the University of Cambridge. These were acquired by William Stone (1857–1958) during the Second World War. Stone, nicknamed the "Squire of Piccadilly", was a former scholar of Peterhouse, a bachelor and a lifelong resident of the Albany. He bequeathed 37 sets to the college, along with other endowments. The Albany is governed by a Board of Trustees on behalf of the Proprietors. The annual rent of a set can be as much as £50,000 and prospective tenants are vetted by a committee before being allowed to take up residence. Only recently have women been allowed to apply. Name The names "Albany" and "the Albany" have both been used. The rules adopted in 1804 laid down that "the Premises mentioned in the foregoing Articles shall be called Albany". Both names have been used in the 19th and 20th centuries. In a 1958 review of a book about the building, Peace in Piccadilly, The Times wrote, "Albany or the Albany? It has long been a snobbish test of intimate knowledge of the West End. If one was in use, a man could feel superior by using the other. When G. S. Street wrote The Ghosts of Piccadilly in 1907, he said that 'the Albany' was then 'universal', but that to the earliest tenants it was 'Albany'." In fiction An early use of the building in fiction was the novel, The Bachelor of the Albany (1847) by Marmion Wilard Savage. Still earlier is the hero of Benjamin Disraeli’s novel Sybil (1845), Charles Egremont, who lives there; he has a portrait by Christifano Allori hung over his fireplace halfway through the book. Mr Fascination Fledgeby, a moneylender in Charles Dickens' novel, Our Mutual Friend (1865) is described as living there. Several scenes from the book take place in his apartment. In the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) by Oscar Wilde, Lord Fermor, the uncle of the character Lord Henry Wotton, resides in the Albany. In Oscar Wilde's play, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), the character John (Jack) Worthing has a set at the Albany (number B.4), where he lives while staying in London under the assumed name of Ernest. A. J. Raffles, the gentleman burglar created by E. W. Hornung who first appeared in "The Ides of March" (1898), lived at the Albany, as did the adventurer Lord John Roxton of Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Lost World (1912), and Roger