A puzzle for untangling, suggestions extremely welcome. On 2 January 1858, the Illustrated London News reported that ‘Great exertions have been made’ at Westminster Abbey, ‘to adapt the nave…to the purpose of popular worship’. As the Abbey had been a place of worship for 1,000 years, this at first (and
Tag: 19th century
Total 43 Posts
In 1867, says the Illustrated London News, 170 people in London were killed by vans, omnibuses, cabs and carts. Well, actually what it says is, 170 people were killed by ‘van-drivers, and omnibus-men, and cabmen, and carters’. I find that striking. Today we say someone was killed in an ‘accident’,
I’ve been seeing a lot of books right now on the development of forensic science — some good, some rather repellently enjoying the gore (*gives girlish shudder*). One that stands well above the rest is Douglas Starr’s The Killer of Little Shepherds: The Case of the French Ripper and the
The good news has just come through that the Cleveland Street Workhouse, one of the very few surviving 18th-century workhouses, has been listed, and gained therefore a stay of execution. Instead of being turned into another (yawn) block of ‘luxury’ flats (does anyone ever put up flats that are projected
As more and more smokers congregate outside, should we worry about the hazards of smoking? In 1843 it wasn’t lung-cancer, it was exploding houses that smokers trailed in their wake. A man in Clerkenwell lit his cigar at a gas light on the outside of a shop, using a paper
Want to rent some housebreaking tools? Never thought of burglar-rental as a way of earning a living? Mr Zachariah Philips of White Hart Yard, Drury Lane, ‘Lends out Pistols to Highwaymen & others by the Night at so much for their use’, while Mr Baker, of One Tun Court, the
In Our Mutual Friend, Twemlow (who is, it is my firm contention, the real hero of the book) lives in Duke Street, St James’s, over a livery-stable. The London Library now backs into Mason’s Yard, which is indeed in Duke Street, St James’s. I’ve looked at maps of the period
Today’s mystery. I was writing a piece for the Sunday Times earlier in the year, and they sent me some images to accompany my review. One was captioned ‘Taglioni’: I’m pretty clear it’s not Taglioni — the shoes, everything about it suggests 1870s/1880s to me, and, although I don’t know
English