Victorian London

English Lit: AQA GCSE The Sign of the Four, topic 1.1.4

Sherlock Holmes was introduced in 1887 to a Victorian society experiencing a great deal of change.

The Victorians saw a rise in industry, exploration, scientific and technological discovery, as well as the beginnings of forensics and detection.

Victorian Britain was also concerned with the growth of the British Empire and making England prosper through trade and colonisation.
Conan Doyle used his characters to explore new cultures, many of which his readers would have never previously encountered.

Despite all of the growth in society, there was a lot of poverty and poor health.
The rise of industry caused a huge amount of smog in the London air, meaning it was dark, dreary, and people developed a number of health issues.
Crime, prostitution, murder and drug abuse were all common in Victorian England.

In 1870, the Education Act was introduced in England.
This meant that education was made compulsory for all children.
This meant that by the time Arthur Conan Doyle wrote The Sign of the Four in the 1880s, there would have been a huge increase in the number of lower-class people who were able to read.

Drug Use in Victorian London

Although Sherlock Holmes takes numerous drugs (‘there still remains the cocaine-bottle’), we cannot judge him by the same rules we live by today.

In early Victorian Britain, it was possible to buy cocaine, arsenic, and other drugs from the local chemist.
They were not illegal and the dangers of them were generally unknown.
Opium (a highly-addictive narcotic drug) was sold on market stalls.

Some medical professions (like our fictional Dr Watson) suspected that some drugs were dangerous, but there was no solid proof in early Victorian Britain.

There were no restrictions on the sale of drugs until the Pharmacy Act in 1868.
The Pharmacy Act limited the sale of poisons and dangerous drugs to qualified chemists/pharmacists and druggists.
But it is important to note that these people could still supply dangerous drugs to people if they felt that they needed them.
The Act also meant that all poisonous substances (e.g. those with cyanide in them) had to be regulated carefully – but they could still be sold.