London Street
London Street At the upper end of
Bedford Street is London Street; where at No 37 was once
the tobacconist’s shop of Miller and Co., founded in
1812. Its shop sign, a life-size figure of a Highlander
perpetually guarding its doorway, was thought to be one
of the oldest in the city. In 1982 when the shop ceased
trading it was said that he first appeared there in 1820,
had left only twice to be painted, and had been moved
once when London Street was paved over.The sign of a Highlander for snuff sellers seems to have originated in the eighteenth century at the shop of David Wishart in Coventry Street, London, which was a Jacobite rendezvous. Our particular Highlander was in the uniform of the Black Watch - the 42nd Royal Highland Regiment - until he was repainted by somebody with no knowledge of military history in the 1960s. Millers had changed hands on several occasions over the years. In the early 1890s it was taken over by Mr W. Coke Gee, who in due course handed over to his nephew and assistant Charles Coleby Kett. He in turn sold the business in 1949 to the London firm of J. Leon and Co., but at the time of its closure the lease was held by Finlays. Our Highlander was discovered in 2000 to be residing in a Montreal museum, but his presence in London Street is sorely missed, for his was not a passive role; for many years he carried on him arm a collecting box in aid of the blind. In their History of Sign Boards Larwood and Hotten give an amusing quotation from an eighteenth-century newspaper relevant to these signs. It was after the Rebellion of 1745 when the government did all it could to extinguish the Scottish nationality that this notice appeared We hear
that the dapper wooden Highlanders who guard so
heroically the doors of snuff-shops intend to petition
the Legislature in order that they way be excused from
complying with the act of Parliament with regard to their
change of dress; alledging that they have ever been
faithful subjects to His Majesty, having constantly
supplied his Guards with a pinch out of their Mulls when
they marched by them, and so far from engaging in any
Rebellion, that they have never entertained a rebellious
thought; whence they humbly hope that they shall not be
put to the Expense of buying new cloaths. Text and photographs Copyright © G.A.F.Plunkett 2004 |