All proverbs are not necessarily true, but that which asserts that “every man has his hobby” few will gainsay. Nothing in a house so well betrays this hobby as the owner’s bookcase. It may be large, or it may be small, but there the secret lies. One man’s hobby is angling, and his shelf begins with quaint Isaac Walton, and ends with the Field newspaper of last week. Another has a liking for natural science, and his library is a vade mecum of its mysteries. A third—oftentimes a lady—loves ferns, and her study is a little compendium of that curious literature that has all but wholly sprung up within the present generation. Even the young lady’s shelf of poems, or novels, or histories, betrays, if not the bent of her mind, the bias of her education.

My hobby is Nomenclature, and my library betrays my weakness in—what class of books, do you think?—directories! You would think I was a postal official. I have London Directories, Provincial Town Directories, and County Directories. I have even a Paris and a New York Directory. But herein lies a strange truth. I find as much pleasure in perusing these directories as any schoolgirl over her first and most sensational novel. The grand finale of murders, suicides from third-storey windows, and runaway weddings, all so thrillingly blended, cannot be half so absorbing to her—not that I recommend her to read such things—as the last chapter of the London Post Office Directory, from Y to Z, is to me. It is the conclusion of one of the grandest and most highly wrought romances ever put together by the ingenuity of man. Oftentimes in the evening I take it down from my shelf, and I never feel tempted to skip the pages. Nay, when I have at last got to Z, I can begin at A again with but freshened interest; for the Directory will bear reading twice.

The London Directory, to every one who has the key that unlocks its treasures, is at once an epitome of all antiquarian knowledge. In it I can trace the lives of my countrymen backwards for many a century. In it is furnished a full and detailed account of the habits and the customs of my ancestry—the dress they wore, the food they ate, six hundred years ago; though that it is not so far back as the Welshman’s pedigree, which hung from his sitting-room ceiling to the floor, and half-way up had a note to the effect that “about this time Adam was born.” No, I can but pretend to go up some eighteen or twenty steps of the ladder of my family nomenclature. Nevertheless, by one glance at your name I can tell you—unless its spelling be hopelessly corrupted—whether the progenitor of your race was Scotch, Irish, English, Norman, French, German, or even Oriental. I can tell you what was his peculiar weakness, or his particular vocation in life. I can declare the complexion of his hair; whether he was long or short, straight or crooked, weak or strong. I can whisper to you what his neighbours thought of him; whether they deemed him generous or miserly, churlish or courteous. Yes, sometimes I must tell you unpleasant truths about your great, great, great (ad infinitum) grandfather. For the Directory is remarkably truthful; it won’t spare anybody, high or low, rich or poor. I have heard people telling of the greatness of their ancestral name, and the said name on their visiting card was laughing at them all the time “behind its back.” I have seen men dwelling in back slums contented with their sphere, and yet ignorant of the fact that they bore a sobriquet which six centuries ago would have brought them respect from the king on his throne down to the humblest cottager in the land. Oh, the ups and downs of life, as related in this big romance, put to paper by prosaic clerks, who never smiled at the fun, nor dropped a tear at the distress, simply because they lacked the manual that should explain its merriment and interpret its pathos! Hieroglyphics, believe me, are not confined to Egyptian obelisks or Oriental slabs.

But some reader, perchance, will say, “What do you mean? Is there anything more in a surname than the individuality it gives to the present bearer? In itself is it not purely accidental?” Of course it is accidental. A fossil shell is accidental; but place it in the hand of a geologist, and he will talk for five days upon it, barring the time he will want for eating and sleeping. And a surname is a fossil—not millions of years old, may be, like the shell; only six hundred—still a fossil, and therefore stereotyping the state and condition of human life at the period when it came into being. A surname not only gives individuality to the present bearer, but is a distinct statement of some condition or capacity enjoyed or endured by the first possessor. An instance will prove this. Take the name of “Cruikshank.” There must have been some particular ancestor so designated because he had a “crooked leg.” That is a fact to start with. Do you want to know where he lived, and when? Well, there is no great difficulty in the matter. The very spelling “cruik,” and not “crook,” proves that he was a north countryman. Is that all? No. The word “shank” shows that he received this nickname before “leg” had come into ordinary use. Leg is always used for shank now, yet it is first found in England about the year 1250. It is comparatively modern. Hence there is no surname that I know of with “leg” as an ingredient. [12] In later days he would have been called “Bow-leg.” Once more, nickname-surnames are scarcely ever found to be hereditary before the year 1200. Here then I glean four facts about “Cruikshank”:—

(1) The first Mr. Cruikshank was bow-legged.(2) He came from the borders of Scotland, or still more north.

(3) He lived previous to the year 1400.

(4) And not earlier than the year 1200.

I have taken this instance hap-hazard. I might have selected an exacter illustration, but this will answer my purpose. It is possible my reader will now say, “But there must be a good substructure of primary knowledge laid before I can take up the London Directory, and pretend to be immensely interested in it, and tell my friends what capital reading it is.” Of course, every true pleasure must be bought, and study will purchase infinitely higher delights than money can ever do. It is partly that you may learn how to acquire that necessary elementary knowledge that I am about to write these short chapters upon the London Directory.

Before I begin, let me say a few words about personality and locality. We should always begin at the beginning. The preacher never starts at fourthly; soup by some mysterious law ever precedes fish. Remember, the necessity for individuality has given us our Names. The need of an address has originated our Directories.

(1) Individualization. The word surname means an added name—i.e., a sobriquet added to the personal or baptismal name. Why? Because one was not sufficient to give individuality to the bearer. Adam and Eve, and Seth, and Abel, and Joseph, and Moses, all were enough while population was small; but manifestly such simplicity could not last. In the wilderness there were, say, 2,500,000 Israelites. How could one suffice there, especially if “Caleb” or “Joshua” had become so popular that there were, say, 50 or 100 of each in the closely-packed community? It was not enough: therefore we find a surname adopted, that is, an added name. “Joshua, the son of Nun”—“Caleb, the son of Jephunneh”—are amongst the world’s first surnames. In Directory language this is simply “Joshua Nunson,” or “Caleb Jephunneh.” Simon Barjonas is nothing more than Simon Johnson. Remember, however, these were not hereditary. They died with their owner, and the child, if there was one, got a surname of his own. Surnames did not become hereditary in Europe even till the beginning of the twelfth century, and among the lower classes not till the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Imagine London with, say, 3,000,000 souls, each possessing but one name. Picture to yourself to-morrow’s post bringing 1000 letters to “Mr. John,” or “John, Esquire.” We can’t conceive it. No, a surname became an imperative necessity when population increased, when men herded together, and communities began to be formed. It is curious to note that some of these surnames have become so common that they have failed of their object, and ceased to give individuality. There are 270,000 “Smiths” in England and Wales, and as many “Joneses.” They would together form a town as large as Manchester, or separately as big as Leeds. William Smith scarcely individualizes the bearer now; so he either gets three names or four names at the font, or his identity is eked out by a remarkable single name, perchance “Plantagenet,” or “Kerenhappuck,” or “Napoleon,” or “Sidney.” The worst of it is that “Sidney” was so greedily fixed upon after it became famous that there are now hundreds of “Sidney Smiths,” and thus it has ceased to give proper individuality. It is the same with “John Jones.” The Registrar-General says that if “John Jones” were called out at a market in Wales, either everybody would come, or nobody: either everybody, thinking that you meant each, or nobody, because you had not added some description which should distinguish the particular John Jones you wanted. I remember at college two John Joneses went in for examination for the “little go.” Both belonged to the same college; one passed, the other did not. The one who got first to the schools bore away his certificate in triumph. The one who came last always declared that his confrÈre had robbed him of his “testamur,” and I have no doubt will die assured of the same! I believe a day will come when, either by compulsory enactment or by voluntary arrangement, there will be a redistribution of surnames in Wales; the sooner the better.

(2) Localization. So much for the personality; now for locality. It is one thing to know the name of the man you want; it is another thing to know where you can find him. In a word, where does he live? “Go into the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus,” says the Divine Book. This would not be enough in the nineteenth century. There are streets a mile long now. There are restaurants above the shops, and offices above the restaurants, and the old woman who cleans the building above them all. How is Mrs. Betsy Pipps to be found of her friends? Yet a letter from her daughter in the country about the cows and the turnips has as much right to find its way to that top room in the murky city as a posted document about Turkey and Russia to Lord Derby in that big place a little further on.

One of the greatest transformations the streets of London ever saw was when the signboards were taken down. These were at first adopted purely to localize the inhabitant of the house pendent from whose wall the signboard swung. Until the reign of Queen Anne, the streets could scarcely be seen further than a few yards because of these innumerable obstructions. They darkened the streets, obscured the view, and threatened the very lives of the horsemen who rode along. The personal discomfort to wayfarers was great, for not only did the rain drip unpleasantly from them, but the wooden spouts, which frequently shot forward from the roof in order that the signboard might swing from them, poured their little cataracts upon the devoted heads of the passers-by. This infliction was patiently endured for several centuries; but the British ratepayer at last made his voice heard, as in the end he always does. This time, too, he had right on his side, as he invariably thinks he has, and an alteration took place. The ruling powers ordered the obnoxious signs to be placed flat against the walls. The idea of removing them entirely was reserved for a more brilliant intellect a few years later on. I have not yet seen the printed regulation for the metropolis, but no doubt the Manchester document was but a copy of it. The declaration issued for that town runs as follows: “With the approbation and concurrence of the magistrates, we, the borough reeve and constables, request the shopkeepers and innholders of this town, who have not already taken down their signs, to do the same as soon as possible, and place them against the walls of their houses, as they have been long and justly complained of as nuisances. They obstruct the free passage of the air, annoy the passengers in wet weather, darken the streets, etc.,—all which inconvenience will be prevented by a compliance with our request, and be manifestly productive both of elegance and utility.”

Of the utility there could be no doubt. In wet weather, as already hinted, everybody who had a coat collar had to turn it up to prevent each swinging sign from dripping the rain-water down the back of the neck. Umbrellas were still rare, costly, and curious luxuries. In a word, the swinging sign was voted an intolerable nuisance, was found guilty, and condemned—not to the gallows, of course, for the charge against it was that it had been hanging there to the public detriment all its days—but to oblivion. I daresay London had made away with many of its cumbersome signboards many years before the provincial towns. It is curious to note that in a hundred different nooks and corners of old London there still linger some of the tradesmen’s signs, either flattened against the wall, or carved upon the now crumbling stonework.

There are endless allusions to the signs of old London in the comic or semi-comic rhymes of the period. Thomas Heywood, early in the seventeenth century, says:—

“The gintry to the King’s Head,
The nobles to the Crown,
The knights unto the Golden Fleece,
And to the Plough the clowne.
The Churchman to the Mitre,
The shepherd to the Star,
The gardener hies him to the Rose,
To the Drum the man of war.”

There is a capital collection of these names in a ballad of the Restoration, which is far too long to quote in full, but of which the following is a specimen:—

“Through the Royal Exchange as I walked,
Where gallants in sattin doe shine,
At midst of the day they parted away,
To seaverall places to dine.
The ladyes will dine at the Feathers,
The Globe no captaine will scorne,
The huntsman will goe to the Greyhound below,
And some will hie to the Horne.
The farriers will to the Horse,
The blacksmith unto the Locke,
The butchers unto the Bull will goe,
And the carmen to Bridewell Clocke.
The pewterers to the Quarte Pot,
The coopers will dine at the Hoope,
The coblers to the Last will goe,
And the bargemen to the Sloope.
The goldsmith will to the Three Cups,
For money they hold it as drosse;
Your Puritan to the Pewter-canne,
And your Papists to the Crosse.
Thus every man in his humour,
That comes from the northe or the southe;
But he that has no money in his purse
May dine at the signe of the Mouth.”

Again, Pasquin, in his “Night-cap,” says:—

“First there is Maister Peter at the Bell,
A linen draper, and a wealthy man;
Then Maister Thomas that doth stockings sell,
And George the grocer at the Frying Pan.
And Maister Miles the mercer at the Harrow,
And Maister Mike the silkman at the Plow,
And Maister Nicke the Salter at the Sparrow,
And Maister Dicke the vintner at the Cow.”

Another jingling rhyme began:—

“I’m amused at the signs
As I pass through the town,
To see the odd mixture,—
A ‘Magpie and Crown,’
The ‘Whale and the Crow,’
The ‘Razor and Hen,’
The ‘Leg and Seven Stars,’
The ‘Scissors and Pen,’
The ‘Axe and the Bottle,’
The ‘Tun and the Lute,’
The ‘Eagle and Child,’
The ‘Shovel and Boot.’”

These double signs were very common, and are easily explained. Now-a-days a man who has taken the goodwill of a well-established shop paints over the door “Snooks, late Jopson, Chemist.” The apprentice in old days added his own badge to that of his late master, and the signboard displayed perhaps the “Mermaid and Gridiron,” or the “Leg and Crow,” the old sign being linked to the new.

The reader may think I have dwelt somewhat long upon this matter; but I am writing about localization, and these signboards in their day were the only means of identifying the London tradesman. Names and numbers were practically useless. How small a proportion of the London population could read even two hundred years ago! Mr. Baxter might have “Baxter” in the largest gilt characters over his front; he might further add that he made and sold that newly-discovered luxury tobacco on the counter within,—but how many of the passers-by would be any the wiser! But if he had a large swinging board at the end of a pole, facing the wayfarers, with a huge Turk’s head with a pipe in its mouth, there was none but could tell his occupation. Sometimes the real article was exhibited. The hosier would dangle a pair of stockings from his pole. Thus it was that every shopkeeper was known by his sign. The housewife would send little Tom to the “Cock,” or the “Three Cranes,” or the “Ark,” or the “Hand-in-hand” for her little domestic wants, where now she would bid him run to “Tomkins’,” or “Sawyer’s,” or “Robinson’s.” In course of time the sign did not always harmonize with the articles sold within, but it was quite enough for the neighbours dwelling around. What an array of creaking posts and grotesque frames must there not have been along the leading thoroughfares, such as Cheapside, and old London Bridge! and leaving out the question of discomfort, and the perils of a broken head if you drove on a coach, what a picturesque scene it must have been!

I dare not say what a large proportion of names in the London Directory that look like nicknames must be set down as the result of this old-fashioned custom. The fourteenth century saw London streets looking as if hung with bannerets, so crowded were they with signs. That was a period when half of the lower middle class were still without an hereditary surname. The consequence is, we find such entries as “Hugh atte Cokke,” or “Thomas atte Ram,” or “Thomas del Hat,” or “Margery de Styrop.” The reader must see at a glance that we have here the origination of half our “Cocks” and “Coxes,” “Rams,” “Roebucks,” “Tubbs,” “Bells,” “Crows.” There are three “Hatts” to forty-one “Heads,” three “Pates” and two “Crowns” in the London Directory, not to mention three “Harrows,” two “Plows,” four “Boots,” and ten “Pattens.” All these, and a hundred other names that appear difficult of origination, are easily explained when we recall this faded custom of a few centuries ago.

The plan of having numbered doors came into use but very recently. The signboards were disused in many parts of London before numerals were instituted. The addresses on letters appeared very strange as a consequence.

John Byrom, the great epigrammatist, writing to his wife from Cambridge in 1727, addresses his letter to “Mistress Eliz. Byrom, near the old Church, in Manchester.” That was the ordinary method, to choose some big well-known building, and state your friends’ position to it by the compass. The first Directory ever published, of any pretensions, was Kent’s, in 1736. “The Directory,” it is called, “sold by Henry Kent, in Finch Lane, near the Royal Exchange.” It contains about 1200 names, all the tradesmen and merchants of London. There are such entries as “Samuel Wilson, hardwareman, in Cannon Street, the corner of Crooked Lane,” or “John Bradshaw, opposite the Monument, at a barber’s.”

Manifestly this could not go on. In the edition for 1770 occurs the following: “The Directory . . . with the numbers as they are affixed to their houses, agreeable to the late Acts of Parliament.” The Legislature had had to take the matter into hand. London was getting far too big for indistinct addresses such as these. The first street in the metropolis to possess numbered doors was New Burlington Street. This was accomplished in June 1764. Other important throughfares followed suit, and before ten years had gone by, we find the Directory particularizing as follows: “John Trelawney, haberdasher, No. 22, Nightingale Lane,” or “Hamnett Townley, hop merchant, No. 69, Great Tower Street.” Occasionally a “Vincent Trehearn, hatmaker, behind St. Thomas’s,” comes, but rarely; and by-and-by such entries disappear altogether. Manchester began the same practice in 1772, at the request of the borough reeve and constable, and was the second town in the kingdom to adopt the practice.

It was reserved for the year 1877 to put a climax, I think, to ingenuity of this kind. In Manchester, probably in London also, there are lamp-post Directories. You cannot always have a Directory at your elbow. Even this difficulty is remedied by the lamp-post Directory. The names of all shopkeepers in that particular street wherein the lamp-post stands are printed alphabetically on a circular tablet, which revolves round the post. You turn it round till you find the name you want.

What ingenious creatures we are! Well might our great poet say, “What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties!” Well might one greater than William Shakespear declare, “Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels”! The ingenuity of man has created the surprises of history.