1837 -2018; Spot the difference. I tend not to become exercised at the wilder fringes of this debate, but hey, give me a break — the discrimination in this photograph (below), is just wrong. But first, to set the context, is the tad patronising, sexist but so of its era introduction to an 1837 self-help book… Continue reading Injudicious and erroneous education
Tag: social history
This time it’s the gabby cabby
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 and not knowing the way to King’s Cross, Sam Simmons started abusing poor Mr Keith… Continue reading This time it’s the gabby cabby
It’s the rich wot gets the pleasure
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 street for underpaying. Using his position in society the man turned the tables on the… Continue reading It’s the rich wot gets the pleasure
“CHILD FOUND”
You have to wonder what was the eventual fate of this unfortunate baby girl — though perhaps being given up was the best that could have happened to her, given the alternative that parents often chose. Infanticide followed by disposing of dead babies around churchyards and other less salubrious out of the way places… Continue reading “CHILD FOUND”
Body shaming is not new
A poignant tale from 1798…
The piratical eyes of the magnetic healer
Leamington is a quiet little spa town in Warwickshire near Stratford upon Avon. In the late 1880s it is not difficult to envisage how very Jane Austen it still must have been, with its Pump Room and all, though visitor numbers “taking the waters” had declined drastically. Nearby big city newspaper the Birmingham Post really… Continue reading The piratical eyes of the magnetic healer
Lock Up Your Daughters
I’d like to introduce you to Thomas Napper and his nemesis, Ferdinand Philip Fischel Strousberg. Their story is at the creepier end of plots labelled ‘psychological drama,’ but it was real life and publicly played out in England during the years Americans were tearing themselves to pieces in the Civil War. It’s not just a… Continue reading Lock Up Your Daughters
Looking for a new hobby?
There’s a Brit named Tom Jackson who buys picture postcards — mostly from the sixties and seventies — from garage sales, thrift shops and car boot events. He then puts the picture postcards into the ether via Facebook with just one line of the message included. He now has 40,000 followers, an exhibition at Gatwick… Continue reading Looking for a new hobby?