Bloody British History: Leeds

By Richard Smyth

Phantom in the library! The bizarre true story of a Victorian haunting revealed! King cholera! The day that death came to the Dock family! Exploding mummies! The weirdest events of the blitz examined! A Yorkshire tragedy: Fifteenth-century murder at Calverley Hall! Leeds has one of the darkest histories on record. From the fatal Dripping Riot of 1865, sparked by the theft of two pounds of congealed fat, to the violin-playing killer Charles Peace, said to still haunt the city’s prison cells, you will find all manner of horrible events inside this book. With plague and disease in the city slums, dreadful disasters in Roundhay Park, and riots in the city centre, this is the real story of Yorkshire’s first city.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Feb 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780752492285

Richard Smyth

Richard Smyth is a writer and cartoonist. He's a regular contributor to magazines including History Today, Bird Watching and New Humanist and his creative writing has appeared in Cent, Vintage Script, The Fiction Desk and The Stinging Fly.