In 1848, the first confirmed specimen of the melanistic, or darkened, form of the soot moth (biston betularia, or peppered moth) was found outside Manchester. Prior to 1800, this form of the soot moth was practically unrecognized in England, but by 1900, they made up 90% of recorded specimens around industrial and urban parts of Britain.

This painting was inspired by the story of the slave ship Zong, which in 1781 ordered 133 slaves thrown overboard so the captain could collect insurance payments for them. This was common practice in the slave trade, as insurance could only be collected for those who drowned at sea, but not any who died on board, so any slave that was dead or dying would be hurled into the ocean to increase profits. The painting was originally titled “Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying--Typhoon coming on.”

In 1885 the Pall Mall Gazette published a series of articles by editor William Thomas Stead exposing the widespread practice of child prostitution, which was particularly bad in London. Stead used new investigative journalism tactics, which included purchasing a thirteen-year-old girl from her parents for five pounds (which was around 500 pounds in 2012). Stead reported interviews with brothel-keepers, and described in detail how young girls would be manipulated, drugged, raped, and forced into prostitution.