A procession of publicans and a beggar following the coffin of Madam Geneva; attacking the Act preventing distillers from retailing or selling gin to unlicensed premises. Engraving, 1751.

Date:
29 September 1751
Reference:
25932i
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view A procession of publicans and a beggar following the coffin of Madam Geneva; attacking the Act preventing distillers from retailing or selling gin to unlicensed premises. Engraving, 1751.

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Credit

A procession of publicans and a beggar following the coffin of Madam Geneva; attacking the Act preventing distillers from retailing or selling gin to unlicensed premises. Engraving, 1751. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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Description

The street depicted in the background is St. Giles High Street, London. In the exequies of Madam Gin, the body is followed by a cortege of distillers mourning the loss of gin sales. It is also followed by a well-qualified representative of the imbibers of gin, a Scottish gin-lover known as Loddy (i.e. laddy), described as "a beggar well-known about St Giles, 7 Dials etc.": "Gin's fun'ral mourn, lo ! near the body, In ragged state moves rueful Loddy, Great representative allow'd, Of all who to her Empire bow'd"

Publication/Creation

London (at the Black Horse in Cornhill) : John Bowles & Son, 29 September 1751.

Physical description

1 print : engraving, with etching

Lettering

To those melancholly sufferers (by a late severe Act) the distillers this plate is most humbly inscrib'd by a lover of trade. The funeral procession of Madam Geneva sep.r 29.1751 publish'd according to Act of Parliament ... Lettering continues with thirty lines of verse below the image describing the scene Lettering on an inn sign reads "gin no more by retale" and above the inn door reads "geneva, brandy, rum, arrack, ca" Lettering on the coffin pall reads "P. P.", probably for Parish Pall, and on the burial ground wall reads "S G F" i.e. St. Giles-in-the-Fields

References note

Published description in: British Museum, Catalogue of political and personal satires, vol III, no. 3121

Reference

Wellcome Collection 25932i

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