page_title: Costermonger
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Costermonger / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: punchv40lemo (find matches) Title: Punch Year: 1841 (1840s) Authors: Lemon, Mark, 1809-1870 Mayhew, Henry, 1812-1887 Taylor, Tom, 1817-1880 Brooks, Shirley, 1816-1874 Burnand, F. C. (Francis Cowley), 1836-1917 Seaman, Owen, 1861-1936 Subjects: English wit and humor English wit and humor, Pictorial Publisher: (London)&#160;: (Punch Publications Ltd., etc.) Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection Digitizing Sponsor: The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: se who ve passed from your diocese, And that, rather, on effort your Lordship determines To wake those you still can afflict with your Sermons. An Example that is Set us by our Setters. There go the pigeons \ exclaimed with delight young Bob,after the great race had been run, as the birds went circling beautifullythrough the air. Yes, my boy, said an oldster, who had apparently made in histime as many books as Alexandre Dumas, only perhaps not all ofthem so full of interest, look at them well; for 1 can tell you it isnot often that you will see a pigeon that is let off on the Turf. HEAT OF TEMPER PRODUCIBLE BY THE HEAT OP THE WEATHER. Hot weather frequently has the effect of making many good-temperedpersons extremely choleric, for which due allowance should be made;for is it not natural that a person who has been for hours exposed to abroiling hot sun, should evince the strongest desire at the first oppor-tunity to take umbrage&#160;? 228 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. (June 1, 1861. v)A^ Text Appearing After Image: DAY BEFORE THE DERBY. Costermonger (loq.) Ax yer pardon, Miss, but I must get yc to take a double Uowance o greens to-day, as to-morrows the Derby. HAVELOCKS HUMBLE PETITION. What I have done is done&#160;: my countrys gratitude—Amply has been expressed to me and mine;In every form of paraphrase and platitudeEmployed where Englishmen in public dine. ~\ My birth-place is recorded in topography; In print and out of print I have been moarned;Done, overdone, in pietist biography,My moral pointed, and my tale adorned. A grey-haired subaltern the Horseguards left me,Too poor to purchase, too proud to despair;Of all save faith and fight years had bereft me,When sunset glory lit on my grey hair. , And I, whose long day passed in the cold shade,Went to my grave, at last, in dazzling light:Happier that I had served my countrys need.Than in the fame which came so close on night. Respect my modest life, and leave my nameWhere my own hand has set it—on the rollOf Indian war: at least, let meddling Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: Costermonger, coster, or costard is a street seller of fruit and vegetables in London and other British towns. The term is derived from the words costard and monger, and later came to be used to describe hawkers in general. Some historians have pointed out that a hierarchy existed within the costermonger class and that while costermongers sold from a handcart or animal-drawn cart, mere hawkers carried their wares in a basket.
  Costermongers met a need for rapid food distribution from the wholesale markets by providing retail sales at locations that were convenient for the labouring classes. Costermongers used a variety of devices to transport and display produce: a cart might be stationary at a market stall, a mobile apparatus or a hand-held basket might be used for light-weight goods such as herbs and flowers.
  Costermongers experienced a turbulent history, yet survived numerous attempts to eradicate their class from the streets. Programmes designed to curtail their activities occurred during the reigns of Elizabeth I, Charles I and reached a peak during Victorian times.
context_section_description: 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 Marlowe mention costermongers in their writings.
  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.
  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.
  Throughout the 18th century, the streets of London filled with costermongers and competition between them became intense. To stand out amid the crowd, costers began to develop distinctive cries. Mayhew describes a Saturday night in the New Cut, a street in Lambeth, south of the river, 
   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. 
  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." 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. 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. 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]."
  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.
  Initiatives to rid the city of street traders were by no means new to the 19th-centu
caption: Cartoon featuring a costermonger from Punch, 1841
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