Newspapers in Suffolk

7 books for anyone who thinks history should be fun:

Newspapers in Suffolk: Volume I (1720 – 1800) Includes smugglers, highwaymen and some very strange sports

Newspapers in Suffolk: Volume II (1801 – 1825) Tales from the time of Napoleon, poachers and quack doctors

Newspapers in Suffolk: Volume III (1826 – 1850) Crime, political sleaze and the demon drink

Newspapers in Suffolk: Volume IV (1851 – 1875) War, witchcraft and the coming of the railways

Newspapers in Suffolk: Volume V (1876 – 1900) Jubilees, bicycles, April fools and trips to the seaside

Newspapers in Suffolk: Volume VI (1901 – 1914) Inventors, votes for women, speeding fines and football riots (Includes an index to the series)

Grave Reports ~ from old Suffolk Newspapers Bizarre tales of coffins, corpses, crypts and churchyards (See here)

Each book has approximately 50 pages and is illustrated in black and white. They cost £3 each (+ 50p post & packing). We have read an awful lot of local Suffolk newspapers, and have come up with a selection of items that both amused us and helped us to understand better what life was like for people living at the time.

A duel was recently fought between an Englishman and a Russian in a darkened room in San Francisco. The Englishman, not wishing to have blood on his hands, fired his pistol up the chimney, and, to his horror, down came the Russian.
Bury Free Press (No 2): July 28th 1855 From Newsbook 4

On Monday last was married at Hickling in Norfolk, Simon Greenacre of that parish aged 74, and Hannah Corbet of the same parish, his fifth wife, aged 61. That he might not be encumbered with the demands of her for her former husband’s creditors, he took her, quite naked, at one of the principal crossways of the parish, after which they went to church, where the ceremony was performed. The road leading from his house to the church, which is upwards of half a mile, was strewn with flowers.
Ipswich Journal: May 1764 (reprinted 1887) From Newsbook 5

Some weeks ago, a man of the name of Crannis, was convicted in the sum of fifteen pounds, for having been found on the lands of Mr. Newton, of El(ve)den, with three hen Pheasants in his pockets; he being a person not qualified to kill game; and for non-payment of the penalty was committed to the gaol here for three months; on his arrival at the prison, he was put into the receiving ward, to be examined, as is the usual mode, before admitted into the interior of the gaol; he was left there alone nearly half-an-hour; during the time he amused himself by drawing three pheasants upon the walls with a piece of charcoal, and writing under them the following lines;-

I am a carpenter by trade, I never was incroaching,
I had no work, no money, which made me go a poaching,
Three hen pheasants I had got, and homeward I was making
Two fellows stop’d me on the road, so poor Joe was taken;
Then to the Justice they did bring me, with him I could not prevail
For my mittimus he did sign, and sent me off to gaol
The pheasants I should have caught, I have now left for store,
And this summer if they have luck, they’ll breed plenty more,
And as soon as ever the next season do come in,
If I am alive and not confined, I shall be ready to begin,
And if that I am taken again, the money I will pay.
For I shall never stand for money, while pheasants look so gay.
JOSEPH CRANNIS
Bury Gazette: April 3rd 1822 From Newsbook 2

A DELUSIVE habit, generally learnt at Great Schools is the most destructive thing that can be practised. Young people should take time to consider, that every act of debauchery of this kind strikes deep at the root of the constitution, inevitably hastens many alarming diseases, and brings on all the infirmities of the most languishing old age, and finally premature dissolution.
DOCTOR SOLOMON’S CORDIAL BALM OF GILEAD is recommended to those whose constitutions have been impaired by such early imprudence...
Advert published in Newsbook 2