Newgate Prison and Its Inmates in September 1819

Newgate Prison�west view

Loretta reports:

My recent book, Dukes Prefer Blondes, features a barrister (trial lawyer) who�s familiar with Newgate Prison and the Old Bailey. As I researched the book, I was already aware that, during the Regency era (some years before my story) England had an extremely high number of capital offenses. According to Albion�s Fatal Tree, �The most recent account suggests that the number of capital statutes grew from about 50 to over 200 between the years 1688 and 1820.�*

As a consequence, we tend to believe that people were being hanged by the droves. What I learned was, people were hanged, yes, including children, but more often, mercy was sought and granted, and the sentence changed to transportation or prison. This may explain the rather shocking nil in the category �Convicts under sentence of death.� You will notice that, even though more men than women were convicted of crimes, more women were sentenced to transportation. At the moment, I can�t explain that one.

*Figures based on Sir Leon Radzinowicz, A History of English Criminal Law and its Administration from 1750.

Newgate Statistics 1819

Newgate Statistics 1819

Carlton House's Conservatory

Carlton House Conservatory 1811

Loretta reports:

Regency aficionados will recognize the famous 19 June �entertainment� referred to in this description of the Prince Regent�s Conservatory.

What I wanted to point out was the lack of plants in the picture. Apparently, this isn�t just a function of the artist�s wanting to show the space without a lot of trees and flowers in the way. I recall reading somewhere (but have not been able to find the source) that plants were moved into and out of the conservatory as needed. One assumes, consequently, that it didn�t truly house a horticultural collection, in the way we think of conservatories doing. If you have further information about this, please feel free to comment.

Conservatory description

Conservatory description cont'd

For more images of the long-vanished Carlton House, you might want to take a look at David Watkins�s The Royal Interiors of Regency England: from watercolours first published by W.H. Pyne in 1817-20.

You can see some of the images, from the Pyne�s Royal Residences, online here and here.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Bartholomew Fair in the Early 1800s

Bartholomew Fair

Loretta reports:

Though Bartholomew Fair started out being celebrated on St. Bartholomew�s day, 24 August, calendar reform moved it to 3 September after 1752. It went on for another hundred years, until the Victorians banished it in the 1850s, maybe with just cause or maybe because ordinary people were having too much of a rollicking good time.

But as Ackermann�s Microcosm of London demonstrates, it was still going strong in 1808. I do love the description of it as �this British Saturnalia,� and yes, this is one of Rowlandson's livelier images for the book. He must have had a blast with it!

The annexed print is a spirited representation of this British Saturnalia. To be please in their own way, is the object of all.  Some hugging, some fighting, others dancing: while many are enjoying the felicity of being borne along with the full stream of one mob, others are encountering all the dangers and vicissitudes of forcing their passage through another; while one votary of pleasure is feasting his delighted eyes with the martial port of Rolla, and the splendid habiliments of the Virgins of the Sun, another disciple of Epicurus is gratifying his palate with all the luxury of fired sausages, to which he is attracted by the alluring invitation of �Walk into my parlour!� �Microcosm of London Vol 1.

(Since the Spitalfields Life blog always has superior images to what I can find in the public domain, I recommend you visit here, and enlarge.)


Along with the feasting and hugging and squeezing there were carnival rides as well as performers and other entertainments you can read about in Henry Morley�s Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair (first published in 1857).

One of the entertainers who intrigued me especially was the Fireproof Lady, but you may have your own favorites.

Fireproof Lady

Fireproof Lady

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Friday Video: Messages from Roman Era London

Loretta reports:

After watching a video program like this one, observing the painstaking work involved in reading what amounts to ghost messages, I ought to hesitate to call myself a Nerdy History Girl, but I won't. These really are ghost messages, since they're only the shadows of the originals, unlike an inscription on a monument, say. But you do have to be a history nerd to get excited about the first use of "London"�and the surprising recovery of London after Boudica.

Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

Opening the New London Bridge, August 1831

London Bridge 1 August 1831

Loretta reports:

Usually, I start the month with fashion plates, but today�s the 185th anniversary of the opening of the �new� London Bridge. So we'll look at that instead, in pictures and text, since it isn't in London anymore.

The bridge, as many are aware, has had several incarnations.

On this day in 1831, King William IV officially opened, with great pomp and ceremony, the version that�s since moved�more or less�to Arizona.
You can read a short summary of its life here, and a lengthy account in the Gentleman�s Magazine starting here.

London Bridge ca 1890-1900

You may not feel up to an early 19th century detailed report on the bridge�s history and construction, along with a blow-by-blow description of the opening ceremony. These lengthy accounts are tough on modern readers. But this sort of thing was what readers wanted, in the days before photography, let alone television. If the whole article is too much for you, you might still want to take a look at the very nice bird�s eye view engraving here.

Image above left: The New London Bridge as it appeared on Monday August 1st, 1831, at the Ceremony of opening by their Majesties, courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

Below right: London Bridge ca 1890-1900, courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Before Refrigerators: The Ice House

Ice House 1817

Loretta reports:

Ice houses weren�t as rare in England as the excerpt from Ackermann's Repository for June 1817 makes one believe. Neither were baths, for that matter. And London did have its share of both. In the 17th century, King Charles II had not only one, but six ice houses built, including one for his mistress the Duchess of Cleveland.* You can read more about ice houses here, here, and here.

Photo of Duchess of Cleveland�s ice house scanned from Christopher Symon Sykes's Private Palaces.

Ice House Described

Ice House Described

*If you'd like to learn more about this remarkable woman, I highly recommend Susan Holloway Scott's (aka the other NHG) Royal Harlot.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Relics of Old London, 1875-1886

Loretta reports:

Thanks to an overnight visit to New Haven this past weekend, I was able to make two visits to the Yale Center for British Art. During the first, I made my way to the fourth floor gallery, one of my favorite places, to view the new display of the collections, �Britain in the World.� You can read about it here.

On the second visit, I spent a long time in a small, fascinating exhibit, Art in Focus: Relics of Old London, which runs until 14 August 2016.

On display were beautiful carbon photoprints of London buildings in the later Victorian era. These were part of a project begun in 1875 when � a group of friends united to memorialize�* the Oxford Arms coaching inn, which was facing demolition. �Over the following decade, the Society for Photographing Relics of Old London continued to issue photographs of buildings that were abandoned, altered, or soon to be destroyed, to honor bygone and overlooked sites and to rouse public sentiment against such development projects.�

Oxford Arms, the galleries

Since I like to write road books, I was especially interested in the photos of old coaching inns. But all of the images give one a sense of time travel.

The exhibition photographs come from the Paul Mellon Collection, and are part of a complete set of 120 photographs the museum owns. The photos were originally issued in �portfolios of green morocco leather, with gilt lettering.� This, and the decision to produce carbon prints, which are highly stable and thus permanent, show that the images were meant to be a lasting record. According to the exhibition pamphlet, �the accompanying letterpress included detailed scholarly excavations of the layers of history in each site photographed.�

You can see the images and the descriptions at the Royal Academy Collections.

I also recommend a visit to one of the 2NHG�s favorite London blogs, Spitalfields Life, where you can see some Then & Now: Relics of London photos to compare with photos of the buildings that escaped destruction.

*All quotations from exhibition catalog: Art in Focus: Relics of Old London, Yale Center for British Art.

Image: The Upper Gallery, The Oxford Arms, Warwick Lane, 1875, ca.1875, scanned from Exhibition catalog (Note: the copyrighted images at, e.g., the Royal Academy of Arts, are much sharper. Oxford Arms, the galleries, looking from Warwick Lane, courtesy Wikipedia.

Oxford Arms in Better Days

Note: For those readers who are joining the Lord of Scoundrels read/re-read-along this month, Jessica would have watched the fight from a gallery like this, but in much better condition, obviously in 1828. Unfortunately, I lost the link to the image at left.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption (except for the one at left) will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Lansdowne House in Berkeley Square

Lansdowne House 1811

Loretta reports:

By now everybody�s aware of my fascination with lost architecture. Unlike Northumberland House, Lansdowne House isn�t completely lost. A still-impressive piece of it remains in Berkeley Square, as the home of the Lansdowne Club,*

from 1818 London map 

and a drawing room is in the Lloyd�s Building. Other pieces (of the interior) are scattered hither and yon, including another drawing room, now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and a dining room in NYC�s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

You can learn a great deal more about the house, its contents, and where they�ve gone, here at the DiCamillo Companion site.

*Visiting the club�s site will reward you with a history and some lovely old and new, mainly interior, photos of the building, including some fine Art Deco work from the 1930s.

Lansdowne House description

Note: �It was from its inception the only private members club in London where ladies had equal standing with men as they still do.�





Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.