Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 25
‘The idea that women – particularly respectable women – might want or need purpose-built public toilets, on the streets of the capital, was considered a nonsense. Those in…
Victorian London
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 24
‘They claimed the hint of mud added to the liquid’s vital properties.’ Throughout this month, Lee Jackson reveals the background to Dirty Old London: The…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 23
‘Sewer workers were sent to unblock tunnels clogged with everything from ‘coals, cinders, bottles, broken pots’ to ‘old hats, dead cats, scrubbing brushes’; and…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 22
‘As one contemporary put it, ‘People like to be buried in company, and in good company’.’ Throughout this month, Lee Jackson reveals the background…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 19
‘Flanking one side of the yard were a score or so of upreared dustcarts, and on the other side, extending almost from the outer…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 18
‘Fog also crept indoors. Court-rooms, museums, theatres and art galleries could become filled with a choking haze. Perhaps the worst such incident occurred at…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 16
‘Respectable householders and shopkeepers regularly wrote letters to the parish authorities, describing disused doorways or entrances being used as ‘urinals’, citing the offence to…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 14
‘There was something of the fairground sideshow about this supposedly educational experience.’ Throughout this month, Lee Jackson reveals the background to Dirty Old London: The…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 13
‘Chadwick had spent a decade campaigning for sanitary improvement to prevent disease. Now he had to prove himself, at very short notice…’ Throughout this…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 12
‘The disease was much feared. There was no known treatment; no obvious cause; symptoms were hideous; visitations sudden and frequently fatal.’ Throughout this month,…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 9
‘If one lives in dear, dirty old London, [washing] three times a day is none too often’ Throughout this month, Lee Jackson reveals the…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 8
‘For many Victorians, the capital’s slums were not a source of misery but a profitable little investment.’ Throughout this month, Lee Jackson reveals the…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 7
‘In 1849, the notion of modest females requiring such public conveniences was almost inconceivable; or perhaps Bazalgette merely thought such matters too unseemly to discuss with…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 6
‘Few working men could afford the luxury of a bathing costume. Most (in)famously, the Serpentine was ‘obscene with bathers’ at dusk and dawn. Flustered…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 5
‘The stench from poorly-managed grounds was revolting, and some considered this to be a species of dangerous ‘miasma’, analogous to the stink from cesspools…