Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Harringay Mercury - Edwardian Harringay Laid Bare!
Whether it's gay flatshares, carnival feuds or griping commuters, Harringay Online's century-old forbear had it all.
As HoL approaches it's tenth anniversary, we're in commemorative mood and are celebrating over a century and a quarter of life in Harringay.
So I've started adding a few pages from the London North and Crouch End Observer at the start of the last century.. This paper had a section called the Harringay Mercury which focussed on Harringay.
You can see the first few excerpts in the History Group here.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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In that same page: Cyclists take warning
A point of interest to cyclists was decided at North London Police Court on Thursday.
Mr Joseph Enoch Thornton, of Stamford Hill, was riding at 11:15 p.m. on May 28th, carry a small electric light in the buttonhole of his coat.
The magistrate was of opinion that this was insufficient, and that the light required must be attached to the bicycle. He imposed a penalty of 1s and costs.
This was a test case which the N.C.U. intend to carry further.
Almost 100 years later a Harringay resident was responsible for convincing the state to relax the rules on cyclists using flashing LED lights on their bicycles.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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It's amazing how similar many of the issues are to those we're still talking about today.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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I admire your perseverance Hugh. Last year I had to read through and index 12 months of the 1834 Somerset and Dorsetshire Gazette for a research project. The combination of blurred type and florid language meant I needed a bit of a lie down every 10 minutes. Never did find the telly page.
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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If our esteemed Moderator chooses to trace HarringayOnline's antecedents to the Edwardian Harringay Mercury, who are we to gainsay him? I have, however, combed the columns of the Mercury for June and August 1903 but have failed to trace even one mention of 'Lost Male Black Cat N22' or 'Lost B & W semi long haired Cat N15' or of his/her near neighbour, 'Lost Tabby Cat called Walter N15'. Were our Harringay antecedents more careful of their feline friends, or just more hard-hearted? Or were the feline fraternity or sorority of 1903 simply more streetwise and less prone to stray?
For those readers under 50 years who may have been puzzled by Mr Harringay's Household's excursion from Harringay Park Station to Chingford on St Lubbock's Day, 3rd August 1903, a word or two of explication may be in order. 'St Lubbock' was, of course, the Liberal Sir John Lubbock MP - banker, polymath, dabbler, friend and neighbour of Darwin, defender of rights of workers and the poor, great admirer of bees, wasps & ants (and incidentally grandfather of Eric Lubbock, Liberal MP for Orpington for much of the 1960s) of whom Punch wrote in 1882: "How doth the Banking Busy Bee / Improve his shining Hours? / By studying on Bank Holidays / Strange Insects and Wild Flowers." Among Lubbock's many successful parliamentary bills was the 1871 Bank Holidays Act granting four additional public holidays, including the First Monday in August. A century later a 1971 act shifted this to the last Saturday of August, in effect taken on the following Monday, allowing a weekend extension to the August holiday month which did not exist in 1871. St Lubbock's miracle in persuading or hoodwinking parliament into giving the workers some more time off was still remembered well into the 20th century.
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