Author: Richard Jones

As I have mentioned many times in previous blogs, Dorset Street, in Spitalfields, had a dreadful reputation for vice and villainy in the 19th century. It was regarded by many as being one of the worst streets of […]

By 1886 the Peabody Trust had been in existence for over twenty years, and had, to a large extent, fulfilled its objectives of providing low cost, decent housing for the indigenous, working poor of London. The first Peabody […]

An oft unmentioned aspect of the Jack the Ripper murder spree is the political climate against which it was played out. The 1880’s was a decade of great unrest. Increased foreign competition against British industries had seen the […]

The Victorian East End of London was a district of contrasts. There was poverty and crime; but it also had its fair share of affluent, respectable and well-behaved citizens. However, it was the criminal classes that attracted the […]

In several previous articles I have endeavoured to provide the stories behind the tiled plaques that appear on the wall of the “Memorial To Heroic Self Sacrifice,” located in Postman’s Park, close to St Paul’s Cathedral, in London. […]

It makes for an intriguing past time to peruse the Victorian newspapers in search of stories relating to how criminals were dealt with by the 19th century police and, following their arrest, how they were subsequently dealt with […]

On Wednesday the 1st of February 1888, a great deal of excitement was caused in the East End of London when a 25-year-old boot-maker by the name of Abraham Potzdamer, murdered his twenty year-old wife, Hannah, and then […]

For today’s blog, we are travelling away from the East End of London and heading for the streets of Notting Hill, in the West End of London, to cover the story of a murder that was reported in […]

Mary Nichols and Catherine Eddowes were the first and fourth victims of Jack the Ripper respectively. They are both buried in the City of London Cemetery, Manor Park – albeit, just as is the case with the other […]

At 5. 30 am on the morning of the 27th of January, 1903, a fire broke out in a “temporary” building, that housed 320 chronic and infirm female patients, at Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum. The fire resulted in […]