Category Archives: Uncategorized

Amy Faulkner

Amy Faulkner was clearly a troubled young woman. Only 16, she had had some sort of argument with her parents and was no longer living at home. In May 1892 she boarded a train in Bradford, and somewhere near Leeds … Continue reading

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Harriet Daniels

Not all assault cases ended in favour of the victim. In 1888 a young woman named Harriet Daniels claimed that she had been assaulted by a coal miner, one John Phillips in a first class railway compartment in a train … Continue reading

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Fanny Elizabeth Bull

While train travel undoubtedly revolutionised life for Victorians, it did, especially in the days of non corridor trains, expose women to the risk of being sexually assaulted. The most prominent case that I’ve come across is that of Kate Dickinson, … Continue reading

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Keeping your cool

When I was researching hip baths I had great difficulty in finding suitable images – basically it seems that no nineteenth century cartoonist, artist or photographer produced an image of a hip bath in use which has ended up in … Continue reading

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The hip bath

I’ve been cataloguing the contents of Lake View House for the National Trust Other than its connection to Henry Handel Richardson the main value in Lake View is that it is a typical 1870’s corridor villa with an external kitchen … Continue reading

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Fairies and socialism

Towards the end of the 1880’s, improvements in lithographic printing meant it became possible to produce books with coloured illustrations relatively cheaply. And one of the first markets was children’s books – often given the increasing interest in folklore in … Continue reading

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Anarchists, revolutionaries and female spies

I’ve become intrigued by the 1894 story of the anarchist Polti being arrested through the agency of a female detective to whom he showed some documents, and it’s all a little bit strange. The early newspaper accounts mention a female … Continue reading

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Female detectives, spies and assassins…

I’ve been reading Sara Lodge’s book on female police detectives in the nineteenth century, and excellent it is too. Understandably, most of the material that she covers comes from the British Isles so, out of interest, I searched both Trove … Continue reading

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A post card to Miss Tripp

I’m not a serious post card collector, but I’m fascinated by the way people in the late nineteenth century used post cards much in the way we use text messages and emails, and occasionally, when I’ve some spare cash I’ll … Continue reading

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Writing in the nineteenth century

The combination of the penny post and increasing literacy meant that people in the nineteenth century wrote a lot. We are not talking about the good and the great, but about ordinary people writing ordinary letters commiserating a cousin for … Continue reading

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