Crime & Fashion
Oct. 23rd, 2002 01:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrphA very long time ago, one night at Exile, I ended up discussing murder and fashion with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
imago, Miriam and (I think) inulro. I then promptly lost the book I was quoting from. Anyway, I've finally found it again, so...
"Mrs Manning, convicted in 1849 of a more than usually unpleasant murder - with the connivance of her husband she had murdered her lover with a ripping chisel - appeared upon the scaffold in a black satin dress; her 'preference brought the costly stuff into disrepute, and its unpopularity lasted for nearly thirty years'. It is curiously reminiscent of the case of Mrs Turner, a notorious poisoner in the reign of James I; she was a woman of fashion who had invented yellow-starched ruffs and cuffs. Hence her sentence was to be 'hang'd at Tiburn in her yellow Tinny Ruff and Cuff, she being the first inventor and wearer of that horrid garb'. To emphasise the moral the hangman on that day 'had his hands and cuffs' painted yellow, and from that time the coloured starch, like Mrs Manning's black satin, 'grew generally to be detested and disused'. It is a measure of the central importance of this ritual of execution that Newgate, and Tyburn, could affect the fashions of the day".
From Peter Ackroyd's excellent "London - the biography" (p298)
The same book also mentions the notorious (and wonderfully named) Mother Damnable, a witch of Camden Town. Her cottage "lay at a fork in the road where the Underground station is now to be found" (that'd be the Camden Town station, directly opposite the Camden Underworld, then?) and "on the day of her death 'Hundreds of men, women and children were witnesses of the devil entering her house'".
I love this kind of history, y'know.
imago, Miriam and (I think) inulro. I then promptly lost the book I was quoting from. Anyway, I've finally found it again, so..."Mrs Manning, convicted in 1849 of a more than usually unpleasant murder - with the connivance of her husband she had murdered her lover with a ripping chisel - appeared upon the scaffold in a black satin dress; her 'preference brought the costly stuff into disrepute, and its unpopularity lasted for nearly thirty years'. It is curiously reminiscent of the case of Mrs Turner, a notorious poisoner in the reign of James I; she was a woman of fashion who had invented yellow-starched ruffs and cuffs. Hence her sentence was to be 'hang'd at Tiburn in her yellow Tinny Ruff and Cuff, she being the first inventor and wearer of that horrid garb'. To emphasise the moral the hangman on that day 'had his hands and cuffs' painted yellow, and from that time the coloured starch, like Mrs Manning's black satin, 'grew generally to be detested and disused'. It is a measure of the central importance of this ritual of execution that Newgate, and Tyburn, could affect the fashions of the day".
From Peter Ackroyd's excellent "London - the biography" (p298)
The same book also mentions the notorious (and wonderfully named) Mother Damnable, a witch of Camden Town. Her cottage "lay at a fork in the road where the Underground station is now to be found" (that'd be the Camden Town station, directly opposite the Camden Underworld, then?) and "on the day of her death 'Hundreds of men, women and children were witnesses of the devil entering her house'".
I love this kind of history, y'know.
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no subject
Date: 2002-10-23 04:06 am (UTC)The way it's structured, with chapters by topic instead of by date, makes it a good book to dip in and out of, too. Perhaps just as well, as it's pretty hefty - 700+ pages.
I see he's just done another one along similar lines, btw - "Albion", looking at the history of the English (or is it British?) self-image. Don't yet know if that's any good, but I'll be trying to pick up a copy sometime soon.
Albion
Date: 2002-10-23 06:34 am (UTC)Re: Albion
Date: 2002-10-23 04:39 pm (UTC)Re: Albion
Date: 2002-10-24 09:47 am (UTC)