Tag: Rhinoceros

Angelo Vitti – revisited

Paul Vitti kindly responded to my recent blogpost about his great grandfather Angelo Vitti. He has sent me a copy of the original photograph from which the grainy newspaper one was taken and some additional information about the family and 26 Albert Street. Many thanks Paul.

Angelo Vitti was my great grandfather. I can go back to 1700 in Settefrati where Loretto was born. Then Michele, Francesco, Antonio, Angelo, Alexander, Gerald and then me, Paul. Angelo’s brother Cesidio is also buried in Radnor Street. He died in 1899 in Swindon and in the same year his wife gave birth to a son, also Cesidio, Angelo’s nephew, in Italy. In 1926 Cesidio jnr. set sail for America followed, 2 years later, by his mother and his wife. They settled in Struthers, Ohio. Their house there is now a car park but two adjoining houses remain.

26 Albert Street, the former Rhinoceros. Angelo owned all the properties up to the ‘Roaring Donkey’. In this photo is Angelo and Maria plus my grandfather Alexander, his brother Laurence and several sisters. I am in contact with one of Maria’s great nieces. My grandfather sold the premises in the fifties for £4,500. The whole site has just been redeveloped with new apartments and some houses. In this photograph the fellow looking out of the window is in what became my bedroom for a while until my parents moved into two room digs in Princes Street. It was a fascinating old property with a cellar that ran under all those adjoining houses, an internal courtyard and dormitories along the rear boundary in Little London. The 1911 census shows 63 lodgers living in the various properties and dorms. I remember it all so well.

Cesidio Vitti died at his brothers home, 26 Albert Street and was buried on June 5, 1899 in grave plot C442.

Angelo Vitti – a colourful and romantic personality

Albert Street, built in around 1848 and named after Queen Victoria’s virtuous husband, was the red light district of mid Victorian Old Swindon.  At the centre of this maelstrom of depravity was the Rhinoceros public house, once described in court as ‘the most notorious house in town.’  The first landlady at the Rhinoceros when it opened in July 1845 was Lucy Rogers, a former dressmaker.  Frequently the scene of bad behaviour where landlords flaunted licensing laws and one was even accused of the manslaughter of his mother in law.

One person who tried to make a difference in this den of iniquity was Angelo Vitti.  Born in Settefrate, a small village in the Province of Frosinone, just south of Rome, Vitti stopped off in France before moving to England in the early 1890s.  He purchased the former Rhinoceros, by then a lodging house, and eventually bought up the adjoining cottages as well. 

Angelo Vitti married Mary/Maria Carter in 1895. In 1901 they were living with their three young children at the Lord Raglan public house, Cricklade Street where Angelo was the licensed victualler.

The 1911 census lists them as living at 22 Albert Street where Angelo worked as a lodging house keeper and grocer. He and Maria had been married for 21 years and sadly, five of their 11 children had previously died.

‘Swindon has lost a colourful and romantic personality by the death of Mr Angelo Vitti,’ the North Wilts Herald reported following Angelo’s death on Sunday April 21, 1940.  As a lodging house proprietor he became the friend, and earned the respect, of thousands of men and women, a genuine family man and a friend of poor people.

Death of Mr A. Vitti

Long Residence In Swindon

Swindon has lost a colourful and romantic personality by the death of Mr. Angelo Vitti, lodging house proprietor and provision merchant, of Albert-street, Swindon which took place on Sunday night.

Mr Vitti, who would have been 79 on 10 May next, was born at Settefrate, Italy, and as a young man left his home and his country to carve out his own career. He arrived in France, but after a short time in that country, came to England nearly 50 years ago.

He claimed many adventures before coming to settle down in Swindon in 1893.

Friend of the Poor

As lodging house proprietor he became the friend, and earned the respect, of thousands of men and women, for he had the happy knack of combining a sense of strict efficiency with a genial personality. He helped many men on their way and, had he wished, could have told many stories of the thousands of wayfarers who sought refuge under his roof. One man who claimed his hospitality was stated to have been a remarkably fine linguist, being a fluent speaker of five languages; another told how he had placed the whole of his £5,000 fortune on a horse which had finished down the course!

Angelo Vitti was a genuine family man, and it was his one desire that all his children should ever remain close by his side. All six children – two sons and four daughters – are now married, but they have respected those wishes by making their homes within a stone’s throw of their father’s premises.

Mr Vitti’s parents were both centenarians. His mother died at the age of 108 and his father in his 101st year. He leaves a widow and six children, and there are eight grandchildren.

The Funeral

Following a requiem mass, the funeral service took place on Wednesday at Holy Rood Church.

The interment was at Radnor-street cemetery, Swindon.

The funeral arrangements were carried out by Messrs. A.E. Smith and Son, 24, Gordon-road, Swindon.

Extracts from North Wilts Herald, Friday, 26 April, 1940.

Angelo Vitti was buried on April 24, 1940 in grave plot C4709 where he lies with his wife Mary/Maria who died in 1944.