Note 46 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY
Reading edition
According to one story, Mother Damnable was Jinney, the daughter of a Kentish Town brick-maker, named Jacob Bingham. After living with a marauder named Gipsy George, who was hanged for sheep-stealing, Jinney passed from the protection of one criminal to another, until she was left a lonesome and embittered woman. She lived in her own cottage, built on waste land by her father, and abused everyone.
“’Tis Mother Damnable! that monstrous thing, Unmatch’d by Macbeth’s wayward women’s ring. For cursing, scolding, fuming, flinging fire I’ the face of madam, lord, knight, gent, cit, squire.”
The story went that on the night of her death hundreds of persons saw the Devil enter her house. On the site rose the inn which bore her portrait as its sign. Smith’s mention of the terror with which it was regarded may have reference to its loneliness and gruesome traditions. In his own day the inn was a pleasant resort. “Then the old Mother Red Cap was the evening resort of worn-out Londoners, and many a happy evening was spent in the green fields round about the old wayside houses by the children of poorer classes. At that time the Dairy, at the junction of the Hampstead and Kentish Town roads, was not the fashionable building it is now, but with forms for the pedestrians to rest on, they served out milk fresh from the cow to all who came” (John Palmer, St. Pancras). This dairy, so long a landmark to North Londoners, has just disappeared in favour of a “Tube” railway station.