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Short Stuff: What's a mudlarker? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the short stuff. I'm josh, there's shock, We
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: got a clam diggers on and we're ready to go
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: to do a little mud larking, which just happens to
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: be the subject of this short stuff. Have you ever
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: heard of this term? I want to say yes, but
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: sometimes my brain makes up memories just to be cool.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure I would assume that etymology edic even
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: look it up, because I just assumed that mud larking
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: was just having a lark in the mud. It's got
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: to be it, right, Or.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Maybe you flitter about from one place to another like
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: a lark in the mud. Okay, I like them both.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Can we both win like a soccer game? Sure? I
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: love it.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I love it. Mud larking is a thing that we're
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: talking about that. It's a term you probably hear in
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: England more readily and specifically even maybe London. Originally in
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: the eighteenth or nineteenth century, and back then it was
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  Speaker 2: basically when people of lesser means would walk along the
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: mud banks at low tide of the river Thames.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: It's Thames right, Thames, Thames.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Thames, the Thames and collect stuff to try and sell.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, everything from little bits of rope to coins. If
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: they were lucky, anything somebody would buy. That's how some
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: people actually supported themselves in the nineteenth century. Fast forward
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  Speaker 1: to today, I'm guessing starting around the seventies, maybe the eighties.
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  Speaker 1: Now it's just a pastime. I don't think anybody supports
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: themselves mudlarking any longer. It's just a hobby, akin to
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: people who are beachcombers with metal detectors on.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: The bill, or like magnet fishing.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, similar to that. We actually did a short stuff
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  Speaker 1: on that, remember that. Yeah, this is like that, but
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  Speaker 1: there are definite nuances that distinguish it from either one
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: of those two things.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. And the reason why this has become a pastime
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  Speaker 2: or i guess a sort of a hobby now on
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  Speaker 2: the Thames is because the Thames was a garbage dumping
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  Speaker 2: ground for many, many years. People would just you know,
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  Speaker 2: we did our thing on New York City trash and
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  Speaker 2: how previous to trash collection, people would just dump it
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  Speaker 2: on the sidewalks and in the rivers there in New York.
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  Speaker 2: They did the same thing in London and it was
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  Speaker 2: a junky, nasty polluted river until about you know, sixty
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  Speaker 2: something years ago, when they took great, great efforts to
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: really clean up that river, and now apparently, at least
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  Speaker 2: as far as urban rivers goes, it's one of the
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  Speaker 2: cleanest ones, right, But there is still because it happened
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  Speaker 2: for so many years, and because so much happened in
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: London over those years, there's just you know, thousands of
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  Speaker 2: years of potential gold and sometimes real gold in those
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: muddy banks.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, because a lot of people have lived densely in
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  Speaker 1: the London area on the Thames for like you said,
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  Speaker 1: multiple thousands of years. So there's just a lot of
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  Speaker 1: stuff there that separates the Thames in and of itself
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  Speaker 1: from other rivers. But one of the other things that
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  Speaker 1: really makes the Thames so great for mudlarking is the
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  Speaker 1: tidal action that it goes through every day, four times
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  Speaker 1: a day. Two high tides two low tides are so
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  Speaker 1: pronounced that when low tide goes out, it exposes a
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  Speaker 1: tremendous amount of the Thames to open air for people
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  Speaker 1: to walk around and look for stuff. That's part one.
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  Speaker 1: The other part is that when the tide comes back in,
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  Speaker 1: it comes back in with such force that it actually
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  Speaker 1: can scour the river bottom deposit stuff up on what
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  Speaker 1: will soon be the shore at low tide, and then
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  Speaker 1: when the water goes back out there you go oppressed
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  Speaker 1: of something that was thrown in the river five hundred
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  Speaker 1: years ago is now at your feet mudlarker.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: That's right, and if you remember. Actually, I don't know
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  Speaker 2: if this has kind of come out before that with
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: how our publishing works, but there's a thing that we
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: either discussed or will discuss in our No, I think
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: it's already out actually our episode on the Silurian hypothesis.
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  Speaker 2: Then it came out today, and that is the fact
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  Speaker 2: that something stuck down in mud can survive in better shape,
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  Speaker 2: much much longer than something subjected to the forces of
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  Speaker 2: wind and erosion and things like that. So a lot
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  Speaker 2: of the stuff that these mudlarkers are finding in the
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  Speaker 2: mud on the Thames is in great shape.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I mean like really really old stuff.
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  Speaker 1: I saw somebody who found a tutor shoe and it
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  Speaker 1: was in such great shape that you could see where
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  Speaker 1: like the person wearing at their heel or like the
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  Speaker 1: side of their big toe had like shaped the shoe
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  Speaker 1: around it. Those impressions were still there.
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  Speaker 2: Isn't They had a corn.
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  Speaker 1: Or maybe even a bunyon. If you're a lucky mud
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  Speaker 1: larker and you find a tutor shoe, we.
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  Speaker 2: Should do a short corns and bunions. Sure, all right,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: So if you are in England and you want to
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  Speaker 2: do this before the break, we should tell you that
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  Speaker 2: you do need a permit. You have to get a
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  Speaker 2: permit from the Port of London Authority. Apparently it takes
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  Speaker 2: about a month or longer and we'll cost you about
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  Speaker 2: about thirty five quid and you will get a standard
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  Speaker 2: license to dig about three inches deep. You can't go
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  Speaker 2: in there with your shovel or your backo and dig
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  Speaker 2: like six eight feet down. You just can't do that.
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  Speaker 2: You still want to not disturb the Thames that much.
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  Speaker 2: They're trying to protect that thing, so you can go
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  Speaker 2: about three inches down.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, Well, let's take a break and we'll come back
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  Speaker 1: and talk about some amazing stuff that people have found.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: All right, Chuck, you talked about digging maybe three inches
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  Speaker 1: down tops. I've seen there's some places where you can't
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  Speaker 1: dig it all, but you can pick stuff up if
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  Speaker 1: it's sitting on the surface of the mud bank right
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  Speaker 1: the foreshore is what they call it. But there are
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  Speaker 1: other parts along the Thames where you can't even go.
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  Speaker 1: They're protected like cultural sites the Tower of London. You
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  Speaker 1: can't mudlark along. There's a Roman doc area that was
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: later developed by Alfred the Great and the Seven Hundreds,
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  Speaker 1: and that was later used by Charles the Second and
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: to survey the damage of the Great Fire of London
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  Speaker 1: in sixteen sixty six, called Queen hythe I don't know
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: if I got that right or not, but that's how
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: it's That's how it's spelled, at least if you're an American.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: That's what you would say if you saw this word
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  Speaker 1: spell out like this? Am I getting that across? I think? So, okay,
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  Speaker 1: it's just such a cultural treasure and an archaeological site essentially.
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  Speaker 1: If they're like, don't even go near.
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  Speaker 2: This, that's right. But let's say my friend, you're mudlarking
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  Speaker 2: there on the Thames. You pull something out and you're like, oh,
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  Speaker 2: this might be worth a well treasure. What would you
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  Speaker 2: do with that item?
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  Speaker 1: I would go on eBay and sell it.
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  Speaker 2: But you can't do that.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Well, let's see what else can I do? I would
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: hide it under my bed for a decade until the
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: heat went down.
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  Speaker 2: No that's not what you're going to do either, what
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: you're supposed to do. They have laws in England that
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: basically said they like these treasure laws where hey, if
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  Speaker 2: you find something like that, something from antiquity that's worth,
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  Speaker 2: something that belongs to the people of England, my friend,
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  Speaker 2: and you have to go to the fines liaison officer
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  Speaker 2: and you have to give it to them and they
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  Speaker 2: will help you identify and determine what that is and
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  Speaker 2: what it's worth. And do you sell it? No, no, no,
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  Speaker 2: they have to record it in their Portable Antiquities Scheme,
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  Speaker 2: which is basically a British museum project that just keeps
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  Speaker 2: track of all that stuff. And then finally, if it
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  Speaker 2: does have value, a museum has the right to buy
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  Speaker 2: that and you could potentially be compensated for that.
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  Speaker 1: Sure. And then if they're like this is totally valueless,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: get this out of our face, you get to keep
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: ebe sure if you can find a chump who wants
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  Speaker 1: this extraordinarily common thing. Apparently clay pipes from like the
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  Speaker 1: sixteenth century are a dime a dozen in the tens nothing. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: And the reason why, I mean, you look at these things,
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  Speaker 1: you're like that seems like that's a pretty cool archaeological find.
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  Speaker 1: It's not, because at the time, starting from about the
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  Speaker 1: fifteen hundreds onward, they were essentially treated like cigarette butts
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  Speaker 1: are today. Like you've just finished using the pipe and
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  Speaker 1: you just throw it, like you just throw it at
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  Speaker 1: ever use. Yes, from what I saw orf, or maybe
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  Speaker 1: a couple of uses, whenever you got tired of carrying
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  Speaker 1: it around. Okay, And probably I would guess have formerly
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  Speaker 1: smoked a pipe at two separate times in my life, right,
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  Speaker 1: I would say that you probably tossed it when it
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  Speaker 1: started to get gummed up with like tar.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I think they had
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  Speaker 2: pretty little thin stem, so it probably got gumped.
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  Speaker 1: Up pretty quick. Probably.
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  Speaker 2: So before we get onto what we really want to
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  Speaker 2: talk about, which is some of the cool stuff they
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  Speaker 2: found in the Thames, we should say to be careful.
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  Speaker 2: This is something you want to get into. That tidal
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  Speaker 2: action is pretty severe. It can come in pretty quickly,
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  Speaker 2: and sometimes you're just so into what you're doing out
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  Speaker 2: there in the mud that you might look up and
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  Speaker 2: be like, oh, krad, I'm now stranded here and the
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  Speaker 2: water is coming at me. And there have been people
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  Speaker 2: who had to been rescued. That are mudlarking out there
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  Speaker 2: because the water's coming at them.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Some other hazards are You can slip on rocks
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  Speaker 1: because they're wet and covered in algae, so you want
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: to be careful walking around. You also want to wear gloves,
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  Speaker 1: You want to wear boots. You do not want to
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  Speaker 1: wear clam diggers. Like I said, you want to kind
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  Speaker 1: of keep your skin covered as best as possible. Because
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: there's all sorts of communicable diseases you can catch still
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  Speaker 1: by digging around on the Thames Foreshore. One of them
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  Speaker 1: is called Wheels disease and it is transmitted through water
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  Speaker 1: via rat urine. It's transmitted from rat urine via water.
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  Speaker 1: Either way, rat urine's involved in your getting a disease
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  Speaker 1: from it. You don't want that.
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  Speaker 2: I'm surprised there are rats in London.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. What else?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think we should talk about some of the
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  Speaker 2: things they found, because you know, we could go on
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: and on about these. I just picked out a few.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you found any other ones, but
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  Speaker 2: for my money, I would love to talk about the
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Doves Press typeface or the Doves type or Doves Roman
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  Speaker 2: because it was an actual typeface that was found and
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  Speaker 2: recovered from the Thames, a long lost, forgotten, well not forgotten,
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  Speaker 2: but a long lost typeface from this company called the
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  Speaker 2: Doves Press, and it was co owned and I believe
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: it was the early twentieth century. It was a guy
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  Speaker 2: named TJ. Cobden Sanderson and Emery Walker, and apparently they
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  Speaker 2: dissolved their partnership. Eventually the press closed in nineteen seventeen.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: When they were dissolving the partnership, they came up with
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: an agreement where Cobden Sanderson was like, that typeface is mine.
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  Speaker 2: This is what we print all our stuff in. When
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: I die, then you can have it. I'm assuming he
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: was older, but I'm not sure why Walker would agree
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: to that, unless CS was a little closer to death.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: But at any rate, that was what happened after the
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  Speaker 2: final publication CS. Apparently it just did not go down
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: well between them, and he said, I bequeathed the spot
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: to the bed of the Thames, and over one hundred
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  Speaker 2: and seventy trips threw these metal molds into the river.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, two hundred thousand pieces. He threw the Tire proprietary
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  Speaker 1: typeface into the Thames, and there were no other copies
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  Speaker 1: of it. So this beautiful typeface that there are plenty
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  Speaker 1: of examples of because this publishing house that used it
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  Speaker 1: was around for a while, it was just lost forever.
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  Speaker 1: And that really got in the crawl of a modern
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  Speaker 1: designer named Robert Green, who, based on examples of it
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  Speaker 1: from like books or something like that, created a digitized
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: version of it. But he was like, this can be better.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm not sure if he got into mud larking
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: or to find these type I'm not sure what you
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  Speaker 1: call them, the little dye that you would actually use
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: to on the printing press, the molds, the molts, or
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: if he ran across mudlarkers who had found him or something.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: But he became you could probably say, obsessed with finding
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: these original molds and did he launched like some expeditions
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: on the temps to find him. He came up with
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: like one hundred and fifty or so of them and
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: used them to really drive home the digitized version of
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: doves type that he created.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, do you know what he did in twenty fourteen
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: He got the Port Authority Port of London Authorities dive
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: team to go get this stuff.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty neat.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: And they did it, and now we have Doves Roman again.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: And as you know, I'm a Times New Roman guy.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: We each have our fonts that we print our various
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: stuff in, and I've always been a Times New Roman guy.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: But boy, this Dove's Roman is beautiful.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it. Give me Calibri or give me death.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: There's more things that people have found. That was the
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: coolest story, so you can just go check it out
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: and look up more things that have been found mudlarking.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: A lot of cool old things from antiquity.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Yep, very cool. And if this you got the mudlarking
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: bug and you go to London, make sure you get
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: a permit first. And I guess since we talked about permits,
• 13:52
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