Memorials of the Great Exhibition
The Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in 1851 was an extraordinary phenomenon. Such was its appeal that hordes of folk from all over the country and from all classes…
A Portrait of Old Wapping
The London Docks were built in Wapping and neighbouring Shadwell, just downstream of the City of London, between 1801 and 1815 by the London Dock Company. First opened in 1805…
Underground Upheavals
The first underground railway in the world, the Metropolitan, was built in London between 1860 and 1863 from Paddington to Farringdon. Its construction involved the innovation of “cut-and-cover”, whereby roads…
Perils of Passage
Liverpool's waterfront must have been a fascinating place to visit in the first half of the Nineteenth Century. The growth of the dock estate in the period was prodigious, and…
The Omnivorous Omnibus
Travel by bus, or “omnibus”, could be a hair-raising business in the first half of the Nineteenth Century. Collisions occurred, axles broke, wheels came off, and horses fainted or bolted.…