digitalart
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Victorian Haute Cuisine Collection #1
Today we take a look at Victorian fine dining. Photograph #1 is of the head chef, Mick Rathbone. Mr Rathbone (who slapped anyone saying French words in his kitchen including French people) worked at The Pig’s Ear in Kensington. He served a different set meal every night using the rarest ingredients available at the time.…
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The Victorian Punk Band Collection #1
While most people believe that punk rock began with The Sex Pistols, The Ramones or even T Rex for that matter, the earliest example we can find is The Rag N’ Bone Men formed in the north east of England in the 1880s. This band was regularly met with street protests as they travelled around…
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Cosmetic Surgery in the Victorian Era Collection #1
While cosmetic surgery was in its infancy during the Victorian era, back alley cosmetic surgery was about to wheeze its dying breath. Fortunately we have extensive documentation of this little known practice in our archives. This particular collection requires minor explanation. Photograph #1 is of Ms Mavis Barker of York who performed operations on a…
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Easter Celebrations at the Victorian Underground
At the Victorian Underground Project, we try to provide as much background information on our archival documents as we can. However, today we have requested an Easter holiday. If you look closely you will be able to see that we haven’t cleaned up the first three photographs purely because we believe they look better in…
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The Victorian Slop House Collection #1
This is the first in a series of images that celebrate the infamous Victorian slop house. These shoestring eateries were so hideous that they are rarely featured in the newspapers of the day except for mentioning mass outbreaks of food poisoning. Only the seriously hungry would dare to visit these places, unaware that they were…
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Psychedelic Art in Victorian England Collection #1
Many people still believe that psychedelia grew out of various counterculture movements of the 1960s. Today we hope to correct this misconception once and for all. We know that psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin and DMT have been used for thousands of years all over the world. Here in England, magic mushrooms grow in the…
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The Gentlemen’s Moth Appreciation Society of England Collection #1
The Gentlemen’s Moth Appreciation Society of England was founded in 1768. It was the governing body of all 57 registered moth societies across the country until its abrupt disbanding in 1900. This society converged around a shared, often lifelong love of the moth. While many of us are terrified by the mere mention of this…
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A Fortune Teller and Her Apprentice
These exquisite images depict an often ignored and misunderstood community of travellers who occassionally passed through Victorian England during the earlier part of the 19th century. Photograph #1 is of Ravenna Genovese, an Italian fortune teller who was, according to local folklore, 150 years old. More impressive than this is that she never once charged…
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Beachside Collection #1
Today’s collection was gratefully received from an anonymous collector who claims to be a relative of the photographer. We have good reason to believe that the location of these photographs was Skegness around 1890. The only clue we have for this is those background buildings in photograph #5 which matches other photographs of Skegness around…
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Photographs of Interesting Victorians Collection #1
These striking photographs were submitted to the project only recently and were received in almost immaculate condition. Unfortunately the collector didn’t have much additional information on the photographers, subjects or locations. Our own research suggests that photograph #1 is likely to be a portrait of Mavis Cragg. She is referenced several times in a doctor’s…
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