Drunk Funerals April 16, 2025
Author: Beach Combing | in : Uncategorized
These were some footnote funerals from Beach’s project, some months ago, to record bizarre 19C funerals. How our Victorian ancestors got excited about alcohol. Here is a nice whisky bottle scene, by now a stock of many films. It is difficult not to sympathise with the defendant in this 1897 case. At Lichfield Police […]
Ghost Flap in Derbyshire April 16, 2025
Author: Beach Combing | in : Uncategorized
Beach introduced before the term ghost riot: we also need another expression for the occasional ghost flaps, when entire communities go ghost crazy. Here is a nice one from 1858 for Great Hucklow. Hucklow is in the hilly Peaks. The village of Hucklow, situated between Eyam and Tideswell, has been of late thrown into a […]
Live Victorian Burials April 15, 2025
Author: Beach Combing | in : Uncategorized
The whole Victorian theme of the live burial is well known: there are several doctorates to be written in this vast theme. Here are some real accounts from the nineteenth century. Of course most of the time these revivals were rumours rather than reality, like this one from 1891 Wales. The Welsh newspapers report an […]
Angry Funerals April 15, 2025
Author: Beach Combing | in : Uncategorized
The Victorians did so many things better than us, but close to the top of the list are funerals. Here are some ‘angry’ Victorian funerals, most from the second half of the nineteenth century. The most common scenes just involved family arguments. Here is one from 1875 with a dispute over a will: On Thursday morning […]
A Suicidal Welsh Ghost? April 15, 2025
Author: Beach Combing | in : Uncategorized
Over the years Beach has offered several Welsh ghost stories: remember the ghostly rabbits, or the jumping Welsh ghosts. Welsh ghost stories as, indeed, with almost all things Welsh are just better. A strange ghost story comes from the Principality. There is a friendly society at Pontardowe, in the Swansea Valley, among whose rules is […]