Modern London (1804) – Itinerant Trades Gallery

 

This is a gallery of plates ‘representing the Itinerant Trades of London in their ordinary costume’ with ‘remarkable places given in the background’.  These are taken from Modern London, published in 1804 by Richard Phillips.  The engravings are by the English painter William Marshall Craig.  Romantic London includes a version of Horwood’s Plan with these images mapped to their locations and including their descriptions, to which the gallery is intended to be a supplement.  Right-clicking on an image and selecting ‘Open image in new tab’ will open the source file and allow for more detailed perusals.  The images used here were released into the public domain by the British Library and can be reused freely.  They can be downloaded from the BL’s Flickr account or from the Wikimedia Commons.

A list of the plates including the locations depicted is given below.

  1. BAKING OR BOILING APPLES – Stratford Place
  2. BAND-BOXES – Tabart’s Juvenile Library
  3. BASKETS – Whitfield’s Tabernacle
  4. BELLOWS TO MEND – Smithfield
  5. BRICK-DUST – Portman Square
  6. BUY A BILL OF THE PLAY – Drury Lane Theatre
  7. CATS AND DOGS’ MEAT – Bethlem Hospital
  8. CHAIRS TO MEND – Soho Square
  9. CHERRIES – St James’s Palace
  10. DOOR MATS – Charing Cross
  11. DUST O! – St. Mary-le-Strand
  12. GREEN HASTENS – Newgate Prison
  13. HAIR BROOMS – Shoreditch Church
  14. HOT LOAVES – St. Martin’s in the Fields
  15. HOT SPICED GINGERBREAD – The Pantheon
  16. KNIVES TO GRIND – Whitehall
  17. LAVENDER – Temple Bar
  18. MACKEREL – Billingsgate
  19. MATCHES – The Mansion House
  20. MILK – Cavendish Square
  21. NEW POTATOES – Middlesex Hospital
  22. OLD CLOTHES – Fitzroy Square
  23. POOR SWEEP – Blackfriars Bridge
  24. RABBITS – Portland Place
  25. RHUBARB – Russell Square
  26. SAND O! – St Giles’s Church
  27. A SHOWMAN – Hyde Park Corner
  28. SLIPPERS – Somerset House
  29. SOOT O! – The Foundling Hospital
  30. STRAWBERRIES – Covent Garden Market
  31. WATER CRESSES – Hanover Square