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Donald Serrell Thomas
Donald Serrell Thomas (18 July 1934 – 20 January 2022) was a British crime writer. His work primarily included Victorian-era historical, crime and detective fiction, as well as books on factual crime and criminals, in particular several academic books on the history of crime in London. He wrote a number of biographies, two volumes of poetry, and also edited volumes of poetry by John Dryden and the Pre-Raphaelites. Biography Donald Thomas was born in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset on 18 July 1934. He was educated at Queen's College, Taunton, before completing his National Service in the Royal Air Force (1953–1955) and then going up to Balliol College, Oxford (1955–1958). He currently holds a personal chair as Professor Emeritus of English Literature at Cardiff University.Donald Thomas at A. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victorian Era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period, and its later half overlaps with the first part of the ''Belle Époque'' era of Continental Europe. There was a strong religious drive for higher moral standards led by the nonconformist churches, such as the Methodists and the evangelical wing of the established Church of England. Ideologically, the Victorian era witnessed resistance to the rationalism that defined the Georgian period, and an increasing turn towards romanticism and even mysticism in religion, social values, and arts. This era saw a staggering amount of technological innovations that proved key to Britain's power and prosperity. Doctors started moving away from tradition and mysticism towards a science-based approach; medicine advanced thanks to the adopti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English novelist, irony writer, and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel ''Tom Jones'' is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders of the traditional English novel. He also holds a place in the history of law enforcement, having used his authority as a magistrate to found the Bow Street Runners, London's first intermittently funded, full-time police force. Early life Fielding was born 22 April 1707 at Sharpham, Somerset, and educated at Eton College, where he began a lifelong friendship with William Pitt the Elder. His mother died when he was 11. A suit for custody was brought by his grandmother against his charming but irresponsible father, Lt Gen. Edmund Fielding. The settlement placed Henry in his grandmother's care, but he continued to see his father in London. In 1725, Henry tried to abduct his cousin Sarah Andrews (with whom he was infatuated) while she was o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bonnie Prince Charlie
Bonnie, is a Scottish given name and is sometimes used as a descriptive reference, as in the Scottish folk song, My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean. It comes from the Scots language word "bonnie" (pretty, attractive), or the French bonne (good). That is in turn derived from the Latin word "bonus" (good). The name can also be used as a pet form of Bonita. People named Bonnie Women * Bonnie Bartlett (born 1929), American actress * Bonnie Bedelia (born 1948), American actress * Bonnie Bernstein (born 1970), American sportscaster * Bonnie Bianco (born 1963), American singer and actress * Bonny Blair (born 1964), retired American speedskater * Bonnie Bramlett (born 1944), American singer and sometime actress * Bonnie Crombie (born 1960), Canadian politician, formerly Member of the Canadian Parliament * Bonnie Curtis (born 1966), American film producer * Bonnie Dasse (born 1959), retired American track and field athlete * Bonnie Dobson (born 1940), Canadian folk music songwriter, sin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kray Twins
Ronald Kray (24 October 193317 March 1995) and Reginald Kray (24 October 19331 October 2000) were identical twin brothers, gangsters and convicted criminals. They were the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in the East End of London, England, from the late 1950s to 1967. With their gang, known as the Firm, the Kray twins were involved in murder, armed robbery, arson, protection rackets, gambling, and assaults. In the 1960s, as West End nightclub owners, the Kray twins mixed with politicians and prominent entertainers such as Diana Dors, Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland. They became celebrities themselves, were photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television. The Kray twins were arrested on 8 May 1968 and convicted in 1969 as a result of the efforts of detectives led by Detective Superintendent Leonard "Nipper" Read. Each was sentenced to life imprisonment. Ronnie was committed to Broadmoor Hospital in 1979 and remained there until his death on 17 March 1995 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leslie Hale
Charles Leslie Hale, Baron Hale (13 July 1902 – 9 May 1985) was a British Liberal Party then Labour Party politician. Background Hale was the son of Benjamin George Hale, a managing director. He went to the Ashby Grammar School and trained to be a solicitor in Leicester. Thereafter Hale practised first in his hometown Coalville, later in Nuneaton and finally in London. Career Hale joined Leicestershire County Council in 1925, aged twenty-three.Who's Who (1963), p. 1280 Four years later he contested Nottingham South unsuccessfully for the Liberal Party.Dod (1984), p. 124 Hale entered the British House of Commons as a Labour member in 1945, having been elected as one of the MPs in of the two-member constituency of Oldham. He represented this constituency until 1950, when it was abolished and split into two divisions. Hale was subsequently returned to Parliament for Oldham West, a seat he held for eighteen years until 1968, when he resigned for health reasons. On 24 April 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Hanratty
James Hanratty (4 October 1936 – 4 April 1962), also known as the A6 Murderer, was a British criminal who was one of the final eight people in the UK to be executed before capital punishment was effectively abolished. He was hanged at Bedford Jail on 4 April 1962, after being convicted of the murder of scientist Michael Gregsten, aged 36, who was shot dead in a car on the A6 at Deadman's Hill, near Clophill, Bedfordshire in August 1961. Gregsten's girlfriend, Valerie Storie, was raped, shot five times, and left paralysed. According to Storie, the couple were abducted at gunpoint in their car at Dorney Reach, Buckinghamshire, by a man with a Cockney accent and mannerisms matching Hanratty's. The gunman ordered Gregsten to drive in several directions, before stopping beside the A6 at Deadman's Hill, where the offences took place. The initial prime suspects were Hanratty, a petty criminal, and Peter Louis Alphon, an eccentric drifter. In police line-ups, Storie did not recogni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neville Heath
Neville George Clevely Heath (6 June 1917 – 16 October 1946) was an English murderer who killed two young women in the summer of 1946. He was executed in Pentonville Prison, London, in October 1946. Early life and career Neville Heath was born in Ilford, Essex. Although he came from a lower middle class background, his father, who was a barber, made considerable financial sacrifices so that his son could attend Rutlish School, a prestigious grammar school in Merton Park, London. Heath joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1937, but was dismissed for going absent without leave. He was later caught obtaining credit by fraud, and six months later was sent to a borstal for housebreaking and forgery. Heath used a number of aliases, including Lord Dudley and Lieutenant-Colonel Armstrong. At the beginning of the Second World War, Heath joined the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) and was posted to the Middle East. After less than a year he was shipped home, but escaped the guard durin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edith Thompson
Edith Jessie Thompson (25 December 1893 – 9 January 1923) and Frederick Edward Francis Bywaters (27 June 1902 – 9 January 1923) were a British couple executed for the murder of Thompson's husband Percy. Their case became a ''cause célèbre''. Early life Edith Thompson was born Edith Jessie Graydon on 25 December 1893, at 97 Norfolk Road in Dalston, London, the first of the five children of William Eustace Graydon (1867–1941), a clerk with the Imperial Tobacco Company, and his wife Ethel Jessie Graydon (née Liles) (1872–1938), the daughter of a police constable. During her childhood, Edith was a happy, talented girl who excelled at dancing and acting, and was academically bright, with a natural ability in arithmetic. After leaving school in 1909 she joined a firm of clothing manufacturers, Louis London, near Aldgate station in London. Then, in 1911, she was employed at Carlton & Prior, wholesale milliners, in the Barbican and later in Aldersgate. Edith quickly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timothy Evans
Timothy John Evans (20 November 1924 – 9 March 1950) was a Welshman who was wrongly accused of murdering his wife (Beryl) and infant daughter (Geraldine) at their residence in Notting Hill, London. In January 1950, Evans was tried, and was convicted of the murder of his daughter; he was executed by hanging on 9 March of the same year. During his trial, Evans accused his downstairs neighbour, John Christie, who was the chief prosecution witness, of committing the murders. Three years after Evans's execution, Christie was found to be a serial killer who had murdered several other women in the same house, including his own wife (Ethel). Christie was himself sentenced to death, and while awaiting execution, he confessed to murdering Mrs. Evans. An official inquiry concluded in 1966 that Christie had probably murdered Evans's daughter (Geraldine), and Evans was granted a posthumous pardon. The High Court dismissed proceedings to officially quash Evans's murder conviction in 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital Punishment In The United Kingdom
Capital punishment in the United Kingdom predates the formation of the UK, having been used within the British Isles from ancient times until the second half of the 20th century. The last executions in the United Kingdom were by hanging, and took place in 1964; :capital punishment for murder was suspended in 1965 and finally abolished in 1969 (1973 in Northern Ireland). Although unused, the death penalty remained a legally defined punishment for certain offences such as treason until it was completely abolished in 1998; the last execution for treason took place in 1946. In 2004 the 13th Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights became binding on the United Kingdom; it prohibits the restoration of the death penalty as long as the UK is a party to the convention (regardless of the UK’s status in relation to the European Union). Background Capital punishment was historically used to punish inherently innocent things such as unemployment. In 16th-century England ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Aubrey
John "Jack" Aubrey , is a fictional character in the Aubrey–Maturin series of novels by Patrick O'Brian. The series portrays his rise from lieutenant to rear admiral in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. The twenty (and one incomplete draft)-book series encompasses Aubrey's adventures and various commands along his course to flying a rear admiral's flag. Some of his naval battles and adventures are drawn from Royal Navy history. Several of his exploits and reverses, most importantly those in the plots of '' Master and Commander'', '' The Reverse of the Medal'' and '' Blue at the Mizzen'', are directly based on the chequered career of Thomas Cochrane. Often in the other 17 novels in the series, Aubrey may witness an action or hear of one that is drawn from history, while the battles or other encounters with ships he captains are fictional. Besides reaching the peak of naval skills and authority, Aubrey is presented as being interested in mathematics and astronomy, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patrick O'Brian
Patrick O'Brian, CBE (12 December 1914 – 2 January 2000), born Richard Patrick Russ, was an English novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series of sea novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, and centred on the friendship of the English naval captain Jack Aubrey and the Irish–Catalan physician Stephen Maturin. The 20-novel series, the first of which is '' Master and Commander'', is known for its well-researched and highly detailed portrayal of early 19th-century life, as well as its authentic and evocative language. A partially finished 21st novel in the series was published posthumously containing facing pages of handwriting and typescript. O'Brian wrote a number of other novels and short stories, most of which were published before he achieved success with the Aubrey–Maturin series. He also translated works from French to English, and wrote biographies of Joseph Banks and Picasso. His major success as a writer came late in l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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