What Is The Origin Of (248)?…
All Lombard Street to a China orange
I love coming across phrases that have long since gone into obscurity, existing only to puzzle those modern-day readers who stumble across them. Take all Lombard Street to a china orange, which appeared in the headline in an edition of the Spectator in 2005, reporting on the last major bank to move out of the street, Barclays, as it happens. It means, in a figurative sense, something that is almost certain to happen.
Oranges, when the first found their way to Blighty during the sixteenth century, were phenomenally expensive but by the time Charles II had regained the English throne, were not only commonplace but very cheap. Girls would sell them in the theatres, as well as other wares, the most (in)famous orange seller at the time being Nell Gwynne. Figuratively, therefore, an orange was a relative cheap, everyday item of little value. A China orange was a particularly sweet variety which originated, surprisingly enough, from China.
The other part of the jigsaw is Lombard Street which, in London, was the heart of the city’s financial district where, until relatively recently, many of the major banks had their headquarters as well as Lloyd’s Coffee house which became the famous and internationally respected insurance market. It was named after the Lombard bankers who set up operation there. Paris has its own Rue des Lombards which, in mediaeval times, was the centre of its banking sector but, these days, is better known for the quality of its jazz clubs. In a figurative sense, therefore, Lombard Street could be seen to represent fabulous wealth, enormous riches.
Putting the two together we have someone who is proposing to bet a staggering amount, all that Lombard Street could scrape together, against an item of trifling value. In other words, it is an expression of their absolute confidence that whatever it is they are proposing is going to happen, even if it is not certain that it will.
Over time, there have been several variants of our phrase, all retaining the same figurative sense. In 1752 there is recorded what I am sure is an attempt at a pun, “I will lay all Lombard Street to an egg-shell”. The reckless gambling character in Arthur Murphy’s farce, The Citizen from 1763, remarks, “Reach Epsom in an hour, and forty-three minutes, all Lombard street to an egg-shell, we do”. It is probable that it was a phrase associated with the racetrack.
The Irish poet, Thomas Moore, is rather helpful in giving us some other variants. In his Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress from 1819, he includes the following couplet; “All Lombard-street to nine-pence on it,/ Bobby’s the boy would clean them out!” Whether Moore’s faith in Bobby’s poetic acumen is warranted is lost in history but in a footnote to the reference to Lombard Street, he notes, “more usually Lombard-street to a China orange. There are several other of these fanciful forms of betting – Chelsea College to a sentry-box, Pompey’s Pillar to a stick of sealing-wax, etc etc”.
Alas, we will never know what was contained in the frustratingly vague et ceteras but one thing is clear, namely that the waging of all of Lombard Street to a China orange was the most commonly used or understood of these variants. Moore duly used our phrase in his Pancratia of 1812, a history of pugilism, describing a fight between Tom Crib and Molineux in which in the 9th round, “Lombard-street to a China orange: Molineux was dead beat…”
Another variant that did the rounds substituted a Brummagem sixpence for the China orange. Birmingham was known in the early nineteenth centre as a centre of counterfeiting and so a tanner from that city had a fair chance of being duff and so worthless.
The Americans have their own variant. In the 1880s the phrases bet dollars to buttons and bet dollars to dumplings gained currency but were trumped in the 1890s by dollars to doughnuts, a doughnut selling for around 5 cents at the time. For a nation that seems to pride itself in having the biggest and best of everything, the comparators seem rather paltry in comparison with the British term, but at least it has the attraction of alliteration. Of course, inflation has outstripped the phrase but it is still used today.
Will I use the phrase now I have discovered it? I bet all Lombard Street to a China orange I will.
