Forums: Victorian (comics)

On June 9, 1865, the 'tidal train', as the Victorians called the train which picked up cross-Channel passengers, was making its way from Folkestone to London, rattling through Kent at 50 miles per hour. Between Headcorn and Staplehurst, a gang of platelayers was working on the line and had taken up 50 feet of track. Their foreman had miscalculated the time of the approaching train. A crash was inevitable. The train careered over a little bridge into a stream. Ten passengers were killed and 40 injured.

The public is to get its first chance in 145 years to see the Brunnel tunnel under the Thames that was hailed as an eighth wonder of the world and a triumph of Victorian engineering. The tunnel is open today and tomorrow and a Fancy Fair originally held in 1852 below the river will be recreated at the nearby Brunel Museum. It was built between 1825 and 1843 by Marc Brunel and his son, Isambard, and was the first known to have been built beneath a navigable river.

The perfectly-preserved payment, which has the serial number 000001, was the first of millions produced by the Post Office in Lombard Street, London, in 1881. It sold for £4,485, smashing the guide price of £2,500. Auctioneer Richard Beale, of Warwick and Warwick Auctioneers, said: “This was a very unique item and as such went for a lot more than predicted. There were lots of bids from enthusiasts. It’s been in the same family for over 130 years so the opportunity to own something as rare as this doesn’t come up very often. Collectors were always going to have to dig...

Valentine's Day derives from the Feast of St. Valentine, established in 496 by Pope Gelasius I. Why this feast day was decreed remains obscure and the identity of the specific St. Valentine thus honored is uncertain -- there are several St. Valentines recorded in the early centuries of the Catholic Church. Neither is it certain how the Feast of St. Valentine came to be associated with cupid, romance, roses, doves, and such.