When Rahere, minstrel and jester to Henry I, left the gaieties of the court for the proprieties of the cloister, he exhibited much worldly prudence in arranging his future career. He affirmed that he had seen Bartholomew the apostle in a vision, and that he had directed him to found a church and hospital in his honour in the suburbs of London, at Smithfield.

The land was the more readily granted by the King, Henry II; for it was waste and marshy, and would be improved by the proposed foundation. Osier Lane (now spelled in Cockney form with an H) marks the site of a small brook, lined with osiers, which emptied itself in the Fleet River. The marsh was drained, and the monastery founded on its site in 1123; Rahere was made prior, and great success attended the shrine of St. Bartholomew, where many miracles were affirmed to have been effected in aid of the afflicted.

But the new prior, having been an active man of the world, looked to temporal as well as spiritual aid; he therefore included the right to hold a great fair on the festival of his patron saint, and this brought traders from all parts to Smithfield, for they had the royal safeguard ("firm peace to all persons coming to and returning from the fair")during the three days it was held. Cattle and merchandise were the staple of such fairs. The safe-guard given to traders in days when travelling was difficult and dangerous, and the ease with which men might combine to go in companies to them, made them generally useful; hence shopkeepers laid in their stock from them, and housekeepers furnished their homes with articles not readily obtained elsewhere. The pious might join in a great church-festival, the pleasure-seekers find amusement in the wandering minstrels and jesters who were drawn to the busy scene, or stare with wonder at some performing monkey or other "outlandish beast," who were sure to find favour with the sight-loving Londoners.

Cloth-Fair
Several centuries elapsed, and the whole character of English life altered, before the trading fair became exclusively a pleasure-fair. It was not until the cessation of our civil wars, and the quiet establishment of the House of Tudor upon the throne, that trade assumed its important position, and commercial enterprise elevated and enlarged its boundaries.

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Bartholomew Fair ceased to be a cloth-fair of any importance; but its name and fame is still preserved in the lane running parallel to Bartholomew Close, termed "Cloth-fair," which was generally inhabited by drapers and mercers' in the days of Strype, and which still preserves many antique features, and includes, in a somewhat modernised form, some of the old houses founded by Lord Rich and his successors, who obtained the grant of the hospital property in the reign of Henry VIII.

The fair was always proclaimed by the Lord Mayor to the very end of its existence; and its original connection with the cloth trade was also shown in a burlesque proclamation the evening before by a company of drapers and tailors, who met at "the Hand and Shears," a house-of-call for their fraternity in Cloth-fair, from whence they marched, shears in hand, to this archway, and announced the opening of the fair, concluding the ceremony by a general shout and "snapping of shears."

Keutzner, the German traveller, who visited England in 1598, tells us, "that every year, upon St. Bartholomew's Day, when the fair is held, it is usual for the Mayor, attended by the twelve principal Aldermen, to walk in a neighbouring field, dressed in his scarlet gown, and about his neck a golden chain." A tent was pitched for their accommodation, and wrestling provided for their amusement. "After this is over, a parcel of live rabbits are turned loose among the crowd, which are pursued by a number of boys, who endeavoured to catch them with all the noise they can make."

The next vivid picture of the fair we obtain from an eye-witness, shows how great the change in its character during the progress of the reign of Elizabeth. This photograph of the fair in 1614, we obtain in Ben Jonson's comedy, which takes its title from, and is supposed to be chiefly enacted in, the precincts of the fair. There was hardly a trace now left of its old business character - it was all eating, drinking, and amusement. It had become an established custom to eat roast-pig here; shows were established for the exhibition of "motions" or puppet-plays, sometimes constructed on religious history, such as "the Fall of Nineveh," "the History of the Chaste Susanna,", etc; others were constructed in classic story, as the "Siege of Troy," or "the Loves of Hero and Leander;" which is enacted in the last act of Ben Jonson's play, and bears striking resemblances to the burlesques so constantly played in our modern theatres.

Shows of other kinds abounded, and zoology was always in high favour. One of Ben's characters says: "I have been at the Eagle and the Black Wolf, and the Bull with the five legs, and the Dogs that dance the Morrice, and the Hare with the Tabor." Some of these performances are still popular "sights:" the hare beating the tabor amused our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, as it may amuse generations yet unborn. Over-dressed dolls ("Bartholomew-Fair babies"), and "gilt gingerbread," with drums, trumpets, and other toys were abundantly provided for children.

In 1641, the fair had increased greatly, and become solely devoted to pleasure - such as it was. In a descriptive tract of that date, we are told it was "of so vast an extent that it is contained in no less than four several parishes-namely, Christ-church, Great and Little St. Bartholomew's, and St. Sepulehre's. Hither resort people of all sorts and conditions."

It is remarkable, and worth your observation to behold, and hear the strange sights, and confused noise in the fair. Here, a knave, in a fool's coat, with a trumpet sounding, or on his drum beating, invites you to see his puppets; there, a rogue like a wild woodman, or in an antic shape like an incubus, desires your company to view his motion; on the other side, Hocuspocus, with three yards of tape or ribbon in his hand, shews his art of legerdemain to the admiration and astonishment of a company of cockroaches.

In the reign of Charles II, the fair became a London carnival of the grossest kind. The licence was extended from three to fourteen days, the theatres were closed during this time, and the actors brought to Smithfield. All classes, high and low, visited the place. Evelyn records his visit there, so does John Locke, and garrulous Pepys went often. On August 28, 1667, he notes that he "went twice round Bartholomew Fair, which I was glad to see again": Two days afterwards, he writes: "I went to Bartholomew Fair, to walk up and down; and there, among other things, found my Lady Castlemaine at a puppet-play and a street full of people expecting her coming out." This infamous woman divided her affections between the King, Charles II, and Jacob Hall, the rope-dancer, who was a great favourite at the fair, and salaried by her ladyship. In 1668, Pepys again notes two visits he paid to the fair, in company with Lord Brouncker and others, to see "The mare that tells money, and many things to admire - and then the dancing of the ropes, and also the little stage-play, which is very ridiculous."

In 1699, Ned Ward notes in his Laudon Spy, a visit he paid to the fair, viewing it from a public-house near the Hospital Gate, under the influence of a pipe. "The first objects, when we were seated at the window, that lay within our observation [he was presumably looking at a theatre booth - Ed.], were the quality of the fair, strutting round their balconies in their tinsel robes, and golden leather buskins, expressing such pride in their buffoonery and stateliness, that I could but reasonably believe they were as much elevated with the thought of their fortnight's pageantry, as ever Alexander was with the thought of a new conquest; looking with great contempt on their split deal-thrones and upon the admiring nobility gazing in the dirt at our ostentatious heroes, and their most supercilious doxies, who looked as awkward and ungainly in their gorgeous accoutrements, as an Alderman's lady in her stiff-bodied gown upon a lord-mayor's festival."

One of the most famous of these great theatrical booths was that owned by Lee and Harper, whose "sacred" dramas included the likes of "Judith and Holophernes", and the "Siege of Troy", by Elkanah Settle, once the favourite court-poet of Charles II, and the rival of Dryden. These dramas are curiously indicative of popular tastes, filled with bombast interspersed with buffoonery, and gorgeous in dress and decoration.

The regular actors, as we have before observed, were transplanted to the fair during its continuance, and some of them were proprietors and managers of the great theatrical booths. Penkethman, Mills, Booth, and Doggett were of the number. The great novelist, Henry Fielding, commenced his career as part-proprietor of one of these booths, continuing for nine years in company with Hippisley, the favourite comedian, and others. It was at his booth, in 1733, that the famous actress, Mrs. Pritchard, made her great success, in an adaptation by Fielding, of Moliere's Cheats of Scapin.

It will be perceived that booths at the fair were solid erections of timber, walled and roofed with planks, and perfectly weather-proof. In such a booth "Faux's dexterity of hand" is displayed. Faux was the Robert Houdin of his day, and is recorded to have died worth £10,000, which he had accumulated during his career. The Gentleman's Magazine for February 1731, tells us that the Algerine ambassadors visited him, and at their request he skewed them a view of Algiers, "and raised up all apple-tree which bore ripe apples in less than a minute's time, which several of the company tasted of."

There was abundance of other shows to gratify the great British public; wild beasts, monsters, learned pigs, dwarfs, giants, etc. "A prodigious monster" is advertised, "with one head and two distinct bodies;" and "An admirable work of nature, a woman having three breasts." Then there was to be seen, "A child alive, about a year and a half old, that has three legs." It appears that Nobility and even Royalty patronised these sights. Thus, "The tall Essex woman," in the reign of George I, "had the honour to show herself before their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the rest of the Royal family, last Bartholomew Fair."

The licence and riot which characterised the proceedings in Smithfield, at last aroused the civic authorities, and after much rioting and many ineffectual attempts, the fair was again limited to three days' duration, by a resolution of the court of common council in 1708. The theatrical booths were still important features in the fair, and in 1715, we hear of "one great playhouse erected for the King's Players - the booth is the largest that ever was built."

Dramatic entertainments ultimately declined, but monstrosities never failed, and gratified the Londoners to the last day of the existence of the fair. Pig faced ladies were advertised, if not seen; but learned pigs were never wanting, who could do sums in arithmetic, tell fortunes by cards, etx. Wild-beast shows ended in being the principal attraction, though they were the most expensive exhibitions in the fair; a shilling being charged for admission.

The Mayor endeavoured to stem the irregularities of the fair in 1769, by appointing seventy-two officers to keep the peace and prevent gambling, as well as to hinder the performance of plays and puppet-shows. In 1776, the Mayor refused permission to erect booths at all, which occasioned great rioting. Some years before this, the deputy-marshal lost his life in endeavouring to enforce order in the fair.

The most dangerous rioters were a body of blackguards, who termed themselves "Lady Holland's Mob," and assembled to proclaim the fair after their own fashion, the night before the Mayor did so. Hone says, "the year 1822 was the last year wherein they appeared in any alarming force, and then the inmates of the houses they assailed, or before which they paraded, were aroused and kept in terror by their violence. In Skinner Street especially, they rioted undisturbed until between three and four in the morning, At one period that morning, their number was not less than five thousand, but it varied as parties went off or came in to and from the assault of other places. Their force was so overwhelming, that the patrol and watchmen feared to interfere, and the riot continued till they had exhausted their fury."

The last Royal visit to the fair took place in 1778, when the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester rode through it. Flockton's puppets were at this time a great attraction. Mr. Lane, "his majesty's conjuror," and Mr. Robinson, "conjuror to the Queen,' divided the attention of amateurs of their art. Mite's "Grand collection of wild beasts" were brought from Exeter Change; "A mare with seven feet" was a lusus naturae also then exhibited, giants and dwarfs of course abounded, as they ever do at fairs! "The famous ram with six legs," "The unicorn ram," "The performing serpents," and other wonders in natural history, also invited visitors; as well as "A surprising large fish," affirmed to have "had in her belly, when found, one thousand seven hundred mackerel."

When Hone visited the fair in 1825, he saw, in a penny-show, the mermaid which had been exhibited about a year before in Piccadilly, at the charge of half-a-crown each person. This impostor was a hideous combination of a dried monkey's head and body, and the tail of a fish, believed to have been manufactured on the coast of China, and exhibited as the product of the seas there.

Atkins' and Wombwell's menageries were the great shows of the fair in its expiring glory. They still charged the high price of one shilling admission. Richardson's theatre was the only successful rival in price and popularity - here was a charge of boxes 2s., pit ls., gallery 6d.; but the deluded exclusives who paid for box or pit seats, found on entering only a steep row of planks elevated above each other in front of the stage, without any distinction of parties, or anything to prevent those on the top row from falling between the supports to the bottom!