1814 THAMES FROST FAIR – EXCEPTIONALLY RARE UNCUT SHEET OF SIX SOUVENIRS

A remarkable original uncut sheet of six miniature letterpress souvenirs relating to the final Frost Fair on the River Thames, all dated 7 February 1814.

The sheet is particularly unusual in surviving complete and uncut, preserving the six individual souvenirs in their original printing arrangement. An identical complete sheet is preserved in the British Museum, museum number 1880,1113.5872, where it is catalogued as an 1814 letterpress ticket“printed on the ice, from a stall at the Frost Fair”, measuring 187 x 146 mm.

PRINTED AT SWAN STAIRS, RIVER THAMES

The three souvenirs forming the left-hand column are headed:

PRINTED
at Swan Stairs,
RIVER THAMES,
February 7, 1814.

Two contain the well-known Frost Fair verse:

The season cold
You now behold!
A sight that’s very rare,
All was a trice
Upon the ICE,
Just like a russian fair.

Interestingly, although these two souvenirs carry essentially identical wording, they are separately typeset, with differences in the individual letterpress types, spacing and alignment. The complete sheet therefore preserves valuable physical evidence of the printer’s original working arrangement which would be lost once the souvenirs were separated.

The third carries the particularly evocative printing verse:

The ICE was firm which well you know,
For PRINTING on it we did show;
Near to swan stairs, for there you’ll find,
Impressions neat and to your mind.

AN EXTRAORDINARY 7 FEBRUARY DATE

The dating is particularly interesting.

The celebrated 1814 Frost Fair was the last great Frost Fair held on the Thames. The London Museum describes 1814 as the last occasion on which the Thames was completely frozen and records printing presses amongst the attractions on the ice.

Contemporary accounts describe the fair breaking up during 5 February, when rain fell, the ice cracked and booths and printing presses began to float away. By 6 February the fair had effectively been destroyed by the thaw and tide.

Yet this complete sheet is specifically dated 7 February 1814.

An especially interesting comparison exists with an earlier 5 February Swan Stairs souvenir carrying essentially the same verse. That version states:

“The ICE is firm…”
“For PRINTING on it now we show…”

By 7 February the wording on the present sheet has deliberately changed to:

“The ICE was firm…”
“For PRINTING on it we did show…”

The change from present to past tense is particularly suggestive and appears to reflect the disappearance of the ice and transformation of the souvenir from an immediate Frost Fair keepsake into a commemoration of an event which had only just ended.

This interpretation is necessarily cautious, but the deliberate alteration of both date and tense provides fascinating evidence for the continuation of the souvenir trade at the very end of this historic event.

THE THREE RIGHT-HAND SOUVENIRS

The upper right example is:

PRINTED
in Commemoration
OF THE HARD FROST,
Feb. 7, 1814.

followed by the Lord’s Prayer.

The middle example contains:

The river is frozen the season is cold,
And nature’s strange wonders you now may behold!
But wonders still higher you’re called to see,
For Britain tho’ froze relieves Germany.

The lower example reads:

The season now is very cold,
But not the hearts of all,
For some will now the Bible send,
Around this earthly ball.

Together the six pieces therefore encompass Frost Fair commemoration, printing history, popular verse, religion and contemporary social/political commentary.

PRINTING ON THE FROZEN THAMES

Printing was one of the celebrated attractions of the Frost Fairs. The Cambridge University Library Special Collections notes that the practice stretched back at least to the famous 1683/84 fair, when John Evelyn recorded visitors paying to have their names and the date printed on the Thames.

The Bodleian Library’s John Johnson Collection preserves numerous pieces of 1814 Frost Fair ephemera, including generic keepsakes, named keepsakes, watchpapers and a souvenir carrying the manuscript testimony“my father saw this Paper printed on the Thames R.N.”

On 5 February 1814, G. Davis’s famous Frostiana; or A History of the River Thames, In a Frozen State was issued with a title page explicitly stating:

“Printed and published on the Ice on the River Thames, February 5, 1814.”

The present sheet, dating only two days later, belongs to the very final phase of this extraordinary episode in London’s printing and social history.

SURVIVAL AS AN UNCUT SHEET

These tiny souvenirs were intended to be separated and sold individually, and individual examples corresponding to the designs present here survive separately.

The preservation of all six together as a complete production sheet is therefore particularly desirable.

The exceptionally late 7 February date may conceivably help explain its survival uncut: with the great spectacle rapidly disappearing, demand for further souvenirs may have fallen equally rapidly, potentially leaving some newly printed sheets unsold. This remains a plausible interpretation rather than something which can presently be proved.

Significantly, another complete identical sheet was acquired with the Frederick Crace collection by the British Museum in 1880 and remains in the museum’s Prints and Drawings collection.

A particularly evocative survival from the very end of London’s final Frost Fair.

An exceptional piece of Georgian London ephemera and early nineteenth-century printing history, offering far greater historical and bibliographical interest in its original uncut state than the six individual souvenirs would possess separately.

Condition as photos. Guaranteed Original. All items can be returned for a full refund if found to be not as described.

Provenance: 

From the collection of a long established Richmond-upon-Thames resident, focusing on 17th to 19th century trade ephemera, theatre handbills and Acts of Parliament.