Author: Richard Jones

In September 1867, Louis Bordier murdered his wife Mary Ann Snow as she slept in her bed at in the room they shared with their children. You can read the full account of the murder here. Following his […]

Murder was a commonplace occurrence in Victorian London, albeit today we tend to only focus on a handful of homicides, such as the Jack the Ripper atrocities. Drink, or at least drunkenness, lay behind many of the crimes […]

Spouse murder was exceedingly common in Victorian London, and some of the cases that were reported in the media of the age still have the power to shock us today, just as they did those who read about […]

The Lancaster Gazette, on Saturday the 29th of December 1855, carried the following story of a murder in Minories:- MURDER IN MINORIES On Wednesday evening, the 26th instant, the vicinity of Church Street, Minories, was thrown into excitement […]

An extremely common crime in Victorian London was child murder. The birth of a child could cause no manner of hardships for parents – and especially for single mothers – and so the crime pages of the 19th-century […]

Living in Whitechapel in the 19th century could be dangerous, especially at night, or in the early hours of the morning, when the pubs had closed, and disagreements between drunken customers making their way home could boil over […]

Prior to the development of the Holborn Viaduct, as part of the Holborn valley improvement, the area on which it now stands was one of the most infamous criminal enclaves in London. Indeed, so infamous was it that […]

There can be little doubt that 19th century Whitechapel was a district that was brim-full with “characters. Aside from its reputation for crime, degradation and poverty, it was also an area where the rich tapestry of human existence […]

As the Whitechapel murders began to gather momentum in September 1888, the police were out in force rounding up likely suspects whom they thought might be responsible for having carried out the crimes. Some of the suspects, such […]

In the aftermath of the murder of Mary Nichols, which took place in Buck’s Row, Whitechapel, on August the 31st 1888, the police were on the lookout for anyone who may potentially have seen the killer, or who […]