A Visitor's Guide To Victorian England

A Book Review

Being interested in all things Victorian, I am constantly looking for books on the Victorian Era. In fact, I should admit that I am obsessed about ‘all things Victorian’. From the clothes worn by men and women, rich or poor, to how they lived, where they lived, what they ate and would (or would not ) drink, what kind of transport there was, who worked where, who went to school (and who didn’t), the list really is endless.

Every single aspect of this Era just fascinates me!

So when I found this book in my local library, I couldn’t loan it out quick enough. “A Visitor’s Guide To Victorian England” by Michelle Higgs is well researched, well written and I love the quotes that the author has used because they bring the book to life. The pictures give us a ‘window’ into the lives of the Victorians from many different angles. This book is so interesting that I’m planning to buy my own copy so that I can ‘study’ it.

There are ten chapters covering ten subjects, and quite in depth too. In the Appendices, the subjects include; The Cost of Living / wages and salaries / Currencies and coinage. The information on the 219 pages must have taken hours of research and is extremely informative.

“Costermongers and itinerant vendors all along the pavement; the houses covered with signboards and inscriptions; busy crowds on either side; omnibuses rushing to and fro in the centre of the road, and all around that indescribable bewildering noise of human voices, carriage-wheels and horses’ hooves, which pervades the leading streets into crowded cities.” Max Schlesinger, Saunterings In and About London, 1853.

Reading this quote, it’s as if we’ve been ‘transported’ back onto a busy and noisy Victorian street. When I close my eyes, the words I’ve just read transform into images in my mind’s eye, and ‘I’m there’, hearing the noises of man and horse, seeing the sights and smelling the smells — the vendors, the signboards and even the “busy crowds”. This is the type of quote that I love. I wish my history lessons at school were this interesting!

One of the chapters which caught my attention was chapter two: Accommodation.

Just how and where did the normal person in the street live? To understand this, we need to remember the “Class” system which existed during the Victorian Era. Upper class, middle class and working class. The class you were born into determined where and how you lived. Even which ‘hotel’ you stayed in depended on your ‘class’. The author goes into great detail about all of this. It really was a different ‘world’ to today.

Chapter Seven: “Health Hazards.”

“I find that the unsewered streets are generally in a very bad condition — Without sewers there can be no efficient drainage, and without drainage privies become superficial, offensive dumb wells, cellars are liable to contain water, and the ground generally becomes saturated with filth, and conditions of a character very inimical to health prevail. I have long observed that disease is most rife in streets of this character.” Report of Alfred Hill, Medical Officer of Health for Birmingham, 1873.

We live in a clean and healthy world today, and it is so easy to forget that life wasn’t always like this. During the Victorian Era, there was no sanitation until the middle of the Era, which then accelerated rapidly after 1848 and peaked in the 1860s and 1870s. There were no bathrooms or toilets like we have today.

“One of the toughest challenges you will face during your trip is staying healthy.”

The lack of clean water caused deadly cholera outbreaks, because the only way of drinking clean water was to boil it. Whilst those in the upper class were wealthy and had the money to provide the fire to boil the water, the working class (and ‘lower’ class origins beggars) didn’t stand much of a chance. The Middle class could, generally, afford the materials for a fire to boil their water. Most of the homes did not have piped water and had to go to a street well for the water they needed. The street well “was frequently polluted.” Today, we just cannot imagine living like this.

Chapter Nine: Amusements And Entertainments.”

Like us today, the Victorians had parks, pleasure gardens and beaches where they could picnic and get some fresh air, and even have a little paddle in the sea. One ‘recreation’ the Victorians do ‘own’ is The Great Exhibition of 1851. It was called “The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations of 1851” and it had 13,937 exhibitors with 100,000 exhibits. This was a “first” for the people of London as the Exhibition was at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. Nathaniel Hawthorne called it “a gigantic toy for the English people to play with,” after a visit in 1855.

Rather than go on and on and on about every chapter, (although I really could with this book), I ‘highly’ recommend that you find the book in the local library (or buy one yourself) and have a jolly interesting read.