Search results for ""Author Jonathan Oates""

What motivated John George Haigh to murder at least six people, then dissolve their corpses in concentrated sulphuric acid? How did this intelligent, well-educated man from a loving, strongly religious family of Plymouth Brethren become a fraudster, a thief, then a serial killer? In the latest of his best-selling studies of criminal history, Jonathan Oates reinvestigates this sensational case of the late 1940s. He delves into Haigh's Yorkshire background, his reputation as a loner, a bully and a forger during his years at Wakefield Grammar School, and his growing appetite for the good life which his modest employment in insurance and advertising could not sustain. Then came his move to London and a rapid, apparently remorseless descent into the depths of crime, from deceit and theft to cold-blooded killing. As he follows the course of Haigh's crimes in graphic, forensic detail, Jonathan Oates gives a fascinating inside view of Haigh's attempt to carry through a series of perfect murders. For Haigh intended not only cut off his victims' lives but, by destroying their bodies with acid, literally to remove all traces that they had ever existed.

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Unsolved crimes have a special fascination, none more so than unsolved murders. The shock of the crime itself and the mystery surrounding it, the fear generated by the awareness a killer on the loose, the insight the cases give into outdated police methods, and the chance to speculate about the identity of the killer after so many years have passed - all these aspects of unsolved murder cases make them compelling reading. In this companion volume to his bestselling Unsolved Murders of Victorian and Edwardian London, Jonathan Oates has selected over 20 haunting, sometimes shocking cases from the period between the two world wars. Included are the shooting of PC James Kelly in Gunnersbury, violent deaths associated with Fenian Conspiracies, the stabbing of the French acrobat Martial Lechevalier in Piccadilly, the strychnine poisoning of egg-seller Kusel Behr, the killing by arsenic of three members of a Croydon family, and, perhaps most gruesome of all, the case of the unidentified body parts found at Waterloo Station. Jonathan Oates describes each of these crimes in precise, forensic detail. His case studies shed light on the lives of the victims and summon up the ruthless, sometimes lethal character of London itself.

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Why does the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin have such an extraordinary reputation today? How come his criminal career has inspired a profusion of often misleading literature and film? This eighteenth-century villain is often portrayed as a hero - dashing, sinister, romantic, daring, a Robin Hood of his times. The reality, as Jonathan Oates reveals in this perceptive, carefully researched study, was radically different. He was a robber, torturer and killer, a gangster whose posthumous reputation has eclipsed the truth about his life. In the early 1700s Turpin progressed from butcher's apprentice and poacher to become a member of the Gregory gang which terrorized householders around London by robbery and violence. Then came his two-year career as a highwayman robbing travellers, his partnership with Matthew King whom he may have killed in Whitechapel, his murder Thomas Morris in Epping Forest, and his eventual capture and execution. Jonathan Oates recounts the episodes in Turpin's short, brutal life in dramatic detail, basing his narrative on contemporary sources - trial records and newspapers in particular - and he traces the development of the Turpin legend over 250 years through novels, ballads, plays, television and film. The Dick Turpin who emerges from this rigorous and scholarly biography is in many ways a more interesting man than the legend suggests.

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Many books have been written about the Jacobite rebellions - the armed attempts made by the Stuarts to regain the British throne between 1689 and 1746 - and in particular about the risings of 1689, 1715, 1719 and 1745. The key battles have been described in graphic detail. Yet no previous book has given a comprehensive military account of the campaigns in their entirety - and that is the purpose of Jonathan Oates's new history. For over fifty years the Jacobites posed a serious threat to the governments of William and Mary, Queen Anne and George I and II. But they were unable to follow up their victories at Killiecrankie, Prestonpans and Falkirk, and the overwhelming defeat suffered by Bonnie Prince Charlie's army when it confronted the Duke of Cumberland's forces at Culloden in 1746 was decisive. The author uses vivid eyewitness testimony and contemporary sources, as well as the latest archaeological evidence, to trace the course of the conflict, and offers an absorbing insight into the makeup of the opposing sides, their leadership, their troops and the strategy and tactics they employed. His distinctive approach gives the reader a long perspective on a conflict which is often viewed more narrowly in terms of famous episodes and the careers of the leading men.

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Murders and murderers fascinate us - and perhaps serial killers fascinate us most of all. In the twentieth century the term came to be used to describe murders committed by the same person, often with similar methods. But, as Jonathan Oates demonstrates in this selection of cases from London, this category of crime has existed for centuries, though it may have become more common in modern times. Using police and pathologists' reports, Home Office and prison files, trial transcripts and lurid accounts in contemporary newspapers, he reconstructs these cases in order to explain how they took place, who the killers were, what motivated them, and how for a while they got away with their crimes. He does not neglect the victims and provides a revealing analysis of the killers, their circumstances and their actions. Among the nineteenth-century cases are the infamous killings of Jack the Ripper and the less-well-known but terrifying crimes of the only female killer, the Deptford Poisoner. Twentieth-century cases covered in forensic detail include the Black-out Ripper of 1942, the Thames Nude Murders of the 1960s and the multiple killings of Joseph Smith, John Christie and John George Haigh. There is also one especially troubling unsolved case - the notorious Soho prostitute killings of the 1930s and 1940s, which may be the work of one man. Jonathan Oates's gripping accounts of this wide range of serial killings gives us a powerful insight into the nature of these crimes, the characters of the killers and the police methods of the period.

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The trail that an ancestor leaves through the Victorian period and the twentieth century is relatively easy to follow - the records are plentiful, accessible and commonly used. But how do you go back further, into the centuries before the central registration of births, marriages and deaths was introduced in 1837, before the first detailed census records of 1841? How can you trace a family line back through the early modern period and perhaps into the Middle Ages? Jonathan Oates's clearly written new handbook gives you all the background knowledge you need in order to go into this engrossing area of family history research. He starts by describing the administrative, religious and social structures in the medieval and early modern period and shows how these relate to the family historian. Then in a sequence of accessible chapters he describes the variety of sources the researcher can turn to. Church and parish records, the records of the professions and the courts, manorial and property records, tax records, early censuses, lists of loyalty, militia lists, charity records - all these can be consulted. He even includes a short guide to the best methods of reading medieval and early modern script. Jonathan Oates's handbook is an essential introduction for anyone who is keen to take their family history research back into the more distant past.

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The trial of the year in 1950 was of Donald Hume, a North London petty thief accused of stabbing car dealer Stanley Setty to death, of cutting up his corpse and dropping his body parts from an aeroplane. The press and public were horrified and fascinated by the details. But Hume was convicted and gaoled as an accessory - he later claimed his wife was guilty of the crime. He then fled Switzerland, taking up with a Swiss woman in Zurich, but he needed money to finance his lavish lifestyle and he returned to robbery. He carried out two armed robberies, shooting a member of the bank staff, but getting clean away. Then in 1959 his attempt to rob a bank failed and he shot dead a bystander. Arrested, he stood trial and was sentenced to life, but was later deemed criminally insane and was returned to Britain and to Broadmoor. Jonathan Oates's compelling account of Hume's notorious life of crime is based on extensive primary research. It sheds new light on Hume and his crimes, especially the murder of Setty, and gives the reader a rare insight into the criminal underworld of the time.

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Family history should reveal more than facts and dates, lists of names and places - it should bring ancestors alive in the context of their times and the surroundings they knew - and research into local history records is one of the most rewarding ways of gaining this kind of insight into their world. That is why Jonathan Oates's detailed introduction to these records is such a useful tool for anyone who is trying to piece together a portrait of family members from the past. In a series of concise and informative chapters he looks at the origins and importance of local history from the sixteenth century onwards and at the principal archives - national and local, those kept by government, councils, boroughs, museums, parishes, schools and clubs. He also explains how books, photographs and other illustrations, newspapers, maps, directories, and a range of other resources can be accessed and interpreted and how they can help to fill a gap in your knowledge.As well as describing how these records were compiled, he highlights their limitations and the possible pitfalls of using them, and he suggests how they can be combined to build up a picture of an individual, a family and the place and time in which they lived.

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Contrasting a selection of 45 archive images alongside full-colour modern photographs, this book traces some of the changes and developments that have taken place in Ealing 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 area. Ealing Then & Now will delight all local historians and will awaken nostalgic memories for all who know this London Borough.

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