On 13 September 1827, at London’s central criminal court, the Old Bailey, Thomas Baker Sackett was found guilty of assaulting and robbing a bank clerk. His sentence for this crime was death by hanging. His execution was set to take place two months later on 22 November at the notorious Newgate Gaol. There being no right of appeal, Thomas’s only [Click to continue…]

Millions of people have ridden to the top of Blackpool Tower, Lancashire, since it opened as a tourist attraction in 1894. It takes centre stage every year in the ‘Blackpool Lights’ festival in this seaside resort. Few visitors will know however that this iron structure, the 135th tallest free standing structure in the world, was made possible by [Click to continue…]

Matthew Corr was my great, great uncle and the third son of James Corr and Margaret Barber in Gateshead, County Durham, born on 7 Jan 1878. He was a coal miner and married Harriet Gaul on 6 Jan 1909, a spinster who already had four children,  at St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Newcastle Upon Tyne. They had three more children. Matthew joined the [Click to continue…]

William Grimmett, born August 2, 1853 in Summertown, was my great grandfather. William's parents were William Tibbetts Grimmett and Elizabeth Hazell. Elizabeth was part of the family that produced chairs in Summertown. Her brother Stephen made chairs for the Bodleian Library. William Tibbetts Grimmett and his sons and daughter had a photographic [Click to continue…]

It was 1669 and a young boy arrived, alone, at Fort St. George, India. His father had died at the height of the Great Plague and he had witnessed the Fire of London. His mother was about to leave England expecting to join her son and her second husband in Bombay, on the other side of the sub-continent, not knowing her husband had died and her son [Click to continue…]