Victorian London Book

Like her previous books this book is the product of the author's passionate interest in the realities of everyday life - and the conditions in which most people lived - so often left out of history books. This period of mid Victorian London covers a huge span: Victoria's wedding and the place of the royals in popular esteem; how the very poor lived the underworld prostitution crime prisons and transportation; the public utilities - Bazalgette on sewers and road design Chadwick on pollution and sanitation; private charities - Peabody Burdett Coutts - and workhouses; new terraced housing and transport trains omnibuses and the Underground; furniture and decor; families and the position of women; the prosperous middle classes and their new shops e.g. Peter Jones Harrods; entertaining and servants food and drink; unlimited liability and bankruptcy; the rich the marriage market taxes and anti-semitism; the Empire recruitment and press-gangs. The period begins with the closing of the Fleet and Marshalsea prisons and ends with the first (steam-operated) Underground trains and the first Gilbert & Sullivan.