The Shoe Black Brigades

With Victorian London's streets full of horse manure, pedestrians shoes became very dirty fast.  With the support of the Ragged Schools, a shoe black brigade was formed in 1851.  Organizers thought that shoe shining was a relatively safe way (compared to chimney sweeping) to earn money.  Their savings could later be used to immigrate to America. Shoe blacks, situated on the Strand, Piccadilly, Regent Street and Holborn, could earn 8s 6d per week.

In 1851, the London Shoe Black Brigade was formed.  A licence cost 5 shillings per year.  With The Great Exhibition fast approaching, organizers saw it as a chance for shoe blacks to shine -- literally -- the shoes of foreign visitors.  During the six month exhibition, 25 shoe blacks shined 101,000 pairs of shoes for a total of 500 pounds.  Five of the boys used their money to immigrate to America.  At its peak, a dozen brigades were operating, each with its own distinct uniform.

http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications/thomson-36a.png

The Commodity Culture of Victorian London

"The street-seller cries his goods at the head of a barrow; the enterprising tradesman distributes his goods at the door of his shop."  (Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor)

Imagine a newsboy hawking papers:  "Extra!  Extra!  Read all about it!"  That was how goods were sold in Victorian times, in the streets.  Street sellers would appeal to sound rather than sight.  Their targetted audience was London's working class.  Street-sellers appeared in the form of barkers, bill deliverers, bill stickers, sandwich board men and advertising van men.  

https://www.pinterest.com/montyjohns/old-london/

While the street sellers focussed on the working class, the shop owners set their sights on the middle class.  While most of the working class could not read, the middle class could.  Advertisers appealed to their sense of sight.  Street ads appeared on walls and in newspapers.  Early ads, in black in white, focussed on text.  In the later Victorian period, the ads contained colourful pictures.  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2487041/Dickens-London-brought-life-Fascinating-snapshot-Victorian-street-traders-taken-dawn-photography.html

The Great Exhibition, the launching pad for many new products, set the tone for London advertising in the second half of the Victorian era.  On the pretty walkways of Hyde Park, visitors could gaze at pretty displays.  No longer was did entrepreneurs just focus on the product, but also on its presentation.  "The Great Exhibition represented the material world as an unchanging configuration of consumable objects." (Thomas Richards, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England)  Organizers of the event even printed a catalogue for the six month exhibition.

http://www.amazon.com/World-Shilling-Exhibition-Shaped-Nation/dp/0747266484

Note:  For more information, read The World for a Shilling;  How the Great Exhibition of 1851 Shaped a Nation by Michael Leapman at http://www.amazon.com/World-Shilling-Exhibition-Shaped-Nation/dp/0747266484.

Colourful soap ad circa 1899 courtesy http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/selling-the-victorians/calverts-carbolic-bath-soap-1899/.

300,000 Gallons of Ginger Beer

"According to a rough estimate, there must be about 300,000 gallons of ginger-beer sold per annum in the streets and immediate neighbourhood of London."

 (Street Life in London, John Thomson and Adolphe Smith, 1877)

Ginger beer was the drink of choice for many Brits in the Victorian era.  "According to a rough estimate, there must be about 300,000 gallons of ginger-beer sold per annum in the streets and immediate neighbourhood of London."  It was a pleasant, non-alcoholic alternative to beer.  Becoming a ginger beer maker required little money and no skills.  Many Londoners took up the job.  An old fashioned ginger beer recipe called for ginger, sugar, water, lemon juice and ginger beer plant (http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2632604/old-fashioned-ginger-beer-recipe).  Because of the fermentation process, the original ginger beer did contain a small, but insignificant amount of alcohol.  

Street ginger beer makers needed a nine gallon stew pan to brew their recipe.  However, if they could not afford the pot, they simply brewed the beer in their laundry tub, unbeknownst to their customers.  Then they poured the brew into glass bottles which their customers returned upon consuming the product.  Street ginger beer makers tended to charge more than the price at the pub.  

Commercial ginger beer makers used the proper equipment, therefore, eliminating the unhygienic practices of their street counterparts.  However, the factory ginger beer could be contaminated by led from the pots (http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications/thomson-27.htm).  Even so, because the liquid was boiled, consumers were usually better off drinking the ginger beer rather than the tainted water from the River Thames.

While ginger beer was prevalent on London's streets it was also popular in Victorian London's open air resorts such as Clapham Common, Hampstead, Greenwich and Battersea Park.  ON a broiling summer's day, ginger beer was a welcome respite from a parched throat.  Gingerbeer's crowing moment was London's Great Exhibition of 1851 where 1,092,337 bottles of ginger beer was sipped in the Crystal Palace (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2016/04/the-crystal-palace-exhibition.html).

You may wonder what the difference is between ginger beer and ginger ale.  While ginger beer is brewed (fermented) and contains a small amount of alcohol, ginger ale is simply carbonated and contains no alcohol.  

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