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The year 1716 also saw the establishment of the Royal
Regiment of Artillery with permanent headquarters at Woolwich.
Originally housed at the Warren, the regiment became too large for
its quarters and a move to new barracks on Woolwich Common
was completed by 1781. It is perhaps not unnatural that a soldier
as famous as General Gordon of Khartoum should have been
born at Woolwich Common in 1833. He was later christened at
St. Alfege's Church, near the Royal Naval College.
The commanding position held by Greenwich in the 17th
century, began to wane during the following century partly due to
the conversion of the Palace into a hospital which induced many
of the fashionable people to leave the area. Moreover, it was in
an atmosphere of violence and unscrupulous intrigue that
George I, who began the Hanoverian dynasty, landed at Greenwich
in 1714 and held his first reception at the Queen's House.
Nevertheless, although the Court was no longer in permanent
residence and Blackheath was still plagued with highwaymen and
footpads, its position continued to appeal to influential people of
the times who still frequented Greenwich or lived in the fine
buildings in its environs. Lord Chesterfield, friend of Voltaire
and Pope, lived and wrote many of his celebrated "Letters" to his
son at the Rangers House. McCartney House adjoining was the
home of General Wolfe—Angerstein, father of "Lloyds" of London,
whose paintings became the foundation of the National
Portrait Gallery, resided at the "Woodlands". Sir John Morden,
the founder of Morden College, a delightful Wren masterpiece,
lived locally in a handsome mansion at Wricklemarsh. Dr.
Johnson, the lexicographer and poet, who lodged locally, composed
in and often strolled the park with his biographer, James
Boswell. Notable occupants of other stately homes such as
Charlton House (one of the country's finest examples of Jacobean
architecture), of Vanbrugh Castle and Mince Pie House, (both
erected by the designer of Blenheim Palace and the Mansion
House), and of the Manor Houses at Crooms Hill and East and
West Combe (the latter being the home of the Dowager Duchess
of Bolton—the "Polly Peachum" of the "Beggar's Opera", and
East-Combe, the residence of the Duchess of Athol), gave evidence
of the continued popularity of Greenwich.
Within its boundaries Greenwich had two traditional fairs.
Granted to Charlton by Henry III at the same time as sanction for
its market received Royal Assent, Horn Fair was held on St.
Luke's Day, October 18th, when horn trinkets of all kinds were
sold and where a carnival of the most restrained kind was included.
However, over the years the procession became more ribald