How was such a peculiar, irritating and unconventional character as Master Bookbinder Billy Noon (1772-1820) ever admitted into the august Worshipful Company of Stationers?  Noon supervised 5 apprentices from 1806-13 at his workshop at 30 Warwick Lane in London and participated in several trade societies but was more renowned for his practical jokes than his bindings.

Warwick Lane, the scene of many of Billy Noon's escapades from Ernest George, Etchings of Old London (1884) Images Online 

Noon knocked off the chimney pot of a local pub to win a bet. He climbed on to his own roof and sounded off a police rattle.  Once a crowd had gathered below, Noon emptied a slop pail over them.  This led to a fine, but such punishment was no deterrent.  Noon jumped onto passing wagons full of hay, played an organ in the middle of the night and threw offal at the waistcoat of a passing gentleman.  Living near Smithfield meat market, there was a lot of offal about, and also livestock.  Noon enjoyed annoying the animals by firing peas at them. Once a bull nearly got the better of Noon by cornering him in an alley but “he, by some dexterous movement which was neither perceived by the eyes of the bull nor by the bystanders, got through betwixt its legs and mounted its back in triumph”.

Fellow Stationers were a favourite target. At official dinners, Noon would pull faces at the diners at the top table, making them laugh so much that they couldn’t eat. A contemporary description relates that Noon was “a smartish chap, his activity was very great and his grimaces were most laughable - he could put his legs up behind his shoulders – and the great [comic actor] Chas Mathews did not surpass him for ludicrous changes of physiognomy and laughable attitudes”.

Actor, Charles Mathews  who was famous for his comic poses. From Anne Mathews, Memoirs of Charles Mathews, Comedian (1838) British Library 840.e.7,8.

 

It is no wonder that “the Stationers’ Company offered [Noon] over and over again large premiums to withdraw … but with no success”.

 

Philippa Marks
Curator, Bookbindings; Printed Historical Sources   

Further reading;

Ellic Howe and John Child, The Society of London Bookbinders 1780-1951, London, 1952.

John Jaffray Bookbinder. A collection of manuscripts relating to the art and trade of bookbinding. Mic.A.19964.

Chimney Sweeps’ Day, Blackbird is gay,
Here he is singing, you see, in the “May”.
He has feathers as black as a chimney sweep’s coat.
So on Chimney Sweeps’ Day he must pipe a glad note.


   

From London Town by Felix Leigh Images Online

May Day used to be celebrated as a festival by chimney sweeps. Newspapers reported the carnival proceedings: ‘the ludicrous caperings of the sooty tribe, who fantastically attire themselves on such occasions, with their faces smeared with brick-dust, by way of paint, and with gilt and coloured paper ornaments in profusion’ (Sussex Advertiser 14 May 1827).  For some years before her death in 1800, Mrs Elizabeth Montague entertained sweeps every May Day in the courtyard of her house in Portman Square in the west end of London. Roast beef and plum pudding were served, followed by merry dancing.  Each guest was handed a shilling by the lady of the house as he left (Alnwick Mercury 6 May 1876).

In trying to help the sweeps, Elizabeth Montague was following the example of philanthropist Jonas Hanway who campaigned in the second half of the 18th century to improve the unhealthy and dangerous working conditions for climbing boys apprenticed to chimney sweeps. An act of kindness towards the boys which was reported in the press involved three maritime officers of the East India Company in 1776. When walking through Smithfield, the men spotted a group of little sweeps loitering hungrily near a ‘sausage parlour’.  They told ‘the little Sons of the Brush’ that they would buy them sausages until they tired of eating.  Two cooks were needed to keep up with the boys’ appetite.  After eating sausages and black puddings for over a half an hour, they were treated to 24 plum and apple tarts.  The officers settled the bills and received ‘a First of May Day Bow from the Chimney-Sweepers, and a low Curtesy from each of the Cooks’ (Derby Mercury 6 September 1776).

Journalists delighted in mimicking the language and accent of the London chimney sweeps. After street cries were regulated by the 1834 Chimney Sweepers Act, there were newspaper reports of sweeps being punished for calling out ‘Sveep’. One expressed his astonishment at the new regulation: ‘Vell, I never… I vunder vot next ve shall have. Carn’t even now call out “serveep” for van’s livelywood but vot the beak is arter us and nails us for five bob, or a month in kervod’ (Morning Post 21 November 1834).

 

Improvement in the working conditions of climbing boys was a slow process to judge from the evidence presented by The Climbing Boy’s Advocate published in 1856. This verse by James Montgomery appears on the front page:

Who loves the Climbing Boy?  Who cares
If well or ill I be?
Is there a living soul that shares
A thought or wish with me?
Yet not for wealth and ease I sigh,
All are not rich and great;
Many may be as poor as I,
But none so desolate.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records 
                          
Further reading

British Newspaper Archive

The Climbing Boy’s Advocate (reference RB.23.b.3564)