Many of London's Victorian buildings are built of coarse-textured yellow bricks. These are 'London stocks', produced in very large quantities all through the nineteenth century and notable for their ability to withstand the airborne pollutants of the Victorian city. Whether visible or, as is sometimes the case, hidden behind stonework or underground, they form a major part of the fabric of the capital. Until now, little has been written about how and where they were made and the people who made them. Peter Hounsell has written a detailed history of the industry which supplied these bricks to the London market, offering a fresh perspective on the social and economic history of the city. In it he reveals the workings of a complex network of finance and labour. From landowners who saw an opportunity to profit from the clay on their land, to entrepreneurs who sought to build a business as brick manufacturers, to those who actually made the bricks, the book considers the process in detail, placing it in the context of the supply-and-demand factors that affected the numbers of bricks produced and the costs involved in equipping and running a brickworks. Transport from the brickfields to the market was crucial and Dr Hounsell conducts a full survey of the different routes by which bricks were delivered to building sites - by road, by Thames barge or canal boat, and in the second half of the century by the new railways. The companies that made the bricks employed many thousands of men, women and children and their working lives, homes and culture are looked at here, as well as the journey towards better working conditions and wages. The decline of the handmade yellow stock was eventually brought about by the arrival of the machine-made Fletton brick that competed directly with it on price. Brickmaking in the vicinity of London finally disappeared after the Second World War. Although its demise has left little evidence in the landscape, this industry influenced the developme

In Victorian London, filth was everywhere: horse traffic filled the streets with dung, household rubbish went uncollected, cesspools brimmed with "night soil," graveyards teemed with rotting corpses, the air itself was choked with smoke. In this intimately visceral book, Lee Jackson guides us through the underbelly of the Victorian metropolis, introducing us to the men and women who struggled to stem a rising tide of pollution and dirt, and the forces that opposed them. Through thematic chapters, Jackson describes how Victorian reformers met with both triumph and disaster. Full of individual stories and overlooked details--from the dustmen who grew rich from recycling, to the peculiar history of the public toilet--this riveting book gives us a fresh insight into the minutiae of daily life and the wider challenges posed by the unprecedented growth of the Victorian capital.

Amidst the sea of squalid brick tenements and working-class two-up, two-down houses of late nineteenth-century London, new building types arose, large in scale and bold in their message: the triple-storied Queen Anne board schools, the mock Elizabethan settlement houses, an Arts and Crafts free public art gallery replete with mystic symbolism, and as first conceived, a neo-Byzantine pleasure palace for the working-classes.

The prison system was one of the primary social issues of the Victorian era and a regular focus of debate among the period?s reformers, novelists, and poets. Stones of Law, Bricks of Shame brings together essays from a broad range of scholars, who examine writings on the Victorian prison system that were authored not by inmates, but by thinkers from the respectable middle class. Studying the ways in which writings on prisons were woven into the fabric of the period, the contributors consider the ways in which these works affected inmates, the prison system, and the Victorian public. Contesting and extending Michel Foucault's ideas on power and surveillance in the Victorian prison system, Stones of Law, Bricks of Shame covers texts from Charles Dickens to Henry James. This essential volume will refocus future scholarship on prison writing and the Victorian era.

A portrait of London and its people - from the richest to the poorest - when it was the world's greatest and most quickly expanding city.

First published in 1976, Bricks tells the story of bricks in Britain. The story of the brick begins with the sun-dried, mud bricks formed with hands alone. Walls built with such bricks have been found in the ruins of Jericho – probably the oldest town in the world. John Woodforde describes bricks and brickmaking in the ancient world and in Europe and America; he gives a comprehensive account of brickmaking in Britain up to the 1970s. He describes the properties of bricks, including those of the unique fletton brick, manufactured by the London Brick Company. The author looks, too, at the equipment and techniques used to fashion bricks, the brickmakers themselves and brickwork of many kinds: in garden walls, sewers, canals, railways and roads as well as in Hampton Court and the Nash terraces of Regent’s Park. This book will be of interest to students of architecture, engineering, chemistry and construction.

Yanni (art history, Rutgers U.) examines the relationship between architecture and science in the 19th century by considering the physical placement and display of natural artifacts in Victorian natural history museums. She begins by discussing the problem of classification, the social history of collecting, as well as architectural competitions an

This book explores how Victorian cemeteries were the direct result of the socio-cultural, economic and political context of the city, and were part of a unique transformation process that emerged in London at the time. The book shows how the re-ordering of the city’s burial spaces, along with the principles of health and hygiene, were directly associated with liberal capital investments, which had consequences in the spatial arrangement of London. Victorian cemeteries, in particular, were not only a solution for overcrowded graveyards, they also acted as urban generators in the formation London’s suburbs in the nineteenth century. Beginning with an analysis of the conditions that triggered the introduction of the early Victorian cemeteries in London, this book investigates their spatial arrangement, aesthetics and functions. These developments are illustrated through the study of three private Victorian burial sites: Kensal Green Cemetery, Highgate Cemetery and Brookwood Cemetery. The book is aimed at students and researchers of London history, planning and environment, and Victorian and death culture studies.

A richly illustrated history exploring life in Kent. This book tells the amazing story of Kent from earliest times to the modern day. Some of the pivotal moments in the Garden of England's history are recalled, including invasions from Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans. It has seen the Black Death, the Peasants' Revolt, the Swing Riots and, more recently, audacious escapades by suffragettes in the battle for Votes for Women. The story is brought right up to date with the challenges faced by traditional industries and the transformation of cross-Channel travel. The resilient people of Kent have taken it all in their stride and this story encompasses how they lived, worked and played through hundreds of years of colourful history.

In these pages, the beloved Bill Bryson gives us a fascinating history of the modern home, taking us on a room-by-room tour through his own house and using each room to explore the vast history of the domestic artifacts we take for granted. As he takes us through the history of our modern comforts, Bryson demonstrates that whatever happens in the world eventually ends up in our home, in the paint, the pipes, the pillows, and every item of furniture. Bryson has one of the liveliest, most inquisitive minds on the planet, and his sheer prose fluency makes At Home one of the most entertaining books ever written about private life.