Pubs - 5

My friend Paul in England suggested I add something about pub signs to this series.  He sent me a piece on a particular sign from the 18th century which has been in and out of controversy with the PC crowd.  It is a sign for the All Labour in Vain pub and shows a black baby being washed in a tub by a white woman.

There is an account of the history of the event published in a local directory for the area of West Sussex.  This is it followed by the sign.

Westergate, the twin of Eastergate, is in the popular market-garden area of West Sussex. It has a poignant legend of an 18th century married couple who left the village to live for a time in tropical climes. The wife returned some time before her husband, and in due course gave birth to a child who was black. The woman was terrified, and tried by constant bathing and scrubbing of the baby to render it white, but all to no avail. Her husband's reactions when he returned are not recorded, but the episode was handed on to posterity by a sign on the local pub; once the house where the couple lived. One side shows a black boy in a bath with his mother scrubbing him, the other shows the woman surveying her useless labour with consternation writ large on her face. The name of the pub The Labour in Vain sums up the story quite neatly.