--- title: Alice's Victorian world: tea, croquet, pocket watches, shillings and chimney sweeps — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Alice's Victorian world: tea, croquet, pocket watches, shillings and chimney sweeps», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: The White Rabbit pulls a watch out of his waistcoat pocket, because men then carried p --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / Alice's Victorian world: tea, croquet,… # Alice's Victorian world: tea, croquet, pocket watches, shillings and chimney sweeps Lesson 81 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 16 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/). - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/1/) — The White Rabbit pulls a watch out of his waistcoat pocket, because men then carried pocket watches on a chain, not watches on the wrist. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/2/) — The Hatter's tea-party is a crazy version of afternoon tea, and the Queen's croquet game is a crazy version of the lawn game that was the craze of the 1860s. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/3/) — There are servants everywhere: the Rabbit's housemaid Mary Ann, his gardener Pat, the Duchess's cook and the Frog-Footman who should open doors. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/4/) — And poor Bill the Lizard is sent down the chimney, just as real small boys were sent up chimneys to clean them. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/5/) — Knowing these things turns the jokes back on: the book was laughing at the grown-up rules, lessons and manners of Alice's own time. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/6/) — Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Dodgson, a mathematics teacher at Christ Church college in Oxford. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/7/) — On 4 July 1862 he told the story on a rowing-boat trip on the river near Oxford to three sisters, Lorina, Alice and Edith Liddell, and Alice asked him to write it down; the book, with pictures by John Tenniel, came out in 1865. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/9/) — Afternoon tea, with tea, bread and butter and cakes between lunch and a late dinner, is said to have been made fashionable in the 1840s by Anna, Duchess of Bedford; the tea came by ship from China and later from India. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/10/) — Croquet is a lawn game in which players hit wooden balls with long wooden mallets through small hoops pushed into the grass; it became hugely popular in England in the 1860s. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/11/) — Kid gloves are gloves of soft leather from young goats ("kids"); with a fan, they were part of being smartly dressed, which is why the Rabbit is so upset to lose his. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/12/) — Many middle-class Victorian families had at least one servant, such as a housemaid, a cook or a gardener, and rich ones had footmen who opened doors and served at table. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/13/) — Victorian children often learned poems by heart and recited them standing up; many of the poems Alice gets wrong in Wonderland were well-known school poems of the time, like «How doth the little busy bee». - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/14/) — Small boys, called climbing boys, were sent up inside chimneys to brush out the soot; it was cruel and dangerous, and a law of 1875 finally stopped it. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/15/) — Bathing machines were wooden huts on wheels that were pulled into the sea, so that people could change inside and step straight into the water without being seen. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/16/) — British money then was pounds, shillings and pence: 12 pennies made a shilling and 20 shillings made a pound; this lasted until 1971, when Britain switched to 100 pence to the pound. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/81-alice-s-victorian-world-tea-croquet-pocket-watches-shillings-and-chimney-sweeps/19/) — In playing cards the Knave is the old name for the Jack, and in the book the four suits have jobs: spades are gardeners, clubs are soldiers, diamonds are courtiers and hearts are the royal children. - ← previous: [Games vs history: tech trees, barbarians, empty lands, wonders and falls](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/80-games-vs-history-tech-trees-barbarians-empty-lands-wonders-and-falls/) - next →: [How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to the alphabet](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/82-how-writing-began-from-tally-marks-and-pictures-to-the-alphabet/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)