Smithfield Market

“ From Smithfield Market I went to Covent Garden Market, [Pg 441] which is a couple of miles distant, in Russell street, forming quite a spacious area. This is the great vegetable and flower market of London. There is a market held every morning in summer, but in winter, markets are held only on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. The market is owned by the Duke of Bedford, and was built at a cost of £30,000 by a former Duke of that family, forty years ago. ”

“ Perhaps at Smithfield-market on the Friday afternoons every street-trade in eatables and drinkables has its representative, with the exception of such things as sweet-stuff, curds and whey, &c., which are bought chiefly by women and children. ”

“ A steady old merchant who had been in the habit of making his appearance on ’Change some forty years ago would be not a little surprised with new London Bridge, and King William Street, and the new Exchange, and the new Fish Market, and new Cannon Street, and the removal of the market from the middle of Farringdon Street opposite the Debtors’ Prison, and more recently of that abominable old nuisance, Smithfield Cattle Market. ”

“ All meat delivered at Smithfield is of course dead, and no slaughtering is carried on in this market. Millions of pounds worth of meat finds its way here day after day, and thousands of men—porters and helpers and butchers' assistants—find employment here, their wages ranging from ten to thirty-five shillings a week.
Each helper is paid so much for every carcass which he carries into the market on his shoulders, and broad shoulders they have to be to carry these huge quarters of beef from the wagons which are drawn up in dense masses in and around the open spaces outside of the market walls. ”

“ The market day has never been changed from Thursday, though Tuesday and Saturday besides are now not enough; in fact, every day may be called market day, though Thursday attracts more of our friends from the country. The opening of Smithfield (May 29, 1817) was the means of concentrating the markets for horses, pigs, cattle, sheep, and farm produce, which for years previously had been offered for sale in New Street, Ann Street, High Street, and Dale End. The Market tolls, for which £12,500 was paid in 1812, produced £5,706 10s. ”

“ The unanimous feeling appeared to be, that an establishment outside the metropolis, with adequate room for the animals, where they could be free from that state of excitement to which they were subjected, from being driven through the streets, would necessarily be advantageous; the main thing that opposed itself to the plan, was the actual scarcity of buyers there, and he much feared that as long as the interests, which then surrounded Smithfield market, were made to tell, as they now did, on the butchers and salesmen, so long buyers would be deficient there ”

“ There is something about this busy market unlike any other that we have ever seen in England—in the mixture of cunning costermongers, and ruddy-faced countrymen; for in it buyers and sellers congregate from every corner of our sea-girt shores, and you hear the language of the provinces, and see costumes from the “nooks and corners” of England, which call up sweet green far-away places, where innocence and simplicity still reside, ignorant of the “fast” life we in this huge city are compelled to live.
But we will begin with the eating-houses in and around Smithfield. ”

“ In the latter place a good trade is frequently done between twelve at night and two in the morning. For the morning trade the best districts are the Strand, Oxford-street, City-road, New-road (from one end to the other) , the markets, especially Covent Garden, Billingsgate, Newgate, and the Borough. There are no coffee-stalls in Smithfield. The reason is that the drovers, on arriving at the market, are generally tired and cold, and prefer sitting down to their coffee in a warm shop rather than drink it in the open street. ”

“ He adds, that the dealers in the various sorts of commodities, and the labourers and artizans of every kind, were to be found every day stationed in their several distinct places throughout the city, and that a market was held every Friday in Smithfield for the sale of horses, cows, hogs, &c. ”

“ The receipts, then, for this street luxury—a receipt of 17s. 6d. affording a profit of 10s.—show a street expenditure in such a summer as the last, of 2,800l., by those who do not unite ginger-beer with the trade. Calculating that those who do unite ginger-beer with it sell only one-half as much as the others, we find a total outlay of 4,900l. One of the best trades is in the hands of a man who “works” Smithfield, and on the market days clears generally from 6s. ”

“ In one chief branch of refrigeration their produce stands first in quality, if not in quantity. I refer to the supply of mutton and lamb to the English market. In this they have to compete with the larger flocks of Australia and the Argentine, as well as, indirectly, with the huge herds and gigantic trade combinations of the United States. Of the competitors whose products meet at Smithfield, they are the most distant, and in their command of capital the least powerful. Moreover, they are without the advantage—if advantage it be—of cheap labour. ”

“ Smithfield, or West Smithfield, though the epithet West is never used but to distinguish it from East Smithfield near Little Tower Hill. This is the greatest market for black cattle, sheep and horses, in Europe; and also a considerable market for hay and straw; for the sale of which it was famous five hundred years ago. Maitland derives its name from its being originally a smooth or level field ”

“ The Fair occupied the whole space of ground extending from the walls of the Hospital to, and covering, the site of the present Meat Market. Smithfield was formerly lined with pens, in which the live cattle were placed previous to their being sold. ”

“ Besides its cattle, Smithfield has its hay-market; and we have{178} many a time wondered, while reading the names of the places on the carts and wagons, at the great distance from which they have come. Sometimes, overpowering every other poisonous smell, we have caught a sniff as if from a hay-field, telling us a sad tale of some poor farmer who had been compelled to bring the produce of his little field to market before the smell of the sweet grasses had died away. ”

“ SMITHFIELD. MITHFIELD-market will soon be numbered with the things that “have been;” the defenders of dirt must give way, and the foul and musty corners of the City be purified. Should the present work turn up in “a lot” some century hence, our description of Smithfield may be as great a curiosity to the reader then, as Ned Ward’s picture of a Lord Mayor’s show one hundred and fifty years ago was to us, when we chanced to stumble upon the remains of the tattered old quarto volume in which it has been so long preserved. ”

“ Too much praise cannot be conferred on this and similar instances of provincial improvement; while it is much to be regretted that such praise cannot be extended to the metropolis of England; for, strange to say, LONDON is still without a market-place suitable to its commercial consequence. Hence, Smithfield market is almost a public nuisance, while its extensive business is settled in public-houses in the neighbourhood; and the hay market, held in the fine broad street of that name, but ill accords with the courtly vicinity of Pall Mall and St. ”

“ Most of the tenants at Smithfield are commission salesmen, who pay weekly rents for their shops and stalls at space rates, all the fittings being supplied. Last year these rents brought in $427,920. There is a toll of a farthing on every 21 pounds of meat sold, which together with cold storage, weighing and other charges amounted in the same period to $241,635. The meat sales are entirely wholesale, except on Saturday afternoons, when there is a retail "People's Market," where thousands of the very poor buy cheap joints. ”

“ 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 11⁄2 acres. ”

“ Smithfield or Smoothfield, an open space of ground in London, N. of Newgate, long famous for its live-stock markets; in olden times lay outside the city walls, and was used as a place of recreation and of executions; the scene of William Wallace's execution and the death of Wat Tyler; gradually surrounded by the encroaching city, the cattle-market became a nuisance, and was abolished in 1855; is partly laid out as a garden. ”

“ Fish Market.—In April, 1851, the fishmongers' stalls were removed from Dale End, and the sale was confined to the Market Hall, but consequent on the increase of population, and therefore of consumption, a separate market, at corner of Bell Street, was opened in 1870, and that is now being enlarged.
Hide and Skin Market.—The sale of these not particularly sweet-smelling animal products was formerly carried on in the open at Smithfield, but a special market for them and for tallow was opened May 25, 1850; the same building being utilised as a wool market July 29, 1851. ”

“ The market at Rabba is very celebrated, and considered by traders as one of the largest and best in the whole country, of which it may be styled the emporium. On one market day, between one and two hundred men, women, and children were exposed for sale in ranks and lines, like the oxen at Smithfield. ”

“ Over 41 per cent of England's imported meat passes through Smithfield, and railroad access is arranged to the heart of the market. The Great Northern Railway Company has a lease from the corporation on 100,000 feet of basement works under the meat market, with hydraulic lifts to the level of the market hall, and inclined roadways for vehicular traffic. ”

“ Ten years ago the United States supplied 41 per cent of the Smithfield meat, but now these supplies have fallen off enormously and the last report of the Markets Committee says: "The United States, in particular for domestic needs, is within measurable distance of becoming a competitor with England for the output of South America." South America and Australasia are, indeed, the chief producers today for the British market. ”

“ He was surveyor for the Duke of Buckingham's Tufnell Park estate, for the Barnard estate, and the Bethnal Green estate. On 26 Feb. 1864 he was elected architect and surveyor to the city of London. In 1868 he designed and carried out the Central Meat Market, Smithfield, followed in 1875 by the adjoining poultry and provision market, and in 1883 by the fruit and vegetable market. In 1871 he converted the Deptford dockyard into a foreign cattle market, in 1877 he entirely reconstructed Billingsgate Market, and in 1882 rebuilt Leadenhall Market. ”

“ In the market-place meat may be purchased at 11⁄2d. per pound, but a duty is paid upon every article of consumption taken from the town to any other country, unless for the British navy. Vegetables are also very cheap, new potatoes (very fine at this season) are about one shilling per bushel; large oranges twelve a penny. The market is a miniature Smithfield with respect to cattle, owing to the great number of horses, camels, and asses, used in bringing goods to it, as [Pg 5] well as bullocks, sheep, and goats for sale. All goods are transported from one place to another on beasts of burden. ”

“ Apart from the horse, ass, and goat trade (of which I shall give an account hereafter) , it is a grand Second-hand Costermongers’ Exchange. The trade is not confined to that large body, though they are the principal merchants, but includes greengrocers (often the costermonger in a shop) , carmen, and others. It is, moreover, a favourite resort of the purveyors of street-provisions and beverages, of street dainties and luxuries. Of this class some of the most prosperous are those who are “well known in Smithfield.” ”

“ It has in all cases, therefore, turned it, from a direction in which it would have maintained a greater quantity of productive labor, into one in which it can maintain a much smaller quantity. By suiting, besides, to one particular market only, so great a part of the industry and commerce of Great Britain, it has rendered the whole state of that industry and commerce more precarious and less secure, than if their produce had been accommodated to a greater variety of markets. ”

“ Markets.—The City Corporation exercises a control over the majority of the London markets, which dates from the close of the 14th century, when dealers were placed under the governance of the mayor and aldermen. The markets thus controlled are:
Central Markets, Smithfield, for meat, poultry, provisions, fruit, vegetables, flowers and fish. These extend over a great area north of Newgate Street and east of Farringdon Road. Beneath them are extensive underground railway sidings. ”

“ If the commodities of Great Britain were not in demand in that country, he would endeavour to send them to some other country in which he could purchase a bill upon that country. The transportation of commodities, when properly suited to the market, is always attended with a considerable profit; whereas that of gold and silver is scarce ever attended with any. When those metals are sent abroad in order to purchase foreign commodities, the merchant’s profit arises, not from the purchase, but from the sale of the returns. ”