Culture

Victorian Football

Victorian Football

Victorian football, the beginning of the great British football teams, made possible by the Factory Act of 1850 and a free Saturday afternoon.

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Oliver Twist published 1837

Charles Dickens was born on the 7th February 1812 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK. He endured a grim childhood after the imprisonment of his father and the rest of his family in Marshalsea for bad debt. Charles was sent to work in Warren’s boot blacking factory,just off the Strand in London. Here he endured terrible conditions.…

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The Athenaeum Pall Mall

The Athenaeum is a club in London’s Pall Mall. It was founded in 1824 by a chap called John Crocker. He encouraged scientists, writers and artists to join the club and amongst it’s notable members are Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, T.S Eliot, J.M.W Turner and Keats to name but a few. The importance of ‘the…

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Handel’s Messiah

Handel’s first performance of the Messiah was not in London but in a music hall in Fishamble Street in Dublin. The performance took place on 13th April 1742 and although he struggled to find enough performers and to convince the clergy to allow him to perform a sacred piece of music in a secular building,…

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