Saturday, 3 August

Old Knightsbridge: Horse Guards, Courtesans and Music Hall Stars

History of working people in 18th-19th century Knightsbridge: Horse Guards, lodginghouse keepers, famous courtesans and Champagne Charlie

By The Naked Anthropologist

Date and time

Starts on Sat, 3 Aug 2024 13:00 GMT+1

Location

Exit 1, Knightsbridge Station

North side Knightsbridge Road at Serpentine Alley London SW1X 7LJ United Kingdom

Refund Policy

Refunds up to 1 day before event

Eventbrite's fee is nonrefundable.

About this event

2 hours 30 minutes

You'll see the barracks from behind and from the front in Hyde Park, where the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment leave for Changing the Guard ceremonies. Rotten Row was long the scene of high-society socialising, and you'll hear about Skittles, the brilliant horsewoman who was courtesan to the rich and famous. The Duke of Wellington was client to demi-rep Harriette Wilson in these streets, and you'll find out about a woman he tried to evict from her hut near the Serpentine when the Great Exhibition of 1851 was afoot. Horses of all kinds and the men who bred, groomed and bet on them are a presence. Music-hall stars George Leybourne and the Great Vance played in houses here, and you'll also hear the story of a lowly horse guard and the dolly-mop he married in the back streets of a workers' Knightsbridge quite unlike the one you usually hear about.

L aura Agustin is an historian, author and qualified guide interested to bring out the lives of unnamed Londoners, the 'ordinary folks', highlighting issues of gender, sex and class.

The Naked Anthropologist is Laura's longtime blog, focusing now on London walks with Gender, Sex and Class.

Organised by

The Naked Anthropologist

Laura Agustín has been a writer, researcher and critical historian all her life. She has been a Londoner since the 1960s, although she has lived in other towns and countries. Author of Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry, she has for many years focused on getting the stories out of women and others marginalised because of being poor, foreign, ‘different’ or doing jobs some folks think are Wrong, in the present and in the past. She spent time with illuminated manuscripts at the British Library looking for clues to how women lived 1000 years ago, and couldn’t stop reading even if she wanted to. She is known as The Naked Anthropologist. She has qualified as a tour guide in order to take this focus to the streets, where guided history walks rarely talk about the poor except as objects of charity.