Description: Thomas William Hammond 1854-1935. Born in Philadelphia of Nottingham emigres, and orphaned at the age of four, he came to England with his younger sister Maria and lived for a short while with his grandparents in Mount Street. In 1868 age 14 he enrolled in the Government School of Art. On the 1871 census he is described as a lace curtain designer, and in 1872 he was awarded the 'Queen's Prize for a Design of a Lace Curtain'. Other prizes followed and in 1877 he was again awarded the Queen's Prize, this time for the design for a damask table Cloth. Hammond was an indefatigable worker, and soon began to use his skills as a draftsman to record aspects of the changing town. He began showing his work at local venues in 1882 and in 1890 exhibited for the first time at the Royal academy. His real hobby was black and white sketching in charcoal. He drew about 350 pictures all together mainly scenes of a Nottingham he knew but which has largely passed away today. Extracted from 'The Changing Face of Tom Hammond's Nottingham' by John Beckett which is the introductory essay in 'A City in the Making Drawings of Tom Hammond'. This fine old brick building of three stories with its attractive gables was once surrounded by a large courtyard. It stood in a large park well stocked with deer and from its commanding position on the rock overhanging the Sneinton hermitage it overlooked a wonderful stretch of Leicestershire hills and it must have been a very delectable residence before modern industrialism blotted out its view. Within this house lived Samuel Morley whose statue occupies so prominent a place at the top of Market Street. Samuel Morley, born in 1809, was an astute and honourable man; he controlled the great business that bears his name and is known throughout the world; he refused a peerage, and died a commoner in 1886. His almost innumerable acts of philanthropy have kept his memory green, one of these is particularly worthy of recall. Long before pensions for the aged were thought of by the generality of employers or by the official classes, Mr. Morley allowed his aged workpeople a pension of six shillings per week - a very comfortable sum in those days - and even to-day we hear, when talking to old people, some faint echo of the joy that this generous action brought into many a humble home. The name of Sneinton is interesting because it begins with the letter 'S'. The ancient name of Nottingham was 'Snotingham', meaning the 'ham' or homestead of the followers of Snot; who Snot was we do not know but his unpleasant name has come down to us in the fairly common patronymic of 'Snow'. In addition to their 'ham' or main settlement, these followers of Snot established a 'ton' or enclosure which went by the name of Snotington'; Snotingham became important while Snotington remained obscure. Then came the Normans who found it difficult to pronounce the initial 'S', so they dropped it from the name of the important Snotingham which was thenceforth known as 'Nottingham', but it was retained in the unimportant Snotington with which the Normans had little to do and which has gradually through the course of ages become shortened into Sneinton'. There still remains a street - with extremely interesting associations, for in it General Booth was born - which bears in its name 'Notintone Place' some faint indication of the origin and meaning of the name of Sneinton. Image and descriptive text taken from 'Nottingham Past and Present', published in 1926.