June 11, 1847 --- The Death of Franklin

According to evidence found almost 12 years later, this is the day Sir John Franklin died on his quest for the Northwest Passage.

Franklin had been knighted for previous Canadian explorations.  He left in 1845 to "penetrate the icy fastnesses of the North, and to circumnavigate America." In 1847, with no word for a year, the Navy sent out the first of what became a sad series of fruitless search missions. In 1854, the Navy sought to have Franklin and his 128 men declared dead but Lady Jane Franklin, his widow, called the action "presumptuous in the sight of God ... indecent in the eyes of men." She abandoned mourning clothes and took to bright colors to demonstrate her refusal to give up hope.

In late 1854, Dr. John Rae came back with evidence purchased from Esquimaux and with the theory that "that our wretched countrymen had been driven to the last resource - cannibalism." Such speculation touched off a furious debate; Dickens, in Household Words, denounced the very idea as "dreadful." In 1857, when the Government cut off all public assistance to the search effort, Lady Franklin posted her own reward. In 1859, a team headed by Leopold McClintock brought back final word. They had found a canister in a stone cairn with a message urging the finder to bring it to the Admiralty in London. It said simply that Sir John had died 11 June 1847 aboard his ship and the survivors, under Capt. Crozier, set off on foot. A few skeletons were found, along with pieces of plate bearing Sir John's crest.

Lady Franklin was convinced, McClintock was knighted and a mournful public erected a statue in Franklin's memory on Waterloo Place only yards from and five decades before Sir Robert Scott's. In a bit of irony, it was Sir John who inspired Scott's eventual rival for the South Pole, the Norwegian, Amundsen. The latter, discussing Franklin's earlier Arctic travels, wrote: "Oddly it was the sufferings that Sir John and his men had to go through which attracted me most in his narrative. A strange urge made me wish that I too one day would go through the same thing."

In 1986, the bodies of two members of the expedition were found preserved - and fully intact! - in the perma-frost. Cause of death: tuberculosis & starvation.  The mystery of the loss of the expedition is unsolved.  For awhile, the blame was placed on the lead used to solder the tin cans containing much of the food for the voyage.  Newer studies shift the blame to the water on board the ships; it was distilled after being used to cool the railroad engines that powered the ship through the ice.

June 10, 1840 --- The First Attempt on the Queen's Life

A young man fires two shots at Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, newlyweds of but four months, as they take an evening carriage ride from Buckingham Palace. After firing once to no effect, the gunman shouts, "I have another here," and produces and fires a second weapon. Again, he misses. The gunman is quickly subdued, indeed he has to be rescued from a frenzied crowd which crys, "Kill him! Kill him!"

Albert, in a letter to his grandmother, affects a rather blase attitude toward the frightening incident; he says his wife "laughed at the thing." As for the assailant, Albert writes, "His attitude was so affected and theatrical it quite amused me." Regardless, he quickly orders the carriage to drive on, returning to the Palace an hour later to "long and louds huzzahs" of a crowd drawn by the excitement. The Queen, carrying her first child, appears "extremely pale."

17-year old Edward Oxford, an out of-work waiter, whose rooms were strewn with revolutionary pamphlets, was found guilty but insane, and sent to an asylum where he languished until his deportation in 1867. He was closely questioned by members of the Privy Council amid rumors of a murder plot that would put Victoria's uncle, the sinister King of Hanover, on the throne. The 69-year old son of George III, the former Duke of Cumberland, stood next in line and had never made a secret that he lusted for the English crown for his son. The King was not well-liked, nor likeable, for in his day he had been rumored to have dabbled in everything from murder to incest. He left England after William IV's death to accept the consolation prize of the Hanoverian throne.  The Duke of Wellington advised him, "Go instantly and take care that you don't get pelted."

While Albert had his suspicions, few could believe the dim-witted Oxford could be involved in any assassination plot and The Times dismissed such rumors as "too glaringly monstrous for any man in his senses to entertain." However, Prime Minister Melbourne cajoled Parliament to agree to a Regency under Prince Albert in the event the Queen's untimely death left an underage heir to the throne.

Painting of the scene now in the Guildhall Library.

June 9, 1870 --- Death of Dickens

Stricken the day previous with a massive stroke, Charles Dickens dies at Gad's Hill Place, his home near Chatham. He was 58.

The author had long been in poor health, tormented by piles and a painfully swollen foot which his doctors diagnosed as outward signs of a dangerous vascular condition. He had reluctantly given the last of his public readings in mid-March. A new addition to the program, the story of Sikes' brutal murder of Nancy from Oliver Twist, while bringing his audiences horrific thrills, left Dickens so badly overwrought that - toward the end - he had to be carried off stage. At home, he continued working on The Mystery of Edwin Drood, telling friends it would be a great success, "if, please God, I live to finish it." In fact, he left two chapters in longhand at his death.

At dinner, he complained of a chill and a toothache, then put his hand to his head and collapsed. He was carried to a dining room sofa where he lay through the night and following day until, at a little past six in the evening, with a small tear on his cheek, he was gone. This is, anyway, the official version. It has recently been suggested that Dickens first collapsed while in Peckham, visiting Miss Ellen Ternan, the actress with whom the author (in his double life as Mr. Tringham) had had a relationship for the last thirteen years. Miss Ternan transported her barely conscious lover by cab to Gad's Hill where, with the connivance of Dickens' ever loyal sister-in-law Georgina, the sanitized version of his final hours was concocted.

Regardless, all Britian was immediately plunged into mourning. Carlyle wrote, "How strange, how sad, and full of mystery ... to think of our bright, high-gifted, ever-friendly Dickens, lying there in his final rest." Dickens' will is specific: "I emphatically direct that I be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious and strictly private manner [without] any monument, memorial or testimonial whatever." However, The Times led the nation in demanding that Dickens - "Our great and genial novelist; intimate of every household" - be buried in Westminster Abbey -"peculiar resting place of English literary genius."

The family agreed but the funeral in Poet's Corner was private. Only 14 mourners heard Dean Stanley preach on Dickens' compassion for victims of poverty and injustice; "In him an unknown friend pleaded their cause with a voice which rang through the palaces of the rich and great, as well as the cottages of the poor."

June 8, 1881 --- Ye Olde Fancy Fayre

"A whole galaxy of the beauty, rank and fashion of the land," to cite The Illustrated London News, turns out for the opening of "Ye Olde Englyshe Fayre" to benefit the Chelsea Hospital for Women.  The interior of Albert Hall has been remade into a "quaint Elizabethan village."

The great attraction, however, is the sight of dozens of London peeresses and reigning beauties of the day dressed "very prettily" as peasants. To quote from the official program: "Ye appropriate Olde Englyshe costumes of ye ladies who preside at ye stalls, gives great effect to ye whole scene." From ersatz shops, Duchesses and Dames purvey flowers, fruits and produce. The Prince and Princess of Wales favor the event with their presence.

It must be said, however, that the opening day is a disaster. The Hall is completely overwhelmed by the crowds; the doors had to be closed periodically. Some less fortunate souls find themselves herded behind the makeshift village where they are left in "resigned stupefaction." Poor Countess Cadogan, at Ye Old Tea Shoppe, is praised for her "ineffectual but well-meaning efforts" to meet the demand for refreshments. So many toes and dresses are stepped on that inevitably, even among ladies and gentleman, there are scuffles. A reporter thought it was a "marvel of muddle, mistakes and mismanagement," resembling less an old English fair- than the old Irish one at Donnybrook. Lessons learned, things so improved it was decided to extend the three-day fair into Saturday and open it to the public. The tickets were nonetheless priced at a daunting five shillings to "filter the assemblage." In the end, the fair raised over £7500, a tremendous success.

Still, there were those who thought it all rather silly. Saying the event typified the "inherent flunkeyism of society," The Spectator sneered, "No one obtained any pleasure, and most returned fatigued, headachy, ill-tempered, and, with a few ridiculous trifles, purchased at exorbitant prices; but they had enjoyed a sight of the great ladies in preposterous costumes."  The "fancy fair" idea was soon copied by numerous charities. Punch called it "Ye Three Sham Dames of Olde," printed a mock advertizement for "A race between Dukes and Marquises in the Reserve Enclosure of St. James's Park, in aid of the funds of the South West Diddlesex Hospital for Decayed Donkeys."

Illustration from The Graphic

June 7, 1842 --- Children in the Mines

The great reformer Lord Ashley (later 7th Earl of Shaftesbury) rises in the Commons to denounce conditions in the coal mines as "perfectly intolerable [in a country] that professes to call itself Christian."

For two hours, he unflinchingly tells of women and children - some as young as five - who must work 16-hour days. One 6-year old, he says, "carried or dragged half a hundred weight fourteen times every day, a distance as high as the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral." Graphic woodcuts some depicting half naked
women at work in brutalizing conditions are passed around the House depicting the grim conditions and the all-too common results, stunted growth, maiming accidents, and premature death. Ashley calls for legislation banning boys younger than thirteen and all women from the mines.  "You may, this night, by a cheap and harmless vote, invigorate the hearts of thousands of your country people, enable them to walk erect in newness of life ... and avail themselves (if they will accept them) of the opportunities of virtue, of morality and religion."

The speech serves its purpose; The Illustrated London News declared: "The heart sickens and the blood burns [at] - for the purpose of most unhallowed gain - the stunting, grinding, and brutalizing of a far-spread race of English poor."

While the House of Commons was willing to act, the powerful mine-owning peers in the Lords lay in wait to gut any true refroms in the pits. One of them, Lord Londonderry attacked Ashley for even circulating such "disgusting woodcuts" in polite society. In the end, the reforms are minor; boys will begin working at ten and women will be restricted to no less difficult jobs on the surface. Ashley acceded, knowing the principle of government regulation had been established.

That summer, he went down his first mine: "Thought it a duty; easier to talk after you have seen."

June 6, 1860 --- The Disgraceful Case at Stepney

The Rev. James Bonwell is arraigned before the Arches Court, legal tribunal of the Church of England. A curate at St. Philip's, Stepney, since 1845, Bonwell is the center of a disgraceful scandal. He is charged with the "surreptitious disposal of the body of a dead infant."

Although a married man, he had courted and proposed to Lizzie Yorath, a clergyman's daughter whom he met at the seaside in Margate. Her brother investigated the suitor and found out the sad truth too late, for his sister was pregnant. Turned out of her home, Lizzie traced Bonwell to London. With delivery imminent, Bonwell hid her in the parish schoolroom, where she gave birth to a son in August, 1859. The child was born with a difficulty in swallowing. A Dr. Godfrey, a physician of dubious - if not sinister - credentials, was consulted; the child died within three weeks.

Bonwell cajoled the parish undertaker to conceal the infant's body in a woman's coffin. Anonymous letters to the Bishop of London, signed "A Parishioner," forced an exhumation and the shocking discovery. Incredibly, Bonwell received only a "severe reprimand." The Press, especially the more sensational, demanded more. Contemporaneous with the Hatch scandal (see 14 May), the affair brought the Church into even greater-disrepute. Forced to act, the Bishop suspended Bonwell and summoned him to the Arches. After summerlong proceedings, the dishonorable story fully aired, the Court held: "Mr. Bonwell has committed the very gravest of ecclesiastical offenses, seduction and adultery, fraud and deception." The courtroom rang with cheers as Bonwell was "deprived of his benefices," i.e. removed from St. Philip's.

Bonwell battled on, claiming among other things, that he was more seducee than seducer. Finally, in July, 1861, the Privy Council, the final appeals court, upheld the Arches' ruling: "Mr. Bonwell's ministrations would be an offense and scandal - even his presence [would be] shocking." Bonwell withdrew into obscurity; The Times gloated: "There is no story of sin better known among us, so industriously has the sinner himself dinned it into us."

The church of St. Philip the Apostle, Stepney.

June 5, 1852 --- A Jet Black Blind Beggarman

The Lord Mayor calls it the "most horrible piece of London romance I ever heard of." The Mendicity Society -which monitors the city's countless beggars - has brought in a man described in the official account as a "jet black blind beggarman." With him is a female companion, a young woman of respectable birth identified only as Eliza. The Society's Capt. Wood calls it "a singular instance of perverted taste."

Arrested outside a pub in Bishopgate, the beggar is identified as Mahomet Abraham, described as "particularly revolting," an extremely filthy man with long matted hair and ragged clothes. Onlookers note with disbelief the "remarkable contrast" with his accomplice. Eliza admits that she fled her family in a dispute over a relationship with a married man and she's been living with Mahomet for nine months in Whitechapel. She tells an incredulous courtroom that she has both respect and affection for her friend. All the while, she is holding his "greasy black paw." A letter from Eliza's father is introduced; he admits his relationship with his daughter had been a most troubled one and urges the court to separate her from "this monstrous loathsome being." Both Eliza and Abraham are ordered held on remand.

In the end, Eliza's father successfully beseeched the court to allow his daughter to emigrate and begin life anew. Reportedly, offers of marriage had come in from California and Australia. As for Mahomet, a bureaucratic hitch is all that prevents his deportation to his native Malay. He is released after a fortnight in jail with the warning, "You have been separated from your female companion, and you are never likely to meet with her again, and I advise you to drop that sort of business altogether."

The radical People's Paper commented critically: "We cannot but express surprise and indignation at its being considered "criminal" for a blind man, of another color, clime, and creed, petitioning for the assistance of the philanthropic in that country which has conquered his own, and plundered its inhabitants."

Illustration from Mayhew's London Labour & the London Poor