A Victorian dust cart

Charles Cooper Henderson (1803-1877) produced many scenes of life on the London street of which there are several examples in the collection.

In this watercolour two dust collectors are shown collecting the rubbish from a street. Parish authorities paid contractors from local rates to collect the rubbish and fortunes could be made from making a business out of it as immortalised by Mr Harmon in Charles Dickens's 'Our Mutual Friend'.

This watercolour is extremely colourful with the reddish brown horse and the red coloured wheels; it has a slapstick theatrical air to it, not representative of the reality of life as a dust collector on the street.