THE "WHITE HART," BOROUGH
The pursuit of Jingle and Miss Wardle by the lady's father and Mr.
Pickwick, culminates in the "White Hart," which, in days gone by,
was one of the most famous of the many famous inns that then stood
in the borough of Southwark. Long before Dickens began to write,
the "White Hart" was the centre of the coaching activity of the
metropolis south of the Thames, and .was one of the oldest inns
in the country.
Travellers from the Continent and the southern and eastern
counties of England to London made it their halting-place, whilst
from a business standpoint it had scarcely a rival. Coaches laden
with passengers and wagons full of articles of commerce made the
courtyard of the inn always a bustling and busy corner of a hustling
and busy neighbourhood. In the coaching era, therefore, the
"White Hart" was a household word to travellers and business men.
Dickens, with his magic pen and inventive genius, made it a
household word to the inhabitants of the whole globe, who never
had occasion to visit it either for business or pleasure.
Its history goes back many centuries: as far back as 1400, and
possibly earlier than that. Its sign was taken from the badge of
Richard II, who adopted the emblem of the "White Hart" from the
crest of his mother, Joanna of Kent. A fine old inn of the highest
type, the "White Hart" no doubt was the resort of the most prominent
nobles and retainers of the time, public men of the period and
ambassadors of commerce. It is not surprising, therefore, that it
figures in English history generally, and was particularly mentioned
by Shakespeare. It certainly was the centre of many a stirring
scene, and events of feasting and jollity, besides being a place
where great trade was transacted.
It is often mentioned in the Paston Letters in reference to Jack
Cade, who made it his headquarters in 1450. In Hall's Chronicles
it is recorded that the Captain, being made aware of the King's
absence, came first to Southwark, and there lodged at the "White
Hart." In Henry VI, Part II, Jack Cade is made to say, "Hath my
sword therefore broke through London gates, that you should leave
me at the 'White Hart' in Southwark?"
Thomas Cromwell, Henry Vlll's most able minister, was also
associated with the borough of Southwark, and on one occasion (in
1529) it is recorded that he received a message to the effect that
one R. awaited him at the "White Hart" on important business. Again
the inn has mention in connection with the rebellion brought about
by Archbishop Laud's attitude to the Scottish and Puritan Churches,
when we are told that the populace and soldiers associated with it
lodged at the "White Hart." And in a like manner mention might be
made of other occasions during which, in those far-off days, the
"White Hart" played some notable part in history and in the social
round of the period.
In 1676 it was entirely destroyed by the great fire of Southwark,
but was rebuilt immediately afterward on the old site and on the
old model. It was described by Strype about this time as a very
large inn, and we believe that it was able to accommodate between
one and two hundred guests and their retinue, with ample rooms left
for their belongings, horses and goods. It did a considerable
trade and was esteemed one of the best inns in Southwark, and so
it continued as a favourite place of resort for coaches and carriers
until the end of the coaching days.
When, therefore, Mr. Pickwick set all the world agog with his
adventures, the "White Hart" was recognized as a typical old
English inn, and was really at its best. It had arrived at this
prosperous state by easy stages during its previous 180 years,
and had a reputation for comfort and generous hospitality during
the best days of the coaching era, which had reached the golden
age when Mr. Pickwick discovered Sam Weller cleaning boots in its
coach yard one historic morning in the early nineteenth century.
It is not to be wondered at, then, that Dickens, who knew this
district so well and intimately, should introduce the "White Hart"
into his book as a setting for one of his most amusing scenes.
After speaking of London's inns in general, he makes special mention
of those in the Borough, where, he says, there still remained some
half-dozen old inns, "which have preserved their external features
unchanged, and which have escaped alike the rage for public
improvement and the encroachments of private speculation." Since
these words were written public improvement has "improved" all of
them, except one, the "George," right out of existence.
But let us use Dickens's own words to describe these inns in general
and the "White Hart" in particular, for none of ours can improve his
picture.
"Great, rambling, queer old places they are, with galleries and
passages and staircases, wide enough and antiquated enough to
furnish materials for a hundred ghost stories, supposing we should
ever be reduced to the lamentable necessity of inventing any, and
that the world should exist long enough to exhaust the innumerable
veracious legends connected with old London Bridge and its adjacent
neighbourhood on the Surrey side.
"It was in the yard of one of these inns--of no less celebrated a one
than the 'White Hart'--that a man was busily employed in brushing the
dirt off a pair of boots, early on the morning succeeding the events
narrated in the last chapter. He was habited in a coarse-striped
waistcoat, with black calico sleeves, and blue glass buttons, drab
breeches and leggings. A bright red handkerchief was wound in a
very loose and unstudied style round his neck, and an old white hat
was carelessly thrown on one side of his head. There were two rows
of boots before him, one cleaned and the other dirty, and at every
addition he made to the clean row, he paused from his work, and
contemplated its results with evident satisfaction."
This, we need hardly say, was the inimitable Sam Weller, and
it was his first introduction to the story with which his name
is now inseparable.
[illustration: The White Hart Inn, Southwark, in 1858. From
an engraving by Fairholt, after a drawing by J. Sachs]
Dickens then goes on to give further particulars of how the yard
looked on the particular morning of which he writes:
"The yard presented none of that bustle and activity which are the
usual characteristics of a large coach inn. Three or four lumbering
wagons, each with a pile of goods beneath its ample canopy, about
the height of the second-floor window of an ordinary house, were
stowed away beneath a lofty roof which extended over one end of the
yard; and another, which was probably to commence its journey that
morning, was drawn out into the open space. A double tier of
bedroom galleries, with old, clumsy balustrades, ran round two sides
of the straggling area, and a double row of bells to correspond,
sheltered from the weather by a little sloping roof, hung over the
door. . . . Two or three gigs and chaise-carts were wheeled up under
different little sheds and penthouses; and the occasional heavy
tread of a carthorse or rattling of a chain at the further end of
the yard announced to anybody who cared about the matter that the
stable lay in that direction. When we add that a few boys in smock
frocks were lying asleep on heavy packages, wool-packs and other
articles that were scattered about on heaps of straw, we have
described as fully as need be the general appearance of the yard
of the White Hart Inn, High Street, Borough, on the particular
morning in question."
This was the inn, then, to which Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Wardle
came in search of the runaway couple, and Sam Weller was the first
person they interviewed on the subject. The reader will refer to
Chapter X of the book should he want his memory refreshed regarding
the amusing scene with Sam, which has been so faithfully pictured
by Phiz in one of his illustrations. How they discovered the
misguided Rachael, how they bought off the adventurer, Jingle,
and how Mr. Pickwick, Wardle and the deserted lady set forth the
next day by the Muggleton heavy coach is duly set forth in Dickens's
own way.
The "White Hart" remained very much as Dickens found it and described
it in 1836 until it was finally demolished in 1889. Following the
advent of railways it lost a good deal of its glamour, and in its
last years the old galleries on two of its sides were let out in
tenements, and the presence of the occupants gave a certain animation
to the scene. In the large inner yard were some quaint old house
which were crowded with lodgers, but it still hung on to its old
traditions of the coaching times, and even up to its last days the
old inn was the halting-place of the last of the old-fashioned
omnibuses which plied between London Bridge and Clapham.
Nothing now remains to remind us of the old inn which Dickens and
Sam Weller have made immortal in the annals of coaching but a narrow
turning bearing its name, where is established a Sam Weller Club.