The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London (65 page)

‘returned the money’: keeping travellers waiting: Hall,
Retrospect of a Long Life
, vol. 1, pp. 68–9.

‘the rest themselves’: clockwork mechanism: MacKenzie,
The American in England
, vol. 1, p. 217; Dickens on its inventor: Dickens, ‘Down with the Tide’, in
Dickens’ Journalism
, vol. 3, p. 115; taking goods instead of money: ibid., p. 117.

‘of verisimilitude’: number of tickets: Revd R. H. Dalton Barham,
The Life and Remains of Theodore Edward Hook
(London, Richard Bentley, 1849), vol. 1, pp. 61–2;
Oliver Twist
, p. 365.

‘river were abolished’: 1830 toll removal: Barker and Robbins,
A History of London Transport
, vol. 1, p. 13; the 178 toll bars: Bennett:
London and Londoners
, p. 90; Vauxhall: Edmund Yates,
Edmund Yates: His Recollections and Experiences
(London, Richard Bentley and Son, 1885), p. 96; the campaign to lift the tolls:
ILN
, 23 March 1857, 6 June 1857, 15 August 1857, 8 and 29 May 1858; ‘Great Open-Air Demonstration’:
ILN
, 27 July 1857, p. 632; abolition of tolls: G. A. Sekon,
Locomotion in Victorian London
(London, Oxford University Press, 1938), p. 40.

‘defied the night’: Southwark Bridge:
ILN
, 19 November 1864, p. 513;
Little Dorrit
, pp. 135, 260, 305; Waterloo Bridge: ‘Night Walks’, in
All the Year Round
, 21 July 1860, in
Dickens’ Journalism
, vol. 4, p. 151.

‘private matter’: straps on buses: Barker and Robbins:
A History of London Transport
, vol. 1, p. 32; Magazine Day: Smith,
Little World of London
, p. 47; police notice:
ILN
, 31 July 1852, p. 71.

‘given to the police’: Westminster Bridge:
ILN
, 10 March 1860, p. 235; traffic light: cited in William Kent,
London for Dickens Lovers
(London, Methuen, 1935), p. 48; 1871 treatise: Henry Carr,
Metropolitan Street Traffic: Suggested Improvements
(London, R. J. Mitchell and Sons, 1871), p. 3.

‘weighing machine’: weights of horses and carts, lack of turning space: Gordon,
The Horse-World of London
, pp. 54, 84, 127, 77; brewers’ dray horses: J. E. Bradfield,
The Public Carriages of Great Britain: A Glance at their Rise, Progress, Struggles and Burthens
(London, Piper, Stephenson & Spence, 1855), p. 69; six horses harnessed in line: David W. Bartlett,
What I saw in London, or, Men and Things in the Great Metropolis
(Auburn [CT?], Derby and Miller, 1852), p. 69; Nelson’s Column:
ILN
, 2 July 1842, p. 121; carters lending horses: Albert Smith (ed.),
Gavarni in London: Sketches of Life and Character
(London, David Bogue, 1849), p. 39.

‘twenty-five yards’: Half-way House: plans for destruction in
ILN
, 16 July 1842, p. 150; Middle Row: Percy Edwards,
History of London Street Improvements, 1855–1897
(London, London County Council, 1898), facing p. 35, and map, Yates,
Recollections
, p. 35, Edward Callow,
Old London Taverns: Historical, descriptive and Reminiscent ...
(London, Downey & Co., 1899), p. 224, Walter Thornbury,
Old and New London
, 6 vols (London, Cassell, Petter, & Galpin [?1887–93]), vol. 1, pp. 51ff.

‘pornography industry’: this paragraph and the next draw on Barker and Robbins,
A History of London Transport
, vol. 1, pp. 10–11, 64ff.

‘blocked by traffic’: Park Lane widening:
ILN
, 10 December 1864, p. 591, 17 December 1864, p. 603; footnote:
ILN
, 11 August 1866, p. 127.

‘several hours’ duration’: Wheaton,
Journal of a Residence
, pp. 243–4.

‘into shop-windows’: tourist: MacKenzie,
The American in England
, pp. 73–4; ‘Passage in the Life of Mr Watkins Tottle’,
Sketches by Boz
, p. 511.

‘the crossing-sweepers’: Schlesinger,
Saunterings
(and at the end of the paragraph), pp. 231–2; licensed horse-killing: Gordon,
The Horse-Sense of London
, p. 184ff.; road deaths:
ILN
, 4 January 1868, p. 7, gives a figure of 170 deaths in 1867.

‘and umbrellas’: Tambling,
Going Astray
, p. 264, identifies the church and therefore suggests that Holborn is the site of Tom-all-Alone’s, but I am not persuaded that the description is not a composite: the routine of Jo’s day suggests a location closer to Drury Lane. It is also Tambling who identifies the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; Dickens,
Bleak House
, pp. 274–5.

‘for their customers’: Venice: Smith (ed.),
Gavarni in London
, p. 36; footnote on crossing-sweepers: Hudson,
Munby
, p. 143;
Bleak House
, p. 200; different types of sweeps: Charles Manby Smith,
Curiosities of London Life: or, Phases, Physiological and Social, of the Great Metropolis
(London, William and Frederick G. Cash, 1853), pp. 44–9, and Smith,
Little World of London
, p. 84; police and companies: Mayhew,
London Labour
, vol. 2, pp. 465.

‘are all shown’: the Select Committee, undated, is cited in Mayhew,
London Labour
, vol. 2, pp. 193; ingredients of street dirt, and scavengers: ibid., vol. 2, pp. 185, 193, 196–7, 217, and Turvey, ‘Street Mud, Dust and Noise’, p. 134; dustmen’s clothes:
Cunnington and Lucas,
Occupational Costume
, p. 277, and
Our Mutual Friend
, p. 770.

‘scuttle or trough’: William Tayler,
The Diary of William Tayler, Footman, 1837
, ed. Dorothy Wise (London, Westminster City Archives, 1998), p. 17; sweeping by machine: Dickinson,
My First Visit to Europe
, p. 119.

‘private households’:
David Copperfield
, p. 183; Derby wear: A. Mayhew,
Paved with Gold
, pp. 218–19; effect of dust on shops and houses: Mayhew,
London Labour
, vol. 2, p. 213.

‘a dusty roadway’: tank-like carts: Mayhew and Binny,
The Criminal Prisons
, p. 173; mechanics of pumps, and footnote: Bennett,
London and Londoners
, pp. 46–7.

‘indicative of light’: tallow lights: William T. O’Dea,
The Social History of Lighting
(London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958), p. 96; John Gay, ‘Of Walking the Streets by Night’, in
A Complete Edition of the Poets of Great Britain
(London, John and Arthur Arch [1792–5]), vol. 8, p. 293, ll. 139–43; City oil lamps: O’Dea, ibid.;
Pickwick Papers
, p. 50; Simond,
Journal of a Tour and Residence
, vol. 1, pp. 26–7.

‘shares her concern’: Carlton House illuminations: Hugh Barty-King,
New Flame: How Gas Changed the Commercial, Domestic and Industrial Life of Britain ...
(Tavistock, Graphmitre, 1984), p. 28; visitors to Pall Mall: Wolfgang Schivelbusch,
Disenchanted Night: The Industrialisation of Light in the Nineteenth Century
, trans. Angela Davies (Oxford, Berg, 1988), p. 115; Rowlandson: Arnold,
Re-Presenting the Metropolis
, p. 33, but note that she has confused the 1805 and 1807 displays, thinking the latter three-month display was the temporary display for the birthday of George III (she says it is the Regent’s).

‘could be accessed’: lights spanning the lane:
Athenaeum
, cited in O’Dea,
Social History of Lighting
, pp. 29ff.; lamp-posts and pavements: David Hughson,
Walks through London ...
(London, Sherwood, Neely and Jones, 1817), p. 396.

‘their own lamp’: dress: Cunnington and Lucas,
Occupational Costume
, p. 286.

‘roads were lighter’: Wheaton,
Journal of a Residence
, p. 38; ‘Walter’,
My Secret Life
, vol. 1, p. 143.

‘they had finished’: Sala,
Twice Round the Clock
, p. 43; Parliament Square: O’Dea,
Social History of Lighting
, pp. 29ff.; Camberwell: H. J. Dyos,
Victorian Suburb: A Study of the Growth of Camberwell
(Leicester, Leicester University Press, 1973), p. 147; closure of Fleet Street:
ILN
, 15 August 1846, p. 99; Strand closure:
ILN
, 7 August 1858, p. 128.

‘end of the street’:
ILN
, 23 November 1850, p. 403.

‘for the upkeep’: demolitions: Peter Jackson,
George Scharf’s London: Sketches and Watercolours of a Changing City, 1820–50
(London, John Murray, 1987), pp. 110–11; Upper Thames Street:
ILN
, 28 May 1842, p. 42; Piccadilly: ibid., and 20 July 1844.

‘if generally adopted’: ‘The Wants of London’:
ILN
, 30 September 1854, p. 291; descriptive addresses: Silvester notebooks, British Library, Egerton 3710; Dickens autobiographical fragment in Forster,
Life of Charles Dickens
, vol. 1, p. 41; lack of signage:
ILN
, 5 March 1853, p. 183.

‘also took place’: repeated street names: [W. H. Wills], ‘Streetography’,
Household Words
, 38, 14 December 1850, pp. 275–6; synonyms for slum streets: John Hollingshead,
Ragged London in 1861
(London, Smith, Elder, 1861), p. 96; George Streets:
ILN
, 1 February 1868, p. 103; street renaming:
ILN
, 25 July 1846, p. 54, and reprinted
Metropolitan Board of Works announcements, 13 August 1864, p. 163, 25 February 1865, p. 175, 1 July 1865, p. 627, 11 November 1865, 16 February 1867, 20 February 1869, p. 175, among many others.

‘mammoth unknowability’: Ordnance Survey:
ILN
, 29 January 1848, p. 53; 1850 publication: Ackroyd,
London
, p. 117.

‘Fyodor Dostoyevsky’: Byron,
Don Juan
, ed. Leslie A. Marchand (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1958), Canto 10, v. 82; Philadelphia visitor: Orville Horwitz,
Brushwood Picked Up on the Continent: or, Last Summer’s Trip to the Old World
(Philadelphia, Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1855), pp. 21–2; Dostoevsky:
Winter Notes on Summer Impressions
, trans. David Patterson (Evanston, IL, Northwestern University Press, 1997), p. 37.

‘pageant of phantoms’: Heine: cited in Hugh and Pauline Massingham,
The London Anthology
(London, Spring Books [n.d.]), pp. 474–5; de Quincey:
De Quincey’s Writings
, fol. 23, ‘Life and Manners’ (Boston, Ticknor, Reed and Fields, 1851), p. 53.

‘the prime minister’: Bagehot: ‘Charles Dickens’, vol. 3, pp. 82–5; number of new roads:
ILN
, 2 January 1869, p. 3, 15 September 1849, p. 186; Downing Street and environs: John Thomas Smith,
An Antiquarian Ramble in the Streets of London
, ed. Charles Mackay (London, Richard Bentley, 1846), vol. 1, pp. 180–81.

‘the building trade’: development of Euston, and footnote: Alan A. Jackson,
London’s Termini
(London, Pan, 1969), pp. 18–20; Wellington House Academy: ‘Our School’,
Household Words
, 11 October 1851,
Dickens’ Journalism
, vol. 3, p. 35; Dickens,
Dombey and Son
, ed. Peter Fairclough, intro. Raymond Williams (first published 1846–48; Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1985), pp. 120–21; building trade: John Summerson,
The London Building World of the Eighteen-Sixties
(London, Thames and Hudson, 1973), p. 9.

‘Grosvenor Estate’: hill at Piccadilly:
ILN
, 19 September 1846, p. 182; Oxford Street:
ILN
, 5 October 1850, p. 273; Grosvenor Basin:
ILN
, 7 July 1860, p. 13.

‘frames of timber’: Hudson,
Munby
, p. 175;
Daily News
, cited in Richard Altick,
The Presence of the Present: Topics of the Day in the Victorian Novel
(Columbus, OH, Ohio State University Press, 1991), pp. 414–15; description of Viaduct site:
ILN
, 30 March 1867, p. 303.

3.
TRAVELLING
(
MOSTLY
)
HOPEFULLY

‘City by boat’:
Dombey and Son
, pp. 362 and 725 for example; Yates,
Recollections
, p. 63.

‘of the river’: number of boats: White,
London in the Nineteenth Century
, pp. 14–15; ‘Sculls, sir!’: MacKenzie,
The American in England
, vol. 2, p. 56; ‘The Steam Excursion’,
Sketches by Boz
, p. 447;
The Old Curiosity Shop
, p. 86.

‘in the east’: the development of steamers in this and the next five paragraphs, unless otherwise noted, is from: Frank L. Dix,
Royal River Highway: A History of the Passenger Boats and Services on the River Thames
(Newton Abbot, David and Charles, 1985), pp. 51–84 and passim, Sekon,
Locomotion in Victorian London
, pp. 56–64 and passim, and Barker and Robbins,
A History of London Transport
, vol. 1, pp. 43ff.;
Leigh’s New Picture of London ...
(London, Leigh and Co, 1819 edn), pp. 420–22, and the 1839 edition, p. 350; river stairs: David Paroissien,
The Companion to Great Expectations
(Robertsbridge, Helm Information, 2000), p. 217.

‘boat to another’:
Our Mutual Friend
, p. 539; ‘half a dozen’: Schlesinger,
Saunterings
, pp. 31–2.

‘people took boat’: Hungerford Stairs: Mayhew and Binny,
The Criminal Prisons
, p. 233–4;
David Copperfield
, pp. 150–51.

‘man at the wheel’: the dimensions are taken from Allison Lockwood,
Passionate Pilgrims: The American Traveller in Great Britain, 1800–1914
(NY, Cornwall Books, 1981), p. 175; operating procedure: Bennett,
London and Londoners
, pp. 113–14; call boy, John Forney,
Letters from Europe
(Philadelphia, T. B. Peterson & Brothers, 1867), p. 362.