Introduction: When the Human Body Became an Advertising Medium
A man walks through a crowded London street carrying two large advertising boards, one on his chest and another on his back. He moves between shoppers, street vendors and horse-drawn vehicles. His purpose is not to sell goods directly, but to make a commercial message visible.
This was the world of the sandwich man.
During the nineteenth century, sandwich men became a familiar feature of British urban life.
Their advertising boards transformed the human body into a mobile commercial display.
The name referred to the arrangement of the boards, with the person positioned between them like the filling of a sandwich.
Although the image now appears old-fashioned, the underlying advertising principle remains relevant.
Instead of relying on a fixed advertising location, a business could send its message through busy public spaces.
The advertisement moved with the worker.
This created opportunities to reach people in shopping streets, markets and other areas of commercial activity.
The development was especially significant in London, where expanding retail markets and increasing competition encouraged businesses to experiment with outdoor advertising.
However, the sandwich man was not invented in a single moment in 1839.
Earlier forms of mobile commercial communication already existed, and the development of human advertising boards was connected to broader changes in printing, street commerce and public regulation.
Advertising Before Sandwich Men: The Origins of Mobile Commercial Communication
The use of people to communicate commercial messages predates the nineteenth century.
For centuries, merchants and street sellers had used their voices and physical presence to attract customers.
Town criers communicated information in public spaces.
Travelling merchants moved between markets and settlements.
Street vendors announced the goods they carried.
These practices created a relationship between movement and commercial communication.
The seller’s location was not fixed.
Instead, information about products travelled with the person offering them.
The later sandwich man represented an important variation on this tradition.
He did not necessarily sell the advertised goods.
His labor could consist entirely of displaying a message.
This distinction marked a step toward advertising as a separate economic activity.
The history of consumption and commercial communication is closely related to the development of early modern markets.
John Brewer and Roy Porter’s edited volume Consumption and the World of Goods examines the cultural and economic transformations that shaped consumer society between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Brewer and Porter, 1993).
The sandwich man emerged from this longer history of commercial visibility and competition.
London and the Expansion of Outdoor Advertising
During the early nineteenth century, London became one of the world’s most important commercial cities.
Its streets contained shops, markets, theatres, printers, publishers and a growing variety of services.
Businesses competed for the attention of a large urban population.
Printed advertising became increasingly visible.
Posters appeared on walls, fences and temporary structures.
Public spaces offered attractive opportunities to communicate with potential customers.
Yet the expansion of outdoor advertising created conflict.
Businesses wanted prominent locations for their messages.
Property owners wanted control over their buildings.
Public authorities were concerned about obstruction, disorder and the appearance of streets.
Anat Rosenberg’s The Rise of Mass Advertising examines the legal and cultural conflicts surrounding the growth of British advertising between approximately 1840 and 1914 (Rosenberg, 2022).
Her research demonstrates that advertising transformed not only commercial communication but also the legal understanding of public and private space.
Sandwich men were part of this transformation.
They made advertising mobile and brought commercial messages directly into the movement of everyday urban life.
Oxford Street and the Commercial Importance of Pedestrian Traffic
Oxford Street became one of London’s most important shopping streets.
Its concentration of retailers and pedestrian activity made it attractive to advertisers.
A commercial message displayed in such an environment could reach people already engaged in shopping or travelling between businesses.
This created a relationship between advertising location and consumer behavior.
The effectiveness of street advertising depended partly on where the message appeared.
Busy shopping streets offered more opportunities for contact than quiet residential areas.
However, the historical importance of Oxford Street should not be confused with the origin of the sandwich man.
Some popular accounts suggest that the form emerged directly from advertising restrictions introduced in 1839.
The evidence does not establish such a simple sequence.
Mobile advertising existed before that year.
Legal restrictions developed over time and applied to several types of street advertising, including mobile displays.
Oxford Street was an important commercial setting, but not a conclusively documented birthplace of sandwich-board advertising.
Mobile Advertising in the 1820s: Evidence Before 1839
Historical accounts of London from the 1820s describe unusual forms of mobile advertising.
The German aristocrat Hermann von Pückler-Muskau visited Britain during this period.
His observations were later published in Briefe eines Verstorbenen.
He described people carrying conspicuous advertising devices through London.
One man wore an exceptionally tall pasteboard hat advertising inexpensive boots.
Another carried a banner promoting laundry services.
These examples demonstrate that mobile commercial displays were already part of London’s streets before the Metropolitan Police Act of 1839.
The advertisements were not limited to the familiar two-board sandwich format.
They included hats, banners and other objects attached to or carried by the human body.
The essential innovation was the use of a moving person as a medium.
This broader history challenges the idea that sandwich men appeared suddenly in response to a single legal restriction.
They were part of an evolving family of mobile advertising techniques.
George Scharf and the Visual History of London’s Advertising Carriers
The artist George Scharf produced drawings documenting London street life during the early nineteenth century.
His work provides valuable visual evidence of advertising carriers and other urban occupations.
Drawings associated with the period from approximately 1820 to 1840 show different forms of mobile advertising.
These images reveal how advertisers experimented with visibility.
Large lettering, unusual costumes and portable displays helped messages stand out in crowded streets.
The human body became both the support for the advertisement and part of its visual presentation.
Such images are important because they demonstrate the variety of early mobile advertising.
The standardized sandwich board was only one possible solution.
Other forms relied on flags, hats, costumes and banners.
The historical record therefore suggests gradual experimentation rather than a single invention.
The Metropolitan Police Act of 1839
The year 1839 was significant for the regulation of London’s streets.
The Metropolitan Police Act introduced provisions intended to maintain public order and reduce obstructions.
Certain activities involving large objects, boards and advertisements could be restricted when they interfered with public thoroughfares.
The law also addressed unauthorized posting on property.
Rosenberg identifies the Act as an important stage in the legal regulation of outdoor advertising (Rosenberg, 2022).
However, the Act did not simply prohibit stationary posters and thereby create sandwich men as an unrestricted alternative.
Mobile advertising itself could fall within legal restrictions.
The relationship between advertising and the law was therefore more complicated.
Advertisers sought visibility.
Authorities sought to preserve access to streets and protect property.
The resulting conflicts influenced the development of different advertising formats.
The sandwich man was one participant in this broader struggle over commercial use of public space.
Why Sandwich Men Became Popular
The economic appeal of sandwich men was relatively straightforward.
A fixed poster remained in one location.
A sandwich man could travel through different streets and commercial districts.
This allowed advertisers to place messages in front of moving audiences.
The format also offered flexibility.
Boards could be changed to promote different products, events or special offers.
Businesses could hire advertising carriers for limited periods rather than maintaining permanent display sites.
The system nevertheless had limitations.
The number of people reached depended on the worker’s route and the density of pedestrian traffic.
Bad weather could reduce visibility and make the work difficult.
Each advertising carrier required labor and supervision.
The format was therefore best understood as one component of a wider outdoor advertising market.
It was not necessarily more effective than posters or newspaper advertisements in every situation.
Its value lay in its mobility and visibility.
The Sandwich Man as an Early Human Billboard
From a modern marketing perspective, sandwich men can be understood as early human billboards.
The advertising surface moved through the city.
Instead of waiting for an audience to pass a fixed location, the advertiser could send the message toward potential customers.
This created opportunities for repeated exposure in different places.
However, nineteenth-century advertisers lacked modern systems for measuring advertising reach and effectiveness.
They could observe pedestrian activity and commercial responses, but they could not reliably calculate standardized impressions or conversion rates.
Their decisions depended heavily on practical experience.
The historical continuity with modern mobile advertising lies in the attempt to connect messages with audiences in specific physical environments.
The technologies have changed.
The underlying commercial objective remains recognizable.
Victorian Consumer Culture and the Growth of Street Advertising
The nineteenth century witnessed major changes in British consumer markets.
Industrial production expanded the range of available goods.
Urban populations grew.
Retail competition intensified.
Advertising became an increasingly important means of commercial differentiation.
Sandwich men reflected this transformation in a particularly visible way.
They carried advertising messages directly into public spaces.
The human body became part of the commercial landscape.
Yet the practice also revealed inequalities within Victorian society.
The people hired as advertising carriers were often economically vulnerable.
The work required long periods of walking or standing.
It offered limited social status and frequently attracted ridicule.
The history of sandwich men is therefore inseparable from the history of urban labor.
Advertising created employment, but the conditions of that employment could be harsh.
Gustave Doré and the Advertising Boardman of 1872
An important visual source appeared in 1872.
The French artist Gustave Doré collaborated with Blanchard Jerrold on London: A Pilgrimage.
The publication included a representation of an advertising boardman.
The London Museum preserves an illustration from this work.
The image documents the presence of human advertising carriers in Victorian London.
Jerrold’s accompanying commentary emphasized the difficult circumstances of people who depended on such work.
Boardmen were associated with low-paid employment and economic insecurity.
The source is important because it connects the visual appearance of advertising with the social circumstances of its workers.
The advertising board was not merely a communication device.
It was also a piece of equipment carried by a person whose labor made the advertisement visible.
John Thomson and Adolphe Smith: Street Life in London, 1877
One of the most valuable documentary sources for the history of sandwich men is Street Life in London.
Published in 1877, the work combined photographs by John Thomson with written observations by Adolphe Smith.
It documented different occupations and social conditions in Victorian London.
Among its subjects were advertising boardmen.
The publication provides unusually detailed evidence of the economic organization of the trade.
Smith explained that contractors commonly recruited, organized and supervised the workers.
Advertising businesses often did not hire individual boardmen directly.
Instead, contractors arranged the boards, assigned workers and managed the daily operation.
This intermediary structure reveals that sandwich-board advertising had developed into an organized commercial service.
The advertising carrier was only the most visible participant.
Behind him stood a network of advertisers, contractors and suppliers.
The Economics of Sandwich-Board Advertising in 1877
The account by Thomson and Smith provides concrete information about the cost of employing advertising boardmen.
According to their description, reputable contractors commonly charged advertisers two shillings per worker per day.
They retained approximately one quarter of this amount for organization and supervision.
The boardman typically received eighteen pence per day.
Some contractors paid even less.
These figures are historically important because they demonstrate the division of revenue between the advertising service provider and the worker.
The contractor earned income by organizing the advertising campaign.
The boardman supplied the physical labor necessary to display the message.
The system resembled other forms of labor contracting in Victorian cities.
It also anticipated later promotional staffing services, in which businesses pay an intermediary to recruit and supervise personnel for advertising activities.
The comparison should not obscure the considerable differences in working conditions and regulation.
Nevertheless, the underlying business structure is recognizable.
The Social Position of the Sandwich Man
The work of advertising boardmen was often associated with poverty and social exclusion.
Thomson and Smith described the ridicule directed at these workers.
They noted that passers-by sometimes mocked them or interfered with their equipment.
The occupation offered little opportunity for professional advancement.
Its accessibility was partly a consequence of the limited skills required.
For individuals excluded from other forms of employment, carrying advertising boards could provide a small income.
This social dimension is essential to understanding the history of mobile advertising.
Modern marketing accounts sometimes celebrate sandwich men as an ingenious advertising invention.
Such descriptions overlook the human experience of the workers.
The format was economically useful to advertisers partly because it relied on inexpensive labor.
The history of the sandwich man is therefore both a history of marketing innovation and a history of inequality.
Public Criticism and the Regulation of Street Advertising
Outdoor advertising became increasingly controversial during the Victorian period.
Advertisers wanted greater visibility.
Public authorities wanted to prevent obstruction and disorder.
Residents and pedestrians sometimes objected to the commercial occupation of streets.
These conflicts affected several advertising formats.
Posters, mobile boards, advertising carts and other displays could all become subjects of regulation.
Rosenberg argues that the development of British mass advertising was shaped by legal disputes concerning public space, property and visual culture (Rosenberg, 2022).
The history of sandwich men illustrates this broader process.
Advertising was not simply expanding into unused space.
It was competing with other uses of the city.
The question was not only whether advertising attracted customers.
It was also whether the public would tolerate its presence.
The Metropolitan Streets Act of 1867
Another important legal development occurred in 1867.
The Metropolitan Streets Act introduced further restrictions on certain forms of street advertising.
Its provisions affected advertising carriers and the distribution of handbills.
The Act formed part of a longer process of regulating commercial activities in London’s public spaces.
The restrictions did not eliminate sandwich men.
However, they influenced where and how advertising carriers could operate.
The legal history demonstrates that mobile advertising was never entirely independent of public regulation.
The mobility of an advertisement did not automatically make it lawful.
Its operation depended on the specific circumstances and applicable rules.
Sandwich Boards and Handbill Distribution
Sandwich men could be used alongside other advertising techniques.
A worker carrying boards might also distribute printed handbills.
The two formats performed different communication functions.
The large board attracted attention from a distance.
A handbill could provide more detailed information about a product, business or event.
This combination offered advertisers an opportunity to connect visibility with further communication.
However, historical evidence does not support the assumption that every sandwich man distributed leaflets.
The practice varied according to the advertiser and the assignment.
The distinction matters because sandwich-board advertising and handbill distribution were separate activities that could be combined.
Costumed Advertising and Early Promotional Spectacle
Victorian advertisers also experimented with more unusual forms of human advertising.
A contribution to the satirical magazine Punch in 1846 described people dressed as oversized hats and other advertising objects.
These displays were designed to attract attention through novelty.
The human body became part of the advertised product’s visual representation.
Such techniques resemble later promotional costumes, brand mascots and street marketing.
The term guerrilla marketing, however, belongs to a much later period.
It would therefore be historically misleading to describe nineteenth-century advertisers as practitioners of an established guerrilla-marketing discipline.
The useful comparison concerns their shared reliance on surprise and visibility.
From Human Billboards to Advertising Vehicles
The development of mobile advertising did not stop with sandwich boards.
During the nineteenth century, advertisers experimented with vehicles carrying large promotional displays.
Horse-drawn advertising carts could accommodate bigger messages than individual workers.
They also created opportunities for more elaborate visual designs.
However, their size introduced additional difficulties.
Advertising vehicles could obstruct traffic and occupy valuable street space.
They consequently became subjects of legal regulation.
The development illustrates the recurring trade-off between advertising visibility and public accessibility.
Greater advertising impact often required more space.
That space was not unlimited.
Sandwich Men and the Origins of Modern Mobile Advertising
The basic principle of sandwich-board advertising continued into the twentieth century.
Buses, trams, taxis and other vehicles became advertising media.
Promotional staff carried signs and distributed printed materials.
Later technologies introduced illuminated displays and digital mobile screens.
These formats differed greatly from the simple boards carried by Victorian workers.
Nevertheless, they shared a common idea.
Commercial messages could move through public spaces rather than remain attached to a fixed location.
The sandwich man was an important historical example of this principle.
The Contribution of Sandwich Men to Marketing History
Sandwich men contributed to the development of advertising in several ways.
They demonstrated that the human body could function as a mobile advertising surface.
They allowed businesses to communicate with audiences in different public locations.
They encouraged the development of specialized advertising services and contractors.
They also revealed the social and legal consequences of commercial communication.
Perhaps their most important contribution was the separation of advertising labor from direct selling.
A person could be employed solely to make a message visible.
This distinction helped establish advertising as a specialized economic activity.
The sandwich man therefore represents more than a historical curiosity.
He illustrates an important stage in the professionalization and diversification of marketing communication.
Conclusion: Why Sandwich Men Still Matter
The sandwich man was not invented in 1839.
Earlier forms of mobile advertising were already visible in London during the 1820s.
The Metropolitan Police Act of 1839 introduced important restrictions on street activities, but it did not create the sandwich man as an unrestricted alternative to stationary posters.
Further regulation followed, including the Metropolitan Streets Act of 1867.
Historical sources from the nineteenth century document both the commercial usefulness and the difficult working conditions associated with sandwich-board advertising.
The illustrations of Gustave Doré and the photographic work of John Thomson, accompanied by Adolphe Smith’s reporting, provide particularly valuable evidence.
Sandwich men occupy an important place in marketing history because they transformed advertising into a moving presence within the city.
Their history demonstrates how businesses competed for attention, how advertising created new forms of labor and how public authorities attempted to regulate commercial communication.
The central challenge remains familiar today: how can advertising reach people effectively without overwhelming the public spaces in which they live?
References
Brewer, J. and Porter, R. (eds.) (1993) Consumption and the World of Goods. London: Routledge.
Jerrold, B. and Doré, G. (1872) London: A Pilgrimage. London: Grant & Co.
Pückler-Muskau, H. von (1830-1831) Briefe eines Verstorbenen. Stuttgart: Hallberger.
Rosenberg, A. (2022) The Rise of Mass Advertising: Law, Enchantment, and the Cultural Boundaries of British Modernity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192858917.001.0001.
Thomson, J. and Smith, A. (1877) Street Life in London. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington.
