History of Ladders Series--an "Empty" Stubby Ladder of Hull

JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

Breezing through a volume of Building News for February 19, 1875, I came upon this interesting lithograph for a building in Hull, a city in East Riding of Yorkshire, England.  It depicts ancient brickwork on "an old house in Dagger Lane", in one of the "nooks and corners of ancient Hull, an old city reaching back evidently to the 13th century. (An interesting assessment of this building appears here at Paul-Gison.com.) What attracted me in this image was not necessarily the ancient structure but the empty ladder--and I can say that after having looking at x-thousands of antique prints that (a) ladders are uncommon and (b) unused ladders are even more so.  Here we see t he ladder of a person posting bills on a wall, his bucket of paste and brush on the ground, the next poster on a ladder rung, and the laborer just not present.  It is an interesting snapshot of a bit of daily life not usually recorded from long ago...

There are several other posts on this blog regarding ladders: 

Beautiful Ladders of the Baroque (Here)

One Upmanship--a Short Note on the History of Ladders  (Here)

Renaissance Ladders in the Brooklyn Bridge, 1876 (Here)

And the full image:

Comments

[Ray Girvan]

The poster details check out, by the way. I haven't checked the theatre ones, but a look in the British Library 19th Century Newspapers Archive finds similar ads for the Hull School of Art ("Head Master Mr Edwin Chandler, Hon Sec W Day Keyworth"). The "-ON ... Mr J Tall" is for an auction by James Tall, Auctioneers.

[John F. Ptak]

Thanks so much Ray for seeing another step up, or down--I'm very happy that your head works this way. This print is on its way to a friend of mine who has moved back to Hull after a long stay in the U.S.