Twitter’s Top Five Victorians: Or: A Straw Poll

Last Monday I carried out a quick poll on Twitter in which I asked people;

Who are your top five favourite Victorians?

I was overwhelmed with the responses from everyone, and set about putting together a league table of Twitter’s favourite men and women of the age. As the league table took shape, I discovered that a top five was impossible, as many of the front-runners shared the same number of points, and so the top five became a top thirteen, but, John Stuart Mill shouldn’t feel too bad about sitting thirteenth, and should take heart that he is really joint-fifth with none other than Arthur Conan Doyle, Benjamin Disraeli, Joseph Bazalgette and the Great Prince Albert.

For reasons of suspense, I have assembled the league here in reverse order, starting with the people who received only one vote:

1 Vote:

Toulouse Lautrec (French Artist, below)

Josephine Butler (Feminist)

Alexander Milne (Entrepreneur & Philanthropist)

Lord Carnarvon (Aristocrat & Financier of Egyptian excavations)

Joseph Swan (Physicist & Chemist)

Bram Stoker (Author)

John Hanning Speke (Discovered the source of the Nile)

Kenneth MacLeay (Painter of Queen Victoria's "Highlanders of Scotland" portraits)

Harriet Martineau (Journalist & Writer)

James Clerk Maxwell (Scottish physicist & mathematician)

John Herschel (Astronomer & mathematician)

William Whewell (Scientist)

James Whistler (Artist)

Angela Burdett Coutts (Philanthropist - read more here)

John Bright (Politician, coined the phrase “England is the mother of all parliaments”)

Wilkie Collins (Author)

David Octavius Hill (Artist)

JW Waterhouse (Artist)

H.G. Wells (Author)

Mary Coleridge (Author & Poet)

Emily Dickinson (American poet)

Elizabeth Siddal (Rossetti’s partner & model for Pre-Raphaelite paintings)

William Wilberforce (Politician & Philanthropist)

John Everett Millais (Artist)

Dorothea Beale (Educational reformer & former principal of Cheltenham Ladies College)

Frances Buss (Headmistress & Pioneer of women’s education)

Christopher Anderson (Theologist)

Hugh Miller (Geologist)

Thomas Henry Huxley (Biologist & Darwin supporter)

Philip Henry Gosse (Naturalist)

Helena Blavatsky (Theosophist)

Henry Thomas Buckle (Historian & Author)

James Anthony Froude (Historian & Author)

Lord Acton (Politician & Author, below)

Edward A. Freeman (Historian)

Mendelssohn (German Composer)

Augustus Pugin (Architect)

Earl of Ellesmere (I’m guessing the 2nd Earl, Politician)

John Murray (Publisher)

Thomas Hardy (Author)

Edward Elgar (British Composer)

Edward Burne-Jones (Artist)

Sir Titus Salt (manufacturer, politician & philanthropist)

William Armstrong (Industrialist)

Octavia Hill (Social reformer)

Edwin Chadwick (Social reformer)

Charles Booth (Social researcher, below)

Thomas Edison (Inventor)

Mark Twain (Author)

Edgar Allan Poe (Author & Poet, read more here)

Mary Kingsley (Writer & Explorer)

Marianne North (Naturalist & Botanical Artist)

Isabella Bird (Explorer & Writer)

Amelia Edwards (Author & Egyptologist)

Mary Gaunt (Author)

Van Gogh (Artist)

Mary Cassatt (American Painter)

Marie Curie (Physicist & Radioactivity pioneer)

Harriet Beecher Stowe (American Author & Abolitionist)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Poet)

Polly Nichols (Whitechapel murder Victim)

Annie Chapman (Ditto)

Liz Stride (Ditto)

Catherine Eddowes (Ditto)

Mary Jane Kelly (Ditto)

Now the Victorians who received two votes:

2 Votes:

Oscar Wilde (Author & Poet)

Ellen Terry (Actress, read more here)

William Gladstone (Politician, below)

Isabella Beeton (Domestic Goddess)

Henri Giffard (Engineer)

Sir Richard Francis Burton (Geographer & Explorer)

Russell Wallace (Geographer, Explorer, Naturalist & Biologist)

Charles Babbage (Mathematician & Inventor, below)

7th Earl of Shaftesbury (Politician & Leader of Factory Reform)

Michael Faraday (Chemist & Physicist)

John Snow (Physician, read more here)

William Booth (Founder of Salvation Army)

Matthew Arnold (Poet & Schools Inspector)

Friedrech Engels (German Social Scientist & Joint Father of Marxism)

Elizabeth Gaskell (Author)

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (First woman to gain a medical qualification)

Anthony Trollope (Author)

C.L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll – Author)

Receiving three votes each were:

3 Votes:

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Artist)

Christina Rossetti (Poet, Sister of the Above)

Alfred Tennyson (Poet)

Nikola Tesla (Inventor, below)

Charlotte Bronte (Author) 

Florence Nightingale (Nurse & Healthcare Reformer)

Now onto the difficult part, the top five (which is actually a top fourteen)

Joint Fifth: (Four votes each)

Joseph Bazalgette:

(1819 – 1891)

He may only be my second favourite engineer of the Victorian age, but his achievement is certainly second to none in my eyes. The design, science and mathematics behind London’s sewer system is, in my opinion, the work of a meticulous genius.

Bazalgette;s sewers and the gardens and embankments that came with them not only made London cleaner, safer and les of a health hazard, but also a more beautiful and aesthetically pleasing place.

Victoria and Albert embankments were both designed by him (to cover low-level sewers) as was the Chelsea embankment. If you need proof, look at a picture of Victoria Embankment, and then look at a picture of the site prior to its building.

Prince Albert:

(1819 – 1861)

Cited as the father of the modern monarchy, Albert was initially not liked by the British public who didn’t warm to the Queen’s foreign husband, but he soon began to turn the tide of opinion through the improvements he made to various areas of society. Soon after marrying Victoria, who was not as well educated as him, he began to help her with the governmental paperwork she had to do. It is also down to Albert that the monarch has no political preferences, as he deemed it right that the Royal Family should be ‘above’ politics. Albert did a great deal of campaigning for improvements to the educational system and reformed the university curriculum to incorporate more modern subjects, rather than traditional subjects such as maths and history. As well as this, he campaigned for better schooling for less well-off children, but, as a lover of the arts and sciences, his finest achievement was the Great Exhibition of 1851 which showcased the best and most ground-breaking art, industry, science and technology from all over the world. The exhibition was a massive success and ushered in an era of industrial and scientific change.

In December 1861, Albert Died at the age of 42. Queen Victoria famously mourned him for the rest of her life, withdrawing from public duties and unintentionally undoing some of Albert’s hard work in turning the monarchy into a popular institution.

Arthur Conan Doyle:

(1859 – 1930)

Author of the still-popular Sherlock Holmes novels, Doyle’s other achievements are often overshadowed by the great Baker Street detective.

I blogged about those in May, read it here: here

Mary Seacole:

(1805 – 1881)

She may have been overlooked by Florence Nightingale when she chose thirty-eight nurses to take to the Crimea, but Mary managed to receive one vote more than the vaunted Miss Nightingale in my poll, and secure a place in the top 5. This surprised me, because Florence Nightingale has been a popular figure since she died, and her popularity has remained steady, yet Mary Seacole was largely forgotten for almost a century, but in recent decades her achievements have brought her back into the limelight.

She is most famous for her work helping soldiers in the Crimean war, which, despite being turned down by Nightingale, she still attended, getting there herself by raising money for the journey.

During the war, Mary treated sick and wounded soldiers from both sides, often placing herself in danger to do so.

130 years after her death, there are plans to erect a memorial statue to Mary in the grounds of St Thomas’s church in London.

Benjamin Disraeli:

(1804 – 1881)

When I saw Disraeli come in the top five I was not hugely surprised, and I think his place here is a sign of how different politics is today, compared with the Victorian era. I know it is impossible, but if we were to travel over a century into the future, I wonder which of today’s politicians would appear in similar lists? Certainly I would suggest none since the end of Thatcher.

As well as being Prime Minister, Disraeli had many other interests outside of politics, including writing, and he was a successful author, having published seventeen works of fiction, and, not unlike Dickens, leaving an unfinished novel, ‘Falconet’ behind after his death.

His debut 1826 novel, ‘Vivian Grey’ was written anonymously, and is the story of the title character’s attempted progression into the world of politics. Disraeli apparently based the character of Vivien Grey on a former business partner – hence his anonymous authorship – but when his identity was discovered Disraeli was somewhat vilified by certain circles.

His first foray into politics was in 1837, when he was elected to represent Maidstone under the Peel government. He was ridiculed after making his first speech as an MP, when he spoke on Irish Elections, but predicted to his audience; “the time will come when you will hear me”.

He was not wrong. He became Prime Minister in 1868 at the age of 64 following the resignation of Lord Derby, though Disraeli only held the post for a matter of months before Gladstone’s liberals came to power. Disraeli would go on to have another term as Prime Minister, though, when, in 1874, with Disraeli aged 70, his conservative government defeated Gladstone’s liberal party in the election.

Disraeli’s second Prime Ministerial spell lasted six years, until 1880, when his great rival Gladstone once again took over as Prime Minister. Disraeli would not take the post again, dying in 1881 of bronchitis.

The long-running battle between Disraeli and Gladstone is probably one of the greatest and most interesting Parliamentary rivalries in history, and although Gladstone became PM a record four times and has many admirers still today, many people hold Disraeli in greater affection, as did Queen Victoria herself, who was known to favour Disraeli over Gladstone due to the older man’s charm and flattery.

His crowning achievement as Prime Minister was bringing India and the Suez Canal under control of Britain. (And receiving two votes more than Gladstone in this poll.)

John Stuart Mill: 

(1806 – 1873)

I have to admit, Mill was someone I knew virtually nothing about prior to carrying out my poll, and so I was reasonably surprised to see his name in the top five. According to the eminent Wikipedia, John Stuart Mill was:

“…a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control.

He was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by Jeremy Bentham. Hoping to remedy the problems found in an inductive approach to science, such as confirmation bias, he clearly set forth the premises of falsification as the key component in the scientific method. Mill was also a Member of Parliament and an important figure in liberal political philosophy.”

One of the best things about doing this poll has been carrying out snippets of research on some of the people mentioned that I knew little or nothing about, of which there were a couple. And so, after some enlightenment, we move onto the eminent peoples who proudly came....

Joint Fourth: (Five votes each)

Queen Victoria:

(1819 – 1901)

Figurehead of the greatest era ever known and Britain’s longest serving monarch ever, having been Queen for a little over sixty three and a half years from 1837 until her death in January 1901.

Read about the death of Victoria and the end of the Victorian era here

Karl Marx:

(1818 – 1883)

The co-father of Marxism (along with the earlier-mentioned Friedrech Engels) Karl Marx is most famed for the political manuscript; ‘The Communist Manifesto’ written with Engels in 1847.

Marx was a strong advocate of socialism, and the manifesto features his idea that the current (in 1847) capitalist society would eventually be replaced by socialism, and then eventually communism. Communism was a society with no states or governments, in which the whole world lives as a ‘commune’. There was to be no money, and therefore no buying or selling, but people would work for free for the common good of society, and anything they needed, such as food and shelter, would be provided for them for free.

With no governments or geographical or political boundaries, war would naturally cease.

Obviously Marx and Engels never saw this come to fruition, but ‘The Communist Manifesto’ is still a popular and relevant document today, and more widely read than when it was initially released.

Karl Marx also appeared in Peter Ackroyd’s excellent novel, ‘Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem’ which comes highly recommended.

William Morris:

(1834 – 1896)

Textile designer, artist, poet, writer, socialist, illustrator, medievalist, father of the modern fantasy novel and friend to the Pre-Raphaelites, Morris certainly deserves a place on the list.

Despite his clearly busy schedule, Morris is best known for his arts and crafts work, and particularly wallpaper, the patterns of which he printed using the ancient metho of carved wooden blocks rather than the more common rollers. It was at Marborough and Exeter College in Oxford that he met Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The three artists formed ‘The Brotherhood’ and, inspired and influenced by the writings of John Ruskin, the eminent art critic, created pieces of work based on medieval history, myths and rituals.
As well as his art, Morris wrote poetry, and published a collection entitled ‘The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems’ in 1858.

As ‘The Brotherhood’ expanded to include architect Phillip Webb, artist Ford Maddox Brown, mathematician Charles Faulkner, and engineer P.P Marshall, they formed ‘Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.’ "Fine Art Workmen in Painting, Carving, Furniture and the Metals," in 1861, a furnishing and decorative arts manufacturer and retailer which created and sold medieval-inspired home-ware. They displayed their work at the 1862 Great Exhibition (read about the 1862 Exhibition here) and subsequently went on to huge success, changing the taste of the entore nation when it came to home décor. Their commissions included the Armoury and Tapestry Room in St. James's Palace and the Dining Room in the Victoria and Albert Museum

Isambard Kingdom Brunel:

(1806 – 1859)

One of my favourite Victorians and, in my opinion, the greatest engineering genius the world has, and will, ever see for his ship-building alone, but he also designed bridges, railway lines and tunnels.

When I’m asked what I would most like to do if I could step inside a time machine, my initial answer is always to go to the opening day of the 1851 Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace, but a close second would be to visit the Millwall docks in London in 1858 and see Brunel’s Great Eastern.

The Great Eastern was, at the time, the biggest ship the world had ever seen, and at a time when the world was making the transition from sail to steam, she was the most advanced, too.

The Great Eastern was designed for long-haul trips to Australia, where there was a gold-boom at the time, but with it being so far from Britain, to get there by ship required stopping to refuel with coal. Brunel’s idea was simple; make the ship big enough to carry the all the coal it needed on board to get to Australia without needing to stop. The audacity was typical of Brunel. In the end, though, when it came to the day of the launch, it all went wrong. The Great Eastern was SO big that it had to be launched into the Thames sideways as it was almost as long as the river was wide. Two separate launch ramps were constructed, one at each end of the ship, but the ramps were poorly constructed, and one sat lower than the other, causing the ship to turn lop-sided and get stuck.

Brunel’s first taste of a large engineering project came when he worked with his father, Marc Brunel, on the difficult Thames Tunnel project, which you can read more about here.

Brunel’s other notable engineering feats were the Clifton suspension bridge that crosses the River Avon which took over thirty years to complete, and the two groundbreaking ships the Great Western, the first steam powered ship to cross the Atlantic, and the Great Britain, the world’s first iron-hulled, screw-propeller-driven, steam-powered passenger liner.

On a disgracefully shallow point, he also looks ‘cool’. 

Joint Third: (Seven votes each)

George Eliot:

(1819 – 1880)

Real name Mary Anne Evans – though not to be confused with Disraeli’s wife of the same name – George Eliot is the highest placed woman on the list. She changed her name to apparently avoid the period’s stereotype that women authors penned only wishy-washy or romantic novels, and so adopted a male-sounding name to ensure an unprejudiced reception to her work.

She wrote seven novels throughout her career, with ‘Middlemarch’ and ‘Silas Marner’ probably being her best-known work. Her books were set in rural England and explored feelings of social outcasts whose lack of proximity to the city, and possibly the industrial world, made them less relevant.

George Eliot grew up in the Midlands, but at the age of thirty-one moved to London where she both lived, and found employment with, John Chapman, the radical publisher who gave her a job as assistant editor of his left-wing journal ‘The Westminster Review’. Such a position was uncommon for a woman to hold at the time.

In her position she was able to meet fellow literary-minded people, including philosopher George Henry Lewes. Lewes was married with three children, but despite this, Eliot moved in which him and formed a relationship which caused somewhat of a scandal as, unlike many other literary figures of the time, they publicly admitted their affair, and did not keep it secret.

George Eliot died on 22^nd December 1880 at the age of sixty0one, and is buried in Highgate cemetery in London

Charles Darwin:

(1809 – 1882)

Darwin is probably one of the most important people on the list in terms of changing the way we think about the world, and despite that, he is one of the Victorians into whose life I have never really peeked. I know all about his ‘On the Origin of Species’, though, and can’t imagine what it must have been like to read – or hear – that theory for the first time.

The idea was initially planted in Darwin’s mind whilst he was on board HMS Beagle on a five-year scientific expedition. On the ship, Darwin read the book ‘Principles of Geology’ by geologist, lawyer and friend of Darwin, Charles Lyell. In the book, Lyell claimed that fossils were evidence of creatures that had lived thousands – or maybe even millions – of years ago.

This sparked a thought in Darwin’s mind, which was fuelled on the Galapagos Islands when he noted that each island was populated by finches, which were all slightly different from each other. The birds had evolved to live in their specific environments.

Upon returning to England in 1836, Darwin set to work on his theories. It was not until 1859 when Darwin published ‘On the origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection’ and caused a bit of a storm in doing so. The church in particular attacked the theories, being – as was almost the entire population – of the opinion that man had been made by God. Darwin’s theory placed man as simply an animal that had evolved over a long period of time to become the most successful animal on the planet. This revolutionary idea caused outrage, but it is testament to the genius of Darwin, and the strength of his research and work, that over time, his theory has supplanted that of the Church’s as the accepted origin of different species’ on the planet.

Second Place: (Eight votes)

John Ruskin:

(1819 – 1900)

A philanthropist, art critic and patron, Ruskin has already been mentioned in this list due to his influence on William Morris and ‘The Brotherhood’, but they were not the only ones to receive a helping hand from Ruskin.

The great romantic landscape painter JMW Turner was a relatively obscure artist until he met Ruskin, who revived Turner’s career with his 1843 book, ‘Modern painters I’ in which he championed his friend. He would go on to release a second volume, ‘Modern Painters II’ in 1846, in which he praised the Pre-Raphaelites.

In the 1850’s Ruskin became interested in politics and an advocate of socialism, and when he became a wealthy man following the death of his father in 1864, his socialist beliefs led him to give away much of the money, with the principle benefactors being the St Georges Guild, the Whitelands College and the John Ruskin School. The St Georges Guild had been founded by Ruskin himself in 1870, and he used the charity to put forward his ideas about a socialist society. Prior to his death in 1900 Ruskin had retired to the Lake District and become all but a recluse.

First Place: (Thirteen votes)

Charles Dickens:

(1812 – 1870)

No real surprise here, Dickens finished well clear of all the opposition, and rightly so, with next year being the bi-centenery of his birth, which I find a little strange. I wrote about his 199^th birthday earlier this year here but two hundred years seems like such a long time, and although he was born a quarter of a century before the Victorian era began, he is the quintessential Victorian, and for his birth to have been two hundred years ago brings into sharp focus the fact that the Victorian era slips further and further into the foggy, ever-darkening and murky past with every year that passes. In 1982, it was 81 years since the death of Queen Victoria, which put the event within living memory. There was a strong chance that that pensioner you bumped into on your way to the cinema to see E.T was a Victorian once, but that chance has now passed, and Victoria’s death gets ever further away – 111 years next year.

There is not a great deal to be said about Dickens, although I was thrilled that when I wrote about the train crash he was involved in, that a few people contacted me and said that they had no idea that it had ever happened, and so I was delighted to have opened up a tiny slice of Dickens’ life to people. You can read my article here if you so wish.

Just a few points about the poll, which was, of course, by no means definitive, and took place roughly between 1p.m on Monday 28^th November and finished at around 9a.m the following day. There were a few surprises in it, for me.

Firstly, the notable exceptions; people such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry Mayhew, George Gissing, Henry Irving, Marie Lloyd, Julia Margaret Cameron and others who didn’t appear when I felt sure they would. I have already written of Julia Margaret Cameron and Marie Lloyd, but I think Gissing is an interesting character, and I may honour him with an article all of his own soon, other nominees that achieved surprising results were Poe, who received only one vote, Christina Rossetti, who achieved the same number of votes as her brother Dante, and Ruskin, who I did not expect to be anywhere near the top of the list

The other surprising thing on the list was the number of females who appear; thirty two out of one-hundred-and-three Victorians nominated were women; a notable feat considering the challenges before them during the period.

I should also note that one of the people nominated did not make it onto the list, since they were fictional, but in the interest of fairness I shall mention here that Charles Pooter, of the Grossmith brothers’ comedic novel ‘Diary of a Nobody’ was also nominated.

Finally, a great big thank-you to everyone who Tweeted with nominations, opinions and kind words, it has been a fun post to write and I may conduct another poll very soon!

“Here Perhaps, I Ought to Interject a Word or two of Praise about Messrs. Brinsmead's Instruments; But I Will Not. They are of World-Wide Fame and Speak for Themselves…” Or: A Victorian Piano Maker:

In November last year, I blogged about the London Gas works in 1895. The article, which you can read here if you wish) featured text from the 1895 piece of investigative journalism named ‘Industrial Explorings, by R. Andom.’ In this particular publication, the anonymous author jauntily capers around 1890’s London visiting various areas of industry, and describing the innermost workings of various businesses in the Metropolis.

As I said, in November I wrote about the London gas works, and at the bottom of the article I invited readers to choose an area of industry they may have an interest in from a list of business types included in the book if they wished, and I would post the article for them to read.

Almost a year later I received my first request by way of a comment beneath the article from miabia15, who said:

“I would like to know when the piano industry erupted in the Victorian England time period”

By way of an answer below the article, I responded as best I could:

“Upper, and in some cases middle class families almost always had a piano, as it was seen as a very ladylike activity to learn to play one, and mothers would teach their daughters, or a piano teacher would be employed.
As well as reading, painting and stitching and sewing, playing the piano was somewhat of a staple activity for ladies.
I'm not 100% sure when their sales boomed, but I'd hazard a guess at the 1840's and 1850's. Certainly by the end of the century almost every upper class house would have had a piano.
If you give me a couple of weeks I shall write up the post about piano manufacture, if you want to read it.”

But I knew this brief comment was not nearly definitive enough, and whilst I cannot pinpoint the exact time that the piano industry ‘erupted’ I was able to type up the article, so that readers, and miabia15, could have a virtual stroll around a busy Victorian piano makers.

Well, unfortunately, a few weeks late, the article is typed up and here. In addition, I have found a little further information to give the article a little background.

The Piano company in question is Brinsmead’s, and the founder, John Brinsmead established himself as a piano maker in London in 1836 after moving from his home in Devon. Twenty-five years later, in 1861, his sons John and Edgar joined the family business, and in 1870 Brinsmead’s became ‘Brinsmead & Sons’. The Brinsmead family business took out many piano patents, most of which were aimed at improving the frame of the piano, the soundboards, the bridges and bracings

In 1883 John Brinsmead became ‘Pianoforte Makers to HRH the Prince of Wales’ and this was henceforth written on the pianos that Brinsmead produced. 

When they were at the peak of their productivity, the company were producing an amazing two thousand pianos a year, which is quite excellent going when the careful manufacturing process is considered.

In 1900 they became a Limited Company, and the First World War affected business dramatically. Workers at the factory went on strike, and production stopped completely until a compromise between owners and workers was reached, but by then, it was too late. In January 1920 Brinsmead & Sons went out of business.

Interestingly, our reporter sees a piano being repaired for popular funnyman, writer and actor George Grossmith whilst he is being shown around Brinsmead’s. 

As a sidenote, the comic novel Grossmith wrote with his brother Weedon; ‘Diary of a Nobody’ is definitely a worthy read.

Anyway, onto the article:

"It is, generally speaking, best to start an enterprise with something big. I started with pianos, and took an overcoat, a pipe, a newspaper, and a threepenny ticket, and sallied forth on my travels. And, I venture to think, never was expedition more easily, expeditiously, and economically fitted out and despatched.

I went to Piano-Land, and I went there direct. If I had been Henry M. S--y I should have gone to a jam factory at Blackheath and struck across country and discovered Piano-Land for myself; but as the Midland Railway had already located the place, I resolved to leave them the kudos. Privately I don't think it is very much to their credit, though, of course, when they first found it, it may have been pretty and picturesque enough. I found it depressing and more than a trifle dirty, and worn down at the heel, so to speak.

It was dull and cold, and foggy, too, when I left Kentish Town Station in search of Grafton Road and promptly and immediately lost myself. In answer to my pathetic inquiries several kindly-disposed persons did stop and give me minute and precise information whereby I might travel to my destination; but they impart topographical information in a style of their own up Kentish Town way, and I hadn't the key. Instead of telling you, for instance, to take the first turning to the right, and the fourth to the left, and then keep straight on, they say:
“Grafton Road? Brinsmead's place? Why, that's where they makes pianos!”

You murmur your interest in the information, and signify that you have no vital objection thereto provided the work is carried on on sanitary principles.

"Want to go there?"

You casually observe that you would like to stroll in that direction if it is quite convenient. Can you be directed?

“Yus! Go straight along till you comes to Jones's the butcher's, then turn round by a row of red-bricked 'ouses, and you'll see the 'Cow and Mustard Pot' on the other side of the road, and just past that there's a turning, and there you are."

And you go on merrily, and find Jones's the butcher's, and the ‘Cow and Mustard Pot,’ and the red-bricked 'ouses, and fancy your travels are nearly ended. Getting a trifle uncertain, perhaps, you ask again.

"Grafton Road, sir? There ain't no Grafton Road about here! There's a Clifton Road."

My enterprise was saved from utter extinction at the outset by a dirty little boy who was playing with his "sucker" a leather and rather a messy plaything, which has a moral influence on the young, I am told, besides illustrating several well-known natural laws plainly for their intelligent comprehension.

I asked him what percentage of the wealth of the Indies would induce him to personally pilot me to Grafton Road. The boy was prompt at a deal; he said he thought "tuppence" would do it, and I closed on the bargain, and told him to lead on. Ten minutes later, I stood before the imposing blocks in which Messrs. Brinsmead and Sons carry on their manufacture. A gate within a gate admitted me, and I was in Piano-land, and a very wonderful and interesting land I found it. A land overflowing with glue and timber and tinkling harmony, colonised by its own people, shut in from the outside world by a high wall, and jealously guarded by massive gates, through which only the specially privileged pass. 

I presented my credentials to Mr. Thomas Brinsmead, who came out to me, and he, courteously brief and pleasantly business like, handed me over to the charge of Mr. Hall, his foreman, under whose very able guidance I made my journey. It is the fashion to be personally conducted nowadays. Some really great explorers adopt it, so I felt no shame, albeit it was rather prosaic.

Mr. Hall would not make a bad journalist, so quick is he to grasp the explorer's wishes. 

"Don't let us be technical," I said. "Let us walk round and spy out the land, so that I may perchance write a big book on the subject; and if we meet any spades about anywhere let us call them shovels, just simply plain shovels." And we were pleasantly chatty and descriptive thereafter; at least, Mr. Hall was. I had my reputation as an explorer to maintain, and I dared not unbend too far and become jocose, lest peradventure he discovered that I was a humorist, and not a real, bona-fide traveller at all.

There is only one feature that an outside view of the Grafton works permits you to retain, and that is the monumental piles of timber that are reared up everywhere, even on the roof-tops. Stacked with mathematical precision, each plank kept apart from its neighbour by short cross-ties, to allow the air to circulate freely in between; black with age and weather, and I should judge the weather to be pretty thick occasionally around Kentish Town, these planks, gathered in from all parts of the world, wait their turn to be converted into "Uprights" and "Grands." 

A very lengthy wait it is, too. Four years, on an average, between the time of stacking and actual use, the last nine or twelve months under cover in a universal temperature of eighty degrees winter and summer are allowed to elapse to thoroughly and completely dry all trace of moisture out of the wood. Moisture causes trouble in pianos, and every care is taken to exclude it. Therein the instrument differs from some performers I have known, who have displayed a remarkable aptitude for moisture without thereby affecting their tone or touch, and have not limited the quantity either, though I have heard them grumble at the quality.

Thoroughness is strikingly in evidence all through the various departments, and presumably Messrs. Brinsmead hold that it is better to overdo a matter than to take chances. And undoubtedly they are right. I have known men who have gleefully speculated in instruments made in the Faderland, and have come to wish they hadn't. They have found but there, you know the story, I daresay. Anyway, it is not pleasant to have a thirty guinea piece of property that you designed for use as a piano develop such a guileless, open-hearted, frank disposition, that it feels impelled to open its casing and display its interior economy to the passers-by, just to show that there is no deception, and that it really does contain strings and fittings. Nor does the ambitious variety altogether please. I mean the sort that rebels at the comparatively simple and unobtrusive role of piano, and splinters itself up into wash-tubs and kitchen stools, with perhaps a little surplus material left over for a window-sash and a chicken-coop.

Here, perhaps, I ought to interject a word or two of praise about Messrs. Brinsmead's instruments; but I will not. They are of world-wide fame and speak for themselves, if you know how to play and can make them, and they haven't any ideas above their station like those I have alluded to.

From the wood-stacks which are the beginning of all things, as far as pianos are concerned I was conducted through a series of rooms where the treatment of the iron frames was in progress. Round about the walls, and in odd corners, these frames, rough and unfinished as they had come from the foundry, were piled, while the various operations which reduced them to a finished and ornamental condition were in full swing. 

Here might be seen a number of men rubbing down, with infinite toil and patience, the rough ironwork by a sort of a "holy-stoning" process, while away off in a far corner a "hand" was viewing, with a look of conscious pride, a magnificent great plate destined for a "Grand,” that shone like burnished gold. I walked across to it and inspected it closer.

"Enamelled and baked," Mr. Hall remarked, briefly. And I understood that I might safely handle it without the colour coming off in the process.
In another building, vertical drills were at work on these same plates, boring out the holes for the pins. The plates slid along under the deft guidance of a mechanic rattle, whirr, scrunch, and the hole was bitten out as clean and easily as the cheese-taster's knife pierces a new importation of Cheddar.

In a big room adjoining, I came upon a real land of marvels. There was a clatter and hum of powerful machinery, a pleasant smell of fresh wood – and it is astonishing how fresh and scented some of these woods do strike the nostrils – and sawdust lying about by the sack-full, and floating round in clouds. I could have passed for a very respectable miller before I had been in the room ten minutes, that is, if any one could conceive a sort of fancy-dress miller with a tall hat and a note-book.

Talk about the little busy bee! Any specimen hive would have gone out of business in sheer envy and impotence could they have peeped in and seen that scene. Sawing in which operation, by the bye, both the fussy little "circulars" and their bigger and, if possible, more fussy prototypes, and the dignified and somewhat sinister-looking "band" saws are concerned with planing, moulding, and shaping were going on everywhere, and no pen can adequately give one's impressions on seeing a huge, roughened plank slid on to one of the massive steel beds of the planing-machines, and come through, smooth and glossy, and pared down to a standard thickness. 

The point that most struck me, after I had travelled a little farther, was the slap-dash, easy-going, almost contemptuous way in which the various parts are turned out, in contrast with the precision and nicety displayed when it comes to fitting those parts together. To make the sections of a piano is easy if you know how; I felt that I could do it myself if I knew how; but I should despair of ever bringing the parts together to a harmonious, literally speaking whole. The Chinese puzzle is not a circumstance to it.

A very open sort of lift, which connects the various floors, took us to the top of the building, and the peaceful quiet, after the whirr and rattle below, was striking. On these upper floors, cases for "Grands," sounding-boards, and backs, with their exceptional construction of "Wrest Plank," by which no two strings pull on the same grain of the wood, are variously constructed, and important and interesting operations they all are.

The sounding-board, for instance, is made in sections, each section being matched to its fellow, and the whole glued together diagonally. The nicety with which it has to be proportioned in thickness, combined with the care necessary in adjusting the “bridge" over which the strings pass, renders it perhaps the most important of details that are all important. 

Hard and beautifully white before they have received the preserving coats of varnish, these sounding-boards are marvels of constructive skill and ingenuity. We were standing against one that had just been fitted into a "Grand," while the process of construction was being explained to me, and Mr. Hall struck it – the board I mean, not the process – with his hand.
It sounded as deep and resonant as a big drum. I paid my tribute of admiration and walked forward, for I was afraid my stock of admiration tribute would give out under such frequent calls and leave me stranded. Vainly! The next call came a moment after, and a heavy draft it was.

Glue, which is a prominent feature in these works and a very harmless, inoffensive, and unobjectionable feature it is, too; quite contrary to any similar feature that I had hitherto encountered, and without that "smelly" peculiarity so noticeable in glues, plays a very important part in fitting pianos together. And for a successful gluing job there must be pressure and warmth. The warmth here, as elsewhere, is obtained from steam-heated cupboards. The pressure is given by a simple but ingenious method that quite took my fancy.

"Whatever are those things for?" I queried.

My guide laughed. "I thought that would interest you," he remarked. "It usually does. They are 'go-bars.'" 

I overlooked this lapse into technicality for the sake of further information, and was rewarded for my forbearance.
These "go-bars" are lance-wood staves such as they used to fashion into bows for bold Robin Hood and other irresponsible persons who objected to taxes and convention. The parts to be glued together are fitted in position, and one end of the "go-bar" is placed upon them, the other finding a rest against a false roof a few feet above. A pressure amounting to tons, resulting from the attempt of the staves to straighten themselves again, can thus be brought to bear on the glued surface.

In making the cases for "Grands" – an operation I before alluded to – glue and pressure play a considerable part. The cases, whether of "concert" or "boudoir," are composed in layers glued together, these having been previously steamed and bent round into shape by huge clamps; and as every one is familiar with the completed article, a due pondering over this fact, with a little mental exercise, will enable its significance to be borne in upon one.

Hard as iron and rigid as steel they come out of the clamp-frame ready for the fitter's deft handiwork, and by no cutting, piecing, or contriving can a similar result be arrived at.
On every floor there are store-rooms containing the fittings that will be required, for a piano is not made as one generally understands the term; it is built up by many processes, and in many departments. The parts, as I before explained, are made wholesale, and are delivered in sets to the "fitting" shops.

Tinkling sounds were by this time to be heard from various quarters; not unmusical nor grating, as one might expect, but suggestive of harps being touched by unskilled hands. This pleased me, for it seemed in keeping with the place. Disjointed and jerky it perhaps was, and lacking in the grace and finish of a Beethoven sonata; but it was a suggestion of melody anyway.

Art and music run closely together, and they did so then, for with the ear-pleasing quality comes the gratification of the sight; and a Brinsmead piano can charm both senses. Panels delicately inlaid I could have sworn that they were hand-painted, and beautifully done at that, and veneers, polished and natural, constituted the elements that gratified my artistic sensibilities.

I was shown, somewhere or other about the building, these veneers, all cut and pieced together ready for use.

Sliced from warty burrs on trees growing in Persian forests, into thin strips that are as fine and as pliable as paper, albeit they are tough and workable, the patterns are matched with admirable dexterity. The sheets are then pasted together temporarily into panels. A glue bath gives them the consistency and pliability of a fine leather, and pressure suffices to face a panel or a moulding so neatly and accurately in pattern and join that detection is quite impossible.
"It is not cheapness; it is necessity." remarked Mr. Hall, as we viewed the process, and I, understanding him, forebore comment.

The method of veneering a moulding is particularly ingenious. A lengthy metal matrix receives the moulding with the facing downwards, the inevitable pressure is applied, and presto! You are gazing at a length of beautifully patterned walnut.

Somewhere up under the roof the frames are strung, and they are tuned and tuned and tuned, and still they go on tuning. They seem to have a liking for the job up at Grafton Road.

"Hello!" they say, "here's a piano. Let us tune it." And they do so as long as the instrument remains in sight. I believe the carriers have to take extra hands with them when they go to fetch a piano away, to head off any over-zealous tuner, while the remainder are getting it into the van.
You can't get away from notabilities. We were walking past a beautiful specimen of a concert-gran, that was lying on the stocks in a very incomplete state. It was being built, I was informed, to the order of Mr. George Grossmith. Several fine old instruments, though battered by storms and soaked by the salt waves, were pointed out to me, too, in my peregrinations. They had travelled to all parts of the world, and had come up there for rest and refresh repairs, I mean, from the saloons of the P&O Co.'s boats.

They looked as though they wanted it.

"That is a good bit of felt." Mr. Hall observed, as we passed into a small off-room, lined on one side with cupboards. He handed me a solid-looking square of material, white as snow – driven snow is the correct phrase, I believe – which might have been anything from a patent dog-biscuit to a bath-mat.

I felt it and agreed with him. Felt plays a considerable part in the interior economy of pianos. It is used in protecting, and "checking," and it covers the hammers, so that when they strike the wires they may make themselves but there, I will spare you such an obvious piece of gratuitous flippancy.

The woodwork of the hammers is first cut through, and then a length, containing I don't-know-how-many because I didn't ask, is wrapped round with the felt casing, which is glued on the inside. Now, if you look at one of these hammers you will observe that it is thickest at the top and fines away as it gets round towards the foot. This is done by hand, wholesale, by a kind of sand-papering process, which rubs away the superfluous material to the required standard, and then each covering is clinched on to the wood with a metal pin, the length is divided up into sections, and the hammer is ready, or rather a whole batch is ready, to be added to the general store. 

And so it came to pass that I found myself on the ground-floor again, having travelled the length and breadth and the height of the firm's premises. I had passed by hundreds of pianos, in fact, I had come to look upon them as commonplace sort of articles, rather in the nature of litter, and I had witnessed the inmost details of their construction; and they are many and marvellous are these same details, for there are more parts in your piano – supposing that you have a piano – than you, with all your philosophy, dreamt of, John or Evelina, if it be a lady whom I address, unless you have an enlarged mind, and would set the number at six thousand odd in the first instance.

It is impossible to do justice to all these matters, and there are many points that I have forgotten, or been compelled, reluctantly enough, to forego. For instance, there is that of pinning for the strings, the tap, tap, tap, of ceaseless hammers driving in hundreds of steel pegs to guide the strings, with noise enough to wake all except the real, bona-fide defunct.
Then there are the operations of regulating and adjusting the action, pedalling, and polishing, to say nothing of the ingenious and economical devices by which such satisfactory results are obtained. One of these I must mention, it is so instructive an instance of economy of waste product. The exhaust steam from the engines, which is ordinarily blown off into the air to add to the miseries of countless thousands, is here carried through a system of pipes running on every floor, to boil the glue, warm plates and materials, and to make itself generally useful.

For what I have set down I will hold myself responsible; but that no aspiring amateur who had designed to make himself a piano in his spare time from my paper, wood would be a better material, may deem himself defrauded, I will give a brief resume of the process which I hope will meet the case. Here is the recipe.

First let the amateur get his material, and cut it, and plane it, and make it look pretty. Then he must make the back, and the sounding-board, and the casing, and stick them all together; tenpenny nails will answer and are cheapest; but glue and screws look better. After that put in the mechanism, add whatsoever seems necessary, polish and decorate, and present to the nearest deserving institution for the deaf and blind.
After a brush down, which I sorely needed, I parted from Mr. Hall, in a snug little office just within the gates, with a due acknowledgment of his kindness, that had rendered my first exploration so easy, interesting, and pleasant; and quitting Piano-Land with a sigh of regret, I made my way, unguided this time, to the railway-station, and got home in time for tea."

Interestingly, the premises visited for this article were in Kentish Town, but Brinsmead had over fifteen places of business around London at one point or another, with some being shops and showrooms, and others being workshops such as the one spoken of above.

What a treat it would have been to be able to have a stroll around a Victorian place of industry such as the one above, and the offer still stands, if anyone wishes to read about further industrial explorings, I’m happy to write about any of the below industries here:

· Tram
· Candle
· Paper
· Soap
· Mineral-Water
· Matches
· Rubber
· Wire 

· Sweets