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I'm checking that our group of five (Beth from the Stapleton, Doug, Arkady, Miss Annie and me) will be OK, but it seems they are fine with it. If anyone else seriously wants to join the party please say now (or whisper me) asap. Leave about 10.30-ish from FP station - or meet there?
I'll reconfirm everything with precise details and whisper everyone later today. Krappy.
Anyway - in case you read this: leaving from Fins Park Station, Wells Terrace side, at 10.30.
What say I -- or even someone else -- add the picture of the badge to the Wikipedia article?
Please share?
The Stroud Green badge of 1773 is just stunningly drop dead gorgeous. It's a little medallion, very vividly coloured, with a beautiful miniature painting surrounded by what look like diamonds and rubies in a star shape. The whole thing is about 4in wide. There's an inscription in the copper on the back.
It's much brighter and altogether more stunning than the first b/w picture suggests. Here's a photo that gives an impression:
<img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4039/5155315116_6ea3f460d3.jpg" width=400>
We're not supposed to share proper photos without permission from the V&A photocrats, but hopefully this won't be a problem and while we're waiting I'll risk a couple of review pictures. The front:
<img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4013/5154707233_fbb9d4245e.jpg" width=400>
And the back:
<img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1141/5154707317_e98f83d5ee.jpg" width=400>
We got to handle it and look really closely which was fantastic. The 'diamonds' and 'rubies' aren't real, they're paste, but they are still very bright and because the painting is in enamel, it's still as vivid as the day it was made. The painting is of St George, wearing what looks like a blue turban, giving the dragon a good old shafting with a lance. Round the edge are the words JUSTICE TRUTH AND FRIENDSHIP in gold letters on vivid blue.
On the back the inscription says: "The Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Legg, Knight of the Oak, Elected Mayor of the Corporation of Stroud Green on Monday July 26th 1773."
It's not on view, it's kept in a locked cabinet in Olympia. The museum has thousands of other eighteenth century enamels but only one other badge in any way remotely similar, so it's pretty rare. The curator didn't know a lot about it but thought it was made in London, and must have been quite costly.
It looks as though it was designed to be hung on a ribbon around the neck, and was probably an imitation of a German or Russian badge of around the same period. So the idea that it was a kind of 'badge of office' - even as a send-up - checks out. The museum's had it since 1885.
So it was probably a mock badge of office for The Ancient Corporation of Stroud Green drinking club, appx 1750-1780. According to the history books, the Stapleton Hall Tavern was the out-of-town meeting place of this merry bunch. The Stapleton was originally licensed as a country pub in 1765 (it had the inscription 'Ye Are Welcome All / To Stapleton Hall" above the door) and attracted a right old jolly riff raff from Islington and the City.
This is what the essay on Stapleton Hall in People and Places says: "This was the heyday of the London pleasure gardens, and Stapleton Hall attracted many visitors to its grounds with their rural surroundings and cakes and ale. It was an attractive place of entertainment for those on a day out from the capital.
"In London itself the taverns were doing a roaring trade as the headquarters of various clubs that were being founded by gentlemen in the arts and professions. There were clubs to suit all tastes, from sporting to literary and satirical.
"One particular satirical club parodied the grand ceremonies and feasts of the City of London and styled itself The Ancient Corporation of Stroud Green. It elected its officers and servants, who were given splendid badges of office. What could be more amusing than to have such a band of officers to administer an obscure hamlet on the outskirts of London?
"During the winter they held their meetings in various taverns in the City and in Islington, and in the summer trooped out in a body to Stapleton Hall." Then it goes on to quote from the 'minutes' of what appears to have been a right royal piss-up at the Stapleton Tavern in 1769. The Ancient Corporation of Stroud Green seems to have been going from 1750-1780 and then 'fades into memory'.....
Er - there we have it - night life in Stroud Green, eighteenth century style.
Oddly enough there is a Sir Thomas Legg to this very day - he conducted the enquiry into MPs' expenses this year. I wonder if his family have any connection with the 'Sir' Thomas Legg who was Mayor in 1773?