Imagine the horror of a Victorian couple taking their Sunday stroll in London to encounter a large group of poor urchins stripped entirely naked and enjoying some nude bathing in the river Thames. This was the disagreeable spectacle reported in the Chelsea News in September, 1883. Something had to be done about it! It seems…
It’s Pride Month 2024 and here I am in London – a city that has known how to party since the Middle Ages, and possibly before. A quick scan of some digital newspaper archives – and my own non-digital mountains of paper going back 300 years – reveals plenty of evidence of gay men in…
This week, I published my long awaited true crime book on the most famous serial killer of all time: Jack the Ripper and Abraham Lincoln – published by Troubador. You can buy it on Amazon as an ebook or paperback, as well as other sites. I’ve done two BBC interviews this week with links below….
Imagine a tsunami of beer flooding through the streets of London drowning people in its path. Sounds implausible? Yet this is exactly what happened on October 17, 1814. A terrible accident led to a tidal wave of booze crashing through the city centre, sweeping away everything in its path. Today, the Dominion Theatre stands on…
Social media and the internet has become fertile territory for hoaxes, pranksters, and impostors. Fake news. Fake obituaries. Wild conspiracy theories. The demonising and bullying of innocent people. “Doxing” individuals by publishing their addresses and personal details. Yet – all of this has been going on, in different ways, for hundreds of years. Though especially…
In 1888, a Victorian woman wrote to The Times newspaper rightly indignant that Scotland Yard refused to countenance the idea of female detectives being sent to investigate the Jack the Ripper murders in Whitechapel. Sir Charles Warren, London’s police chief, had just breezily dismissed the idea of women being recruited to investigate the Whitechapel murders….
For two years, I’ve been investigating the Jack the Ripper case – pouring over the original police and court records, as well as contemporary newspaper reports and other evidence. What I’ve uncovered will amaze you. On May 28, 2024 – I will reveal all in a new book: Jack the Ripper and Abraham Lincoln (Troubador…
Two black men, born into slavery in north America, went on to become high-profile boxers and celebrities in Georgian England winning big cash prizes. But these boxing fights were racially charged despite their popularity. And both men would die penniless. These are the forgotten black boxers who struggled but ultimately failed to become world champions….
Jack the Ripper and Abraham Lincoln By Tony McMahon – Troubador: publisher – out on May 28, 2024 Order your copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jack-Ripper-Abraham-Lincoln-greatest/dp/1805143646/ Astonishing new evidence reveals that a man suspected of being Jack the Ripper in 1888 was also implicated as a plotter involved in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. A…
Werewolves and London go together like… Well, they certainly get matched quite often, most famously in the 1981 movie, An American Werewolf in London. As the video below explains, with myself as your host, London has been a recurring venue for our lupine friends. What is a werewolf? What are the origins of the Werewolf…
