As you know, I’m a great believer in research and getting it right. By that I mean, I can spend an hour searching for something to fit my story, for example, the name of a street, or a quote that was in existence at the time of the story that the character would have known, even an advertisement for a product, simply to add accurate detail. If no such thing existed, I have to make up my own, but I still like to keep it as real as possible.
While starting on ‘Holywell Street’, I have been trying to do just that. I have chosen the address that’s of interest to my detectives as number eight, because, in 1891, it looks like it was empty.

I have a character who is a dentist, and I have named him after one of London’s largest chains of dental practices at the time. I have him washing his hands with Pear’s soap, but my detective suggests he tries Vinolia because it had recently won a hygiene award. I took that info from an advert in a London newspaper of April 1893 when the story is set.
And so on.

This week, while looking around for more information on Holywell Street, or ‘Bookseller’s Row’ as it was called up until it was demolished (or later, ‘Pornographer’s Row’), I stumbled upon a picture archive I’d missed. This is the London Picture Archive, and it contains thousands of images of London locations through the centuries. I ordered myself a PDF file of a Holywell Street image (which should arrive soon and which I will then have printed), and this, with the watermark still on, is it. It’s actually from 1900, but the street wouldn’t have changed much in between, and I’ve always liked the symmetry of architectural-style drawings. This could well be a Dalston Blaze, although it’s actually by Alfred Bennett-Bamford.

https://www.londonpicturearchive.org.uk
Another site I picked up this week is Green’s Dictionary of Slang, a great addition to my copy of Gorse’s ‘The Vulgar Tongue.’ That is an addition to another book about slang I have downloaded to my Kindle. Why so much slang? Well, of my (now) five detectives, three are from the East End, one is from rural Cornwall, and one is from the Kent marshes, so dialect and slang will play a part in their everyday speech. Then, we have foul-mouthed Ronny in the basement, not to mention his brother, who is, these days, slightly better spoken because he idolises Jack, who is trying hard to become a gentleman despite his own vernacular.

This image from Green’s Dictionary’s timeline shows how handy the resource is, because you can trawl the timeline to see, in their estimation, what was in use at what time in what decade. Here, we have 1890s slang associated with homosexuality. (And, in some cases, such as backscuttle heterosexual behaviour too.)

I have added a few other website and book links to my research folder, including one intriguingly headed, ‘the great manure crisis of 1894’ but that will have to wait until the Delamere series has moved into that year.
In the meantime, what I have below is a link to my new BlueSky account (which I am starting to use when I have time) in case you want to follow and hook up, and a link to one of the promotions still running this month if you want to give that a boost.
https://bsky.app/profile/jacksonmarsh.bsky.social

Check in on Wednesday for an update on ‘Holywell Street’ progress.