Project Outline
Introduction:
- Hook
- “I am studying London’s Frost Fairs, because I want to find out why they were so culturally significant, in order to understand how they turned into multi day celebrations.”
- Cultural Significance, Climate, Festivities, Mercantalism. (in no particular order)
Body section 1: Climate and causes for the freeze.
- “During the Little Ice Age, which occurred between the mid-fourteenth and nineteenth centuries, the climate of England and Europe was significantly colder. There was a long succession of severe winters with heavy snow and thick ice often lasting several months which enabled a series of frost fairs to be held on the Thames in London.Footnote2 They were, of course, weather dependent and essentially climatic events.” Bowen, James P. “A Provincial Frost Fair: Urban Space, Sociability and Spectacle in Shrewsbury During the Great Frost of 1739.” Midland History 43, no. 1 (2018): 43–61. doi:10.1080/0047729X.2018.1461748.
- “Jones has pointed out that the wider arches of the new London Bridge completed in 1831 allowed the river to flow more freely, thereby reducing the likelihood of ice building up.” Bowen, James P. “A Provincial Frost Fair: Urban Space, Sociability and Spectacle in Shrewsbury During the Great Frost of 1739.” Midland History 43, no. 1 (2018): 43–61. doi:10.1080/0047729X.2018.1461748.
- “This was Old London Bridge, built on nineteen arches supported by small piers with projecting “starlings”, which broke up the flow of the river. In winter, when these arches were blocked with ice and debris, London Bridge almost acted like a dam, slowing the Thames and helping it to freeze. “All the Fun of the Frost Fair: Why Did the Thames Freeze?” n.d. Museum of London. Accessed February 19, 2024. https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/frost-fairs.
Body Section 2: Mercantalism
- “The frozen Thames brought consequences that varied from episode to episode. As Chamberlain suggested, ice could prevent ships from passing under the London Bridge to the tackle houses of the City for unloading. Given London’s reliance on waterborne supplies, such a freeze would cause considerable economic dislocation.” Ward, Joseph P. 2008. “The Taming of the Thames: Reading the River in the Seventeenth Century.” Huntington Library Quarterly 71 (1): 55–75. https://doi.org/10.1525/hlq.2008.71.1.55.
- “With the Thames at a standstill, hundreds of bargemen and sailors were frozen out of work. Frost fairs offered a chance for them to earn money by guiding sight-seers out onto the ice. Others fitted their small boats with runners, turning them into sledges, and offered rides along the frozen river.” “All the Fun of the Frost Fair: Why Did the Thames Freeze?” n.d. Museum of London. Accessed February 19, 2024. https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/frost-fairs.
Body Section 3: Festivities
- The first recorded frost fair was during the winter of 1607 / 08. During December the ice had been firm enough to allow people to walk between Southwark to the City, but it was not until January when the ice became so thick that people started setting up camp on it. There were football pitches, bowling matches, fruit-sellers, shoemakers, barbers… even a pub or two. To keep the shopkeepers warm, there were even fires within their tents! “The Thames Frost Fairs in London.” n.d. Historic UK. Accessed February 19, 2024. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Thames-Frost-Fairs/.
- The famous English writer and diariest John Evelyn described it in extensive detail, writing:
Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other staires to and fro, as in the streetes, sliding with skeetes, a bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet plays and interludes, cookes, tipling and other lewd places, so that it seemed a bacchanalian triumph or carnival on the water, whilst it was a severe judgement on the land, the trees not onely splitting as if lightning-struck, but men and cattle perishing in divers[e] places, and the very seas so lock’d up with ice, that no vessels could stir out or come in. “Even kings and queens would join in the festivities, with King Charles reportedly enjoying a spitroasted ox at this very fair.” “The Thames Frost Fairs in London.” n.d. Historic UK. Accessed February 19, 2024. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Thames-Frost-Fairs/.
Body Section 4: Cultural Significance
- “h. Hutton clearly knew about Cadman’s fate during the great frost as he wrote, ‘Though he succeeded at Derby, yet, in exhibiting soon after at Shrewsbury, he fell, and lost his life’.106 This is evidence of how news of Cadman’s heroic death was circulated throughout the Midlands and nationally and how his exploits during the frost fair were embedded into the oral tradition and popular memory not just within Shrewsbury but the wider region.” Bowen, James P. 2018. “A Provincial Frost Fair : Urban Space, Sociability and Spectacle in Shrewsbury During the Great Frost of 1739.” Midland History 43 (1): 43–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/0047729X.2018.1461748.
- I will discuss how the fairs created their own culture during times of hardship in the winter.
Conclusion: will figure this out when I have written most of the paper.