Genealogy Chat

I have just bought the following book....The blackest Streets (The life and death of a Victoria slum) by Sarah Wise..

The slum is in Bethnel Green in the 1880s/90s and here are two paragraph from the book....

The man who Dr Bate reported to directly, Joseph Jacobs head of the Vestry Sanitary Committee and a vestryman since 1864, had been running one of the most lucrative pubs in the Nichol, The Victory at 65 Nelson Street, for 40 years. As chairman of the Bethnel Green Licenced Victuallers Association, Jacobs was a tireless campaigner in the cause of drinkers` and publicans` rights. He spoke passionately at the Victory`s club room against parliamentary attempts in 1886/7 to close pubs on Sundays and to ban the sale of alcohol to children under the age of 13. "IT IS BETTER THAT CHILDREN CAME TO THE PUBLIC HOUSE TO TAKE BEER AND SPIRITS OUT THAN THEIR MOTHERS, WHO WOULD BE NEGLECTING THEIR DOMESTIC DUTIES" Jacobs declared.

In September 1891 Gould`s properties would exact their highest toll....six months old Joseph Briggs was killed when the ceiling fell down on to the bed he shared with his parents, Selina and Frederick and his three year old brother at 55 Mount Street, Bethnel Green