Jacob Larwood

Jacob Larwood was the pen name of Herman Diederik Johan van Schevichaven (1827–1918), a Dutch-born writer who settled in London and produced popular antiquarian books about English life. With the publisher John Camden Hotten he wrote The History of Signboards, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, first published in 1866 and reprinted for decades, which traced the pictorial signs of inns and shops through their heraldic, religious, trade and humorous varieties. His other books include The Story of the London Parks, Humour of the Law, Theatrical Anecdotes and Forensic Anecdotes. He returned to the Netherlands in later life and died at Nijmegen.