In 1901 if you were to ask a young man ‘Where in all of London Town would you like to be at this minute?’, the reply you would no doubt have got would have been ‘Forest Hill’. Or to be more precise the Tropical Hot House at the newly opened Hornimans Museum in Forest Hill. The Hot House was an extremely popular spot with young Victorians of the day, keen not to quench their botanical thirsts, but rather to quench  a thirst of a much earthier nature.

In order to grow in a climate such as Englands, tropical plants need to be kept in a warm and moist  environment. This is achieved artificially by spraying micro fine water droplets into the atmosphere thus creating a suitably adequate cloying temperate in which the plants can thrive. In the Hot House at  Hornimans one of the finest sprinkler systems ever devised had been installed, and it hadn’t taken long for word of a particular singularity this feat of engineering produced, to spread. In short, the humidity of the Hot House and the fine mist produced by the sprinkler systems  used to  create it, combined to affect young ladies dresses in a way mesmeric to the male visitors of the museum. This potentially embarrassing situation however, far from deterring the ladies from visiting Hornimans, seemed to attract them; and in turn, hordes of male admirers. Within a short space of time, the museum was receiving hundreds of visitors a day, in fact at one point more people were passing through the gates at Hornimans then were visiting ‘Maud the Bearded Nipple’, one of the most popular attractions at the Exhibition in nearby Crystal Palace. Such popularity came with a price however, and in February 1901 the Forest Hill Gatler ran a scathing article article demanding something be done  about ‘the uncommon amount of young men loitering around the Forest Hill, pointing the way to the Horny Mans museum with their protruding trousers.’

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One such young man was Peamont Byrne, more commonly known locally as ‘Mr Jolly’. Byrne was well known around the areas of Forest Hill and Sydenham as a character who was overly fond of wearing extremely tight fitting trousers that let all and sundry know when he was feeling concupiscent. He had been barred from several parks and open areas, and had been forbidden to be within a hundred yards of the Forest Hill Finishing School for Young Ladies during term time. In fact it is ironic that the only place ‘Mr Jolly’ was allowed to visit was ...the Tropical Hot House. How could this have been allowed to happen ceases to be a mystery when one learns that the Chief Curator at Hornimans around this time was Aldritch Byrne; Peamont’s uncle.

We can only surmise what impression the sight of Mr Jolly swaggering full blown, amongst the Primordial foliage left  on the fragile minds of the young ladies visiting the Museum, and ‘Mr Jolly’ may well have carried on in this fashion for years to come, but for an incident on 12th December 1901 that forced the closure of the Hot House and, very nearly the Museum itself.