“I don’t want you to see my daughter any more,” Annie Ratcliffe’s father told John Simpson, her boy friend. Which was far from surprising, since Simpson, a 23-year-old clerk, had been having sex with Annie, who was now pregnant, for the past 18 months – and she was still only just 16.

Annie lived in Preston, where her family ran the Sir Walter Scott pub in North Road. Undeterred by her father’s ruling, Simpson went there early in the morning of August 3rd, 1881, and, while her father was upstairs, he pounced on her and cut her throat. He was hanged on Monday, November 28th, 1881, at Strangeways.