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
Stuart Freedman’s Pie & Mash & Eels
At Manze’s Tower Bridge Rd, London’s oldest Pie & Mash Shop, which opened in 1897
In days like these, we all need steaming-hot pie & mash & eels to fortify us, as we face the vicissitudes of life and the weather. It gave photographer Stuart Freedman the excuse to visit some favourite culinary destinations and serve up these tasty pictures for us, accompanied by this brief historical introduction as an appetiser.
Eels have long been a staple part of London food and were once synonymous with the city and its people. Lear’s Fool in his ramblings to the King, witters – “Cry to it, nuncle, as the Cockney did to the eels when she put ‘em i’ the paste alive, she knapped ‘em o’ the coxcombs with a stick, and cried ‘Down, wantons, down!’”
In a city bisected by the Thames, the eel’s popularity was that it was plentiful, cheap and, when most meat or fish had to be preserved in salt, eels could be kept alive in puddles of water. Reverend David Badham reports in his ‘Prose Halieutics Or Ancient & Modern Fish Tattle’ in 1854 – “London steams and teems with eels alive and stewed. For one halfpenny, a man of the million may fill his stomach with six or seven long pieces and wash them down with a sip of the glutinous liquid they are stewed in.”
Such was the demand that eels were brought over from The Netherlands in great quantities by Dutch eel schuyts, commended for helping feed London during the Great Fire. Although they were seen as inferior to domestic eels, the British government rewarded the Dutch for their charity by Act of Parliament in 1699, granting them exclusive rights to sell eels from their barges on the Thames.
When the Thames became increasingly polluted and could no longer sustain a significant eel population during the nineteenth century, the Dutch ships had to stop further upstream to prevent their cargo being spoiled and the rise of the Pie & Mash Shops was a direct result of the adulteration of eels and pies sold on the streets.
A delivery of live eels at F. Cooke in Hoxton
Joe Cooke kills and guts the eels freshly at the rear of his shop in Hoxton Market
A dish of jellied eels served up in Hoxton
Paddy makes the pie lids at F. Cooke in Broadway Market
Tasty pies awaiting their destiny in Broadway Market
Joe strains the golden potatoes in Hoxton
Joe fills a bucket of creamy mash behind the counter in Hoxton
Kelly dishes up pies & mash with liquor at Manze’s in Tower Bridge Rd
Tucking in at Manze’s in Tower Bridge Rd
Manze’s, Walthamstow
Manze’s, Tower Bridge Rd
Sawdust at Manze’s in Walthamstow
Victorian tiling at Manze’s in Tower Bridge Rd
Original 1897 interior at Manze’s in Tower Bridge Rd
Lisa at Manze’s in Walthamstow
Miss Emily McKay enjoying pie & mash as an eighty-eighth birthday treat in Broadway Market
Clock of 1911 at F. Cooke in Broadway Market
Interior of F. Cooke in Broadway Market
F.Cooke – “trading from this premises since 1900”
Enjoying eels in Hoxton Market
Interior of Manze’s in Walthamstow
Art Nouveau tiles in Walthamstow
Vinegar, salt & pepper on marble tables at F.Cooke in Hoxton Market
Wolfing it down at Manze’s in Tower Bridge Rd
Glass teacups at Manze’s in Walthamstow
Wooden benches and tables of marble and wrought iron at Manze’s in Tower Bridge Rd
Bob Cooke, fourth generation piemaker, at F.Cooke in Broadway Market
Photographs copyright © Stuart Freedman
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Boiling the Eels at Barney’s Seafood
Some Favourite Pie & Mash Shops
T L Busby’s Costume Of The Lower Orders
In spite of the title, there is an encouraging lack of subservience among T L Busby’s lively portraits of the Lower Orders from 1820, which suggests the description may be taken as economic rather than pejorative. Only the beggar woman looks defeated, while the rest are rapt with their intent upon turning a shilling and return our gaze with an eager expectation of doing business, irrespective of their ragged attire. Drawing upon Marcellus Laroon’s Cries of London of one hundred and fifty years earlier, this series certainly make a vivid contrast with Richard Dighton’s City Characters of 1824, who sport a superior quality of tailoring, yet many of whom are almost comatose by comparison with the quick life possessed of these street-wise Lower Orders.
The Waterman displays his the badge of the company he served.
Images courtesy of Bishopsgate Institute
You may also like to take a look at
Thomas Rowlandson’s Lower Orders
More Thomas Rowlandson’s Lower Orders
The Gentle Author’s Wapping Pub Crawl
Four-hundred-year-old stone floor at The Prospect of Whitby
Tempted by the irresistible promise of bright January sunlight, I set out for Wapping to visit those pubs which remain in these formerly notorious riverside streets once riddled with ale houses. Yet although there are pitifully few left these days, I discovered each one has a different and intriguing story to tell.
Town of Ramsgate, 288 Wapping High St. The first alehouse was built on this site in 1460, known as The Hostel and then as The Red Cow from 1533. The pub changed its name again, to the Town of Ramsgate, in 1766 to attract trade from Kentish fishermen who unloaded their catch at Wapping Old Stairs adjoining. Judge Jeffreys was arrested here in disguise, attempting to follow the flight of James II abroad in 1688, as William III’s troops approached London.
The Turk’s Head, 1 Green Bank. Originally in Wapping High St from 1839, rebuilt on this site in 1927 and closed in the seventies, it is now a community cafe.
Captain Kidd, 108 Wapping High St. Established in 1991 in a former warehouse and named after legendary pirate, Wiiliam Kidd, hanged nearby at Execution Dock Stairs in 1701.
Turner’s Old Star, 14 Watts St. In the eighteen-thirties, Joseph Mallord William Turner set up his mistress Sophia Booth in two cottages on this site, one of which she ran as an alehouse named The Old Star. In 1987, the current establishment was renamed Turner’s Old Star in honour of the connection with the great painter. Notoriously secretive about his lovelife, Turner adopted Sophia’s surname to conceal their life together here, acquiring the nickname ‘Puggy Booth’ on account of his portly physique and height of just five feet.
The Old Rose, 128 The Highway. 1839-2007
The last pub standing on the Ratcliffe Highway
The Three Suns, 61 Garnet St. 1851 – 1986
The Prospect of Whitby, 56 Wapping Wall. Founded 1520, and formerly known as The Pelican and The Devil’s Tavern.
What does a cat have to do to get a drink around here?
Sir Hugh Willoughby sailed from The Prospect of Whitby in 1533 upon his ill-fated attempt to discover the North-East Passage to China.
The Grapes, 76 Narrow St. Founded in 1583, the current building was constructed in 1720 – it is claimed Charles Dickens danced upon the counter here as a child.
Anthony Gormley’s sculpture visible from the balcony of The Grapes
You may like to read about my previous pub crawls
The Gentle Author’s Next Pub Crawl
The Gentle Author’s Spitalfields Pub Crawl
Billy & Charley’s Curious Leaden Figures
“Curious leaden figures discovered at Shadwell” read the shameless announcement published in the ‘Illustrated Times’ of February 26th 1859, placed there by George Eastwood, eager dealer in the works of Billy & Charley, two East End mudlarks turned forgers who succeeded in conning the London archaeological establishment for decades with their outlandish and witty creations.
These fine examples of Shadwell shams from the collection of Philip Mernick fascinate and delight me with their characterful demeanours, sometimes fearsome and occasionally daft – inspiring my speculative captions which you see below.
Witch doctor
Telephonist
Blood-thirsty
Indignant
Hookah pipe
Popish
St Peter
Bemused
Listening
Aghast
Weary Conqueror
Surly Knight
CURIOUS LEADEN FIGURES DISCOVERED AT SHADWELL
Announcement by George Eastwood, Billy & Charley’s dealer, published in the Illustrated Times, February 26th, 1859
A very considerable addition has been made during the winter to the singular leaden signacula found at Shadwell, which were the subject of a trial at Guildford. They are now on view at Mr. George Eastwood’s, Haymarket, where they have been inspected by some of the most experienced antiquaries, who, while they one and all concur in asserting the perfect genuineness of these remarkable objects, do not fully agree in explaining the purpose for which they were made. Upon one point there is no dispute, and that is, that the figures date from Queen Mary’s time, and were probably used in religious processions. Some of the badges resemble the earlier pilgrims’ signs.
The centre figure shown in the illustration we give of these additions to archaeological science, is that of a king holding a sword in his left hand and with the other pointing downward. The head is surmounted by a crown, the hair is long and flowing, the beard square in form and the face altogether bears great resemblance to the effigies seen on some of our early Saxon coins. To the right of this figure is another, evidently a bishop, judging from the mitre which he wears – the dress is apparently extremely rich in ornamentation. Immediately in front of thisfigure stands a smaller one, also of an ecclesiastic, but having no inscription on its base like the others. Again, in front of this another mitred statue holding a scepter of globular form at the top and dressed in robes of costly material. To the left are two well-formed bottles with handles, the lesser one having winged figures around the body. The larger one has also figures upon it and a foliated pattern. To the left of the king, who forms the centre of our group, stands a female figure, in not very graceful attitude, bearing a scepter in one hand and having the other resting on her hip. The remainder are but repetitions, to a great extent, of those already described and require no further explanation.
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Steve Speller’s Redchurch St Portraits
Photographer Steve Speller moved to Redchurch St in 1986 and lived there until 1991. “It was a time of change with old trades moving out and young creatives, like myself, moving in but when the Truman Brewery shut in 1989, I realised it was all going to go and so I took these portraits,” Steve recalled.
Living these days in Worthing, Steve returned for the first time last November after more than twenty years and was startled to discover the transformation, with both artisans and artists replaced by high-end retail – now that Redchurch St is London’s most fashionable shopping destination.
Aaronson Veneers, 45 Redchurch St
Maison Trois Garcons, 45 Redchurch St
Mr Aaronson in his veneers shop, 45 Redchurch St
Interior of Maison Trois Garcons, 45 Redchurch St
Photoshoot outside the former printing works at 44 Redchurch St where Steve Speller lived.
Aesop, 44 Redchurch St
The Owl & The Pussycat, 34 Redchurch St
The Owl & The Pussycat, 34 Redchurch St
City Cash & Carry, 40 Redchurch St
Walluc Bistrot, 40 Redchurch St
City Cash & Carry, 40 Redchurch St
Ron’s Cafe, 36 Redchurch St
Chaat, Bangladeshi Teahouse, 36 Redchurch St
Robsinson’s Engineering, 7 Redchurch St
Sunspel, 7 Redchurch St
Capital Leather, 46 Redchurch St
Murdock, 46 Redchurch St
Capital Leather, 46 Redchurch St
Nigel Ellis, Sculptor, Chance St
Former location of Nigel Ellis’ studio, Chance St
Les, handyman at 44 Redchurch St (in employ of Roy Bard, property magnate who bought half the street)
Tim Cunliffe, Stained Glass Artist, 44 Redchurch St
Carnival Novelties, Redchurch St
Merlin, Artist, 44 Redchurch St
Foremost Grinders, Redchurch St
Photographs copyright © Steve Speller
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Whitechapel’s Theatrical Terrace
As one of Whitechapel’s most appealing architectural features faces imminent threat of demolition, I tell the forgotten story that lies behind these extravagant facades in Vallance Rd.
3-13 Vallance Rd
Just last week, when I was writing about the artist Morris Goldstein who lived at 13 Vallance Rd, I was reminded of the distinctive quality of this unusual Victorian terrace in Whitechapel. Despite all the changes since World War II, these old shops have survived and the exoticism of their architecture with its strange mixture of styles fascinates me – as it does many others for whom the terrace is also a landmark in this corner of the East End, where so few old buildings remain to tell the story of what once was here.
In fact, I realised these tatty shopfronts and ornate facades have always spoken to me, but only recently have I discovered the nature of the story they were telling. The florid decoration was no whim upon the part of the architect but reflected their association and direct proximity to the adjoining Pavilion Theatre which opened here early in the nineteenth century, at first presenting nautical dramas to an audience from the docks and later becoming a Yiddish theatre to serve the Jewish population in Whitechapel.
Commanding the southern extremity of Vallance Rd, this terrace is almost the last fragment to remind us of the history of one of the East End’s most ancient thoroughfares, linking Bethnal Green and Whitechapel. Built in 1855, the vast and forbidding Whitechapel Union Workhouse once stood a few hundred yards north. In common with most of the nineteenth century buildings in this corner of what was known as Mile End New Town, it has long gone – swept away during the decades following the last war, leaving the streetscape fragmented today. Old Montague St, leading west to Commercial St and formerly the heart of the Jewish commerce in the East End, was entirely demolished.
Even Whitechapel Rd, which retains good sweeps of historic buildings – many of which are now under restoration as part of a Heritage Lottery Fund project – suffered major post-war casualties, including a fine eighteenth century terrace west of the London Hospital that was demolished in the seventies. Yet there was one building of great importance of which the loss went seemingly unnoticed -The Pavilion Theatre, a favourite resort for East Enders for nearly one hundred and fifty years before it was demolished in 1961.
The New Royal Pavilion Theatre opened in 1827 at the corner of Whitechapel Rd and Baker’s Row (now Vallance Rd) with a production of The Genii of the Thames, initiating its famous nautical-themed productions, pitched at the the maritime community. In 1856, the theatre burnt down and its replacement opened in 1858, boasting a capacity of three-thousand-seven-hundred, which was a thousand more than Covent Garden and included the largest pit in London theatre, where two thousand people could be comfortably accommodated.
‘The Great National Theatre of the Metropolis’ – as it was announced – boasted a wide repertoire including Shakespeare, opera (it became the East London Opera House in 1860) and, of course, pantomime. It gained a reputation for the unpretentious nature of its patrons, with one critic remarking “there is a no foolish pride amongst Pavilion audiences, or, as far as we could see, any of those stupid social distinctions which divide the sympathies of other auditoriums.”
In 1874, the Pavilion was reconstructed to the designs of Jethro T. Robinson, a notable theatre architect who designed two other East End theatres. both of which are now lost – the Grecian Theatre in Shoreditch and the Albion in Poplar, that was oriental in style. It was this rebuilding of the Pavilion which included the construction of a new terrace on Baker’s Row with interwoven Moorish arches evoking the Alhambra. The theatrical design of these buildings, with decorated parapets, panels and window surrounds, and the integration of side entrances to the theatre suggest the authorship or influence of J. T. Robinson himself.
In its later years, the Pavilion became one of the leading theatres in London, offering Yiddish drama, but as tastes changed and the Jewish people began to leave, the audience declined until it closed for good in 1934. In ‘East End Entertainment’ (1954) A. E. Wilson recalls a final visit to the old theatre before it closed.
“Once during the Yiddish period I visited the theatre. What I saw was all shabbiness, gloom and decay. The half-empty theatre was cold and dreary. The gold had faded and the velvet had moulted. Dust and grime were everywhere. And behind the scenes it was desolation indeed. The dirty stage seemed as vast as the desert and as lonely. I realised that there was no future for the Pavilion, that nothing could restore its fortunes, that its day was over.”
The decline of the Pavilion had been slow and painful. After the theatre closed in the thirties, it was simply left to decay after plans to transform it into a ‘super cinema’ failed to materialise. Bomb damage in the war and a fire meant that when a team from the London County Council’s Historic Buildings Division went to record the building in 1961, they found only a shell of monumental grandeur. After the theatre was finally demolished in 1961, the northern end of the terrace was also demolished leaving just number 13 (the former Weavers Arms Pub) and the battered row that has survived to this day.
Astonishingly, this last fragment of the Pavilion Theatre complex – numbers 3-11 Vallance Rd are now under threat of imminent demolition. Apparently learning nothing from the mistakes of the past, Tower Hamlets Council intends to clear the site for a new ‘landmark’ building as part of its masterplan for the area. Yet Whitechapel does not require more large-scale office and residential development at the expense of its traditional streetscape with small shops and historic character.
The Council is claiming that the terrace in Vallance Rd must be demolished – even though it is in a Conservation Area – because it poses a threat to public safety, yet the Council is the owner of the buildings and is earning rent from number 11 which is still occupied. Conveniently, it was the Council’s own surveyor who claimed the buildings are unsound and, subsequently, they have denied access to an independent structural engineer commissioned by the East End Preservation Society. Meanwhile the Spitalfields Historic Buildings Trust, which has previously restored structures in a far worse state of decay, has written to the Council offering to take on the job of repairing the buildings.
In the spirit of high theatrical farce, the Council’s consultant writes of the buildings in the Vallance Rd terrace in 2013 the Heritage Report, accompanying the application for demolition, that ‘… [they] do not contribute to the character or appearance of the Conservation Area’ directly contradicting the Council’s earlier Conservation Area appraisal of the area in 2009 which gives the following priority for action – “Encourage sympathetic redevelopment of gap sites west of Vallance Rd and secure restoration of 3-11 Vallance Rd.”
5 & 7 Vallance Rd, showing decorative window surrounds and parapet (Alex Pink)
9 & 11 Vallance Rd. With its decorative central panel, number 9 leads through to a courtyard where the theatre’s carpentry workshop once stood (Alex Pink)
3 Vallance Rd with original shopfront (Alex Pink)
Looking north over Vallance Rd (left) and Hemming St (right), 1957 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Whitechapel Union Workhouse in Vallance Rd, at junction with Fulbourne St, 1913 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Whitechapel Union Workhouse, Vallance Rd 1913 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Corner of Vallance Rd and Hereford St, 1965 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Bricklayers Arms, Vallance Rd and Sale St, 1938 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Old Montague St and Black Lion Yard, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Old Montague St and Kings Arms Court, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Old Montague St looking east with Pauline House under construction, 1962 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
The first Royal Pavilion Theatre in Whitechapel, 1856 (East London Theatre Archive)
Playbill 1867, nautical drama was a speciality at the Pavilion (East London Theatre Archive)
Playbill 1854 (East London Theatre Archive)
Playbill 1835 – note reference to gallery entrance in Baker’s Row (Vallance Rd) (East London Theatre Archive)
Playbill 1856 (East London Theatre Archive)
Playbill 1833 (East London Theatre Archive)
Playbill 1851 (East London Theatre Archive)
The Great National Theatre of the Metropolis’ – the rebuilt Pavilion, 1858
Plan of the Pavilion in eighteen-seventies showing how the houses in Baker’s Row (Vallance Rd) are integrated into the theatre
The Pavilion as a Yiddish theatre in the thirties
Pavilion Theatre facade on Whitechapel Rd, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Auditorium of Pavilion Theatre, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Pit and stage at Pavilion Theatre, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Fly tower of Pavilion Theatre, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Back wall of the Pavilion Theatre, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
17-29 Vallance Rd, showing the large scene doors entrance and gallery entrance beyond, all integrated into the terrace, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Sketch of the elevation of the Oriental Theatre, Poplar High St, by Jethro T. Robinson, 1873 – note usage of the arch-within-an-arch motif as seen in the Vallance Rd terrace
How the terrace could look if restored (Graphic by Nick Pope)
Elevation of the terrace as it could look after restoration (Graphic by Nick Pope)
Tower Hamlets Council’s vision for the future of Whitechapel
New photographs of Vallance Rd Terrace © Alex Pink
You have until Tuesday 14th January to click here and object to the demolition of 3-11 Vallance Rd
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Click here to join the East End Preservation Society
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The East End Preservation Society
The Launch of The East End Preservation Society
