Table Of ContentTable of Contents
Introduction
A
Advertising bills
[illustration] [advertising boards, vans: Punch, 1850]
Advertising boards
Advertising vans
The Arethusa Training Ship
'At Homes'
B
A 'B' Meeting
A Baby Show
A Balloon Ride
Bar-Maids
[illustration] [Niagara Rocking Bath, advertisement: Pick Me Up, 1891]
Bathing
Bazaars
Bed Bugs
Beggars
Bicycle Races
Billingsgate Market
Black Eyes
Blackmail
The Blind School
[illustration] [Bloomerism cartoon: Punch, 1851]
Bloomerism
[illustration] [Bloomerism cartoon: Punch, 1851]
Burglars
C
Cabs
Candles
Casual Labour
The Can-Can
Cars
Childhood Discipline
Christmas
[illustration] [crinoline cartoon: Punch, 1856]
Clothing of the 1850s. and 1860s.
Coffee Houses
The Colosseum
Coffee Public-Houses
Consumption
A Convict Hulk
Corsets, offering protection
Cremorne Gardens
Cross-Dressing
The Crystal Palace
Curry
[illustration] [cycling cartoon: Punch, 1882]
Cycling in London
D
Dancing-Rooms
Dancing Bears
Department Stores
Destitution
Detectives
Dinner
[illustration] [one-legged sweeper: London Labour and the London Poor, 1851]
Disability
Districts
Dockland
E
An East End Flower Show
Electric Light
Employment
English Cuisine
Enon Chapel
Etiquette
F
[illustration] [baked potato man: London Labour and the London Poor, 1851]
Fast Food
The Field Lane Refuge
Flats
Flogging
Fog
Forfeits
Freaks
Funerals
Fur-Pullers
Furious Driving
G
Gambling Clubs
[illustration] [early cigarette lighter, advertisement: Pick Me Up, 1891]
Gaslight
[illustration] [gin palace: Punch, 1860]
A Gin Palace
Graffiti
The Great Wheel
Grotto Day
Guerilla advertising
H
Hanging
Highbury Barn
Hints for Husbands and Wives
Homeless Children
Hooligans
The House Telegraph
I
Immigrants
Importing Ice
Industrial Illness
J
Jacob's Island
[illustration] [gory posters: Punch, 1888]
The Jack the Ripper Show
Jamrach's
A Japanese Village
A Juvenile Party
K
Kensal Green Cemetery
Knockers Up
L
Lambeth Floods
Laundry
[illustration] [crowded lodgings, during Great Exhibition: Punch, 1851]
Lodgings
London Gin
A London House
Londoners
The Lowther Arcade
M
[illustration] [servant-mistress relations: Punch, 1853]
The Maid of All Work
Make-Up
Marriage, Pro Forma
The Match-Girl
The Mesmeric Infirmary
Miasma
[illustration] [London water: Punch, 1850]
A Microscopical Society
Midland Grand Hotel
Milk Women
Mistaken Identity
Monday Pops
Mourning
Mud Larks
Music Hall
N
[illustration] [female convicts, Brixton gaol: Criminal Prisons of London, 1862]
Newgate Gaol
Night Houses
Nuisances
A Nursery
O
The Old Bailey
[illustration] [a bus stop: Punch, 1876]
Omnibuses
Opium
Outings
P
A Packed Lunch
Paving
Pawnbrokers
Pedestrianism
Penny Dreadfuls
Penny Gaffs
Piccadilly
Photography
Policemen
The Polytechnic
Pornographic Objects
Postal deliveries
The Potato Thrower
Prams
[illustration] ['gay' women, ie. prostitutes: Punch, 1857]
Prostitution
Privies
Public Bathing
Public Toilets
Q
Quackery
R
Raffles amongst the poor
Rail Journeys
Ratcliffe Highway
Rats
Reading
Recycling
[illustration] [rollerskating: Punch, 1876]
Rollerskating
Rotten Row, Hyde Park
S
St. James's Park
Samuel Scott, The American Diver
Sea Water Baths
Secret Vice
Seven Dials
Shooting Galleries
Shopkeepers' Greek
Shop Work
Slang
Slops
Smithfield Market
[illustration] [ballet girls, smoking: Pick Me Up, 1891]
Smoking
The Snail Telegraph
Snow
Somaliland in London
Song Writing
Spiritualism
Spring-Heeled Jack
Squirrels
[illustration] [street conjurer: London Labour and the London Poor, 1851]
Street Acrobats
Suburbs
Suicide
Surrey Zoological Gardens
Sweatshops
T
The Tea-Leafer
Telegraphic Paralysis
Telegraphists and Telephonists
Terrorism
The Thames
The Thames Tunnel
Till-Lifting
Toll Gates
The Tooley Street Fire
Tooth Powder
Toys
Traffic
The Travelling Cad
U
Underclothing
Underground
Unwanted Pregnancy
V
Vitriol Throwing
W
Warnings to Travellers
Wet Nursing
Workhouses
X
X-Ray
Z
Zuleilah
Appendix I - Picture Postcards
Appendix II - A Note on Sources
Introduction
This anthology has one simple goal: to give the reader a flavour of 'how life was
lived' in Victorian London, through the words of the Victorians themselves. It is
not a comprehensive study; but I have revisited an archive of ten years' reading
and research — nineteenth century diaries, newspapers, magazines, memoirs,
guidebooks — in an attempt to include as many diverse aspects of Victorian life
as possible. There is, I must admit, a certain bias in my choice of material: I
concentrate on the poor and middle-class. Queen Victoria is glimpsed at a
distance, in Hyde Park; MPs and members of the aristocracy appear as the
patrons of charities; but this is a book about the everyday.
Some of these excerpts make for rather grim reading: the graphic account of
a botched back-street abortion; the plight of homeless children, abandoned by
their parents; the fever-ridden slums of Jacob's Island. Crime is also to the fore:
attempts at blackmail; the rise of the 'hooligan' in Lambeth; the vicious malice of
the 'vitriol thrower'. Likewise, it is impossible to neglect the scourge of
prostitution in the capital, albeit with one rare instance of a 'soiled dove' who
'made good'. I have, therefore, included a few gratuitous doses of quirky
Victoriana, to leaven the mix: advice on keeping pet squirrels; the invention of
the snail telegraph (the supposed power of 'escargotic vibration'); how to make
tooth powder (with the obligatory drop of cocaine).
I also focus on street life. Hence you will find articles about the giant
'advertising vans' which blocked major thoroughfares; races between rival
omnibus companies; the wall painters who engaged in 'guerilla advertising'; the
delights of Victorian fast food (sheep's trotters, anyone?). This book, at its best,
should provide a vicarious form of time travel. The reader will feel, I hope, that
they have walked the streets of Victorian London and, having read the more
intimate passages — how to remove bed-bugs; tips on wet-nursing; dire
warnings against 'secret vice' — that they have also glimpsed behind closed
doors. Some things herein may appear quaint — complaints against the
immorality of the 'can-can'; disdain for women practising 'bloomerism' (ie.
wearing trousers); the unlikely forfeits demanded by parlour games — but they
all throw a revealing light on the distinctive mores of the time.
I hope, too, that a few things will surprise and astonish, to the extent that
