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/.

What is a True Cockney?

"While all East Enders are Cockneys, not all Cockneys are East Enders." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockney)

Map of areas within earshot of the Bows Bells.  Green area represents 1850 while the blue area represents 2012.  Capacity to hear the bells diminished as ambient sound increased courtesy

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-06/25/bow-bells-cockney/viewgallery/285219

A true Cockney is someone born within earshot of London's Bows Bells which peal from St. Mary Le Bow Church in the city's centre.  In 1850, anyone living six miles to the east, five miles to the north, three miles to the south and four miles to the west of the Bows Bells was considered a Cockney.  My great-grandma, Daisy Blay, who was born in St. Pancras about two and a half miles from St. Mary le Bow Church, was a true Cockney.

Cockney, meaning "cock's egg", was originally a pejorative term to refer to any working class Londoner."Those who could claw their way above the poverty line soon moved out -- aided by the arrival of the railways -- leaving behind the highest concentration of the poor and underprivileged anywhere in London." (http://www.history.co.uk/study-topics/history-of-london/east-end-land-of-the-cockney)

Crime, drunkenness, immorality and violence were common in Cockney London, culminating with the grisly murders committed by Jack the Ripper in 1888 in Whitechapel.  Despite the hardships, Cockneys developped the reputation of possessing an indomitable spirit and a good sense of humour. 

Cockneys created their own rhyming slang, originating with the costermongers, or street traders, in the 1840's.  "Telling porkies" referred to pork pies which rhymed with lies = telling lies.  "Have a butcher's" referred to a butcher's hook which rhymed with look = "Have a look."  

"It's that Cockney  humour -- a sense that goes all the way back.  People have just been bombed out in the Blitz, but they put on a smile, they get down to the pub.  It's the heritage of the East End." (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2016/02/29/the-history-of-eastenders/)

Cockneys reasoned that if they could survive the poverty, survive Jack the Ripper, survive the Blitz, they could survive anything.  My grandma had that indomitable spirit inside of her.  The daughter of a woman who was so poor, she sold all of their furniture save one broken chair, my great-grandma was quite familiar with poverty.  Yet she was rich in spirit; she had so much love to share.  Sadly, the one thing she did lose was her cockney accent, so that Canadians wouldn't know she was a home child.  But she remained a true Cockney.

St. Mary le Bow church bells were damaged during the London Blitz, but were repaired, courtesy https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/b4/80/e5/b480e54764726a6f1b08bd543887ec59.jpg.

The Tube Defined London

"It's crowded, uncomfortable and expensive -- but it defined London.  And it's ours."  (http://www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do/london-undergrounds-history-2)

London Tube circa 1900 courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_London_Underground.

Charles Pearson first conceived the idea of "trains in drains" in 1845.  Victorian London was growing at such a rapidk rate it needed a travel system to transport its citizens around the city.  Excavation for the Tube or Underground began in 1860.  Within three years, the Tube was ready for business, the world's first subway system.  The train was a series of gas lit wooden cars pulled by a steam locomotive.  The track spanned only 6 kilometres.  Thirty eight thousand Londoners rode the line on the first day.  By year's end, 9.5 million passengers had ridden the Tube.  

The beauty of the Underground was that it was used by all classes.  Author Henry Mayhew interviewed poor labourers who were relieved to be spared the 6 mile walk to and from work. Furthermore, they could live in two-room flats in the "suburbs" as opposed to one-room flats in the industrial centre. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Labour_and_the_London_Poor).

Prime Minister Gladstone opens the Metropolitan Railway circa 1863 courtesy http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/prime-minister-william-gladstone-opens-the-metropolitan-news-photo/463968281.

The Underground's foul, smoke filled atmosphere was an issue for some passengers  John Fowler created a steamless locomotive, Fowler's Ghost, to reduce the amount of steam and smoke underground, an invention which did not take off.  Smoking was banned on the carriages until an MP complained and each locomotive was assigned a smoking carriage.  The London Tube owners allowed train drivers to grow beards in an effort to filter out the worst of the fumes.

In 1869, workers dug into the London clay under the river Thames to expand the Tube line from Great Tower Hill to Pickle Herring Stairs.  This was followed by the Circle Line, Hammersmith & City, City & South Line, the Northern Line, Waterloo & City, Central, Bakerloo, Piccadilly & Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead, all before 1907.

During the Second World War the London Underground housed an estimated 170,000 Londoners seeking refuge from Hitler's bombs.  In fact, Time magazine claimed that "The Tube saved London during the Blitz." (http://time.com/3875448/london-underground-down-not-out-in-the-great-subway-in-world-war-ii/)

The London Tube saved the city during the Blitz circa 1940 courtesy 

http://ww2today.com/14th-october-1940-disaster-at-balham-tube-station.

 Today, the Undergvround tracks stretch 253 miles.  At peak times, there are more than 538 trains circling the city.  Four million passengers ride the Underground daily, the population of London at the turn of the last century.  "[The London Tube] -- like Big Ben, , Tower Bridge and other landmarks -- has shaped non-Britons ideas of what London is." (http://time.com/3875448/london-underground-down-not-out-in-the-great-subway-in-world-war-ii/)

Nine Feet Deep in Horse Manure

"In 1894 the Times of London estimated that by 1950 every street in the city would be buried in nine feet of horse manure." (http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/03/29/the-horse-manure-problem/)

In 1894, the year of the Great Horse Manure Crisis, a Victorian London traffic jam was a sight to see. Eleven thousand hansom cabs rolled down the cobblestone streets; several thousand horse drawn trolley plied the same route; horse drawn carts and drays also crowded the city's streets.  A total of 50,000 horses pulled vehicles through London.

Each horse produced between 15 and 35 pounds of manure per day.  With each year, the manure pile grew higher and higher. It emanated a wretched odour.  It attracted flies, insects sometimes infected with typhus.  "The streets of London were beginning to poison its people."
(http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Great-Horse-Manure-Crisis-of-1894/)

In the early 1800's, the horse manure could be sold to farmers who used it to fertilize their fields.  However, by the latter part of the century, there was such a surplus that stable owners had to find ways to get rid of it.  Much of the manure rotted in the London streets.  "Wet weather turned the streets into swamps and rivers of muck."  On dry weather days, when the wind whipped up, the buildings became coated in a layer of manure and pedestrians choked on the toxic dust.

Four years after the Great Horse Manure Crisis, an international conference was held to solve the problem.  The ten day conference was shortened to three days as no one was able to come up with a solution.

The answer came in the car for the masses, produced by Henry Ford, who launched his car company in 1903.  Ford vowed that he would put a chicken in every pot and a car in every driveway in America (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2012/01/cars-in-driveways-chickens-in-pots.html).  By 1913, he perfected the assembly line, and with it, the availability of an inexpensive car. Bit by bit, city streets would fill up with automobiles, electric trams and motor busses.

London, the world's biggest city at the turn of the last century, was manure free for the first time in its history.

A hansom cab in London courtesy http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Great-Horse-Manure-Crisis-of-1894/.