Link-boy
Encyclopedia
Boy
A boy is a young male human , as contrasted to its female counterpart, girl, or an adult male, a man.The term "boy" is primarily used to indicate biological sex distinctions, cultural gender role distinctions or both...
who carried a flaming torch
Torch
A torch is a fire source, usually a rod-shaped piece of wood with a rag soaked in pitch and/or some other flammable material wrapped around one end. Torches were often supported in sconces by brackets high up on walls, to throw light over corridors in stone structures such as castles or crypts...
to light
Light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that is visible to the human eye, and is responsible for the sense of sight. Visible light has wavelength in a range from about 380 nanometres to about 740 nm, with a frequency range of about 405 THz to 790 THz...
the way for pedestrians at night. Linkboys were common in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in the day
Day
A day is a unit of time, commonly defined as an interval equal to 24 hours. It also can mean that portion of the full day during which a location is illuminated by the light of the sun...
s before street lighting. The linkboy's fee was commonly one farthing, and the torch was often made from burning pitch
Pitch (resin)
Pitch is the name for any of a number of viscoelastic, solid polymers. Pitch can be made from petroleum products or plants. Petroleum-derived pitch is also called bitumen. Pitch produced from plants is also known as resin. Products made from plant resin are also known as rosin.Pitch was...
and tow
Tow
In the composites industry, a tow is an untwisted bundle of continuous filaments, and it refers to man-made fibres, particularly carbon fibres ....
.
Link-boys and their torches also accompanied litter vehicles, known as sedan chairs
Litter (vehicle)
The litter is a class of wheelless vehicles, a type of human-powered transport, for the transport of persons. Examples of litter vehicles include lectica , jiao [较] , sedan chairs , palanquin , Woh , gama...
, that were operated by chairmen. Where possible, the link boys escorted the fares to the chairmen, the passengers then being delivered to the door of their lodgings.
Several houses in Bath, UK still have the link extinguishers on the exteriors, shaped like outsized candle snuffers (see image, right).
The term derives from "link", a term for the cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
tow that formed the wick
Candle wick
A candle wick is a string, cord, or wooden object that holds the flame of a candle. A candle wick works by capillary action, drawing the fuel to the flame. When the liquid fuel, typically melted candle wax, reaches the flame it then vaporizes and combusts. The candle wick influences how the...
of the torch. Links are mentioned in William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV, Part 1 is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written no later than 1597. It is the second play in Shakespeare's tetralogy dealing with the successive reigns of Richard II, Henry IV , and Henry V...
, as Falstaff
Falstaff
Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. In the two Henry IV plays, he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. A fat, vain, boastful, and cowardly knight, Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is...
teases Bardolph
Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV, Part 1 is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written no later than 1597. It is the second play in Shakespeare's tetralogy dealing with the successive reigns of Richard II, Henry IV , and Henry V...
about the shining redness of his face
Flushing (physiology)
For a person to flush is to become markedly red in the face and often other areas of the skin, from various physiological conditions. Flushing is generally distinguished, despite a close physiological relation between them, from blushing, which is milder, generally restricted to the face, cheeks or...
:
- "Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern." (Act III, scene 3)
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy...
painted Cupid as a Link Boy, now held by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
The Albright-Knox Art Gallery is an art museum located in Delaware Park in Buffalo, New York. The gallery is a major showplace for modern art and contemporary art. It is located directly across the street from Buffalo State College.-History:...
in Buffalo, New York
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
. In that painting, little Cupid as a London linkboy wears demonic bat wings and an immense phallic torch to "remind those in the know of the proclivities of a certain patron." Another appears in the first plate of William Hogarth
William Hogarth
William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
's The Four Stages of Cruelty
The Four Stages of Cruelty
The Four Stages of Cruelty is a series of four printed engravings published by English artist William Hogarth in 1751. Each print depicts a different stage in the life of the fictional Tom Nero....
, putting out the eyes of a bird using a hot needle heated in the flame of his torch. Hogarth depicts a linkboy again, in plate four, Night, of his Four Times of the Day
Four Times of the Day
Four Times of the Day is a series of four paintings by English artist William Hogarth. Completed in 1736, they were reproduced as a series of four engravings published in 1738. They are humorous depictions of life in the streets of London, the vagaries of fashion, and the interactions between the...
, this time huddled beneath a bench blowing on his torch.
In the mid-eighteenth century Laurence Casey, who was known as Little Cazey, became the personal linkboy of the famous courtesan Betty Careless
Betty Careless
Betty Careless or Betsy Careless was a notorious prostitute and later bagnio-owner in 18th-century London. Probably born Elizabeth Carless , she adapted her name to better suit her profession...
, and gained something of reputation as a troublemaker. He features Louis Peter Boitard
Louis Peter Boitard
-Life:He was born in France, and was a pupil of Raymond Lafage. His father François Boitard brought him to England. The date of his death is unknown, being stated by some authorities as 1758, by others as after 1760.-Works:...
's 1739 picture The Covent Garden Morning Frolick, leading the sedan chair containing Betty and being ridden by Captain "Mad Jack" Montague
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, PC, FRS was a British statesman who succeeded his grandfather, Edward Montagu, 3rd Earl of Sandwich, as the Earl of Sandwich in 1729, at the age of ten...
(seafaring brother of the Earl of Sandwich
Earl of Sandwich
Earl of Sandwich is a 17th century title in the Peerage of England, nominally associated with Sandwich, Kent. It was created in 1660 for the prominent naval commander Admiral Sir Edward Montagu. He was made Baron Montagu, of St Neots in the County of Huntingdon, and Viscount Hinchingbrooke, at the...
). Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....
considered Montague, his companion Captain Laroun, and Casey "the three most troublesome and difficult to manage of all my Bow Street visitors". Casey was eventually transported to America in 1750.
In thieves' cant
Thieves' cant
Thieves' cant or Rogues' cant was a secret language which was formerly used by thieves, beggars and hustlers of various kinds in Great Britain and to a lesser extent in other English-speaking countries...
, a linkboy was known as a "Glym Jack" ("glym" meant "light") or a "moon-curser" (as their services would not be required on a moonlit
Moonlight
Moonlight is the light that reaches Earth from the Moon. This light does not originate from the Moon, but from sunlight. The Moon does not, however, reflect sunlight like a mirror, but it reflects light from those portions of its surface which the Sun's light strikes. See diffuse reflection.In...
night). Employing a linkboy could be dangerous, as some would lead their clients to dark alleyways, where they could be beset by footpad
Footpad
A footpad is an archaic term for a robber or thief specializing in pedestrian victims. The term was used widely from the 16th century until the 19th century, but gradually fell out of common use...
s.
Linkboys make brief appearances in the novels of William Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...
and Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, and are mentioned by Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...
in his diary. An anonymous illustrated serial novel, The Link Boy of Old London, was published in the penny dreadful
Penny Dreadful
A penny dreadful was a type of British fiction publication in the 19th century that usually featured lurid serial stories appearing in parts over a number of weeks, each part costing an penny...
Boys Standard from 4 November 1882.
The expression "cannot hold a candle to" (meaning "inferior to") may derive from a comparison to an inadequate linkboy. During the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, a person walking home after dark typically would have hired a linkboy to light the way with a candle or torch - then considered a low status position. If you could not hold a candle to somebody, that means you were not even good enough to be his linkboy.
External links
- Reynolds' Cupid as a Link Boy
- Linkboy from The Georgian Index
- The Link Boy of Old London