Costermonger
[1] Costermongers met a need for rapid food distribution from the wholesale markets (e.g., in London: Smithfield for meat, Spitalfields for fruit and vegetables or Billingsgate for fish) by providing retail sales at locations that were convenient for the labouring classes.
Costermongers used a variety of devices to transport and display produce: a cart might be stationary at a market stall; a mobile (horse-drawn or wheelbarrow) apparatus or a hand-held basket might be used for light-weight goods such as herbs and flowers.
Both the sound and appearance of costermongers contributed to a distinctive street life that characterised London and other large European cities, including Paris, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries.
[4] Although the original costermongers worked as itinerant apple-sellers, the word gradually came to refer to anyone who sold fresh fruit or vegetables from a basket, hand cart or temporary stall.
The costermongers, moreover, diversify their labours by occasionally going on a country round, travelling on these excursions, in all directions, from thirty to ninety and even a hundred miles from the metropolis.
They filled a gap in the food distribution system by purchasing produce from the wholesale markets, breaking it down into smaller lots and offering it for retail sale.
[16] While the term costermonger is typically used to describe sellers of fresh produce, primarily fruit, vegetables, fish, and meat, both Victorian commentators and historians point out that costers sold an "astonishly large amount of raw and prepared food.
"[17] In their photographic essay, Street Life in London, published in 1877, John Thomson and Adolphe Smith depict costermongers selling a variety of fresh and prepared foods as well as beverages—from ginger beer through to iced confections.
A shallow-basket is given to them, with about two shillings for stock-money, and they hawk, according to the time of year, either oranges, apples, or violets; some begin their street education with the sale of water- cresses.
With the influx of people in London, in the years after the Industrial Revolution, demand outstripped retail capacity, such that costermongers performed a 'vital role' providing food and service to the labouring classes.
[24] During the 19th century, costermongers gained an unsavoury reputation for their "low habits, general improvidence, love of gambling, total want of education, disregard for lawful marriage ceremonies, and their use of a peculiar slang language.
[27] The Methodist writer, Godfrey Holden Pike, argued that the Sabbath market was vulgar, but in later writings, he noted that "influential newspapers have often misrepresented him [the costermonger].
Broadsheets of the day served to perpetuate costermongers' stigmatised status by stories of the moral decay that surrounded places where costers congregated.
Members of the public were skeptical of the vestry's motivations and believed that shopkeepers were using the issue to eliminate the cheaper produce in order to reduce competitive pressures.
The pearl button is with him a symbol of position and standing, and by the number of glistening rows that rather for ornament than use, decorate his vestment, his importance amongst his own class may be measured.
"[44]In the 1880s, a man by the name of Henry Croft who had long admired the costermonger's way of life as well as their showiness and panache, smothered his worn out suit and accessories with pearly buttons arranged in geometric patterns.
Betty May spoke of the "coster" style and atmosphere in London, around 1900, in her autobiography Tiger Woman: My Story: "I am often caught with a sudden longing regret for the streets of Limehouse as I knew them, for the girls with their gaudy shawls and heads of ostrich feathers, like clouds in a wind, and the men in their caps, silk neckerchiefs and bright yellow pointed boots in which they took such pride.
They were not party political, showed a "complete disregard for the lawful marriage," were not members of any Church, were intensely loyal to other costermongers, were inclined to lend support to the poor and treated their donkeys very well.
[55] Historians have pointed to the "subversive potential" of the coster class, because of their ability to make broad social connections that cut across geographic boundaries and "related forms of power and exploitation.
Mayhew pointed out that a ballad, London Lyckpeny written by John Lydgate in about 1409, was a very early example of music inspired by the cries of costermongers as they spruiked cherries and strawberries in the streets.
By the 18th and 19th centuries, ballads extolling the beauty of the women selling lavender, pretty flowers and water cresses had become a ripe subject for composers of popular songs.
Shakespeare, in the play, King Henry IV, (published about 1600) wrote that "virtue is of so little regard in these coster-monger times, that true valor is turned bear-heard."
Playwrights, John Ford and Thomas Dekker, also mentioned costers in The Sun's Darling (1656) in the passage, "Upon my life, he means to turn costermonger, and is projecting how to forestall the market.
A popular comedy, The Scornful Lady (1616), written by playwrights, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, referred to costers in: "Pray sister, do not anger him, And, then he'll rail like a rude costermonger.
[63] Two decades later, in England, The Cries of London Calculated to Entertain the Minds of Old and Young; illustrated in variety of copper plates neatly engrav'd with an emblematical description of each subject, was published.
[74] From the 18th through to the early 20th century, music hall entertainers, songwriters and musicians mined coster culture and language, seeking inspiration for parodies, sketches and songs.
Coster life and culture was also portrayed in Victorian music halls by vocal comedians such as Albert Chevalier, Bessie Bellwood, Charles Seel, Paul Mill and Gus Elen.
Jeffrey Archer's 1991 novel As the Crow Flies features a costermonger mentoring his grandson in the trade in the Covent Garden area of London.
[84] The French artist, Louise Moillon, noted for her still-life paintings, also used market scenes, costermongers, street vendors and green-grocers as subject matter in early 17th-century France.
[87] Notable commentators (with selected book titles) include: The costermonger's trade in London is subject to regulation by law, under the administration of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis.
