Thames skulls

On Saturday, I went to the Thames Discovery Project's Foreshore Forum. We had a great day of discussions and some fascinating lectures including one on skulls found in the Thames.

Large numbers of skulls have been found in the river over the years, particularly during the nineteenth century. The Thames was regularly dredged, and while much of the material was used to build the embankments, it was first carefully sifted for skulls - Victorian collectors would pay good money for them.

However, how had these human bones - many prehistoric - got there? We still don't know for sure, but Yvonne Edwards of UCL's Institute of Archaeology explored the possible answers. There are two competing theories: that the skulls were deliberately placed there for ritual reasons, or that they are from entire bodies which entered the river through accident, suicide or murder.

What evidence suggests that these skulls had a ritual purpose?

• Some of the skulls have been found among deliberately-deposited weapons;
• There have been large concentrations of skulls found in certain areas;
  
• Other bones from the skeleton were not found with them;
  
• There is evidence which may suggest that flesh had been deliberately removed from some skulls.

What about the accidental/violent death theory?

• The lack of associated bones is best explained by the way that bodies behave in the river. The head is relatively heavy and not strongly attached to the rest of the body, so it can soon detach once in the water. The jawbone also soon separates. The movement of the river then ensures that if it doesn't quickly settle in the silt, the skull is transported away from the rest of the skeleton.
  
• If the skulls had been placed ritually with weapons, we would expect a higher than usual ratio of male remains. However, the sex ratio is more or less the same as for contemporary drownings in the Thames.
• The varied condition of skulls found in the Thames indicates that many had moved in the river. Where they were found, then, may tell us more about river movement than about where the bones entered the water.

The second theory, then, is the more likely one for most Thames skulls. There is also a third explanation for some: that their original riverside burial sites have been eroded. However these skulls came to be in the Thames, though, they still fascinate us today just as they fascinated those Victorian collectors.

London, 1927 - in colour

This extraordinary film of London over 80 years ago was produced by Claude Friese-Green using his biocolour process. It was the last episode of a trip around Britain, filmed using alternate red and green filters. The frames of black-and-white film thus exposed were then stained red and green. The flickering this method caused has largely been removed by the BFI, but some red and green fringing is noticeable.

Look out for the variety of vehicles, the sheer number of traffic policemen, a soot-stained Nelson's Column and a very unappetising bag of peanuts! (Although I'm rather taken with the idea of counting them as a fruit.)

Ikarus 66

There was an unusual visitor to Covent Garden over the weekend of 6 November: an Ikarus 66 bus from Hungary. It was here to celebrate the Hungarian Cultural Centre's tenth anniversary.

This rear-engined 'rocket' bus was apparently the pride of 1960s public transport in Hungary. Ikarus, founded in Budapest in 1895, initially concentrated upon building cars but its first large order for buses came in 1927. During the 1950s and 1960s it exported throughout Eastern Europe as well as to Egypt, China and Burma. Although sales fell after the collapse of communism, the company survives: in 1999 Ikarus was bought by a French-Italian investment group, before returning to Hungarian ownership in 2006. It is now expanding its sales into South America.

Bull Inn Court

Among the alleyways leading north from the Strand is Bull Inn Court. Here since the 17th century (although the Bull Inn has long gone), it's a handy short cut to Maiden Lane. What make it stand out from its neighbours are the tiled signs at its southern end.

They point the way to the Adelphi Theatre gallery entrance and the Nell Gwynne Tavern. Both entertainment venues came under the same ownership in 1887, when the Adelphi's owners Agostino and Stefano Gatti bought neighbouring premises in order to enlarge the theatre.

The Adelphi was home to melodrama - and not only on stage. William Terris, who regularly played the hero in these productions, was murdered one night in 1897 while entering the theatre from Maiden Lane. His killer was a rather less successful actor, Richard Archer Prince, whom he had had to sack years earlier due to Prince's heavy drinking. Motivated by a combination of mental illness, jealousy and a belief that Terris was in some way responsible for his inability to find work or financial help, Prince stabbed Terris. He was convicted of murder and sent to Broadmoor (where he did manage to produce and act in plays). Terris's last words were reported to be 'I'll be back,' and it is claimed that he haunts the local area.

The Adelphi was rebuilt in 1930 with a fashionably modern facade. The style of these tiles suggests that they are somewhat older, surviving from its previous incarnation.

Deptford Update

Until 29 November, APT Gallery is hosting the Deptford Update exhibition. It features drawings and models of public projects in Deptford and North Lewisham: a plan for Creekside, improved pedestrian connections on Church Street, and proposals for Kender Triangle, New Cross Gate. Visitors are invited to comment on the projects, and there is an accompanying programme of events.

The exhibition is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10am-5pm.

Christmas lights (1)

It's that time of year again. Yes, Christmas may be well over a month away but many of the city's lights are on already. As usual, the area around Oxford Circus was among the first to switch on.

Regent Street has mainly stuck with last year's belly-flop stars, but Oxford Street has used the Disney sponsorship money to pay for some new lightbulbs. As a result, the view east of the Circus is enchanting - but look west, and the street has become a giant advertisement.

Carnaby Street has, as usual, gone for something a little more original. The bright colours and sixties-homage designs are certainly fun, but even with inflatable reindeer the scheme is perhaps not all that seasonal. Mind you, when the season is this long...

Deptford Lift Bridge

This old postcard, issued by the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway, shows

Deptford "Lift" Bridge (about half-a-mile from New Cross Station) carrying the Deptford Wharf Branch line over the Grand Surrey Canal. The Bridge is 13 feet wide with a span of 31 feet 6 inches between the vertical cast-iron standards. It is raised to a height of 10 feet by means of chain and wheel gearing worked by hand power for the passage of barges using the canal.

Both branch line and canal are now gone - although it's hard to imagine such a hand-powered bridge surviving into the current era in any event.

Farming the poor

The question of how to control state welfare spending is not a new one. The Poor Laws of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries tended to place responsibility upon individual parishes, most notoriously by requiring them to operate a workhouse. One way of managing this duty was to engage in 'farming the poor'.

The terminology is odd and might suggest growing more poor people, in large greenhouses perhaps - but like baby-farming (fostering for profit) later in the century, the practice was less bucolic and more exploitative. Contractors looked after a parish's workhouse poor for a fixed sum, often arrived at by competitive tendering, and had to both provide for their 'clients' and make a profit from the agreed amount. To help them achieve this, they were able to require the paupers to work and could keep the proceeds of their labour.

St Nicholas, Deptford was among the parishes to attempt the system. Thus an advertisement of 1830 is headed 'CONTRACT for FARMING the POOR of SAINT NICHOLAS, DEPTFORD'. The parish sought a contractor who would take the parish's poor for up to three years; they had to provide sealed tenders accompanied by two sureties for the due performance of the contract. It can't have been the most tempting proposition unless there was the prospect of a good profit - one suspects that Deptford's poor spent the following years in very straitened conditions.

Beer with bite

Sorry, but this is even less appetising than the idea of beer from coal! In July 1826, it was reported that

At the Deptford Bench of Justices, on Saturday last, James Waterman, a common brewer at that place, was convicted in the penalty of £100 for having unlawfully in his possession the following articles: Vitriol, liquorice, gentian, honey, salt of tartar, and carbonate of soda. The production of the above ingredients, especially the first, excited a very strong feeling in every one present. The magistrates, E. G. Barnard, Robert Admonds, and George Evelyn, Esqs. severely reproved the defendant.

One can understand the strong feeling: vitriol is better known as sulphuric acid. The crime of vitriol-throwing was known and feared by the Victorians - Sherlock Holmes witnessed it in The Adventure of the Illustrious Client - since the acid was corrosive enough to severely injur and scar. It's difficult, then, to imagine that a drink thus 'enhanced' would be very good for the digestion.

However, the addition of vitriol to beer was not unknown. It gave a bitter taste and thus reduced the need for more expensive hops. Combined with alum and salt, it apparently improved the head on porter and was generally used alongside molasses and gentian to imitate porter's distinctive taste - a handy way of making watered-down beer more appetising.

Food adulteration was rife for much of the nineteenth century, and apparently many Londoners even developed a taste for these products. Ordinary beer just wasn't bitter enough for them!

Image: brewery museum, Greene King, who make delicious and vitriol-free beer.

Magic lantern magic!

On Saturday the British Library held a day of events to accompany its excellent Points of View exhibition, including a magic lantern show. With my enthusiasm for period entertainments, I booked a ticket right away!

'Professor' Mervyn Heard is a leading researcher and collector of magic lantern slides and brings them to life with the essential element of showmanship. Forget watching endless 35mm slides of other people's holidays - magic lantern shows were very different. They included impressive elements of movement, both within the slide itself and by moving between slides. The scenes were, crucially, accompanied by the showman's patter. In other words, they offered a performance (even the temperance movement, with its dry reputation, produced slides telling comic stories).

Prof Heard recreates the experience not only by using original slides from the eighteenth century onwards but also by accompanying them with the stories, jokes, interaction and information which made the original shows so popular for so long. Although we think of them as a quintessentially Victorian entertainment, they date back much further (Samuel Pepys watched a show in 1666) and the earliest slides we saw were from the eighteenth century. People travelled the country carrying their lanterns and collections of slides, putting on shows as they went.

As the nineteenth century progressed these contraptions grew in popularity and became a staple for organisations such as missionary groups, temperance societies, workers' institutes and others - as well as making their way into homes. Alongside this, an industry grew up producing slides on a wide range of themes from optical illusions to scenic views around the world.

The magic lantern's popularity declined in the twentieth century, in part overtaken by cinema. However, Prof Heard's show enables us to appreciate film's predecessor and its own capacity for creating lively, animated scenes.

Further information
There will be a longer show at the British Library on Sunday 29 November; Prof Heard is also giving an illustrated lecture on 'Phantasmagoria-mania' at the Old Cinema, University of Westminster this Thursday.

Points of View is a free exhibition exploring nineteenth-century photography. Highlights include original Fox-Talbot negatives and prints, along with innumerable other innovations and images from around the world, all placed in their wider context. It runs until 7 March 2010.