Our image of workhouses has often been coloured by the writings of authors such as Charles Dickens. But what was the reality? Where exactly were all these institutions located - and what happened to them? You might be surprised to discover that a building in your own town, now transformed into flats or part of a local hospital, was once a workhouse. Revealing buildings steeped in social history, Workhouses of London and the South East provides a comprehensive and copiously illustrated guide to the workhouses that were set up across London and the neighbouring counties of Middlesex, Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Berkshire.

In the early twentieth century so many dead bodies surfaced in the rivers around Aberdeen, Washington, that they were nicknamed the "floater fleet." When Billy Gohl (1873-1927), a powerful union official, was arrested for murder, local newspapers were quick to suggest that he was responsible for many of those deaths, perhaps even dozens-thus launching the legend of the Ghoul of Grays Harbor. More than a true-crime tale, The Port of Missing Men sheds light on the lives of workers who died tragically, illuminating the dehumanizing treatment of sailors and lumber workers and the heated clashes between pro- and anti-union forces. Goings investigates the creation of the myth, exploring how so many people were willing to believe such extraordinary stories about Gohl. He shares the story of a charismatic labor leader-the one man who could shut down the highly profitable Grays Harbor lumber trade-and provides an equally intriguing analysis of the human costs of the Pacific Northwest's early extraction economy.

_______________ WINNER OF THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK _______________ 'A remarkable achievement' - Sunday Times 'A classic, to my mind, of the finest documentary writing' - John le Carre 'Absolutely riveting' - Sarah Waters, Guardian _______________ On a summer's morning in 1860, the Kent family awakes in their elegant Wiltshire home to a terrible discovery; their youngest son has been brutally murdered. When celebrated detective Jack Whicher is summoned from Scotland Yard he faces the unenviable task of identifying the killer - when the grieving family are the suspects. The original Victorian whodunnit, the murder and its investigation provoked national hysteria at the thought of what might be festering behind the locked doors of respectable homes - scheming servants, rebellious children, insanity, jealousy, loneliness and loathing. _______________ 'Nothing less than a masterpiece' - Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday 'Terrific' - Ian Rankin 'A triumph' - Observer 'Gripping, unputdownable' - Sunday Telegraph 'A terrific read in the Wilkie Collins tradition' - Susan Hill 'The best whodunnit of the year - and it's all true ... Agatha Christie, eat your heart out' - Sebastian Shakespeare, Tatler

The story of Cain's, like the story of Liverpool, is one of passion, ambition, and graft. It takes in immigration, global trade, terrible poverty, and vast wealth. In just two generations, the Cain family went from the slums of Irish Liverpool to a seat in the House of Lords. As the city grew, so did the brewery, and as the city struggled, so Cain's fought for survival. At the height of Liverpool's fortunes, Robert Cain owned 200 public houses across Merseyside, including the world famous Philharmonic Dining Rooms -'The Phil' - which he built. City and brewery have shared the highs and lows of recent Liverpool history and the remarkable revival of Cain's by another immigrant family, the Dusanjs, in the twenty-first century is matched by the city's own recovery and reinvention. Here, then, is the story of Liverpool in a pint.

A Washington Post Best Book of the Year

In 1945, a young African-American man from Laurel, Mississippi, was sentenced to death for allegedly raping Willette Hawkins, a white housewife. The case was barely noticed until Bella Abzug, a young New York labor lawyer, was hired to oversee Willie McGee's appeal. Together with William Patterson, a dedicated black reformer, Abzug risked her life to plead the case. "Free Willie McGee" became an international rallying cry, with supporters flooding President Truman's White House and the U.S. Supreme Court with clemency pleas and famous Americans--including William Faulkner, Albert Einstein, and Norman Mailer--speaking out on McGee's behalf. By 1951, millions worldwide were convinced of McGee's innocence--even though there were serious questions about his claim that the truth involved a secret love affair.

In this unforgettable story of justice in the Deep South, Mississippi native Alex Heard reexamines the lasting mysteries surrounding McGee's haunting case.

In the 1960s, many of the heavy industries in the North East of England were still busy, but facing fundamental change as better technology and foreign competition swept towards them. There is thus a singular beauty and poignancy to the shipyard cranes on the Tyne and the Wear, the towering blast furnaces, the chemical works on Teeside, infrastructure for coal shipping from Seaham Harbour and Sunderland, and home-made houseboats resting in the mud...In an era when pollution was less of a concern, dusty furnaces, smoking chimneys, and untreated waste went straight into the North Sea. Yet not too far away were glorious beaches and unspoiled countryside, and billboards advertising Roy Orbison's tour visit! People, too, were caught up in this poignant moment of transition: young lads looking for something to do; old men watching it all go by; workers busy at the docks. Industry & The Coast is a gritty, 'warts-and-all' depiction of areas with a unique story to tell, immortalised in haunting, previously unpublished images, and a captivating narrative in which the author draws from the abandoned emblems of our industrial history a deeper human significance and sense of place.

Covers notable events in Woking's past from 1900 to 2004. Every year is covered and the subjects include crime, famous people, war heroes, disasters, notable achievements and quirky stories.

Dismissed by planners in the 1950s as fit only for demolition and replacement with tower blocks, Queen's Park is now one of London's most vibrant and thriving communities: culturally diverse, with a vigorous campaigning spirit as well as being home to world-renowned actors, writers and musicians. This is its story From ancient Britain to the current day, defiant suffragettes to neo-Nazi arsonists, and First World War fighter aces to the Windrush generation, Queen's Park: A History is a meticulously researched book that brings the past to life. Uncover mysteries, scandals, horrors and heroes - and discover how a London community ebbed and flowed to take the shape it has today.

The bustling metropolis of London is home to scores of unusual and unique places and spaces. In this feast of peculiarities, author David Long guides you off the beaten path and allows you under the skin of the hidden city that is modern-day London, revealing a new side to the capital you thought you knew.

Woven from the ancient fabric that is the landscape of the West Midlands and passed down through the generations, these stories from a modern county with a rich and varied history are brought together by local storyteller Cath Edwards. Here are mysterious tales and local legends. Here are witches and noodleheads, ghosts and magpies, mines and wishing trees. Retold in an engaging style, and stylishly illustrated with unique line drawings, these humorous, clever and enchanting folk tales are sure to be enjoyed and shared time and again.

The area of King's Cross has witnessed a dramatic transformation, with a new city rising above, alongside and within some of the country's most compelling railway heritage. The former Railway Lands remain extraordinarily rich in historical features, yet those who now reside, work, study, dine or play in this new world will find their origins hard to decipher. The Great Northern Railway, with its stations, goods depots, locomotive sheds, coal yards and stables at King's Cross, served the needs of the ever-growing metropolis, experiencing growth in the nineteenth century, competition for trade, weakness between the wars, and the high age of steam. After the demise of steam, the decaying industrial landscape was colonised by a variety of new enterprises, invaded by clubbers, contested by developers and the community, and captured by artists and photographers. In The King's Cross Story Peter Darley explores and illuminates the fascinating history of the Railway Lands over the last 200 years, tracing the evolution of its historical features through time and space.

From their earliest encounters with Indigenous Pacific Islanders, white Europeans and Americans asserted an identification with the racial origins of Polynesians, declaring them to be racially almost white and speculating that they were of Mediterranean or Aryan descent. In Possessing Polynesians Maile Arvin analyzes this racializing history within the context of settler colonialism across Polynesia, especially in Hawai'i. Arvin argues that a logic of possession through whiteness animates settler colonialism, by which both Polynesia (the place) and Polynesians (the people) become exotic, feminized belongings of whiteness. Seeing whiteness as indigenous to Polynesia provided white settlers with the justification needed to claim Polynesian lands and resources. Understood as possessions, Polynesians were and continue to be denied the privileges of whiteness. Yet Polynesians have long contested these classifications, claims, and cultural representations, and Arvin shows how their resistance to and refusal of white settler logic have regenerated Indigenous forms of recognition.

Join Hunter Davies on a celebratory stroll around London's greatest glories - its parks. We need our parks more than ever before, for our health and spirits, our bodies and souls, to keep us fit, to save us from pollution, to protect nature and wildlife; and Londoners are lucky enough to enjoy more green spaces than any other major city in the world. In London Parks, Hunter Davies illustrates their wonders by spending a year walking round his favourite parks. From his local haunt on Hampstead Heath to the capital's latest wonder, the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, each one is chosen for its unique appeal. Informative and entertaining, he details their history, describes their layout and reveals hidden delights and new attractions that might otherwise be missed, such as the statue of a small brown dog in Battersea Park, a garden full of exotic plants and palm trees in south London's Burgess Park or, for something completely unique, Ian Dury's musical memorial bench in Richmond Park. Fun, thought-provoking and uplifting, London Parks is an essential companion for anyone wishing to explore the ever-green beauty of Britain's capital city, whether it's spotting pelicans and politicians in St James's Park, the birds in the London Wetland Centre or the views from Greenwich Park.

In We Showed Baltimore, Christian Swezey tells the dramatic story of how a brash coach from Long Island and a group of players unlike any in the sport helped unseat lacrosse's establishment. From 1976 to 1978, the Cornell men's lacrosse team went on a tear. Winning two national championships and posting an overall record of 42-1, the Big Red, coached by Richie Moran, were the class of the NCAA game. Swezey tells the story of the rise of this dominant lacrosse program and reveals how Cornell's success coincided with and sometimes fueled radical changes in what was once a minor prep school game centered in the Baltimore suburbs. Led on the field by the likes of Mike French and Eamon McEneaney, in the mid-1970s Cornell was an offensive powerhouse. Moran coached the players to be in fast, constant movement. That technique, paired with the advent of synthetic stick heads and the introduction of artificial turf fields, made the Cornell offensive game swift and lethal. It is no surprise that the first NCAA championship game covered by ABC Television was Cornell vs. Maryland in 1976. The 16-13 Cornell win, in overtime, was exactly the exciting game that Moran encouraged and that newcomers to the sport wanted to see. Swezey recounts Cornell's dramatic games against traditional powers such as Maryland, Navy, and Johns Hopkins, and gets into the strategy and psychology that Moran brought to the team. We Showed Baltimore describes how the game of lacrosse was changing-its style of play, equipment, demographics, and geography. Pulling from interviews with more than ninety former coaches and players from Cornell and its rivals, We Showed Baltimore paints a vivid picture of lacrosse in the 1970s and how Moran and the Big Red helped create the game of today.

Reveals the little known history of one of history's most famous maps - and its maker Tucked away in a near-forgotten collection, Virginia and Maryland as it is Planted and Inhabited is one of the most extraordinary maps of colonial British America. Created by a colonial merchant, planter, and diplomat named Augustine Herrman, the map pictures the Mid-Atlantic in breathtaking detail, capturing its waterways, coastlines, and communities. Herrman spent three decades travelling between Dutch New Amsterdam and the English Chesapeake before eventually settling in Maryland and making this map. Although the map has been reproduced widely, the history of how it became one of the most famous images of the Chesapeake has never been told. A Biography of a Map in Motion uncovers the intertwined stories of the map and its maker, offering new insights into the creation of empire in North America. The book follows the map from the waterways of the Chesapeake to the workshops of London, where it was turned into a print and sold. Transported into coffee houses, private rooms, and government offices, Virginia and Maryland became an apparatus of empire that allowed English elites to imaginatively possess and accurately manage their Atlantic colonies. Investigating this map offers the rare opportunity to recapture the complementary and occasionally conflicting forces that created the British Empire. From the colonial and the metropolitan to the economic and the political to the local and the Atlantic, this is a fascinating exploration of the many meanings of a map, and how what some saw as establishing a sense of local place could translate to forging an empire.

Borley Rectory in Essex, built in 1862, should have been an ordinary Victorian clergyman's house. However, just a year after its construction, unexplained footsteps were heard within the house, and from 1900 until it burned down in 1939 numerous paranormal phenomena, including phantom coaches and shattering windows, were observed. In 1929 the house was investigated by the Daily Mail and paranormal researcher Harry Price, and it was he who called it 'the most haunted house in England.' Price also took out a lease of the rectory from 1937 to 1938, recruiting forty-eight 'official observers' to monitor occurences. After his death in 1948, the water was muddied by claims that Price's findings were not genuine paranormal activity, and ever since there has been a debate over what really went on at Borley Rectory. Paul Adams, Eddie Brazil and Peter Underwood here present a comprehensive guide to the history of the house and the ghostly (or not) goings-on there.

Experience 100 key dates that shaped Sunderland's history, highlighted its people's genius (or silliness) and embraced the unexpected. Featuring an amazing mix of social, criminal and sporting events, this book reveals a past that will fascinate, delight and even shock both residents and visitors of the city.

"Good evening, I'm Ric Cottom. Welcome to Your Maryland ." Since 2002, when he first delivered his now-classic radio segment on Maryland history, Ric Cottom has narrated hundreds of little-known human interest stories. Collected here are 72 of his favorite on-air pieces, enhanced with beautiful papercut illustrations by Baltimore artist Annie Howe. From accused witches and the murderous career of gunsmith John Dandy in the earliest days of the colony through tales of Johnny U and the greatest game ever played, Your Maryland covers nearly four centuries of the Free State's heroes and scoundrels. Entertaining listeners of all ages while sparking their interest in the past, Cottom's beloved Your Maryland is a unique blend of carefully researched regional history and narrative nonfiction. He deftly emphasizes the human dimension of Maryland's colorful past: its athletes (two- and four-legged), beautiful spies, brilliant writers, misunderstood pirates, and ghosts. All of that color, suspense, and humor-as well as the author's unusual talent for discovering interesting historical facts and personages-is part of your Maryland.

'Reg Fearman is the man who knows all of speedway's secrets ... and is prepared to reveal them. He has taken a unique, full-throttle, white-knuckle ride to the top as an international rider, a world-class team manager, a successful promoter and a formidable administrator. He has never ducked a confrontation, on or off the speedway track; he knows the glamorous and the murky side of a tough, fabulously exciting and sometimes cruel sport, and he spares no one's blushes ... not even his own' - John Chaplin, speedway's leading historian 'From humble origins in London's East End, this is the story of how Reg Fearman became a local hero with West Ham, the cockney giants of speedway, and went on to represent his country, first as a rider at the tender age of 17, and then as an international manager. A captivating mixture of sporting achievement, politics and business and social history, it also looks at how speedway was resurrected from the doldrums of the late 1950s and dragged into a new 'Jet Age' golden era, a time which paved the way for the heights that the sport has enjoyed in the twenty-first century as a global phenomenon. Including a plethora of untold truths, revelations and a rich treasure trove of photographs, Reg lays bare for the first time the sensational inside story of the resurrection of speedway ... warts and all!' - Dr Brian Belton, JP and author

Contrasting a selection of 45 archive images alongside full-colour modern photographs, this stunning book traces some of the changes and developments that have taken place in Gateshead during the last century. Accompanied by detailed and informative captions, these intriguing photographs reveal changing modes of fashion and transportation, shops and businesses, houses and public buildings, and, of course, some of the local people who once lived and worked in the city. Gateshead Then & Now will delight local historians and reawaken nostalgic memories for all who know and love the town.

'But we will do what we have always done - just get on with it.' The contributions of Northern Ireland to allied efforts in the Second World War are widely celebrated, acknowledged by both Sir Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt as vital to their eventual victory. Lesser known are the personal and individual lives of the people who made those contributions - the human cost and the everyday lives that would be changed forever. In We Just Got On With It, Doreen McBride gathers stories and interviews conducted and written by local historians and historical societies. From essential agricultural work to the sunken German submarine fleet that surrendered on the banks of Lough Foyle, and from childhood smuggling adventures to the devasting destruction of bombing raids, these are tales of humour and tragedy from those who have stories to tell.

This fascinating and beautifully photographed guidebook follows Cambridgeshire's waterways from leafy Huntingdon to the wide-sky Fens, along the lovely Nene Valley down to the busy port town of Wisbech and travels beside the gentle stream of the Cam into the architectural glories of the university city of Cambridge. The narrative explores the history of Cambridgeshire through its vanished castles and abbeys, and traces the draining of the wild marshes. Cambridgeshire is a county that is different to any other in England, and the watery landscapes of the Fens are unique. From the bizarre Straw Bears that lead the hosts of morris dancers through the heart of Whittlesey every January, to the sedate Rose Fair that graces Wisbech church and gardens every June, Cambridgeshire has something to offer everyone.

Compiled by paranormal investigator Gregor Stewart, this new book contains a chilling range of spooky tales from around Kirkcaldy. From haunted public houses, which have left both customers and staff terrified, to the ruins of the ancient Ravenscraig Castle, which still attract a mysterious visitor many years after their death, this collection of ghostly goings-on, phantom footsteps and playful poltergeists is sure to appeal to everyone interested in the paranormal and the history of Fife's largest town. Richly illustrated with over fifty images, Haunted Kirkcaldy is guaranteed to make your blood run cold.

What happened to Edinburgh's once notorious but picturesque Tolbooth Prison? Where was the Black Turnpike, once a dominant building in the town? Why has one of the New Town designer's major layouts been all but obliterated? What else has been lost in Edinburgh? From Edinburgh's mean beginnings - 'wretched accommodation, no comfortable houses, no soft beds', visiting French knights complained in 1341 - it went on to attract some of the world's greatest architects to design and build and shape a unique city. But over the centuries many of those fine buildings have gone. Some were destroyed by invasion and civil strife, some simply collapsed with old age and neglect, and others were swept away in the 'improvements' of the nineteenth century. Yet more fell to the developers' swathe of destruction in the twentieth century. Much of the medieval architecture vanished in the Old Town, Georgian Squares were attacked, Princes Street ruined, old tenements razed in huge slum clearance drives, and once familiar and much loved buildings vanished. The changing pattern of industry, social habits, health service, housing and road systems all took their toll; not even the city wall was immune. The buildings which stood in the way of what was deemed progress are the heritage of Lost Edinburgh. In this informative and stimulating book. Hamish Coghill sets out to trace many of the lost buildings and find out why they were doomed. Lavishly illustrated, Lost Edinburgh is a fascinating insight into an ever-changing cityscape.