Jemmy Catnach’s Cries Of London

Jemmy (James) Catnach of Monmouth Court was celebrated for publishing ballads, penny awfuls, and children’s farthing and halfpenny chapbooks. As publisher, compositor and poet, he established the Seven Dials Press in 1813 and ran it until he retired to be landlord of a tavern in Barnet in 1838. Such was Catnach’s love for ballads, he kept a fiddler on the premises at one time so that ballad singers could come in and audition their compositions for publication. Of all the Cries of London I have published these are most modestly produced and crudely wrought images, yet I love them for their strong images and graphic vitality.

Clothes Pegs, Props & Lines – Come buy and save your clothes from dirt, they’ll save you washing many a shirt!

Filberts – I sell them for a groat a pound and warrant them all good and sound!

Sweep – If you rightly understand me, with my brush, broom and my rake, such cleanly work I’ll make…

Peas & Beans – Come buy my Windsor beans and peas, you’ll see no more this year like these!

Toys for Girls & Boys – only a penny, or a dirty phial or bottle

Strawberries – Strawberries & cream are charming and sweet, mix them and try how delightful to eat

When Good Friday comes, Hot Cross Buns!

Oranges – I sell them at two for a penny, ripe, juicy and sweet, just fit for to eat, so customers buy a good many

Milk Below! – Rain, frost or snow, or hot or cold, I travel up and down, the cream & milk you buy from me is the best in town for custards, puddings, or for tea, there’s none like those you’ll buy from me

Crumpling Codlings – Come buy my Crumpling Codlings, some of them you may eat raw, of the rest make dumplings

Cherries – Here’s round and sound, black and white heart cherries, twopence a pound!

Toy Lambs to sell – If I had as much money as I could tell, I never would cry young lambs to sell!

You may also like to take a look at these other sets of the Cries of London I have collected

John Player’s Cries of London

More John Player’s Cries of London

Faulkner’s Street Cries

Samuel Pepys’ Cries of London

More Samuel Pepys’ Cries of London

Kendrew’s Cries of London

London Characters

Geoffrey Fletcher’s Pavement Pounders

William Craig Marshall’s Itinerant Traders

London Melodies

Henry Mayhew’s Street 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

John Leighton’s London Cries

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

More of Thomas Rowlandson’s Lower Orders

Victorian Tradesmen Scraps

Cries of London Scraps

New Cries of London 1803

Cries of London Snap Cards

Julius M Price’s London Types

Adam Dant’s  New Cries of Spittlefields