A selection by Emma Butler-Way
Even though the years pass, the seasons change, and society goes through its various developments, one thing that doesn’t really change is the way in which we mark the days: we handily number them, and spread them across twelve months. There’s a nice regularity to that (even in February – we may not always have 29 days, but we know we get that extra day every four years).
Such scheduling allows us to celebrate anniversaries, or go down interesting rabbit holes as we ponder what else might have happened on this day in history. Of course, we have the big events that are marked every year, or which we might draw upon for a pub quiz, but what about the smaller, every-day things? What about the things people were reading in their magazines, the instalments of sensational tales they were hooked on, or the things that were happening in that fiction (when the authors deign to date-stamp their plots)?
Dracula Daily, for example, has brought Dracula alive in a way that no-one else has: by sending readers the novel as it happens. Every now and then, I think to myself, What else might be resurrected in similar sort of way? Why stop at novels? We have reams of periodical archives to get lost in, after all…
So, with that in mind, this feature was born. For this inaugural On This Day in Pages of the Victorians, then, we are venturing into sensation fiction for our first stop, before popping along the market, taking in some maritime and scientific wonders, before hopping onto our bicycles and learning some table manners….
19th June
1850
According to her diary, Marian Halcombe today cast off her ‘white and cumbersome’ underthings in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White, and ventured onto the veranda to eavesdrop on Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco’s plotting. Count Fosco discovers the likeness between Anne Catherick and Laura Fairlie, and the plot to exchange them is born…
(N.B. this is in the novel edition from 1861. In the original serialised version of the story, her underthings remained in place until 5th July…)
1862
The price of hay and straw at Smithfield is as follows:
- Hay: from 2 pounds, 0 shillings to 4 pounds, 15 shillings
- Straw: from 1 pounds, 16 shillings to 2 pounds 0 shillings
- Clover: 3 pounds, 10 shillings to 4 pounds 15 shillings
You can also find 12, 940 sheep, 870 calves, and 510 pigs at the New Metropolitan Cattle-Market.
(Source: The Gentleman’s Magazine: and historical review, 213 (July), p. 119)
1869
The London Reader offers us these fun facts:
- On lighthouses: “England has a light for every 14 miles of coast, Scotland for every 39 ½ miles, Ireland one for every 34 ½ miles, while France exhibits one for every 12-3 miles.”
- On curing somnambulism: “Professor Pellizzari, of Florence, has hit upon a cure for somnambulism. It simply consists of winding once or twice round one’s leg, on going to bed, a thin flexible copper wire, long enough to reach the floor. Eighteen somnambulists treated in this way have been either permanently or temporarily cured. Copper wire is known to dissipate magnetic somnambulism, and this circumstance led the professor to have recourse to this strange remedy.”
(Source: The London Reader: of literature, science, art and general information, 13.320 (June 19), p. 183)
1896
The ‘Cycling Gossip’ feature in Bow Bells observed:
The London detective police are to be supplied with a powerful cycling corps, and already a large section of prominent members of the Criminal Investigation Department are taking riding-lessons, the latest being Chief Inspector Forrest, of New Scotland Yard, who, at the riding-school of “Cycledom,” King’s Road, Chelsea, is being successfully taught the art of cycle-riding.
In case you were wondering, in the Notes and Queries section of this issue of Bow Bells, on the subject of Table Manners, Pert of Plymouth has declared that “If cake is very soft it may be eaten with a fork; if firm enough to handle, break in small pieces, taking care to make as few crumbs as possible”…
(Source: Bow Bells: a magazine of general literature and art for family reading, 34.442, p. 621)
Do you have a day that you wish to explore? Was a shocking plot twist revealed on a particular day? Drop us a line at vpfamedia@gmail.com, with the subject ‘Blog: On This Day’, to pitch an idea and, pending approval, we’ll get it up on the website on the day in question (or as close to)! We’re after the arbitrary, the bizarre, and the intriguing – the gossip, the advice columns, and, of course, the popular fiction!