Transcribed from the [1899] “Hand and Heart” edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Book cover]
THE ROMANCE
OF
THE LONDON DIRECTORY.
* * * * *
BY
CHARLES W. BARDSLEY, M.A.,
_Vicar of Ulverston_,
AUTHOR OF “ENGLISH SURNAMES,” ETC.
* * * * *
“This Booke containes the names of mortall men;
But thear’s a Booke with characters of golde,
Not writ with incke, with pensill, or with pen,
Wheare Gode’s elect for ever are inrolde,
The Booke of Life; wheare labor thou to bee,
Beefore this Booke hath once re-gistred thee.”
_From a Church Register_.
* * * * *
London:
“HAND AND HEART” PUBLISHING OFFICES,
1, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C.
[_The right of translation is reserved_.]
* * * * *
HAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY, PRINTERS
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
* * * * *
PREFACE.
WHEN the enterprising and energetic editor of _The Fireside_ wrote
suggesting that he should print my articles on the London Directory,
published at various intervals during the last two years in that
magazine, I was somewhat taken aback. I will candidly confess that half
of them, or thereabouts, were written with some degree of care: I will as
honestly admit that the rest were indited amid the press of heavy
ministerial labours, and had to take their chance, as regards manner,
method, and matter. Nevertheless, I may add that, however wanting in
order and sequence several chapters appeared on paper, I was not afraid
for the accuracy of their contents. My only credit for this, supposing
my lack of fear to be well founded, is that which attaches to diligent
research. The only true means of discovering the origin of our surnames
is to find the earliest form of entry. Light upon that, and half the
difficulty vanishes. This is a means which is as open to any of my
readers as myself—more so in the case of those who dwell in the
metropolis.
I take this opportunity of apologising to many readers of _The
__Fireside_, who have written to me asking for information in respect of
their own, or some other name they were interested in. A few I have been
able to answer; the rest have had to lie by, for I have not had the time
or health to attend to them. I only wish there was the possibility of
this preface meeting the eye of my American cousins. I have a large
batch of letters of inquiry, from the other side of the Atlantic, to
scarcely one of which have I been able to make reply. I feel truly
sorry, for I would not seem to be wanting in courtesy to one of them.
These more distant inquiries have resulted rather from the publication of
“English Surnames” (issued by Messrs. Chatto and Windus, Piccadilly),
than the articles in _The Fireside_. And I would take this opportunity
of recommending such of my readers as have become interested in the
science of nomenclature, through a perusal of these elementary papers, to
study that work. I can do this the more readily as I have no pecuniary
interest in the sale thereof!
Not the least of the pleasures attending the writing of these papers has
been the opportunity it gave me of making personal acquaintance with the
Editor. I trust God will bless him in his most useful enterprise.
ST. MARY’S VICARAGE, ULVERSTON.
[Picture: Decorative graphic]
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
INDIVIDUALIZATION AND LOCALIZATION 9
CHAPTER II.
THE DIVISIONS OF LONDON SURNAMES 24
CHAPTER III.
IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION 41
CHAPTER IV.
ROBIN HOOD AND THE LONDON DIRECTORY 55
CHAPTER V.
EARLY PET NAMES 68
CHAPTER VI.
THE BIBLE AND NOMENCLATURE 82
CHAPTER VII.
OFFICERSHIP 98
CHAPTER VIII.
THE EMPLOYMENTS OF OUR FOREFATHERS 114
CHAPTER IX.
NICKNAMES 132
CHAPTER X.
NICKNAMES (_continued_) 148
[Picture: Decorative graphic]
CHAPTER I.
INDIVIDUALIZATION AND LOCALIZATION.
ALL proverbs are not necessarily true, but that which asserts that “every
man has his hobby” few will gainsay. Nothing in a house so well betrays
this hobby as the owner’s bookcase. It may be large, or it may be small,
but there the secret lies. One man’s hobby is angling, and his shelf
begins with quaint Isaac Walton, and ends with the _Field_ newspaper of
last week. Another has a liking for natural science, and his library is
a _vade mecum_ of its mysteries. A third—oftentimes a lady—loves ferns,
and her study is a little compendium of that curious literature that has
all but wholly sprung up within the present generation. Even the young
lady’s shelf of poems, or novels, or histories, betrays, if not the bent
of her mind, the bias of her education.
My hobby is Nomenclature, and my library betrays my weakness in—what
class of books, do you think?—directories! You would think I was a
postal official. I have London Directories, Provincial Town Directories,
and County Directories. I have even a Paris and a New York Directory.
But herein lies a strange truth. I find as much pleasure in perusing
these directories as any schoolgirl over her first and most sensational
novel. The grand finale of murders, suicides from third-storey windows,
and runaway weddings, all so thrillingly blended, cannot be half so
absorbing to her—not that I recommend her to read such things—as the last
chapter of the London Post Office Directory, from Y to Z, is to me. It
is the conclusion of one of the grandest and most highly wrought romances
ever put together by the ingenuity of man. Oftentimes in the evening I
take it down from my shelf, and I never feel tempted to skip the pages.
Nay, when I have at last got to Z, I can begin at A again with but
freshened interest; for the Directory will bear reading twice.
The London Directory, to every one who has the key that unlocks its
treasures, is at once an epitome of all antiquarian knowledge. In it I
can trace the lives of my countrymen backwards for many a century. In it
is furnished a full and detailed account of the habits and the customs of
my ancestry—the dress they wore, the food they ate, six hundred years
ago; though that it is not so far back as the Welshman’s pedigree, which
hung from his sitting-room ceiling to the floor, and half-way up had a
note to the effect that “about this time Adam was born.” No, I can but
pretend to go up some eighteen or twenty steps of the ladder of my family
nomenclature. Nevertheless, by one glance at your name I can tell
you—unless its spelling be hopelessly corrupted—whether the progenitor of
your race was Scotch, Irish, English, Norman, French, German, or even
Oriental. I can tell you what was his peculiar weakness, or his
particular vocation in life. I can declare the complexion of his hair;
whether he was long or short, straight or crooked, weak or strong. I can
whisper to you what his neighbours thought of him; whether they deemed
him generous or miserly, churlish or courteous. Yes, sometimes I must
tell you unpleasant truths about your great, great, great (_ad
infinitum_) grandfather. For the Directory is remarkably truthful; it
won’t spare anybody, high or low, rich or poor. I have heard people
telling of the greatness of their ancestral name, and the said name on
their visiting card was laughing at them all the time “behind its back.”
I have seen men dwelling in back slums contented with their sphere, and
yet ignorant of the fact that they bore a sobriquet which six centuries
ago would have brought them respect from the king on his throne down to
the humblest cottager in the land. Oh, the ups and downs of life, as
related in this big romance, put to paper by prosaic clerks, who never
smiled at the fun, nor dropped a tear at the distress, simply because
they lacked the manual that should explain its merriment and interpret
its pathos! Hieroglyphics, believe me, are not confined to Egyptian
obelisks or Oriental slabs.
But some reader, perchance, will say, “What do you mean? Is there
anything more in a surname than the individuality it gives to the present
bearer? In itself is it not purely accidental?” Of course it is
accidental. A fossil shell is accidental; but place it in the hand of a
geologist, and he will talk for five days upon it, barring the time he
will want for eating and sleeping. And a surname is a fossil—not
millions of years old, may be, like the shell; only six hundred—still a
fossil, and therefore stereotyping the state and condition of human life
at the period when it came into being. A surname not only gives
individuality to the present bearer, but is a distinct statement of some
condition or capacity enjoyed or endured by the first possessor. An
instance will prove this. Take the name of “Cruikshank.” There must
have been some particular ancestor so designated because he had a
“crooked leg.” That is a fact to start with. Do you want to know where
he lived, and when? Well, there is no great difficulty in the matter.
The very spelling “cruik,” and not “crook,” proves that he was a north
countryman. Is that all? No. The word “shank” shows that he received
this nickname before “leg” had come into ordinary use. _Leg_ is always
used for _shank_ now, yet it is first found in England about the year
1250. It is comparatively modern. Hence there is no surname that I know
of with “leg” as an ingredient. {12} In later days he would have been
called “Bow-leg.” Once more, nickname-surnames are scarcely ever found
to be _hereditary_ before the year 1200. Here then I glean four facts
about “Cruikshank”:—
(1) The first Mr. Cruikshank was bow-legged.
(2) He came from the borders of Scotland, or still more north.
(3) He lived previous to the year 1400.
(4) And not earlier than the year 1200.
I have taken this instance hap-hazard. I might have selected an exacter
illustration, but this will answer my purpose. It is possible my reader
will now say, “But there must be a good substructure of primary knowledge
laid before I can take up the London Directory, and pretend to be
immensely interested in it, and tell my friends what capital reading it
is.” Of course, every true pleasure must be bought, and study will
purchase infinitely higher delights than money can ever do. It is partly
that you may learn how to acquire that necessary elementary knowledge
that I am about to write these short chapters upon the London Directory.
Before I begin, let me say a few words about _personality_ and
_locality_. We should always begin at the beginning. The preacher never
starts at fourthly; soup by some mysterious law ever precedes fish.
Remember, the necessity for individuality has given us our Names. The
need of an address has originated our Directories.
(1) _Individualization_. The word _sur_name means an _added_
name—_i.e._, a sobriquet added to the personal or baptismal name. Why?
Because one was not sufficient to give individuality to the bearer. Adam
and Eve, and Seth, and Abel, and Joseph, and Moses, all were enough while
population was small; but manifestly such simplicity could not last. In
the wilderness there were, say, 2,500,000 Israelites. How could one
suffice there, especially if “Caleb” or “Joshua” had become so popular
that there were, say, 50 or 100 of each in the closely-packed community?
It was not enough: therefore we find a surname adopted, that is, an added
name. “Joshua, the son of Nun”—“Caleb, the son of Jephunneh”—are amongst
the world’s first surnames. In Directory language this is simply “Joshua
Nunson,” or “Caleb Jephunneh.” Simon Barjonas is nothing more than Simon
Johnson. Remember, however, these were not _hereditary_. They died with
their owner, and the child, if there was one, got a surname of his own.
Surnames did not become hereditary in Europe even till the beginning of
the twelfth century, and among the lower classes not till the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries.
Imagine London with, say, 3,000,000 souls, each possessing but one name.
Picture to yourself to-morrow’s post bringing 1000 letters to “Mr. John,”
or “John, Esquire.” We can’t conceive it. No, a surname became an
imperative necessity when population increased, when men herded together,
and communities began to be formed. It is curious to note that some of
these surnames have become so common that they have failed of their
object, and ceased to give individuality. There are 270,000 “Smiths” in
England and Wales, and as many “Joneses.” They would together form a
town as large as Manchester, or separately as big as Leeds. William
Smith scarcely individualizes the bearer now; so he either gets three
names or four names at the font, or his identity is eked out by a
remarkable single name, perchance “Plantagenet,” or “Kerenhappuck,” or
“Napoleon,” or “Sidney.” The worst of it is that “Sidney” was so
greedily fixed upon after it became famous that there are now hundreds of
“Sidney Smiths,” and thus it has ceased to give proper individuality. It
is the same with “John Jones.” The Registrar-General says that if “John
Jones” were called out at a market in Wales, either everybody would come,
or nobody: either everybody, thinking that you meant each, or nobody,
because you had not added some description which should distinguish the
particular John Jones you wanted. I remember at college two John Joneses
went in for examination for the “little go.” Both belonged to the same
college; one passed, the other did not. The one who got first to the
schools bore away his certificate in triumph. The one who came last
always declared that his _confrère_ had robbed him of his “testamur,” and
I have no doubt will die assured of the same! I believe a day will come
when, either by compulsory enactment or by voluntary arrangement, there
will be a redistribution of surnames in Wales; the sooner the better.
(2) _Localization_. So much for the personality; now for locality. It
is one thing to know the name of the man you want; it is another thing to
know where you can find him. In a word, where does he live? “Go into
the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas
for one called Saul, of Tarsus,” says the Divine Book. This would not be
enough in the nineteenth century. There are streets a mile long now.
There are restaurants above the shops, and offices above the restaurants,
and the old woman who cleans the building above them all. How is Mrs.
Betsy Pipps to be found of her friends? Yet a letter from her daughter
in the country about the cows and the turnips has as much right to find
its way to that top room in the murky city as a posted document about
Turkey and Russia to Lord Derby in that big place a little further on.
One of the greatest transformations the streets of London ever saw was
when the signboards were taken down. These were at first adopted purely
to localize the inhabitant of the house pendent from whose wall the
signboard swung. Until the reign of Queen Anne, the streets could
scarcely be seen further than a few yards because of these innumerable
obstructions. They darkened the streets, obscured the view, and
threatened the very lives of the horsemen who rode along. The personal
discomfort to wayfarers was great, for not only did the rain drip
unpleasantly from them, but the wooden spouts, which frequently shot
forward from the roof in order that the signboard might swing from them,
poured their little cataracts upon the devoted heads of the passers-by.
This infliction was patiently endured for several centuries; but the
British ratepayer at last made his voice heard, as in the end he always
does. This time, too, he had right on his side, as he invariably thinks
he has, and an alteration took place. The ruling powers ordered the
obnoxious signs to be placed flat against the walls. The idea of
removing them entirely was reserved for a more brilliant intellect a few
years later on. I have not yet seen the printed regulation for the
metropolis, but no doubt the Manchester document was but a copy of it.
The declaration issued for that town runs as follows: “With the
approbation and concurrence of the magistrates, we, the borough reeve and
constables, request the shopkeepers and innholders of this town, who have
not already taken down their signs, to do the same as soon as possible,
and place them against the walls of their houses, as they have been long
and justly complained of as nuisances. They obstruct the free passage of
the air, annoy the passengers in wet weather, darken the streets,
etc.,—all which inconvenience will be prevented by a compliance with our
request, and be manifestly productive both of elegance and utility.”
Of the utility there could be no doubt. In wet weather, as already
hinted, everybody who had a coat collar had to turn it up to prevent each
swinging sign from dripping the rain-water down the back of the neck.
Umbrellas were still rare, costly, and curious luxuries. In a word, the
swinging sign was voted an intolerable nuisance, was found guilty, and
condemned—not to the gallows, of course, for the charge against it was
that it had been hanging there to the public detriment all its days—but
to oblivion. I daresay London had made away with many of its cumbersome
signboards many years before the provincial towns. It is curious to note
that in a hundred different nooks and corners of old London there still
linger some of the tradesmen’s signs, either flattened against the wall,
or carved upon the now crumbling stonework.
There are endless allusions to the signs of old London in the comic or
semi-comic rhymes of the period. Thomas Heywood, early in the
seventeenth century, says:—
“The gintry to the _King’s Head_,
The nobles to the _Crown_,
The knights unto the _Golden Fleece_,
And to the _Plough_ the clowne.
The Churchman to the _Mitre_,
The shepherd to the _Star_,
The gardener hies him to the _Rose_,
To the _Drum_ the man of war.”
There is a capital collection of these names in a ballad of the
Restoration, which is far too long to quote in full, but of which the
following is a specimen:—
“Through the Royal Exchange as I walked,
Where gallants in sattin doe shine,
At midst of the day they parted away,
To seaverall places to dine.
The ladyes will dine at the _Feathers_,
The _Globe_ no captaine will scorne,
The huntsman will goe to the _Greyhound_ below,
And some will hie to the _Horne_.
The farriers will to the _Horse_,
The blacksmith unto the _Locke_,
The butchers unto the _Bull_ will goe,
And the carmen to Bridewell _Clocke_.
The pewterers to the _Quarte Pot_,
The coopers will dine at the _Hoope_,
The coblers to the _Last_ will goe,
And the bargemen to the _Sloope_.
The goldsmith will to the _Three Cups_,
For money they hold it as drosse;
Your Puritan to the _Pewter-canne_,
And your Papists to the _Crosse_.
Thus every man in his humour,
That comes from the northe or the southe;
But he that has no money in his purse
May dine at the signe of the _Mouth_.”
Again, Pasquin, in his “Night-cap,” says:—
“First there is Maister Peter at the _Bell_,
A linen draper, and a wealthy man;
Then Maister Thomas that doth stockings sell,
And George the grocer at the _Frying Pan_.
And Maister Miles the mercer at the _Harrow_,
And Maister Mike the silkman at the _Plow_,
And Maister Nicke the Salter at the _Sparrow_,
And Maister Dicke the vintner at the _Cow_.”
Another jingling rhyme began:—
“I’m amused at the signs
As I pass through the town,
To see the odd mixture,—
A ‘Magpie and Crown,’
The ‘Whale and the Crow,’
The ‘Razor and Hen,’
The ‘Leg and Seven Stars,’
The ‘Scissors and Pen,’
The ‘Axe and the Bottle,’
The ‘Tun and the Lute,’
The ‘Eagle and Child,’
The ‘Shovel and Boot.’”
These double signs were very common, and are easily explained.
Now-a-days a man who has taken the goodwill of a well-established shop
paints over the door “Snooks, late Jopson, Chemist.” The apprentice in
old days added his own badge to that of his late master, and the
signboard displayed perhaps the “Mermaid and Gridiron,” or the “Leg and
Crow,” the old sign being linked to the new.
The reader may think I have dwelt somewhat long upon this matter; but I
am writing about localization, and these signboards in their day were the
only means of identifying the London tradesman. Names and numbers were
practically useless. How small a proportion of the London population
could read even two hundred years ago! Mr. Baxter might have “Baxter” in
the largest gilt characters over his front; he might further add that he
made and sold that newly-discovered luxury tobacco on the counter
within,—but how many of the passers-by would be any the wiser! But if he
had a large swinging board at the end of a pole, facing the wayfarers,
with a huge Turk’s head with a pipe in its mouth, there was none but
could tell his occupation. Sometimes the real article was exhibited.
The hosier would dangle a pair of stockings from his pole. Thus it was
that every shopkeeper was known by his sign. The housewife would send
little Tom to the “Cock,” or the “Three Cranes,” or the “Ark,” or the
“Hand-in-hand” for her little domestic wants, where now she would bid him
run to “Tomkins’,” or “Sawyer’s,” or “Robinson’s.” In course of time the
sign did not always harmonize with the articles sold within, but it was
quite enough for the neighbours dwelling around. What an array of
creaking posts and grotesque frames must there not have been along the
leading thoroughfares, such as Cheapside, and old London Bridge! and
leaving out the question of discomfort, and the perils of a broken head
if you drove on a coach, what a picturesque scene it must have been!
I dare not say what a large proportion of names in the London Directory
that look like nicknames must be set down as the result of this
old-fashioned custom. The fourteenth century saw London streets looking
as if hung with bannerets, so crowded were they with signs. That was a
period when half of the lower middle class were still without an
hereditary surname. The consequence is, we find such entries as “Hugh
atte Cokke,” or “Thomas atte Ram,” or “Thomas del Hat,” or “Margery de
Styrop.” The reader must see at a glance that we have here the
origination of half our “Cocks” and “Coxes,” “Rams,” “Roebucks,” “Tubbs,”
“Bells,” “Crows.” There are three “Hatts” to forty-one “Heads,” three
“Pates” and two “Crowns” in the London Directory, not to mention three
“Harrows,” two “Plows,” four “Boots,” and ten “Pattens.” All these, and
a hundred other names that appear difficult of origination, are easily
explained when we recall this faded custom of a few centuries ago.
The plan of having numbered doors came into use but very recently. The
signboards were disused in many parts of London before numerals were
instituted. The addresses on letters appeared very strange as a
consequence.
John Byrom, the great epigrammatist, writing to his wife from Cambridge
in 1727, addresses his letter to “Mistress Eliz. Byrom, near the old
Church, in Manchester.” That was the ordinary method, to choose some big
well-known building, and state your friends’ position to it by the
compass. The first Directory ever published, of any pretensions, was
Kent’s, in 1736. “The Directory,” it is called, “sold by Henry Kent, in
Finch Lane, near the Royal Exchange.” It contains about 1200 names, all
the tradesmen and merchants of London. There are such entries as “Samuel
Wilson, hardwareman, in Cannon Street, the corner of Crooked Lane,” or
“John Bradshaw, opposite the Monument, at a barber’s.”
Manifestly this could not go on. In the edition for 1770 occurs the
following: “The Directory . . . with the numbers as they are affixed to
their houses, agreeable to the late Acts of Parliament.” The Legislature
had had to take the matter into hand. London was getting far too big for
indistinct addresses such as these. The first street in the metropolis
to possess numbered doors was New Burlington Street. This was
accomplished in June 1764. Other important throughfares followed suit,
and before ten years had gone by, we find the Directory particularizing
as follows: “John Trelawney, haberdasher, No. 22, Nightingale Lane,” or
“Hamnett Townley, hop merchant, No. 69, Great Tower Street.”
Occasionally a “Vincent Trehearn, hatmaker, behind St. Thomas’s,” comes,
but rarely; and by-and-by such entries disappear altogether. Manchester
began the same practice in 1772, at the request of the borough reeve and
constable, and was the second town in the kingdom to adopt the practice.
It was reserved for the year 1877 to put a climax, I think, to ingenuity
of this kind. In Manchester, probably in London also, there are
lamp-post Directories. You cannot always have a Directory at your elbow.
Even this difficulty is remedied by the lamp-post Directory. The names
of all shopkeepers in that particular street wherein the lamp-post stands
are printed alphabetically on a circular tablet, which revolves round the
post. You turn it round till you find the name you want.
What ingenious creatures we are! Well might our great poet say, “What a
piece of work is man! how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties!”
Well might one greater than William Shakespear declare, “Thou hast made
him a little lower than the angels”! The ingenuity of man has created
the surprises of history.