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January 8, 2010

The Green Canister: Mrs Phillips's Covent Garden Sex Shop

Teresia Constantia Phillips's life is as extraordinary and outlandish as one can imagine of an 18thC courtesan.  She was born in 1709, the daughter of an army Captain who fell upon hard times and she came to London aged 13 to stay with family friends and to try and earn her living as a seamstress.  Lodging in the same buildings was the young Philip Stanhope, later the Earl of Chesterfield.  In her best-selling, and long-winded Apology in 1748, Con (as she became familiarly known) alleged that Stanhope became infatuated with her, and proclaimed himself her lover.  Far from claiming she put him off, Con admitted that she entertained any young girl's enjoyment of being adored, but later realised that Stanhope was fascinated with adolescent girls and virgins in particular.  She then alleged that Stanhope locked her in his room, tied her hands to a chair and raped her.  It was an allegation Chesterfield was to deny strenuously, but an odd one to make if there was no grain of truth in it.  He also admitted that he had kept her as a mistress for a few months when she was very young.  

Con went on to become the mistress of too many men to mention without it sounding like a roll call.  She kept getting married illegally, made money, spent money, travelled and safe to say, did a lot of entertaining.  She died in Jamaica in 1765 on yet another adventure.  Some of her liaisons lasted years, and appear to have been exclusive, yet around 1732, she was at something of a loose end, having broken with her long-term lover so that he could make a good marriage (he settled money on her).  During her time as a courtesan, Con had learned a thing or two, and so she set up shop (or had someone do it for her) in Half Moon Street, which is now Bedford Street in Covent Garden, and had handbills printed to advertise her wares which were given out in the street by link boys earning a few extra pence.  

By far the most well-recorded item of merchandise were Con's 'preservatives' or condoms.  Condoms, or 'cundums' (even worse!) had been recorded in popular use since around 1500.  They were made from a sheep's intestine, and the standard length was between seven and eight inches, secured with a coloured ribbon about the base.  This might sound gross, not to mention unwieldy, but the treatment process to make them thin and flexible was extensive, and the end of the condom was stitched and sealed, then tested, by blowing them up to check for leaks.  It was recommended they were soaked in water, then squeezed out before use, to keep them elastic and comfortable.  Gut of any sort is porous, which means these condoms weren't infallible, but they were also subjected to various treatments which one imagines must have made them less permeable.  They certainly had some degree of efficacy, and they were popular.  Casanova swore by them and sought them by the box whenever he found a reliable source.  They were marketed as preventing both pregnancy and disease. 

Much is made of condoms being expensive, and hence whores not carrying them.  Rubbish, rubbish, all.  If you had enough money for a whore, you had enough money for a condom.  Furthermore, if you wanted to use a condom with a whore, why on earth would you let her provide one when you didn't know where it had been?  You don't care if she gets pregnant after all, that's why you are going to her in the first place.  Besides, condoms had more than one use in them well into the 20th century, and so men carried them more often than street-walkers.  However, any decent brothel boasted of its stock, and the goods did not just include the girls, but 'every Device to restore old men and debauched youths.'  Con sold condoms wholesale to the brothels and bagnios, so if you wanted to use one, all you had to do was ask.

In addition to condoms, Con probably also sold other methods of contraception.  One of the most common ones for women was a piece of natural sponge with a length of ribbon stitched into it.  The sponge was soaked in a dilute solution of lemon juice, or commonly vinegar and worn internally to prevent pregnancy.  This was not just a method used by prostitutes, but common amongst ordinary women who wanted a break from child-bearing, and Con's shop provided a decent, if not respectable place to buy them.  This brings me briefly onto the subject of clientele.  In many of the printed sources referring to the sex trade, there are mentions of 'lady-clients' (Lady Loveit being one of my personal favourites).  Whether they attended the brothels in a hetero, homosexual or fetishistic capacity isn't clear, but they were there nonetheless.  Most brothels were run by women, and most whores were women.  Therefore I conclude that a decent percentage of the customers to The Green Canister would have been women.  

The 'Devices' employed by the brothels had to be purchased somewhere, and it appears Con sold just about everything, whatever your particular 'caprice'.  'Widow's comforters' were available in leather, ivory and wood. Flagellation machines could be made to order, and various brothels specialized in different types.  Literature on the education of young ladies was prolific and often alarmingly well-illustrated.  Although there are no records as to her stock, I can't imagine it would have been any different to a modern sex shop, only fewer batteries.  

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January 6, 2010

London on Ice

The English obsession with weather means we have one of the oldest sets of climate records in the world.  They reveal a very different London than the one we know now.  In the 21stC, London and particularly the City, possesses a distinct micro-climate created by the buildings, the heat and gases they produce and the underlying geography.  Why is it always windy in Farringdon, and at Bank?  Why is it bizarrely still in Paternoster Square?  Why is the air quality on Holborn regularly the worst in Britain when it has less standing traffic, and certainly fewer buses than the King's Road?  Who knows, but one thing we do know is that London is much warmer than it was three centuries ago.  Hundreds of thousands of centrally heated buildings and offices spill heat into the air, meaning if it does snow it doesn't settle and it never gets cold enough to really freeze.  Three hundred years ago, the City of London froze regularly between December and March, and the 1690s recorded six winters when the temperature was consistently below 3'C for more than three months; definitely the sort of weather when a man like Samuel Pepys would have worn two shirts, a waistcoat and a jacket.  

The streets weren't salted, but many were paved so they became treacherous in freezing weather.  Horses had sacks tied to their metal-shod feet, and 'slippers' fitted to the wheels of their vehicles to prevent dangerous sliding.  Working men wore hobnailed boots, sometimes with sacking tied over them (with the studs poking through) for a bit of extra grip.  Many gentlemen would resort to them in freezing weather, although the sacking was unlikely.  Women did not wear pattens in icy conditions (I have tried on a pair of pattens and attempted to walk around in them, and I am not convinced anyone wore them in the street let alone worked in them as they are lethal).  Where the streets and passages were just mud or dirt and on the banks of the Thames, duckboards were put down for people to walk over.  It was not uncommon to find vagrants, or unfortunates who had frozen during the night, including one man in the Fleet ditch, discovered standing upright, but dead and solid.  The price of coal rose, and the poorest Londoners had to cut wood from the common land, if they hadn't already.

Before Bazalgette's Embankment the Thames was a wider, slower river with gently sloping muddy banks, again covered in duckboards, which must have been very slippy in wet and icy conditions.  The bridges were shored up with wide wooden 'sparrows' which trapped debris and slowed the current, making it easier for ice to form.  Sets of stone steps jutted out to the water, where people could hop on and off the little boats plying their passenger trade.  When the Thames froze all river traffic stopped, but some people were not quick enough to get out of the water: in the hard winter of 1771 the Thames began to freeze and 'a waterman...had his boat jammed in between the ice and could not get on shore, and no waterman dare venture to his assistance.  He was almost speechless last night and it is thought he cannot survive long'.  The couple of days it took for the Thames to freeze completely must have been a dangerous time.  The watermen, some of London's poorest workers would have wanted to keep trading as long as possible and some traded their lives for the opportunity of one last fare.  

The Thames froze more often than is commonly thought, due to it being fairly shallow, but it froze in chunks as the picture in the gallery from 1677 shows.  Whilst dramatic and great fun, it meant that it wasn't easy to venture out onto the ice, and was unsuitable for one of the famous Frost Fairs for which the Thames is so well-known.  Frost Fairs have been recorded since Elizabethan Times, when it was customary to push a printing press out onto the ice as a test, and if it held, souvenir cards were printed off and sold as a memento of the occasion.  Booths and cook-stalls were set up, selling skates made from whalebone, puppets, gloves, hats and scarves as well as hot chestnuts and pork sandwiches from spits, along with sticky gingerbread and baked apples eaten from newspaper with a spoon.  There were street performers, puppet shows and other entertainments such as singing.  Sometimes, as in 1683, the freeze was so solid that the Thames became a miniature shopping village and the booths were arranged into 'streets'.  I'd imagine the overall feel was like that of the German Christmas markets with their covered, but portable wooden stalls.

The most famous Frost Fair is that of 1814, but I think the one of 1683 sounds more fun, despite the fug caused by the smoke of coal-fires hanging heavy in the air.  The souvenir card in the gallery records the following carried out on the ice (including booths set up as 'branches' of land-based businesses):

The Duke of York's Coffee House
The Tory Booth (?)
The Roast Beefe Booth
The Half way House
The Musick Booth
The Printing Booth
The Lottery Booth
The Sledge drawing coals
The Horne Tavern Booth
The Toy Shoppe
A boat drawn by a horse
A boat drawn on wheels
Bull-baiting and Bear-baiting
Boys sliding (proof that some things never change)
Nine-Pinn Playing
Sliding on Scates

You can see from both pictures there seems to be little or no snow on the ground (but lots of dogs and cats).  Even the earliest Frost Fairs had merry-go-rounds for children, boat-swings and pony-drawn rides, but life off the river probably wasn't quite so much fun. One of the greatest problems during freezes such as this is that the ground froze to depths of two or three feet, making the drawing of water from the wells in the streets difficult, if not impossible and ice had to be gathered and melted, then boiled for domestic use.  One group of people not complaining were the ice merchants who used this weather to fill their under-ground stores and cellars with the cold stuff, packed in straw so that it could be sold in warmer weather.  By the 1720s, the demand for ice had become great enough for dealers in 'ice and snow' to be making a living.  

The thaws, when they came, were sudden and terrifying.  I can find no accounts of booths falling through the ice, so the stallholders were savvy enough to realise when to get out, but there are stories of a ship, moored to the quay of a public house which pulled down both when it fell back into the thawed river in 1789.  There is also the piteous tale in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1763 of a wretch, 'with skaits on..found frozen to death upon some floating ice over against the Isle of Dogs.'

The Thames froze for the last time in 1814 and was solid for four days; solid enough to lead an elephant across the ice near Blackfriars Bridge and erect fairground rides.  The innovations of the Victorian period, such as the new London Bridge and the Embankment caused the river to become narrower, deeper and faster thus ending London's life on ice.

 

   
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January 1, 2010

Retail Therapy: An overview of shopping in Georgian London

Shopping had a different structure during the Georgian period and this post is little more than an overview of a massive subject.  Food shopping was a daily routine and based mainly around the markets all over the City.  Coal was delivered to the house by men who built up rounds and rented storage space in cellars in each locality, then carried individual sacks (or small barrow-loads) to each house.  This was also the same with water, which was usually local and clean well water, but also came from as far away as Epsom, or even Buxton for the discerning palate.  Water was delivered in hods, hence the term 'hod-carrier', now used mainly in the building trade.  Milkmaids who worked for a dairyman or woman carried their milk about the streets using a yoke and shouting their wares.  Self-employed milkmaids (almost always Welsh) lead their cow on their rounds and milked it at the door, ringing a bell in each square or when she arrived in the street.  Babies and those with a cow's milk intolerance (yes, it was recognised then) could have milk from the asses who were also led around the streets.  Pretty girls were deployed from the market gardens to sell perishable foods and herbs such as cherries, asparagus and lavender, from baskets often carried on their heads (probably not in this weather though).

Although most food was sold from roving basket carriers or market stalls, some foods with a longer shelf-life, such as cheeses and preserved meats were sold in large warehouses around the Strand, Covent Garden and Leadenhall in the City.  Many of these warehouses specialized according to nationality, and a few xenophobic pamphlets of the late 17thC complain of the stinking garlic sausages hung up to dry in the windows of the French warehouses.  Early shops, and particularly those trading before the fire of London were simply part of the house where the shopkeeper lived.  Beneath the front window was one large shutter on a hinge, which would be propped up in the morning, parallel with the window-sill.  The window were then opened and goods put out on the table, or arranged inside on shelving (typical of bakeries).  A visitor to London (Lorenzo Magalotti) remarked in his diary that these shops were 'mostly under the care of well-dressed women' who were aided by their young apprentices.  This seems an excellent system, appealing to almost all buyers.  It also sheds light on the employment of women in the 18thC (more in another post), who were not simply expected to stay at home, meek and mild, but to get involved in running the thousands of little family businesses throughout London.    

After the Fire, many shops, particularly those selling more expensive items were rebuilt with room inside to show goods, and the family moved upstairs.  The Royal Exchange was the model for these shops, which were fitted out in a commodious fashion and again, staffed mainly by women and the apprentices.  Fixed shop windows, where a permanent display of books, wallpapers, paintings, carving, silks and fabrics, gloves and lace could remain for longer than a day, became popular.  Many tailors' and dressmakers' shops doubled as places to drink tea and coffee and meet with the girls for a natter.  Most tailors and dressmakers sold clothes off the peg which could then be altered by seamstresses who often hung out wooden needles or signs from their lodgings when they were available to work.  It was a matter of knocking on the door, trying on the garments, discussing what needed to be done and picking them up later: an excellent arrangement (Samuel Pepys bizarre obsession with his 'little seamstress' makes interesting reading.  There were two garden centres selling everything from tools to seedlings to trees in the Strand for people with nothing better to do with their Sunday afternoon.  The pet-shops on the north side of Covent Garden sold everything from song-thrushes caught on Hampstead Heath to marmosets in little outfits.  There was a household emporium near Holborn specializing in domestic pewter for kitchens and taverns, but also buckets, spoons and other treen and there were plenty of opticians who tested the eyes and sold spectacles both made to measure and off the peg (plain green and blue lenses were also used to help with light sensitivity and quite possibly, dyslexia, by stabilizing the visual field).  

The largest and grandest shops were obviously those catering to the rich, including Thomas Chippendale's cabinet-making workshop and showroom, John Burroughs, the furniture-maker on Cornhill, Moxon's the scientific instrument maker in Warwick Lane, Paul de Lamerie, the goldsmith and jeweller in Soho.  These shops were beautifully fitted out and allowed customers to browse at their considerable stock accompanied by an apprentice to show them the merits of each piece.  This allowed the apprentices to learn about the stock, and about the nature of retailing.  It also helped them to build clientele which they could either take with them when they set up their own business, or for long-term relationships with whilst working for their master.  Customers were served with tea and coffee, shown pattern-books, entertained and generally spoiled.

Shops were dependent upon the rhythm of daylight hours.  Food shops opened at dawn and stayed open until they had sold out for the day, or until dark.  Most other shops opened at 8am and stayed open until nightfall, or 9pm in the summer.  It's also worth bearing in mind that as a nation of shopkeepers, there were no chain-stores and each shop traded as they saw fit; much more interesting than the modern high street.

Anyone interested in learning more would be advised to read Dorothy Davis's excellent History of Shopping.

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December 7, 2009

Elizabeth Stokes, Lady Bare-Knuckles

 

It wasn't only men who fought for money In Georgian London, the ladies liked a shot at the title too.  Of course, women have fought in staged competitions since ancient times, but lady bare-knuckle fighters became very popular in London in the early 18thC.  I imagine this was in no small part due to the rise of boxing as a spectator sport, and the high probability of seeing two athletic women stripped to the waist.

The most famous of all the early lady fighters is Elizabeth Stokes.  Born Elizabeth Wilkinson, date unknown, by 1722, she was advertising in the newspapers of her upcoming fights and that same year she met Hannah Hyfield, 'the Newgate Market basket-woman' for a prize of 3 guineas.  They fought with half a crown in each of their fists, and the first to drop a coin lost.  Elizabeth won, despite 'the good thumping' Hannah had promised her in the paper.  From then on, she began fighting in James Figg's venue, the 'Boarded-House' in Marylebone, or his Amphitheatre 'where cocks and bulls and Irish women fight' as a contemporary poem went (although as far as I know, Stokes was born and bred a Londoner).  By 1728, she had married Figg's rival, James Stokes, who fought as the Citizen of London, and had been beaten by Figg on at least one occasion.  From then on, she fought at Stokes's own Amphitheatre, near Sadler's Wells.  The following advertisement appeared in the Weekly Journal on the 1st of October 1726:   

  At Mr. STOKES’s Amphitheatre,

 

in Islington Road, near Sadler’s Wells, on Monday next, being the 3d of October, will be perform’d a trial of skill by the following Championesses. Whereas I Mary Welch, from the Kingdom of Ireland, being taught, and knowing the noble science of defence, and thought to be the only female of this kind in Europe, understanding there is one in this Kingdom, who has exercised on the publick stage several times, which is Mrs. Stokes, who is stiled the famous Championess of England; I do hereby invite her to meet me, and exercise the usual weapons practis’d on the stage, at her own amphitheatre, doubting not, but to let her and the worthy spectators see, that my judgment and courage is beyond hers. I Elizabeth Stokes, of the famous City of London, being well known by the name of the Invincible City Championess for my abilities and judgment in the abovesaid science; having never engaged with any of my own sex but I always came off with victory and applause, shall make no apology for accepting the challenge of this Irish Heroine, not doubting but to maintain the reputation I have hitherto establish’d, and shew my country, that the contest of it’s honour, is not ill entrusted in the present battle with their Championess, Elizabeth Stokes.
     Note, The doors will be open’d at two, and the Championesses mount at four.
     N.B. They fight in close jackets, short petticoats, coming just below the knee, Holland drawers, white stockings, and pumps.
 
It is interesting and significant that the clothing of the combatants is described (nobody cares what the men wore), and sounds very practical and modest.  Low and extremely rough prize fights were fought for gin, new clothes, men and such all over the City.  The women 'tied up their hair and stripped to the waist'.  Many of these fights were between street prostitutes and added a little to their income, or perhaps a lot, depending on how many spectators and how successful they were.  Elizabeth Stokes maintained the 'half-crown rule' in her fights, which is quite clever, as it stops scratching and gouging, and puts a time limit on the fight.  The rougher matches were without rules and it was thought particularly effective to punch and scratch an opponent on the face and breasts.  Once again, this rough boxing was popular with the Irish, both as fighters and as spectators and as it was fought on such a low level, few records remain.
 
In contrast, Elizabeth Stokes's career was well-publicized.  In 1728, the Daily Post carried the following:

At Mr Stokes's Amphitheatre in Islington Road, this present Monday, being the 7th of October, will be a complete Boxing Match, by the two following Championesses: Whereas I, Ann Field, of Stoke Newington, ass driver, well-known for my abilities in my own defence, whenever it happened in my way, having been affronted by Mrs Stokes, styled the European Championess, do fairly invite her to a trial of her best skill in Boxing, for 10 pounds; fair rise and fall...I, Elizabeth Stokes, of the City of London, have not fought this way since I fought the famous Boxing Woman of Billingsgate 29 minutes and gained a complete victory....but as the famous ass-woman of Stowe Newington dares me to fight her for the 10 pounds, I do assure her I shall not tail meeting her for the said sum, and doubt not that the blows I shall present her with will be more difficult to digest than any she ever gave her asses. 

           N.B Attendance will be given at one, and the encounter is to begin at four precisely.  There will be the diversion of cudgel playing as usual. 

 
The cudgel display was not only a diversion: Elizabeth Stokes was also known to fight with weapons, including the short sword and the cudgel, and apparently she was very skilled.  It should be noted that although Stokes and her husband took on other couples in mixed fights, men and woman never fought each other.  Stokes is perhaps the most famous female fighter of the Georgian period, but there were others, including the famous 'Bruising Peg' who was of Amazonian proportions and quite terrifying (also very rough), and in 1795 two famous male boxers Mendoza and 'Gentleman Jackson' acted as seconds in a fight between Mrs Mary Ann Fielding and a 'Jewess of Wentworth Street'.  The fight lasted 80 minutes and there were over 70 knockdowns between them for a prize of 11 guineas. 
 
Bare-knuckle fighting for women continued into the 19thC, drawing an ever-rougher crowd.  Fights were often staged at dawn before everyone went to work, or as they were coming home.  An exception was 'The Boxing Baroness' Lady Barrymore, who used boxing to keep fit and amuse her sport-mad husband in the early 1820s. The Victorian period drove bare-knuckle fighting underground, and in 1867, the Marquess of Queensberry made boxing a sport for gentlemen. 
 
(The illustration used here is a bit of fun. It's completely spurious.)

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December 3, 2009

James Figg, Father of British Boxing

James Figg was born to a poor farming family in Thame, Oxfordshire in 1684 (or 1695, depending on which source you read).  He was the youngest of seven children and grew up a tough little nut, going to local fairs and challenging the prize fighters in the booths there.  He based himself at the Greyhound Inn in Cornmarket in Thame, where he could be challenged, and gave self-defence lessons.  By the time he was a grown man he was 6 feet tall and around 185lbs, fit and fast, and travelled to fairs throughout the Midlands where he challenged all-comers from noon until sundown.  He taught himself to fight with a short-sword, a staff and a club, and staged exhibitions of his skill at the fairs (very clever, as it avoided taking on an opponent for at least part of his day).  

Gambling was an enormous part of bare-knuckle boxing (as it still is), and the Earl of Peterborough, a man who liked his sport and is gambling, happened to see Figg fight and offered to back him.  Figg moved to London and set up home near Oxford Street.  He opened his 'Amphitheatre' just north of Oxford Street, where he trained gentlemen in the 'art' of pugilism and self-defence.  He also fought at Southwark Fair in his own booth, where he was known for taking on multiple opponents and beating them all.  By 1720, he was openly acknowledged as London champion, and fought for money regularly, with the matches being advertised in the newspapers.  There were three rounds in an organized prize-fight: the first with short-swords, the second with fists and the third with the staff (sometimes a club).  There was considerable skill involved, and considerable money; it was said that sometimes as much as 3000l could be wagered on a single match.  It was also pretty brutal, with the bare-knuckle fight allowing slapping, kicking, biting and gouging.

Sometime before 1723, Figg let his Amphitheatre to another boxing master and began to prize-fight on a regular basis at 'The Boarded House' behind Oxford Street, in Marylebone-Fields.  It was not only men who fought there, but women and animals.  Figg fought about once a month, and his opponents included Christopher Clarkson The Lancashire Soldier, Philip MacDonald The Dublin Carpenter, James Stokes Citizen of London (and husband of the famous lady-boxer Elizabeth Stokes).  However, Figg's greatest opponent was Ned Sutton of Gravesend.  Sutton was the only person Figg ever lost to, but he regained his title as champion on the next bout.  In around 250 fights, Figg recorded only one defeat.  His most talented pupil, Jack Broughton continued to run his school and was instrumental in setting the first rules of boxing in 1743.  

James Figg was enormously famous during his own lifetime with many of the aristocracy attending both his school and his fights.  He was a great popular hero as well, and a familiar sight around the streets of the West End.  William Hogarth, who both painted his portrait and allegedly designed his trade card (in the gallery) declared him 'the master of the noble science of defence'.  There was one opponent Figg could not defend himself against however, and in early December, 1734 at the end of an astonishing career, this notice appeared in the papers:

Last Saturday there was a Trial of Skill between the unconquered Hero, Death, on the one side and till then the unconquered Hero Mr James Figg, the famous Prize-Fighter and Master of the Noble Science of Defence on the other: The Battle was most obstinately fought on both sides, but at last the former obtained an Entire Victory and the latter tho' he was obliged to submit to a Superior Foe yet fearless and with Disdain he retired and that Evening expired at his house in Oxford Road.

 

     
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November 30, 2009

London's 'Devilish Pastime': Football

To claim the invention of the game of football for London would be naughty: as long as there have been balls, little boys will kick them.  Prior to the 1580s, street or mob football has been assumed the only game, but between 1421 and 1423, the Brewers' Company records the hiring out of their hall to the football 'plaiers', for 20 pence (which I presume to be for their matches over the year as 20 pence is a reasonable sum). 

In mob football, four white shirts were soaked in the nearest pump and balled up, two at each 'end', on the ground.  Teams could contain any number of players, and often, like tug-o-war, there were many more players on one side than the other.  Mob football was often played by gangs of apprentices from neighbouring parishes/villages on a Saturday afternoon when they got out from work (anyone see a pattern here?).  High streets were a common venue as they provided a narrower field, but commons also served as improvised pitches.  Beer compulsory at the close of play. 

In 1581, Richard Mulcaster (Old Etonian, and headmaster of Merchant Taylors' and St Paul's) wrote his treatise on the education of children.  It is a remarkably modern document, and describes 'foteball' as a tool for instilling discipline, teamwork and physical fitness in the young.  Mulcaster also recommended the involvement of a referee.  

By 1660, Francis Willughby had written his Book of English Games, which included the diagram of a pitch and a description of the ball: 

They blow a strong bladder and tie the neck of it as fast as they can, then put it into the skin of a buls cod and sew it fast in...The harder the ball is blown, the better it flies.

The anatomy of the early football is intriguing: it is double-skinned like the modern ones.  I had heard people talk about the kicking of a pig's bladder before, but thought it unlikely as bladders were used to contain paint and other retailed liquids such as floor polish, but they are not particularly durable.  Anyone who has visited a petshop will have seen pieces of a bull's penis for sale.  They are extremely strong and durable, and I am not surprised to learn they were used as the outer leather for footballs.  There sounds to be a certain amount of skill in the making of them as well, so there may well have been specialist makers.  

By 1747, boys at Eton were playing the game we would recognize today, followed rapidly by Westminster and the other public schools.  The schools played amongst themselves, but across London, teams were forming.  Hammersmith, Fulham and Chelsea were the three main villages to contribute teams to the London scene.  The Fulham team were known for their rowdiness, and that of their followers and when they played Hammersmith there was almost always violence.  Closer to the centre of London, teams of apprentices such as butchers, fishmongers and plaisterers.  They wore their badges on their sleeves to distinguish between the teams.  Villages wore different coloured arm-bands.  

Hammersmith, Chelsea and Fulham Commons were the venues for the village matches and the apprentices played on the Blackguards' Ground near Moorfields in the City.  By the late 18thC, a separate group was emerging: grown men from across Britain who found themselves in London, and banded together with their fellows to create teams.  The most notable were the Westmoreland and Cumberland teams, who all trained together as The Gymnastic Society, thought to be the first modern football club.  From the 1780s they played regularly on Kennington Common.  

In 1826, a reincarnation of the Gymnastic Society mentioned the vast crowds of spectators drawn by football every weekend, and since the 12thC football has been regularly outlawed for causing people to congregate in an unruly fashion.  There was no charge to watch.  Up until the Victorian period, it was customary for gentlemen to arrive on their horses to watch from a better vantage point, and there are stories of makeshift grandstands collapsing under the weight of spectators.  So it seems that for as long as boys have wanted to kick a ball, there are people who have wanted to watch them do it.  

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November 10, 2009

The Wit's Vade-Mecum-

Joe Miller was a London actor, active from about 1708 and dying in 1738. A notorious wit and man-about-town, he was well-connected and had made notes of some of the funniest things he had heard in his time in London. The year after his death, these jokes were published by his friend Elijah Jenkins and became an instant bestseller. There are some excellent and very dirty jokes in his little book, but also wit on topical subjects of the day and famous names make an appearance quite often. Here I have picked out a few of my favourites, and include the link to the online resource of 'The Vade-Mecum' (Vade Mecum is Latin for go with me)

-A Lady’s Age happening to be questioned, she affirmed, she was but Forty, and call’d upon a Gentleman that was in Company for his Opinion; Cousin, said she, do you believe I am in the Right, when I say I am but Forty? I ought not to dispute it, Madam, reply’d he, for I have heard you say so  these ten Years.

-After the Fire of London, there was an Act of Parliament to regulate the Buildings of the City, every House was to be three Stories high, and there were to be no Balconies backwards: A Gloucestershire Gentleman, a Man of great Wit and Humour, just after this Act passed, going along the Street, and seeing a little crooked Gentlewoman, on the other Side of the Way, he runs over to her in great haste, Lord, Madam, said he, how dare you walk the Streets thus publickly? Walk the Streets! why not? answer’d the little Woman. Because said he, you are built directly contrary to Act of Parliament, you are but two Stories high, and your Balcony hangs over your House-of-Office.

-A Gentleman said of a young Wench, who constantly ply’d about the Temple, that if she had as much Law in her Head, as she had had in her Tail, she would be one of the ablest Counsel England.

-Sir Godfrey Kneller, and the late Dr. Ratcliffe, had a Garden in common, but with one Gate: Sir Godfrey, upon some Occasion, ordered the Gate to be nail’d up; when the Doctor heard of it, he said, He did not Care what Sir Godfrey did to the Gate, so he did not paint it. This being told Sir Godfrey, he replied, He would take that, or any Thing from his good Friend, the Doctor, but his Physick.

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Filed under  //   Lewd London   London at Leisure   Strange London  

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October 21, 2009

The Westminster Bridge Lottery and Catherine the Great's Wine Cistern-

This is a story of many little strands, but they knit together so please bear with me.  My posts so far have focussed on the incomers; this one focusses on the working trades already resident in London during the early Georgian period.

I have written before about the Huguenots and their influence upon Georgian London.  Not everyone took kindly to their arrival in the years following 1685, and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.  A rash of petitions were presented to every public body in London protesting about the 'foreigners' who worked for less, undercutting British journeymen.  The goldsmiths gathered together to sign their petition again the 'aliens' in 1697, and again a few years later.  Amongst them was the English Catholic Goldsmith Anthony Nelme.  The fact that he was a massive hypocrite, who bought cheap but excellent goods from the immigrant workers, and later replicated them himself seems to have escaped him.  

Amongst Nelme's apprentices was a boy names Henry Jernegen.  Jernegen was from a family of landed gentry and the apprenticeship with Nelme was probably a smokescreen to ensure the boy became free of the Goldsmiths' Company, and so would hold a prestigious position when he became a banker, which he rapidly did.  Henry Jernegen was in no way a working goldsmith, but employed others to produce commissions for his clients (rather like ordering a set of cutlery from Garrards now).  Jernegen was lucky, or unlucky enough to land Littleton Pointz Meynell as a client.  Meynell was raised as a banker, but instead became a massive gambler, in a way only possible in the 18th century.  His wins were mammoth, his losses, likewise.  In between winning and losing, Jernegen made attempts to divert his client's capital into 'fashioned bullion', essentially works of art in sterling silver.  This helped Jernegen in two ways: he could mitigate his losses through commission, and make sure his client had some money in commodities.  

In 1730, Jernegen and Meynell (pronounced Men'll) came up with an astonishing idea: to create the biggest wine cistern ever.  Wine cisterns are modernly called coolers, which is wrong.  A wine cistern had a companion piece to a fountain which spouted wine into the cistern and into which guests dipped their glasses, rather than wait for a servant.  (sounds an excellent idea)  The largest ever cistern had held 20 gallons, made in 1721.  The Meynell cistern was to hold 60 gallons and weighs over a quarter of a ton, making it the size of a bathtub (see the image in the gallery).  I have posed for pictures in an exact copy of this cistern, and when seated on the bottom, you can just see my eyes over the top. It is enormous.

The silversmith commissioned to make it was Charles Kandler, originally from Saxony (an immigrant then?). At some stage, Kandler became a Roman Catholic, and married into a well-to-do Catholic family.  He made huge amounts of silver for the Norfolk family of Arundel, indicating he was favoured by Catholic families.  Charles Frederick Kandler is widely thought to be a relative of Johann Joachim Kandler, talented modeller for the Meissen factory, which explains the amazing handles on this piece.

Clearly, a piece of silver weighing more than a quarter of a ton takes time to make, and when it was finished, so was Meynell: he had no money to pay.  Jernegen sued him, but had no luck, because Meynell was broke and Jernegen was stuck with this enormous White Elephant.  It just so happened that the State was stuck for money at the time, and holding a lottery to rebuild Westminster Bridge.  Jernegen offered the cistern as first prize, in hopes to avoid financial embarrassment, and was accepted (taking a percentage of the ticket sales and so recouping his losses).  Not enough tickets sold, and it wasn't until 1737 that a second huge and prestigious state lottery offered the cistern as a prize in hopes to fund the bridge rebuilding (the image in the gallery details the catalogue for the cistern).  A Dorset farmer won first prize, but there being little call for a rococo silver bathtub in Dorset, he sold it.

Another mystery ensues.  No one knows who the cistern was sold to, but by the following year (1738), it was in Russia and forming part of Catherine the Great's collection.  (My personal wager is on Paul de Lamerie, and his underground network. It was probably sold over lunch as soon as the lottery was drawn.)  It remains in the Hermitage Museum, the largest extant piece of antique solid silver in the world.  It is a huge folly, and a beautiful one: utterly dispensable yet extraordinary.  

 

   
Click here to download:
The_Westminster_Bridge_Lottery.zip (388 KB)

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Filed under  //   Artisan London   French London   Huguenots   Immigrants   London Apprentices   London at Leisure   Trading in London  

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October 8, 2009

John Castaing, Jonathan's Coffee House and the birth of the Stock Exchange

When asked to name a London coffee house, most people automatically say, 'Lloyd's'.  In way they'd be right; Lloyd's is famous for the birth of the insurance industry, but Jonathan's was arguably a more important venue, and also based around Exchange Alley.

Jonthan's was opened by Jonathan Miles in 1680.  Along with Garraway's, it was frequented by City businessmen, although the 'quality' was better at the latter.  Trading in stocks was no new invention but it accelerated quickly with the arrival of the Huguenots.  They had liquidated their assets on leaving France and some of them were very rich indeed.  It is a mystery how they got their money out of France, but stocks would certainly have been one method, and there was a strong history of Huguenot stock trading in the Netherlands already.  

By 1690, there were at least 100 companies selling stocks that were traded in London.  Their value fluctuated according to the news that came and went along the international information routes: the ships coming and going from London's docks.  News of lost cargoes, huge hauls, diseased crews and delays for repair were brought back by thousands of vessels, both large and small.  The coffee houses employed boys to go to the docks, hang around and wait for news, then run back as soon as they heard anything.  They would also run to the houses of the biggest merchants and butter up the servants for information.  Then they would report to the coffee house and their findings would be displayed on a board behind the bar.  Entry to the coffee house cost a penny, and then the coffee was included, so this service wasn't free.  The better coffee houses such as Jonathan's soon began to print their own news sheet, with the gossip relevant to their clientele.  John Castaing was a Huguenot broker who spent a lot of time at Jonathan's and he began to write up stock prices, bullion prices and exchange rates in 1698, publishing the sheet on a Tuesday and a Friday as The Course of Exchange and Other Things.  

Castaing's prices were relied upon by many of the coffee houses in the City, even though other more comprehensive sheets were printed.  His exchange rate was commonly used, and the publication continued for almost a century.  Castaing's success was largely connected to his Huguenot background.  It can be no coincidence that the packet boat from Harwich to the Hook of Holland ran on Wednesdays and Saturdays, taking Castaing's prices along with the scribblings of Pierre Des Maizeaux from the coffee houses of the West End where men such as Newton informed the conversation.  The Huguenots who remained in the Netherlands were a substantial network of both money and thinkers.  

Jonathan's burned down in 1748, ending an era.  New Jonathan's was built without delay, supported by various brokers and soon took on the name of The Stocks Exchange.  The coffee house was close to the site of London's original livestock market (The 'Stocks Market); the two were soon combined, and the London Stock Market was born.

Future posts will include the other London coffee houses, their origin in the Levant Company and the first records of Muslim London.    

 

   
Click here to download:
John_Castaing_Jonathans_Coffee.zip (608 KB)

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Filed under  //   French London   Huguenots   Immigrants   Intellectual London   London at Leisure   London Institutions   Trading in London  

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October 6, 2009

I am the Only Running Footman

Having a carriage in 17C London was all very well, but the streets were narrow and full of people, barrows, animals and so on. Tradition has it that the footmen went before the carriages and cleared a route, carrying a stout stick for the purpose. After the Great Fire the streets were better, everyone was used to carriages rumbling about and the need for footmen lessened, although they stayed on as house servants. Being a footman was a pretty cool job.  The average wage in 1750 was advertised at about £7, but it is thought that the 'vails' or perquisites, were worth about £40, which means it paid extremely well for a servile role (somewhere in the region of £60,000 in today's money). You had the best uniform in the house, including a good supply of white stockings and shirts, and your job was to look fit, nonchalant and as handsome as possible.  The downside was that you usually had to sleep two to a bed with your colleagues and you weren't allowed to marry, in theory. Of course, footmen did marry, and have girlfriends, but saw them on their days off. You also got to spend a lot of time standing around with attractive women far above your station. Footmen were notoriously the source of the best gossip, and trusted with clandestine errands. They were also famed for being cocky and 'above their station'. Hardly surprising. The Swiss scientist Nicolas Theodore de Saussure visited England in 1725 and noted in his diary:

If you take a meal with a person of rank you must give every one of the five or six footmen a coin on leaving. They will be ranged in a file in the hall, and the least you can give them is a shilling each, and should you fail to do this you will be treated insolently the next time.

A common misconception of the Georgian period is that everyone wandered around half-crippled with rickets, tooth decay and scrofula. Not so. Surviving childhood meant a strong immune system, and the ideal standard for a footman was six feet tall. Six footers wouldn't have been that common, but they wouldn't have been a rarity either. (The Industrial Revolution was key in causing the overcrowding and poor diet resulting in shorter stature.) Runners were also useful in a household to fetch things and take messages before a reliable postal system had been introduced (perhaps we should reintroduce them until The Royal Mail gets its act together). Charles I's household accounts for 1635 detail 2 shillings paid to a footman for running from London to Hampton Court, although no errand is recorded.

Costing nothing and being good for a wager, running races have been popular throughout the ages. The Puritans banned shows of athleticism during their short rule, but with the Restoration they were back up and 'running' and by 1663 Samuel Pepys recorded the following in his diary for 3rd July:

The town talk this day is of nothing but the great foot-race run this day on Banstead Downs, between Lee, the Duke of Richmond's footman, and a tyler, a famous runner. And Lee hath beat him; though the King and Duke of York and all men almost did bet three or four to one upon the tyler’s head.

Pepys records two other races in his diary, both feature a footman as one of the contestants. Running races, with footmen or not, became very popular towards the end of the century, and 6,000 are recorded as turning out to see Preston, the 'Flying Butcher of Leeds' in 1688. Victorian concerns for ladylike behaviour had not yet prevailed and women ran as well as men. There are tales of a Scottish lady distance runner in the 1750s who could cover seventy miles in a day. Rowlandson records 'The Smock Race' in his 'Rural Sports' illustrations of 1811 (copyright prevents me from showing you).

The name of The Only Running Footman pub in Berkeley Street, Mayfair dates from the early 19C (although the pub itself dates from 1749), when the tradition of having footmen precede a carriage died out, and one of the last ones bought a pub at the back of a mews better to cater for his old friends. William Makepeace Thackery records the decline of the noble role of the running footman in The Virginians: A Tale of the Last Century:

Lacqueys, liveries, footmen--the old society was encumbered with a prodigious quantity of these. Gentlemen or women could scarce move without one, sometimes two or three, vassals in attendance...they swarmed in anterooms: they sprawled in halls and on landings: they guzzled, devoured, debauched, cheated, played cards, bullied visitors for vails:-- that noble old race of footmen is well-nigh gone. A few thousand of them may still be left among us. Grand, tall, beautiful, melancholy, we still behold them on levee days, with their nosegays and their buckles, their plush and their powder....But the race is doomed...and Jeames with his cocked hat and long cane, are passing out of the world where they once walked in glory.

The Duke of Queensberry is said to have kept the last ones as a mark of his own virility. The Survey of London records an incident (possibly anecdotal) in which 'Old Q' met his match:

The duke was in the habit of trying the pace of candidates for his service by seeing how they could run up and down Piccadilly, watching and timing them from his balcony. They put on a livery before the trial. On one occasion, a candidate presented himself, dressed, and ran. At the conclusion of his performance he stood before the balcony. "You will do very well for me," said the duke. "And your livery will do very well for me," replied the man, and gave the duke a last proof of his ability as a runner by then running away with it.

   
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I_am_the_Only_Running_Footman.zip (654 KB)

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Filed under  //   London at Leisure   Sporting London  

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