The amazing 18th-century criminal career of Charles Price, forger, imposter, fraudster, con artist and master of disguise.
human interest
Blue Bell Hill: A young woman lays down to die and is eaten by maggots
Alarming discovery in a forest.
“Guilty – death”: two executions from 1817
Two executions from 1817: burglary and infanticide reported in The Observer
Adrift in London in 1817: Johnson, a dying black seaman is refused medical help
Turned away from St. Thomas’s Hospital.
Dr. Stephen Geary Wilkes: “The assassin of domestic happiness”
The rake’s progress: Dr Stephen Geary Wilkes, a bigamous philanderer who was described in The Observer in Jan 1818 as an “assassin of domestic happiness”
Plus ça change: Starving to death in Cripplegate
1816: The Observer reports on the death of starvation of a pauper in Cripplegate and pleads for the authorities to show more compassion to the poor
A sensational child abduction case from 1818: Joseph Charles Horsley
Celebrated case of historical child abduction: In 1818 3-year-old Joseph Charles Horsley was abducted in London by his second cousin Charles Rennett
Dissection in hospitals : Private grief v public good
From The Observer, 1818: A poverty-stricken bereaved mother complains after doctors at Guy’s Hospital dissect her child’s body and is arrested.
Stealing food during the Spa Fields riots
Two Old Bailey cases concerning the stealing of food from shops during the Spa Fields Riots in London in late 1816, and their outcomes.
Observer obituary of Jane Lewson, who may have been the model for Miss Havisham
1816 Observer obituary of Jane Lewson, the 116-year-old eccentric who may have been the model for Dickens’ Miss Havisham
1843: A trans iron miner in Scotland
A 1843 story from the British Newspaper Archive about a young woman who trans in order to find work as an iron miner in Scotland
1817: John Hatchard, slavery and libel
The Observer reported on the trial of bookseller John Hatchard for an alleged libel on 7 aides-de-camp in Antigua for inhumanity against a slave
The actress and the portraitist: Miss Walstein and Moses Houghton
A 1815 portrait of the acclaimed actress Miss Walstein – did the artist realise that his subject had been born a man?
1833: The extraordinary life and shocking death of the actor Eliza Edwards aka Miss Lavinia Walstein
After a mostly illustrious career in Ireland and England appearing as Lavinia Walstein, actress Eliza Edwards’ star waned.
Cross-dressing: “Two females would have excited suspicion”
Another in the series about transsexuals and cross-dressing. Two women disguise themselves as a couple in order to steal cattle as two women driving through the countryside would have looked dodgy. A singular circumstance occurred at the Devon gaol on Sunday last. In the course of that day two persons, the one in male, the […]
Transvestism, 1792: Warrington girl enlists and is discovered
A young female, from the neighbourhood of Warrington, last week applied to a Recruiting Serjeant in Chester and voluntarily offered herself to serve his Majesty : – Being habited in male attire, suspicion slept, and the corporal eagerly cross’d her palm with the royal profile, set in silver; – being initiated – a barber was […]
Trans in the newspaper archives: 1829
Lately I have been digging out stories about cross-dressers and trans people from the British Newspaper Archive and tweeting them. It’s become a little bit of a series so I’ll add them here on this website too. There have been some corkers and, as you might imagine, some of the stories have shown a lack […]
Elopement in Georgian England: Catherine Grierson and Thomas Thomasson (1781)
1781: A young lady elopes from her boarding school. The tale of Catherine Grierson and Thomas Thomasson. The case ends up in court.
Henry Fielding’s attempted abduction of Sarah Andrew
In 1725, 17-year-old Henry Fielding tried to abduct his distant cousin Sarah Andrew. He later based his Tom Jones character Sophia Western on her.
How girls were meant to behave: Georgian conduct books
How the works of Hester Chapone, Hannah More, Mary Wollstonecraft, Erasmus Darwin reflected and influences the upbringing of girls in 18th century Britain
Lord Hardwicke’s Act: Marriage in the Georgian era
Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act (1754) aim to prevent clandestine marriage and impose stricter rules. But there were ways to get around it.
Elopement board game (1820)
An 1820 board game themed with elopement – flight, pursuit, and marriage at Gretna Green.
Elopement in the works of Jane Austen
Elopements occur frequently in Jane Austen’s works and perfectly reflect the anxieties about marriage at the time
The Abduction Club
The film The Abduction Club is based on the shocking conspiracy of Garrett Byrne and James Strange in 18th-century Ireland
