In the bleak win­ter of 1840, Lon­don is beset by ear­ly snow­fall, chill­ing tem­per­a­tures, and an oppres­sive, pol­lut­ed atmos­phere. The Thames, once a riv­er renowned for its fresh waters and plen­ti­ful fish, now runs murky and taint­ed, bear­ing the bur­den of indus­tri­al waste, human refuse, and decay­ing corpses. This neglect under­scores the city’s rapid indus­tri­al­iza­tion, which has made it the world’s most crowd­ed metrop­o­lis. Amidst this grim envi­ron­ment, tosh­ers, deter­mined scav­engers of the river­banks, valiant­ly search for valu­ables among the filth—coins, scraps of met­al, and some­times pre­cious items inad­ver­tent­ly dis­card­ed.

On a par­tic­u­lar­ly frigid Novem­ber morn­ing, a group of tosh­ers dili­gent­ly combs the Chelsea shore. They must nav­i­gate the dan­gers of flood­ed sew­ers and the risk of acci­dents, often work­ing in teams for safe­ty. Among them is Ara­bel­la, a heav­i­ly preg­nant woman whose hus­band, a once-promis­ing car­pen­ter, now drowns his poten­tial in alco­hol. Despite her con­di­tion, she toils, moti­vat­ed by a des­per­ate need to pro­vide for her­self and her child.

While her com­pan­ions rum­mage through the sludge, Ara­bel­la unex­pect­ed­ly feels labor pains and, alarmed, express­es her dis­tress to an elder­ly tosh­ers’ mem­ber. Pan­ic ensues as her waters break in the filthy river­banks. The group rush­es to help, but uncer­tain­ty looms as Ara­bel­la con­fess­es her hus­band’s absence and her dire situation—her mea­ger earn­ings scarce­ly sup­port her own hunger, let alone a new­born.

Amid this chaos, a roy­al scene unfolds in Buck­ing­ham Palace as Queen Vic­to­ria also endures the pains of child­birth. The con­trast­ing real­i­ties of moth­er­hood high­light the dis­par­i­ties of life in Lon­don. In the dirt and squalor, Ara­bel­la’s baby—a boy—is born by the water’s edge. Named King Arthur by the com­pas­sion­ate tosh­ers gath­ered around, he begins life under stark­ly dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances than the roy­al child, yet embod­ies hope and the poten­tial for a new begin­ning.

Despite his grim sur­round­ings, Arthur, gift­ed with an extra­or­di­nary mem­o­ry, sens­es the world’s beau­ty in the falling snow. This moment defines him as a child of the Thames, for­ev­er shaped by the stark real­i­ties and con­trasts of life in Vic­to­ri­an Lon­don. His remark­able abil­i­ty to remem­ber every­thing he expe­ri­ences, while a bless­ing, also hints at the bur­dens he will face as he grows. This envi­ron­ment, fraught with chal­lenges and uncer­tain­ty, frames his ear­ly exis­tence, set­ting the stage for his jour­ney ahead, seed­ed with both promise and hard­ship.

Wait­ing ai