Charles Spurgeon’s Londoners
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Champion Pie Man – W.Thompson, Pie Maker of fifty years, outside his shop in the alley behind Greenwich Church
Charles Spurgeon the Younger, son of the Evangelist Charles Haddon Spurgeon, took over the South St Baptist Chapel in Greenwich in the eighteen-eighties and commissioned an unknown photographer to make lantern slides of the street traders of Greenwich that he could use in his preaching. We shall never know exactly how Spurgeon showed these pictures, taken between 1884 and 1887, but – perhaps inadvertently – they became responsible for the creation of one of the earliest series of documentary portraits of Londoners.
Hokey-Pokey Boy – August Bank Holiday, Stockwell St, Greenwich
Knife Grinder – posed cutting out a kettle bottom from a tin sheet
Rabbit Seller
Toy Seller – King William St outside Royal Naval College, Greenwich
Ginger Cakes Seller – King St, near Greenwich Park
Sweep
Shrimp Sellers – outside Greenwich Park
Crossing Sweeper (& News Boy) – Clarence St, Greenwich
Sherbert Seller – outside Greenwich Park
Third Class Milkman – carrying two four-gallon cans on a yoke, King William’s Walk, Greenwich
Second Class Milkman – with a hand cart and seventeen-gallon churn
Master Milkman – in his uniform, outside Royal Naval College, Greenwich
Chairmender – Corner of Prince Orange Lane, Greenwich
Kentish Herb Woman – Greenwich High Rd
Muffin Man
Fishmongers
Try Your Weight – outside Greenwich Park
Glazier
News Boy (& Crossing Sweeper) – delivering The Daily News at 7:30am near Greenwich Pier
Old Clo’ Man – it was a crime to dispose of infected clothing during the Smallpox epidemics of the eighteen-eighties and the Old Clo’ Man plied a risky trade.
Blind Fiddler – outside Crowders’ Music Hall Greenwich
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I adore these old photographs. I find the clothes and the scenes of the day really help me to imagine life in Victorian London. I write about my Victorian ancestors and images such as these, help me to add authenticity. I don’t possess many photographs of my ancestors other than one of my ballet dancing great great aunt and those who had prison mugshots taken, of which there were a few. Thank you GA for these helpful images of the more ordinary community of the time.
My great grandmother used to walk from her home in Bermondsey up to Elephant and Castle, to hear Charles, Haddon Spurgeon preach on Sundays, and to attend a midweek Bible Class.
Very moving photos and I do wish some of these trades would come back! You never really see people walking the street plying their simple trades anymore 😢
Interesting photo series. And it makes you realise that everything we get in our supermarkets today was available on the street in earlier times…
Love & Peace
ACHIM