Fiction    To 14/9/1586

Mother Goose

Categories: Animals, Fictional

The interment register at St Olaves Hart Street records Mother Goose being buried on 14 September 1586. This is extremely strange so we did some digging.  The story of a goose laying golden eggs can be traced back to ancient Greece, but not the term 'Mother Goose'. From The Development of Mother Goose in Britain in the Nineteenth Century we learn that Mother Goose first appeared on stage in 1806 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in ‘Harlequin and Mother Goose, or the Golden Egg’ in which Joseph Grimaldi also appeared.  It’s thought that the term ‘Mother Goose’ was popularised by the French ‘Mother Goose’s Rhymes’, by Perrault, published in 1697 but it existed before that.  There is a reference to the phrase in Loret's ‘La Muse Historique’ collected in 1650 and in a work by Guy de la Brosse, in 1628.  Which gets us pretty close to the St Olave’s burial year of 1598, but still doesn’t explain the entry in the register.  Oddly, there is another burial site for Mother Goose, 1690, in Boston, Massachusetts. Possibly the phrase was a perfectly acceptable name for a mother with the surname Goose. Greater minds than ours have failed to solve this one.

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This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Mother Goose

Commemorated ati

St Olave's Church

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Jessie Craigen

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Jamrach's Emporium

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William Moorcroft

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1 memorial
Trim

Trim

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Animal, Animals

2 memorials
David Benjamin

David Benjamin

The excellent MDFCTA gives: "Between 1917 and 1918 Mr. Frank. D. Benjamin, the executor of the late Louis David Benjamin of 16 Dawson Place, London, W.2, arranged the erection of 4 troughs in memor...

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Albert Clarke

Albert Clarke

Worked on the 1921-6 construction of the Harrow School War Memorial Building, probably leading the project.

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1 memorial
The Arts Club - right - 2011

The Arts Club - right - 2011

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1 subject commemorated, 1 creator
Albion Mills

Albion Mills

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Building, Food & Drink, Industry

1 memorial
Laurence Olivier, Baron Olivier

Laurence Olivier, Baron Olivier

Born Dorking, Surrey, as Laurence Kerr Olivier. With his wife Vivien Leigh, he managed the St James's Theatre from 1950 to its closure in 1957. Founding Director of the National Theatre, 1963 - 197...

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3 memorials
Milos Crnjanski

Milos Crnjanski

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Person, Poetry, Politics & Administration, Austria, Balkans, Hungary, Romania, Serbia

1 memorial