Walking sticks and canes - a gentleman's fashion accesory

Walking sticks and canes

Sometime in the seventeenth century walking sticks or canes became a fashionable accessory for gentlemen. It did not replace the sword or rapier, in most of the images listed below gentlemen have both. [Figure 1, image 3 on the list] This is just going to look at sticks as a fashion accessory. Some images have not been included as the “stick” is more obviously a staff of office, for example the c.1620 portrait by Paul van Somer of Ludovick Stuart, 2nd Duke of Lennox and Duke of Richmond, where he is seen carrying the white wand of the Steward.  Another set of images not included are those where the sitter is carrying a military baton, for example Robert Walker’s 1649 portrait of Oliver Cromwell. The final group not included are those images of invalids, the very poor, and beggars, such as Rembrandt’s Beggar leaning on a stick.

Fig. 1: Savery Officer with a Walking Stick. Rijksmuseum

These accessory canes came at a range of prices. When Thomas Ledgingham, labourer, assaulted and robbed one Thomas Johnson in 1652, the long list of what was stolen included “one cane worth six pence.” His stolen cloth [wool] coat was worth three shillings, his gloves, one shilling, and two handkerchiefs one shilling. (1) The rector of Horsed Keyes in Sussex, when he bought a new cane in London in 1676 paid two shillings. (2 p. 132) In 1694 when a gentleman, Richard Stapley, purchased a new cane it cost ten shillings, but it had an “ivory studded head, and a purple and gold string to it.” (3 p. 119)

While ivory was a common head for a cane, silver was another option. Samuel Pepys in 1667 was presented with “a Japan cane, with a silver head.” (4) In 1697 Michael Acton, a Hampshire rector, left in his will, “my silver headed cane and a guinea ring,” to James Chudleigh of Basingstoke. (5) Occasionally seventeenth century canes survive, figure 2 shows a stick in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.  The stick, as many were in the seventeenth century, is over a metre long. The wood may be ash or pearwood, and it is inlaid with piqué work of metal wire and mother-of-pearl.

Fig 2: Walking stick. Victoria & Albert Museum

In probate inventories canes are often listed with rapiers, reinforcing the idea from the images that they were worn at the same time. The owners were not necessarily gentlemen, though they may have aspired to be so as they usually have an estate worth over £150. In 1681 the probate of Henry Eustace, a yeoman, includes “one muskett, two gunns and two walking canes £2,” he was worth £270 6s 4d (6 p. 158) In 1683 Edward Sweeper, a brazier, owned “Two Rapiers & a Cane with a Silver heade 15s.” He was worth £178 7s 1d. (7 p. 132) Those who were gentlemen often had a much larger estate. James Sale in 1681, who is described as a gentleman, owned “two halberds, one musketoon, one birding peece, a pocket pistoll, three swords and two canes £6 13s 6d,” his estate was worth over one thousand pounds. (6 p. 165)

By the second half of the century men with canes are appearing in broadside ballads such as Mark Noble’s Frollick. [Figure 3] Note that this image shows the short-lived fashion for vertical pockets on the coat.

 

Fig 3. Mark Noble's Frollick. Bristish Library

Images of men with a cane or walking stick

1. 1629. Abraham Bosse.  Man with a Cane, seen from behind, from The Garden of French Nobility

2. 1633. Dutch School. Boy with a walking stick.

3. c.1640. Salomon Savery. Standing Officer with Walking Stick. Rijksmuseum.

4. c.1645. Gerrit Dou. Portrait of a Gentleman with a Walking Stick 

5. c.1659. John Michael Wright. George Vernon. National Trust, Sudbury Hall

6. 1660-90. Broadside Ballad - The Unconscionable Batchelors of Darby. British Library, Roxburghe

7. 1675-90. Mark Noble's Frollick. British Library, Roxburghe

8. 1682. John Michael Wright (circle of). Edward Southwell, Standing with a Cane in an Embroidered Buff Tunic, Rye Town Hall

9. 1686. Alain Manesson Mallet. Anglais in Description de l'Univers

10. 1688. Marcellus Laroon. Squire of Alsatia in the Cries of London

11. 1690-1700. Man with a Cane Dummy Board, Victoria and Albert Museum

References

1. Middlesex Sessions Rolls. Middlesex County Records: Volume 3, 1625-67. London : Middlesex County Record Society, 1888.

2. Bird, Ruth, ed. The Journal of Giles Moore of Horsted Keynes, 1655-1679. Lewes : Sussex Record Society, 1971.

3. Turner, E. Extracts from the Diary of Richard Stapley, Gent. of Hickstead Place, in Twineham, from 1682 to 1724. . Sussex Archaeological Collections. 1849, Vol. 2.

4. Pepys, Samuel. Diary. [Online] https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary.

5. National Archives. Will of Michael Acton 1697. TNA PROB 11/439/26.

6. Reed, M. Buckinghamshire probate inventories 1661-1714. Buckinghamshire Record Society. 1988, Vol. 24, 258-9.

7. George, E. and George, S. Bristol probate inventories, Part 2: 1657-1689. Bristol : Bristol Records Society publication 57, 2005.