This, I do not deny, is a niche within the niche which in turn is my craft. (I have pondered job, profession, trade and similar synonyms but in the end, with its sense of skilled making, I like craft1.) So I shall quite understand if you prefer to (re)visit the world of party animals. Plenty of boobies there. But for those who wonder, like me, quite what happened here, why naked breasts in pic. 1 have been covered in pic 2. please read on. I have several editions of Pierce Egan’s Life in London (aka ‘Tom & Jerry’) and of its various knock-offs, whether by Egan himself, his rival ‘Jon Bee’ (John Badcock), or a variety of less well-known hacks. It was only chance that had two open simultaneously, and I noticed the differences in the pictures above.
My oldest friend, the much-lauded graphic designer, tells me that pictures like these, drawn to illustrate a variety of late 18th and early 19th century books, laid down on day one by such as Robert or George Cruikshank (creators of the pair above), would be printed en masse (or at least sufficient masse to adorn the print run and presumably the era’s flourishing print shops), and then presented to a team of ladies, seated on either side of a long table, whose task it was to colour them in. Did the artist lay down the colours? I cannot say; maybe in this case Egan, who moved enthusiastically in the circles of which he wrote, threw in his guidance? Maybe those who did the work were permitted their own unrecognised creativity?
I have a number of these books and the colours, far more than any later printed version - so flat, so dully two-dimensional after the originals - glow within the page. (It is also a tribute to the materials used that they maintain their effect two centuries on). Reading the books, they are rewardingly slangy, I often wonder about those ladies.2 Like modern translators, or worse, they receive neither credit nor acknowledgement.3 Given that water-colour was a sanctioned pursuit of the gently born (young) woman, was the job no more than a necessary filling in of time as they waited for Mr Right (a figure though long established remained un-apostrophised until at least January 1841 when the Comic Almanack recalled the young woman who’d ‘once had a quiver-full4 of beaus; / Old young, short, tall, dark, light […] but never Mr Right.) Better, surely, than life as a governess, halfway between upstairs and down and likely prey for both. Or was it the last stop, irrespective of nurture, before they abandoned all efforts at respectability and queued for a spot in Mr Harris’s latest List of Covent Garden Ladies?5
Did they let concentration render them silent, or, skilled enough to work on automatic pilot, did they critique the material on which they expended their vital expertise, did they tease each other and gossip of absentees? I have no real idea of how this went, did they squabble over whose turn it was to do, say, purple or green - the kind of tones allotted to the more luscious and classy of lady’s dresses or gentleman’s suitings - and who to do white or cream - dresses too, but also the tedious infilling of walls and ceilings. Or did Caroline have her speciality, Phoebe hers, Sophia hers and so on down the lengthy, paint-spattered board?
Life in London; Or, the day and night scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq. and his elegant friend Corinthian Tom, accompanied by Bob Logic, the Oxonian, in their rambles and sprees through the metropolis. Dedicated to His Most Gracious Majesty King George the Fourth. Embellished with thirty-six scenes from real life, designed and etched by I.R. & G. Cruikshank; and enriched also with numerous original designs on wood, by the same artists was published in 1821. I don’t have a record of each edition, but I have one for 1830, which was the same year as Egan penned his follow-up, the Finish to the Adventures of Tom, Jerry, and Logic teaching our heroes and heroines - ‘finish’ works on multiple levels - that there are no happy endings, only death.
The picture at which we look is entitled ‘Gay Moments of Logic, Jerry, Tom and Corinthian Kate’ (poor Sue, sitting left, is not mentioned. Nor does she have a surname. Nor does Kate, but she is approvingly labelled ‘Corinthian’, a fit partner to Corinthian Tom. Both are sporting ladies (up-market, though perhaps falling short of the semi-sanctioned demi-rep, defined by Henry Fielding in Tom Jones (1749) as one ‘whom everybody knows to be what nobody calls her’), though Egan barely mentions it in the book; I think he does more, or heavily implies it in The Finish.6 They were supposedly based on Mrs. Maples and Harriette Wilson, both celebrated courtesans.
My immediate thought on first seeing it was that this, surely, was the product of John Camden Hotten, lexico-pornographer, whose enemies celebrated his death with the cruel rhyme: ‘Hotten, rotten, forgotten.’ For Hotten is undoubtedly a more than usual suspect. Forget his slang dictionary, one of the better of its kind, a mid-19th century way-station within my pursuit, and good for multiple expanding editions, some posthumous, and not superseded until from 1890-1904 the next major slang collector, John Farmer (with help from sidekick the poet W.E. Henley) took over the task in seven authoritative, cite-filled volumes. Hotten’s primary income, one suspects (slang certainly wasn’t going to pull down the shekels), came from porn. He called it his ‘flower garden’ and specialised in fladge such as Lady Bumtickler’s Revels. There was a series, Lascivious Gems: among them ‘The Diary of a Nymphomaniac’, ‘The Fanciful Extremes of Fucksters’, ‘The Pleasing Pastime of Frigging’ and ‘A Night in St John’s Wood.’7
As for the Gay Moments, whatever we might have hoped, Hotten is quite innocent. His edition of Egan’s best seller appeared in 1869, hand-colouring was nearly over and it shows. It lacked the glowing appeal of the hand-crafted pictures and the illustrations, somewhat muddy, lie all too unexcitingly on the page. Sue is somewhat decolleté, more so than in earlier editions, but Kate is wholly chaste, Cupid’s kettledrums decorously submerged beneath her dress. At least one decanter (on the right) has been emptied, but our friends are unmoved and there is neither slap nor tickle. Tom figures it with Kate (they are waltzing, explains Egan, and describes their gyrations as ‘this lascivious dance’), Jerry puts the make on Sue but no more. Even Bob Logic’s grin might be considered a little less manic.
I have a first edition (everyone is clothed) then two others: a second for 1821, presumably capitalising on the sales, and then one of 1830. In both of these the young women are sporting the dairy, or as coarser modernity would have it, ‘got their tits out for the lads.’ Another version, I do not have it, maintains Sue’s covering, but allows for Kate’s unrestrained exposure. (Perhaps Sue was about to follow her friend’s example?). In 1821 this was not a sign of immorality, merely of fashion, with corsets pushing up the breasts and dresses cut so as to expose what was thus displayed. Nonetheless I remain bemused: why would one edition opt for modesty, and the next for display. Was it Egan, or his publishers? Was it the queens of the squib tipping their instrument towards current chic? Had the original team of ladies been replaced by men, and anything but gents? Sex, we may assume, sold as ever it does, but if this was the prevailing style, it cannot have been that titillating. I lack the knowledge to unravel a mystery that may fascinate only me.
And of course I have no answer. Nothing similar emerges in those of the other 35 of the 36 colour pictures. The best candidate might have been this:
which shows our trio enjoying ‘lowest life’ and a few drains of daffy down east at the All-Max (i.e. ‘all gin’) tavern. But while sex may be available, Logic is doing his best, it isn’t the point. Let alone naughtily illustrated. What one might note is that of the 17 figures, six (baby included) are black.
As Egan described it: ‘Lascars, blacks, jack tars, coalheavers, dustmen, women of colour, old and young, and a sprinkling of the remnants of once fine girls, &c. were all jigging together, provided the teazer of the catgut was not bilked of his duce. Gloves might have been laughed at, as dirty hands produced no squeamishness on the heroines in the dance, and the scene changed as often as a pantomime, from the continual introduction of new characters. Heavy wet was the cooling beverage, but frequently overtaken by flashes of lightning. […] On the sudden appearance of our “swell trio,” and the Corinthian's friend, among these unsophisticated sons and daughters of Nature, their ogles were on the roll, under an apprehension that the beaks were out on the nose; but it was soon made “all right,” by one of the mollishers whispering, loud enough to be heard by most of the party, “that she understood as how the gemmen had only dropped in for to have a bit of a spree, and there was no doubt they voud stand a drap of summut to make them all cumfurable, and likewise prove good customers to the crib.” On the office being given, the stand-still was instantly removed ; and the kidwys and kiddiesses were footing the double shuffle against each other.’
And not a nipple in the house.
GDoS offers 268 synonyms for a search on job/occupation, but they are nearly all specific (and that’s not to consider such as major players as publican or prostitute). Of the generalities I like the 1950s jazz term haim, which, though unproven, may come from the older collar and hames, a prison combo meaning collar and tie and, as the definer noted in 1918, ‘in reference to the swell clothes one wore or is going to wear on the outside.’
If among my readers is an expert who can tell me quite how wrong I am and how foolish my suppositions, I would be wholly grateful. I sense that this (esp. pp12-17) might help: https://staceymeikelly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/skelly_a-short-history-of-hand-coloured-prints_-with-a-focus-on-gamboge-chrome-yellow-and-quercitron-etc_pic-edited.pdf but I fear it offers more on the mixing of paint than of humans.
Stacey Mei Kelly’s 2015 dissertation (see note 2 above) makes it clear: ‘Eye-witness accounts of this process in the 18th and 19th century have not yet been found, adding to the mystery of the entire trade.’ That said, she offers much information, though nothing as regards my specific query. The bottom line seems to make colouring-in a low status job: children, apprentices and servants might all be used as well as professionals (sometimes budding artists, Turner among them) and quality duly varied. Print-sellers might keep one or two colourists on staff. Perhaps the most remarkable statistic is this: When the leading print-seller Ackermann published a series of architectural and topographical views the project required the hand-colouring of 372,000 prints. My mind, at least, boggles.
As one for whom the double entendre is a go-to presumption when reading virtually any pre-20th century text I encounter, I cannot resist waving my hand to alert the world that the standard English vagina is Latin for ‘quiver’ (the penis is no sword, merely a Latin ‘tail,’ but its synonyms often are). Yet rightly or wrongly, and wholly out of character, I don’t believe that the Almanack was either nudging nor winking. Sometimes a quiver…
For exhaustive, authoritative coverage, go here: https://www.hallierubenhold.com/books/the-covent-garden-ladies-pimp-general-jack-the-extraordinary-story-of-harriss-list/. I am aware that those lists had ceased publication in 1794, well before 1821 when the pictures shown above were released. Forgive me. They were artists, I am a licentiate.
Have no fear: Egan isn’t playing the moralist. We are sixteen years out from Victoria’s grim ascendency and risqué fun is still on offer. His views are offered a page earlier. No, I will not apologise for his take, does anyone really believe that times have changed. I would merely note the anchovy sandwich, a new take of that long-established equation of vaginal sex with fish, the unspoken hint of eat, to enjoy cunnilingus. With my brush-wielding ladies still in mind, I direct readers to the wife in watercolours, another piece of male stereotyping:
St John’s Wood was once where, if rich enough, you established your mistress in a fittingly des. res. Like the similarly populated area round Notre Dame des Lorettes in Paris, whence the word lorette, it created yet another term for the working girl: the St John’s Wood dona.