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Tag Archives: social history
Jemmy Wood the banker’s banker
He was not what you’d call a looker. In profile Jemmy Wood bore a passing resemblance to Mr Punch following a good lunch – but James Wood esq, ‘the eccentric banker, merchant and draper’ of the city of Gloucester, England … Continue reading
“She rode to town on her own horse”
Just a further thought on the “scandalous practice of wife selling” from the previous story. This idea of an auction was not any brutalising suttee of a marriage where women were subjugated by gnarly unreconstructed men who had tired of the old … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged plymouth England wife sale, social history, wife auction, wife selling, women
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The end of an un-civil partnership
A note of a dubious anniversary from Robert Chambers, writing in his 1869 Book of Days, though history is full of these quasi-divorces throughout the 19th century. Usually they were surprisingly amicable affairs based on village common sense when a marriage … Continue reading
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Tagged divorce in 19th century, social history, wife auction, wife sale, wife selling
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Your seed catalogue for 1797 has arrived
Fresh off the ship from England, five, yes count them, five, different varieties of asparagus seed and 23 different melon varieties. Things weren’t so bad in Philadelphia after the war as long as you could feast on 13 different kinds … Continue reading
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Tagged gardening, Goldthwait and Moore, Seed Catalogue 1797, social history
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(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 Continue reading
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Tagged 19th century, Advertising history, crime and punishment, punishment, social history
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Is there a rack where disused words are hung?
Is there a rack where disused words are hung like lost umbrellas, waiting for someone to claim and recycle them? Here’s a verb: to glimm. Sadly I am either much too young or much too old to ever utter it, … Continue reading
Posted in actonbooks
Tagged 19th century, changing definitions of words, glimming, social history, to glimm, words
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Zebras in harness
This is the main attraction. This was the story that first stopped me in my tracks taken from that page of The Graphic published that August Saturday 119 years ago. I was distracted by so many other stories on that … Continue reading
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Tagged 1895, 19th century, history, hobbies, rich men, Rothschild, social history, taboos, The Graphic, Tring, zebras, zebras in harness
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