The Man Loaded with MischiefThe Man Loaded with Mischief, 34 Madingley Road
History of the Man Loaded with Mischief
An original sign for this pub is in the Cambridge Folk Museum. It was painted by Richard Hopkins Leach (29 Maids Causeway). The reverse of the sign shows an earlier scene where the husband, enjoying a pint, is set upon by his wife and animals.
The Man Loaded With Mischief pub sign by Richard Hopkins Leach
The inspiration for the sign is thought to have been taken from Hogarth, who painted a similar sign in the early 1800s. It hung outside an inn on Oxford Street in London and shows a man leaving a public house called ‘The Cuckold’s Fortune.’ The man is weighed down by his gin-drinking wife, a monkey, a magpie and a padlock around his neck. The sign illustrates the saying ‘a monkey, a magpie and a wife, are the true emblem of strife.’
In 1941 the diarist Jack Overhill wrote 25th Oct:
I then tried to have a squint of the old inn sign of the ‘Man Loaded With Mischief’, now preserved in the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography (wanted for ‘The Cordwainer’) [the book Jack was writing at the time], but it was shut. An uncivil porter didn’t know whether for duration or not.
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OS map 1898 Madingley Road
1851:
John Rowell (Gardner’s)
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1904:
Frederick William Wallis (Kellys)
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1906: John Samuel Chittock (Daughters Christening record)
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1911: The Mischief
John Henry Hazlewood, police pensioner licensed victualler, 53, b Northants
Mary Hazlewood, Â assisant, 52, b Brecon
Doris Evelina Mary Hazlewood, daughter, 10, b London
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1913: The Man Loaded with Mischief
Benjamin John Pry
A J Burgess, resident manager, Old Brewery
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1916: The Man Loaded with Mischief
Benjamin John Pry
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1962: The Man Loaded with Mischief
Nicholas B Bebbington