They also have their kings and queens, princes and princesses; titles are hereditary or acceded to through marriage; they proudly wear their crowns, though not rubies; they enthusiastically contribute to charitable causes and are divided into families (the equivalent of the Windsors, the Bourbons, the Oranges, etc.), not always well-matched. But that’s where the similarity between real monarchies and pearly ends ends, an old tradition of London’s East End Cockney pop culture dating back to the Victorian era.
They are so called (in English pearlies) for the mother-of-pearl buttons with which they cover the black fabric of their storied and shiny dresses, hats and jackets, originally a mockery of the jewels worn by aristocrats, completely out of their reach. Even today they are a bit, because they wear them at horse races, baptisms, weddings and funerals (they also paraded at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games). But especially when they perform once a month in Covent Garden and other London vantage points, with their signature feathers and blue plastic buckets, raising money for various charitable causes.
The origin of pearly, East End royalty, dates back to 1875. Henry Croft, a street sweeper abandoned by his parents and growing up in an orphanage, was fascinated by the customs of 19th century London peddlers (greengrocers, butchers , fishmongers…) to sew buttons on shirt lapels, trouser pockets and caps. And also because of the way they helped each other, when someone got sick and couldn’t go to the market, or the fruit spoiled, or the donkey that was pulling their wagon died.
One day, or so the urban legend tells, a ship with no less than sixty thousand mother-of-pearl buttons, the size of penny coins, ran aground in the waters of the Thames, who knows where they came from or what destination they had. , and either they were abandoned, or the good people of the East End got hold of them. Croft hoarded as many as he could, and with them he decorated his hat and completely covered the best suit he owned, proclaiming himself the pearly king. So he went from door to door and asked for money for hospitals and for the orphanage in which he had grown up.
The original dynasty of this alternate royalty, Croft’s descendants, once numbered four hundred pearly, of which only around fifty now remain. But there are others of less pure lineage, with branches in many neighborhoods of the city, which celebrate births, baptisms and marriages in style; they bury their kings and crown their heirs in ceremonies that are not like Carlos the day after tomorrow, but that, in a much more popular way, also have their pomp. When someone dies, the mother-of-pearl buttons from his clothing are given to family and dear friends, who incorporate them into their outfits, so they always carry something of the deceased with them.
The original concept is that to be a true Cockney one had to live and be born where the bells of Saint Mary le Bow Church can be heard, consumed by the Great Fire of London in 1666 and rebuilt by Christopher Wren, the architect of the cathedral of Saint Paul. But that theory has become more flexible with demographic changes and the enormous growth of the capital. In any case, they are the custodians of the Victorian tradition of pearlescents, the royalty of the working classes, who also crown themselves.
