I was always struck by the thoroughly morbid history of Ye Olde London Towne. It's shocking in its prominence, especially around the East of The City district, moving up north from there, but also down in the south. In short, there are tales of death, large scale, horrible, painful death in most areas of London. And death is a regular feature in many periods of London's history.

For example, just a few miles to the east of The City, the banking, finance and insurance district, there lies the following:

- The Old Stomping Ground of Jack The Ripper
- The Old Gangster Empire of the Kray Brothers (1960s)
- Many very large grave pits, containing 1000s of bodies, from numerous plagues (over hundreds of years, now built over)
- Some pretty large Victorian cemeteries
- The Tower of London, where numerous beheadings, tortures and imprisonings have taken place.
- Dead Man's Hole, where they used to throw dead bodies of the poor into the river Thames, because they couldn't afford a funeral or grave.
- There are many more.

Now, there's a magazine called "Time Out". This is basically your guide to anything and everything going on in London. It's the menu for the city so to speak. Every now and then, they put out a half decent history. They did it recently. It's all about London's morbid history.

Enjoy! :) (If that's the right word for it)

http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/2510/london15ew.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/3435/london22ey.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/7337/london31gv.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

:clap:

:thanx:

Thanks mate, interesting. :)

I remember posing as Jack the Ripper in the wax museum (Tussaurds; i hope that the spelling is right) and scaring some people since i would suddently raise my hand so as to look at my watch, and pretend that before that i was just staying still in admiration of the statues. But the sign "Jack the Ripper" was behind me in the dark wall all the time ;)

Very good. Highgate Cemetary is great fun (but they don't like it if you ask about the vampire!). I read a really interesting book many years ago about the Anatomy Act of 1832 and the furore surrounding it, from the Resurrectionists to Burke and Hare. Fascinating stuff!

I'm sure you've read Peter Ackroyd's magisterial "London: the biography" which dwells at salacious length upon the violent history of the place (in years gone by, one would often hear people shouting "A ring! a ring!", meaning that a fight was breaking out and everyone was standing in a circle around it to cheer the combatants on). I thought one of the most memorable incidents he cites was the following, from 1428, which describes what happened to a man who had murdered a woman:

...as he wente hys wey where as he hadd i-do this cursed dede, women of the same parissh come owte with stonys and canell dong, and there made an ende of hym in the hyghe strete, so that he wente no ferther notwithstondynge the constables and othere men allso, the wiche hade hyum undir gouernans to condite him forwarde; ffor ther whas a gret manye of them, and no mercy ne no pity...

no mercy ne no pity...indeed. That was the way and that's what struck me so much about the parts of London I mentioned.

Ackroyd's "London" is a great read and a great format for a history. (You know, there's a biography of Africa that someone wrote. Good one too!) What stayed with me most about that read was the bridge over the Thames which the Romans built. If I remember rightly, that was the only bridge over the Thames for about 1000 years (c400ad to 1400ad). How about that!? It was located over the site of Westminster bridge today.

The Victorian Era is indeed fascinating for its new approach to death and commemorating the dead. The sections in the article above about the ornamentation on wealthy graves I found particularly fascinating, especially when compared with the Saxon and Roman examples. What I found staggering about that section was how low life expectancy was in London at that time.

What's also interesting about the period and that running up to it is the "operating theatre". Medicine, anatomical research, theatre, entertainment, grave robbing and other such activities all danced around a merrily morbid May Pole. And as you've noted, it wasn't the first time London saw that.

Interesting. :goodjob:

The short life expectancy in London is quite significant. An important thing to bear in mind about London is that for most of its history its death rate has exceeded its birth rate. But the place has always been growing (until the early twentieth century, when it hit a sort of peak and has shrunk slightly since, at least in population). So London has sustained itself through immigration, from both the rest of England and further afield. Young people (and they always were usually young) have always come here in search of their dreams. And, what with that high death rate, they've typically not found them. So London has acted as a sort of black hole, sucking people in and crushing them! Hence the special prominence of graveyards and the like in London. It is, in a sort of a way, the cemetary of England. There's a cheerful thought.

"All" cities acted as "black holes" in that way up until modern times. Nothing special about London there. :)

When I visited London a few years ago there were tours aplenty catering to the "dark side" of the city. Many of them were Jack the Ripper tours: "Walk in the footsteps of the Ripper in London at night."

I've always felt that London is one of the few cities in the world which has something for everyone.

London wasn't the only British city with an extremely low life expectancy, Liverpool spent most of the early and mid 19th Century around those figures also. Like Poltinus points to about London, Liverpool was during that period a magnet for Irish and Welsh emmigrants (not to mention having significant Chinese, and Italian populations) which was probably just about the only reason why the population continued to grow like crazy in spite of the high death rates.

Other cities in Britain probably suffered from much the same problems.

I've always felt that London is one of the few cities in the world which has something for everyone.

Yes, but it's still one of my least favourite places in the world!

Yes, but it's still one of my least favourite places in the world!

Well, we did find it to be crowded and expensive. However, since we weren't going to live there it was easy to concentrate on and enjoy the culture.

Our next U.K. trip is going to be to the Hebrides.

Yes, I think London is probably a good place to visit, but it's horrible to live in, especially if you're not in the small part that tourists see. Not just expensive, but filthy, inefficient, and generally difficult (I have to walk half an hour just to get to the shops!). However, at least it's quieter these days than it was in the Middle Ages, when apparently the racket of the City could be heard from Hampstead Heath!

It's an interesting observation that Plotinus makes about the relationship between birth, death and immigration rates. Shocking conclusion. I think Privatehudson may well also be right in saying that this phenomenon is common to most large industrialised cities. I haven't looked at any figures yet but this is basically what the Dick Whittington dream was all about, in a way.

I have to say that I don't like London anymore. There is no doubt that it is one of the most fascinating, complex and 'great' cities of the world. But I've had too much of a fill of it. Such places can grate after a while.

But back to the death,

Has anyone got any specialist (or plain nerdy) knowledge on this culture of these 'operating theatres' I mention? This is a bizarre cultural phenomenon from a modern day perspective. Those operating theatres mentioned in the article above were revisited in London by the arrival of Prof. Gunter von Hagens a few years ago. I believe he's touring around New York atm.

His Body Works (http://www.bodyworlds.com/) (or Body Worlds) exhibitions were a weird mix of The Jim Rose Circus meets The Evil Dead meets Sesame Street Education meets Dr Caligari. However inaccurate this description may be, such Public Autopsy or Public Dissection was very popular entertainment.

I believe the most famous example of the "operating theatre" sort of phenomenon was the dissection of Jeremy Bentham, which took place in 1832 (appropriately, on a thundery night) I believe in London. Bentham had of course specified in his will that after his death he was to be publicly dissected for the edification of all, and that his skeleton was subsequently to be dressed, stuffed, and placed in a glass case in University College. I've been to see it a couple of times. Bentham claimed that all this was simply derived from his utilitarian principles: it was more practical to turn a corpse into an "auto-icon" than to bury it and spend more money on erecting a statue. Obviously he can't really have meant this, and the whole thing was basically a glorious practical joke from beyond the grave. However, there was a serious side to it too. By choosing to have himself publicly dissected, Bentham was deliberately attacking the popular superstitious fear of dissection, which at this time was still reserved for particularly notorious murderers. People thought that if you were dissected after your death there would be nothing to be resurrected on Judgement Day. It was the resulting desperate lack of corpses to dissect that had led to the Resurrectionists of the eighteenth century and the Burke and Hare murders of the nineteenth - indeed, just a couple of years before Bentham's death, Burke and Hare themselves had been not only executed but publicly dissected, as part of their punishment (which, ironically, only reinforced the popular notion of dissection as something to avoid). 1832 saw not only Bentham's death but the passing of the notorious Anatomy Act, which solved the problem by decreeing that anyone who died in a poorhouse could be dissected. This was a major reason why people in subsequent years were so terrified of entering the poorhouse and dying in the state's care.

Aaaaahhhhh.... London.... I used to live on New Cross Road for at least three years. That was rather morbid.;)

It was crowded, dirty, criminal, and a heck of a lot of fun.

A good tale is Betham's Plotinus. I had no idea about dissection and poorhouses actually. For once, I can really thank someone for lowering the tone of the thread :lol:It was crowded, dirty, criminal, and a heck of a lot of fun.A very accurate verdict imo!

Oh, yes, apparently the Anatomy Act was one of the most notorious and universally loathed pieces of legislation of the nineteenth century (and caused far more uproar than the Great Reform Act of the same year!). You'll notice that the article in the OP mentions that it was only a century ago that cremation was introduced, another reflection of the terror most people felt at the prospect of anything other than a normal burial.

This terror was also at the root of the enormous fear of - and outrage against - the Resurrectionists, those crafty characters who stole newly buried bodies from the graveyards to sell to hospitals. When these graverobbers were caught, they often had to be protected in the cells from angry mobs intent on ripping them apart - for although grave robbery was a crime, it was technically far less of a crime than public sentiment felt it should be. As you know, a body (living or dead) is not legally property and therefore cannot be stolen; so the graverobbers had not committed theft, unless they also took the corpse's clothes. The practice seems to have been surprisingly common. I once read of one town where someone became convinced that the body of a recently dead relative had been stolen. He dug up the grave, to find that the body had indeed vanished. Cue a mass hysteria: half the town dashed to the graveyard and set to with shovels, to discover that many bodies were indeed missing. Now there's an image.

Anyway, here's an interesting reflection of the popular fear of this sort of thing. Many rich people would pay for their graves to be watched day and night for some time after their deaths, to ensure that their bodies remained undefiled. The OP article mentions that fabulous story of Sterne's corpse turning up on a dissection table, being recognised, and being returned to its grave - something which I think Sterne himself would have enjoyed immensely! Well, another famous name we can drag in here is David Hume. He paid for his grave to be watched to prevent such a thing happening. All the more remarkable, of course, given that Hume was (almost certainly) an atheist who presumably couldn't have cared less what state his mortal remains would be in come Judgement Day.

I think Privatehudson may well also be right in saying that this phenomenon is common to most large industrialised cities.
It's big cities in general before modern sanitation. Pre-industrial Stockholm in the 18th c. with a mere 40.000 inhabitants (but 2000 public houses) was an absolute killer. London wasn't unique in the quality of its filth and death - the scale of it was.

If we had Civ working correctly we'd have pop growth in the countryside and then would send them off to die in horrific droves in our cities in order to produce a bunch of stuff we needed. Bacteriological whipping. (Wow! I just made a Civ reference!:eek:)

Ram,

that was a very interesting article. thanks for posting.

while the US is very young in terms of the age of its cities, etc, i have often thought of this for some of her older cities, especially along the mid-atlantic to north-eastern corridor. iirc, you and i spoke of something similar to this when we toured Independence Mall where the Liberty Bell is housed in Philly. specifically, when developers where re-designing that block a few years ago, they found the remains of some slaves and a hault on construction was ordered for archaeological reasons.

anyway, what i'd like to contribute to this interesting topic is the notion of unearthing Native American burial remains all throughout the United States. now, my point is that i don't think i've ever seen such an instance where this occurred :confused: i mean, where i live is traditionally referred to as indian lands prior to the arrival of the British. hell, the name of the city in which i live is named after the local tribe of indians (Absegami Indians). now, w/ all of the new houses going up all over the place here in south jersey, i find it surprising that the remains of Native Americans are not found w/out any sort of regularity.

Oh, I forgot...

Great article Ram!:goodjob:

Has anyone got any specialist (or plain nerdy) knowledge on this culture of these 'operating theatres' I mention? This is a bizarre cultural phenomenon from a modern day perspective.

The operating theater was a commonplace fixture of medical schools in the United States in the Nineteenth Century. There are a number of paintings of famous physicians advancing medical knowledge in their operating theaters under the rapt gaze of their students. From what I gather, the public was never permitted access although I do believe the press may have been present at some of the first demonstrations of the use of gaseous anesthesia.

I can't find any contemporary references to operating theaters. I think they have mostly gone out of fashion with the introduction of television and a trend to train surgeons one on one.

The operating theater still seems to be a standard though in medical school movies providing a focus for lots of medical school hijinks.

I think that in Britain operations are still performed in the operating theatre; in the U.S. we call them Operating Rooms.

El Justo: Yes that's very weird. I wonder what happened to all those grave sites?

Verbose: It is surprisingly good for what is essentially a "what's on when" type of magazine, yes!

7Ronin: You've given me a cue to get with the art history. Here are 'Six masterpieces of medicine in art'. (http://www.uchsc.edu/news/bridge/2003/March/art2.html) They are:

1) A shaman on the walls of the Caves of Lascaux.
2) “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp” by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606 - 1669).
3) “Gin Lane” by William Hogarth (1697 - 1764). I posted many more of these in the Political Cartoons thread, linked in my sig.
4) “The Gross Clinic” by Thomas Eakins (1844 - 1916).
5) “The Doctor” by Sir Samuel Luke Fildes (1843-1918).
6) "The Sick Child" by Edvard Munch (1863 - 1944).

Notice: The changing role of doctors in human society. Their changing depiction. The influence of 'great ideas' on all this.

I started thinking of Rembrandt's work soon into reading the article. In particular this one, “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp”:

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/4803/anatomy2qr.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I intended to go off on a long post about all these but I ran out of time and got distracted by necessary things here. So I'll just leave those links and maybe come back later on. Here (http://www.maitrise-orthop.com/corpusmaitri/orthopaedic/86_masquelet/masqueletus.shtml)'s a good little exploration of Rembrandt's piece, perhaps the painting most commonly associated with this macabre form of theatre. In fact, the Dutch painters were unusually fascinated with this subject matter more than other Europeans, or rather, their buyers and patrons were...

great reaad, RAM :goodjob:

out of context, but what the heck.

i must recommend EDWARD RUTHERFORD's book LONDON
its a VERY thouroughly researched historical novel, dealing with the entire history of the london area (from its hmble mudhut start to around WWII)

a MUST READ.

ps - ram, sent you those tracks i promised via EMail :D

Yes, that's quite a fun novel, although the story is really pretty silly!