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VictorianLondon

@victorianlondon.bsky.social

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Lee Jackson, Victorianist, historian, author of 'Dirty Old London' (Yale, 2014), 'Palaces of Pleasure' (Yale, 2019), 'Dickensland' (Yale, 2023)

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NW London Time Machine @timenw.bsky.social · 1h

Final reminder that I will be presenting a talk about Hendon Aerodrome for the Pinner Local History Society tomorrow at 8pm.

More details here www.pinnerlhs.org.uk/forthcoming-...

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Alison Young @youngalison.bsky.social · 1d

Great ‘Spotlight on MUSIC HALL’ exhibition @thelondonarchives.bsky.social - small but perfectly formed!

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VictorianLondon @victorianlondon.bsky.social · 1d

lot of interest in this case the other day (1829) ... turns out there was a pamphlet archive.org/details/auth... warning, describes how they performed a post mortem to check on 'James's' sex. The publisher? J.S.Thomas, soon to become the first superintendent of the new Met police in Covent Garden.

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VictorianLondon @victorianlondon.bsky.social · 1d

the notorious 'Rat's Castle' in Seven Dials (1832), later visited by Dickens

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VictorianLondon @victorianlondon.bsky.social · 1d

protest and flags, 1830

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Sarah Bull @sarahebull.bsky.social · 1d

SIGHTED: The Man of Pleasure’s Pocket Book at the Thomas Fisher Library!

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VictorianLondon @victorianlondon.bsky.social · 1d

Victorian criminal slang of the day:
"Flash dragsman" - a night coachman (taxi driver) in league with thieves/prostitutes

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Jesse "Pecke in the Crowne" Locker @jessemlocker.bsky.social · 2d

Good morning!

[Gaetano Giulio Zumbo, A Soul in Hell, 1670-1700, Wax, 11.5 cm x 10 cm (Victoria and Albert Museum, London)]

A screaming head modeled in wax, surrounded by demons and stylized flames

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Paintings of London @paintingsoflondon.bsky.social · 2d

Good morning! This week's theme is the River Thames.
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'Bridge in London' (1908) by Mstislav Dobuzhinsky

(Private collection)

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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 1d

1898 - The Greatest Showman Alf Ball's boxing booth at St Giles Fair, Oxford. Alf, a top 1880s middleweight, on the right. This was around the time he stopped fighting a Mexican Puma - you can see them depicted in the middle banner - and started getting a bit more into being a Bioscope presenter:

Image from Historic England archives dated 1898. It is a black and white photo of six men in front of ornate banners and frontage, advertising boxing in front of a crowd. There is a tall black man on the left in a fur trimmed robe, he is either a boxer or perhaps an animal tamer, four shorter men in white undershirts and hats in the centre and Alf in waistcoat, tie, shirt and hat on right. Women, men and young boys and girls look on.

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VictorianLondon @victorianlondon.bsky.social · 2d

London's most haunted mural including an avian coo' d'oeuil

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VictorianLondon @victorianlondon.bsky.social · 2d

in fact, in Victorianese it generally means pretty or even beautiful, i.e. likely to incite interest; I have I think occasionally seen it applied to men. they are basically saying they weren't a bad looking (wo)man.

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Charlie Holland @charlieholland.bsky.social · 3d

The Hay Wain, rural Brixton, October 2025.

Bales of hay on a bicycle trailer parked at Loughborough Junction.

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VictorianLondon @victorianlondon.bsky.social · 2d

James Allen, apparently

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Lesley A Hall @erinacean.bsky.social · 2d

And going on into the C20th, see Alison Oram's 'Her Husband Was A Woman': Women's Gender-Crossing in Modern British Popular Culture (2007) (now so many papers are digitised I think one could probably find more, as I recall without checking my copy, she used The News of the World).