This account by Bloomfield of the men and women with whom he lived and worked as a shoemaker in the 1780s and 90s dramatically expands the information we have on his life and contacts during this crucial period in his development as a poet, and extends our understanding of the importance that urban, and above all, artisanal culture played in shaping his sense of self. [1]  At the same time, it offers one of the few written sources of detailed information about the ordinary lives of labouring class people in the period, in which they are viewed by an equal not by an official, and in which their own words and voices are preserved. For this reason, it is a valuable resource for historians, as well as literary critics, interested in conducting a social and cultural ‘history from below’. It reveals racial tensions between Irish and Jewish immigrants to London’s East End; it shows how itinerant and far-travelled were the lives of many artisans in the late eighteenth century; it illuminates how well-read some artisans were and how they aided each other’s literacy by sharing books and papers.

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Oct. 1811

Whoever took up a book of Biography and laid it down with perfect indifference and with no wish to travel further in pursuit of character and intelect, diffused as they are into a thousand different channels, and moving by such various means to accomplish as many different ends?

The written lives and characters of men are so many mirrors in which we see ourselves, and by which we may be taught to despise crimes and to emulate whatever is worthy or meritorious, for the great mass of Biography is confined to Genius, however evinced, particular virtues and, vises, & eccentricities from Plutarch down to the Newgate Calendar. [2] 

The following outlines and scetches from memory are written, not to represent my associates as a constellation of genius or eccentricity, but by way of guide to the characters of men with whom I spent many hours and years as a Mechanic. It is committed to paper principally for the information of my children, and if they read it with an eye to the improvement of their own judgements of men and of life, and the probable termination of lying and vicious habits contrasted with industry of mind & body, their time will not be thrown away. –

R.B.

When a country boy is taken from the plough-tail, from his pure air, and his woods and his home joys, and placed allmost instantaneously in the midst of London, the extream change can hardly be concieved in all its effects by those who never had the experience. Such a change was my lot. I was brought into a little close square (Pitchers Court,) [3]  and our whole domain was a Garret. Here every thing and every person except my brother, was new. To give some account of these strangers, and others whom I afterwards found amongst the shoemakers is the object of the present moment while I perfectly remember the particulars.

George Simms was our landlord, or housekeeper. He was a native of Horncastle, in Lincolnshire, and married a publican’s widow who kept the sign of the plough at the corner of Coleman Street when the buildings in Fore St were in their old stile and the way narrow; the widow had two Daughters, but George, by fuddling and inattention soon took himself and family out of the house, and became a journeyman shoemaker, and afterwards a Chamber-master, or one who gets his customers without keeping a shop. He was a man of moderate understanding, but with quite enough, he thought, to despise and ridicule Moses and the Bible. In this he was encouraged by a customer, one Anderson, a Scotch Barber, yet when he came to die at the age of nearly seventy he exprest much solicitude to have clerical assistance and consolation. He left his wife and two daughters, the youngest of whom was married, and the eldest and the mother died in the same <within a week> of each other, by a malignant fever. George had a Brother who was a Class-leader, and zealous follower of Wesley, yet I well remember that being distrest and in trouble as to worldly affairs, he made what the Londoners call a ‘moon-light-move’ he took away the goods by night and left the landlord to whistle for the rent, but he was a Class-leader nevertheless. His brother George took a real pleasure in shocking his religious feelings by his own foolish profanations, and gloried in being sent to Hell by the Methodist.

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When I first came to London the custom still prevaild of giving a dinner and a social cup to the lodgers and journeymen in honour of Crispin, [4]  but this ceremony is now allmost universally discontinued, and poor Crispin is sinking into insignificance with Guy Fawkes [5]  and the Earl of Warwick. [6]  At one of those festivities the married Daughter made one of our jovial party, and after a good dinner, and xxxx porter of a quality not now to be found was our common beveredge, and most people know that a portion of toasted bread immersed in the pot is an addition to its flavour. The married Daughter, alias ‘Nanny White’ was by nature one of the oddest looking women I ever beheld. Her eyes were, by some contrivance or other so strangely fixd that you never knew when she was looking at you. Nanny was a great laugher, and the Mother very pettish; the former was employd in holding a toast to the fire, but being deeply engaged in conversation, and looking another way, it fell amidst the cinders; the Mother reproved, and a laugh was started at the appearance of the bare fork. The toast was replaced, and precisely the same misfortune occurd again; the Mother as the joke increased hastily caught up in a passion what she deemd the smoking bread, and tossd it hissing into the grat, and the laugh was subsiding, untill at the bottom of the door was discovered, not a toast, but a large half-burnt cinder! The irresistible looks of the daughter, and the mixture of wrath and risibility in the mother are not to be described; the scene would have suited Grimaldi. [7]  Nanny is, of this family, the sole survivor. –

Charles Jones resided at this house some years before I came. He was born at the village of Monkton, near Taunton, Somersetshire. And the following are the prominent features of his history. At the age of Eighteen he started from home, having learnd of his father to make shoes in a rough way. He had litterally no Education, and I have often heard him talk of his first attempt at gaining knowledge, which was by endeavouring to find out the meaning of the numerical part of the Alphabet as found on the Mile stones on his road to Bristol and Bath. At the former city he endured a long and dangerous fever in the Infirmary, and allways spoke in the warmest terms of affection of his old Nurse, whom he calld his Mother. He first came to London in the midst of the uproar occasion’d by the printing <publication> of Wilks’s ‘North Briton,’ [8]  and became an admirer of the politicks of that party, and ever anxious for the acquirement of information he zealously set about learning to read, <and> accomplishd his purpose so as to read the daily papers; and that he was never a good reader was not his fault, he was naturally slow of speech, and begining so late to practise, he could not, as exprest it, ‘see the line below that which he was reading.’ Jones’s liberty fit continued but in a short time when he thought he had found out the patriots, and accordingly became a most loyal subject, going hand and heart with Lord North in his Conquest of the Rebels in America, [9]  and had he been in the House of Commons, would probably have obtain’d a good place.

An ardent curiosity, and a disposition for rambling soon induced him to quit London for Norwich, whither he walkd with his tools in a leather Apron, according to the custom of the trade, but this was the mere commencement of what he actually perform’d. He conceived the plan of visiting the North, residing for some weeks or months at each station, according to circumstances. He thence proceeded to Hull, and to York, Newcastle, and Durham, of which xxx <two> last he gave me a better account as to the Towns-<men> and its <their> manners than I have ever since heard. He workd a short time at Barwick, and proceeded to Edinborough. He allways spoke with peculiar pleasure of his treatment and fortune <while> there, and of the beauty of its <the> situation. But Edinborough could not hold him long. The western coast of Scotland tempted him, and a journey to Glasgow was determined upon. There he made a considerable stay; and at length resolved upon a trip to Ireland. Leaving Glasgow very restricted as to his finances, for it was no uncommon case with him to act upon the impulse of the moment, he set out <for> Port Patrick to embark on the packet, and on the road joind company with a poor Barber, who had been in London, and was now returning to his friends at Belfast. The Barber was as short of money as the Shoemaker, yet they both resolved to go, and getting on board the Boat an adverse wind drove them into port again after hazarding their lives in a storm. Jones was attacked by the sickness incident to landsmen, and after being completely exhausted, he laid down in the hold, for the hatches were closed, and it was night. His head rested on somthing which served him for a pillow, but on being aroused he found one cheek plastered with pitch which the warmth had extracted from a piece of old cable. In the morning when the weather permitted they were safely landed at Donahodre <Donhadadee, or at Carrick Fergus> on the opposite coast, but they had still another difficulty to surmount, namely to pay their passage. The demand for both was five shillings, and this they could not produce. They both told as good a story as they could in such circumstances, but the Captain represented to them in a temperate way the impropriety of their coming on board without money. The Barber referd him to his friends at Belfast, and with honest intentions, for the Captain knew some of his family. But appearing somthing dissatisfied, Jones finishd the parley by offering him what appeard to be a handsome cane or walking stick, but this he observ’d was of no value to him, or at least could not be accepted for a crown until Jones, who was a great Angler, unscrewd it and exhibited a Fishing-rod worth more than the sum in dispute. This was left with the Captain, to be redeem’d whenever the parties could bring the money. They had no sooner landed that than a man drest like a Beadle accosted them and demanded six pence a piece. And here I doubt they were not strictly justifiable for they pleaded absolute want of money, that they had it not; and related to him the late adventure with the Captain. The Beadle turn’d away and only observed that ‘where there was nothing, the King must lose his right.’

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Thus forlornly did they enter upon Irish ground, and as forlorn was the weather, for in persuing their rout the rain fell without ceasing. In this state they travel’d on the few miles before them, but on the way endeavouring to purchase small Beer at a Cottage, they observ’d the Children who were at the door go in, timidly, and secret themselves. On following them, they all declared ‘indeed their Father and Mother were gone out, and they had no beer.’ But when the travelers had left the house, they were call’d back by the parents and furnish’d with the beer, for which they would take no money, but told them they had directed the children to say what they did, if any strangers appear’d, for that they were in expectation of the collectors of the xxxx <Hearth> money. [10] 

The Barber was in high spirits, declaring that when they reachd his friends, for he had been many years from home, all their present wants would be supplied. On entering the Town he eagerly sought his old neighbourhood for the relatives he had left, but found but one living! The house where he had lived was no longer in the shaving trade, but was now a ship blockmaker’s; all was blank! Jones however like most shoemakers, got employment the next day, as did the Barber in a short time, intending to settle himself at his old spot. And here the shoemaker left him, and proceeded on to Dundalk, on the road for Dublin. I forget whether the fishing rod was ever redeem’d, and I may probably have made some wrong statements as to Towns, and the Barber’s home <might> possibly <have> been Dundalk, but this is not material. Jones was very remarkable for his memory, and for a scrupulous varacity, and hearing these adventures so often related, amidst a thousand others, they stuck on my mind almost indelably, and now serve for my amusement.

After a considerable stay at Dublin he embarkd by the packet to Liverpool, having on board a Baker coming to journey work in London he had provided for his short voyage plentifully and promised Jones and another a share of his good fare, But being a stranger to the water or its effects, he incessantly watchd the vessels in Dublin Bay, observing that ‘they were <all> going at a great rate.’ The passenger assurd him that it was themselves that were going, adding that he would probably soon be sick if he continued to amuse himself in that way. This proved the case in a short time and his whole store was devourd by his fellow travellers.

From Liverpool Jones returned to London, visiting Manchester, Chester, Oxford, Winsor, and the intermediate Towns. It cannot be wonderd at that with his head full of anecdotes and information he should be found an agreeable companion. When I first knew him, after all his rambles, he was in possession of a collection of Maps, some of them very good, and it was from him I first acquired a notion of the lattitude and longitudinal divisions of the Globe, and much other Geographical knowledge, which to me was highly pleasing and satisfactory, and not less to him, for he was an ardent teacher. He purchased a Folio system of Geography and my Brother took in by weekly numbers a History of England, at the same time, or shortly after, a Brother of Jones’s took in a large Edition of Cook’s Voyages; [11]  —. These books with a Newspaper every morning afforded matter for the week’s digestion, and most of the reading fell to my share. Charles had no domestic cares but what arose from the superior tendance of his colony of Canary Birds, but, long since, at the age of about 45 he married a woman of his own age and now lives in the neighbourhood of Goswell Street. – Jones had a Brother who was from his earliest youth a Sailor though brought up to <the> trade of making Tobacco pipes, He was at the distance of 26 years or more, discovered by his family in London, far gone in the Disorder incident in <to> the West Indies. [12]  He took a voyage to Greenland in hopes of a cure, but returnd worse, and died soon after. Another brother was brought up a smith, but turn’d shoemaker, and died soon after his marriage. Another was a stone sawyer and subject to fits, as mentioned in the preface to the Farmer’s Boy. [13]  His two sisters were the prettiest girls I ever remember to have seen, the eldest married a publican near the Temple, and the younger was servant to Captain Beard, [14]  who I understood had been round the world with Captain Cook, she died in the flower of her youth by a scarlet fever.

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Thomas Bird was a native of Tamworth in Staffordshire, and about sixty years of age. He liv’d, or rather drank, by making Childrns Shoes. His singular and invincible silence as to his own life and affairs was allmost matchless. A year past before we learn’d (from another quarter) that he had buried a wife, and had then a Son in the Sea service. His invariable practice was to work untill he gain’d a few shillings, and then enjoy the luxury of sitting from morning to night in some obscure Tap-room, returning very late, and allways intoxicated, repeating it for as many days as his money lasted. But he found a grand resource to help out his stock, for he was an extraordinary proficient at the game of Drafts and often kept up the holiday by his winnings. I saw him many years afterwards extremely bent in the back, and supporting himself with a short stick.

Henry Robinson came from Kendal in Westmoreland. Being in the habit of wearing wooden shoes when in his youth <young>, his feet were unlike those of other people. He was rather parsimonious, and yet fond of dress, and would lend money to those who stood in need, as I can most gratefully bear witness. He was fond of History, and purchased a splendid Edition of Rapin. [15] While yet a young man his health declined rapidly and having no wife, he retired to Ealing in Middsx. where he was tenderly nursd by a young woman [‘of’ omitted] his acquaintance until he died.

Childmead & Wm Horton. These companions came perfectly strangers, and hired the room on the second floor, – The former was a humpbacked man, and the latter a young man of strong sense without education, as was the other, but the difference between them was extreme. Childmead was a Kentish man who had rambled to Gosport where he became acquainted with Horton who was born at the village of Southwick near Portsdown Hill in that neighbourhood. Work being very slack they agreed to tramp to Salisbury where they found no employment, for it was in the dead of winter. Passing onwards to Bristol and Bath they found still the same ill fortune, and were determined to make their way to London; where Childmead assured his young companion he had a Brother a master Shoemaker in a good trade, and that another Brother was a Sergeant in the West Kent Militia, and one of the handsomest men in the Regiment. Time brought these boasts to a proof soon after. Horton, on their leaving Bath had yet some spare clothes, though he had been compel’d to sell some articles to provide subsistence, and almost moneyless they set out on their journey. A deep snow accompanied them throughout their long walk, and many hardships they had to encounter before their distresses could be relieved. And here I cannot resist the inclination I feel to mention a thought which I have often found uppermost in my mind. When the pennyless and the forlorn are on the public roads how many porters’ lodges, and smart white gates they pass in absolute want and dejections, where the proprietors are sitting at a good fire, and regaling themselves with plenty, and more than a plenty. Where the wine is flowing liberally, and begging to be drank and the servants in the kitchen too full and too lazy to put away the spit! If this is not ‘just as it should be,’ it is just as it will probably allways be. – However, the adventurers continued their course and before they reachd the neighbourhood of London, Horton had sold a waistcoat and a greatcoat, and that at a season when the weather was intensely cold, –They trusted the remaining bundle to a driver who charged them a shilling for conveying it some miles in the tail of his waggon, declaring that it had given him more trouble than all the rest of the load. While on the road the snow fell heavily and they both turnd sleepy, and the younger, Horton, rested by the road side while the other went on to a public House to look out for quarters, he soon return’d, and roused his companion perhaps from the sleep of death, and they recruited their strength and proceeded onwards to London, the great Receiver General of Delinquency, Affluence, and destress. On their arrival their whole stock was just two-pence-halfpenny. Now then for their good friend the master Shoemaker and their reception, which Horton realy expected to find; – But Childmead knew that his brother was literally a Cobler in a stall in Bedford-bury near Covent Garden. Thither they went, and the wife did not not half like the visit of her husband’s brother and a stranger who, just rescued from ice and snow, look’d as if he could have eaten the Cobler and his wife too. Some beef steaks served however for the present to put all parties in a better humour; and the strangers got employment. Here it was likewise discovered that the handsome Sergeant in the Kentish militia was a private, and had never been otherwise, and being a small man and very dirty, he was seldom on real duty, but was a kind of half servant, and during the encampment at Cox-heath [16]  was principally employed to sweep the streets or avenues between the tents. Horton remonstrated with Childmead for telling these and a thousand lies, and the answer he received was rather a singular one. ‘Well, and suppose I choose to do so, you ungrateful rascal, they did not hurt you, did they’ – They soon after their arrival took to the most profitable branch of our trade, Boot Closing and as soon got over their laborious tramp, and hard fare – The continuation of this story will be found at Page

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About this time my Brother & self removed our quarters [17]  and found the following companions. –

John Dudbrige kept the house; a sickly but very civil man, with a strong tincture of Arminian faith. Gaining a porter’s place in the India Company’s warehouses, he became, when they were embodied, a private and afterwards a sergeant, [18]  but in a few years died of a complaint, not, I believe very frequent, Diabetes.

James Kay, from Dundee, was, when we first knew him, as merry a Scot as ever wag’d a leg; but in a short time was a most rigid Calvinist, having been brought up in the Kirk of Scotland. [19]  I never saw a man so strive against his natural disposition which was lively in extreem, every approach to risibility became a crime, and the dark gloom of eternal damnation of which they are so fond of talking, swallowed up his characteristic features, and allmost his intellects. He attended service at the Tabernacle frequently on the week <days>, to the great injury of his income and became, as he very truly said, a ‘new man.’

In this frame of mind he became acquainted with a young woman Elizh Morgan, daughter of a preacher in the other faith, an Arminian xxxx in the Westlean <Westlean> Methodism, at Axminster in Devonshire. The girl had been taught to consider Calvinistic principles as derogatory to the honour of God, and the lover, without any kind of drawback or salvo, condem’d all arminians to eternal destruction. Their courtship was a mixture of Love and Religion, and their contests were exactly calculated to make a young listener doubt both, and xxx judge for himself. They married, and continuing extremely poor and destrest she accompanied him, so far from her home, to Dundee, where in the course of two years they both died within a few months of each other.

Wm Lesley was a scot from Fifeshire, and had too much self opinion ever to grow wise. His ideas were exceedingly contracted, and his conversation without interest. He could not bear raillery, especialy on the subject of his particular country; which his companions insisted was no part of the globe, because the scotch boys on certain occasions say ‘I’ll give you all the world and a bit of Fife.’ He had xxxx <several> countrymen come to see him of quite different character, one of whom, then a journeyman without friends or expectations in London, now keeps a very excellent Boot Shop next door to the London Coffee House, Ludgate Street. This xxxx <Gibbs> is a merry fellow, and has an intimate friend and countryman named Mills, who has written some very good national songs and small poems.

Michael Lawley. A Roman xxxx <Catholick> from Dublin. This man had more intellect than prudence, for occasional drinking kept him wretched. He had served in the navy, and never own’d himself a Catholick. Conscienciously honest, and friendly, he appear’d to want resolution more than arguments as to reforming his life. He was superstitious, perhaps from education, and I once heard him grossly insulted, and saw his colour change and his limbs tremble for just behind our house lived a family of Jews on whose back yard we look’d down From our windows. It happened that Lawley was looking below when a Jew they observ’d <him> from the yard and exclaim’d with an ignorant sneer, ‘Take you head in, you Irish Tief, you know we hang’d you God.’ This speech richly merited execration and I can never forget it. Had any Jew dared to utter such words in the early reigns of our monarchy an insurrection would have murderd thousands of them, and plunderd the rest.

The period I am <now> speaking to was about the year 1788, and I never expected to see Lawley again, but in 1805 or 6 he calld on me in the City Road where I am now writing, and stated that for many years past he again been a saylor, and was then return’d from Jerusalem &c &c. He had certainly saild with the expedition under the venerable Abercrombie to Egypt, [20]  or about that time; and had since his return pickd up an old Irish wife, and lookd well.

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John King, was an old Dutchman xxxx with a large family liv’d in the adjoining house. He had been 40 years in England but never could speak good English. He sang Dutch songs with the utmost conviviality and spirit, but had a sad trick at romancing in his tales, and always said that he had been offer’d an Hundred Guineas by a Dutch Captain for his wife! ‘and that was while she was big wi child wi my son.’ This eldest son John literally killed himself by hard labour in supporting his numerous family by Boot Making. Another son, much the cleverest in the family is now a Coal Meter [21]  on the Thames, and the old man, now upwards of eighty, resides in the Dutch Almshouses in xxx <Sun> Street, Finsbury Square.

About this time, being much out of health, I spent a charming month or two at Sapiston at the old farm [22]  and on my return to London stop’d six weeks at Saffron Walden, and found the following associates.

James Knott, a youth of about 20 who I soon understood had been lately married. On the second day after my arrival he proposed a walk through the park of Lord Howard, [23]  adjoining the town; and I soon found him getting upon a subject for conversation which I did not understand, – He stated that the affair had happen’d not by any means through the fault of his wife, but that it was entirely through his ‘plagueing <plaguing> her to it,’ with some more remarks not worthy of mention. I answerd as well as a stranger could in such a case, and still remained ignorant of his true meaning. The following day I heard from my shopmates that he had courted his master’s maid, and their intimacy growing too apparent, he was forced to marry! I have since often thought of the sentence which xxxx <is> a good one, in Kames’s Introduction to the art of thinking ‘A man is always in a hurry to defend his weak side.’ [24] However his wife appear’d like a good girl, for she loved him, and made excellent apple pie.

James Parminter. A rough Country Man about Fifty, with a Boy of 16, his son. The Father, was entirely without the advantage of letters or the pen. Their work was of the coarsest kind, and consisted of jobs, and cobling of no common kind, for the ploughman in the neighbourhoods wore what suited <to> a strong clay soil. The boy was exceedingly enraged at being forced to attend a Sunday School, and to be taught to read. The Father had a strong memory, and the following statement will prove it. As he kept no memorandums of the various jobs, and mendings he performd, (often a dozen in a day,) but at his settlement on Saturday night he would recount from Monday morning every minutia with the utmost precision. – I doubt he had been a rough one in his youth, for he never talk’d of old pleasures without recounting some of his feats at robbing Orchards and doing mischief under the name of fun. In one instance during a Sunday morning’s walk he and his companions observ’d some excellent fruit just inside the wall of a Gentleman’s garden, what fruit it was he could not tell, but it was the best he had ever eaten. Not finding it possible or perhaps safe to stay leisurely to steal it from the bough, they broke off a large branch, about one quarter of the tree, and carried it off in triumph!!

Will Charlick was exceedingly deaf and therefore not liable to loose time in conversation. He was the most industrious man I ever found. His motions were as regular as the coggs of a wheel, but his remarks were pertinent when he chose to make any. He had a brother who got a good living by breeding Rabits for the London market, and being full of what is somtimes termd wit, used to inform strangers that he had a stock of cherry-coloured Rabits; and this he made out by proving that they were black.

Banks, an old civil and sensible man, who, as well as his son, xxx <was a> performer on the violin, and attended country fairs. He had employd himself at his leisure in the construction of a Keyd Instrument rough indeed, but as far as I can remember, of no mean workmanship, and quite sufficient to prove the ingenuity of the artist. His son was a sleek faced, silent youth, deeply in love with his neighbour Jenny; and she seem’d to be in the same situation. Never was supprest jealousy depicted on any face more strongly than on his, when at the close of an evening a gossip amongst a company of young people the general parting salutation included his Jenny. Every kiss was high treason, and every joke a dagger. From this agreeable party I xxxx <separated> in a pouring rain, taking my chance in a tilted cart which sat me down at Leadenhall market at 4 the next morning. During my residence at Walden my Lodging was but ninepence per week, for which Mrs Green, our landlady, cookd whatever we could buy.

MS: British Library Add MS 28265, ff. 400–392 [foliation reversed because the MS proceeds from the back of the MS volume forwards] [marked in pencil] Copied by RW.

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