Author: Louisa Cornell

The Lives and Deaths of London’s Climbing Boys

Louisa Cornell

Andrea and I decided early on in writing our third series together that we wanted to bring the world of London’s darker side to life for our readers. To do so we had to delve into the very real and horrifying world of London’s East End where poverty, violence, and despair were the bread and butter of the residents of Seven Dials, St. Giles, and White Chapel – the most notorious of the slum areas known as The Rookeries.

The heroes of Bow Street’s Most Wanted – The Four Horsemen are hard men, made so by their cruel and desperate childhoods. As a result they tend to have neither sympathy nor soft spots for no one save perhaps children, children whose circumstances were as desperate as their own had once been. Some of the most used, abused, and desperate of children in this era were those who were apprenticed, sold, or sometimes kidnapped into the service of London’s chimney sweeps.

From the late 16th to the 19th century, chimney cleaning was a vital yet hazardous occupation in Britain. With the increased use of coal as a primary fuel source and the evolution of chimney design to include narrower, more intricate flues, adult sweeps were unable to access certain parts of the chimney for cleaning. Children, some as young as four, were employed to navigate the narrow, winding flues of chimneys, scraping away soot and creosote to prevent fires and maintain airflow.

Small boys, sometimes orphans or boys essentially sold by impoverished families, were employed as climbing boys to clean these inaccessible areas. If they were lucky they were apprenticed to master sweeps who were paid by the parish to teach them the trade. These apprentices tended to be treated better than the orphans or other boys. Climbing girls were also employed, although they were less common.

Very often those that had been sold by their parents had even signed papers securing the master sweeps status as their legal guardians, meaning these young children were tied to their master and their profession until adulthood with no route to escape, except death.

In addition to the dangers of cruel and uncaring masters, the job had a number of inherent risks that came with it. Climbing boys faced numerous perils, including getting stuck in narrow flues, suffocating on soot, suffering burns from hot or even burning chimneys, and falling. Some would have to buff it or climb naked to fit into the tight spaces. Exposure to soot and the physically demanding nature of the job led to a range of health issues, including respiratory problems, eye inflammation, skin sores, deformities, and stunted growth, not to mention burns.

A particularly deadly consequence was chimney sweeps’ carcinoma, or “soot wart,” an aggressive form of scrotal cancer caused by irritation from the carcinogenic substances in coal soot. This was the first occupational cancer ever to be identified, according to The Institute of Cancer Research.

There were variations between buildings, but a standard flue would narrow to around 9 by 9 inches. With such a small amount of movement afforded in such a small space, many of the climbing boys would have to inch their way up using only knees and elbows to force themselves forward.

Many of the chimneys would still be very hot from a fire and some might still be on fire. The skin of the boys would be left stripped and raw from the friction whilst a less dexterous child could possibly have found themselves completely stuck.

The position of a child jammed in a chimney would have often resulted in their knees being locked under their chins with no room to unlock themselves from this contorted position. Some would find themselves stranded for hours whilst the lucky ones could be helped out with a rope. Those less fortunate would simply suffocate and die in the chimney forcing others to remove the bricks in order to dislodge the body. The verdict given by the coroner after the loss of a young life in this fashion was accidental death.

Several acts of Parliament were passed to regulate the trade and restrict child labor in chimney sweeping, starting with the Chimney Sweepers Act of 1788.

In 1788, the Chimney Sweepers Act was enacted to regulate the trade by setting a minimum apprenticeship age of eight and limiting the number of apprentices per master. However, due to inadequate enforcement, these regulations had little impact. Further legislative attempts, including acts in 1834 and 1840, also failed to bring significant change.

The practice was finally outlawed in England in 1875 with the passage of the Chimney Sweepers Act, which was a result of sustained efforts by reformers and sparked by the tragic death of 11-year-old George Brewster, the last recorded fatality of a climbing boy. Brewster became trapped while cleaning a flue at the County Pauper Lunatic Asylum in Fulbourn near Cambridge and did not survive the ordeal. His death spurred renewed public outcry, prompting Lord Shaftesbury to champion the cause. This advocacy culminated in the Chimney Sweepers Act of 1875, which mandated the registration of chimney sweeps and effectively prohibited the employment of children in chimney cleaning. This legislation marked a significant advancement in child labor laws in Britain.

In recognition of the sacrifices made by these young workers, a blue plaque was unveiled on 11 February 2025, commemorating George Brewster’s life and his role in ending the use of child chimney sweeps in England. He is the youngest British person honored with an official blue plaque.

EXCERPT FROM: FAM – LORD OF HUNGER

Their horses began to tire after a few miles. Fam guided Bess into a slow trot as they crossed into the far edges of Mayfair. He continued to check on the child whose breaths had grown shallow and less frequent. The smell of coal and the filthy face led him to believe this limp bag of bones and rags had been used as a climbing boy by some soon-to-be-dead chimney sweep. His blood heated at the thought of what he’d do to the fiend who had used this boy and dumped him like an old stray dog.

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The Horrors of Baby Farming in Nineteenth Century England

Louisa Cornell

One question with which I am certain all authors are familiar is “How do you come up with story ideas?” Those of us who write receive this question from both readers and fellow writers. I will confess I never know when or where a story idea is going to leap out at me. Ideas can come from all sorts of places and some of those places are those I stumble across when I least expect it.

However, when one writes historical romance set in a specific era, like the Regency and early Victorian eras, research is certain to yield some fascinating and sometimes horrifying places from which to derive the basis of a story or even an entire series. Such was the case when Andrea K. Stein and I began to consider ideas for our third series together set in our own version of the Regency world.

Our first series – Steam, Lies, and Forbidden Desires came from the very real practice of pornographers in the era splitting a novel into four sections and selling each section as a separate novel.

 

 

Our second series – Five Pearls for the Earl came from a trip we took with Number One London Tours during which we visited Harewood House and a docent made a casual remark about why an earl’s coronet has five pearls.

 

Our current series – Bow Street’s Most Wanted – The Four Horsemen derived its root premise from a book I read in researching a class I taught on mental illness in the nineteenth century. Amelia Dyer Angel Maker: The Woman Who Murdered Babies for Money by Allison Rattle and Allison Vale. A fascinating read, but not for the faint of heart. Andrea and I considered what sort of children might survive such a horrific upbringing and what sort of men might they become. Thus, The Four Horsemen was born.

So what precisely was a baby farm?

In England in the 19th century unwed mothers and their infants were considered an affront to morality. They were spurned and ostracized both by the public and by relief and charitable institutions. For example in 1836 Muller’s Orphan Asylum in Bristol refused illegitimate children; they accepted only lawfully begotten orphans. The thought was that children conceived in sin would inherit their parents’ lack of moral character and would be a bad influence on legitimate children. Some orphanages accepted children no matter the circumstances of their birth. Others did not.

Young women who became pregnant out of wedlock were forced to leave home in disgrace and move somewhere they were not known. They were often scorned and abandoned by family and left with no resources. If they named the father of their child the parish would demand he pay for the support of the child, but those laws were difficult to enforce and little effort was made to do so.

There were few employment opportunities for single women in this era and the moment their pregnancy became noticeable they were dismissed. Once they gave birth their position became even less tenable as they had no one to tend their child whilst they worked. Thus, they resorted to baby farmers.

Baby farmers, the majority of whom were women, placed ads in newspapers that catered to working class women.

The ads look innocent enough. However, you will notice names are often not listed. Nor are actual specific addresses. No references are given nor offered. One ad suggested a fee of 15 shillings a week to keep an infant or a flat fee of 12 pounds to adopt. The weekly fee was not enough to keep a child, especially a sickly child, and for 12 pounds it was expected the mother would neither see her child again nor ask any questions. Infants under two months were the least likely to survive and the cheapest to bury.

Baby farmers were interested in only one thing. How much money could they squeeze out of the mother and/or father and for how long. A child’s life might hang on how long a mother might be strung along to keep paying. A single woman might not have 12 pounds, but she might be able to secure that amount from the father if he thought the child would disappear forever.

The majority of baby farmers solicited as many infants under the age of two months as they could. These children were the ones whose deaths would appear to be more natural. They would adopt many of these infants for the one time set fee and get rid of them at once. Those they kept were kept drugged on laudanum, paregoric, and other poisons. They were often given milk mixed with lime. The costs of burial was avoided by wrapping the infants’ naked bodies in newspapers and dumping them in dung heaps, deserted areas, or in the Thames.

 

 

Older children whose mothers did their best to pay the weekly fee and demanded to visit their children died longer, more torturous deaths. They died from slow starvation, being fed the bare minimum to keep them alive and lingering. Mothers worked day and night to support these children only to watch them waste away in the care of these supposed nurturing women.

Until 1872 there were no laws to govern baby farmers.

There were even some women who handed their children over to these baby farmers knowing full well that their child’s fate would be death. Unable to murder their own child they allowed the baby farmer to do so. A Mrs. Winsor was eventually arrested for the murder of a four month old infant whose body was found wrapped in newspaper on the side of the road in Torquay and traced back to her. She ran a lucrative business boarding infants for a few shillings a week or putting them away for a flat fee of 3 to 5 pounds. She was sent to prison for the crime.

A Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was not founded until 1889. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded in 1824, 65 years before this.

The premise for our series is the age old author’s question, What if? What if four boys managed to survive the horrors of being raised on a baby farm? What sort of men would they become and what sort of lives would they lead?

 

 

 

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Louisa Cornell

 

As the Christmas celebrations slow down, Scots gear up for Hogmanay, the celebration of New Year’s Eve. A Scots word of uncertain heritage, Hogmanay (pronounced, roughly, HUG-ma-nay) might come from ancient Greek (“holy month”), French (“the new year”), or Gaelic, or Norse, or… Whatever etymological theory you subscribe to, the holiday itself is all Scottish! The age-old traditions associated with Hogmanay have been recorded at least since the 16th century and hold firm to this day.

The earliest modern era accounts record it as a Scottish custom as noted by Chamber’s 1856 Book of Days :

“There was in Scotland a first footing independent of the hot pint. It was a time for some youthful friend of the family to steal to the door, in the hope of meeting there the young maiden of his fancy, and obtaining the privilege of a kiss, as her first-foot. Great was the disappointment on his part, and great the joking among the family, if through accident or plan, some half-withered aunt or ancient grand-dame came to receive him instead of the blooming Jenny.”

The part of the ritual that is far older than that, which makes it one of the oldest and most intriguing traditions for a New Year’s Eve in Scotland is the tradition of the First Footer. “The First Footer” is a Scottish New Year’s tradition where the first person to cross the threshold after midnight on New Year’s Eve is considered to bring luck for the new year. The ideal “first footer” was and remains a tall, dark-haired man. This preference for dark hair is believed to stem from the days of Viking invasions when a blonde stranger would be seen as a threat. According to tradition, the first footer should never be a woman, why has been lost to the mists of time.

The first footer usually brings gifts like a lump of coal  or some peat (representing warmth), salt (representing health), shortbread (a traditional Scottish biscuit) or black bun (representing flavor,) and a dram of whisky (representing good cheer).

Black bun is a type of rich fruit cake completely covered with pastry. It was originally eaten on Twelfth Night in Scotland but is now more associated with Hogmanay. Here is a recipe should you want to add Black Bun to your New Year’s Eve traditions!

Auntie Lesley’s Black Bun Recipe

Ingredients

Pastry Case

• 110 grams butter
• 220 grams plain flour
• Pinch of salt
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• Cold water
• 1 egg, beaten

Filling

• 170g plain flour
• One level teaspoon ground allspice
• ½ level teaspoon each of ground ginger, ground cinnamon,30 grams chopped mixed peel
• ½ level teaspoon baking powder
• ½ level teaspoon cream of tartare
• Pinch of salt
• Soaked fruit mixture: 450 grams seedless raisins, 450 grams currants, 60 grams chopped almonds, one tablespoon brandy – mixed together and left to soak overnight
• 110 grams soft brown sugar
• 30 grams chopped mixed peel
• Generous pinch of black pepper
• One large egg (beaten)
• Milk to moisten (approx ¼ pint)

Method

1. Grease a loaf tin. Rub butter into flour, salt and baking powder, mixing in cold water to make a stiff dough.
2. Roll out pastry and cut into five pieces, using bottom, top and sides of the tin as a rough guide.
3. Press the bottom and four side pieces of pastry into the tin, pressing overlaps to seal the pastry shell.
4. Sift flour and spices, baking powder, cream of tartare and salt. Bind together with soaked fruit mixture and sugar, mixed peel, pepper, egg and milk.
5. Pack filling into the pastry-lined tin and add pastry lid, pinching edges and using egg to seal well. Lightly prick surface with a fork and make four holes in the bottom layer of pastry using a skewer. Depress the centre slightly (pastry lid will rise as it cooks).
6. Brush top of pastry case with beaten egg to glaze.
7. Bake in pre-heated oven at 325OF/160OC/Gas Mark 3 for 2½ to 3 hours, until a skewer comes out clean.

As you can see, people in Scotland knew how to celebrate the New Year in grand style as well!

As for today, I will confess I would love to celebrate Hogmanay at least once in Scotland from the First Footer to the Black Bun to the singing of Auld Lang Syne. Until then, Kristine, Victoria, and I wish each and every one of you a very Happy New Year and may all your first footers be dark-haired and bring you much good luck!

AULD LANG SYNE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lht2mRd2kQ

 

 It is that time of year once more! We at Number One London are inordinately fond of Christmas. We kick off the month of December with a Christmas favorite!

CHRISTMAS EDITION

I write Regency historical romance because I fell in love with the era at the age of nine, and my love has only grown stronger since. I love the manners, the rules of proper conduct, the elegant clothes (especially men in breeches and boots,) travel in carriages and on horseback, the stately homes, and every aspect of life in this unique period.

Be that as it may, I have come to realize there are some aspects of Regency life, even in the most elite portions of society, that would not be amiss in the red plastic cup, mud-bogging, tobacco spitting locale in which I live today. Directions to my house do include the words “Turn off the paved road.”

Lest you think I use the term “redneck” as a pejorative, I spent a large portion of my childhood living in mobile homes in the South. My mother’s family were Native American sharecroppers. My father’s family were Pennsylvania coal miners. I know who and what I am. Jeff Foxworthy, the leading expert on the redneck lifestyle, defines it as “a glorious lack of sophistication.” For the purposes of this essay, and in my semi-expert opinion, that is the definition we will use.

There are examples of redneck behavior to be found in every race, religion, socio-economic group, and country in the world. I now realize the same is true of every historical era. Rednecks have been with us forever. Even during that most gracious and elegant of times—The Regency.

Prove it, you say? I give you a series of Regency Christmas traditions any self-respecting redneck would be happy to call his or her own.

Snapdragon

Under the heading of a Regency version of “Hey y’all, watch this!” comes the Christmas game of Snapdragon. Raisins and nuts were soaked in brandy in a large shallow bowl. The lights were put out, and the brandy lit. People had to try and grasp a raisin or nut and eat it without burning themselves. The winner was the person who managed to capture and eat the most. I think you’d have to soak me in brandy to get me to try it!

Bullet Pudding

Another Regency era Christmas game with a redneck flair is bullet pudding. One must have a large pewter dish piled high with flour pushed to a peak at the top. A single bullet is placed at the crest of the “pudding.” Players take turns cutting a slice of the “pudding” with a knife. The person who is slicing the “pudding” when the bullet falls must then put their hands behind their back and poke about in the pile of flour with their nose and chin to find the bullet. Once they find it, they must retrieve it with their mouth. All the while trying desperately not to join their companions in laughter as this will result in flour being inhaled into the mouth and nose. Regardless, the bullet retriever ends up with flour all over his face. Any game played with live ammunition and the promise of someone ending up covered in a mess would be as welcome at a Redneck Christmas as it was at Regency Christmases.

Wassailing!

There were no Christmas carolers in Regency England. However, wassail groups would go from house to house singing begging songs in the hope of receiving food, drink, and money. Wassail was a mixture of beer, wine, and brandy and was usually served to the singers at each house. Every house. A great many houses before the night was done. I think I’ve seen groups like this around my neighborhood at Christmas-time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Very few houses had our idea of Christmas trees during the Regency. Such decorated Christmas trees were made popular in England by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in the middle of the 19th century. However, trees were not left out of the Regency holidays. On Epiphany Eve, men would gather round a fruit tree, usually in an orchard, with cider and guns. In an ancient ceremony, they would drink to the tree and fire the guns to drive away evil spirits and promote the vigor of the trees. Horn-blowing was an alternative to firing guns. (Sounds like a Regency tail-gating party to me!)

The Yule Log

Speaking of trees, what could be more fun than a large group of men sent out into the woods to find the largest log possible to burn in the Christmas fireplace? The yule log had to be large enough to burn through the entire twelve days of Christmas. In fact, it had to be large enough to burn through to Twelfth Night and leave enough to be used to light next year’s log. Between the mine is bigger than your’s aspects of the hunt for the yule log and the opportunity to show off one’s strength in helping to drag the log home, this Regency Christmas tradition is rife with redneck possibilities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mistletoe and Kisses

Round out your Regency Christmas outdoor adventures with shooting mistletoe out of the trees (a method used by many Regency bucks) and hanging it about the house in every doorway and dark corner, a Regency version of spin-the-bottle if ever I’ve heard one.

 

A FLAMING DESSERT

Oh, and don’t forget a Christmas dessert for which many families put the ingredients on layaway. K-Mart did not invent the concept. The original Christmas clubs were for families who could not afford to pay for the ingredients for their Christmas pudding all at once. Wives in less affluent households deposited their pennies with their local shopkeepers in order to have the money to purchase those luxury food items necessary for a proper Christmas pudding. And after all of that, said dessert was brought to the table amidst great pomp and ceremony and… set on fire. Anyone who doesn’t believe your average redneck would shout “Hell, yeah!” at the idea of a flaming Christmas dessert has never been to a Christmas barbecue in the South.

At the end of Christmas Day, men and women of every age, no matter how strict the rules of society, tend to celebrate this joyous holiday with a bit more exuberance than decorum prescribes. Even Regency ladies and gentlemen, at least during Christmastide, might show “a glorious lack of sophistication.” So should we all!

STEP ONE: BODY DISPOSAL – PART TWO

Louisa Cornell

This post is a continuation of the previous post on body disposal in Regency England, For perspective one might want to read through Part One of this series again.

Burial Disposal

Murderers likely buried their victims during the Regency for some of the same reasons murderers bury their victims today. Some did so out of a need to always know where the body was. Some did so out of expediency. It might have been the quickest method to hand at the time. Some did so in order to prevent a body from ever being found. During the Regency there were advantages to burial, especially for those who lived in rural areas. Most people were buried in cemeteries during the Regency. However, it was not uncommon for bodies to be buried on family farms or estates. Poor families buried their dead where they could. A body discovered and dug up in a wooded area, a field or other lonely place might simply be reburied unless the person discovering it thought the body was there as a result of murder.

The degree to which burial destroyed evidence varied. England’s colder weather tended to preserve bodies in the ground save for in the summer months. A laborer, or one who did a great deal of manual labor, was more likely to choose burial as digging was an activity with which they were familiar and at which they were good. Bodies were buried in a variety of spots in the cities. A cemetery that contained open mass graves was the perfect place to dispose of a murder victim so long as those who worked in association with these graves didn’t check too carefully. As horrible as it may sound bodies were found buried beneath the floors of houses and businesses. They were buried in cellars as well. One must remember, especially in cities where people lived in close proximity the smell of a decaying body simply added to the regular stench.

Some things to remember about burying a murder victim during the Regency:

(1) There were no cadaver dogs during the Regency. However, one would be foolish to assume dogs could not find a body. As early as the 16^th century dogs were used to track fugitives, enemies, and even runaway wives.

(2) Lime was used in cemeteries in mass graves to speed the decomposition process and to hide the odor. Some murderers in Regency England used lime for pretty much the same reason. However, there were no guarantees and lime took time to get the job done.

(3) Burial did destroy some evidence, but not all. And there were men who could examine the soil from a burial site and match it to the clothes and shoes worn by the murderer.

(4) Burial at a crossroads was less likely to attract attention to the grave. Suicides were not allowed to be buried in cemeteries until the Burial of Suicides Act of 1823.

(5) There were other chemicals available to murderers to aid in the destruction of a body. These were usually used by more educated murderers with the knowledge and the access, although people in trades where lye and other such chemicals were used also had access and understanding. Most of the time these chemicals were used in conjunction with burial as few people had somewhere to store a body long enough for it to be destroyed by chemicals.

 

A few case studies of burial of a body during the Regency era

 

1827 — In 1827 in Polstead, Suffolk Maria Martin was supposed to meet William Corder at a local landmark, the Red Barn, so the two might run off to Ipswich be married. Her family became concerned even after they received letters from her saying all was well. A year later, Maria’s stepmother finally persuaded local authorities that the dreams she’d been having of Maria’s murder had to be true. She’d dreamed off and on all year that Corder had murdered Maria and buried her in the Red Barn. Authorities dug up the floor of the barn and found Maria’s body, identified by some of the clothes she’d last been seen wearing. She’d been shot and buried so deeply no on suspected until her stepmother’s persistence paid off. Corder was tracked down in London, where he had actually married, and returned to Bury St. Edmunds for trial. Unfortunately, he’d kept the red neckerchief Maria was wearing when she went off to meet him. He’d removed it from her dead body before he’d buried her. He was tried and hanged in Bury St. Edmunds in 1828. If one goes to all the trouble of burying a victim one might want to bury all of the victim’s clothing with them.

 

1849 — This particular burial was part of a case sensationalized by the press and the murder ballad writers as The Bermondsey Horror. On 17 August, 1849 two men investigating a missing person, one Patrick O’Connor, went into the home of the missing man’s friends, Frederick and Maria Manning, where O’Connor was supposed to have had dinner on the last night he was seen alive. The couple were not at home, but in inspecting the premises, the investigators noticed a damp spot in the kitchen floor where it appeared flagstones and mortar had recently been replaced. They pulled up the flagstones, dug up the dirt beneath them, and came upon a man’s toe. Once they uncovered the entire body they discovered a middle-aged man, naked, face down, with his legs drawn up behind him and tied with a piece of clothesline. There was also a bloody dress in the grave. Lime had been tossed in over the body, and the face was partially decomposed, but they were able to identify the man by his false teeth. These investigators had learned a bit about investigating a murder as they left the body there and secured the scene. They searched the house and removed items that belonged to the victim. The next day the body was removed from the grave, washed, and the post-mortem was performed on the kitchen table. The victim had been shot and beaten about the head. The Mannings were tracked down, tried, and hanged together. (We will be looking at this case again in other lessons.) Burial of one’s victim in one’s own home can work, but not if one’s home was the last place the victim is rumored to have visited. And leaving one’s own clothing and the victim’s identifiable false teeth in the grave is likely not a good idea either.

Check Back for Part Three of this series soon !