0 Mud-larks of London: Dirty Endeavours on the Banks of the Thames

What is a mud-lark?

After 24 hours of constant rain the ground has turned to slush, which seems as good an excuse as any to post about mud-larks.

 

The Mud lark -
Illustration from Mayhew's
London Labour and the London Poor

In Victorian times necessity was the mother of invention and many poor people were driven to extraordinary lengths to make a living. A mud-lark is one such example, where people survived by scavenging through the mud left by the receding water of tidal rivers. The Thames is a capitol example as it was a water-way busy with all types of shipping where there was the potential for crew or passengers to drop things overboard.

 

Mud larks circa 1871

Mundane Treasure

In London, the mud-larks worked both banks of the Thames, covering a large area between Vauxhall Bridge and Woolwich. They weren't expecting to find gold, silver, or precious stones, - their treasure was of an altogether more mundane sort such as coal, rope, old-iron, copper nails, or even bones. Anything that might have come detached from a ship, or fallen overboard during repairs, had value to the mud-lark.

Boldness Rewarded

Sometimes the mud-lark become over bold, such as one boy (as described by Henry Mayhew, the chronicler of Victorian life) who got fed up picking up coal from the shoreline and climbed on board a empty coal barge, where he swept up the leavings. His endeavor earned him 7 days imprisonment in a House of Correction. Not that he seemed to mind too much as he remarked that he preferred incarceration to being a mud-lark, as at least had a meal every night.

Caps for Baskets

Indeed, the mud-larks arouse Mr. Mayhew's pity as he remarks that at one set of stairs (down to the fore-shore) he counted a dozen children wading through the mud, aged between 6 and 12 years old. Muddy slush dripped from their clothes and they left a puddle where they stood. When their basket was full, they'd remove their cap and fill it – adding to the general impression of filth and dirt. Spending all their time in mud, it wasn't worth wearing shoes (not that they could afford them), but these children felt the cold just like any other.

"It is very cold in winter, to stand in the mud without shoes."

A mud-lark

 

The tidal shore of the Thames, as seen from the Millenium Bridge
Note the Shard in the background.

The only positive in the dismal picture, it that mud-larking was an early form of recycling.  The mud-lark sell scavenged coal to the poor. Whilst the iron, bones, and rope they sold to rag shops. Any tools, such as hammers or saws, they exchanged with seamen for biscuits and meat.

A Twist  in the Tale

Henry Mayhew wrote in 1951, and by 1904 although a person could claim "mud lark" as his occupation, public sensibility decreed it an unacceptable pursuit. The word however, re-emerged around 1936 when schoolchildren re-invented mud-larking but with a twist. This time they challenged passers-by to throw coins into the mud, and then entertained the onlookers by running to fetch (and pocket) it.

 

The shore of the Thames

A recent twist is that metal-detectorists who ply the banks of the Thames looking for historical artefacts, also call themselves mud-larks. Indeed, there is a London Mud-lark FB page, where examples of recent finds are shared. 

Detail: Mud-larks of London: Dirty Endeavours on the Banks of the Thames

0 Performing for the King - at the Banqueting House

 

Last Thursday I was fortunate enough to preview a new exhibition ‘Performing for theKing’ at London’s Banqueting House, Whitehall. To be fair, ‘exhibition’ is too static a word to describe this event since there is movement and music, costumes to try on as well as period characters that mingle with the visitors. With deliberately subdued lighting to recreate the atmosphere of 17th century candlelight,  this is anything but a walk-and-read display.

A model of Inigo Jones's contraption for lowering the queen
out of a cloud

The aspect that most fired my imagination were Inigo Jones set designs and his use of early special effects. But first, a little background about ‘Performing for the King’ the creation of a court masque. The aim of the Banqueting House’s curator, Jane Spooner, is to give the visitor a sense of what went on behind the scenes at a 17^th century masque and a taste of the atmosphere.

Jones' innovative use of newly 'discovered' perspective.

 To illustrate this Jane recreates part of the 1620 production of Tempe Restored. This masque (a play with music and dancing) was a sort of Stuart propaganda piece, pushing the message of the Stuart’s as a uniting monarchy, bringing peace to a troubled England and Scotland. The extravagant spectacle was designed to amaze and awe, but of course this carried a commensurate price tag. For the ordinary working man looking in from the outside, the cost of such masques must have rubbed salt into the wound of their day-to-day hardships.

Another of Inigo Jones' set designs.

 One of the most eye-catching things about Tempe Restored was the innovative set design by Inigo Jones. For maximum impact the main players (the King and Queen playing the parts of Apollo and Diana) were to descend from the heavens in a cloud. To achieve this Ingio Jones created a piece of scenery worked by pulleys and powered by teams of strong men. Don’t forget this was in a time before hydraulics and engines, so any heavy lifting had to be done by muscle power. These moving elements were heavy and dangerous - and made a lot of noise which was disguised by playing loud music.

The screen before which the actors perform

Inigo Jones used tricks of perspective, (a recent ‘invention’), as well as layering, lighting and masking to transform a 2-D stage into a 3-D drama. The clever people at the Banqueting House give the visitor a feel for these effects with Monty Pythonesque slides of scenery projected on the stage backdrop as the performance takes place.

The great man himself - Inigo Jones.
Meet him at Performing for the King!

To find out more click on Performing for the King - open from July 19th to September 1st 2013.

You can also chat to Inigo Jones himself on Twitter – simply tweet @ask_inigo and include a hashtag #man #woman #boy or #girl – to enrol yourself a character in the masque.

Once again, I’d like to extend my thanks to the Historic Royal Palaces organisation, and especially John Shevlin, for inviting me to this preview.

Even I got into the spirit of things and tried on a ruff!

 

Detail: Performing for the King - at the Banqueting House

0 Unofficial London: In Search of Almack's

            In Georgian and Regency England, if you were an aspiring socialite then Almack's was the place to be seen. It was there that select ladies might dance with the most eligible bachelors in England, and to be admitted implied you were a member of the coveted social elite. It could be argued Almack's was a triumph of marketing over content; the food was stodgy, the drink ( non-alcholic) was nothing special and yet it was the pinnacle of aspiration for a young lady on the hunt for a husband.

A ball at Almack's.

Balls were held once a week during the season, on a Wednesday evening, and entry was via a voucher purchased for  the season at a cost of ten guineas. However, it was not cost but the difficulty of obtaining a voucher that was the challenge. The idea of the Almack's patronesses was to make good-breeding and social standing the criteria for entry and hence keep out the undesirable nouveau riche. But not even being a member of the nobility guaranteed acceptance, for only about three-quarters ever gained vouchers.

Petitioners vying to get to attract the attention of Almack's
lady patronesses.

            In order for your name to be put on the list you must be approved by one of six or seven 'patronesses' - all high-born ladies, of whom Lady Jersey was in command. Even once your name was placed on the hallowed list of two thousand members, you could still be excluded if your behaviour fell below that expected. These seven autocrats met each Monday evening between April and August to discuss those members whose poor behaviour may cause them to be barred.  Indeed the Duke of Wellington was once refused entry for being too late (last entry at 11 pm and he arrived at 11.07 pm) and wearing trousers instead of the regulation knee-breeches and silk stockings.

Almack's Assembly Rooms in the 18th century.

 

If once to Almack's you belong,

Like monarchds, you can do no wrong;

But banished thence on Wednesday night,

By Jove, you can do nothing right.

Henry Luttrell
 

Where the original Alamck's once stood...

So what remains of Almack's to this day? On a recent trip into London I visited Kings Street in search of the once famous building. What I found was a glass and steel edifice bearing a once illustrious name. Being a romantic, I wonder if on a very quiet night, when all the lights are off and there is no traffic, you can still here the echoes of the orchestra playing a cotillion...

Detail: Unofficial London: In Search of Almack's

0 Unofficial London - Going Underground.

 

How did the London Underground get nicknamed 'The Tube'?

Why did the underground frighten horses?
What is the origin of the announcement: "Mind the gap"?

 In this, the third post on my exploration of the area around Bank station, London, I focus on some startling facts about the history of the underground.

 

 

Mind the Gap.
My day out in London started at Bank tube station. What surprised me as I emerged up onto street level was the amazing historic buildings within sight of the station: The Bank of England, The Royal Exchange and the Mansion House. Apparently the Victorian engineers were also overawed, and afraid of being sued by wealthy property owners if their tunnels caused subsidence.

The Bank of England -
neighbouring Bank Tube station.

Their solution was the divert the route of the tunnels to avoid going directly beneath these important buildings. This meant around Bank, there are some of the sharpest bends in the tube network, and some speculate that one particular sharp turn was to avoid tunnelling through the Bank of England's vaults. All this meant that long curved platforms were necessary, which led to substantial gaps in places between platform and carriages. It is because of this that often repeated public announcement, "Mind the gap" first came into being.

The Royal Exchange - across the road from Bank tube station.

Bringing the House down.
Work on the tube network began in 1860 and the stretch of the Metropolitan line between Paddington and Farringdon, was opened on 9 January 1863 to become the world's first underground railway.
To minimise costs and because no one had ever undertaken such a thing before, the initial method of construction was to dig a deep trench, lay down the track, then build a brick arch over it to form a tunnel and then cover everything over. This worked well when the proposed route lay parallel to road, but between Paddington and Bayswater, houses were orientated the wrong way, at ninety degrees to the direction of the track. In addition, on Leinster Gardens, two grand houses stood in the path of excavations.

Leinster Gardens - the fake facade is behind the silver car -
note the blocked out ground floor windows.

The solution was to demolish the houses to allow excavation of the tunnel, then rebuild the facades to conceal the hole behind, which as left open, to allow the train drivers to vent their engines steam - much to the alarm of horses passing by on the road.

Leinster Gardens from the air (courtesy of Bing maps)
Note the fake facade and tube lines beyond.

Because the system was built as cheaply as possible, rather than design new locomotives, pre-existing steam engines were used. Of course, the underground tunnels soon filled with thick coal smoke, as The Times commented:

"A journey from King's Cross to Baker Street is a form of torture which no person would undergo if he could conveniently help it."

In counter-attack the underground's marketing people quickly came up with a story that the smoky atmosphere was actually beneficial to asthmatics! But this propaganda didn't convince the train drivers who grew thick beards to try and filter out the soot. Eventually, common sense prevailed and the engines were modified so the exhaust could be collected and vented in a big blast when the trains passed close to the surface.

The Tower subway carriage of 'Tube'-
Claustrophobic, hot, gloomy and smelly.

The Tube under the Thames.

In 1870 the first deep level stretch of the underground was dug between Tower Hill and Tooley Street and passed under the Thames. Because there was no way to ventilate the tunnel as it ran under the river, and so rather than use steam engines, a special windowless carriage was developed, hauled through this section by a cable. This became known as 'The Tube' - a name which stuck for the rest of the network.
The section of the network was, by all accounts, not a good place for a claustrophobe to visit as recorded by Charles Dickens, jr:

"..there is not much head-room left, and it is not advisable for any but the very briefest of Her Majesty's lieges to attempt the passage in high-heeled boots, or with a hat to which he attaches any particular value."

Traversing this section sounds deeply unpleasant: the tube was hot, humid, the cable mechanism very noisy, the travelling compartment windowless with gloomy gas-lights and to top it all - the carriage frequently got jammed in a dip in the middle of the route. After just three months the train was scrapped and the tunnel converted to pedestrian use.

 I went down and down between two dingy walls until I found myself at the round opening of the gigantic iron tube, which seems to undulate like a great intestine in the enormous belly of the river.

Contemporary account by Edmondo De Amicis.


Statue of J H Greathead, near Bank station.

The Second Tunnel under the Thames.
James Henry Greathead along with another engineer, Peter Barlow, developed a device that successfully drilled much larger bore tunnels. Their device consisted of an iron cylinder, just over 7 ft in diameter, fitted with screw jacks that allowed it to be inched forward. As the labourers excavated beneath the safety of the shield, so the device was advanced and a permanent lining of cast iron segments fitted in place behind them. Over time Greathead refined the device to include the use of compressed air and hydraulic jacks, which are now standard features of tunnel construction.

Widget says: "Does this lead to a tunnel - and are there
cat biscuits at the end of it?"
 

And finally, a Victorian wonder the underground system may have been, but sometimes it seems as though it's still stuck in Victorian times - with the heat, congestion and general state of decay. What are your impressions of the underground: a system to be proud of or something to be tolerated?

 

Detail: Unofficial London - Going Underground.