Author: Jane

This case began with this sensational newspaper report from the Sunday Dispatch on 22nd September 1895. A ROMANTIC STORY. At Bow-Street on Tuesday, Catherine Elizabeth Malenoir, of 61 Lambs Conduit-street, a married woman, stylishly dressed was charged with using threats to George James Shipway and Dora Shipway, whereby they went in fear of their lives….

This case began with this newspaper cutting in the Manchester Courier on 8 November 1890. AN OXFORD PROFESSOR SHOT BY A LADY. A SENSATIONAL MYSTERY. An extraordinary affair happened at Oxford on Thursday night. Shortly after five o’clock a lady called at the residence of the Master of University, Dr. Frank Bright, and asked to…

This case began with a newspaper report in the Seaham Weekly News, and Seaton, Murton, Hetton, Rainton, and Houghton-Le-Spring Advertiser on 8 September 1865. AN AUNT AND NEPHEW: STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE An application was made the other day to the presiding magistrates, at the Huddersfield Court-house by Mr. Freeman, on behalf of Mary Ann, the wife…

This case begins with the newspaper report below from Reynolds’s Newspaper on 1 January 1860. (Reynolds’s Newspaper was a Sunday newspaper founded in 1850 by George W. M. Reynolds. It became particularly associated with a popular, relatively radical readership and was extremely widely circulated in the Victorian period. One modern historical study describes Reynolds’s Newspaper…

This case began with this remarkable newspaper report from 9 February 1850. DEATH OF A WEALTHY AND ECCENTRIC LADY – On Tuesday evening Mr H M Wakley held at the York, New-road, Marylebone a protracted inquiry touching the death of Martha Joachim, an unmarried lady, late of 27, York-buildings, aged sixty-two. The jury proceeded to…

The mystery began with an Our Warwickshire blog post  entitled ‘The Whereabouts of Elizabeth Wynn’: A Mystery of Dickensian Proportions which I reproduce below. Picture the scene; the year is 1838, autumn is closing in. In the bustling streets of Victorian London we find Samuel Probert, a smith in his late 30s, purchasing a newspaper….

This case began with the suspicious death of a 22-year old man that was reported in the Daily Telegraph on 18 August 1876. MYSTERIOUS DEATH – Yesterday, Mr. W. L. Donaldson, Deputy-Coroner for the Eastern Division of Middlesex, held an inquest at the Earl of Ellesmere, Ellesmere Road, Victoria Park, to inquire into the cause…

The case begins with the mysterious disappearance of Elizabeth Stanton, aged about 23, at Fencott Bridge in Oxfordshire on 11 December 1849 as reported by the Oxford Chronicle and syndicated to newspapers around the country. MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF A YOUNG WOMAN. The neighbourhood around the Ottmoor district has for some days been excited, in consequence…

On 3 September 1879, Elizabeth Mary Edwards, aged 18, disappeared from her home in Fairfield, Liverpool. What made the case particularly intriguing was that she came from a respectable, apparently comfortable family. Her father, Edward Henry Edwards, was a newspaper reporter, the family lived at 35 Rufford Road, and they employed a domestic servant. Elizabeth…

The dramatic starting point for this mystery was a report in the Northern Star on 23 November 1850. ELOPEMENT EXTRAORDINARY. The inhabitants of the town of Bury have been thrown into a state of unusual excitement, in consequence of a medical gentleman, of extensive practice in his profession, and of considerable literary attainments, having suddenly…