Beast Mart
Surely no one who has ever attended Boston Grammar School can fail to remember the declaration of the Beast Mart. It is a tradition which may be little understood by some: a visit by the Mayor, a strange ceremony, and a half-day off school. The Beast Mart declaration takes place in the yard of Boston Grammar School one day in December each year (usually 10 December).
More precisely the Town Clerk (in place of the Town Crier) reads the declaration of the Beast Mart, the Mayor requests that the headmaster give the school a half-day holiday, and leads three cheers.
The declaration
Thanks go to Lawrence Rich, former Bursar of Boston Grammar School for supplying the words of the Beast Mart declaration.
'Oh Yes! Oh Yes! Oh Yes!'
The Right Worshipful the Mayor and Burgesses of this Borough of Boston do strictly charge and command all manner of Persons resorting to the Mart which will begin tomorrow and continue the Eight following days, to keep the peace, and that no manner of person or persons walk abroad in the night during the time of the said Mart without lawful cause, but resort to their honest Booths, Houses or Lodgings upon pain of imprisonment; and that no manner of person use any unlawful games during the time of the said Mart; and that they be of good honest behaviour as becometh them, as they will answer to the contrary; also that all persons resorting to the said Mart shall, when the same is ended, depart with all their wares, as he or they offending will answer to the contrary at their perils.
'God Save the Queen'
Pishey Thompson on the Beast Mart
This is what Pishey Thompson has to say on the subject in his book The History and Antiquities of Boston, published in 1856..
The enclosure in which the Grammar School is situated was called the Mart Yard, and the great annual fair or mart was formerly, and for a very long period, held here... The Gate House to the Mart Yard was formerly situated near the site of the house now occupied by the master of the Grammar School; it was taken down in 1726, and in the succeeding year it was ordered, that, "the Mart Yard should be enclosed in front with a handsome brick wall, having a pair of handsome gates in the centre, with a wicket-gate in one of them." The last shops were taken down in 1758, and with them vanished the sole remaining memorial of the ancient purposes and uses of this enclosure. In 1767, it was ordered, "that the Mart Yard should not be rented to any person whatever;" and, in 1773, "that no soldiers should be allowed to exercise in the Mart Yard," it having been latterly used as the drill-ground for such soldiers as were quartered in the town. The front wall of the yard was removed when the house for the master of the Grammar School was erected in 1827... The "old chambers" used as a custom-house, about the end of the sixteenth century, formed part of a tenement which stood at the south-west corner of the Mart Yard.
It is not known when the great annual mart or fair was first held at Boston; but it was evidently established considerably before the middle of the thirteenth century. In 1235, Alexander Bacun was directed by the King to give safe conduct to all merchants coming to or returning from the fair of St. Botolph, and also protection whilst remaining there.
In 1252, the Prior of Spalding was pardoned for having sheltered a homicide (Ralph de Champenys), who had slain certain men at Boston fair; and in the same year, Robert de Dacre (purchaser of wine for the King's use) gave a certificate to the King's stewards that he had bought for the King at the fair of St. Botolph one hundred tuns of wine of various merchants there; for twenty of which he had paid 38s. the tun, and for eighty, 36s. the tun. He stated the amount due to each merchant, and directed it to be paid to them.
(In the "History of Craven" Mr Whitaker says) "The Canons of Bridlington regularly attended the fair at Boston, every year between 1290 and 1325. In the Compotus of the Priory at Bridlington is a yearly account of wine, cloth, groceries, &c., bought 'apud Sanctum Botolphum.' Distant as Boston was, our canons certainly resorted to the great annual fair held at that place, from whence the necessaries purchased by them might easily be conveyed by water as far as York."
In another place Mr. Whitaker says,-
"One practice of the canons was good-natured and accommodating. Resorting annually to St. Botolph's fair, they purchased articles of dress of a superior quality, such as could not be had at home, for the gentlemen, and even for the ladies of Craven."
The fair at Boston was also attended by the Abbott of Melsa (about three miles from Hull), who was charged with having sold there to foreign merchants during the discord with Flanders, 129 sacks of wool. The canons of Bolton Abbey, also, made yearly purchases there to a considerable amount, of wine, cloth, and other articles.
"in those times," says Whitaker, "there were few or no shops. The necessities of life were purchased at the great annual fairs. The business of these fairs was conducted principally upon stalls, for which a duty was paid to the lord of the fair, and accounted for under the name of stallage."
There were shops, however, both in Stamford and Hull, as early as 1294. Whether the shops afterwards erected in the Mart Yard at Boston were allowed to be used at any other time than during the fair, and, perhaps, on market-days, may be doubted, as the statute of 2 Edward III. c. 15, directed, that every lord, at the commencement of the fair, should make proclamation how long it was to continue; and a later statute (5 Edward III. c. 5) commanded that, after that time the merchants attending the fair "should shut up their shops and stalls, and should put no kind of wares or merchandizes there for sale."
There is some uncertainty respecting the period of the year when the mart was anciently held. In 1218, it is stated that the King extended the fair of St. Botolph to eight days, from the day of St. John the Baptist, and directed the Sheriff of Lincoln so to proclaim it. The Roman Church Calendar contains several days dedicated to this saint; but none of them near to the season at which it has now been held for several centuries. Another ancient document states that all fairs in Boston were held between the Feast of St. Botolph (June 17th), and that of St. Michael (September 29), this record is dated 8th Edward III. (1334). The third account agrees with present usage, it states that the mart began on St. Andrew's day (30th November), corresponding with the present 11th December.
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The mart declined from about 1680, but the shops in the Mart-yard were partially rented until 1742. The last shops were taken down in 1758. The mart continued to be held in this place until 1742, to which period great quantities of goods were brought into the town on pack-horses, and the inhabitants of Boston and its neighbourhood used to furnish themselves with a sufficiency of many articles, particularly of clothing, until the next mart. At this period it is said there was only one shop in the town with glass windows, and trade appears to have been carried on in a very different manner to what it is at present; the greater part of the retail shops then being supplied with goods from the stores which were annually brought into the town by the strangers frequenting it. The facility of intercourse with London and the manufacturing districts, by enabling the tradesmen to go to markets for their goods, has been given business a new direction; and the mart has since been merely a fair for the sale of cattle.
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The fair for horned cattle now (1856) held on the 11th December annually, and called the Beast-mart, is the remains of the great annual mart formerly held here.