ireland family | Hourglass era

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Victorian and Edwardian perspectives from popular literature

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This collection of articles and pictures, taken mainly from my bound volumes of Victorian and Edwardian magazines, provides a unique look at life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I have begun with Marie Corelli — one of the most popular writers of the period, but now almost for-
gotten. Her article, Swagger Religionists, is from The London Magazine of 1912. I have also fea-
tured some racist and eugenics literature from the 1920s-30s, in-
cluding a chapter of Britain’s Jewish Problem, by M G Murchin (a pseudonym), and British Brains — the Best, by Arnold White (1848-1925), an English journalist and rabid eugenicist. The Knowles family register is from the Bible of Charles Knowles, my father’s mother’s father, who was born in 1843. In 1866 he married Martha Ramshaw in Gravesend, where he was a Customs officer. See the family register notes for further information. — Alan Ireland, NZ

Plane rule

The printed word reigns supreme: An editorial conclave in 1898

Editorial conclave
This article, Making a Modern Newspaper, is by Alfred C. Harmsworth, editor of the Daily Mail, and is from The Harmsworth Magazine of 1898. Note the speaking tube to the nether regions. To read, click here.

Thrills and chills from
The Illustrated Police News

Engravings of Palestine in the 1870s, before the Zionist invasion

Dome of the Rock
Headdress
The engravings are from The Land and the Book (1881), by William M Thomson, a missionary for 45 years in Syria and Palestine. He describes Jerusalem as “the common property of the whole Christian world”, but admits that, “on approaching the Holy City, you enter upon an arena of great uncertainty and endless controversy. Nearly every author who has written about Jerusalem has some special theory in regard to questions Biblical, theological, topographical, or legendary, which he seeks to explain and defend. With the exception of the general outlines of the city, there is scarcely an identification which has not been disputed, and the discussions about them have not only been earnest but long, and often acrimonious.” To enter the gallery of engravings, click here.

The Palestinians were a peaceful, settled people, living in small towns and villages and tilling the land.

Will men ever fly? was the one question everyone asked in 1895

Flying machine
This photograph is from an article entitled Wings or No Wings, published by the “family, social and temperance magazine” Hand and Heart in 1895. Apparently, most people thought flight was impossible. Only balloons could take man into the air. To read the complete article, written by An Amateur Aeronaut, click here.

The defiance of defeated France, captured by Punch in 1870

France fights on, 1870

As France went down to defeat in 1870, in the Franco-Prussian war, Punch was there to record its pain and humiliation — and also to poke fun at its vainglorious emperor, Louis Napoleon. In the history of the world, has a famous name ever promised so much and delivered so little? Never again would France be an empire — or a monar-
chy, for that matter. The caption to the picture on the left quotes from the Marseillaise: “Aux armes, citoyens; formez vos bataillons!” evoking the spirit of the French Revolution of 1789, which led to the formation of the first French republic. But this time, it was the red flag of the Paris Commune, rather than the Tricolor, that would later fly above the city’s walls. To view cartoons from 1870, click here.

Imperial German Army in 1911: Its strength and its weakness

Trench warfare practice
German soldier
This article by Hilaire Belloc was published in the October 1911 edition of The London Magazine. Need-less to say, the trench warfare of World War I involved a little more than this.

For many years, “there has been growing in England — a country where, as yet, conscription remains un-
tried — a curious and almost superstitious reverence for the conscript army of the German Empire”, the editor writes. “English public opinion has come to regard it as all-powerful. In this article . . . Mr Belloc surveys the actual condition and the cicumstances of its organisation with the direct object of showing that this opini-on should be modified. He brings the best of qualifications to the task, since he has himself studied the work-ing of conscription at first-hand, serving in a conscript army — that of France. His conclusions, set forth here with an admirable clarity of style, will . . . be accorded the most serious consideration.” Click here.

The Seven Ages of the Typical Englishwoman, by M. Mostyn Bird

Child and doll
Whatever the faults and foibles of the modern Englishwoman may be, it is certain that the sparing of the rod of criticism is in no case responsible for the spoiling of the child. From infancy to old age we are now exposed to a running fire of comment and complaint. No one seems able to take us comfortably for granted, as in the good old days. The age is marked by a passion for putting woman under the microscope. We are dissected, analysed, experimented upon; and, curiously enough, instead of resenting, we invite the process. We seem not only willing but eager to spread all our little stock-in-trade on the laboratory-table, and to join with gusto in the work of classification. Click here to read the article.

M. Mostyn Bird is most famous for The Errand of Mercy: A History of Ambulance Work Upon the Battlefield, 1913.

The Good Years: From 1900 to the First World War

The New Century
These were the years “after plumbing and before taxes”, the blurb to Walter Lord’s book says. “A time of unparalleled optimism when America, with the surge of new prosperity, began to compete with Europe.” The mood of the times was captured by a cartoon in the Houston Post, which shows “1900″ arriving via that clever novelty — the car.