Brewer's: Pedlar's Acre

(Lambeth). According to tradition, a pedlar of this parish left a sum of money, on condition that his picture, with a dog, should be preserved for ever in glass in one of the church-windows. In the south window of the middle aisle, sure enough, such a picture exists; but probably it is a rebus on Chapman, the name of some benefactor. In Swaffham church there is a portrait of one John Chapman, a great benefactor, who is represented as a pedlar with his pack; and in that town a similar tradition exists.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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