3-070-597 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Fleet-Street during the snowstorm on Tuesday night, January 18, 1881. 'The great storm will long be held memorable...Not for many years past has the southern part of Great Britain felt a wintry storm to be compared in violence and long continuance with that of last week. All over London, all through the Monday night, the wind blew a perfect hurricane, and continued, all next day...the snow continuing to fall, it was driven by the easterly wind which prevailed into drifts and wreaths, especially in the suburbs, where in places it lay to the depth of three or four feet...By noon a good deal of snow had fallen, and the effect of the high wind, which was then pretty steady from the N.E., was I to deposit the drift three feet in depth on one side of many streets...Cabmen and the drivers of omnibuses wore veils over their faces, as without them the blinding snow would have rendered them incapable of driving without danger...In the Strand clouds of snow came from the streets abutting on its southern side. Scarcely a cab was to be seen in the streets, but there were some four-wheelers having two, and in a few cases three, horses yoked to them. A guinea or more was in some cases demanded by cabmen'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.