Category: Personal Favorites

Bacchus in the form of Saint Lundi sits astride a barrel and offers drinks to a group of craftsmen. Each craftsman has his own verse in the song printed on the broadsheet. Spot the menuisier and read his verse to the left of the image.

“I drink to the general joy of the whole table.”

After working at least a half-day on Saturday and then collecting their pay, workmen could look forward to Sunday and a full day off. In this account published in 1824 the writer differentiates between the married and the unmarried mechanic. Contemporary accounts tell us the married mechanic often joined his unmarried companions in Saturday night drinking.

From Ivan Sparkes’ article on the chairmakers of High Wycombe, England we have this description of Saturday activities after the week’s pay was received.

The revelries and drinking continued into Sunday and when Monday morning dawned there were many workmen not in much of a state to return to work – so they didn’t. For those observers of this tradition, Monday became known as Saint Monday in Great Britain, Ireland and America. This ditty is from England in the 17th century:

In 1546 there was an effort in the Venice Arsensal to stop the arsenalotti from observing Saint Monday. They were threatened with a loss of pay for the entire week. Although the workers would make up the lost day by working longer hours the rest of the week, the loss of work on Monday was too disruptive to the organization of a shipyard. Because of inconsistent enforcement of the pay penalty the observance of Saint Monday continued.

The chairmakers of High Wycombe provide another example of Saint Monday.

Much of the the images available for Saint Monday were generated in France. I leave it to you to surmise why that may be.

In France and Belgium Saint Monday was, of course, Saint Lundi. One 19-century French writer referred to Saint Lundi as an uncanonized saint. I can’t think of a better description.

When workmen took Monday as a second day of leisure they weren’t necessarily drinking the entire day. It was also a day for playing games (skittles were popular in England), taking a ramble through town (including a few stops at taverns) and time for trade union meetings.

In Germany, Saint Monday was known as Blauer Montag (Blue Monday).

Blauer Montag was widespread enough to earn a place in Flügel’s 1857 German-English dictionary.

An American gathering information on wages and living expenses in Europe during the 1870s made this note about Germany:

Cordwainers (shoemakers) were often at the forefront, both in Europe and America, of the push for better working conditions and a shorter workday. They were also noted as some of the most fervent followers of Saint Monday and consequently are often seen being beaten by their wives.

The observance of Saint Monday began to fade away towards the end of the 19th century and prevalence of the factory system. However, Saint Monday was another step in the working class effort to gain more control over their work lives and to have more time for rest and leisure.

”Why, sir, for my part I say the gentleman had drunk himself out of his fives senses.”

Just how much alcohol was being consumed? In 1770 Americans averaged 3-1/2 gallons of pure alcohol per person per year. This is not gallons of a specific spirit, rather a total of all alcohol content. The apogee (or perhaps the nadir) of American consumption was in 1830 when the average consumption was 7.1 gallons of pure alcohol per person. Per the 1830 census the population was 12.9 million. One of the drivers of alcohol availability came from corn in the Midwest. Corn would spoil if shipped to the coastal states, however, it could be distilled and shipped as whisky instead. Whiskey was cheap and easy to buy.

In 1839 a Captain Marryat from England visited America and wrote a multi-volume “Diary in America.” In the section titled “Travelling” he expressed these observations about the drinking habits of America:

In the state of Virginia he commented on the consumption of large quantities of mint juleps and noted “you may always know the grave of a Virginian; as from the quantity of juleps he has drunk, mint invariably springs up where he has been buried.”

He also enjoyed an American champagne.

Edward Young, an American gathering data on wages and the price of living in Europe in the 1870s, was flabbergasted that Belgium had “about one hundred-thousand licensed public houses…for the supply of five million inhabitants.” For every 48 inhabitants there was 1 liquor shop.

In Germany he contrasted the unmarried man with the married. The unmarried laborer rented a bed in a room with others in lodgings close to the workplace. Spending time in a tavern was essentially the only place to relax. Beer, bread and a little meat made up a large part of the diet of both married and unmarried men.

Surveying Great Britain, Edward Young commented “The fact is not forgotten that this investigation is made by a citizen of a country which, next to Great Britain, is perhaps most noted for its large consumption of intoxicating beverages – a country which expends over $600,000,000 annually in spirituous, vinous, and malt liquors.” Based on a report from 1872, England (not all of Great Britain) consumed more than 72 million gallons of pure alcohol at a cost of £120,000,000. At least half of this money was spent by the working classes.

I have just a few comments on the gin epidemic in England that began late in the 17th century and extended well into the 18th century. Gin was very cheap to make and buy and was sought by many as a relief to poverty. Men, women and children were addicted and it ravaged London. There was a “pandemonium of drunkenness” and ruin. A sign over one popular gin shop advertised “Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for two pence, clean straw for nothing.” William Hogarth’s 1751 etching titled “Gin Lane” is thought to capture the misery of the epidemic. You can easily find much more on your own.

The 18th century is also when temperance efforts gained traction and physicians began to think of alcohol addition as a disease.

“Ask God for temp’rance. That’s the appliance only which disease requires.”

In 1722, a century before America reached peak alcohol consumption, Ben Franklin was cautioning against drunkenness and overindulgence. By 1840 there were temperance societies to be found in every state with many affiliated with religious groups. In May of 1840 six Baltimore friends, all artisans, met and decided to stop drinking. Their approach was different from other groups as each member stood and talked about their lives as drunkards (the term alcoholic was not yet used). Their emphasis was on compassion and understanding for the addicted man. They named themselves the Washingtonians, after George Washington, and pledged to stop drinking all alcohol. The group grew rapidly, and as far as we know, it was the only temperance society founded by craftsmen.

The British Workman, published in London, was a monthly magazine advocating healthy living, Christian ideals and temperance. It was filled with illustrations, short stories and testimonials and was advertised as “dedicated to the industrial classes.” The masthead changed each month and featured sketches of men working at various jobs.

The magazine frequently urged employers to provide fresh water for workers in an effort to curb alcohol consumption in the workplace. One well-known illustration from British Workmen has been separated from its intended message.

The craftsman in his paper hat is filling his mug with water, not beer! Did the intended message get lost in nostalgia for the image?

The many satirical drawings of the grim reaper looming over a very drunk man were not promoting temperance, rather a comment on society. In that vein there is a second Drinker’s Dictionary printed in 1886 by Silas Farmer & Co. of Detroit.

The cover stamp pretty much sends the message of the dictionary. A link to the dictionary is at the end of this post.

In 1845 Francis William Edmonds painted a carpenter sitting in his workshop.

The carpenter is “Facing the Enemy” and the scene captures the struggle of a man attempting to stop. He rocks back as though repelled but at the same time his eyes are locked on the bottle. Will he succumb?

In the darkness to the right of the open window is a broadsheet tacked to the wall. It is a notice for a temperance meeting. Side-by-side they are in a balancing act. The bottle offers ruin. The temperance meeting offers hope. That he still has a half-bottle of liquor tells us has not yet been able to let go. He took the trouble to put the temperance notice on the wall. His shop is neat and he has his jacket on. Is the temperance meeting that night and will he go?

 

Shakespeare and his Saturday-to-Monday Bender

After using quotes from the works of Will as titles for each section it is fitting to end with a tale from the 17th century. It seems to have some relation to the observance of Saint Monday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Drinker’s Dictionary of 1886 can be found here.

Our French readers can find more about Saint Lundi here.

The gallery has a bit more Blauer Montag, Saint Monday and Saint Lundi for you.

–Suzanne Ellison

Part 1 includes the drinking of alcoholic beverages in the workshop and at the work site, the practice of footings and fees collected in the workshop and drinking after the workday ended.

Before water was clean and safe to drink the consumption of cider, ale and wine was a normal activity. Cider, cyder or sider was made from a variety of fruits each summer and autumn and ale was brewed in the home every few days. The day started with a ‘morning’ or ‘eye-opener’ and ended with a nightcap. Hard cider and ale were a significant source of daily calories and alcoholic mixtures were considered healthy. Alcohol consumption was also a normal part of working in the trades, both in the workshop and at work sites. The men of the trades became known for their drinking habits.

The Custom of the Shop

The artists responsible for painting the ceilings and crossbeams of Tereul Cathedral included the central figure offering liquid refreshment to the carpenters, with ready acceptance by the one on the right.

Peter Parler, the builder of St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague, was “awarded ad hoc sums for purchases, payments or bonus related to the building site. These amounts were related to…measuring cords, nails and metal sheets for templates…when 60 groschen were probably spent on a barrel of young beer distributed among the cathedral workers.”

In 1901, Stone – An Illustrated Magazine published an article “Rites and Ceremonies Connected with Building.” The last part of the article used contemporary diaries and accounts to describe the numerous alcoholic needs of the builders of the first stone building in Albany, New York, in 1656. A staircase was included in the plans: “A winding staircase was a feature of the fort, and when this was finished, five guilders’ worth of liquor gave the workmen the necessary winding gait to test it.”

You can read the account of the Albany stone building in the following link:

Building Rites and Drinking

The workday usually started close to dawn and breaks for breakfast and lunch were taken in the shop. Here’s an account from an article by Ivan Sparkes article about the chairmakers of High Wycombe, England:

Following the (some might say hard-drinking) traditions of immigrants from Europe, workmen in America also had plenty to drink. And as was traditional in Europe, the master was expected to provide the grog. When a ship-builder in Medford, Massachusetts decided not to provide the daily rum the men were not happy.

When Henry Hayes was bound into an apprenticeship in High Wycombe in 1824 among the many prohibitions was this term “He shall not…haunt taverns or playhouses.” Soon he would learn a tavern wasn’t needed in order to drink. Ten years later James Hopkinson was apprenticed at age 15 in Nottingham, and he very quickly learned the payments required to work in the shop: “…having cut out the wood for a table, I was told that I must pay a shilling for them to drink my health, and also that they expected my father to pay a sovereign towards a binding supper…and every fresh job that I had not made one like before, I had to pay a shilling or I should not have been allowed to make it.”

The footings, fees and fines that were required in a craftsmen’s workshop were extensive. In 1839 the 6th edition of John Dunlop’s “The Philosophy of Artificial and Compulsory Drinking Usage in Great Britain and Ireland” was published. Dunlop was the president of The General Temperance Union of Scotland and his book gathered information on drinking practices across society, for men, women and children, and in skilled and unskilled jobs. The summary for cabinetmakers and joiners in Scotland is as follows:

The summaries for the woodworking shops in England and Ireland are similar. Money for drinks was expected when a man was about to get married, when a child was born and in some cases when a workman wore a new shirt. It is important to remember Dunlop’s book has summaries of workshop practices and not every workshop surveyed had the same level of fees and fines for the purposes of drinking. There may also be a certain level of exaggeration on the part of workmen in an effort to shock a temperance worker.  On the other hand, it is not surprising apprentices ran away and some men abandoned working in these shops altogether.

The Ivan Sparkes article also includes a passage on how disputes between two men or a disruptive man were handled.

Although drinking ale, beer, wine and “ardent” spirits was perfectly acceptable, being bowz’d, buskey or buzzey was frowned upon.

One of the founding fathers of America enjoyed his beer and wine, however, writing under the pseudonym Silence Dogood, he cautioned against overindulging and the loud and public drunk. Silence, otherwise known as Benjamin Franklin, gathered together all the terms used to describe the overindulged and in January 1737 published his “Drinker’s Dictionary” in the Pennsylvania Gazette. You can read the full dictionary here.

Being a known drunk could have consequences for a craftsman. In his article “Chairmaking in Low Cringles in Yorkshire” Christopher Gibert included this note from the account book of the Laycock family:

After Work and Possibly On the Way Home

Walking to a public house with only horses, carts and carriages in the way of traffic, was often the next step in the daily alcoholic intake of a craftsmen. (I have personally observed this except for the walking, horses, carts and carriages.) When it became unseemly for a woman to be seen in a public house, drinking establishments became an enclave for men.

Craftsmen met to relax after work and before making their way home. Singing bawdy songs and songs about their favorite beverages was a popular pastime. Broadsides printed with the verses of ballads were pasted on the walls of public houses. Although we don’t know the melodies of all the old ballads we do have the verses. It is not too difficult to imagine that after a few beers a lively group of today’s woodworkers could come up with a tune to match the lyrics.

Because even drinkers want value for their hard-earned wages, one popular ballad from the around the middle of the 17th century was “Good Ale For My Money” and here’s a sample verse with the chorus:

In one of the verses from “The Ballad-Makers Complaint” a woodcarver has a bit of a problem and comes up with a clever solution.

One song, that may trace its roots to pagan times is still familiar to us in the 21st-century. Steve Winwood and Traffic gave it new life in their version titled “John Barleycorn Must Die.” In the 17th century the song had various titles (and verses) and one of the more popular titles was:

John Barleycorn personifies the grain that can be made into beer or whisky. In a macabre manner the song describes the planting, harvesting and brewing of the barley. You can listen to a version of the song here.

Spending too much time in a public house could send a man and his family into poverty. Dipping back into John Dunlop’s book on “Drink Usage” he noted an additional practice detrimental to the wage earner. “Some masters and foremen keep a public-house, where they excite the men to take drink upon credit, and take it off the week’s wages: this is said to be “bringing sucken to their own mill.”

There is a similar passage in Ivan Sparkes’ article on High Wycombe, “Indeed one wife complained of the late payment of wages on Saturday evening, when the men would have to stand around and drink their future wages while waiting to be paid. She wrote to the local newspaper of the bad example set by her husband and his mates to their 12-year-old son, when they would come home tottering, have drunk a good part of their pay packet.”

The drinking song “The Jovial Cutlers” from the late 18th century includes a passage in the voice of a grieved wife who ultimately resorts to the Lysistrata stategy:

The public house was also where the early Mechanics’ Societies were formed and they paid their ‘rent’ in drinks bought from the owner. In 1790 a law was passed in England that prohibited payment of wages in liquor. It would be well into the 19th century before there was a law prohibiting the practice of requiring workers to collect their pay in public houses.

If you would like to read more about hazing, bullying, coercion, underage drinking, beatings, shunning (sent to Coventry) and extortion in workshops you can find John Dunlop’s book on “Drinks Usage” here.

The University of California at Santa Barbara has a database on English Broadsheet Ballads. You can read the text, or sing! along to “Have You any Work for a Cooper? OR a Comparison Betwixt a Coopers, and a Joyners Trade” from 1681 here.

Part 2 of The ‘Spirited’ Workshop will cover Saint Monday, a glimpse at how much alcohol was being consumed in the 19th century and a short discussion of temperance.

— Suzanne Ellison

In “The Tate Gallery Illustrated Biennial Report 1983-1984” two of the recently acquired works were paintings of carpentry shops. The articles that discuss the history and importance of the acquired works are usually written by curators and museum department heads. In the case of the two carpentry shops the Tate Gallery (now Tate Britain) asked Jack Warans, a member of the Tate carpentry staff, to write the article for the Biennial Report. Warans’ article, “Inside Two Carpenter’s Shops” discusses “The Carpenter’s Shop at Forty Hill, Enfield” by John Hill and “Christ in the House of his Parents (The Carpenter’s Shop)” by John Everett Millais.

Although John Hill’s painting is greatly admired in the woodworking world and has been used in numerous publications it is also a source of frustration. The lack of a strong light source and the deep shadows keep much of the painting’s incredible detail just out of reach. The viewer can see “the corners but not the heart” of the shop. Jack Warans had the opportunity to make a close study of the painting, and I think his description of Hill’s shop (and a few enlargements) will help you see the details that make this a special work of art. And, he has something to say about the axe on the floor.

‘The Carpenter’s Shop at Forty Hill, Enfield’

“‘The Carpenter’s Shop at Forty Hill, Enfield’ by John Hill, an almost forgotten artist, was acquired for the Tate Gallery chiefly because its subject matter is unusual and the picture very convincingly painted. Hill was self-taught as an artist, but there is nothing naive about the fresh and direct style which he displays here. This picture was in fact probably exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1813 under the title ‘Interior of a Carpenter’s Shop’.

 

“John Hill was himself a carpenter and builder at Forty Hill. This scene probably represents his own workshop, and the figure of the master of the shop (seen at its farther end), whose moleskin hat and dark jacket distinguish him from his assistants in their white caps and shirtsleeves, may be a self-portrait. But although this picture depicts a particular carpenter’s shop early in the nineteenth century any modern spectator who has experienced the traditional techniques and customs of a carpenter’s training will recognise every detail of the scene. And the closer you look at this painting, the more detail you will see in it. None of these details are picturesque props; all of them are painted from first-hand knowledge of the carpenter’s trade.

“The three men at work in this interior are not posing for the artist. Each of them is absorbed in his work and in command of the task to which he is putting his skills. Every one of them is evidently a fully qualified carpenter, for each has his own tool-box close at hand. These tool-boxes were (and still are) usually begun in the last years of a carpenter’s apprenticeship, and might take several years to finish. On the outside these tool-boxes look plain and serviceable; they were usually painted green, as these are. When opened they revealed the finest workmanship of which the craftsman was capable; they usually consisted of twelve drawers, the whole elaborately inlaid and veneered. Tool-boxes served two chief purposes; they enabled a carpenter to keep his own personal tools safely and tidily, and they could be shown to a prospective employer as evidence of a carpenter’s skill. Within a workshop they also served an everyday practical purpose in giving the carpenter somewhere to sit and eat his midday meal.

“The white caps worn by the master carpenter’s two assistants were traditional for several centuries, and were worn by tradesmen such as plasterers and house-painters. They were made of stout paper, folded into a box-like shape. A similar cap is worn by the Walrus’ friend the Carpenter in Tenniel’s illustrations to Alice: Through the Looking-Glass.

“For those who would like to know more about the picture but are not familiar with the carpenter’s trade, it may be a help to state just what we can see in it. We are looking into the interior of a small joinery shop, made chiefly of timber but with one brick wall. The floor is made of flagstones, which in winter would probably have been covered with wooden pallets.

“The windows on either side of the shop are glazed with small panes of bottle-glass; broken panes have been stopped by the time-honored custom of stuffing bundles of wood-shavings into the cracks. At the farthest end of the shop is a large unglazed opening, big enough for large pieces of work to go through; this opening gives ventilation and maximum light (and, incidentally, a charming view of the countryside outside), and it is at this vantage point the master of the shop has chosen to station himself. This opening could be closed by outside shutters.

“In the centre of the foreground, an axe and a cross-cut log lie on the flagstones, probably to symbolise the first and most basic step in carpentry; this is the only slightly unrealistic note in the picture, for no carpenter would leave an axe on the floor like that.

“On the left is a wicker basket used for carrying tools between the shop and work outside it; from it protrude a hand-saw, an adze, a gauge and what is either an unfinished staircase baluster or the template for it. Behind the basket is a sash-cramp, used (still) in the making of sash windows to glue or ‘cramp up’ their frames. Between the windows on the left hang hand-saws, a bow-saw and various templates; beneath the furthest window [on the sill] is a metal-working vice; which would extend the sort of work this workshop can undertake.

“The carpenter on the left, with his back to the spectator, is working at a carpenter’s bench, the basic design of which remained unchanged for centuries; on it lie several planes,

a wooden mallet, various dividers and pincers, a bradawl and a gimlet. This man is using a square to mark out a piece of timber for cutting; two pieces of wood which he has already stripped, planed and squared lie on the bench to the right. His fellow-assistant, on the right of the picture, is sawing a piece of marked-out timber on a wooden trestle or saw-horse.

“At the far end of the shop the master is planing timber. The wood beams of the wall in front of him are hung with various tools, including several brass-backed tenon saws and a coffin-maker’s saw (used, not only in coffin-making, for sawing long joints) and with various templates, mostly for making heavy mouldings. One or two objects on this wall specifically refer to work carried out in this particular shop: for instance, a picture frame made of dark wood, or stained dark, perhaps made for one of Hill’s own paintings, and a carved eagle, perhaps a small version of a carving made for a church pulpit. Chalked numbers on the wall on the master’s right [to the right of the shelf] are presumably calculations for the work at hand.

“The array of tools continues across the brick wall on the right, and includes several spare vices, boxes of pegs and nails and, at the extreme end [to the right of the boards], a mitre-block for cutting corners. The only indispensable items missing from this view are glue-pots; they must have been kept at the end of the workshop which is (as it were) occupied by the spectator and which probably gave approximately one-third more space to the workshop. Everything else which should be here is here; everything in this workshop has a practical function and is accurately depicted.”

Jack Warans also commented on Millais’ “Christ in the House of his Parents (The Carpenter’s Shop).” He noted “Millais included only such details as he wanted. His carpenter’s shop is not so much a place of work as a stage for a few carefully selected props. The most realistic detail is the carpenter’s bench, which is the same timeless design as the bench in Hill’s shop, as well as my own in the Tates’s carpenter’s workshop today…the tools on the wall at the back of this workshop include a bow-saw of the type peculiar to the cooper’s trade…and a hammer of the type used by upholsterers. There is no plane, yet that is of course indispensable in a carpenter’s shop.”

Jack Warans sums up the difference between the two paintings, on the one hand a carpenter’s shop painted by a carpenter, on the other hand a carpenter’s shop used as a backdrop for religious symbolism: “Millais’ picture is a semblance of reality rather than reality itself. In his carpenter’s shop, a set-square is not so much a set-square as a symbol of the Trinity. There are no symbolic overtones in Hill’s picture. Its realism is, literally, almost artless; but there is, and should be, room for Hill’s picture as well as Millais’ in the national gallery of British Art.”

A Little Bit About John Hill

John Hill’s approximate birth year is 1780, and he died in November 1841. His father, Thomas (died 1814), was a carpenter. According to the Tate, John was listed in an 1839 census as a carpenter and as a builder in an 1841 census. John was also a self-taught artist and six of his paintings survive. His painting of the carpenter’s shop is believed to be the same work exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1813. A label on the back of the painting (dated circa 1900) indicates the carpentry shop was Hill’s first completed painting and was done in 1800. If this early date is correct the master in the background of the shop could very well be his father.

Besides the painting of the carpenter’s shop he also painted Worcester Lodge where he probably lived. Landscapes around Forty Hill were another subject of Hill’s paintings.

His training as a carpenter seems to have given him a good eye for scale, perspective and detail.

Compare the ‘bottle-glass’ windows in the painting on the left with some real windows on the right. The glass is watery causing the light to be muted and the pontil in each pane distorts the view to the outside.

It is one thing to paint the human body standing straight and it is quite another to paint the body at work in a carpenter’s shop.

In the 1858 edition of “Historical, Topographical and Statistical Notices of Enfield in the County of Middlesex, Containing Also Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Persons Who Formerly Resided in the Parish” compiled by J. Tuff, Chemist, we find this note about John Hill:

Finally, here is what is thought to be a self-portrait of John Hill.

A couple notes on British English to Other English translations: a cramp is a clamp, a vice is a vise and mouldings are mouldings or sometimes moldings.

If seeing those square paper hats has got you fired up and you want to have one of your own (and one for your cat) you can read about the hats and get construction details here.

In the gallery below are a map showing the location of Enfield and Forty Hill, two landscapes by John Hill and the Millais painting.

— Suzanne Ellison