Voices of Victorian London

[@johncrisp3366]

My great grandfather lost his eye in a factory accident. He kept a selection of false eyes in a box. Brown ones to match his own colour. On a Sunday he had a blue one for reasons known only to himself.

[@RuthvenMurgatroyd]

Must be some religious thing. Most intriguing.

[@bertramwinslowiii2119]

Marvellous acting! I'm reading Mayhew's book now. It's fascinating but also incredibly sad - people working 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, for barely enough money to stay alive. I'm so grateful to live in more enlightened times.

[@MegaLivingIt]

I'm reading Mayhew also on and off (too much to digest with a quick read, and can't believe Queen Victoria would allow this misery among her own subjects to continue right under her nose there in London. She could have organized her wealthy ladies to do social reform and provide welfare for the helpless. As I understand England was at the top of the world in extreme wealth and power at that time. No excuse 🌿

[@kevinmoore734]

These wonderful actors brought the victorian voices to life.

[@Supesfan88]

That woman who collected "pure" brought tears to my eyes.

[@kfoster9000]

Thank you for bringing this to us

[@carolbrennan1078]

I’m doing Ancestry at the moment and and found both my great grandmother and her mother were born in London workhouses, i have to say i have been deeply disturbed by what their lives must have been like. Women and children always came off worse, my grandfather was given away after he also was born in a workhouse. Please god we never go back to this way of life.

[@SilverStarEyes]

Its sad knowing how much our ancestors suffered x

[@jeanbrown8295]

And there are people in todays world who think they are entitled to reparations,what about the descendants of these people,are they the ones who are supposed to pay them.what about our reparations,our ancestors were worse off than those slaves,they were not fed and housed and clothed as slaves were,a lot of poor people in Britain starved on the streets.

[@brendabarrowable]

I do not recognize any of these actors names and each one is Oscar material but never got the chance to reach fame or fortune in their lifetimes. This video is one of the most remarkable that I have ever seen on U Tube. Thanks for this channel.

[@vickywitton1008]

Also goes to show how hard it was to make a living and once you became sick of injured your life became impossible. Considering how easy it was to become sick and injured, how they remained positive is amazing

[@evrosplainer88]

so you mean like living in usa nowadays basically

[@codycurtin2295]

The positivity is only because of the hopelessness im afraid :(. There is no rising up when no one knows better is possible.

[@Earnshawfully]

"After October, eyes begin to look up a bit." (Doll's eye maker.)

[@sarah3796]

😳😅😆

[@ninamartin1084]

Eye roll.

[@bettyboo1927]

What wonderful actors! They brought these characters galloping back to life, marvellous!

[@jennyobrien4185]

Utterly marvelous! These actors are brilliant. This really was a treat.

[@vmm5163]

I cannot BELIEVE this video has turned up in my random feed, I've never forgotten this program on TV and searched online so many times without any luck. I'm amazed. 👍👍👍 At last!! And by accident too!! Thankyou 👍

[@susankelly5585]

I hope lots of people today, who think they're having a bad time, listen to this, and read the book. So much heartbreak! Wonderful actors.♥️😢

[@chippychick6261]

Gave me a sense of what my ancestors lives were like. Gr grandfather lived in Whitechapel in the 1850’s. Bricklayer and gr grandma was a coster woman.

[@writeract2]

Fascinating - what did your grandma sell?

[@owlthepirate5997]

What's a "coster"?

[@kdjoshi726]

@AMT Oh so it's basically a street vendor?

[@RussiaIsARiddle778]

These actors are amazing. Very talented, everyone of them. I really enjoyed this.

[@Planetoid52]

That was my first thought. Totally convincing performances.

[@wilfordfraser6347]

This is so fascinating. We are hearing the literal stories of people who lived once and are now forgotten...but this provided some snippet of their existence for posterity. I am not British but these are the voices of the forgotten ancestors of modern day British people. And that woman who lost all of her children...wow. That last man's story at the end was very moving; those poor people wanted more for their children but they realized the hopelessness of the system they lived under. It is no wonder British people today are more comfortable with policies that Americans call "socialist".

[@tomwhite5868]

The Victorian period really is fascinating, it was such a harsh time for the British (workhouses, slums, war etc), but also a time of great discovery, with the Industrial Revolution and the maintenance of the Empire. People seemed to have a purpose to work towards a better future that I feel has been forgotten these days in favour of the introversion of screens, the internet and the constant battle of social opinion. Life was tough for the Victorian's, but they grew our nation to be what it was today and I just wish I could travel back and experience it for myself.

[@a.t.c.3862]

Well said.

[@gingerbaker661]

Our policies haven’t changed much in the last 200 years people just don’t care as much these days though attitudes are changing back

[@Oakleaf700]

A really shocking book I listened to on you tube was ''People of the Abyss'' by Jack London. He lived as a ''Tramp'' in London late 1890's The desperate hunger of people thrown into poverty through industrial accidents &c was fairly common. No payouts or compensation in those days for industrial accidents.

[@gingerbaker661]

@@Oakleaf700 I would wager that that there are less accidents these days due most of our industry being in China now and many injured at work these days aren’t payed at all or aren’t payed for quite some time as the insurance company’s are quick to take your money but paying it back is a whole other kettle of fish

[@mrs.g.9816]

It was like a news interviewer stepped through a magic window into the 1850's.

[@donnakawana]

I loved listening to the stories so sad but so enlightening!

[@Munchausen45]

They are like real life Charles dickens characters.

[@effohsee]

People seemed to have a good set of morals and pride no matter their circumstances. A trait being lost more and more year by year.

[@codycurtin2295]

It's astounding what continued centuries of misery have on a society

[@Oakleaf700]

I LOVE Mayhew's books, so this is a great treat! Thank you. His Rocking horse maker {in the book} was fascinating {Old rocking horses are a passion of mine}...And reading about how the oldest ones were made from the 'timbers of old houses' showed how recycling is nothing new. I have a horse made around 1800 who had a solid body, who is very heavy for size, and even in the 1850's Mayhew states some of the horses were 'Very old' and had just come in for some restoration. All of course would be the beautiful 'Bow rocker' type. {Much more fragile than the swing stand types}

[@reasonablyserious]

Recycling has never been new. Up until very recently, people knew the value of money, maybe because they had to work for it.

[@Oakleaf700]

@@reasonablyserious Those who lived through War and rationing that I know are still very frugal, I threw out a centimetre of milk left in a small jug in the fridge and opened a fresh bottle at a relative's house, she she said ''I was saving that milk for my coffee!''..I just think the generations that came later are more wasteful. Unwrapping presents at Christmas and smoothing out the beautiful paper for re-use was another thing done in our family as children..some paper lasted 8 yrs or more, getting smaller each year, til in the end it was just suitable for for wrapping a box of Bengal Matches, or a tiny musical box. The saddest invention in the 20th C has to be plastics. The ''single use'' plastics trend is dire.

[@RuthvenMurgatroyd]

@@Oakleaf700 Haha, I have a burning semi-rational hatred of plastics. I just wished manufacturers used plastic more sparingly. Of course it's hard to source and process rubber, clay, ceramic, or glass; or at least, much easier to just use plastic for everything but I regret that fact greatly.

[@eleni1968]

The Victorian Age has both a Romantic & Horrific image. Thanks to Industrialization people lost eyes, limbs, & their lives prematurely.

[@kaleahcollins4567]

Romantic for who? The upper classes . Either way Women wasn't helped nor valued

[@GLYNDYER]

They were all working in fields before doing the same thing….

[@wickedlee664]

@@kaleahcollins4567 propaganda much?

[@soldierofchrist888]

@@kaleahcollins4567 Leftist Propaganda! People today in these GODless times are many times unhappier and have significantly more problems than back then.

[@gingerbaker661]

@@kaleahcollins4567 ah yet another uneducated feminist

[@orionxtc1119]

Damn loved this BBC Timewatch when I first saw it many years ago... thanks you for uploading.... I lost many video cassette tapes when I moved...

[@ref6122]

The actors were really top notch in this.

[@mcpucho]

“The Scotch loose a great many eyes, why we cannot say.”

[@billy2896]

demoman

[@sextwister]

Rough and tumble is why

[@marialiyubman]

I just ordered the full book off audible, but I also want the hardcover when I’m finished. That clown’s account broke my soul (I come from a long line of musicians, I finally understand why no one wanted me to be a musician after them, but I love it and I can’t imagine what his daughter grew up to be, I’m sure she adored her dad and everything he did). 😭 my heart.

[@Lewis_T93]

I'd love to know what happened to his his family. Hopefully they caught a break. His account of his life is so sad. I love reading/listening to stories of Victorian England but some of the stories are harrowing. ☹

[@musicguy20]

You wonder how surnames go extinct when you look at historical books and then hear stories of pure finding and see how easy it was for a whole family to vanish. Thank goodness for advancements in medicines and healthcare all due to the Victorians being curious about everything.

[@prophaniti1]

One thing I notice is how well spoken the poor of the 1800's we're compared to the poor of modern Britain.

[@kleerude]

“We’re”? What’s that about the well-spoken?

[@bluesheep6]

⁠​⁠@@kleerudeIt was obviously a typo. Don’t be a jerk.

[@philipswain4122]

I have a copy of Mayhew’s book. Both heartbreaking and funny. Like a trip with Dickens through London’s past. The pain in the Pure collector and the street clown’s voices are not for the feint of heart

[@transvestosaurus878]

"About as big as binnacles" - for anyone wondering, a binnacle is equal to 723 barleycorns

[@bluesheep6]

What’s a barleycorn equal to

[@kategwynne4658]

I love this. Wonderful to hear stories from our ancestors and I've just bought the book.

[@riley124]

Superb exposition. The rat catcher's tale is so vivid.

[@1220b]

Amazing programme and truly top notch acting

[@bombarasc]

the microscope man is wonderful.

[@johnreed8336]

Mayhew died penniless and was buried as a pauper . So in these times quite often through no fault of their own one can be ' comfortable ' one moment and destitute the next . A very sad ending for someone with empathy and compassion for the ' lower' classes

[@rj6683]

Amazing program, actual words and feelings from struggling street people.

[@bridgethannah2933]

So interesting and well presented. It must have been difficult to choose which commentaries to use. Thank you.

[@Universe88productions]

the performances at 6.10 and 20.50 would have been well suited to a Jeremy Brett episode, top work also thanks to the guy who documented these stories and whoever's idea it was to turn this into a show

[@elizabethbrown3037]

What a fabulous production and what believable characters! I feel like we've all just stepped back in time and gotten the accounts right "out of the horse's mouth"!

[@gardenjoy5223]

Very saddening. Rotten jobs and rotten hours for not enough to eat in enough cases. No one to protect you or look after you, when you were sick or too old. That poor woman, who lost all of her eight children and was not making enough money anymore, collecting the dog poop. I'm rich as a princess compared to these people, as a regular middle class person nowadays, even when Corona has eaten all our money.

[@samuelparker9882]

My grandfather had several eyes wrapped in cotton in his bedroom drawer. He lost his right eye working in a sawmill in the early 1940s. This is true history. The stuff of real life.

[@stewartwebb5699]

So. This is the working people recorded by word and then acted.. Very good!

[@marvinc9994]

And if you want to know what REAL 'acting' looks like, Ladies and Gents - here you are !

[@dcvariousvids8082]

Dear me that was depressing. And to think there are a very many people who live in poverty in present day Britain, is not promising for society as a whole.

[@bertramwinslowiii2119]

While many people are struggling in Britain today, you can't compare their poverty to the horrific circumstances of the poor in Mayhew's time (1840 - 60). There was no unemployment benefit or disability pension in that time - if you couldn't work, you starved.

[@acidpunker1]

Poverty? Blewing your social/charity handout on fags, lottery tickets and mobile phones is not poverty!

[@Scanjoon]

Outstanding!

[@johngerardhealy]

Caw Blimey, the best actors I've seen 'n many a year!

[@lindseykerr9670]

What an amazing window on history. I didn’t realise how uneducated the masses where in those days. I suppose the microscope chap was the Victorian version of The Discovery Channel.

[@caroliner2029]

So very interesting, and a priceless piece of our cultural heritage. Thank you.🇦🇺

[@kfoster9000]

Thank you for creating this

[@408Magenta]

The actor describing rats really perked my attention.

[@Munchausen45]

Keep in mind that these are all Jack Black’s actual words. He was a very colorful person....

[@divaden47]

I do a lot of Family History research and noticed yesterday, via the census, that one of my ancestors was a piano maker! Love to hear more about that 😀

[@suzipam1234]

This is beyond fascinating

[@heathsavage4852]

Fascinating and cleverly done.

[@tymanung6382]

These conditions were results of gov. controlled by landowners, snd to lesser extent large capitalists, who discouraged or fought poor,at times, workers attempts to organize, and to vote, but they had increasing successes in late 1800s and early to mid 1900s with socual welfare state, legalized unions and parties.

[@missadventuresmotorcycledi2773]

Excellent actors

[@JaneEva]

Wonderful! First rate actors! Thanks for posting!

[@SarahlabyrinthLHC]

So much more articulate in speech than many of us!

[@ninamartin1084]

All this I needed to know. I just didn't know I needed to know it.

[@homestead44]

BRILLIANT ! WHAT A TIME,WHAT A PEOPLE 🇬🇧

[@craigskywalker1111]

This is brilliant.. ive read a few victorian guilders journals.. but this production is very well done...

[@Tysto]

Absolutely fascinating.

[@marcuswalters8093]

For those who cry for the loss of 'the good old days', fret not. They are returning. And all the desperate misery they produced brought along with them.

[@johnreed8336]

I hope this is not a self fulfilling prophecy but I also have felt these vibes . I feel helpless thinking about it but if the public do not stick together and think of the common good then indeed these times will be relived by so many .

[@owlthepirate5997]

Where I'm from, they're is an island, and the people still have the really old English accent.. like it sounds worse than these people sound, lol.. they've been featured in National Geographic. My grandfather had a full color page. Both grandparents were from there. It's called Smith Island and also Tangier Island. It's located near Maryland and Virginia. There last names were, Bradshaw and Evan's.

[@kojack1129]

This was and is great thanks

[@marjoriejohnston3038]

Enjoyed this. Voices of ancestors. Different times.

[@kimberlypatton205]

A wonderful presentation! Thank you!

[@donrobbo837]

Thank you most amazing

[@veneraberens2547]

BEAUTIFUL DIALOGUES

[@choughed3072]

5 quid for that microscope? That's one hell of a gift his sister gave to him.

[@writeract2]

This is fascinating.

[@bbyng7316]

Reminds me of Dickens's spare leg shop in Marin Chuzzlewit. How gruesome !!!!

[@anitarichmond8930]

This is excellent.🇬🇧

[@warpigeonofdoom]

Remember watching this first time round: BBC 1996, narrated by Jonathan Miller. 10 years or so later I read through Mayhew at the John Rylands library. The clown is the most Pathétique character (inspiration for Gilbert’s Jack Point a generation later?)

[@edwardlear4952]

Very interesting

[@discoveryman59]

Marty Feldman would be time and a half.

[@Celtopia]

Mayhews London,and Mayhews London's underworld, were two of my favourite books as a teenager..... I had both in original copies.....25p each from an antiquarian bookshop in flaskwalk Hapstead .

[@ruthmeb]

The one George Orwell used to work in?

[@felixfedre518]

Yes these were the people that "built the country".

[@Kit_Bear]

The way the government is pushing it they have the kids believing it was the newcomers that built this country. They are basically taking a great steaming one on all these people of the past.

[@felixfedre518]

@@Kit_Bear The government has been taking a "great steaming one" on the western people for nearly seventy years now.

[@ruthmeb]

​@@Kit_BearUtter nonsense, and nasty nonsense at that. Immigrants HAVE contributed to the building of modern Britain, that's a simple fact.

[@ruthmeb]

"Me uncle" in the costermonger's talk is the pawnbroker...

[@eunicestone838]

The lady have an Oscar winning performance.

[@ursulasmith6402]

Great, to find this channel. All what most people do today, is complaining.

[@ruthbashford3176]

These are brilliant actors

[@willemvanstaden3292]

I am so fortunate. I feel so ashamed about being depressed now. I am not nearly as downtrodden as these poor folk.

[@LG-ro5le]

Modern world is still pretty messed up

[@wickedlee664]

@@LG-ro5le no

[@StormChasingNinja]

Perspective always changes our mindset. In your case for the better. Helps us really appreciate the lives we have.

[@karendevreeze291]

I remember using eye undines as a young nursing student

[@hazelold2882]

Fascinating

[@markbenjamin1703]

The entire set of characters in Mayhew's book, would've made for great content in AC syndicate

[@susieroberts9745]

This is SO GREAT!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@robincrawford2252]

what a great actor!

[@kaleahcollins4567]

Jack Black went from bird breeder and rat catcher in England to An American Millionaire Actor. 🤷😂😂😂😂😂

[@tsilsby888]

Thank you,

[@bookaufman9643]

The fake guy going undetected reminds me of Michael bisping. He lost his eye due to damage from fighting in the UFC but he fought at least one and maybe two fights where he was looked over by doctors who had to sign off for him fighting. They did not detect that he had a fake eye in. Those are some pretty shabby doctors.

[@spicyhotmeat3898]

Im pretty sure hes just blind in one eye mate

[@bookaufman9643]

@@spicyhotmeat3898 if you're talkin about Michael bisping he is just blind in one eye. I didn't say anything different than that. How bad a doctor would you have to be to not be able to notice that?

[@spicyhotmeat3898]

@@bookaufman9643 sorry guy just the way you wrote my bad g

[@Stripeyperch]

Great video, cheers 🍻

[@jeffsmith2022]

Those poor bastards...

[@vickywitton1008]

So interesting, I know someone with a false eye and you can't really tell, if you didn't know you wouldn't at all

[@anastasia10017]

excellent

[@dusk_ene]

I didn't know what pure was so I had to look it up.. wow.. what a horrid life

[@zoesdada8923]

My God.

[@peterducasse3021]

It's fascinating how Londoners lived in the mid 19th century how the hell did they get by ?.

[@ninamartin1084]

A lot of them didn't.

[@acidpunker1]

Without doubt many were utterly destitute but unlike today, everything you earnt you kept. Today, you work half the year before you even start earning any money for yourself.

[@ruthmeb]

​@@acidpunker1Rubbish. Tax rate is 20 PC after the first 12.5k. And no taxes meant no services and no security net.

[@acidpunker1]

@@ruthmeb You obviously don't live in the same world everybody else does.

[@ruthmeb]

@@acidpunker1 You obviously know no history.

[@bbyng7316]

Love the showy-offy rat man.

[@bmoisgood3228]

That Coster man, I'd love to have had a pint with him.

[@j0nnyism]

That was worth watching just for the clown. Amazing

[@vitocapozza2622]

What’s that song called from the opening title?

[@snadhghus]

It's called "Alice, Where Art Thou?".

[@theoneandonlygraveyard]

Wow! An episode of Open All Hours without Ronnie Barker and David Jason!