What Victorians Did on Long Evenings Before Television

Hey guys! We're now on Spotify 🎧 Join us here: https://open.spotify.com/show/7gCS2wc... Fall asleep to history tonight in a tall stucco town house in Bayswater, London, on a Thursday evening in November 1877, from the moment the gas is lit in the hall at dusk to the last flame turned down at bedtime. In 1879 London gas cost 3s to 3s 6d for every 1,000 cubic feet, and one good burner used about 5 cubic feet an hour for the light of 15 candles. A Bayswater letter could still arrive before bed, because London's town districts had 11 postal deliveries a day, the last beginning at about 7.45 in the evening. Mudie's Select Library lent a family its whole winter of novels for 1 guinea a year, while a London laborer earned something like 20s a week. And Mrs Beeton's rule for the end of the night was that no servant could stay up after the master and mistress had gone to bed. Subscribe to the channel: @thequietpasst In this video, we talk about one long winter evening in a Victorian London home before television, including lighting the gas in the hall with its batswing flame, the evening posts and letters at the writing table, dinner and the move to the drawing room, paraffin lamps with their Duplex burners and the candles on the mantelpiece, a game of Happy Families before the nursery, the piano and The Lost Chord of 1877, reading aloud by the fire and Molly Hughes's real Canonbury childhood, the box of books from Mudie's, Berlin wool work at the work table, consequences, dumb crambo, charades and forfeits from Cassell's book of indoor games, the spelling bee craze, squails and the stereoscope, the servants' own evening below stairs, what one evening of gas, coal and music cost against a year's wages, the tea tray, family prayers from Henry Thornton's book, the bedroom candles on the hall table, the bedroom fires lit an hour before bed, the master's last round of the lights and fires, and the gas on the landing turned down to a small blue bead. 🔔 Subscribe, and the next long evening in the past will be waiting for you whenever the night is. 💬 Tell us where in the world you're listening from, and which part of the Ashbys' evening you would have liked best, the piano, the forfeits or the stereoscope. 📢 Share this with someone who loves Victorian history or just needs a good night's sleep, on Facebook, on Reddit or in the family group chat, because every listener you send our way keeps these quiet nights going. Chapters: 00:00 Opening 20:38 The drawing room and its lamps 41:00 Reading aloud by the fire 1:00:15 Consequences, crambo and forfeits 1:20:16 What one evening cost 1:39:59 The candles on the hall table 1:58:22 The sleeping house Sources: Isabella Beeton, The Book of Household Management (1861): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10136 Cassell's Book of In-door Amusements, Card Games, and Fireside Fun: Cassell's Book of In-door Amusements, Card Games, and Fireside Fun by Various Victorian London, Lighting: Gas (Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1879): Victorian London - Lighting - Gas Victorian London, Frequency of Postal Deliveries: https://www.victorianlondon.org/commu... The Reading Experience Database, M. V. Hughes, A London Family 1870-1900: https://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/U... Jonathan Taylor, Lighting in the Victorian Home: https://buildingconservation.com/arti... Victoria and Albert Museum, Stereographs: https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/factory-pr... DISCLAIMER: This video is based on real historical events and figures, drawn from the sources listed above alongside primary archives, biographies, court records, period press, and leading historical scholarship. While every video is heavily researched, occasional minor inaccuracies in dates, quotes, or specific details may occur — historical sources sometimes disagree, and interpretation is sometimes required where the historical record is silent. Any errors are unintentional. #TheQuietPast #HistoryForSleep #SleepStory #BedtimeStory #FallAsleep #SleepAid #History #Documentary #VictorianEra #Victorian #VictorianLondon #London #Bayswater #1870s #VictorianHome #ParlourGames #MrsBeeton #GasLight #DrawingRoom #FamilyEvening #EnglishHistory