What has that old villain been doing to you?
The following story is based on documentation of a historical case of child sexual abuse, including the victim’s testimony. The Conge Row, Great Yarmouth, 16 May 1842 Wending her way home from market with her morning shopping, Ruth Hastings spots a boy staggering out of the house belonging to John Gray Hudson. The widow […]
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Artful
Theatre Royal, Launceston Tasmania, Monday 27 July 1874 Joshua Artis elbows his way through the milling bodies to stake his place in the centre of the pit. Expertly he balances his beer without spilling a drop, winking at the ladies in their fancy frocks and ribbing the fellas he meets down the taverns.[1] Cheers and […]
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Infanticide at the Star Inn
North Quay, Friday 16 October 1835 Sarah Bowles is up early, scouring the streets for bones and paper. She sees William Munsford driving the muck cart out of the stables at the Star Inn and follows him along the quay into Mr Powley’s yard at Laughing Image Corner. Has he any bones for her dog? […]
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Very poor and respectable
Sarah Martin’s sitting room. New Year’s Eve, 1839 Eleanor Simmonds looks tired but chatters away as Miss Martin bounces her baby daughter on her knees, trying to coax a smile. She’s left the Factory and gone back to binding shoes. The money’s not so good but she can work at home while she minds the […]
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From Caister to Yarmouth Gaol
August 1818 I follow the dressmaker as she slips quietly out of the house and heads towards the coastal path that will take her to Yarmouth Gaol. She has longed for this day when her vocation will begin. The project seems such a visionary one. She dares not admit to anyone her desire to visit […]
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The smuggler’s return
5 February 1840 Charles Lewis Redwood stands at the helm, steering the St Leonard into the Yare. He remembers the tightening of his stomach the last time he watched Yarmouth coming into view, shackled with his men aboard the Admiralty cutter as his sloop, the Nancy, was towed into port. Deftly, he slips the St […]
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Style, Story, History
‘Crafting metaphors is dangerous for historians’ proposes Will Pooley. We are wary of metaphor—and other stylistic devices too—because the ‘clarification and illustration’ we use to build historical analysis might ‘fade into simplification and emplotment’—into chronology and cliché—narrative history, God forbid, rather than conceptualization and nuanced interpretation. But Will is being provocative, for even […]
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The image of grief
Great Yarmouth Quarter Sessions, the Tolhouse, 23 June 1841 Head bowed, William John Jarvis grips the wooden stand to steady himself. His legs almost give way as the Recorder reads out the charges for embezzling letters from the Postmaster General. The postman has dreaded the trial since his arrest in March.[1] Yet he has longed for […]
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“I have a right to think as I like”
Great Yarmouth Borough Gaol. The Men’s Ward. 2 February 1841 Why are your lessons not learnt? The prisoners shuffle sullenly. Francis James can bare it no longer. She knows the reason. They’ve had no pens or paper. Not since the note was thrown into the female ward three days ago.[1] He leaps to his feet. I want […]
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Mewing like cats
The Infirmary, Great Yarmouth Gaol May 1837 The Gaoler catches the two young women leaning out of the infirmary window, flirting with the men in the airing yard below. They jump down hastily when he shouts their names.[1] It’s three weeks since Elizabeth Humphrey complained of being sick and was dispatched to the infirmary room, […]
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Conviction 