British History

28 posts

Elderly Farm Labourer Dies After Fall While Picking Cherries – 1950

Elderly Farm Labourer Dies After Fall While Picking Cherries – 1950

Chatham Standard – Wednesday 28 June 1950 FELL WHILE PICKING CHERRIES Misadventure Verdict At Inquest On Farm Labourer As the result of a fall from a ladder while picking cherries, 79-years-old Henry James Lockyer, a farm labourer, of 13, Pembury-st., Sittingbourne, died later in St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Rochester, from shock […]

Birmingham Trip in Stolen Motor Lorry – 1945

Birmingham Trip in Stolen Motor Lorry – 1945

Coventry Evening Telegraph – Wednesday 30 May 1945 Birmingham Trip in Stolen Motor Lorry Receiving a telephone message from the Birmingham police that a lorry from Coventry had collided with a trolley-bus pole there, and they were detaining a youth who was in the lorry at the time, Detective Dickens […]

Alleged Theft of Over 14,000 Rounds of Ammunition – 1884

Alleged Theft of Over 14,000 Rounds of Ammunition – 1884

Leeds Mercury – Thursday 18 December 1884 THE ALLEGED EXTENSIVE THEFT OF AMMUNITION At the Sunderland Police-court yesterday, before the Mayor and a full bench of magistrates, Thomas Miller, a gunsmith, and John Hefferman, Sergeant-Major of the Sunderland Rifle Volunteers, were charged on remand with stealing over 14,000 rounds of […]

Forging, Tampering with Family History – 1898

Forging, Tampering with Family History – 1898

October 26, 1898 | ST. JAMES’S GAZETTE THE ANTIQUARIAN ROMANCE. MORE REMARKABLE EVIDENCE. Mr. Lushington sat again specially at Bow-street yesterday for the further hearing of the charges against Herbert Davies, twenty-five, “private surgeon,” of Castlenau-gardens, Barnes, of forging entries in Mangotsfield parish register, tampering with monuments and coffins, forging […]

Rare and Short-Lived Newspapers

Rare and Short-Lived Newspapers

Throughout history, many newspapers have had fleeting existences, often created in response to specific events, movements, or ambitions that were unsustainable in the long term. These rare and short-lived publications offer unique insights into the moments they captured, often serving niche audiences or addressing radical ideas. Their limited runs and […]

The Princetown Railway – From Quarries to Conservation

The Princetown Railway – From Quarries to Conservation

“From Quarries to Conservation: Dartmoor’s Granite Industry, Railway, and Transformation” By Ian Waugh, ‘The Princetown Railway’ here Scope and Themes This comprehensive work explores four interrelated themes regarding the Princetown Railway: The Granite Industry and Its Legacy Dartmoor’s granite industry was instrumental in shaping both the moor’s physical landscape and […]

Protecting the ‘unknown’

Protecting the ‘unknown’

Since auction websites like eBay entered the online arena the success of moneymaking ventures by some has in a way caused serious social and devastating historic damage. I am referring here to the thousands who have unwittingly taken advantage of these websites by selling off literally tons of “family junk”, […]

Emily Cave 1892

Emily Cave 1892

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 […]

Running London’s tramway – 1886

Running London’s tramway – 1886

The expense of operating a horse driven tramway system in London was exposed in the Worcester Journal on Saturday 31 July 1886: “The cost of horsing the tramway cars in London forms, as maybe imagined, a heavy item in the accounts of several companies. The largest of these is the […]

Frank Edward Wright in 1842

In 1842 a man called H. Wright Esquire received a letter from his proud and excited son, Frank Edward Wright: “Southampton September 17, 1842 My dear Papa, We went to London in the holidays with mamma and stayed there three weeks. I hope you are quite well and I send […]

The Torquay missing Victorian trowel

The Torquay missing Victorian trowel

This is a very long story about a valuable 1867 silver commemoration trowel used in the laying of the foundation stone of Torquay’s Haldon Pier, that was later used to weed a driveway, lost during late 1800’s, then found in the rubbish on Rainham Marshes by an Edwardian Chatham bricklayer, acquired […]

Collecting Archive

Collecting Archive

Over the last 20 or 25 years I have been involved in a significant amount of historic research and this has led me to look into the lives of a great many people long since dead. As a result I have amassed a sizable collection of ephemera, including personal letters, […]

The Edwardians – Peace or Turmoil?

The Edwardians – Peace or Turmoil?

The Edwardian era that characteristically did not begin and end with the reign of Edward VII is generally regarded as Britain’s calm before the storm. I would say that this much lauded brief spell began a few years before Queen Victoria’s death and ended abruptly at the outbreak of the […]

Protecting those who were here before us

Protecting those who were here before us

Since auction websites like eBay entered the online arena the success of moneymaking ventures by some has in a way caused serious social and devastating historic damage. I am referring here to the thousands who have unwittingly taken advantage of these websites by selling off literally tons of “family junk”, […]

His Majesty King Richard III

His Majesty King Richard III

Now that the body found under a car-park in Leicester has definitely been identified, the fact that the circumstances surrounding the last moments of life have been ascertained, that Shakespeare, his fellow writers and certain historians should posthumously eat humble pie, there is a discussion underway regarding a potential state […]