A Grim Almanac Of Kent

This guide unveils a sinister, macabre, or horrifying occurrence for every day of the year, and presents readers with 365 graphic, spine-tingling, and dramatic events. The wicked, the mad, the foolish, and the unfortunate parade through the pages: poachers, witches, rioters, plague victims, highwaymen, smugglers, and the condemned awaiting their fate. There are accidents, explosions, suicides, and shipwrecks. The author takes us into prisons and workhouses, into the slums of Maidstone and the cold cottages of the rural poor, and even onto the scaffold. Included are the likes of George Joseph Smith doing away with his brides in the bath; the respectable Stauntons who starved heiress Harriet to death; Frances Kidder who drowned her stepdaughter; and an old man's murder which remained unsolved until an incredible confession 11 years later. W.H. Johnson's new book is generously illustrated with a range of engravings, photographs, public notices, and original documents. This chronicle of all that is grim and ghastly is an entertaining and readable alternative history of Kent.

W.H. Johnson digs deep into Sussex's past, presenting the reader with centuries of criminality and vice, of wretched living conditions and blind fate, which so often leads to appalling consequences. A Grim Almanac of Sussex chronicles the darker side of life in the county. This is a never-ending parade of woe, horror, and misfortune: dreadful rail accidents, public executions, murderers, robbers, drunkards, and general ne'er-do-wells are all included. If it's macabre, if it's ghoulish, if it's bizarre, then it's here!

In 1826 'resurrection men' stole thirty bodies from the graveyard of St Mary's Church in Nottingham to sell to unscrupulous medical establishments in London. It emerged they had been shipping their cargo to the capital in wicker baskets booked aboard stagecoaches, but they were never caught. In 1908 Mansfield tattooist Arthur Scott attacked a customer who refused to pay his bill. Scott tracked his quarry down after two days and attempted to shoot him. He failed, but it didn't take the police long to find Scott - the only tattooist in Mansfield. On 7 June 1865 Thomas Whittaker left the bar of a Newark pub to visit the toilet in the backyard. As he returned he slipped from the top of a flight of wooden stairs and fell head first into a water butt. He drowned. When Retford eccentric John Clifton died in 1816 he left a deadly legacy. He had a life-long fascination for fireworks and made them for his friends. While sorting through John's things his sister found a tin of black powder, which she thought was worthless, and threw it on the fire. The resulting explosion killed her and demolished the house. A Grim Almanac of Nottinghamshire is a collection of stories from the county’s past, some bizarre, some fascinating, some macabre – all absorbing. Revealed here are the dark corners of Nottinghamshire, where witches, body snatchers, highwaymen and murderers have stalked. Within the Almanac’s pages we plumb the depths of past despair and peer over the rim of that bottomless chasm where demons lurk. Author Kevin Turton has pored over the historic records of the county to bring together these extraordinary accounts of past events.

A richly illustrated history exploring life in Kent.This book tells the amazing story of Kent from earliest times to the modern day. Some of the pivotal moments in the Garden of England’s history are recalled, including invasions from Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans. It has seen the Black Death, the Peasants’ Revolt, the Swing Riots and, more recently, audacious escapades by suffragettes in the battle for Votes for Women. The story is brought right up to date with the challenges faced by traditional industries and the transformation of cross-Channel travel.The resilient people of Kent have taken it all in their stride and this story encompasses how they lived, worked and played through hundreds of years of colourful history.

This day-by-day account of gruesome tales from York’s past reveals the seedy underbelly of what was historically the most important city in the North. Inside these pages you will find true stories of murder and intrigue, battles and conspiracies, witches and religious martyrs, gruesome executions and horrible accidents. Read about Margaret Clitherow, tortured to death for her beliefs, Richard Scrope, the archbishop executed for treason, and of course the notorious highwayman Richard ‘Dick’ Turpin and his moonlight ride.If you have ever wondered what nasty goings-on occurred in the York of yesteryear, then read on ... if you dare!

Discover 366 gruesome tales from Birmingham’s past. With appalling accidents, frightful crimes and extraordinary deaths, there’s something to surprise even the most hardened reader.Featured here is the man who deliberately swallowed his wooden walking stick, a nineteenth-century horsemeat scandal, a drunken dispute that led to a man being stabbed in the eye with a table fork, and the lightning storm which hit a fog-signalling factory, setting off 43,000 explosions.True accounts of fires, catastrophes, murders, executions and a variety of nasty goings-on in the Birmingham of yesteryear await you within.

This day-by-day account of gruesome tales from York's past reveals the seedy underbelly of what was historically the most important city in the North. Inside these pages you will find true stories of murder and intrigue, battles and conspiracies, witches and religious martyrs, gruesome executions and horrible accidents. Read about Margaret Clitherow, tortured to death for her beliefs, Richard Scrope, the archbishop executed for treason, and of course the notorious highwayman Richard 'Dick' Turpin and his moonlight ride. If you have ever wondered what nasty goings-on occurred in the York of yesteryear, then read on ... if you dare!

A Grim Almanac of Herefordshire is a day-by-day catalogue of 365 ghastly tales from around the county. Full of dreadful deeds, strange disappearances and a multitude of mysteries, this almanac explores the darker side of Herefordshire's past. Here are stories of tragedy, torment and the truly unfortunate with diverse tales of murderers, bodysnatchers, duelists, poachers, rioters and rebels. Joining them are accounts of tragic suicides, accidents and bizarre deaths, including William Prosser, who died in Clodock in 1893 as the result of a practical joke; the farmer bitten to death by his horse in 1887; and the young man from Colwall who allegedly sat on a spike. Also here is the case of a Yorkshire tramp, whose body was found in Weobley in 1894, and the murders and suicide of Charles Hankins and his two young children in Ledbury in 1896. Some killers were lucky to get away with charges of manslaughter, such as Thomas Carlyle, who shot a coachman near Leominster in 1871, and George Hatton, who rid himself of a nagging wife near Ross in 1893. All these, plus tales of fires, catastrophes, explosions and disasters, are here. Generously illustrated, this chronicle is an entertaining and readable record of Herefordshire's grim past. Read on... if you dare!