Launch Of Colin O’Brien’s London Life
As you can see from this photo taken a few weeks ago at the printers, Colin O’Brien is very proud of his new book LONDON LIFE which is being published thanks to the generous investment of the readers of Spitalfields Life.
We invite you to celebrate with us at the launch at The Society Club, Ingestre Place, Soho, W1 from 6pm next Thursday 18th June and preview the LONDON LIFE photography exhibition which runs until 1st August.
We will be serving complimentary Truman’s Beer, giving away posters of Colin’s famous Clerkenwell Car Crash photograph and each copy of LONDON LIFE bought at the exhibition comes with a complimentary copy of Colin’s first book, TRAVELLERS’ CHILDREN IN LONDON FIELDS.
On Tuesday 23rd June at 7pm, Colin will giving an illustrated lecture at Waterstones Piccadilly, showing the photographs and telling stories of LONDON LIFE. Email piccadilly@waterstones.com to book your free ticket for this.
CLICK HERE TO BUY A COPY OF LONDON LIFE DIRECT FROM SPITALFIELDS LIFE
All the drama of life in the capital from 1948 until today is here in LONDON LIFE!
We are giving away free Colin O’Brien Clerkenwell Car Crash posters to all at the launch
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Colin O’Brien, Photographer of London Life
Argotopolis, The Map Of London Slang
It is my great pleasure to unveil this bravura collaboration between Adam Dant, Cartographer Extraordinaire & Jonathon Green, Lexicographer of Slang – ARGOTOPOLIS is a map of London slang organised around relevant locations in the capital. Click on Adam’s map to study it in detail and read Jonathon’s glossary below to learn more about the language. A limited edition of 50 hand-tinted prints is available from TAG Fine Arts.
The Old Oak: rhyming slang, The Smoke, i.e. London
KEY TO THE SLANG WORDS & PHRASES IN ARGOTOPOLIS
compiled by Jonathon Green
Nappy Valley (David Cameron’s House, Notting Hill)
Misses: Missus or Mrs
Armful: an affectionate spousal embrace
Bit o’ Tripe: possibly rhyming slang but possibly a ref. to the human body as a ‘piece of meat’
Burick: Romani burk, a breast or Scottish bure, a loose woman
Doner: Italian dona, a woman
Poker-breaker: the domineering wife’s ‘breaking’ of her husband’s poker, i.e. penis
’Pon My Life: rhyming slang, a wife
Rib: woman as ‘Adam’s rib’
Ankle-biter: a child who has yet to walk
Bin-Lid: rhyming slang, a kid
Gawdelpus: a child, lit. God help us
Chip: a child, i.e. a chip off the old block
Yuppie Puppy: the progeny of the young and upwards mobile; also trustafarian
Lully: a child, from little or lullaby
Swag: a shop
Buttiken: a shop, from French boutique + ken, a house or place
Drum: a house or home, either he image of the hollow drum resembling a hollow house or room or the use of drum, the road, as a figurative ‘house’ for itinerants.
Plate o’ Meat: rhyming slang, the street
Bricks: the city streets, especially as seen from a prison cell.
Stones: the streets of London, the open air
Carsey: a brothel, pub or lavatory, from Italian casa, a house
Crib: a house, a pub, a shop, a brothel, a cheap theatre, a bed, a safe, a cell, the vagina; all from standard crib, a narrow room
Gaff: a fair, a cheap theatre, a dancehall, a brothel, a prison, a house, a bar, a casino, a hotel; from Romani gav, a (market) town
Clobber (Selfridges, Oxford St)
Piccadilly Fringe: a popular women’s hairstyle in which the hair is cut short into a fringe and curled over the forehead
Piccadilly Weepers: long side whiskers, worn without a beard
Dittos: a suit of clothes (jacket, waistcoat, trousers) all the same colour
Bobtail: a dandy, from the wide skirts of his jackets
Gorger: a dandy, perhaps from gorgeous
Spiff: a dandy, from spiff, echoic of a sharp sound and thus figuratively exciting, important, astonishing
All Nations: a multi-coloured or heavily patched coat; from ‘the flags of all nations’.
Immensikoff: a large overcoat; coined by the music-hall star Arthur Lloyd who called himself Immensikoff and appeared on stage in such a coat to sing, c.1868, his hit ‘The Shoreditch Toff’
Spittleonian, a yellow silk handkerchief, manufactured in Spitalfields
Arse-Rugs: trousers
Sin-Hiders: trousers; they disguise the male genitals
Moab: a turban-shaped hat, worn by women; a jocular reference to Psalm 60: ‘Moab is my washpot’
Billycock: a style of man’s hat; perhaps a variation on bully-cocked, i.e. ‘cocked after the fashion of the bullies’ or pimps
Golgotha: a hat; pun on Greek golgotha, the place of skulls
Headlight, a large and ostentatious tie pin, usually a diamond one
Hopper-dockers / hock-dockies: shoes
Piccolo & Flute: rhyming slang, a suit.
Rig-Out: a costume; from nautical imagery: one’s clothes are one’s ‘rigging’
Cover-Me-Queerly: ragged clothing
Gropus: a pocket; one must grope into its depths to find small items
Yiddish (Sigmund Freud’s House, West Hampstead)
Goy: a gentile
Dreck: dirt
Fress: to eat
Kishkes: the intestines, the guts
Nudnik: a fool
Shpilkes: anxiety, nerves
Schnorrer: a beggar
Mozzle: luck
Plotz: to to lose emotional control
Bubbe Mayse: an old wife’s tale
Bogtrotters – Country Folk (Caravan, Outlying Rural London)
Carrot Muncher: the peasant’s staple diet
Clouted Shoon: lit. ‘a shoe tipped with iron and secured with iron nails’
Dog Booby: dog = male + booby = fool
Lob: dialect lob, a country bumpkin. Note Yiddish lobbes, a rascal and Dutch lobbes, a clown
Muck Savage: the idea that peasants are ‘savages’ living in filth
Nose Picker: a derogatory stereotype
Queer Cuffin: lit. ‘an odd bloke’
Sod Buster: the peasant’s agricultural labouring
Squab: SE squab, a raw, inexperienced person, also a young, unfledged bird or animal
Whopstraw: from whop, to hit; the work of threshing corn
Techies (Old St Roundabout)
Crapplet: a badly written or wholly useless app.
Angry Garden Salad: a poorly designed website GUI
Seagull Manager: (s)he flies in, craps all everything, then leaves
P.O.T.A.T.O.: “People Over Thirty Acting Twenty One’
Rasterbator: a designer who is obsessed with Photoshop
Salmon Day: a wasted day’s work: one has spent the entire day ‘swimming upstream’
Wall Humper: a person who, rather the removing the card from their pocket, raises their hip in an effort to swipe it against a reader
Open Your Kimono: to reveal one’s business plans
Grok: to understand fully, from Robert Heinlein’s scifi novel Stranger in a Strange Land
Ohnosecond: the fraction of time it takes to realize one has committed a major error
Chips and Salsa: chips refers to computer hardware, salsa to software
The Fancy – Boxing (York Hall, Bethnal Green)
Brother of the bunch of fives: a prize-fighter
Broughtonian : a prize-fighter; from Jack Broughton, inventor of the first prototype boxing glove, writer of ‘Broughton’s Rules’ (which lasted 1743–1838) and champion of England 1730–5
Bruiser: a prize-fighter
Whister-clister / Whister-poop: a blow to the ear
Clicker: a knock-out blow
Knight of the mawley: a prize-fighter, from mawley, a hand or fist
Fibbing-cull: a prize-fighter, from fib, to punch
Buckhorse: a blow to the ear
Jobber: a blow to the head
Smeller: the nose or a blow that hits it
Winker: a blow to the winkers, i.e. eyes
Slasher: a prize-fighter
Milling-kiddy: a prize-fighter, from mill, to fight
Breadbasketer or belly-go-firster : a blow to the stomach
Claret jug/ Claret cask / Claret-spout: the nose
Quackery (University College Hospital, Euston Square)
Nimgimmer: a surgeon or physician, esp. a specialist in venereal diseases
Knight of the Pisspot: a doctor, from the analysis of urine for medical purposes
Pintlesmith: a surgeon, lit. a ‘penis worker’
Crocus Pitcher: an itinerant quack doctor; also crocus (metallorum), a pun on croak, to die and crocus metallorum, oxysulphide of antimony
Twat Scourer: lit. the ‘cleaner of the vagina’
Flesh Tailor: a surgeon
Dr Drawfart: an itinerant quack doctor
Clyster Pipe: a doctor; lit. ‘a pipe used to administer clysters, or enemas’
Jollop, medicine, from jalap, a purgative drug obtained from the tuberous roots of Exogonium (Ipomoea) purga
Bone juggler: a surgeon
Argy-Bargy – Political Dissent (Marx Memorial Library, Clerkenwell)
Boodler: a corrupt politician, from boodle, bribes
Mud-pusher: a member of parliament, i.e. an M.P.
Quockerwodger: a politician who works for a patron rather than his/her constituents; lit. ‘a wooden puppet which can be made to ‘dance’ by pulling its strings
Lefty: a left-winger
Red: a radical; specifically a Bolshevik, a Communist; synonymous with communism since its birth in 1848
Rad / Raddie: a radical
Threepenny Masher: a young man who poses as a gentleman but lacks the savoir-faire, not to mention the funds.
Jack-Gentleman: a man of low birth or manners who has pretensions to be a gentleman, thus an insolent fellow, an upstart.
Macer: a swindler, from a possible link to mason, one who acquires goods fraudulently by giving a bill that they do not intend to honour
Swell Mobsman: a leading pickpocket, often undistinguishable from the smartly dressed people he robs
Nobs & Gentry (The Guildhall, City of London)
Gentry-cove: an aristocrat or gentleman
Swell cove: an aristocrat or gentleman
Snot: a gentleman, who is seen as snotty or arrogant
Tercel-gentle: a well-off knight or any rich gentleman, lit. a male falcon
Skyfarmer: a criminal beggar who tours the country posing as a gentleman farmer fallen on hard times, backed by suitably impressive, if counterfeit, papers
Queer Duke: an impoverished gentleman
Jagger: a (country) gentleman, from German Jäger, a sportsman
Rye mort / Rye mush: a gentleman or gentlewoman, from Romani rei a gentleman + mort, a woman or mush, a man
Nob / Nib: probably from nobility or nobleman
Hipsters (Tea Building, Shoreditch)
Amazeballs: wonderful
Bro Hug: a manly hug between two men who are friends
Cray: amazing, remarkable, lit. crazy
Humblebrag: self-deprecation actually used for self-aggrandizement
Throw shade: to talk negatively about a third party
Peeps: people
Rando: a random person or thing
That Wins the Internet: a general exclamation of satisfaction
Grill: the face
Rack: the female breasts
Americana (US Embassy, Grosvenor Sq)
Ham Shank: rhyming slang, a Yank or American
Man up: behave in a manly or macho manner
Grow a Pair: the pair are testicles, again one is encouraged towards a macho posture
Fanny Pack: a small satchel tied around one’s waist; from fanny, the buttocks
Heads-up: a warning, a briefing
Do the Math: work it out
Touch Base: to speak to
Septic: rhyming slang, a Septic Tank, a Yank or American
Can I Get…: rather than UK could I have
I’m Good: things are satisfactory, synonymous with UK response to ‘how are you’ of ‘very well thank you’
Park Life (Peter Pan Statue, Kensington Gardens)
Bumblebee: rhyming slang, a tree
Dr Green: the grass
Sleep with Mrs Green: to sleep in the open air
Ruffmans: a wood
Robin Hoods: rhyming slang, the woods
April Showers: rhyming slang, flowers
Eiffel Towers: rhyming slang, flowers
Skylark: rhyming slang, a park
Joan of Ark: rhyming slang, a park
Crackmans: a hedge
Lad: a fox
Charlie: a fox, pun on the politician Charles James Fox (1749–1806)
Bufe / Buffer: a dog, either echoic of a bark or from Welsh bwch, a buck, a male animal
Carpet-herb: grass
Old Iron and Brass: rhyming slang, the grass
Penny-a-Pound rhyming slang, the ground
Gambling (Crockfords Casino, Mayfair)
Blackleg: his black boots
Buttoner: that member of a gang who entices suckers to play in a crooked game; he buttonholes the victim
Topper-toodle: a gullible fool, esp. as prey to crooked gamblers
Thimble-Rigger: operator of a cheating game of ‘find-the-lady’ or the ‘three-card-trick’
Spieler: a casino, from Yiddish spiel, to play
Rump and a Dozen: the 18th century wager of a whole rumpsteak and a dozen bottles of claret
Punting-shop: a casino, from punt, to wager
Levanter: one who defaults on his debts, he lit. runs away to the Levant, i.e. the Middle East
Hazard-drum: a casino, from the game of hazard, a precursor of craps, and drum, a house
Grumble and Mutter: rhyming slang, a flutter
Whores (Soho Sq)
(All but one terms are simple synonyms for ‘ladies of the night’)
Frisker: from frisk, to have sexual intercourse
Cockatrice: in myth, a hybrid monster with head, wings and feet of a cock, terminating in a serpent with a barbed tail – such a monster can kill with a single glance
Ramp: from rampant, spirited
Trot: from trot, a hag, an old woman; she also ‘trots’ down the street
Trull: from German Trulle, a prostitute
Tib: supposedly a typical name for a working-class woman
Bluegown: prostitutes confined in a house of correction once wore a blue dress as their uniform
Circus Cowboy: a rent boy, who frequented the Piccadilly Circus ‘meat rack’
Covent Garden Nun: the popularity of Covent Garden as a centre of whoring
Quean: a specific use of a general term for a woman
Market Dame: the popularity of Covent Garden as a centre of whoring
Kate / Kittie: a generic use of the proper name
Miss Town: her role as a quintessentially urban figure
Town Miss: her role as a quintessentially urban figure
Miss o’ the Town: her role as a quintessentially urban figure
Old Jack Lang – Rhyming Slang (St Mary Le Bow, Cheapside, City of London)
Brixton Riot: a diet
Emma Freuds: haemorrhoids
Iron Hoof: a homosexual, i.e. a poof
Newington Butts: the stomach or guts
Queen Mum: the buttocks, i.e. the bum
Tony Blair: hair, a chair or a nightmare
Petticoat Lane: a pain
Charing Cross: a horse
Westminster Abbey: a cabbie
Alf Garnett: the hair, i.e. the barnet (fair)
Lucre ( The Bank of England, City of London)
Draft on the Pump at Aldgate: a fake bank-note or fraudulent bill; the Aldgate pump offered no financial security for a draft, i.e. a written order for the payment of money
Coriander (seed): a figurative use of seeds as form of growth and as such necessary for life; money has the same importance
Wedge: originally a wedge of silver
Readies: i.e. ready money
Scrilla: possible from a scroll, on which accounts were once kept
Sponds: fom Greek spondlikos, i.e. spondulics
Mazuma: from Yiddish, ultimately Hebrew mazuma, prepared, ready
Gelt: from Yiddish and German, gold
Dosh: from doss, to sleep or a bed; thus originally the money required to pay for one’s accommodation
Bread: the ‘staff of life’, as is money
Rookeries – New Office Blocks (1 Old St Mary’s Axe, City of London)
Can of Ham: 60-70 St Mary’s Axe
Armadillo: City Hall
Walkie-Talkie: 20 Fenchurch St
Cheesegrater: Leadenhall Building
Pringle: the Olympic Cycle Track
Helter-Skelter: the Pinnacle Tower
The Prawn: Willis Building
Stealth Bomber: 1 New Change
Gherkin / Wally: 30 St Mary Axe
Shard: 32 London Bridge Street
Toffs (Buckingham Palace)
NQOCD: Not Quite Our Class, Darling
NSIT: Not Safe in Taxis
PLU: People Like Us
MTF: Must Touch Flesh
SOHF: Sense of Humour Failure
Yonks: a long time
Jew canoe: a large car, often a Jaguar
Killing: uproariously amusing
Gucky: the fashion label Gucci
Cockers-p: a cocktail party
Chateaued: drunk, not necessarily on claret
Wrinklies: old people
Stiffie: an invitation
Brill: brilliant
Nosh (Covent Garden Market)
Ozzimangerum, soup made from a leg of beef; from ox + French manger, to eat
Princess Di: rhyming slang, a pie
Fourpenny Cannon: a steak and kidney pie; the cost plus its supposed resemblance to a cannonball
Bags of Mystery: sausages, the specific meat ingredient is not specified by the seller
Alderman in Chains: a roast turkey garlanded in sausages
Banger: a sausage, which may explode in the pan
Sharp’s Alley Bloodworms: beef sausages or black puddings, from Sharp’s Alley, an abattoir near the Smithfield meat market in London]
Darby Kelly: rhyming slang, the belly
Chamber of Horrors: sausages
Zeps in a Cloud: sausage and mash
Sanguinary James / Bloody Jemmy / One-eyed Joint: an uncooked sheep’s head
Poodle: a sausage, a pun on hot dog
Irish Apricots: potatoes, the stereotyped link of the Irish and the potato
Violets: spring onions or sage and onion stuffing
Horn Root: celery, it is supposedly aphrodisiac
Welsh Turkey: a leek, the stereotyped link of the Welsh and leeks
Rose: an orange, possibly the fruit also has a pleasant smell
Whitechapel: rhyming slang, an apple
Teddy Bear: rhyming slang, a pear
Snob’s duck, a baked sheep’s head (which is far cheaper than a real duck)
Thames Butter: completely rancid butter, the ‘South London Press …published a paragraph to the effect that a Frenchman was making butter out of Thames mud at Battersea. In truth this chemist was extracting yellow grease from Thames mud-worms’
The Uproar (Covent Garden Opera House)
Synagogue: a shed – its use is not specified – standing at that time in the northeast corner of Covent Garden, London.
The Straights: a network of alleyways and small courts in an area bounded by St Martin’s Lane, Half Moon Street and Chandos Street, the haunt of pimps, thugs and similar unsavoury characters.
Short’s Gardens: a state of temporary penury; a pun on the street Short’s Gardens in Covent Garden and short, impoverished
Mutton Walk: the saloon at the Drury Lane Theatre, Covent Garden; thus any street where one finds prostitutes, especially the junction of Coventry Street and Windmill Street in the West End.
The Finish / Carpenter’s Coffee Shop: Carpenter’s late-night coffee shop, sited in Covent Garden opposite Russell Street and ostensibly catering to the market porters, which closed only when the last customer had gone home into the dawn
Go Shop: the Queen’s Head tavern, Duke’s Court, Bow Street, London WC2.
The Lane: Petticoat Lane, Middlesex Street in the east End; Drury Lane, Covent Garden, in the West End
Break One’s Shins Against Covent Garden Rails: to catch venereal disease
Russian Coffee House: the Brown Bear public house in Bow Street, Covent Garden, a popular haunt for both thieves and thief-takers.
Tekram: backslang for Covent Garden market
Hoorays (Chelsea Town Hall)
Maybs: maybe
Blates: blatantly
Defo: definitely
Dorbs / Adorbs: adorable
Totes: totally
Soz: sorry
Probs: probably
Presh: precious
Obvs: obviously
OMG!: Oh my God!
Slicksters (Houses of Parliament, Westminster)
Craftsby: a cheat, a swindler
Swindling gloak: a swindler; gloak is synonymous with bloke, a fellow
Dunlop tyre: rhyming slang, a liar
Holy friar: rhyming slang, a liar
Cony-catcher: a confidence trickster, from cony, a rabbit, i.e. a sucker
Queer plunger: a confidence trickster who plunges into water and is saved from ‘drowning’; conveniently pre-assembled ‘rescuers’ then claim money for saving the person
Tweedler: a small-time confidence trickster; a stolen vehicle that is passed off a legitimate
Nuxyelper: a confidence trickster who fakes a fit in order to gain money from bystanders; from nux vomica, the fruit from which strychnine is produced, and which would induce vomiting
Jack-in-the-box: a street pedlar who specialises on con tricks
Shearer: a confidence trickster, who ‘shears’ the gullible ‘lamb’
The Law (Royal Courts of Justice, Fleet St)
China Street Pig: a Bow Street Runner
Thieves’ Kitchen: the Law Courts in the Strand
Theatre: a police, later magistrate’s court
Tenterden Park: the King’s Bench prison for debtors
Gentleman of the Three In(n)s : one who is in debt, in gaol and in danger (of being hanged)
Fortune-teller / Conjuror: a judge, he ‘tells one’s future’
Ambidexter: a lawyer, he holds out both hands for bribes
Honest lawyer: a public house sign showing a headless man dressed in lawyer’s robes, the implication being that his honesty is only possible since, headless, he is bereft of the chance to speak.
God Box (St Paul’s Cathedral)
(All terms mean a clergyman, with an over-riding image of thumping the bible or pulpit)
Amen-Bawler
Bead Counter: the rosary beads
Smell-Smock: the clergyman’s alleged womanising
Mumble-Matin[s]
Black cattle: clergymen as a group
Soul Doctor / Soul Driver
Hum-Box Patterer: the hum-box is a pulpit
Cackletub: the tub is a pulpit
Good Book Thumper
Autem Cove / Pattering Cove: from autem, probably an altar, pattering, sermonising
Fur-men (Mansion House, City of London)
Bus-Bellied Ben: an alderman who ‘eats enough for ten’
City Bulldog: a constable
Lord Mayor: a large crowbar
Farmer: an alderman, from farm, to lease or let the proceeds or profits of customs, taxes etc. for a fixed payment
Alderman Lushington: a drunkard
Alderman’s Pace: a steady, careful pace, as befits an official with a fine sense of his own importance
Alderman Double Slang’d: a roast turkey garlanded with sausages
Recorder’s Nose: the rump of a chicken, duck, goose or other poultry.
City Wire: a fashionable woman; her use of wire to create elaborate hairstyles
Cit: a citizen, especially a merchant of the City of London
Brassic – Poverty (former Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East)
Pov / Povvo: an impoverished person.
Stig: a tramp or someone who resembles a tramp
Ding: a beggar, a tramp
Downrighter: a beggar, a tramp
Cursetor: a tramp or an impoverished lawyer
Fleabag: one who smells, usually a vagrant
Crank Cuffin: a tramp who poses as a sufferer from a sympathy-inducing illness
Abrahamer: a tramp, usually sporting picturesque rags to attract alms
Smelly Welly: a juvenile pejorative for a poor person who is seen as a tramp
Dosser: a tramp, a vagrant, a homeless person., from doss, to sleep (rough)
Cold Meat – Execution (Tower of London, Tower Hill)
Do the Newgate Frisk: from Newgate, outside public hangings took place from 1783-18688
Paddington Spectacles: the sack which is placed over the prisoner’s head prior to the hanging
Jig upon Nothing: the ‘dancing’ of the dying person’s feet as they choke to death
Climb the Leafless Tree: one of the many equations of the gallows with a ‘tree’
Have a Wry Mouth and Pissen Britches: a dry mouth and involuntary urination accompany one’s being hanged
City Stage: on which the guilty person ‘performs’
City Scales: the guilty man or woman is weighed off, i.e. sentenced and executed
Dance at Beilby’s Ball Where the Sheriff Pays the Fiddlers: the identity of Mr Beilby is unknown but a number of suggestions exist. [1] Beilby was a well-known sheriff; [2] Beilby is a mispronunciation of Old Bailey, the court in which so many villains were sentenced to death. [3] Beilby refers to the bilbo, a long iron bar, furnished with sliding shackles to confine the ankles of prisoners and a lock by which to fix one end of the bar to the floor or ground. Bilbo comes from the Spanish town of Bilbao, where these fetters were invented
Swing on Tyburn Tree: the Tyburn gallows at the west end of what would become Oxford Street, used for executions 1388–1783
Do the Paddington Frisk: Paddington was synonymous with Tyburn, original site of the main London gallows.
Terms for Places listed on the Tree Trunk
Alsatia: the 16th century ‘liberty’ south of Fleet Street, a law-free zone wherein crowded every fugitive villain
Black Mary’s Hole: a 17th century gay cruising ground in Clerkenwell, EC1
Cheape: Cheapside
Dilly: Piccadilly
Elephant; Elephant and Castle
Fleet: the river Fleet or Fleet Street
Garden: Covent Garden and its Market
Holy Land: the criminal rookery (i.e. slum) of St Giles (now the site of Centre Point)
In and Out; the Army & Navy Club, Piccadilly (from its doorposts which were thus painted)
Junction: Clapham Junction
Kangaroo Valley: Earl’s Court, once home of ex-patriate Australians
Lane: Petticoat Lane, focus of the Jewish East End
Mohocks: a gang of dissolute upper-class thugs, flourishing c. 1750
Newgate: London’s main prison, now the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey
Old Nask: Bridewell prison, Tothill Fields
Paddy’s Goose; a notoriously violent sailor’s pub on the Ratcliffe Highway
Queer Street: a figurative term for poverty
Recent Incision: the New Cut, Waterloo
Spittal: Spitalfields
Tyburn: London’s original execution ground, now Marble Arch
Up-West: the West End
Ville: Pentonville Prison, north London
Wanno: Wandsworth Prison, south London
X: Charing Cross
Yard: the police headquarters of Scotland Yard
Zoo: The Zoological Gardens, now London Zoo
Map copyright © Adam Dant
Text copyright © Jonathon Green
You may also like to take a look at
Jonathon Green’s Smithfield Slang
Adam Dant’s Map Of The Coffee Houses
The Meeting of the New & Old East End in Redchurch St
Map of the History of Shoreditch
Map of Shoreditch in the Year 3000
Map of Shoreditch as the Globe
Map of the History of Clerkenwell
Map of the Journey to the Heart of the East End
Map of the History of Rotherhithe
Ben Rea, Illustrator
Ben Rea has been Illustrator-in-Residence at Dennis Severs House recently, meticulously recording every inch of the rambling old mansion to create the elaborate cross section you can see below, accompanied by his working drawings all annotated with measurements. This picture forms the centrepiece of Ben’s first London exhibition A SLICE OF SPITALFIELDS, which opens at Townhouse in Fournier St this Friday 12th June and runs until 12th July.
(Click on the image above to enlarge)
Ben Rea at the launch of the Save Norton Folgate campaign last February
Drawings copyright © Ben Rea
Portrait copyright © Simon Mooney
Ben Rea’s exhibition A SLICE OF SPITALFIELDS runs from 12th June until 12th July at Townhouse, 5 Fournier St, 11 – 6 daily
Susannah Dalbiac’s Almanack, 1776
Margaret Nairne brought her great-great-great-great-aunt’s diary to show me recently and I publish these excerpts for the first time today. It is an Almanack of 1776 belonging to fourteen-year-old Susannah Dalbiac, whose father Charles Dalbiac was a silk & velvet merchant who ran the family business with his brother James at 20 Spital Sq. The Dalbiacs were Huguenots and Susannah’s grandfather escaped France as a youth in a hamper in July 1681 after his parents and three sisters were murdered. At the opening of the diary in January 1776, London was suffering a Great Frost with temperatures as low as minus eighteen degrees. (You can click on any diary page to enlarge it)
Monday JANUARY 1st 1776
Mama & Lucy drank tea at Mrs Martin’s. I stayed at home to make tea for Papa and Cousin James
Tuesday
Papa & Cousin James Dalbiac went to Town before Dinner.
Wednesday
Mama went to Town in the Coach at nine o’clock, took Harriet & Nurse with her. The man came to take down the Organ.
Thursday
We worked at our muffs, drew and did the same as when Mama is at home.
Friday
The man finished packing up the organ. We finished our muffs.
Saturday
I was very glad to see Papa and Mama. They came to dinner. Mama was so good as to make a present of a fan and an Almanack.
Sunday
We did not go to Church. We read a sermon in the morning… The text was Felix’s behaviours towards Paul explained.
Monday JANUARY 15th
Mr Cooke call’d in the morning. They play’d at Quadrille in the evening.
Tuesday
Papa went to town. Mama read Cyrus in the evening.
Wednesday
At Home alone.
Thursday
Mama read Cyrus in the evening.
Friday
Papa came down to dinner. They play’d at Quadrille in the evening.
Saturday
Papa took a ride in the morning to Admiral Geary’s. They play’s at Quadrille in the evening.
Sunday
We read a sermon in the morning, the text was National Mercies considered. I wrote what I understood by it. I kept up a hundred at Battledore Shuttlecock with Miss Watson.
Monday MARCH 11th
Went to Town. Took CM. Din’d at GM’s. Came back to tea. Mama drank tea at Mr Sebly’s. We at home with CM. Papa went to Bookham.
Tuesday
CKL & CM drank tea here. DK slept here.
Wednesday
Papa came to tea. Sally & Frank came to dinner from Bookham.
Thursday
Papa went to Town. We took a ride with Mama & Aunt L to Hackney. Papa came to Dinner.
Friday
Mama took a ride in the Phaeton with Papa.
Saturday
Papa went to Town. Came back to dinner, Papa went to Mr Paris’s. At home with Mama, Lucy and CM.
Sunday
Went to church with CL & we din’d here Papa & Mama drank tea at Uncle Lamotte’s.
(Susannah mistakenly entered her grandmother’s death on the wrong date and crossed it out)
Monday APRIL 1st
Aunt Lamotte went to town with Papa. Came back to tea. They all came in the evening. Grandmama very ill.
Tuesday
Papa went to town. Took CM with him. Came back to tea.
Wednesday
Aunt & Uncle Lamotte went to town with Papa. Aunt and Uncle came back to tea. We spent the day with Mama at Uncle Lamotte’s.
Miss Louise Delaporte
Thursday
Aunt & CL went to town with Papa. Aunt & Uncle came back to tea. We spent the day with Mama at Uncle Lamotte’s.
Grandmama died at four in the evening. Though expected at her age it is always a great loss. She was 84 next July
Friday
Aunt and CL went to Town Came back to dinner with Papa. They spent the evening here. CM came in the morning.
Friday
Papa went to town. Came back to tea. Mama drank tea at Uncle Lamotte’s. CM came here.
Saturday
Went to town with Papa, Uncle and Aunt L & CL who was so good as bespeak some mourning for us, Mama not being well enough. Saw G’mama. Did not find her much alter’d.
Sunday
CL came in the morning. We drank tea at Uncle Lamotte’s. Papa came down in the evening.
Monday APRIL 22nd
Drank tea at Uncle Lamotte’s where we met Uncle Dalbiac’s family
Tuesday
CK call’d. Papa slept in town
Wednesday
Papa came to dinner. Mr Paul and Peter L [..?] spent the day here
Thursday
CM spent the day here. CK called
Friday
Papa went to town. We spent the day at Uncle Lamotte’s
Saturday
CK call’d in the afternoon with MJ Lamotte.
Sunday
Went to church with CK. Sukey din’d here. CM came in the morning.
(Susannah’s own mother had died young and her stepmother gave birth to a baby boy in April.)
Monday APRIL 29th
Mama rather low at little boys going out to nurse. We drank at Uncle. Aunt came here to tea and CL in the evening. Note on opposite page – The little boy went out to nurse upon the Forest the nurse not being able to come.
Tuesday
Papa went to town
Wednesday MAY 1st
Went with nurse Flaxman to see the little boy. Found him very well
Thursday
Staid at home. Aunt Ch CS Dalbiac drank tea here
Friday
Went with nurse Flaxman to see the little boy
Saturday
Papa went to Uncle Lamotte’s in the evening where he met a great many people
Sunday
Went to church with CKL. After church we went with CM to fetch little boy. She spent the day with us.
Monday MAY 13th
Sir John Silvester came to see mama, she was so very low. CK call’d
Tuesday
Sir John Silvester came. Papa went to town came back at night
Wednesday
Papa went to town. Came back for tea.
Thursday
Sir John Silvester came
Friday
Papa went, came to back to tea. Took a ride after tea to see little boy. Found him very well. Call’d on Uncle Lamotte
Saturday
Sir John Silvester came. Ordered mama today a bed till Monday as had a little rash. CM drank tea here.
Sunday
There was no service. Took a ride with Papa & Aunt Lamotte. Called at Uncle Dalbiac.
(Sir John Silvester was a doctor from the French Hospital and one of the top physicians of the day)
(Susannah records her winnings at Quadrille on the right hand page)
Monday JUNE 10th
We drank tea at Mrs Brickendon’s with Mr and Mrs B and C. Walles. Met Mr ? and Mr Forbes
Tuesday
At Home. Play’d at Quadrille in the evening
Wednesday
Mr and Mrs Jourdan came down to dinner. Mrs Fellen and Mrs Draper dined here. Played at Piquet with Mr Barbut.
Thursday
Mrs Brickendon and Miss Streton drank tea here.
Friday
Drank tea at Mrs Brickendon. Lucy played at cards after they came home. Went halfs with her.
Saturday
Drank tea at Mrs Fellen’s. Mr Barbut came down in the Phaeton
Sunday
Went to Church with Miss Barbut. Mrs Rose & Mrs Forbes. Drank tea here.
Monday JUNE 24th
Spent the day at Uncle Lamotte’s. Slept there. Left Wanstead Lane.
Tuesday
In the Morning Papa tooke with the Phaeton to Uncle Dalbiac’s. Took a walk in the evening to see Harriet with Aunt.
Wednesday
At home alone.
Thursday
Spent the day at Sir J Silvester’s with Aunt & Uncle, CL & CM. We had a very agreeable day.
Friday
At home all day
Saturday
We went with Aunt in the morning to see little boy. Found him very well at 1 0’clock Mr Gallie called in the coach. We went with him to Uncle Lamotte’s
Monday JULY 1st
The coach came for us after Dinner to go to Town. Found Mama very well which made me quite happy
Tuesday
Went with mama the other end of Town in the morning. Very busy all day.
Wednesday
We all went down to Uncle Lamotte’s in the evening.
Thursday
Went to Town in the morning. CL & CM with us. We all went to Vauxhall in the evening & I found it much greater than my expectations as I had never see it before. In the morning we saw little Harriet and little boy.
Friday
Very busy all day. Mr Laport din’d with us. He came from New Providence to see Grandmama his sister but was disappointed.
Saturday
We set out a journey…
There is a gap in Susannah Dalbiac’s diary between 6th July and 14th October, after which she is in Paris and from then on many of the entries are written in French. It may be that her stepmother’s illness led the family to return to France where she had relatives or that the turbulence of the Weavers’ Riots in Spitalfields at this time caused James Dalbiac to withdraw his business. Susannah never married or had children but, living with her sister Louisa, she died at her brother-in-law Peter Luard’s house, Blyborough Hall, Lincolnshire in 1842, aged eighty.
Click here for details of events in the current HUGUENOT SUMMER festival
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Andrew Scott’s East End Photographs
Yesterday, I presented Caroline Gilfillan’s poems with Andrew Scott’s pictures from the early seventies and today I show more of Andrew’s photography from this era, published for the first time
In Sclater St, Spitalfields
In Sclater St, Spitalfields
In Sclater St, Spitalfields
In Sclater St, Spitalfields
“In the autumn of 1974, we stuffed our belongings into a van and headed for London. Like all newcomers, we had to find somewhere to live – and fast, since none of us had family or friends in the capital. Someone who knew someone directed us to the Tower Hamlets Squatters’ Union, a grass roots community organisation who could help us squat an empty property. The people who ran the Union believed that the amount of council property sitting empty or scheduled for demolition was a disgrace. And we agreed with them.
We were first ‘put into’ two prefab dwellings in Shadwell. The next morning we were evicted (and secretly relieved). The Squatters’ Union then delivered us to a terraced house in Stepney where we stayed for several months, hardly able to believe our luck. There was no bath or indoor toilet, but did we care? We were in our early twenties, hungry for everything London could offer. That included the East London street markets – rich repositories of fresh fruit, vegetables, and every sort of tat.
We adored London – its throb and thrum, its variety and eccentricity. Our East End neighbours were tolerant of us, but others were not so lucky. We witnessed blatant racism for the first time. Andrew took photographs for the Squatters’ Union to help publicise their anti-racist work with Bangladeshi families and to document the re-housing of some of those living in the worst housing conditions.”
Caroline Gilfillan & Andrew Scott
In Spitalfields
In Stoneyard Lane, Poplar
At Stephen & Matilda Houses, Wapping
In York Sq, Stepney
In Stoneyard Lane, Poplar
In Bromley St, Stepney
In Corfield St, Bethnal Green
In Corfield St, Bethnal Green
In Corfield St, Bethnal Green
In Corfield St, Bethnal Green
In Aldgate
In Corfield St, Bethnal Green
In Poplar
South of Commercial Rd, Stepney
In Commercial Rd, Stepney
At Stephen & Matilda Houses, Wapping
In Whitechapel
In Whitechapel
In Whitechapel
In York Sq, Stepney
In Ben Jonson Rd, Stepney
In Ben Jonson Rd, Stepney
In Ben Jonson Rd, Stepney
In Broad St Station
In Bromley St, Stepney
Dock Wall, St Katherine’s Basin
South of Commercial Rd
South of Commercial Rd
In Aldgate
In Whitechapel Rd
In Commercial Rd, Stepney
The George in Commercial Rd, Stepney
Photographs copyright © Andrew Scott
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David Hoffman at Fieldgate Mansions
Caroline Gilfillan & Andrew Scott’s East End
It is my pleasure to present these poems by Caroline Gilfillan with photographs by Andrew Scott – dating from the early seventies and encapsulating that era when Caroline & Andrew were squatters in the East End, they are published for the first time today
Spitalfields Street Sweepers
Council issue donkey jackets slung over saggy suits,
the street sweepers get to work,
broom heads shooshing over concrete and tar,
herding paper and peel and fag ends into heaps,
strong fingers grasping the broom handles,
knuckles big and smooth as weathered stones
moving easy in their bags of skin, watchful eyes
on you, your finger-clicks, your lens.
Aldgate Gent
Shoes shined, trilby brushed, ears scrubbed
clean as a baby’s back, he chugs through the
sun drops and diesel clag of Aldgate.
No crumbs in his turn-ups, no fluff in his pockets:
the wife, at home in one of the new flats
over by Mile End, keeps him spruce.
He’s on his way to meet Solly at Bloom’s
for gefilte fish and a chinwag. We flew
past him in a dented van, croaky from
last night’s pints, hair in need of a good cut
and ears a good wash behind. And No,
we didn’t notice him, but he was a good
father to his sons, if inclined to sound off.
His wife went first but his sister cooked for him
after, and the nurses at the London
did him proud when the time came.
Us? We played our gigs and tumbled on,
leaving scraps of quavers and clefs
scattered across the pavement, the kerb,
the bang, rattle and clank of Aldgate East.
Stoneyard Lane Prefabs
Two ticks and the fixer of the Squatters Union
has done the break-in, courtesy of a jemmy.
The door creaks in the fish-mud breeze blowing up
from Shadwell docks. Here you are girls.
Faces poke, glint through curtain cracks.
A man comes back for his hobnailed boots. Stands lit up
by orange street lights, his meek face
breathing beer. We got behind with the rent, he says,
muddy laces spilling over knuckles.
Thought we’d leave before the council chucked us out.
The next morning two hoods from the council break the lock,
bawl through the drunken door, Clear out or we’ll
board you in. Bump-clang of an Audi brings bailiffs.
The fixer flies in, fists up to his chin.
Has words. We hunch on the kerb with our carrier bags.
Mile End Automatic Laundry
Natter chat, neat fold, wheel carts of nets, sheets, blankets, undies, pillow-slips,
feed the steel drum, twirl and swoosh, dose of froth, soaping out the Stepney dirt.
Say hello to the scruffs from the squats off Commercial Road, more of them now,
breaking the GLC doors off their hinges, and I don’t stick my nose
where it’s not wanted, though you can tell a lot by a person’s laundry,
can’t you? That girl with the hacked-off hair, no bras in her bag, and no
fancy knickers, though the boy brings in shirts, must go to work
somewhere smarter than the street where they live and that
pond-life pub on the corner. Speaking of which,
walking home the other night I heard music,
a group, with drums, guitars, the lot,
so I peeped in and there was
the girl, earnest as a nun, singing
You can get it if you really want
and I thought
just you wait
and see.
Poems copyright © Caroline Gilfillan
Photographs copyright © Andrew Scott
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Roy Clark In Norton Folgate
When I first saw Roy Clark’s photograph of this eighteenth century terrace in Norton Folgate, currently threatened with demolition by British Land, I was startled by the the ethereal beauty of the image. The old building is shrouded, as if swathed in a fine organza silk studded with diamonds, and we are intended to understand this is because it has reached the end of its existence.
In fact, this wrapping of the building is an unlikely fiction implying that without such protection it might fall apart, yet the actual effect is to draw our attention to the quality of the terrace. Rather than being rendered worthless, it becomes a cherished artefact.
Such is the transformative vision of Roy Clark’s photography, illuminating detail and texture which reveal the human presence that might otherwise go disregarded. It is the patina which tells the story of the place, offering evidence of those who have passed through before us in the centuries that the buildings have been in use.
These dreamlike photographs record the play of light and natural elements which transfigure the urban landscape, manifesting the genius loci and capturing the intangible beauty of Norton Folgate that developers mean to destroy, but we are fighting to save.
In Sun Passage
In Elder St
In Elder St
In Blossom St
In Folgate St
In Elder St
In Elder St
In Elder St
In Elder St
In Elder St
In Elder St
In Elder St
In Norton Folgate
Photographs copyright © Roy Clark
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