The report on the Surrey Sessions printed in the South London Press on Saturday the 7th December 1872 makes fascinating reading. The venue was the Sessions House in Newington Causeway, and the forty-five cases were tried by William Hardman and a supporting cast of fellow magistrates. Forty-four of the prisoners were charged with felony, and one with misdemeanour. Only three could …
The Eccentric Old Lady of Stamford Street: Cordelia Angelica Read
Mid-nineteenth century London, just south of the river in Southwark. As darkness falls, a crowd gathers hoping to see the ghostly apparition that haunts an unoccupied run-down building on the south side of Stamford Street, near the junction with Blackfriars Road. Through the broken windows can be seen the shape of a woman, sometimes even of two, flitting through the …
Lights Out, or, The Strange Story of the Plaistow Ghost
You may have read my recent piece on the Woburn Square ghost, which can be found by following this link. The essence of that affair, which occurred in 1867, was that rumours of hauntings and other supernatural phenomena were liable to whip up a sort of collective hysteria. A desire for free entertainment combined with honest curiosity was able to …
The Witch of Moorgate
In 1821 Mary Calder, an elderly widow, inhabited a house in New Court, just off Moor Lane. Renting out the first and second floors, she kept the ground floor or parlour floor for her own use, and supplemented her income by taking in washing. Her lodgers on the first floor were a Mrs Walcot and her attractive and lively young …
Shades of Opinion, or, The Great Ghost Debate of 1881
In 1881 the Daily Telegraph printed a remarkable series of letters submitted by its readers to the editor. In total there were almost seventy, and all appeared in October, the first on the 6th and the last on the 28th. While some were no longer than a single paragraph, others were many paragraphs in length, and a few extended over …
A Compassionate Man, or, Charles Dickens Discusses the News
One of the most significant of Charles Dickens’s many acquaintances was the wealthy and influential Angela Burdett-Coutts. She was born into a position of enormous privilege as the daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, the 5th Baronet, and Sophia Coutts, whose father was the founder of the prestigious banking house. In 1837 she inherited a fortune from the maternal side of …
The Man who moved the Crystal Palace by Horse and Cart
If you read my post on Loddiges nursery and the Empress Josephine’s palm tree, you might have wondered who the man on the horse is. Well, the answer is one Thomas Younghusband, and I know this because he wrote a letter to The Times on the 29th July 1854, that is to say two days after the transporting of the …
The Two Friends, or, The Story of Thomas Hamber and Percy Greg
There is a good story about a dog told by a journalist, and, given that we at London Overlooked are quite fond of canine anecdotes, the most recent of which can be found by following this link, we would like to make it the subject of this article. We will meet some colourful characters along the way, and we will …
Flights of Fancy, or, The Rise and Fall of Vincent de Groof
On the 21st of June 1873 the front page of the Illustrated Police News carried an extraordinary image. A man dressed in an acrobat’s outfit, and sporting shaggy hair and a bristling beard, clings to the underside of two enormous artificial wings. The captions says it all. He is hailed as “The Flying Man”, and he is nicknamed “Bat”, and …
A House of Crows, or, The Strange Passion of Mr and Mrs Melford
If you read my recent piece on the rookery in Kensington Gardens, which can be found on the London Overlooked website by following this link, you will recognise the name William Henry Hudson. Hudson was a writer on natural history with a strong interest in ornithology, which he indulged in the course of his many walks through the green spaces …