Grim the Collier

Grim the Collier is a well-known figure in Croydon's history. Several late sixteenth-century authors, quoted in Anderson (1882), refer to colliers. "Grimme the Collier of Croydon" appeared in 1565 in Damon and Pythias by Richard Edwards, and in Quip for an Upstart Courtier, by Robert Greene, first published in 1592:

"Marry, quoth hee that lookt like Lucifer, though I am black, I am not the Divell, but indeed a collyer of Croydon".

Charcoal production was a major industry in the Croydon area, and is especially associated with the Great North Wood. The industry has left the place names of Collier's Wood near Wimbledon and Collier's Water Lane in Thornton Heath.

Grim the Collier has another identity, as a common name for the plant now usually known as Fox-and-cubs, Pilosella aurantiaca (Stace, 1997). Older books also refer to Hieracium aurantiacum and a third common name, Orange Hawkweed (Stuart & Sutherland, 1987; Polunin, 1971).

The plant is a member of the Daisy family Asteraceae (formerly Compositae). The plant is not native, but originates from northern and central Europe (Clement & Foster, 1994). It was grown in gardens "by 1629" and now lives in the wild throughout Britain (Preston, Pearman & Dines, 2002). It has a rosette of hairy leaves, and a cluster of orange dandelion-like flowers at the top of a single stem. The stems and involucres are covered with very distinct black hairs, which give the plant a dark furry appearance. This is the origin of the association of the name with the plant:

"The stalks and cups of the flours are all set thicke with a blackishe downe or hairinesse as it were the dust of coles; whence the women who keepe it in gardens for novelties sake, have named it Grimm the Collier" (Gerard, 1597).

Its status as a garden plant was documented by John Parkinson (1629) in the earliest book describing ornamental gardening:

"The fittest name we can give it, is Golden Mouse-ear, which may endure untill a fitter bee imposed on it: for the name of Grim the Collier, whereby it is called by many, is both idle and foolish"

It appears that the plant was already well-known by 1629, and Parkinson felt that its image should be improved by giving it a more attractive common name!

Jane McLauchlin

References

Anderson, J Corbet (1882). A short chronicle concerning the Parish of Croydon in the County of Surrey. Edinburgh & London: Ballantyne Press.

Clement, E J and Foster, M C (1994). Alien Plants of the British Isles. BSBI.

Gerard, J (1597). Herball, quoted in Watts, D C (2000). Elsevier's Dictionary of Plant Names and their Origins. Elsevier.

Parkinson, J (1629). Paradisi in sole paradisi terrestris: A garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers which our English ayre will permitt to be noursed up… London: Printed by Humphrey Lownes and Robert Young at the Signe of the Starre on Bread−street Hill.

Polunin, O (1969). Flowers of Europe : a Field Guide. London: OUP.

Preston, C D, Pearman, D A & Dines, T D (Eds.) (2002). A New Atlas of the British & Irish flora : an atlas of the vascular plants of Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stace, C (1997). New Flora of the British Isles, 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Stuart, D and Sutherland, J (1987). Plants from the Past. Harmondsworth: Viking.

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Last updated September 19^th 2005
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