The Diary of Nathaniel Bryceson (Part 7)

[steve_gus]

It does make sense for "plugs" to be manhole covers, though if they were "up" how could this keep the "streets cleansed" as Nat describes?

A wild guess here, but perhaps it enabled the 'exhaust' of horses to be more easily swep away, donw the 'plug'. It must have been pretty messy on the streets then.

The BBC program on the london sewer system tied Bazelgette and Snow together as solving the London cholera problems.

Added - looking up 'plug' in an online dictionary states its also a name for a fire hydrant. So, next guess is its a tap or standpipe, which would allow streets to be washed down

Added 2 - Company i worked for at the time charged people lots of money for software upgrades to millenium proof things that didnt have a problem - i think we were not alone in making money from the hype. No planes crashed, no worlds ended, whole thing was way overplayed

[Paul Caswell]

...

Also as one of the people who spent several years going through programs and fixing date-related code in the late 90s, I can assure you that the millenium bug wasn't a myth.  It was just (mostly) well enough planned for in advance to prevent any major crises on the day.  But you could argue that the publicity that the whole issue got, helped to make sure that companies took it seriously, so in that respect it was no bad thing.  But yeah, this is way off-topic

I was there too. Decades old cash tills!!!!

Paul

[Aniseed]

Today's entry is interesting, being about the suicide of the Swiss Giantess, which was previously alluded to. Nat estimates her height at 6'3, which is hardly gigantic...I think it must go to show just how small most people were back then. I have a short booklet written by my great great grandfather, giving the height of him and his brothers, and they were all around 5'2.

With people's diets being so poor, I suppose they didn't have the right nutrients to grow very tall. I wonder what height rich people were? Although from what I've seen, rich people didn't seem to eat any vegetables, so I imagine they were as unhealthy as poor people, but in a different way. Perhaps the difference was more between town and country, with country people having easy access to milk and veg. Although one of my 3x great grandfathers was a Londonder and also kept cows, and was a milkman, so maybe that's not right either.

[Daisy Loo]

Interesting points

I read somewhere that when young boys signed up to the Forces, their weight/height/build was considerably different, to when they were discharged.  Again, perhaps due to diet?  But isn't height a genetic thing though?
I had heard (perhaps an old wives tale...but time will tell!) that when a child is 2 years old, if you double their height, this is roughly the height to which they will grow.  If this is true, my daughter will be around 5'8", which considering her father is over 6' isn't too surprising.

[steve_gus]

I was going to make a similar comment on height, in that people were shorter then. Go into any old house, and the low celings are evident - short people didnt need high celings.

on the other hand, any historians 200 years in the future visiting the villa I stayed at in Florida last month, with high (compared to UK) celings will expect 21st century Americans to be 8ft tall

The midwife of my eldest son said he would be tall, "I can tell from his feet". He reached 6ft, which is tall in my book @ 5ft 9.

[Steven Bryceson]

I went to visit a colleague today who told me to get off at the Glenwood Gardens stop near Gants Hill. This rang a bell and I realised it was the road in which Henry Bryceson (NB's youngest son and my 2x great grandfather) died in 1950. For some reason I had not been to see the house before but did so today! All this was on top of the wonderful memorial walk yesterday to Harrow on the Hill!

[Siamese Girl]

The poor Swiss Giantess again. I've actually done a bit of research on the sad lives of freak humans and animals who were exhibited in the C18 & C19th - centering on the Wonderful Learned Pig - it was bad enough exhibiting animals but the humans were treated in the same awful way as possessions of the showman.

I've had a look at the newspapers the Swiss Giantess first appears in 1824 Catherine Boehner was in England, she was 6' 7" weighed 370lbs aged 19 and 'her teeth are among the finest we ever beheld' She didn't speak English but her manner was 'gay and pleasing'. She went on exhibition in Piccadilly wearing Swiss national costume, and then appears to have gone of around the country on show.
In 1826 she was on exhibit in Soho Square 'Admittance one shilling each person - children half price' Then she disappears from the newspaper reports.
The first record of Nat's Swiss giantess is on October 12 with the report of her suicide. Interestingly it says that she had lives in 'first rate style' but 'for the last three or four years she had gone from bad to worse' and ended up begging for a penny as she had not eaten for the past 24 hours. 'She then said she was going over Waterloo Bridge, and that she had a great mind to stop there and make a "hole in the water"' She was aged 51.

I don’t know if the two are the same or not. Their ages don't match, but if Eliza Lawrence had lived in some style from the proceedings of being  a second Swiss Giantess there are no newspaper advertisements for her. In another newspaper report a witness said that in her younger days 'she was the constant companion of the Marquis of ----- and other noblemen and gentlemen' - perhaps they are one and the same and she went under several names?

Carole
 
Update - there was reported to be a "fake" Swiss Giantess in the 1820s. There were any number of Learned Pigs travelling the country, so there were probably several Swiss giantesses as well.

[Mongibello]

I am not sure if anyone found George Lea in the 1851 Census but I think this is him.
HO107/1480/124/p69 Little Queen St (Now Old Queen St)
George Lea H 31 Lighterman b St Pancras
Anna M Lea W 26   b Holborn
But wher are th children you ask    The two eldest are here with Grandpa:-
HO107/1498/696/p10
William W Dell H Wid 55 Fund Holder b Enfield
Clara Lea  G'dau 7
Harriet Lea  G'dau 5
The other two MAY have been in Richmond & Hadley (near Barnet where Lydia Lea lived.

[Mongibello]

Sorry about that....try this