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Charity Bazaars In Nineteenth-Century England*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

F. K. Prochaska
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Extract

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the honour to announce a sale of many interesting, beautiful, rare, quaint, comical and necessary articles. Here you will find objects of taste, such as Babies' Shoes, Children's Petticoats, and Shetland Wool Cravats; objects of general usefulness, such as Tea-cosies, Bangles, Brahmin Beads, and Madras Baskets; and objects of imperious necessity, such as Pen-wipers, Indian Figures carefully repaired with glue, and Sealed Envelopes, containing a surprise. And all this is not to be sold by your common Shopkeepers, intent on small and legitimate profits, but by Ladies and Gentlemen, who would as soon think of picking your pocket of a cotton handkerchief, as of selling a single one of these many interesting, beautiful, rare, quaint, comical and necessary articles at less than twice its market value.

Spoken amidst trumpet flourishes by Robert Louis Stevenson's “allegorical Tout,” these words introduce an institution familiar to all of us and one full of interest to the social historian — the charity bazaar. Tea-cosies, bangles, Brahmin beads, and Madras baskets may seem only quaint and comical, but they and similar trifles filled countless stalls in innumerable bazaars and raised tens of millions of pounds in nineteenth-century England for causes of every conceivable description. Men and women of all social classes found bazaars, fancy fairs, fancy sales, or ladies' sales as they were variously called, a most popular and fashionable way of making money for the charity of their choice. Many philanthropic societies depended on them for annual funds. Clergymen of all persuasions, not without a touch of compromise, looked to them as a last resort to build a church or to enlarge a school or drawing room.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , Spring 1977 , pp. 62 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1977

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Footnotes

*

This study was supported by a Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies and a Research Council Grant from the University of Missouri-Columbia. I would also like to thank my wife Alice, and my friends Ivon Asquith, Claire Barwell, Michael Collinge, and Bernard Semmel for their comments.

References

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10. Times, May 30, 1829; Jan. 19, Feb. 8, June 16, Aug. 5, 1830. Commercial bazaars were popular outside London as well; see, for example, Brighton Herald, March 25, 1825; Bristol Gazette, March 27, 1828.

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24. East London News, 1875: Jan. 1, May 21, Sept. 17, Dec. 10, 24, 31.

25. Hampstead Record, 1895: March 23, May 4, 11, 18, June 1, 15, July 13, Nov. 16, 30, Dec. 7, 14, 21.

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44. See, for example, the reports of the London Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society, the Church Pastoral-Aid Society, the Baptist Missionary Society, and the Society for the Relief of Distressed Widows.

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49. Charity cruises, or “water parties” as they were sometimes called, travelled from London to places like Sheerness and cost the benevolent £1 or so. See Times, July 13, 1830.

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104. Ibid., p. 18.

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113. The fancy goods trade was big business. By 1889, imports and home production were worth about £14,000,000 a year. See The Fancy Goods and Toy Trades Journal, I (Feb. 2, 1891), 9Google Scholar.

114. See Anna of the Five Towns.

115. See, for example. Press Bazaar News, June 28, 29, 1898. The standard charge per day for the hire of a policeman was 5s in the 1880s. A Guide to Bazaars & Fancy Fairs, pp. 2-3.

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