christened one of their family members ‘Reginald Napoleon Torbett’). How splendid!



So there you have it…Bexley’s first and grandest laundry business owes everything to Napoleon’s windswept tomb. And not a lot of people know that!



Meanwhile, if you want to learn more about Napoleon’s sad, lonely life of exile, then try Julia Blackburn’s splendid book.

And if you want to learn more about Bexleyheath’s first laundry (or anything else historical) then you know where to come. BLSAC



And here my story ends…A sad but true story, a grave story, but – at least – a clean story.

Au revoir, for now.