London Overlooked
True Stories from the Old Smoke

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London
Overlooked

True Stories from the Old Smoke

Articles relating to entertainments

By Jingo: The Great MacDermott
Caroline Crachami: The Sad Story of the Sicilian Dwarf
Chocks Away: The Great Race of Eighteen Seventy-One
Cochrane's Calculator: The Story of Edward Leyden
Colonel Rackstrow's Peculiar Museum
The End of the Line: The Sad Story of Louisa Marshall
Facing the Music: Mr Rawlins and the Organ Grinding Nuisance
Flights of Fancy: The Rise and Fall of Vincent de Groof
The German Siffleur: The Life and Times of Herr von Joel
A House of Crows: The Strange Passion of Mr and Mrs Melford
John Sackhouse: An Inuit Comes to London
Killed by a Corset? The Tragic Tale of Kitty Tyrrell, a Victorian Actress
Lighting Up the Lives of Londoners
Making a Splash: John Sackhouse at Sadler's Wells
The March of Time: A Portrait of Sergeant Drummer Henry Gribble
A Musical Mystery: The Grave of John Baptist Krall
Music in the Menagerie: Everard Home Entertains an Elephant
On Thin Ice: The Pleasures and Perils of Winter in the Parks
A Phoenix at Eventide: The Story of William Henry Monk
Pleasures and Palaces: In Praise of Henry Rowley Bishop
Poison, Passion, Pie and the Pavilion Theatre
Remembering Albert Midgley, Musician, 1892-1918
The Sadness of Clowns: The Strange Death of Giuseppe Grimaldi
A Star Shining Over the Sea: The Moving Story of Greta Williams
Voice of My Heart: The Story of Frederick Nicholls Crouch
The Whistling Oyster of Vinegar Yard
William Weale, Brother Francis and the Bad Boy

Welcome to London Overlooked, home to true stories about the lesser known people, places and peculiarities of London, with a bias towards the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

While the great and the good may make an occasional appearance, we want to remember the lives of ordinary Londoners. The only qualification for inclusion is that something or somebody has an interesting story.

We are Londoners with interests in historical and genealogical research and a desire to share the sometimes arcane knowledge we have picked up over the years.

You may use our written content for non-commercial purposes. Please attribute it either to Karen Ellis-Rees or to William Ellis-Rees.

Our books

The Elephant of Exeter Change
by William Ellis-Rees

This is the remarkable true story of one of the most notorious incidents in early nineteenth-century London.

A five-ton elephant confined in a menagerie above a shopping arcade in the Strand suddenly goes berserk, with horrifying and tragic consequences. Set against a backdrop of theatres, schools of anatomy and dangerous slums, the story offers a vivid insight into life in the rougher quarters of the city.

The showmen and the animal dealers who operate in this shadowy world are roguish impresarios masquerading as respectable scientists. But at the heart of the story are two good men: a ship’s captain and the founder of the new Zoological Society of London.

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London Ghosts Unveiled: The True Stories behind the Capital's Hauntings
by Karen & William Ellis-Rees

Whether or not you believe in the supernatural, you will enjoy discovering the truth behind these ten scary stories.

Discover the real Nurse Lizzie Church, haunting the wards of University College Hospital. Feel for the Bacons of Bermondsey, tormented by a malicious poltergeist. Read about the real victim of a murder whose screams are heard in Farringdon Station. Meet fraudulent spiritualists, eccentric recluses, a twitchy Methodist minister, and a melancholic with a fear of being buried alive.

Vengeful witches and gibbering spectres, haunted houses and dismal graveyards—they are all to be found in this entertaining anthology.

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The Splintered Eye & Other Haunting Stories
by Karen & William Ellis-Rees

A collection of chilling stories to entertain and disturb in equal measure. A Victorian clergyman is tormented from beyond the grave.

A lonely photographer struggles to separate image from reality in post-war London. A terrifying journey down the Regent’s Canal turns a young man’s world upside down for good. A child’s innocence is shattered at Christmas.

These eleven tales, which range in tone from the ghostly to the weird and eerie, and in setting from the nineteenth century to the present day, reveal how greed, cruelty and violence bind the spirits of the dead to the world of the living.

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Welcome to London Overlooked, home to true stories about the lesser known people, places and peculiarities of London, with a bias towards the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

While the great and the good may make an occasional appearance, we want to remember the lives of ordinary Londoners. The only qualification for inclusion is that something or somebody has an interesting story.

We are Londoners with interests in historical and genealogical research and a desire to share the sometimes arcane knowledge we have picked up over the years.

You may use our written content for non-commercial purposes. Please attribute it either to Karen or to William Ellis-Rees.

Animals
Art
Charity
Crime
Dickens
Distant Lands
Entertainments
Military
Servants
Shops & Trades
Supernatural
Writers

If you would like to subscribe to our website, and receive email notification of new articles, please enter your email address here:

Email Address

Name *

First

Last

Email *

Comment or Message *

Email

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