Life in Victorian Britain

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9 astonishing deaths reported in Victorian newspapers

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Rosedene Cottage

History explorer: The Chartist movement . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A letter-writer depicted by Janez Subic, c1878. (© Getty)

The great Victorian letter swindle

The inmates' dining hall at the Poplar Poor Law Union workhouse in London, 1903. Though it was widely reviled, the Poor Law would survive another 45 years. (Mary Evans)

Living in the shadow of the workhouse

A policeman feels the full force of a blast in this illustration – from the 7 June 1884 issue of 'The Illustrated Police News' – depicting a Fenian attack on Scotland Yard. The Fenians' dynamite campaign of the early 1880s provoked a radical response from the British government. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The Victorian war on terror

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The story behind Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home

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Where history happened: the circus in Britain . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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An illustration from 'A Picture History of Railways' by C Hamilton Ellis, showing a filled wagon and a horse on a railway line. Railways were originally intended to move goods. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A rail revolution: Dan Snow on the meteoric rise of British railways . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

'Resurrectionists', or grave robbers, stealing a corpse from a cemetery to be sold for anatomical study and dissection, c1840. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The Victorian trade in dead bodies

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A Victorian drawing room with pictures in heavy frames and ornately covered furniture, c1860. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Where history happened: Victorian collectors . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

What are the origins of the ‘mutes’ that attended Victorian funerals?

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Life in a London slum and the Last Judgement . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The repulse of a sortie during the Siege of Delhi, a conflict of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The rebels advance on a British battery, who repel them with swords, bayonets and rifles. A lithograph by E. Walker, after a drawing by Captain G. F. Atkinson. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The myth of native-bashing