Charles Hindley’s Cries Of London
A prized acquisition in my Cries of London collection is a second edition of Charles Hindley’s ‘History of the Cries of London, Ancient & Modern’ from 1884. My predecessor had the same idea to collect images of the Cries and trace their development over time and, in his book, he reprints many wood blocks from earlier chapbooks, including the set below. Originally just the size of a thumbnail, these anonymous finely-observed prints evoke the circumstance and demeanour of hawkers and pedlars in early-nineteenth century London with startling economy of means.
The Rabbit Man – Buy my rabbits! Rabbits, who’ll buy? Rabbit! Rabbit Who will buy?
New Cockles – Buy my cockles! Fine new cockles! Cockles fine and cockles new!
Banbury Cakes – Buy my nice and new Banbury Cakes! Buy my nice new Banbury Cakes, O!
Mulberries – Mulberries, all ripe and fresh today! Only a groat a pottle – full to the bottom!
Capers, Anchovies – Buy my capers! Buy my nice capers! Buy my anchovies! Buy my nice anchovies!
Lavender – Buy my lavender! Sweet blooming lavender! Sweet blooming lavender! Blooming lavender!
Mackerel – Live mackerel! Three a-shilling, O! Le’ping alive, O! Three a-shilling,O!
Shirt Buttons – Buy my shirt buttons! Shirt buttons! Buy shirt buttons! Buttons!
The Herb Wife – Buy rue! Buy sage! Buy mint! Buy rue, sage and mint, a farthing a bunch!
The Tinker – Maids, I mend old pots and kettles! Mend old pots and kettles, O!
Buy fine flounders! Fine dabs! – All alive, O! Fine dabs! Fine live flounders, O!
You may also like to take a look at these other sets of the Cries of London I have collected
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
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Tree
Nurses dance round the ancient Bethnal Green Mulberry in the grounds of the London Chest Hospital, 1944 (Courtesy of the Royal London Hospital Archives)
Regular readers will be familiar with the argy-bargy over the ancient Bethnal Green Mulberry at the former London Chest Hospital. Developers Crest Nicholson want to dig it up to plonk a block of luxury flats on the site, even though there is plenty of room in the grounds to move their proposed building and save the Mulberry which is subject to a Tree Protection Order. Subsequently, more than five thousand people have signed a petition asking Crest Nicholson to spare the tree.
Despite this, Crest Nicholson have submitted their planning application to Tower Hamlets for permission to uproot the Mulberry Tree and go ahead with their overblown development, which includes hideous ‘heritage-style’ additions to the listed hospital building and a disappointingly small amount of ‘affordable’ housing. Readers are strongly encouraged to write objections before the closing date of Tuesday 16th January and below you will find a helpful guide to how to object effectively.
In their haste – before they had even submitted their application for the development – Crest Nicholson obtained permission last spring to dig up the tree from Tower Hamlets Senior Arborcultural Officer, Edward Buckton acting ‘under delegated powers’ without any consultation of councillors, until it was quashed at Judicial Review in the High Court in a judgement confirming the waiver was granted unlawfully.
Over the past year, Crest Nicholson have contrived some ingenious attempts to discredit the history of the tree which is widely believed to have been planted by Bishop Bonner in the garden of his Bishop’s Hall that occupied the site of the Chest Hospital in the sixteenth century.
The first misdirection was a report commissioned from planning consultants ‘Tree: Fabrik’ who conveniently dismissed any notion that the Bethnal Green Mulberry is a veteran tree, suggesting instead that it is a more recent planting which might easily survive being dug up and moved out of the way.
Local heritage campaigner Tom Ridge paid for legal action at the High Court out of his own pocket and commissioned Chartered Arboriculturist Julian Forbes-Laird, expert witness in matters arborcultural and the technical editor of the British Standard for tree protection, to make his own survey of the Bethnal Green Mulberry.
Forbes-Laird’s report as submitted to the High Court makes compelling reading. “I identify the Mulberry as a veteran tree,” he wrote, “I cannot understand how any reasonable arboriculturist could conclude otherwise.” He quotes Gascoigne’s map of 1703 confirming the location of the Bishop’s Hall and describes the commemorative inkwell kept at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. Dating from 1915, this inkwell has a brass plate explaining it was made from a branch of the Mulberry beneath which Bishop Bonner sat while deciding which heretics to execute, confirming that the tree was already considered to be ancient over than a century ago.
In response to a feeble claim by the developer that concrete found among the roots proves the recent origin of the tree, Forbes-Laird points out that the Romans used concrete to build the Pantheon. He confirms, “there is no evidence that the Mulberry stands upon modern made ground, meaning that it could, indeed, be as old as is believed.”
Most sobering is Forbes-Laird’s conclusion, “Overall, I consider that the intended tree works offer very little chance of the tree’s survival.” Thankfully, Tom Ridge won his Judicial Review and, in a Consent Order sealed by the High Court in July, the permission was quashed.
Nevertheless, Crest Nicholson have persisted in their campaign of misinformation. At their exhibition last summer, they produced a leaflet discrediting the history of the Bethnal Green Mulberry and – demonstrating astonishing arrogance and disingenuousness – they reproduced my photograph of the tree without permission in their publication and on their display panels.
In this leaflet, Crest Nicholson report the results of another ‘scientific’ survey they have commissioned, this time Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) which again – surprise, surprise – delivers their desired conclusion, claiming the earth was not disturbed prior to 1855. However, they ignore an illustration in the Illustrated London News of June 28th 1851 which shows the fully grown Mulberry tree.
Yet it is Crest Nicholson’s justification for digging up and moving the tree because it is in ‘poor quality soil’ which plumbs the depths of nutty desperation. If the Mulberry has flourished for centuries, what could be the problem with the soil? Have Crest Nicholson and their expensive horticultural consultants never heard of compost? The developers helpfully assure us they have taken cuttings to replace the Bethnal Green Mulberry if they kill it by digging it up, which is a bit like the British Museum saying they have bought new pots to replace their ancient Greek vases if they get broken. ‘Never mind, it was only an old one!’
Even with recent revisions, this is a vast overblown development which damages the Victoria Park Conservation Area, offers a disappointing low level of ‘affordable’ housing and makes crude alterations to the listed Chest Hospital building. Crest Nicholson need to pay attention to the wishes of local people by saving the Mulberry tree and reconsidering their whole development.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION IF YOU HAVE NOT YET DONE SO
This engraving of the completed London Chest Hospital published by the Illustrated London News on June 28th 1851 shows the fully-grown Mulberry tree to the left of the main building (Courtesy of Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives)
The Bethnal Green Mulberry
In spite of bomb damage in the Second World War, the Bethnal Green Mulberry flourishes
The Gentle Author’s photograph reproduced without permission by Crest Nicholson in their leaflet and exhibition discrediting the history of the Bethnal Green Mulberry
Design by Paul Bommer
This is a simple guide to how to object effectively to the Crest Nicholson Application to redevelop the former London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green.
Although the deadline is 16th January, Tower Hamlets Council will accept emails and letters until the Hearing of the Application, which is likely to be in March. Please send comments as soon as possible to be sure they are included in the planning officer’s report.
It is important to use your own words and add your own personal reasons for opposing this development. Any letters which simply duplicate the same wording will count only as one objection.
Be sure to state clearly that you are objecting to the application.
If you do not include your postal address your objection will be discounted.
Points in bold are material considerations and are valid reasons for Councils to refuse Applications.
Planning application PA/16/03342/A1
1. SOCIAL HOUSING
The level of social housing is below 28%, too far beneath the Mayor’s target of 50%.
2. THE LISTED BUILDING
The application proposes to demolish the Grade II listed 1860s south wing, causing harm to the designated heritage asset, and would therefore fail to comply with Paragraph 66 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990; National Planning Policy Framework paragraphs: 126, 131, 132, 133 and 134; as well as Tower Hamlets Local Plan Policy SP12.
The proposal would see the roof structure of the listed buildings unnecessarily rebuilt with new materials, involving the loss of original historic fabric when the applicant’s own survey notes that the chimneys are in ‘good condition’, and that the roof is ‘in a sound condition’. As such National Planning Policy Framework paragraphs: 126, 131, 132, 133 and 134 should be applied.
3. THE VICTORIA PARK CONSERVATION AREA
The development will damage the Victoria Park Conservation Area. The conservation area appraisal notes that: ‘Landmark institutional buildings generally sit within their own landscaped gardens, in keeping with the open character and setting of Victoria Park. The London Chest Hospital, opened in 1855, is the most significant of these buildings, in terms of its presence in the urban environment’.
The construction of large blocks beside the London Chest Hospital will deprive a landmark listed building of its open landscaped space and destroy the character of the conservation area. Paragraph 72 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, and National Planning Policy Framework paragraphs 137 and 138 should therefore be applied when considering this application.
4. THE MULBERRY TREE
Deep concerns exist over the proposed digging up of the ancient Mulberry Tree and the unlikelihood of its survival if it is moved. No credible evidence has been put forward that this tree, which is subject to a Tree Protection Order, is not a veteran tree.
Paragraph 118 of National Planning Policy Framework 2012 states that ‘planning permission should be refused for development resulting in the loss of … aged or veteran trees found outside ancient woodland, unless the need for, and benefits of, the development in that location clearly outweigh the loss’
Paragraph 197 of The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 states that local planning authorities, ‘must ensure, whenever it is appropriate, that in granting planning permission for any development adequate provision is made, by the imposition of conditions, for the preservation or planting of trees’.
WHERE TO SEND YOUR OBJECTION
Letters and emails should be addressed to
planningandbuilding@towerhamlets.gov.uk
or
you can post your objection direct on the website by following this link
You will need to register to comment
Quote application: PA/16/03342/A1
Town Planning, Town Hall, Mulberry Place, 5 Clove Crescent, London, E14 2BG
Crest Nicholson’s proposed redevelopment of London Chest Hospital
You may like to read my other stories about Mulberries
A Plea For The Bethnal Green Mulberry
Henry Silk At Abbott & Holder
Join me for the opening of Henry Silk & East End Vernacular at 6pm next Thursday 18th January at Abbott & Holder in Museum St, Bloomsbury, to view a room of watercolours from the thirties by Henry Silk that have never been exhibited before. These are complemented by a room I have curated of paintings from my book East End Vernacular, Artists who painted London’s East End streets in the 20th century. Below you can read my profile of Henry Silk, a favourite artist of mine.
St James’ Rd, Old Ford
The earliest knowledge we have of Henry Silk (1883-1948) as an artist is that he was already sketching while serving in the First World War, when he would draw on whatever came to hand. Born on Christmas Day 1883, Henry worked for his uncle, Abraham Silk at his workshop in the Bow Rd making fruit baskets that were in great demand by porters, costermongers and greengrocers.
“He was a kind-hearted man who always looked older than his years. He was, I think, affected by his horrendous experiences in the First World War,” recalled fellow artist Walter Steggles fondly, “He used to work for three weeks at basket-making and spend the fourth in the pub.”
Of the various artists who were to form the East London Group, Henry Silk’s work was the most personal, executed in a plain style that often resolved forms into flat areas of colour. Yet a close examination of these paintings reveals close attention paid to the relative proportions of the separate elements of the composition, which were brought to vivid life by dramatic choices of colour. The consummate nature of this distinctive poetic vision suggests it was evolved by an artist working in isolation.
In fact, Henry had already been painting for many years when he attended classes at the Bethnal Green Men’s Institute and exhibited in the Art Club’s debut show at the Bethnal Green Museum in 1924. Reporting on their 1927 exhibition, the Daily Chronicle highlighted Henry’s paintings which depicted “Zeppelins and were bought by an officer ‘for a bob.’”
Henry was a prolific artist who contributed several works to the East London Art Club show at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1928, remained a significant exhibitor in all the East London Group shows over subsequent years, as well as showing paintings with the Toynbee Art Club and at Thomas Agnew & Sons. Works were purchased by Joseph Duveen and Charles Aitken, Director of the Tate Gallery. Henry’s talent was quickly recognised as far away as the United States and when the second East London Group show was held at the Lefevre Galleries in December 1930, the Daily Telegraph revealed that, in addition to home purchases, the Public Gallery of Toledo, Ohio bought his Still Life for six guineas.
The following year saw Henry’s debut solo show at Walter Bull & Sanders Ltd in Cork St, Mayfair. This small exhibition of twenty-three watercolours was characterised by luminous still lifes and interiors, reflecting Henry’s bachelor existence lodging in his sister’s family home in Rounton Rd, Bow.
The green interior of Henry’s sparsely furnished room and the view over the tracks from the rear of this dwelling, situated at the junction of three different railway lines, served as the inspiration for many of his pictures. In 1928, a writer for the Studio observed that he often saw “a perfect design from an unusual angle, and he has a Van Goghian love of chairs and all simple things.”
Suggesting that these works were entirely consistent with a modest nature, Lilian Leahy who married Henry’s nephew Elwin Hawthorne recalled he was “generous to others but mean to himself. He would use an old canvas if someone gave it to him rather than buy a new one.”
Henry continued to show his work, even after the East London Group held its final show at the Lefevre Galleries in 1936, until his death at sixty-four in 1948.
At Henry Silk’s Uncle Abraham’s basket shop in Bow
Henry Silk at his room in Rounton Rd, Bow
Thorpe Bay
Old Houses, Bow (Walter Steggles Bequest)
My Lady Nicotine
Snow (Walter Steggles Bequest)
Still Life (Walter Steggles Bequest)
Basket Makers (Courtesy of Dorian Osborne)
Boots, Polish and Brushes
The Bedroom
Bedside chair (Courtesy of Dorian Osborne)
Hat on table, 1932 (courtesy of Doncaster Museum)
Henry Silk and his sister
ABBOTT & HOLDER, 30 MUSEUM ST, BLOOMSBURY, WC1A 1LH
If you would like to attend my gallery talk on Thursday 25th January, please call 020 7637 3981 for further information.
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East End Vernacular At Abbott & Holder
William Whiffin, Photographer
William Whiffin (1878-1957) is one of the great unsung London photographers, which makes it a rare pleasure to present this gallery of his pictures from the collection of his granddaughter Hellen Martin. Born into a family of photographers in the East End, Whiffin made his living with studio portraits and commercial commissions, yet strove to be recognised for his artistic photography.
Lion Brewery and the Shot Tower, South Bank
The photographer’s son Sid Whiffin at Cooper’s Stairs, Old Queen St
Off Fetter Lane
The Pantheon, Oxford St
In Princes Sq, Stepney
Figureheads of fighting ships in Grosvenor Rd
At Covent Garden Market
Milwall & the Island Horse Omnibus, c.1910
St Catherine Coleman next to Fenchurch St Station
In Fleet St
In Buckfast St, Bethnal Green
At Borough Market
In Lombard St
Rotherhithe Watch House
Wapping Old Stairs
Junction of Cambridge Heath Rd & Hackney Rd
Ratcliff Stairs, Limehouse
Ratcliff Causeway, Limehouse
St Jude’s, Commercial St
Farthing Bundles at the Fern St Settlement, Bow
Houndsditch Rag Fair
At the Royal Exchange, City of London
Weavers’ House, Bethnal Green Rd
Off Pennington St, Wapping
Borough of Poplar Electricity Dept
Pruning in the hop gardens of Faversham
Photographs copyright © Estate of William Whiffin
Hellen Martin & I should be very grateful if readers can identify any of the uncaptioned photographs
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Faulkner’s Street Cries
These cards produced by W. & F. Faulkner Ltd and issued with Grenadier Cigarettes in 1902 are a favourite discovery in my ongoing exploration of all the versions of the Cries of London created down through the ages. Even the most sentimental images can reveal something of the reality of the working lives of hawkers, and I especially like this precisely observed set of surly, cantankerous portraits which convey the relentless nature of street trading with a mixture of wit and affection.
Flypaper seller.
Cats’ meat man.
Ice cream seller.
Chimney sweep.
Knife grinder.
Coalman.
Baked potato seller.
Dairyman.
Lavender seller.
Newspaper seller.
Novelties seller.
The muffin man.
You may like to take a look at these other sets of the Cries of London
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
More of Thomas Rowlandson’s Lower Orders
East End Vernacular At Abbott & Holder
It is my great pleasure to curate a room of paintings from my book EAST END VERNACULAR, Artists who painted London’s East End streets in the 20th century, alongside a room of previously un-exhibited watercolours from the thirties by East End artist Henry Silk (1883-1948) at Abbott & Holder in Museum St, Bloomsbury. The exhibition opens at 6pm on Thursday 18th January and runs until Saturday 10th February.
As a complement to the work of Henry Silk who was one of the leading figures of the East London Group in the thirties, I have chosen a selection of paintings by post-war and contemporary artists who took the legacy forward. My selection includes a picture by Roland Collins from the fifties, rarely seen works by John Allin and Dan Jones from the seventies, Doreen Fletcher’s and Peri Parkes’ paintings from the eighties and concludes with recent works by James Mackinnon and Nicholas Borden.
Together these pictures illustrate an extraordinary and vital continuum of painting in the East End which spans the twentieth century and extends into our own time.
If you would like to attend my gallery talk at 6:30pm on Thursday 25th January, please call 020 7637 3981 to reserve a place.
WATERCOLOURS BY HENRY SILK TO BE EXHIBITED FOR THE FIRST TIME
Railway from Rounton Road, Bow
Factories in Bow
Street scene, Bow
Street scene
Approach to Victoria Park
Pond, Victoria Park
Boat Houses, Victoria Park
Blossom in the garden, Rounton Rd, Bow
If any readers can further identify the locations of any of these Henry Silk watercolours please get in touch.
ABBOTT & HOLDER, 30 MUSEUM ST, BLOOMSBURY, WC1A 1LH
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So Long, Arthur Of Arthur’s Cafe
I am sorry to report the passing of Arthur Woodham of Arthur’s Cafe, a legend in the Kingsland Rd, who died over the weekend having reached his ninety-first birthday on Christmas Day
Arthur Woodham (1926 – 2018)
This is Arthur of the celebrated Arthur’s Cafe – in the Kingsland Rd since 1935. Even at ninety years old, Arthur was still running around his magnificent shining cafe, taking orders and serving customers with sprightly efficiency. Possessing the grace, good manners and handsome features of a young Trevor Howard, he was a charismatic figure, venerated in Dalston and throughout the East End.
Imagine my excitement, when I paid a visit, to see Arthur waiting in the doorway of his cafe in anticipation of my arrival. My heart skipped a beat and I ran across the road to shake his hand. Then, taking advantage of the lull between the late breakfast trade and the early lunch trade, we sat down at the window table to enjoy the sunlight, and I found myself close up to his neatly styled grey locks and immaculately shaven jowls, while Arthur fixed his liquid grey eyes upon mine and commenced his story.
“I was born in Bethnal Green, and in 1935 we moved over to the Kingsland Rd and opened the cafe. My father was Arthur too and his cafe used to be further down the road, opposite the Geffrye Museum. If you was trying to buy a cafe, you tried to buy one with accommodation above, so if things got quiet you could rent the space, but I’ve always lived up there all this time.
Once I left school at fourteen, I worked with him behind the counter and I helped out before that too. I was the eldest son and you had no choice – you had to go into it whether you liked it or not. In those days, my father used to make his own ice cream and sarsaparilla, and my grandmother helped out in the kitchen with the washing up. At first, when the war came, I didn’t want to go into the shop but I have no regrets. I was about fifteen when war broke out, and I worked in the cafe all through the war. They dropped a bomb on the shelter across the road at the Geffrye Museum and my father kept open all night to make everyone a cup of tea. I’ll always remember one man was very bad, he lost thirteen in his family.
When I was a boy, it was either coffee shops with wooden floors or cafes that were more like sandwich bars, but after the war cafes starting doing hot dinners, roast beef, steak pie, lamb chops. I run my cafe the old fashioned way, we don’t do frozen stuff, it’s all fresh. I get up around twelve thirty/one o’clock, but people won’t believe you if you tell them that. I cook my own ham and cut all my chips by hand. My grandson gets in at five fifteen and we open at seven, serving breakfast until eleven thirty. No toast after eleven thirty and no chips before twelve. At eleven thirty we clean up and put serviettes and glasses on the tables, and I go upstairs and put on a clean coat. We have a different class of people for lunch. This is a working class cafe, we serve plain English food, we don’t serve pasta like some do.We’ve got a good mixed clientele, a nice class of people, white people and black people.
I like it, this is my life. You’ve got to like it to keep in it. I meet people. I speak to people. In the cafe, if you like it, you make a lot of friends. I’ve been serving people for over fifty years, people I grew up with. I opened up here when I was twenty-one in 1948, my father gave me a hand for a while and then he closed down the old cafe. I’ve been here ever since, four hundred and ninety-five Kingsland Rd. It’s been a cafe as long as I can remember and I’m ninety-one this year. It was me and my father, and now it’s me and my grandson – since he was a boy, he’s worked for me – that’s three generations. I’ll go on as long as I can, I’m ninety-one on Christmas Day. The Pelliccis, they’re friends of mine – I’m the oldest cafe in the Kingsland Rd and they’re the oldest cafe in Bethnal Green.”
Then it was eleven thirty. No more toast would be served, and it became imperative that Arthur go upstairs at once to change his coat in the time-honoured fashion, whilst serviettes and glasses were swiftly laid upon the tables, as the tempo of the day’s proceedings went up a notch in anticipation of luncheon. Yet this flurry of activity allowed me the opportunity of a snatching a few words with Arthur’s grandson James, who in spite of his youthful demeanour revealed he had been there twenty years. “Since I was twelve, I worked here in my school holidays,” he confessed with a shy smile of pride,”And then my grandfather asked me to work with him, and I did.”
“My grandfather is an actor, and this is the stage where he performs best,” James continued, as if to introduce Arthur who appeared on cue from upstairs, now changed into an identical but perfectly clean white coat and seemingly revived with a new energy. “Do you think you will still be here at ninety?” I whispered to James across the table. “If I’ve got my grandfather’s energy, I’ll still be here!” he replied with an emotional smile as Arthur breezed past, making sure that everything was in order before assuming his heroic position at the head of the steel counter – as he did each day since 1948 – tea towel over one shoulder, ready for whatever the lunch service would bring.
“I remember those custard tarts my dad was holding, they were threepence each” – Arthur at at twenty-one years old when he opened his own cafe in 1948 with the assistance of Arthur, his father. Inset shows, the third generation Arthur and his son James at Arthur’s Cafe.
Arthur and his grandson James
Arthur arranges serviettes in readiness for the lunchtime rush
James rustles up a mean sandwich
“My grandfather is an actor and this is his stage where he performs best.”
Arthur’s wife Eileen lent a hand
The lull between late breakfast and early lunch when Arthur went upstairs to change into a fresh coat
Arthur with his old friend Terry Dunford
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Arthur Woodham (1926 – 2018)
