The Troublesome Gibbet of John Haines, the ‘Wounded Highwayman’ of Hounslow.

For this post, I am going to wander into the world of crime in the late eighteenth century, and the grisly fate that befell many who committed the heinous crime of highway robbery. (Full disclosure: I’m not an historian of crime, gibbets or highwaymen…perhaps the case I’m about to discuss is very well known. But he’s new to me, and I love a good story, so he makes it into the blog!)

I was recently reading the The Juvenile Tourist: or Excursions Through Various Parts of the Island of Great Britain, published by John Evans in 1805. Written as letters to a prospective young traveller, it contains descriptions of counties and towns in England and Wales, together with recommendations for tourists for things to see or do. Leafing through the first section detailing departure from London, a particular reference caught my eye. 

Royal Mail Coach 1805 – Image from Wikimedia Commons

The passage began with a situation familiar to any traveller of this period – a change of horses. Journeys by coach or on horseback were necessarily done in stages. Coaches travelled over fixed distances between two points – usually inns – at which point the horses would be changed. Mounting his new horse, the writer soon continued his journey, heading out on Hounslow Heath. Things quickly took a dark turn though. After pausing at a wooden monument ‘marked with a bloody hand and knife’ marking the spot where a local man who had cut the throats of his wife and child had been buried with a stake through his heart, he moved on to another, equally chilling, relic. 

“We still hear not unfrequently of robberies in [this] quarter during the winter season of the year; a recent proof of which is exhibited by a new gibbet, erected not far from Belfont, on which we saw suspended the body of Haines, generally known by the designation of the Wounded Highwayman…”

Who, then, was this mysterious Haines? The problem is that there are potentially many highwaymen Haineses. These include a notable fellow highwayman of the famous Dick Turpin gang, and also one William Haines, sentenced to death in 1783 for highway robbery in Acton, robbing the assistant postmaster of Hackney as he walked home alone through country roads on a dark, foggy December night. While criminal bodies could admittedly be left in gibbets for twenty years or more, becoming more macabre as the years passed and bits and pieces fell off them, 22 years before Evans’ description seemed unlikely. 

Image copyright of Wellcome Images

Professor Sarah Tarlow’s excellent chapter on the afterlife of gibbets (https://rdcu.be/dyItn), however, proved the key to unlocking the identity of the mysterious highwayman. As she reveals, the erection of a gibbet containing Haines’ remains on Hounslow Heath provoked controversy in newspapers, frightened travellers, caused the royal family to avoid the road, and even caused issues when it blew into the garden of a nearby house in a storm. (Anyone who has experienced a neighbour’s trampoline blowing into their garden in a storm should be grateful that it was just this and not a mouldy criminal in a cage!).

The Juvenile Tourist corroborates this, and adds some extra colour. From his description, for example, it is not hard to see how the spectacle of the rotting highwayman might upset delicate constitutions. “He was apparently a large, tall man; his irons were so constructed that his arms hung at some little distance from his body, by which means the hideous sight was rendered more terrific and impressive”.

(Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Clearly no fan of the practice, he noted that Hounslow Heath had once been ‘disgraced with a long range of gibbets’, which had only been removed at the behest of the royal family, fed up with seeing them as they journeyed to and from Windsor. Further Evans noted that the dismal sight of Haines’ body “suggested with full force the horrible idea of a fellow creature deprived of the honours of sepulture” (i.e. burial and memorial) and instead left to rot “to the grinning scorn of public infamy”.

Things start to become clearer from the Old Bailey records, which have lengthy details of John Haines’ trial, and how he ended up in an iron cage by the roadside.  In 1799, Haines and an accomplice, armed with ‘certain pistols loaded with leaden bullets’ held up what they thought was a passenger coach. Unfortunately for them it in fact contained two Bow Street officers, and one other man, acting on reports of robberies in the area, and keen to trap a criminal. The trial report suggests that John Haines clearly played his role to the full, wearing a thick brown coat with a hat pulled low, having a distinctive horse and also scoring highly on his highwaymanly patter: witnesses attested to hearing him shout ‘damn your eyes, you bugger, stop and give me your money’!

(Image from Wikimedia Commons)

But what of his nickname, ‘the wounded highwaymen’? A report in the Northampton Mercury provides the last piece of the puzzle. During the robbery there was in fact an exchange of fire. While most of the robbers’ bullets went through the back of the coach seats, one of the officers believed that he “had hit his man”. This was later proved true when witnesses stated that Haines returned to an inn later that night, saying that he had been wounded.  When Haines was later arrested  “A surgeon described him to have had one ball pass through his shoulder; he had extracted one and he believed there were more in his body”. The ‘wounded highwayman’ was clearly aptly named.

Whoever, he was, and whatever he did, though, there is undoubtedly something disquieting about the image of the desiccated body of the highwayman, the metal locks and hinges of the iron gibbet screaking, and the skirts of his tattered greatcoat waving in the wind!

Creams, Clothes and Cases: The material culture of pre-modern travel.

I am currently on study leave, getting on with research for my new project on the history of travel preparations. One thing that I’m particularly interested in is the material culture of travel, and what sorts of things were available for travellers as they got ready for their journeys. 

Today, ‘things’ are incredibly important both before and during our travels, and we are usually accompanied by a wealth of ‘stuff’. First there is the right luggage, whether finding bags small enough to qualify as ‘carry on’ for the plane, or cases large enough to contain all the necessaries for two weeks in the sun. Then come decisions about clothes: do we take a bare minimum, or instead give ourselves lots of choices? Do we have the right clothes for the right weather or environment? (Authorities in Naples are fed up of people trying to walk up Mount Vesuvius in Crocs!) These types of decisions about what, and how much, to take were all ones that were faced by travellers over the past three centuries.

(Image from Wikimedia Commons)

But perhaps the other most common type of products that accompany us on journeys are those related to health and hygiene. Commonly travellers will take some form of medicines, cosmetics or personal grooming products, sun cream, insect repellent, deodorant …the list goes on and the market for these kinds of products is massive. And if you’re anything like me, this often takes up more space than the clothes!

It’s perhaps easy to assume that these type of health/cosmetic travel goods are a feature of modern tourism, but in fact they have a much longer history.  I’ve long been interested in the history and advertising of products, and my project on the history of facial hair explored the world of shaving products in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Another big strand of my work looked at the early modern medical marketplace and the ways in which all manner of remedies and preparations were touted as the universal cure for all ills. By the nineteenth century, of course, newspapers were stuffed full of advertisements for products, with many makers and sellers starting to target the growing numbers of British travellers and tourists heading off to foreign climes.

(Copyright Wellcome Images)

Travelling cases, for example, containing everything necessary to attend to appearance on a journey had been available since the eighteenth century. In 1780 the razor maker Daniel Rigge advertised his ‘Travelling cases and leather pouches, which contain the whole apparatus for shaving’ as well as bottles and space for other items of personal grooming. As tourism expanded, so did the range and design of these types of travel ‘furniture’. One notable maker was the firm of Mechi and Sons in Cornhill, London. ‘Mechi’s Dressing Cases’ for travellers contained tooth and nail brushes, soap and other requisites and were, according to the advertisement, an ‘invaluable acquisition’ for the ‘steam boat or travelling companion’. 

(Copyright Wellcome Images)

Soaps were particularly popular, offering tourists something familiar from home with which to perform their daily ablutions. In 1830 James Atkinson’s Almond Soap was particularly noted as a useful accoutrement for travellers, as well as the army and navy, and sold in ‘neat portable pots’ for ease of carriage. 

Health was another common topic, offering solutions for various problems. ‘Lamplough’s Effervescing Pyretic Saline’ offered to replenish the vital salts lost from ‘exciting causes’ which included excessive heat or tiredness. ‘Dr Locock’s cosmetic’ was a refreshing cream that could be used to treat sunburn or tan, whilst his asthmatic customers could also treat themselves to some of his ‘pulmonic wafers’ which promised relief in ten minutes for those suffering in cold climates or inclement weather. Even food was not neglected. Nineteenth century tourists could purchase ‘Mellin’s Food Biscuits’, recommended particularly for travellers who often require a sustaining and nutritious food, that can be easily digested and assimilated’.

It is interesting to note, though, how some manufacturers began to tailor the advertisements of existing products towards travellers, in turn ascribing new attributes to them specifically related to the rigours of travelling. 

(Author’s own image)

One useful example of this was Rowlands’ ‘Kalydor’. Alexander Rowlands and his son established a perfumery business in London in the late eighteenth century, which expanded through the nineteenth. Rowlands specialised in cosmetic products and undertook something like the modern advertising campaigns across various newspapers, extolling the many and various attributes of their wares. 

‘Kalydor’ was a skin and beauty cream that became their flagship product. In early advertisements in the 1820s ‘Kalydor’ was touted as a refreshing cosmetic compound, ‘imparting a glow of youthful beauty’ on the cheeks of women, ‘keeping their complexions clear and lovely’ whilst also soothing and protecting men’s faces after shaving ‘leaving a softness not to be described’. A decade later, further attributes included protection against wind and damp. 

By the 1860s, however, Rowlands had hitched a ride on the growing numbers of specialist travel advice literature and magazines, adding their by-now-familiar products to the back pages of these publications. By this time Kalydor had become the traveller’s best friend: 

‘Tourists and Travellers, visitors to the seaside, and others exposed to the scorching rays of the sun and heated particles of dust, will find Rowland’s Kalydor a most refreshing preparation…dispelling the cloud of languor and relaxation, allaying all heat and irritability and immediately affording a pleasing sensation’. 

Not only that, adverts often also included Rowland’s ‘Macassar Oil’ (useful in preventing hair drying out and falling off in the sun) and ‘Odonto’ – imparting a ‘graceful purity and fragrance’ to the teeth!

Travellers were obviously a lucrative market. The soapmaker Gibbs turned on the charm in their advertisement, stating that ‘The refined habits of English travellers render a COMPLETE TOILET EQUIPMENT one of the first essentials of the tourist’. Putting their existing ‘Naples Soap’ into an elastic case (keeping the case shut to prevent soggy soap scum from leaking out into the portmanteau), they introduced their new innovation, the ‘Naples Travelling Tablet’.

These are just some of the many products that I’ll be looking into in more detail, especially for what they can reveal about preparations, and what the supposed risks and dangers of travel were. As thoughts begin to turn to summer, many of us will soon be putting ourselves in the shoes of past travellers, and making those awkward decisions about what to take.

Medicine on the Move: Early Modern Travel and Remedies

As my new project on the history of travel, health risk and preparation begins to get underway, one of the things that I am thinking about is the place of travel within early modern medical remedy culture. What kinds of conditions could befall travellers? What did early modern people think that the processes of travel, and different kinds of transport, could do to their bodies, and what types of remedies were available to deal with them. Research is still at a very early stage, but there are already some interesting hints that remedies were available to treat a variety of travel-related conditions. 

Before the broadening of travel in the 18^th century, many journeys were relatively short, and local. As a great deal of work has shown in recent years, the early modern population was surprisingly mobile. People travelled from parish to parish, and from rural to urban areas as they visited market towns to buy and sell goods. Perhaps the majority of journeys were taken on foot, on horseback or on a cart or, for those with means, in small carriages. By the later eighteenth century, post carriages were also available to private passengers.

William Hogarth, ‘The Stage Coach’ – Image from Wikimedia Commons

But travel of any kind was a risky business. Roads were proverbially poor, often deeply rutted in summer and reduced to a quagmire in winter, making journeys by foot, or by cart or carriage, uncomfortable at best. Falls from horses were common, leading to injury or death, and even a long time in the saddle could be painful. Travel by sea, even over relatively short distances, was fraught with danger, not only from the vagaries of the weather, but also the condition and seaworthiness of the vessel. Such was the discomfort caused by sea travel that sickness on the first journey by sea was regarded as almost inevitable, only abating once the body had become accustomed to the motion of the waves.  With all this in mind, then, what options for treatment could be found in early modern remedy culture?

Travelling of any kind was clearly seen as a tiring and enervating process, and something to which the body needed time to adjust to. Some hints of this process can be found in travel-related terms in dictionaries. The term ‘travel-tainted’ was used by Shakespeare in Henry IV, and was defined by Samuel Johnson as one who was ‘harrassed or fatigued with travel’. To be ‘unwayed’ was to be unused to travel, as opposed to a ‘wayfaring man’ who, according to John Kersey’s 1658 dictionary, was one ‘accustomed to travel in the roads’. The use of the word ‘accustomed’ suggests again a process of acclimatisation. The advice of the Sick Man’s Jewel in 1674 was that ‘such that are weary by travel or labour’ should chew tobacco in the evening, whilst Leonardo Fioravanti recommended the juice of Rose Solis to those ‘who are wearied with travell’.

A Weary Traveller, 1815 – Copyright Wellcome Images

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a variety of remedies can be found to treat sore feet. Robert Turner’s, Botanologia the Brittish physician, or, the nature and vertues of English plants advocated anointing feet with the herbs ‘ladies bedstraw or gallium’ before they undertook a journey. There was even a term for this: to ‘surbate’ was to ‘batter the feet with long travel’! Turner noted that the herb mugwort ‘is excellent good to bathe the surbated Feet of Footmen and Lackies in hot weather’, admirably giving some consideration to footsore servants.

For anyone suffering from pain and discomfort caused travelling by horseback, some potential relief could be found. Andrew Boorde’s 1587, The breuiarie of health contained a remedy for galling or chafing caused by ‘riding upon an evill horse in a naughtie saddle’. His suggestion was to ‘rub, anoint or grease the place aggrieved’ with a tallow candle…perhaps not a situation you would wish to walk in on! If the unfortunate chafed traveller possessed a pair of particularly large buttocks, Boorde suggested that rubbing between the cheeks with olive oil might be a useful expedient. 

It is harder to trace specific conditions relating to coach travel, but the health dangers of being squashed into a confined space, breathing in the noisome air and odours of fellow passengers, whilst simultaneously being joggled, bumped and bounced around for hours, was a well-known hazard – particularly into the eighteenth century. The term ‘coach sick’ appears occasionally and was regarded as occurring from the ‘swimmings in the head’ that could accompany violent motion. Some physicians advocated opening the windows to constantly refresh the air; others suggested opium!

Whilst sea travel was less common outside naval and commercial purposes, medical authors did offer some suggestions for the alleviation of sea sickness. In his 1667 Treasures of Physick, John Tanner viewed sea travel as one of the key ‘external’ causes of vomiting and advocated a range of treatments including laudanum, vegetable and herbal oils and syrups.  As John Moyle noted, in his 1684 Abstract of sea chirurgery, it was not uncommon for the abject misery of constant puking to be accompanied by the discomfort of constipation: he claimed to have ‘known some who in a whole week together have not gone to stool’. Moyle’s solution for those who were ‘sea sick and vomit much’ was a gentle purge or, failing that, a ‘clyster’, or enema.

‘Seasickness’ by G.S. Treagar – Image from Wikimedia Commons

As ever in the early modern medical marketplace, where there was demand there was likely a crafty quack chasing a fast shilling. Travel-related conditions were common amongst the efficacy puffs for proprietary pills and medicines. In 1670 the ‘English Pills for the Scurvy’ claimed to be extremely useful for sea travellers, standing them ‘in great stead in all Sea-sicknesses’, as well as ‘sickly Climates or Seasons; Calentures, Fevers, Fluxes, Poysons, Agues, Surfeits, and the like Scorbutick Diseases, which so commonly afflict such as go to Sea’. John Archer’s ‘Chymical Drops’ were of ‘great use to travellers’ in curing sickness, whilst ‘he that useth [John Headrich’s Traveller’s Salt] on the Sea Vomits not’. There are many more similar examples, and plenty more still to find. 

Health and medicine were, as they still are, then, central to travel. Even the few examples given here are revealing about the supposed effects that travel was seen to have on the body, along with the approaches taken to mitigate them. I am very much looking forward to delving more deeply into the medical history of the travelling body.  

The Health Risks of Travel in Early-Modern Britain

As I start to make some progress on my new research project on travel, health and risk I am turning my attention to the sorts of things that early modern travellers were fearful of. As a bit of a nervous traveller myself, it’s quite comforting to know that there is actually a long history of travel-related anxiety.

From the early modern period, domestic and international travel were beginning to increase due to many factors including commercial expansion and the Atlantic economy, religion and mission work, military and diplomacy, as well as technological developments and the growth of travel infrastructure. For the first time in history, large numbers of travellers were beginning to explore both their own countries and wider world, encountering new countries, environments, and peoples.

Unlike today, when it’s entirely possible to have breakfast in London, lunch in Milan and be back at home in time for supper, travel in the early modern period was no easy undertaking. More than this, it was widely acknowledged to be inherently dangerous. What, then, were the perceived risks? Even a brief survey tells us a lot about how travel was regarded in health terms.

(Image from Wikimedia Commons)

First was the risk of accident or death on the journey. In the seventeenth century even relatively short distances on horseback or in a carriage carried dangers. Falls from horses were common, causing injury or even death. As Roy Porter noted, when the wife of Justinian Paget was thrown from her horse in October 1638,  it was said to be the ‘cause of all her future sickness’. In Monmouthshire in 1657, one Francis Bradford was killed as his horse bolted, throwing him over its neck with his feet caught in the stirrups. ‘His wyfe was with hym and she presentlie alighted from her horse and cryed for helpe’. Many drownings occurred as people tried to cross rivers on horseback and fell in or were swept away. 

JMW Turner ‘The Shipwreck’ – Image from Wikimedia Commons

Travel by sea, even around local coasts, carried its own obvious risks of storm and wreck. So common and widely acknowledged were the vagaries of sea travel that a common reason for making a will in the early modern period was just before embarking on a voyage. The language used in these formulations is telling. In 1638, Edward Harthorpe, Richard Veesey, Michael March and Thomas Huckleton, ‘with divers others’, made their will, ‘being bound to take a voyage to Canady (sic) in America, w(hi)ch being a daingerous voyage, and they putting theire lives to hazard therein, did consider their mortalitie’.

This was a common theme, and the prospect of the impending journey, and the not-unreasonable assumption that they might not return, led many to consider putting their affairs in order. This anxiety was neatly articulated by Thomas Youngs in 1663, ‘Being bound upon a voyage to sea, and calling to remembrance the uncertain state of this transitory life, and that all fleshe must yielde undo death…’. One intent on the journey, travellers wanted to be prepared in body and soul.

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Once abroad, too travellers were at the mercy of a bevy of dangers, from unfamiliar territories and extreme landscapes to harsh weather and climate, their safety contingent on the quality of their transport and the reliability of their guides. In 1793 Useful Instructions for Travellers contained chapters advising travellers as to how to deal with the many and various dangers to life and health that they might face. These included the necessity to frequently open carriage windows to refresh the air, the need to take a small medicine chest to attend to wounds (including falls from horseback), and various preparations to treat the haemorrhoids that often accompanied long periods in a sitting position.

Knowledge of the conditions, climates and environments of intended destinations was also key. Ideally, a traveller should be able to ‘cure himself of some distempers’, be wary of the change of air and the hazards of the journey, and to take their own store of medicines in case they were hard to procure once abroad.

But some even considered the whole process of travel itself to be potentially harmful to the body. Even in the sixteenth century, ‘The Hospitall for the Diseased, wherein are to bee founde moste excellent and approued medicines’ included a list of things considered bad for the heart. As well as what the author viewed as deadly vegetables such as beans, peas and leeks, further heart problems might be caused by ‘too much travell’, or even ‘drink[ing] cold water after travell’. Similarly, in a section about things that are ‘ill for the brain, A.T.’s 1596 A.T., A rich store-house or treasury for the diseased  noted “Overmuch heate in Trauaylinge”.

Scurvy was another condition firmly linked to travel. In 1609, Petrus Pomarius’, Enchiridion medicum viewed scurvy as an occupational hazard for ‘those that trauell by sea, by long voyages; and our fishers that travel to the Newfound-lands’. As well as the perils of the long journey, the problems could arise due to the ‘stincking waters, & especially in an hot aire’ that travellers were exposed to. Climate – and particularly heat – was considered risky. In the 1793 Etmullerus abridg’d: or, a compleat system of the theory and practice of physic, Michael Etmuller stated that travelling in a hot climate could cause wakefulness and perturbation of the mind.

Even ‘foreign’ food and drink could be risky. Thomas Tryon’s Miscellania (1696) noted the dangers of ‘intemperance’ and of misjudging the effects of climate upon the body in regard to drinking alchohol. According to Tryon, many English travellers were ‘much Distemper’d, and many die when they Travel into the West and East Indies, because they take wrong measures, continuing the same disorder and intemperance as they did in their own Country’.

Travel, then, was a risky business, and one that individuals would not have undertaken lightly. There were a range of factors to consider, from basic risks of life and death to the dangers of particular conditions and climates, food and illness. 

Packing the Essentials!: Preparing to Travel in the 18th Century.

Now that Covid restrictions have finally been lifted, and summer is at least theoretically here – it’s raining outside as I write! – many people are returning to travel and undertaking the holidays that have had to be postponed over the past couple of years. The pandemic aside, international travel has become virtually routine to us today. It’s easy to organise, and generally a comfortable and efficient process. But this hasn’t always been the case.

In the seventeenth century the numbers of travellers embarking on long journeys, and to other countries, was still relatively small. Whilst recent work has shown that early modern people were relatively mobile, often travelling from the countryside to market towns to buy goods, for example, and even sometimes further afield, international travel was generally undertaken by a much smaller group including elites, merchants and traders, diplomats, and the military. 

Image from Wikimedia Commons – Thomas Rowlandson, An Artist Travelling in Wales

In the eighteenth century, however, the growing popularity of the Grand Tour saw travel to other countries become easier, more accessible, and increasingly desirable. Grand Tourists were a new breed of traveller. Rather than for business, this was travel for pleasure, to be immersed in other cultures, see historic sights, encounter new people…and shop for souvenirs. Since the costs were still beyond the reach of many, this was essentially a road trip for elites, with many destinations across Europe becoming social hubs for young, wealthy British travellers. 

Our perhaps romantic idea of the Grand Tour, however, of Grand Tourists sallying forth to evocative Roman ruins or journeying in carriages through the vertiginous, snowy passes of the Alps, overlooks what must have been a logistical and organisational challenge. Today it’s possible to decide one morning to book a flight to a European capital, arrive in time for lunch and a bit of shopping, and be back home for tea! Booking longer holidays, including hotels, meals and transfers is a matter of a few clicks of the mouse button. Once abroad any information or help we need, including instant translations, are readily available on our phones. In the eighteenth century, travel companies did not yet exist, communication across long distances could take days, and your experience along the journey, and at your destination, depended much on who you knew, and what could be arranged in advance. 

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Recently, I’ve started to become interested in the bit ‘before’ people travelled in this period. How did people prepare for their potentially arduous journeys? What did they take with them, and how did they decide what would be necessary? As any modern traveller knows, trying to decide what to pack for a week away is complicated enough…but a foreign trip in the eighteenth century could last for months. 

Help was at hand, however, in the growing market for consumer goods for travellers. As with so many other areas of Georgian life, where there was a trend there was a market. The advertising pages of eighteenth-century newspapers give us a good idea of the sorts of things that were available to those about to embark. 

18th-century oak travelling case – Image from Wikimedia Commons

Perhaps one of the first considerations was what to carry everything in? Luckily a range of makers and retailers were beginning to sell travelling cases of all shapes, types and sizes to cater for many different journeys. In 1766 the ‘pocket book maker, stationer and bookseller’ Kearsley of Ludgate Street in London was one of many selling ‘travelling cases’. Nearby, in Leadenhall Street, Nodin and Hould offered officers of the army and navy, and domestic travellers, their range of ‘camp equipage, camp furniture, travelling trunks and cases’, including a light kind for expeditious travelling’. Their advertisement noted that any orders by post would be ‘carefully and expeditiously executed’. As with many other areas of retail too, examples ranged from the utilitarian to the downright posh, with examples made from leather and wood, and sometimes arrayed with ornamental embellishments of gold, silver or pinchbeck – a fashionable and decorative metal alloy. 

18th-century French travelling ‘necessaire’ kit – Image Wikimedia Commons

Along with cases came a wider range of goods aimed at travellers, which included items for personal grooming and ‘toilette’. As I’ve explored in some of my work, the eighteenth century was something of a golden age for fashioning and refining the body, and instruments for personal grooming were desirable as well as functional. For men, the social importance of the shaved face made portable shaving equipment a vital companion to the traveller. Help was at hand from firms such as Jennings in Cheapside, London, who sold pocket cases for travellers, including a razor and sharpening strop. The perfumer Richard Barnard sold specially contrived cases for brushes, powders and razors ‘in a small compass fit for travelling’. In a sense these were the precursor to modern ‘travel-sized’ toiletries.  Similar travelling ‘etui’ or ‘toilette’ sets for both women and men were available from many sellers and included small, portable instruments such as tweezers, nail nippers, brushes and combs, sewing needles and other useful objects to help travellers attend to their appearance on the fly. 

But sometimes entrepreneurial artisans came up with innovative solutions for uncomfortable or inconvenient travel problems. Some tried to counter the discomfort caused by sitting for long periods on horseback, or in bumpy carriages. The Umbrella maker Mr Clemson of the Strand recommended his ‘oiled linen breeches for travelling’ to, shall we say, ease the passage. Specially made ‘breeches powder’ was ‘clean, preserve and beautify’ but also to freshen up sweaty or smelly trousers after a long journey.  In 1766 one Mr Loop, near the Royal Exchange, defied any barber or wig-maker in the country to equal his ‘hollow cork wigs, waterproof, in the Italian taste, for travellers’. Clearly sitting in a soggy wig, as well as bedraggled clothes, on a rough sea crossing was neither an uncommon nor welcome experience. 

So, just like today, the eighteenth-century traveller faced similar challenges to those of today. So many things to think about, so many situations to plan for, so much to try and fit in the case…so many things to buy before going on holiday!

Are Beards Over? A Historical Perspective.

Recently I spoke with the Guardian journalist Tim Dowling for an excellent article he was writing (published last week) about whether beards are finally ‘over’, and I thought it would be interesting to reflect on some of this. Since re-emerging around 2014, gaining popularity through celebrity endorsement and a new market for cosmetic beard products and, at least for a time, being celebrated (as well as debated) beards have seldom so popular since the 1960s and 70s. And just when it seemed that facial hair was becoming passé, the pandemic brought a late flourish in the form of the ‘lockdown beard’, with homeworking affording previous beard deniers a chance to try a new look. 

Throughout my research on beards, two questions have repeatedly come up, both in media interviews the media, and in questions from audiences at my talks: first has the fashion for beards truly finished, and second what might the next style be? I’ll come on to my answers later, but it’s worth first exploring a bit of context.

It is important to recognise that facial hair fashions have always been cyclical. More than this, just like clothes, they are sometimes virtually a visual shorthand for a particular period or a historical type. The Tudor men in Holbein’s portraits, for example, are often sporting their magnificent ‘spade beards’; perhaps the most common image of Henry VIII in popular consciousness is that with his characteristic chin beard. In the eighteenth century (as any fule kno!) men were all clean-shaven, and wore wigs, amidst an age of elegant, polite masculinity. If asked to picture Victorian men, however, it’s likely that the prevailing image will be two eyes peeping out between a dense thicket of facial hair and the brim of a stovetop hat.

(A Victorian ‘carte de visite’ from my own collection – please do not reproduce this image without permission)

As broad caricatures these are useful in understanding facial hair trends. But a deeper dive into the records reveals that there is more to this than simple, homogenous trends. In other words, what we assume to be the predominant fashion doesn’t mean that every man wore this style. 

Take the eighteenth century, for example. If portraits are to be believed, then barely a whisker besmirched the face of the Georgian man, except perhaps for very old, the very poor, the ‘insane’, or the religious fanatic. The strictures of polite appearance dictated that facial hair was uncouth, spoiling the general mien of the face, and creating an unfavourable impression for others. 

But descriptions of men in ‘wanted’ advertisements for criminals, runaway servants or apprentices reveal a more complex picture, containing many descriptions of men with facial hair of various amounts, styles and colours, suggesting that it might not have been as uncommon as once thought to see men with some form of facial hair. If we assume that these are more likely to be men of the lower classes than elites, then this might even suggest that the clean-shaven model was more applicable to middling and elite men, rather than the ‘ordinary’ guys who perhaps represented the majority. 

A second point to make is that the frequency of shaving – generally no more than three times a week for elites, and once a week for poorer men – suggesting that the Georgian period was much more a stubbly age than it was a clean-shaven one.

Image: Theodore Lane, The Rival Whiskers, Designed and Etched by Theodore Lane; Engraved by George Hunt (London: 1824)

There were sometimes also counter trends. The early nineteenth century saw a trend for side-whiskers, especially amongst young, metropolitan men, which spanned two decades. Suddenly bushy outcrops of beard, the longer and more elaborate the better, became the height of fashion and, whilst sometimes lampooned in the press, also drew admiration. 

For the mid nineteenth century, with its ‘beard movement’, the large numbers of books and articles extolling the many and various supposed health benefits to a fulsome crop of beard, the personal testimonies of men, and indeed the photographic records, all appear to point in the same direction, towards the unassailable dominion of the beard.

Image copyright Wellcome Images

But here again, photography, in this case photographs of prisoners taken at the point of arrest, provides a surprising alternative. For my book I compared hundreds of prisoner photographs from across Britain in the 1860s, the supposed high point of the ‘beard movement’ when beard-wearing was assumed as virtually ubiquitous. But rather than the archetypal full beard, these photographs suggested a much wider range of styles. First, it was notable that a substantial number (40% of the 635 sampled) had no facial hair at all. One of the most popular beard styles was the ‘chin beard’ or ‘chin curtain’, a thin strap of beard from the sideburns to under the chin, with no moustache. Goatee beards were popular, as were side whiskers, especially amongst older men. Many younger men were clean shaven, with only a few wearing moustaches. Again, these were men from the lower classes, suggesting possible variations according to social status, but also differences in the choice of styles between men of different ages. 

These examples from both periods reveal important truths. First, when we think of beard fashions in the past, we can’t assume that all men, across all of society, adopted the same styles. There were always variations, alternatives, and sometimes reactions. Not all Tudor men had ‘spade’ beards; not all Georgian guys shaved and many Victorians shunned the magisterial fronds of the patriarch! All of this raises a second point, which is that facial hair always involves choices: whether to grow a beard or not; whether to shave or not to shave; whether to grow one style or another, and so on. And, in many respects, as it was in the past, so it is today. 

One thing that is certain is that modern beard trends are shorter in duration – a pattern that began in the twentieth century. Whilst broad beard trends once lasted decades…even centuries, they now span periods of several years or even less. But the key point remains the same, that beard fashions, like any other type of fashion, are cyclical. Second, modern beard trends are not homogenous. Even when the recent ‘hipster’ beard trend was in full feather, it belonged to a certain age group and demographic, and large numbers of men (including me!) continued to shave. 

Earlier I promised to return to the two all-important questions, so here goes. Do I think the beard is ‘over’? No. In fact I think that something else entirely has happened, which is that it  has ceased being a fashion, and is instead now just a style choice, and one that doesn’t necessarily need a ‘trend’ to hang it on. It’s worth noting too that often in the past, when a new beard fashion has emerged, there is an initial period of debate and sometimes ridicule, which settles down as the beard stops being ‘remarkable’.

What comes next? Ah, the all-important one! Historically, beard trends are replaced by their exact opposite, suggesting a return to a clean-shaven model. But, to return to my previous point, I think things are more complicated today, and that any number of facial hair styles are now acceptable. I have seen some magnificent twiddly moustaches and ‘sculpted’ beards in the gentrified coffee shops of Cardiff of late. But one style that has (so far) steadfastly refused to make a comeback are side whiskers…once linked to revolutionary tendencies and angry young men. Might their time be coming?

Health and the Habitual Traveller in the 19th Century

Recently I’ve been contributing to a new series of stories, drawing on the archives of Lloyds’ Register – a fantastic archive, with a wealth of sources on many aspects of maritime, but also broader social, history. The full series can be found here: https://hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/whats-on/stories/

Part of my remit for the series of posts was to delve into the photographic archive of Lloyds’ surveyors…with some magnificent beards on show. But it also got me thinking about some of the issues involved in health and travel. With their permission I’m sharing one of the posts, about advice for travellers from Victorian physicians. 

Today we are able to travel potentially thousands of miles in a single day, in a comfortable seat, served a meal, and hopefully arriving in good shape ready for a holiday or a business meeting. But as we explored in other posts, the surveyors of Lloyds’ Register were often required to undertake a great deal of travel in the course of their work, and sometimes over long distances. In the course of their work, were they putting themselves and their health in danger?

Many medical practitioners thought so. In the 19^th century, travelling, especially often, could be risky, uncomfortable and, as some argued, even dangerous to health. A range of books were becoming available aimed at the growing numbers of travellers, warning them of the potential dangers that could await them on a long journey if they did not take necessary precautions.

One example from 1883, The Book of Health gives a useful insight into the sorts of attitudes that medical practitioners held about travel. The book contained a detailed section by the University College Hospital physician J. Russell Reynolds titled ‘Travelling: its influence upon health’.  Here Reynolds was keen to set out different circumstances in which travel (which he defined as ‘all that is involved in locomotion’!) and how tey could be negotiated in order to make it as easy and painless as possible.

James Pollard – ‘The Louth-London Royal Mail, Travelling by Train from Peterborough East’ – Image from Wikimedia Commons/Google Art Project

One of the first issues he dealt with was the length of the journey. Shorter and infrequent journeys, he argued, were usually fine, and ‘travelling in moderation is a matter of utter indifference to the majority of people’. But if an individual was ‘utterly unaccustomed’ to traveling by road, rail, horse or boat, any number of ‘peculiar effects’ might be experienced, which might be painful, distressing or even dangerous. These could range from fatigue and muscle ache, to complete exhaustion, particularly if the only distance an individual was accustomed to was between their ‘bed, chair and chimney corner’.

If they weren’t used to it, the short sea voyage from Folkestone to France could be an ordeal and ‘a thing to be dreaded’. Long trips on crowded trains or bumpy carriages brought all manner of miseries, leaving people feeling giddy, looking pale and ‘disturbed for hours or days afterwards’ by the experience.

Image Copyright Wellcome Trust

But there were a second group of travellers, such as the Lloyds’ surveyors, for whom regular travel was part of their working life. As such, they faced different challenges. One was, argued Reynolds, simply the ‘dull monotony’ of regular journeys, which could make the traveller feel listless, tired and longing for a rest, not to mention the many petty annoyances caused by other travellers…something the modern commuter can sympathise with! Another was the issue of trying to focus on working and reading whilst on a journey, which ‘neither improves the brain or the mind’. The regular traveller was argued to often neglect food and diet, at the expense of his health, but worse still was the ‘fidgety anxiety and unrest’ caused by the journey.

Indeed, the ‘compulsory journeys’ of the commercial traveller, undertaken for business and not pleasure, were viewed as worst of all since the traveller had no control over his trip, and was simply forced to head off to far flung territories at the whims of his employer. This, said Reynolds, could only be injurious to his health and state of mind!

Once underway, or arrived at their destination, the unwary traveller faced different challenges, most notably the change of air, climate and food, each of which had the potential to leave them with a ‘tired brain and a disordered stomach’. Whilst ‘something really wholesome and palatable’ might be obtained in larger towns in Europe, ‘stale, hard cheese, some musty bread and sour beer’ was a constant hazard, and a heavy midday meal was ‘a terrible burden to the Englishman’! All manner of local diseases, to which the English traveller had no resistance, lurked in food, water and the environment, putting them at risk.

But it wasn’t all bad news, and there were also many potential health benefits. In fact, regular sea travellers were perhaps the best placed to enjoy them since going by sea was seen as the most beneficial. A long sea voyage, for example, might give the traveller a welcome escape from an unhealthy city environment, and an opportunity to rest. Whilst journeys by carriage or rail might be shorter, they were also potentially more uncomfortable, shorter and involved added stresses such as meeting connections, and less opportunity to relax, eat and read the newspaper. A journey by boat, however, promised long days out of reach of letter and newspaper, routine without monotony, and the restorative benefits of sea air. 

Cuts, Rashes & Chatter! The Pain of the 18th-century Shave!

Unless there are particular reasons, for example a skin condition, or a faulty razor, shaving today is usually a pretty mundane – if not a pleasant – experience. Indeed, the rise of traditional barbershops over the past few years, offering shaving as an experience, together with an increasingly elaborate range of rituals, head massages and exotic products, makes it almost a form of beauty treatment for men. But what was shaving like 300 years ago? What did it feel like to be shaved with a Georgian razor? 

Before the end of the 18^th century, and indeed for many men for quite a long time afterwards, the mainstay of shaving was the barber. Barbers were readily available across Britain, in shops of various size and quality, or sometimes operating with a couple of chairs in the backrooms of their houses. With shaving paraphernalia expensive to buy and bothersome to maintain, it was often simply easier, and potentially much cheaper, to simply go to the barber. Here men could not only have a shave, a haircut, have their earwax removed, tongues scraped and boils lanced, but could meet with other men to gossip, eat and drink and generally shoot the breeze.

Image Copyright Lewis Walpole Library

But if all this sounds cosy and convenient, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the shave itself could be a far less than comfortable experience.

For a start, much depended on the quality and state of repair of the razor. Early 18^th century races common razors were made from a type of steel that could be brittle and, unless regularly maintained, could quickly lose its edge. Inventories of higher-end barber’s shops in the 17^th and 18^th century sometimes show whole cases of razors, along with sharpening strops and hones, meaning that their use could be rotated. Smaller barber businesses, however, might only have a couple of razors…and if these blunted, and with a queue forming, corners (and faces!) were likely to be cut. Whilst a sharp razor cut cleanly through beard hairs, a blunted one rasped away at the layers of skin, literally scraping the hair rather than cutting it. 

Trade card of John Best, Razor Maker, Copyright Wellcome Images

Some comfort could be derived from the type of shaving soap that the barber used. Like razors, the quality of these varied dramatically. Whilst high end soaps had unctuous, perfumed creamy lather, which helped the razor glide across the face and neck, there were complaints about the lather of cheaper soaps, that reportedly just fell off the face, doing little good to the poor punter in the chair.  

Another important consideration was whether the shave was performed with hot or cold water. There were heated debates amongst razor makers in the 18^th century as to which was more suitable. Some thought that hot water causes the razor to expand, increasing its efficiency. Others protested that it was cold water that better suited the minute particles in the razor. Again, for the poor man in the chair, this could be a crucial decision. Whilst being shaved with hot water can be pleasant, a cold water shave is something more to be endured than enjoyed!

Once the shave had been completed, the customers face would be towelled dry, and he would be sent on his way. Depending on the nature of the ordeal, he was by this stage either fresh-faced and clean-shaven or cut to ribbons and sporting a conspicuous and painful shaving rash. In the latter case, unfortunately, there was little remedy. Domestic remedy collections show no evidence of specific preparations for shaving rashes…or even any recognition of the condition. With no commercially available after-shave balm or lotion, the best a man could hope for would be to apply one of the many soothing skin remedies that existed for redness or swelling in the face.

Perhaps the best way to view contemporary attitudes towards being shaved by the barber is through depictions in 18^th century satirical cartoons. Whilst these give us extremes, rather than typical experiences, they tell us enough about what could go wrong to be able to understand the potential plight of our ancestors!

For a variety of reasons, barbers were particular targets for the pensions of cartoonists. The incessant chatter of the barber, for example, attracted particular criticism. Cartoons often poked fun at the dangers of being at the hands of a razor-wielding barber, so absorbed by his own conversation that he risked accidentally injuring the customer.

In Rowlandson’s ‘Damn the Barber’, the customer in the chair winces as the barber holds him by the nose, about to shave him. On the left an apprentice holds a mirror to a man, to show the results of his work. The customer has his fingers in his ears, perhaps removing hair and lather…but also perhaps blocking out the barber’s chat.

Thomas Rowlandson, ‘Damn the Barber!’ – Copyright Wellcome Trust

A worse fate is about to befall the poor punter at the hands of a barber in this second Rowlandson cartoon, so absorbed in his diatribe about news from Amsterdam that he fails to notice his razor blade sinking into his customer’s nose. “Halloh! You sir!” cries the man “what are you about? Are you going to cut my nose off?” (Lewis Walpole.

Image Copyright Lewis Walpole Library

Perhaps one of my favourite of all satirical images of shaving, however, and the one perhaps most suggests the discomfort that could be visited upon the 18^th-century shavee, is this 1804 etching of a barber shaving a man in his shop. As the barber’s blunted razor rasps across the poor man’s chin he cries out in pain…”Zounds! How you scrape!”.

V0019687 A barber shaving a man in his shop. Etching, 1804. Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A barber shaving a man in his shop. Etching, 1804. 1804 Published: 25 June 1804 Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html

How Much?! Barbers & the Price of Shaving.

One of the central themes of my new book is how the practice of shaving has changed over time and, more importantly, who has been responsible for it. From the second half of the eighteenth century, individual men began to take more responsibility for shaving themselves, helped on by the availability of newer, sharper steel razors. Being able to shave yourself or (if you were wealthy enough) having a servant to do it for you, was a mark of status. 

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  Image copyright Lewis Walpole Library

But throughout the early modern period, and indeed through the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth, it was still the barber who was the main provider of shaving for the vast majority of men. A couple of things that I have long wondered about as I worked on my project was how much a visit to the barber cost in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and how frequently men went for a shave.  

The second part of the question is easier to answer than the first. Passing references in diaries do sometimes mention when men visited a barber although, because it was a routine occurrence, they didn’t usually give much detail…unless, of course, something went wrong! Samuel Pepys, for example, often noted in his diary when he was trimmed or shaved by his barber, Jervis. But establishing how much individual men paid, and for what, is more difficult since this wasn’t generally noted. Since barbers were very often small businesses too, they seldom left details of their charges in the historical record, especially in this period. 

One type of source – household accounts – does provide useful clues not only about how much (admittedly middling and elite) men paid for a shave, but how often they went to their barber. Even here, though, matters are complicated by the terminology used surrounding the practices of the barber. Often, men referred to being ‘trimmed’ by the barber. This could refer to shaving, but it could also refer to a haircut. Equally, the word ‘shaved’ is problematic, because it might refer to shaving the face or the head. Even a generic entry such as ‘paid the barber’ masks what was actually done. 

Also problematic is the habit of paying barbers on account, rather than in cash on the day. Some men simply paid a blanket sum either quarterly or sometimes annually. In 1717, for example, Thomas Milward, a Stourbridge attorney paid ‘Mr Hopkins the barber [for] 1 yrs shaving and powdring me’, but the number or frequency of visits covered by this sum is unknown, as is whether ‘shaving’ referred to the head, face, or both. But, even despite these limitations, it is still possible to make some educated guesses!

One thing that is clear is how important a figure was the barber to early modern men. Barbers took responsibility for a wide range of bodily tasks, from shaving and haircutting to digging out earwax, scraping tongues, lancing boils and any number of other minor running repairs. Barber’s shops were hugely important spaces for men to gather, gossip, eat and drink, and also sometimes to play music. Some barbershops even had their own instruments for customers to use whilst they waited. So it is firstly important to note that visiting the barber’s shop might not necessarily always been to have something ‘done’, but instead just to hang out with other male friends. 

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Having gone through lots of entries across many different sets of accounts though, some patterns do begin to emerge. Most common, it seems, at least for wealthier men, was to visit a barber either once or twice a week to be shaved. Given the preference for the clean-shaven face from the late seventeenth century, this likely meant having the stubble scythed off, but might also include the head, to accommodate a fashionable wig. In 17^th-Century Westminster, the barber John Phillips noted that he shaved John Powell up to three times a week…sometimes washing his feet and cutting his corns into the bargain. 

For men lower down the social scale, however, a single weekly shave (referred to as a ‘hebdomadal shave’!) was more likely. In these cases, we can also pinpoint the day, which was almost always a Saturday, due to the need to This was because of the social importance of appearing decent in church on Sunday mornings.

Adding together the evidence from lots of different accounts also starts to give a picture of how much men paid for the services of the barber. Costs could vary according to where you lived, your social status, and where the shave took place. A mark of wealth was having a barber attend you at your own home, rather than sit amongst the proles in a grubby shop. This possibly carried a higher charge because of the inconvenience and extra cost to the barber, although it also meant that some barbers (known as ‘flying barbers’) could dispense with running a shop altogether.

 

In shops, costs also varied widely, from a penny to as much as a shilling, and even sometimes more. Some accounts note instances where haircutting was included with shaving, incurring a higher cost, which allows some direct comparison. Overall, the most common charge occurring across many different accounts for shaving was sixpence each time. When men paid quarterly for barbering services, they usually paid between three and seven shillings, again depending on circumstances. 

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  Image copyright Wellcome Trust

This last point also highlights the issue of status. A common feature of barbers was the tailoring of prices according to the means of their customer. Barbers serving poorer punters charged less, by necessity. But, ministering to the podgy faces of elites offered the chance for greater fees. The issue of charges also lets us address the long-held assumption that barbers were low status practitioners. Even if a barber charged only sixpence for a shave, and carried out 20 shaves a day for 300 days a year, it was entirely possible, depending on profit margins, to make around £75 per year, representing a solid, middling income.

So perhaps we need to rethink the whole issue of barbers and status. For a long time they were regarded (and often depicted) unfairly as low-rank chatterers, who scraped the faces of the poor for a few pennies. In fact, barbers were – and in fact still are – key practitioners for men, not only in terms of fashioning heads and faces but, in providing important social spaces for men.

Barbers and (the lack of!) Polite Advertising

Over the past few years, I have spent much time looking at ‘polite’ advertising in the 18th century. During this period, a whole range of retailers advertised their goods and services to appeal to ladies and gentlemen of taste. Without discussing anything so base as price or money, they instead tried to coax, cajole and compliment their customers to become regular visitors.

One of the most common ways of doing this was the trade card. These were small printed pamphlets or bills, handed out to the customer after purchase as a reminder to them to visit again. Combining the refined language of ‘politeness’ with elegant neoclassical imagery, they reminded the customer of the world of goods available, the opulence of the shop surroundings, and the care and attention lavished on the customer.

Hundreds of eighteenth-century trade cards still exist, and for all manner of trades. Unsurprisingly these were often high-end businesses. But even some small, prosaic trades also adopted the card, and examples can be found for anything from dentists to skeleton sellers!

Trade card of Nathan Colley, Skeleton Seller, Copyright Wellcome Images

One type of business that appears to have steadfastly resisted the trade card, however, was the barbershop. On the face of it (excuse the pun!) barbers might be seen as just the sort to benefit from attracting regular, returning custom.  As shavers of men, they were key practitioners in fashioning polite appearance. The face of the gentleman in the eighteenth century was expected to be smooth and shaved; facial hair at this point signalled a rougher version of masculinity, far away from the delicacy and sensibility of the Beau monde. Evidence from the eighteenth century suggests that gentlemen visited barbers to be shaved up to three times per week. Indeed, dictionaries throughout the eighteenth century often defined barbers as ‘shavers’. In other respects, then, barbers could lay claim to be key practitioners in the construction of the polite, public face, helping men to meet new ideals of appearance. And yet they chose not to bother with trade cards. Why might this have been?

It has been argued that barbering as a profession was in decline in the eighteenth century. It has long been assumed that the split between the barbers and surgeons in 1745 elevated the surgeons, at the same time as relegating the barbers to mere ‘mechanics’. In reality this is far from being the case, and barbers in fact remained extremely busy throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, remaining key figures, and especially for men. What actually happened is that hairdressers attempted to position themselves as polite practitioners, fashioning the wigs and curls of beaus and belles, whilst also consciously distancing themselves from the rough and ready trade of barbers. One thing that hairdressers were particularly keen to avoid was shaving. 

Trade card of Colley, ‘Hair Cutter’ – Image copyright British Museum – https://media.britishmuseum.org/media/Repository/Documents/2014_11/10_14/575bba3a_9a15_4329_9b19_a3df00e9d286/mid_01511033_001.jpg

It could also be argued that, as self-shaving became gradually more widespread in the later eighteenth century, barbers moved more towards men lower down the social scale. In popular culture too, the barber became something of a figure of fun, often portrayed as a rustic tradesman – the stereotypical bumbling, inept fool who did more damage to his customers appearance than good. In fact, barbers were sometimes singled out and mocked for trying to affect airs and graces. 

But did barbers actually even need trade cards in the first place? The business relied, first and foremost, on footfall and passing trade. A given street in an eighteenth-century English town might contain several barbershops of various size and quality to suit the pockets of a variety of customers.  Such accounts and references that do survive suggest strongly that people tended to keep to one particular barber, building a relationship over time…in fact quite similar to today. This being the case, was there in fact any need to remind the customer of where they had their last haircut or shave? 

Secondly, the nature of the barbering trade was arguably different to those of other, even related, trades. Wig (or peruke) makers, for example could trade on their range of the stock, the quality of their hair, and the service element of their business. Some cards survive for perukemakers  which demonstrate their easy assimilation into the world of polite advertising. For barbers, however, aside from selling the odd cake of soap, glass of beer, or keg of butter, they were unlikely to adopt (or need) the fawning, obsequious style of metropolitan shop owners.

Image from R.W. Proctor, The Barber’s Shop (London: 1883) – author’s photograph

If not trade cards or newspaper advertisements, then, did barbers even advertise at all? In fact it could be argued that barbers had the most striking advertisements of all, hidden in plain sight: the pole. Without wishing to be a ‘pole denier’ I do have some reservations about the origins of the red and white striped design, and the idea that it represents the bloodletting process. Whilst it’s a nice idea (the red signifying the blood being taken, the white denoting the bandages, and the pole itself is said to be the ‘fillet’ – the small stick gripped by the patient whilst their vein was being opened) it seems a little bit TOO convenient. Evidence can be found for barbers’ pole outside shops in the sixteenth century; the story of the colours was certainly in circulation by the late eighteenth century, and vigorously and enthusiastically repeated by Victorian antiquarians. Hard evidence, though, is somewhat more difficult to come by. There is some evidence, for example, that the pole sometimes had blue and white stripes, although this might suggest it represented the vein about to be cut.

Whatever the origins, the lack of trade cards might be taken as evidence that barbering itself was not a ‘polite’ trade; but equally it might just reflect that fact that barbers were so busy that no such expense or trouble was needed.