The Day They Hanged A Banker

How callous would you have to be to invent a country just to lure paying settlers there? Especially if you told them it was an idyllic paradise for Europeans when it was nothing more than an Equatorial mangrove swamp that actually already belonged to someone else? This con man devised a name for the country,… Continue reading The Day They Hanged A Banker

A million pound lifestyle on a clerk’s wage

Meet Walter Watts. In 1844, aged just 27, he burst onto London society with no visible means of support, but with the trappings of a lottery winner. Inquisitive souls who wanted to know where the money came from were baffled as, one after another, they ruled out gambling, an inheritance or the City. However, if… Continue reading A million pound lifestyle on a clerk’s wage