WATCHMAN, BELLMAN, and BILLMAN.
Plates I. II. III.
It has been observed in the Introduction, that of all the callings, that of the Watchman is perhaps of the highest antiquity; and as few writers can treat on any subject without a quotation from honest John Stowe, the following extract is inserted from that valuable and venerable author:
“Then had yee, besides the standing watches, all in bright harnesse, in every ward and streete of this citie and suburbs, a marching watch that passed thro’ the principal streets thereof, to wit, from the Little Conduit by Paule’s gate, thro’ West Cheape, by the Stocks, thro’ Cornehill, by Leadenhall to Aldgate, then backe downe Fen-church Street, by Grasse Church, about Grasse-church Conduit, and by Grasse Church Streete into Cornehill, and through it into Cheape again, and so broke up. The whole way ordered for this marching watch extended to 3200 taylors yards of assize. For the furniture thereof with lights there were appointed 700 cressets, 500 of them being found by the Companies, and the other 200 by the Chamber of London.[8] Besides the which lights, every Constable in London, in number more then 240, had his cresset; the charge of every cresset was in light two shillings and four pence, and every cresset had two men, one to beare or hold it, another to beare a bagge with light, and to serve it; so that the poore men pertaining to the cressets, taking wages, besides that every one had a strawne hat, with a badge painted, and his breakfast in the morning, amounted in number to almost 2000. The marching watch contained in number 2000 men, part of them being old souldiers, of skill to be captaines, lieutenants, serjeants, corporals, &c. Wiflers, drummers, and fifes, standard and ensigne bearers, sword-players, trumpeters on horsebacke, demilaunces on great horses, gunners with hand-guns, or halfe hakes, archers in coates of white fustian, signed on the breast and backe with the armes of the City, their bowes bent in their hands, with sheafes of arrowes by their sides, pikemen in bright corslets, burganets, &c. holbards, the like Billmen in Almaine rivets, and apernes of mayle, in great number.”[9]
Mr. Douce observes, that these watches were “laid down 20 Henry VIII.;” and that “the Chronicles of Stow and Byddel assign the sweating sickness as a cause for discontinuing the watch.”
“Anno 1416. Sir Henry Barton being maiar, ordained lanthorns and lights to be hang’d out on the winter evenings, betwixt Alhallows and Candlemas.”
Mr. Warton, in his notes to Milton’s Poems, observes, that anciently the Watchmen who cried the hours used the following or the like benedictions, which are to be found in a little poem called “The Bellman,” inserted in Robert Herrick’s Hesperides:
“From noise of scare-fires rest ye free,
From murder, Benedicite.
From all mischances, that may fright
Your pleasing slumbers in the night;
Mercie secure ye all, and keep
The goblin from ye while ye sleep.” 1647.
The First Plate of the Watchman, introduced in this work, is copied from a rare woodcut sheet-print engraved at the time of James the First, consisting of twelve distinct figures of trades and callings, six men and six women. Under this Watchman the following verses are introduced, but they are evidently of a more modern date than that of the woodcut:
“Maids in your smocks, look to your locks,
Your fire and candle light;
For well ’tis known, much mischief’s done
By both in dead of night.
Your locks and fire do not neglect,
And so you may good rest expect.”
Under another Watchman, in the same set of figures, are the following lines, of the same type and orthography as the preceding:
“A light here, maids, hang out your light,
And see your horns be clear and bright,
That so your candle clear may shine,
Continuing from six till nine;
That honest men that walk along,
May see to pass safe without wrong.”
There were not only Watchmen, but Bellmen and Billmen. These people were armed with a long bill in case of fire, so that they could, as the houses were mostly of timber, stop the progress of the flames by cutting away connections of fuel.
Of this description of men, the Second Plate, copied from a rare print prefixed to a work, entitled, “Villanies discovered by Lanthorne and Candle-light,”[10] by T. Deckar, or Dekker, 1616, is given as a specimen. The Bellman is stiled “The Childe of Darkness, a common Night-walker, a man that had no man to waite uppon him, but onely a dog, one that was a disordered person, and at midnight would beate at men’s doores, bidding them (in meere mockerie) to look to their candles when they themselves were in their dead sleeps, and albeit he was an officer, yet he was but of light carriage, being knowne by the name of the Bellman of London.”
In Strype’s edition of Stowe’s London, 1756, (vol. ii. 489,) it is observed, “Add to this government of the nightly watches, there is belonging to each ward a Bellman, who, especially in the long nights, goeth thro’ the streets and lanes, ringing a bell; and when his bell ceaseth, he salutes his masters and mistresses with some rhimes, suitable to the festivals and seasons of the year; and bids them look to their lights. The beginning of which custom seems to be in the reign of Queen Mary, in January 1556; and set up first in Cordwainer-street Ward, by Alderman Draper, Alderman of that ward; then and there, as I find in an old Journal, one began to go all night with a bell; and at every lane’s end, and at the ward’s end, gave warning of fire and candle, and to helpe the poor, and pray for the dead.”
It appears from the Bellman’s Epistle, prefixed to the London Bellman, published in 1640, that he came on at midnight, and remained ringing his bell till the rising up of the morning. He says, “I will wast out mine eies with my candles, and watch from midnight till the rising up of the morning: my bell shall ever be ringing, and that faithfull servant of mine (the dog that follows me) be ever biting.”
Leases of houses, and household furniture stuff, were sold in 1564 by an out-cryer and bellman for the day, who retained one farthing in the shilling for his pains.
The friendly Mr. George Dyer, late a printseller of Compton-street, presented to the writer a curious sheet print containing twelve Trades and Callings, published by Overton, without date, but evidently of the time of Charles the Second, from which engraving the Third Plate of a Watchman was copied.
