Not that long ago, my neighbour’s car was stolen. Not a very unusual, or even a interesting story. He parked, he went into his house, went to bed, woke up, car was gone. Happens all the time. But until this morning, short of a dramatic, gangland-style car-jacking, I thought you
Tag: Victorian
Total 26 Posts
A long post today, so bear with me (or go and make a sandwich, whichever seems more sensible). The wonderful Lee Jackson, onlie begetter of Victorian London website, and author of splendid Victorian mysteries, has written on the early days of the theatrical Sweeney Todd. I thought I would add
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
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
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
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