Durham Murders & Misdemeanours

John Kiste

• Publisher: Amberley Publishing
• Year: 2009
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781445627977
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

A look at the dark side of life, Victorian-style, when nothing was quite as it seemed and a public execution could be an entertaining family day out. Murderers, poachers, thieves, pickpockets and vagabonds all went about their business with impunity. Crime took place on the streets, on public transport, in homes, pubs, prisons, asylums, workhouses and brothels - it was all part of everyday life in Durham in the late 1800s. Naturally the punishments awarded varied considerably, depending upon the crimes committed. Murderers and thieves - particularly horse thieves - could expect the rope, though others could hope for a reprieve. Such a remission would automatically add them to list of convicts to be deported to the penal colonies in Australia. Alternatively, convicts might expect to spend time in gaol or a House of Correction, with hard labour and floggings often thrown in for good measure. This collection of real life crimes vividly recreates the events surrounding them, offering an insight not only into criminal law but also into the social history attached to crime as society evolved and adapted to meet changing industries and class structures. A must have book for any arm chair detective and anyone interested in the social mores of the day.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Introduction
• CHAPTER 1 - Natural Causes or Murder?
• CHAPTER 2 - The Cruelty of Jane Armstrong
• CHAPTER 3 - The Spennymoor Shop Murder
• CHAPTER 4 - ‘Murder Grew With Her’
• CHAPTER 5 - ‘I’ll Finish Her’
• CHAPTER 6 - The Bottle of Porter
• CHAPTER 7 - ‘A Bad Job’
• CHAPTER 8 - ‘Wait Until We Get Home’
• CHAPTER 9 - ‘Do You Want to Take This Man’s Part?’
• CHAPTER 10 - ‘Master of My Own House’
• CHAPTER 11 - ‘What’s Mine’s Mine, and What’s Thine’s Thine’
• CHAPTER 12 - The Death of Mrs Tully
• CHAPTER 13 - Death in a Darlington Street
• CHAPTER 14 - ‘I Will be Cleared Before God and Man’
• CHAPTER 15 - ‘A Very Steady Fellow’
• CHAPTER 16 - The Irish Affray At West Hartlepool
• CHAPTER 17 - ‘A Very Mitigated Kind of Manslaughter’
• CHAPTER 18 - On the Streets of Shotton
• CHAPTER 19 - Matricide and Attempted Suicide
• CHAPTER 20 - ‘I’ll Learn You to Stay Out’
• CHAPTER 21 - ‘You Would Shoot Once Too Often’
• CHAPTER 22 - Death After the Races
• CHAPTER 23 - ‘I Always Thought I Would be Hanged’
• CHAPTER 24 - The Fight at the Colliery Inn
• CHAPTER 25 - The Excited Mrs Prinsky
• CHAPTER 26 - Miscellany
• Bibliography