April 16, 2010

Bankside, 'where butchers do a bear': Baiting with dogs in Georgian London

Bear baiting. A less appealing side of Georgian London, granted, but one deserving of attention nonetheless. First of all, by the 'real' Georgian period bear baiting had pretty much disappeared from London. It was a sport most popular in the Elizabethan period, with contests on a Sunday, but had detractors even then:

What folly is this, to keep with danger
A great mastive dog, and fowle ouglie bear;
And to this and end, to see them two fight,
With terrible tearings, a full ouglie sight.

There's quite a bit written about how Elizabeth Tudor loved a good bear vs. dog ruck, but who really knows there? She wasn't exactly the sort to shy away from traditionally male pastimes, like sovereignty. Bear baiting was prohibited under the Puritans and only hare coursing remained as a dog-based sport that could be done on foot. Upon the Restoration, the Bankside Bear-garden was cranked back into life, but it was defunct by 1686. Charles did not encourage the sport and although there was a Royal bear garden near the Fleet, it was used for human contests.

Bandogs, the frightening pit-bull relative were bred specifically for baiting, but when tastes turned towards seeing bears perform rather than get ripped up, these animals needed new targets. They were found in animals that had outlived their purpose, such as the elderly lion baited to death on Bankside in February 1675, and the famous 'savage' horse.

Rochester's horse is often used as an example of the barbarity of the Restoration period, but there are two sections to the story, and the first part is usually left out. The original advertisement proclaimed that a horse would be 'baited to death, of a most vast strength and greatness'. Approximately 19 hands high, this horse was huge (my dodgy maths puts that as 6 foot three inches at the shoulders), and if the advertisement was to be believed, already responsible for human fatalities. It had destroyed 'several horses and other cattel'. Rochester had sold him to the Marquis of Dorchester, but the horse then hurt his keeper and was sold to a brewer, who put him to a dray. That didn't work, as he would cart the fully laden wagon off behind him in order to attack people in the street, 'monstrously tearing at their flesh, and eating it, the like whereof hath hardly been seen'. Horses occasionally do turn, but if this is true, there was no option but to destroy this particular animal. Baiting was not the humane way of doing it, but nevertheless, the horse was put to the dogs. It killed or maimed them, all.

The owner decided to stop the contest, but the crowd became a mob, demanding to see the horse baited to the death and started to pull the tiles from the roof of the theatre. The horse was put to the dogs again, and beat them, again. In the end they ran out of dogs (which did actually have a monetary value as well) and the horse was destroyed with a sword through the chest, which was the Georgian way of putting an animal out of its misery as quickly as possible.

It should not be presumed this sort of thing was common or particularly popular, just because it was legal and done in public. Many tourists went to see a bear, or other animal baiting in the way those minded to will go to a bull-fight in Spain whilst on holiday there. Contemporary references to the people who attended these contests are telling, and show what many in London thought of this so-called 'sport' They include the 'butchers' of the post title, and another refers to the Sunday 'scum' of Bankside, collected for the 'baiting of the Bear'.

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 2, 2010

A goodly, portly man: Daniel Lambert

Everybody has one too many mince pies over Christmas (or at least, they should), but when you end up weighing 52 stone, it's clear things have got more than a little out of hand.

Daniel Lambert is the famous fat man of the Georgian period. Born in Leicester in 1770, Lambert's father ran the a house of correction in an extremely rough district, and after an apprenticeship elsewhere, Daniel took over his father's job aged nineteen. His teenage years had been interesting and he was a larger than life character in the parish already, having fought a bear, by accident, when it tried to kill his friend's dog, and narrowly escaping being crushed by a collapsing house whilst watching it burn. He was a great breeder of sporting dogs, and his animals were much in demand locally. Almost as soon as he took over his father's job, as a glorified warder, his weight began to increase. By 1793, only four years later, he weighed 32 stone, and paid his first visit to London, walking from Woolwich to the City with no apparent difficulty.

In 1805, Daniel was relieved of his job in Leicester in an apparent re-ordering of the system. He was granted a pension (not bad at 35), but it wasn't enough to live on. He had little choice but to exhibit himself as a freak, even though he disliked the idea. People from London who had heard of his impressive size and bulk had begun to call at the door under false pretences. One man, having heard of Lambert's love of horse-racing, called on the pretext of discussing the breeding line of a particular horse. Daniel realised he was being set up, and responded pertly that the mare 'was got by Impertinence out of Curiosity' and slammed the door.

He admitted that he must either lose weight, become a prisoner in his own home, or go out and look for work and be stared at. When presented with these options, being paid just for being fat seems something of a lesser evil. He arrived in London and took up lodgings in Piccadilly, where he was visited by a huge range of people, and advertised his sporting dogs for auction at Tattersall's. They made an enormous sum, in no small part due to Daniel's fame, and the records show he sold Peg, Punch, Brush, Bob, Bounce, Bell, Charlotte and Lucy who were all small working setters and pointers, for nigh on two hundred guineas (poor Lucy was the runt on just twelve). This amounted to almost five years of Daniel's pension.

Count Borulawski, the famous dwarf, who had retired to Durham, journeyed to visit Daniel and spent no small amount of time with him. Borulawski had made his own fortune through exhibiting himself, and apparently the two talked extensively about how Daniel should conduct his career as showman. The Count was a real character: the first time they met, Daniel enquired after the health of his wife, only to be told solemnly that she was dead. When Daniel apologized, the Count replied, 'I am not very sorry, for when I affront her, she put me on the mantle-shelf for punishment'.

People who came to view Lambert and who were rude or insulting were ignored, and if persisting, told to leave. He was apparently an able conversationist and very polite. His weight was increasing all the time, but it seems he remained fit enough in mind and body to conduct these interviews with little trouble. He was recorded as five feet eleven inches tall, and by the end of his successful six months in London, weighed fifty stone. Fifty.

Daniel lived in Leicester, travelling occasionally to exhibit himself until he visited Stamford in 1809 to view some horses. He died, presumably from heart failure in a public house, where the wall had to be taken out to remove his body. He is buried in Stamford.

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.)

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.

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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