Early history . Grub Street was in
Cripplegate ward, in the parish of
St Giles-without-Cripplegate (Cripplegate ward was bisected by the city walls, and therefore was both 'within' and 'without'). Much of the area was originally extensive marshlands from the
Fleet Ditch, to Bishopsgate, contiguous with Moorfields to the east. however, the marshes were drained in 1527. The
virginalist Giles Farnaby also lived in Grub Street from 1634 until his death in 1640. 's
1746 map of London. At the time, its path was partly within
Cripplegate Ward, but outside the city walls of the
City of London. The surviving Milton Street is now entirely within the City of London. An early use of the land surrounding Grub Street was
archery. In ''Records of St. Giles' Cripplegate
(1883), the author describes an order made by Henry VII to convert Finsbury Fields from gardens, to fields for archery practice; however, in Elizabethan times archery became unfashionable, and Grub Street is described as largely deserted, "except for low gambling houses and bowling-alleys—or, as we should call them, skittle-grounds." John Stow also referred to Grubstreete in A Survey of London Volume II'' (1603) as "It was convenient for bowyers, since it lay near the Archery-butts in Finsbury Fields", and in 1651 the poet
Thomas Randolph wrote "Her eyes are Cupid's Grub-Street: the blind archer, Makes his love-arrows there."
The little London directory of 1677 lists six merchants living in 'Grubſreet', and
Costermongers also plied their trade—a Mr Horton, who died in September 1773, earned a fortune of £2,000 by hiring wheelbarrows out. Land was cheap and occupied mostly by the poor, and the area was renowned for the presence of
Ague and the
Black Death; in the 1660s the
Great Plague of London killed nearly eight thousand of the parish's inhabitants. The population of St Giles in 1801 has been estimated at about 25,000 people, but by the end of the 19th century this was dropping steadily. In the 18th century
Cripplegate was well known as an area haunted by insalubrious folk, Four so-called 'cages' were maintained by the parish, shelters used as
lying-in hospitals, housing the poor, and 'idle imposters'. Conditions in the cages were poor, and some people brought in there from the street died of hunger. One such cage was situated amidst the poor-quality housing stock of Grub Street; destitution was viewed as a crime against society, and was punishable by whipping, and also by having a hole cut in the gristle of the right ear. Well before the influx of writers in the 18th century, Grub Street was therefore in an economically deprived area.
Early literature The earliest literary reference to Grub Street appears in 1630 by the
English poet John Taylor. "When strait I might descry, The Quintescence of Grubstreet, well distild Through Cripplegate in a contagious Map". The local population was known for its nonconformist views; its
Presbyterian preacher
Samuel Annesley had been replaced in 1662 by an
Anglican. Famous 16th-century
Puritans included
John Foxe, who may have authored his
Book of Martyrs in the area,
Press freedom In 1403 the City of London Corporation approved the formation of a guild of
stationers. Stationers were either
booksellers,
illuminators, or
bookbinders.
Printing gradually displaced manuscript production, and by the time that the guild received a royal charter of incorporation on 4 May 1557, becoming the
Stationers' Company, it was in effect a printers' guild. In 1559, it became the 47th
livery company. The Stationers' Company had considerable powers of search and seizure, backed by the state (which supplied the force and authority to guarantee copyright). This monopoly continued until 1641 when, inflamed by the treatment of religious dissenters such as
John Lilburne and
William Prynne, the
Long Parliament abolished the
Star Chamber (a court which controlled the press) with the
Habeas Corpus Act 1640. This led to the de facto cessation of state censorship of the press. Although in 1641 token punishments were given to those responsible for unlicensed and hostile pamphlets published around London—including Grub Street—
Puritan and radical pamphlets continued to be distributed by an informal network of street hawkers, and dissenters from within the Stationers' Company. Tabloid journalism became rife; the unstable political climate resulted in the publication from Grub Street of anti-
Caroline literature, along with blatant lies and anti-Catholic stories regarding the
Irish Rebellion of 1641; stories that were advantageous to the parliamentary leadership. Following the King's failed attempt to arrest several members of the Commons, Grub Street printer
Bernard Alsop became personally involved in the publication of false pamphlets, including a fake letter from the Queen that resulted in
John Bond being
pilloried. Alsop and colleague
Thomas Fawcett were sent to
Fleet Prison for several months. Throughout the
English Civil War therefore, publishers and writers remained answerable to the law. State control of the press was tightened in the
Licensing Order of 1643, but although the new regime was arguably as restrictive as the monopoly that the Stationers' Company once enjoyed, parliament was unable to control the number of renegade presses that flourished during the
Interregnum. The freedoms ensured by the
Bill of Rights 1689 led indirectly to the refusal in 1695 of the
Parliament of England to renew the
Licensing of the Press Act 1662, a law which required all printing presses to be licensed by Parliament. This lapse led to a freer press, and a rise in the volume of printed matter.
Jonathan Swift wrote to a friend in
New York, "I could send you a great deal of news from the
Republica Grubstreetaria, which was never in greater altitude."
Hacks '' lies at the writer's feet, in
William Hogarth's
The Distrest Poet. Set in a
garret, the print has been described as a study of a typical Grub Street writer. to
Ned Ward's
Vulgus Britannicus (1710). The fruits of the Grub Street publishers were read and debated in houses like this. Such contemporary views of the writer, in his inexpensive
Ivory Tower high above the noise of the city, were immortalised by
William Hogarth in his 1736 illustration
The Distrest Poet. The street name became a synonym for a hack writer; in a literary context, 'hack' is derived from Hackney—a person whose services may be for hire, especially a literary drudge. In this framework, hack was popularised by authors such as
Andrew Marvell,
John Wolcot, and
Anthony Trollope.
Ned Ward's late 17th-century description reinforces a common view of Grub Street authors, as little more than prostitutes: One such author was
Samuel Boyse. Contemporary accounts picture him as a dishonest and disreputable rogue, paid for each individual line of prose as a
Jack of all trades, master of none. He apparently lived in squalor, often drunk, and on one occasion after pawning his shirt, he fashioned a replacement out of paper. To be a called a 'Grub Street author' was therefore often viewed as an insult, however Grub Street hack
James Ralph—who later turned historian—offered one of the period’s most explicit defences of paid authorship in his anonymous pamphlet
The Case of Authors by Profession or Trade, Stated:
Periodicals In response to the newly increased demand for reading matter in the
Augustan period, Grub Street became a popular source of
periodical literature. One publication to take advantage of the reduction of state control was
A Perfect Diurnall (despite its title, a weekly publication). However it quickly found its name copied by unscrupulous Grub Street publishers, so obviously that the newspaper was forced to issue a warning to its readers. Toward the end of the 17th century, authors such as
John Dunton worked on a range of periodicals, including
Pegasus (1696), and
The Night Walker: or, Evening Rambles in search after lewd Women (1696–1697). Dunton pioneered the
advice column in
Athenian Mercury (1690–1697). The satirical writer and publican
Ned Ward published
The London Spy (1698–1700) in monthly instalments, for over a year and a half. It was conceived as a guide to the sights of the city, but as a periodical also contained details on taverns, coffee-houses, tobacco shops, and
bagnios. used Treasury funds to subsidise elements of the press that were sympathetic to the
Whig government. English newspapers were often politically sponsored, and Grub Street was host to several such publications; between 1731 and 1741
Robert Walpole's ministry was reported to have spent about £50,077 (about £ today) nationally of
Treasury funds on bribes to such newspapers. Allegiances changed often, with some authors changing their political stance on receipt of bribes from secret service funds. Such changes helped maintain the level of disdain with which the establishment viewed journalists and their trade, an attitude often reinforced by the abuse publications would print about their rivals. Titles such as
Common Sense,
Daily Post, and the ''Jacobite's Journal'' (1747–1748) were often guilty of this practice, and in May 1756 an anonymous author described journalists as "dastardly mongrel insects, scribbling incendiaries, starveling savages, human shaped tygers, senseless yelping curs..." In describing his profession,
Samuel Johnson, a Grub Street man himself, said "A news-writer is a man without virtue who writes lies at home for his own profit. To these compositions is required neither genius nor knowledge, neither industry nor sprightliness, but contempt of shame and indifference to truth are absolutely necessary."
James Ralph (c.1705–1762) was among the most active Grub Street journalists: he wrote leaders for
The Weekly Register and
The Daily Courant, reported parliamentary debates for the anti-ministerial
Universal Spectator (1737–1739), co-edited
The Champion (1739–1744) with
Henry Fielding, and edited the opposition weeklies
Old England (1743) and
The Remembrancer (1747). In 1753 he launched
The Protestor, which campaigned against the
Jewish Naturalisation Act 1753. He also set out an explicit defence of paid authorship in
The Case of Authors by Profession or Trade, Stated (1758).
Taxation In 1711
Queen Anne gave royal assent to the
1712 Stamp Act, which imposed new taxes on newspapers. The Queen addressed the House of Commons: "Her majesty finds it necessary to observe, how great license is taken in publishing false and scandalous libels, such as are a reproach to any Government. This evil seems to be grown too strong for the laws now in force. It is therefore recommended to you to find a remedy equal to the mischief." The passage of the Act was partly an attempt to silence
Whig pamphleteers and dissenters, who had been critical of
the then Tory government. Every copy of a news-carrying publication printed on a half-sheet of paper became liable to a duty of a
halfpenny, and if printed on a full sheet, a
penny. A duty of a
shilling was placed on advertisements. Pamphlets were charged a flat rate of two shillings per sheet for each edition, and were obliged to include the name and address of the printer. The introduction of the Act caused protests from publishers and authors alike, including Daniel Defoe, and Jonathan Swift, who in support of the Whig press wrote: Although the Act had the unfortunate side-effect of closing down several newspapers, publishers used a weakness in the legislation which meant that newspapers of six pages (a half-sheet
and a whole sheet) were only charged at the flat pamphlet rate of two shillings per sheet (regardless of the number of copies printed). Many publications thus expanded to six pages, filled the extra space with extraneous matter, and raised their prices to absorb the tax. Newspapers also used the extra space to introduce serials, hoping to hook readers into buying the next instalment. The periodical nature of the newspaper allowed writers to develop their arguments over successive weeks, and the newspaper began to overtake the pamphlet as the primary medium for political news and comment. By the 1720s 'Grub Street' had grown from a simple street name to a term for all manner of low-level publishing. The popularity of
Nathaniel Mist's
Weekly Journal gave rise to a plethora of new publications, including the
Universal Spectator (1728), the
Anglican Weekly Miscellany (1732), the
Old Whig (1735),
Common Sense (1737), and the
Westminster Journal. Such publications could be strident in their criticism of government ministers—
Common Sense in 1737 compared Walpole to the infamous outlaw
Dick Turpin: In response, a 1737 edition of the
Craftsman proposed a tax on urine, and ten years later the
Westminster Journal, in a critique of proposed new taxes on food, servants, and malt, proposed a tax on human excrement. Not all publications were based entirely on politics however. The
Grub Street Journal was better known in literary circles for its combative nature, and has been compared to the modern-day
Private Eye. Despite its name, it was printed on nearby Warwick Lane. It began in 1730 as a literary journal and became known for its bellicose writings on individual authors. It is considered by some to have been a vehicle for Alexander Pope's attacks on his enemies in Grub Street, but although he contributed to early issues the full extent of his involvement is unknown. Once his interest in the publication waned
The Journal began to generalise, satirising medicine, theology, theatre, justice, and other social issues. It often contained contradictory accounts of events reported by the previous week's newspapers, its writers inserting sarcastic remarks on the inaccuracies printed by their rivals. It ran until 1737 when it became the
Literary Courier of Grub-street, which lingered for a further six months before vanishing altogether. against the executive power of the state was an influential factor in the
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Newspapers and their authors were not yet completely free from state control. In 1763
John Wilkes was charged with
seditious libel for his attacks on a speech by
George III, in issue 45 of
The North Briton. The King felt personally insulted and
general warrants were issued for the arrest of Wilkes and the newspaper's publishers. He was arrested, convicted of libel, fined, and imprisoned. During their search for Wilkes, the king's messengers had visited the home of a Grub Street printer named
John Entick. Entick had printed several copies of
The North Briton, but not number 45. The messengers spent four hours searching his home, and eventually carried away more than two hundred unrelated charts and pamphlets. Wilkes had filed for damages against the
Under Secretary of State Robert Woods and won his case, and two years later Entick
pursued the chief messenger Nicholas Carrington in similar fashion—and was awarded £2,000 in compensation. Carrington appealed, but was ultimately unsuccessful; Chief Justice
Camden upheld the verdict with a landmark judgement that established the limits of executive power in English law, that an officer of the state could only act lawfully in a manner prescribed by statute or
common law.
Infighting '', which started in 1731. The first of its kind, it was started by
Edward Cave from his office at St John's Gate. In 1716 the
bookseller and
publisher Edmund Curll acquired a manuscript that belonged to
Alexander Pope. Curll advertised the work as part of a forthcoming volume of poetry, and was soon contacted by Pope who warned him not to publish the poems. Curll ignored him and published Pope's work under the title
Court Poems. A meeting between the two was arranged, at which Pope poisoned Curll with an
emetic. Several days later he also published two pamphlets describing the meeting, and proclaimed Curll's death. Pope hoped that the combination of the poisoning and the wit of his writing would change the public view of Curll from a victim, to a deserving villain. Meanwhile, Curll responded by publishing material critical of Pope and his religion. The incident, meant to secure Pope's status as an elevated figure amongst his peers, created a lifelong and bitter rivalry between the two men, but may have been beneficial to both; Pope as the man of letters under constant attack from the hacks of Grub Street, and Curll using the incident to increase the profits from his business. Such infighting was not unusual, but a particularly notable episode occurred from 1752–1753, when
Henry Fielding started a
"paper war" against hack writers on Grub Street. Fielding had worked in Grub Street during the late 1730s. His career as a dramatist was curtailed by the
Theatrical Licensing Act (provoked by Fielding's anti-Walpole satire such as
Tom Thumb and
Covent Garden Tragedy) and he turned to law, supporting his income with normal Grub Street work. He also launched
The Champion, and over the following years edited several newspapers, including from 1752–1754
The Covent-Garden Journal. The "war" spanned many of London's publications, and resulted in countless essays, poems, and even a series of mock epic poems starting with
Christopher Smart's
The Hilliad (a pun on Pope's
Dunciad). Although it is not clear what started the dispute, it resulted in a divide of authors who either supported Fielding or Hill, and few in between. The avariciousness of the Grub Street press was often demonstrated in the manner in which they treated notable, or notorious public figures.
John Church, an independent minister born in 1780, raised the ire of the local hacks when he admitted he had acted 'imprudently' following allegations he had sodomised young men in his congregation. Satire was a popular pastime—the
Mary Toft affair of 1726, concerning a woman who fooled some of the medical establishment into believing she had given birth to rabbits—produced a notable dirge of diaries, letters, satiric poems, ballads, false confessions, cartoons, and pamphlets.
Later history Grub Street was renamed Milton Street in 1830, apparently in memory of a tradesman who owned the building lease of the street. By the middle of the 19th century, it had lost some of its negative connotations; authors were by that time viewed in the same light as traditionally more esteemed professions, Although the street no longer exists in name (and modern construction has changed much of the area), the name continues to exist in modern use. Much of the area was destroyed by enemy bombing in
World War II, and has since been replaced by the
Barbican Estate. Milton Street still exists. The area was heavily damaged during
World War II, and most of Milton Street was itself swallowed up by the
Barbican Estate development after the war. A short section survives between Silk Street and Chiswell Street, and borders the City of London's Brewery Conservation Area. ==Legacy==