Julius Mendes Price’s London Types
It is my greatest delight to show these examples of London Types, designed and written by the celebrated war artist Julius Mendes Price and issued with Carreras Black Cat Cigarettes in 1919. After months of searching, these are the latest acquisition in my ever-growing collection of London Street Cries down through the ages. Some of these images – such as the cats’ meat man – are barely changed from earlier centuries, yet others – such as the telephone girl – are undeniably part of the modern world.
You may also like to take a look at these other sets of the Cries of London
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
Cats meat man? Did he really feed the cats?
Oh dear. The sewer man doesn’t look as though he’s done his Health and Safety training. What if he fell in only wearing those clothes?
“A drunken and infuriated woman requires handling with the greatest tact” YES!
I love these. The descriptive approach to the subjects is similar to yours Gentle Author, no?
I also love the civic and national pride that runs throughout.
This is interesting. When my older sister moved to London in the mid 70s she went to work for Rothmans tobacco company at Baker Street. They were rebranding Black Cat cigarettes and as part of the marketing campaign they had rubber cat paws stuck on the pavement leading a trail to their offices. I can remember travelling down from Scotland to visit my sister for a week (I was only about 14 at the time) and she had promotional packs of Black Cat and the paw prints in her flat. She never actually smoked though.
Oh dear! I’m old enough to remember the lamp-lighter. He came down our road in Putney every day until about 1956 when new-fangled electricity came in (they simply wired up the existing lampposts). But I could still go to my mate’s house which had gas lights until at least 1960! I bet it’s different now!
Regarding the cats’ meat man. He had a regular supply of horsemeat given that the horse was still the prime motive power in London at this time.