Yorkshire Almanac Advertising signage in North Yorkshire

15 June 1795: Advertising signage in North Yorkshire

Anon. 1800. Written on the Door of a Chimney-sweeper’s House at Easingwold, 15th June, 1795. Olla Podrida. Hull: W. Rawson and Co. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

Written on the door of a Chimney-Sweeper’s house at Easingwold, 15th June, 1795.
Who lives here?
Who do you think; Alexander Turner,
Give him a drink?
For why?
Because he sweeps chimnies;
Cleans smoke jacks; and is always dry.
Then if your chimnies be on fire,
He’ll put them out to your desire.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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20 March 1852: Sam Hyam, gents’ outfitter of Briggate, Leeds, markets his spring collection to poetry-lovers

14 April 1792: The ballad of Spence Broughton, hung this day at the York Tyburn for robbing the Sheffield and Rotherham mail

23 January 1640: Andrew Marvell’s father drowns in the Humber at Hull

11 July 1787: Advertisement for The Commercial and Mathematical Academy, Hull

18 February 1889: An effigy of Jack Nelson, wife-beater, is paraded with rough music through Hedon (Holderness) by a furious crowd

20 September 1635: Angry villagers bear William Hodshon on a pole into Sunday service at Appleton Wiske (Northallerton), assisted by a bagpiper and a churchwarden

25 June 1808: Dr Campbell, lodging above a chandler’s on Leeds Kirkgate, advertises the results of his treatment of anorexia, Napoleonic wounds, and all other known illnesses

15 December 1888: Leeds’s most popular wassailing song, according to Frank Kidson

20 November 1826: “Nimrod” of London encounters The Four Alls on a pub sign in Burniston (Scarborough) while on a hunting tour

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“Larwood” (Herman Diederik Johan van Schevichaven) and Hotten have chapter and verse:

Others have a sort of satirical humour in them, such as the well-known Four Alls, representing a king who says, “I rule all;” a priest who says, “I pray for all;” a soldier who says, “I fight for all;” and John Bull, or a farmer, who says, “I pay for all.” Sometimes a fifth is added in the shape of a lawyer, who says, “I plead for all.” It is an old and still common sign, and may even be seen swinging under the blue sky in the sunny streets of La Valette, Malta. In Holland, in the seventeenth century, it was used, but the king was left out, and a lawyer added; each person said exactly the same as on our signboards, but the farmer answered:—

“Of gy vecht, of gy bidt, of gy pleyt,
Ik ben de boer die de eyeren leyt.”

The author of “Tavern Anecdotes” observes that he used to notice in Rosemary Street, the sign of the Four Alls, but passing that way some time after, he found it altered into the Four Awls; the sign painter who renewed the picture had probably found himself not equal to a representation of the four human figures. In Ireland, a similar corruption may be observed, the four shoemaker’s awls taking the place of the four representatives of society. Although having no connexion with the Four Alls, it may be mentioned that three and four awls constitute the charges in the shoemakers’ arms of some of the continental trade societies or guilds.

This enumeration of the various performances coupled with the word all has been used in numerous different epigrams: an address to James I. in the Ashmolean MSS., No. 1730, has:—

“The Lords craved all,
The Queene graunted all,
The Ladies of honour ruled all,
The Lord-Keeper seal’d all,
The Intelligencer marred all,
The Parliament pass’d all,
He that is gone oppos’d himself to all,
The Bishops soothed all,
The Judges pardon’d all,
The Lords buy, Rome spoil’d all,
Now, Good King, mend all,
Or else the Devil will have all.”

This again seems to have been imitated from a similar description of the State of Spain in Greene’s “Spanish Masquerade,” 1589:—

“The Cardinalls solicit all,
The King grauntes all,
The Nobles confirm all,
The Pope determines all,
The Cleargie disposeth all,
The Duke of Medina hopes for all,
Alonso receives all,
The Indians minister all,
The Soldiers eat all,
The People paie all,
The Monks and friars consume all,
And the Devil at length will carry away all.”

(Larwood 1908)

See also Pepys, quoting the Duke of York:

the three great trades of the world are, the lawyers, who govern the world; the churchmen, who enjoy the world; and a sort of fools whom they call soldiers, who make it their work to defend the world.

The German travel guide writer Stein confirms Lord Darlington’s observation in Pisa (Stein 1829).

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