Seven-year-old Emily Holland had a new friend. Excitedly she told the other kids in Birley Street, Blackburn, where she lived, about the nice man. She had met him in the street and now she was going off to run an errand for him. Emily was never seen again after that. At the end of a
My little baby is wasting away, Rebecca Smith, 44, told her friends in Westbury, Wiltshire. That seemed strange to them, because the baby appeared quite normal and healthy. At the same time she was asking people to help her buy arsenic at the towns chemist shop. When the baby, one-month-old Richard, died, the police were
Something told Mrs. Angel, a Polish ?migr? living in Whitechapel, east London, that all was not well with her daughter Miriam, so she set out on June 29th, 1887, to visit her at her home in Batty Street, Commercial Road East. Her intuition proved to be right Miriam, 22, lay dead in her bedroom,
Mary McShane, 18, was so annoyed with Steven McKeowns persistent wooing, coupled with dark threats if she did not respond to him, that she took out a summons against him. As a result McKeown, 30, was bound over to keep the peace and ordered to stay away from her. Weeks later he followed her into
A furious row broke out in the Edwards family home in Bedford Row, Maidstone, on March 16th, 1857, when younger brother George, 18, refused to go to work with his father. Thomas, the older brother, told George that if he didnt do as he was told he would be thrown out of the house. Two
The engagement is off! Mary Hadley, 25, stormed at her fianc? Stephen Fox. Here, take your ring back! She had just heard that Fox had made another girl pregnant and understandably, perhaps, she no longer wanted to marry him. Fox, 23, nursed his wounded pride for a couple of days, then told a neighbour in
You owe me a shilling, Richard Steed, 55, a coffee-shop owner, told Alfred Eldridge, 33, a labourer. I dont owe you anything, Eldridge replied. The two men were in a pub in Herne Bay, Kent, and had been drinking hard all evening. Although on the surface they appeared to be amiable, the mood was decidedly
Botched hangings in the mid-Victorian century were not at all uncommon, and generally resulted in terrible agony during the condemned mans last moments. When poacher William Collier, 35, was due to be hanged outside Stafford Prison on Tuesday, August 7th, 1866, the rope did not arrive until 8.30 p.m. the night before. By that time
A convict who had been trained as a plumber and who was serving six months for burglary was asked by prison authorities at Strangeways Prison, Manchester, to renew some gas piping at the house of the matron within the prison complex. John Jackson, 33, agreed to do the work, and on May 22nd, 1888, he
None of the girls of the village of Tingewick could count themselves safe when the local tailor was around. William Stevens, 24, had completed two years of training in London, and while he was there he had learned a few other things too. Back at Tingewick he was the centre of continuing scandals. On St.