The Romance of the London Directory

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Bardsley Charles Wareing Endell. The Romance of the London Directory

PREFACE

CHAPTER I. INDIVIDUALIZATION AND LOCALIZATION

CHAPTER II. THE DIVISIONS OF LONDON SURNAMES

CHAPTER III. IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION

CHAPTER IV. ROBIN HOOD AND THE LONDON DIRECTORY

CHAPTER V. EARLY PET NAMES

CHAPTER VI. THE BIBLE AND NOMENCLATURE

CHAPTER VII. OFFICERSHIP

CHAPTER VIII. THE EMPLOYMENTS OF OUR FOREFATHERS

CHAPTER IX. NICKNAMES

CHAPTER X. NICKNAMES (continued)

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When the enterprising and energetic editor of The Fireside wrote suggesting that he should print my articles on the London Directory, published at various intervals during the last two years in that magazine, I was somewhat taken aback. I will candidly confess that half of them, or thereabouts, were written with some degree of care: I will as honestly admit that the rest were indited amid the press of heavy ministerial labours, and had to take their chance, as regards manner, method, and matter. Nevertheless, I may add that, however wanting in order and sequence several chapters appeared on paper, I was not afraid for the accuracy of their contents. My only credit for this, supposing my lack of fear to be well founded, is that which attaches to diligent research. The only true means of discovering the origin of our surnames is to find the earliest form of entry. Light upon that, and half the difficulty vanishes. This is a means which is as open to any of my readers as myself – more so in the case of those who dwell in the metropolis.

I take this opportunity of apologising to many readers of The Fireside, who have written to me asking for information in respect of their own, or some other name they were interested in. A few I have been able to answer; the rest have had to lie by, for I have not had the time or health to attend to them. I only wish there was the possibility of this preface meeting the eye of my American cousins. I have a large batch of letters of inquiry, from the other side of the Atlantic, to scarcely one of which have I been able to make reply. I feel truly sorry, for I would not seem to be wanting in courtesy to one of them. These more distant inquiries have resulted rather from the publication of “English Surnames” (issued by Messrs. Chatto and Windus, Piccadilly), than the articles in The Fireside. And I would take this opportunity of recommending such of my readers as have become interested in the science of nomenclature, through a perusal of these elementary papers, to study that work. I can do this the more readily as I have no pecuniary interest in the sale thereof!

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Of the utility there could be no doubt. In wet weather, as already hinted, everybody who had a coat collar had to turn it up to prevent each swinging sign from dripping the rain-water down the back of the neck. Umbrellas were still rare, costly, and curious luxuries. In a word, the swinging sign was voted an intolerable nuisance, was found guilty, and condemned – not to the gallows, of course, for the charge against it was that it had been hanging there to the public detriment all its days – but to oblivion. I daresay London had made away with many of its cumbersome signboards many years before the provincial towns. It is curious to note that in a hundred different nooks and corners of old London there still linger some of the tradesmen’s signs, either flattened against the wall, or carved upon the now crumbling stonework.

There are endless allusions to the signs of old London in the comic or semi-comic rhymes of the period. Thomas Heywood, early in the seventeenth century, says: —

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