Author: Richard Jones

By December 5th, 1888, authorities all over the world were on the look out for any signs that the Whitechapel murderer – who, by that time – had become universally known as Jack the Ripper, might have re-emerged […]

For today’s blog we put ourselves in the able hands of writer for The Graphic, who headed out to the East End of London, and recorded the lives of the children who were being taught in the Church […]

Greetings and salutations. It’s December, 2021 and it is almost time to bid farewell to a year that, to say the least, has proved challenging and eventful in equal measure. But, through thick and thin, the highs and […]

In several previous blogs I have looked at the alarming number of incidents in which, In Victorian Britain, people found themselves poisoned by food that they have treated themselves to believing them to be mouth-wateringly delicious. There was, […]

Inspector Henry Moore (1848 – 1918), was one of the officers who, in September, 1888, was sent from Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, to supplement the East End detective force who were investigating the Whitechapel […]

The Hertford Mercury and Reformer, on Saturday, 31st December 1859, highlighted the scandal of the adulteration of foodstuffs by unscrupulous tradesmen, who had been discovered to be using poisonous minerals to give a tantalising hue to their products. […]

Never was the adage “you get what you pay for” more apt than when your average Victorian citizen went food shopping. Indeed, when they went shopping for delectable and dainties, such was the deplorable state of adulteration in […]

When it comes to cases of food not being fit for the purpose for which it was intended, 19th century England had plenty of stomach-churning cases that make you mightily relieved to be living in an age in […]

By the time of the Jack the Ripper murders in 1888, the newspapers of the day had been reporting constantly on the squalor and the hardships faced on a daily basis by the poor of the area. The […]

On Saturday 17 November 1888, The Graphic, published an intriguing editorial which took issue with the state of the police cells at various London police stations. The main thrust of the article was simply that, should a respectable […]