‘Wanton Wenches & Incorrigible Rogues’ Chapter 2: The inmates of Bristol’s Newgate Prison, 1783-1787
In 1761, John Wesley who was interested in prison reform noted that Bristol’s Newgate Gaol was lately wearing ‘a new face’ and had changed for the better from ‘the filth, the stench, the misery...
‘Wanton Wenches’ and ‘Incorrigible Rogues’ Chapter 1: Two Mutinies: a Horrid set of Miscreants
Peace with the infant republic of America was declared in August 1783. With the small detail that Britain had lost the war apparently discounted, it appears that the arrogant assumption was made that everything...
Harriet Bumford – Another Victorian Girl – Revisited
It is often the case that the very next day after you have committed something to print more information will come to light. So it is with the family of Harriet Bumford Darke. When...
Hard Times: Another Victorian Girl – Harriet Bumford Darke, c1831-1895
Harriet’s Story Thomas Bumford and Amelia Evans were married on 3rd August 1828 at Abergavenny, a small Welsh market town on the river Usk about six miles from the border with England. This is...
A Sea-Faring Family – the PINES of Bristol, Liverpool and Australia
A large part of the fun of family history is making contact with distant relatives that you never knew you had. This is especially so nowadays with the joys of the internet and this...
Sarah Matthews: A Poke from the Psychic Facebook
“Overture and Beginners Please” Miss Sarah Matthews was a surprise package. I had never heard of her before. She had a life of two halves: an actress from our Theatre Royal, Bristol who was...
Mrs Frances Ruscombe and her maid, Mary Champness, otherwise Sweet: A double murder at College Green
On Thursday 27 September 1764, a spinster in late middle-age, Miss Jefferies, went to her sister Frances’s house on College Green where she had been invited to dine at 12 noon. It appears the...
Tracing my ancestry – How did it all begin for me?
Would any of this have happened if we hadn’t come to Brislington to live? Perhaps, perhaps not. I never had anything to do with Brislington before and although I knew vaguely that it was...
Anna Maria Falconbridge – a life that would make a good Netflix series
My previous subject (Mary Kennedy, as far as we know) wrote only one line about her voyage to the other side of the World and back. By contrast Anna Maria Falconbridge is her direct...
Mary Kennedy – Adventures on the First Fleet and Beyond
Mary Kennedy of Baptists Mills in Bristol is one of an elite group of people who made landfall at Sydney Cove in January 1788. They numbered approximately 1,373 persons, consisting of convicts, male and...
About Me
I have been researching the social history of the West Country for 45 years. During this time I have collated information on a wide range of people living and working in the West Country including miners, ethnic minorities, petty criminals, sailors, tommies, benefactors, brassmakers and many more. The thing that I find amazing is that ordinary people always lived extraordinary lives. I hope you like my blog that brings together my lifetime of research.
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