by Lucy Inglis
‘This being the day’: A. G. Linney, Peepshow of the Port of London (London, 1929), 93.
‘the Waters’: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 1683–1775, vol. 26 (1708–9), 454–78.
‘I remember well’: Gordon Home, Old London Bridge (London, 1931), 254.
‘all sorts of Hair … Diamonds’: ibid., 317.
‘bridge of wonders’: James Howell, Londonopolis (London, 1657).
Of the 27 people: Home, Old London Bridge, 277.
‘My folly in undertaking … and drowned’: ibid., 264.
‘One day Rennie’s bridge’: G. B. Besant, London Bridge (London, 1927), 10.
‘that nautical hamlet’: see Walter Thornbury, ‘The Thames Tunnel, Ratcliff Highway and Wapping’, Old and New London: Volume 2 (London, 1878), 128–37.
‘in use as often’: Pennant, An Account of London, 282.
‘Fishermen off Poplar’: Linney, Peepshow, 80.
‘being in a ship’: James Boswell, Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides (London, 1807 edition), 126.
‘persons who had not any’: Richard Thornton, History of London (London, 1785), 142.
‘pestered with women’: Admiral John Mennes to Pepys, 19 April 1666, quoted in Suzanne J. Stark, Female Tars: Women Aboard Ship in the Age of Sail (London, 1998), 5.
‘I consider it right’: quoted in Stark, Female Tars, 20.
‘in sight and hearing’: ibid., 43.
‘Of all the human race’: quoted in Gregory Fremont-Barnes, Nelson’s Sailors (Oxford, 2005), 48.
‘between the houses’: Pennant, An Account of London, 427.
‘best remembered atrocities’: John Timbs, Romance of London: Strange Stories, Scenes and Remarkable Persons of the Great Town, Volume 2 (London, 1865), 81.
‘A long narrow street’: Pennant, An Account of London, 281.
‘spontaneous gangrene’: Morning Chronicle, 23 January 1832.
9: SOUTHWARK AND LAMBETH
‘hideous … boat-houses’: Edward Walford, ‘Lambeth: Waterloo Road’, Old and New London: Volume 6 (London, 1878), 407.
‘or, as it is called’: Thomas Pennant, An Account of London (London, 1790), 55.
‘What folly’: quoted in ibid., 56.
‘savage … designing to be present’: as reported in The Loyal Protestant and True Domestick Intelligence, 7 April 1682.
‘once more set upon’: report collected in The Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 86, part I (1816), 207.
‘a match to be fought’: Walter Thornbury, ‘Hockley-in-the-Hole’, Old and New London: Volume 2 (London, 1878), 308.
‘barbarous treatment’: William Hogarth, ‘Remarks on Various Prints’, Anecdotes of William Hogarth, Written by Himself (London, 1833), 64.
‘a fine horse’: report collected in The Gentleman’s Magazine, 86 (I), 207.
‘the great resort’: Thomas Dobson, ‘London’, Encyclopedia: Volume X (Philadelphia, 1798), 263.
‘balsamic … ferment in nature’: James Stevens Curl, ‘Spas and Pleasure Gardens of London, from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries’, Garden History, vol. 7, no. 2 (Summer 1979), 60.
‘with Bowling greens … fireworks’: ‘Waterloo Road’, Survey of London, Volume 23. Lambeth: South Bank and Vauxhall (London, 1951), 25–31.
‘which had for that purpose’: Pennant, An Account of London, 32–3.
‘that substantial’: ‘Vauxhall Gardens and Kennington Lane’, Survey of London, 23, 146–7.
‘Pinery … free of Insects’: as advertised in the St James’s Chronicle, 9 September 1775.
‘splendidly illuminated’: from an entry in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia of 1830.
‘this right little’: Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, first published 1857 (Ware, 1996 edition) 59.
‘twenty wards … interment’: ‘Southwark: Old St Thomas’s and Guy’s Hospitals’, Old and New London: 2, 89–100.
‘the patient drink’: John Hogg, London As It Is: Being a series of observations on the health, habits and amusements of the people (London, 1837), 348.
‘admitted and discharged’: Pennant, An Account of London, 52.
Thomas Guy was … on clothes: see ‘Southwark: Old St Thomas’s and Guy’s Hospitals’, Old and New London: 2, 89–100.
‘At the age of … and Mammon’: Pennant, An Account of London, 52.
‘Resurgam Hommo’: bodysnatcher Joseph Naples’ description of himself in his diary.
‘Great respect’: James Blake Bailey, The Diary of a Resurrectionist 1811–1812, To Which are Added an Account of the Resurrection Men in London and a Short History of the Passing of the Anatomy Act (London, 1896), 14.
Italy’s medical students: see Julia Bess Frank, ‘Body Snatching: A Grave Medical Problem’, Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, vol. 49, no. 4 (September 1976), 399–410.
From around 1690: Ruth Richardson, Death, Dissection and the Destitute (London, 1987), 39.
‘it is thereby become necessary’: Julia Bess Frank, ‘Body Snatching’, 400.
In 1793, there were 200: ibid.
Children under three feet: James Blake Bailey, The Diary of a Resurrectionist, 71.
‘three men … into soap’: George Smeeton, Doings in London (London, 1800), 107.
‘great timber-yards … grains’: Pennant, An Account of London, 33.
The first engine could grind … flour and grain: see A. W. Skempton, ‘Samuel Wyatt and the Albion Mill’, Architectural History, vol. 14 (1971), 53–73.
10: SPITALFIELDS, WHITECHAPEL AND STEPNEY
‘The Lanes were deep’: Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain: Volume II, first published 1724–6 (London, 1971 edition), 298.
Their output: see ‘Industries: Brewing’ in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 2 (London, 1911), 169.
Suzanne de Champagné: the account of her family’s escape from France is taken from Carolyn Lougee Chappell, ‘“The Pains I Took to Save My/His Family”: Escape Accounts by a Huguenot Mother and Daughter after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes’, French Historical Studies, vol. 22, no. 1 (Winter 1999), 1–64.
‘This scandalizes’: Robin Gwynn (ed.), Minutes of the Consistory of the French Church of London, Threadneedle Street, 1679–1692 (London, 1994), 146.
‘members of the congregation … refugees’: ibid., 134.
‘They are employed Younger’: Robert Campbell, The London Tradesman (London, 1747), 258.
‘undermining’: Gwynn, Minutes of the Consistory, 332.
‘if her husband’: see Daniel Defoe, The Complete English Tradesman (London, 1726), Chapter XXI.
‘traversed the streets’: J. H. Clapham, ‘The Spitalfields Acts, 1773–1824’, The Economic Journal, vol. 26, no. 104 (December 1916), 460.
‘They had driven away … fancy works’: ibid., 463.
‘The Society met’: ‘Spitalfields Market Area’, Survey of London, Volume 27. Spitalfields and Mile End New Town (London, 1957), 135.
‘it may appear strange … at the loom’: quoted in Clapham, ‘The Spitalfields Acts’, 465.
‘stopped, and looking very gravely’: as reported in The Literary Gazette (London, 1835), 322.
After 1715, the Rector: Walter Thornbury, ‘Whitechapel’, Old and New London: Volume 2 (London, 1878), 142.
‘diverse Lands’: ‘Mile End New Town’, Survey of London, 27, 270.
‘25 Fountains of Lamps’: Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, accessed 7 February 2012), trial of James Withy (February 1718), tl7180227-11.
11: HACKNEY AND BETHNAL GREEN
‘Protestant nonconformity’: ‘Stoke Newington: Growth’, A History of the County of Middlesex, Volume 8: Islington and Stoke Newington parishes (London, 1985), 143–51.
‘a shilling for washing’: Stephen Burley, Hackney New College 1786–1796 (London, 2011), 62.
‘heaps of filth’: ‘Bethnal Green: Communications’, A History of the County of Middlesex, Volume 11: Stepney, Bethnal Green (London, 199
8), 88–90.
In 1751, Bethnal Green village: ‘Bethnal Green: Settlement and Building to 1836’: ibid., 91–5.
From 1800, the construction: ‘Bethnal Green: The East: Old Ford Lane, Green Street, and Globe Town’, ibid., 117–19.
Quaker Francis Trumble: the account of his crime is taken from Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, accessed 7 February 2012), trial of Francis Trumble (July 1739), tl7390718-10.
‘beating & abusing … wife’s desire’: Ruth Paley (ed.), Justice in Eighteenth-Century Hackney: The Justicing Notebook of Henry Norris and the Hackney Petty Sessions Book (London, 1991), 2.
‘though he always appeared’: ‘Merceron, Joseph (c.1764–1839)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).
‘disgusting objects’: for quotes from the Select Committee reports, see Elaine Murphy, ‘A Mad House Transformed: The Lives and Work of Charles James Beverly FRS (1788–1868) and John Warburton MD FRS (1795–1847)’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, vol. 58, no. 3 (September 2004), 267–81.
Carlo earned his living: for details of Carlo’s life, see Sarah Wise, The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave-Robbery in 1830s London (London, 2004).
‘two men, named Bishop and May’: James Blake Bailey, The Diary of a Resurrectionist 1811–1812, To Which are Added an Account of the Resurrection Men in London and a Short History of the Passing of the Anatomy Act (London, 1896), 107.
‘that they had enticed the boy … for twelve shillings’: ibid., 109.
12: ISLINGTON, HAMPSTEAD AND HIGHGATE
‘distempers to which females’: quoted by Stephen Remington in ‘Three Centuries of Sadler’s Wells’, Journal of the Royal Society of the Arts (July 1982), vol. 130, 473.
‘swimming and affecting’: Michael Hays and Anastasia Nikolopoulou (eds.), Melodrama: The Cultural Emergence of a Genre (London, 1998), 171.
‘every village’: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, in 6 Volumes, for 1791 (London, 1840), 324.
The walls were made: Pehr Kalm, Kalm’s Account of his Visit to England: On his Way to America in 1748, translated by Joseph Lucas (London, 1892), 73.
‘morning and evening … at two o’clock’: Edward Walford, ‘Camden Town and Kentish Town’, Old and New London: Volume 5 (London, 1878), 309–24.
‘charming old red-brick’: Geraldine Edith Mitton, Hampstead and Marylebone: The Fascination of London (London, 1902), 15.
‘Hampstead indeed … race of mountaineers’: Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain: Volume II, first published 1724–6 (London, 1971 edition), 168.
‘a miserable invalid’: Mitton, Hampstead and Marylebone, 10.
‘without any consideration’: William Howitt, The Northern Heights of London (London, 1862), 127.
‘oxyde of iron’: Samuel Lewis, ‘Hampstead – Hampton-Wick’, A Topographical Dictionary of England (London, 1848), 394.
‘spa town’: see ‘Hampstead: Settlement and Growth’, A History of the County of Middlesex, Volume 9: Hampstead, Paddington (London, 1989), 8–15.
By the time he was living in Hampstead: ibid., 3–8.
‘It is not known’: Edward Walford, Chapters from the Family Chests (London, 1887), entry for ‘Harriet Mellon’.
‘bury their dead’: ‘Highgate – Part 2 of 2’, Old and New London: 5, 405. See also www.highgate-cemetery.org/index.php/faqs.
‘always at Loggerheads’: Maurice Buxton Forman, The Letters of John Keats (Oxford, 1947), 41.
‘drowsed with the fume’: John Keats, poem ‘To Autumn’ (London, 1819), l. 17.
‘ever be a weaver’s boy’: Forman, The Letters of John Keats, 360.
‘Cockney … blackguard’: in a letter to his publisher, John Murray, dated 18 November 1820.
‘That drop of blood … unfortunate’: William Michael Rosetti, Life of John Keats (London, 1887), 42.
‘the fairy lamplighter’: Sidney Colvin, Keats (London, 1887), 205.
‘Now you must be firm’: Joseph Severn, quoted in W. Jackson Bate, John Keats (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1963), 695.
‘I am broken’: Sue Brown, Joseph Severn, A Life: The Rewards of Friendship (Oxford, 2009), 111.
‘the kindest act’: Forman, The Letters of John Keats, lxiii.
‘4 & 5 ounces’: quoted in Earl Leslie Griggs and Seymour Teulon Porter, ‘Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Opium’, Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 4 (August 1954), 361.
‘I mean to exert’: R. B. Litchfield, Tom Wedgwood, the first photographer: An account of his life, his discovery and his friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, including the letters of Coleridge to the Wedgwoods and an examination of accounts of earlier photographic discoveries (London, 1903), 45.
‘I was seduced’: ibid., 54.
‘I have in this one dirty business’: Earl Leslie Griggs (ed.), Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume I, 1785–1800 (Oxford, 1966), xxxiv.
‘note for a Porter … literary labour’: quoted in Richard Holmes, Coleridge: Darker Reflections, 1804–1834 (London, 1999), 421.
‘loose, slack, not well-dressed’: Colvin, Keats, 347.
‘a white-aproned youth … misery of my Existence’: Porter quoted in Griggs, ‘Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Opium’, HLQ 17 (4), 362.
‘peculiar room … summer day’: Thomas Carlyle, The Life of John Sterling (Boston, 1851), Chapter VIII: extract of memories of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
AFTERWORD
‘two entire miles’: Roy Porter, London: A Social History (London, 1994), 224.
Acknowledgements
I wish I could put this book into my father’s hand and see his face. I hope my mother and sister know what it means to me that they will hold it.
But that this is a book at all is due to Kirsty McLachlan at David Godwin Associates. Kirsty, Heather, David, Anna, Caitlin and everyone there have served Georgian London above and beyond the call of duty.
That this is the book it is, is due to the vision and commitment of my editor, Eleo Gordon. Thanks also to Jillian Taylor, Ben Brusey and the team at Viking who reined in, tactfully, my desire to explore every last detail of the hernia corset, dockside prostitution and fireworks. And to Shân Morley Jones for making copy-editing a charm rather than a chore.
The original manuscript for this book was so unwieldy it would have made most people put their aprons over their faces and weep (and probably did). Thanks to historians Patrick Baty and Adrian Tinniswood for endless encouragement and wise words. You have been stars by which I have navigated.
Thanks to Alex Werner of the Museum of London, who took the time to read the final manuscript and tell me so much I didn’t know. Many thanks also to everyone at the Museum of London for all their help, enthusiasm and good cheer.
But if there are errors in these pages, they are mine.
For being a haven of peace, assistance and tiny tokens of comradeship with strangers, the London Library is without parallel. May we continue to not talk and bless each other’s sneezes. And to all the librarians and archivists whose doorsteps I have darkened by phone, email or in person, thank you.
To Brand Inglis, Richard Courtney and Kaye Michie, because family is not biology. To Anne, Hank and Carly Martin, because family is not geography.
Love and thanks to Katie, Sam and Michael Sedler for our history. To Sue and Paddy Linaker, and Brian and Biffy Rolleston, for always asking how the book was going and being willing to listen to the answer. To Fiona Kirkpatrick, Rory Maxwell and David Child for keeping me sane on a daily basis, and for those nights in that Soho. To Lyn Prendergast for organizing and feeding me, and telling me what it really takes to get into the French Foreign Legion. To Simon Surtees for fifteen years of sarcasm and everything internet. To Bridie for silent support and shared biscuits.
And again, to my husband. If, as Lord Chesterfield said, ‘Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic and folly of ill manners,’ long may we remain so badly behaved.
; THE BEGINNING
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