Editing Costermonger (section)

==History==

Costermongers were known to have been in London from at least the 15th century, and possibly much earlier. Mayhew, writing in the 1840s, called costermongering an "ancient calling" and attributed the first written descriptions of the street sellers' distinctive cries and sales patter appearing in a ballad, entitled ''London Lyckpeny'' by John Lydgate probably written in the late 1300s and first performed around 1409. [[Shakespeare]] and [[Christopher Marlowe|Marlowe]] mention costermongers in their writings.<ref>Mayhew, H., ''London Labour and the London Poor: A Cyclopædia of the Condition and Earnings of Those that Will Work, Those that Will Not Work and Those who Cannot Work'', Vol. 1, (originally published in 1848) NY, Cosimo Classics, 2009, pp 7–8</ref>

Although the term 'costermonger' was used to describe any hawker of fresh produce, it became strongly associated with London-based street vendors following a surge in their numbers in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were most numerous during the [[Victorian era]], when Mayhew estimated their London numbers at between 30,000 and 45,000 in the late 1840s.<ref>Mayhew, H., ''London Labour and the London Poor: A Cyclopædia of the Condition and Earnings of Those that Will Work, Those that Will Not Work and Those who Cannot Work'', Vol. 1, (originally published in 1848), NY, Cosimo Classics, 2009, pp 4–6; Mayhew notes that the census figures are unreliable on account of high levels of illiteracy amongst costermongers and provides a detailed account of how he arrived at these estimates. It may be worth noting that most historians accept Mayhew's estimates and the numbers are widely cited in secondary sources.</ref>

In the decades after the Great Fire of London, a major rebuilding programme led to the removal of London's main produce market, [[Stocks Market]], in 1773. The displacement of the open market to a less strategic location led to a period of decline for retail markets. While wholesale markets continued to prosper, retail markets lost their foothold. Costermongers filled the gap by providing inexpensive produce in small quantities to the working classes, who, for their part, worked long hours in arduous occupations leaving them no time to attend markets far from the city centre. With the influx of people in London, in the years after the [[Industrial Revolution]], demand outstripped retail capacity, such that costermongers performed a 'vital role' providing food and service to the labouring classes.<ref name="Jones, P.T.A. 2006, pp 64"/>

Throughout the 18th century, the streets of London filled with costermongers and competition between them became intense.<ref>Kelley, V., "The Streets for the People: London's Street Markets 1850–1939, ''Urban History, '' June, 2015, pp 1-21,</ref> To stand out amid the crowd, costers began to develop distinctive cries. Mayhew describes a Saturday night in the [[The Cut, London|New Cut]], a street in [[Lambeth]], south of the river,

{{blockquote| Lit by a host of lights… the Cut was packed from wall to wall…. The hubbub was deafening, the traders all crying their wares with the full force of their lungs against the background din of a horde of street musicians.<ref>Mayhew, Henry 1851–1861. ''London Labour and the London Poor''. Researched and written, variously, with J. Binny, B. Hemyng and A. Halliday.</ref> }}

[[File:Mrs. Patrick Campbell as Eliza Doolittle 1914.jpg|thumb|right|Actress, [[Mrs Patrick Campbell]], dressed in costermonger costume, 1914]]

During the 19th century, costermongers gained an unsavoury reputation for their "low habits, general improvidence, love of gambling, total want of education, disregard for lawful marriage ceremonies, and their use of a peculiar slang language."<ref>[[John Camden Hotten]], ''[[A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words|The Slang Dictionary]]'', 1859</ref> Mayhew was aware of this reputation, but exhibited an ambivalent attitude towards them. On the one hand, he described them as ''usurers'' and pointed out that cheating was widespread. Weights were flattened to make products look bigger and heavier, and measures were fitted with thick or false bottoms to give false readings. On the other hand, Mayhew also noted that in his own personal experience, "they are far less dishonest than they are usually believed to be.<ref>Henry Mayhew, ''London Labour and the London Poor'', 1848</ref> James Greenwood, a Victorian journalist and social commentator, also used derogatory language to describe costermongers and their markets but was aware of the essential service they provided by noting that the poor would be the ultimate "losers" if they were denied access to the costermongering culture which supported them.<ref>As cited in Jones, P.T.A., "Redressing Reform Narratives: Victorian London's Street Markets and the Informal Supply Lines of Urban Modernity," ''The London Journal'', Vol 41, No. 1, 2006, p. 72</ref> The Methodist writer, Godfrey Holden Pike, argued that the Sabbath market was vulgar, but in later writings, he noted that "influential newspapers have often misrepresented him [the costermonger]."<ref>As cited in Jones, P.T.A., "Redressing Reform Narratives: Victorian London's Street Markets and the Informal Supply Lines of Urban Modernity," ''The London Journal'', Vol 41, No. 1, 2006, p. 61 and p. 72</ref>

Historians such as Jones have argued that the promulgation of a stereotypical image of costermongers was part of a broader agenda to clear London's streets of unruly street vendors, who obstructed traffic in a rapidly growing metropolis that was barely coping with an increasing amount of vehicular traffic and street congestion. In addition, a movement to eradicate Sunday trading altogether was gathering momentum and set its sights on the informal, unregulated retail trade. Broadsheets of the day served to perpetuate costermongers' stigmatised status by stories of the moral decay that surrounded places where costers congregated.<ref>Jones, P.T.A., "Redressing Reform Narratives: Victorian London's Street Markets and the Informal Supply Lines of Urban Modernity," ''The London Journal'', Vol 41, No. 1, 2006, pp 63–64</ref>

Initiatives to rid the city of street traders were by no means new to the 19th century. Charles Knight wrote of various attempts to curtail street-based trading during the reigns of Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and Charles I (1625–1649).<ref>Knight, C., "Street Noises," Chapter 2 in Knight, C. (ed), ''London'', Vol. 1, C. Knight & Co.,1841. p. 135</ref> However, from the 1840s, the community of costermongers faced increasing opposition from three distinct quarters: the [[vestry]], which viewed street markets as the focus of public disorder; the movement to abolish Sunday trading; and public authorities who were concerned with the rise of unregulated markets and problems associated with street congestion.<ref>Jones, P.T.A., "Redressing Reform Narratives: Victorian London's Street Markets and the Informal Supply Lines of Urban Modernity," ''The London Journal'', Vol 41, No. 1, 2006, p. 64; Ian Peddie, "Playing at Poverty: The Music Hall and the Staging of the Working Class," Chapter 12 in Aruna Krishnamurthy (ed), ''The Working-Class Intellectual in Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Britain'' Ashgate Publishing, 2009</ref> Throughout the 1860s, the Commissioner of the Police, Richard Mayne, waged war on costermongers and succeeded in closing several markets while authorities and prominent philanthropists began constructing new covered market places designed to replace street selling.<ref>Jones, P.T.A., "Redressing Reform Narratives: Victorian London's Street Markets and the Informal Supply Lines of Urban Modernity," ''The London Journal'', Vol 41, No. 1, 2006 p. 64 and pp 73–74</ref>

[[File:Punch (1841) (14587748598).jpg|thumb|left|Cartoon featuring a costermonger from ''Punch'', 1841]]

In London's Bethnal Green, hostilities between authorities and costers reached a peak by the late 1870s. The vestry, claiming that costers were obstructing the streets, contributing to street litter and encouraging gambling and prostitution, resurrected an ancient law to prevent street trading at certain times. They created a ''Street Regulation Committee'' and employed a salaried ''Street Inspector'' to oversee compliance. They insisted that coffee stalls close by 7.30am daily, precisely when workers, on their way to work, might be in need of a hot drink. Some 700 local residents petitioned against the laws. In spite of the apparent public support, the vestry's persistence resulted in many street vendors being fined. Costermongers in the markets of Club Street and Sclater Street were subject to verbal abuse, had their stalls overturned, their barrows and carts impounded and occasionally their products tipped down a nearby drain.<ref>Wise, S., ''The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum'', Vintage Books, London, 2009, pp 154–156</ref>

In February, 1888, the ''Bethnall Green Costermongers' and Stallkeepers' Society'' was formed. Its primary aim was to fight prosecutions against costers with the help of a solicitor, who was paid a retainer. When the group learned that similar crackdowns on costers were occurring in St Luke's Parish and St Georges Parish, the group broadened its base, by forming the ''London United Costermongers' League''.<ref>Wise, S., ''The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum'', Vintage Books, London, 2009, pp 156–159; Winstanley, M.J., ''The Shopkeeper's World, 1830–1914'', Alden Pres, Oxford, 1983, p. 95; other costermongers unions were formed in London and in the counties, throughout the 1890s and early 1900s: see Marsh, A.'', Historical Directory of Trade Unions'', Volume 5, Ashgate, 2009</ref> Public support was very much on the side of the costermongers. Members of the public were skeptical of the vestry's motivations and believed that shopkeepers were using the issue to eliminate the cheaper produce in order to reduce competitive pressures. Justice of the Peace, Montagu Williams, visited Sclater Street personally and concluded that the vestry had little cause for complaint. From then on, the justices ensured that stall-holders were given minimal fines, taking much of the steam out of the vestry's programme of opposition.<ref>Wise, S., ''The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum'', Vintage Books, London, 2009, pp 156–57</ref> The costers also pleaded for assistance from a philanthropist, the Earl of Shaftesbury, who pressed the costers' case with the vestry. Punitive orders were eventually rescinded.<ref>Jones, P.T.A., "Redressing Reform Narratives: Victorian London's Street Markets and the Informal Supply Lines of Urban Modernity," ''The London Journal'', Vol 41, No. 1, 2006 p. 73</ref>

[[File:Flower Hawker London, circa 1930.jpg|thumb|right|Flower Sellers in Bethnal Green, circa 1930]]

The events surrounding the costermongers' resistance to various attempts to eradicate them from the streets only heightened their animosity towards the police, which could be extreme. For many members of the working class, the costermongers' highly-visible resistance made them heroes. As one historian noted: 
::With the [[navvy|navvies]] a state of permanent warfare with civil authority was common, but not inevitable; with the London costermongers it was axiomatic.<ref>Chesney, Kellow 1970. ''The Victorian Underworld''. Penguin p. 43.</ref>

By the end of the 19th century, the costermongers were in gradual decline. They did not disappear as mobile street-sellers until the 1960s, when the few that remained took pitches in local markets.{{citation needed|date=July 2017}}