Urbanex: The Revenge

A very short post this time, purely as a follow-up to my earlier blog about urban exploration (or Urbanex) and its influence on my horror writing. I've been thinking a lot about 'abandoned places' and their unsettling nature just lately, partly because November 5th was the anniversary of the day that the Mary Celeste set sail for its ill-fated final voyage, which was a tale beloved of Arthur Conan Doyle, amongst others. I think the image of the hastily abandoned vessel (which sadly may have been a bit made up for dramatic license) strikes a chord with us all; the evidence left behind of everyday human existence (and, perhaps, suffering) is more unnerving than a mere empty house or dilapidated shipwreck.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is merely to share a link. The other day I was tweeted an article by my agent about the works of Dan Marbaix, and his photographs (and commitment to the cause) are truly inspiring. Check it out here. All I can (rather parsimoniously) say is, I'm rather happy that so many great photographers risk incarceration for this art form, so I don't have to!

Investigations Round London

Since the likes of Dickens and Mayhew forged the way in the early-mid 1800s, many social reformers, commentators and travel writers of the Victorian era took it upon themselves to go off the beaten track for their source material. ‘Unconventional guides’ to London were published fairly frequently, and many chose to focus on the more salubrious districts of the capital, in order to cast a light on the great social divide between rich and poor. The London guidebook gave way to the ‘social investigation’ book. Many people today have heard of Charles Booth’s great work in ‘Life and Labour in London’, and the drawing of his famous poverty map. However, this blog is about those lesser known individuals, who so fearlessly braved the crime-infested streets of London’s slums in order to see for themselves the conditions of the poor, and document it so as to provide a catalyst for change.

When I’m writing about Victorian London, these books are probably more valuable to me than the fiction of the time, as they provide a wealth of real-life characters and situations to draw upon. And often, the truth is stranger than fiction!

Montagu Williams QC, from a sketch in 

Vanity Fair, 1879. Quite the dapper gent!

In particular, I happened across a brilliant example of these guidebooks recently, in the form of ‘Round London’, by the wonderfully named Montagu Williams QC. Mr Williams was, as you’ll have gathered, a judge who: ‘devoted himself heart and soul and with all the masterful energy which characterised him to the acquirement of a perfect knowledge of the neighbourhoods and of the people among who his work lay.’ In other words, he wanted to understand the people who were regularly dragged before him in the dock, and therefore set out to spend as much time amongst them as possible.

In the first few pages of the volume entitled ‘Down East’, we learn of the practise of hiring gaudy hats for ladies, who in the East End would not feel right without wearing an oversized bonnet. We learn of an undertaker who made a fortune during an outbreak of scarlet fever, but then spent it all in the gin-palace around the corner and drunk himself into an early grave. The man’s shop was taken over by a low-rent amusement company, who pawned the coffins and velvet drapes and replaced them with gruesome waxworks of Jack the Rippers victims, no more than a year after their deaths, and within walking distance of the sites!

Williams’ book casts a light on subjects that aren’t easily accessible to the casual researcher. It gives us a very critical first-hand account of those Victorian staples that we’ve all heard of – the match girls, poor hospitals, street entertainers, East End crime (listed under a chapter comedically entitled ‘Burglarious Bill’, in which he talks to a ‘cracksman’ about how to spot the easiest safes to break into), the old Whitechapel Jewish quarter and the racial tensions therein, and the sinister opium dens situated in notorious slums. He visits prisons, and talks to some of the very men he sent down; he visits hospitals and reports on the terrible sights he finds amongst the poorest patients. Some of it makes for grim reading, other parts are laced with humour (Williams later became a playwright). It’s all grist for the mill of the writer.

My favourite anecdote in this particular book involves Williams and his friends, after dining at the ‘Ship and Turtle’ visiting Leman Street police station (familiar to viewers of BBC One’s Ripper Street) to pick up a police escort. Their objective was to visit a Chinese opium den on the infamous Ratcliff Highway, but only after a pub crawl around the worst parts of the East End, whereupon the police officers were offered several drinks, and invited to join in the dancing with some bawdy women. When they reached the opium den, the officers paved the way, and then Williams and his friends (judges and barristers all) lay upon the divans as instructed, where ‘he proceeded to offer each of us the calumet of peace […] We were to accept the pipes, take one or two whiffs, and then put them down again. That, we were assured, would suffice to satisfy the laws of hospitality.’ Williams did, however, ask for his opium to be rolled in a cigarette rather than a communal pipe, as befitted a gentleman.

Thankfully, Williams was ‘happy to add that no unpleasant consequences resulted. The cigarette had a very soothing effect, but it neither drugged me nor made me ill.” Yes, a high court judge had a smoke of crack, but claimed he wasn’t high. Imagine the newspaper reports were that to be published today!

Sadly, the story ends badly for some residents of Ratcliff Highway. As Williams and his friends left the opium den, they heard a hue and cry, and were thrust into the middle of a panicked crowd. Apparently some ‘Chinamen’ had been robbed in a nearby pub, and had become embroiled in a fight. When a mob of Englishmen set upon them, the Chinese men (possibly members of a notorious East End gang) drew knives and fought their way to freedom, indiscriminately stabbing men and women in the process. Williams happened across a dead body first hand. Grim stuff!

And yet, he continued his journey ‘Round London’. Without his intrepid spirit, and that of men like him, we wouldn’t have such colourful records of life in the Victorian era. Raise your glass to Mr. Montagu Williams QC. Gawd bless ’im.

Mapping Victorian London

I 're-tweeted' this link earlier today (no mean feat for a nineteenth century chap, I can assure you), but felt it was well worth posting on the blog so that like-minded souls could find it more easily.

The National Library of Scotland's map department has taken some high-res scans of the London Ordnance Survey maps 1893-6 (over 500 maps, in fact), stitched them all together and superimposed them onto modern digital maps. If you like maps, and like history, you'll love this!

http://mappinglondon.co.uk/2013/victorian-london-in-incredible-detail/

It can be a little tricky to navigate via the article, so the direct link is here. 

What you end up with a searchable map of London in the mid 1890s, with functionality very similar to Google maps. A bit like this:

Which is rather marvellous for people like me who love maps! 

For now, enjoy exploring Victorian London. I'm going back in! (I wonder when they'll do the time-travelling Streetview version...?)

From the pages of Punch, or the London Chiavari, November 1871

DARWINIAN SPIRITUALISM.

SIR, MR. PUNCH,

THE Report of the Dialectical Society on Spiritualism has been derided by many critics and others, who either believe, or at least seriously entertain, MR. DARWIN'S theory of the Descent of Man. The Darwinists, indeed, generally despise the Spiritualists.

I, who am both a Spiritualist and a Darwinist, see no reason at all why they should. On the contrary, I see very much reason why they should not. Darwinism and Spiritualism, Sir, rightly regarded, illustrate and confirm each other. Darwinists, who hold the derivation of mankind from the Marine Ascidian, intermediately through the Anthropoid Apes, argue that if, as asserted by Spiritualists, disembodied human spirits exist, disembodied simious spirits should also exist. There ought to be spirits of apes and monkeys. Well, I say, so there are. The undignified and absurd nature of some spiritual communications is often alleged as proving their unreality. These communications proceed from the spirits of deceased apes.

Messages are often received at "circles" purporting to come from BACON, FRANKLIN, BYRON, or some other departed personage of genius or intellect, which they are far from being examples of, being, on the contrary, nonsense or twaddle. In these cases the spirit of an Orang-outang, Chimpanzee, Gorilla, or some other description of jackanapes, actuated by the imitative instinct characteristic of the monkey tribes, personates the poet, philosopher, or man of science, and mimics his utterances with imperfection corresponding to that which we see exhibited, in playing the part of humanity, by a performing monkey. The Ape-spirit imitates human speech, being in a state of Darwinian development, which is as possible for a monkey in the spheres as in this world. The levitation of MR. HOME and others, the transference of that gentleman in and out of a drawing-room window seventy feet from the ground, the transportation of Mediums through the air and the walls or ceiling of a room, the dancing of tables, the picking of pockets, and all the rest of the ludicrous incidents common at stances, are the monkeys' tricks of tricksy spirits, the spirits of monkeys.

Having said thus much, Sir, shall I be asked to prove it? Not by you. You are up to the philosophy of the times. Proof, you know, is now an anachronism in science. We are to accept MR. DARWIN'S theory, provisionally, because it is the best we have to account for facts. Mine, I am sure, has an equal claim to acceptance. It is the best out, and it squares with his. The Descent of Man is no reason against his Destiny, and his Destiny does not disprove his Descent; on the contrary is, as I have asserted, that is, shown, associated with evidences which prove it. Therefore don't tell me that I am an ass, and that Darwinism and Spiritualism, respectively, are but opposite poles of scientific and superstitious credulity. Write me down whatever you may, I subscribe myself

Yours truly,

PYTHAGORAS PUGS.

P.S. Of course there are also spirits of Marine Ascidians. Why not? Did not BLAKE (till lately pictor ignotus) once actually paint from life (spirit-life) the Ghost of a Flea?