A database of several hundred historical descriptions and references to London's sounds. They're drawn mainly from primary sources such as autobiographies, diaries and statutes, as well as novels written around the times they depict.
Period referred to: 1867
Sound category: Religious > Indoor services and sermons
Title of work: South London Press
Type of publication: Newspaper
Author: Unnamed journalist
Year of publication: 1867
Page/volume number: 30 November 1867, page 11
A service at All Saints, Lambeth, is disrupted by ‘roughs and boys’
Few South Londoners, who took note of the instalment of Dr. Lee in the church of All Saints, ever apprehended that almost immediately it changed teachers such unseemly disturbances as have been created therein would have taken place. Some who are not immediately familiar with the church may like to know that its site is not far from the Westminster Bridge-road end of the New Cut, in which its narrow Norman porch and high slender spires are noticeable objects.
[. . .]
The main entrance has been closed, and there is now but one means of ingress or egress, which is through a narrow door in the rear of the church, down a yard-wide flight of steep steps into a dark, narrow side street. Here a crowd congregated on Saturday evening, and as the preacher, the Rev. J. A. Johnstone (of St. John's, Waterloo-road), left, assailed him with hisses and groans, further greeting Dr. Lee with a parody of the hymn, "O Paradise," during his return home with a police escort. The next day, Sunday, the church was packed with a most irreverent crowd, who had apparently "come to scoff," but who did not "remain to pray." Gossip, as at a theatre before the rise of the curtain, prevailed until the entry of the choristers and clergy, when hisses and groans were prevalent.
As the disturbers became emboldened, they grew more noisy, and so hissed the preacher, Mr. Mackonochie, that he gave the attempt up as a bad job, after a short trial. The Communion Service then began, in the midst of which an uproar was commenced. One of those presumedly desirous of partaking, it is said, took the portion of the consecrated bread or wafer and treated it irreverently, promising to "give it to his dog." A rush was made to the "altar," and some of the choristers, divesting themselves of their surplices, hastened to protect the building from injury. The font was thrown down and broken, and some little ornamentation of flowers and a cross above it violently smashed. A large proportion of the congregation seemed to be roughs and boys.
In the evening Dr. Liddell preached (of St. Barnabas, Pimlico), to a crowded auditory. An attempt at noise by clattering the doors, &c., was made, but none whatever within the building. The sermon, "Looking unto Jesus," was in direct advocacy of the transubstantiation theory, the preacher adducing in support the well-known quotation from the Catechism respecting the Sacraments.
On Tuesday, at the Southwark police-court, Samuel Rouse, 29, a respectable-looking young man, described as a merchant's clerk, residing at 65 Spencer road, Stoke Newington, was charged with being concerned in the disturbance, and committing damage to the font to the extent of £7.
Period referred to: 1660s
Sound category: Religious > Church sermons
Title of work: The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Type of publication: Diary
Author: Samuel Pepys
Year of publication: 1664
Page/volume number: 25 March 1664
’ It was the worst sermon I ever heard him make,
I must confess; and yet it was good’
The Doctor preached upon the thirty-first of Jeremy, and the twenty-first and twenty-second verses, about a woman compassing a man; meaning the Virgin conceiving and bearing our Saviour. It was the worst sermon I ever heard him make, I must confess; and yet it was good, and in two places very bitter, advising the King to do as the Emperor Severus did, to hang up a Presbyter John (a short coat and a long gowne interchangeably) in all the Courts of England. But the story of Severus was pretty, that he hanged up forty senators before the Senate house, and then made a speech presently to the Senate in praise of his owne lenity; and then decreed that never any senator after that time should suffer in the same manner without consent of the Senate: which he compared to the proceeding of the Long Parliament against my Lord Strafford. He said the greatest part of the lay magistrates in England were Puritans, and would not do justice; and the Bishopps, their powers were so taken away and lessened, that they could not exercise the power they ought. He told the King and the ladies plainly, speaking of death and of the skulls and bones of dead men and women, how there is no difference; that nobody could tell that of the great Marius or Alexander from a pyoneer; nor, for all the pains the ladies take with their faces, he that should look in a charnels-house could not distinguish which was Cleopatra's, or fair Rosamond's, or Jane Shoare's.
Period referred to: 1660s
Sound category: Religious > Church sermons
Title of work: The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Type of publication: Diary
Author: Samuel Pepys
Year of publication: 1662
Page/volume number: 19 January 1662
‘Very bold words’ at a church sermon
To church in the morning, where Mr. Mills preached upon Christ's being offered up for our sins, and there proving the equity with what justice God would lay our sins upon his Son, he did make such a sermon (among other things pleading, from God's universal sovereignty over all his creatures, the power he has of commanding what he would of his Son by the same rule as that he might have made us all, and the whole world from the beginning to have been in hell, arguing from the power the potter has over his clay), that I could have wished he had let it alone; and speaking again, the Father is now so satisfied by our security for our debt, that we might say at the last day as many of us as have interest in Christ's death: Lord, we owe thee nothing, our debt is paid. We are not beholden to, thee for anything, for thy debt is paid to thee to the full; which methinks were very bold words.
Period referred to: Early 1700s
Sound category: Religious > Church and indoor sermons
Title of work: Amusements Serious and Comical
Type of publication: Satire
Author: Thomas Brown
Year of publication: 1700
Page/volume number: Amusement X
Thomas Brown hears prayer-bills read in a London church
Before Sermon began, the Clark in a Slit Stick (contrived for that purpose at a Serious Consult by the Famous Architects and Engineers, Sir C. W. and Col. Pickpeper) handed up to the Pulpit a Number of Prayer-Bills, containg the Humble Petitions of divers Devoto's, for a supply of what they wanted, and the removal of their Afflictions.
One was a Bill from a Courtier, that having a good Post, desired he might keep it for his Life, without being call'd to an Account for Neglect, or Mismanagement; and that he might continue without controul, God's Servant in Ordinary, and the King's Special Favourite.
A Young Virgin, apprehensive of her Wants, and Weaknesses, being about to enter into the Holy State of Matrimony, prayed for proportionable Gifts and Graces, to enable her for such an Under-Taking.
Some Pray'd for Good Matches for their Daughters, and good Offices for their Sons; others beg'd Children for themselves: And sure the Husband that allows his Wife to ask Children Abroad, will be so Civil as to take them Home when they are given him.
Now came abundance of Bills from such as were going Voyages to Sea, and others that were taking long Journeys by Land; both Praying for the Gift of Chastity for their Wives, and Fidelity for their Prentices, till they should return again. Then the Bills of Complaint coming in thick and threefold, Humbly shewing that many Citizens Wives, had hard Hearts, Undutiful Husbands, and Disobedient Children, which they heartily Pray'd to be quit of; I discharg'd my Ears from their Attendance on so Melancholy a Subject, and employed my Eyes on the variety of Diverting Faces in the Gallery.
Period referred to: 1660s
Sound category: Religious > Church and other indoor sermons
Title of work: The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Type of publication: Diary
Author: Samuel Pepys
Year of publication: 1660
Page/volume number: November
Pepys hears the Book of Common Prayer reintroduced in church
In the morn to our own church, where Mr. Mills did begin to nibble at the Common Prayer, by saying "Glory be to the Father, &c." after he had read the two psalms; but the people had been so little used to it, that they could not tell what to answer. This declaration of the King's do give the Presbyterians some satisfaction, and a pretence to read the Common Prayer, which they would not do before because of their former preaching against it.
Period referred to: 1660s
Sound category: Religious > Indoor sermons
Title of work: The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Type of publication: Diary
Author: Samuel Pepys
Year of publication: 1660
Page/volume number: September 1660
‘Before sermon I laughed at the reader’
She went with Mr. Child to Whitehall chapel and Mr. Pierce with me to the Abbey, where I expected to hear Mr. Baxter or Mr. Rowe preach their farewell sermon, and in Mr. Symons's pew I sat and heard Mr. Rowe. Before sermon I laughed at the reader, who in his prayer desires of God that He would imprint his word on the thumbs of our right hands and on the right great toes of our right feet. In the midst of the sermon some plaster fell from the top of the Abbey, that made me and all the rest in our pew afeard, and I wished myself out.
Period referred to: 1660s
Sound category: Religious > Church and other indoor sermons
Title of work: The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Type of publication: Diary
Author: Samuel Pepys
Year of publication: 1660
Page/volume number: February 1660
‘A stranger, an old man, preached a good honest sermon’
In the morning to Mr. Gunning, where a stranger, an old man, preached a good honest sermon upon "What manner of love is this that we should be called the sons of God." [. . .] To their church in the afternoon, and in Mrs. Turner's pew my wife took up a good black hood and kept it. A stranger preached a poor sermon, and so read over the whole book of the story of Tobit.
Period referred to: 1660s
Sound category: Religious > Church and other indoor sermons
Title of work: The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Type of publication: Diary
Author: Samuel Pepys
Year of publication: 1660
Page/volume number: January 1660
‘A lazy poor sermon’
I went in the morning to Mr. Messum's, where I met with W. Thurburn and sat with him in his pew. A very eloquent sermon about the duty of all to give good example in our lives and conversation, which I fear he himself was most guilty of not doing. [. . .] To church in the afternoon to Mr. Herring, where a lazy poor sermon.
[. . .]
In the morning I went to Mr. Gunning's, where he made an excellent sermon upon the 2d of the Galatians, about the difference that fell between St. Paul and St. Peter (the feast day of St. Paul being a day or two ago), whereby he did prove, that, contrary to the doctrine of the Roman Church, St. Paul did never own any dependance, or that he was inferior to St. Peter, but that they were equal, only one a particular charge of preaching to the Jews, and the other to the Gentiles.