Welcome to the Victorian Underground Project

As the weekend lands, we decided to share some sinister family photographs of Victorian children which made their way into our archives many years ago. The collector who kindly donated them told us that the photographs were taken around the Black Country circa the 1880s. We have managed to clean them up, but the various scribbles on the back are beyond salvaging which is always a crying shame.

What we do know is that many families got tired of the same old annual family snaps hanging around the home. It became a bit of a trend to pay a little extra to the photographer to spruce up one or two of them, hoping that future guests would be shocked by what they saw.

We have found a number of doctors’ notes which confirm that this prank had occasionally gone terribly wrong. The following is a brief excerpt from a doctor’s journal who worked in Dudley:

“[A patient] presented herself today in the most unladylike manner I have ever witnessed in my twenty-four years at the practice. She was convinced that [her neighbour’s children] were possessed of evil spirits and that [their parents] were involved in voodoo. She trembled and cried and begged me to order an exorcism. I told her this wasn’t within my remit and then had her forcefully admitted to the asylum for no less than two years. I have written to her husband to inform him the diagnosis is hysteria and the cure is immediate divorce.”

This might seem ludicrous by today’s standards but was considered reasonable by many Victorians. It is possible that for every one of these photographs is a devastating story just like this one.

Have a splendid weekend.

TVUP