Terrors of the Night: The Mohock Scare of 1712–1738

The Mohocks: Britain’s Notorious Night-Walkers of the Early 1700s Bowie and the Mohocks In 2016, archivists discovered that David Bowie’s final, unfinished project was not only his last album Blackstar, but also the beginnings of an “18th-Century musical” called The Spectator. Hidden in his study were notes on London crime, satire, and society, including references […]

Arson, Canterbury highway robbery, a runaway bankrupt – 1885

St James’s Gazette – Tuesday 23 June 1885 OUTRAGE IN IRELAND. The house of a farmer named M‘Carthy, near Goleen, in West Cork, was burned down on Sunday night. An out-office was also destroyed, together with two cows. It is stated that M‘Carthy’s family had a narrow escape from being burned in the building. M‘Carthy […]

Violent Street Fight in Preston – 1929

Lancashire Evening Post – Wednesday 06 November 1929 VIOLENT STREET FIGHT. NINE MEN INVOLVED IN A NIGHT SCUFFLE AT PRESTON. “It was a free-for-all fight and very violent,“ said P.C. Newton, giving evidence at Preston to-day against three men charged with being drunk and disorderly in Church-street last night. The men were Joseph Cunningham (46), […]

Bricklayer Kills Woman in Street Brawl – 1847

The Surrey Mercury – Tuesday, 20 July 1847 LAMBETH. MANSLAUGHTER.—On Wednesday an inquest was held before Mr. Carter, at the Windmill, High-street, Lambeth, on the body of Mary Allsworth. On Saturday night a man named Bruce, a bricklayer, went into a grocer’s shop kept by a person of the name of Bagweed, when he suddenly […]

Murder in Rotherhithe – 1879

Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 22 June 1879 The Murder at Rotherhithe (From our later editions of last week.) The adjourned inquest on the body of Robert Collins, a telegraph messenger, who was found stabbed about the body under a railway arch at Rotherhithe, and who died in Guy’s Hospital, was resumed on Friday at the latter […]

Brighton Railway Outrage – 1896

Norfolk News – Saturday 05 December 1896 BRIGHTON RAILWAY OUTRAGE.ATTACK ON A SUFFOLK WOMAN. At the Sussex Assizes on Monday, before Baron Pollock, Alfred Lock, 18, described as a gardener, of East Grinstead, was indicted for feloniously assaulting Louisa Clarke, a middle-aged woman, with intent to murder her, in a third-class railway carriage on the London, Brighton, […]

Suspicious Death and more in Darwen – 1877

Blackburn Times – Saturday 06 January 1877 DARWEN. SUSPICIOUS DEATH. On Thursday forenoon, Mr. Coroner Hargreaves held an inquiry at the George Inn into the circumstances attending the death of John Brannan, 38 years of age, a labourer, living at 13, Foundry Street, who died under suspicious circumstances. It appears that Brannan lived apart from […]