ABSTRACT
Possible knowledge and interest by Joseph Crabtree in Eastern Europe, and Poland in particular, may have been aroused in his late teenage years. We know from Rowe that it was in 1773, at the age of nineteen, that Crabtree came to live in London with Joseph ‘Bramah’ Postlethwaite. They resided in Denmark Street, St. Giles. As Crabtree strolled around Soho, he must have walked down Poland Street, off Oxford Street, not a stone’s throw from the workshop, and wondered about its name. In fact he discovered the street was named to honour the exploits of King Jan Sobieski, who hurled back the Turks from the gates of Vienna in 1683. This street, then in a very exclusive part of London, was first mentioned as Poland Street in 1689.
