Who the Children Knew by Russell Heinold

Each morning, she would make her way to a kindly baker and his wife, where she could afford herself but a single muffin for the day ahead. You see, we are told that food had been particularly scarce that season—likely the result of a global cooling period we now refer to as ‘The Little Ice Age.’ Nevertheless, the warmhearted baker felt compassion for the visibly starving woman, and would often give her whatever little morsels he could spare, in addition to her purchase. Despite his efforts, the seamstress soon became bed ridden from malnourishment, and was unable even to walk the short distance to the baker’s shop. Upon hearing this, the baker and his wife immediately resolved to carry the woman back to their home, so that she might live with them in relative comfort. However, this final gesture would prove too late, as the woman would pass away from her ailments only a few days later. All the same, the moral here is clear: ‘Go and do likewise’ in emulation of this baker and his wife. It’s a rather obscure little story, but this parable of the benevolent baker might play a role in the origin of a curiously culinary nursery rhyme. I am writing of course, of the fabled ‘Muffin Man’ of Drury Lane—a suspiciously specific, four-line stanza with a Roud Folk Song Index of 7922. Ostensibly, the song is a question of identity. However, after searching for the answer to this question, I was surprised to learn that little was actually known about the song’s true origins. It occurred to me that no one knew the muffin man, despite a 200-year tradition of cheerfully caroling the inquiry. The absurdity of this legacy, only led me further into the mystery of who this person could have been. What I found was a stale, yet discernible trail of proverbial breadcrumbs which, I believe, may have led to his humble beginning. So take my hand, as I attempt to unmask for you the man behind the rhyme, through a story never told. In their beautiful study: The Singing Game, Iona and Peter Opie were able to trace The Muffin Man through several iterations of children’s games. The earliest of these games dates to 1866 and, despite its puerile nature, involved both children and grown-ups alike. Apparently, each person would sit in a ring around a central figure who would ask: ‘do you know the muffin man… who lives in Drury Lane?’ The next person would reply: ‘Yes, I know etc.,’ and would continue around the circle until each had exclaimed they had known him. If anyone were to laugh, at any point, in this silly game, they would have to ‘pay a forfeit.’ It has long been presumed, that these games are a remnant expression of a surviving folk memory, that has been preserved in the collective consciousness of children. Today however, its origins are mostly lost in a tangle of misinformation. You see, it appears the rhyme has seduced many adults into conflating it with the sinister themes of famous fairytales. This appears in a wildly popular myth claiming that the song was originally sung by children, as a warning to stay away from an infamous stranger on London’s Drury Lane. This person is said to be Frederick Thomas Lynwood, also known as the ‘Drury Lane Dicer,’ a fictional character first appearing in an Uncyclopedia article from 2009. But if the song was never meant as a warning, what purpose did it serve and who was its protagonist? A rather creative explanation, considers the possibility that The Muffin Man might have been in reference to a beggar or ragamuffin. This theory even shows up on the Muffin Man Wikipedia page. Intrigued, I emailed Dr Amy Lidster, a Departmental Lecturer in English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford (Jesus College). She told me that she could not see ‘any uses of ‘muffin’ as an abbreviated form of ‘ragamuffin’ in the nineteenth century’—thus leaving us back where we started. Yet, as is often the case, it is not the most flowery theory that rings true, but the most obvious. So, as we look a little deeper for the man behind the muffin, let us begin with the obvious… Let us begin with bakers.

They were a kind of street hawker who sold small, crumpet-like baked goods door to door; typically to the middle and upper classes. It was customary for these men to also carry bells and to ring them as a means of advertisement, a technique they shared with the local milk sellers. Thus, one can imagine the streets of London as being a fairly noisy place during this period—with its many town criers and bell-ringing peddlers. Drury Lane, a street bordering London's Covent Garden district, was of no exception; and it is here, on Drury, that the residence of our baker is most often repeated. In 1773, a poem titled A Winter Evening in Town by H. W. E., gives us our first glimpse at a muffin man potentially associated with the lane. It is not until 1819 however, that the song, as we know it, was first published in the pages of a little book called Life High and Low. Let it be known, Life High and Low is a satire. In fact, the unknown author overtly pokes fun at the four inquisitive lines that begin ‘Don't you know the muffin-man...?’ The writer then goes on to call the songs creator several insulting names. Still, it is the mocking header that appropriately catches the eye: ‘The Dandy Muffin-Man of Drury Lane.’ This has often been read not as the flippant identification of the song's composer, but as the title of the work itself. Although if we examine the culture of contemporary town criers, we find that it is not only possible for our muffin man to have written the song in question, but that he most probably did just that. It is here that our breadcrumbs lead down a bit of a rabbit hole, but I assure you, that when we pop up again, we will not only find ourselves on Drury Lane, but hot on the heels of our bell ringing baker. You see, in the years following the publication of Life High and Low, our muffin feller goes from living on Drury Lane, to apparently living on a number of other streets across England, and eventually, mainland Europe. By the time he reaches the Netherlands, he has even changed his line of work—becoming instead the ‘mussel man.’ This effect would presumably be the result of the songs popularity stemming from Drury Lane. However, in a previously overlooked source, we find a rather unexpected narrative. According to a footnote in William Hone’s 1826 almanac, the Everyday Book: ‘In Bath, before Sally Lunns were so fashionable, muffins were cried with a song, beginning—Don’t you know the muffin man...?’ Hone goes on to make the extraordinary claim that he actually knew the man in question, but that he lived on Bath’s Bridewell Lane, not the Drury Lane of Muffinian Legend. In a brief description, he even writes of the man’s civility which apparently ‘gained him friends and competence,’ a point I will return to shortly. So, what can we glean from this dated rendering of our dubiously real-life character? Well, let’s not forget that even if Hone’s story is more than an invention of his humorous imagination, he is still working from a memory—one, as it turns out, that is already decades old at the time of publication. This is made apparent after exploring exactly when he attests that Sally Lunns became ‘so fashionable.’ For this, Hone quotes from a correspondent known only by his pseudonym, ‘Jehoiada,’ who boldly recites the following: The bun so fashionable, called the Sally Lunn, originated with a young woman of that name in Bath, about thirty years ago. She first cried them, in a basket with a white cloth over it, morning and evening. Dalmer, a respectable baker and musician, noticed her, bought her business, and made a song, and set it to music… and, to this day, the Sally Lunn cake, not unlike the hotcross bun in flavour, claims preeminence in all the cities of England. Jehoiada’s story participates in the equally mythical origins of this other Georgian-era baked good—albeit, a markedly more ‘fashionable’ one. But can any of its shared timeline be trusted? Well, while some contemporary sources do seem to corroborate a late eighteenth century Bath origin for the Sally Lunn, modern scholarship remains varied on the veracity of such claims. Therefore, we mustn’t be hasty in accepting either Jehoiada or Hone’s earlier statements as gospel. Yet, before we get lost in this warren of riddles, let us return to muffin at hand. If we choose to take both Hone and Jehoiada’s testimonies at face value, we can deduce the song was likely a town crier’s jingle—sung as a means of self-promotion by its orators. Intriguingly, this motif can also be found in the more verifiable origins of Hot Cross Buns—another simple tune not so unlike that of The Muffin Man. As to rendering a date, it is possible the song goes as far back as the eighteenth century, however the occupation becomes increasingly rarer the further back we go. Therefore, it appears the song was in its cradle sometime around the turn of the nineteenth century—likely existing only through oral tradition until 1819. This preexisting popularity would also explain the many variations of the ditty that emerge throughout the 1820s and thirties. Fortunately, neither the song’s purpose, nor it’s date of origin appear bound to a specific location. For now however, let’s entertain Hone’s proposal of a Bridewell inception, by asking who sold muffins there during this period?

The man is even described as being: ‘much esteemed by [his] neighbors, as honest, industrious, and benevolent’—harkening back to Hone’s: ‘civility… gained him friends and competence’ portrayal. In fact, the phrasing is so similar, it begs the question of whether these two depictions are of the same person. This is also the most substantial characterization of any muffin man candidate, and is, of course, the tale that contains the impoverished seamstress from earlier. The account also appears to be based on true events, as I was able to locate a burial record from Bath’s Abby and St James Graveyard for the Poor, that bears the matching name (Lockyer), and relevant dates, associated with the seamstress from the story. However, it is here that the trail goes cold, for I was unable to find anything firmly tying Mr. Williams with the muffin song. Consequently, this entire conclusion is left reliant on memories and guesswork; not to mention its unsatisfactory disagreement with the surviving muffin canon. Literally the only thing we could say for certain about the muffin man from the nursery rhyme, was that the bloke lived on Drury Lane! Indeed, later sources seem to favor this more familiar London origin. In an 1832 article from La Belle Assemblée, our baker is simply referred to as: ‘he of Drury Lane, so celebrated in song.’ This belated London cameo seems to again hint at a real nineteenth century figure existing decades earlier. So which is it? Where had the song first been sung? In the chilly months of autumn, from the warmth of my local library, I was able to slowly piece together the aforementioned theories. Nevertheless, the full story continued to remain elusive. After all, someone had to have inspired the Drury connection, so it was simply a matter of finding him. To that end, I began drawing up maps of the old Drury businesses in the hope of better understanding how the Lane might appear to a contemporary passerby. Initially, there was a tallow chandler, a toyshop, even a gingerbread man, but still no tinkle of the muffin man’s bell. Thus, the days slipped passed like the pages of a windblown book, and frost began to gather on the windows of the library. However, after weeks spent pouring over untold manuscripts, I finally found an isolated name. In Holden’s Triennial London Directory of 1802-1804, James Newman, a muffin baker, is recorded as the resident of 3 Blackmore St, Drury Lane. Of course, there is no footnote or final clue neatly linking this man to the song of his people. On the contrary, there is almost nothing we can say for certain about the man’s background, beyond this standalone mention. And so, we are left to piteously postulate the location of his home—placing it about one block north of the modern-day Strand. Indeed, James Newman was a real person, and the fragrance of his muffins once wafted from that little corner shop in the early morning hours. Real people knew James Newman, and in 1802, no mystery surrounded who he was or where he lived. To them, he was just the muffin man… the one on Drury Lane. The next nearest record I could find for a named muffin man on Drury, doesn’t come until 1840—over two decades after the song’s first mention. Subsequently, it seems likely Mr. Newman was the seed to the Drury connection. Whether or not he heard the song’s lyrics from someone else, remains unclear to date. What we do know, is that some time later, a few poetic people began referring to that song’s protagonist as being a real person from the past. By the 1870s however, that persona would be found only in the imaginative realm of novels and schoolyards, forever obscuring any fingerprint of realism. You see, as I have alluded to already, the man we have been searching for is a character—one whose legacy lives more in the playful spirit of children, than in the dust bunny rabbit holes of historical record. In the end, this could never have been about precision or of stuffy academic certainty. Instead, it is just a page in the mystery of who the children knew, long before he was forgotten.