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Viewing the 'Stroud Green Badge' at the Victoria & Albert Museum
I have an appointment to go and view the 'Stroud Green Badge' (1773) at the Victoria and Albert Museum on Friday. This is a bit unusual and I wonder if there are any other SG-er local history wonks who might want to come along too, perhaps ask the curator a few questions.
For those who don't know anything about it, the 'Stroud Green Badge' is a pleasingly bonkers fragment of Stroud Green history. It is quite unusual. And it can be directly linked to the drinking den known as the Stapleton Tavern (aka Larrik).
<img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1357/5139713071_9a3717a864_m.jpg" width=400>
It's a little enamel badge, inscribed with the date 1773, designed to be pinned to a coat. With a picture of George and the Dragon and the legend 'Mayor and Corporation of Stroud Green' on the front, and the date Monday, July 26th, 1773 and the name 'The Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Legg, Knight of the Oak, Elected Mayor of the Corporation of Stroud Green' on the back.
I found it in the history books and the V&A have dug it out of storage for inspection.
According to the interpretation in the book, this is actually an elaborate eighteenth century joke most likely perpetrated by a drinking club of the 1760s-70s, when SG was just a house and a pub. There never was a Mayor and Corporation of Stroud Green and never has been - at the time SG was a tiny hamlet in the countryside, with nothing more than a village green and one country pub (then called the Green Man, inside old Stapleton Hall). Apparentlly, eighteenth century City gents were in the habit of riding out from London to the pub in Stroud Green of a summer's evening to do a bit of wenching and drinking and settle down to a plate of oysters (or whatever), and getting riotously drunk.
So you can imagine the bewigged and top-booted businessmen quaffing ale and having a good time ... and they form themselves into a little drinking club called 'The Mayor and Corporation of Stroud Green', elect each other as annual officers and then toast each others health and etc etc etc (pints of claret all round).
Clearly not a lot has changed round here except perhaps the costumes.
The tavern where they met is the direct predecessor of the Stapleton Hall/Larrik which moved at some point from the old Tudor house to the current Victorian building. So we are all heirs of Mr Legg and the Mayor and Corporation of Stroud Green when we have a pint at the Stapleton.
It seems there were quite a number of these eighteenth century drinking clubs around, but the Stroud Green Badge is quite an unusual relic, and why they should have gone to the bother of actually minting a piece of enamel jewellery for it is a bit of a mystery.
I thought it might be a nice wheeze to start it up again (a kind of SG secret society). And declare July 26th 'Stroud Green Day'....Who wants to be Mayor?
Any takers to come and have a look on Friday?
For those who don't know anything about it, the 'Stroud Green Badge' is a pleasingly bonkers fragment of Stroud Green history. It is quite unusual. And it can be directly linked to the drinking den known as the Stapleton Tavern (aka Larrik).
<img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1357/5139713071_9a3717a864_m.jpg" width=400>
It's a little enamel badge, inscribed with the date 1773, designed to be pinned to a coat. With a picture of George and the Dragon and the legend 'Mayor and Corporation of Stroud Green' on the front, and the date Monday, July 26th, 1773 and the name 'The Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Legg, Knight of the Oak, Elected Mayor of the Corporation of Stroud Green' on the back.
I found it in the history books and the V&A have dug it out of storage for inspection.
According to the interpretation in the book, this is actually an elaborate eighteenth century joke most likely perpetrated by a drinking club of the 1760s-70s, when SG was just a house and a pub. There never was a Mayor and Corporation of Stroud Green and never has been - at the time SG was a tiny hamlet in the countryside, with nothing more than a village green and one country pub (then called the Green Man, inside old Stapleton Hall). Apparentlly, eighteenth century City gents were in the habit of riding out from London to the pub in Stroud Green of a summer's evening to do a bit of wenching and drinking and settle down to a plate of oysters (or whatever), and getting riotously drunk.
So you can imagine the bewigged and top-booted businessmen quaffing ale and having a good time ... and they form themselves into a little drinking club called 'The Mayor and Corporation of Stroud Green', elect each other as annual officers and then toast each others health and etc etc etc (pints of claret all round).
Clearly not a lot has changed round here except perhaps the costumes.
The tavern where they met is the direct predecessor of the Stapleton Hall/Larrik which moved at some point from the old Tudor house to the current Victorian building. So we are all heirs of Mr Legg and the Mayor and Corporation of Stroud Green when we have a pint at the Stapleton.
It seems there were quite a number of these eighteenth century drinking clubs around, but the Stroud Green Badge is quite an unusual relic, and why they should have gone to the bother of actually minting a piece of enamel jewellery for it is a bit of a mystery.
I thought it might be a nice wheeze to start it up again (a kind of SG secret society). And declare July 26th 'Stroud Green Day'....Who wants to be Mayor?
Any takers to come and have a look on Friday?
Comments
/edit: yeah could be Perth Road pigeon, or one of the swans on Finsbury Park pond.
@godzilla - love it!
@godzilla - love it!
I'm just going online to find a supply of perriwigs, frilly shirts, knee breeches with buckles, porter, long-stemmed clay pipes and wenches.