Galvanism – Frankenstein science and the dead!
Galvanism was a new science that brought the dead back to life – seemingly – and inspired the novel Frankenstein
2019
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Tragedy as Jews expelled from England
This is a curious and terrible story I heard about years ago and found again in an old book on London history dating from the 1870s in my library. The story goes that when King Edward I of England expelled all the Jewish people from his kingdom, one ship captain deliberately murdered a group of…
Prisoners infect judges with typhus – jail fever!
In 1750 three judges busily sentencing some criminals to death caught jail fever off them – and died of typhus a little while later
London hated the French long before Brexit
Being French in London could make you unpopular long before Brexit when in the 18th century there was widespread xenophobia and abuse
The gang that terrorised Georgian London!
We think of gangs as a modern day evil but Georgian London had its urban gangs like the Black Boy Alley crew as Tony McMahon discovers
The London of the Frankenstein Chronicles
If you’ve watched the Netflix horror series The Frankenstein Chronicles you might be wondering what part of London were all those sordid and foul alley ways and run down houses? Well, it might surprise you to know that it was a district very close to Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. I’m a latecomer to The…
Monkey versus Dog in fight to the death
Jacco Macacco was a small monkey that was famous in Georgian London for putting up a decent fight against any dog set against it
Dog dung used to make books look good
The most gross job in Victorian London was that of the Pure Finder who collected dog dung to sell to tanneries as part of the leather making process
Victorian slang for beginners!
Tony McMahon teaches you London Victorian slang so you could learn how to survive in the London of Charles Dickens and Queen Victoria
Top movies about London!
Tony McMahon looks at movies about London ranging from Alfred Hitchcock to Stanley Kubrick and the Ealing Comedies for the 1940s and 1950s