💬 Toshers had one of the most disgusting jobs of Victorian Britain. Searching the sewers of 19th century London, people would sieve through human sewage looking for discarded treasures. It’s a job that made them a lot of money - but came with many hazards.

⚡Before the sewage system we know today, Victorian London was a very smelly city. With the population expanding fast thanks to the industrial revolution, London became the biggest city in the world, home to more than 2 million people. But the sewer system couldn’t keep up.

The Toshers took advantage of this growth of people - and all the valuables they lost underneath the city - and ended up quite well off among the working class.

Don't miss an episode - subscribe now:

https://podfollow.com/what-we-did-before 

About the podcast:

What We Did Before is a podcast exploring the history of everyday life, from how we kept food fresh before fridges, to how we survived without shoes and what came before AI.

About your hosts:

Ollie Guillou is an award-winning podcast producer and broadcaster. He's co-founder of OG Podcasts, working with the likes of New Scientist, Dr Karan and Lessons From Our Mothers.

Matt Pyle is a lead software developer and tech enthusiast with a keen interest in media, and a love for interesting conversation and learning.

Connect with Ollie:

Website: www.ogpodcasts.co.uk 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ollie-guillou 

Email: [email protected]

💬 This is the deafening noise that powered Britain's Industrial Revolution. At its peak, thousands of men and women spent their days surrounded by the relentless clatter of weaving looms - a workplace so loud that many workers gradually lost their hearing.

⚡ Yet despite the dangers, becoming a weaver was a skilled and sought-after job. Britain's cotton industry transformed Lancashire into the workshop of the world, with entire communities built around the mills. But what was daily life really like inside them?

In this episode I visit Bancroft Mill, one of the last surviving steam-powered weaving sheds, where the looms still run today. Secretary of the museum Ian McKay explains what it was like to be a cotton weaver, why so many people chose the profession, and what happened when Britain's once-mighty cotton industry began to disappear.

Don't miss an episode - subscribe now:https://podfollow.com/what-we-did-before

🎧 Stay tuned to learn about:

➡ What a weaving shed really sounded like

➡ Why many weavers gradually lost their hearing

➡ How James Nutter opened this mill having come from nothing

➡ How Lancashire became the heart of the world's cotton industry

➡ Why Britain's cotton mills eventually fell silent

➡ What life was really like for the people who powered the Industrial Revolution

About the podcast:

What We Did Before is a podcast exploring the history of everyday life, from how we kept food fresh before fridges, to how we survived without shoes and what came before AI.

About your host:

Ollie Guillou is an award-winning podcast producer and broadcaster. He's co-founder of OG Podcasts, working with the likes of New Scientist, Dr Karan and Lessons From Our Mothers.

Connect with Ollie:

Website: www.ogpodcasts.co.uk 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ollie-guillou 

Email: [email protected]

💬 Shoes got a massive makeover 50 years ago, thanks to a boom in interest for running. A style that first emerged in the 1970s quickly became the dominant one - cushioned soles, elevated heels, narrow toes. And it’s the style we still see today. But why? 

⚡ Humans spent hundreds of thousands of years barefoot - and when we did make shoes, they were made of plant fibres or thin animal hides. We’ve cycled through many variations over the years, but today’s shoes are very different - maximising comfort and protection.

Steven Sashen is the founder of barefoot shoe brand Xero. He explains how today’s shoe style was first adopted, how marketing made it spread - and why one the original designers described it as the biggest mistake he made in his career.

Don't miss an episode - subscribe now:

https://podfollow.com/what-we-did-before 

🎧 Stay tuned to learn about:

➡ How Nike’s first waffle shoe started the shift

➡ Why the science driving the change was problematic

➡ The strange Medieval trend of wearing mega pointy “poulaines”

➡ Why barefoot runners today don’t experience life like our ancestors

➡ How barefoot shoes emerged and what they’re doing differently

About the podcast:

What We Did Before is a podcast exploring the history of everyday life, from how we kept food fresh before fridges, to how we survived without shoes and what came before AI.

About your host:

Ollie Guillou is an award-winning podcast producer and broadcaster. He's co-founder of OG Podcasts, working with the likes of New Scientist, Dr Karan and Lessons From Our Mothers.

Connect with Ollie:

Website: www.ogpodcasts.co.uk 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ollie-guillou 

Email: [email protected]

Image Credits:

(Fort Rock sandals) Ian Poellet, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

💬 The Cumbria Clock Company has been home to many of Britain’s most famous and most historic clocks. In this workshop the likes of Big Ben, the Salisbury Cathedral Clock and the astronomical clock and Hampton Court Palace.

⚡ Keith Scobie-Youngs set up this clock restoration company 36 years ago with his wife - and since then he’s been in the business of. Through careful and thorough restoration work, Keith and his team make sure the public clocks we know and love continue ticking for hundreds of years.

In this episode I visit his workshop to find out the incredible stories behind these clocks, and the surprisingly rich history behind each of them.

Don't miss an episode - subscribe now:

https://podfollow.com/what-we-did-before 

🎧 Stay tuned to learn about:

➡ What it was like to work on The Great Clock of Westminster (Big Ben)

➡ The deadly history of the clock at the Royal Courts of Justice in London

➡ How Keith once saved a clock from a burning Church - and it followed him for 40 years

➡ Why one of the clocks in his workshop is in the The Guinness Book of World Records

➡ Jack Spratt’s clock made from old bicycles and knitting needles

Learn about the Cumbria Clock Company: https://clockmaker.co.uk/ 

About the podcast:

What We Did Before is a podcast exploring the history of everyday life, from how we kept food fresh before fridges, to how we survived without shoes and what came before AI.

About your host:

Ollie Guillou is an award-winning podcast producer and broadcaster. He's co-founder of OG Podcasts, working with the likes of New Scientist, Dr Karan and Lessons From Our Mothers.

Connect with Ollie:

Website: www.ogpodcasts.co.uk 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ollie-guillou 

Email: [email protected]

Image Credits:

Jack Spratt’s Clock image credit: Brian Robert Marshall / St Andrew's church clock, Wootton Rivers

Winter’s clock image credit: Keith Howard, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Binn’s Clock image credit: kim traynor / Binns Clock, West End

Wishing Fish Clock image credit: David Stowell / Clock in the Regent Arcade

Cats Cradle Pussiewillow III Clock Basildon credit: Piecesofuk, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Hampton Court Astrological Clock: Mike Cattell, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons 

Wells Clock: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Salisbury Cathedral clock: Seth Whales, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Clock of Royal Courts of Justice: Cristian Bortes from Cluj-Napoca, Romania, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

💬 Archaeologists have found evidence of the oldest wooden handheld tools used by humans. Discovered in Greece, these ancient tools are around 430,000 years old.

⚡Dr Annemieke Milks is a palaeolithic archaeologist and part of the team which identified the objects. They were recovered from Marathousa, a Middle Pleistocene site which may have been inhabited by Homo heidelbergensis - one of our distant ancestors.

In this episode we find out about this incredible discovery - and discuss Annemieke’s wider research looking into the ancient wooden hunting weapons used by humans in the deep past.

Don't miss an episode - subscribe now:

https://podfollow.com/what-we-did-before 

🎧 Stay tuned to learn about:

➡ What these wooden hand-tools would’ve been used for

➡ How this wood has been preserved for so long

➡ The prehistoric wooden spears discovered at Schöningen in Germany

➡ What shifts in weapon design tell us about the cognitive abilities of ancient humans

➡ The emerging field of children’s archaeology

Read the paper: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2515479123 

About the podcast:

What We Did Before is a podcast exploring the history of everyday life, from how we kept food fresh before fridges, to how we survived without shoes and what came before AI.

About your host:

Ollie Guillou is an award-winning podcast producer and broadcaster. He's co-founder of OG Podcasts, working with the likes of New Scientist, Dr Karan and Lessons From Our Mothers.

Connect with Ollie:

Website: www.ogpodcasts.co.uk 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ollie-guillou 

Email: [email protected]

Image Credits:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Annual-ring-analysis-a-Taphonomic-transverse-break-surface-from-where-micro-cuts-were_fig5_372470761

💬 There’s a ruined archway sitting among the trees of my local park - but what grand building did it once belong to? A castle? A church? A grand manor house?

In this episode I take a trip to Worden Park in Leyland. Rich in history, this park was once the estate of James Nowell Farington, who set about a major programme of improvements when he inherited it in 1837.

⚡ Join me on a trip to visit an archway with a very strange backstory, a Victorian-era ice house decorated with ancient ornaments, and a stone that landed in the park during the last Ice Age.

Don't miss an episode - subscribe now:

https://podfollow.com/what-we-did-before 

About the podcast:

What We Did Before is a podcast exploring the history of everyday life, from how we kept food fresh before fridges, to how we survived without shoes and what came before AI.

About your host:

Ollie Guillou is an award-winning podcast producer and broadcaster. He's co-founder of OG Podcasts, working with the likes of New Scientist, Dr Karan and Lessons From Our Mothers.

Connect with Ollie:

Website: www.ogpodcasts.co.uk 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ollie-guillou 

Email: [email protected]

Image Credits: 

Paul Brooker / Ralph Allens Castle

Sham Castle, Bathampton by Humphrey Bolton, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Sham Castle, Bathampton Down by Elliott Simpson, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

buzzard525, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Artur Kozioł, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

St. Andrew's Church by philandju, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Colin Smith / Inside Broome Park Ice House

You had lots of questions about the Victorian job of the "Bleach Packer". So I invited Judith Wilde from Catalyst museum back for a Q&A.Together we dig deeper into the fascinating history of this gruelling job, that helped build the chemical industry.🎧 Judith answers questions like: Stay tuned to learn about:➡ Why didn't their eyes burn?➡ Did the muzzle actually work?➡ Why were some of them drinking ten pints a day?➡ Did this really continue into the 1950s?➡ What is the area of Widnes like today?Don't miss an episode - subscribe now:https://podfollow.com/what-we-did-before Visit Catalyst Museum: https://www.catalyst.org.uk/ About the podcast:What We Did Before is a podcast where we chart the history of modern inventions, from how we kept food fresh before fridges, to how we survived without shoes and what came before AI.About your hosts:Ollie Guillou is an award-winning podcast producer and broadcaster. He's co-founder of OG Podcasts, working with the likes of New Scientist, Dr Karan and Lessons From Our Mothers.Matt Pyle is a lead software developer and tech enthusiast with a keen interest in media, and a love for interesting conversation and learning.Connect with Ollie:Website: www.ogpodcasts.co.uk LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ollie-guillou Email: [email protected]

💬 Many islands all over the world are known for their finance industries - and especially for being “tax havens”. But this is just the latest ways islands have reinvented themselves over thousands of years. 

As far back as the Stone Age, islands have served as stepping stones, trading hubs, military outposts and gateways between nations. 

⚡ In this episode we use the island of Guernsey as a case study, showcasing just how varied - and incredible - its history has been. And guiding us is archaeologist and author Jason Monaghan.

Don't miss an episode - subscribe now:

https://podfollow.com/what-we-did-before 

🎧 Stay tuned to learn about:

➡ Why islands became some of the most important trading hubs in the ancient world

➡ How Roman traders, Viking raiders and medieval merchants shaped island life

➡ Why Guernsey spent centuries caught between England and France

➡ How islands repeatedly reinvented themselves through trade, shipbuilding, quarrying, tourism and finance

➡ Why many modern islands ended up becoming financial centres and offshore jurisdictions

Check out Jason’s books on Guernsey:

Story of Guernsey; Glint of Light on Broken Glass; Occupation to Liberation; A Brush With Life; Roman Guernsey

About the podcast:

What We Did Before is a podcast exploring the history of everyday life, from how we kept food fresh before fridges, to how we survived without shoes and what came before AI.

About your host:

Ollie Guillou is an award-winning podcast producer and broadcaster. He's co-founder of OG Podcasts, working with the likes of New Scientist, Dr Karan and Lessons From Our Mothers.

Connect with Ollie:

Website: www.ogpodcasts.co.uk 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ollie-guillou 

Email: [email protected]

Bleach packers had one of the worst jobs of the 19th century.At Catalyst Museum in Widnes, discover the history of these workers, why they wore muzzles, and how they helped build the chemical industry.

This is a highlight from a longer episode filmed at Catalyst. Scroll down in your feed if you'd like to learn more.About the podcast:What We Did Before is a podcast where we chart the history of modern inventions, from how we kept food fresh before fridges, to how we survived without shoes and what came before AI.About your host:Ollie Guillou is an award-winning podcast producer and broadcaster. He's co-founder of OG Podcasts, working with the likes of New Scientist, Dr Karan and Lessons From Our Mothers.Connect with Ollie:Website: www.ogpodcasts.co.uk LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ollie-guillou Email: [email protected]

💬  One March 29th 1974, a Chinese farmer was working the field as he always did - when suddenly his shovel struck something hard. Little did he know he had just stumbled upon one of the most important archaeological finds in history.

⚡In this special episode we share two fantastic episodes from our friends over at History Daily. If you love them - subscribe to History Daily here: https://podfollow.com/history-daily 

The first is the discovery of China’s Terracotta Army - which turned a small Chinese village into a tourist hotspot. The second takes us to the Scottish Highlands and the first photograph ever taken of the Loch Ness Monster.

🎧 Stay tuned to learn about:

➡ Why villagers were suspicious about extracting pieces of the Terracotta army

➡ Why the  Terracotta Warriors were first made, over 2000 years ago

➡ How discovering the army felt more like a curse to the farm who found it

➡ How the legend of the Loch Ness monster first caught mainstream attention

➡ The human story behind the famous “Surgeon’s photograph” of Nessie

➡ The role the Daily Mail played in stoking the flames of the legend

About History Daily:

History Daily does history, daily. Every weekday, host Lindsay Graham takes you back in time to explore a momentous event that happened ‘on this day’ in history. A co-production from award-winning podcasters Airship and Noiser.

About What We Did Before:

What We Did Before is a podcast exploring the history of everyday life, from how we kept food fresh before fridges, to how we survived without shoes and what came before AI.

About your hosts:

Ollie Guillou is an award-winning podcast producer and broadcaster. He's co-founder of OG Podcasts, working with the likes of New Scientist, Dr Karan and Lessons From Our Mothers.

Matt Pyle is a lead software developer and tech enthusiast with a keen interest in media, and a love for interesting conversation and learning.

Connect with Ollie:

Website: www.ogpodcasts.co.uk 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ollie-guillou 
Email: [email protected]