THE EMPLOYMENTS OF OUR FOREFATHERS.
NOTHING would be easier than to occupy a half-dozen chapters with a
relation of the mode in which our forefathers led their lives. It is one
peculiarity of nomenclature, that it reaches into every nook and crevice
of English customs. What our ancestors specially favoured in the way of
meat and drink, is set down with the utmost particularity in the London
Directory of to-day, while, on the other hand, it is by the absence of
certain names therein that we can form a safe judgment of what delicacies
they lacked. No one would expect to see the potato commemorated in the
Directory, for the simple reason that it was introduced into England
after surnames had become established on a solid basis. There are no
“Tatermans” or “Taterers.” But such names as Appletree, Appleyard,
Plumtree, Pearman, and Peascod, exist. Why? Because apples, pears,
plums, and peas, have been familiar to Englishmen for a dozen centuries.
“Photographer” is not in the Directory for the same reason, but “Limner”
is, the old “illuminator.” “Cabman” is also conspicuous by its absence,
but “Carman” and “Wagner” (_i.e._ Wagoner) exist. Had tea, or umbrellas,
or broughams, or balloons, or carpets, or potatoes, or croquet balls, or
telegraph wires, or tinned meats, or steam engines, or churchwarden
pipes, or Indian pickles, been introduced about five hundred years ago,
every one of these would have left its mark on our personal nomenclature.
Each would have found itself commemorated in our directories as well as
our dictionaries. It is true the railway engine might seem to have been
referred to in such fourteenth-century registrations as Richard le
Engineur or William le Genour, but these men only wielded the great
battering-rams, or catapults, or engines for hurling stones. Very
destructive they were, of course, and so important a profession that no
wonder there are thirteen “Jenners” in the London Directory alone. Sir
William Jenner can satisfy himself with the reflection that if his
progenitor was distinguished for the number of England’s adversaries he
placed _hors de combat_, he and his father have been equally remarkable
for the number of lives they have saved.
Let us spend a few moments in a consideration of this great matter of
eating and drinking. And we will begin with drinking first. It is
curious how easily misled we might be by the corruptions that have taken
place in our nomenclature. The following surnames are in the London
Directory (1870): Brandy, Sherry, Gin, Port, Beer, Porter, Stout, Claret,
Portwine, Tee, and Coffee. Not one of these is what it seems to be. Not
one of these has anything to do with the beverage each severally
represents. “Portwine” is a mere modernisation of “Potewyne,” which in
the fourteenth century denoted the Poict tevine settler in England.
“Claret” was the pet name of “Clare.” “Stout” is of the nickname class,
“Porter” occupative, and “Port” is found originally as “Charles le Port,”
or “Oliver le Port,” showing that it was a sobriquet having reference to
the portly bearing of the progenitor. Tennyson speaks of
“A modern gentleman
Of stateliest port.”
It is the same with “Aleman.” This has no connection with the
public-house, but like “Almaine” and “D’Almaine” represents the old
German trader. The word was once in most familiar use. Coverdale’s
exposition of the twenty-fifth Psalm has on the title page, “Translated
out of hye Almayne (High Dutch) in to Englyshe, by Myles Coverdale,
1537.” No one will require me to prove that James Tee and Peter Coffee
do not represent our modern and favoured national breakfast beverages.
At least the first, if he did, must have sprung from some “heathen
Chinee,” who has immigrated to our shores. Such an elucidation, however,
would neither satisfy myself, my reader, nor James Tee himself, I
imagine.
But we have quite sufficient relics of the drinking propensities of the
English people in bygone days without seeking for them in their corrupted
forms. “Inman” and “Taverner” both represent the old keeper of houses of
entertainment. _Tavern_ is going out of fashion: _Public-house_ is a
modern term. Porson, the great Greek scholar, was unhappily given to
drink; but drunk or sober he had ever a Greek or Latin quotation at the
tip of his tongue. Reeling in the streets of Cambridge, he one day
tumbled down a flight of steps into a cellar-tavern. As they picked him
up, he was heard to mutter,
“Facilis est descensus t-averni.”
Our Church of England temperance lecturers could not take a better text
than this clever pun; for, unlike most puns, it contains a most
admonitory truth. An old tavern-sign in Cheshire, in the last century,
bore the following inscription:
“Good _bear_ sold here, our own _bruin_.”
This in the days of bear-baiting, for which Cheshire was famous, would be
very misleading to those of the country bumpkins who could read. Brewer
and Brewster need no explanation. Malter and Malster both exist, but I
do not see them in the London Directory. There is Malthouse, however,
and that is sometimes found as “Malthus”; just as loft-house, and
kirk-house, and bake-house or back-house have become Loftus, Kirkus, and
Bacchus. Viner and Vinter also stand in no fear of being misunderstood;
but Tunman, Tonman, Tunner, and Tonner, who casked and bottled the wine
that came from the Continent, would be less likely to be recognised. In
the “Confessio Amantis” it is said of Jupiter that he
“Hath in his cellar, as men say,
Two _townès_ full of love-drink,”—
where we must not suppose that the Thunderer had so capacious a cellar
that it would contain all the liquor that two whole towns might possess,
but that he had two _tuns_ or barrels of love potions. In fact, “tun”
was the universal term in use then, though _barrel_ or _cask_ has
superseded it in common parlance. We still talk of “tunnels” or
“tun-dishes,” the vessels used for transferring wine from barrel to
bottle. “Beer-brewer” was once a familiar surname, but it has become
obsolete. We all remember the old couplet—
“Hops, Reformation, baize, and beer,
Came into England all in one year.”
To make the bitter taste, wormwood had been the chief ingredient in
earlier days.
While on this subject, it is worth while inquiring whether or no we
possess in our directories any record of the drinking propensities of our
forefathers. That they were ever great “skinkers” everybody knows who
has studied the past with any degree of care. What the Water-poet said
somewhat coarsely of one may well be said of the many:—
“Untill hee falls asleepe,
He skinks and drinkes;
And then like to a bore,
He winkes and stinkes.”
Even the “Friar,” according to Chaucer,
“strong was as a champioun,
And knew wel the tavernes in every toun,
And every hosteler and gay tapstere,
Better than a lazar or a beggere.”
In spite of these acknowledged facts, however, I am happy to say there is
not a single “Drunkard” in the London Directory. Nevertheless, in our
older registers the tale is not so assuring. There has been a tendency
during the last two hundred years to shuffle off certain objectionable
names, which our earlier forefathers did not seem to be ashamed of. Who
of my readers would like to have been officially registered as “Maurice
Druncard,” or “Jakes Drynk-ale,” or worse still, “Geoffrey
Dringke-dregges”? Who of my readers would like to sign himself in a
marriage record as “Robert le Sot,” or as “Thomas Sour-ale”? Even “John
Swete-ale” would scarcely have relished the sobriquet if he had lived in
this more punctilious age of ours. Where could the young lady be found
who would forego the charms of spinsterhood to be wedded to an “Arnold
Scutel-mouth”—(what a capacious mouth it must have been!) “Alice
Gude-ale-house” may have been a thoroughly honest and respectable
landlady, but I don’t think she would have said “no,” if some smart and
worthy younker had offered her the refusal of his name.
Every one of these entries I have myself copied from authentic registers.
Curious, and yet not curious, is it that not one of them has survived.
So far as the Directory shows, we are the soberest and most temperate
nation on the face of the earth. Thus do we throw a mantle over our
great national vice. Even when we cannot get rid of the fact, we manage
to smooth it over with a sesquipedalian gloss. A woman in the middle and
higher ranks never gets drunk now-a-days. She is a suffering martyr to
dipsomania! How thankful we should be for a Bible that says “Be not
drunk.”
Who was the first English teetotaler? If we could find him, I suspect
our temperance friends would erect a monument to him. There are seven
“Drinkwaters” in the Metropolitan register; and I am glad to say that
Camden’s statement is wrong—it was only a guess—that Drinkwater is a
corruption of “Derwentwater.” In the first place it is an impossible
corruption; for the corruptive changes that pass over words and names are
not accidental, but follow fixed rules, so to say. In the second place,
I have been able to discover the name in its present guise up to the very
time when hereditary surnames were established. “John Drinkwater” occurs
in the Hundred Rolls, and “Richard Drynkwatere” in the Parliamentary
Writs. {120} No wonder their posterity has survived, no wonder their
name endures, for they can boast that in their sobriquet lies the record
of the first English temperance movement. In a word, Mr. Drinkwater
number one must have been the forerunner of total abstinence. None of
his neighbours could have pointed to him as a man who habitually, or
occasionally upon days of festival, “got tight”; his name, whereby they
had nicknamed him, was in itself a safeguard. His very title pledged him
to the principles it professed. No, he never “got tight,” or if he did,
like a good sailing craft, he was _watertight_. Some day I hope there
will be a monument erected to “Drinkwater Number One.” It might be in
the shape of a drinking fountain. What a heap of people there are buried
in state in Westminster Abbey who ought to give place to “Drinkwater
Number One”! But, alas! we don’t all get our deserts.
But enough of this. We have reminiscences in our directories of meat as
well as drink. Chaucer, speaking of the “Franklein,” says,—
“Withoute bake mete never was his house,
Of fish, and flesh, and that so plenteous,
It snowèd in his hous of mete and drink,
Of allè deintiès that men coud thinke.
* * * * *
Wo was his cook, but if his saucè were
Poignant and sharpe, and redy all his gear.”
This short and piquant description is important because of the language
used. We still use the word flesh in the alliterative phrase, “fish,
flesh, and fowl;” but we should never ask for a “pound of flesh” in a
butcher’s shop now, any more than we should talk of the importation of
“American flesh.” We should say “meat.” The distinction, however, is
preserved in this account, and we are reminded that before the Norman
“Butcher” or “Boucher,” and French “_Labouchere_” came in, the seller of
flesh-meat was called a “Fleshmonger” or “Flesher.” So late as 1528,
William Fleshmonger, D.C.L., was Dean of Chichester. I fear the name is
now obsolete. Our “Fleshers” still exist, but most of them have become
absorbed in “Fletcher,” which represented the trade of feathering arrows:
we still employ the word “fledge.” The Bowyers and Fletchers and
Arrowsmiths always marched abreast in the old trades’ processions of
London, or York, or Norwich. Harking back to Fletcher, however, I may
add, that in Scotland a butcher is still a flesher.
So far for the butcher. But the old rhyme speaks of—
“The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick-maker.”
We next turn, therefore, to the bread and biscuit department. We have
all heard how that foolish and imprudent
“Miss Baxter,
Refused a man before he axed her,”
but few of us, possibly, are aware that “Baker” and “Baxter” and
“Bagster,” all represent the same occupation, and that Baxter is only the
old “bakester,” the feminine of Baker, just as Webster is the feminine of
Webber, or Brewster of Brewer, or Blaxter (_i.e._ “Bleachster”) of
Bleacher, or Tapster of Tapper. {122} Langland, in his poem entitled
“The Vision of Piers Plowman,” speaks of
“Baksteres and brewesteres,
And bochiers manye.”
It will not be irreverent to note the coincidence, that no firm in
England have more closely associated their name with the printing of the
Bible, “The Bread of Life,” than the Bagsters. It reminds us of that
which was no accidental coincidence at all—namely, that Christ Himself,
“that true Bread which came down from Heaven,” appeared first at
Bethlehem, which literally means “house of bread,” _i.e._ “bread-shop,”
or “bake-house.” “Bacchus,” as already noted, is a corruption of
“bake-house,” while our Bullingers, Ballingers, Bollengers, and Furners,
and “Pesters,” represent the Norman-French bakers. Our “Cokes” and
“Cooks” represent the old public pie-shop, as well as the private
cuisine, and this explains the large number of the fraternity
immortalised in our directories. An old poem speaks of
“Drovers, cokes, and poulters,
Yermongers, pybakers, and waferers.”
There has ever been a great race in this matter between our “Bakers” and
“Cooks” or “Cookes.” Nearly thirty years ago Mr. Lowe, in his Tables of
Births, Deaths, and Marriages, gave the following analysis for one year
in England and Wales:—
_Births_. _Deaths_. _Marriages_.
Baker 1033 839 513
Cook 910 742 483
In the London Directory for 1871, there appeared 277 Bakers, 56 Baxters,
and 2 Bagsters, as against 194 Cooks, 89 Cookes, 1 Coke, 2 Cookmans, and
9 Cooksons. This preserves the same proportion.
In the couplet quoted above occurs the trade name of “Waferer.” This may
possibly sound an obsoletism to the reader. But if as a distinct
occupation the making of bread wafers is gone, or has fallen into the
hands of Messrs. Peek, Frean & Co., and other of our biscuit
manufacturers, it has left many memorials behind. Our “Wafers” have
fossilised its story in the Directory, and even in our Authorized Version
of the Bible (Lev. ii. 4). I have known one or two sturdy Protestants
who have objected to the translation: “And if thou bring an oblation of a
meat offering baken in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine
flour mingled with oil, or unleavened _wafers_ anointed with oil.” There
can be no doubt this is one more relic of Papal days in England. I have
seen an old will of the thirteenth century, in which the then Archbishop
of York made a small bequest to two “waferers,” who for many years had
honestly plied their trade of selling wafers at the Minster gate. Not
that the “waferer” confined himself to these. The author of Piers
Plowman, not to mention Chaucer himself, puts him among certain
disreputable street hawkers, who sold small spiced cakes; but then we
must remember that the “Malvern Dreamer” wrote his poem against the
lewdness of the priesthood—in fact, he was a trumpeter of the Reformation
to come—and he would not object to set down the humblest servitor of the
papal establishment, even a waferer, in as low a scale as he could. It
is this that to my mind makes the history of English surnames so
interesting. If we visit Pompeii we see in the streets and chambers that
have been cleared of débris the very accidents of life and thought
well-nigh 2000 years ago. We have but to clear away the little
corruptions of spelling or pronunciation which have befallen these
old-fashioned names, and spell-bound we are gazing into the life—the
every-day religious and social life—of our English forefathers four
hundred years ago. The antiquary and the philologist alike may take up
the London Directory with reverence, for therein lies a fund of
information to his hand, which it might occupy months of pain and trouble
otherwise to accumulate.
Having dealt with “the butcher” and “the baker,” there is yet the
“candlestick-maker” to be considered. Our “Chandlers” and “Candlers”
explain themselves. Our “Turners” turned out all manner of wooden gear,
and doubtless candlesticks were amongst them. There are plenty of
“Bowlers” in the Directory, men who made bowls or dishes of wood. The
twenty-four “Spooners” {126} set down in the same record, fashioned
spoons. Forks being a modern invention, there are no “Forkers”; but
“Cutler” abounds on every side in the metropolis, not to mention the
“Cutlers’ Alms-houses,” and the “Cutlers’ Hall.” “Ironmonger” also is
well represented. Those who manufactured crocks—that is, any glazed
vessel of earthenware (whence our modern term “crockery”)—were called
“Crockers,” or “Crokers.” There are over thirty Crockers in the
Directory, and six Crokers. A hundred “Potters” figure in the same list.
Some reader may inquire, “Have we any relics of the medical practitioner
in the Directory? Was there any one who was professionally employed to
see children through the measles, to extract an obnoxious tooth, to lay a
plaister, to open a vein, to mix a potion, or to generally repair a
debilitated system?” The London Directory replies unhesitatingly in the
affirmative; and yet look out Doctor, or Surgeon, or Physician, and all
are conspicuous by their absence: although, to do the last justice, he
has bequeathed us four Physicks. The reason of this is simple. These
are new terms. The old practitioner went generally by the name of
“Leech.” There are forty-seven Leaches, one Leachman, and eleven Leeches
in the Directory. Bleeding with leeches was evidently no unfamiliar
spectacle in old days, especially when we recall that our forefathers
were wont to be very energetic with the knife and fork—or spoon, I should
say, for they had no forks. “Chemist,” too, is a new
sobriquet,—therefore he is unrepresented; but there is one “Pothecary,”
and Potticary is fairly common in other parts of England. As for the
Barber, the surgeon and dentist of former times, no wonder there is a
whole column of his descendants. His custom was to hang a basin at the
end of his pole, with a string of teeth, the longer the better, to show
what a roaring trade he drove,—for he could not advertise his business in
the newspaper as people do in these remarkable days. In the window were
ranged cups or goblets with a few leeches in. These
“Did well his threefold trade explain,
Who shaved, drew teeth, and breathed a vein.”
In the latter decades of last century there was a celebrated surgeon in
Manchester of the name of “Killer,” which is a corruption of “Kilner,”
just as Miller and Milner are identical. But if this was an unfortunate
name for a surgeon, what shall we say of “Kilmister” and “Kilmaster,”
which may be found in and about the county of Gloucester! How
bloodthirsty they look!—and yet the truer form Kilminster, in the London
Directory, strips them, by the addition of but one letter, of their
terrors, and shows them to be of local origin. In one of the earliest
metropolitan directories appears a Mr. Toothaker! It was not an uncommon
name, for in 1635 there embarked in the _Hopewell_ for New England, Roger
Toothaker and Margaret Toothaker! I do not think the name to be of
German origin, as Mr. Lower supposes, but one of those local English
surnames ending in “acre,” like Whittaker or Oldacre. The sobriquet,
however, reads oddly enough, and looks as if the services of the barber
were much required.
Turning to dress for a moment, we may notice that there are nearly 300
Walkers in the London Directory, almost 100 Tuckers, 80 Fullers, and 20
Tozers. All were concerned once with the combing, fulling, dyeing, and
thickening of woollen goods. In Piers Plowman mention is made of
“fulling under foot.” This refers to the practice of _treading_ the
cloth, before machinery was introduced. He who did this was a _walker_.
Wycliffe, speaking of Christ’s transfiguration, describes Christ’s dress
as shining, so as “no fullers or walkers of cloth” could whiten them.
The “tozer” or “toser,” or “touser,” toused or teased the fabric, so as
to raise a nap on it. We talk of _teasing_ now in the sense of worrying
people with attentions. This is the secondary meaning that has grown
upon the other. “Tozer” and “Toser” are the favourite spellings of this
occupation in the Directory. We are still fond of calling a pugnacious
dog “Towser.” _Tucker_ was a Flemish introduced term for a “dyer.” Many
of the words connected with the manufacture of cloth came in with the
Flemish artisans.
I will only mention one article of dress, and conclude. There is no
“Cobler,” or “Cobbler,” in the Directory, but there used to be. As a
mere patchwork business it has got into disrepute; so it has been got rid
of by its owners. Christopher Shoomaker was burnt at Newbury during the
days of persecution, and Foxe tells his story in his customary quaint
fashion; but it has ever been a rare name in England, though common
enough in Germany as Schumacher, or Schumann. The last form will be
familiar to all musicians. Camden, in a list of occupations, inserts
“Chaucer,” appending by way of definition, “id est, Hosier.” The chaucer
or hosier of those days fitted to the leg from the knee downwards the
strong leather legging. This was called a chaussure. Chaucer is
obsolete in England, though not in France. Hosier and Hozier still
exist. Every Londoner knows of the “Cordwainers’ Hall,” though perhaps
he has never seen it. It is not more than forty years ago that you might
not uncommonly see “cordwainer” over a shop door instead of the strictly
modern “shoemaker”; while in our directories “Cordwainer,” or “Cordiner,”
or “Codner,” is a customary name. Sir Thopas is described thus:—
“His hair, his beard was like safroun,
That to his girdle raught (reached) adown,
His shoon of cordewane.”
We have only to turn cordwain into cordovan, to see that this was a
specially excellent leather, imported in early times from Cordova, in
Spain, to make “kid-boots.” In fact, the cordwainer was the West-end
boot-maker. But this is not all. In the Directory for 1871 there appear
twelve Suters, three Sowters, six Soutters, seven Souters, one Soutar,
and three Soustars. I need not tell any Scotchman what this means,
because every shoemaker or cobbler on the other side of the Tweed, except
in very fashionable quarters, is still a “souter.” Souster is but one
more instance of the feminine (?) termination.
I might prolong this chapter to any extent, but I must refrain. I might
have called attention to our many “Glovers” and “Ganters,” who sold
gloves, or our Gantletts and Gauntletts, who were in the same business,
but were known best by the gauntlet that hung as a sign over the door. I
might have pointed to our Girdlers and Bracegirdles, who were busy enough
when the modern suspender was unknown; or to our many Pointers, who
manufactured the points or tags by which hose and doublet were protected
from divorcement. I might have asked the reader to survey with me the
rows of Cheesemans, Cheesmans, Cheesewrights, Cheeswrights, and
Firmingers, reminiscences of the good old farmers’ produce, which was the
first, second and third course of every peasant’s dinner. I might have
shown that our Challeners and Challoners manufactured or sold blankets,
made at first in Chalons; or that our Helliers, or Hilliers, or Hillyers,
were thatchers or tylers; that our Shoosmiths forged shoes for horses;
that our Wrights worked chiefly in wood, our Smiths in iron. I might
have run through a list of rural occupations, such as Coward for
cow-herd, Calvert for calve-herd, Shepherd for sheep-herd, or “Herd” or
“Heard” or “Hurd” itself for the tender of cattle in general. From all
temptations of this kind I must stay myself. I will only say that if my
reader should be interested enough to wish to carry on such
investigation, he can do so in my book of “English Surnames,” which I
think I can truly say is quite exhaustive of those now forgotten and
obsolete titles of mediæval occupation. I have mentioned Wright: let me
quote a rhyming pun on his good old title:
“At a tavern one night,
Messrs. More, Strange, and Wright,
Met to drink, and their good thoughts exchange;
Says More, ‘Of us three,’
The whole will agree,
There’s only one Knave, and that’s Strange.’
“‘Yes,’ says Strange, rather sore,
‘I’m sure there’s one More,
A most terrible knave, and a fright,
Who cheated his mother,
His sister, and brother.’
‘Oh, yes,’ replied More, ‘that is Wright.’”
On the whole, Mr. More got the best of the argument.