I came across this website on a Facebook Group to which I belong. It is a website about the gruesome side of local history and can be browsed by clicking on the links on the left hand side of the page. http://deathonmydoorstep.com/ Happy reading!
Had a quick squiz. I gravitated to the Australian ones but also found fascinating the cannibals in the South Pacific....
Okay, put aside for later otherwise I shall never ever catchup with anything, intended ironing but hey, who's watching ?
Awww nothing for my area. Do they not know about this William Edward Lucas Murder at the Rhos A fantastic account of the murder of William Edward Lucas at Rhos-Y-Meirch, in April 1946, complete with photographs and newspaper reports that tell the story of how this chap met his death. Code: http://terrydrayton.wixsite.com/knighton/william-edward-lucas Tag line supplied by Daft Bat
I recognise a couple of the ones in the Devon section, having come across them in my trawls through the North Devon Journal. I almost expected to see my great grandfather's suicide lurking amongst them.....
Ann, likewise I expected to see my great grandfather's death on the railway. I am not going to get anything else done today. Quite a lot of local stuff... Reporting in Victorian times was quite gruesome (and I quote, "(His wife) was decapitated, had an arm missing and her eye was knocked out"). I suppose it was a good thing a lot of people couldn't read.
I agree with you entirely Jenny - when you consider how 'proper' we tend to think of Victorians, they weren't backward in sparing any of the gruesome details around suicide/accidents/murder in the newspapers.
Wow!! So many suicides!! Like others have said, I didn't find the one I was looking for, but I'm sure you can read for days.
What a find!! Like AM I gravitated towards the Australian section, so well hidden in "rest of the world - other" The stories which grabbed my attention most were those of cannibalism in the South Pacific, Papua New Guinea, and Australia. There were a number of cannibal tribes in the whole of the island of New Guinea (the independent side (PNG) as well as the Indonesian province formerly known as Irian Jaya) and we came across several members in our travels. I don't know how widespread it was or how many cannibal tribes worldwide were affected, but there were villages in PNG where some of the people suffered from an incredibly debilitating and wasting disease called kuri-kuri. This developed as a result of eating human brains. An awful thing and the last I heard there was no cure. In Irian Jaya the young lady who looked after the house where Bill was staying was a member of a cannibal tribe. Part of her tribe's grieving process when a family member died was for the surviving members to lop off a finger joint and all of these were grilled and then passed around for all to consume. Mina had several joints missing. The cannibalism at the Palmer River Gold Fields in Queensland is something I've known about for a long time. Some aboriginal tribes used to ambush the miners and cart them off for tucker, immediate and future. There were a huge number of Chinese on the goldfields so they made up the greater proportion of victims but obviously discrimination wasn't total if the newspaper report is anything to go by. I'll have to revisit this site and check it out properly. My family's suicides don't seem to feature either, but I'll keep looking.
Thanks Philippa, I was in the middle of demolishing some yummy Aldi chocolate. I had no idea of cannibalism here. I guess we are only told what we need to hear. If it happened there then I guess it happened elsewhere. I tried to find my murder in England in 1856 so far no luck.
