Nowadays the average twentysomething works their way through temporary though deep relationships before permanence happens in the shape of marriage (or something like it). For 19th century women it wasn’t so easy. So we can forgive, if that is the appropriate word, San Francisco shop worker Flora Shallcross Stone. To not appear ‘flighty’ it… Continue reading Who killed Harry Larkyns?
Tag: 19th century
The worst slum in London
In Victorian London most of the poor lived in what would be called slum housing. During the 18th century many ramshackle ‘courts’ had been built as a result of speculative infilling behind street frontages. However, the reputation of one court stands out. For at least 40 years, from the 1830s, there was an enclave in The Royal Borough… Continue reading The worst slum in London
The other side of Frederick Furnivall: Tiny Teena
Maybe I painted old man Furnivall as too benign and saintly an old chap. He was not without what they might call ‘personal issues’ earlier in life. Firstly, as George Bernard Shaw wrote “He was a good sort, but his quarrels were outrageous…” When he fell out with poet Algernon Swinburne, he used his lexicographical… Continue reading The other side of Frederick Furnivall: Tiny Teena
A little exercise
Why does history sometimes abandon the memory of a great and colourful character? It’s midday on a chilly February Sunday in the year 1910. At Hammersmith, a western suburb of London still countrified, 1,000 people have gathered on the bridge over the Thames. A ripple of applause and cheering breaks out for a thin row… Continue reading A little exercise
(I do not) Want Ad
You did not want to mess with this lady, Mrs Nancy Turtle. She surely believed in the power of advertising, though her forgiveable spluttering volcano of anger could have been phrased better, this stream of consciousness rant paints a perfect picture of her lantern-jawed, one-eyed philanderer excuse for a husband
Forever blowing bubbles
It was the BIBA of its age. As one commentator put it “All the world and his wife is visiting Dr Dresser’s shop”.
Religious significance has the whip hand on the road
The Victorians — people of the age, not just those under the flag of the British Empire — were proudly aware that they did not know everything; though each and every day they grew to know more and more. They knew how to put things together. They knew how to explore. They gloried in doing… Continue reading Religious significance has the whip hand on the road
The days when sorry did not seem to be the hardest word
Just in case any researcher stumbles upon my thoughts on whether there was once a “rule of the road” in England that said drive on the left. Yes there was, and here’s proof it predated that 1835 Act of Parliament cited in the last post. Also, in passing, what a nice chap was the reverend… Continue reading The days when sorry did not seem to be the hardest word