The mysterious death of Christopher Marlowe
The death of Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe remains a mystery – was he murdered or was his death faked? Tony McMahon investigates
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Tragedy as Jews expelled from England
This is a curious and terrible story I heard about years ago and found again in an old book on London history dating from the 1870s in my library. The story goes that when King Edward I of England expelled all the Jewish people from his kingdom, one ship captain deliberately murdered a group of…
Top movies about London!
Tony McMahon looks at movies about London ranging from Alfred Hitchcock to Stanley Kubrick and the Ealing Comedies for the 1940s and 1950s
Elizabeth Brownrigg – a brutal murderer
Elizabeth Brownrigg was a brutal eighteenth century murderer with a violent streak who tortured her female charges, eventually killing one of them. But she came to grisly end herself. Elizabeth was married to James Brownrigg, a plumber who moved with his wife in to Flower-de-Luce Court off Fleet Street. It was the year 1765 and…
Unsolved murders in 1930s Soho
In a seventy year old guide to Soho in my London book collection, there’s a chapter titled: Wide Boys, Spivs, Dippers and Steamers. It details the murky criminal underbelly of London’s entertainment district. Because mid-twentieth century Soho was a dangerous place. But also exciting. As the book puts it: One has only to take a short…