Pasta cooking in a boiling pot
1 April 2022
A potboiler is a literary or artistic work created to be sold, one intended to appeal to the masses or to a patron rather than for higher or ennobling purposes. The underlying metaphor is providing for sustenance, doing what needs to be done to make a living. But there is an older sense of the word relating to who has the right to vote.
The phrase keep the pot boiling dates to the seventeenth century. Here is an account, written by the cleric and polemicist Peter Heylyn in 1660, about the state of affairs in one particular diocese in England:
A Church so liberally endowed by the Munificence, and Piety, of some Great Persons in those Times; that if it were possessed but of a tenth Part of what once it had, it might be reckoned (as is affirmed by Bishop Godwine, one of Kitching's Successours) amongst the Richest Churches in these Parts of Christendom. But whatsoever Kitching found it, it was made poor enough, before he left it: so poor, that it is hardly able to keep the Pot boiling for a Parson's Dinner.
And we see the term potboiler applied to works of art in the following description of a 1783 exhibition of other artists’ paintings by Irish artist James Barry:
I am no stranger to the merit of the fine portrait of Mr. Abel at his desk, in the act of composing; of Mr. Hone, with his face partly shaded by his hat; of a primate walking the country; and of some others which appear now and then, and in great measure compensate for the heaps of inconsequential trash, or pot-boilers (as they are called) which are obtruded upon the public-view; this may be lamented but cannot be helped, as an exhibition must be made up of what the painters are employed about.
(Although it is an appealing image, primate here refers to the clergy title, not the ape.)
But there is another, now obsolescent, sense of potboiler with older roots. This meaning of potboiler hearkens back to the period when the franchise was only granted to property-owning males. A potwaller or potboiler was a man who lived in rented lodgings with his own fireplace, enabling him to cook his own food. In some English boroughs, this qualified him as a householder and thus entitled to vote.
The word potwalling, literally a boiling, or welling, pot, dates to the mid fifteenth century and referred to a man who was an established resident of a city or town. A decree by the city of Dublin, Ireland on 27 October 1455 reads:
Also, hit was ordeynt by the sayd semble that al maner of marchandys that cumyth hydyr wyth har marchandyse ... that claymyn to be fre at London, Brystow, othyr eny othyr plase, shall pay har custum tyll the tyme that thay bryng a sertificat (of) contynuall residence and abydyng and pot wallyng wythyn any of the cytteys or townys wych ... that thay broght ... certyfycat with them, that then the Mayre and Baylyfys for the tyme being schold ... tyll the tyme that they broght a certyfcat acordyng to the ... above sayd.
(Also, it was ordained by the said assembly that all manner of merchants that come thither with their merchandise ... that claim to be free at London, Bristol, or any other place, shall pay there custom till the time that they bring a certificate of continual residence and abiding and pot walling within any of the cities or towns which ... that they brought ... certificate with them, that the mayor and bailiffs for the time being should ... till the time that they brought a certificate according to the ... above said.)
And by 1701, the British House of Commons acknowledged that many boroughs granted these potwallers the right to vote.
By the middle of the eighteenth century, we see potboiler being used as a synonym for the older potwaller. From Rhode Island’s Providence Gazette of 9 March 1765:
If a person is free of the city, borough, or corporation, for which the member is to be chosen, he may vote although he has not a foot of land in the world; and in most of them, if he is only a house-keeper or pot-boiler, as such a one is called, he may vote,
This sense of potwaller/potboiler shares the same underlying metaphor with the artistic potboiler, and the two probably influenced one another in the eighteenth century, but the artistic sense is probably an independent coinage and not a direct development from the earlier potwaller.
Sources:
Barry, James. An Account of Series of Pictures. London: William Adlard, 1783, 10–11. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Gilbert, John T. Calendar of Ancient Records of Dublin, vol. 1 of 18. Dublin: Joseph Dollard, 1889, 291. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Heylyn, Peter. Affairs of Church and State in England During the Life and Reign of Queen Mary (Alternate title: Ecclesia restaurata). London: H. Twyford, et al., 1660, 100. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. pot-walling, ger.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, December 2006, s.v. potboiler, n., potboiling, adj., potwaller, n., pot-walling, n., pot, n.1.
“A Vindication of a Late Pamphlet, Entitled the Rights of the Colonies Examined.” Providence Gazette (Rhode Island), 9 March 1765, 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Photo credit: Ildar Sagdejev, 2008. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.