Collecting Gallery

Collecting Eggs at Flamborough Head

Collecting seagull's eggs at Flamborough Head, Yorkshire. A traditional practice for farmers whose land adjoined the cliff edge, which gave them a legal right to supplement their income by selling eggs. The farmer sub-licenced gangs of three or four climmers, to gather eggs of the gulls, common guillemot, razorbill and others from the cliff side. It was a perilous business, requiring fitness and skill, but the rewards must have been great - in 1908 such eggs commanded a shilling a dozen (about the same as a hundredweight of coal) and it was estimated that gangs could collect up to 300 or 400 eggs a day in season. Date: 1911

© Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection

Londons new telephone-post kiosk

A new telephone kiosk in use in a London street, showing a caller inside, postage stamps being bought from the machine outside, and a postman collecting mail from the letterbox

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

07, 1928, 21, Bought, Caller, Collecting, Dec, Historical, History, Iln, Import, Inside, Kiosk, Londons, Machine, Mail, New, Out Side, Post, Postage, Showing, Stamps, Street, Telephone

Jonathan Wild

Engraving depicting Jonathan Wild in the cart. Jonathan Wild, (1682/83-1725), was a London underworld figure. He became a manipulator of legal systems, collecting the rewards offered for valuables which he had stolen himself, bribing prison guards to release his colleagues, and blackmailing any who crossed him. He was responsible for the arrest and execution of Jack Sheppard, a petty thief and burglar who had won the publics affection as a lovable rogue. However, Wilds duplicity became known, and his men began to give evidence against him. After a suicide attempt, he was hanged at Tyburn

© Mary Evans / Peter & Dawn Cope Collection Mary Evans / Peter & Dawn Cope Collection