Smithfield

“ Remains of ancient London are still to be found in the neighbourhood of Smithfield. The courts and alleys about Cloth Fair, and behind Long-lane, are perfect labyrinths, and so full of ins and outs, that they astonish the stranger who ventures to thread his way through them. Bartholomew’s Church is also one of the very oldest in the City; and we never look upon its weather-beaten tower without recalling the scenes which have taken place in the vast area which stretches out before it.
There is no spot in London richer in historical associations than Smithfield. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Between Smithfield and Crane, she was hustled out of the room.
Alone in the hall, Crane and his butler held a consultation.
"She's got to go, Smithfield. Why in the world wouldn't she hold her tongue? Poor girl, I felt every sympathy with her."
"Oh, sir," exclaimed Smithfield, "what shall we do? Jane-Ellen and I really can't run the house entirely alone, sir."
"Of course not, of course not," Burton answered. "You must get some more servants. Get as many as you please—black, white, or red—but for heaven's sake get the kind that won't be impertinent to Mrs. Falkener." ”

“ Smithfield, long established as a place of execution, was naturally selected by the civic authorities; hence the evil celebrity of Smithfield as the place of burning of heretics. The fires of Smithfield, associated in the popular mind with “bloody Mary,” were kindled long before her time, and continued long after her. ”

“ This was the star, the Hyperion of the fair—it stood out bright and undaunted as in happier times—it was the last gallant upholder of poor Smithfield's dying splendour. We admit that there was a crowd before this show, but it was not a Bartholomew-fair crowd. ”

“ One of the most barbarous and disgraceful of London neighbourhoods in 1847, and for many years afterwards, was Smithfield; the present generation can form no idea of the state of things thirty years ago, which is referred to in the cartoon of Punch and the Smithfield Savages, the artist borrowing his idea from West’s well-known picture of “Penn’s Treaty with the Indians.” ”

“ SMITHFIELD
—is the name of a most celebrated spot in the Metropolis, from which a SPORTSMAN is not likely to derive either pleasure or emolument; unless it is in the purchase of diseased or emaciated subjects for his HOUNDS. To those in remote parts of the kingdom, it may not be inapplicable to be informed, that Smithfield is the great CATTLE MARKET for the consumption of the infinite body of inhabitants in the cities of London, Westminster, their suburbs, and the environs for some miles round. The principal days are Monday and Friday in every week ”

“ That this town was once called Smithfield there can be no doubt, and that it now is Somerfield is equally clear. It was originally called Smithfield, because its founder’s name was Smith, but the postoffice department changed it to Somerfield on account of the great multitude of Smiths and Smithfields in all portions of the universe. ”

“ Smithfield, like Greenfield, is owned by the descendants of the first white family who settled there after the Indians, and its verdant pastures, noble forests, and mountain streams and springs, form a prospect wondrously beautiful. ”

“ But when you consider those bony, broad-shouldered, firm-looking Englishmen, you understand at once that such men could not live on literature alone. Paternoster-row, the centre of the book-trade, carries on its existence in modest retirement amidst a conglomeration of large and small streets, but to the north there is the provoking, broad, impertinent extent of old Smithfield, the notorious cattle-market of London, the greatest cattle-market in the world, the dirtiest of all the dirty spots which disgrace the fair face of the capital of England. ”

“ BARTHOLOMEW FAIR, 1721
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. ”

“ Surrounded by dirty streets, lanes, courts, and alleys, the haunts of poverty and crime, Smithfield is infested not only with fierce and savage cattle, but also with the still fiercer and more savage tribes of drivers and butchers. ”

“ When the maidens died “they gave those pleasant fields unto the London citizens, “Where lovingly both man and wife May take the evening air; And London dames to dry their cloaths May hither still repair!”
Then was Osier Lane (the Smithfield end of which is immortalised in Bartholomew Fair annals) a long narrow slip of greensward, watered on both sides by a tributary streamlet from the river Fleet, on the margin of which grew a line of osiers, that hung gracefully over its banks. ”

“ He would be as much surprised to be told that Smithfield was literally the abode of incarnate demons, as to hear that demons have often assumed the shapes of beasts and monsters in their conflicts with the elect. The notion that an angel might visibly appear to a pious traveller on the Great Western or Birmingham railroad, and protect him from death in a frightful collision of trains, makes him open his eyes and contemplate you as scarcely sane to hint at such a thing. ”

“ London was thronged with warriors of every clime and language. Smithfield was surrounded with temporary chambers and pavilions, constructed for the accommodation of the King and the princes, the Queen and the maidens of her court; and when the solemnity was about to commence, sixty horses, richly accoutred, were led to the lists by squires, accompanied by heralds and minstrels; after which, sixty ladies followed on palfreys, each lady leading an armed knight by a chain of silver. ”

“ His stable is filled with so many diseases, one would think most part about Smithfield was an hospital for horses, or a slaughter-house of the common hunt. Let him furnish you with a hackney, it is as much as if the King's warrant overtook you within ten miles to stay your journey. And though a man cannot say he cozens you directly, yet any hostler within ten miles, should he be brought upon his book-oath, will affirm he hath laid a bait for you. Resolve when you first stretch yourself in the stirrups, you are put as it were upon some usurer that will never bear with you past his day. ”

“ But under a true democracy, if I were still in an inferior position, I should have to admit I belonged there, which I don't admit at all now, not at all."
"But how about my not admitting that I'm a master?" said Crane.
"In one sense, perhaps you are not, sir," answered Smithfield. "For, after all, some training is necessary to be a servant, particularly a butler, but for the exercise of the functions of the higher classes, no training at all seems to be required. ”

“ Henry Leland, of Lincoln Motors, brought to Mr. Bulkley, the banker, at that time a regent, the dreadful story that Smithfield was a Socialist; so the president of the university summoned him in haste: “My dear Smithfield,” said he, “can’t you see that if you were to divide everything up, it would not be many years before the more able people had got possession of everything again?” Such was the mentality of the aged native product; and he was backed by Mr. Beal, the resident regent, owner of banks and saloon real estate. ”

“ The great open space of Smithfield, the favourite meeting-place on the north of London, and the chosen site for the tournaments and jousts, was crowded on all sides. Near the gate of St. Bartholomew’s Priory were the King and his Court, and farther to the west were the ranks of the Commons set in order of battle. ”

“ Bartholomew Fair.
At ten o’clock this morning I entered Smithfield from Giltspur-street. [Mem. This way towards Smithfield was anciently called Gilt Spurre, or Knight-Riders Street, because of the knights, who in quality of their honour wore gilt spurs, and who, with others, rode that way to the tournaments, justings, and other feats of arms used in Smithfield. [273] ]
On this day there were small uncovered stalls, from the Skinner-street corner of Giltspur-street, beginning with the beginning of the churchyard, along the whole length of the churchyard. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here Mr. Wemmick assisted his Principal in the details of his professional business. He may be remembered as having a decided preference for “portable property.”
Proceeding onward by Duke Street, the visitor will shortly come into Smithfield, a locality which is considerably changed since the days when Pip first arrived in London. He says—
“When I told the clerk that I would take a turn in the air while I waited, he advised me to go round the corner and I should come into Smithfield. ”

“ The first white proprietor of this place, the great grandfather of the present owners, had also a large estate in Montgomery county, called Smithfield, where his family lived, and where was a fort for the protection of the whites, when attacked by the Indians.
Once, while the owner was at his Greenfield place, the Indians surrounded Smithfield, when the white women and children took refuge in the fort, and the men prepared for battle. They wanted the proprietor of Smithfield to help fight and take command, for he [Pg 38] was a brave man, but could not spare a man to carry him the news. ”

“ During the next two days the warlike sport was continued; the nights being spent in the same manner as before. The pomp and state must have been of the most magnificent description. All this took place just outside the Priory, on the spot that Rahere had been at so much trouble to level and fill up when Henry I. gave it him, and which was afterwards called “Smoothfield,” from his success in levelling it, and subsequently “Smithfield,” from the smith’s furnace used here.
We now introduce one of the celebrated executions that took place in Edward I. reign. ”

“ They were led out to Smithfield followed by a great crowd; the ordeal was not a function that could be witnessed every day; the Londoners have always turned out in force to witness an execution, or a flogging, or pillory, or any act of justice. On Smithfield, at the east of the Elms, that is, nearly in front of Bartholomew’s Hospital, a fire of wood was burning in an open grate ”

“ This year appears to have been the first in which puppet-shows were allowed to be set up in Smithfield after being excluded for several years; as in 1776 a more than ordinary degree of irritation was produced by their exclusion, “Lady Holland’s mob” proclaiming the fair without any restriction, and a disturbance arising afterwards, in the course of which the windows of nearly every house round Smithfield were broken by the rioters. Flockton and Jobson attended the fair regularly for many years. ”

“ Before daybreak is the best time to see the Markets of London in all their bustle and brisk traffic, and one summer morning I accordingly took a cab from the Langham Hotel and told the sleepy driver to take me to the New Smithfield Market, [Pg 437] which is convenient to Newgate Prison. We dashed madly in the gray of the morning (it was not yet more than four o'clock) through Regent street, up Oxford street, over the Holborn Viaduct, and so on to the Smithfield Police Station, which is situated at a few rods distant from the place where the Cock Lane Ghost was first discovered. ”

“ Of a great Institution like Smithfield, they are unable to form the least conception. A Beast Market in the heart of Paris would be regarded an impossible nuisance. Nor have they any notion of slaughter-houses in the midst of a city. One of these benighted frog-eaters would scarcely understand your meaning, if you told him of the existence of such a British bulwark. ”

“ In the summer of 1750, a numerously signed petition of graziers, cattle salesmen, and inhabitants of Smithfield was presented to the Court of Aldermen, praying for the suppression of Bartholomew Fair, on the ground that it annoyed them in their occupations, and afforded opportunities for debauchery and riot. ”

“ 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 ”