BOOKS
​
​
​
​
​
The tale of ‘Peppermint Billy’ has become almost a Leicestershire folklore tale over the years, with the murderer becoming something of a mythical bogeyman. Now, for the first time, the true story is told in full.
In the summer of June 1856 the whole of Leicestershire was horror-struck at news of the gruesome double murder of a seventy year old tollgate keeper and his nine year old grandson at Melton Mowbray.
William Brown, a native of nearby Scalford, was the prime suspect. A returned convict who had been previously sentenced to ten years’ transportation, ‘Peppermint Billy’ had supposedly sworn vengeance against the person who had sent him to the other side of the world.
Tracked down and put on trial for the gruesome murders at the Thorpe Road tollgate, William Brown was the last person publicly hanged in Leicester.
From his father’s lawless Judge and Jury Clubs to William’s ten year transportation sentence and incarceration in the notorious New Norfolk Lunatic Asylum in Van Dieman’s Land, the author examines the troubled life of ‘Peppermint Billy’ and the events leading to the double murder and his execution.
Peppermint Billy
Joseph
​
The story of Joseph Carey Merrick, more popularly known as the Elephant Man, passed into the realm of legend from the moment he was first exhibited at John Ellis's Bee Hive public house in Nottingham's Beck Street. Much of what has been written about his short life has been distorted and exaggerated, to the point where the most well-known depiction - the 1980 film starring John Hurt - left an indelible imprint of cruelty and suffering at the hands of Joseph's manager, and an eventual rescue by Dr. Frederick Treves of the London Hospital. The truth is rather different. Peeling back the layers of myth, Joanne Vigor-Mungovin has looked into the early life of Merrick and his family in her hometown of Leicester, and here presents, for the first time, detailed information about Joseph's family and his burning ambition to be self-sufficient rather than survive on the charity of others.
.jpg)
This book is written by my first cousin, David Warren. The book tells the story of our family's decline from riches to poverty in three generations, as well as the love, loss and heartache. It is a story of a family struggling to maintain their dignity and pride in the face of adversity.
Born in 1799, Richard Ward Warren trained as a carpenter as his father had before him, and then became a relatively wealthy builder, Freeman of Leicester and Guardian of the Poor. Shortly after Richard's death, however, his son, John, dies in tragic circumstances, leaving his wife, Mary, and their children to fend for themselves.
As things gradually improve, Mary's son, also Richard, finds work in the hosiery trade, but after he marries and starts a family, the changing fortunes of the industry, poor housing and poor health care begin to take their toll alongside the increasing threat of war.
When war breaks out in 1914, six of Richard's sons are drawn into the conflict, and the stories of three of these young men are described in detail, along with various other related aspects of that dreadful conflict.
After the war, although the Armistice had signalled the end of the physical struggle, for many who did return, the fight was far from over, and the consequences could still wreak havoc.
Set against the strains of the times and developments, particularly during the Victorian era, that mostly, but not always, improved things,
And There's Another Country chronicles the effects of these influences on the members of one Leicester family, and how the evolving political and social tendencies ultimately led to the First World War and its aftermath.