THE BUTCHERS COMPANY

As early as the year 1180 the fraternity or guild of Butchers of the City, then and long after called “bochers,” was in existence.

This Company was incorporated in the year 1606, having existed without a charter from time immemorial. I venture to advance the theory that one reason why the Butchers did not seek corporation before this date was the authority which the City claimed and exercised in all matters connected with food, and especially with meat, fish, and bread; and that which every alderman exercised in his own ward. Thus it was the duty of the alderman to be notified as to the names of every person in the ward exercising any trade connected with food; and the mayor’s regulations as to the trade of butcher (see Liber Albus, passim) seem to leave little need for the scrutiny of a Master.

The principal seat of the butchers was in Newgate Street, then called St. Nicholas Shambles. The spot was chosen as a place near the principal communications of the City with the north and west respectively. Animals brought in to be slaughtered had not far to go within the City. Moreover, it was not a crowded part of London, and was removed from the principal place of trade and from the port. The butchers had also a market at the “Stocks,” and another at East Chepe. There was, however, a very great dislike to living near the Shambles or to keeping shops and stalls near those of the butchers.

Thus Riley (Memorials) quotes a complaint against the butchers that they carried their offal through the streets to a jetty called Butchers’ Bridge. The way, I suppose, was down Warwick Lane, Creed Lane, and St. Andrew’s Hill to Puddle Dock or near it. The carriage of this stuff, often stinking and always dripping blood along the street, caused great complaints. Thus orders were issued one after the other in 1368, 1369, and 1371, commanding the butchers to find a place outside the City for a slaughter-house. The law was never obeyed: probably the butchers made some kind of compromise or were more careful in the carriage of the offal. They had already a place on the banks of the Fleet to which they were allowed to cart their refuse, on condition that it was thrown in at the turn of the tide.

The livery of the Company is 159; their trust and charitable Income amounts to £831 a year.

Daniel Defoe, son of James Foe, citizen and butcher, was a member of this Company by patrimony; admitted January 12, 1687.

The first glimpse of Cloth Fair from the Smithfield end is full of interest and attraction. It abounds in very old houses with projecting stories and gable ends. Many of these have the bowed curve of old age resembling the curving back of an old man. In others door-lintels and window-frames have slipped out of their horizontal lines. Barley Mow Passage is dull; it contains only plain warehouse-like buildings. In Cloth Fair, Nos. 6 to 4 are covered with rough stucco and have bayed windows and gable ends. These are the fronts of those seen over the churchyard. In New Court are buildings of a similar nature. There are interspersed with these quaint remnants of old domestic architecture business houses of no particular style. No. 13 on the north side, and the next one or two following it, are really old, and then we come to the corner of Kinghorn Street, where one of the oldest taverns remaining in London stands. This is the Dick Whittington. The corner is rounded off, and each story projects a little farther than the lower one. There is an ornamental cornice and gable end; the whole is covered with rough stucco.

Smithfield.—Stow says: “Then is Smithfield Pond, which of old times in recordes was called Horse Poole, for that men watered horses there, and was a great water. In the 6th of Henry the fifth a new building was made in this west part of Smithfielde betwixt the said Pool and the River of the Wels or Turnemill Brooke in a place (then called the Elmes, for that there grew many Elme trees), and this had been the place of execution for offenders, since the which time the building there hath been so increased that now remaineth not one tree growing.”

The Elms here mentioned was the place of public execution until the middle of the thirteenth century; an honour transferred to St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and later to the more notorious Tyburn. Among the best known of those who suffered execution at Smithfield is William Wallace. Jack Straw, the rebel, was hanged at Smithfield, and here took place the picturesque scene, when the beautiful boy-king, Richard II., met Wat Tyler, and showed courage such as won admiration for the promise of his future, a promise destined to remain unfulfilled. Then and later Smithfield was the great jousting field and playground of London. Many were the brilliant tourneys held here, when knights met in chivalrous contest, and all the flower of England’s manhood drew together to try prowess at arms.

Smithfield, however, will be always best remembered by the blood of the martyrs which watered the ground. The spot where these cruelties took place is probably somewhere near the gate of St. Bartholomew’s. Between 1555 and 1611, many were the sufferings endured at Smithfield. Timbs says that of the 277 martyrs in Mary’s reign the greater number suffered here.

In Henry VIII.’s reign poisoners were boiled to death at Smithfield. A place more closely associated with the life of London than this could hardly be imagined, yet nowadays who associates Smithfield with anything but markets!

In the centre of the open space is an inclined plane winding downward with a corkscrew turn until it passes into the basement of the Meat Market. Northward is the huge building erected by Act of Parliament in 1860, the year preceding the dismarketing of Newgate, which was closed at its opening seven years later. Sir Horace Jones was the architect, and the style is that generally known as Italian. The chief points of architectural effect are the four towers, the frontispieces or façades of the public roadway, which passes through the market from north to south, and the pedimented gateways to the east and west fronts. The plan or interior arrangement of the ground-floor is exceedingly simple. A great central roadway runs through from north to south. This was a compromise or concession to existing interests. It is from 50 to 60 feet wide, and the gateways at the entrances are very fine.

That on the south is ornamented by emblematical figures representing London and Edinburgh, and that on the north by similar figures symbolic of Dublin and Liverpool.

The central roadway is bisected by an east and west avenue 25 feet in width. The entrance gates at the ends of this are somewhat similar to those of the larger roadway. Six smaller avenues run parallel to the central roadway, cutting this secondary avenue at right angles. The blocks between the avenues contain the shops. These average about 36 feet by 15, and have offices and accommodation rooms above. The four corner blocks formerly contained taverns, but only two of these now remain. The roof is an adaption of the Mansard principle, and is filled in with glass louvres. A peculiar feature of the market is the great underground basement which is hollowed out to a depth of 22 feet, and extends even some distance beyond the limits of the building. This is supported by iron girders measuring roughly about five miles, and containing about 3000 tons of wrought iron. This is intersected by railway lines. Over the northern half the Metropolitan Railway has running powers; the southern forms a depot of the Great Western Railway. There are here two hydraulic hoists, and the meat brought by the Great Western lines is hoisted straight into the market. The circular depression mentioned as being in the centre of West Smithfield is in connection with this depot. All other meat is brought in vans and unloaded in the usual way. From 1 o’clock in the middle of the night for three mornings in the week, and from 2 o’clock the other two mornings the market is open, and closes alternately at 1 o’clock and 2 o’clock in the daytime.

From very early times Smithfield has been a market in addition to its manifold other uses. Stow says:

“There be the pens or folds, so called of sheep there parted, and penned up to be sold on market days.”

The Poultry Market adjoining was opened December 1, 1875. It covers an area of rather less than 1½ acres. It is similar generally in exterior treatment to the market already described but differs in small particulars. It is also on a different plan internally from the Meat Market, having a square of shops round the outer edge and four intersecting avenues which cut it up into central blocks. Here every shop has its cellar beneath, and the vaults which run beneath the avenues are occupied by a cold-air storage company, to whom belongs the great ventilating shaft in the triangular bit of land facing King Street. The London, Chatham, and Dover line also cuts diagonally beneath the market, but though the tunnelling is raised a little above the level of the flooring it still leaves room for vaults where it passes. There is one tavern in the Poultry Market.

The General Market is more expensive to the holder than either of the above, for it is let by tender to the highest bidder, whereas the others, by Act of Parliament, cannot claim a higher rental than a penny per square foot, and something extra for office space, etc.

This market was built to supersede the old Farringdon Market, and was at first meant for vegetables. At the time (1883) there was a movement towards a new Fish Market, and so the building was devoted to that purpose. The fish business, however, was not successful, and in December 1889 the market was transformed into a general market supplementary to the meat and poultry. It is now fully occupied, and brings in a very good rental.

The Fish Market on Snow Hill was opened in 1888. It is of triangular shape, and contains an inner triangle also. This is managed on much the same plan as the rest, but does not seem to be very successful; for some reason the fish trade does not flourish at Smithfield.

For a full account of Bartholomew Fair, so popular while it lasted, see London in the Eighteenth Century, p. 465.