tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-340933962012-01-25T09:21:27.989+11:00An idiosyncratic selection of short bits about elements of Victorian history.Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.comBlogger601100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-3371673280729039822012-01-20T12:34:00.000+11:002012-01-23T13:41:12.155+11:00

Kensal Green Cemetery Back in June of 2008, I wrote a piece on Victorian Funerals and Mourning.  In it I left the funeral cortege pretty much at the gates of the cemetery; an omission that I want to correct in this blog.  With a rapidly growing population which more than doubled in the first half of the nineteenth century, arrangements for the interment of the dead were totally inadequate.  At

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-87140428592627122352012-01-10T14:27:00.000+11:002012-01-10T14:34:20.792+11:00

Steel Cage Crinoline  The cage crinoline, or hoop skirt, worn by women through the 1860s was based on a design patented in the 1840s. Although bulky and uncomfortable, it had the advantage of being light in weight and strong enough to support numerous layers of garments. Although worn by women of all social classes, those of the lower and labouring classes who wore it were often the subject of

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-49274996711264946322011-11-09T14:21:00.001+11:002011-11-10T10:26:15.784+11:00

In addition to the attempts, serious and otherwise, made on the life of Victoria, there were numerous instances of what John Ashton, in Gossip in the first decade of Victoria's reign, refers to as her being "somewhat pestered with lunatics." John Castell Hopkins notes that the Queen was worried by a number of more or less crazed individuals who would have liked to share her greatness.  This

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-33704393238894875482011-08-02T13:35:00.001+10:002011-10-19T10:27:51.933+11:00

During Victoria's long reign there were seven "incidents" which might be considered assassination attempts.  In reality, most of these were clearly not serious attempts on her life.  Rather they appear to have been aimed at bringing either an individual or a cause into public prominence.  The first attempt took place on the early evening of 10 June 1840. Edward Oxford attempts to kill the

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-21876098747516758442011-03-24T19:09:00.002+11:002011-04-05T03:52:04.988+10:00

General Tom Thumb (Picture courtesy of Paul Frecker, London) On the 20th of February 1844, an advertisement appeared in The Times announcing the appearance of General Tom Thumb at the Princess’s Theatre in Oxford Street. He, his family and his mentor and manager, Phineas T. Barnum had left New York a month earlier aboard the "Yorkshire" bound for Liverpool, and after a short season there had

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-23954824220199748222010-12-14T13:45:00.006+11:002010-12-14T14:05:37.671+11:00

As the festive season is upon us, I recently had contact with an old friend who told me she was in the midst of making her annual figgy puddings. She was using a recipe passed down through her family since the middle years of the 19th Century.  Of course, this brought to mind the wonderful English West Country Christmas carol, "We wish you a Merry Christmas" with its references to that seasonal

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-36630466325387129362010-10-18T15:02:00.004+11:002010-10-18T15:14:16.826+11:00

  Reading Bob Nicholson's delightful article, "Racy Yankee slang has long invaded our language" which appeared in the Guardian got me thinking about a couple of words which have either been around a lot longer than people suspect or have changed their meanings.  Two words in particular came to mind; "pig" and "gay". I think we have a tendency to view the first of these as an epithet applied to

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-65627355263377849572010-10-13T14:53:00.001+11:002010-10-13T15:06:06.972+11:00

Child Prostitute; year 1871; inscription at the back: Mary Simpson a common prostitute age 10 or 11 year. She has been known as Mrs. Berry for at least two years. She is four month with child. In the final years of the 20th and the early years of the 21st centuries, child sexual abuse, which has always existed, came more clearly into the arena of public concern. Although less of a topic of

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-36045876635220384702010-10-11T11:07:00.004+11:002010-10-12T13:54:42.646+11:00

Yesterday I came across what I think has to be, for those of us who enjoy 18th and 19th Century English history, one of the premier blogs on the subject.  I could, of course, rave on and on about it, but suggest that you have a look for yourselves. The keeper of the blog (blog mistress?) is Lucy Inglis and the blog is all about Georgian London.  It is gossipy, well-written and historically

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-64820763367017777112010-10-07T13:29:00.003+11:002010-10-07T13:58:31.278+11:00

Meta Brevoort, the aunt of W. A. B.Coolidge who himself made over 1,700 ascents and systematically explored the Alps, was a redoubtable climber in her own right and one of a small band of women who blazed a trail for women in the Alps. On the whole, while women were accepted, if not welcomed, by the best climbers, who recognised in them kindred spirits, albeit in skirts, there remained, through

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-27324327324005823472010-10-06T15:32:00.016+11:002010-10-06T21:33:04.917+11:00

Amost anyone who has ever stepped into a kitchen has heard of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management and, everyone who has heard of the book probably has an image of Mrs. Beeton.  So, what does her name conjure up?  For many she is a plump matronly woman of indefinable age, but somewhere between 40 and 65.  She is wearing an apron and has flour both on it and on a few places on her face.  "

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-33551458425227015712010-09-30T14:34:00.007+10:002010-09-30T15:22:27.436+10:00

“The Diogenes Club,” if we are to believe Sherlock Holmes, was “the queerest club in London.”  Such a claim was remarkable indeed; for Victorian men of the middle and upper classes were the most “clubbable” the world has ever known.  Although the social club was not a Victorian invention--Samuel Johnson, in 1783, had remarked of his amanuensis, “Boswell is a very clubbable man”-- it reached its

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-34469299122761438602010-09-08T13:20:00.002+10:002010-09-08T13:46:46.670+10:00

The 1830s and '40s saw the rapid development of a range of photographic processes.  In France, in 1838, Louis Daguerre took the first known picture containing a person, a man having his shoes polished on the Boulevard du Temple.  At about the same time, Robert Cornelius, took a self-portrait which has written on the back, "The first light picture ever taken."  In England, William Henry Fox Talbot

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-89173831379546088462010-08-18T14:24:00.000+10:002010-08-18T14:24:44.662+10:00

It is never easy to define, let alone identify the key traits, of a particular class.  In the case of the Victorian middle-class it is especially difficult.  For one thing, the long period of time from the ascent of Victoria to the throne to her death covered more than six decades.  During those long years, Great Britain went from being a rural, almost medieval, society to one which stood on the

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-16737565745730366812010-08-14T13:17:00.010+10:002010-10-06T15:31:10.131+11:00

That marvelous creation of Thackeray's, George Fitz-Boodle, Esquire, Member of the Omnium Club and the third-best whist-player in Europe tells us that he is  . . . not, in the first place, what is called a ladies' man, having contracted an irrepressible habit of smoking after dinner, which has obliged me to give up a great deal of the dear creatures' society; nor can I go much to country-houses

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-49337374466427400232010-06-08T13:41:00.001+10:002010-06-08T14:02:23.201+10:00

 The Duke and Duchess of York atthe Duchess of Devonshire's Ball In any analysis of England it is important to have some idea of the structure of the society.  In the Victorian years, although there was an ever-increasing fluidity to society, it still retained a great deal of the pattern that had emerged over the previous centuries. The upper-most classes consisted largely of the aristocracy and

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-33178287946339946262010-05-25T00:00:00.003+10:002010-05-25T00:09:40.218+10:00

 Heenan v. Sayers for the World Championship, April 1860. Paralleling the efforts to remove executions from the public view were the attempts to make the staging of prize-fights more difficult.  During Victoria’s years on the throne, the ring undoubtedly claimed more lives than public executions, for it was not until the last decade or two of her reign that glove-fighting replaced bare-knuckles

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-2815020613571412652010-05-24T23:37:00.002+10:002010-05-24T23:40:31.048+10:00

One of the great events in the early years of Victoria's reign was a public hanging. While figures vary dramatically, there is no reason to doubt that the number of spectators might range anywhere from 20,000 up to 100,000, the number, according to The Times, attending Kirkdale Gaol in Liverpool for the mutiple hanging of four men on 11 September 1863. In amongst the mob one found many of the

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-59628719162021196062010-05-19T19:24:00.002+10:002010-05-19T19:34:59.922+10:00

If the Victorian era is sometimes referred to as "the age of steam," it might equally well be called "the age of mail."  It was during Victoria's long reign that the transportation of correspondence was simplified and costs were reduced to such an extent that almost anyone could afford to send a letter within Great Britain while the cost of a letter to the colonies was within the reach of  many.

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-72227726852408889872010-04-30T13:37:00.005+10:002010-04-30T14:08:38.959+10:00

We tend to think of our generation as being one of “fast food” people, but the reality is not that we eat fast food (which, of course, we do) but that we are fed by fast food chains.  The Victorians were “fast food” consumers, but what they ate came largely from individual purveyors on the streets of London and the other large cities. Food and drink was readily available at all hours of the day

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-7307509683525710852010-04-22T11:55:00.010+10:002010-04-22T12:57:54.604+10:00

By today's standards, the criminal justice system in Victorian times was hard and cruel. Although lip service had been paid to imprisonment as a reformative process, most people saw it as punishment; and the harder, the better. The hardest punishment was, of course, the death sentence but this was a punishment which was often commuted to “transportation beyond the seas.” Not all of those who

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-90050338090692352722010-03-10T10:13:00.004+11:002010-03-10T10:37:35.815+11:00

Although child labour was to arouse the strongest of emotions during the Victorian Era, it was certainly not a new phenomenon.  In England children had always worked although, while Britain was a primarily agrarian society, much of the work was “hidden,” being in the fields and a part of a family’s work structure. From the middle of the eighteenth century, a number of factors combined to make

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-35206063739051974752009-11-24T01:00:00.006+11:002009-11-24T01:40:06.750+11:00

During the middle years of the nineteenth century, a knowledge of etiquette became increasingly important on formal occasions. Books on the subject regularly appeared in order to provide a guide to proper behaviour for those who wanted, or needed, to know how to engage in formal relationships. Just how significant these rules were for most people is questionable. Certainly some elements of

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-23595878671427080362009-05-03T13:44:00.007+10:002009-05-03T15:12:53.626+10:00

A dispute between a tailor and a customer hardly seems newsworthy. Even should the matter go to court, it would be unlikely to merit more than passing notice in a local newspaper. Yet in May of 1873, just such a dispute (Creed and another v Walters) was the subject of great interest in papers around London, ranging from the Daily News to the Illustrated Police News. The story even made it into

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-80748094150535947602009-04-24T11:29:00.006+10:002009-05-04T08:49:12.582+10:00

It is commonly believed that the first practicing Jew to sit in the House of Commons was Lionel de Rothschild. Technically this may be true, but the first practicing Jew to vote in the House was David Salomons (image on the left), a cousin to Rothschild. In 1851, in the Greenwich by-election, he was returned as the member for that constituency.Salomons was a newcomer neither to politics nor to

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-85576778976933753112009-03-15T13:50:00.012+11:002009-03-16T10:50:05.112+11:00

An East End Opium Den, 1870For many, images of the darker side of Victorian London are shaped by the descriptions of writers like Henry Mayhew in the middle decades of the century, or by Blanchard Jerrold and Gustave Doré, and James Greenwood a few decades later. In addition to their often sensational images there are the descriptions we derive from the fiction of the times. Thus, our image of

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-13132974819903676082009-02-24T13:08:00.013+11:002009-03-10T12:02:31.053+11:00

It is with great pleasure that this blog announces that it has been nominated for The Excessively Diverting Blog Award. The nomination came from Helen Webberley, blogmatresse of ART and ARCHITECTURE, mainly.The aim of the Excessively Diverting Blog Award is to acknowledge writing excellence in the spirit of Jane Austen’s genius in amusing and delighting readers with her irony, humor, wit, and

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-22729502006888348442009-02-16T14:46:00.060+11:002009-02-18T16:12:32.217+11:00

Promenades, piers, Punch and Judy, music hall - where else could a Victorian on holiday possibly be but at the seaside. Whether at Brighton, Margate, Bournemouth, Weston-super-Mare or one of a hundred other resorts, one of the most popular forms of holidaying for the emergent middle-class during the latter half of the nineteenth century was a visit to the seaside. Most "white collar," or to use a

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-87359969116182415442009-02-10T12:27:00.007+11:002009-02-10T13:34:38.441+11:00

During the long reign of Queen Victoria the key social event of the year was always "The Season." There were a number of specific social events connected with the season, but the most important event for many was the formal entrance into society of the young women of the upper class; their "Coming Out." Coming out was a very Victorian ritual although it had its origins well before those decades

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-80862298847019999362008-11-18T14:20:00.006+11:002008-11-18T19:35:49.796+11:00

If literacy rates are to be measured by one's ability to sign the marriage register (a somewhat dubious premise at best) then between 1840 and 1900, the rate of literacy increased from somewhere between half and two-thirds to around 97 per cent. There can be little doubt that literacy did increase dramatically during Victoria's reign and this can be attributed to a variety of factors; two of

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-73178349919679774782008-11-08T08:40:00.006+11:002008-11-08T10:07:15.485+11:00

Phrenology, the pseudo-science based on the belief that by examining the shape of a subject’s head, one can determine various traits of character and intelligence was based on the work of the Viennese physician Franz Josef Gall. Popularized in England by Johann Gaspar Spurzheim, it reached its zenith in the latter years of the eighteenth and the early years of the nineteenth century before

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-3479918182443874232008-10-17T13:01:00.007+11:002008-10-21T10:04:11.076+11:00

In the 1860s, it was not uncommon to find advertisements on the front page of The Times for a book on beauty by one Madame Rachel. The book, more of a pamphlet at only 24 pages, was published in 1863, and could be purchased at 47a New Bond-Street. Available to the discerning buyer for only 2s. 6d. it was entitled Beautiful for Ever, and, according to the advertisement, was a book "on Female

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-2978582464207215102008-10-04T14:33:00.009+10:002008-10-21T11:38:04.824+11:00

Cleopatra's Needle on the Victoria EmbankmentOn the Victoria Embankment in London, passed by millions of pedestrians every year, is an Egyptian obelisk known as Cleopatra's Needle. One of three, the other two are in New York and Paris, it is made of red granite and stands 68 feet tall. Passerbys occasionally stop and look at it or take a photograph for their album, but few would know the

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-49356791460327122008-08-11T14:26:00.003+10:002008-08-11T14:41:45.117+10:00

Morisot, The Wet Nurse (1880)In recent years there appears to have been a resurgence in "cross-feeding," the practice of breast feeding of infants by other members of the family than the mother. Although often differentiated from "wet nursing," where the nurse was an outsider hired to breast feed, the principle of using the non-maternal breast is much the same. There is no question that wet

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-1491972007500888712008-07-30T10:59:00.010+10:002008-12-13T11:45:39.086+11:00

The Great Exhibition Hall, The Crystal Palace On a cloudy and mildly threatening first day of May in 1851, Queen Victoria arrived at the Great Exhibition to a tumultuous welcome. Attired in a dress of pink watered silk, brocaded with silver and decorated with pink and blonde ribbons ornamented with diamonds, she wore a head dress of diamonds and feathers and on her arm, the Order of the Garter.

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-33796319600885972462008-07-18T14:50:00.005+10:002008-12-13T11:45:39.870+11:00

On 14 April 1887, the steamship, State of Nebraska entered the Thames and anchored at Gravesend fourteen days after leaving the United States. Despite a rousing send-off with, according to Colonel William F. (Buffalo Bill) Cody, thousands there to see the travellers away, the voyage was not easy, with headwinds for much of the trip. But what made this trip unusual was its passengers including

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-63202367878390236282008-06-25T17:03:00.007+10:002008-12-13T11:45:40.942+11:00

A Hansom CabFor many of us, especially those living in the "colonies", our introduction to the Hansom cab came as we first read the works of Dr John Watson about his sometime companion Sherlock Holmes, the greatest detective of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This is neither the time nor the place to explore the relationship between the two men or their involvement with Sir Arthur

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-51099206292452693202008-06-22T21:28:00.008+10:002008-12-13T11:45:42.088+11:00

Bridge Before the DisasterBeautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!Alas! I am very sorry to sayThat ninety lives have been taken awayOn the last Sabbath day of 1879Which will be remember’d for a very long time.Almost everyone would be familiar with the work of William Topaz McGonagall (pictured on the right). And among the very worst of his appalling output was The Tay Bridge Disaster! But

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-8327750606335442122008-06-15T09:41:00.006+10:002008-12-13T11:45:42.287+11:00

While modern vegetarians with an interest in the past may well know that a diet excluding meat has a long and honourable history, most of us tend to believe it is a fad of the middle years of the twentieth century. Those who think back as far as the beginning of the last century will remember that George Bernard Shaw was an advocate of vegetarianism but are still likely to think of it as a diet

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-86374051238212642492008-06-03T19:17:00.006+10:002008-12-13T11:45:42.783+11:00

Victorian funerals were big business. Indeed, there were funerals pitched at all levels of society. At their most elaborate, they could bring even the great metropolis to a standstill. When the Queen's Consort, Prince Albert, died, the whole of the realm went into mourning. Not only were church bells tolled throughout the land, many churches held special services and shops in many towns were

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-60322527205532051972007-12-12T12:52:00.000+11:002008-12-13T11:45:42.979+11:00

It’s a warm summer’s day in London in the latter years of Victoria’s reign, the temperature is climbing and the streets are crowded with the hustle and bustle that we know characterizes the great metropolis. We are in Shoreditch or Seven Dials or any one of the great city’s numerous poorer districts. It is time for an Ice or an Ice-Cream.It was only at mid-century that the Ice and Ice-Cream

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-5147133449415815072007-12-11T14:06:00.000+11:002007-12-12T12:18:43.830+11:00

Tuesday, the third of September 1878, was a fine day for an excursion. Around seven-hundred men, women and children took advantage of the weather to cram aboard the saloon steamer, the Princess Alice, for a day on the river. The boat left London about 11.00 in the morning, heading downstream for Gravesend, a distance of thirty-one miles, and from there, on to Sheerness. The trip to Gravesend

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-92191969344999274372007-12-03T13:12:00.001+11:002008-12-13T11:45:43.125+11:00

The real "Coster's" entertainment was the Penny Gaff, a form of rough entertainment enjoyed by the lower classes. In reality the Penny Gaff was as far removed from the Music Hall as Albert Chevalier, one of the great Music Hall entertainers and the epitome of the stage "Coster" was from the real thing! At mid-century Penny Gaffs were described by Henry Mayhew.In many of the thoroughfares of

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-77385710980432480112007-12-02T19:52:00.000+11:002007-12-02T20:30:49.220+11:00

The end of the nineteenth and the first two decades of the twentieth centuries was the heyday of the Music Hall. It was in these institutions that one could see the greatest entertainers of the Victorian years; entertainers like Dan Leno, Albert Chevalier, Little Tich, Marie Lloyd and Vesta Tilley. Although the Victorian Music Halls may have declined from the 1920s on, their influence was to be

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-30558510875400524612007-09-25T11:49:00.000+10:002008-12-13T11:45:43.567+11:00

Noise, noise, noise. It didn’t matter which way one turned, Victorian London was awash with noise. Noisy traffic, noisy industry, street musicians, the cries of street-sellers and street collectors echoed through London. From morning till night, the costermongers could be heard crying their wares and music whether just the organ-grinder, or the full brass band seemed to surround one night and

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-69920786625400236952007-09-21T10:27:00.000+10:002008-12-13T11:45:43.674+11:00

One thing that commentators, both domestic and foreign, noticed in Victorian London was the smell. To put it in the simplest possible terms, London was "on the nose."As the city expanded and industrialized, tenements spring up to meet the housing requirements of the factory workers and their families. Older buildings were turned into flats which were then subdivided into even smaller flats.

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-68138714818138468942007-05-25T11:28:00.000+10:002007-05-25T11:32:23.684+10:00

One of the major sources of education and particularly self-help for working men was to be found in the Working Men’s Clubs. Not surprisingly, attempts had been made all through Victoria's reign to control the working classes and to convince them of the virtues of industrial capitalism. The origins of the Working Men's Club movement was, in large part, an extension of just such attempts at

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-18558904308758947912007-05-21T10:21:00.000+10:002007-05-21T10:33:33.200+10:00

Thursday, the 28th of June, 1838, dawned early for the young Queen. She was awakened at 4.00 by the sound of guns in the Park and dozed fitfully until 7.00. Outside the palace and all the way to the Abbey, people crowded up Constitution Hill watching the soldiers and listening to the bands playing.By 8.00 the streets were thick with people and platforms had been erected on which, for a fee of 2s

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-45292300719426696382007-05-15T10:07:00.000+10:002007-05-15T10:22:21.307+10:00

While fighting may have been a man’s game, and certainly the vast majority of spectators were male, there was always something new and different to appeal to the potential audience. In 1852, at Kensal-green, a fight took place between two women who according to a writer to The Times “fought for about half-an-hour, some say for 5s., some say for a sovereign, and some say they will do it again. I

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-40029778721312855492007-02-09T12:15:00.000+11:002007-02-09T12:32:07.111+11:00

It must have been something of a surprise to visitors to the Thames Tunnel one day in the 1840s to see a group of American Indians gazing in wonder at that marvel of contemporary engineering. According the George Catlin,When they entered the Tunnel, and were told that they were under the middle of the Thames, and that the great ships were riding over their heads, they stood in utter astonishment,

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-1166061579361510872006-12-14T12:51:00.000+11:002006-12-14T13:49:31.233+11:00

As the Christmas season is upon us, it seems appropriate to reconsider that most important element of the Victorian holiday season, the Christmas pudding. Ebenezer Scrooge, at least prior to the visitations of the Ghosts, could hardly have been described as a fan of such fare. "Every idiot," he tells us, "who goes abut with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-1164019096386840412006-11-20T21:23:00.000+11:002006-12-12T18:09:33.086+11:00

A London fog is brown, reddish-yellow, or greenish, darkens more than a white fog, has a smoky, or sulphurous smell, is often somewhat dryer than a country fog, and produces, when thick, a choking sensation. Instead of diminishing while the sun rises higher, it often increases in density, and some of the most lowering London fogs occur about midday or late in the afternoon. Sometimes the brown

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-1162351865501474452006-11-01T14:16:00.000+11:002006-11-01T14:51:08.486+11:00

Victorians came to the Alps for many and varied reasons; but in the first two decades of Victoria's long reign, whatever the reasons might be, sensible English men and women felt obliged to justify what must have seemed to many a foolhardy and futile activity. In the main, this was done by linking it to exploration; the search for knowledge that seemed to obsess so many of the Victorian middle

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-1160788882036944852006-10-14T12:17:00.000+11:002006-10-30T23:58:23.073+11:00

The Victorian Era is often seen as a period of great progress and certainly material developments continued through the Queen's reign. Progress, however, always carries with it a social cost. As Great Britain became increasingly urban, it was the steam locomotive which came to be seen by many as the symbol of the age. The building of the British railways in the nineteenth century was, as E. L.

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-1160455819785817282006-10-10T15:01:00.000+11:002006-10-10T15:56:30.713+11:00

Christmas, as we know it today, is very much a product of nineteenth century England and particularly the Victorian era. Certainly Victorians enjoyed the holiday looking both backward to the maintenance of old traditions and forward with the development of new ways of celebrating. In some respects, Christmas represented the ambivalence of Victorian Society in general. On the one hand, it was a

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-1159587501453218242006-09-30T13:31:00.000+10:002006-10-01T21:44:05.720+11:00

The primary means of transportation, particularly for the lower and labouring classes during the bulk of Victoria’s reign, was walking. “To go afoot,” Victorians might be reminded, “has ever been deemed the extreme of poverty or folly, and has accordingly been marked with deserved contempt,” but it was typical of middle-class Victorians that they would make a virtue of necessity; especially if

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-1159177704300891572006-09-25T19:45:00.000+10:002006-12-13T20:18:07.120+11:00

One of the most popular forms of English amusement throughout the Nineteenth Century was the Punch and Judy show. Punch, an evil, hooknosed, humpbacked figure was the main character in the glove puppet presentation. By the middle years of the nineteenth century the Punch and Judy show had entered its golden age. Punchmen performed wherever they thought they might draw a paying audience including

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-1158361251942548162006-09-16T08:42:00.000+10:002006-09-16T09:00:51.950+10:00

There is a tendency to believe that education came to England with the 1870 Education Act. In fact, the state had been involved since at least the 1830s and the debate over education for the the poor had been going for many many years prior to that. In Scotland every parish had had a school since the seventeenth century and as early as 1807 a bill was introduced in England's Parliament which

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-1158023214274007042006-09-12T10:11:00.000+10:002006-09-13T09:37:46.436+10:00

It was not until 1948 that women were admitted to degrees at Cambridge University although as early as 1868 it had created "Higher Locals" examinations for women over the age of eighteen. The University clearly had no intention of being rushed into opening its doors to women albeit in 1870 lectures for women were inaugurated.The push by women continued and in 1873 Girton College moved to the edge

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34093396.post-1157762104619809802006-09-09T10:45:00.001+10:002010-05-07T13:05:34.776+10:00

Most writers on the Victorian Era make the point that Victorians were often earnest and serious people. Certainly one has the impression that they attacked life, including their recreations, both earnestly and seriously. One did not simply enjoy one's self, one had a "higher" reason which justified support for an activity. I would suggest that this may well have been a class view, rather than

Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591761401001848135noreply@blogger.com2