Contents of a Middle-Class Preston Household, 1859

 

 

From the Preston Chronicle, February 26th, 1859.

 



Night Soil for Sale in Preston

 

 

From the Preston Chronicle, Saturday, February 26th, 1859

 

The address of Henry Ashcroft, Pottery Hill, was very close to the Wharf where this valuable manure of night soil* and street sweepings** was lying.  Unless it was well covered, the stench must have been appalling.

 

 

*Human excrement, collected by the 'night soil' cart from privies.

 

**Horse and other animal excrement.



J Franks - Preston Optician and Lens Grinder

 

 

From the Preston Chronicle, Saturday, July 11th, 1846



Pauper in Court for Giving Rations to Her Sister

From the Preston Pilot, March 5th, 1842.

This article took my breath away, it reads like an episode from a Dickens novel.

The Perils of Third Class Travel

 

From the Preston Chronicle, August 17th, 1844.

 



A "Séance" at the Skating Rink, Preston 1877

 

From the Preston Herald, Saturday, February 3rd, 1877.

 

This show presented the effects created by so-called 'mediums' but here clearly defined as illusions, rather than results of interaction with the dead.





Victorian Mourning - Newspaper Advert

From the Preston Chronicle, February 20th, 1869.

This advert has educated me in the names of various material types which I had never heard of: Paramatta; Henrietta; Burathea; Coburg.  It perfectly illustrates Victorian mourning practices, when the entire family would go into mourning for extensive periods of time.

Jobseeking in Preston, 1883

 

The extracts below come from the Preston Herald, Wednesday January 10th 1883.

 

It's interesting that the disengaged, experienced Barmaid specifies that she is Protestant.  Preston has a deep Catholic heritage and I am curious as to whether she was seeking employment from a fellow Protestant or whether she had experienced discrimination in the past.

 

The King's Head on Friargate was clearly the place to be entertained by comic singing waiters - if they were able to hire any. 

At least one of the job above sounds too good to be true - a phenomenon still seen today in adverts which offer amazingly good wages for apparently easy work.