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2023

A MARCH to the BANK

Wright & Evans Description | British Museum Description

Engraving from the 1851 Bohn edition
Originally Published August 22nd, 1787
16"h x 20 1/8"w

Wright and Evans Description (More ...)

25. A MARCH TO THE BANK.
August 22nd, 1787.

During the riots occasioned by Lord George Gordon in 1780, serious apprehensions were entertained for the safety of the Bank. Since that period Government has assigned the Bank a military guard, which is stationed every evening in the interior of the buildings, and remains till business is resumed in the morning. The Directors keep a table for the commanding officer. This humorous and very clever print refers to their daily march up the Strand, Fleet Street, and Cheapside. Marching two abreast along these crowded thoroughfares, they jostled from the pavement all who came in their way. The annoyance to the public became so great, that about this time 1787), it was loudly protested against; and the evil was at length mitigated, by an order from head quarters, that they should in future march only in single files, as they do at the present day.

British Museum Description by M. Dorothy George (More ...)

7174 A MARCH TO THE BANK.
Pub^d August 22^nd 1787, by S.W. Fores, Piccadilly.

Soldiers march impassively in double file through a crowded street, and over the prostrate bodies of those whom they have overthrown. Military arrogance and foppishness are personified by the officer, much caricatured, with a grotesquely elongated waist ... He places one toe on the body of a fishwoman who lies on her back, her legs much exposed. His outstretched r. leg is poised above a crouching woman who tries to protect her barrow of vegetables. Two men holding muskets precede the officer; one tramples on the face of an infant. The officer is followed by a man carrying a pike, behind whom march six soldiers in double file carrying muskets with fixed bayonets. All march ruthlessly, eyes front, regardless of the havoc they are causing. A porter lies on the ground clutching a broken wooden case faintly inscribed Mr ... Silversmith; from it pour plate and jewels. The porter's knee is badly damaged, and his knot has been knocked from his shoulders. A milliner or courtesan lies on her back clutching the hair of a barber who clasps her leg. On the extreme r. a prostrate woman tries to protect her infant, and a newsboy with his horn and a sheaf of the Morning Herald tries to escape from the trampling soldiers, Other victims between the soldiers and the wall are a woman with a crutch, a shoeblack, a man with a tray of rolls. A pair of beseeching hands and two female legs (r.) waving in the air add to the turmoil, which is accentuated by the writhing forms of the fish which fall from the fishwoman's basket. The background is formed by the wall of a stone building with two elaborately barred niches, and by the window of a silversmith's shop (r.). After the title is engraved Vide. The Strand, Fleet Street, Cheapside &c. Morning & Evening.

After the Gordon Riots the Bank was protected by a party of Guards who marched in double file through the streets. On July 1787 a citizen complained to the Court of Aldermen of having been pushed off the footway; the Mayor was instructed to request the Secretary at War to order the guard to march in single file. This was not acceded to; the Guards had complained of their treatment in the City, and after lengthy negotiations the City proposed the withdrawal of the guard (Oct. 1788). The King's illness served as an excuse for letting the matter drop. ... Also an earlier state, uncoloured, in which the legs of the prostrate fishwoman are more exposed, additional drapery having been afterwards added.