Wonderful London
It is my pleasure to publish these dignified and characterful portraits of Londoners, believed to be by photographer Donald McLeish (1879-1950), selected from the three volumes of Wonderful London edited by St John Adcock and produced by The Fleetway House in the nineteen-twenties.
Telescope Man on Westminster Bridge
Old woman who inhabited the alleys off Fleet St
Breton Onion Seller
Costermonger and child
Cats’ Meat Man
Knife Grinder
Charwoman
Islington Window Cleaner
Flower Seller
Concertina Player
Hurdy-Gurdy Man
Gramophone Man
Escapologist
Wandering Harpist
Street Sweeper
Scavenger
District Messenger
Telephone Messenger
Railway Fireman
Railway Engine Driver
Carman
Railway Porter
Gold Beaters
Gas Fitters
Chimney Sweep
Telephone Cable Man
Photographs courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
You might also like to take a look at
John Thomson’s Street Life in London
William Nicholson’s London Types
Just another thank you for your daily london of the past..living in Cyprus makes it even more exciting each day..
A lovely glimpse of their world all manual stuff a few of these trades linger on. Poet John
Ok, how many ‘phone men fell off the wire when stringing up the phone lines? and now a song is stuck in my head….https://youtu.be/3lKCUuyojDI
Greetings from Boston,
GA, thanks for the wonderful individual portraits by Donald McLeish of these ordinary Londoners back in the day. Even the “street sweeper” wears a collar and tie. On the whole they seem pretty accepting of their lot…
Our very own August Sander! Wonderful portraits.
Your headline says it all……”Wonderful London”. In theory each of these photos could comprise an individual post with boundless stories about long-ago professions. This array of photos gives us a glimpse of reality and humanity — and true grit.
Thank you for your dedicated chronicles of wonderful London.
Long may she wave. And you, sir.
Happy Holidays.
Great photos of a way of life and occupations long gone. Many look very posed but it hardly matters – the limitations of photography probably required a static, posed subject.
One or two thoughts:
How old is the old woman (second photo). It looks as though she has lost her teeth which would make her look older but she could be in her 50s – relatively old in those times.
I’ve always wondered how it could be profitable to bring onions across the Channel to sell in London. Did they bring huge quantities and perhaps use the money to but things in London to sell in Brittany. There had to be more to it than selling a few ropes of onions.
Are the escapologist and Peter Cook related?
I do like the cats’ meat man. I used his image from the interesting work at the Bishopsgate Institute
and included it in The Great Cat and Dog Massacre. In particular it’s one of the only images here that includes a cat!
Every morning I look forward to Spitalfields Life, but “Wonderful London”? The folks caught by the camera in an instant of their lives, who smile at the camera’s novelty and the sudden pleasure of being not only noticed but, somehow important enough to be noticed, are, to my eye, living a marginal, in some cases a barely marginal life—take a moment to look carefully at the face of the Wandering Harpist, the upturned hat of the Hurdy Gordy Man—pause for a while and let the Gramaphone Man’s stare settle in on you; imagine the weight of the Knife Grinder’s cart…” Wonderful London?” I don’t think so. Those dirty clothes—the weight of the clothes of the old woman with the steaming cup—of tea?—her world on her back and in the cloth bag next to her. A hard, a brutal social, economic world caught in each portrait. The sadness of the Concertina Man image is heartbreaking.
Wonderful
Very nice!
Beautiful portraits. Thanks for posting them
These are the Best Pictures of men and ladies working on there jobs! I’d Love to see more. Thank You!!
Like the Lady selling flowers in picture 9 my Great Grandmother Alice Berry was known as hawker but she sold flowers In London Streets,to keep her and Daugher also called Alice in the work house in Bethnal Green 1800s. She was often fined for doing so,so the records of the time show, no husband no home no money,but they both survived, my Grandmother married and had 6 children, and became a lady Publican in Bethnal Green, no mean feat at the time.