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Stephenson:Neal:Quicksilver:80:Stourbridge Fair (Alan Sinder)

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a page on the Stourbridge Fair

Stephensonia

Daniel is wrong about it being Isaac's first time to the fair. I wonder what his father Drake and the half-brothers explained to him.

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  • TBA

Isaac and The Fair

“ … In 1661 Newton accordingly entered as a student at Cambridge, where for the first time he found himself among surroundings which were likely to develop his powers. … At the beginning of his first October term he happened to stroll down to Stourbridge Fair, and there picked up a book on astrology, but could not understand it on account of the geometry and trigonometry. …”[1] Prism&Newton-MW.jpg

Bewigged Isaac and a Prism

The Fair

Stourbridge Fair officially starts in the year 1211 CE. The fair happens because it is situated on the crosspaths of market transactions. It is one of four medievel fairs held in the area. It first was to benefit a leper colony, then when the colony closed, the town of Cambridge took it over around 1280 CE. In 1589, the University took control with the profits still going to the town. The fair originally ran 2 days, but then started on August 24 and ended September 29.

The Chapel attached to the Leper Colony is still standing and in occasional use.

The first surviving eye-witness account is due to Edward Ward, in the 1700 pamphlet A Step to Stir-Bitch-Fair. According to Ward it was referred to as “Bawdy-Barnwel” as it had numerous brothels. He described the crowd, "an Abstract of all sorts of Mankind," the smells of fish, tar and soap, and the vast array of goods for sale in large semi-permanent booths: perfume, hats, toys, cabinets, books, hardware, leather, tobacco. Cloth and wool was sold in huge bags in the Duddery. And men from London came to the Fair not to do business, but to "drink, smoke and whore."

The Waterhouse family's favorite writer John Bunyan used Stourbridge Fair as the model for Vanity Fair in Pilgrim's Progress. *“Behold Vanity Fair! the Pilgrims there Are chain'd and stand beside: Even so it was our Lord pass'd here, And on Mount Calvary died. …

And as in other fairs of less moment, there are the several rows and streets, under their proper names, where such and such wares are vended; so here likewise you have the proper places, rows, streets, (viz. countries and kingdoms), where the wares of this fair are soonest to be found. Here is the Britain Row, the French Row, the Italian Row, the Spanish Row, the German Row, where several sorts of vanities are to be sold. But, as in other fairs, some one commodity is as the chief of all the fair, so the ware of Rome and her merchandise is greatly promoted in this fair; only our English nation, with some others, have taken a dislike thereat. …”*

Daniel Defoe also wrote of the fair as part of his Tour of Great Britain in 1724, one supposes it was all fodder for Moll Flanders. He noted that goods did not necessarily change hands at the Fair, many wholesalers coming to the Fair to take orders for goods that would be delivered at a future date - a more modern way of doing business that, together with improved communications, would eventually render such large fairs obsolete. Toward the last few days of the Fair the social events would dominate the trading. The gentry would arrive for the "puppet-shows, drolls, rope-dancers, and such like". On the last day there was a horse fair, and the gentry would leave the common folk to race with horses and on foot.

PP.MW.jpg

Pilgrim's Progress

“ …If the husbandmen who rent the land, do not get their corn off before a certain day in August, the fair-keepers may trample it under foot and spoil it to build their booths, or tents, for all the fair is kept in tents and booths. On the other hand, to balance that severity, if the fair-keepers have not done their business of the fair, and removed and cleared the field by another certain day in September, the ploughmen may come in again, with plough and cart, and overthrow all, and trample into the dirt; and as for the filth, dung, straw, etc. necessarily left by the fair- keepers, the quantity of which is very great, it is the farmers' fees, and makes them full amends for the trampling, riding, and carting upon, and hardening the ground.…”

The fair declined and was abolished in 1933.