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State Lotteries

For more than two-and-a-half centuries state lotteries were popular in this country. They were imported into England from the continent; prior to being known here they were established in Italy, and most probably they came to us from that country.

An announcement of the first English lottery was made in 1566, and it stated that it would consist of forty-thousand lots or shares at ten shillings each. The prizes, many and valuable, included money, plate, and certain sorts of merchandise. The winner of the greatest and most excellent prize was entitled to receive “the value of five thousand poundes sterling, that is to say, three thousande poundes in ready money, seven hundred poundes in plate, gilte and white, and the reste in good tapisserie meete of hangings and other covertures, and certain sortes of good linen cloth.” Tapisserie and good linen cloth figure in several of the prizes, or to give the spelling of the announcement, prices. A large number of small money prizes were offered, including ten thousand at fifteen shillings each, and nine thousand four hundred and eighteen at fourteen shillings each.

The object of the lottery was to raise money to repair the harbours and to carry out other useful works. Although the undertaking was for an excellent purpose, and the prizes tempting, the sale of the tickets was slow, and special inducements were made by Queen Elizabeth to persons taking shares. Persons who “adventured money in this lottery” might visit several of the more important towns in “the Realme of Englande, and Dublyn and Waterforde in the Realm of Irelande,” and there remain for seven days without any molestation or arrest of them for any manner of offence saving treason, murder, pyracie, or any other felonie, or for breach of her Majesties peace during the time of her coming abiding or returne. Doubtless these conditions would induce many to take shares. Public bodies as well as private persons invested money in lottery tickets. Not so much as a matter of choice as to comply with the urgent wishes of the queen and her advisers. The public had little taste for the lottery, but the leading people in the land were almost compelled to take shares, and the same may be said of chief cities and towns. In the city records of Winchester for example, under the year 1566, it is stated: – “Taken out of the Coffer the sum of £10 towards the next drawen of the lottery.” On the 30th July, 1568, is another entry as follows: – “That £3 be taken out of the Coffers of the cytie and be put into the lottery, and so muche money as shall make up evyn lotts with those that are contrybuting of the cytie, so that it passed not 10s.”

The eventful day arrived after long waiting for commencing the drawing of the lottery. The place selected for the purpose was at the west door of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. Operations were commenced in 1569, on January 11th, and continued day and night until May 6th.

Some years passed before another state lottery took place. It is believed that one noticed by Stow in his “Annales,” occurring in 1585, was the second. “A lotterie,” chronicles Stow, “for marvellous, rich, and beautiful armour was begunne to be drawne at London in S. Paules Churchyard, at the great West gate (a house of timber and board being there erected for that purpose) on S. Peter’s Day in the morning, which lotteries continued in drawing day and night, for the space of two or three dayes.”

Our first two Stuart kings do not appear to have employed the lottery as a means of raising money. James I. granted a lotterie in favour of the colony of Virginia. The prizes consisted of pieces of plate. It was drawn in a house built for the purpose near the West end of St. Paul’s. The drawing commenced on the 29th June, and was completed by 20th July, 1612. It is said that a poor tailor won the first prize, viz. “foure thousand Crownes in fayre plate,” and that it was conveyed to his humble home in a stately style. The lottery gave general satisfaction, it was plainly and honestly conducted, and knights, esquires and leading citizens were present to check any attempt at cheating. During the reign of Charles I., in 1630, the earliest lottery for sums of money took place.

The Puritans do not seem to have had any decided aversion to obtaining money by means of the lottery. During the Commonwealth it was resorted to for getting rid of forfeited Irish estates.

At the restoration the real gaming spirit commenced and caused much misery and ruin. The lottery sheet was set up in many public places, and the Crown received a large revenue from this source. The financial arrangement of a lottery was simple, the state offered a certain sum of money to be repaid by a larger. We learn from Chambers’s “Book of Days,” that “The government gave £10 in prizes for every share taken, on an average. A great many blanks, or of prizes under £10 left of course, a surplus for the creation of a few magnificent prizes wherewith to attract the unwary public.” It was customary for city firms known as lottery-office-keepers to contract for the lottery, and they always paid more than £10 per share, usually £16 was paid, which left the government a handsome profit. The contractors disposed of the tickets to the public for £20 to £22 each. The shares were frequently divided by the contractors into halves, quarters, eights, and sixteenths, and this was done at advanced prices. It was out of the clients for aliquot parts that the lottery-office-keepers reaped a heavy harvest. They were men who understood the art of advertising, and used pictures, poetry, and prose in a most effective manner. Our own collections of lottery puffs is curious and interesting. Some very good examples are reproduced in “A History of English Lotteries,” by John Ashton, and published by the Leadenhall Press, London, in 1893.

It is related that one firm of lottery ticket contractors gave an old woman fifty pounds a year to join them as a nominal partner on account of her name being Goodluck.

We have stated that at the commencement of lotteries they were drawn near St. Paul’s, subsequently the City Guildhall was the place, and later Cooper’s Hall, Basinghall Street, was used for this purpose. Before the day appointed for the drawing of a lottery, public preparations had been made for it at Somerset House. Each lottery ticket had a counterpart and a counterfoil, and when the issue of the tickets was complete, an announcement was made, and a day fixed for the counterparts of the tickets to be sealed up in a box, and any ticket-holder might attend and see that his ticket was included with others in a box, and it was placed in a strong box and locked up with seven keys, then sealed with seven seals. Two other boxes, locked and sealed as the one with tickets, contained the prize tickets and blanks. These were removed with ceremony to the place of drawing. Four prancing horses would draw, on their own sledges, the wheels of fortune, each of which were about six feet in diameter. By their side galloped a detachment of Horse Guards. Arrived at their destination, the great wheels were placed at each end of a long table, where the managers of the lottery took their seats. With care the tickets were emptied into the wheels, and finally they were set in motion. Near each wheel stood a boy, usually from the Blue-Coat School. Simultaneously the lads put into the wheels their hands, each drawing a paper out. These they hold up, and an officer, called the proclaimer, calls out in a loud voice the number, say sixty! another responds a prize or blank, as the case may be, and the drawing thus proceeds until it is finished, often a long and tedious piece of work. If even a blank is first drawn, the owner of the ticket received a prize of a thousand pounds, and a similar sum was won by the owner of the last ticket drawn. The boys were well rewarded for their trouble, and on the whole the lotteries appear to have been fairly conducted.

We give a picture of a pageant-like machine, used in London to advertise the last state lottery. The artist by whom it was drawn wrote an entertaining letter respecting it. “As I was walking up Holborn on the 9th of October, 1826,” he says, “I saw a strange vehicle moving slowly on, and when I came up to it, found a machine, perhaps from twenty to thirty feet high, of an octagon shape, covered all over with lottery papers of various colours. It had a broad brass band round the bottom, and moved on a pivot; it had a very imposing effect. The driver and the horse seemed as dull as though they were attending a solemn funeral, whilst the different shopkeepers came to the doors and laughed; some of the people passing and repassing read the bills that were pasted on it, as if they had never read one before, others stationed themselves to look at it as long as it was in sight. It entered Monmouth Street, that den of filth and rags, where so great a number of young urchins gathered together in a few minutes as to be astonishing. There being an empty chair behind, one of them seated himself in it, and rode backwards; another said, ‘let’s have a stone through it,’ and a third cried ‘let’s sludge it.’ This was no sooner proposed than they threw stones, oyster shells, and dirt, and burst several of the sheets; this attack brought the driver from his seat, and he was obliged to walk by the side of his machine up the foul street which his show canvassed, halting now and then to threaten the boys who still followed and threw. I made a sketch, and left the scene.”

Powerful protests were made in parliament against the immorality of the lottery. It took a long time to bring those in office to a sense of their duty. The immense profits they yielded were extremely useful for state purposes. Mr. Parnell hit hard the men in power, and it was he who suggested that the following epitaph be inscribed on the tomb of a Chancellor of the Exchequer: —

“Here lies the

RIGHT HON. NICHOLAS VANSITTART,

once Chancellor of the Exchequer;

the parton of Bible Societies,

the builder of Churches,

a friend to the education of the poor,

an encourager of Savings’ Banks,

and a supporter of Lotteries.”

On Wednesday, 18th October, 1826, the last state lottery was drawn in England, and it will not be without interest to reproduce from a London newspaper a report of the closing proceedings. “Yesterday afternoon,” it is recorded, “at about half past six o’clock, that old servant of the State, the Lottery, breathed its last, having for a long period of years, ever since the days of Queen Anne, contributed largely towards the public revenue of the country. This event took place at Cooper’s Hall, Basinghall Street; and, such was the anxiety on the part of the public to witness the last drawing of the lottery, that great numbers of persons were attracted to the spot, independently of those who had an interest in the proceedings. The gallery of the Cooper’s Hall was crowded to excess long before the period fixed for the drawing (five o’clock), and the utmost anxiety was felt by those who had shares in the lottery, for the arrival of the appointed hour. The annihilation of lotteries, it will be recollected was determined upon in the session of Parliament before last; and thus, a source of revenue bringing into the treasury the sums of £250,000 and £300,000 per annum, will be dried up.

This determination on the part of the legislature is hailed, by the greatest portion of the public, with joy, as it will put an end to a system which many believe to have fostered and encouraged the late speculations, the effects of which have been and are still severely felt. A deficiency in the public revenue, to the extent of £250,000 annually, will occur, however, in the consequence of this annihilation of lotteries, and it must remain for those who have strenuously supported the putting a stop to lotteries, to provide for the deficiency.

Although that which ended yesterday was the last, if we are informed correctly, the lottery-office keepers have been left with a great number of tickets remaining on their hands – a pretty strong proof that the public, in general, have now no relish for these schemes.”

The drawing of the lottery commenced shortly after five o’clock, and ended at twenty minutes past six, so it did not take long to complete the last state lottery in England.

Those most interested in lotteries did not let them die without trying to prove their value to the public and the state. Bish, who conducted an extensive business in tickets, issued an address as follows: —

“At the present moment, when so many of the comforts of the poorer classes are more or less liable to taxation, it may surely be a question whether the abolition of lotteries, by which the State was a gainer of nearly half a million per annum, be, or be not, a wise measure!

’Tis true that, as they were formerly conducted, the system was fraught with some evil. Insurances were allowed upon the fate of numbers through protracted drawings; and, as the insurances could be effected for very small sums, those who could ill afford loss, imbibed a spirit of gambling, which the legislature, very wisely, most effectually prevented, by adopting, in the year 1809, the present improved mode of deciding the whole lottery in one day.

As the present conducted, the lottery is a voluntary tax, contributed to only by those who can afford it, and collected without trouble or expense; one by which many branches of the revenue are considerably aided, and by means of which hundreds of persons find employment. The wisdom of those, who at this time resign the income produced by it, adds to the number of the unemployed, may, as I have observed in a former address, surely be questioned.

Mr. Pitt, whose ability on matters of financial arrangements few will question, and whose morality was proverbial, would not, I am bold to say, have yielded to the outcry against a tax, the continuing of which would have enabled him to let the labourer drink his humble beverage at a reduced price, or the industrious artisan to pursue his occupation by a cheaper light. But we live in other times – in the age of improvement! To stake patrimonal estates at hazard or écarté, in the purlieus of St. James’s, is merely amusement, but to purchase a ticket in the lottery, by which a man may gain an estate at a trifling risk, is – immoral! Nay, within a few hours of the time I write, were not many of our nobility and senators, some of whom, I dare say, voted against lotteries, assembled, betting thousands upon a horse race?

In saying so much, it may be thought that I am somewhat presumptuous, or that I take a partial view of the case. It is, however, my honest opinion, abstracted from personal considerations, that the measure of abolishing lotteries is an unwise one, and, as such, I give it to that public, of which I have been, for many years, the highly favoured servant, and for whose patronage, though lotteries cease, my gratitude will ever continue.”

We will close our studies on this subject with a copy of an epitaph written in remembrance of these old-time institutions. It is as follows: —

In Memory of

The State Lottery,

the last of a long line

whose origin in England commenced

in the year 1569,

which, after a series of tedious complaints,

Expired

on the

18th day of October, 1826

During a period of 257 years, the family

flourished under the powerful protection

of the

British Parliament;

the Minister of the day continuing to

give them his support for the improvement

of the revenue

As they increased, it was found that their

continuance corrupted the morals

and encouraged a spirit

of Speculation and Gambling among the lower

classes of the people;

thousands of whom fell victims to their

insinuating and tempting allurements

Many philanthropic individuals

in the Senate,

at various times for a series of years,

pointed out their baneful influence

without effect,

His Majesty’s Ministers

still affording them their countenance

and protection

The British Parliament

being, at length, convinced of their

mischievous tendency,

His Majesty, GEORGE IV.,

on the 9th July, 1823,

pronounced sentence of condemnation

on the whole of the race;

from which time they were almost

Neglected by the British Public

Very great efforts were made by the

Partizans and friends of the family to

excite

the public feeling in favour of the last

of the race, in vain:

It continued to linger out the few

remaining

moments of its existence without attention

or sympathy, and finally terminated

its career, unregretted by any

virtuous mind

Bear-Baiting

Few sports in England have been more popular than bear-baiting. Other forms of amusement waned before its attractions. The Sovereign, in the days of old, had as a member of his Court a Bearward, as well as a Chancellor. In and about London the sport was largely patronised, but it was by no means confined to the Metropolis; in all parts of the country bear-baitings were held. Fitzstephen, a monk of Canterbury, who lived in the reign of Henry II., in his description of London, relates that in the forenoon of every holy day during the winter season, the youthful Londoners were amused with the baiting of bears and other animals. He says the bears were full grown.

Edward III., in his proclamation, includes bear-baiting amongst “dishonest, trivial, and useless games.” The proclamation does not appear to have had any lasting effect on the public as regards bear-baiting. The diversion increased in popularity.

Southwark was a popular place for baiting animals, and Sunday the usual day for the amusement. Stow has several notes bearing on this theme. In respect to charges to witness the sport, he tells us “those who go to the Paris Garden, the Belle Sauvage, the Theatre, to behold bear-baiting, interludes, or fence-play, must not account (i. e., reckon on) any pleasant spectacle unless they first pay one penny at the gate, another at the entrie of the scaffold, and a third for quiet standing.” We learn from Stow that at Southwark were two bear-gardens, the old and the new; places wherein were kept bears, bulls, and other beasts to be baited; as also mastiffs in their several kennels were there nourished to bait them. These bears and other beasts were baited in plots of ground scaffolded round for the beholders to stand safe. Stow condemns the foulness of these rude sights, and says the money idly thrown away upon them might have been given to the poor.

In the reign of Henry VIII., Erasmus visited England, and he relates that many herds of bears were maintained at the Court for the purpose of being baited. We are further told by him that the rich nobles had their bearwards, and the Royal establishment its Master of the King’s Bears.

Men were not wanting to raise their voices against this brutal sport even at the time kings favoured it. Towards the close of the reign of Henry VIII., Crowley wrote some lines, which we have modernised, as follows: —

 
“What folly is this to keep with danger
A great mastiff dog, and foul, ugly bear,
And to this intent to see these two fight
With terrible tearing, a full ugly sight.
And methinks these men are most fools of all
Whose store of money is but very small,
And yet every Sunday they will surely spend
A penny or two, the bear-ward’s living to mend.
At Paris Garden, each Sunday, a man shall not fail
To find two or three hundred for the bear-ward’s vale;
One halfpenny a piece they use for to give
When some have not more in their purses, I believe.
Well, at the last day their conscience will declare
That the poor ought to have all that they may spare,
If you therefore go to witness a bear fight
Be sure that God His curse will upon you alight.”
 

We may recognise the zeal of the writer, but we cannot commend the merits of his poetry.

When Princess Elizabeth was confined at Hatfield House, she was visited by her sister, Queen Mary. On the morning after her arrival, after mass was over, a grand entertainment of bear-baiting took place, much to their enjoyment.

Elizabeth, as a princess, took a delight in this sport, and when she occupied the throne she gave it her support. When the theatre, in the palmy days of Shakespeare and Burbage, was attracting a larger share of public patronage than the bear garden, she waxed indignant, and in 1591 an order was issued from the Privy Council, forbidding “plays to be performed on Thursdays because bear-baiting and such pastimes had usually been practised.” The Lord Mayor followed the order with an injunction in which it was stated “that in divers places the players are not to recite their plays to the great hurt and destruction of the game of bear-baiting and suchlike pastimes, which are maintained for Her Majesty’s pleasure.”

During the famous visit in 1575, of Queen Elizabeth to the Earl of Leicester, at Kenilworth Castle, baiting thirteen bears by ban dogs (a small kind of mastiff), was one of the entertainments provided for the royal guest.

History furnishes several instances of the Queen having animals baited for the diversion of Ambassadors. On May 25, 1559, the French Ambassadors dined with the Queen, and after dinner bulls and bears were baited by English dogs. She and her guests stood looking at the pastime until six o’clock. Next day the visitors went by water to the Paris Garden, where similar sports were held. In 1586, the Danish Ambassadors were received at Greenwich by Her Majesty, and bull and bear baiting were part of the amusements provided. Towards the close of her reign, the Queen entertained another set of Ambassadors with a bear-bait at the Cockpit near St. James’s. Baiting animals appears to have been the chief form of amusement provided by the Queen for foreign visitors.

Edmund Alleyn, founder of Dulwich College, was for a long time part owner of the bear gardens at Southwark. Mr. Edward Walford thinks that he was obliged to become a proprietor to make good his position as a player, and to carry out his theatrical designs. He had to purchase the patent office of “Beare ward,” or “Master of the King’s Beares.” Alleyn is reputed to have had a well stocked garden. On one occasion, when Queen Elizabeth wanted a grand display of bear-baiting, Sir John Dorrington, the chief master of Her Majesty’s “Games of Bulls and Bears,” applied and obtained animals from Alleyn.

The following advertisement written in a large hand was found amongst the Alleyn papers, and is supposed to be the original placard exhibited at the entrance of the bear-garden. It is believed to date back to the days of James I.: —

“Tomorrowe being Thursdaie shalbe seen at the Bear-gardin on the banckside a greate mach plaid by the gamsters of Essex, who hath chalenged all comers whatsoever to plaie v dogs at the single beare for v pounds, and also to wearie a bull dead at the stake; and for your better content shall have plasent sport with the horse and ape and whiping of the blind beare. Vivat Rex!”

The public had to be protected from the dogs employed in this sport. From the “Archives of Winchester,” published 1856, a work compiled from the city records, we find it stated. – “By an Ordinance of the 4th of August, in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Elizabeth, bull-dogs were prohibited roving throughout the city unmuzzled. Itm. – That noe person within this citie shall suffer or permit any of theire Mastife Doggs to goe unmusselled, uppon paine of everie defalte herein of 3s. 4d. to be levied by distresse, to the use of the Poore people of the citie.”

James I. was a lover of hunting and other sports, and gave his patronage to bear-baiting. We learn from Nichols’ “Progresses and Processions,” that the King commanded that a bear which had killed a child which had negligently been left in the bear-house of the Tower, be baited to death upon a stage. The order was carried out in presence of a large gathering of spectators.

In a letter written on July 12th, 1623, by Mr. Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, the following passage occurs: – “The Spanish Ambassador is much delighted in bear-baiting. He was last week at Paris Garden, where they showed him all the pleasure they could both with bull, bear, and horse, besides jackanapes, and then turned a white bear into the Thames, where the dogs baited him swimming, which was the best sport of all.”

Mr. William Kelly, in his work entitled “Notices Illustrative of the Drama and other Popular Amusements, Chiefly in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” has some very curious information relating to bear-baiting. The Leicester town accounts contain entries of many payments given to the bear-wards of Edward VI., Queen Elizabeth, and members of the nobility. Leicester had its bear-garden, but we learn from Mr. Kelly that the local authorities were not content to see the sport there, “as it was introduced at the Mayor’s feast, at the Town Hall, which was attended by many of the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood.” We may suppose that, taking the place usually occupied by the “interlude,” the bear was baited in the Hall in the interval between the feast and the “banquet” or dessert, and the company, like the Spanish Ambassador, no doubt witnessed the exhibition “with great delight.” Much might be said relating to Leicester, but we must be content with drawing upon Mr. Kelly for one more item. “In the summer of 1589 (probably at the invitation of the Mayor), the High Sheriff, Mr. Skeffington, and ‘divers other gentlemen with him,’ were present at ‘a great beare-beating’ in the town, and were entertained, at the public expense, with wine and sugar, and a present of ‘ten shillings in gold’ was also made.”

A couplet concerning Congleton Church Bible being sold to purchase a bear to bait at the annual feast, has made the town known in all parts of the country. The popular rhyme says: —

 
“Congleton rare, Congleton rare,
Sold the Bible to pay for a bear.”
 

The scandal has been related in prose and poetry by many pens. Natives of the ancient borough are known as “Congleton Bears” – by no means a pleasant epithet. The inhabitants make the best of the story, and tell how just before the wakes their only bear died, and it was feared that they would be unable to obtain another to enjoy their popular sport. The bear-ward was most diligent in collecting money to buy another animal, but after all his exertions he failed to obtain the required amount. He at last made application to the local authorities, and as they had a small sum in the “towne’s boxe” put aside for the purchase of a Bible for the chapel, it was lent, and it is presumed that the sum of 16s. was duly returned, and the scriptures were obtained.

Egerton Leigh, in his “Cheshire Ballads,” has an amusing poem bearing on this subject, and he concludes it as follows: —

 
“The townsmen, ’tis true, would explain it away,
In those days when Bibles were so dear they say,
That they th’ old Bible swopped at the wakes for a bear,
Having first bought a new book.
Thus shrink they the sneer,
And taunts ’gainst their town thus endeavour to clear.”
 

The town accounts show how popular must have been the sport at Congleton. The following are a few items: —

Such are a few examples of the many entries which appear in the Congleton town accounts relating to bear-baiting.

Congleton is not the only place reproached for selling the church Bible for enabling the inhabitants to enjoy the pastime of bear-baiting. Two miles distant from Rugby is the village of Clifton, and, says a couplet,

 
“Clifton-upon-Dunsmore, in Warwickshire,
Sold the church Bible to buy a bear.”
 

Another version of the old rhyme is as follows: —

 
“The People of Clifton-super-Dunsmore
Sold ye Church Byble to buy a bayre.”
 

There is a tradition that in the days of old the Bible was removed from the Parish Church of Ecclesfield and pawned by the churchwardens to provide the means of a bear-baiting. Some accounts state this occurred at Bradfield, and not at Ecclesfield. The “bull-and-bear stake” at the latter Yorkshire village was near the churchyard.

Under the Commonwealth this pastime was not permitted, but when the Stuarts were once more on the throne bear-baiting and other sports became popular.

Hockley-in-the-Hole, near Clerkenwell, in the days of Addison, was a favourite place for the amusement. There is a reference to the subject in the Spectator of August 11th, 1731, wherein it is suggested that those who go to the theatres for a laugh should “seek their diversion at the bear garden, where reason and good manners have no right to disturb them.”

Gay, in his “Trivia,” devotes some lines to this subject. He says: —

 
“Experienced men inured to city ways
Need not the calendar to count their days,
When through the town, with slow and solemn air,
Led by the nostril walks the muzzled bear;
Behind him moves, majestically dull,
The pride of Hockley Hole, the surly bull,
Learn hence the periods of the week to name —
Mondays and Thursdays are the days of game.”
 

Towards the close of the last century the pastime, once the pleasure of king’s and queens and the highest nobles in the land, was mainly upheld by the working classes. A bill, in 1802, was introduced into the House of Commons to abolish baiting animals. The measure received the support of Courtenay, Sheridan, and Wilberforce, men of power in Parliament, but Mr. Windham, who led the opposition, won the day. He pronounced it “as the first result of a conspiracy of the Jacobins and Methodists to render the people grave and serious, preparatory to obtaining their assistance in the furtherance of other anti-national schemes.” The bill was lost by thirteen votes. In 1835, baiting animals was finally stopped by Act of Parliament.