Charles Hindley’s Cries Of London
The most recent acquisition in my Cries of London collection is a second edition of Charles Hindley’s ‘History of the Cries of London, Ancient & Modern’ from 1884. My predecessor had the same idea to collect images of the Cries and trace their development over time and, in his book, he reprints many wood blocks from earlier chapbooks, including the set below. Originally just the size of a thumbnail, these anonymous finely-observed prints evoke the circumstance and demeanour of hawkers and pedlars in early-nineteenth century London with startling economy of means.
The Rabbit Man – Buy my rabbits! Rabbits, who’ll buy? Rabbit! Rabbit Who will buy?
New Cockles – Buy my cockles! Fine new cockles! Cockles fine and cockles new!
Banbury Cakes – Buy my nice and new Banbury Cakes! Buy my nice new Banbury Cakes, O!
Mulberries – Mulberries, all ripe and fresh today! Only a groat a pottle – full to the bottom!
Capers, Anchovies – Buy my capers! Buy my nice capers! Buy my anchovies! Buy my nice anchovies!
Lavender – Buy my lavender! Sweet blooming lavender! Sweet blooming lavender! Blooming lavender!
Mackerel – Live mackerel! Three a-shilling, O! Le’ping alive, O! Three a-shilling,O!
Shirt Buttons – Buy my shirt buttons! Shirt buttons! Buy shirt buttons! Buttons!
The Herb Wife – Buy rue! Buy sage! Buy mint! Buy rue, sage and mint, a farthing a bunch!
The Tinker – Maids, I mend old pots and kettles! Mend old pots and kettles, O!
Buy fine flounders! Fine dabs! – All alive, O! Fine dabs! Fine live flounders, O!
You may also like to take a look at these other sets of the Cries of London I have collected
More John Player’s Cries of London
More Samuel Pepys’ Cries of London
Geoffrey Fletcher’s Pavement Pounders
William Craig Marshall’s Itinerant Traders
H.W.Petherick’s London Characters
John Thomson’s Street Life in London
Aunt Busy Bee’s New London Cries
Marcellus Laroon’s Cries of London
William Nicholson’s London Types
Francis Wheatley’s Cries of London
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana of 1817
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana II
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana III
Thomas Rowlandson’s Lower Orders
What a brilliantly evocative, yet simple, post!
I was transported back to memories of watching a certain Lionel Bart film. So informative – new words: rue, pottle, groat and incredible insight into what was sold and bought in those long gone times! Thank you
Very much like this series. And so many of the products must be be brought in from further afield. The Banbury cakes seller has just reminded me of a special Christmas spent in a hotel by Banbury Cross; there was snow on the ground and freshly made Banbury cakes on offer to welcome the guests.
Fascinating woodcuts, thank you for making them available to a wider audience. It would be great to see a selection of these and from the other series you have featured reprinted.
Your readers may like to know that they can get a paperback reissue of Hindley’s 1881 edition from the Cambridge Library Collection (www.cambridge.org/clc), as well as his Tavern Anecdotes and Sayings (1875) and History of the Catnach Press (1886). We also ‘do’ Knight’s wonderful 6-volume London (1841–4) and many other eighteenth- and nineteenth-century works on London and its people.