Category: Bow Street Society’s London
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COFFEE WITH AN ARCHIVIST: David Luck, Bethlem: Museum of the Mind, January 2025
I’m thrilled to bring you a new Coffee with a Curator feature for 2025. Previous instalments have featured chats with curators, archivists, historians, and heritage managers from a variety of organisations including police museums, housing associations, and virtual museums. This time, I’m delighted to welcome David Luck, archivist at Bethlem: Museum of the Mind to chat about the…
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BOW STREET SOCIETY LOCATIONS YOU CAN ACTUALLY VISIT, June 2024
As readers of the Bow Street Society books will know, I enjoy featuring real-life locations within the fictional stories. Also, that as far as possible, I source floor plans of these locations to ensure the descriptions are as accurate as possible. Although the series is far from over, lots of real-life locations have already been…
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LONDON’S BURNING, November 2024
A Brief History of Fire Fighting in the Metropolis For many in England, November 5th is a night of bonfires and fireworks to mark Guy Fawkes Night and the historical gunpowder plot to destroy parliament. As the rhyme goes: remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder treason…
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POLICE STRIKE AT BOW STREET, July 2022
With the cost-of-living crisis and rising inflation affecting us all, it’s fair to say that the standard of living isn’t great at the moment. The recent strikes by employees of the national railways and London Underground have highlighted some of the struggles of modern times. With talk of more strikes by the railway unions, and…
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DIAMOND JUBILEE for the Bow Street Society, June 2022
June 2022 marks the 70th year of the reign of Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II, officially making her the longest reigning British monarch in history. Prior to this, the accolade belonged to Her Majesty’s great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria who reigned for almost 64 years from 1837 – 1901. Therefore, the members of the Bow Street…
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COFFEE WITH AN HISTORIAN: Christine Wagg, The Peabody Trust, February 2022
In January, subscribers to the Gaslight Gazette were treated to the first read-through of part one of the brand-new Bow Street Society Casebook short story, The Case of the Scream in the Smog. They would’ve also read a very special thanks I gave to the Peabody Trust and its historian, Christine Wagg, prior to the story’s…
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COFFEE WITH A CURATOR: Jen Kavanagh, Bow Street Police Museum, June 2021
Coffee with a Curator is back and today I have the absolute honour of sharing a (virtual) coffee with the curator of the new Bow Street Police Museum, Jen Kavanagh. An independent curator by profession, Jen was commissioned to curate the displays and exhibits in the museum housed in part of the former Bow Street police…
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SUMMER ENTERTAINMENTS IN VICTORIAN LONDON, August 2020
We’ve experienced a few intense heat waves over the course of this Summer, and it’s not over yet. The pandemic has also affected our plans for holidays abroad, parties, and even dining out. Yet, what entertainments would’ve been available to the members of the Bow Street Society in 1896? Whilst foreign travel was reserved for…
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OBJECTS OF THE BOW STREET SOCIETY, July 2020
For May and June’s blogs I was fortunate enough to have a virtual coffee with the curators of the Metropolitan Police Historic Collection and the Virtual Typewriter Museum respectively. These chats made me reflect on my own antique collection which I display on my stand at book signing events. Therefore, I decided to use this…
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BOW STREET SOCIETY’S LONDON: Tower of London, April 2019
A glimpse into the real-life world of London in 1896. The Tower of London attracts millions of tourists every year and it’s been on my “bucket list” of places to visit for a long time. In March I was finally able to tick it off. The photograph above is of the famous White Tower that…