18th Century Ballad Sellers

Last updated: Jan 5, 2024

Itinerant ballad-sellers often appear on the margins of 18th century artwork, often singing or selling ballads that provide commentary on the main action in the artwork itself. The ballads and similar broadsides also appear to be hung up in interiors, as seen in Kitchen Interior or The Fellow 'Prentices at their Looms.

The 18th century English term for a ballad seller appears to be “ballad-monger” (see references from 1738, 1730, and 1800).

• A Merry new Song, 1688
• A Rake’s Progress: The Tavern Scene by William Hogarth, 1735
• The Lamentable Fall of Madam Geneva Sepr 29 1736
• The Enraged Musician by William Hogarth, 1741
• The fellow 'prentices at their looms by William Hogarth, 1747
• The Industrious 'Prentice out of his Time, & Married to his Master's Daughter by William Hogarth, 1747
• The March of the Guards to Finchley by William Hogarth, 1749-1750
• Gin Lane by William Hogarth, 1750-1751
• London Cries: Fun Upon Fun by Paul Sandby, 1759
• Friendly as a ballad singer at ye country wake, 1760?
• the F-sh-m-grs Downfall or Poors Triumph, c. 1762
• Satire on the Act for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors, 1763
• The Ballad Singer by Henry Robert Morland, 1764
• The City Chanters, 1771
• A German ballad singer, 1772
• The Old Ballad Singer, 1775
• A Girl Buying a Ballad by Henry Walton, 1778
• Dotage, c. 1780s
• The Ballad Singers, c. 1781
• Preparing to Start, 1787
• Ten Views of Encampments in Hyde-Park and Black-Heath by Paul Sandby, 1780
• Robin O’Green of Burnley, 1780
• Detail from Promenade of the Ambassadors of Tipu Sultan in the Park of Saint-Cloud by Charles-Eloi Asselin, 1788
• The Young Ballad Singers, 1790-1798
• A ballad-seller, 1790s
• A Ballad-Seller’s Stall by Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1793
• The farmer come to town on a foolish errand, 1794
• The Country Ballad Singers, 1794
• Worcester Cathedral by Joseph Mallord William Turner, c. 1794-1795
• A New Love Song only ha’penny a piece, 1796
• Maid Buying a Love-Ditty by Pehr Hilleström, c. 1796
• Diligence and Dissipation: The wanton turn’d out of doors for misconduct, 1797
• The Wandering Sailor by Henry Singleton, 1798
• Weeping by Thomas Rowlandson, 1800
• Rapture by Thomas Rowlandson, 1800
• Le suprême bon ton, 1800-1805
• The Ballad Singers by Thomas Rowlandson

---

Last Dying Speech and Confession

A printed document purporting to report the last words of a condemned criminal; an enterprising ballad-seller could sell such documents at public executions. For more on this, see “Tracking the petty traitor across genres,” “Ballads and the emotional life of crime,” and “The maiden’s bloody garland: Thomas Warton and the elite appropriation of popular song” in Ballads and Broadsides in Britain, 1500-1800, or “Criminal biography and the last dying confessions” in Crime, Policing and Punishment in England, 1660-1914.

• The Idle Prentice Executed at Tyburn by William Hogarth, 1747
• London Cries: Last Dying Speech and Confession by Paul Sandby, c. 1759
• Cries of London: Last dying Speech & Confession by Thomas Rowlandson, 1799