It was January 100 years ago when things turned badly wrong for 28 or so British Antarctic explorers under the command of Ernest Shackleton. Nowadays people jog up Kilimanjaro for charity and text home while they are doing it, but at the turn of the century there were still mountains unclimbed and places in the… Continue reading Row, row, row your boat
Month: January 2015
Freie rede macht frei
First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade… Continue reading Freie rede macht frei
Don’t eat the green ones, or any other colour!
Buying sweets could be hazardous to your health. Eating blancmange likewise, as this cautionary tale from the Medical Times of 1850 shows:-
Indian hemp in a French café
Forgotten Books is a website that deserves accolades. Yesterday they despatched the bound volume of Medical Times for 1850. It has copious specific and detailed information covering so much of the small stuff of life and death. By that I mean narratives on operations carried out — successfully or not; anesthesia; public health; water and… Continue reading Indian hemp in a French café
Murder in Acton; the final act
My search for more information — truth if you will — about a local murder from nearly 200 years ago is ended. I wanted to find out about why a girl who once lived just yards from where I am writing should take it into her head to marry and then to kill her husband… Continue reading Murder in Acton; the final act
More from the Little Cyclopedia of Common Things
More real life from the 1880s as told to readers of the Little Cyclopedia of Common Things, (see a previous post for more about the book), brought to you this time by the letter P. Every one a winner for historical novelists. First up is a listing for Paint. There wasn’t much in paint then… Continue reading More from the Little Cyclopedia of Common Things
Catherine Foster; the trial
The morning the Lent Assizes opened in Bury St Edmunds on Saturday March 27th 1847, 17-year-old Catherine Foster, dressed in deep mourning and ‘evincing little alarm at the awful position she stood in’, replied in a firm voice “not guilty” to the charge of poisoning her husband. By ten past seven that evening, the prosecution… Continue reading Catherine Foster; the trial
Catherine Foster; the inquest
Just to recap (though it may assist you if you read this and the next couple of episodes by starting from the previous blog), the God-fearing young farm worker John Foster, a one-time neighbour o’mine, swallowed poison from his wife during dinner on Tuesday night November 17, 1846. Within minutes he was sick as a… Continue reading Catherine Foster; the inquest