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‘A More Mournful Cortege Was Never Seen’ : The Williamson Murders
The Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh), Friday 2 April 1858 With the hyperbole common to Victorian-era newspapers, the Tuesday, 6 April 1858 edition of the Edinburgh newspaper The Caledonian Mercury published an item that had first been reported in the John o’Groats Journal ‘inhabitants…were startled by the announcement that during the previous night the house of one… Continue reading
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The Waunllwyd Ghost
As reported in London’s Sunday Dispatch on 9 February 1936 From Our Own Correspondent Ebbw Vale (Monmouth), Saturday. For two days I have been trying to track down the Waunllwyd Ghost, the most peculiar spook that ever haunted house or earth. It has set the whole village of Waunllwyd talking, emptied a house, and attracted… Continue reading
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‘A Brother Brigand of the Mountains’
James Butler’Wild Bill’ Hickok By unattributed – Heritage Auctions, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33582655 The following article was published in the Telegraph Courier of Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Thursday, 24 August 1876. Trial and Acquittal of the Murderer of Wild Bill-a Characteristic Picture of Frontier Life-Colorado Charley Gives Wild Bill a Good send off-The Finest Funeral the Country… Continue reading
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Joseph Moses and the Serpentine’s Missing Swans
In early 1811, members of the local community noticed that the swans that populated the Serpentine, a 40-acre lake in Hyde Park, London, were missing. A search of the area commenced, and soon the bodies of the swans were discovered on the banks of the Serpentine. The Bow Street Runners investigated the scene and, in… Continue reading
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‘If She is a Dead Woman, I Shall Die Happy’: Richard and Ann Griffin
In September 1810, Richard Griffin, a 29-year-old journeyman blacksmith, from Saffron Hill, London was indicted at the Old Bailey for the ‘wilful murder’ of his 34-year-wife Ann. Ann Griffin had been absent from her home for a day and a half when she encountered her husband Richard at Bartholomew’s Fair on 4 September. Richard had been… Continue reading
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Dillie Welsh’s Four-Legged Saviour
The following collection of stories was published in Michigan’s Grand Rapid’s Press on Friday, 7 May 1886. Saved by a Calf A story comes from Alabama to the effect that Four-year-old Dillie Welsh, while playing with a pet calf, went to a well and peeped over the low curb. The calf caught her dress in… Continue reading
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‘I Never Did Anything But Thump Her A Bit’: The Smithies Tragedy
Weekly Examiner, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. 27/03/1852 Early on the morning of Wednesday, 24 March 1852, Francis Atkinson was walking to work at a colliery in the South Yorkshire village of Smithies, when, passing along Carlton Lane, he discovered the bodies of a woman and a baby lying in an embrace, ‘weltering in a pool of… Continue reading
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Mr. Cyrus King Finds Relief
I discovered the following two stories while trawling through newspapers.com. Both articles were featured in the Thursday, 8 August 1872, edition of Stockton, California’s Daily Evening Herald. Driven to Desperation Smith Johnson, of Detroit, driven to desperation by the wiles of a widow, promised to marry her, and then attempted to get out of it… Continue reading
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‘This Hoary Sinner’ James Wilson
At the Middlesex Sessions held in September 1823, James Wilson, a watchcase maker, of Northampton Row, Clerkenwell, London, was accused of ‘having repeatedly endeavoured to ravish his own daughter.’ Wilson’s wife died in 1819, leaving behind two daughters and a son. Sarah, the eldest daughter, was around fifteen when her mother died and was serving… Continue reading
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Turning King’s Evidence: Hylas Parrish, Charles Callaghan and the Murder of Moses Merry
Hylas Parrish, an 18-year-old apprentice shoemaker, first met Charles Callaghan at Vauxhall Gardens in the summer of 1813, when he attended a fete held to celebrate the victory of Britain and her allies, Spain and Portugal, over Napoleonic France in the Battle of Vitoria. At the fete, Parrish paid a penny for a ride on… Continue reading
Hellish Fiends, and Brutish Men 