George Hitchinson: a simple question

[Monty]

Just some info...

...thats all.

Im unsure if there is a gas lamp on the Thrawl st, Commercial st junction. There is one in Folgate st which is working, though that isnt a street lamp per se.

The Whitechapel Board of Works were responsibe for the gas lamps in the area and, if anyone is interested, read THE GREAT GOULSTON ST GRAFFITO dissertation, it my help.

Monty

[Fisherman]

Thanks, Monty! Do you have the name of that dissertation, or could you link to it?

The best,
Fisherman

[Monty]

Fish,

THE GREAT GOULSTON ST DEBATE is its name.

Unfortunately Im accessing this site from my phone and therefore cannot provide a link, sorry.

[Rob Clack]

There's gas lamp now at the junction of Thrawl Street and Commercial Street. I couldn't say for certain there was one there in 1888. It may not be important but there may not have been any buildings on either corner of Thrawl Street and Commercial Street in 1888. There were none in 1890.

This is Thrawl Street looking towards Commercial Street a couple of years back.



Rob

[claire]

You know, Fisherman, I really don't want to be rude since I find your Wiki-fuelled debating style quite interesting, but it does leave a lot to be desired. You can't just roll onto Wikipedia, find a few little 'facts' about something, and deploy them here in the hope that people will be convinced that your argument is the only cogent one.

For example, you wheel out the Bray lamp detail, with this sort of, huh, so, this existed, and this was bright, dude, look at this YouTube vid. Even if, even if they had a Bray light on Dorset Street in 1888, this proves absolutely nothing. The maximum capacity of a light such as this is dependent upon conditions--remember, that whole business with rain and dirt and wind that was extant that night? Where was this Bray lamp? Following MJK? It wasn't a follow-spot, for heaven's sake. You talk about candlepower as if it proves something, when what is pertinent here is footcandle, or lux, since what we are interested in is the amount of light on a surface. And so on and so forth.

Also, this whole thing about things 'being around.' What on earth is that about? There were telephones around, too. Why not just wonder why MJK didn't call the police?

It's tiresome, Fisherman. You make some good points but just dragging lots of wikiquotes into proceedings protracts things needlessly. People are still campaigning for decent lighting on east end backstreets now. The availability of them means nothing.

Ah, the weekend

[Rob Clack]

Just re-read my post and realised I made a bit of a boob. I should have said 'There's no gas lamp now at the junction of Thrawl Street and Commercial Street'
Old age creeping up on me.

Rob

[Mitch Rowe]

Such a pity that they dont just gather up all the original gaslamps and create a little area like a gaslamp village and actually use them. Of course they would probably be required to use other lighting besides for safety. But every once in awhule they could just run the gaslamps to show everyone what it was like.

[Ben]

Hi Fish

Ehrm, not really. We know that it was rejected in 82 and that the streets were not lit by it in 84, when it comes to the lamps paid for by the city of London

No, it doesn't Fisherman. That wasn't specified in the article. It just says they were rejected full stop by 1882. The pubs and lodging houses were unlikely to have forked out silly sums for a light to attract customers, moth-like, to premises they were going to frequent anyway. All in all, the argument for positing the existence of an uber-powerful light made with lots of whale heads is wholly without basis.

If I may remind you, you were dead certain some posts back that the Bray lamp was not a bright one, and that there were in fact no bright gas lamps available back then.

The average Victorian bray-burner was not a bright one. It was piss poor, as your little video aptly demonstrated. The bray-burners that were appreciably brighter would not have been on the streets of London in 1888, again, as your article shows. Both sources put paid to you efforts to score points. You know that, because you provided the sources yourself, and now you're saying that Hutchinson could have observed his patently bogus suspect under a 800 Watt blaze.

Except you know that isn't the case because know that such lamps weren't on the streets of London in 1888.

Even though the council of London would not pay for Bray lamps, we cannot be sure that the pub owners and boarding house keepers did not do just that

This is just nonsense.

Lodging houses and the occasional pub had a light mounted against the wall, but to try to make out that they were any brighter than the average gas lamp is wholly implausible. It was a busy, crowded district. Doss houses and pubs alike would have been deluged. They didn't need to fork out silly, unrealistic sums for powerful torches made of whale spunk or whatever.

Unless the landlords were catering primarily for moths, it would have made any bleeding difference. Besides which, we know that gas lamps were often situated at the street junctions - The Queen's Head was situated on one such junction. We also know that Hutchinson stated that he stood "against" the lamp, which meant it was isolated from the pub, not mounted on a wall.

It was a gas lamp he stood against. A normal one.

But it sure was bright enough to dispell any belief that gas lamps were bad distributors of light back in them days.

The gas lamps on the streets of London is 1888 were bad distributors of light. The source you provided said so - remember? After 1882, it was back to the "dull and dark streets of London".

That was what brought you more than 700 watts of Bray lamp brightness as a consequence.

Oh, you mean the lamps that we know weren't on the streets of London in 1888? Maybe they were in use in Arles, when Van Gogh came up with his crazy-angled balconies, but they don't relate to the East End of 1888 one tiny bit.

That, Ben, does in no way touch on the question of whether there were bright gas lamps available at the time. It seems that now that you have lost that question in a very emphatic manner, you are resorting to the tactics of "Oh, okay, they were around -but they could NOT have been around on these particular streets!"

I've asked you before. Don't accuse me of resorting to "tactics", and don't even think about deluding yourself into believing I've "lost". I've said that "powerful lights" weren't around on the streets of London in 1888 - by around, I mean in circulation. Did I mean that there was no powerful light in existence - of course not. If you light a bonfire in Dorset Street using paper, wood, and straw, you've got a powerful light.

Todays streets bathe in light, for the simple reason that light can be had, just as it could be had at that time

So, you're saying that because there was such a thing as "light", the degree of it on the streets today is the same as back then? Advances in technology have improved lighting conditions on our streets since the LVP. Or are you disputing even that?

I think that if that particular type of lamp had been on the market for +20 years - as shown by the lamp I poster earlier; it was from the 1860:s and had original Bray burners - they would have been attached to many a wall in London by the time Hutch needed them to make his observation.

Yes, but that lamp from the 1860s would not have emmitted the power of 700 watts, it being a chandelier for use indoors!. If such an item had been attached to a wall, Hutchinson would have seen diddly fecking squat.

but they may well have lit up many a public meetingplace and boardinghouse. And some of them may or may not have had the address Dorset Street or Commercial Street.

Well no, actually, no.

Your source says otherwise.

[Ben]

A hundred posts after that or so, you finally had to give in, since I had shoved a number of tailless cutaway jackets down your throat

Do you really wish to delude yourself to such an embarrasingly painful extent?

I most emphatically did not "have to give in" about anything relating to cutaway jackets, and how utterly pathetic that you should try to score points from a previous thread. I stated that the conventional dictionary definition of a cutaway or morning coat is one that has tails, and I abolutely stand by that. 100%.

You have shoved nothing "down my throat" that I haven't instantly puked back up with greater force in the direction of your fatuous, stubborn, hectoring slab of a face.

You have obstructed and wriggled your way towards the same inevitable finish, only to be forced to see that you were wrong as I shoved the Bray lamp down your throat.

Again, you are either delusional or a very wreckless, blustering liar, and all because you're pathologically desperate to score points. It's been recognised by others; you leach on to certain posters like some sickly stalker, following them around everywhere they post, and then try to deny it when its picked up upon by others.

I made the point that 800 watt braybuners were not in use on the streets of London, and I was right - thanks the sources you provided. Whoopty-frickin-doo. I utterly resent the accusation that I've obstructed or riggled from anything, and sense very strongly that you're trying to aggrivate me on purpose. Keep trying. Please keep trying. I'm going nowhere. I'm here to page 1000 if necessary, and tradition dicates that there must be a token Scandinavian naysayer along for the ride with me.

You're fighting with yourself because you've been utterly deprived of the opportunity you crave; to say "Haha, I was right and you're wrong". If that gives you some sort of depraved meaning or purpose in life, I'm sorry for you, but you've failed miserably in that regard.

And your continued antagonisms don't help much either.

[Ben]

I should have said 'There's no gas lamp now at the junction of Thrawl Street and Commercial Street'

Thanks for that, Rob. Much appreciated.

I must have confused my "lamp sighting" with another street on my last visit.

Best regards,
Ben

[Ben]

No, wait!

Huge balls-up on my part, I'm afraid. The Queen's Head was at the corner of Fashion Street and Commercial Street, not Thrawl Street. Any lamps there, Rob?

Thanks,
Bne

[Fisherman]

Hi Claire!

"I really don't want to be rude since I find your Wiki-fuelled debating style quite interesting, but it does leave a lot to be desired."

This whole debate has left heaps to be desired, Claire! And I am very much aware that there may lie a world of difference inbetween what was there at Dorset street and what a Bray lamp COULD come up with performancewise.

But when you write:
"Even if, even if they had a Bray light on Dorset Street in 1888, this proves absolutely nothing"

...you are really moving away from the subject at hand. The whole issue has been to establish whether there were bright gas lamps on the market back in 1888, and Ben has refuted this, saying that since the lamps before 1891 were open flame lamps, they could not possibly have been bright.
But they could! It all owes to the material used in the lamps, as you will find out when reading about it. That, and that only, is what I have been seeking recognition for, Claire.

Now, the matter of what lamps were really there in Dorset Street and Commercial Street, is a totally different thing, and I am the first to realize and admit that. No matter how much I dig up about gas lamp strengths it won´t do me a bit of good if I am trying to prove that Hutch had good lighting conditions, making his observation. Even if we KNEW that he WAS standing under a Bray lamp, we could never be sure that it was not malfunctioning on the evening, and I realize that. I am not pushing any point that involves phrases like "must have" or "could not have been", I am in fact totally opposed to such things when we have no way of being sure. And that opposition of mine is what I have been fighting for here, since I refute what Ben is saying - that the conditions could never have allowed for Hutch to make the observation. We do not know that, and one of the things that ought to make us realize this is that we KNOW that technology allowed for VERY bright gas light, even in them days.

...and NO, I am NOT using Wikipedia if I can avoid it - I know how it is constructed and that it is riddled with faults. But surely a Youtube film that shows us how a gas lamp works is something that adds valuable insights and information, Claire?

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Mitch writes:

"Such a pity that they dont just gather up all the original gaslamps and create a little area like a gaslamp village and actually use them."

They do, in some place and at some occasions, Mitch. There are whole districts of cities that are gas-lit even today. But those gas lamps would normally be of the type manufactured with mantles, and therefore not old enough to be "our" kinds of lamps. If you search the web using a term like gaslight district you will come upon a few.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben writes:

"The pubs and lodging houses were unlikely to have forked out silly sums for a light to attract customers"

and that is the only point I will address in your long post, since it is one that goes very well to show how you misunderstand the whole issue.

Even if you are right here, Ben, and you may well be - maybe the pubowners would not cough up the money asked for a Bray lamp - the key word in you sentence is that it was UNLIKELY. And that it would probably be, at least to some extent.
But what made me challenge you from the outset on the whole issue was that you said that Hutchs description of Astrakhan man was something that he could not possibly have managed, one of your points being that there would not have been light enough, since there, according to you, were no bright gas lamps around back in 1888, owing to the fact that they were all open flame lamps.

There were, though, very bright gas lamps to be had, and therefore that argument of yours is gone.

You are welcome to argue that these types of lamps would probably not have been found on Dorset Street as much as you like - it is another question altogether.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben, as your next post involves phrasings like "your fatuous, stubborn, hectoring slab of a face" and "you leach on to certain posters like some sickly stalker, following them around everywhere they post", I will refrain from answering. Such things and accusations tell their own story, and anybody who wishes to do so can go back to the threads I have mentioned and check for themselves what was said on them.

To leach on somebody, by the way, is to try and gain something, and I fail to see that I have gained anything from you but faltitudes and slanderous language. You may be overestimating yourself to some extent here, Ben.

The best,
Fisherman