LONDON

READ ALL

ABOUT

THE NASTY

BITS!

FOR NEAL FOSTER – THE MAGNIFICENT SEVENTH. TD

TO RICHARD SCRIVENER, WITH THANKS. MB

Published in the UK by Scholastic, 2022

Euston House, 24 Eversholt Street, London, NW1 1DB

Scholastic Ireland, 89E Lagan Road, Dublin Industrial Estate, Glasnevin, Dublin, D11 HP5F

SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or

registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2005

A full-colour edition was published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2016

Text © Terry Deary, 2005, 2016, 2022

Illustrations © Martin Brown, 2005, 2016, 2022

All rights reserved. Moral rights asserted.

ISBN 978 07023 1787 3

The right of Terry Deary and Martin Brown to be identified as the author and illustrator of this

work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and

Patents Act, 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,

hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is

published. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted in any form or by any other means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording

or otherwise) without prior written permission of Scholastic Limited.

Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Papers used by Scholastic Children’s Books are made from wood grown in sustainable forests.

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

www.scholastic.co.uk

*

While this book is based on real characters and actual historical events, some situations

and people are fictional. The ‘advertisements’ * are entirely fictional and do not relate

to any actual service or product and are not intended imply they or anything similar

may exist. No ‘advertisement’ constitutes an endorsement, guarantee, warranty or

recommendation by the publisher and the publisher does not make representations or

warranties about any product or service contained or implied to be contained therein.

* except any advertisements for the publisher’s books

INTRODUCTIONp5

EPILOGUE

P169

TERRIBLE TUDOR

AND SLIMY STUART

TIMELINE P59

INTERESTING INDEX p172

TERRIBLE

TOWERP23

ANCIENT LONDON

TIMELINE P9

LONDONLANGUAGEP101

THE LOATHSOME

LONDON QUIZ

P94

UPPER LONDON P159

Awful for

Animalsp50

MIDDLE AGES

LONDON

TIMELINE p35

London’s Lousy Jobsp121

TERRIBLE FOR TOTS

AND TEENS P135

COOL FOR CRIMINALS P72

MODERN LONDON

TIMELINE P105

Barmy Buildingsp151

LONDON ENDS P165

WHAT’S INSIDE?

BOUDICA

burns out see page 17

FREE plague tips

from priests see page 40

5

INTRODUCTION

H

ere are two cities,

A and B.

Which would YOU like

to live in?

City A?

I warn you! You will find all the evil of the world in

that city. Do not go to the dances, do not mix with

the wicked women, do not play dice, do not go to the

theatre or the pub. It is full of actors, fools, villains,

drug-sellers, fortune-tellers, tricksters, robbers,

magicians and common beggars. If you want to keep

away from evil, then stay away from this city.

6

That was written around the year 1190 by a

monk called Richard. He also said this place was

full of ‘tatterdemalions – tramps as ragged as

scarecrows.

What a place! You wouldn’t want to go there,

would you? It sounds like the most horrible place

in history. I’m sure you’d rather live in City B…

Of all the great cities in the world this is the most famous.

It is far greater than all the others. It has fine weather,

good Christian people, strong walls, fine women and

excellent men. They enjoy good sport. Their houses have

beautiful gardens full of trees. Outside the city are pleasant

meadows with streams of clear water. There are forests

with stags, boars and wild bulls for hunting.

7

That was also written around the year 1190 by a

priest called William Fitzstephen. William did say

that this city had a problem with ‘idiots who drink

too much’. Apart from that it sounds a great place

to live.

So travel back in time to 1190. Would you choose

City A? That’s Loathsome London. A disgusting and

dangerous place.

Or City B? That’s London too. A wonderful and

charming place.

That’s the trouble with history. You just don’t

know who to believe, do you?

To really get a fair and honest picture of the

past you need a book that will tell you all the

good AND the bad things about a piece of history.

But…

HORRIBLE HISTORIES WARNING

This is NOT the book to give you a fair and

honest picture of London!

This book will only tell you the horrible bits

of London’s history – about the bad, not the brave,

the horrible, not the happy, the dreadful, disgusting

and dirty, not the dear, drippy and delightful.

8

Let’s listen to people like revolting Richard and

forget wet William.

With a 100% chance of rain, or your money back!

Visit London Today on

Horrible Open-top Bus Tours

See Big Ben, the London Eye

and the Tower of London

9

H

ere’s a rough

horrible historian’s

guide to ancient London.

It’s a mixture of the

legends, the lies and

the truth – historians

just can’t agree which

is which.

TIMELINE

ANCIENT LONDON

10

Well maybe Prof B is right. An old legend says that

in 1100 bc, a king called Brutus came from Troy and

settled in Britain. He travelled around and finally

chose a spot on the banks of the Thames to be his

capital. He called it New Troy. He was buried at the

White Hill – where the Tower of London is today. He

defeated two giants, Gog and Magog, and took them

back to London to guard the gates of the city.

The legend goes on to say that in 863 bc Bladud

became King of the Britons – the people of Britain.

The historian Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote:

11

This temple was probably where Westminster

Abbey now stands. So if you see a red splat on a

Westminster pavement you may have found the

blood of Bladud.

130 bc

King Lud rules in

London. Lud turns New

Troy into a great city

with walls and palaces.

It was named after him –

Lud-dum. He is buried

in the place we now call

Ludgate. (Sounds a Lud

of rubbish.)

55 bc

Cassivellaunus

is King of Britain and

faces a new threat – the

Romans are coming,

led by Julius Caesar.

Caesar is not welcome

so he goes home after

just three weeks. He

leaves behind his sword,

stuck in the shield of

Cassivellaunus’s brother.

The sword is still seen in

London’s coat of arms.

12

The red cross is the sign

of the English saint, St

George, and the dragons

are the ones he killed.

(Some rather boring

people say it is the

sword that beheaded St

Paul in Rome.)

54 bc

Julius Caesar is

back – maybe he wants

his sword. Jules charges

through London and

forces Cassivellaunus

to make peace. But

he leaves again before

winter storms cut him

off from his friends in

France. Clever man.

AD 43

The Romans return,

this time to stay for a few

hundred years. But…

AD 60

Queen Boudica

rebels. She destroys

Colchester then burns

and wrecks London.

BOUDICA GOES

BERSERK

13

AD 100

The Romans

have rebuilt London

with nice new walls

to keep bad Brits

like Boudica out.

They also name this

city the capital of

Britannia. It still is.

AD 850

Now it’s the

Vikings’ turn to trash

London. They do

such a good job that

it won’t be rebuilt till

ad 886.

AD 961

Fire and plague

in London. Not the

last time these twin

terrors will torment

Londoners…

AD 982

The Vikings

are back but THIS

time the Londoners

give them a good

kicking.

VIKINGS

VI-KICKED OUT OF

TOWN

14

A monk wrote…

Vicious for the Vikings. But their relatives will be

back in…

1066

The Normans

arrive … and Normans

were just Vikings who

had moved to northern

France. Norman

leader William the

Conqueror is crowned

at Westminster on

Christmas Day. Riots

and slaughter follow.

Happy Christmas!

1071

A fire wrecks the

wooden buildings so

Will the Conk begins

building the terrible

Tower of London in

stone.

FIRE OF LONDON

ROUND 2

15

ELEPHANT

AND CASTLE

I

f the Londoners had newspapers in 54 bc the

front page might have looked like this:

Roaming Roman Julius

Caesar has crossed the River

Thames. Against all odds the

Italian champ beat the brave

Brit boys – and he took the

trunk road!

The London legend

Cassivellaunus had been

attacking cool Jules for weeks

and at last Caesar had had

enough. He marched up to

the Thames. Of course there

was only one place to cross

– London. So the brainy

Brits barricaded the London

crossing with sharp stakes.

But the rotten Roman had

the answer. He covered an

elephant in armour and put a

tower on its back. The jumbo

creature waded through the

stakes to stake his place in

history. Roman soldiers sat

in the tower and fired arrows

and stones down on the

battered Brits.

16

Cassivellaunus said, ‘We

retreated to the woods. Some

of the lads were a bit scared of

the great grey beast. They’re

still in the woods and they

don’t want to come out. Ever.

Looks like it’s curtains for

Cassivellaunus. I know when

I’m beat. I plan to make peace

with Caesar.’

But news is coming in

that storms have wrecked

much of Caesar’s fleet down

on the south coast. If he

doesn’t leave soon he’ll be

trapped in Britain through

the winter and he won’t want

that. The latest reports say

he’s heading back as fast as

his legs will carry him – or, at

least, as fast as his elephant’s

legs will carry him.

The good old British

weather comes to our rescue

yet again.

Romans crossing by Jumbo

*This is not just a big zebra crossing

LOOK OUT!

ELEPHANT CROSSING*

IN LONDON

17

BLOODY BOUDICA

S

ome Brits were pleased to see the Romans – Brits

who liked baths and bullying barbarians. But Big

Boudica was a quaint queen who was NOT in love

with the legions. She led her Iceni people to ravage

the Romans. It was massacre and murder.

A horrified Roman said…

In the smoking ruins of London you could see:

• 30,000 corpses of men, women and children

• bodies floating down the Thames

• heads cut off and stuck on poles

• bodies hanging from trees

The Romans defeated her in the end. Legend

says she is now buried under platform eight

of King’s Cross Station. (She must be chuffed.)

The British enjoyed robbing and nothing else.

The deaths at Colchester and London were

about 70,000. The British could not wait to

cut throats, hang, burn and crucify.

18

The place where the station was built by the Great

Northern Railway in 1852 was called Battle Bridge,

the site of her last battle with the Roman army.

But, before you start digging, there is another

legend that says she is buried at Primrose Hill

in London.

HORRIBLE HISTORIES NOTE

A fine statue of Boudica and her daughters

was put at the end of Westminster Bridge in

1902. The warrior queen is shown defending

London … which is a bit odd because she

hated the place and tried to smash it and

ash it.

BRAN’S BRAINS

T

he Romans finally left Britain around AD 410. The

country was then attacked by savage Saxons who

made straight for London from northern Germany.

By AD 470 the city was almost abandoned by the Brits.

Britain was in the ‘Dark Ages’.

19

Then, so they say, the famous King Arthur came

along to save the south from those vicious villains

the Saxons, as well as the Scots and the Irish.

Maybe you’d like to tell this Dark Ages bedtime

story to a little brother or sister – a brother or sister

that you want to scare so they have nightmares and

wet the bed.

If you believe that stuff about Arthur … the

sword in the stone, the Round Table, the Lady of

the Lake and Merlin the magician and all that …

then you may believe the story of Bran the Brit and

you may believe there are fairies at the bottom of

your garden.

Once upon a time there was a big brave giant called

Bran. Bran was not only a giant, he was also a god, so

he was known as Bran the Blessed.

One day Bran took his army across to Ireland to

fight the nasty Irish. Of course a giant god should

have stuffed the little Irish, but Bran boobed. He

only went and got himself killed, didn’t he?

‘Never mind,’ Bran said after he was dead

(gods can do tricky stuff like that), ‘I want my

friends to cut off my head and take it home to

lovely London.’

20

‘Won’t it hurt?’ one of his simple soldiers said.

‘No,’ Bran said. ‘I’m dead.’

So they cut off his head. It was a very big head so

it must have taken a lot of chopping and hacking and

sawing. As they sailed back home Bran’s head said,

‘Bury my head beside the body of Brutus. Bury it

in the White Hill. So long as my head is there

then I will protect Britain. No one can invade

our lovely land.’

The head was buried … but we don’t know if

it kept talking after it was buried. Probably not,

because the soil would get in its mouth wouldn’t

it?

Where was I? Oh, yes. The dead head should have

lived happily ever under BUT…

Along came King Arthur. ‘I’m king now,’ he

said. ‘We don’t need no magic heads to look after

London. That’s what I’m here for lads. Dig it up.’

‘You what?’ they said.

‘Dig it up,’ he repeated. ‘And dump it in the

river,’ he added. So that’s what they did.

Was Britain invaded? Of course it was. Did

Arthur’s action bring a curse on the country? Of

curse it did. England suffered many disasters after

that.

Arthur lived unhappily ever after. Now he’s

buried in a magical cave somewhere. So long

as he’s there Britain is safe. Where have

we heard that story before?

But if you ever come across a dead head floating

in the river or buried under the ground – and if that

dead head starts chatting, then PUT IT BACK in

the White Hill.

And, when you’ve done that, don’t forget to

wash your hands.

THE END

THE LONDON

MUMMY

I

n ad 634 King Cadwallon died. He was a Welsh

king who had defeated the Saxons in the north.

He was not a nice man. The historian Bede said…

At this time there was a great slaughter both of the

church and of the people of Northumbria. Cadwallon

was a Christian by name but a barbarian at heart and

spared neither women nor children. With beastly cruelty

he put all to death by torture and for a long time raged

through all their land, meaning to wipe out the whole of

the English nation from the land of Britain.

22

Geoffrey of Monmouth said Cadwallon died

peacefully of old age and was ‘embalmed’ –

mummified. This must have been quite a sight.

Other historians say Cadwallon was killed in

battle 300 miles away. A London mummy was a

bit unlikely. Cadwallon codswallop in fact.

23

B

ran’s big head may

be gone but Brutus

must still be buried

there on White Hill.

Hundreds of years later,

in 1078, the Normans

came along and built

a castle there. It is

known as ‘The Tower

of London’ – and in the

past thousand years it’s

had a grim, gruesome

and peculiar history.

It is guarded by

soldiers in fancy dress

called ‘Beefeaters’ and

by ravens. Some people

believe that if those

ravens ever leave the

Tower then England

will be destroyed. (Yes,

that story again.)

TERRIBLE

TOWER

24

But those ravens WON’T leave. Firstly because

they have their big beaks stuffed with food every

day, and secondly because they have their wings

clipped so they can’t fly.

Here are a few bird-brained facts the Beefeaters

don’t tell visitors…

1 The ravens are fed on rabbit meat and biscuits

soaked in blood. Each raven eats about 220g a day.

That’s a lot of dead bunnies. (If you want a job as a

Tower raven then start eating blood-soaked biscuits

for tea.)

2 The ravens are given egg once a week – which is a

bit like a cannibal eating children. For a special treat

they are given a whole rabbit to tear apart. If you

fancy raw rabbit then you are raven mad.

COME ON DOWNTO BURGER QUEEN

ANDTRY OUR BRAND NEW BURGER

25

3 The royal astronomer John Flamsteed told King

Charles II that the birds were spoiling his work.

(Probably pooping on his telescope.) The King

ordered them all to be killed but he was told

that would bring bad luck. Instead he said six

could stay. Good luck for six ravens, bad look

for Flamsteed.

4 There are supposed to be six ravens at the

Tower all the time. They keep eight in case a

couple fall sick and hop the twig. A bit like subs

on a football team.

5 Even clipped ravens can escape. In the Second

World War (1939–1945) there was just one raven

left – the rest were probably driven off by the

bombing.

The Raw Steak Sandwich

Perfect for Beefeaters

26

TAKE YOUR TOWER

TERROR PICK

H

ow would you like to die? If you ended

up in the Tower of London then you had

a lovely choice.

Which would you choose?

Beheaded

The Tower is famous as London’s chopping centre,

yet only seven people have been beheaded there

over the years. Most victims were taken outside

to Tower Hill so the people of London could

watch. Over 150 died out there.

In 1601 Queen Elizabeth I’s old boyfriend,

the Earl of Essex, rebelled against her. She sent

him to the Tower for the chop. We have a report

on the event, but we don’t have the Earl’s story.

NOW OPEN

Chop Chop Hair Salon

Specialists in choppy hairstyles including bobs,

pixie cuts and fringes

10% chopped off for limited time only!

27

Maybe it would look like this.…

DID YOU KNOW…?

If you go to the Tower of London you will see a

metal sign that says…

28

Another sign gives the names of seven people

who died on that spot.

Except they DIDN’T die there! The sign is a

fraud.

That sign was put up because Queen Victoria

wanted one to mark the place where Anne Boleyn

died. But Victorian historians put the sign in the

wrong place.

The truth is, Anne Boleyn got the chop in the

middle of the parade ground, at least 50 metres

away from the sign. The Earl of Essex and five

others also died there.

Smothered

In 1483 King Edward IV died and his 12-year-old

son became Edward V … for a few weeks. But

before he could be crowned, young Edward and

his little brother went to the Tower and were never

seen again.

Their Uncle Richard had himself crowned as

Richard III – so of course he got the blame for

killing them. We will never know for certain

if he did. But one story says the boys were

smothered to death…

29

Nearly 200 years later, in 1674, some workmen

discovered a box with the bones of two boys. Are

they the bones of the missing princes? No one is

sure. The bones are resting in Westminster Abbey –

their gravestone says the boys were smothered

with pillows.

Pillows or a mattress – the end was still the same:

two kids croaked.

30

Stabbed

Maybe the Princes were not Richard III’s first

victims. In 1471 the slightly dotty King Henry VI

was killed at the tower so Richard’s brother Edward

IV could take the throne.

There is a story that claims Richard was to blame.

Richard probably didn’t do it himself but it’s pretty

certain Henry VI died nastily…

TRICKY RICKY

31

Drowned

And maybe the Princes weren’t even Richard’s

second victims. There is a story that he killed

his other brother, George. Old Georgie had

been a naughty boy and plotted against big

brother, King Edward IV. He had to go and

it was said that Richard was given the job.

Maybe that’s why he let George choose the

execution method…

32

Poisoned

Sir Thomas Overbury was not so lucky. He upset

King James I and was locked up in the Tower.

But his enemies decided to kill him. Slowly.

Very slowly. In fact it took him six months

to die.

Over for Overbury. King James was upset – he

didn’t want to get the blame for killing a prisoner.

The cook was executed. Overbury must have

enjoyed that!

33

Fallen

Oddly, some people didn’t enjoy their stay at the

Tower. They tried to escape. A Welsh prince,

Gruffudd, was locked up by King John from 1211

till 1215. Then he was locked up by his own father

in 1228 for six years. And finally he was imprisoned

by his own brother in Wales in 1239 and handed

over to King Henry III.

A regular little jailbird. But the Tower wasn’t that

bad. Gruff had his wife for company. And he was put

in the comfortable Great Keep. Yet he tried to escape.

34

So there you have some of the ways to die in

the Tower of London. Many must have died under

torture, of course. Some will have croaked from

the cold, the damp and the terrible food inside the

grim, grey walls. Some might have even died of the

deadliest killer of all – old age.

Which would you choose?

DID YOU KNOW…?

One of the horriblest London deaths was that of

Richard the Raker. And it didn’t happen at the

Tower. Richard’s job was to rake the poo out of

the toilet pits. These smelly pits lay under London

houses and they filled up fast.

In 1326 Richard the Raker slipped and fell into a

pit. He couldn’t swim. A writer at the time said…

So be careful next time you visit the boys’ toilets

at your school. (Sorry, I have no knowledge of the

girls’ toilets. Surely they can’t be as bad?)

He was sitting on the latrine in his own house

and the rotten planks gave way, and he fell in

and drowned monstrously in his own sewage.

35

L

ondon in the

Middle Ages was

smelly. People emptied

their toilet pots into

the street. Still, a

piddle shampoo

was not the worst

thing that happened

to people in Middle

Ages London.

TIMELINE

MIDDLE AGES

LONDON

36

1189

Richard I is

crowned. Loathsome

Londoners celebrate by

murdering 30 Jewish

merchants. A story

had gone around that

Richard had ordered

their massacre. He

hadn’t. It was all a big

mistake. Oooops! It’s

their idea of fun.

1196

William Fitz Osbert

kills the Archbishop of

Canterbury’s guard and

is hanged at Tyburn

(Hyde Park Corner

today). He is the first of

around 50,000 who will

be hanged at Tyburn

over the centuries.

TIED UP WITH KNOTS

AT TYBURN

37

1261

Henry III is at

war with his barons

(led by Simon de

Montfort). Henry hides

in the Tower as Italian

monks are murdered

in the streets. Queen

Eleanor is stoned by

Londoners. She has

to shelter in St Paul’s

Cathedral. When Henry

finally wins in 1265, de

Montfort’s supporters

are punished.

1305

William Wallace,

Scottish rebel, is

hanged, drawn and

quartered in London …

that’s to say hanged till

he was half dead, slit

open so his guts could

be drawn from his body

and thrown on a fire,

then beheaded and cut

into quarters. Wallace’s

death is very slow –

long-drawn-out, in fact.

HIDE AND SHRIEK

38

1338

Attacks from France

and poor harvests mean

starvation for many in

the south. In London,

people are trampled to

death in queues for bread.

There are even reports of

cannibalism. Loathsome –

but luscious – Londoners.

1348

Plague arrives.

1381

An army of peasants

from Kent and Essex

march on London. They

do something no one has

done before or since –

they capture the Tower of

London. The Archbishop

of Canterbury and the

King’s treasurer are killed.

The King, Richard II, is

only 14 at the time but

tricky young Dicky has

their leader killed. They

give up and go home.

End of a pleasant peasant

holiday in London.

DREADED BREAD

39

THE BLACK

DEATH

F

leas carry the plague from rats to humans.

Don’t blame the poor little rats! They catch the

plague and die too.

For three or four days you feel fine. Then you

start to sweat, can’t sleep, shake and throw up.

By the next day you have a terrible headache, feel

dizzy, can’t stand bright light and have pain in your

gut and legs. On the third day your eyes become

bloodshot and your tongue swells and turns white.

This later goes brown or yellow. You get swellings

under your arms, on your neck or at the tops of

your legs. Death follows soon after.

LEE’S FLEA SHAMPOO

Kills fleas instantly

You’d be an absolute nitwit not to buy this

40

Of course there were cures. The priests said

wicked people caught the plague – so say your

prayers. They also gave this advice:

They seemed to think anything touched by water

was a danger. Wrong!

41

Wrong again!

In London they believed loud noises would drive

the plague away. They rang church bells (till the

bell ringers died of plague) and even fired cannons.

You’d probably be pleased to catch plague to get

some peace.

RECALL ALERT

Doctors say that these can cause death via the plague,

so stop eating them!

Meg’s Sausage Rolls

42

POLL-TAXED,

1

POLL-AXED

I

n the 1300s the English people were told to pay

extra tax. This was to cover the cost of wars in

France. Everyone over the age of 15 on the council’s

list of names had to pay, except monks, nuns and

priests.

In 1377 over 1,250,000 people paid.

In 1380 only 800,000 people paid.

If you are any good at sums then you will know

450,000 people ‘disappeared’ in three years.

Was it the plague? No.

Was it alien kidnappers? No.

These people went into hiding to dodge their

taxes.

In 1381 the peasants marched on London to sort

out the young King Richard II. They wanted to tell

him how unfair this tax was – the poor paid as much

as the posh. It was called ‘The Peasants’ Revolt’.

1 A ‘poll’ is a head so a ‘poll tax’ was a tax on heads … if you have a head

then you are taxed. If you have no head then you are not taxed. If you want

to dodge the tax then simply leave your head in bed. No one will notice.

43

Apart from robbing and burning the homes of rich

people the peasants did something quite shocking.

Thomas Walsingham reported…

The King’s chief tax collector, Hales, was dragged

out to Tower Hill where his head was lopped off

and stuck on London Bridge. (The skull ended up

in a cupboard in a Suffolk house and it’s still there.)

The rebels also broke open the London prisons

and set the criminals free. The warden of

Southwark Prison ran for cover to Westminster

Abbey. Holy buildings were supposed to be ‘safe’

places. But the rebels dragged him out and lopped

off his head too.

London Bridge must have been filling up!

Wonder if they had a warning sign?

The peasants headed for the royal rooms at the Tower of London.

Who would believe it but this mob dared to enter the rooms of the

King and his mother with their filthy sticks. They lay and sat on

the King’s bed. Several asked the King’s mother to kiss them.

44

How did it all end? A book of the time said…

So Little Dicky came out of it quite well!

HARRY’S HAT SHOP

If you’ve got a head, we’ve got a hat!

We’re a-head of the game.

45

NOT THE DICK

WHITTINGTON STORY

D

ick Whittington is famous. The pantomime

story says he was heading for London to seek

his fortune but lost heart. He was heading home

when the bells rang out and called, ‘Turn again

Whittington!’ He turned back, made his fortune

(with the help of his rat-catching cat), married the

beautiful girl and lived happily ever after.

Of course London people WOULD tell that story

– ‘Come to London and get rich!’ is the message.

Let’s face it, ‘Come to London and get plagued,

imprisoned, bombed or beheaded’ is more likely.

But then no one at all would go to London and

Sunderland would become capital of England.

The TRUTH about Richard Whittington (1350–

1423) is a bit more boring:

• He DIDN’T take a cat to London.

• He trained as a cloth merchant and made

his money by lending money to the King.

• King Richard II forced London to take Rich

Whittington as mayor.

46

The cat story was made up 200 years after Rich

Richie had gone to his grave. A stone at Highgate

Hill showed where he was supposed to have turned

back to London. In 1964 the cat was added to the

stone.

The Real Richard married Alice Fitzwarren, but

they died with no children. He left his money for

the good of London. What sort of goodies did the

lucky Londoners get?

a) public toilets

b) prisons

c) a home for cats

But there is another story that tells how

a man from Swaffham in Norfolk made his

fortune by LEAVING London. It’s just as likely

as the Dick Whitandcat pantomime story.

Here is the ‘Panto of the Poor Peasant Farmer’…

Answer: a) and b) … so, next time you have a widdle in a

London toilet, say ‘Thank you, Dick!’

47

1 Fridges have not been invented,

For this tale let’s just pretend it.

Why is this all done in rhyme?

’Cos it is a pantomime…

…stupid.

1

48

49

Which just goes to prove that old English

proverbs are right. You know the ones … a friend

in need is a pain in the neck, a bird in the hand will

poo in your palm, and red sky at night means your

eyes are probably bloodshot.

DID YOU KNOW…?

Londoners have had some odd ideas. Cats like their

home and, if the owners move, the cats won’t stay

in the new house. How did a Londoner get a cat to

stay at a new home in the Middle Ages? Picked it

up by the tail and swung it once around the room.

And that’s a true tale. (The cat was probably too

dizzy to find the door after that.)

50

I

n prehistoric times

– before London

was built – there must

have been sharks in

Soho and wolves in

Wapping, crocodiles

snapping in Shoreditch

and hyenas – who

probably just came

for a good laugh.

Then London was

built. London has been

a horrible place for

many humans. It has

also been awful for

animals.

ANIMALS

AWFUL FOR

Where you’ll see herds of elephants stampeding along

the pavements and fierce lions fighting over bargains.

Visit Oxford Circus today!

51

There was…

BEAR-BAITING

L

ondon had bear-gardens since the time of Henry II

(1154–1189). A bear would have its teeth and

claws removed, then it was chained to a post by a

back leg or by the neck. Trained dogs were sent to

attack it. This was called ‘baiting’.

The Dutch scholar Erasmus, writing about 1500,

said…

Hentzner, a German traveller writing in 1598,

described the bear-garden at Bankside in London as

a sort of a theatre for the baiting of bulls and bears.

There are many herds of bears kept in England just to be baited.

Sunday is the favourite day for these sports.

It sometimes happens they are killed on the spot; fresh ones are

immediately supplied in the place of those that are wounded or

tired.

52

He also describes the whipping of a blinded

bear for ‘fun’. A famous baiting took place before

Queen Elizabeth in 1575, for which 13 bears were

provided. Richard Laneham was amongst the

guests. He wrote:

BULL-BAITING

I

t wasn’t just bears that suffered and died in the

bear-pits of London. Bulls did too. A hundred

years after Elizabeth baited her last bear it was

still going on … but not everyone enjoyed it

so much. Some even felt sorry for the animals.

It was a very pleasant sport to see. To see the bear, with his

pink eyes, tearing after his enemies; the nimbleness and

cunning of the dog against the strength and experience of the

bear: if he were bitten then see him get free with biting, with

clawing, with roaring, with tossing and tumbling; and when

he was loose to shake his ears two or three times with the

blood and the slaver hanging about his face.

53

John Evelyn wrote in his now-famous Diary in

1670:

By the 1800s people were trying to ban

these sports. But when Tsar Nicholas I of

Russia visited England he was taken to see

a bull-baiting.

The bull’s nose was blown full of pepper to

drive it wild. Tricks to make a bear mad included

putting dried peas in its ear or tying fireworks

to its back.

Bear-baiting and bull-baiting were banned by

law in 1835. Many people ignored the ban and

went ahead anyway. There was a bull-baiting

event at London’s Agricultural Hall in 1870.

So much for the law.

I went with some friends to the bear-garden, where there was

cock-fighting, dog-fighting, bear and bull-baiting, it being a

famous day for all these butcherly sports, or rather barbarous

cruelties. The bulls did exceedingly well, but the Irish wolf-dog

was best when it beat a cruel mastiff. One of the bulls tossed

a dog into a lady’s lap, as she sat in one of the boxes quite

high above the arena. Two poor dogs were killed, and

it all ended with the ape on horseback. I am most

heartily weary of these crude and dirty pastimes.

54

COCK-FIGHTING

C

ock-fighting was banned in

1849 (but still goes on in

London, in secret, today).

Sometimes fighting cockerels

are pecked to death. Sometimes

their hearts are stabbed by sharp

spurs fastened to claws.

DOG-FIGHTING

D

og-fighting was also banned but still goes

on today. In London in the 1800s you could

get advice on how to train your dog to kill …

and win fights and make you money.

55

A writer in the 1850s complained you couldn’t

get to see many dog-fights in pubs, like you could

in the old days. But there were plenty of dog-fights

in the homes of rich men, where they were hidden

from the law.

56

HORSE AND

PONY-BAITING

F

rom time to time there was horse-baiting in

London. On one occasion the horse actually

won. The crowd was furious and tore tiles off the

roof of the theatre till the horse was brought back

and attacked by more dogs.

The crowd wasn’t happy till the horse was

dead.

The Paris Garden in Southwark was the chief

bear-garden in London. A Spanish nobleman of

the 1580s was taken to see a pony baited. The

pony had an ape tied to its back.

The animal was kicking amongst the dogs, while the ape clung to

its back and screamed. The dogs hung from the ears and neck of

the pony. It was very laughable.

MY POOR LITTLE PONY!

57

We do not know what the pony thought of it.

In 1790 a pony was trained to kill sheep for

‘sport’. The report said…

Today this sort of thing would get you barred

from the Pony Club.

(Or baa-ed.)

BADGER-BAITING

W

hen bear-baiting became illegal some

cruel London ‘sportsmen’ turned to killing

badgers with dogs. In the 1700s they would nail a

badger’s tail to the floor then set dogs to kill it.

58

BAD FOR BUNNIES

R

egent’s Park Zoo is a popular place to visit

in London. In the 1870s you could see the

boa constrictor snake being fed … with a live

rabbit.

The writer William Thackeray was horrified.

He said…

That would stop them rabbitting on.

Yes – swallowing a live rabbit, sir, and looking as if he would

have swallowed one of my little children after it.

24

Now open!

We sell feather boas and boa constrictors!

Francine’s Fancy Dress

and Fancy Pet Shop

59

L

ondon in the

Middle Ages was

dangerous, dirty and

disgusting. Then along

came the Tudors and,

boy, did things change!

Er … no, actually,

they didn’t. You lovers

of the lousy side of

London will be pleased

to know the Horrible

Henries and the Smelly

Stuarts were simply

differently disgusting…

TIMELINE

TERRIBLETUDOR

AND SLIMY STUART

60

1517

The loathsome

Londoners are fed up

with Italian bankers

having all the money.

They plan to massacre

them on May Day. But

the government catches

some rebels and has

them hanged, drawn and

quartered. The hangman

invents a scaffold on

wheels so he can take it

round London and give

everyone a look. One

writer says, ‘They were

just poor younglings.’

So, Henry VIII had

kids executed.

SCAFFOLD GOES ON

TERRIBLE TOUR

61

1587

Plotters plan to

kill Queen Elizabeth I

and put Mary, Queen

of Scots on the English

throne. The plotters are

captured and taken to

Holborn to be executed

horribly – hanged till

they are half dead then

have their guts and

naughty bits cut off

and thrown on a fire

in front of their eyes.

Their deaths were

so cruel even Queen

Elizabeth was shocked.

1603

Old Mother Shipton

dies up in Yorkshire.

But she has seen into

the future and says,

‘London in 66 will be

burned to ashes.’ Sixty-

six minutes? Sixty-six

years time? Or in 1666?

We’ll have to wait

and see.

PLOTTERS SENT

TO ROT

62

1642

King Charles I has

a row with Parliament

and goes to war with

it. Charlie’s chaps

(Cavaliers) battle with

Parliament’s people

(Roundheads). In

this English Civil

War London is the

place for protest.

London women march

for peace. Soldiers

fire blanks to try

to scare them – the

women laughed. So

the soldiers fire real

bullets, kill a woman,

and the laughing

stops. One woman

has her nose cut off

in the fighting and an

old woman is arrested

for waving a rusty

sword. She is carried

off with her hands

tied behind her back.

A dangerous dame?

PEACE PROTESTS

TURN PERILOUS

63

1649

Charles I has his head

lopped off at Whitehall

– outside the banqueting

hall. It’s enough to put

you off your banquet!

That’s what he gets for

fighting against people

power.

1659

At Enfield the army

officers are taking over

the ‘common’ land – the

place where the village

people graze their cattle

– to plant corn. The

army thinks its corn is

more important than the

commoners’ cows. The

villagers have nowhere

for their animals and

are furious. So they

break down the new

fences and let their cows

trample and eat the

corn. The army sends

in 15 soldiers. They are

attacked by 150 villagers.

CORN VS COWS

64

A report at the time described the scene…

The soldiers were not able to drive out the cattle.

Instead they were attacked by the local people

armed with pitchforks, long scythes and axes.

The soldiers tried to retreat but their sergeant

was slashed on the leg and cut on the head. The

other soldiers had run out of bullets and had to

surrender.

The local people lost two men and a woman in

the battle with many more wounded. The sergeant

was carried off the field in a chair to die.

These people must be stopped or they

will go back to the days of Ancient Britain

and start eating people!

1665

Plague kills 70,000

Londoners. It kills even

more of the poor little

rats that spread it. They

are saved when…

65

1666

London’s

burning. It is still

a city of wood and

wattle. When a fire

starts in a baker shop

at Pudding Lane it

burns down most of

the old city, 13,200

houses and St Paul’s

Cathedral. Some say

it is a curse from the

ghost of King Charles

I – why did he wait

17 years? Some say it

is Mother Shipton’s

magical forecast

come true.

1

1 Great guess Mother S. But she also said the world would end in 1881.

We’re still waiting.

PUDDING LANE

CAKES GET

OVERBAKED

66

THE DORCHESTER

OLD MAN – 1665

E

very single person who ever lived in London

has a story to tell. But some are more tragic

than others. This one is horrible – and horribly

sad…

We’ll never know his name, only that he came from London.

The streets were empty that hot summer – except for

the rats and the corpses. The people were dying faster than

they could bury them. Huge pits were filled with corpses and

covered over.

Fresh corpses were stacked in the streets, waiting. They

swelled and they smelled till the carters came and carried

them away.

The old man looked around the bare room with wooden

walls and a cool stone floor. His wife lay on the filthy straw

mattress, her face twisted with the last pains. A dead rat lay at

her feet.

He scratched and shuffled to the door. ‘Goodbye,

girl,’ he muttered as he opened the door gently and let

in the heat from the street. The door was decorated with

67

a roughly painted red cross. ‘They’ll stop me if they catch me,

you know,’ he said to his wife. She didn’t reply.

The street was empty. He took one last look. ‘Someone

will be along to to see to you soon,’ he promised. ‘Goodbye.’

The old man clutched the bundle of food and a few coins

to his skinny chest. He blinked in the sun and limped down

the street on his thin-soled shoes. He turned his face away

from the pitiful pile of bodies at the corner of the street.

Somewhere a bell clacked and a voice croaked, ‘Bring out

your dead!’

‘You’ll have to go and get her,’ he muttered and turned

towards the west.

By the time the sun was setting he was out of the stinking

city. He sat beneath a hedge, breathed the grassy air and

felt better.

After a few bites of the dry bread from his pack he curled

up and fell asleep. In the dark his dreams were haunted by

visions of bodies, bloated and blue-spotted. He saw devils

coming to haul him away to Hell and throw him into

a bottomless burial pit. He screamed and woke.

The man licked some dew off the grass to quench his thirst

and rose stiffly to his feet. He shook his ragged clothes and

coughed. ‘Not dead yet, then,’ he croaked and set off with the

warm morning sun on his back.

Before he’d gone a mile, a wagon of hay passed him. ‘Going

far?’ the driver asked.

68

‘Dorchester,’ the old man said. ‘That’s where I was born.

That’s where I might as well die.’

The carter reached down a hand and pulled the old man up

alongside him. ‘I’m headed that way,’ he said.

They travelled for two days before they reached the ancient

town. The old man remembered the great church but so much

else had changed. He remembered the laughing faces of his

childhood. Now there were scowls and spitting hatred.

‘We’re a clean town here,’ a woman said and waved a

wooden cross at him. ‘We don’t want your London plague

pests here. Get out!’ she cried. ‘Get out!’

A crowd began to gather at the market square. ‘I’m not

from London,’ the old man whined.

‘Liar!’ the woman said – and she was right.

He stretched out a shaking hand. ‘I have money.’

‘All the money in the world won’t buy you a place in

Dorchester,’ she snarled. She bent down and picked up a

stone. ‘Get out of our town,’ she spat.

He staggered out of the town as the people showered him

with stones and curses. At last he found an old shepherd’s hut

with tumbling wattle walls and a storm-blown roof. It stood

on the edge of a steep quarry. He sank on the cool earth floor

and curled up.

That night the sweating started. Then the pain in the

armpits. His head burned with fever. He wanted water, but

he was too weak to drink it.

69

70

He slept and dreamed. He woke and thought he was still

dreaming. The hut was moving. In the morning light he

could see clearly now through his crusted eyes. He could

feel the wall of the hut pushing at him. It rolled him forward.

The old man heard the people of Dorchester grunting and

hissing with effort. ‘Ten more feet,’ someone whispered.

‘Push for God’s sake, push!’

The old man rolled forward. The hut began to

tilt as it reached the edge of the quarry. It hung

in the air like a hawk. Then like a hawk it

toppled forward and down, faster and faster.

It swept the old man to his death in the

quarry below.

The Dorchester woman dusted her

hands. ‘A quicker death than the disease,’

she said. ‘We did him a favour.’ No one

answered. No one looked at her. They

kept their eyes on the ground as they

hurried back to their homes.

The woman looked over the edge. ‘It

wasn’t murder – we had to save ourselves.

It wasn’t murder,’ she said to the empty air.

‘Not really.’

She never knew his name. Only

that he came from London.

71

LONDON’S BURNING

B

ack in 1605 people worried that the Catholics

were going to take over the country when Guy

Fawkes plotted to blow up the King. In 1667 they

still feared the Catholics and so the Catholics got the

blame for burning down London in the Great Fire.

A mad Frenchman called Robert Hubert said

he had started the fire – even though he hadn’t.

And, of course, the French were Catholics. He

was sentenced to hang. A report of the day gave

the gruesome details…

When the writer says ‘everyone was delighted’

he did not mean the cooked cats were delighted –

they were a-lighted.

72

O

ver the centuries

thousands of

horrible people have

lived in London.

COOL

CRIMINALS

FOR

73

Here are a few you would NOT want to invite

round for tea…

74

75

76

4 They gave it a good scrub first so it didn’t look too horrible. Bet you’re

pleased about that.

77

QUAINT AND

QUIRKY VILE

VILLAINS

L

ondon has seen some quaint and cruel

criminal activity through its history.

Here are a few examples…

1 Body for sale

In the 1700s the corpses of hanged men could

be handed over to doctors for cutting up. The

idea was that the surgeons could show students

how the inside of a body worked. It was also a

horrible ‘extra’ punishment for the criminal.

In April 1739 a shoemaker was hanged and

then carried off to the surgeons. But his kind

friends rescued his body and took it back to

his widow.

She didn’t want it!

The body-snatchers tried to sell it (very

cheaply) to London surgeons.

78

No one wanted it.

They dumped the body in a shallow grave

in St George’s Fields.

2 Thieves’ vinegar

When the Black Death came to London in 1349

the thieves had a great time. They just walked into

the houses of the plague victims and robbed them.

(If you have died from the plague you are not

going to stop them, are you?)

Perfect for pickles and plague

Malt Vinegar

New recipe

79

After a time people noticed that the thieves never

seemed to catch the plague themselves. They asked

the thieves…

So the doctors started to sell this idea to people

scared of catching the plague.

It seemed to work.

80

3 Pedal power and policemen

London policemen were given exams to see if they

knew the law. The exams were not written – the

policemen were not very good at writing. Instead

they were spoken. The policeman had to learn

the answers off by heart.

Some of the crimes that took place in London

were quite shocking. Here are some of the test

questions from 1864 … can you guess the answers?

Replace the *!?#! with the correct answer.

81

DID YOU KNOW…?

The first police were on London’s streets in 1829.

The first dead policeman was on the streets less

than a year later.

Constable Grantham tried to arrest two drunks

in north London and was kicked to death.

Answers:

a) ‘It is a crime.’ (It still is.)

b) ‘It is an offence but the policeman must catch the offender

doing it.’ (So knocking on doors and running away could get

you thrown into jail. Don’t do it … well, not on my door.)

c) ‘They can.’ (To boo and hiss a teacher out of the classroom

was allowed.)

d) ‘From a street anywhere the public may see them.

But not from a house.’

e) ‘Blow my whistle to call for help.’

82

4 Highway to heaven

Jack Collett (1659–1691) robbed people on the

road. But curious Collett liked to carry out the

robberies dressed as a bishop.

One night he lost his bishop’s clothes in a card

game. He set out to rob a coach so he could buy

some new priestly clothes.

Who did he happen to stop? The Bishop of

Winchester.

Not only did he nick the Bishop’s clothes but

a purse of fifty gold pieces too.

Jolly Jack was later caught breaking into a

Smithfield church to rob it and was hanged

at Tyburn.

NEED HELP WITH YOUR

CHESS GAMES?

Can’t tell your bishops from your crooks?

Call 1-800-CHESS HELP today

I’ll get you in check, mate!

83

5 Dive for gold

A London pickpocket was known as a ‘diver’.

In the early 1700s Mary Young was so good at

picking pockets she was known as ‘Jenny Diver’.

This Irish woman practised for two hours a day

till she was an expert. One of her tricks was to

wait at the bottom of the steps at a church. As a

rich gentleman walked past she would hold out

her hand so he could help her up the steps. When

she let go of his hand his wedding ring would be

missing.

And she even made a special costume to help

her pocket-picking pilfering. Here’s what she did …

do NOT try this at home.

84

Jenny Diver was caught and ‘transported’ to the

prison colony in Virginia, America. A rich friend

paid for her to sail back to London.

She was caught again, transported again and

went back to London again.

She was caught again … and hanged.

This time she didn’t go back.

85

6 Hanging around

It was Christmas Eve 1705. On the day you hang up

your Christmas stocking, John Smith was hanging

by the neck at Tyburn prison. He was a housebreaker

who had been sentenced to die on the scaffold.

Christmas Eve is not a nice day to die … and

John Smith DIDN’T die. After he’d been hanging

for quarter of an hour a pardon arrived. The

executioner cut the rope.

John Smith told his story…

John became known as ‘Half-hanged Smith’.

But he hadn’t learned his lesson. He was arrested

two more times for hanging crimes. The first time

he was set free.

I remember a great pain caused by the weight of my body. My

spirits were in a great uproar, pushing upwards; when they got into

my head I saw a great blaze of glaring light that seemed to go out

of my eyes with a flash. Then the pain went.

When I was cut down I got such pins-and-needles pains in my

head that I could have hanged the people who set me free.

86

The second time he looked doomed. The judge was

about to send Half-hanged to be fully hanged when

Smith’s luck struck again. The judge dropped down

dead. Smith went free.

They should have changed his name again – to

‘Lucky’ Smith.

7 Shoplifter shopped

Mary Jones had two young children. In 1770

her husband was dragged off to fight in the navy

(‘press-ganged’) leaving Mary penniless.

Mary Jones went into a shop on Ludgate Street

and slipped some cloth under her coat. When the

shopkeeper saw her she put the cloth back. So,

really, she stole nothing.

Still she was arrested and taken to court. She

spoke up for herself…

I was never in debt till my husband was press-ganged. Now I’ve

no bed to lie on, nothing to give my children to eat and they

are almost naked. I may have tried to take the cloth – I hardly

knew what I was doing.

87

The law officers spoke up for her…

So, of course, she should have been set free and

helped. But the shopkeepers of Ludgate Street had

other ideas…

Mary Jones was hanged. She was 18 years old.

88

8 Taking turns

For 800 years criminals were hanged at Tyburn.

The ‘gibbet’ was a triangle (see below) and eight

people could be hanged from each side – 24 at

once.

For the first 300 years they climbed ladders with

ropes around their necks. The ladders were taken

away and they choked on the ropes. Twisting the

ladder away was called ‘turning off’ a criminal.

New board game

Climb up the ladders but don’t

fall off the gibbets!

Found at all good toy stores now.

GIBBETS

AND LADDERS

89

Later a cart was used. A Swiss visitor, Cesar de

Saussure, wrote about it in the 1720s…

90

91

9 Widow’s woe

Not all women wept when they were widowed by

the hangman. There is a terribly true tale told about

Dick Hughes. On his way to the gallows in 1709 he

happened to meet his wife. She climbed on to the

cart with him, as she was allowed to do, and they

had a chat that really upset her. It went like this…

But, let’s face it, it was a nice thought – and

she could always use the rope as a washing line,

couldn’t she?

92

10 Horrible hooligans

Young men have always caused trouble in London.

In the Middle Ages teenage boys learned a trade

by becoming a student with a craftsman – the boys

were called ‘apprentices’ and they were a lively lot.

For a start, apprentices from one trade would

fight with apprentices in another trade – a bit like

rival football supporters today.

In the 1200s a report said…

Of course they weren’t always serious attacks.

One apprentice took his bow and fired his arrows

into a crowd of people … for a laugh. He killed an

innocent person who probably didn’t see the joke.

93

The law officers didn’t have police cars or

helicopters, but they did have one power that

today’s police do not have. What could the law

do to you around 1250 that it can’t do today?

a) Take all your clothes away so you can’t leave

the house.

b) Take your doors and windows out so you can’t

hide your crimes.

c) Take your food away and starve you till you

behave yourself.

Answer:

b) A butcher called William Cok, in Cockes Lane, had 11 doors

and five windows removed by the law. Bet that left him without

a sausage.

94

1 Isambard Kingdom Brunel checked his dad’s

Thames tunnel using a ‘Diving Bell’ – a large bell

with seats inside that was lowered into the water.

Who did he take with him?

a) His mum

b) His dad

c) Queen Victoria

LOATHSOME

THE

LONDON QUIZ

95

2 In 1605 Guy Fawkes plotted to blow up

King James in Parliament. But 18 years before

that there was a plot to blow up Queen

Elizabeth I. Where?

a) On her throne

b) On her toilet

c) In her bed

3 In 1780 Londoners believed there was a plot

to destroy London, far worse than the Guy

Fawkes plot. What was it?

a) To bomb London from hot air balloons

b) To flood London

c) To blow up London with bombs fastened

to dogs

4 In 1768 some London soldiers killed rioters

in ‘The Massacre of St George’s Fields’. William

Allen was killed. What had he done?

a) Thrown a stone at a magistrate

b) Passed a stone to his friend who threw

it at a magistrate

c) Nothing

96

5 In 1829 Robert Peel formed the London police

force. Hundreds of men joined – but half of them

were soon sacked. Why?

a) They spent too much time getting drunk.

b) They spent too much time picking on small

people and refused to arrest big burglars.

c) They kept trying to arrest posh people when

their real job was to arrest poor people.

6 In 1850 Ann Wood went to court. The judge said,

‘If you wanted to do it, why didn’t you do it and get

it done with?’ What had Ann Wood tried to do?

a) Keep her slum house clean

b) Drown her cat’s kittens

c) Drown herself

7 If you saw Horny Winkle’s Horse in Victorian

London, what would you see?

a) A beef and rhubarb pie served as a birthday

treat

b) A rough children’s game

c) A torture machine that forced

your feet into your mouth

97

8 Colonel Thomas Blood almost got away with

stealing Charles II’s crown jewels from the Tower

in 1671. Who may have helped him?

a) King Charles II

b) Rocky the Raven

c) Benny the Beefeater

9 In the early 1800s a group called ‘The

Flying Dustmen’ made a good living. How?

a) Stealing teeth from corpses to dentists

to make false teeth

b) Stealing vacuum cleaners

c) Stealing dust

10 On 3 January 1804 Francis Smith was

guilty of an unusual crime in Hammersmith.

What did he do?

a) He rode a pig down Hammersmith High

Street and was charged with speeding.

b) He shot the Hammersmith Ghost dead.

c) He was sleepwalking with no clothes on and

walked into a meeting of the Mothers’ Union.

98

Answers:

1a) It was a dangerous and filthy job. But Dad, Marc Brunel, was too

ill to do it so 21-year-old Isambard went. His brave mother went to

keep an eye on him.

2c) In 1587 Michael Moody, an Irishman, planned to put gunpowder

under Queen Elizabeth’s bed in her London palace. Frizzled Lizzie.

With Elizabeth dead her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, would take

the throne. Elizabeth was so shocked she signed Mary’s death

warrant.

3b) The Londoners were afraid of a Catholic rebellion. Word went

around that there were tens of thousands of Catholic soldiers hiding

in tunnels under the city. When the rebellion started the soldiers

would pop out. Other Catholics would blow up the banks of the

Thames to flood London – and flood the tens of thousands of

soldiers? Doesn’t make a lot of sense. But many potty people in

London believed it.

4c) A stone was thrown at magistrate Samuel Gillam. The soldiers

set out to catch the stone-thrower – a man in a red waistcoat. The

man in red ran away. Guardsman Donald Maclean trapped William

Allen in the back yard of an inn. He was wearing a red waistcoat.

William said, ‘This is my father’s inn and I am working here. I’ve

been here all morning.’ Maclean didn’t believe him. First he stabbed

young Will with his bayonet then finished him off with a bullet.

But William had been telling the truth. He was not the man who

had thrown the stone. Oooops!

5a) Mr Peel’s police were not very popular. Two had been killed

by the end of 1830. Posters were put up in London streets telling

people that the police were armed with weapons from the Tower

of London. Kids called them nasty names like ‘Raw Lobsters’,

‘Blue Monsters’, ‘Bloody Police’, and ‘Blue Devils’. Poor people

pelted them with bricks and ginger-beer bottles. No wonder the

unpopular police popped into pubs for pints whenever they had

the chance.

99

6c) Ann Wood jumped in a canal and tried to kill herself. A

policeman had to rescue her and then take her to court. That was

a nuisance. The judge was angry with her. Instead of showing her

some pity he told her she should have done a proper job. ‘Why

did you not get under the water and make an end of it, instead of

giving us all this trouble and bother?’ Nice man.

7b) Horny Winkle’s Horse is played by two groups of boys – girls

couldn’t do it because of their long skirts. One group bends over

and makes a bridge of their backs – like a long horse. The other

group of boys jump on their backs and ride them. As they do so

they chant:

(No … I am not making this up. They really did play this game.)

The riders ride till the ‘horse’ collapses. Then it’s the turn of the

other group to be the ‘horse’ and be ridden. (Try this with about

nine of your friends – if you have half a brain between the ten of

you.)

8a) Blood made friends with the keeper of the jewels and got himself

invited to dinner. He tied up the keeper, stuffed some jewels down

his trousers and rode off.

100

Blood was caught but said, ‘I will speak to no one but King Charles

II himself’. The King forgave him and gave him a pension of £500 a

year. Lucky Blood. But why would the King do that? Some people

believe Charles II set up the whole thing – stealing his own jewels

and selling them.

9c) In Islington Mr Lacock paid the council £750. In return he was

allowed to collect all the dust and

ashes from the houses. His team of

poor women and children gathered

it in carts. They then took out the

cinders and sold them for half the

price of coal, and the rest was sold

to make bricks. But there was a

dangerous gang who went around

pinching the dust – a gang known

as ‘The Flying Dustmen’. One of the

thieves, Charles Fox, was caught

stealing dust and beaten up.

10b) People of Hammersmith were complaining about a ghost

wandering the dark streets, so Francis Smith armed himself with

a pistol and set out to track it down. Sure enough he saw a pale

figure wandering along the road. He pulled out his pistol and

shot it. But the pale figure was a brick-maker, Thomas Millwood,

wearing a white smock and covered in light brick dust. He died.

Francis gave himself up to the police and asked to be hanged. He

spent a year in prison and was then set free. Let’s hope Tom’s ghost

didn’t return to haunt him.

101

P

eople in most big

cities have their own

way of talking. People

from the East End of

London – Cockneys –

made up their own slang

words. Their friends

could understand

them but not many

other people could.

LANGUAGE

LONDON

As one villainous Victorian said…

The Cockneys used a few tricks to make new

words – they spelled words backwards…

‘Cool him’ meant ‘Look at him’ – a warning when

the police were around.

Sometimes they’d just make up words…

…which means ‘Do you understand me?’

Visit Rosie Lee’s Tea

Shop today!

The best cuppa for not a lot of bees and honey*

*money for all you folk not from the East End

103

RIDICULOUS RHYMES

B

ut the most famous Cockney trick is when

they choose a rhyme for the word. So your

‘north’ was your ‘north and south’ – your ‘mouth’.

If your dentist told you to ‘open your north’, or

your teacher told you to, ‘shut your north’, then

you may be a bit mixed up. That’s how it must have

been for the poor police in Victorian London.

Could you help the namecilop who arrested this

man?

104

Answers:

1c) Old Mother Hubbard = cupboard 2a) Pig’s ear = beer

3b) Dicky dirt = shirt 4a) Jack tar = bar

5c) Elephant’s trunk = drunk 6b) Auntie Nellie = belly

105

1763

The hat makers go

on the rampage round

Southwark having

riots against the

government. They call

themselves the ‘Gang

of Hatters’. Ooooh –

scary! Imagine them

marching and crying,

‘Freedom … or I’ll

flatten you with my

flat cap.’

TIMELINE

MODERN LONDON

106

1780

Lord George Gordon

leads the Gordon Riots

in London to attack

Catholics. One victim is

Catholic Mr Malo who

owns a silk factory. The

mob wreck his home and

throw his furniture on

to a bonfire. Mr Malo’s

canaries are stolen. Some

people want them as pets.

The mob decide they are

‘Catholic’ canaries – so

they are thrown on to

the fire, screaming … not

singing but singeing.

1790

The London Monster

is caught – the man who

stuck a spike in 500

London ladies’ bottoms

is locked up. No more

knifed knickers. Sales of

copper petticoats fall.

1

1 No joke! Tailors offered to sell ladies knife-proof armour to wear

under their skirts. Step-Clank! Step-Clank!

107

1820

The Cato Street

Conspiracy. A group

of workers plot to kill

the government – a bit

like Guy Fawkes but

with swords and pistols

instead of gunpowder.

They pretend to set up

a coffee shop in Cato

Street – in fact their

weapons are hidden

in the loft. The police

arrive before the plot is

carried out. The plotters

fight desperately.

1858

‘The Great Stink’ –

when the suffocating

smell of poo in the

Thames half chokes the

people in Parliament.

1863

The first

underground trains –

when the smoke of the

steam trains half chokes

the passengers!

IT’S A BIT STUFFY

DOWN ’ERE!

PISTOLS,

TREASON AND

PLOT

108

1888

Jack the Ripper

stalks the streets

of London – then

vanishes as suddenly

as he appeared. (Or

as SHE appeared.

It could have been

Jill the Ripper, some

say.)

1901

Queen Victoria

dies. The streets of

London are jammed

as people say goodbye

to a fat old queen

and goodbye to a

loathsome age in

London.

1944

In the Blitz of the

Second World War

over 40,000 people

died in London

– about the same

number that died

during the plague.

TOODLE-PIP, VIC!

109

AWFUL

EXECUTION

T

he 1700s were the days of the first popular

newspapers. Put the riots and the newspapers

together and what have you got? Some pretty

gruesome reading…

From Miss Green to

Stepney Green, the savage

seven met their end at the

end of a rope this morning.

Gallows were specially

built so all seven callous

killers could swing together.

It won’t bring Miss Green

back to life but she’ll be

happy in heaven.

Last month Alderman

William Beckford – known

as Becks – advertised for

coal-haulers to do the work

110

of the Thames coal-haulers

who were on strike. These

muscle men cart the coals

from ships to shore. Ten

horrible haulers marched to

‘The Roundabout Tavern’

where top Becks supporter

John Green lived. The strike

leader said at the time, ‘We

plan to cut him to pieces

and hang him from his own

inn sign.’

But the strikers were

driven off with gunfire

and three coal-haulers

were shot dead. The others

turned to Green’s sister

and she was torn to death.

‘We never meant to – we

just gave her a bit of a pull

and she sort of fell apart,’

one of the strikers said. But

the judge didn’t believe

the cruel coalman and all

seven were sentenced to die

this morning.

The judge didn’t hang

about – but the haulers

will. They’ll be covered in

tar and hung in cages as a

lesson to the others.

Sailors have been doing

the work of the coal-haulers

so now the violence has

turned on them. Sailor John

Beatty was stabbed to death

in the latest outbreak. Posh

Becks said, ‘The army is

now arresting the ring-

leaders and there will be

more hangings before the

month is out. The gallows

will groan with my message.

You don’t mess with Becks.’

As they say in this part of

London: that’s entertainment!

One of the savage seven

111

William Beckford made a fortune from slave

trading – he wasn’t going to suffer strikes from

coal-haulers.

He went on to become Lord Mayor of London.

THE CATO

KILLINGS

I

f a poor policeman had written a letter about the

Cato Street events it might have looked pretty

gruesome. Maybe he would scramble the letters of

the disgusting words so his mother wouldn’t be too

horrified.

Because life with cats is purrrrrrfect!

CATO STREET CAT SHELTER

ADOPT YOUR NEW

FURRY FRIEND TODAY

112

HORRIBLE HISTORIES WARNING

Do NOT try to unscramble the words in this

report...

Dear Mum,

Still enjoying life as a London policeman – a‘Bow Street Runner’.I

have the full inside story of the Cato Street Plot.I’ve just changed

some of the disgusting words because I know you’re a weak old lady

and I don’t want you to be shocked.

It all started on 22 February 1820.Rebel leader Arthur

Thistlewood saw an article in the paper saying all the government

were going to have dinner in Grosvenor Square.He decided to lead

his gang and kill them all.The beast! Thistlewood said their heads

would be FLED OF POP and stuck on poles.They would be

carried around the slums of London to start the revolution.

Only 27 men agreed to join the gang of SURE MR RED.On 23

February the plotters met in the loft above the Cato Street stable.

Little did they know a spy was watching them from the pub across

the road.We police moved in to arrest them.(Don’t worry,Mum,I

stayed at the back.)

One of our police officers,Richard Smithers,moved forward to

make the arrests but Thistlewood BATS BED him with his

WORDS.What a hero – I hope I’ll be my Mum’s hero one day –

just not a dead one.

113

Smithers cried,‘Oh God,I am…’ but we’ll never know what he

was,because he died before he finished the sentence.Wonder what it

was? God,I am hungry? God,I am sorry I left my suit of armour

at home? Or,God,I am trying to think of some famous last words

but I am going to die before I get to say them?

Anyway,yesterday,1 May 1820,the five leaders were hanged –

very clumsily.Thistlewood GLUT DREGS for a few minutes.Ings

suffered most and the hangmen pulled his legs and LENT DRAGS

him to finish him off.Then each man was A HEED BED. Crowds

flocked to Cato Street to see the BAD STONE OILED floor.

Ladies climbed the steep steps into the loft even though it meant

showing their UNWED REAR.

Watching the horror was a young writer called CHILDREN’S

CAKES! He said it was the most disgusting thing he’s ever seen.

Me? I enjoyed it!

Your loving son,

Edmund

Answers:

If you are sick enough to want to know what the missing words

are – but too stupid to work them out – then here they are in

the correct order: LOPPED OFF, MURDERERS, STABBED,

SWORD, STRUGGLED, STRANGLED, BEHEADED,

BLOOD-STAINED, UNDERWEAR, CHARLES DICKENS

114

DID YOU KNOW …

WILL YOU EVER KNOW?

The Cato Street plotters were beheaded after they

were hanged. The masked man who cut off the

heads did a very neat job. The mob who watched

decided he must be the doctor Thomas Wakeley.

That night they went round to Wakeley’s house

for revenge – they set fire to the house and he

was badly hurt – though not as badly hurt as the

headless Cato killers.

Was Wakeley the headsman? Will we ever know?

HORRIBLE

HANGMEN

E

xecuting people is a nasty job. You probably

wouldn’t want to do it … yes, all right, you

wouldn’t mind lopping off your history teacher’s

head for the crime of giving too much homework.

115

But MOST people wouldn’t fancy being an

executioner. So the men who DID get the job were

a little odd.

Here are some of the foulest facts – so foul that

we’ve had to remove the most disgusting bits and

put numbers in instead. Decide what you think the

missing words are … just think of it as a piece of

history homework.

If you are not very bright – or if you are a teacher

attempting this – then here are the words … but

not in the right order, of course.

Gouged

Executed

Sacked

Stabbed

Rioted

Jumped

Chopped

Whipped

Hanged

Haunted

Wriggled

The first hangman we know about was called Cratwell.In 1538 Cratwell

was (1) at Clerkenwell.He stole from a booth at St Bartholomew’s fair.

Edward Dennis took part in the Gordon Riots of 1780 but kept his job

of hangman and executed 30 of the people who had (2).Six years later he

retired and was given a fine robe by the mayor – Dennis sold it.

In 1685 Jack Ketch became one of London’s worst-ever executioners.

He bungled the execution of the Duke of Monmouth and was (3).

116

But the next hangman,Pascha Rose,was a burglar.Ketch got his job

back so he could hang Rose.

In 1714 John Price took the job.In the navy he’d been (4) and his wounds

were pickled to make them more painful. He was London hangman for

a year but then he attacked a woman pie-seller and (5) one of her eyes.

She died.He was executed.

John Thrift was hangman from 1735 till 1752. A crowd gathered

outside his house one night to insult him. He ran out and (6) one. The

judge set Thrift free to execute again. Thrift was too kind-hearted at

times. He almost fainted when he had to behead some rebels in 1745

and he was (7) by the people he’d killed.

Jack Hooper was next and he was known as‘The

Laughing Hangman’because he joked with victims

on the way to the scaffold. He liked to give the

crowds a laugh too.When he (8) the ears off Sir

Peter Stranger he waved them at the crowd. He

went on to slit Stranger’s nose.

Hooper liked to drink a lot before he (9) people.

Once he was so drunk he tried to hang the priest who

was there to pray for the prisoner.He probably laughed.

William Calcraft liked a laugh too.He executed a boy aged nine in 1832

but did it clumsily.The boy (10) on the end of a short rope so Calcraft (11)

on his back to finish him off.

Hangman.A good job? No.A bit ropey in fact.

Answers:

1) Hanged 2) Rioted 3) Sacked 4) Whipped 5) Gouged

6) Stabbed 7) Haunted 8) Chopped (9) Executed

10) Wriggled 11) Jumped

117

DID YOU KNOW…?

Being a hangman could be a dangerous job.

John Meff was due to be hanged in 1717. But the

hangman owed a lot of money and the law officers

went to his house to take his furniture and sell it,

so the hangman missed the hanging.

The mob had been looking forward to seeing Meff

swing. They were furious. So they went around to

the hangman’s house and beat him to death.

Meanwhile, you are probably wondering what

happened to Meff.

Meff was pardoned and sent to a prison colony

in America. On the way his ship was attacked by

pirates and he was marooned on a deserted island

off the American coast. He found a canoe and

paddled to America.

In 1721 he returned to London (on a ship – he

didn’t paddle his canoe). But his luck ran out. He

was arrested and hanged. This time the hangman

turned up and finished him off.

118

THE BAD

OLD DAYS…

A

lot of people talk about ‘the good old days’.

But there wasn’t much good about the old

days in London.

Even a hundred years ago most people had

miserable and dirty lives.

• Servants like cooks and maids often slept in

the kitchen because their bosses didn’t think

they needed a bedroom.

• In the middle of the housing areas there were

6,000 pig pens and slaughter houses.

1

• Londoners were afraid that fresh air and baths

would harm them – so they got very little of either.

• Most people only had one set of clothes and wore

them all the time. We don’t know how often those

clothes were washed – some people probably never

washed their clothes.

• Coal fires filled the air with soot, turned the houses

black and choked the Londoners when fog turned

into sooty fog: smog.

1 There was even a story that a herd of wild pigs lived in the sewers under

Hampstead. That wasn’t true!

119

The smell of the people and the houses would be

sickening to us. Germs must have loved London.

Diseases spread quickly and killed many – mostly

the poor people who were weak from eating bad

food and from overwork.

SLAUGHTERHOUSES

I

f you wanted fresh meat then you had to keep

your sheep, cattle and pigs in the city and kill

them there. (There were

no fridges.)

No one wanted to eat

the guts so they were

thrown into the gutters

to be washed away – till

a law in the 1300s put a

stop to that.

But the poor people of London didn’t get the best

meat. They could only afford the mouldy scraps

that were days old.

THE LONDON GUTTERS

ARE JUST OFFAL!

120

An American visitor described an open-air

butcher stall in 1899…

Scrummy! Still, it could have been worse for

the woman. She could have been the sheep she

went off to eat.

Not only is the worker poorly fed, but he is filthily fed. I stood

outside a butcher’s and watched a horde of housewives turning

over the trimmings and scraps and shreds of beef and mutton –

stuff we’d call dog-meat in the States. With filthy hands they

raked and pawed and scraped the mess about to get the best

their coppers could buy. I kept my eye on one disgusting bit of

mutton, and watched it go through the hands of over twenty

women. At last it was picked up by a timid little woman whom

the butcher bullied into taking it. All day long this heap of

scraps was added to and taken away from; the dust and dirt of

the street falling upon it, flies settling on it, and the dirty fingers

turning it over and over.

121

L

ondon is the place

to go for a job –

an odd job … or a very

odd job.

In the 1800s children

made a poor living by

collecting and selling

the dog-ends of cigars.

The streets were muddy

and covered in horse-

poo. So a five-year-old

crossing-sweeper would

make a few pennies

by clearing the way

for posh people.

But these weren’t

the worst jobs you

could do in loathsome

London. Here are a

few from the past.

Your school careers

adviser will NOT

tell you about these

terrible top ten jobs.

LOUSY JOBS

LONDON’S

122

Here they are in reverse horrible horder…

10 Head tar man

When a traitor was executed in London he was

beheaded and cut into quarters. The heads were

stuck on poles at the gates in the city walls, at the

Tower of London, at Westminster or on London

Bridge. This went on till 1746 when the last head

to go on show was that of Francis Townley, a rebel

who wanted the Scottish Bonnie Prince Charlie

on the English throne. For a few pennies you

could rent a telescope to get a good close look

at his dead head. Yeuch!

These heads rotted, of course, and were pecked

to bits by birds. So they were boiled in salt or

painted with tar to make them last. Head painting.

123

Could YOU do it?

9 Running patterer

London people loved a good murder. They loved

crime so much they would pay to read more about

it. In the 1800s a running patterer would sell you

a printed paper with all the latest gory stories. At

an execution he would sell you the dying speech

of the murderer – before he had been hanged.

If there were no good stories then what did

the running patterer do? He made them up! The

patterer invented a story and sold it on the streets.

One patterer said…

I killed the Duke of Wellington twice, had Prince Louis

assassinated twice (once with a bullet, once with a knife) and

broke Prince Albert’s arm … or was it his leg?

124

Another patterer said he’d given Queen Victoria

triplets: ‘I did think of poisoning the Pope but the

Catholics would have given me a beating.’

It’s just like the newspapers of the twenty-first

century – if there’s no news they make it up!

Some of their poems were dreadful rhymes.

When John Thurtell murdered William Weare

in 1823 he was sent to be hanged. In court he

made a curious speech that ended…

His parents must have been really upset when the

patterers sold John’s story at his execution with this

vile verse…

125

8 Toilet cleaner

You may think London toilets can make you ill.

But a hundred years ago those toilets could kill

you. The poo gave off a gas, and if that gas filled

your house it could choke you. Or, sometimes,

a spark could cause the gas to explode. This is

extra deadly if you are sitting on the toilet at

the time. (So remember – never smoke in the

school toilets.)

Small children were often sent into toilet pits

because they could fit down the narrow pipes.

They were expected to clean them … and you

complain when your parents ask you to clean

their car?

The toilet-cleaning kids often choked on the

gas. In 1849 a report into a toilet explosion read…

Explosions happened in two separate places. In the first the

men had the skin peeled off their faces and their hair singed.

Further along the second lamp created an explosion that burnt

the hair and face of the person holding it.

126

In 1731 six prisoners in Newgate escaped into

the sewers. Four got away. The skeletons of the

other two were found many years later.

What a way to go. Or waterway to go…

7 Watercress seller

An honest job – but a miserable one.

Little girls would be sent on to the streets by

their parents to sell watercress – green stuff that

cooks used to decorate boring meals.

The watercress had to be fresh – no freezers to

keep it green and crisp. So the little girls had to

go out every day in all weather to sell their cress.

As one eight-year-old child said…

When the snow is on the ground I bears

the cold – you must, so I puts my hands

under my shawl, though it hurts them to

take hold of the cresses, especially when we

takes ’em to the pump to wash ’em. No, I

never see any children crying – it’s no use.

Stuck for how to entertain your

kids during the school holidays?

Send them

to Sam’s

Sewers

127

6 Lurker

If you can read this you can probably write. If

you can write then you could become a ‘lurker’.

A lurker knew how to copy the handwriting of

rich people. He would then write letters that were

supposed to come from those rich people. You

know the sort of thing…

One famous lurker forged the name of a judge.

He was brought before the judge.

Great fun and learning for life.

They’ll love a paddle in poo and we pay you.

(Only room for little children. No room for tall kids.)

128

Of course there are still lurkers lurking today.

Some young lurkers forge letters from their parents

so they don’t have to do horrible things at school

… things like cross-country running, or a detention

for blowing your nose in class. Shocking.

A Horrible Histories reader, like you, must never

be caught doing such a thing. (You may do it …

but you must never be caught.)

129

5 Mudlark

Men, women and children would wait for the tide

to go out and then step into the thick mud on the

banks of the River Thames. They would plod along

and use their fingers and toes to search for anything

that might have been dropped from ships – scraps

of rope, coal, wood, iron and copper – anything

they could sell.

Even in bitter winter weather you could see

them wading through the mud. One boy said…

Some mudlarks collected old bones and sold

them to factories to make soap. Some collected

coal. When a reporter saw a woman with a bag

of coal he said it would keep her nice and warm

that night. She laughed at him…

It was very cold in winter to stand in the mud without shoes.

But if I didn’t find anything I’d starve until the next low tide.

A lot of lads have to do it. We’re nearly all fatherless, and our

mothers are too poor to keep us; so we take to it because we

have nothing else to do.

Make a fire with the coals I pick up? People like me don’t have

coal fires, mister. Anything does for a fire for me and my old

man – we burn cinders, driftwood, anything. But coals is money

and we can’t afford to burn money.

130

4 Coiner

Take a coin, smear it in grease and press it into

some damp plaster. Take the coin out and what

have you got? An image of the coin. A ‘mould’.

Do that for both sides of the coin.

Now melt down a cheap spoon and pour the

metal into the mould. Open the mould and you

have a new coin.

The next bit is tricky. You need to ‘plate’ it to

make it shiny like a real coin. The Victorians used

nitric acid, sulphuric acid and cyanide – all deadly

poisons – to give their fake coins a shiny silver coat.

Don’t do it the Victorian way!

Next ‘slum’ the shiny coin – make it look well-

used by rubbing it with soot and oil.

Then spend it.

Of course, Victorian coiners would go to prison

for life if they were caught. Before the 1830s coiners

had their hands lopped off or were hanged.

This Sunday

Sale

Real coins* from the Victorian Era

*Can’t promise they’re worth anything, though

131

Top three London jobs

You don’t fancy forging coins or selling cress?

You will when you look at the other horrible

jobs you could be forced to do. Here are the top

three.

Remember, if you DON’T fancy these jobs then

you will just have to starve to death…

3 Dredger

If you don’t mind handling dead and rotting bodies

then why not become a dredger?

Lots of people seemed to end up in the Thames

– dead. And Londoners didn’t want their river

blocked up with shore-to-shore corpses. So they

offered a reward to anyone who dragged a body

from the river.

The dredgers set out in their little rowing boats

and hauled the bodies from the water.

The first thing to do is go through the pockets

to see if there is anything worth pinching. Then

go to the nearest police station, hand over the

body and collect your reward.

Of course, it could get messy. If a body has

been in the river too long then arms and legs

could drop off as you try to haul it in.

132

2 Tosher

Want to make some extra pocket money? Become

a ‘tosher’. Here’s how…

Find a sewer – you know, the big underground

drains that all the toilets empty into.

Find the place where the sewer flows into the

River Thames and walk in the entrance.

People sometimes drop valuable things down

toilets and down drains in the street – jewellery

or coins – all you have to do is stick your hands

in the fast-flowing poo and find the stuff. (It’s

known as ‘tosh’ and you are a ‘tosher’.)

Easy.

A Victorian writer, Henry Mayhew, said…

If there was a ship close by then the toshers would

try to steal the copper that covered its bottom.

The toshers loved to tell horrible stories. This

is a story that one tosher told Henry Mayhew.

These toshers may be seen dressed in long greasy velvet coats

with vast pockets, and their legs are covered by dirty canvas

trousers, and any old slops of shoes that are only fit for wading

through the mud.

133

Mayhew seemed to believe it and he wrote it down.

Of course the tosher COULD have been lying.

What do you think?

A true tale? Or do you smell a rat?

134

1 Pure finder

Yes, it’s number one – the top London job.

As you know, leather comes from the skins of

dead animals. But once that skin is stripped off

the animal it starts to go hard – no one wants to

wear shoes that feel like they’re made of iron.

So the leather goes to a ‘tanner’ who works on

it to make it soft. How did the London tanners

do this 200 years ago? You don’t want to know.

Just skip to the next section.

You do? Fine. Just don’t eat your tea as you

read this.

The tanner would rub in doggie poo. (I did warn

you.) You would not find many tanners who would

bite their nails – and you would not find many

people happy to shake hands with a tanner.

Now tanners were busy men – no time to go

round the streets collecting doggie doo-doo. That’s

where the ‘pure finder’ came in.

Pure finders went round the streets and scooped

up the dog droppings. Nice if you had a shovel –

messy if you had to use your bare hands.

Off you go to that top London job. Pure finder.

HELP WANTED

DOO-DOO DISCOVERER

Perfect for those with no sense of smell

135

O

rphans had a

terrible time

in 1700s London.

They were sent to a

‘workhouse’ where they

had to work hard for

nasty nibbles of nosh.

The workhouses were

happy to send them

out to work in people’s

homes as servants – and

some of the poor kids

must have been glad to

go to a better life.

Others went to slavery

… or death.

TERRIBLE

FORTOTS

AND TEENS

136

Elizabeth Brownrigg

The bruising, beating Brownrigg beast had several

penniless girls working for her as servants in her

own home. Here are ten terrible things to do to a

girl. Which of these did Bullying Brownrigg do to

Mary Clifford?

1 Beat her with a broom or a horse-whip

2 Made her sleep on a mat in a coal hole, in the

cold with no blanket, only her thin dress

3 Fed her on bread and water – and not enough

of either

4 Tied a chain around her neck, pulled it till it

almost choked her and fastened it to a door for

12 hours

5 Tied her hands with a cord and pulled the cord

through a hook in the ceiling before whipping her

6 Grabbed her by the cheeks and pulled the skin

till the girl’s eyes began to bleed

7 Cut her tongue with a pair of scissors

137

8 Whipped her till she bled then made her bathe

in cold water

9 Whipped her so hard Brownrigg had to stop

for a rest to get her breath back

10 Dipped her head into a pail of water

Mary Clifford was rescued by the police but died

two days later. Brownrigg, her husband and her

son were charged with murder. They were hanged

in 1767. As they were led to their execution the

crowds yelled at them…

After her hanging Brownrigg’s body was cut up

by the doctors and her skeleton was hung up in

Surgeons’ Hall.

You will go to hell and the devil himself will come and fetch you!

Answer:

Brownrigg did all of these to Mary Clifford except number 10 …

and Brownrigg did that to another girl, Mary Jones. Jones escaped

back to the workhouse and complained – but the workhouse did

nothing.

138

Sarah Metyard

Would a horrible hanging put you off cruelty to

children? It didn’t deter Sarah Metyard and her

daughter. In 1768, just a year after the Brownrigg

hangings, the Metyards were charged with

murdering a workhouse girl…

Little Anne Naylor tried to run away from the

miserable Metyards so they beat her, then tied

her to a door so she couldn’t sit down or stand

up. They left her like this for three days with

no food.

Other serving girls found her strung up on the

door and ran to Sarah Metyard. The reports told

the story…

IT’S A HARD-KNOCK LIFE!

139

140

Wrong!

The murderous Metyards had got away with it.

Anne’s sister spotted some of Anne’s clothes in

the house and threatened to report the miserable

Metyards. They strangled her and got rid of the

body. They thought they had got away with that

too.

For four years no one suspected them and poor

Anne was buried and forgotten.

Then suddenly they were arrested and sent to

trial. What had gone wrong?

a) The ghost of Anne reported her own murder to

the police.

b) Sarah and her daughter argued and the daughter

reported her to the police.

c) A servant looked in Anne’s room and found a

four-year-old finger that the killers had forgotten.

Answer:

b) Sarah started to beat her daughter the way they had beaten

Anne. The fed-up daughter reported her mother for murder – but

they were both hanged. Sarah fainted on her way to the scaffold

and they could not wake

her up. They hanged her anyway so she

probably woke up dead.

141

THE BABY

FARMERS

B

abies from poor families could be too much

trouble to care for. So, in the 1700s and 1800s,

many parents sent their babies off to child-minders

they called ‘baby farmers’.

Some farmers care for their animals – some can

be cruel.

Baby farmers were the same – some kind, some

cruel. Some baby farmers kept the kids quiet by

drugging them with opium.

In 1750 Dr Cadogan said…

In the old days the Greeks left unwanted babies out in the

cold to die. That was kinder than the slow death some of them

suffer today.

NO MINDING FROM THE UNKIND

CHILD-MINDERS

142

Thomas Coram built a hospital for children and

in 1742 he said…

In the 1870s the bodies of babies were found

lying around the streets of Lambeth. They were the

victims of a baby farmer, Margaret Waters. Police

found another five children, sick and dying, at

her house.

She was hanged.

DID YOU KNOW…?

London kids have played some disgusting games.

One Middle Ages game was to crawl under the

scaffold where someone had been beheaded. The

nasty nippers would then scrape up any blood

they could find there. Foul fun.

Teenagers were no better in the 1800s. When

they got bored they played a disgusting game.

Children’s nurses are wicked barbarians.

143

HORRIBLE HISTORIES NOTE

Do NOT try this at home.

1

Do NOT pick on innocent wrinklies

in the street.

Here’s what Victorian teens did…

The egg and soot game

You need:

Eggs, soot, a bucket, a l-o-n-g brush

To make:

Break two or three eggs into the bucket.

Add a cup full of soot. Whisk it all together.

To play:

a) You need a couple of friends. Take your bucket

of egg-soot into the street with the brush in it.

b) Your friend stops a posh old person in the street and

asks them the time. As they look at their watch take

your long brush and slap the egg-soot across their face.

c) Run.

1 Wait till you get to school and try it on the wrinkly teachers. When they

threaten to expel you then just say you were conducting an historical

experiment.

144

The egg-soot is horribly messy and hard to wash off.

Of course you have to be sure you DON’T try

this on a young, fit person or they may catch

you and give you the beating you deserve.

This disgusting game was popular with posh

young men, not scruffy street kids. The scruffy

street kids would not waste eggs in that way.

They’d eat them.

WAGGERS AND

NICKERS

L

ondon could be a cruel place for kids to live.

And kids had to be cruel to survive.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY?

AGED AROUND 13, SCRUFFY LOOKING

Last seen running down the streets of London

carrying posh people’s underwear

Also known as The Knicker Nicker

145

In the 1870s a London boy explained to a judge…

And it wasn’t only the young truants who made

trouble. The ones who stayed at school could cause

problems too.

Take the school strikes of the 1880s and 1890s…

TERRIBLE TEACHERS

At ten we hops the wag;

at 13 we nicks things; an’

at 16 we bashes the copper.

146

147

And they were.

The striking pupils of 1889 handed a letter to the

Director of London schools. It demanded things like

free school meals and free school – each pupil paid a

penny a day. The Director just laughed at their letter.

The boys who led the strike were lined up in front

of the other pupils and beaten – extra hard.

The teachers could not understand how strikes

could spring up all over Britain at the same time –

there were no mobile phones in 1889 to pass

the word around. They thought there must

be a schoolboy spy network. One panicking

paper, The Dundee Advertiser, wrote…

Guess what? Sixty years later the British Empire

was finished. Must have been those young rebels, eh?

No one knows how word spread

so the pupils can all strike at the same

time. There has to be a plot. If Britain

has secret societies of schoolchildren

then the Empire is doomed.

148

SUFFOCATING

SCHOOLS

T

he children who went to school suffered in

stuffy classrooms. In 1848 Hector Gavin made

a report on health in Bethnal Green. He said one

school was especially nasty … and it wasn’t just

the terrible teachers.

The St Matthew schools were built in 1846 close to

the church, in the north-west corner of the graveyard.

The graves are stuffed to overflowing with corpses.

There are hundreds of bodies buried under the floor

of the church. To keep them fresh, air is allowed to

flow under the floor. The air comes out at the end of a

passage, right beside the back door of the school. It is

also close to the most filthy toilet used by the children.

I tried to examine the toilets but was overcome by the

smell, the worst sickness I have ever felt in all my

visits to unhealthy sites.

There is no water whatever for the children. There

is one small heater for the 275 boys and their teacher.

In winter most of them freeze. In summer they cannot

open the windows because a slaughterhouse is next

door to them and the smell of dead cattle makes the

children suffer from headaches and sickness.

149

TEACHER

TERROR

O

f course it could be terrible being a teacher

too.

In the 1890s Sarah-Anne Knobstick ran home

to her mother. ‘Mummy, Mummy!’ she cried, ‘Miss

Trimmer gave me the cane!’

She showed her little hand to her red-faced,

thick-armed mother.

‘Did she now,’ her mother Katherine Knobstick

said. ‘We’ll see about that.’

Katherine Knobstick marched down to Lirriper

Lane Board School, burst through the doors and

grabbed hold of Miss Dorothy Trimmer. First

she told her what she thought of her – she used

language you wouldn’t see even in a Horrible

Histories book. But (to put it politely) she said…

Then she grabbed the teacher by the hair,

tore out lumps and punched her to the floor.

As the frail teacher whimpered, the mighty

boot of Mrs Knobstick pounded her. The

powerful parent was taken to court and

fined a huge amount – 40 shillings. But

she smirked and said…

I-SPY-EYE TESTS

50% off for Teachers

We’ll help you control your pupils!

151

L

ondon is not just

the people, of

course. It is thousands

of old buildings too.

Here are some you

may like to visit. You

can bore everyone

around you by telling

them these useless

facts…

BARMY

BUILDINGS

Marble Arch

This was built in 1827 in front of Buckingham

Palace to make a grand entrance for the royal

carriages. Sadly the dumbo who built it forgot to

measure the carriages – they were too wide to get

through! The arch was moved down the road in

1851. The only people who are now allowed to

pass through Marble Arch are the royal family

and the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery.

152

The Thames Tunnel

In the 1820s Marc Brunel built a tunnel under the

Thames from Rotherhithe to Wapping in London:

the world’s first tunnel under a river. As the

workers dug under the river it began to leak. It

let in water – and all the sewage from London’s

toilets. One massive flood in 1828 killed six

workmen. Mark’s famous son, Isambard Kingdom

Brunel, was caught and dragged out, barely alive.

Isambard later had to crawl through the toilet filth

to repair the cracks that let the river leak in.

1

The Crystal Palace

Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, wanted to

show the world how great Britain was. He wanted

an exhibition. A massive glass hall was built in

Hyde Park. There were some odd problems though.

Enemies of the plan said that it would attract

tramps and, anyway, it would blow down in the

first strong wind. (It didn’t and it didn’t.)

1 The tunnel is still in use as part of the London Underground system.

153

The Lincoln MP said Britain didn’t want all those

foreign people to visit – they might bring a plague

with them. They didn’t.

Victoria was worried about birds nesting in the

trees, inside the glass palace. Would the birdy poo

drop on people? Someone said, ‘Kill the birds with

hawks!’

The shocked Queen decided to let the birds live

to poo in the palace.

In 1854 the palace was moved to Sydenham

Hill in South London and in 1936 it burned to the

ground.

10 Downing Street

This house is the home of prime ministers – but

when they lose the job they have to move out …

a bit like a hotel manager.

The top MPs – the ‘cabinet’ – meet there to plot

and plan what to do with the taxes they squeeze

from the people. Just like William the Conqueror

in the Tower in the old days!

On this spot there used to be a ‘cock-pit’. No,

that was not the place where an aeroplane pilot sat.

It was a pit where cockerels fought to the death.

In 1787 a cockerel called Old Trodgon won

£200 for a fight at 10 Downing Street – a fortune

in those days.

154

Then the place became a coffee house and

a popular place for thieves to meet people who

would buy their stolen goods.

So 10 Downing Street was a place for crooks

to meet.

The Houses of Parliament

Guy Fawkes tried to destroy Westminster Palace –

the old Houses of Parliament – and kill King James

in 1605. His ghost must have been happy when it

burned down.

In 2003 the teachers at Aberystwyth University

tried to work out what would have happened if

Guy had lit the fuse. They reckoned…

• The bang would have been big enough to wipe

out 25 Houses of Parliament.

155

• The King and parliament would have been

blasted up high into the air … if they had lived

then they would have been killed when they came

back down to earth.

• Everything within 30 metres would have been

blown apart.

• Every building within 100 metres would have

had its roof blown off.

• Flying bricks and tiles could have killed anyone

closer than 150 metres.

Westminster Palace was used to store all the tax

records of England from the Middle Ages till 1826.

The place was stuffed with them. These records

were made of wood. In 1834 someone said they’d

burn well and keep the place warm. They burned so

well they burned the palace down that same year.

Victoria Embankment

A new Houses of Parliament was built by the side of

the Thames in 1864–1870. Big mistake, as the river

was London’s biggest sewer. In summer it stank

enough to choke the Members of Parliament.

What to do with poo was always a problem. Most

London houses had pits at the bottom of the house

where the poo and pee collected. ‘Night Soil Men’

would empty the sludge from the pits on to carts,

156

carry the muck off and sell it to farmers to spread

on their land. It made their crops grow better –

poo-rich oats perhaps.

But as London got bigger the Night Soil Men had

too far to travel. Toilet pits filled to overflowing.

In 1842 Edwin Chadwick, a social reformer,

wrote…

New drains took the toilet waste into the

Thames. So the Thames became London’s toilet.

Londoners took drinking water from the Thames.

In the 1850s, 30,000 of them died from the disease

cholera. Tasty Thames.

The government wouldn’t pay the money to

have the filth removed – not until the filth came

to the government. In 1858 a hot summer made

the river really smell. The stench choked the MPs

in Parliament, so they decided to pay for proper

London drains. It was known as ‘The Great Stink’.

I found the cellars of some houses to be full of night soil, 3 feet

(90 cm) deep. I found the back yard covered in night soil from the

overflowing toilet. It was 6 inches (15 cm) deep and bricks had

to be put down so the house owners could cross with dry shoes.

157

Joseph Bazalgette built sewers that took the toilet

waste and dumped it down the river near Barking.

It was washed out to sea. (Super swimming, then.)

He also built Victoria Embankment to cover a

long stretch of sewer. Think of that as you stroll

along.

DID YOU KNOW…?

The clock tower at the end of the new Houses of

Parliament is not ‘Big Ben’. It’s the great bell that

is known as Big Ben. And did you also know it

cracked in 1859? It was repaired but the crack’s

still there. It used to take two men 32 hours to

wind the clock every week.

158

The London landmark you’ll never see…

The Wembley Tower

In 1889 the French built the Eiffel Tower. In 1896

Sir Edward Watkin planned to build an even taller

tower in Wembley. It should have had restaurants,

theatres and even a ballroom at the top. (A lot of

steps for Cinderella to run down.)

Mr Eiffel, who built the Paris tower, refused to

help.

It was half built. Nobody wanted to pay to go up

the tower. It started to sink into the marshy ground.

The Leaning Tower of Wembley.

It closed in 1899 and was blown up in 1907.

The famous old Wembley Stadium was put there

instead.

159

UNDER

LONDON

L

ondon may be

horrible above the

ground, but it can be

just as ugly under the

surface.

The Victorian

Londoners were very

superstitious. One

preacher, Dr Cuming,

said that digging into the

ground would be digging

into Hell and the Devil

would be disturbed.

(Even today people say

the Underground is Hell,

so maybe he was right.)

The first tube trains

ran on 10 January 1863

from Paddington to

Farringdon. So many

people got on at the

start that there was no

room for anyone to get

on at the other stations.

Not a lot has changed

there, then.

160

Steam trains were used

for 25 years. Of course the

tunnels filled with smoke.

The railway companies said

the smoke was a GOOD

thing. If you had a bad chest

then tube smoke would clear

it. (Yeah, and putting your head on the track would

cure your headache.)

Electric trains were first used in 1890. The law

said you would be fined £2 if you tried to ride on

the roof of an electric train. If you rode on the roof

your head would be knocked off. Painful – but at

least you’d save two pounds.

TEN TERRIBLE

TUBE FACTS

H

ere are some foul facts about the Tube you

may like to torment your teacher with. Get

Sir (or Miss) on a tube and when it enters a tunnel

and the lights flicker, then fill their ears with these

truly terrible (but useless) facts.

161

1 To test the first escalators they used a man called

Bumper Harris because Bumper couldn’t mangle his

feet if it went wrong – he had two wooden legs.

1

2 The first tube carriages had no windows and

buttoned seats so they were known as ‘padded

cells’.

3 More people die by suicide at King’s Cross

and Victoria stations than at any other.

4 People who throw themselves under tube trains

are called ‘one-unders’ by the staff. (In New York

they call them ‘track pizza’).

5 The tunnels were cleaned at night by ladies with

feather dusters, dustpans and brushes. They were

known as ‘fluffers’.

6 The two best stations to spot mice scurrying

over the lines are Waterloo and Oxford Circus.

7 Nesting pigeons were a nuisance so staff used

kestrels and hawks to kill them.

1 Of course no one checked if he had wooden feet too, did they? For all we

know brave Bumper could have been wearing his own feet on the end of the

wooden legs. Bet you didn’t think of that, did you?

162

8 Carriages are too small today for most people

who travel on the tube. This is because the tunnels

were built in the 1860s when people were smaller.

9 Prime Minister Gladstone and Dr Barnardo were

the only people ever to have their coffins carried by

tube.

But the winner – the most useless fact of all – is:

10 Green grapes cause more accidents on the

London Underground than banana skins.

GHOSTLY

GOINGS-ON…

O

f course, the Underground is haunted.

People say there are ghastly ghosts in

deserted houses. So there must be sad spooks

in deserted stations. The Underground has lots

of stations that no one uses today.

Here are some of the scariest and hairiest

places to be…

163

*These stations are closed now – ghost stations in fact.

164

DID YOU KNOW…?

There is no tube station at Muswell Hill. There

was supposed to be, but when they started digging

underground they came across a deep pit – full of

the skeletons of people buried during the plague.

165

L

ondon is a terrible

place to die. And

a place to die terribly.

Here are a few of the

most horrible.

LONDON

ENDS

The Whitefriars Carpenter (around 1820)

He was desperately poor – so poor he had to sell

his tools to buy food. And once he’d sold his tools

he couldn’t find any work. He became poorer and

hungrier. Worst of all, he had no friends.

166

The man decided to kill himself. He had seen how

guillotines worked in France. He used his skill to

make a machine that would drop a 12kg stone on

to an axe that would cut his throat.

It worked.

His corpse was sent for trial. He was found

guilty of suicide. But his horrible death wasn’t

cruel enough for the jury. They said he didn’t

deserve a Christian burial. The foreman of

the jury said:

His body was pushed into a rough wooden box

and buried at midnight in a shallow grave. No one

cared. No one cried.

The Spitalfields Children (1883)

If you catch scarlet fever today you will almost

certainly survive. If you caught it in Victorian

London you could well die. And your poor family

could also suffer if you died. A public health

inspector called Wrack visited one house where

a child had been sick with scarlet fever and

wrote this report…

He should be flung into a hole at

night time, like a dog in a ditch.

167

On visiting No. 17, Hope Street, Spitalfields, I found

in the room of the second floor the dead body of a

child. She had died fifteen days before the time of

my visit. The room was occupied by the parents

of the dead child and a daughter aged thirteen

years. The body was in a rotted state. The father

said he could not afford a funeral. Friends had

promised to help but had failed to. I pointed out the

danger of keeping a dead body so long in the same

room where the family lived.

Upon visiting No. 28, Church Street, Spitalfields,

on the 5th December last, I found in the second-

floor front room the dead body of a child which

had died of scarlet fever on the 1st of the month.

The body was not in a coffin, and it lay exposed

on a table in one corner of the room. The room

was occupied as a living and sleeping room by

five persons, the father and mother, their child,

a girl about three years old, the grandfather and

grandmother of the child, who were tailors. The

smell on entering the room was most sickening.

The tailors were working in a room with a scarlet

fever victim. The person who bought the clothes

could catch the disease from them and so it spread.

Mr Wrack made many reports of this sort. In

most cases the parents could not afford a funeral.

The government said it had ‘no time’ to deal with

the problem of bodies left to rot in houses.

168

The Lisson Grove Old Woman (1900)

An American writer, Jack London, visited London

… the city, not his dad … and wrote about the lives

of the poorest people in the slums. His tale of one

old woman is gruesome, but true…

In Devonshire Place, Lisson Grove, a short while

back an old woman died aged seventy-five. A police

officer said that all he found in the room was a lot

of old rags covered with fleas and lice. He had got

himself smothered with the vermin. The room was in

a shocking condition, and he had never seen anything

like it. Everything was absolutely covered with fleas.

The doctor said: ‘I found the deceased lying across

the fireplace on her back. She had a dress and her

stockings on. The body was quite alive with vermin,

and all the clothes in the room were absolutely grey with

insects. The woman was very badly fed and was very

skinny. She had sores on her legs from the insect bites,

and her stockings were sticking to those sores.’

A man said ‘I had the bad luck to see the body of the

unhappy woman as it lay in the coffin; she was a mere

bundle of skin and bones. Her hair, which was matted

with filth, was simply a nest of vermin. Over her bony

chest leaped and rolled hundreds, thousands, countless

numbers of insects.’

169

Spot the difference…

EPILOGUE

O

f course there

are a lot of great

things to love about

London – and this book

only has the space to

look at the loathsome,

not the lovely.Here are

three things people have

written about London.

170

They are ALL about London and they are ALL

about a Loathsome London. But what is the

difference?

171

a) was written in the year 1212, b) was written in

1899 and c) was written in 2004.

So some things change – the plague is gone and

the sewers work.

Some things haven’t changed – the cruelty, the

violence, the rats and the lonely lost people.

Perfect to tackle the grease of East London

POW AND THE DIRT

IS GONE!

Mrs Bustle’s new formula

172

INTERESTING

INDEX

Where will you find body snatchers, poo and

smelly sewers in an index?

In a Horrible Histories book, of course!

ancient history, annoying 9–22

animals, anxious 50–8

Arthur (legendary king) 19–20

baby farms 141–2

badgers 57

baiting (cruel sport) 51–3, 56–7

Battle Bridge 18

Bazalgette, Joseph (English engineer) 157

bears 51–3, 56

Bede (English monk) 21

Beefeaters 23–5, 97>

Big Ben (big bell) 8, 157

Black Death (plague) 13, 38–41, 42, 45, 64, 68,

78–9, 108, 153, 164, 171

Bladud (king of Britons) 10–11

body-snatchers, brutal 77, 139

Boleyn, Anne (English queen) 28

Boudica (Celtic leader) 12–13, 17–18

Bran (Celtic leader) 18–21

British Empire 147

Brunel, Isambard Kingdom (English engineer)

94, 152

Brunel, Marc (French/English engineer) 98, 152

Brutus (legendary king) 10, 20, 23

Buckingham Palace 151

bulls 52–3

Cadwallon (Welsh king) 21–2

Cassivellaunus (king of Britons) 11–12, 15–16

173

Catholics 71, 98, 106, 124

Cavaliers (royalists) 62

Charles I (English/Scottish king) 62–3, 65

Charles II (English/Scottish king) 25, 97, 100

cholera (dire disease) 156

cockerels/cocks 54, 153

Cockneys (east enders) 101–4

coffins 162, 167–8

corpses 17, 66, 77, 97, 131, 148, 166

criminals 43, 72–93, 123.

Crystal Palace 152–3

Dark Ages, deadly 18–19

doctors 77, 79, 114, 137, 168

dogs 54–5

Downing Street 153–4

East End 101–2

Edward IV (English king) 28, 30–1

Elephant and Castle 15–16, 164

Elizabeth I (English queen) 26, 61, 95

English Civil War 62

Erasmus, Desiderius (Dutch scholar) 51

escalators 161

Evelyn, John (English diarist) 53

executioners, evil 85, 115–16

Fawkes, Guy (English plotter) 71, 95, 107, 154–5

fevers 68, 166–7

fights 54–5

fires 13–14, 37, 61, 65, 71, 106, 114, 118, 129

Flamsteed, John (English astronomer) 25

gallows 91, 109–10

games, grim 82, 88, 96, 99, 142–4

gardens 6, 19

ghosts, ghastly 65, 97, 100, 140, 154, 162–4

gibbets 88

Gladstone, William (British prime minister) 162

Gog (legendary giant) 10

Great Fire of London 71

Great Stink 107, 156

hangings 17, 77, 82, 100, 110

heaps of 36–7, 60–1, 113–17, 123–4, 137–8,

140, 142

horrendous 84–8, 130

hangmen, hideous 60, 85, 91, 115–17

heads 42, 44, 63–4, 85, 114

on bridges 43

burning 68

on poles 17, 112, 122

talking 19–21, 23

on train tracks 160

Henry III (king of England) 33, 37

Henry VI (king of England) 30

Henry VIII (king of England) 60

highwaymen 82

hooligans 92–3

horses 56–7

Iceni (Celtic tribe) 17

Jack the Ripper (unknown killer) 108

James I/VI (English/Scottish king) 32, 95, 154

jobs, joyless 114–17, 121–34, 153

John (English king 33) 33

Julius Caesar (Roman leader) 11–12, 15

King’s Cross 17, 161

laws/law officers, loathsome 53, 55, 80, 87,

93, 117, 119, 160

London Bridge 43, 122

London, Jack (American author) 168

Lud (legendary king) 11

Ludgate 11

Magog (legendary giant) 10

Marble Arch 151

174

Mary (queen of Scots) 61, 98

Middle Ages, measly 35–8, 49, 59, 92, 142, 155

modern history, monstrous 105–8

mummification (embalming) 21–2

murders 17, 36–7, 70, 113, 123–4, 137–40

newspapers 15, 109, 124

Nicholas I (Russian tsar) 53

Night Soil Men (poo carriers) 155–6

Normans, nasty 14, 23

noses 53, 62, 116, 128

orphans 135

Parliament 62, 95, 107, 154–7

peasants, pesky 38, 42–3, 46

pee 155

Peel, Robert (English police-force founder) 96

pickpockets, pilfering 83–4, 131

plagues, pestilential 13, 38–42, 45, 64, 68,

78–9, 108, 153, 164, 171

plots 31, 61, 71, 95, 107, 112, 114, 147, 153

poisons 32, 124, 130

police, plenty of 80–1, 93, 96, 98–100, 102–3,

107, 111–12, 131, 137, 140, 142, 168

poo 49, 107, 121, 125, 132, 134, 153, 156, 166

poor people 38, 42, 46, 60, 96, 98, 100, 119–21,

129, 135, 140–1, 165–6, 168

posh people 42, 96, 110, 121, 143–4

Primrose Hill 18

prisons/prisoners 32–3, 43, 45–6, 84–5, 100,

116–17, 126, 130

Pudding Lane 65

rabbits 24, 58

rats 39, 45, 64, 66, 133, 171

ravens 23–5, 97

rebellions 98

revolts 42

Richard I (English king) 36

Richard II (English king) 45

Richard III (English king) 28–30

riots 14, 95, 105–6, 109, 115–16

Romans, rotten 15, 17–18

Roundheads (parliamentarians) 62

St Paul’s Cathedral 37, 65

Saxons, savage 18–19, 21

scarlet fever (dreadful disease) 166–7

schools, scary 34, 121, 125–6, 128, 143, 145,

147–50

servants, suffering 118, 135–40

sewage/sewers, sickening 34, 118, 126, 132, 139,

152, 155, 157, 171

Shipton, Old Mother (English seer) 61, 65

shoplifters 86–7

skeletons 126, 137, 164

skulls 43

slang 101

slums 96, 112, 168

smog, smothering 118

stabbings 30–54, 98, 110, 113, 115–16

starvation 38, 93, 129, 131

strikes 110–11, 145–7

Stuarts, slimy 59–65

surgeons 77, 137

taxes, tiresome 42–4, 153, 155

teachers, tired 81, 103, 114–15, 143, 145–50,

154, 160

teenagers 92, 135–40, 142–5, 167

Thames (river) 10, 15, 17, 94, 98, 107, 110, 129,

131–2, 152, 155–6

thieves 78–9, 100, 154

timelines, tedious 9–22, 35–8, 59–65, 105–8

toilets 46, 95, 126, 148, 157

emptying 35

exploding 125

falling in 34

flooding 152

175

overflowing 156

stinking 34

toshers in 132–3

torture 21, 34, 96

Tower of London 8, 10, 14, 23–34, 37–8, 43,

97–8, 122, 153

Tudors, terrible 59–65

Underground (tube) 107, 152, 159–64

vermin 168

Victoria (British queen) 28, 94, 108, 124, 152–3

Victorians, vile 28, 96, 101, 103, 130, 132, 143,

159, 166

Vikings, vicious 13–14

vinegar 78–9

Wallace, William (Scottish rebel) 37

Wembley Stadium 158

Westminster Abbey 11, 29, 43

Westminster Bridge 18

Westminster Palace 154–5

Whitehall 63

Whittington, Dick (London mayor) 45–6

William the Conqueror (English king) 14, 153

wine, drowning in 31

workhouses, woeful 135, 137–8

TERRY

DEARY

T

erry Deary was born at

a very early age, so long

ago he can’t remember. But

his mother, who was there at

the time, says he was born

in Sunderland, north-east

England, in 1946 – so it’s not

true that he writes all Horrible

Histories from memory. At

school he was a horrible child

only interested in playing

football and giving teachers a

hard time. His history lessons

were so boring and so badly

taught, that he learned to

loathe the subject. Horrible

Histories is his revenge.

MARTIN

BROWN

M

artin Brown was born

in Melbourne, on the

proper side of the world. Ever

since he can remember he’s

been drawing. His dad used

to bring back huge sheets of

paper from work and Martin

would fill them with doodles

and little figures. Then, quite

suddenly, with food and water,

he grew up, moved to the UK

and found work doing what

he’s always wanted to do:

drawing doodles and little

figures.

COLLECT THEM ALL!