Kendrew’s Cries of London
The latest discovery at the Bishopsgate Institute in my ever-growing collection of The Cries of London is this set of woodcuts printed by J. Kendrew of Colliergate, York, at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The popularity of the series was such that even publishers in York and Banbury produced their own versions of the Cries of London. Unusually, in an age when hawkers were often considered vagabonds, this chapbook for children illustrates the street sellers as paragons of virtue, as expressed by their industriousness. Yet, for me, the most exciting phrase in this volume is the text ‘from the life’ which allows the possibility that some of these evocative and characterful cuts may be portraits of individual traders from the streets of London two centuries ago.
Come buy my fine Writing Ink!
Green large Cucumbers twelve a penny!
Dainty Sweet Briar!
Mary, Mary, where are you now, Mary? Tiddy dol, tol drol, tiddy dol.
Rue, Sage and Mint, a farthing a bunch!
Diddle, diddle ,Dumplings, Oh!
Buy a fine Bread Basket or Work Basket!
Oars, Sir! Oars or Scullers, Madam, do you want a Boat?
Black your Shoes, your Honour?
Nice Yorkshire Muffins!
Buy a Broom! Buy a Birch Broom!
Come, but my little Jemmies, my little Tartars, but half-penny a piece!
Twelve pence a peck, Oysters!
My good soul, will you buy a Bowl?
Buy a young Chicken or Fowl!
Ripe Strawberries!
Rabbit! Rabbit!
One a penny, Two a penny, Hot Cross Buns!
Pretty Maid, Pretty Pins!
Maids, buy a Mop!
Old Chairs to mend, Old Chairs to Mend!
Buy my Flounders!
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
You may also like to take a look at these other sets of the Cries of London down through the ages
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
More John Player’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
“Rue, Sage & Mint” ?? Really?
Well both sage & mint are both medicinal & culinary herbs, but Rue? Ruta graveolans well …
It has to be treated & used with extreme care, as it can cause skin-blisters on sensitive people, especially in sunny weather.
However, both Mint, & again especially the “strong” varieties, like Pennyroyal ( Which is now regarded as a separate species, ) & Rue are & were often used for one of two common purposes, sometimes also mixed with Wormwood Artemesia absinthum in this context.
As an emmenagogue, or as an arbortifacient – the traditional “Gipsy’s remedy” in fact!
Delightful, as always…Notice the sailor with the peg leg?
Love these woodcuts, they look like embroideries
I wonder what ‘Yorkshire Muffins’ were. Are we talking individual Yorkshire puddings or something else?