A Dark History of ... – serie

Birmingham is England’s second-largest city and it was the Industrial Revolution which kick-started its growth. The city grew rapidly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the area became home to a host of factories and workshops. Working conditions were hard and the population crowded in back-to-back houses with little sanitation. Disease ran alongside deprivation, and despite the city’s efforts at sanitation the canals became foul dumping grounds. Crime was harshly punished and prison conditions were fearful.In A Dark History of Birmingham author Anthony Poulton-Smith delves into the often lesser known but darker stories from Birmingham’s past. This fascinating insight into Birmingham will be of interest to all those who want to know more about the city’s remarkable history.

Coventry has been a major city in England since the Middle Ages. As the city grew, deprivation, crime and its punishment were ever present alongside prosperity. The increasing population attracted by Coventry’s successful industries such as ribbon weaving and clock-making, later bicycle and motor manufacturing was also prey to gangs, violence, robbery and murder. Punishment was severe, whether through imprisonment in the city dungeons and later Bridewell and gaol or execution. Deprivation for many continued through the Industrial Revolution and beyond and during the Blitz in the Second World War Coventry suffered unparalleled destruction.In A Dark History of Coventry author David McGrory delves into the often lesser known but darker stories from Coventry’s past. This fascinating insight into Coventry will be of interest to all those who want to know more about the city’s remarkable history.

As Barrow was a ‘new’ town which developed very abruptly in the nineteenth century, living conditions were extremely primitive. Sanitation was non-existent, housing piecemeal and temporary, and public services absent. It was essentially a frontier town and with that came poverty, crime and disease. Jobs, particularly mining, were often dangerous or poorly paid. Political movements agitated and caused violence and the harbour at Piel was the site of many incidents of smuggling and even piracy. Poverty was rife and workhouse buildings are still in existence. Public health in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was problematic, with outbreaks of disease dealt with in isolation hospital and by closing schools. More recently a dreadful breakout of Legionnaires' disease killed numerous people. Further back in time Furness Abbey witnessed plague, murder, violence and debauchery, superstition abounded in the area and supernatural encounters bear witness to this history.In A Dark History of Barrow-in-Furness author Gill Jepson delves into the often lesser known but darker stories from Barrow-in-Furness’s past. This fascinating insight into Barrow-in-Furness will be of interest to all those who want to know more about the town’s remarkable history.

The dark and murky history of Jarrow still haunts the streets of a town once dubbed the ‘Wild West of the North East’. The Victorian and Edwardian eras were a time of notoriety, with townsfolk revelling, quarrelling and committing crimes. The local police force, a constant and vigilant presence, stalked the cobbled streets, struggling to maintain order as deprivation and the frayed edges of poverty jeopardised families and endangered livelihoods in a time without the safety net of the modern welfare state. In A Dark History of Jarrow author Natasha Windham explores the crimes committed and their punishment in that era, the presence of the workhouses and suicides, strikes, riots, assaults, alcoholism, domestic violence and preventable deaths in the workplace. Behind these catastrophes, readers will uncover the perseverance of those who suffered through the heartaches in these tough times.In A Dark History of Jarrow author Natasha Windham delves into the often lesser known but darker stories from Jarrow’s past. This fascinating insight into Jarrow will be of interest to all those who want to know more about the town’s remarkable history.

Founded as a garrison town by the Romans, taken over by the Anglo-Saxons then captured by the Vikings, York’s early history was a mixture of turbulence and prosperity. Local uprisings against Norman invaders led to the building of York Castle but during the Middle Ages the city become a wealthy centre for the North of England. Despite the prosperity that continued through later centuries, crime and deprivation were constant presences in the city. Many criminals ended up in Clifford’s Tower and a debtors’ prison and women’s prison were built in the castle grounds in the eighteenth century. Highwayman Dick Turpin was tried and executed in York, the notorious Guy Fawkes was a native of the city and York Assizes held numerous witchcraft trials.In A Dark History of York author Stephen Wade delves into the often lesser known but darker stories from York’s past. This fascinating insight into York will be of interest to all those who want to know more about the city’s remarkable history.