Cries Of London Scraps

It is my pleasure to publish these modest Victorian die-cut scraps which are the latest acquisition in my ever-growing collection of the Cries of London. The Costermonger scrap has the name “W. Straker, Ludgate Hill” rubber-stamped on the reverse and  – sure enough – by pulling the London Trade Directory for 1880 off the shelf, I found William Straker, Silver & Copperplate Engraver, Printer, Die Sinker, Wholesale Stationer & Stamp Cutter, 49/63 Ludgate Hill. These mass-produced images appeal to me with their vigorous life, portraying their subjects with their mouths wide open enthusiastically crying their wares – all leading players in the drama of street life in nineteenth century London.

Newspaper seller (The Star was published in London from 1788-1960)

Sandwich-board man (Dan Leno started his career in Babes in the Wood at Drury Lane in 1888)

Milkman

Sweep

Watercress seller

Crossing sweeper

Shoe-shine

Buttonhole seller

Costermonger

You can read my feature about William Marshall Craig’s prints of the Cries of London in the September issue of World of Interiors on the newstands now.

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

London Characters

Geoffrey Fletcher’s Pavement Pounders

Faulkner’s Street Cries

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

John Player’s Cries of London

More John Player’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

Adam Dant’s  New Cries of Spittlefields

Victorian Tradesmen Scraps