A Corner in Petticoat Lane, by <a href="../art/illustration/ravenhill/index.html">Leonard Raven-Hill</a>

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A Corner in Petticoat Lane

Leonard Raven-Hill

1900

Walter Besant's East London (1901), facing p. 196.

In his chapter on "The Alien," Walter Besant writes at some length on the Jewish element in the East End, explaining that "The place and time in which to see the poorer Jews of London collected together is on Sunday morning in Wentworth Street and Middlesex Street, Aldgate — the old Petticoat Lane. These streets and those to the right and left are inhabited entirely by Jews; Sunday is their market-day; all the shops are open; the streets are occupied by a triple line of stalls, on which are exposed for sale all kinds of things, but chiefly garments — coats and trousers. There is a mighty hubbub of those who chaffer and those who offer and those who endeavor to attract attention" .

Scanned image and text by Jacqueline Banerjee.

[This image may be used without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose, as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

In this illustration, the woman to the right sits disconsolately beside a birdcage: the sense of entrapment is palpable. Another woman, who looks much better dressed, seems to be offering a handful of potatoes for sale. As usual with Raven-Hill, one feels that every figure has a story to tell. Here, it seems, the stories would be of hardship and suffering. Incidentally, it is good to see the artist using a hyphen when signing his name. He often omits it, but it is the form adopted, for example, by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Reference

Walter Besant. East London. London: Chatto & Windus, 1901.

Last modified 26 May 2008