George Robert Sims (1847 – 1922) was an English journalist, poet, dramatist, novelist and bon vivant. Sims began writing lively humor and satiric pieces for Fun magazine and The Referee, but he was soon concentrating on social reform, particularly the plight of the poor in London’s slums. A prolific journalist and writer, he also produced a number of novels.
In 1902, Sims published a book called Living London; its work and its play, its humour and and its pathos, its sights and its scenes. Considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature, the book provides an incredible insight to how ordinary Londoners lived at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.
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| Waiting for Parcels of Food (Cheapside). |
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| Officer regulating the traffic. |
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| Factory girls fighting in the East End. |
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| Children’s playground on an old graveyard on Drury Lane. |
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| Sandwich men waiting to be paid in Ham Yard in Soho. |
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| Roadworks in Oxford Street. |
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| Two female ‘tramps’ sleeping in the sun at Trafalgar Square. |
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| An L.C.C Lodging House in Parker Street in Covent Garden. |
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| A lecture at the Koval Institution Scientific London. |
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| Travellers’ encampment in Battersea. |
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| The London City and Midland Bank in Ludgate Hill. |
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| A cycle show at Agricultural Hall in Islington. Gamages was a department store in Holborn. |
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| Bicycles looked after on a Great Western Railway train at Paddington. |
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| Women’s international ‘Ping Pong’ match at Queen’s Hall in Langham Place. |
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| Evening dinner at a London boarding house. |
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| Archery in Regent’s Park. |
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| The buffet room at Kings Cross station, famous for its sheep hearts. |
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| People waiting in line to buy trim-mixes of meat. |
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| Waiting for the lifts at Bank Underground. |
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| Building the Great Northern and City Railway. It ended up being a white elephant and never used. |
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| A lager beer saloon on Glasshouse Street in Soho, just off Regent Street. |
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| The “Baby Parade” at female part of Wormwood Scrubs Gaol. |
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| Tenement blocks recently built off the Farringdon Road. |
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| Aerial view of London looking down on Trafalgar Square. |
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| The King ready for a drive, Sunday evening, East and West. |
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| Man selling hot drinks for children. |
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| Men basking in the sun. |
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| Mansion House, Sloane Square and Shepherd’s Bush stations. |
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| Crystal Palace lit up during a firework display. |
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| London Bridge and the river seen from the top of the Monument. |