Never before had the "Class Divide" been so clearly seen before, the rich and the poor living side by side. Yet again, like the Georgian Era, this was a time of great change, not just with the new inventions but also with the new Laws, passed by the government of the day, to actually help the daily lives of the ordinary people. The upper classes were beginning to "feel" for their poorer fellow human beings and many did a great deal to try to change society as it was back then.
This is the time of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who wrote the fantastic Sherlock Holmes novels. As mentioned before, Jack the Ripper prowled the streets of London for a few months, murdering woman after woman, each murder more gruesome than the one before, the first serial killer that we know of in Victorian London and who knew he would never get caught.
Like the Era before, "Madame Fashion" changed and because of the modern invention of photography, we have some really beautiful examples of the fashions of the day, even if the photographs are in black and white and / or sepia.
"Takeaway" food, although different to what we are used to today, was widely available and this was often the only way some had a 'decent' meal. No doubt an exciting treat for the group of upper class people who have just seen a performance at the theatre, the food stall was a necessity for the working class, and they could choose dishes from oysters to hot potatoes to bread and cheese. We have to remember that the Victorian kitchen was no-where the same as our kitchens today, and often a family would live in one room, where they slept / bathed (if they could afford it) / cooked and "lived" --- in this one room. For the man of the family it was easier to eat out than have his few morsels pinched by the ever-hungry children. A whole world away from our lives today !
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