And now it’s time for another History Wednesday! Today, we’re going to talk about the “Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894.” 😊
When your thoughts turn to transportation on the Victorian London streets (well, that’s what mine do a lot of the time, anyway,) what’s the first thing you think of? You probably picture all those beautiful horses prancing around. Dashing Victorian swells riding horses, horses pulling hackney carriages and expensive private carriages, horses delivering goods by wagon and cart, horse-drawn hansom cabs and omnibuses and trams. Horses, horses everywhere. And this is an accurate picture, because throughout the entire Victorian period, people either took horse-drawn transportation, or they walked. There were very, very few exceptions to this, right up to the end of Victoria’s reign.
So by the late 19th century, there were around 50,000 horses on the streets on London every day. These horses were eating 20 lbs of food and 8 gallons of water every day. And, well, I think we all know what would happen then. They produced over 150,000 pounds of horse manure and 15.000 gallons of urine every single day. Then there was the fact that each working horse had a life expectancy of only about 3 years, and they had a tendency to drop dead in the street. In poorer neighborhoods, they could lie around for quite a while.
This wasn’t just a problem in London. New York City had almost twice as many horses on the streets 24/7, producing, you guessed it, twice as much waste. It kind of gives a new meaning to the concept of the “Gilded Age,” doesn’t it? In 1894, the London Times newspaper predicted that “In 50 years, every street in London will be buried under nine feet of manure.” The population was larger than ever before, around 6 million people, and there had never been so many horses on the streets. This became known as the ‘Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894.”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be solved for a while. Technically, the London Underground existed through the later era, the first line opening in 1863. But in practical terms, it didn’t even begin to amount to much until halfway through Edwardian times. It definitely did not take the pressure off all the horse traffic in London before the turn of the century. Cars began to appear after 1896, but they were rarely seen until around 1912, which was the turning point. Ironically, cars were thought of as much cleaner and more hygienic. And when you picture 150,000 lbs. of horse poo per day, it’s easy to see why. For eight years, London was at a crisis point with horse waste. Can you imagine living in this?? Between horse pee and poo, arsenic in clothing and wallpaper, and dangerous fogs so thick that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, it’s a wonder anyone survived the 19th century!
The main form of transport in London and elsewhere until the early part of the 20th century was by horse, or was horse-drawn. Individuals ow
Time for another Off Topic Tuesday! :) what's the most interesting fact you've heard this week? Mine is the underwater Stone Age megastructure from 11,000 years ago.
Self improvement is great but ultimately? you have to accept your self. Yes you can eat better, exercise more, read more, set boundaries, love your self, but it all comes down to this. Some days you won’t have the energy to do any of these things. And you’ll look in the mirror and think that this is not enough. That’s a lie. The biggest love for self is to live slowly. To rest. To really rest. Have a nap. Eat what makes you feel good. Read if you want to. Embrace yourself and accept that you cannot and will not be ever be perfect. Accept that you are good enough. You don’t need to keep busy all the time. you don’t need to go out all the time and post on instagram. You don’t need to journal if you don’t want to. You don’t need to make art if you don’t want to. Breathe, give yourself grace and compassion. Give yourself the love and tenderness you so badly need. Be gentle with yourself. You are trying and it is good enough. You are good enough.
In the entire history of England all the way up to the year 1801—which means this is also the entire history of the British Empire to that point—guess how many women got a divorce. Don’t cheat and google it, just guess. Give up?
One.
How is this possible when divorce itself was legalized in the year 1700?? In one hundred years, why did only ONE woman get a divorce? Well, that’s what this history post is about!
Today, divorce is clearly a lot more common than it used to be. Among all Americans 18 years of age or older, whether they have been married or not, 25 percent have gone through a legal marital split. 15 percent of adult women in the United States are divorced or separated today, compared with less than one percent in 1920. I’ve been divorced, and it’s safe to bet that some of you have, too. The percentage is a little lower in Britain, but it really shot up once no-fault divorce became a thing there in 2022 (yes, it took all that time.)
But that was clearly not always the historical case. We’re only going to discuss the situation in England, and later, in Britain, or this post would need to be a book. There were never uniform rules for divorce all over the world or even in the western world. For instance, northern Europe had an option for divorce after the Reformation, and divorce in the U.S. followed very different rules after 1776. If we look at Tudor times in England, there was no divorce as we would think of today (or even as people would have thought of it a hundred years later.) The option simply didn’t exist. Couples could formally separate, but for both people involved to be free to part ways and remarry, the only way to go was annulment. The Church had to agree that the marriage in question never should have happened in the first place.
Henry VIII broke from Rome because he couldn’t get an annulment for his marriage to Katherine of Aragon from the Pope, but he did get one very easily when he wanted to discard Anna of Cleves in favor of Catherine Howard. In the year 1700, divorce finally became possible in England. However, miserable couples still faced a lot of barriers. The only way to divorce was to get a special Act of Parliament, which the person who wanted the divorce had to pay for. As you’ve probably guessed, not many people did this. Over the next one hundred and fifty-seven years, there were three hundred and fourteen extremely expensive divorces. And as you may have figured out, almost all of these were brought by husbands. There were exactly four cases in which the wife, not the husband, filed for divorce. But the more I learned about this, the more I found myself fascinated by the fact that those four cases did exist. It wasn’t completely impossible for women to get a divorce during those 157 years. It was just extremely unlikely, to the point where they represented basically one percent of all divorces. So who were these women, and especially, who was that first case in 1801, and how did she do it? How did she manage to pull off something so very unprecedented? Next week, I’ll answer that question, andwe’ll learn about the weird and fascinating story of the very first woman to ever get a legal divorce in England: Jane Campbell. And it actually WILL be posted in Wednesday! :P
Let's get right to the point. Do you write historical fiction set in Britain? if so, you HAVE TO know about this unbelievable treasure trove of historical info. The Times of London has a historical archive of every word ever published since its founding in 1785. As you might guess, yes, the entire thing is behind a paywall. But it is so worth subscribing just to get access to this database.They have an intro offer right now. £1 for 6 months. I even spent five minutes of my life figuring out how to do a pound sign on an American keyboard setup JUST FOR YOU, so DO EET. I'm reading over their fall 1888 coverage of Jack the Ripper right now! :) (I was today years old when I found out he was called the Whitechapel Murderer at the time.)
And now it's time for another History Wednesday! :) As you may know, arsenic used to be in absolutely EVERYTHING. Victorians used it to color clothing, wallpaper, book covers, gelatin molds, artificial flowers, baby carriages, and children’s toys a beautiful shade of green. Arsenic was in patent medications, complexion wafers, soaps, food coloring, and libido pills. And, of course, it was used to kill rats and other vermin, which the Victorian era had no shortage of. Because arsenic was so easy to come by, it was a very popular poison. Tasteless and odorless, arsenic was also difficult to detect until forensic medicine had advanced. One of the best known cases happened before the Victorian era even began.
Eliza Fenning was a maidservant in a well-to-do Georgian home who was convicted of attempting to murder the entire Turner family by serving them arsenic-laden dumplings. To this day, it’s still not known if she was really guilty, or if one of the Turner sons or nephews was getting tired of waiting for his inheritance and decided to speed up the process. Because there was no line drawn between murder and attempted murder at that time, Eliza was executed in 1815. No matter who was actually responsible, her case led to the development and advancement of forensic evidence as a means of determining guilt in murder trials.
Eliza Fenning had the misfortune of being hired as a cook for the Turner family, and 7 weeks into her employment, she got entangled in a com
Apple TV+ announced a season two renewal for “The Buccaneers,” the acclaimed drama inspired by Edith Wharton’s unfinished final novel of the
I can't believe that I didn't post here for a year and a half. I got busy... what can I say.... anyway, I'm currently reading a LOT of Victorian and gilded age era books, and listening to Edith Wharton's The Buccaneers. Flo Gibson's version will always slay. Is it worth getting a 7 day free trial of Apple + just to see both Buccaneer series, though?? There's going to be another new season...
Hey all, we're still alive! I know it's been FOREVER since any updates. But we're here, covering both Downton Abbey and Gilded Age. :) I might spin off GA into another page, but so many people are interested in both that also.... maybe not. Anyway, I like Gladys Russell!
I remember back when the director for this one was announced. His last film was Y Tu Mama Tambien, and, well.... so, Harry Potter was going to be about threesomes. Which would have made for a great movie actually:P
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