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: 1900s
Sound category: Religious > Rituals of other religions
Title of work: A Fortress in Anglo-Jewry
Type of publication: History
Author: Bernard Homa
Year of publication: 1953
Page/volume number: Unknown
Bernard Homa recalls the Machzike Hadath Synagogue in Brick Lane
My earliest recollections of the Machzike Hadath Synagogue go back to my boyhood. What a magnificent appearance it presented during the High Festivals! What a splendid array of Talmudic scholars along the honoured Eastern Wall! The shool overcrowded with extra chairs all round the bemah and in front of these, personal prayer stands suitably covered, with everybody keyed up to the importance of the occasion. One just felt the holiness of the place. And with what fervour were the prayers uttered! When the moment came for the Congregation to recite a prayer they could hardly wait for the chazan to finish his part before they would burst out in one loud accord impatient to show their devotion. And when the sepharim were carried to the bemah, how all thronged to kiss them! And the occasional banging by the shammas on a heavy machzar often accompanied by a loud 'Shah' to silence the more audible women-folk in the galleries hidden from view behind lace curtains.
Period referred to: 1660s
Sound category: Religious > Rituals of other religions
Title of work: The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Type of publication: Diary
Author: Samuel Pepys
Year of publication: 1663
Page/volume number: 14 October 1663
’ Their service all in a singing way, and in Hebrew’
Thence home and after dinner my wife and I, by Mr. Rawlinson's conduct, to the Jewish Synagogue: where the men and boys in their vayles, and the women behind a lattice out of sight; and some things stand up, which I believe is their Law, in a press to which all coming in do bow; and at the putting on their vayles do say something, to which others that hear him do cry Amen, and the party do kiss his vayle. Their service all in a singing way, and in Hebrew. And anon their Laws that they take out of the press are carried by several men, four or five several burthens in all, and they do relieve one another; and whether it is that every one desires to have the carrying of it, I cannot tell, thus they carried it round about the room while such a service is singing. And in the end they had a prayer for the King, which they pronounced his name in Portugall; but the prayer, like the rest, in Hebrew. But, Lord! to see the disorder, laughing, sporting, and no attention, but confusion in all their service, more like brutes than people knowing the true God, would make a man forswear ever seeing them more and indeed I never did see so much, or could have imagined there had been any religion in the whole world so absurdly performed as this.