As I previously reported, highway robbery was very much a part of life. Today we refer to it as “street crime”. When there was no street lighting and roads, alleys and lanes around our country […]
Old British News
London football giants, West Ham United, faced a strong and equally well supported Plymouth Argyll in February 1923. It was a much anticipated game in which one of these teams lost by two goals. So, […]
With the First World War showing no signs of ending, life on the home front is further exasperated with shocking domestic stories that continued to fill the pages of our national press. In Aberdeen in […]
British Newspapers quite frequently covered stories from the former British Colonies. Much of the reports, like the domestic ones, were fairly routine yet quite revealing for today’s researchers. It wasn’t unusual to read court reports, […]
Resolving Victorian murder cases were notorious and haphazard. Detectives and experts were left with little in comparison to available knowledge and technologies today. There was no proof by fingerprinting and it was very difficult to […]
Meanwhile it’s another day in Clerkenwell County Court for Judge Edge. The Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser (Wednesday 30 November 1898) report an amusing interlude: The Judge and the Carpenter. Amusing Interlude at a County […]
Inquisitions, although a bit gruesome and quite depressing at times, were widely reported in local and national newspapers much as they are today. These reports give us an insight into an aspect of life and […]
Do you keep your Christmas or birthday cards? Well, if you don’t maybe we should all keep them, just in case! In 1930 The Hull Daily Mail reported a person with relatives in England and […]
Robberies on tracks and roads were commonplace as we well know. Indeed after dusk the highways were places to avoid where possible. Newspapers were full of stories of highway robberies and many generations later films […]
Some readers may find the following editorial and historic news report disturbing. The acquisition of dead bodies in modern times might well sound quite revolting and hugely inappropriate. But up until the first half of […]
At Llangollen Petty Sessions in late August 1893 local life was being dealt with. Although these really were ‘petty’ sessions they of course are very common throughout the entire British Isles. They do provide the […]
A phrase we frequently come across is ‘uttering’. Many were found guilty of uttering a forged note or even a coin. Forgery per se is not a crime. The crime is uttering, i.e. using as […]
In January 1819 The Morning Post in London reported a particularly unpleasant assault that occurred in Hatton Garden. A chicken seller from *Saffron Hill and an accomplice were found accused of biting the nose off […]
In May or June 1899 this man appeared on the Dorchester Prison Admission records. He is the only entry in the book who is unidentified. Judging by his dress and appearance he came from a […]
By the 1880’s photographic technology was being used in some prisons and then added to criminal admission records. Here, two brothers from Bridport in Dorset are imprisoned for stealing a rabbit in 1887. They are […]
From the very moment motor vehicles hit the roads of Great Britain the media seem to be hugely cautious of this new invention. The slightest accident would be duly reported and hugely illustrated where possible. […]
Its easy to assume that the Workhouse was an ‘essential’ relic of the Victorian era. We all have images in our minds of Charles Dickens and poor old Oliver Twist. Most of us who have […]
August 1st 1914 The Hull Daily Mail is reporting the crushing drama now facing all Europe. “A Reuters Rome message stated this morning: The Messagro semi-officially announces that the German Ambassador last night informed the […]
The lives of Victorians were, it seems, constantly at risk due to the lack of many safety regulations and health rules that we take for granted today. Even behind closed doors in the relative safety […]
On July 26th 1913 Bentfield Charles Hucks (25 October 1884 – 7 November 1918) was promoting his aviation exhibition in the Cheltenham and Gloucester area. Bachelor Hucks was an aviation pioneer in the early 20th […]