Broadmoor, Britain's first asylum for criminal lunatics, was founded in 1863. In the first years of its existence, one in five patients was female. Most had been tried for terrible crimes and sent to Broadmoor after being found not guilty by virtue of insanity. Many had murdered their own children, while others had killed husbands or other family members. Drawing on Broadmoor's rich archive, this book tells the story of seven of those women, ranging from a farmer's daughter in her 20s who ...

“We are a trading community, a commercial people. Murder is doubtless a very shocking offence, nevertheless as what is done is not to be undone, let us make our money out of it.” Punch.Murder in nineteenth-century Britain was ubiquitous – not necessarily in quantity but in quality. This was the era of penny-bloods, early crime fiction and melodramas for the masses. This was a time when murder and entertainment were firmly entwined.In this meticulously researched and compell...

In 1888 Jack the Ripper made the headlines with a series of horrific murders that remain unsolved to this day. But most killers are not shadowy figures stalking the streets with a lust for blood. Many are ordinary citizens driven to the ultimate crime by circumstance, a fit of anger or a desire for revenge. Their crimes, overshadowed by the few, sensational cases, are ignored, forgotten or written off. This book examines all the known murders in London in 1888 to build a p...

"A fascinating insight into the country's most famous asylum for criminals" which reveals Victorian England's care and management of the mentally ill (Your Family Tree).On 27 May 1863, three coaches pulled up at the gates of a new asylum, built amongst the tall, dense pines of Windsor Forest. Broadmoor's first patients had arrived.In Broadmoor Revealed, Mark Stevens writes about what life was like for the criminally insane, over one hundred years ago...

Bringing together bad women of every stripe and variety - the scandalous, the brash, the fearless, the downright nasty and some who just went a little bit wrong - in the one big book.Some are wicked, some are scandalous, some are downright mean and ruthless and some just went a little bit sideways. Meet the bad women of Australia: the femmes who challenge our ideas of what women should be - together in the one big book.tilly Devine, Mary Bryant, Helena Rubinstein, Lola Montez - thes...

The most common murder victim in 19th century Australia was a baby, and the most common perpetrator was a woman. Annie Cossins pieces together the fascinating story of the most infamous legal trial in Australia to reveal an underworld of struggling mothers, unwanted babies, and a society that preferred to turn a blind eye.'The book's power stems from its devastating details; Cossins establishes a tone so vivid it's reminiscent of Dickens.' Publishers Weekly

New edition of the bestselling history that traces the chequered story of 100 women transported together in 1829 to Sydney. Includes new information on the women and treatment of convicts and new illustrations. Intrigued to discover a convict ancestor in her family tree Babette Smith decided to investigate her life and the lives of the 99 women who were transported with her on the ship Princess Royal in 1829. Piece by piece she reveals the story of her ancestor the indomitable Susannah Wat...

Gaslight tales of rooftop escapes, men and women snatched in broad daylight, patients shut in coffins, a fanatical cult known as the Abode of Love.The nineteenth century saw repeated panics about sane individuals being locked away in lunatic asylums. With the rise of the 'mad-doctor' profession, English liberty seemed to be threatened by a new generation of medical men willing to incarcerate difficult family members in return for the high fees paid by an unscrupulo...

Do women kill? Yes they do, but often for very different reasons from men ...Do women kill? Yes they do, but often for very different reasons from men ...Meet the women who have murdered - they've killed children, husbands, lovers, relatives and friends. they include the desperate, the poor, the abused, the sexually betrayed, and the downright callous. In some cases they were motivated by fear of society's disapproval, in others they acted to save themselves from violence. Among the...

A vivid and graphic survey of the casualties of childhood during the Victorian Era through detailed and never-before-seen firsthand accounts.Take a fascinating journey into the real lives of Victorian children—how they lived, worked, played, and far too often, died before reaching adulthood. These true accounts, many of which had been hidden for more than a century, reveal the hardship and cruel conditions endured by young people living through the tumult of the In...

Many thousands of abandoned children were treated as free labour in late 19th century Australia, yet their stories have been hidden until now, even to their descendants. Lucy Frost's painstaking research has uncovered what really happened to the convict orphans.Longlisted for the 2025 Tasmanian Literary Awards Premier's Prize for Non-fictionLonglisted for the 2024 Green Family Tasmanian History AwardAll families have...

Historical accounts of Englishwomen who have killed, their varying motives, and their final fates.Yorkshire history has its share of nasty and brutal murders, and the majority of these killers have been men. Statistics show that most homicides are men. But the records over the centuries have tales of murderous women too. Stephen Wade has investigated records across England to find stories of women from the mid-eighteenth century to mid-twentieth century who have ta...