London's Iconic Newgate Prison, 1188-1902

For centuries, Newgate Prison was a London landmark and almost a synonym for incarceration. It stood on the site of a gate in the Roman Wall for more that 700 years. It was located just to the south of the equally old St. Bartholomew's Hospital, at the corner of today's Newgate Street and Old Bailey. The first Newgate Prison was built in 1188 and looked something like this:

It was rebuilt several times, including by Christopher Wren (who else?) after the Great Fire of London in 1666. The last version, pictured below, was erected in 1782. It was designed by another prolific architect, George Dance the Younger.

"New" Newgate became the scene of public executions the following year, when they were moved from Tyburn (near today's Marble Arch) to outside the prison gates. The authorities made the move because the traditional processions to Tyburn and the hangings attracted large and boisterous crowds, and sometimes produced riots. 

Nevertheless, large crowds also gathered to watch the hangings at Newgate. They often paid large sums for good observation posts. Hawkers sold "confessions" of the condemned as well food and drink to the crowds. Public executions were much like modern sports events, except everyone knew in advance who was going to lose. 

 

That sort of entertainment ended in 1868, when the authorities removed the executions from the public gaze altogether. Henceforth, they took place inside the prison walls. An illustration by French artist Gustave Dore of the prisoners' exercise yard around that time captures the grimness of life in Victorian Newgate.

Newgate closed in 1902 and was demolished. It is now the site of London's Central Criminal Court, which was moved from its earlier location nearby. It has long been known as the Old Bailey after the street it fronts upon.  A statue of Justice upon its roof announces its purpose, if not always its results.

Famous prisoners of Newgate included Ben Jonson, Daniel Defoe, alleged pirate Captain William Kidd, Casanova, and William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania. Of this group, only Kidd was executed, but he was hanged at Wapping Dock on the River Thames, as was the custom with pirates.

London's Fascinating Fleet Street: Printers, Prisons, Publishers and Pubs

London's Fleet Street starts at the bottom of Ludgate Hill, a street atop which sits St. Paul’s Cathedral. Fleet Street derived its name from the nearby River Fleet, which today runs underground beneath Farringdon Street and New Bridge Road. 

Fleet Street was once the center of England's printing trade and later became a metonym for its newspaper industry. 

Just north of Fleet Street beside the River Fleet, lay the Fleet Prison which incarcerated people for debt from medieval times until the 19th century. Alas, it is no longer there.

Just south of Fleet Street Henry VIII erected a royal residence, Bridewell Palace. After his death his heir Edward VI gave it to the City of London. The City Fathers used it for a house for punishing “disorderly women” and a school for young lads, an interesting juxtaposition. One can only wonder about the curriculum. 

The boys moved out later and Bridewell became a general house of correction. Eventually all such establishments became known as “bridewells.” All that is left of the palace is the gatehouse, which boasts a relief portrait of Edward VI, a king whose main claim to fame was dying young and being replaced by Bloody Mary.

One of the most popular spots on Fleet Street is just a short walk down a lane on the north side of the street: Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. The pub, as its sign tells you, was “Restored in 1667,” the year after the Great Fire of London. It seems to have been untouched since. It’s dark, with all sorts of little nooks and crannies for drinking, plotting, and whatever. And lots of history.

Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Conan Doyle, Tennyson, and other literary figures are among those claimed as "regulars." Dr. Samuel Johnson of dictionary fame lived at nearby Gough Square and is said to have popped in here occasionally with friends, such as his biographer James Boswell and the writer Oliver Goldsmith.

Goldsmith is buried next to nearby 12th century Temple Church, built as the spiritual home of England's crusading Knights Templar. The church gained some recent fame from the novel and film The Da Vinci Code.

Another nearby church, St.Bride's, has a fascinating history as well. An earlier church was destroyed during the Great Fire of London in 1666. 

Sir Christopher Wren, who designed nearby St. Paul's and many other rebuilt churches after the fire, designed the current St. Bride's. Its steeple and name later inspired the layered wedding cake! 

St. Bride's was once known as The Printer's Church because Fleet Street became the center of the city's printing industry. It is now known as the Journalists' Church and contains an altar dedicated the memory of journalists killed covering various conflicts around the world. The crypt contains remains of a Roman street and a small museum.

Johnson’s house at Gough Square is open to the public. It is well worth a visit. Johnson was a fascinating, idiosyncratic fellow. Pictured below is his house and a statue of his cat Hodge.

Inside the house is a portrait that some believe to be of Francis Barber, a former slave who Johnson basically adopted and educated at his own expense. At his death, Johnson left Barber a large sum of money.

To the west of Gough Square are many buildings related to the law. The ancient law schools and courts are nearby. At the end of Fleet Street, where it becomes The Strand, stands the massive neo-Gothic pile of the Royal Courts of Justice (Opened, 1882). 

On an island at the end of Fleet Street lies St. Clement Danes church, made famous by the nursery rhyme, “Oranges and lemons say the bells of St. Clements.” It sounds nice until you get to the last couplet: “Here comes a candle to light you to bed, And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!” [Image: St Clement Danes]

London’s Execution Dock: Captain Kidd and All That

On May 23, 1701, a formal procession escorted a forlorn prisoner from the Marshalsea Prison in Southwark to London Bridge. The procession was headed by a group of officials, one of whom carried a silver oar before him. The prisoner followed behind in a cart, accompanied by a man in a white frock carrying a rope. A large and noisy crowd of curious folk took up the rear.   

After crossing the bridge, they turned right and marched along the north bank of the Thames to the bustling port area of Wapping, a land of docks, wharves, warehouses, shops, inns, and "other houses" catering to the needs of ships, merchants, and sailors. 

The procession's destination was Execution Dock. Their mission was to hang the prisoner, the infamous pirate Captain William Kidd. Historians may and do disagree about the justice of Kidd’s conviction, but no one doubts how he exited this vale of tears. 

From the scaffold Kidd made a long and rambling speech protesting his innocence. The prison chaplain attributed his words to being "inflamed with drink," which had made his mind "unfit for the great work, now or never to be performed by him." 

At a signal the executioner, pushed Kidd off the scaffold. The rope broke and he fell to the ground still conscious. The chaplain rejoiced at this second opportunity to exhort Kidd to repentance, and claimed to have succeeded. The executioner launched Kidd into eternity a second time. This time the rope held.

Kidd may have been the most famous pirate executed at Wapping, but he was far from the only one. Hundreds of others, mostly forgotten, shared the same fate over the four centuries of Execution Dock's existence. (Image: William Kidd)

The gallows was erected on the shore close to the low-tide mark. This location was chosen to emphasize that the pirates' crimes were committed under the jurisdiction of the Lord High Admiral. After pirates were hung, they were left to be submerged by the incoming tide, then reappear in ghoulish fashion, for several tidal periods. (Image: Execution Dock, Rotherhithe, with St. Mary's Church in background)

The bodies were generally removed after three tides. Some were buried in an unmarked grave. Many were sent for dissection at Surgeon's Hall. Notorious pirates were often displayed in chains in a metal harness or cage, their bodies covered in tar to preserve them as long as possible. 

Kidd was displayed on a gibbet at Tilbury Point on the lower reaches of the Thames, where his body would have been viewed by thousands of sailors on ships plying the river. (Image: Kidd's body hanging in chains at Tilbury)

The peak of pirate activity in Atlantic waters occurred years after Kidd's execution, between about 1714 and 1726. During that period over 400 people were hanged for piracy. It became common practice to hang scores of pirates at a time, often whole crews, as a deterrent. Some would be spared if they could prove that they were coerced into joining the pirates.

Mass hangings often took place in colonial locations. In Charleston, South Carolina in 1718, Stede Bonnet , "the Gentleman Pirate," was hanged at low tide along with 34 of his crew. In 1723, Bartholmew Roberts and 54 of his crew were hanged at Cape Coast Castle on the coast of West Africa. 

Though less well known today than Kidd or the infamous Blackbeard, who once held Charleston, South Carolina to ransom, "Black Bart" Roberts was the most successful of all the pirates in terms of numbers of prizes he captured. 

The exact location of London's Execution Dock remains a matter of debate. Different authors locate it at several points along Wapping's shore, somewhere between two extremely old pubs, The Prospect of Whitby and The Town of Ramsgate. 

In between them another, more modern pub, claims to be the true location. It is aptly named The Captain Kidd. All of the pubs are excellent locations for sitting with a drink and ruminating on the time, not so long ago, when Execution Dock was in "full swing." (Image: The Prospect of Whitby, with its gallows)  

Further Reading: David Cordingly, Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates (1996)

Nations and Nationalism: Myth and Reality

“Getting its history wrong is part of being a nation.” Ernest Renan, What is a Nation? (1882)

Nationalism as a political phenomenon is real, powerful, and often destructive. But historical myths lie at its core. To nationalists, historical facts are peripheral, to be used, distorted, or ignored as required. For them, nationalism is a religion of sorts, built largely on faith.

Nationalism claims to express spontaneous and primordial feelings of national community. In fact, it is a modern ideology that requires persistent propaganda to maintain itself.

The roots of nationalism lie in the concept of a nation. Dictionaries define a nation as “a people who share common customs, origins, history, and often language.” (American Heritage Dictionary)

British historian Eric Hobsbawm mocked this standard view: “A nation is a group of people with a misapprehension about their common origins and a common antipathy towards their neighbours.” (Nationalism, 1990)

Nationalism as a conscious ideology began to emerge in the 18^th century. One of the early theorists, Johann Gottfried Herder, defined a nation culturally: “a group defined by a homogeneous national culture” by which he meant, language, customs, traditions. (Reflections on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind, 1784-91)

Popularized, Herder’s ideas were especially important – and explosive -- in Central and Eastern Europe, where divided "nations" and multi-ethnic states held sway. Dozens of “nationalities” were mixed together in the Hapsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Empires. When they began to gain a consciousness of their "national identity" in the 19th century, they began to dream of creating their own “nation-states.”

Many early nationalists viewed such a development as part of God’s design, which kings and aristocrats had defiled. This is how Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini explained it: 

“God divided Humanity into distinct groups upon the face of our globe, and this planted the seeds of nations. Bad governments have disfigured the design of God, which you may see clearly marked out, as far as, at least as regards Europe, by the course of the great rivers, by the lines of the lofty mountains, and by other geographical conditions; they have disfigured it by conquest, by greed, by jealousy of the just sovereignty of others…. But the divine design will infallibly be fulfilled.” (The Duties of Man, 1860)

For Mazzini and most nationalists, nations (and hence nation-states) are a natural development. Modern students of nationalism tend to take a different view: that nations are “created”, not by God, but by men, for political reasons. As Benedict Anderson put it in 1983, “A nation is an imagined political community.” (Imagined Communities)

In the same year, Ernest Gellner gave this definition of nation: “Nations as a natural, God-given way of classifying men, as an inherent … political destiny, are a myth: nationalism, which sometimes takes pre-existing cultures and turns them into nations, sometimes invents them, and often obliterates pre-existing cultures: that is a reality.” (Nations and Nationalism, 1983)

In his 1992 history of nations and nationalism, Hobsbawm came up with a useful if working definition of a nation: “any sufficiently large body of people whose members regard themselves as a ‘nation’ will be treated as such.” (Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Myth and Reality)

In other words, ‘nations’ (and nation-states) are a matter of perception; they are essentially constructed. An Italian nationalist put it bluntly in 1860, when the new United Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed: “We have made Italy, now we have to make Italians.” (Speech to the first meeting of the parliament of Italy, 1860)

The same process was going on in the German states, most of which united together in to the German Empire in 1871 under the leadership of Prussia and its Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. For the conservative Bismarck, a united Germany was a political necessity, and the process had to be guided from above, through a policy of "blood and iron." (read: "war" -- three wars to be exact)

In much of Central and Eastern Europe creating nation-states would prove even  messier, as the ethnic maps below, from just before the First World War, show. The first is the Austro-Hungarian or Hapsburg Empire, the second the "Hungarian" portion of the same empire.

Sorting this melange out into viable nation-states would prove a herculean task, and one providing many an excuse for war, helping to make the 20th century the bloodiest in human history. Nationalism also spread beyond Europe. The story is not yet finished.

Tennis: the Early Years, 1874-1930s.

(Image above) "Lawn Tennis" by Louis Prang, 1887.

Lawn tennis evolved from a much older medieval game. Real tennis, as it is usually called nowadays, is played in indoor courts with walls the balls can be hit off of.[1] Originally, the balls were hit with the hand, first bare, then gloved. This gave it its French name, jeu de paume. Rackets replaced hands in the 16^th century and sore hands gave way to sore elbows.

Real tennis was widely played in the “courts” of Europe, and it is still played in the UK and a few other countries. Several real tennis courts survive at Oxford, Cambridge, Hampton Court Palace and Falkland Palace in Scotland. Henry VIII and Mary Queen of Scots both loved the game. Legend has it that Henry was playing it at Hampton Court while Anne Boleyn was being executed. The image below is of the real tennis court at Falkland Palace in Fife, Scotland.

Real tennis probably originated in France, and it was in the royal tennis court at Versailles that one of the most pivotal events of the French Revolution occurred. When an angry Louis XVI ordered them locked out of their chamber during the meeting of the Estates-General in June 1789, representatives of the Third Estate moved to the nearby royal tennis court and took an oath not to disband until they had produced a constitution. The “Tennis Court Oath” was the effective beginning of the revolution. [Image: Jacques David, “The Oath of the Tennis Court” c. 1794]

The man often credited with inventing lawn tennis was an Englishman, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield, but others in the UK and America had a hand in its creation. The first lawn tennis club opened in Leamington Spa in 1874. Wingfield patented an hourglass-shaped court and published a book of rules for lawn tennis in the same year. In 1875, the Marylebone Cricket Club drew up a slightly different set of rules which, with some changes, govern the sport today. Wingfield’s odd-shaped court did not catch on, either, being replaced by the rectangular court we know today. [Image: Wingfield’s hourglass court and his book of rules.]

One of the hourglass courts survives at the house of scientist Charles Darwin, at Down in Kent.  

1875 proved an important year for lawn tennis in another way. A croquet club in Wimbledon, England, adopted lawn tennis as a second sport, setting aside one lawn for the new game. The Croquet Club  was founded by “six gentlemen” in 1868. The Wimbledon club held its first gentlemen’s singles championship in 1877 to raise funds. At the same time, it changed its name to the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club. The first “Wimbledon” champion, Spencer Gore, was nonchalant about it all. “Lawn tennis,” he said, “will never rank among our great games.” 

Great or not, the game soon became fashionable among the leisured and moneyed classes. Companies began to advertise equipment and outfits for playing tennis. As the ad below shows, the outfitters borrowed some fashions from existing sports such as boating, golf, and cricket. 

Despite the emphasis here on male attire, ladies also quickly took up the game. Playing tennis in long skirts on top of layers of petticoats, bustles, corsets, long drawers and stockings must have been a major challenge.

During the 1880s, lawn tennis had become the main focus of Wimbledon’s AELTC. In 1882, its members voted to drop “croquet” from the club’s name. In 1884, the Wimbledon club added ladies’ singles and gentlemen’s doubles championships. In 1913, the AELTC added ladies’ doubles and mixed doubles. International competition began in these early years. The US Open began in 1881, the French Open (now Roland Garros) in 1891, and the Australian Open in 1905. The Davis Cup, originally called The International Lawn Tennis Challenge, began in the late 1890's. The image below shows an International  Challenge match in Melbourne in 1912.

Lawn tennis might have really taken off at that point, if it hadn’t been for the outbreak of The Great War in 1914. For the next four years, many tennis countries were preoccupied by the military struggle. Amidst the appalling carnage, tennis competitions were halted.

On a less grim note, the war helped to change fashions, particularly for women. Petticoats, bustle and corset gave way to simpler, more comfortable modes of dress, using much less fabric, which was needed for military uniforms. The new fashion trends passed into women’s tennis attire. The French phenomenon Suzanne Lenglen paved the way at Wimbledon in the 1920s in a daring, some thought scandalous, outfit exposing her arms and a bit of thigh. 

Women were quicker to adopt a new style of attire than men. Most of them continued to play in long trousers into the 1930s and beyond. In 1933, the UK's Bunny Austin became the first male player to appear on Wimbledon Centre Court in shorts, shocking at least some observers of the game.  [Valerie Warren, Tennis Fashions: Over 125 Years of Costume Change (Wimbledon, 2002]

By the 1930's, lawn tennis had matured as a game and produced superlative athletes. It was no longer played only on lawns but was yet to produce mega incomes for the top players.  

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[1] The word “real” seems to imply that lawn tennis is artificial, but likely derives from the Spanish and Portuguese word for royal, “real.” It is often called "royal tennis" in the UK.

The First Woman Doctors: Elizabeth Blackwell and her Circle

Women have always been involved in health care, as domestic healers and midwives. In the 19th century, they began a quest to gain qualification as professional physicians and surgeons. 

The first to succeed in that aim was Elizabeth Blackwell, born in England in 1821. Her family emigrated to the United States a few years later. As a young woman, she determined to become a physician. 

Her family was supportive, but not wealthy. To earn tuition money, she taught school. That took her to the South, first to Kentucky, where she saw slavery at first hand, and became a committed abolitionist. 

In the mid-1840's, she taught in a school run by Rev. John Dickson in Asheville, North Carolina. A former physician, he approved of her medical goal and let her use his medical library. In 1846, however, the school closed down.

Blackwell moved to Charleston, South Carolina, and taught in a local boarding school. She lived in the house of Rev. Dickson's brother. Dr. Samuel H. Dickson, professor of medicine at the Medical College of South Carolina. 

With Dickson's help and encouragement, Blackwell applied to several American medical colleges. But she was rebuffed at every turn due to her gender. She persisted and in 1847, was accepted at Geneva College in Geneva, New York (now Hobart College). 

The condition of her acceptance was unusual, to say the least. All the currently enrolled male students, about 150, had to agree. They did. She received her MD in 1849. She later furthered her studies in Paris and London hospitals, particularly in obstetrics. 

Back in the US, Blackwell struggled to establish a medical practice, despite her excellent training. In the 1850's, she and her sister Emily founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. Emily herself was the third woman to get an MD in the US. In this endeavor they were assisted by Dr. Marie Zakrzewski, a young Polish immigrant Blackwell had mentored. (Above; Emily Blackwell, below: Marie Zakrzewski)

   

The Blackwell sisters aided the Union war effort in the Civil War, helping to train nurses, though their efforts were often stymied by the male-dominated Sanitary Commission.

Blackwell returned to her native Britain several times in the late 1850's to establish an infirmary there. Although that did not succeed, she did become the first woman listed on the British General Medical Register, in 1859. She also mentored Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first woman to earn an MD in France, the first woman dean of a medical school, and co-founder of the first hospital staffed by women.

In 1869, after sharp disagreements with Emily, Elizabeth settled permanently in the UK. In 1874, she founded a women's medical college in London with Sophia Jex-Blake, who she had helped train. The two did not ultimately get along, clashing over goals and management.

Blackwell retired from medical practice in 1877. She subsequently devoted herself to a broad array of moral and social reform causes. These included anti-vivisection, anti-vaccination, sanitation, Christian Socialism, women's rights, sexual hygiene, and eugenics. Her stances on some of these issues were often at variance with advances in medical and scientific knowledge, and led to conflict with other early women doctors. (Image: Blackwell in later years)

One of them was Mary (Putnam) Jacobi, the first American woman to earn an MD in Paris, in 1870. Jacobi rejected Blackwell's view that medicine was foremost a moral calling. Jacobi argued that its primary objective was to cure the sick and advance medical science. She also disagreed with Blackwell's contention that women should concentrate on medical specialties like obstetrics and pediatrics. In these areas, Blackwell claimed, their "female" qualities would give them an advantage over men. Jacobi argued that women should enter all fields of medicine on an equal footing with men.

Despite her disagreements with her fellow pioneering women, Blackwell's persistence and dedication was an inspiration to women aspiring to medical careers. By the late 19th century, hundreds of women had qualified to practice medicine. Thousands and then millions more would soon follow. In 1974, the US government honored Blackwell by issuing a stamp bearing her portrait.

Further Reading: Thomas Neville Bonner, To the Ends of the Earth: Women's Search for Education in Medicine (1992)

The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill; or Somebody Else

Winston Churchill was famous, often infamous, for his biting, pithy wit. Historians and biographers may disagree as to exactly what he said to whom, or even if he said or originated certain lines attributed to him. There is little doubt, however, that he had a way -- often his way -- with words.

The recipients, or alleged recipients, of his wit were often his fellow politicians and fellow upper class folks. But they included all sectors of society. Even the voters, of whom he said (perhaps), "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

That line jars uneasily (or does it?) with another of his famous statements about democracy, that it was "the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." But did he really say that? Inquiring minds disagree.

One of his most famous quotations was directed against a woman he disliked, Tory MP Lady Nancy Astor. She had said to him at a social gathering, "Winston, if you were my husband, I would put poison in your coffee." He reputedly replied, "My dear, if you were my wife, I would drink it." Did he really say that? Churchill biographer and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson says no. But Johnson also said that Brexit would provide an extra £350 million a week for the NHS. (below: Lady Astor)

Deserved or not, Churchill had a reputation for indulging in large quantities of strong drink. One day in 1946, when he was leaving Parliament, he was accosted by Lady Astor or Labour MP Bessie Braddock (depending on which version you read). The woman in question accused him of being disgustingly drunk. "Yes," he shot back, "but you are ugly, and I shall be sober in the morning." (Below: Bessie Braddock)

He once explained his relationship with liquor as follows: "I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me."   

If the date of the ugly-sober quip, 1946, is correct, Churchill had reason to be in a foul mood. The previous year, the voters had kicked him out of office after he had led the country through World War II, by giving the Labour Party the reins of government. 

His replacement as Prime Minister, was Clement Attlee. Churchill famously called Attlee "a modest man, who has lots to be modest about." Did Churchill also originate the lines, "an empty car drove up, and Clement Attlee got out," and "He is a sheep in sheep's clothing."? Well.... (Below: Attlee)

The following story of an exchange between Churchill and Attlee is almost surely apocryphal, but sounds like something Winnie might well have said at the time. It was during the late 1940's, when Labour was nationalizing many large industries. 

One day, Churchill walked into the gents' toilet at the House of Commons to find Attlee already busy at one of the urinals. Churchill grunted and walked to the urinal farthest away from Attlee. "Winston," Attlee remarked, "why are you being so unsociable?" "Clement," Churchill replied, "I'm not being unsociable. It's just that every time you see some thing big, you want to nationalize it."

Churchill was hardly kinder to his Conservative colleague and former boss, Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister for much of the 1920's and 30's. Once friends, during the 30's they fell out and Baldwin removed Churchill from the cabinet. When someone asked Churchill why he hadn't sent Baldwin a card on his 80th birthday, he allegedly retorted, "I wish Stanley no ill, but it would have been much better if he had never lived." That's believable enough. (Baldwin, below, died a few months later.)

Churchill often criticized himself, but could combine self-criticism with arrogance in a humorous way, as the following: "I have often had to eat my own words, but I must confess I have always found it a wholesome diet."

Churchill wrote a lot of history and it was generally complimentary, to him. But he warned us about it, humorously, of course: "History will be kind to me, because I intend to write it." 

I think that is accurate.