Goody Family Tree - Archer, Argent, Hemmings, Lock, Root, Siggins, Suckling, Ward, Stepney, London, Halstead, Essex, UK

The records of St Mary's Church, Salcott in Essex show "April 22nd 1884 at 9.10 am severe earthquake, tiles were shaken off the old church. Last service 10th July 1892 before restoration work commenced. Reopened 13th June 1893. Also damaged in the earthquake was Salcott Rectory and the churches in Little and Great Wigborough. Langenhoe Church a complete ruin. Most houses damaged."

Lewisham district 1890's. On our rounds I discovered a new occupation, not I think included in the Census enumeration. It was being followed by a man dodging about in the gardens that could be easily reached in the street in which I came across him. He was picking things up, had a bag with him, and his hurried movements gave us the impression that he was taking what he ought not - bulbs or plants. But his quest was quite a different one, as it was for dog manure! The droppings are sold, Lloyds said, to the manufacturer of a certain dye. Another waste product utilized!

As to prostitution, Kings Cross Metropolitan station is a meeting place for prostitutes and juvenile thieves. Zenthon thinks that the old and ugly women do as good a business as the younger and better looking. The old ones get hold of the young fellows from the country! Their earnings he put down at between 20/- and 1/- per person. While for some a pot of beer or quarter of gin is sufficient. The same women go on at the same job year after year.

Bromley and Bow 31/5/1897. Corner of Hawgood Street, doors leading to a fat refinery. Not only are the inhabitants savage and think nothing of taking human life the beasts are more terrifying. You should come down here of an early summer morning; if possible after a shower of rain: Rats, not in twos or threes or in 10s or twentys, but in thousands and tens of thousands: the street will be covered with them, so will the yard of the factory; rats, not small rats but big and fat, the size of cats: you knock a kerbstone with your boot and away they go with a rush and a hissing sound from their feet upon the pavements that will make your blood run cold. Most evenings and even during the day they will come up in search of water, especially after a shower. Water is scarce in the drains in which they live. They will eat anything. A load of hens were condemned by the inspector as being unfit for human food and brought down by barges to be boiled down for train oil; they arrived one evening, were unloaded and left till morning on the quay - In the morning nothing was left but brown husks with the outward appearance of hens. The rats had eaten out all that was inside. Carter saw them himself. What would happen if rat food ran short?

Parish registers date from 1536, when they were established by Thomas Cromwell but the entries were irregularly made; and it was not until after the plague of 1593 which carried off more than 30,000 inhabitants of London, that proper attention was paid to the Bills of mortality, in the hope of quieting public apprehension, by checking exaggerated accounts of the effects of the visitation. The practice of publishing the Bills weekly, with the respective causes of death, began in 1603, and they were commonly examined as matters of curiosity, or were consulted by the heads of families anxious to ascertain the healthiness of the City before repairing to it or selecting it as a place of abode. Thus Lord Salisbury, writing to Prince Henry, the son of James I., says:- "Be wary of Londoners, for there died here 123 last week." But the first who thought of systematizing the results, or of turning them to practical or scientific uses, appears to have been John Graunt, "Citizens of London," who, in 1662, published the fruits of long meditation and sedulous inquiry into the subject, under the title of "Natural and Political Observations mentioned in a Following Index and made upon the Bills of Mortality." He was born and bred within the sound of Bow Bells, with no advantage of education beyond such as was then common to his class, who entertained the wildest notions flattering to Cockney self importance. They estimated the population of London, as we estimate that of Canton or Pekin, by millions, and believed it to have increased two millions in twenty six years. It is no wonder, therefore, that he indulged in a few speculations which may now excite a smile, and so much the higher honour is due to him for having penetrated such a vulgar error, to arrive at or indicate truths incalculable utility to mankind."