The History of Signboards, from the Earliest times to the Present Day

Tools and utensils, as emblems of trade, were certainly placed outside houses at an early period, to inform the illiterate public of the particular trade or occupation carried o...

Signs which could not well be classed under any of the former divisions will find their place in this chapter, and hence a motley gathering may be expected. As in all inquiries...

The Greeks honoured their great men and successful commanders by erecting statues to them; the Romans rewarded their popular favourites with triumphal entries and ovations; mode...

It is in many cases impossible to draw a line of demarcation between signs borrowed from the animal kingdom and those taken from heraldry: we cannot now determine, for instance,...

In the cities of the East all trades are confined to certain streets, or to certain rows in the various bazars and wekalehs. Jewellers, silk-embroiderers, pipe-dealers, traders...

Royalty stands prominently at the head of the heraldic signs in its triple hieroglyphic of the Crown, (no coronets ever occur,) the King’s or Queen’s Arms, and the various royal...

Animals performing human actions, or dressed in human garments, are great items in signboard humour. This is a kind of comicality undoubtedly dating from the first development o...

Thomas Coryatt, a gentleman from Somerset, who travelled over a great part of Europe in the reign of King James I., and wrote an amusing account of his travels, gives a curious...

At the end of the last chapter we spoke of the profane application of some of the most sacred things to signboard purposes. In France this was still worse than in England. That...

Instead of carved or painted signs hung above the doors, many shop and tavern keepers preferred to designate their houses after some external feature, such as the colour of the...

Foremost in this division stands the GLOBE,--“the great Globe itself,” a trade emblem common to publicans, outfitters, and others, who rely upon cosmopolitan customers. One of t...

In old times, when signboards flourished, there would have been many reasons for choosing these house-decorations. 1. Their symbolic meaning, as the olive-tree, the fig-tree, th...

The idea was no doubt borrowed from the Biblia Pauperum. The BALAAM’S ASS, again, was one of the _dramatis personæ_ in the Whitsuntide mystery of the company of cappers, (cap-ma...

Of this class only a few signs are to be found; one of the most common is the HAT, the usual hatter’s sign, although it may also be found before taverns and public-houses, in wh...

and stronger than “8 lions or 100 eagles,” so that he could with ease fly off to his nest with a great horse, or a couple of oxen yoked together, “for,” says he, “he has his tal...

The earlier signs were frequently representations of the most important article sold in the shops before which they hung. The stocking denoted the hosier, the gridiron the ironm...

The MERMAID, as a sign, must have had great attractions for our forefathers. Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other dramatists, notice this taste for strange fishes. The ancient chr...

Punning on names, or a figurative rendering of names, was probably at first adopted not so much with any intent at joking, as means to assist the memory, giving the name a visib...