Monthly Archives: February 2025

I’ve been spending a little more time on Katherine Scragg. (And her name was Katherine not Catherine, despite the newspaper reports to the contrary) I finally ran to ground a newspaper transcript of her deposition, which I won’t reproduce as … Continue reading →

Eadweard Muybridge was undoubtedly a most peculiar man, but his huge collection of photographs of naked people doing quite simple things has proved an invaluable resource for studies of human locomotion. His images also help give us an idea of … Continue reading →

While delving into the Okhrana’s presence in London I came across a few snippets about Lenin, and his time in London. Lenin did not really like London. Too grey, too polluted and and the continual damp of an English winter … Continue reading →

Amy Faulkner was clearly a troubled young woman. Only 16, she had had some sort of argument with her parents and was no longer living at home. In May 1892 she boarded a train in Bradford, and somewhere near Leeds … Continue reading →

Not all assault cases ended in favour of the victim. In 1888 a young woman named Harriet Daniels claimed that she had been assaulted by a coal miner, one John Phillips in a first class railway compartment in a train … Continue reading →

While train travel undoubtedly revolutionised life for Victorians, it did, especially in the days of non corridor trains, expose women to the risk of being sexually assaulted. The most prominent case that I’ve come across is that of Kate Dickinson, … Continue reading →