Henry Croft (pearly)

Henry Croft
Henry Croft as Pearly King
Born	24 May 1861 St Pancras Workhouse, Somers Town, London
Died	1 January 1930 St Pancras workhouse
Nationality	English
Occupation	Road Sweeper
Known for	Founder of the Pearly Kings and Queens

Henry Croft (24 May 1861 - 1 January 1930) was a road sweeper in London and founder of the working class tradition of Pearly Kings and Queens.

Croft was born at the St Pancras Workhouse in Somers Town, London, and baptized there on 5 June 1861. He was raised in an orphanage after his father, a musician, died in around 1871. He worked as a municipal road sweeper from around 1876, employed by St Pancras vestry and later St Pancras Metropolitan Borough Council until the 1920s.

Croft started to wear his pearly suit to raise money for charity in the late 1870s. The origin of the pearly tradition is obscure. Croft began to decorate his clothes with mother-of-pearl buttons, which were mass-produced at factories in the East End of London. The inspiration for this form of decoration is a matter of debate. It may have been inspired by the clothes of costermongers (street vendors of fruit and vegetables) in Somers Town: some sources mention a common practice of adding decorative metal buttons to their plain clothes, others indicate that it was unknown. Croft himself was never a costermonger. Alternatively, the costume may also have been inspired by coster singers - such as Hyram Travers who performed as the "Pearly King"’ - or the stage clothes of other music hall entertainers.

By 1880, Croft was wearing a "smother" suit completely covered with thousands of white buttons. He later created more sparsely decorated "skeleton" suits. He is thought to have made at least seven suits to wear himself, two of which he left in his will. He also made pearly clothes - suits, hats, belts, and ties - for others. The suit would have drawn attention to Croft when he participated in charitable pageants and carnivals to raise money for local hospitals, an important source of funding before the National Health Service. Croft wore his pearly suit to raise funds for the London Temperance Hospital in the 1880, but the first surviving reference to him in a printed source is a photograph and accompanying letter in the The Strand Magazine in February 1902, which describes "Mr F. Croft" as the "Pearlie King of Somers Town".