Female barbers were not unknown to our forefathers, and, till within a few years, were to be met with in the provinces: possibly some “weird sisters” still survive in odd localities. We remember a sturdy little Welsh woman who wielded the razor very successfully in her native town, and was patronized extensively by the sailors and quarrymen. The five barberesses of Drury Lane, who dreadfully maltreated a woman in the reign of Charles II., are remembered for their infamy. Local histories tell of a noted barberess in Seven Dials, and of a black woman who did duty at Butcher Row, near the Temple. The delicate manipulation of female artists is proverbial; but one shudders at the thought of encountering the armed hand of the female barber; for who has forgotten the trick which the barber-damsel put upon Don Quixote, when she raised a lather a span high, covering up his face and beard with a white foam, and then left him for awhile with his neck outstretched, and his eyes half shut, “the strangest and most ridiculous figure imaginable;” and how poor Sancho was threatened with still worse consequences, and protested loudly against the beard-scouring by the scullions, adding, with his usual shrewdness, that there was no such difference between him and his master, that one should be washed with angel water and the other with devil’s-ley. Southey informs us that female shavers were not uncommon in Spain in his day. The more feminine occupation of hair-dressing was long carried on by the other sex, in a becoming and artistic manner: witness the announcement of one of them, copied by Strutt from the original in the British Museum:—
A
R
Next Door to the Golden Bell, St. Bride’s Lane, Fleet Street,
LYVETH LYDIA BEERCRAFT,
Who cutteth and curleth ladies, gentlemen, and children’s hair.—She sells a fine pomatum, which is mix’d with ingredients of her own makeing, that if the hair be never so thin, it makes it grow thick; and if short, it makes it grow long. If any gentleman’s or children’s hair be never so lank, she makes it curle in a little time, and to look like a perriwig.
It will be observed in Queen Anne’s reign no other style but that of the perriwig was thought worthy of imitation. In former times, the university barber was a person of some consequence. The vice-chancellor and proctors invited the fraternity to an annual supper, and no barber or hair-dresser could exercise his vocation in the university unless he matriculated,—took the usual oath, and had his name entered on the books of the university. It was usual for the college barber to wait upon the “freshmen,” and dress and powder them in the prevailing fashion—a custom which Southey was among the first to resist—an innovation he would scarcely have ventured on in after life.
The home of the first Company of Barber-Surgeons in London was probably where the hall of their successors, the barbers, is at this day, in Monkwell Street. The present building was erected by subscription some years after the Fire of London, which all but consumed its predecessor: a portion of the hall, of a semicircular shape, is actually within one of the bastions, still entirely perfect, of the old Roman wall—the ancient boundary of the metropolis. The court-room, designed by Inigo Jones, though small, is of fine proportions, and contains what must now be considered the chief riches of the company—a noble painting by Holbein, “Henry VIII. granting the charter to the Barber-Surgeons”—one of the finest pictures by Holbein in this country. There is also a portrait of Inigo Jones, by Vandyke; a picture by Sir Peter Lely, and other valuable paintings. The Company possesses a silver-gilt cup, presented by Henry VIII.; another the gift of Charles II.; and a large bowl given by Queen Anne. Such are some of the relics the barbers may still feel proud of, which we trust are not fated to decay; but, as this is eminently an age of revival and restoration, it is to be hoped the old hall may yet see better days; that, whatever was garnered up of old by the wisdom and prudence of our forefathers, may be wisely and liberally enjoyed by this generation, and the good work carried on and extended for a later age. The arms of the barbers are:—
Quarterly first and fourth, sa, a chevron between three fleams ar, second and third, per pale ar, and vert, a spatula in pale ar, surmounted of a rose, gu, charged with another of the first; the first rose regally crowned proper. Between the four quarters a cross of St. George, gu, charged with a lion passant gardant, or. Crest—An opinicus, with wings indorsed, or. Supporters—Two lynxes proper, spotted of various colours, both ducally collared and chained, or. Motto—“De præscientia Dei.”