From Yesterday to Tomorrow: Exploring the Journey of History

Hiram Thompson - for wife murder. The Thompson family lived at No. 11 Brandiforth Street, Bamber Bridge near Preston in Lancashire.  They comprised 52 year old Hiram, his wife, 49 year old Ellen, two daughters, 17 year old Ellen, Priscilla and her husband and son John.  Hiram was a heavy drinker and there were frequent quarrels between him and his wife over the amount of money he spent on drink.  Sadly, these often led to Ellen being physically assaulted. On the morning of Tuesday the 25th of April 1922, the family rose as usual and daughters Ellen and Priscilla got ready for work.  When they returned home for lunch their mother was fine and their father had gone to the pub, where he consumed four pints. The girls returned to work by 1 p.m.  When Ellen got home at 5.45 p.m., she found her mother dead in the kitchen.  Ellen senior had her throat cut and had been battered around the head.  The police were immediately called.  Thompson was missing and became the prime suspect for Sergeant

Scary Holes With Deadly Pasts Catawba Murder Hole ------------------------------ Locals have passed down plenty of legends about this cave. In one story, a farmer killed a traveling tinkerer in order to steal his wares. He dumped the man’s body back into his cart, then drove the horse and buggy over the edge of the Murder Hole. Another legend tells of a young couple whose families disapproved of their relationship, so they killed themselves by driving a cart into the Hole.However, one death that certainly isn’t a legend is that of David Spencer. Back in 1958, Spencer was part of the Virginia Tech cave club. He was around 7.5 meters (25 ft) into the hole when his rope snapped and he plummeted into the depths. Investigators found that cleaning fluid had spilled onto his rope when it was in storage, which had weakened the fibers.Nobody has died in the Catawba Murder Hole since that tragic accident, but dozens have still found ways to get trapped there. Marian McConnell and her husband bou

Another Unknown Soldier of the Great War identified. On 10 May, Corporal Frederick ‘Percy’ Bousfield was confirmed as the Canadian soldier buried in a previously unknown grave in Ypres, Belgium.  Bousfield, who died in June 1916, had been commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial along with 55,000 other empire troops who had no known grave in the Ypres Salient.   Thanks to remarkable archival work, Bousfield’s grave could be conclusively confirmed.  Yet what is most remarkable about this story, is how often remains are still discovered on the Western Front, with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission alerted almost daily to these finds.  Why is this the case?  Back in September 1921, the secretary of state for war, Laming Worthington-Evans, officially ended the search for the Western Front’s missing, citing that the battlefields had been searched at least six times. Yet British exhumation parties were still discovering 600 bodies per week. Worthington-Evans’ declaration gave the impressi

Memorial to the ‘Johnnies and the Mehmets’ that lie side by side on Gallipoli  The Australian Turkish Friendship Memorial is located in the leafy gardens in Kings Domain in Melbourne, Australia. It was built to mark the Anzac Day centennial anniversary, and celebrate the shared values between the two nations. As striking as the memorial is, it’s the words on its base that are most evocative. It reads, ‘Those heroes that shed their blood.’  It’s an excerpt from Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s longer passage that reassured the grieved: ‘you, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace.’ Atatürk, who came to prominence for his role in securing the Ottoman Turkish victory on Gallipoli, reassures the grieved that their loved ones are ‘lying in the soil of a friendly country.’ He finishes with the comforting reassurance:  ‘After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as w

The controversy surrounding Norman Lindsay’s shocking 1918 recruitment posters  Throughout the Great War, Australia had to rely on volunteers to replenish its divisions on the Western Front.  With enlistments drying up in 1918, a desperate Australian government turned to artist Norman Lindsay to produce six recruitment posters.  In early October 1918, aiming to surprise and shock, the posters were distributed at night, one design at a time.  In this poster, Lindsay suggested that an invading German army could threaten Australia. It plays on visceral themes of marauding ape-like Germans wearing spiked helmets threatening a homestead with a husband unable to protect his vulnerable wife.  Was Lindsay - who is better known for classics such as ‘The Magic Pudding - really a Machiavellian artist who cravenly preyed on peoples’ primal fears?  Lindsay had been deeply affected by the war. In 1916, his younger brother, Reg, died on the Somme. His death deeply affected Lindsay, who thereafter acu

The Renault FT 31 May 1918, the German army launches a sudden attack near the Forest of Retz near Ploisy in the north-east of France. It is the last year of World War One, and the Germans are desperately trying to beat the Western Allies. A British blockade is crippling the German economy. Those back at home are suffering shortages of fuel and food. The German Empire faces starvation and defeat. As the French units at Retz try to resist the onslaught, they are joined by reinforcements. Among them is a new tank: the FT. Compared to the giant, lumbering British tanks that have been used with mixed results for the past 18 months, these are tiny. There is only room for two people inside them. But they are remarkably effective. The 30 tanks rushed to this battle help to push the Germans back. The tanks only stop advancing because the accompanying infantry cannot keep up with them. At the site of this action, a century later, there is now a plaque, commemorating the first use of what is argu

The Missing of Fromelles: the poignant story behind this perished train ticket.  After 250 missing Australian and British soldiers were discovered in a mass grave near Fromelles in 2009, their remains were carefully exhumed, and all their personal items painstakingly catalogued.  The recovery team collected 6,200 artifacts from the remains, ranging from everyday items such as buttons, buckles and smoking pipes to more intimate ones such as bibles, rosary beads and lockets.  These personal items not only supported identification of remains but also told poignant stories about their deceased owners.  The item that most ‘strikes a chord’ with me is this partially perished train ticket that was found folded with a gas mask. After the ticket was dried out, it revealed some remarkable text.  It was an unused second-class return train ticket from Freemantle to Perth in Western Australia that its owner had purchased in 1915 in anticipation of his return to civilian life.  I often ponder about