Tag Archives: London history

This time it’s the gabby cabby

Posted on January 7, 2018 by

By coincidence another cab-related case from 1862 that I just had to share. This time it seems as if the boot is on the other foot. There is more than a hint of irony that after driving like a crazy … Continue reading →

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It’s the rich wot gets the pleasure

Posted on January 6, 2018 by

And the poor knew their place. This is the story from the Bow St Magistrate’s Court in 1862. It’s the tale of a cheapo toff who was embarrassed when a short-changed cabby chased him and shouted at him in the … Continue reading →

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Telephone’s early adopters

Posted on November 2, 2016 by

An aside into Victorian business life is the fact that when a London solicitors sent a letter on April 27 1885, its headed paper quoted the firm’s telephone number. The number was 1095 and there genuinely were another 1094 phones … Continue reading →

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Old Slaughter’s Coffee House; ‘Now among the things that were…’

Posted on October 19, 2016 by

  Thursday March 30 1843 saw the auctioning off of a London landmark just for its building materials. The wildly misnamed and deeply corrupt government department, the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, had bought the site at number 74 St … Continue reading →

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Just a graze…

Posted on September 15, 2016 by

Once upon a time the uncertainty and certainty of death hung over everybody, everywhere, all the time, as this brief report from the London Evening Standard in 1840 shows…

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Elegant shopping at Derry and Toms

Posted on August 4, 2016 by

Great graphic commercial art from the 1920s in this piece from Dave Walker about the department store in Kensington, now long gone… Victoria Station, at a quiet time of the day. Sometime…in the 1920s, I think. A display unit, and … Continue reading →

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The worst slum in London

Posted on July 25, 2016 by

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 … Continue reading →

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E Pur si Muove

Posted on November 18, 2015 by

There is something disarmingly strengthening when you hear that innocent piping voice of history whispering from the unencumbered past, ‘excuse me, but I think you are perhaps mistaken…” I am not a climatologist, but… I am certain that the congregation … Continue reading →

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The rules of the road in the 19th century

Posted on June 25, 2015 by

It’s been the equivalent to an earworm. It has been driving me a bit crazy after I read on another great history site that there were no traffic rules in 19th century London. The estimable site is Two Nerdy History … Continue reading →

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Asylum seekers or economic migrants stealing jobs?

Posted on May 14, 2015 by

Research is like rummaging through your dead grandad’s belongings, only to discover some never-told secret. I wasn’t looking for information on Jewish East European immigration; my interest was in Octavius Morgan and his views, as demonstrated by his speeches in … Continue reading →

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