Who were they?

[potent]

In 'She Stoops to Conquer',Oliver Goldsmith has Mrs Hardcastle
tell Mr H: '... you may be a Darby but I'll not be a Joan."
Can somebody please give the origin of the term Darby and Joan?

[divan]

The original Darby and Joan appeared in a ballad by Henry Woodfall, published in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1735. Supposedly they chatacters were based on a John Darby, with whom Woodfall served an apprenticeship, and his wife Joan, and they symbolise the ideal of a loving, elderly couple.

[eram]

Following up from that entirely correct answer..According to Darby and Joan Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable..... Darby and Joan are defined as a loving, old-fashioned, virtuous couple. The names belong to a ballad written by Henry Woodfall, and the characters are those of John Darby, of Bartholomew Close, who died 1730, and his wife, 'As chaste as a picture cut in alabaster. You might sooner move a Scythian rock than shoot fire into her bosom.' Woodfall served his apprenticeship to John Darby. Further, Dar'bies is a word once used to describe handcuffs because either two prisoners or prisoner and police officer were linked together as Darby and Joan. 'Hark ye! Jem Clink will fetch you the darbies.''Sir W. Scott wrote in Peveril of the Peak.