TOM THUMB – GENERAL TOM THUMB, 21 WHARF STREET – Pub History Project

Named after a mythical figure in English folk law, although Circus entertainer P. T. Barnham engaged a dwarf, Charles Stratton, to take on the stage name. He lived 1838-83 and his full grown height at maturity was supposed to be 2ft 8 inches.

‘General Tom Thumb’, like Joseph Merrick, was to tour the cities as a ‘main attraction’ and was known to have been advertised to appear at the Temperance Hall in Leicester in March 1859. Being only a stone’s throw away from Wharf Street, it is likely where the then unnamed beer house, derived its name from this connection.

The Tom Thumb beerhouse was run by Richard Furbarrow, circa 1860. He lived with his wife Sarah, mother Mary, and brother Timothy. In March 1860, Thomas Gamble was charged with stealing a shilling from the till of Richard Furburrow’s ‘The Original Tom Thumb’ in Wharf Street.

Also 1860, a fatal accident occurred in Wharf Street, when an old man, William Freer, was knocked down by Mrs Ginns’ funeral cart containing two coffins. The funeral directors’ cart ran over poor Freer’s neck, breaking it. He was taken to the nearby Tom Thumb, where all help was deemed hopeless. A verdict of accidental death was recorded.

Ginns and Gutteridge, funeral directors, the type of cart that saw to William Freer. The company well known to Leicester folk. Still trading
today after over 150 years. Photo kind permission by Fiona Goodliffe.

The Tom Thumb was a place of disrepute. In November 1860, Furbarrow was fined for having fifteen or more men in the tap room drinking in the early hours of the morning.

In 1865, the Tom Thumb was raided by the police where hundreds of previously stolen goods were found. Richard Furburrow was summonsed and eventually sentenced to nine months in prison. His wife Sarah was acquitted.

There is no further known reference of the Tom Thumb, so perhaps Furbarrow’s prison sentence spelt the end.

No 27 – the old Tom Thumb – is the whitewashed upper floor (below). By then called the Roadhouse, it was still standing in 1960s, here waiting for demo. Contrast this with an earlier black and white photo with the Hippodrome still in place.