18th Century Pottles
Last updated: Jan 5, 2024
A pottle, technically speaking, is a unit of volume equal to 2 quarts or ½ gallon (see The London Adviser and Guide, for example).
The word “pottle” is also used to describe a sort of conical basket used to carry produce – often strawberries or other small fruits – as they are sold in markets or by street vendors. The Universal Gardener and Botanist (1778) provides a description:
Pottle baſkets are the moſt convenient for ſending quantities of ſtrawberries, raſpberries, and mulberries, choicer ſorts of early cherries, and the moſt delicate ſorts of ſmall plums, to market, or to any diſtance; theſe are very ſmall, upright, chip Baſkets, holding about a quart, being ten or twelve inches deep, very narrow at bottom, and not more than four or five inches wide at top, where there is a croſs handle. The London gardeners uſe vaſt quantities of them, buy them at ninepence or a ſhilling per dozen, which when filled with fruit, they pack many together in a large Boat-baſket, ſo ſend them to market on men’s heads, or otherwiſe.
The Museum of London describes their use in the early 19th century:
Strawberries were cried by both men and women in June in London suburbs. They were sold for sixpence in pottles that held less than a quart. The crier added one penny to the selling price for the value of the pottle that was refunded if the customer returned it. The criers’ profit was between threepence and fourpence in the shilling.
The illustrations below show these sorts of pottle baskets in use.
- The Cryes of the City of London Drawne after the Life: Ripe Strawberries (1688, reworked after c. 1750)
- Draft trade card of Eleanor Ogle, fruiterer, c. 1760
- A lady in full dress, seen from behind by Samuel Scott
- A young woman in rustic dress, c. 1760-1783
- A naive woolwork of a basket of strawberries worked by Lady Elizabeth Archer, a sister to the Earl of Halifax, late 18th century
- Betty (portrait of Betty Munro, a fruit seller), c. 1766-1783
- A boy steals fruit from pottles stored in a larger basket on the right side of The Female Orators, 1768
- A lady in full dress, seen from behind by Samuel Scott
- Scene in a London Street by John Collet, 1770
- Kitchen Scene by John Atkinson, 1771
- Girl Bundling Asparagus by John Atkinson, 1771
- The Strawberry Girl by Joshua Reynolds, 1772-1773
- The Strawberry Girl by Joshua Reynolds, 1773-1777
- The Strawberry Girl (Sarah Margaret Edwards), 1770s
- Draft trade card of James Cook, fruiterer, c. 1775
- Fruit Stall, 1777
- Draft trade card of Edward Owen, fruiterer, c. 1785
- A View of the Parade at Bath, c. 1785
- The Cries of London: Strawberrys, Scarlet Strawberrys, 1795
- Paddy O’Blarney, 1796
- Hero’s recruiting at Kelsey’s; or Guard-Day at St James’s, 1797
- Picking Mulberries by Thomas Rowlandson; see also Women gathering nuts and assembling baskets (Flower Market)
- Draft trade card of Smith, fruiterer, c. 1800
- Scarlet Strawberries in The New Cries of London, 1803
- Strawberries, Covent Garden, 1804
- Portrait of a young girl, said to be a Stanley of the Derby family, by John Hoppner, c. 1805 (H/T Paul Dickfoss)
- Folkstone Strawberries or More Carraway Comfits for Mary Ann, 1810
- London Markets: Fruit, 1822
- A basket of strawberries, 19th century
(H/T to Paul Dickfoss for suggesting this topic and sharing his research on strawberry vendors.)