The Finsbury fields were long a noted place for the practice of archery. A Child ballad (No 145B : “Robin Hood and Queen Katherine”), tells of an archery contest at Bunhill Fields :
In summer time, when leaves grow green,
It is a seemly sight to see
How Robin Hood himself had drest,
And all his yeomandry.
He cloathed his men in Lincoln green,
And himself in scarlet red,
Black hats, white feathers, all alike ;
Now bold Robin Hood is rid.
And when he came at Londons court,
Hee fell downe on his knee:
‘Thou art welcome, Locksly,’ said the queen,
‘And all thy good yeomendree.’
The king is into Finsbury field,
Marching in battel ray,
And after follows bold Robin Hood,
And all his yeomen gay.
Child ballad 145A (“Robin Hoode and Quene Kath.”) is included in the Percy manuscript. The text I have quoted comes from Ritson’s Robin Hood (1795) “from an old black-letter copy in a private collection, compared with another in that of Anthony à Wood”.
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Now William Blake engraved nine plates after Thomas Stothard for Ritson’s A Select Collection of English Songs (1783), so some personal acquaintanceship between Blake and Ritson is certainly possible, even that Blake himself used characters from these songs, like the “Busy, curious, thirsty Fly”, comparing the life of a fly to the life of man, in his own work :
Ritson Thine’s a summer, mine no more,
Though repeated to threescore
Threescore summers, when they’re gone
Will appear as short as one.
Blake Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.
Could Ritson, being an adherent to a “Pythagorean Diet” (the eighteenth-century term for a vegetarian), indeed be “Sipsop the Pythagorean” of Blake’s “An Island in the Moon”? Coincidentally, both Blake and Ritson lie in the Bunhill Fields burying ground.
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By 1315, a much larger (23 acres; 9.3 ha) Bunhill Fields than we see today was leased to the City of London. And it would have been the City Corporation that in the year 1498, says Stow, arranged that
all the gardens which had continued time out of mind without Moorgate, to wit, about and beyond the lordship of Fensberry, were destroyed. And of them was made a plain field for archers to shoot in.In fact, about 11 acres or 4.5 ha of the otherwise unenclosed landscape of Bunhill Fields was set aside to form a large field for military exercise.
Map of “St Giles Cripplegate without. Old Street. Bunhill Fields.” (detail showing Artillery Ground and Burying Ground). From John Strype, A survey of the cities of London and Westminster, 1720.
As the arquebus and musket replaced the longbow, these eleven acres of Bunhill provided what today has shrunk to an 8-acre, or 3.2 ha, site given to the Honourable Artillery Company in 1638. The Company still occupies the land (the “Artillery Ground”) that it was granted in the 17th century; the Company’s headquarters, Armoury House, overlook the Ground. Contemporary documents often denominate it the New Artillery Ground, to distinguish it from the old one on the eastern side of Bishopsgate Street. South of the Artillery Ground is Chiswell Street and a grand gated entrance. Immediately to the north is the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground.
Gates to Artillery Ground from Chiswell Street.
On Sunday in the forenoone, the Ministers in the City gave notice in the Churches, that those that were able, and had good Religious affections to this cause, for the maintenance of the Protestant Religion in time of this eminent danger, should repair to the New Artillery Ground the next morning by 8. of the clock in the morning, and they should be listed for that service, under such Commanders as were persons of Worth, Experience and Fidelity. (Perfect Diurnall of the Passages in Parliament, November 14-21, 1642.)Or celebrating a Parliamentary victory in 1643 :
Vpon Saturday last Sir William Waller came to the new Artillery ground, accompanied with one of the Sheriffs of London, and attended by many Gallants, Commanders and Gentlemen, and great store of people came thither to be listed ; At the same time Colonel Manwering’s Regiment of Red Coates came home out of Kent, some of them having two Pikes, others two Swords and some of them long Bils, which they tooke from the Kentish Malignants, they also brought away one of their Colours, being red and white, and marched all together into the new Artillery ground, where they gave Sir William a brave volley of shot. (Weekly Accompt of Certain Special and Remarkable Passages from Both Houses of Parliament, July 27-August 3, 1643.)And in 1650 as a military execution ground :
Munday 18 Novem. One Johnson was shot to death in the new Artillery ground London, for killing one Williams his fellow Trooper. (Severall Proceedings in Parliament, November 14-21, 1650.)
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These instances remind us of Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War, and that the Bunhill Fields burial ground contains the graves of Henry and Richard Cromwell, the Protector’s grandsons. The burial ground also contains the tomb of General Fleetwood, Cromwell's son-in-law, and ancestor of Blake’s friends, John and Cornelius Varley.
David Erdman has suggested that Blake’s intended 12-book Milton contained a prophetic vision of the English Civil War for we find King Charles, Cromwell, and Satan joined on the same battleground. Fragmentary references survive, for example in Plate 5 of the Poem in 2 Books :
Thus they sing Creating the Three Classes among Druid Rocks
Charles calls on Milton for Atonement. Cromwell is ready
James calls for fires in Golgonooza. for heaps of smoking ruins
In the night of prosperity and wantonness which he himself Created
Among the Daughters of Albion among the Rocks of the Druids
When Satan fainted beneath the arrows of Elynittria
And Mathematic Proportion was subdued by Living Proportion
Northrop Frye (I can’t now trace the reference) believes Elynittria, the emanation of Palamabron (Blake himself in the poem), bears a name developed anagramatically from artillery, in its original sense of a shower of arrows. And Milton? He lived in Bunhill Row, which forms the western boundary of the Artillery Ground.
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The eighteenth century saw more peaceful uses. The Ground was sublet to a greenkeeper and the sward cropped by sheep to create a playing-surface for games of cricket. The Artillery Ground grew in prominence as a cricket venue when George Smith was keeper in the 1730s. The pattern of lease and sub-lease and sub-sub-lease: the Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s leasing to the City Corporation, who leased to the Honourable Artillery Company, and so on, is itself one of the long continuities of London life.
The earliest recorded cricket match at the Artillery Ground took place on 31 August 1730, between London and Surrey. London won but no other details are known. The ground quickly became the London Cricket Club’s first choice home venue with five matches recorded there in 1731: three against Dartford and two against Croydon. Cricket at the Artillery Ground had a social status that only Lord’s Cricket Ground subsequently equalled.
The Ground is famous for being the venue of the first “Great Match” of which the full score has been preserved—Kent v. All England, 18 June 1744. As well as hosting the “Great Matches”, Smith staged more explicitly commercial events such as single-wicket contests in which leading professionals played against each other in teams of fewer than eleven or as individuals.
By 1732 the playing area had been staked out and roped off. This practice was first reported at Kennington Common the previous year and cricket is believed to be the first sport to enclose its venues. The Artillery Ground was charging spectators a two pence admission fee by the early 1740s; cricket also being the first sport to charge for admission. His biographers record the young William Blake as wandering all over the London of his time. There is certainly the possibility that besides witnessing or, indeed, playing in family and friends cricket, Blake may have witnessed more formal matches at the Artillery Ground. But did he pay the tuppence admission, or like small boys everywhere, find a way of sneaking into the ground or sitting on the surrounding wall?
Eighteenth-century newspapers had no sports pages. Cricket reports stressed what was newsworthy: violence at matches, freak accidents, and betting odds.
1747 saw the notorious cricket match between the Women of Singleton & Charlton v. the Women of West Dean & Chilgrove. In advance of the event it was reported that
Twenty two young Women are coming to Town from Sussex, to play a Match of Cricket in the Artillery Ground, eleven a Side; it is said they play very well, being encouraged to improve themselves in that Game, by a Lady of very high Rank in their neighbourhood, who likes the Diversion. (Whitehall Evening Post, 4-7 July 1747.)The Lady can only have been Sarah, Duchess of Richmond (and mother of Charles Lennox, the third Duke of Richmond and lord lieutenant of Sussex, who would sit on the bench at Blake’s trial in Chichester). Such was the interest in the game that when it was played at the Artillery Ground on 13 and 14 July, at a cost of some £80, the admission charge for the ground was raised to 6d.
The first day of play ended in a near riot when many of the large gathering who attended encroached on the field and the players were abused and assaulted :
On Monday, in playing the Women’s Cricket Match, the Company broke in, so that it was impossible for the same to be play’d; and some of them [the players] being very much fright’d and others, hurt, it could not be finished till this Morning (July 14), when at nine o’clock, they will finish the same, hoping the Company will be so kind as to indulge them in not walking within the ring, which will not only be a great Pleasure to them, but a general satisfaction to the whole. (Daily Advertiser, July 14 , 1747.)After completing the first match a second was to be played starting at two o’clock, but there is no report as to the outcome of either match or whether any further trouble occurred.
Newspapers reported the large sums of money involved in these matches :
On Monday a great Cricket-Match was play’d in the Artillery-Ground, for 50l. a Side, between Eleven Men from Surrey, and Eleven pick’d out of London: The Countrymen went in first and brought 84 Notches, the Londoners second and brought 89; then the Countrymen went in and got 126, and it being too late the Londoners went in on Tuesday Morning and brought 71; so that Surrey beat London by 50 Notches, and had six Wickets to knock down. (London Evening Post, July 26-28, 1757.)£50 in 1757 would be about £9,000 today.
Also deemed newsworthy were the accidents involved in the game :
And Yesterday a young Gentleman, who was playing at Cricket in the Artillery-Ground, had his Eye knocked out by the Ball. (London Chronicle, June 30-July 2, 1757.)Single wicket was especially popular in the 1740s and vast crowds, gambling huge sums of money were attracted to the Artillery Ground whenever these contests took place. In 1765 a crowd of 12,000 was reported to have attended a match of Dartford against Surrey at the Artillery Ground. Such was the level of gambling and associated riotous behaviour at the Ground that it eventually fell into disrepute and ceased to be used for first-class cricket, the last known such match taking place on 25 September 1778. Of course, single-wicket and five-a-side matches continued there, even after the big matches moved to Hambledon in Hampshire in the 1760s, and later to the Marylebone Cricket Club ground, Lord’s :
Yesterday was finished, after two days play in the Artillery-ground, the cricket match of five of a side ; the counties of Surry and Hampshire against Kent, which terminated in favour of the former, with one wicket to go down. Odds at starting six to four, and two to one in favour of Kent. (Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, Wednesday, June 9, 1779.)First-class cricket was reinstated at the Artillery Ground in 1846 but not for what were then known as “important” matches. Stephen Eley, who knows the ground, tells me that it is very compact but “the boundaries are a bit too short”. The Honourable Artillery Company Cricket Club was founded in 1860 and has played on the ground ever since.
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Drawing of Vincent Lunardi copied from the engraving by Bartolozzi after Cosway. The inscription reads : “Vincent Lunardi—Esqr Secretary to the Neapolitan Embassador & the first Traveller ærial in the English Atmosphere 15 Sepr 1784”.
On 15 September 1784, Vincenzo Lunardi flew a balloon from the Artillery Ground, the first such flight in England, and the balloon hat, a bulky linen case stuffed with hair, like a deflating balloon, came briefly into vogue. In Blake’s “An Island in the Moon” we hear the chatter of Miss Gittipin, a woman eager to emerge into the world of fashion. Her particular envy is the wealthy Miss Filigree-work, who can afford to live up to the moment :
she goes out in her coaches & her footman & her maids & Stormonts & Balloon hats & a pair of Gloves every day & the Sorrows of Werter & Robinsons & the Queen of Frances Puss colour & my Cousin Gibble Gabble says that I am like nobody else. I might as well be in a nunnery.Stormonts were dresses of printed chintz with a stipple ground in pale tint. Stormont grounds became fashionable in the 1780s.
Miss Filligree-work’s “Sorrows of Werter” are stylish hats and dresses inspired by Goethe’s popular novel. The earliest known reference to such a style appeared in the Gazetteer of December 9, 1784. There the “Werter bonnet” is reported to be “much the rage”.
Mary “Perdita” Robinson, one time mistress to the Prince of Wales (the future George IV), managed to be a courtesan, a society belle, and a leader of fashion. There was a “Perdita hood” and a “Perdita handkerchief”, a “Robinson hat” and a “Robinson gown”.
Marie Antoinette introduced a new colour to fashion in the summer of 1775. The dressmaker Rose Bertin made her a gown that blurred the lines between brown and maroon with a hint of pinkish-gray; in a word, “puce”, the French for flea.
The “air balloon hat” à la Montgolfier is featured in Town and Country Magazine for May 1784. Later that year, the Lady’s Magazine, a publication for which Blake is said to have engraved some plates, discussed it (now à la Lunardi) as an “absurd style” except for women “in affluent circumstances”. (The National Portrait Gallery has a portrait of Fanny Burney wearing just such a hat.)
Who knew Blake was such a fashion maven?
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Cricket match at the Artillery Ground, 12 August 2018.
On 12 August 2018, while we witnessed the unveiling of a memorial to William Blake in the burial ground, a cricket match was underway on the Artillery Ground immediately to the south. Thus, in the long continuities of London life, cricket was being played on the Artillery Ground as it has for the last three hundred years.
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Sources and further reading
17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers.—https://www.gale.com
Anthony Bateman & Jeffrey Hill, eds.—The Cambridge Companion to Cricket.—Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Francis James Child, editor.—The English and Scottish Popular Ballads.—Part V.—Boston : Houghton, Mifflin ; London : Henry Stevens, 1888.
David V. Erdman.—Blake : Prophet Against Empire : a Poet’s Interpretation of the History of his Own Times.—Princeton NJ : Princeton University Press, 1954.
David V. Erdman.—The illuminated Blake.—New York : Doubleday, 1974.
Timothy J. McCann.—Sussex cricket in the Eighteenth Century.—Sussex Record Society.—Vol. 88, 2004.
Michael Phillips, ed.—Blake’s An Island in the Moon.—Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1987. With a facsimile of Blake’s manuscript.
Joseph Ritson.—Robin Hood : a collection of all the ancient poems, songs, and ballads, now extant, relative to that celebrated English outlaw : to which are prefixed historical anecdotes of his life. In two volumes ...—London : printed for T. Egerton, Whitehall, and J. Johnson, St. Pauls-Church-Yard, MDCCXCV.
Renowned Robin Hood : or, his famous archery truly related : with the worthy exploits he acted before Queen Katherine, he being an out-law man, and how she for the same obtained of the king, his owne, and his fellowes pardon. To a new tune.—Printed at London : for Francis Groue, [ca. 1630].
R. J. Shroyer.—”Mr. Jacko ‘Knows What Riding Is’ in 1785 : dating Blake’s Island in the Moon.”—Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, Volume 12, Issue 4 (Spring 1979) 250-256.
John Stow.—A survey of London, written in the year 1598.—A new edition edited by William J. Thoms.—London : Whittaker, 1842.
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