Sam Syntax’s Cries Of London
Harris, the publisher’s office, at the corner of St Paul’s Churchyard
As I discover more series of Cries of London in my ever-expanding investigation – such as these Sam Syntax Cries from the eighteen-twenties that came to light in the Bishopsgate Institute last week – old friends from earlier series return in new guises, evidencing the degree to which the creators of these popular prints plagiarised each other.
Do you recognise the Hot Cross Bun Seller from the New Cries Of London 1803 or Green Hasteds from Francis Wheatley’s Cries of London or the Watchman from T. L. Busby’s Costume Of The Lower Orders or the Hot Gingerbread Seller from William Marshall Craig’s Itinerant Traders? The recurrence of these figures demonstrates how common images of tradesmen became standardised through repetition over centuries.
Yet equally, when I see a trader here as particular as the toy lamb seller originally portrayed by John Thomas Smith in his Vagabondiana of 1815, it makes me wonder whether, perhaps, this was a portrait of a celebrated individual, a character once recognisable throughout the city.
Eels, Threepence a Pound! Live Eels! & Rabbits! Fresh Rabbits! Buy a Rabbit!
Milk Below, Maids! Milk Below! & One a Penny, Two a Penny, Hot Cross Buns!
Plum Pudding and Pies! Hot! Piping Hot! & Sweep! Sweep Ho! Sweep!
Water Cresses! Buy My Nice Water Cresses! & Dust! Dust Ho! Dust!
Buy a Mat or a Hair Broom! & Cat’s Meat or Dog’s Meat!
Chairs to Mend! Any Old Chairs To Mend! & Green and Young Hastings! Green and Buy!
Swords, Colours and Standards! & Sweet Briar and Nosegays, So Pretty Come and Buy!
Potatoes, Three Pounds A Penny! Potatoes! & Hot Spice Gingerbread! Hot! Hot! Hot!
Lobsters! Live Lobsters! All Alive, Lobsters! & Choice Banbury Cakes! Nice Banbury Cakes!
Lambs To Sell! Young Lambs To Sell! & Currants Red And White, A Penny A Pot!
Flounders! Jumping Alive! Fine Flounders! & Matches, Please To Want Any Matches, Ma’am!
Sixpence A Pottle, Fine Strawberries! & News! Great News In The London Gazette!
Past Twelve O’Clock and A Cloudy Morning! & Patrol! Patrol!
Buy A Live Goose! Buy A Live Goose! & Live Fowls! Live Fowls! Buy A Live Fowl!
Flowers Blowing! All A-Growing! & Winkles! A Penny A Pint, Periwinkles!
Images courtesy © Bishopsgate Institute
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
Was the Dust Ho man offering to do dusting, or selling dust?
Wonderful engravings. And wonderful people from the past. Would like to shop there immediately!
Love & Peace
ACHIM
What is a hasting?
Thank you in advance for the answer — I love these illustrations!
The call of the street venders is a sound from the past that I miss.
You could trace their progress along the streets from the diection the call came from.
I can still hear in my memory the call of a rag man who walked the streets of Bow in the 1940’s pushing a cart and ringing a bell :-
“Any old iron or lumbe-e-e-e-r – old rags”
Gary
Does any one know what the ‘Green & Young Hastings’ are?
Sarah, He could be selling brickdust which was used to clean metalwork, such as knife blades.
Green Hastings were fresh green peas in the pod
Isn’t dust just rubbish? – as in dustbins and dustmen
Gentle Author, thank you for clearing up the question of what Green Hastings are.
If you read Tobias Smollet’s novel ‘Humphrey Clinker’ and the passage where Squire Bramble denounces the quality of food in London, especially the milk from milkmaids you would never buy food from street vendors
Thank you, Gentle Author, for enlightening me regarding the hastings — none of my dictionaries included the word…