THE OLD SHOWMEN, AND THE OLD LONDON FAIRS.
THE OLD SHOWMEN,
AND THE
OLD LONDON FAIRS.
BY
THOMAS FROST,
AUTHOR OF
"CIRCUS LIFE AND CIRCUS CELEBRITIES," ETC.
SECOND EDITION.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND,
1875.
[_All Rights Reserved._]
PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO.,
LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELD
PREFACE.
Popular amusements constitute so important a part of a nation's social
history that no excuse need be offered for the production of the present
volume. The story of the old London fairs has not been told before, and
that of the almost extinct race of the old showmen is so inextricably
interwoven with it that the most convenient way of telling either was to
tell both. An endeavour has been made, therefore, to relate the rise,
progress, and declension of the fairs formerly held in and about the
metropolis as comprehensively and as thoroughly as the imperfect records
of such institutions render possible; and to weave into the narrative all
that is known of the personal history of the entertainers of the people
who, from the earliest times to the period when the London fairs became
things of the past, have set up shows in West Smithfield, on the greens of
Southwark, Stepney, and Camberwell, and in the streets of Greenwich and
Deptford. Those who remember the fairs that were the last abolished, even
in the days of their decline, will, it is thought, peruse with interest
such fragments of the personal history of Gyngell, Scowton, Saunders,
Richardson, Wombwell, and other showmen of the last half century of the
London fairs, to say nothing of the earlier generations of entertainers,
as are brought together in the following pages.
The materials for a work of this kind are not abundant. The notices of the
fairs to be found in records of the earlier centuries of their history are
slight, and more interesting to the antiquary than to the general reader.
Newspapers of the latter half of the seventeenth century, and the first
half of the eighteenth, afford only advertisements of the amusements, and
of the showmen of the former period we learn only the names. During the
latter half of the last century, the showmen seldom advertised in the
newspapers, and few of their bills have been preserved. No showman has
ever written his memoirs, or kept a journal; and the biographers of actors
who have trodden the portable stages of Scowton and Richardson in the
early years of their professional career have failed to glean many
incidents of their fair experiences. All that can be presented of the
personal history of such men as Gyngell, Scowton, Richardson, and
Wombwell, has been gathered from the few surviving members of the
fraternity of showmen, and from persons who, at different periods, and in
various ways, have been brought into association with them. If, therefore,
no other merit should be found in the following pages, they will at least
have been the means of preserving from oblivion all that is known of an
almost extinct class of entertainers of the people.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
Origin of Fairs--Charter Fairs at Winchester and Chester--
Croydon Fairs--Fairs in the Metropolis--Origin of Bartholomew
Fair--Disputes between the Priors and the Corporation--The
Westminster Fairs--Southwark Fair--Stepney Fair--Ceremonies
observed in opening Fairs--Walking the Fair at
Wolverhampton--The Key of the Fair at Croydon--Proclamation
of Bartholomew Fair 1
CHAPTER II.
Amusements of the Fairs in the Middle Ages--Shows and Showmen
of the Sixteenth Century--Banks and his Learned Horse--
Bartholomew Fair in the time of Charles I.--Punch and Judy--
Office of the Revels--Origin of Hocus Pocus--Suppression of
Bartholomew Fair--London Shows during the Protectorate--A
Turkish Rope-Dancer--Barbara Vanbeck, the Bearded Woman 18
CHAPTER III.
Strolling Players in the Seventeenth Century--Southwark
Fair--Bartholomew Fair--Pepys and the Monkeys--Polichinello--
Jacob Hall, the Rope-Dancer--Another Bearded Woman--
Richardson, the Fire-Eater--The Cheshire Dwarf--Killigrew and
the Strollers--Fair on the Thames--The Irish Giant--A Dutch
Rope-Dancer--Music Booths--Joseph Clarke, the Posturer--
William Philips, the Zany--William Stokes, the Vaulter--A
Show in Threadneedle Street 36
CHAPTER IV.
Attempts to Suppress the Shows at Bartholomew Fair--A
remarkable Dutch Boy--Theatrical Booths at the London Fairs--
Penkethman, the Comedian--May Fair--Barnes and Finley--Lady
Mary--Doggett, the Comedian--Simpson, the Vaulter--Clench,
the Whistler--A Show at Charing Cross--Another Performing
Horse--Powell and Crawley, the Puppet-Showmen--Miles's
Music-Booth--Settle and Mrs. Mynn--Southwark Fair--Mrs.
Horton, the Actress--Bullock and Leigh--Penkethman and Pack--
Boheme, the Actor--Suppression of May Fair--Woodward, the
Comedian--A Female Hercules--Tiddy-dol, the Gingerbread
Vendor 66
CHAPTER V.
Bartholomew Fair Theatricals--Lee, the Theatrical Printer--
Harper, the Comedian--Rayner and Pullen--Fielding, the
Novelist, a Showman--Cibber's Booth--Hippisley, the Actor--
Fire in Bartholomew Fair--Fawkes, the Conjuror--Royal Visit
to Fielding's Booth--Yeates, the Showman--Mrs. Pritchard, the
Actress--Southwark Fair--Tottenham Court Fair--Ryan, the
Actor--Hallam's Booth--Griffin, the Actor--Visit of the
Prince of Wales to Bartholomew Fair--Laguerre's Booth--
Heidegger--More Theatrical Booths--Their Suppression at
Bartholomew Fair--Hogarth at Southwark Fair--Violante, the
Rope-Dancer--Cadman, the Flying Man 102
CHAPTER VI.
A new Race of Showmen--Yeates, the Conjuror--The Turkish
Rope-Walker--Pan and the Oronutu Savage--The Corsican Fairy--
Perry's Menagerie--The Riobiscay and the Double Cow--A
Mermaid at the Fairs--Garrick at Bartholomew Fair--Yates's
Theatrical Booth--Dwarfs and Giants--The Female Samson--Riots
at Bartholomew Fair--Ballard's Animal Comedians--Evans, the
Wire-Walker--Southwark Fair--Wax-work Show--Shuter, the
Comedian--Bisset, the Animal Trainer--Powell, the
Fire-Eater--Roger Smith, the Bell-Player--Suppression of
Southwark Fair 147
CHAPTER VII.
Yates and Shuter--Cat Harris--Mechanical Singing Birds--
Lecture on Heads--Pidcock's Menagerie--Breslaw, the
Conjuror--Reappearance of the Corsican Fairy--Gaetano, the
Bird Imitator--Rossignol's Performing Birds--Ambroise, the
Showman--Brunn, the Juggler, on the Wire--Riot at Bartholomew
Fair--Dancing Serpents--Flockton, the Puppet-Showman--Royal
Visit to Bartholomew Fair--Lane, the Conjuror--Hall's
Museum--O'Brien, the Irish Giant--Baker's Theatre--Joel
Tarvey and Lewis Owen, the popular Clowns 180
CHAPTER VIII.
Lady Holland's Mob--Kelham Whiteland, the Dwarf--Flockton,
the Conjuror and Puppet-Showman--Wonderful Rams--Miss Morgan,
the Dwarf--Flockton's Will--Gyngell, the Conjuror--Jobson,
the Puppet-Showman--Abraham Saunders--Menageries of Miles and
Polito--Miss Biffin--Philip Astley 198
CHAPTER IX.
Edmund Kean--Mystery of his Parentage--Saunders's Circus--
Scowton's Theatre--Belzoni--The Nondescript--Richardson's
Theatre--The Carey Family--Kean, a Circus Performer--Oxberry,
the Comedian--James Wallack--Last Appearance of the Irish
Giant--Miss Biffin and the Earl of Morton--Bartholomew Fair
Incidents--Josephine Girardelli, the Female Salamander--James
England, the Flying Pieman--Elliston as a Showman--Simon
Paap, the Dutch Dwarf--Ballard's Menagerie--A Learned Pig--
Madame Gobert, the Athlete--Cartlich, the Original Mazeppa--
Barnes, the Pantaloon--Nelson Lee--Cooke's Circus--The
Gyngell Family 213
CHAPTER X.
Saker and the Lees--Richardson's Theatre--Wombwell, the
Menagerist--The Lion Fights at Warwick--Maughan, the
Showman--Miss Hipson, the Fat Girl--Lydia Walpole, the
Dwarf--The Persian Giant and the Fair Circassian--Ball's
Theatre--Atkins's Menagerie--A Mare with Seven Feet--Hone's
Visit to Richardson's Theatre--Samwell's Theatre--Clarke's
Circus--Brown's Theatre of Arts--Ballard's Menagerie--Toby,
the Learned Pig--William Whitehead, the Fat Boy--Elizabeth
Stock, the Giantess--Chappell and Pike's Theatre--The Spotted
Boy--Wombwell's "Bonassus"--Gouffe, the Man-Monkey--De
Berar's Phantasmagoria--Scowton's Theatre--Death of
Richardson 255
CHAPTER XI.
Successors of Scowton and Richardson--Nelson Lee--Crowther,
the Actor--Paul Herring--Newman and Allen's Theatre--Fair in
Hyde Park--Hilton's Menagerie--Bartholomew Fair again
threatened--Wombwell's Menagerie--Charles Freer--Fox Cooper
and the Bosjesmans--Destruction of Johnson and Lee's
Theatre--Reed's Theatre--Hales, the Norfolk Giant--Affray at
Greenwich--Death of Wombwell--Lion Queens--Catastrophe in a
Menagerie--World's Fair at Bayswater--Abbott's Theatre--
Charlie Keith, the Clown--Robson, the Comedian--Manders's
Menagerie--Macomo, the Lion-Tamer--Macarthy and the Lions--
Fairgrieve's Menagerie--Lorenzo and the Tigress--Sale of a
Menagerie--Extinction of the London Fairs--Decline of Fairs
near the Metropolis--Conclusion 319
THE OLD SHOWMEN, AND THE OLD LONDON FAIRS
CHAPTER I.
Origin of Fairs--Charter Fairs at Winchester and Chester--Croydon
Fairs--Fairs in the Metropolis--Origin of Bartholomew Fair--Disputes
between the Priors and the Corporation--The Westminster
Fairs--Southwark Fair--Stepney Fair--Ceremonies observed in opening
Fairs--Walking the Fair at Wolverhampton--The Key of the Fair at
Croydon--Proclamation of Bartholomew Fair.
There can be no doubt that the practice of holding annual fairs for the
sale of various descriptions of merchandise is of very great antiquity.
The necessity of periodical gatherings at certain places for the
interchange of the various products of industry must have been felt as
soon as our ancestors became sufficiently advanced in civilisation to
desire articles which were not produced in every locality, and for which,
owing to the sparseness of the scattered population, there was not a
demand in any single town that would furnish the producers with an
adequate inducement to limit their business to one place. Most kinds of
agricultural produce might be conveyed to the markets held every week in
all the towns, and there disposed of; but there were some commodities,
such as wool, for example, the entire production of which was confined to
one period of the year, while the demand for many descriptions of
manufactured goods in any one locality was not sufficient to enable a
dealer in them to obtain a livelihood, unless he carried his wares from
one town to another. What, therefore, the great fair of Nishnei-Novgorod
is at the present day, the annual fairs of the English towns were, on a
less extensive scale, during the middle ages.
One of the most ancient, as well as the most important, of the fairs of
this country was that held on St. Giles's Hill, near Winchester. It was
chartered by William I., who granted the tolls to his cousin, William
Walkelyn, Bishop of Winchester. Its duration was originally limited to one
day, but William II. extended it to three days, Henry I. to eight, Stephen
to fourteen, and Henry II. (according to Milner, or Henry III., as some
authorities say) to sixteen. Portions of the tolls were, subsequently to
the date of the first charter, assigned to the priory of St. Swithin, the
abbey of Hyde, and the hospital of St. Mary Magdalene. On the eve of the
festival of St. Giles, on which day the fair commenced, the mayor and
bailiffs of Winchester surrendered the keys of the four gates of the city,
and with them their privileges, to the officers of the Bishop; and a court
called the Pavilion, composed of the Bishop's justiciaries, was invested
with authority to try all causes during the fair. The jurisdiction of this
court extended seven miles in every direction from St. Giles's Hill, and
collectors were placed at all the avenues to the fair to gather the tolls
upon the merchandise taken there for sale. All wares offered for sale
within this circle, except in the fair, were forfeit to the Bishop; all
the shops in the city were closed, and no business was transacted within
the prescribed limits, otherwise than in the fair. It is probable,
however, that most of the shopkeepers had stalls on the fair ground.
This fair was attended by merchants from all parts of England, and even
from France and Flanders. Streets were formed for the sale of different
commodities, and distinguished by them, as the drapery, the pottery, the
spicery, the stannary, etc. The neighbouring monasteries had also their
respective stations, which they held under the Bishop, and sometimes
sublet for a term of years. Milner says that the fair began to decline, as
a place of resort for merchants, in the reign of Henry VI., the stannary,
that is, the street appointed for the sale of the products of the Cornish
mines, being unoccupied. From this period its decline seems to have been
rapid, owing probably to the commercial development which followed the
extinction of feudalism; though it continued to be an annual mart of
considerable local importance down to the present century.
The description of this fair will serve, in a great measure, for all the
fairs of the middle ages. Some of them were famous marts for certain
descriptions of produce, as, for examples, Abingdon and Hemel Hempstead
for wool, Newbury and Royston for cheese, Guildford and Maidstone for
hops, Croydon and Kingston summer fairs for cherries; others for
manufactured goods of particular kinds, as St. Bartholomew's, in the
metropolis, for cloth (hence the local name of Cloth Fair), and
Buntingford for hardwares. More usually, the fair was an annual market, to
which the farmers of the district took their cattle, and the merchants of
the great towns their woollen and linen goods, their hardwares and
earthenwares, and the silks, laces, furs, spices, etc., which they
imported from the Continent. These, as at Winchester, were arranged in
streets of booths, fringed with the stalls of the pedlars and the
purveyors of refreshments, for the humbler frequenters of the fair. The
farmers, the merchants, and the customers of both, resorted to the more
commodious and better-provided tents, in which, as Lydgate wrote of
Eastcheap in the fifteenth century,
"One cried ribs of beef, and many a pie;
Pewter pots they clattered on a heap;
There was harp, pipe, and minstrelsy."
Of equal antiquity with the great fair at Winchester were the Chester
fairs, held on the festivals of St. John and St. Werburgh, the tolls of
which were granted to the abbey of St. Werburgh by Hugh Lupus, second Earl
of Chester and nephew of William I. There was a curious provision in this
grant, that thieves and other offenders should enjoy immunity from arrest
within the city during the three days that the fair lasted. Frequent
disputes arose out of this grant between the abbots of St. Werburgh and
the mayor and corporation of the city. In the reign of Edward IV., the
abbot claimed to have the fair of St. John held before the gates of the
abbey, and that no goods should be exposed for sale elsewhere during the
fair; while the mayor and corporation contended for the right of the
citizens to sell their goods as usual, anywhere within the city. The
citizens carried the point in their favour, and the abbot was induced to
agree that the houses belonging to the abbey in the neighbourhood of the
fair should not be let for the display of goods until those of the
citizens were occupied for that purpose. Disputes between the abbey and
the city concerning the fair of St. Werburgh continued until 1513, when,
by an award of Sir Charles Booth, the abbey was deprived of its interest
in that fair.
Croydon Fair dated from 1276, when the interest of Archbishop Kilwardby
obtained for the town the right of holding a fair during nine days,
beginning on the vigil of St. Botolph, that is, on the 16th of May. In
1314, Archbishop Reynolds obtained for the town a similar grant for a fair
on the vigil and morrow of St. Matthew's day; and in 1343, Archbishop
Stratford obtained a grant of a fair on the feast of St. John the Baptist.
The earliest of these fairs was the first to sink into insignificance; but
the others survived to a very recent period in the sheep and cattle fair,
held in latter times on the 2nd of October and the two following days, and
the cherry fair, held on the 5th of July and the two following days.
Whatever may have been the relative importance of these fairs in former
times, the former, though held at the least genial season, was, for at
least a century before it was discontinued, the most considerable fair in
the neighbourhood of the metropolis; while the July fair lost the
advantage of being held in the summer, through the contracted limits
within which its component parts were pitched. These were the streets
between High Street and Surrey Street, and included the latter, formerly
called Butcher Row; and the only space large enough for anything of
dimensions exceeding those of a stall for the sale of toys or gingerbread,
was that at the back of the Corn Market, on which the cattle-market was
formerly held.
The first fair established in the metropolis was that which, originally
held within the precincts of the priory of St. Bartholomew, soon grew
beyond its original limits, and at length came to be held on the spacious
area of West Smithfield. The origin of the fair is not related by
Maitland, Entick, Northouck, and other historians of the metropolis, who
seem to have thought a fair too light a matter for their grave
consideration; and more recent writers, who have made it the subject of
special research, do not agree in their accounts of it. According to the
report made by the city solicitor to the Markets Committee in 1840, "at
the earliest periods in which history makes mention of this subject, there
were two fairs, or markets, held on the spot where Bartholomew Fair is now
held, or in its immediate vicinity. These two fairs were originally held
for two entire days only, the fairs being proclaimed on the eve of St.
Bartholomew, and continued during the day of St. Bartholomew and the next
morrow; both these fairs, or markets, were instituted for the purposes of
trade; one of them was granted to the prior of the Convent of St.
Bartholomew, 'and was kept for the clothiers of England, and drapers of
London, who had their booths and standings within the churchyard of the
priory, closed in with walls and gates, and locked every night, and
watched, for the safety of their goods and wares.' The other was granted
to the City of London, and consisted of the standing of cattle, and stands
and booths for goods, with pickage and stallage, and tolls and profits
appertaining to fairs and markets in the field of West Smithfield."
Nearly twenty years after this report was made, and when the fair had
ceased to exist, Mr. Henry Morley, searching among the Guildhall archives
for information on the subject, found that the fair originated at an
earlier date than had hitherto been supposed; and that the original
charter was granted by Henry I. in 1133 to Prior Rayer, by whom the
monastery of St. Bartholomew was founded. Rayer whose name was Latinised
into Raherus, and has been Anglicised by modern writers into Rahere, was
originally the King's jester, and a great favourite of his royal master,
who, on his becoming an Augustine monk, and, founding the priory of St.
Bartholomew, rewarded him with the grant of the rents and tolls arising
out of the fair for the benefit of the brotherhood. The prior was so
zealous for the good of the monastery that, perhaps also because he
retained a hankering after the business of his former profession, he is
said to have annually gone into the fair, and exhibited his skill as a
juggler, giving the largesses which he received from the spectators to the
treasury of the convent.
It was admitted by the report of 1840 that documents in the office of the
City solicitor afforded evidence of conflicting opinions on the subject in
former times; and it seems probable that the belief in the two charters
attributed to Henry II. and the dual character of the fair had its origin
in the disputes which arose from time to time, during the thirteenth,
fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, between the civic and monastic
authorities as to the right to the tolls payable on goods carried into
that portion of the fair which was held in Smithfield, beyond the
precincts of the priory. The latter claimed these, on the ground of the
grant of the fair; the City claimed them, on the ground that the land
belonged to the corporation. The dispute was a natural one, whether Henry
II. had granted the Smithfield tolls to the City or not; and there is
evidence on record that it arose again and again, until the dissolution of
monasteries at the Reformation finally settled it by disposing of one of
the parties.
In 1295 a dispute arose between the prior of St. Bartholomew's and Ralph
Sandwich, custos of the City, the former maintaining that, as the
privileges of the City had become forfeited to the Crown, the tolls of the
fair should be paid into the Exchequer. Edward I., who was then at Durham,
ordered that the matter should be referred to his treasurer and the barons
of the Exchequer; but, while the matter was pending, the disputants grew
so warm that the City authorities arrested some of the monks, and confined
them in the Tun prison, in Cornhill. They were released by command of the
King, but thereupon nine citizens forced the Tun, and released all the
other prisoners, by way of resenting the royal interference. The rioters
were imprisoned in their turn and a fine of twenty thousand marks was
imposed upon the City; but the civic authorities proposed a compromise,
and, for a further payment of three thousand marks, Edward consented to
pardon the offenders, and to restore and confirm the privileges of the
City.
The right of the City to the rents and tolls of the portion of the fair
held beyond the precincts of the priory was finally decided in 1445, when
the Court of Aldermen appointed four persons as keepers of the fair, and
of the Court of Pie-powder, a tribunal instituted for the summary
settlement of all disputes arising in the fair, and deriving its name, it
is supposed, from _pieds poudres_, because the litigants had their causes
tried with the dust of the fair on their feet.
At the dissolution of monasteries, in the reign of Henry VIII., the tolls
which had been payable to the priory of St. Bartholomew were sold to Sir
John Rich, then Attorney-General; and the right to hold the fair was held
by his descendants until 1830, when it was purchased of Lord Kensington by
the Corporation of London, and held thereafter by the City chamberlain and
the town clerk in trust, thus vesting the rights and interests in both
fairs in the same body.
Westminster Fair, locally termed Magdalen's, was established in 1257, by
a charter granted by Henry III. to the abbot and canons of St. Peter's,
and was held on Tothill Fields, the site of which is now covered by the
Westminster House of Correction and some neighbouring streets.
The three days to which it was originally limited, were extended by Edward
III. to thirty-one; but the fair was never so well attended as St.
Bartholomew's, and fell into disuse soon afterwards.
There was another fair held in the adjoining parish of St. James, the
following amusing notice of which in Machyn's diary is the earliest I have
been able to find:--
"The xxv. day of June [1560], Saint James fayer by Westminster was so
great that a man could not have a pygg for money; and the bear wiffes had
nother meate nor drink before iiij of cloke in the same day. And the chese
went very well away for 1_d._ _q._ the pounde. Besides the great and
mighti armie of beggares and bandes that were there." Beyond the fact that
it was postponed in 1603 on account of the plague, nothing more is
recorded concerning this fair until 1664, in which year it was suppressed,
"as considered to tend rather to the advantage of looseness and
irregularity than to the substantial promoting of any good, common and
beneficial to the people."
Southwark Fair, locally known as Lady Fair, was established in 1462 by a
charter granted by Edward IV. to the City of London, in the following
terms:--
"We have also granted to the said Mayor, Commonalty, and Citizens, and
their successors for ever, that they shall and may have yearly one fair in
the town aforesaid, for three days, that is to say, the 7th, 8th, 9th days
of September, to be holden, together with a Court of Pie-Powders, and with
all the liberties to such fairs appertaining: And that they may have and
hold there at their said Courts, before their said Minister or deputy,
during the said three days, from day to day, hour to hour, and from time
to time, all occasions, plaints, and pleas of a Court of Pie-Powders,
together with all summons, attachments, arrests, issues, fines,
redemptions, and commodities, and other rights whatsoever, to the said
Court of Pie-Powders in any way pertaining, without any impediment, let,
or hindrance of Us, our heirs or successors, or other our officers and
ministers soever."
This charter has sometimes been referred to as granting to the Corporation
the right to hold a fair in West Smithfield, in addition to the fair the
tolls of which were received by the priory of St. Bartholomew; but that
"the town aforesaid" was Southwark is shown by a previous clause, in
which it is stated that "to take away from henceforth and utterly to
abolish all and all manner of causes, occasions, and matters whereupon
opinions, ambiguities, varieties, controversies, and discussions may
arise," the King "granted to the said Mayor and Commonalty of the said
City who now be, and their successors, the Mayor and Commonalty and
Citizens of that City for the time being and for ever, the town of
Southwark, with its appurtenances."
The origin of Camberwell Fair is lost in the mist of ages. In the evidence
adduced before a petty sessions held at Union Hall in 1823, on the subject
of its suppression, it was said that the custom of holding it was
mentioned in the 'Domesday Book,' but the statement seems to have been
made upon insufficient grounds. It commenced on the 9th of August, and
continued three weeks, ending on St. Giles's day; but, in modern times,
was limited, like most other fairs, to three days. It seems to have been
originally held in the parish churchyard, but this practice was terminated
by a clause in the Statute of Winchester, passed in the thirteenth year of
the reign of Edward I. It was then removed to the green, where it was held
until its suppression. Peckham Fair seems to have been irregular, and
merely supplementary to Camberwell Fair.
Stepney Fair was of less ancient date. In 1664 Charles II., at the
instance of the Earl of Cleveland, then lord of the manor of Stepney,
granted a patent for a weekly market at Ratcliff Cross, and an annual fair
on Michaelmas day at Mile End Green, or any other places within the manor
of Stepney. The keeping of the market and fair, with all the revenues
arising from tolls, etc., was given by the same grant, at the Earl of
Cleveland's request, to Sir William Smith and his heirs for ever. The
right continued to vest in the baronet's descendants for several years,
but long before the suppression of the fair it passed to the lord of the
manor, which, in 1720, was sold by the representatives of Lady Wentworth
to John Wicker, Esquire, of Horsham, in Sussex, whose son alienated it in
1754. It is now possessed by the Colebrooke family.
The ceremonies observed in opening fairs evince the importance which
attached to them. On the eve of the "great fair" of Wolverhampton, held on
the 9th of July, there was a procession of men in armour, preceded by
musicians playing what was known as the "fair tune," and followed by the
steward of the deanery manor and the peace-officers of the town. The
custom is said to have originated with the fair, when Wolverhampton was as
famous as a mart of the wool trade as it now is for its ironmongery, and
merchants resorted to the fair, which formerly lasted fourteen days, from
all parts of England. The necessity of an armed force for the maintenance
of order during the fair in those days is not improbable. This custom of
"walking the fair," as it was called, was discontinued in 1789, and has
not since been revived.
The October fair at Croydon was opened as soon as midnight had sounded by
the town clock, or, in earlier times, by that of the parish church; the
ceremony consisting in the carrying of a key, called "the key of the
fair," through its principal avenues. The booth-keepers were then at
liberty to serve refreshments to such customers as might present
themselves, generally the idlers who followed the bearer of the key; and
long before daylight the field resounded with the bleating of sheep, the
lowing of cattle, the barking of dogs, and the shouting of shepherds and
drovers.
The metropolitan fair of St. Bartholomew was opened by a proclamation,
which used to be read at the gate leading into Cloth Fair by the Lord
Mayor's attorney, and repeated after him by a sheriff's officer, in the
presence of the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs. The procession then
perambulated Smithfield, and returned to the Mansion House, where, in the
afternoon, those of his lordship's household dined together at the
swordbearer's table, and so concluded the ceremony.