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Russell Croft

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A Portrait of Old Wapping

  • Post published:June 7, 2025
  • Post category:Maritime History/Transport History/Urban History (London)
  • Post comments:2 Comments

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…

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Underground Upheavals

  • Post published:September 6, 2024
  • Post category:Transport History/Urban History (London)
  • Post comments:4 Comments

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…

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Perils of Passage

  • Post published:August 29, 2023
  • Post category:Maritime History/Transport History/Urban History (Liverpool)
  • Post comments:2 Comments

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…

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The Omnivorous Omnibus

  • Post published:September 13, 2022
  • Post category:Transport History/Urban History (Leeds)/Urban History (London)
  • Post comments:1 Comment

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.…

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Recent Posts

  • A Portrait of Old Wapping
  • Underground Upheavals
  • Perils of Passage
  • The Omnivorous Omnibus
  • Leeds Leylands’ Life

Recent Comments

  • Dorothy Langman on Liverpool Zoological Gardens
  • Roger on A Portrait of Old Wapping
  • Tom Beavis on A Portrait of Old Wapping
  • Carol on Underground Upheavals
  • Tom on Underground Upheavals

Categories

  • Hugh Shimmin (3)
  • Jewish History (1)
  • Maritime History (2)
  • Suffragists (2)
  • The Author Abroad (1)
  • Transport History (4)
  • Urban History (Bradford) (2)
  • Urban History (Leeds) (8)
  • Urban History (Liverpool) (8)
  • Urban History (London) (5)

Copyright © Russell Croft 2023

Banner image: detail from The Dancing Platform at Cremorne Gardens (Phoebus Levin, 1864), Museum of London.
This setting is featured in the chapter of Bring Him in Mad entitled ‘A Christmas Pantomime’.