OLD LONDON.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 236, 5 October 1935, Page 8 (Supplement)

OLD LONDON.

SOME OF ITS «NUISANCES.” FOOTBALL AND BEAR BAITING. “Foote balles presented . . .” Thus did angry citizens of London in Queen Elizabeth’s reign complain to their wardmote about one of the diversions and distractions of that period. Curious' and interesting details of the life in Cornhill, as described in the MS. Wardmote records of Cornhill Ward (which are kept in She Church of St. Michael, Cornhill), are quoted by Dr. Kenneth Rogers, the authority of London history, in “Old London.” “Foote balles presented. Itm All foote balles and players and rouners after the same balles presented as great Anoyers and disturbers not onely of the Queen’s Majestie’s subjectes and citizens of This City . . . but also those mennes wares who keepe open shops are thereby sore spoyled . . . and further harme will ensewe if in tyme remedy be not provided for the let thereof.” “Often presented and not amended,” remarks the author, who gives other amusing extracts: 1575. “Itm the Exchange presented . . . for that Boys and Rogs annoye aswell the Audiens of St. Batholomew Church as the Merchants frequenting the same Exchange, by their disordered playe and noyse.” 1022. “The disturbance and annoyance caused by the Bearewards in bringing the beares, doggs and bulls before the Exchange in Cornehill, and there making proclamation commonly at the Exchange tyme, to the drawing together tumulte and other inconvenience” was presented. Office Boys’ Great Day. Dr. Rogers suggests that no doubt the office boys and junior clerks (to use modern terms) welcomed the “inconvenience”—in which trumpets and drums played a noticeable part—more than the older and serious merchants. Here is another contemporary picture:— 1623. “The great abuse and anoyance at the South Gate of the Royall Exchange, by the standing there of Ratcatchers and such as sell birds, plants, trees, doggs and other things, to the great annoyance and trouble of Merchants, Gentlemen, Ladies and others going to the Exchange and the Upper Pawne there.”

“The rat-catchers were of greater importance to the safety of the citizens than they imagined,” Dr. Rogers points out, “as we know now that the rat fleas carried the contagion of the dreaded plague. Two years later, in 1625, there was a terrible epidemic.” Dr. Rogers recalls that the Bear Garden at the Bankside was a favourite pleasure resort for Londoners, and that the different bears were well known by name to the citizens.

On December 9,1554, Machyn relates:— “The sam day at alternon was a berebeytyn. on the Banke syde, and ther the grett blynd bere broke losse, and in runyng away he chakt a servyng man by the calif of the lege, and bytt a grot jiesse away . . . that with-in iij days after he dcd.”