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TheBartholomew Fair was one of London's pre-eminent summercharter fairs. A charter for the fair was granted by KingHenry I to fund the Priory of St Bartholomew in 1133. It took place each year on 24 August (St Bartholomew's Day)[1] within the precincts of the Priory atWest Smithfield, London until 1855 when it was banned due to the unruly crowd and what was seen as inappropriate entertainment for Victorian London.
Granted by charter from King Henry I toRahere to fund the Priory of St Bartholomew in 1133, the fair became London's most important fair, it took place each year on 24 August within the precincts of the Priory atWest Smithfield, outsideAldersgate of theCity of London.[2] The site of Bartholomew Fair was the south-east side of Smithfield roundabout and was originally a cloth fair. Originally chartered as a three-day event, it would last a full two weeks in the 17th century; but in 1691, it was shortened to only four days.[3] With a change in the calendar, the fair commenced on 3 September from 1753.[1] A trading event for cloth and other goods as well as a pleasure fair, the event drew crowds from all classes of English society.[4][5]
It was customary for theLord Mayor of London to open the fair on St Bartholomew's Eve. The Mayor would stop atNewgate Prison to accept a cup ofsack (fortified white wine) from the governor.[3][1] TheMerchant Taylors Guild processed toCloth Fair to test the measures for cloth, using their standard silver yard, until 1854. The annual fair grew to become the chief cloth sale in the kingdom.[1]
By 1641, the fair had achieved international importance. It had outgrown the former location along Cloth Fair, and around the Priory graveyard to now cover four parishes:Christ Church,Great andLittle St Bartholomew’s andSt Sepulchre’s. The fair featured sideshows, prize-fighters, musicians, wire-walkers, acrobats, puppets, freaks and wild animals.[1]
The fair was suppressed in 1855 by theCity authorities for encouragingdebauchery and public disorder.[1][6] TheNewgate Calendar had denounced the fair as a "school of vice which has initiated more youth into the habits of villainy thanNewgate itself."[7]
The Bartholomew Fair is the setting forBartholomew Fair, a play byBen Jonson.Samuel Pepys wrote about the fair in his diary. John Evelyn also refers in his diary to having visited "the celebrated follies of Bartholomew Fair" on 16 August 1648 . InDaniel Defoe'sMoll Flanders (1722) the heroine meets a well-dressed gentleman at the fair. In Wordsworth'sThe Prelude (1805) mention is made of thedin and theIndians and dwarfs at the fair.[8] The Bartholomew Fair of 1845 features as the primary location of TheWireless Theatre Company's "The Carnival Of Horrors", the second episode of "The Springheel Saga, Series Two: The Legend of Springheel'd Jack".[9]
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bartholomew Fair".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.