digitalart
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Victorian Arthouse Cinema Stills Collection #1
Today we present some fascinating stills from an early example of arthouse cinema. The movie is called Witch House and was released in the underground theatre and cinema network in 1899. Photograph #9 is of the visionary director and producer Conrad Pitt who inspired a huge shift towards avant-garde narratives and techniques. The Victorian movies…
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The Rebel Artists Collection #2
Today’s collection is one of the the most precious in our archives and demonstrates the importance of documenting the fringes of any society so that no life is forgotten. Stencilling as an act of rebellion goes back hundreds of years and we are glad that it had found its way into Victorian life. The images…
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The Deathly One Man Boat Race
Today we take a look at the peculiar, if not disastrous, One Man Boat Race of 1864. A total of 57 people set off from the beaches of Blackpool in tiny one man boats headed for New York. They were only allowed to take one umbrella, a useless map, a flask of tea, tobacco, one…
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The Siblings of Saint Rupert Collection #1
On this day, precisely 150 years ago, a secret society known as The Siblings of Saint Rupert held its first ritual. Precious nothing was known about the siblings until an anonymous collector sent us these images which were rigorously analysed and verified by numerous experts. You will notice that on each of the photographs there’s…
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The ‘Birds’ of Victorian England Collection #1
At the Fellowship of the Victorian Underground Project, we have looked at various subcultures and are set to explore many more in the coming months. This particular subculture we share with you today is one of the most interesting and beautiful in our archives, yet is largely absent from the history books. The women in…
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Victorian Parents Using Their Children for Pranks Collection #1
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…
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Photographs of Interesting Victorians Collection #2
Today we bring you some more photographs of interesting Victorians straight from our archives. Unfortunately we have virtually no background information for photograph #2, #3, #4 and #7. However, we do believe the person in photograph #1 is likely to be Lady Malcolm Barlow of Ulverston. She was named after her father which was an…
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The Kafka Controversy
You may remember us mentioning ‘insect hatting’ in earlier posts; an unusual sport whereby gentlemen make a hat to the theme of insects. The makers then annually compete in a painstaking point scoring system to see who has the greatest hat. Today we aren’t concerned with insect hatting. Rather we want to share a somewhat…
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The Brighton Tattoo Club 1889 Collection #1
Even today, heavily tattooed people are commonly seen as hooligans and violent offenders. While this might be the case for some people, it isn’t true for the overwhelming majority of folks who simply appreciate the craft. Our research suggests that the people in the above images had no criminal history and, in fact, led relatively…
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