We are watching the series “24 hours in the past” on the Beeb and would like to watch it again! It was good because it was an accurate depiction of the Victorian working-class society.
There are 4 episodes looking at different types of areas in Victorian Britain.
1. Victorian Town – This episode focused on working in a dust-yard. Its basically a recycling plant and it turns out that the Victorians were really good at finding ways to reuse everything!
People put all their rubbish into a bin and left it outside their door to be picked up by the dustmen. All the dirt and grossness would be taken to the yard for sorting.
Rags would be washed and then go to the clothing makers, or to make rag rugs or dusters.
Bones would be washed clean and then used to make soap.
Sieved ash from the fires would be sent off to make bricks.
The dustmen also had the job of clearing horse poop on the roads for later use. This was added to night-soil which was collected from the privy and mixed with hops to make a fertiliser. The hops would also make the mess less runny.
The people who cleared the roads also searched for what they called “pure”, which was dog muck that went to the tanners who used it for tanning leather. To tan is to soften and make leather more usable for clothing.
The Victorians were very good at recycling.
We are planning to take a trip to the place where this was filmed to learn more:
https://www.bclm.co.uk/learning/educational-visits/41.htm
We will write more blogs about the next episodes.