Sarah Nicholson ‘had the misfortune to marry a man 25 years her senior’. This seemingly unlucky accident (!) led to villagers trying to drive her out in 1879. But she was no strange to violence he...Read More
The Longburn murders of 1808 rocked Cumberland and beyond, for the way a man shown kindness ‘repaid’ it with brutality against two defenceless victims. Recorded in stone A gravestone near ...Read More
The Staffield Murder of 1856 filled a lot of column inches in newspapers: likely the first and last time this little Cumbrian hamlet featured on the wider public consciousness. Whodunnit? While TV dra...Read More
It wasn’t a murder trial that gripped the nation in 1842, but a conspiracy to defraud a vulnerable middle-aged woman by tricking her into marriage. It’s definitely worthy of Crimes of the Centuri...Read More
Love can be sweet. But wooing someone with bees can end up with one of you being stung, as a Shap saddler learned to his cost. Before the courts Cumbrian Characters’ URL is ‘crimesofthecenturies.c...Read More
‘Victorian values’ are something that get trotted out in British politics every decade or so, as something to aspire (back) to. This post touches on the ‘value’ they placed on ...Read More
On July 11, 1881, Ann Little, 45, who couldn’t read or write, was charged with attempting to drown herself and her two youngest children, Annie and Joseph, in the River Caldew, near Hutton Roof. It ...Read More
Annetwell Street, Carlisle, isn’t much of a street today. Running alongside the Radio Cumbria building, it seems sidelined by the busy A595 Castle Way that slices through the city in front of the ca...Read More
William Pinder was a man no one would want to add to their family tree. But his life story tells us a surprising amount about crime and punishment in the mid-19th century. In Westmorland, a crime of a...Read More
‘Affray at Kingstown Carlisle’ probably isn’t going to be top of anyone’s search terms online. But if you’ve chanced on this post, you’ll discover it had a turbulen...Read More