Man with the magic soda water fountain
Last updated 05:39, Friday, 03 October 2008
The main streets in Carlisle usually kept the same name over the centuries but the narrow lanes crossing the city often changed as principal property owners came and went.
An example is Bonnell’s Lane which was shown on Wood’s map of the city in 1821 but disappeared with the creation of Bank Street in 1851.
The lane linked English Street with Lowther Street and ran parallel with White Hart Lane.
Fortunately, James Bonnell, a chemist and druggist from Newcastle, advertised in the Cumberland Pacquet on May 3 1796, “that he has taken and entered on the stock and shop lately occupied by Mr Lamb in English Street where he purposes carrying on the chemical and drug business in all its various branches”.
The property formed part of the White Hart Inn, separated from it by the arch of White Hart Lane.
To the north of the shop was Bonnell’s Lane. The chemist lived in the lane entered through the arch.
When he came to Carlisle, James Bonnell was in his early 20s and within three years he met and married Esther, daughter of Richard Lowry of Stanwix, at Crosby-on-Eden. They had at least five children before Esther died in 1822 aged 51.
A trade card for Bonnell and Son described the firm as “manufacturers of aerated soda water”, something which other chemists also made.
The difference was the way Bonnell promoted the product.
In The Citizen for June 1827 was an unusual report. “It is with the greatest of pleasure we notice the beautiful soda water fountain erected at considerable expense by Messrs Bonnell, chemists.”
This, said the report “is certainly one of the finest things of the kind we have seen and reflects great credit upon both the maker and purchasers”.
The soda water dispensed from the fountain was praised for its “peculiarly agreeable flavour and impregnated with air on an admirable principle” being “quite free from that unpleasant soapy taste which most soda water so strongly partakes of”.
Sons James and Thomas were listed as chemists with their father on the 1841 census, but the eldest son had by then married the girl next door.
in December 1834 John Bonnell married Elizabeth Bowman of the White Hart Inn.
After 50 years in business James Bonnell decided to retire in 1846 and with none of the family willing to take over, he advertised in the Carlisle Journal that his successor was Andrew Thompson.
Bonnell did not have long to enjoy his retirement. He died in 1850 and was commemorated, along with his wife, on a wall plaque in Stanwix Church.
Youngest son Thomas Lowry Bonnell, with his sister Esther, were living on Lowther Street in 1851 and it was he who sold the White Hart Inn to the Carlisle and Cumberland Bank for £6,000.
The middle son, James Harvey Bonnell married his cousin Elizabeth Lowry and lived in style at Windsor as a ‘landed proprietor’.
He was at Windsor in 1851 and on the 1861 census he was visited by his brother Thomas.
It was at Windsor that James Harvey Bonnell died in 1869 and in 1871 his widow was at the vicarage at Windermere visiting her sister.
Wanting to return to Carlisle, Elizabeth Bonnell came to live in a large house on Victoria Place where she was in 1881 aged 74. There she died in 1885.
Because they had an unusual surname for this area, C Roy Hudleston in Cumberland Families and Heraldry, thought the Bonnells originated in Essex.
However he was not aware of the Newcastle connection and there is a baptism there which would fit the chemist.
James Bonnell was baptised at St Nicholas Church on March 17, 1773, the son of John and Mary.
It is significant that James Bonnell called his eldest son John and had a daughter called Mary.
His age on the Stanwix plaque was given as 73 but this would have made him only 19 when he took the shop in Carlisle and would have made him six years younger than his wife, so it could be a mistake.
Through his marriage to Esther Lowry, James Bonnell was brother-in-law to the Rev Thomas Lowry, vicar of Crosby-on-Eden, who was four times mayor of the city.
But James took no part in local politics and was rarely mentioned in the newspapers which makes it difficult to find out much more about him.
