Spring, Streets, and Chimney Sweeps: May Day in Regency London and Benjamin Robert Haydon’s Punch (1829)

Abstract: May Day in Regency London was a festival for the climbing boy, the chimney sweep’s apprentice. An icon of poverty in Romantic Britain, the climbing boy stirred sympathy across the nation. However, on May Day, in London, this compassion was troubled by concerns for public safety and social order. Analyzing essays, illustrations, and ephemera, this article reframes the climbing boy, arguing that his raucous festivities often alienated him from the sympathy he typically evoked. It then examines how Benjamin Robert Haydon engaged with this pitiable yet disreputable figure in his major metropolitan genre painting Punch, or May Day .