If it happened, it was in the news.
I was looking for some news reports of my Grandfather and his family the other day. I knew he lived in Newton Abbot in Devon, South West England. He was born in the 1890’s, died in the the 1970’s and spent his life in South Devon. So he was educated in the home town. The […]
Whilst doing more family research I sadly discovered that my great, great grandmother (Emily Cave (nee Windebank)) committed suicide in 1892 after drinking the contents of a bottle of Carbolic Acid. I found out about this after conducting routine research through the London newspapers. London Evening Standard – Wednesday 14 September 1892: Dr. G. Danford […]
The Morning Post on Tuesday, the 7th of October 1845 was reporting a significant number of accidents involving children. It highlighted only too well the plight of youngsters during this era and how their lives were quite frequently endangered by the lack of care, attention or action from adults around them. Articles like this, apart […]
Richard Bettison was my great great grandfather. He was born and brought up just outside Liskeard in Cornwall where, apart from a brief spell in the 1870s when he was in the Durham area, he spent the best part of his long life. My great grandmother Lily was his daughter and she had two sisters […]
Cheltenham Chronicle – Thursday 07 April 1836 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 and television dramas immortalised these violent criminals to almost heroic proportions. In 1836 […]
Last May I found a little piece about a highly confused family history situation that arose in Norfolk in 1811 (here). Just as I thought the genteel and rather pleasant pastime of genealogy could not possibly get any more confusing I have today come across another mind-bending situation published in Leeds (Leeds Times – Saturday […]
Sometimes this researcher accidentally comes across an old British news article that’s really from another world. Illustrated Police News – Saturday 31 October 1896 was reporting the dreadful scene on a London omnibus whereby a lady fell into shock at the sight of the knees of a collection of boys who had just been playing […]
I have been doing some of my own family research and I have just learned that an unrelated person sharing a family name (Churchward) was found shot dead in a field in Devon in 1886. This though is not (as far as the press is concerned) a dastardly murder but a terrible accident. Samuel Churchward […]
