Chapter II: Historic and Commemorative Signs (1)

The Greeks honoured their great men and successful commanders by erecting statues to them; the Romans rewarded their popular favourites with triumphal entries and ovations; modern nations make the portraits of their celebrities serve as signs for public-houses.

“Vernon, the Butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good have had their tithe of talk,
And fill’d their signpost then, like Wellesley now.”

As Byron hints, popular admiration is generally very short-lived; and when a fresh hero is gazetted, the next new alehouse will most probably adopt him for a sign in preference to the last great man. Thus it is that even the Duke of Wellington is now neglected, and in his place we see General Havelock, Sir Colin Campbell, Lord Palmerston, and Mr Gladstone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, not omitting the fair Princess of Denmark. We will not now dwell upon these modern celebrities, but rather direct our attention to those illustrious dead upon whom the signboard honours were bestowed in bygone ages.

Many signboards have an historic connexion of some sort with the place where they are exhibited. Thus the ALFRED’S HEAD, at Wantage, in Berkshire, was in all probability chosen as a sign because Wantage was the birthplace of King Alfred. So the CANUTE CASTLE, at Southampton, owes its existence to a local tradition; whilst admiration for the great Scotch patriot made an innkeeper in Stowell Street, Newcastle, adopt SIR WILLIAM WALLACE’S ARMS. The CÆSAR’S HEAD was, in 1761, to be seen near the New Church in the Strand,[54] and, in the beginning of this century, was the sign of a tavern in Soho, which afterwards removed to Great Palace Yard, Westminster. Even at the present day, his head may be seen outside certain village alehouses; but this we may attribute to that provincial popularity which the Roman hero shares with Oliver Cromwell; for as the Protector gets the blame of having made nearly all the ruins which are to be found in the three kingdoms, so Cæsar is generally named by country people as the builder of every old wall or earthwork the origin of which is unknown.

Notwithstanding the popular censure, CROMWELL is still honoured with signboards in places where his memory has lingered, as at Kate’s Hill, near Dudley.

In most cases, however, signboard popularity is rather short-lived; “_dulcique animos novitate tenebo_” seems to be essentially the motto of those that choose popular characters for their sign. Had this modern tribute of admiration been in use at the time of the Preacher, it might have afforded him one more illustration of the vanity of vanities to be found in all sublunary things. Horace Walpole noticed this fickleness of signboard fame in one of his letters:--

“I was yesterday out of town, and the very signs, as I passed through
the villages, made me make very quaint reflections on the mortality of
fame and popularity. I observed how the Duke’s Head had succeeded
almost universally to Admiral Vernon’s, as his had left but few traces
of the Duke of Ormond’s. I pondered these things in my breast, and
said to myself, ’Surely all glory is but as a sign!’”[55]

Some favourites of the signboard have, however, been more fortunate than others. HENRY VIII., for instance, may still be seen in many places; indeed, for more than two centuries after his death, almost every KING’S HEAD invariably gave a portrait of Bluff Harry.

Older kings occasionally occur, but their memories seem to have been revived rather than handed down by successive innkeepers. If we are to believe an old Chester legend, however, THE KING EDGAR INN, in Bridge Street of that city, has existed by the same name since the time of the Saxon king. The sign represents King Edgar rowed down the river Dee by the eight tributary kings. The present house has the appearance of being built anterior to the reign of Elizabeth, and the sign looks almost as old, but it would be unwise to give the place or the sign a much higher antiquity. KING JOHN is the sign under whose auspices Jem Mace, the pugilist, keeps a public-house in Holywell Lane, Shoreditch. The same king also figures in Albemarle Street and in Bermondsey; whilst the great event of his reign, MAGNA CHARTA, is a sign at New Holland, Hull. JOHN OF GAUNT may be seen in many places; and we may surmise that his upholders are stanch Protestants, who value his character as a reformer and supporter of Wicliffe. The BLACK PRINCE may not unlikely have come down to us in an uninterrupted line of signboards; so little was his identity sometimes understood, that there is a shop-bill in the “Banks Collection”[56] on which this hero is represented as a negro!

There is a QUEEN ELEANOR in London Fields, Hackney, probably the beautiful and affectionate queen of Edward I., buried in Westminster Abbey, 1290, in honour of whom Charing Cross, Cheapcross, and seven other crosses, were erected on the places where her body rested on its way to the great Abbey. What prompted the choice of this sign it is hard to say.

At Hever, in Kent, a rude portrait of Henry VIII. may be seen. Near this village the Bolleyn or Bullen family formerly held large possessions; and old people in the district yet shew the spot where, as the story goes, King Henry often used to meet Sir Thomas Bolleyn’s daughter Anne. Be this as it may, years after the unhappy death of Anne, the village alehouse had for its sign, BULLEN BUTCHERED; but the place falling into new hands, the name of the house was altered to the BULL AND BUTCHER, which sign existed to a recent date, and would probably have swung at this moment, but for a desire of the resident clergyman to see something different. He suggested the KING’S HEAD; and the village painter was forthwith commissioned to make the alteration. The latter accepted the task, drew the bluff features of the monarch, and represented it as other King’s Heads, but in his hands placed a large axe, which signboard exists to this day.

As for QUEEN ELIZABETH, she was the constant type of the Queen’s Head, as her father was of the King’s Head; and, like him, she may still be seen in many places. It is somewhat more difficult to ascertain who is meant by the QUEEN CATHERINE in Brook Street, Ratcliffe Highway; whether it be Queen Catherine of Aragon, or Queen Catherine of Braganza. QUEEN ANNE, in South Street, Walworth, has evidently come down to us as the token of that house since the day of its opening, just as the QUEEN OF BOHEMIA, who, until about fifty years ago, continued as a sign in Drury Lane.[57] This was Elizabeth, daughter of James I., married to Frederic V., Elector-Palatine, who, after her husband’s death, lived at Craven House, Drury Lane, and died there, February 13, 1661, having been privately married, it is thought, to Lord Craven, who was foremost in fighting the battles of her husband.

Of KING’S HEADS, Henry VIII. is the oldest on authentic record. But this does not prove that he was the first; for, as there lived great men before Agamemnon, so most kings during their reign will, in all probability, have had their signs. Among Henry’s successors, we find the head of Edward VI. on a trades token; whilst CHARLES THE FIRST’S HEAD was the portrait hanging from the house of that scoundrel Jonathan Wild, in the Old Bailey. Even at the present day there is a sign of CHARLES THE FIRST at Goring Heath, Reading. The MARTYR’S HEAD in Smithfield, 1710, seems also to have been a portrait of Charles I.; so, at least, the following allusion gives us to understand:--

“May Hyde, near Smithfield, at the Martyr’s Head,
Who charms the nicest judge with noble red,
Thrive on by drawing wines, which none can blame,
But those who in his sign behold their shame;”[58]

which seems to be an allusion to Puritanical water-drinkers. To this unfortunate king belongs also the sign of the MOURNING BUSH, set up by Taylor the water-poet over his tavern in Phœnix Alley, Long Acre, to express his grief at the beheading of Charles I.; but he was soon compelled to take it down, when he put up the POET’S HEAD, his own portrait, with this inscription:--

“There is many a head hangs for a sign;
Then, gentle reader, why not mine?”

This “Poeta Aquaticus,” as he sometimes called himself, was a boatman on the Thames, and alehouse-keeper by profession, besides being the author of fourscore books of very original poetry. At the same time that he put up his new sign of the Poet’s Head, he issued a rhyming pamphlet, in which occur the following lines:--

“My signe was once a _Crowne_, but now it is
Changed by a sudden metamorphosis.
The crowne was taken downe, and in the stead
Is placed John Taylor’s, or the _Poet’s Head_.
A painter did my picture gratis make,
And (for a signe) I hang’d it for his sake.
Now, if my picture’s drawing can prevayle,
’Twill draw my friends to me, and I’ll draw ale.
Two strings are better to a bow than one;
And poeting does me small good alone.
So ale alone yields but small good to me,
Except it have some spice of poesie.
The fruits of ale are unto drunkards such,
To make ‘em sweare and lye that drinke too much.
But my ale, being drunk with moderation,
Will quench thirst, and make merry recreation.
My book and signe were publish’d for two ends,
T’ invite my honest, civill, sober friends.
From such as are not such, I kindly pray,
Till I send for ‘em, let ‘em keep away.
From _Phœnix Alley_, the _Globe Taverne_ neare,
The _middle of Long Acre_, I _dwell_ there.

“JOHN TAYLOR, _Poeta Aquaticus_.”

EAGLE AND CHILD.

(Banks’s Bills, circa 1750.)

ROBIN HOOD AND LITTLE JOHN.

(Roxburghe Ballads, 1600.)

GRIFFIN AND CHAIR.

(Banks’s Bills, 1790.)

BOLT-IN-TUN.

(Fleet Street).

BOAR’S HEAD.

(Eastcheap.)

BULL’S HEAD.

(Longhborough, Linc., 1806.)]

The MOURNING CROWN was afterwards revived, and in the last century it was the sign of a tavern in Aldersgate, where, on Saturdays, when Parliament was not sitting, the Duke of Devonshire, the Earls of Oxford, Sunderland, Pembroke, and Winchelsea, Mr Bagford the antiquary, and Britton the musical small-coalman, used to refresh themselves, after having passed the forepart of the day in hunting for antiquities and curiosities in Little Britain and its neighbourhood.

Not only was the Crown put in mourning at the death of Charles I., but also the MITRE. Hearne has an anecdote which he transcribed from Dr Richard Rawlinson:--“Of Daniel Rawlinson, who kept the Mitre Tavern in Fenchurch Street, and of whose being sequestered in the Rump time, I have heard much. The Whigs tell this, that upon the king’s murder he hung his sign in mourning. He certainly judged right; the honour of the mitre was much eclipsed through the loss of so good a parent of the Church of England. Those rogues say, this endeared him so much to the Churchmen that he soon throve amain, and got a good estate.”

CHARLES THE SECOND’S HEAD swung at the door of a “music-house” for seafaring men and others, in Stepney, at the end of the seventeenth century. In a great room of this house there was an organ and a band of fiddles and hautboys, to the music whereof it was no unusual thing for parties, and sometimes single persons,--and those not of very inferior sort,--to dance. At the present day, that king’s memory is still kept alive on a signboard in Herbert Street, Hoxton, under the name of the MERRY MONARCH.

To his miraculous escape at Boscobel we owe the ROYAL OAK, which, notwithstanding a lapse of two centuries and a change of dynasty, still continues a very favourite sign. In London alone it occurs on twenty-six public-houses, exclusive of beerhouses, coffee-houses, &c. Sometimes it is called KING CHARLES IN THE OAK, as at Willen Hall, Warwickshire. The Royal Oak, soon after the Restoration, became a favourite with the shops of London; tokens of some half a dozen houses bearing that sign are extant. What is rather curious is that, not many years since, one of the descendants of trusty Dick Pendrell kept an inn at Lewes, in Sussex, called the Royal Oak.

There is a trades token of “William Hagley, at the RESTORATION, in St George’s Fields;” but how this event was represented does not appear. At Charing Cross it was commemorated by the sign of the PAGEANT Tavern, which represented the triumphal arch erected at that place on occasion of the entry of Charles II., and which remained standing for a year after. This was evidently the same house which Pepys calls the TRIUMPH. It seems to have been a fashionable place, for he went there, on the 25th May 1662, to see the Portuguese ladies of Queen Catherine. “They are not handsome,” says he, “and their fardingales a strange dress. Many ladies and persons of quality come to see them. I find nothing in them that is pleasing; and I see they have learned to kiss and look freely up and down already, and, I believe, will soon forget the recluse practice of their own country. They complain much for lack of good water to drink.” The Triumph is still the sign of a public-house in Skinner Street, Somers Town.

QUEEN MARY was in her day a very popular sign, as may be gathered from many of the shop-bills in the Banks Collection; whilst WILLIAM AND MARY are still to be seen in Maiden Causeway, Cambridge. The accession of the house of Brunswick produced the BRUNSWICK, still very common, particularly in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Then come the Georges, of whom GEORGE III. and GEORGE IV. still survive in nearly as many instances as their successor, WILLIAM IV.; with them a few of the royal Dukes of CLARENCE, SUFFOLK, and, above all, “the Butcher CUMBERLAND;” until at length we come to PRINCESS VICTORIA, and, finally, the QUEEN VICTORIA, the BRITISH QUEEN, ISLAND QUEEN, &c. Under one of her signs at Coopersale, in Essex, is the following inscription:--

“The Queen some day
May pass this way,
And see our Tom and Jerry.
Perhaps she’ll stop,
And stand a drop,
To make her subjects merry.”

Among the foreign kings and potentates who have figured in our open-air walhalla, the Turkish sultans seem to have stood foremost. MORAT (Amurat) and SOLIMAN were constant coffee-house signs in the seventeenth century. Trades tokens are extant, in the Beaufoy and other collections, of a coffee-house in Exchange Alley, the sign of Morat, with this distich:--

“MORAT . Y^{E} . GREAT . MEN . DID . MEE . CALL
WHERE . ERE . I . CAME . I . CONQUER’D . ALL.”

On the reverse: “_Coffee, tobacco, sherbett, tea, and chocolat retal’d in Exchange Alley._” The same house figures in advertisements of the time, giving the prices of those various articles:--

“AT THE COFFEE-HOUSE in Exchange Alley is sold by Retail the right
Coffee-powder, from 4s. to 6s. _per pound_, as in goodness: that
pounded in a mortar at 3s. _per pound_; also that termed the right
Turkie Berry, well garbled, at 3s. _per pound_--the ungarbled for
less; that termed the East India Berry at 20d. _per pound_, with
directions gratis how to make and use the same. Likewise, there you
may have Tobacco, Verinas and Virginia, Chocolatta--the ordinary
pound-boxes at 2s. _per pound_; also Sherbets (made in Turkie) of
Lemons, Roses, and Violets perfumed; and Tea according to its
goodness, from 6s. to 60s. _per pound_. For all of which, if any
Gentleman shall write or send, they shall be sure of the best as they
shall order; and to avoid deceit, warranted under the House
Seal--viz., MORAT THE GREAT,” &c.--_Mercurius Publicus_, March 12-19,
1662.

The GREAT MOGOL also had his share of signboards, of which a few still survive; one, for instance, in New Bartholomew Street, Birmingham. KOULI KHAN we find only in one instance, (though there were probably many more,) namely, on the sign of a tavern by the Quayside, Newcastle, in 1746.[59] This house had formerly been called the Crown, but changed its sign in honour of Thomas Nadir Shah, or Kouli Khan, who, from having been chief of a band of robbers, at last sat himself on the throne of Persia. He was killed in 1747. One of the reasons of his popularity in this country was the permission he granted to the English nation to trade with Persia, the most chimerical ideas being entertained of the advantages to be derived from that commerce. Hanway, the philanthropist, was for some time concerned in it, but died before he could carry out the scheme; ultimately, the death of Nadir Shah himself put an end to it.

The INDIAN KING, which we meet with so frequently, is an extremely vague personage, which various Indian potentates might take for themselves as the cap fitted. It was generally set up when some king from the far East visited the metropolis, and for a short time created a sensation. Thus, in 1710, there were four Indian kings from “states between New England, New York and Canada,” who had audiences with Queen Anne, and seems to have been a good deal talked about. (_See Spectator_, No. 50.)

Again, in 1762, London was honoured with the visit of a Cherokee king, and thus many before and after him have created their nine days’ wonder.

Visits of European monarchs were also commemorated by complimentary signs. One of the oldest was the KING OF DENMARK, and few kings better than he deserved the exalted place at the alehouse door; yet, such is the ingratitude of the world, that he seems now completely forgotten. The sign originated in the reign of James I., who married a daughter of Christian IV., King of Denmark. In July 1606, the royal father-in-law came over on a visit, when the two kings began “bousing” and carousing right royally, the court, of course, duly following the example. “I came here a day or two before the Danish king came,” says Sir John Harrington, “and from that day he did come till this hour, I have been well-nigh overwhelmed with carousal and sport of all kinds. I think the Dane has strangely wrought on our English nobles; for those whom I could never get to taste good liquor, now follow the fashion and wallow in beastly delights. The ladies abandon their society, and are seen to roll about in intoxication,” &c.[60] So late as thirty years ago, not less than three of these signs were left, the most notorious being in the Old Bailey. It used to be open all night for the sale of creature comforts to the drunkard, the thief, the nightwalker, and profligates of every description. Slang was the language of the place, and doubtless the refreshments were mostly paid for with stolen money. On execution nights, the landlord used to reap a golden harvest; then there were such scenes of drunkenness as must have done the old king on the signboard good to survey, and made him wish to be inside. The visit of another crowned votary of Bacchus is commemorated by the sign of the CZAR’S HEAD, Great Tower Street:--

“Peter the Great and his companions, having finished their day’s work,
used to resort to a public-house in Great Tower Street, close to Tower
Hill, to smoke their pipes and drink beer and brandy. The landlord had
the Czar of Muscovy’s Head painted, and put it up for his sign, which
continued till the year 1808, when a person of the name of Waxel took
a fancy to the old sign, and offered the then occupier of the house to
paint him a new one for it. A copy was accordingly made of the
original, which maintains its station to the present day as the Czar
of Muscovy.”[61]

The sign is now removed, but the public-house still bears the same name. PRINCE EUGENE also was at one time a popular tavern portrait in England, more particularly after his visit to this country in January 1712. It is named as one of the signs in Norwich in 1750,[62] but is now, we believe, completely extinct in England; in Paris there is still one surviving on the Boulevard St Martin.

The GRAVE MAURICE is of very old standing in London, being named by Taylor the water-poet as an inn at Knightsbridge in 1636; at present there are two left, one in Whitechapel Road, the other in St Leonard’s Road. Who this Grave Maurice was is not quite clear. GRAVE (_Ger._ Graf, _Dutch_ Graaf, _i.e._ COUNT,) Maurice of Nassau, afterwards Maurice, Prince of Orange, was, on account of his successful opposition to the Spanish domination in the Netherlands, very popular in this country. In Baker’s Chronicles, anno 1612, we read that:--“Upon St Thomas-day, the Paltzgrave and _Grave Maurice_ were elected Knights of the Garter; and the 27th of December, the Paltzgrave was betrothed to the Lady Elizabeth. On Sunday the 7th of February, the Paltzgrave in person was installed a Knight of the Garter at Windsor, and at the same time was _Grave Maurice_ installed by his deputy, Count Lodewick of Nassau.” The Garter conferred on the Grave Maurice was that which had been previously worn by _Henri Quatre_, King of France and Navarre. The Palzgrave was Grave Maurice’s nephew, the Palatine Count Frederick, by whose marriage with King James’s daughter were born the brothers Rupert and Maurice, (the latter in 1620,) who distinguished themselves in England during the civil wars. It was this Prince Maurice’s great uncle, the Grave Maurice of Nassau, whose counterfeit presentment still gives a name to two of our taverns. Another Maurice, about this period, was very popular in England--viz., Maurice Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, who “carried away the palm of excellency in whatever is to be wished in a brave prince.”[63] Peacham, enumerating this prince’s qualifications, says that he was a good musician, spoke ten or twelve languages, was a universal scholar, could dispute, “even in boots and spurs,” for an hour with the best professors on any subject, and was the best bone-setter in the country. He gained, too, much of his popularity by his adherence to the Protestant religion during the Thirty Years’ War.

The PALTSGRAVE became a popular sign at the marriage of Frederick Casimir V., Elector and Count Palatine of the Rhine, King of Bohemia, with Elizabeth, daughter of James I. Trades tokens are extant of a famous tavern, the sign of the PALSGRAVE’S HEAD, without Temple Bar,[64] which gave its name to Paltsgrave Court, whilst the PALATINE HEAD was an inn near the French ‘Change, Soho. PRINCE RUPERT, the Palsgrave’s son, who behaved so gallantly in many of the fights during the Civil War, was no doubt a favourite sign after the Restoration. We have an instance of one on the trades token of Jacob Robins, in the Strand.

One of the last foreign princes to whom the signboard honour was accorded, was the KING OF PRUSSIA. This still occurs in many places. After the battle of Rosbach, Frederick the Great, our ally, became the popular hero in England. Ballads were made, in which he was called “Frederick of Prussia, or the Hero.” “Portraits of the hero of Rosbach, with his cocked hat and long pigtail, were in every house. An attentive observer will at this day find in the parlours of old-fashioned inns, and in the portfolios of printsellers, twenty portraits of Frederick for one of George II. The sign-painters were everywhere employed in touching up ADMIRAL VERNON into the KING OF PRUSSIA.[65]”

These words of Macaulay remind us of a passage in the _Mirror_, No. 82, Saturday, February 19, 1780, bearing on the same subject. In 1739, after the capture of Portobello, Admiral Vernon’s “portrait dangled from every signpost, and he may be figuratively said to have sold the ale, beer, porter, and purl of England for six years. Towards the close of that period, the admiral’s favour began to fade apace with the colours of his uniform, and the battle of Culloden was total annihilation for him. . . . The DUKE OF CUMBERLAND kept possession of the signboard a long time. In the beginning of the last war, our admirals in the Mediterranean, and our generals in North America, did nothing that could tend in the least degree to move his Royal Highness from his place; but the doubtful battle of Hamellan, followed by the unfortunate convention of Stade, and the rising fame of the King of Prussia, obliterated the glories of the Duke of Cumberland as effectually as his Royal Highness and the battle of Culloden had effaced the figure, the memory, and the renown of Admiral Vernon. The duke was so completely displaced by his Prussian majesty, that we have some doubts whether he met with fair play. One circumstance, indeed, was much against him; his figure being marked by a hat with the Kevenhuller cock, a military uniform, and a very fierce look, a slight touch of the painter converted him into the King of Prussia. But what crowned the success of his Prussian majesty, was the title bestowed upon him by the brothers of the brush, ‘The Glorious Protestant Hero,’ words which added splendour to every signpost, and which no British hero could read without peculiar sensation of veneration and of thirst.

“For two years, ‘the glorious Protestant hero’ was unrivalled; but the French being defeated at Minden, upon the 1st of August 1759, by the army under Prince Frederick of Brunswick, the King of Prussia began to give place a little to two popular favourites, who started at the same time; I mean PRINCE FERDINAND, and the MARQUIS OF GRANBY. Prince Ferdinand was supported altogether by his good conduct at Minden, and by his high reputation over Europe as a general. The _Marquis of Granby_ behaved with spirit and personal courage everywhere; but his success on the signposts of England was very much owing to a comparison generally made between him and another British general of higher rank, but who was supposed not to have behaved so well. Perhaps, too, he was a good deal indebted to another circumstance--to wit, the baldness of his head.”

That crowned heads, as well as other human beings, were subject to the law of change on the signboard, is amusingly illustrated in an anecdote told by Goldsmith:--

“An alehouse keeper near Islington, who had long lived at the sign of
the French King, upon the commencement of the last war, pulled down
his old sign, and put up that of the QUEEN OF HUNGARY. Under the
influence of her red nose and golden sceptre, he continued to sell
ale, till she was no longer the favourite of his customers; he changed
her therefore, some time ago, for the King of Prussia who may probably
be changed in turn for the next great man that shall be set up for
vulgar admiration.”[66]

Of all great men, “bene meriti de patria,” military men appear at all times to have captivated the popular favour much more than those men who promoted the welfare of the country in the Cabinet, or who made themselves famous by the arts of peace, and the more quiet productions of their genius. We find hundreds of admirals and generals on the signboard, but we are not aware that there is one Watt, or one Sir Walter Scott; yet, what glory and pleasure has the nation not derived from their genius! Booksellers formerly honoured the heads and names of great authors with a signboard; but that custom fell into disuse when signs became unnecessary. At present, the publicans only have signs, and they and their customers can much better appreciate “the glorious pomp and pageantry of war,” than a parliamentary debate. A victory, with so many of the enemy killed and wounded, and so many colours and stands of arms captured, awakens much more thrilling emotions in their breasts than the most useful invention, or the most glorious work of art.

The sea being our proper element, admirals have always had the lion’s share of the popular admiration, and their fame appears more firmly rooted than that of generals. Signs of ADMIRAL DRAKE, SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, or the DRAKE ARMS, so common at the water-side in our seaports, shew that the nation has not yet forgotten the bold navigator of good _Queen Bess_. SIR WALTER RALEIGH has not been quite so fortunate; for though he also came in for a great share of signboard honour, yet it was less owing to his qualities as a commander, than to his reputation of having introduced tobacco into England, whence he became a favourite tobacconist’s sign; and in that quality, we find him on several of the shop-bills in the Banks Collection. Signs being frequently used in the last century for political pasquinades, advantage was taken of a tobacconist’s sign for the following sharp hit at Lord North:--

“To the Printer of the _General Advertiser_:--

“SIR,--Being a smoaker, I take particular notice of the devices used
by different dealers in tobacco, by way of ornament to the papers in
which that valuable plant is enclosed for sale; and that used by the
worthy Alderman in Ludgate Street, has often given me much pleasure,
it having the head of Sir Walter Raleigh, and the following motto
round it:--

‘Great Britain to great Raleigh owes
This plant and country where it grows.’

“To which I offer the following lines by way of contrast; the truth
thereof no one can doubt:--

‘To Rubicon and North, old England owes
The loss of country where tobacco grows.’

“I suppose no dealer will chuse to adopt so unfortunate a subject for
their insignia; but perhaps, when you have a spare corner in your
_General Advertiser_, it may not be inadmissible, which will
oblige.--Yours, &c.,

“A SMOAKER.

“Feb. 1, 1783.

_General Advertiser_, March 13, 1784.”

Brave old ADMIRAL BENBOW, who held up the honour of the British flag in the reign of William III., is still far from uncommon. ADMIRAL DUNCAN, HOWE, and JERVIS still preside over the sale of many a hogshead of beer or spirits; whilst ADMIRAL VERNON seems to have secured himself an everlasting place on the front of the alehouse, by reason of his dashing capture of PORTOBELLO; the name of that town, or sometimes the PORTOBELLO ARMS, being also frequently adopted, instead of the admiral’s name. ADMIRAL KEPPEL is another great favourite. There is a public-house with that sign, on the Fulham Road, where, some years ago, the portrait of the admiral used to court the custom of the passing traveller, by a poetical appeal to both man and beast:--

“Stop, brave boys, and quench your thirst;
If you won’t drink, your horses murst.”

But, above all, ADMIRAL RODNEY seems to have obtained a larger share of popularity than even NELSON himself. In Boston there is the RODNEY AND HOOD; and in Creggin, Montgomeryshire, the RODNEY PILLAR Inn, with the following Anacreontic effusion on a double-sided signboard:--

“Under these trees, in sunny weather,
Just try a cup of ale, however;
And if in tempest or in storm,
A couple then to make you warm;
But when the day is very cold,
Then taste a mug a twelvemonth old.”

On the reverse:--

“Rest and regal yourself, ’tis pleasant;
Enough is all the present need,
That’s the due of the hardy peasant
Who toils all sorts of men to feed.
Then muzzle not the ox when he treads out the corn,
Nor grudge honest labour its pipe and its horn.”

The last addition to this portrait gallery, before SIR CHARLES NAPIER, was the head of the gallant besieger of Algiers, LORD EXMOUTH. In 1825, there was one at Barnstaple, in Devon, with the following address to the wayfarer:--

“All you that pace round field or moor,
Pray do not pass John Armstrong’s door;
There’s what will cheer man in his course,
And entertainment for his horse.”

Finally, there is still one sign left in honour of that deserving but unfortunate commander, CAPTAIN COOK, murdered by the natives of Owhyhee in 1779. His name is preserved as the sign of an alehouse in Mariner Street, London.

Though the fame of generals seems to be more short-lived than that of admirals, yet a few ancient heroes still remain. Amongst these, GENERAL ELLIOTT, or LORD HEATHFIELD, the defender of Gibraltar, seems to be one of the greatest favourites; perhaps his popularity in London was not a little increased by the present which he made to Astley, of his charger named Gibraltar; who, performing every evening in the ring, and shining forth in the circus bills, would certainly act as an excellent puff for the general’s glory. This hero’s popularity is only surpassed by that of the MARQUIS OF GRANBY. Though nearly a century has elapsed since the death of the latter, (Oct. 19, 1770,) his portrait is still one of the most common signs. In London alone, he presides over eighteen public-houses, besides numerous beerhouses. The first one is said to have been hung out at Hounslow, by one Sumpter, a discharged trooper of the regiment of Horse Guards, which the Marquis of Granby had commanded as colonel.

Among the generals of a later period, are GENERAL TARLETON, (or, as he is called on a sign in Clarence Street, Newcastle, COLONEL TARLTON,) GENERAL WOLFE, GENERAL MOORE, and SIR RALPH ABERCROMBIE. At a tavern of this last denomination in Lombard Street, some thirty-five or forty years ago, the “House of Lords’ Club” used to meet, not composed, as might be expected from the name, of members of the peerage, but simply of the good citizens of the neighbourhood, each dubbed with a title. The president was styled Lord Chancellor; he wore a legal wig and robes, and a mace was laid on the table before him. The title bestowed upon the members depended on the fee--one shilling constituted a Baron, two shillings a Viscount, three shillings an Earl, four shillings a Marquis, and five shillings a Duke; beyond that rank their ambition did not reach. This club originated early in the eighteenth century, at the FLEECE in Cornhill, but removed to the THREE TUNS in Southwark, that the members might be more retired from the bows and compliments of the London apprentices, who used to salute the noble lords by their titles as they passed to and fro in the streets about their business. One of their last houses was the YORKSHIRE GREY, near Roll’s Buildings. At present they are, we believe, extinct. In Newcastle, also, there was a House of Lords, of which Bewick the wood-engraver was a member. They used to hold their meetings in the Groat Market of that town.

The DUKE’S HEAD, and the OLD DUKE, are signs that, for the last two or three centuries, have always been applied to some ducal hero or other, for the time being basking himself in the noontide sun of fame. One of the first to whom it was applied, was Monck, DUKE OF ALBEMARLE after the Restoration; then came ORMOND, MARLBOROUGH, CUMBERLAND, YORK, and, at present, WELLINGTON and the DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE. The DUKE’S HEAD in Upper Street, corner of Gad’s Row, Islington, was the sign of a public-house kept by Thomas Topham, the strong man, who, in 1741, in honour of Admiral Vernon’s birthday, lifted three hogsheads of water, weighing 1859 lb., in Coldbath Fields.[67]

The DUKE OF ALBEMARLE figured on numberless signboards after the Restoration; but at the same period, there existed still older signs, on which his grace was simply called Monck; as for instance, that hung out by “Will. Kidd, suttler to the Guard at St James’s,”[68] which was the MONCK’S HEAD. Kidd had probably followed the army in many a campaign in former years, and was much more accustomed to the name of General Monck than that of his Grace the Duke of Albemarle. Of the Duke of Ormond there is still one instance remaining in Longstreet, Tetbury, Gloucester, under the name of the ORMOND’S HEAD. A very few Dukes of Marlborough are also left. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH’S HEAD in Fleet Street, was a tavern used for purposes very similar to those which we are accustomed now-a-days to behold at the St James’ and the Egyptian Halls. Among the Bagford Bills, and in the newspapers of the time, it is constantly mentioned as the place where something wonderful or amusing was to be seen--panoramas, dioramas, moving pictures, marionnettes, curious pieces of mechanism, &c., &c.[69]

The LORD CRAVEN was once a very popular sign in London. It occurs amongst the trades tokens of Bishopsgate Street Without, and even at present there is a CRAVEN HEAD and two CRAVEN ARMS in London. These signs were in honour of William Craven, eldest son of Sir William Craven, knt., (Sheriff of London _temp._ Queen Elizabeth.) This nobleman passed the greater part of his life abroad, serving the Protestant cause in Holland and in Germany. During the Civil War, he at various times gave pecuniary assistance to King Charles II., who at the Restoration created him Viscount Craven of Uffington, &c. He is said to have been privately married to Elizabeth, daughter of James I., the Queen of Bohemia. He died, April 19, 1697. Though his public and military career had certainly been brilliant, yet he owed his popularity probably more to his civic virtues, shewn during the plague period, when he and General Monck were almost the only men of rank that remained in town to keep order. He even erected a pesthouse at his own expense in Pesthouse Field, Carnaby Market, (now Marshall Street, Golden Square.) His assistance during the frequent London fires, also tended to make him a favourite with the Londoners.

“Lord Craven, in the time of King Charles II., was a constant man at a
fire; for which purpose he always had a horse ready saddled in his
stables, and rewarded the first that gave him notice of such an
accident. It was a good-natured fancy, and he did a good deal of
service; but in that reign everything was turned to a joke. The king
being told of a terrible fire that was broke out, asked if Lord Craven
was there yet. ‘Oh!’ says somebody by, ‘an’t please your majesty, he
was there before it began, waiting for it, he has had two horses burnt
under him already.’[70] On such occasions he usually rode a white
horse, well known to the London mob, which was said to smell the fires
from afar off.”

The EARL OF ESSEX, Elizabeth’s _quondam_ favourite, might have been met with on many signs long after the Restoration. There are trades tokens of a shop or tavern with such a sign on the Bankside, Southwark, and tokens are extant of two other shops that had the ESSEX ARMS. In the last century there was an ESSEX HEAD in Essex Street; in this tavern the Robin Hood Society, “a club of free and candid inquiry,” used to meet. It was originally established in 1613, at the house of Sir Hugh Middleton, the projector of the New River for supplying London with water. Its first meetings were held at the houses of members, but afterwards, the numbers increasing, they removed to the above tavern, and its name was altered into the “Essex Head Society.” In 1747 it removed to the Robin Hood in Butcher Row, near Temple Bar. The society attained a position of so much importance, that a history of its proceedings was published in 1764, giving an account of the subjects debated, and reports of some of the speeches. Seven minutes only were allowed to each speaker, at the expiration of which the _Baker_, or president, summed up. Many a young politician here winged his first flight.[71]

In 1784, the year of his death, Dr Johnson instituted at this house a club of twenty-four members, in order to insure himself society for at least three days in the week. He composed the regulations himself, and wrote above them the following motto from Milton:--

“To-day deep thoughts with me resolve to drench
In mirth which after no repenting draws.”

The house at that time was kept by Samuel Greaves, an old servant of Mrs Thrale. Each night of non-attendance was visited on the members by a fine of threepence. Members were to spend at least sixpence, besides a penny for the waiter. Each member had to preside one evening a month.

That the Earl of Essex, who had taken up arms against his queen, should have continued more than a century after his death, is easily accounted for by the immense popularity he enjoyed, exceeding that of any of his cotemporaries. More difficult to explain is the presence on English signboards of the Dutch ADMIRAL VAN TROMP; yet we find him in Church Street, Shoreditch, and in St Helen’s, Lancashire. His countryman, Mynheer van Donck, would certainly make a much more appropriate public-house sign.

Names of battles and glorious _faits d’ armes_ have also been much used as signs,--thus, GIBRALTAR, PORTOBELLO, the BATTLE OF THE NILE, the MOUTH OF THE NILE, TRAFALGAR, the BATTLE OF WATERLOO, the BATTLE OF THE PYRAMIDS, are all more or less common. The BULL AND MOUTH is said to have a similar origin, being a corruption of Boulogne Mouth, the entry to Boulogne Harbour, which grew into a popular sign after the capture of that place by Henry VIII. The first house with this sign is said to have been an inn in Aldgate. In less than a century the name was already corrupted into the “Bull and Mouth,” and the sign represented by a black bull and a large mouth. Thus it appears on the trades tokens, and also in a sculpture in the façade of the Queen’s Hotel, St Martin’s-le-Grand, formerly the Bull and Mouth Inn. Of the same time also dates the BULL AND GATE, a corruption of the Boulogne Gates, which Henry VIII. ordered to be taken away, and transported to Hardes, in Kent, where they still (?) remain. The Bull and Gate was a noted inn in the seventeenth century in Holborn, where Fielding makes his hero Tom Jones put up on his arrival in London. It is still in existence under the same name, though much reduced in size. There is another in New Chapel Place, Kentish Town; and a few imitations of it were carried to distant provincial towns by the coaches of old times.

Another sign of the same period, although not commemorative of a battle, was the GOLDEN FIELD GATE, mentioned by Taylor the water-poet, in 1632, as the sign of an inn at the upper end of Holborn. It was put up in honour of the Champ du Drap d’Or, where Henry VIII. and Francis I.,

“Those suns of glory, those two lights of men,
Met in the vale of Arde.”--_Henry VIII._, a. i. s. 1.

The signs of great men who have distinguished themselves in the civil walks of life are much more scarce. Archimedes we meet with as an optician’s sign. He had been adopted by that class of workmen on account of the burning lenses with which he set the Roman fleet on fire at Syracuse. Various implements of their trade were added as distinctions by the several shops who sold spectacles under his auspices, such as GOLDEN PROSPECTS OF PERSPECTIVES, (_i.e._, spectacles or any other glass that assisted the sight,) GLOBES, KING’S ARMS, &c. Among the Bagford Bills there is one of John Marshall, optician on Ludgate Hill, “at the sign of the OLD ARCHIMEDES AND TWO GOLDEN SPECTACLES,” which represents Archimedes taking astronomical observations, a huge pair of spectacles being suspended on one side of the sign, and on the other a lantern.[72] ARCHIMEDES AND THREE PAIR OF GOLDEN SPECTACLES was the sign of another optician in Ludgate Street, 1697, who evidently had adopted Marshall’s sign with the addition of one pair of spectacles, in the hope of filching some of his customers. SIR ISAAC NEWTON was another telescope-maker’s sign in Ludgate Street _circa_ 1795.[73] At the present day he occurs on a few public-houses; but it is somewhat more gratifying for our national pride to see a coffee-house in the Rue Arcade, Paris, named after him. LORD BACON’S HEAD was the sign of W. Bickerton, a bookseller, without Temple Bar, in 1735; LOCKE’S HEAD, of T. Peele, between the Temple Gates, 1718; JAMES FERGUSON figured at the door of an optical instrument maker in New Bond Street in 1780.[74] No doubt this optician was a Scotchman, who had given preference to a national celebrity. Just so, Andrew Miller, the great publisher and friend of Thomson, Hume, Fielding, &c., took the BUCHANAN HEAD for the sign of his shop in the Strand, opposite St Catherine Street, the house where the famous Jacob Tonson had lived, in whose time it was the SHAKESPEARE’S HEAD. But Miller preferred his countryman, and put up the less known head of George Buchanan, (1525-1582.) Buchanan was author of a version of the Psalms, and at various times of his life tutor to Queen Mary Stuart, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Principal of St Leonard’s, preceptor to James I., director of the Chancery, Privy Seal, &c.

CARDINAL WOLSEY occurs in many places, particularly in London, Windsor, and the neighbourhood of Hampton Court. ANDREW MARVEL is still commemorated on a sign in Whitefriargate, Hull, of which town he was a native. THOMAS GRESHAM, the founder of the Royal Exchange, was a favourite in London after the opening of the first Exchange in 1566; and SIR HUGH MIDDLETON, the projector of the New River, is duly honoured with two or three signs in Islington.

There exists a curious alehouse picture, called the THREE JOHNS, in Little Park Street, Westminster, and in White Lion Street, Pentonville. The same sign, many years ago, might have been seen in Bennett Street, near Queen Square, in the former locality. It represented an oblong table, with John Wilkes in the middle, the Rev. John Horne Tooke at one end, and Sir John Glynn (sergeant-at-law) at the other. There is a mezzotinto print of this picture (or the sign may be from the print) drawn and engraved by Richard Houston, 1769. John Wilkes, on whom the popular gratitude for writing the Earl of Bute out of power conferred many a signboard, still survives in a few spots. In a small Staffordshire town called Leek-with-Lowe, there is a stanch re-publican, who to this day keeps the WILKES’-HEAD as his sign, whilst another one occurs in Bridges Street, St Ives. SIR FRANCIS BURDETT is also far from forgotten, and may still be seen “hung in effigy” at Castlegate, Berwick, in Nottingham, and in a few other places.

In 1683, we find SIR EDMUNDBURY GODFREY on the picture-board of Langley Curtis, a bookseller near Fleetbridge. Being the martyr of a party, he undoubtedly for a while must have been a popular sign. LORD ANGLESEY was, in 1679, adopted by an inn in Drury Lane. This, we suppose, was Arthur, second Viscount Valentia, son of Sir Thomas Annesley, (Lord Mountmorris,) and elevated to the British peerage by the title of Earl of Anglesey in 1661; he died in 1686. One of the acts which probably contributed most to his popularity was that he, with the Lord Cavendish, Mr Howard, Dr Tillotson, Dr Burnet, and a few others, appeared to vindicate Lord Russell in the face of the court, and gave testimony to the good life and conversation of the prisoner.

The bulky figure of Paracelsus, or, as he called himself, Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus _Bombastus_ von Hohenheim, used formerly to be a constant apothecaries’ symbol. From an advertisement in the _London Gazette_, July 22-26, 1680, about a stolen horse “with a sowre head,” we gather that there was at that time a sign of PARACELSUS in Old Fish Street. Information about the horse with “the sowre head” would also be received at a house in Lambeth, with no less a dignitary for its sign than the BISHOP OF CANTERBURY, his grace having been thus honoured from a neighbourly feeling.

Doctor Butler, (_ob._ 1617,) physician to James I., and, according to Fuller, “the Æsculapius of that age,” invented a kind of medicated ale, called Dr Butler’s ale, “which, if not now, (1784,) was, a few years ago, sold at certain houses that had the BUTLER’S HEAD for a sign.”[75] One of the last remaining Butler’s Heads was in a court leading from Basinghall into Coleman Street.

SPINNING SOW.

(France, 1520.)

TWO STORKS.

(Antwerp, 1639.)

THE COMPLETE ANGLER.

(Banks’s Bills, 1780.)

HELP ME THROUGH THIS WORLD.

(Banks’s Bills, 1812.)

CROOKED BILLET.

(Harleian Collection, 1710.)]

That singularly successful quack, Lilly, though he ought not to be placed in such good company as the king’s physician, was also a constant sign, in the last century, at the door of sham doctors and astrologers. Not unfrequently they combined the BALLS (a favourite sign of the quacks) with Lilly’s head, as the BLACK BALL AND LILLYHEAD, the sign of Thomas Saffold, “an approved and licensed physician and student in astrology: he hath practised astronomy for twenty-four years, and hath had the Bishop of London’s licence to practise physick ever since the 4th day of September 1674, and hath, he thanks God for it, great experience and wonderful success in those arts.” He promised to perform the usual _tours de force_.

----“foretell what s’ever was
By consequence to come to pass;
As death of great men, alterations,
Diseases, battles, inundations,
Or search’d a planet’s house to know
Who broke and robb’d a house below.
Examined Venus and the Moon
To find who stole a silver spoon.”

_Butler’s Hudibras._

This address was “at the Black Ball and Lilly Head, next door to the Feather shops that are within Blackfriars gateway, which is over against Ludgate Church, just by Ludgate in London.”[76]

Classic authors also have come in for their share of signboard popularity in this country, which, at the time they flourished, was about as little civilized as the Sandwich Islands in the days of Captain Cook. These signs were set up by booksellers; thus HOMER’S HEAD was, in 1735, the sign of Lawton Gilliver, against St Dunstan’s Church, publisher of some of Pope’s works, and in 1761, of J. Walker at Charing Cross. Cicero, under the name of TULLY’S HEAD, hung at the door of Robert Dodsley, a famous bookseller in Pall Mall. In a newspaper of 1756, appeared some verses “on Tully’s head in Pall Mall, by the Rev. Mr G----s, of which the following are the first and the last stanzas:--

“Where Tully’s bust and honour’d name
Point out the venal page,
There Dodsley consecrates to fame
The classics of his age.

* * * * *

Persist to grace this humble post,
Be Tully’s head the sign,
Till future booksellers shall boast
To sell their tomes at thine.”

About the same time, the favourite Tully’s Head was also the sign of T. Becket, and P. A. de Hondt, booksellers in the Strand, near Surrey Street. HORACE’S HEAD graced the shop of J. White in Fleet Street, publisher of several of Joseph Strutt’s antiquarian works; and VIRGIL’S HEAD of Abraham van den Hoeck and George Richmond, opposite Exeter Change in the Strand, in the middle of the last century. Of SENECA’S HEAD two instances occur, J. Round in Exchange Alley in 1711, and ---- Varenne, near Somerset House, in the Strand, at the same period.

A few of our own poets are also common tavern pictures. As early as 1655 we find a (Ben) JONSON’S HEAD tavern in the Strand, where Ben Jonson’s chair was kept as a relic.[77] In that same year it was the sign of Robert Pollard, bookseller, behind the Royal Exchange. Ten years later it occurs in the following advertisement:--

“WHEREAS Thomas Williams, of the society of real and well-meaning
Chymists hath prepaired certain Medicynes for the cure and prevention
of the Plague, at cheap rates, without Benefit to himself, and for the
publick good, In pursuance of directions from authority, be it known
that these said Medicynes are to be had at Mr Thomas Fidges, in
Fountain Court, Shoe Lane, near Fleet Street, and are also left by him
to be disposed of at the GREEN BALL, within Ludgate, the Ben Jonson’s
Head, near Yorkhouse,” &c.[78]

There is still a Ben Jonson’s Head tavern with a painted portrait of the poet in Shoe Lane, Fleet Street; a Ben Jonson’s Inn at Pemberton, Wigan, Lancashire; and another at Weston-on-the Green, Bicester.