Death is always a tragedy to those who have lost someone close to them. Sometimes, though, it’s hard for the rest of us to keep a straight face, particularly when people die in a ridiculous way. And there’s no shortage of ridiculous deaths through history.

The Victorians, who took death so seriously, must have struggled even harder. Their sense of propriety and strict decorum combined with their morbid obsession with death must have made attending any funeral difficult. On that note, attending any of the following people’s funerals must have been extremely challenging.

10 The Man Who Swallowed A Mouse

Factories in Victorian England were not hygienic places. Mills especially attracted a large number of vermin. So it should not really have come as too much of a surprise when a mouse ran across the work table of one young factory girl in 1875.

Perhaps, however, the girl was taken by surprise, for she let out a piercing scream, and one of her colleagues dashed across to help her. He managed to catch the mouse, but it soon wriggled out of his hand and disappeared up his sleeve. The gallant young man gasped in surprise as the mouse suddenly reappeared from under his collar, and the mouse, seeking a dark hole in which to hide, promptly jumped into his open mouth and down his throat.

The Manchester Evening News reported that “a mouse can exist for a considerable time without much air [ . . . ] the mouse began to tear and bite inside the man’s throat and chest, and the result was that the unfortunate fellow died after a little time in horrible agony.”^[1]

9 The Man Killed By His Alarm Clock

Sam Wardell was a lamplighter in Flatbush (part of Brooklyn in New York City) in the mid-1880s. Lamplighters would take ladders around to light the gas-powered street lamps at dusk and return at dawn to extinguish them. They also sometimes served the additional role of waking the local inhabitants to tell them it was time to get up.

Perhaps Sam Wardell was one of those people who had trouble waking up in the mornings. To ensure that he wouldn’t sleep through his alarm, he took his alarm clock and added some, shall we say, modifications. He fixed a wire to the clock and attached the other end to a shelf. Then he placed a 4.5-kilogram (10 lb) stone on top of the shelf. Then he rigged the shelf so that every time the alarm went off, the shelf collapsed and the stone would crash to the floor and wake him up. Presumably, he had solid floors and no neighbors.

The system worked perfectly until Christmas Eve 1885, when he invited some friends to his one-room apartment for a party. In order to make room for them to dance, Wardell pushed his furniture to the walls.

It must have been a good party, because Wardell climbed into bed afterward without replacing the furniture.

The following morning, his alarm went off. His shelf fell. And the stone dropped straight onto his head, killing him, well, stone dead.^[2]

8 The Man Killed By A Coffin

Pallbearing is not known for being a particularly dangerous occupation. However, for Henry Taylor of London, it was the death of him.

In 1872, he was performing his duties at the graveside on a wet day. The ground was slippery, so to avoid embarrassing accidents, mourners were requested to access the grave on foot to lighten the load on the funeral carriage. The coffin was removed from the hearse and was being carried gingerly by six pallbearers in solemn fashion. As they approached the grave, the pallbearers were ordered to turn so that the coffin would be facing the right way when it was lowered into the ground.

As the six men shuffled around in a circle carrying the coffin, a rather heavy one by all accounts, Taylor slipped on the muddy ground, upsetting the other pallbearers in the process. To prevent themselves from falling, the others let go of their burden, and the coffin fell full-force on top of Henry Taylor, killing him.^[3]

7 The Woman Who Killed herself With Color

People have always been willing to suffer to be fashionable, but for the Victorians, there were few lengths to which people would not go in order to look their best. After Empress Eugenie wore a stunning green dress to the Paris Opera in 1864, green was in. Everyone who was anyone wanted to be seen in the same emerald green shade as the princess.

It was unfortunate that that particular shade of green was created by mixing copper with arsenic. The color became so popular that it was used in fabrics everywhere. Deaths soon followed.

In 1861, Matilda Scheurer, a maker of artificial flowers, died of accidental poisoning after dusting the flower petals with “green powder.” Though her death and its cause were described in grisly detail in newspaper articles, the fashion for Paris green continued.

As its lethal properties were public knowledge, it is not, perhaps, surprising that when Louisa Cruikshank decided to kill herself, she thought of the colorful substance. In 1882, at just 18 years old, Miss Cruikshank purchased the poison without any difficulty from an art supplies shop and died swiftly but painfully soon afterward.^[4]

6 The Man Who Swallowed A Billiard Ball

The Victorians, alas, did not have the monopoly on stupid people. And stupid drunk people are apt to behave in the same way today as they did then. But, in an age when people had to make their own amusements, some found greater scope for doing ridiculous things. Take Londoner Walter Cowle, for instance.

In 1893, while enjoying a night out, he bet his friends that he could put a billiard ball in his mouth and close his lips around it. At the subsequent inquest, the landlord of the Carlisle Arms Tavern maintained that when he provided Cowle with a billiard ball, it was on the understanding that he would not actually put the ball in his mouth but only appear to do so, while using sleight of hand to palm the ball in his pocket.

For some reason, however, perhaps in some way connected to the large number of drinks that the landlord at the tavern had served, Cowle did indeed put the ball in his mouth, whereupon he immediately began to choke. Both his drinking companion and the landlord tried to remove the billiard ball, even holding Cowle upside down and slapping him on the back, but nothing worked.^[5]

Though, at the inquest, his friends maintained that they had seen Cowle perform this trick several times, the landlord of the tavern had nothing else to say on the matter. And neither, of course, did Cowle.

5 The Lady Who Danced In Her Shroud

When Mrs. Marion Hillitz died in 1878 after a long, entirely normal illness, her friends and relatives gathered to pay their respects ahead of the funeral. Her body was laid out in her coffin, and mourners sat around the corpse praying or talking in subdued voices.

So it must have come as something of a shock when Mrs. Hillitz suddenly sat up in her coffin and addressed the company. She surveyed her family and friends, soberly attired in black, and announced, “I am not dead yet, but I will die soon.”

According to newspaper reports, Mrs. Hillitz then climbed out of her coffin and “danced around the room, sang, and shouted in a loud, ringing voice” as the mourners presumably stared in disbelief—and probably a fair amount of terror.

However, the miracle was not long-lasting. Her nurses, once they had gotten over the shock, put the old lady to bed, where she died, for real, later that night.^[6]

4 The Man Stabbed As Part Of The Act

In 1896, while performing in a new play at the Novelty Theatre in London, Temple Edgecumbe Crozier (his real name, apparently) was killed when a fellow actor stabbed him during his debut performance of The Sins of the Night.^[7]

For some reason, the prop dagger had been replaced with a real one. As a result, when his fellow actor uttered the words, “Die villain, die,” and stabbed him enthusiastically during the final scene, the blade pierced Crozier’s heart and killed him.

For obvious reasons, The Sins of The Night was not a success, and its run was an extremely short one.

3 The Servant Who Died Reenacting A Death

In October 1881, a man asked his servant to collect a gun that he intended to give someone as a gift. The servant, a dim-witted chap called Hague, went to collect the revolver and, while there, decided to examine it closely. For reasons best known to himself, Hague lifted the gun up to his face to examine the trigger mechanism and somehow managed to shoot himself in the mouth. The wound was instantly fatal.

Another servant, witnessing the accident, called the police. After their arrival, she picked up the gun to demonstrate to the officers just how the incident had occurred.

As Hague had done, she lifted the gun to her face to examine it, and, just like Hague, she managed to pull the trigger. The bullet went through her mouth, and she, too, died, which must have made things a lot clearer for the police.^[8]

2 The First Motor Vehicle Fatality

Today, traffic accidents are, unfortunately, a daily occurrence. In 1869, there had never been a death by motor vehicle, until August 31, when Mary Ward became the first-ever casualty of the automobile. At that time, automobiles were called “road locomotives” and were little more than steam trains with rubber tires attached, weighing approximately 1.5 metric tons.

Mary Ward was a remarkable woman who had done pioneering work in the fields of science and astronomy. She must have had a curious mind, because she jumped at the chance to ride in her husband’s new car.

Though the car was only traveling at 6.4 kilometers per hour (4 mph), Mary fell from the passenger seat as the vehicle took a sharp bend, and the enormous back wheel ran straight over her. Newspaper reports that said she died of “dislocation of the neck” were no doubt being discreet.^[9]

1 The People Who Died Of A Sweet Tooth

Sugar has long been known to be an addictive substance. And, as with all addictive substances, demand sometimes outstrips supply. In Victorian Britain, the price of “white gold” was very high, and so, enterprising grocers often cut their products with cheaper substances. How times have changed.

The cheap powder used to cut sugar was known as “daft” or “daff” and usually consisted of substances such as plaster of Paris or powdered limestone.

In 1858, one sweet seller, known to all as “Humbug Billy,” operated a sweet stall in Bradford in the north of England. His suppliers, when purchasing the daft with which to cut their product, had accidentally bought 5.4 kilograms (12 lb) of arsenic and not the plaster of Paris that they thought they were getting.^[10]

Unaware of the mistake, Humbug Billy sold the sweets from his stall. He sampled the sweets and was ill himself, but rather than destroying the stock, he negotiated a discount and carried on with the sale. Enough sweets were sold to have killed 2,000 people, but, thanks to the quick work of the town crier, who alerted the locals as soon as the source of the illness was known, only 21 people died, though another 200 had to be treated for arsenic poisoning.

Ward Hazell is a writer who travels, and an occasional travel writer.

It is tempting to think life in the 21st century is a world away from the 1800s, but despite the communication revolution that we are all living through, we still owe much of our daily life to the inventions of back then. More modern amenities than you might think first showed up during the 19th century, particularly the Victorian era.

People in the 1800s were endlessly inventive and inquisitive and constantly tried to expand their knowledge and improve their society. And while it’s true that not all of their inventions were thought through particularly well, there are some that were just so good that we’re still using them today. Here are ten of them.

10 Cement

Though we may think of cement as a modern building material, it has a long history dating back to the building of the pyramids, where they mixed a rudimentary form of concrete to make mortar. The ancient Romans used a similar material in the building of the Colosseum.

But the concrete industry really took off with the invention of Portland Cement in 1824. Portland cement is the main ingredient of modern concrete, which is then mixed with sand and rock to form a hard but malleable mixture. Joseph Aspdin was an English bricklayer who made the first Portland cement by burning powdered limestone and clay in his kitchen stove, producing a powder that could be mixed with water.^[1]

Concrete is easily transportable (when compared with chunks of rock), immensely strong, and can be poured into hard-to-reach places. In Victorian times, concrete was used mainly for road-building and heavy industry, though it was occasionally used to build houses.

9 Chocolate

Although cacao has been used in the Americas for thousands of years, chocolate as we know it today came about in the 19th century. Some progress had been made in the process by Coenraad Johannes van Houten in 1828, when he invented the cocoa press, which could squeeze the cocoa butter from the roasted beans, but it wasn’t until 1847 that Joseph Fry created the first solid, edible chocolate bar using cocoa butter, cocoa powder, and sugar.^[2]

He added extra cocoa butter to the pressed beans, which allowed the chocolate to set in a convenient bar shape. The process was perfected further in 1875, when Daniel Peter and Henri Nestle added condensed milk to create the first milk chocolate bar. Chocolate has become one of the most successful products on the planet and has been instrumental in the formation of several other industries—such as the diet industry.

8 Flushing Toilets

Okay, we’ve always had toilets in some form or other, and sometimes, they were surprisingly sophisticated. The Indus Valley Civilization in Bronze Age Asia, for example, had a network of sewers beneath the streets into which toilets emptied with water. Similar systems were found during excavations of the Minoan civilization in Crete.

However, the design for flushing toilets that we have today came from the Victorians. Alexander Cumming patented the s-bend toilet in back 1775, trapping smells beneath a water-filled airlock in the pipes. His invention, however, went largely unnoticed until the 1800s, particularly after the Great Stink of 1858, when London was engulfed in a heady sewage smell that shut down Parliament.^[3]

The cistern toilet, combined with the s-bend waste disposal, was a winner, and shrewd businessmen like Thomas Crapper (who did not, in fact, invent the toilet) were soon marketing the new water closets to people who could afford them, along with toilet paper (invented in the US in 1857). Coin-operated locks for public toilets were invented in 1892. They always find a way to monetize.

7 Pasteurization

In 1856, Louis Pasteur was commissioned by an alcohol manufacturer to find out what caused their alcohol to turn sour. It was thought, at that time, that fermentation was a purely chemical process, but Pasteur discovered that yeast was a living organism. This work led to his germ theory of fermentation.^[4]

Pasteur discovered that microbes were killed off when heated at a specific rate, and this led him to work on the preservation of wine and canned foods. He was able to determine the temperature and the length of time food needed to be heated in order to kill off microbes. He called his patented process pasteurization.

It wasn’t until the late 1800s that the process was used for milk. Milk was known to be a common carrier for tuberculosis (TB), and incidences of TB fell sharply after its introduction. Milk was heated to 72 degrees Celsius (161 °F) for 15 to 20 seconds to make it safe. It is illegal to sell unpasteurized milk in many countries, although some farmers still drink raw milk on their farms, leading to that other well-known invention, the stomach pump.

6 The Mail

Although the traditional postal system has been on the decline, it is still a highly efficient system that transports millions of pieces of mail around the world every day.

Before the mail system we know today, postage was calculated not by the weight of the letter but by the number of miles it traveled and how many sheets it was, and the cost was borne by the recipient, meaning that many letters, mainly bills, went undelivered.

The Uniform Penny Post was established in England in 1840, with the famous Penny Black stamp being the first-ever adhesive postage stamp. The number of letters being sent (and more importantly delivered) doubled overnight. In 1839, around 76 million letters were sent. In 1840, it rose to 169 million, and by the time Queen Victoria died in 1901, well over two billion letters and postcards were being sent every year.^[5]

A similar service was introduced in the United States in 1847, and the rest of the world followed. The postal system was so well-used that in London, you could expect to receive a postal delivery up to 12 times a day, and customers complained if mail took longer than a few hours to arrive. However, the cheap postal system also encouraged some less welcome innovations. Also invented during the Victorian era were junk mail, begging letters, and mail fraud.

5 The Sewing Machine

The sewing machine was the original home appliance and, as such, was revolutionary, bringing the technology of the Industrial Revolution into the home. The earliest sewing machine patent dates back to 1755, and an 1830 patent by Barthelemy Thimonnier in France caused a riot by tailors, who, fearful for their livelihoods, destroyed the machines. Further attempts followed until Isaac Merritt Singer perfected the design and began producing his own machines. In 1860, he sold 110,000 machines in the United States alone. The basic design has remained unchanged ever since.^[6]

The Singer Company was one of America’s first multinational companies. Domestic sewing machines cost about one fourth of the annual average wage, but they were selling as fast as they could be made. By the time Singer died in 1875, his company was making a profit of $22 million a year, a staggering amount for the time. This profit was possibly the result of Singer’s other “great” invention—the payment plan, which allowed customers to pay for their machines in installments.

4 The Subway

The subway (aka the tube, the underground, and the metro), is a genius system for quickly transporting large numbers of people across heavily urbanized areas.

Some early underground railways used conventional steam locomotives. In 1866, work began in London on the first “tube” line, using tunnels deep enough to avoid interfering with building foundations and using electricity to power the lines. The tube opened for business in 1890, charging twopence for any journey along the 5-kilometer (3-mi) line. Almost immediately, more lines were built.^[7]

Other countries soon followed. Budapest opened its subway in 1896, Paris in 1900, and New York in 1904. Today, there are over 150 metro systems around the world, of which New York’s is the largest, with 468 stations (or 421, depending on who is counting).

3 The Pneumatic Tire

The pneumatic tire was first patented by Robert William Thomson in 1845 (or 1847, depending on who you ask), some four decades before it was reinvented by John Dunlop. Thomson called his invention the “aerial wheel.” However, at this time, there were few automobiles or bicycles, so the invention seemed rather pointless and never went into production.

By the time Dunlop reinvented the wheel, as it were, and re-patented the pneumatic rubber tire, the bicycle was ubiquitous, and his tires would soon be seen everywhere on streets around the world.^[8]

Filling a rubber tube with air counteracted the bone-shaking effect that cycling on wooden wheels had created, and the process has barely changed since. The emergence of the automobile industry made the pneumatic tire one of the most useful inventions in the world.

2 The Radio

Guglielmo Marconi sent the first radio message to himself in Italy in 1895. By 1899, he’d managed to flash the first signal across the English Channel. By 1902, he’d managed to send a message across the Atlantic.

Marconi was not the only radio pioneer. There were many scientists researching radio waves and transmitters, including Nikola Tesla. Dispute arose about which of them had made their discoveries first, and in 1943, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Tesla.^[9]

By the time World War I broke out, radio transmission was still in its infancy, but, as is often the case, war fostered inventiveness, and great improvements were made to the range and quality of radio equipment. Not only was radio used as a communication device, but it also began to be used to relay information about the war. By the time World War II arrived, the radio was a key instrument for information, communication, and propaganda.

According to UNESCO, 75 percent of people in the developing world and almost everyone in the developed world have access to radio today, listening to 44,000 stations throughout the world. Although stations are increasingly moving to digital output, many of them still use technology based on the work done by Marconi and Tesla.

1 The X-Ray

In 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovered the X-ray while working with cathode ray tubes in his laboratory. He noticed that crystals near the tube glowed, and he realized that the rays could pass through some objects. After some experimentation, he discovered that the rays could pass through human tissue but not through bone.

Many scientists became interested in cathode rays, and experiments were soon being made combining the new technology with photographic plates for use by doctors and surgeons. Within six months of Roentgen’s discovery, X-rays were being used by battlefield surgeons to find bullets inside wounded soldiers.^[10]

The public became excited by the new technology, and fairground attractions offered customers the opportunity to look at their own skeleton. Nothing was known about the side effects of the process, and it has been estimated that early machines emitted around 1,500 times more radiation than modern ones, which often lead to patients receiving radiation burns and even to their hair falling out.

Well, they couldn’t be expected to think of everything.

Ward Hazell is a writer who travels, and an occasional travel writer.

It is well-known that the Victorians were keen on science, engineering, and mad inventions. They had a morbid fascination with death, but they had a spiritual side, too. So it was only a matter of time before they became obsessed with spiritualism and the paranormal.

In doing so, they approached the unknown like any other scientific conundrum. They wrote up experiments, tried to attach philosophical treatises to their findings, and considered the illogical, the otherworldly, and the downright bizarre with inquiring and open minds.

Although, occasionally, they were also a bit nuts.

10 Maria Hayden

Maria Hayden was an American medium. In the mid-1800s, she became famous in England as the first medium to demonstrate the new art of rapping, shortly after the more famous Fox sisters had made such an “impression” (also known as a killing) back home.

It is probably fair to say that the media did not treat Hayden kindly. Several Victorian publications set out to ridicule her and her skills. This increased when it was revealed that her rapped-out messages only made sense when she was able to see the letters in front of her.^[1]

When she was asked to turn her back, the messages were largely gibberish. This suggested the possibility that they were coming from Hayden herself and not from her spirit guide.

Hayden’s career as a medium seemed to end quite suddenly. She dropped out of the public eye completely and returned to America. There, she trained as a doctor and practiced for 15 years. It was said that she had “remarkable healing powers.” So good, in fact, that she was later offered a medical professorship at a US university.

9 Annie Horniman

Annie Horniman’s background was rather ordinary. Her family had come up with the idea of selling tea prepackaged rather than loose, which was less messy and much more lucrative.

Like all wealthy Victorian ladies, Horniman had a social project. She was instrumental in creating the arts scene in Manchester, working to bring the theater to the masses. She promoted the work of local dramatists, the benefits of which are still felt today as Manchester has the most thriving theater district outside of London.

But a lady has to have a hobby, too. Horniman was a believer in tarot cards and mysticism in general. She used card readings in all her business affairs, though not always successfully.

Along with Aleister Crowley and Bram Stoker, Horniman became a member of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn for the better understanding of the paranormal. She also believed that she could astrally project to other planets, which she visited as frequently as some people pop to the shops.

While on a tour of the universe in 1898, she encountered a “tall, dignified, and winged” man on Saturn. He was dressed in armor and told Horniman all about his “dying world.” However, the man was fearful of strangers. As a result, Horniman and her companion made themselves invisible so as not to alarm him.^[2]

8 Annie Besant

Annie Besant was a singular woman. She boldly left her clergyman husband and two children because of her anti-religious views and became involved with a former clergyman, Charles Leadbeater, who was a member of Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society. Besant was much interested in spiritualism of all kinds, believing as she did that “matter exists in states other than those at present known to science.”

Besant wrote a book called Thought-Forms, which was not so much about the paranormal as it was about color. Today, Besant would have been diagnosed with synesthesia as her book explained emotion in a table of colors and shapes. The work gave a fascinating insight into the synesthete’s mind. Apparently, passion is purple.

Later, Besant became an advocate for Indian Home Rule. She eventually settled there and adopted a son whom she believed to be the new Messiah and a reincarnation of Buddha.^[3]

7 Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

In 1873, Helena Blavatsky arrived in New York from Russia. She was a philosopher, a student of the occult, and one of the founding members of the Theosophical Society. The aim of the society was to explore the divine powers she believed that humans possessed and thus save the world.

Blavatsky’s particular divine powers included visions, clairvoyance, and conversing with the dead. She claimed that she had disguised herself as a man to fight in the Battle of Mentana, where she was left for dead. But she supposedly used her powers to fight her way back to life. After that, she made a miraculous escape at sea after her ship was blown up.

However, her account lacked proof or credibility. She could not adequately explain why she, a Russian living in America, would want to involve herself in an Italian-French conflict in Rome. Soon, she let this story go.

Blavatsky’s biggest claim to fame was her book, The Secret Doctrine, which explained the birth of mankind from the four Root Races. The first (best) race was as white as the Moon, the second was gold, the third was red, and the fourth was brown which became “black with sin.”^[4]

6 Alexis-Vincent-Charles Berbiguier De Terre-Neuve Du Thym

Alexis-Vincent-Charles Berbiguier de Terre-Neuve du Thym, whom we will call Berbiguier, was born in France in 1765. It is probably fair to say that he was “troubled.”

In 1821, he published his autobiography in three volumes. It detailed his struggles with dark forces, which had earned him the title “The Scourge of Hobgoblins.” According to Berbiguier, he had destroyed as many of these creatures as possible but had discovered that killing them makes them angry.

Berbiguier refused to be examined for possible mental health disorders, believing all doctors to be ambassadors of the hobgoblin world. He increased his efforts to wipe out the plague of hobgoblins, filling his room with plants supposedly lethal to them as well as some empty bottles in which to trap them.^[5]

Berbiguier published his volumes, all 274 chapters of them, which included pictures of the hobgoblins as drawn by him.

5 William Stead

William Stead’s main claim to fame was that he had been aboard the Titanic when it sank. Still, he was an interesting man in other ways. He had been a pioneer of what is now called investigative journalism, writing an expose on child prostitution that ultimately led to the age of consent for girls being raised from 13 to 16.

In 1892, Stead began to report on a different kind of story. He had been getting messages from “the other side.” In fact, he believed that he was receiving messages from a departed fellow journalist. He even employed a team of office staff to record the messages and pass them on to relevant loved ones.

Whether Stead was really getting messages from the dead, we will never know. However, it seems that Stead may have had something of a seer in him because he wrote a short story in 1886 about a ship that sank in the Atlantic.

In the story, the loss of life was so great because the lifeboats could only carry a third of the souls on the ship, leaving many to perish. He also included a warning: Although the story was fictional, it was entirely plausible.

William Stead was not one of the lucky ones who made it onto the boats when the Titanic sank.^[6]

4 William Wynn Westcott

William Wynn Westcott was a doctor, Freemason, and occultist. He also worked as a coroner. He was even briefly considered a suspect in the Jack the Ripper case.

In 1887, Westcott claimed that he was given some mysterious documents by a man who promptly died. It was written in a secret code to which Westcott just happened to hold the key.

When decoded, the documents contained the instructions for an initiation ceremony, following which Westcott was “given permission” to found the Isis-Urania Temple of the Golden Dawn.

Westcott’s society took off, and several more temples were built. He was promoted to Praemonstrator of the Kabbalah. However, it seems that Westcott had upset some higher power. He left some of his papers in the back of a taxi one day, and his spare time activities came to the notice of his employers, who took a dim view of coroners being praemonstrators.^[7]

Forced to choose between the secular and the divine, Westcott chose the one that allowed him to pay his bills and resigned from the society.

3 Dr. Hippolyte Leon Denizard Rivail

Dr. Rivail was a teacher, doctor, translator, and lawyer. Then he became Allan Kardec, “teacher of souls.” Kardec developed his own brand of spiritualism, which he called “Spiritism.”

After seeing a display of “table turning” in which the “spirit” causes a table to spin, he became convinced that the spirit was trying to communicate. However, three years earlier, Michael Faraday had explained the phenomenon of ideomotor response, in which muscles can move independently of deliberate thought and thus move tables.

Even so, Kardac wrote The Spirits Book, a guide to communicating with the other side. He believed that our bodies are just temporary containers for the spirit. In addition, the spirits of the departed are always with us, being reborn at different points along the ladder of spiritual rank.^[8]

2 Daniel Dunglas Home

Daniel Dunglas Home believed himself to be exceptional. On developing an interest in spiritualism as a teenager, he decided not to follow the crowd. He held his seances in brightly lit rooms. Rather than the audience holding each other’s hands, he asked them to hold his hands to prove that he was not manipulating objects himself.

At first, his seances were fairly pedestrian—with messages from the dead and ghostly music emanating from nowhere. Then, around 1857, they began to get more interesting. He made spectral hands appear from the ether. Napoleon III’s wife was even said to have recognized the distinctive hand of her dead father because of a deformed finger.

By 1868, he was able to levitate—not just a few feet off the ground but through an open window three stories up. (Or rather, he went into another room by himself and was later seen outside the window, presumably due to levitation. Then he floated back in.)

Though all of this may seem inexplicable and impressive, Harry Houdini maintained that Home was merely a magician and that Houdini could replicate all of Home’s tricks. Nevertheless, Home was a celebrity of his time and had many wealthy admirers.

There was a certain amount of unpleasantness when a rich widow claimed that Home had swindled her. He responded that she had given him money for his “spiritualistic services” and only demanded a refund when she realized that he would not be performing services of a different kind. A trial ensued, and he was forced to reimburse her.^[9]

1 Philippe Nizier-Anthelme Vachod

Philippe Nizier-Anthelme Vachod (or his less formal name, Master Philippe de Lyon) was born in France in 1849. Apparently, he was marked for greatness from the moment of his birth. His mother was said to have experienced no labor pains and delivered him singing with joy. As if that weren’t enough, a raging storm was quieted and a shooting star appeared at the exact moment of his birth.

So, how did this greatness manifest itself?

Well, in 1874, while living in Lyon, Philippe worked in a pharmacy and was able to cure the sick without the aid of drugs. Then he studied medicine. But his fellow students were unimpressed by his healing powers, which they felt made a mockery of their profession, and his license was revoked.^[10]

He became the personal clairvoyant to Tsar Nicholas II and was said to have predicted the birth of the tsarevitch as well as the forthcoming revolution. Philippe even managed to raise a child from the dead.

However, he was unable to repeat the trick when his own child died. When asked to explain this, Philippe said that he had allowed her to die to save the world from an unspecified and unprovable cosmic calamity.

Ward Hazell is a writer who travels and an occasional travel writer.

Today, many of us associate December with traditions and festivities that seem like an integral part of Christmas. However, this wasn’t always the case. In fact, before the Victorian era, Christmas was only ever really minimally celebrated in Britain and in other English-speaking countries. It wasn’t until the reign of Queen Victoria and her German husband, King Albert, that Christmas became the truly festive celebration we recognize today. Thus, it is thanks to the Victorian era that most of our beloved Christmas traditions, such as Christmas cards, gifts, and Boxing Day, are popular.

However, the Victorian era was also responsible for a few slightly odder traditions. Most of them, unfortunately (or in some cases fortunately), did not survive into today. To remember the most interesting of those that did not make the cut, we have compiled a list of the most unusual Christmas customs of yesteryear that are sure to put you in a festive spirit.

10Creepy Christmas Cards

The Victorian era is responsible for the creation of the very first Christmas card, which was designed by John Callcott Horsley, an English painter, on the request of his wealthy friend, Sir Henry Cole. Cole initially came up with the idea for a Christmas card after he realized that he was much too busy to write an individual Christmas greeting to every person among his family, friends, and colleagues. Cole was sure that a card with a festive image and a greeting would be a far quicker way to send his holiday wishes to everyone.

After its initial success among Cole’s friends, 1,000 of these new Christmas cards were printed and put for sale in 1843. However, the Christmas card was not successful at first and was even disapproved by the temperance movement, which feared that the presence of booze in several of the original card designs would encourage drunkenness.

Nevertheless, a year later, Christmas cards became wildly popular, and soon their design varied enormously thanks to the various painters that had different visions for the ideal Christmas card. Like Victorian valentines, some of these new Christmas card designs featured cherubs, flowers, and other symbols of spring and new life. Others, however, were far creepier and included strange images such as sinister clowns poking policemen with red pokers, giant killer wasps chasing children, and gambling monkeys.

9Glass Pickle

A glass pickle ornament was often hidden inside the Victorian Christmas tree for good luck. On Christmas day, the founder of the glass pickle was either given a special gift or allowed to open their present first.

It is said that the tradition of the glass pickle originated from a medieval story of two Spanish boys traveling home for Christmas. On their way home, tired and weary from traveling, the children stopped at an inn for a good night’s sleep. However, the innkeeper was an evil man—he stole the boys’ possessions and stuffed them into a pickle barrel. Luckily for the boys, St. Nicholas stopped by the inn and saved them. The boys then thanked St. Nicholas for saving their lives and continued on to their family.

There exists a second version of the story, which differs slightly from the first. In this version, three Spanish boys are kidnapped by an evil shopkeeper who chops them up with an axe and pickles them in a barrel. Upon hearing about the poor boys’ faith, St. Nicholas prays to God, and because of the purity of his faith, he succeeds in restoring the lives and bodies of the boys.

8Wassail Punch

Wassail punch was a popular winter drink made from a mixture of fruit, cider, and spices. Victorians served it to carolers who went from house to house wassailing or singing Christmas carols and hymns. After all the carols were sung, the carolers were invited to the houses of Victorian families to share a sip of wassail from the communal wassail bowl. This tradition of inviting carolers for a sip of wassail was borrowed from the Elizabethan era.

The recipes for Wassail punch varied from family to family, but it was important that the punch be hot. Families with old-fashioned taste based their wassail punch on ale or cider, which was heated until it became thick and foamy. Often, the foam that formed on top of the ale or cider was called “lamb’s wool.” Fresh nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, lemon slices, and roasted crab apples were frequently added to enhance the flavor of the punch.

7Festive Science

During the Victorian era, the celebration of scientific progress became almost synonymous with the word Christmas. Christmas books often contained experiments for children, news magazines published scientific Christmas stories, and poems and newspapers advertised scientific Christmas gifts and scientific leisure activities.

In the 1830s, two galleries of practical science, The Adelaide Gallery and The Royal Polytechnic Institution, opened their doors to the public. The Adelaide Gallery held various Christmas performances, including festive oratorios that often featured projections of microscopic organisms and other scientific displays. The Royal Polytechnic Institution soon surpassed it in popularity largely due to John Henry Pepper’s contribution toward festive science at the Polytechnic.

A scientist and inventor, Pepper turned the Polytechnic into a winter fairy tale. Optical pantomimes and a huge Christmas tree surrounded by stacks of scientific Christmas gifts were a huge hit, but the most popular attraction of all was the ghost. Pepper’s ghost was an illusion of a ghost appearing and disappearing on the stage. It was, however, not Pepper’s original invention—it was adapted from a previous design created by Henry Dircks, an English engineer, who designed but did not operate the mirror-based invention some years previously. The trick of the illusion was to project a concealed actor, who was hiding in a separate room, onto the stage. After each performance, scientists would give a thorough lecture on the science behind the magical performance and reveal the mechanisms behind it to the enthralled audience.

6Parlor Games

The Victorians were extremely fond of entertainment and parlor games, and there was no better time for that than Christmas. Parlor games were entertaining, helped pass the time, and cheered everyone up during times when there was little else to do. At times however, these games were downright dangerous and reckless. Take snapdragon, for example. During this game, a bunch of raisins were piled into a bowl with rum and then the rum was set on fire. The task was to snatch the raisins out of the bowl and eat them while they were still ablaze. Simpler games that are still played today included charades and “Change Seats!”

During the Victorian era, the loser of the game usually had to pay a forfeit, such as to kiss every lady in the room. Often, this forfeit seemed very agreeable to gentlemen, but to their disappointment, a lady frequently accompanied them around the room and did all the kissing on their behalf. Other inventive forfeits included uttering half a dozen compliments to a lady without using the letter L or making like a Grecian statue and allowing others to put your limbs into positions of their choosing.

Forfeits for ladies were similar and often included kissing as well. One such forfeit was to kiss a gentleman in a “rabbit fashion,” whereby a lady and a gentleman of her choosing both put one end of a piece of cotton in their mouths and pecked toward each other until they were kissing.

5Oysters

The type of meat served to the table by Victorians largely depended on the wealth and location of the family. While the wealthy chose beef and turkey, especially for occasions such as Christmas, the poor were not able to afford such expensive meat and instead had to settle for something less extravagant, such as geese. However, sometimes even geese were far too expensive, and in such instances, poor families had to settle for a cheaper festive dinner.

During the Victorian era, oysters were plentiful and cheap. Small oysters were often sold as fast food on the streets as well as pickled to keep for later. Bigger oysters were either put in stews and pies or eaten on their own. Oysters were also frequently consumed in public houses and went nicely with a pint of stout beer. Knowing this, it comes as no surprise that in this era, the demand for oysters, which were also known as “the poor man’s protein,” was high. For those who could not afford any other meat, it was oysters and not turkey that was most often the centerpiece of the Christmas dinner.

4Christmasing

Christmasing was a Christmas tradition whereby vendors gathered various festive branches, such as mistletoe and holly, and sold them for profit in the days before Christmas. Houses, pubs, inns, and churches were heavily decorated with these festive branches, and often, puddings and sometimes even mince pies were decorated in this way also.

Holly was more popular than mistletoe for various reasons, the most important being price. Holly cost less than half the price of mistletoe, and there was more of it. As well as that, holly can be grown in any hedge, while mistletoe grows only in the branches of specific trees, such as apple and hawthorn. Thus, mistletoe was frequently seen as the purchase of the wealthy classes or those who hosted parties. As such, it became something of a status symbol to have some in your house.

A few weeks before Christmas, street vendors often scrounged the neighborhoods of London for holly. It was a precarious trade, however, since vendors often had to trespass into private grounds and land to obtain these festive branches. If caught by the master of the house or its servants, the vendor was lucky to have only the holly taken away from him. To obtain mistletoe, vendors had to trespass orchards and often faced danger from dogs, traps, and spring guns. Thus, they scrounging for mistletoe much more rarely.

3Goose Feather Tree

The goose feather tree—a collection of goose feathers dyed green and decorated with small ornaments—was the first artificial German, and later Victorian, Christmas tree. Feathers of swans, turkeys, and ostriches were also used. These peculiar Christmas trees were first brought over to America by German immigrants who found it difficult to find fir trees in their native land due to deforestation. At the time, it was popular to chop of the tip of a fir tree and use it as a Christmas tree. However, the rest of the fir tree then became useless as it could no longer grow or provide timber. Statutes were even created to stop people from having more than one Christmas tree to prevent excess damage to fir tree populations.

It was not overly difficult to make these festive trees. All one needed was either sticks or wire and feathers. The sticks were covered with the feathers and then drilled into a larger stick to resemble branches. Often, the feathers were died green in imitation of pine needles.

2Football

During the Victorian era, and indeed right until the 1950s, football on Christmas day was a tradition important as any other. In an era when entertainment options were few, football frequently resulted in fans postponing their Christmas roast dinner to attend a match. Important matches were often played both on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. In 1888, for example, Everton played two matches on Christmas day, attracting about 2,000 people—a large crowd for the time. Their match on Boxing Day was less exciting (it was a draw) and resulted in a lower turnout (but then again, it was played in a shower of hailstones).

The very first football league match played on Christmas Day was in 1889 between Preston North End and Aston Villa. Both teams were incredibly strong, and 9,000 people came to watch the match.

When football leagues grew, fans started traveling longer distances to view Christmas Day matches. Fortunately, there was no public transport shutdown, and thus people could follow football leagues without difficulty. Later, when televised matches were introduced, this tradition was largely abandoned.

1Goose Clubs

Even though the centerpiece of a Christmas dinner in Victorian England was usually a goose, most people earned only a couple of shillings a week and were far too poor to afford it. It was easier for poor working families living in rural areas since farmers often gave a bird or a piece of meat to their workers as a Christmas bonus, and squires frequently gave meals to their tenants. However, poor families that lived in towns and cities had no such opportunities of free Christmas meals. Thus, they often joined “Goose Clubs.”

Members of this peculiar club paid a couple of pence a week into the club’s fund, which then went toward the purchase of a goose just before Christmas. This ensured that everyone, even the poorest families, could enjoy a traditional Christmas dinner. Frequently, local bakers stayed open late on Christmas day and cooked the geese for the poor.

Laura is a student from Ireland in love with books, writing, coffee, and cats.

Cycling in the Victorian era meant freedom and independence for a moderate cost. Women wore special cycle wear that allowed them flexibility whilst still preserving their modesty beneath long and heavy skirts. Gentlemen cycled in their top hats, children had tricycles and babies had their pushchairs attached to bicycles with which cycling nannies would perambulate around the park. Even shop boys delivered groceries on bikes with enormous wicker baskets.

See Also: Top 10 Bizarre Modes Of Transportation

Cycling was for everyone, and it became one of the defining Victorian obsessions.

Another thing the Victorians were famous for, was their ingenious, and sometimes wacky inventions. It was only a matter of time before the ever-curious Victorians decided to combine the two.

Here are 10 of the strangest.

10 John Otto Lose and his Monowheel

John Otto Lose’s patent application for the monowheel shows a gentleman in a hat, seated on a bench suspended inside a very large wheel, casually smoking a cigarette, while he pedals a smaller wheel at an angle that looks rather improbable and certainly uncomfortable. The cycle was steered by means of a pair of rudders on either side, almost as if it were a boat.

The bicycle, which looks a little unwieldy, boasts a range of mod cons, including an umbrella fixed over the cyclist’s head in case of inclement weather, and some fancy wrought-iron work which, while certainly decorative, probably added a fair bit to the weight of the machine. However, they did save a fair bit on the unpadded wooden bench, so it probably evened out in the end.

The monowheel was patented in 1885, but, for some reason, never caught on.

9Karl Lange and his Double Bicycle

In 1905, Karl Lang patented his double bicycle, which is, pretty much, one bicycle on top of another, with the top one being upside down. It looked pretty strange, and also rather uncomfortable, as the rider’s head is forced forwards by a padded cushion behind his neck.

However, the cushion, and indeed the bike, had a purpose, being designed, according to Mr Lange, for the benefit of circus performers, to enable them to Loop the Loop.

Which seems reasonable, until you start to think about it.

The ‘normal’ part of the bicycle has two pedals and a handle-bar. The upper bicycle appears to be missing pedals, and shares the handle-bar with the lower bike. In order for the contraption to loop the loop, the loop would need to be so small that all four wheels were in contact with the surface at the same time.

And then it would very likely just get stuck.

In actual fact, despite what it said in the patent application, the bike was not really designed to loop the loop, rather it was a stunt bicycle which allowed the bike to take off on the lower wheels and land on the upper wheels, thus appearing to have completed a full loop.

Instead of pedaling through a full 360 degrees against gravity, the rider of the double bicycle merely had to pedal to the top of the loop on the bottom wheels, take off into the air, land on the top wheels, which he couldn’t see, whilst steering the wrong way up, without pedaling, or presumably, braking. Easy peasy.

There do not appear to be any records of stunt riders or circus performers actually using the bike.

Can’t think why.

8 Etienne Bunau-Varilla and his Torpedo Bicycle

An invention that really worked this time. Etienne Bunau-Varilla was a French engineer and aviation pioneer, who had taken part in the first ever international flying convention in Riems in 1909, when he was only 19.

He also designed racing bikes

One of his most iconic designs was the Velo Torpille, or Torpedo Bike, an aero-dynamically streamlined bike in which the rider sits inside a teardrop-shaped pod.

The bike, ridden by Marcel Berthe, broke the world speed record in 1913, covering 5 km in 5 minutes and 39.3 seconds, an average of 33 miles per hour.

The design was much copied, until the following year, when the enclosed bicycle design was banned in competitive races and, not being very suitable for normal use, the torpedo bicycle was, well torpedoed.

7 Hiram Nickerson and his Aerial Bicycle

Hiram Nickerson’s idea for an aerial bicycle is the perfect example of why you shouldn’t over-complicate things. Instead of two wheels on a metal frame which rides over the existing roads, Nickerson proposed an aerial bicycle which required a whole elevated track to be built.

The rider would sit on a saddle hooked to the track overhead, and would propel themselves along the track by pedaling. The cyclist would only be able to cycle wherever there was track, which would have required some hefty infrastructure investment.

Nickerson’s patent application also left out a few details. Such as, how do you get your bike to and from the track? Do you hook it on to the track yourself, or leave it there like a cable-car seat? What happens if two cyclists are pedaling on the same piece of track? Can they overtake? Can they prevent a collision?

Does it have brakes? (No).

Hiram Nickerson described his idea as ‘a new and useful improvement’ in bicycle design.

Really? An interesting idea, perhaps, but this one never really got off the ground

6 The Bicycle Ambulance

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention, and this must certainly explain the bicycle ambulance. Makeshift ambulances had been used since the 1890’s, but they really came into their own during World War I.

The ambulance consisted of 2 bicycles, fixed together, side-by-side, with a tarpaulin stretcher slung between them. The saddlebags would be filled with medical supplies, and the medics would cycle out to the injured soldiers, load them onto the stretcher and cycle back with them to the nearest field hospital.

The bicycles could move over terrain that other vehicles could not cover, but they gave the medical personnel no protection from gunfire and shells.

At such a time of chaos and destruction, the sight of a couple of men cycling side-by-side across a battlefield must have been a pretty surreal one.

5 Simon Wortmann and his Servant Propelled Bicycle

Simon Wortmann was clearly a man who took the axiom, why keep a bike and pedal yourself, to heart. His invention did away with most of the hard work of cycling, at least for 1 of the 2 riders needed to propel it.

The drawing which accompanied the patent application, shows a man in a flat cap pedaling like mad at the lower end of the bike, while a gentleman in morning coat and top hat sits at the top and steers with a couple of unwieldy poles.

Billed as an Improvement in Velocipedes, the bike seemed to model itself on the old-fashioned horse and carriage, with the servant, of course, being cast in the role of the horse.

Though Wortmann patented the idea in 1869, he never went into full-scale production with his bike. He probably couldn’t get the staff.

4The Quadricyle Fire Engine

In the days when a fire engine was just a hand cart and a bucket, the Quadricycle Fire Engine must have seemed like cutting-edge design.
The machine consisted of 2 tandem bicycles, ridden side-by-side and fixed together by cross-pieces, with a platform built between. The platform housed the hose reel, while a pump was fitted to the rear of the quadricycle, which could be fitted to a household tap and used to supply the hose with water.

Firemen in Australia trained using the contraption, and were able to cycle to the site of the fire, unreel the hose, and fix it to the pump within a few minutes. Then they would jump back onto their bikes to continue pedaling, thus powering the pumping machine, which was capable of spraying 4500 gallons of water an hour over distances of up to 100 feet,

Assuming they pedaled fast enough.

Although the machines may have looked somewhat comic, they were used in remote towns and villages with great success for many years.

3 Edward Burstow and his Hen and Chicks

One invention that was not quite such a success was Edward Burstow’s pentacycle, or, as it came to be known the Hen and Chicks. Invented in 1882, the pentacycle, which was adopted by the Post Office in Britain, had one large wheel, on which the postman sat, with two smaller wheels, front and back, for added stability.

There is no doubt that the pentacycle was a majestic looking vehicle, though perhaps a trifle cumbersome. It did have two handy baskets in which the postie could store the mail on his rounds.

Ultimately, however, the pentacycle was not a success, perhaps because it took ages to climb up on it, only to have to climb off it again at the next house.

2 Georg Pinkert and his Navigating Tricycle

Nothing but a miracle, it is said, can allow a person to walk on water, but there is nothing to stop people cycling on it. Except, perhaps, the laws of nature.

But Georg Pinkert was not the sort of man to be put off with a trifle like that. In 1891, he patented the Navigating Bicycle, which was perhaps a strange title, since it doesn’t quite make clear that what the bicycle is navigating, is the ocean.

He built his tricycle with 3 enormous balloon tires, and so confident was Pinkert in the machine’s capabilities that he set out to cross the English Channel in it. He didn’t make it.

He had cycled about half way over the 20-mile strait, when the tide turned, and he found himself going 2 wheels forwards and 3 wheels back. He realized that he was about to be swept out to sea, so, as he happened to be in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, he “hailed a passing vessel and was taken on board.”

Though the tricycle had proved its sea-worthiness, it didn’t catch on, but Georg, every inch the Victorian eccentric, vowed to carry with his experiments.

1 Louis S Burbank and his Bicycle Rowing Machine

Cycling is good exercise. It builds up the muscles in the legs. But what if you wanted to exercise your arm muscles at the same time? The ever-inventive Victorians had the solution.

In 1898, Louis S Burbank invented the Bicycle Rowing Machine. Two work-outs for the price of one, with a free trip to the emergency room thrown in.

Burbank’s invention fitted a rowing machine to the top of an ordinary two wheeled bicycle. The machine was propelled forwards not by pedaling, but by the action of the rowing, and steered not with a handle bar, but by manipulating the oars, just as one would in a sculling boat.

Slowly.

Sounds great. Just a few nit-picky questions though. How does it start off? Because, by the time the rider has mounted the bike, put their feet in the stirrups and grabbed the oars, the bike will have toppled over. And how does it stop?

There is no mention of brakes in the patent application.

Of course, they could fix the bike in position so that it was static. But then of course it would just be a rowing machine.

Perched on top of a bike.

Perhaps not.

About The Author: Ward Hazell is a freelance writer and travel writer, and is currently studying for a PhD in English Literature

Manners and Tone of Good Society (1879), the seminal guide to Victorian dining, outlined how to navigate around the vast array of cutlery and serveware in the Victorian age. Touching food with bare hands was not acceptable behavior.

So everyone had to learn to recognize all the different accompaniments to the usual dinner service, such as asparagus servers, marrow scoops, and grape scissors. Oh, and you had to know how to use them as well.

How do you think you would manage if you sat down to a lovely meal and saw any of the items below? Would you be the toast of the town or commit a gastronomic faux pas?

10 Sugar Nips

Sugar was brought to the grocer in cone shapes called “sugar loaves.” Mountains and hats were often named after them due to their distinctive shape. In wealthy households, the mistress of the house would cut up the loaf using sugar nippers to break the hard substance into smaller, usable parts for the table. Only the mistress would do this as sugar was expensive and kept in boxes under lock and key.

The sugar nips were tongs with a flat surface at the end suitable for lifting pieces of sugar. But they were also sturdy and tough. Nips used for cutting were often made from steel, but decorative tongs for table use were often made from silver with elaborate engravings.^[1]

9 Snail Forks

In Victorian England, the lower classes ate snails regularly. These were affectionately called “wall fish” and were served to locals in pubs like the Royal Oak in Shepton Mallet. Eating snails wasn’t only for the upper classes or the French as most people tend to think today.

The snail would be held in one hand, with or without a napkin, and the snail meat would be plucked out of the shell with the other. Delicious!

While one might not have made a full living doing so, a man in Bristol in Victorian times known as “Snailer Jack” sold snails as snack food. People would eat them to ward against—or even cure—tuberculosis. They were also reputed to have a particular property that strengthened the lungs . . . but only if eaten raw.^[2]

Fancy a snail?

8 Marrow Scoops

Picture this scene if you will. You are a Victorian man or woman at a posh dinner party, and your host’s servants present a glorious roast on the table in front of you. You can’t wait to dig in.

But wait! How can you get the delicious marrow out of the bone without offending your host with caveman-like, bone-sucking behavior? A common problem, we know.

In this situation, it’s best to handle your marrow scoop with the narrow, elongated end directed toward the bone.^[3] Scoop out all the marrow you can, and enjoy the envy of your fellow guests as they are forced to leave their bones on the plate.

As identified by the Leeds Museum, the image above shows a marrow scoop from the late 19th century. Marrow scoops from the mid-1700s (which predate the Victorian era) have a longer, narrower shape.

7 Spoon Warmer

Victorian houses were only heated by fires in each room, so the kitchen was often some distance from where the family would actually sit down to eat. As the food was brought to the table, the cutlery would cool down. In turn, this would cause the food to cool faster when it was eaten.

To avoid this problem, the Victorians invented the spoon warmer. A vessel, often with feet, was filled with hot water, and the spoons were inserted into the opening. Warm spoons helped to prevent rich and fatty gravy from congealing on the plates.

Victorian spoon warmers can rarely be found today. Those lucky enough to spot one might find playful designs such as a snail shell sitting on rocks, an egg-shaped oval on little feet, frogs and fish with open mouths, helmets, or hunting horns. As time went on and homes were better heated, these little devices fell out of fashion. But they remain a delightful reminder of Victorian creativity when it came to dining room etiquette.^[4]

6 Caddy Spoons

In the 1760s, the caddy spoon was created as a unique and beautiful accessory for preparing tea in Europe and America. Tea leaves were kept in a tea caddy, a special box designed to keep the leaves fresh and attractively presented. These were often locked at other times as tea was an expensive and precious commodity.

A caddy spoon, which could fit inside the caddy, was used to measure out a portion of tea leaves for the teapot. Certain shapes of shells, shovels, or ladles were made by Victorian silversmiths. As time marched into the 20th century, these accessories were decorated with local scenes, crests, or place names particular to the area and owners’ tastes.

One of the most valuable caddy spoons was sold at auction in 1931 for over £2,000. Designed by Omar Ramsden, his art nouveau spoon was inlaid with semiprecious stones with a knotwork handle.^[5]

5 Asparagus Server

Asparagus was introduced to English society in the 16th century. But it was not until the 18th century that it became a fashionable and exotic addition to meals. Eating asparagus was the height of elegance and sophistication, so what better to serve this de rigueur vegetable than a pair of asparagus servers?

One might wonder what all the fuss was about and why a spoon and fork would not have done just as well. But the Victorians decided that they needed slightly less clumsy apparatus for fine dining.

Silver asparagus tongs are a captivating item that reminds us of a more elegant era. They are still quite useful today if you wish to enjoy a spear or two for supper.^[6]

4 Knife Rest

When our Victorian friends sat down for dinner, there may have been up to 12 different courses! The knife rest was used to keep the single set of utensils clean between courses.

Probably, the knife rest helped to prevent the tablecloth from becoming soiled between courses rather than merely saving the servants the extra trouble of washing more utensils. Most households certainly would not have changed cutlery between courses.

The first knife rests used at the time of Henry VIII would have been made of wood. But as the Victorians always liked to take things one step further, theirs were made from every metal you can think of as well as crystal and glass, pottery, mother-of-pearl, ivory, and horn.^[7]

3 Grape Scissors

These scissors were often decorated with vines and grape designs as they were used to cut a stalk of grapes in the dessert course. Only then were you permitted to use your hands. In Victorian society, there were only rare occasions when dining etiquette would permit the use of hands at the table—for example, when eating fruit or bread.

In a rather clever design quirk, the handles were longer than the blades so that the grape enthusiast could cut deep into the bunch and select the number of grapes he wanted. The blunt ends prevented the fruit from being pierced. These scissors were made of silver to prevent any tarnishing and to last for many years.^[8]

2 Aspic Spoon

The Victorians could not get enough of aspic. For those fortunate few who have not come across aspic, it is a jelly made from gelatin and the stock from meat, poultry, or fish. Other foods, such as eggs or meat, are suspended throughout the mixture.

Aspic stopped the meats within the gelatin from becoming spoiled by preventing contact with the air and any lurking bacteria. This was perfect for the Victorians, who had not yet invented refrigeration. An aspic spoon featured a long bowl at one end that had one sharpened side to help cut through suspended, more solid objects in the jelly.^[9]

1 Crumb Scoop And Tray

The Victorians were a clean and tidy lot who thought nothing was worse than seeing all the crumbs left on the tablecloth following a meal. So they invented the crumb scoop.

Arriving in the 1850s, this ingenious device was used by the servants to clear the tablecloth of any meal detritus, including breadcrumbs, salad leaves, and anything else that missed both mouths and plates. Crumb scoops were commonly made of silver and could be highly decorated with engravings of floral motifs. The scoop handle was made of bone, ivory, mother-of-pearl, ivorine, or wood.^[10]

Alexa lives in Ireland and loves writing about psychology, sociology, anthropology, and anything historical.

We really don’t realize how lucky we are until we take a look back at the medical history books and recognize that most surgical practices during the Victorian era (1837–1901) were basically medieval. Between the 1840s and the mid-1890s, there were some radical changes in the operating room which went on to become a surgical revolution. However, many patients had to suffer up until that point.

The high mortality rate during this time is widely reported in newspapers, medical journals, and coroners’ inquests; even the healthiest of people wouldn’t make it out of surgery alive. It really was a tough time being a Victorian who needed surgery, but thanks to advances in modern science, these real-life horror stories are all a thing of the past. These following gruesome and shocking facts are not for the fainthearted.

10 Chloroform Was Considered A Practical Anesthetic

The idea of surgery without anesthesia is unimaginable, but that was a grim reality in the past. In 1847, chloroform was introduced in Britain and used for the next 50 years. Scottish obstetrician Sir James Simpson was the first to try chloroform, and after passing out in his dining room, he realized that he could utilize its powerful fumes for practical purposes.^[1]

Simpson invented a mask that would be saturated in chloroform and then placed over the patient’s face. After only a few minutes of preparation, surgery would begin. Even Queen Victoria herself was given chloroform for the birth of her last two children. Use of chloroform as an anesthetic eventually declined.

9 Hot Irons Were Used To Stop Bleeding

In Victorian surgery, where there was profuse bleeding from a wound, a hot iron might be used to stop the blood flow. Obviously, this was not pleasant at all, and alternatives to cauterization had been found long before the Victorian era. The scientific journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society reported on one such alternative way back in the 1670s. Surprisingly, they even recorded the surgery as a “cheerful” experience for the patient.

The report reads:

The leg therefore of the poor woman being cut off, immediately the Arteries were dressed with some linen pedlgets dipt in the [mysterious] Astringent liquor with a compress on it, and a bandage keeping all close against the arteries. The success was, that the blood was staunch without any other dressing; and instead of complaining, as those are wont to do who have a limb cut off, and the mouths of whose arteries are burnt with a hot Iron or a caustique to stop the blood, this Patient look’d very cheerful, and was free from pain, and slept two hours after, and also the night following; and from that time hath found herself still better and better without any return of bleeding, or any ill accident.^[2]

8 Many Of The Surgeries Resulted In Fatalities

Surgery in the Victorian era was lethal, but not due to the fast-handed surgeons. Instead, it was the high probability of infection after the patient left the operating table. According to medical historian Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris, “[Surgeons] never washed their instruments or their hands. The operating tables themselves were rarely washed down. These places became a sort of slow-moving execution for the patient because they would develop these postoperative infections that would kill them, sometimes within days, sometimes within months.”^[3]

Despite the pungent smell, doctors also believed that pus emitting from a post-surgery wound was a sign that things were healing well rather than what it really was—the result of a bacterial infection. The high death rate was just put down to “ward fever.” It wasn’t until surgeon Joseph Lister (1827–1912) introduced antiseptic practice and sterile environments in hospitals that the infection rate began to lower. Lister is now known as the “father of antiseptic surgery.”

7 Barbers Were Recruited As Surgeons During War

From the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 to the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1853, there was a brief period of calm in Britain. During the battle days, however, barbers did a lot more than cut hair—they were enlisted as surgeons and expected to perform operations on wounded soldiers. Despite no extensive knowledge or formal training that extended further than that of an apprentice, a barber-surgeon would be tasked with pulling teeth, bloodletting, and performing basic surgical tasks.

Surgeons and barbers were separated as two professions well before the Victorian era,^[4] but patients in need of surgery would still sometimes approach barbers, as they had the sharp tools required for the job. Even in modern times, the red and white poles outside of a barber’s shop are a symbol of the blood-soaked napkins they used during bloodletting.

6 Leeches Would Be Used To Extract Blood

If the thought of blood-sucking leeches is enough to make your skin crawl, then this part might make you shudder. The heart pumps 5 liters (1.3 gal) of blood around the body in just one minute, and severe blood loss can lead to shock or even death. Luckily, our body has a clotting system in place to prevent this. However, during the Victorian era, the ancient practice of bloodletting hadn’t quite died out just yet.

Victorian surgeons would use live leeches to suck the blood from the patient. The practice of bloodletting was harmful, as it could cause anemia, but doctors overlooked this for thousands of years.^[5]

5 Amputated Limbs Would Be Dropped In Sawdust

Imagine having your leg sawed off because of a broken bone or a fracture; then that limb is dropped in a bucket of sawdust by your side as you lie on the operating table, and people observing start to applaud. As mentioned previously, this could all occur without anesthetics, so it’s no surprise that patients would hope for an efficient and quick surgeon.

Dr. Robert Liston (1794–1847) was one of the most famous surgeons in history and was known as the “fastest knife in the West End.” He amputated his patients’ limbs with great speed and often called out during the surgeries, “Time me, Gentlemen! Time me!” On average, only one of every ten of Liston’s patients died at London’s University College Hospital, which was considered a great success, as other surgeons lost one in every four on average. Patients would camp outside his waiting room in hopes that he would consider them for surgery.^[6]

4 Hospitals Were Only For The Poor

If you were lucky enough to be rich during the Victorian era, a family doctor would treat you at home from the comfort of your own bed. The poor would be hospitalized, and it was it was the role of the government, not the medical staff, to decide who would be admitted. Only one day a week was put aside for accepting new patients, and they would typically fall into two categories: either “incurables” for infectious diseases or “lunatics” who suffered from mental illnesses. Starting in 1752, the rule at St Thomas’ Hospital in London was that “no patient was to be admitted more than once with the same disease.”^[7]

Operating rooms would always be situated on the top floor of hospitals to take advantage of the sunlight that would beam through a window in the roof. If patients were too poor to pay for their treatment, spectators were invited to view the procedures. For others, they would have to seek financial support from their parish or a willing patron.

3 Surgeons Wore Their Blood-Soaked Clothes With Pride

British surgeon Sir Berkeley Moynihan (1865–1936), recalled how his fellow surgeons would turn up to work, enter the operating theater, and put on old surgical frocks that were “stiff with dried blood and pus.”^[8] Victorian surgeons were known for wearing their blood-soaked garments with pride, and they also carried with them the stench of rotting flesh as they made their way home.

Being a surgeon was not considered the noble profession it is today, and the hospital bug-catcher, who had the job of ridding the mattresses of lice, was paid more than a surgeon during this time. Due to high mortality rates, hospitals were known more as “houses of death” than houses of healing.

2 There Were Crowds Gathered Around The Operating Table

While patients would squirm on the operating tables and even attempt to run away during the painful procedures, onlookers would be there to enjoy the whole show. Operating in front of an audience was nothing unusual during the Victorian era, and the risk of germs entering the theater wasn’t even thought about.

Historian Lindsey Fitzharris, author of The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine, writes, “The first two rows were occupied by the other dressers, and behind a second partition stood the pupils, packed like herrings in a barrel, but not so quiet, as those behind them were continually pressing on those before and were continually struggling to relieve themselves of it, and had not infrequently to be got out exhausted. There was also a continual calling out of “Heads, Heads” to those about the table whose heads interfered with the sightseers.”^[9]

The painful cries of the patients and the loud crowd watching the surgery could be overheard from the street many floors below.

1 One Of The Most Renowned Surgeons Was Transgender

In 1865, surgeon Dr. James Barry died. His gravestone reads: “Dr James Barry, Inspector General of Hospitals.” Considered one of the most successful surgeons in Victorian history, Barry was actually born Margaret Ann Bulkley and had no way of fulfilling his dreams in the operating theater, as women were denied a formal education. He enlisted in the army, and in 1826, he carried out a successful caesarean section in Cape Town, seven years before the operation was performed for the first time in Britain.

Known for his bad temper, he angered Florence Nightingale, and following his death, she said, “After he was dead, I was told that [Barry] was a woman. I should say that [Barry] was the most hardened creature I ever met.”^[10] It wasn’t until a domestic member of staff cleaned his body after his death that the truth was realized. His gravestone was already listed and remains unchanged.

Cheish Merryweather is a true crime and oddities fanatic. Founder of Crime Viral and can be found on Twitter @TheCheish.

During the 19th century, anatomists and surgeons needed an ever-increasing amount of bodies to advance their research in the study of human anatomy, and, as a result, the dead body trade boomed. Individuals turned to body snatching (digging up graves to extract the body) and selling them to make a neat profit—these people became known as resurrectionists.

The British government introduced the Anatomy Act of 1832 in an attempt to increase the availability of bodies for medical schools and put a stop to body snatching and murder. The Act ended the use of dissection as a punishment for murder and allowed unclaimed bodies from public institutions, such as hospitals and workhouses, to be used for dissection instead.

However, the Act did not fix the shortage of bodies, and the low supply was still not enough to satisfy, especially in London. As the Victorian era plunged ahead in its pursuit of science and innovation and the need for bodies increased and increased, the dead body trade became a complex and dangerous feature of everyday life.

Related: 10 Gruesome And Shocking Facts About Victorian Surgery

10 The Poor Became a Target

Following the passing of the Anatomy Act, the concern that the bodies of the rich and the middle-class, as well as the poor, were being taken grew. Politicians responded to these concerns by reassuring voters that legislation would be introduced that would legalize the use of the dead poor for dissection. However, the poor didn’t take much comfort in the passing of the Anatomy Act because instead of being dissected alongside a murderer, they would be dissected instead of one.

The fate of the poor worsened significantly with the passing of the New Poor Law of 1834, a piece of legislation created to gain control over the poor, specifically their bodies. The law stated that no able-bodied person was to receive money or help from Poor Law authorities except in a workhouse. Unfortunately, as this list outlined earlier, a lot of workhouse officials were keen on making extra income from selling bodies.

If a person was poor, they were imprisoned, starved to death, and then upon their death, they were butchered. The poor within the workhouses also rebelled, especially when it was clear a body was being taken for dissection unlawfully.^[1]

9 Supply Chains Were Set Up

The dead body trade became even more complex as the Victorian era stretched on, and “supply chains” were set up to facilitate the sale of bodies and body parts to ensure that the process ran smoothly for maximum profit. The supply chain meant that more people became involved in the process from start to finish, some for financial gain and some in the pursuit of anatomical training.

Bodies needed to be acquired quickly, sold quickly, and disposed of even faster. In order to do this, the supply chains were set up, which involved a number of different people from across the country. Hospitals, like St. Bart’s, set up relationships with those who had direct access to bodies, such as coroners, parish officials, and workhouse officials.

For example, coroner’s hearings could be expensive, and these costs could be recovered by selling bodies after a formal inquest. In addition, bodies found on the streets were not always cut open to determine the cause of death, especially cases concerning drowning and drunks. This allowed for a relatively fresh and untouched corpse to be sold to anatomists for financial gain.^[2]

8 St. Bartholomew’s Was a Key Customer

St. Bartholomew’s, a teaching hospital founded in 1123, was a key customer in the dead body trade, which had a desperate need for cadavers to dissect in its purpose-built dissection room.

St. Bart’s had some unusual ways of obtaining cadavers and treated the law rather flexibly. Due to its location, on the streets outside of St. Bart’s, many poor people died in destitution, and the hospital most certainly capitalized on this. Porters would leave large wicker baskets outside under the King Henry VIII gate for passing body dealers to fill up. Further to this, the annual St. Bartholomew’s Fair, held outside the hospital, also proved to be fruitful for anatomists with deaths occurring due to exhaustion, ill health, or overexcitement.

As the century wore on, the simple relationship between a hospital and body dealers gradually turned into a more “sophisticated” system for acquiring bodies to keep up with demand.^[3]

7 The Case of Robert Hogg and Albert Feist

The workhouse was one of the most important sources of dead bodies; all medical schools received nothing less than a warm welcome when they visited workhouses at nightfall.

In 1858, a scandal came to light which showed the extent to which the trade in dead bodies had reached. The master of St. Mary Newington workhouse, Alfred Feist, was accused of unlawfully selling pauper bodies to Guys Hospital Medical School in London. The Parish clerk Joseph Burgess had discovered that the undertaker Robert Hogg had taken a total of 45 bodies to Guys Hospital instead of burying them. The body of one Louise Mixer’s mother, Mary Whitehead, had been removed by Hogg and taken to Guys Hospital.

Hogg confessed to carrying out fake funerals from the workhouse, stating that he received double payments for each, one from Guys Hospital and the other from the parish. Hogg would bring in any bodies that he could, including the dissected bodies from Guys Hospital. Feist and Hogg would swap the body of a claimed relative for that of a dissected stranger; the fresh body would then be taken to the hospital at nightfall.^[4]

6 Body Parts Were Also Traded

Although the trade in human bodies was predominantly in just that, as has been made clear by this list, bodies were very hard to come by, and sometimes desperate times called for desperate measures. The trade in human bodies also included body parts, and often those who needed bodies settled for body parts instead.

Even worse than the use of random body parts was the fact that some body parts were actually provided by people who were living, most likely for money. This included amputated extremities and growths, which became known as “pots.” Even though they were not whole bodies, they still played an important part in research and were often preserved for additional study in the future. Some collectors even had their own niche and built up special collections of pots that were particularly relevant to their work.^[5]

5 Fetuses and Children Were Highly Valued

A combination of historical research and the archaeological assessment of specimens at Cambridge University found that fetus and infant cadavers were highly valued for studying anatomy.

Researchers studied the skeletal collection, which ranged from the 1700s to the 1800s, amassed by the dissecting room of Cambridge’s anatomy department. They found that anatomists tended to keep the skulls of fetuses and children in one piece instead of opening them. From a total of 54 specimens in the collection, only one had received a craniotomy.

Selling the body of a fetus or a child could generate quite a bit of money for destitute and desperate women. In addition, these cadavers were particularly popular as anatomists were eager to do further research on miscarriages and abnormalities in childbirth.

To demonstrate the anatomy of the nervous and circulatory systems, a whole body was required (a smaller body was better suited to this) and was injected with colored wax. In April 1834, an unknown child’s body was found floating in a river on April Fool’s Day; it had been dismembered with only a leg, a thigh, and part of the spine and arm remaining. A local surgeon named Dr. Webb reported that it was likely the body had been used for purposes of learning anatomy “for the arteries were filled with wax.”^[6]

4 Oxford Had to Compete With Cambrdige

Two of the oldest universities in England both had anatomy schools that required bodies for dissection, so much so that they were in a race of sorts with each other to acquire the bodies first and thus advance their research.

Alexander Macalister was appointed Professor of Anatomy at Cambridge University in 1883, and was put in charge of the Anatomical Lab (pictured above, from 1888). Macalister and his department set up a “business of anatomy” that a number of regional medical schools copied. Arthur Thomson was hired to teach human anatomy at Oxford in 1885 and swiftly set about increasing the number of cadavers available to the university.

Thomson had difficulty gaining a foothold in the local market, and in an attempt to improve this and catch up with Macalister, he decided to go further afield. His petty cash records show that he traveled extensively and paid around 12 pounds for each body. Thomson set up purchasing agreements in two west Midlands locations, and he acquired seven bodies from West Midland’s guardians from 1886 to 1887. He further expanded his trade, and between 1895 and 1929, 404 bodies were purchased from poor law unions and asylums in four locations: Leicester, Reading, Staffordshire, and from within Oxford’s city limits.^[7]

3 Railways Were Crucial

As demonstrated by the efforts of Macalister and Thomson to boost the number of bodies acquired, accessing bodies from several locations was necessary,y if not vital. Therefore, a pivotal part of the dead body trade was the use of the railway, especially for obtaining corpses from further afield to supply to places like Cambridge and Oxford.

Three times a week, an express train left Liverpool Street Station in London, traveling via Cambridge and Doncaster. This train became known as the “dead train” as it carried corpses to Cambridge. Attached to the rear carriages of the trains were “funeral wagons,” which contained stacked boxes of dead bodies. The boxes were carefully sealed to prevent foul odors from the bodies from leaking out so as not to alert the passengers.

Thomson, at Oxford, needed an efficient way to collect and move the bodies, and the railway became pivotal in the same way it did for Macalister. Both Leicester and Reading had main-line stations on the Great Western Railway network, and the quicker the route, the better. An undertaker was employed to take bodies to the railway station, and each body was placed in a box addressed to a member of the Anatomy Department at the university.^[8]

2 Families Hid Cadavers

The Anatomy Act enabled the bodies of the poor to be possessed and used for dissection, and the horror stories concerning the use of these bodies were not unknown to the poor. For example, if someone died in prison or at a workhouse, a relative had seven days to come forward and claim the body with proof they could afford a proper burial.

Some wanted to avoid their loved ones being dissected so badly that they hid the body, often to bide time to raise funeral funds. In Shoreditch, East London, Mary Ann Huckle kept the body of her dead husband, Thomas Huckle, in their house for four days and four nights. The Bury and Norwich Post reported that it was most likely to buy time and avoid the body being taken to St. Bartholomew’s or Cambridge Anatomy School.

On a—somewhat—lighter note, “burial clubs” were formed to help families afford funeral services, where members made weekly payments to ensure the club could cover expenses, no matter how long someone had been a member. Sort of like the Victorian answer to crowdsourcing or holding a “funeral” car wash.^[9]

1 Cholera Conspiracy

During the cholera outbreak of 1831-1832, victims were isolated in special hospitals. Upon death, their bodies were buried as quickly as possible after a brief post-mortem, despite the wishes of family and friends.

Combined with the passing of the Act, the actions of the medical authorities raised a lot of concern among the public, who began to get suspicious that the cholera scare was just a way for doctors to experiment on and dissect more bodies. Unfortunately, these fears were not completely unjustified.

In September 1832, a three-year-old boy died in the Swan Street Cholera Hospital in Manchester. At the boy’s funeral, the grandad asked to see the body, but his request was refused, so he opened the coffin himself instead. He found the boy’s head missing, and in its place, a brick. The story caused outrage, and a crowd of several thousand marched to the hospital, where they smashed windows and wrecked equipment.^[10]

In the annals of crime, it would be difficult to come up with a more fascinating murderer than the Victorian villain, Charles Frederick Peace (1832–1879). Despite his last name, Charles Peace was a violent man—sort of a “Jekyll and Hyde.” While some saw him as a kind family man, he also had a darker side.

In looking at this life, it’s easy to see what makes him an interesting—and horrible—Victorian rogue.

Related: 10 Really Peculiar Victorian Deaths

10 Like Father, Like Son

I’m not suggesting for a moment that Charles’s father, John, a collier from Burton-on-Trent, was involved in any kind of criminality. What he and his youngest son had in common is that they each went to the Pearly Gates incomplete; John having lost his lower left leg following a workplace accident, and Charles being minus a full complement of fingers on his left hand. It says something of the family’s determination that Peace Sr. put his remaining leg at risk by becoming a wild animal tamer of some renown. In contrast, Charles became proficient on the violin, despite being digitally disadvantaged.

When he was fourteen-years-old Charles very nearly joined his father in the missing limb club while working at a Sheffield rolling mill. He suffered a horrific injury to his leg when a red-hot steel rod went through his shin just below the knee. He spent eighteen months in the hospital, and he was left permanently affected by it. However, he could walk, albeit with an unusual gait. Despite this disability, Peace became an agile cat-burglar.^[1]

9 Many Strings to His Bow (But Only One to His Fiddle)

Had he not drifted into a life of crime, Peace could have probably made a comfortable living doing what he was good at. He became accomplished at everything to which he turned his hand. His skill on a single-stringed violin was such that he was in demand at soirees, and he was billed as the Modern Paganini. He dealt in antiques and art, and he was an able picture-framer and mender of clocks. He also dabbled in inventing, and he and a partner had a meeting with Samuel Plimsoll, MP at the House of Commons. This was in response to the following patent they had taken out, Peace using the name John Thompson.^[2]

“2635 Henry Fersey Brion, 22 Philip Road, Peckham Rye, London, S.E., and John Thompson, 5 East Terrace, Evelina Road, Peckham Rye, London, S.E., for an invention for raising sunken vessels by the displacement of water within the vessels by air and gases.”

8 The Women in Charles’s Life

Three women would loom large in the life of Charles Peace. The first was widow Hannah Ward, who is said to have married Peace in 1851. Mrs. Ward had a young son, Willie, by her late husband. While on his travels, Peace met Susan Bailey (nee Gray) in a Nottingham lodging house. The pair began an affair, passing themselves off as Mr. and Mrs. Thompson.

However, one morning the police entered the bedroom at lodgings where the so-called Thompsons were staying. Peace refused to get dressed in front of the officers, and while they left the room to give the shy gentleman some privacy, Charles sneaked out of the building. With a price on his head, the North had become too hot for Peace and Bailey, so they headed for London, inviting Hannah Ward and Willie to join them. Here, Peace would become a one-man crime wave across Blackheath, living comfortably off the spoils.

While Peace was under arrest as John Ward, Sue Bailey betrayed him, telling police his true identity in the hope of pocketing the £100 reward. Her claim was rejected because the information she provided had not led directly to Peace’s arrest. While Peace was awaiting trial, Hannah Ward appeared at the Central Criminal Court on a charge of receiving stolen goods. The judge directed the jury to acquit on the grounds that the marriage could not be disproved; therefore, the prisoner had acted under the coercion of her husband. The third woman was Mrs. Katherine Dyson, but there’s more on her below.^[3]

7 Peace Gets Away with Murder

In August 1876, Peace was interrupted while burgling a house in Whalley Range in Manchester. In making his escape, the desperate burglar aimed his revolver at PC Nicholas Cock, who had blocked his route. Peace fired a warning shot, and then a second that fatally wounded the unfortunate policeman. Two local men, brothers John and William Habron, were arrested and charged with the killing of Constable Cock.

Peace attended the trial of the brothers, at which John was acquitted, but William was found guilty and sentenced to death. Fortunately for the latter, he was granted a respite just two days before the date set for his execution. His sentence was later commuted to penal servitude for life. After his arrest, Peace confessed to the killing of PC Cock, and he was able to provide details that could only have been known by someone present at the shooting. William Habron was granted a free pardon and awarded £800 indemnification.^[4]

6 A Second Murder

In 1877, while living in Darnall, a suburb of Sheffield, Peace befriended Arthur Dyson, a civil engineer, and his wife, Katherine. He made advances towards Mrs. Dyson, and to what extent she reciprocated is not clear, but she did admit to attending music halls and public houses with Peace. Mr. Dyson threw a card into Peace’s garden, requesting him to stop interfering with his family. Soon after this, the Dysons moved to Banner Cross, some six miles away, only to find Peace outside their new home. Peace told Dyson, “You see, I am here to annoy you, and I’ll annoy you wherever you go.”

One night, Peace was watching the Dysons’ house, and he confronted Katherine with a revolver when she came from an outhouse. Arthur came to investigate the disturbance, and Peace shot him through the temple. Later, at Peace’s trial, Katherine Dyson spent an uncomfortable time under cross-examination, particularly following the production of a bundle of letters, couched in affectionate terms and allegedly sent by her to Peace. Authorship of these letters was never established, but Mrs. Dyson made her feelings for Peace known after the trial, calling him a demon “beyond the power of even a Shakespeare to paint.”^[5]

5 A Master of Disguise

As well as moving about the country in order to evade capture, Peace had the fortunate gift of being a master of disguise. His facial features have often been described as rubber-like, enabling him to change his look at will. He also used spectacles, hair dye, and walnut juice, which he applied to darken his skin to deter recognition. His missing fingers would be a giveaway, so he wore a prosthetic arm with a hook on the end to hide them. He also disguised his burgling tools, transporting them in a violin case, and he had all kinds of pockets sewn into his clothes for the concealment of tools and plunder.

Charles’s undisguised appearance was recorded somewhat unflatteringly in this description, taken from a wanted poster:^[6]

“Charles Peace wanted for murder on the night of the 29th inst. He is thin and slightly built, from fifty-five to sixty years of age. Five feet four inches or five feet high; grey (nearly white) hair, beard and whiskers. He lacks use of three fingers of left hand, walks with his legs rather wide apart, speaks somewhat peculiarly as though his tongue were too large for his mouth, and is a great boaster. He is a picture-frame maker. He occasionally cleans and repairs clocks and watches and sometimes deals in oleographs, engravings and pictures. He has been in penal servitude for burglary in Manchester. He has lived in Manchester, Salford, and Liverpool and Hull.”

4 Another Policeman Shot

In the early hours of October 10, 1878, Constable Robinson was on duty in St. John’s Park, Blackheath, where a spate of burglaries had occurred. While at the rear of a house, he saw a light through the window and immediately summoned two colleagues. With Robinson remaining at the rear of the house, the other two went to the front and rang the doorbell. Robinson watched as the window opened and a man emerged. The officer gave chase, but the man turned and aimed a revolver at his pursuer. “Keep back! Or by God, I’ll shoot you,” the man said, but Robinson made a rush for him.

The burglar fired four shots, all of which missed, and Robinson was able to grab his assailant and strike him a blow to the face. “I’ll settle you this time,” the burglar said, firing a fifth shot that went through Robinson’s arm just above the elbow. Badly wounded, Robinson was still able to overpower the shooter, taking the gun from him and hitting him over the head with it. The other two officers came to assist, and Peace was arrested.^[7]

3 One last Desperate Leap

While being taken from King’s Cross to Sheffield to stand trial for the murder of Arthur Dyson, Peace was his usual troublesome self. With the train in motion, the window of the carriage was opened so Peace could throw out a bag he’d used for toilet purposes. As soon as he saw his chance, the agile rogue dived through the open window, but one of the officers managed to grab his left boot. Upside-down, Peace clung onto the footboard of the carriage while kicking wildly at the officer holding onto him.

Finally, Peace’s boot came off, and he fell to the ground by the tracks. His guards pulled the communication cord to stop the train, aghast that their prisoner had escaped. But it was not to be this time. Having run about a mile back down the track, the guards found Peace unconscious from the fall and bleeding heavily from a head wound. For Charles Peace, the game was well and truly up. After he had recovered from his injuries, Peace said that his leap from the train had been an attempt at suicide to cheat the hangman rather than an escape bid.^[8]

2 Bloody Rotten Bacon

On February 4, 1879, Peace’s trial began at Leeds Assizes. After deliberating for only ten minutes, the jury returned a guilty verdict, and Peace was sentenced to death. In the condemned cell at Armley Prison, Peace confessed to a priest that he was the true killer of PC Cock. As he ate his final meal of bacon and eggs, Peace is reported to have said, “This is bloody rotten bacon.”

He presented his wife with a homemade funeral card that bore the legend: “In Memory of Charles Peace Who was executed in Armley Prison Tuesday February 25, 1879 Aged 47 For that I don (sic) but never Intended.” Charles Peace went calmly to his death; although true to form, he was even bothersome on the scaffold, asking for a drink of water. His request was refused, the lever was pulled, and this most remarkable of villains was no more.^[9]

1 Charles Peace in Popular Culture

It is surprising that such a colorful real-life villain is barely represented on the big screen. In 1905, a short silent film titled The Life of Charles Peace was released. This is scant on factual information but mildly entertaining. The Case of Charles Peace (1949) is a more accurate representation, but it shows its age. Peace is mentioned by name in the Sherlock Holmes short story, The Adventure of the Illustrious Client, when the great detective comments. “My old friend Charlie Peace was a violin virtuoso.” A wax image of Peace, alongside his executioner William Marwood, was a great attraction for many years at Madame Tussaud’s chamber of horrors.

In 1964, the children’s comic Buster ran a strip titled “The Astounding Adventures of Charlie Peace,” describing him as the world’s most lovable rogue. While there is no doubt that Peace was a fascinating character, a loveable rogue may be a tad generous toward a violent murderer who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot his way past those trying to stop him.^[10]

In modern times we commonly refer to the reign of Queen Victoria as the Victorian Era in England. That era stretched from the year 1837 until 1901. In the grand scheme of human history, it wasn’t so long ago. In the grand scheme of culinary history, it might as well have happened a million years ago on another planet. While a number of dishes seemed perfectly normal even today, there are a handful of foods that the Victorians ate that would not find a welcome home on many menus these days.

This is an encore of one of our previous lists, as presented by our YouTube host Simon Whistler. Read the full list!