On the second of March, 1772 Mr. Montague moved in the house of commons to have so much of the act of 12th C. II. c. 30, as relates to the ordering the thirtieth of January to be kept as a day of fasting and humiliation, to be repealed. His motive he declared to be, to abolish, as much as he could, any absurdity from church as well as state. He said that he saw great and solid reasons for abolishing the observation of that day, and hoped that it was not too harsh a name to be given to the service for the observation of that day, if he should brand it with the name of impiety, particularly in those parts where Charles I. is likened to our Saviour. On a division, there being for the motion 97, and against it 125, it was lost by a majority of 27.
The Calves-head Club.
On the 30th of January, 1735, certain young noblemen and gentlemen met at a French tavern in Suffolk-street, (Charing Cross,) under the denomination of the “Calves-head Club.” They had an entertainment of calves’ heads, some of which they showed to the mob outside, whom they treated with strong beer. In the evening, they caused a bonfire to be made before the door, and threw into it with loud huzzas a calf’s-head dressed up in a napkin. They also dipped their napkins in red wine, and waved them from the windows, at the same time drinking toasts publicly. The mob huzzaed as well as “their betters,”—but at length broke the windows, and became so mischievous that the guards were called in to prevent further outrage.[47]
These proceedings occasioned some verses in the “Grub-street Journal,” wherein are the following lines:—
Strange times! when noble peers secure from riot
Cann’t keep Noll’s annual festival in quiet.
Through sashes broke, dirt, stones and brands thrown at em,
Which, if not scand was brand-alum-magnatum—
Forced to run down to vaults for safer quarters,
And in cole-holes, their ribbons hide and garters.
They thought, their feast in dismal fray thus ending,
Themselves to shades of death and hell descending:
This might have been, had stout Clare-market mobsters
With cleavers arm’d, outmarch’d St. James’s lobsters;
Numsculls they’d split, to furnish other revels,
And make a calves-head feast for worms and devils.
The Calves-head Club in Suffolk Street, 1734.
There is a print entitled “The true Effigies of the Members of the Calves-head Club, held on the 30th of January, 1734, in Suffolk Street, in the County of Middlesex.” This date is the year before that of the disturbance related, and as regards the company, the health drinking, huzzaing, a calf’s head in a napkin, a bonfire, and the mob, the scene is the same; with this addition, that there is a person in a mask with an axe in his hand. The [engraving] above is from this print.