We now make our way northward from the Common by the Clapham Road, leaving the "Plough" Inn on our left. This sign, we need scarcely remark, leads the mind back to days when the village of Clapham, far removed from the busy hum of London life, was surrounded by green fields and homesteads.
"Among agricultural signs," Mr. Larwood tells us, in his "History of Signboards," "the 'Plough' leads the van, sometimes accompanied by the legend, 'Speed the Plough.'" In some cases the sign bears an inscription in verse, such as:
"He who by the Plough would thrive, Himself must either hold or drive." But if these lines were ever inscribed here, they have long since been obliterated.
Nearer to London is the "Bedford Arms," a tavern doubtless so named in honour of the ducal house of Bedford, whose lands at Streatham, as we have seen, can be reached by this road.
From the "Bedford Arms" up to the "Plough" there is a somewhat steep ascent, and the roadway at that point is known as Clapham Rise. This spot has long been noted for its seminaries for young ladies, a fact which is wittily referred to by Tom Ingoldsby, in his amusing mock-heroic poem, "The Babes in the Wood":
"And Jane, since, when girls have 'the dumps,' Fortune-hunters in scores to entrap 'em rise, We'll send to those worthy old frumps, The two Misses Tickler, of Clapham Rise!"
This locality is also a favourite spot for charitable institutions. At Clapham Rise was founded, in 1827, the British Orphan Asylum, now located at Slough, near Windsor. The design of this institution is "to board, clothe, and educate destitute children of either sex who are really or virtually orphans, and are descended from parents who have moved in the middle classes of society, such as, for example, children of clergymen, and of members of the legal and medical professions, naval and military officers, merchants, and of other persons who in their lifetime were in a position to provide a liberal education for their children."
The British Home for Incurables, now flourishing at Clapham Rise, was established in 1861, with two objects - to provide a home for life, with good nursing, skilled medical attendance, and all necessary mechanical contrivances for the alleviation of the sufferings and afflictions of the patients; and to grant pensions of £20 per annum for life to those who may have relatives or friends partially able to provide for them, but who are not able wholly to maintain them.
All who are afflicted with incurable disease are eligible, without regard to nationality or creed, except the insane, the idiotic, and the pauper class, and those under twenty years of age. The institution extends its operations to all parts of the United Kingdom.
The Clapham Road, a broad and well-built thoroughfare, descends gradually towards Stockwell and Kennington. On every recurring "Derby Day" its appearance, from the vehicular and other traffic which passes along it, is lively and animated in the extreme.
The scenes to be witnessed here on these occasions have been graphically and amusingly described by Mr. G. A. Sala, in his "Daylight and Gaslight," to the pages of which we would refer the reader.
[Source: 'Brixton and Clapham', Old and New London: Volume 6 (1878), pp. 319-327. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45284 (accessed 28 January 2013)]
[PB, November 2013: See also William Powell Frith's panoramic painting The Derby Day (1856-8) for an impression of the kinds of people, "animated and lively in the extreme", that the young Edwin Cook, 11th Hussars might have seen making their way to the Epsom Racespast his house on Clapham Rise. The painting was begun in the final year of the Crimean War.
Towards the end of the 18th century, Derby Day had established itself, not only as a major sporting event, but also 'the Londoner's day out', with or without their employers' consent. The fascination of Derby Day attracted the aristocracy and the workman equally, shoulder to shoulder for the day, and the flow of ready money proved a magnet to both, while in pursuit of a good time.
[Source: http://www.epsomderby.co.uk/racing/derby-history (accessed 234.11.2013).]
According to Wikipedia:
[Until the late 20th century,] the Derby was run on a Wednesday or a Thursday and on the day huge crowds would come from London, not only to see the race but to enjoy other entertainment (during some of the 19th century and most of the 20th Parliament would adjourn to allow members to attend the meeting).
By the time that Charles Dickens visited Epsom Downs to view the race in the 1850s, entertainers such as musicians, clowns and conjurers plied their trades and entertained the crowds while others provided other forms of entertainment such as coconut stalls.
The crowded meeting was the subject of a painting by William Powell Frith painted in the 1858 and titled The Derby Day, critics have pointed out that the foreground of the painting shows some of the other reasons the crowds came to see the Derby while the racing is relegated to the margins.
[Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsom_Derby (accessed 24.11.2013).]
There is some useful information about this painting on the Tate website at, including a short video by the jockey Willy Carson. A source of detailed analysis, with particular attention to Frith's belief in Phrenology and the diversification of "types" in London is Cowan...[cite source], mentioned in the summary below:
This picture attracted such huge attention at the Royal Academy exhibition of 1858 that it had to be protected by a rail. Frith spent fifteen months painting it and used a variety of live models for the figures, as well as specially commissioned photographs of the Epsom race course. It was sold before the exhibition opened.
In recent times 'Derby Day' has often been seen as an amusing but essentially insignificant piece of Victorian genre. This is not, however, the case. It is a cogent piece of social realism providing an extraordinary panorama of Victorian society, its vices and virtues, with particular emphasis on the vices.
This was recognised at the time, as Frith's fellow Academician J.E. Hodgson. notes: 'The races on Epsom Downs, the great Saturnalia of British sport, bring to the surface all that is most characteristic of London life. In this picture we can discern its elements, its luxury, its wealth, its beauty and refinement, its hopeless misery ... All its sad tales are told, from that of the jaded Traviata seated in her carriage to the thimble-riggers' accomplice luring a silly countryman to lose his money; and the hungry young acrobat, who forgets all about his somersault in the cravings of his poor empty little stomach. Though Mr Frith does not intentionally pose as a moralist in this picture, its truth and its wealth of incident answer the same purpose. We are surrounded by evils ...'
Whether Frith was moralising or not, recent research by Dr Mary Cowling has convincingly suggested that Frith set out to create carefully realised images of nearly one hundred distinct social types. identifiable as such within the enormously elaborate Victorian class structure. These types are recognisable by their dress, and particularly by their physical appearance, which Dr Cowling has suggested is rendered in accordance with the widespread Victorian pseudoscience of physiognomy, which stated that a person's character, criminal or whatever, could be read in their physical features.
This would certainly explain the almost obsessive way in which the public responded to the picture, as its anxious owner reported: 'People three or four deep ... those in front with their faces within three or four inches of the canvas. The nature of the picture requires a close inspection to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest it ...'.
There are three main incidents. On the right is the young woman in the carriage, referred to by Hodgson as a 'Traviata', the title of Verdi's famous opera about a courtesan, and a characteristic Victorian way of referring euphemistically to a 'fallen woman'. She is the kept mistress of the 'high class rou?' leaning against the carriage. Related to her is the woman in brown riding clothes, on the extreme left of the painting, who is one of the 'pretty horse breakers', high class prostitutes, who at this period daily paraded in Hyde Park on horseback. These women reflect the phenomenal blossoming of prostitution at every level in London in the middle years of Victoria's reign, also the subject of Holman Hunt's 'Awakening Conscience'.
In the centre, the child acrobat distracted by the rich party's food, provides a poignant tableau of the social divide, while on the left the focus is on the 'thimble riggers' who have cheated the 'city gent' in his top hat out of his money.
On his left, a young countrywoman restrains her man from following the same foolish path.
Published in: Simon Wilson, Tate Gallery: An Illustrated Companion, Tate Gallery, London, revised edition 1991, p.85
[Source: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/frith-the-derby-day-n00615/text-illustrated-companion (accessed 24.11.2013).]
Also:
When The Derby Day was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1858, it proved so popular that a rail had to be put up to keep back the crowds. It presents a panorama of modern Victorian life, a previously unknown genre which Frith largely created in his earlier work, Life at the Seaside, Ramsgate Sands of 1854 (Royal Collection).
Frith was a firm believer in the spurious sciences of phrenology and social type, which considered people's characters and social origins were visible in their physical features. Each character in Frith's picture is depicted to conform to these stereotypes, notably in the range of criminal and low-life types present (see Cowling 1989, Ch.2).
On the basis of an initial sketch, which he made after a visit to Epsom in 1856, Frith was commissioned by Jacob Bell, a chemist and amateur artist, to paint a large 5-6 foot canvas for £1,500. He worked on the project for fifteen months, producing two large sketches in addition to the finished work. He brought the composition together with the aid of drawings and sketches, hiring models to pose for all the main figures.
He also commissioned the photographer Robert Howlett to 'photograph for him from the roof of a cab as many queer groups of figures as he could' (Journal of the Photographic Society, 15 January 1863).
He asked a real jockey called Bundy to pose on a hobbyhorse in his studio for the riders on the right of the picture, and also hired an acrobat and his son, whom he saw performing in a pantomime in Drury Lane.
For the remaining figures he called on family and friends, as well as a string of young women sent by Jacob Bell.
Despite a remarkable feat of organisation, the picture remains fairly static, and the figures are more interesting when examined individually.
There are three main incidents taking place in the picture.
On the far left, next to the Reform Club's private tent, a group of men in top hats focus on the thimble-rigger with his table, inviting the audience to participate in the game. The man taking a note from his pocket is the trickster's accomplice. He is tempting the rustic-looking man in a smock, whose wife is trying to restrain him.
On the right of this group, another man, with his hands in his pockets, has had his gold watch stolen by the man behind.
In the centre of the picture we see the acrobat and his son, who looks longingly over at a sumptuous picnic being laid out by a footman. Behind them are carriages filled with race-goers, including a courtesan on the far right, who is the kept mistress of the foppish-looking character leaning against the carriage.
The courtesan is balanced on the far left of the picture by the woman in a dark riding habit, one of a number of high-class prostitutes who daily paraded on horseback in Hyde Park.
Further reading:
Aubrey Noakes, William Frith: Extraordinary Victorian Painter, London 1978, pp.59-69.
Mary Cowling, The Artist as Anthropologist: The Representation of Type and Character in Victorian Art, Cambridge 1989.
Frances Fowle, November 2000. Revised by Robert Upstone August 2001.
[Source: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/frith-the-derby-day-n00615/text-summary (accessed 24.11.2013).]
See also:
Sander L. Gilman's review of Cowling in Medical History, 34, pp. 344-345.
Wikipedia: William Powell Frith (accessed 24.11.2013).