maps

Tottenham Court Road

~ Annie Swafford ~ 2 Comments

My designated area to study was Tottenham Court Road, which is briefly referred to in “A Case of Identity.”

Tottenham Court Road Currently
Tottenham Court Road, modern view
Tottenham Court Road, Victorian view
Tottenham Court Road, Victorian view

According to the Charles Booth Archive map, Tottenham Court Road itself was mostly red/middle class, or well to do. The surrounding areas contain mostly pink, purple, and dark blue: “fairly comfortable, good ordinary earnings”,”some comfortable,others poor”, and “very poor.” Nearby Bedford Square is colored yellow, signifying an upper class area.

DHM Booth Pic

Booth’s journal notes from walks with Constables around District 3 (which included Tottenham Court Road) in 1898 include descriptions of prostitutes, drunkenness, crime, and broken windows. These descriptions seem to match Booth’s harsh judgements under the “dark blue” poverty category on the map that surrounded Tottenham Court Road. A brief search on The Old Bailey database (starting in 1881 when the story was published) revealed crime clustering around theft. Continue reading →

Tottenham Court Road in Holmes’ London

~ Annie Swafford

Tottenham court road

I decided to examine the area of Tottenham Court Road which was mentioned in Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle. In this adventure, Holmes’ acquaintance Peterson witnesses a group of men attacking a man named James Ryder, all this unfolds on the notorious Tottenham Court Road of London.

I found that the most useful source for examining this area was the British History Online. Searching my subject, i was given many scholarly sources, of which I picked an excerpt from an encyclopedia on metropolitan history from 1878. The piece was part of the Northern Tributaries section, and I discovered that Tottenham was once one of the most fashionable districts in all of London. However at the time of this piece’s publication there was no longer royalty in Tottenham, but rather it was bound by poverty and the lower class. There were still handsome squares and private mansions but it explained that the “poverty is almost hopeless.”

I furthered this perception of Tottenham through Old Bailey Online. This lower class area was home to a lot of crime during the Victorian era. In the scope of this archive, there were 3666 mentions of this area in court proceedings, so basically two percent of all of the recorded crimes in London took place in, or have some connection with Tottenham Court road.

The least useful source for this project was Charles Booth Online Archive. This platform was not user friendly to the slightest extent, so I was not able to find any knowledge about Tottenham Court road.

 

Works Cited:

Old Bailey Online. 2003. Accessed November 9, 2014. www.oldbaileyonline.org/index.jsp

Tottenham Court Road‘, Old and New London: Volume 4 (1878), pp. 467-480. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45208&strquery=Tottenham Court Road Date accessed: 10 November 2014.

Traveling to Tottenham: Using GIS to Analyze Locations in Sherlock Holmes

~ Annie Swafford ~ 1 Comment

I chose to research Tottenham Court Road because it is mentioned in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle. In the story, Peterson is heading home at night on Tottenham Court Road when he stumbles upon a group of men beating James Ryder. Evidently, Tottenham Court Road is located in an unsafe area.

I began my research by taking screenshots of Tottenham Court Road in Victorian Google Maps. Below is Tottenham Court Road during the both Victorian Era and the present day (“London”).

Screen Shot 2014-11-07 at 6.45.57 PM“British Histories” offered me the most information. At the top of the page is a search bar in which I entered my street name. The search resulted in plethora of publications concerning Tottenham Court Road. The excerpt that I found most valuable on this website revealed that 1878 marked a turn in the lives of many people in London. The author explains that in 1878, poverty was spreading on Tottenham Court Road in Rathbone Place. Walford describes it, “where poverty is almost hopeless” (“Quick”). This helps to explain the violence that Peterson encountered that night he was heading home on Tottenham Court Road. Because of widespread poverty in the area, the men likely attacked James Ryder because they were hungry wanted to eat his goose (and take the blue carbuncle!).

Another site that I found useful in researching Tottenham Court Road was “Old Bailey Online.” It was easy to search for criminal records near or on Tottenham Court Road. The search page allowed me to adjust the time period as well. I searched for records between 1800 and 1901. Almost all of the records from Tottenham Court Road and nearby areas documented theft crimes. Most of them were grand larceny, some of them highway robbery, and a few of them theft from a specified place. One of the records, for example showed that Sarah Crosby stole a shirt, and seven stockings (“The Proceedings”). After viewing the records, I reviewed the situation from The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle during which the men are attempting to take James Ryder’s goose. With my new knowledge of theft crime on Tottenham Court Road, I realized that it wasn’t uncommon for such situations to occur.

The sites that I found least useful were “Historical Eye,” “Locating London,” and “Charles Booth’s Online Archive.” I was unable to search on “Historical Eye.” On top of that, reading through the site proved to be ineffective because it lacked any information on Tottenham Court Road. “Locating London” turned up only four results even after searching various forms of the street name in 1800 (Ex. Tottenham, Tottenham Ct. Tottenham Court Road). As it turned out, each result led me to the same exact record. The record had nothing to do with Tottenham Court Road, in fact, it only appeared in my search results because the word “Tottenham” appeared on the record once without any context (“Home”). Link to this record: http://www.londonlives.org/browse.jsp?div=NAHOCR70004CR700040070. After an hour of trying to find Tottenham Court Road on the “Charles Booth’s Online Archive” by switching back and forth from Victorian Google Maps to Booth’s map, I still could not locate it. This is unfortunate because Booth’s archive would have been useful for my research considering that it maps poverty.

[Edit Nov. 10th: I now know that there is a search bar on Charles booths online archive. I searched my street name and the following picture of my street revealed that in 1898-99, residents of were living fairly comfortably.]

Screen Shot 2014-11-11 at 7.12.45 AM

Screen Shot 2014-11-11 at 7.12.32 AM

Altogether, Victorian Google Maps, “British Histories,” and “Old Bailey Online” were helpful in learning about Tottenham Court Road, but the other GIS maps were difficult to navigate even after reviewing how to use some of them in class.

Works Cited:

“Booth Poverty Map & Modern Map (Charles Booth Online Archive).”Booth Poverty Map & Modern Map (Charles Booth Online Archive). N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2014.

“Circa 1896: Reinventing the Wheel.” Historicaleye.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2014.

“Home | LOCATING LONDON’S PAST.” Home | LOCATING LONDON’S PAST. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2014.

“London – OS Town Plan 1893-6.” London – OS Town Plan 1893-6. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2014.

“The Proceedings of the Old Bailey.” London History. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2014.

“Quick Introduction || Pause.” British History Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2014.