The meat markets speak of good cheer in the substantial prose of the Briton’s national beef; the poultry markets strike a more romantic note with the turkeys and the geese that lift the Christmas dinner above the Sunday level, but it is at Covent Garden that the true poetic atmosphere prevails. There not only does the yellow glow of the orange give colour to the foggy arcades and the dimly-lighted central avenue, but the holly and the mistletoe piled high in every direction speak to our hearts of the Christmas that Charles Dickens entwined with the love and sympathy of family reunion. The scarlet berry and the white gleam out from the masses of green, the fir-trees spread inviting branches that suggest a hundred delights, and the most jaded citizen, passing through Covent Garden on the eve of the great festival, sees the shadows of life lifted in the glow of the yule log, and amid the roar of the traffic and the hoarse cries of the street hawkers hears the merry laughter of little children happy in their English homes.

In the busy streets the market is at its height. The grocers are so gay with good things that grown-up men and women stop in front of them as fascinated as were Hansel and Gretel by the witch’s cottage made to eat. The sweetmeat shops are so cunningly set out that even the aged dyspeptic feels his loose change burning a hole in his pocket. The stationers’ shops are packed from morning till night with men, women, and children who are purchasing pictorial Christmas greetings that will tax the capacity of his Majesty’s post office almost to the point of the last straw.

“Post early,” the Postmaster cries beseechingly for weeks before the festival, and the great public obeys. From the twentieth of December it begins to crowd into the post offices with hands full of envelopes and arms full of parcels, and the post office assistants, male and female, seem to become machines. They sacrifice themselves nobly to a grand cause. The flower girl has cried aloud in her weariness that she “hates the smell of the roses,” but the loyal army that serves under the banner of the Postmaster General has not yet given us one weakling to cry aloud that he (or she) hates Christmas. Presently the bustle and the tumult, the crowding and confusion, are over, the streets that all through Christmas Eve have been like fairs grow gradually darker as the flickering lights go down and the shutters go up.
Thousands of men and women who earn their living in London have crowded the railway termini, and gone to their friends in the far-away towns. Londoners themselves have always the home feeling strongly upon them on Christmas Eve. It is a night to spend with the wife and bairns in happy, eager anticipation of the morrow. So the theatres are mostly closed, the music-halls are half empty, and even the street market grows deserted towards ten o’clock. Midnight finds the great thoroughfares given up to the policemen and a few stragglers. The great home festival has commenced. All London is under its own rooftree waiting for Santa Claus.

But long before Christmas Eve has melted into Christmas Day mighty London has had mighty deeds to accomplish, that there may be no hitch in the preparations for the Gargantuan feast. The great railway carriers have been at their wits’ ends to deliver the parcels, the packages, the hampers, the cases of gifts and good things that have been entrusted to them. On hundreds of hampers the word “Perishable ” stares the officials in the face. But trains are late owing to the increase of the goods and passenger traffic. And the “perishable” hampers arrive in such vast quantities that horses and men have to be kept at work night and day in order to deliver them. Sometimes it happens—it cannot be helped—that the longexpected poultry or game from the country that was to have been the Christmas fare is delivered to the disappointed householder just as the family are sitting down to something else purchased in despair at the last moment.

The theatres are mostly closed on Christmas Eve, but do not imagine that they are deserted. In some of them the preparations for the gorgeous Christmas pantomime which is to delight the children, young and old, on Boxing Day are in full swing. It is the dress rehearsal. We pass the public-houses which are still open, but which are not thronged as usual. Here and there we come upon men carefully carrying the goose that they have secured in the goose club, and others who are carrying home the hamper of spirits and wine that Boniface has presented them with in return for their weekly subscription. But there is little noise, and there is a marked absence of the old riotous excess. London at Christmas time to – day is a great improvement London of the past.

Time creeps on, and the quiet hours have come. Now and again the old tunes float out on the silence of the night. “The Mistletoe Bough” is rendered more melancholy than even the composer intended it on the Christmas remain with us to sfng the old world words that bear us back to the days of the yule log, the masquers, the mummers, the squire, the stage coach, and the snow-clad earth of the Christmas of our forefathers.

* * *

It is Christmas morning. London does not rise so early as usual to-day, and it is well on towards ten o’clock before there is any considerable movement. Then people, who are going to spend the day with friends in the suburbs or at some little distance, begin to make their way to the railway stations. Here are youths and maidens hasteni ng by themselves, here an aged man and woman making their way slowly, here are family parties, papa, mamma, and olive branches innumerable. Almost without exception each bears a brownpaper parcel. It is the Christmas gift, the little present that is usually taken to the hosts by the visitors—to uncle John, to aunt Mary, to the cousins, to grandmamma and grandpapa.

All the morning long the little stream of parcel bearers going out to spend the day with relatives and friends continues, but towards eleven it is joined by another crowd, a crowd that carries a church service instead to be by a cornet with a cold. The waits of a paper parcel, a crowd that is spending have had their day, but still in some parts of London they wake the sleeper from his pleasant dreams, and call for a Christmasbox in the morning. And the carollers still Christmas in its own homes. The church bells are ringing merrily. When they cease there is a noticeable thinning of the stream of pedestrians. The trains on the local lines have ceased running until after Divine service, and now there are only the travellers who are taking ‘bus and tram and cab to their destinations. The private carriages, the hired broughams, will not start with the little family parties outward bound until later in the day.

Up till half-past one there are always people in the streets taking the Christmas walk which is to prepare the appetite for dinner, a lengthy meal that taxes the digestive powers of most of us, and the parks and open spaces are fairly filled if the weather is fine. But after half-past one quiet reigns once more. London is indoors again. The richer folk are at lunch—the poorer folk are at dinner. This is the hour to walk abroad observently and take an unobtrusive peep at the windows as you pass. Everywhere you see that it is Christmas Day. At many a window you can see the little ones happy with the gifts that Santa Claus has brought them. Little boys are already testing the strength of their playthings. Little girls are enjoying the first sweets of motherhood in their tender attentions to the new doll. The studious children and the romantic children are absorbed in the pages of the new story books.

Over the children’s heads at the windows you have a glimpse of the table spread and waiting for the feast that is being dished up in the regions below. The fire light flickers and dances on the walls, and catches the bunch of holly over the mantelpiece and the evergreens twined in the gasalier. And up through the area railings there comes a fragrant odour that makes you look at your watch and remember your own luncheon hour.

From one to half-past there is a little stream of visitors to the workhouses and certain charitable institutions, where Christmas is being celebrated by a dinner to the inmates. Fashionable philanthropy which has contributed to the good cheer passes a pleasant half-hour on Christmas Day in assisting the poor, the lonely, and the afflicted to share in the common joy. Even in the great palaces of pain, where suffering is ever present and death rarely absent, the doctors, the nurses, and the students do their best to bring a little of the world’s happiness to the bedside of the patient. For the children there are toys and Christmas trees, for the grownup folk such fare and amusement as they can appreciate.

There are people, of course, who have nothing on Christmas Day, but they are few. Some by nature of their work have to make shift and take their Christmas dinner where they can. The ‘bus driver may have to take his in the ‘bus, but in his way he manages to make up a little family party. His wife brings the meat and the pudding in two basins, and she and his little daughter sit with him in the ‘bus, and make it homelike. The conductor who is unmarried is invited to take a seat at the “table.” Appreciating the kindly thought he goes into the public-house, fetches the beer, and pays for it.
The crossing-sweeper goes off duty after the folk have returned from church, and does not come on again till evening. He generally has a “home,” and his table, if it does not actually “groan,” is well covered with good things. For the charitable ladies of the neighbourhood have always a corner in their hearts for the crossing-sweeper, and many are the gifts he gets in the shape of creature comforts for his Christmas entertainment.

About four o’clock the Christmas dinners of the well-to-do begin. Except among the aristocracy it is a usual thing to make the dinner hour afternoon instead of evening. From four to seven you may picture family parties in almost every house you pass in the best neighbourhoods. The lamps of the street are just lighted, and darkness is setting in.
The blinds of the houses are drawn, but behind them you know that a united family are gathered round the board, and that merriment is the dominant note. From seven o’clock the sounds of festival strike your ears. You can hear the bang of the Christmas cracker, the merry laughter of the children, at times the sounds of an unmistakable romp. All over London the same spirit is present. Young and old have given themselves up to the joy of living.

Later on music asserts itself. The streets and the squares are so quiet, there is so little traffic, that the slightest sound in the houses is heard by the passers by. The music that you hear is rarely of the convivial order until the parting hour comes. Up to this time sentiment seems to be more in favour both with vocalist and instrumentalist. Even the concertina, which makes its appearance in the streets with home-returning youth, is not music-hally on Christmas night. There is a restraint and a sobriety about Christmas Day which always keep it a Church festival. There is a deeply rooted idea that although it is not a real Sunday it is a Sunday with quiet games allowed.

Soon after ten o’clock the home-returning travellers begin to appear in the streets. Once more the wayfarers are almost without exception parcel-laden. They are bearing back the gifts that have been presented to them in return for their own. Through the front door you occasionally catch a glimpse of the good-bye. There is considerable embracing among the ladies. The men shake hands with a hearty grip that has the sentiment of the season in it. The old four-wheel cabman sits noddintr on his box. But even he revives under the influence of the proffered glass of grog, and wheezes out “the compliments of the season” between two coughs.

Soon after eleven o’clock the cats have the roadway to themselves. They dart from area to area undisturbed. Even the dogs seem to be keeping Christmas indoors. Midnight strikes. You hear it in the silence of Christmas night as you hear it at no other time. The great day has come to an end. If you are abroad you will be startled by your own solitude. You will understand how truly is Christmas the festival of the home. A man or a woman alone kindles a feeling of sympathy in your breast; you begin to think a tragedy of friendlessness around them.

You pass the cab-stand. It is empty. You pass the public-house. It is shut. The ‘busses have ceased running. You quicken your steps, and hasten to your own home, which you have only quitted because you want to see what London looks like on Christmas night. As you pass the policeman you involuntarily say, “Merry Christmas to you.” The policeman answers, “Same to you, sir.” Perhaps you put your hand in your pocket. It is past midnight, and Boxing Day has dawned.

– “Christmas London” Living London by George R. Sims

The fashionable lady in Society required new clothes not only each year, but for each season and each activity. The less well-to-do usually had their clothing made over, or hired the services of a local dressmaker when in the country (and a lady’s maid had to be handy with the needle and up on the latest modes), but those with a significant income could lavish attention, detail, and money on their dress. The smartest and wealthiest women nipped off to Paris, or visited the London branch of a Parisian salon, to replenish their wardrobe, but most ladies used the services of court dressmakers.

Located in the heart of the West End (Piccadilly, Regent Street, Bond Street, and Oxford Street), these fashion houses specialized in supplying presentation gowns, coronation robes, court dress, gowns, corsets, and sportswear. Notable dressmakers included Kate Reilly, whose shop at 11-12 Dover Street was patronized by royalty, Elspeth Phelps, who was noted for her expert tailoring, Helen Metcalfe of 11 Hanover Square, Miss Viney of Holles Street, and Mrs. Mason, a dressmaker of New Burlington Street. Madame Kate Reilly was the most notable:

Among the many establishments at the West End of the town, opened by a lady for the behoof of ladies, is Madame Kate Reily’s, of Dover Street aforesaid (Nos. 11 and 12). Her establishment on the east side of the street, noticeable from without for its modern facement of red-brick, and general architectural neatness, in respect of its internal economy, is very thoroughly looked after. Madame Reily herself supervises every detail of the management, and it is satisfactory to record that her work-people have the advantage of her personal oversight, which, judging from what we have seen of the Dover Street establishment, must be productive of beneficial results in the way of comfort and wholesome conditions of work for her employes. Considering the conditions under which some trades are to-day carried on, this is a point worth noting, and should appeal to the practical sympathy of women. Dress-making is a fatiguing labour at best; and it is well to know that is pursued under the most favourable conditions at Kate Reily’s establishment.

London dressmakers were not fashion designers in the true sense. They either imported the latest Parisian fashions and fabrics, or adapted French styles for their English customer base. The bulk of their income and reputation derived from the creation of the Lord Chamberlain-regulated court dress and of bridal trousseaux. However, they were relatively inexpensive when compared to the creations of Worth or Paquin (a few guineas for a Paris knock-off compared to hundreds of guineas from the original source!), and many ladies further skimped on their dress bills by paying their maid’s to knock off the clothes created by a court dressmaker! For example, Lady Ottoline Morrell had her clothes made by her lady’s maid, Benty, who “spent a lifetime in her service and who was a practical and thrifty woman. Benty was ‘able to adapt the ideas which her employer took from paintings seen on her travels…’. These garments rarely cost more than three guineas but ‘the materials were magnificent, although seams were skimped, lining was not often used…hems and turnings were often only tacked…made like theatrical props.’”

Further Reading:
The Englishness of English Dress by Christopher Breward, Becky Conekin & Caroline Cox
London of to-day: An illustrated handbook for the season 1892 by Charles Eyre Pascoe
Handbook of English Costume in the Twentieth Century, 1900-50 by Alan Mansfield & P. E. Cunnington

For the purpose of this article the gentle reader of the “London Magazine” will kindly consider himself or herself living in the year of grace 1907. The American invaders, having captured the tobacco trade, the railways, the boot and shoe market, the match factories and most other industries worth winning, found themselves feeling homesick occasionally, but rather than return to the United States they adapted London to their liking. – EDITOR

A Peep at the Metropolis After the American Invasion

Washington Square (late Trafalgar Square) with the Washington Monument (late Nelson's Column) decorated in honour of Washington's Birthday.

Madison Square (late Picadilly Circus) shewing the elevated railway running across it.

Brooklyn Bride Junior (Late Tower Bridge)

A Riverside view of the Thames in 1907.

View outside Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan's office (late the Bank) and Wall Street House (late Royal Exchange)

Quick Lunch restaurant

(hat tip to Chris Wild of How to Be a Retronaut via Amanda Uren and Forgotten Futures)

Dorset Street, Spitalfields

Where our Criminals are Trained.

Dorset Street, Spitalfields, has recently sprung into undesired notoriety. Here we have a place which boasts of an attempt at murder on an average once a month, of a murder in every house, and one house at least, a murder in every room. Policemen go down it as rule in pairs. Hunger walks prowling in its alleyways, and the criminals of to-morrow are being bred there to-day.

BLUE BLOOD.

The lodging-houses of Dorset Street and of the district around are the head centres of the shifting criminal population of London. Of course, the aristocrats of crime – the forger, the counterfeiter, and the like do not come here. In Dorset Street we find more largely the common thief, the pickpocket, the area meak, the man who robs with violence, and the unconvicted murderer. The police have a theory, it seems, that it is better to let these people congregate together in one mass where they can be easily be found than to scatter them abroad. And Dorset Street certainly serves the purpose of a police trap.

If this were all, something might be said in favour of allowing such a place to continue. But it is not all. No criminal centre is wholly criminal, and to represent even the lodging houses of Dorset Street as wholly inhabited by the utterly depraved would be wrong. There are many men in them who are simply “down on their luck.” There are many boys there whose sole desire is to lead a free life, and who have not yet known the policeman’s clatch on their shoulder. There are even a few women, though but a very few, who have not yet shared in the almost inevitable rain which comes on their sex in such a place.

Here comes the real and greatest harm that Dorset Street does. Respectable people, whose main offence is their poverty, are thrown in close and constant contact with the agents of crime. They become familiarized with law-breaking. They see the best points of the criminals around them. If they are in want, as they usually are, it often enough a thief who shares his spoils with them to give them bread. And there are those who are always ready to instruct these new-comers in the simple ways of making a dishonest living. Boy thieves are trained as regularly and systematically around Dorset Street to-day as they were in the days of Oliver Twist.

THE CANCER OF THE “DOSS HOUSE”

There must seem, I am well aware, an air of unreality about this to follow who read it in comfortable surburban homes or bright country houses. It seems impossible that in our new century these things should continue. But perhaps those who think it unreal will look over for their own satisfaction the indictments of any of our great criminal courts. They may notice there the number of petty thieves, and brutal assaulters, of burglars, even of murderers at every session. These men have to learn their business. You do not become a burglar without training, and even the art of the knuckle-duster requires a little practice. Where are these folks trained? Many of them are from Dorset Street.

The chief harm the common lodging-houses do is in the free association of criminals with those who have not yet learned the ways of crime. The mixed houses where men and women go together are, of course, infinitely the worse, and the authorities might well consider it worth while to secure the more rigid enforcement of elementary laws for good morality in such houses. But common lodging-houses there must be, and to close the present places without giving better accommodation in their stead would be to do more harm than good. London to-day has a sad lack of good temporary shelters for poor folks. Lord Rowton in his admirable homes has supplied a great want for some of the better class.

The County Council has made a very small endeavour, but its house, too is not for the really poor. We want in London places like the great Municipal or Burn’s Homes in Glasgow, where for 3½d. Or 4d. A night a man can secure a simple cubicle and the use of the common rooms. This experiment has been enormously successful in Glasgow. It yields fair returns on the money invested in it; it has swept away innumerable criminal dens; it is giving the poorest and the worst a chance of honestly re-starting again. But a still greater need is a good lodging-house for women. I understand that the curate of Christ Church, Spitalfields, has started in that neighbourhood a small home for respectable girls. This is admirable, but he himself would probably be the first to admit that something very much more is wanted. Those of us who know the enormous difficulties in the way of running a successful common lodging-house for women yet believe that with really good management the difficulties which have frightened so many off this thing would vanish.

FURNISHED ROOMS.

The lodging-houses are bad, but they are the best side of a bad street. They at least have certain official inspection, and a certain minimum amount of sanitation and decency is there secured. But the furnished rooms so-called are infinitely worse. Farming furnished rooms is exceedingly profitable business. You take seven or eight-roomed houses at a rent of 10s. Or 11s. A week, you place on each door a padlock, and in each room you put a minimum amount of the oldest furniture to be found in the worst second-hand dealers’ in the slums. The fittings of the average furnished room are not worth more than a few shillings. Then you let the rooms out to any comers for 10d. Or 1s. A night. No questions asked. They pay the rent, you hand them the key. If by the next night they have not their 10d. or 1s. Again ready you go round and chuck them out and let a new-comer in.

But for mere want we find here “depths below the lowest deep.” There are some to whom even the common lodging-house or the penny shelter are unobtainable luxuries. In the summer months they do not mind. A seat on the Thames Embankment is in many ways to be preferred to a bed in a big dormitory in Dorset Street. But on winter nights, when well-fed and well-clothed citizens shiver over their roaring fires, then it is that the lot of these poor souls is truly pitiable. I have seen them on such nights lying on the stones of the doorways, or crouched asleep by the half-dozen on the damp brick passage-ways of the furnished houses.

They tell me it is a poor look-out for the School Board officer who pokes his nose into unwanted quarters of Dorset Street, The children are trained in the gutter, their first lessons are in oaths and crime. They learn ill as they sip at their mother’s gin, and you can see them at six and eight years’ old gambling in the gutter-ways.

The County Council showed what it could do in Boundary Street. Surely here, under such needs, it might make a special endeavour. For every pound spent in reforming this street would mean many pounds saved on our prisons and legal machinery to-morrow.

[Source]

Right click photo to enlarge

The shape of the borough of Kensington was likened to a man’s leg and foot in a top-boot, being bordered on the west by Uxbridge Road Station, Addiston Road Station and West Brompton to Chelsea Station; the Brompton Cemetery being the heel, the sole as Fulham Road and Walton Street, and the pointed toe being Hooper’s Court, west of Sloane Street. However, the heart of Kensington is the district gathered around Kensington Square.

Until the mid-19th century, Kensington and its neighboring boroughs (Brompton, Knightsbridge, et al) was an outlying hamlet. In the Regency period, Hyde Park Corner was considered the last outpost of safety, and people needing to venture beyond this point traveled in bands for protection. As the district increased in safety, people began to build snug little houses in these quiet “suburbs” and by the 1870s, Kensington was a prosperous area favored by the wealthy upper middle class.

However, it was Kensington’s museums and educational facilities which characterized the borough. Not only did it house the Natural History Museum, but the Royal College of Science, the Southern Galleries, which housed various working models of machinery, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Also in Kensington was Albert Hall, opened by Queen Victoria in 1871 for the performance of music and opera, Alexandra House, for ladies studying art and music, and the Royal College of Music, where students studied (what else?) music and composition.

One cannot forget to mention Kensington Gardens and Park (the latter of which was very popular with English nannies and their young charges). Located on the west side of the Serpentine, the palace is associated with Queen Anne, who spent the last years of her reign within its walls, Queen Caroline, who renovated the palace and its gardens to reflect her graceful and lovely taste, and more importantly, Queen Victoria. Her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Lent, moved into Kensington Palace seven months after their marriage in 1818. Victoria was born the following year in late May,but the Duke died less than a year after his daughter’s birth, leaving the new princess most definitely in line for the throne. The power struggle during Victoria’s early years are covered in great detail in The Young Victoria (a very, very excellent film); however, the palace was opened to visitors by the Edwardian era, though the family of Victoria’s favorite daughter Princess Beatrice of Battenberg resided in their own wing, as did Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, and a bevy of widows, retired army men, and others who had claim on the private generosity of the Crown.

The most striking feature of Kensington was Holland House and its surrounding park. Under the 3rd Baron Holland and his wife, the house was a noted hub of politics, society, and literature, where luminaries of the first half of the 19th century such as Charles Dickens, Lord Byron, and Benjamin Disraeli gathered for wit, glitter, and conversation. In the 1860s and early 1870s, Little Holland House, the dower house situated on the grounds, became the center of a Victorian artistic salon under the aegis of the Prinsep family, but when the lease expired in 1871, the family moved out and the Hollands demolished the building. The manor remained a private residence, and though it continued to be a hub of social influence, attention had long been turned to the lavish mansions of Mayfair and Park Lane.

The Albermarle Club, founded in 1874, is marked at the first ladies’ club, but it admitted both gentlemen and ladies–a shocking development in and of itself. The first women’s club was the Somerville Club, founded in 1879, for graduates of the college and those of a strong intellectual and philanthropic bent, but the first ladies’s club was the Alexandra, which was founded in 1884 and required its prospective members maintain eligibility to attend Court Drawing Rooms. The other ultra-exclusive club was the Victoria (1894), and both possessed dining rooms, reading rooms, drawing rooms, and bed chambers for its members, the last of which accommodated ladies for a fortnight’s lodging. Other clubs of note were the University Club (1887), which counted among its members university graduates, licensed physicians, and students or lecturers who had been in residence for at least three terms in Girton or Newnham, Cambridge, or Lady Margaret or Somerville, Oxford; the Pioneer Club (1892), founded by Mrs. Massingberd for ladies of rank and professional women, its aim being that of promoting democracy and abolishing class lines within its handsome residence; and the Writers’ Club (1892), which strove to provide opportunities for English lady journalists.

By 1899, London saw nearly twenty-five clubs catering specifically to the needs of London’s aristocratic and middle class women–and that number did not include the growing number of clubs and societies formed for the benefit of working-class women. Soon, not only did other British cities follow the lead with such clubs as Edinburgh’s Queen’s Club (1897) and Manchester’s The Ladies’s Club, but American cities, with New York’s The Colony Club being the most opulent and aristocratic club of its kind. Though they were primarily sociable in focus, the clubs could be a hotbed of political activism, with many suffragists taking prominent positions in the multitude of clubs which sprang up since 1899, and social change.

What did survive, was the Aërated Bread Company or A.B.C., which was founded in 1862 by Dr. John Dauglish. Though originally founded to mass produce healthy, additive-free breads using a new bread leavening technology invented by Dauglish, the company found its name on its famous tea-shops, of which the first was opened in 1864 in the courtyard of London’s Fenchurch Street Railway Station. Soon, tea rooms opened up all over, and a rival to the A.B.C. firm arrived as well: that owned by Joseph Lyons, who opened his first tea shop on Piccadilly in 1894, and the first of his famous Corner Houses 15 years later. These establishments not only offered afternoon tea, but provided, for the first time, a place that an unchaperoned young lady could visit with her friends and maintain her reputation. Should she so wish, she could even be accompanied by a young gentleman.

Tea rooms were opened in both London’s leading hotels and London’s leading department stores, where ladies were provided with a space in which to rest, to take tea, and to write the copious letters integral to a woman’s busy day. A tea room was also a most respectable manner in which to make a living. For ladies who had fallen on hard times, or even aristocratic women wanting to express their independence (and earn a little money), tea rooms were an extremely lucrative business. Tea rooms were also significant to the growth of female independence and a separate feminine sphere, and many of them were a hotbed of agitation for women’s suffrage. By 1910, the higher-end tea rooms became a little more sophisticated: palm court orchestras were added, the food became a little more cosmopolitan, cocktails were served, space for dancing was created, and afternoon tea was transformed into thé dansant.

Further Reading:
An economic history of London, 1800-1914 by Michael Ball & David Sunderland
The Making of the Modern British Diet by Derek J. Oddy & Derek S. Miller
Plenty and Want: A Social History of Food in England from 1815 to the Present Day by John Burnett
1900s Lady by Kate Caffrey
Shopping in Style: London from the Restoration to Edwardian Elegance by Alison Adburgham

At this time the industry was in a state of flux and readership was split amongst such disparate tastes as readers of popular novelists Marie Corelli, Elinor Glyn and Ouida, adventure novelists H. Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling, and the Ruritanian genre, and readers of a more serious vein of fiction–G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, or the Webbs–though Dickens, Eliot and Thackeray remained perinneal favorites. The quantity of books published during the 1900s advanced considerably, with the number of new publications doubling between 1901 and 1913 from 6,044 in the former year to 12,379 in the latter. This trend lay in the improvement in family incomes and the ever-increasing interest in education, which accelerated with the decline in illiteracy. Aligning with this increase were the sudden growth of public libraries, whose public expenditure jumped from 286,000 pounds in 1896 to 805,000 pounds in 1911. Also, during this time, publishers made an attempt to make the classics more accessible to the reading public, and Collins’ Classics and the Everyman’s Library, each sold at modest prices in relatively durable editions, did much to extend an interest in classic English novelists and essayists.

For the aspiring novelist hoping to break into this seemingly impenetrable market, a score of books nestled on the shelves, some written by popular authors of the day and others by publishers themselves, full of advice on not only how to submit a novel but on the actual publishing process itself. The typical course to publication was detailed as following:

1. First, the aspirant should see that the typewritten copy was accurate, fastened together securely, and most importantly, clean. Their name and address, the title and description of the manuscript, and the length of the manuscript in words, should be prominent on the first page. A letter offering a view to publication and a request for return should the manuscript be rejected accompanied the manuscript in the mail.

2. When the manuscript arrived at the publishers’ offices, a clerk enters the particulars of the book into a ledger and it was shoved aside with other manuscripts to await the casual inspection of a partner or manager. The book is then taken from the pile and handed to a reader. It was their job to sift through the chaff to get to the wheat, and authors were advised to remember that “Publishing firms flourish by making profits; and profits are made out of books that sell; and it is in the business of the reader to recommend not good books merely, but good books that will sell.” Even if the reader enjoyed the book, there was a chance for rejection from the publisher if the lists were full or the reader’s remarks weren’t eye-catching enough. However, should the publisher accept the novel, to the trembling author went a contract.

3. The author was advised that under no circumstances should they bear the whole or part of the expenses of publication–that was to be born entirely by the publisher–nor should he agree to be remunerated on the half-profit system. The newly acquired author would then be remunerated in one of three ways: the publisher buys the entire copyright of the book for a lump sum down, (b) the publisher buys the copyright for a term of years, at the expiry of which it reverts to the author, and (c) the publisher may acquire the right to publish during the whole term of copyright, or for a shorter term, by agreeing to pay the author a royalty on every copy of the book sold (generally 10%, though well-established authors could revieve 25-33%). However, unlike today, this latter system did not guarantee an advance, and first-time authors were advised against insisting on an advance until they made a reputation.

4. The proofs were sent to the author, which were either in long “slips” or in page form, according to arrangement. After the proofs were returned, the next time the author saw their book was when a parcel of six free copies arrived on the day of publication. The author was advised to subscribe to a press-cutting agency for cuttings of reviews. If the first book achieved a sale of a thousand copies it was considered to have done very well, as the average circulation of first books was nearer to five hundred or less. After this first book, the author was further advised to have books published on a moderate, but regular schedule to build their reputation, stating that “even mediocre talent, when combined with fixity of purpose and regular industry, will infalliably result in a gratifying success.”

5. The literary agent was someone to aspire for, as the more successful agents were loathe to take on unknown authors who could prove unprofitable. According to advice, when the aspirant has made a name for himself and has the ability to his work on his own, then was the time to go to an agent as now the popular author–via their newly acquired agent–could demand a higher advance, more publicity and better placement in the lists. The agents’ percentage hovered around 10%, though once the author’s income exceeded two thousand a year, the agent should be willing to accept 5% on all sums over that amount.

The author with a little success would be tempted to publish their books in other countries, and while first-time authors were advised against worrying over foreign copyrights, then as today, a book that was a smash hit in England frequently fizzled in the United States, and vice versa. But in the end, the aspiring novelist turned published, had as equal a chance for success as authors today. Worries over advances, publishing profits, and so on preoccupied everyone, but thankfully, not enough to mitigate such wonderful novelists whose works have remained timeless classics in our age.

Further Reading:
Edwardian England, 1901-1914, ed by Simon Nowell-Smith
1001 Places to Sell Manuscripts: A Complete Guide for All Writers by James Knapp Reeve
Authors and Publishers: A Manual of Suggestions for Beginners in Literature by George Haven Putnam & John Bishop Putnam
Practical authorship‎ by James Knapp Reeve
The Author’s Desk Book by William Dana Orcutt

Near the strangers’ gallery were three or four benches in the center of the floor, facing the Lord Chancellor, known as “the cross benches,” upon which sat those Princes of the Blood Royal who had been created peers of the realm and who, though they were allowed to vote, belonged to no political party. A few peers also chose to be seated thus. Behind these benches was the place known as “the Bar,” where the Speaker and the members of the House of Commons stood when summoned by the Black Rod to the House of Lords to hear the Royal assent signified to the Bills agreed upon by both Houses. The divisions in the House of Lords mirrored that of the Commons, except the peers declared themselves in the Old Norman French “Content” or “Non Content” rather than “Aye” or “No,” and the tellers counted these votes with a white wand.

Also present in the House of Lords were the peeresses, whose galleries lined both sides of the Upper Chamber, foreign Ambassadors, invited guests (“Strangers”), and reporters, who each also possessed galleries of their own. But unlike the House of Commons, where the sexes were separated into their own galleries, ladies and gentlemen could sit together.

Contrary to popular belief, most peers sat regularly in the House of Lords, and throughout the nineteenth century, attendance reached its peak in the 1830s, 1850s, 1870s and late 1880s–no doubt spurred on by such issues like the Irish Question or the Deceased Wife’s Sister Act. However, sittings were usually brief, a quarter of an hour not infrequently the length of a sitting. Sometimes a sitting might have extended to an hour, on still rarer occasions it prolonged until seven pm, and at times on two nights of a Session of seven or eight months’ duration, the sitting could last until midnight. But it was more likely that newspaper reports would announce the adjournment of the House fifteen minutes after it first sat. Far from being lazy, the reasons behind these short sessions was because the House of Lords was practically barred from initiating legislature of an important nature.

Sittings in the House of Lords began at four, though as a rule, no business was done until half-past four, and during this interlude, the Lord Chancellor would essentially twirl his thumbs. The number of peers of the realm fluctuated over the years, but generally hovered around five hundred and seventy. Where the House of Commons required forty members to “make a House,” three peers formed a quorum, but if it appeared on a division that thirty lords were not in attendance, the question was declared not decided.

When the Government changed, the parties crossed to floor, with the “ins” sitting on the benches to the right of the Lord Chancellor, and the “outs” occupying those on his left. The Lords Spiritual always occupied the same benches on the Government side of the House, near to the Throne, no matter which party was in office. Twenty-six in number–the Archbishops Canterbury and York, and twenty-four bishops–were distinguished from the Lords temporal by their full, flowing black gowns and their lawn sleeves. The peers in the House were much more soberly dressed except at the opening of Parliament by the Sovereign, whereupon they appeared in scarlet robes, slashed across the breast with stripes of ermine, few or numerous according to the low or high degree of the wearer in the peerage. Though the Lords temporal–royal peers, dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts and barons–were allotted certain benches according to their rank, they only sat thus during the opening of Parliament.

Opinion of the day claimed that speeches made in the House of Lords were of an eloquent and more able quality than those made in the Commons, for members of the lower house spoke as often as possible to get their names in the papers. The demeanor was quite different in the Lords as well–none of the fury and raucous which characterized the doings in the Commons. But if order cannot be maintained, the procedure of the House provides for the quelling of the disturbance by the reading by the Clerk of two old Standing Orders in relation to asperity in speech and quarrels in the Chamber.

Though of lesser political power, the House of Lords was the Supreme Court of Appeal from the Courts of Justice of the United Kingdom. If a claimant felt an injustice was done him by the decision of any of the law courts, they could come to the House of Lords, whose judgment on the matter would be final and irrevocable. This court sat on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays throughout the legal year from 10:30 am to 4 pm, and gravity, dignity and decorum reigned supreme. No witnesses were examined, nor was there a jury, and sparring between opposing lawyers was unheard of. The lawyers would address the House at the Bar and lay down, in placid, conversational style, the facts of the case and the points of law on which he relied for judgment. After both sides presented their case, the House would adjourn and the parties involved would be informed of the day on which the House would deliver its decision.

As with such great power, there came resentment, and the growing dissent against the House of Lords affected the House of Commons, where the Conservative Party was defeated in 1906, and then invoked a Parliamentary crisis in 1910. Meanwhile, books and pamphlets filled bookstalls with such titles as Peers and bureaucrats: two problems of English Government and The Old Order Changeth, the Passing of Power from the House of Lords, one of which went so far as the proclaim that “our victory at Waterloo was a great misfortune to England….the feudal system, broken down and disorganized all over the Continent by Napoleon, preserved its old tradition in these islands…[and Britain] is now a hundred years behind the rest of Western Europe.”

The trouble began when in 1909 David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, introduced into the House of Commons the “People’s Budget”, which proposed a land tax targeting wealthy landowners, among other benefits for the common people of England. This bill was immediately defeated by the House of Lords, and in response, the Liberal Party made the curtailing of the House of Lords’ powers their primary campaign issue for the General Election of January 1910.

The chaos produced by this was enormous, and King Edward let it be known his willingness to raise men to the peerage to force the bill to pass through the House of Lords. He died in May however, before he could implement this, and when the Conservative Party, with their Liberal Unionist allies, gained more seats than the Liberals, the fight intensified. After another general election in December, the Asquith Government secured the passage of a bill to curtail the powers of the House of Lords. In the end, The Parliament Act 1911 effectively abolished the power of the House of Lords to reject legislation, or to amend in a way unacceptable to the House of Commons; most bills could be delayed for no more than three parliamentary sessions or two calendar years.

Further Reading:
Edwardian England: 1901-1914, ed. Simon Nowell-Smith
The Book of Parliament by Michael MacDonagh
How We are Governed: Guide for the Stranger to the Houses of Parliament‎ by Howard Vincent
The House of Lords Question by Andrew Reid, Philip Stanhope, and Robert Collier Monkswell
The Rise of the Democracy by Joseph Clayton
House of Lords on Wapedia