Author: Richard Jones

There can be little doubt that some of the food supply available to the Victorian citizens of London was, to say the least, tainted! In a previous blog I provided an account of the poisonous ice cream scare […]

The 19th century newspapers are a rich vein to mine when it comes to Victorian true crime stories. All manner of tales of murder are to be found within their pages, and some of them have a surprisingly […]

It’s time for our first quiz of the year, and, for January 2024, I want to try something a little different. Back in 2021 I launched two Jack the Ripper quizzes on YouTube, and I wanted to see […]

In some ways, you can’t help but admire an enterprising young man by the name of Frank Pickford, who, in May, 1888, decided to work a swindle on, not some ordinary person, put on some of the Members […]

Charles Allen Cross – or to use his actual name Charles Alen Lechmere – was the carman who, on his way to work in the early hours of the 31st of August, 1888, discovered the body of Mary […]

The 19th century newspapers reported extensively on the various appearances in the police courts around the country, pertaining to those who had, in various ways transgressed. The following round-up appeared in The Echo on Friday the 21st of […]

Every night as we set out on our Jack the Ripper tour, we pass into the wonderfully evocative Gunthorpe Street, and, almost immediately, the 21st century dissolves, and, if it wasn’t for the sound of the traffic from […]

I recently received a request from a viewer in the comment section of one of my YouTube videos to compile a list of key books that you need to read to get a hang of the Whitechapel murders, […]

The Belfast News-Letter published the following story in its edition of Tuesday the 19th of February, 1828:- DREADFUL ATTEMPT TO MURDER IN LONDON MR. Mullay, an Irish gentleman of some smal1 fortune being anxious to obtain employment, was […]

In December, 1888, people across the East End of London were on tenterhooks, believing that, at any moment, Jack the Ripper would strike again. The mood in the district appears to have been one of resigned expectation, and […]