General News

The Shoreditch Observer, on Saturday the 28th September, 1861, fumed at the crime, squalor and the dangers of a walk into Whitechapel, be it at night or even during the day. For many years, prior to the onset […]

Walking through the streets of London you often notice round metal plates that are dotted along the pavements outside the older houses. These are, in fact, coal holes. It was through these that the coal was delivered to […]

The Hull Daily Mail, on Saturday the 23rd of September, 1922, analysed the “fortune” that the journalist and playwright, George Sims, may have left:- GRUESOME RELICS THE LATE G. R. SIMS’ ESTATE AND FORTUNE It is said that […]

As the 19th century gave way to the sawn of the 20th century, and with the advent of the criminal psychologist, newspapers became more and more concerned with actually understanding what it was that caused a person to […]

Although hand-held cameras had been around since the 1850s, they hadn’t really managed to achieve mass appeal, as the majority of them required exposures of several seconds, making them impractical as an “instant” camera. But then, in the […]

When people look into the Jack the Ripper case there is a tendency to simply take as gospel facts, statements and even theories that are spouted by those who are considered experts on the subject. Of course, the […]

One of the frustrating things about studying the Jack the Ripper case is the number of times that a promising lead turns up only to fizzle out as you start to delve deeper. One such story appeared in […]

The life of an actor in Victorian times was a tough one which could, at times, also prove to be a dangerous one as well. In a previous article, I dealt with the murder of the actor William […]

Just like today, Victorian Britain had more than its fair share of scammers who were ever willing to cheat the unwary out of their hard earned money. In a previous article, we took a close look at Jack […]

The following article appeared in the Derby Daily Telegraph on Wednesday, 22nd October, 1930, upon the publication of a volume of the letters of Queen Victoria:- QUEEN VICTORIA IN A SHERLOCK HOLMES ROLE QUEEN ATTACKS THE POLICE HINTS […]