Memories

No one was ever convicted of the murder on a Wandsworth train of Elizabeth Camp. Was she bludgeoned by a crazed sports journalist who had lived in Walworth and been spurned by a similar-looking woman? JAN BONDESON sifts through the evidence.

10 years ago
Herne Hill Harriers teenager Katie Snowden won a gold medal in the women’s 800m at the Commonwealth Youth Games.

When discussing unsolved murders of women in late Victorian London, most people think of the depredations of Jack the Ripper. But Jack the Ripper was just one of a string of phantom murderers whose unsolved slayings outraged late Victorian Britain.

10 years ago
Personal experience of life behind bars as a gay man led a former retail manager to set up the country’s first project to support homosexual men in prison.

Wimbledon’s pubs have a tale or two to tell, like their regulars. One hosted a ghost, one hailed a football hero and one was the regular of Britain’s second woman Prime Minister, before she even thought of any high office. CLIVE WHICHELOW tells the story of most of them.

10 years ago
Tributes were paid to a mother of 10 who also provided a home for dozens of foster children. Mary Field, of Ardgowan Road, Catford, died aged 90 on August 19 after suffering a stroke.

The Royal Arsenal in Woolwich is now becoming a hub for flats and shops. But for almost five centuries, it was a strategic naval and military site defending the interests of England and then the United Kingdom. It was effectively a factory of death, building weapons of mass destruction to suppress populations across the globe and extend or reinforce imperial control.

Four centuries before, it was Woolwich Dockyard, built by order of King Henry VIII in 1513. His flagship The Great Harry (also Henri Grâce à Dieu) was built there and in her day it was possibly the largest ship in the world. The dockyard was expanded over the years and many more prestigious ships would be built there until the late 19th century.

On Thursday, August 4, 2011, Mark Duggan was shot dead by police in Tottenham, north London while getting out of a minicab. On the Saturday after the shooting, 300 people joined a march from the Broadwater Estate to Tottenham police station in protest. It was largely peaceful, but later in the evening tensions grew between protestors and police and violence broke out, continuing to grow.

This summer is the 70th anniversary of one of Britain’s most ambitious cultural events, the Festival of Britain. It attracted millions but was criticised for costing too much, though its legacy includes the South Bank, which attracted millions of tourists to its arts and shops complex before lockdown. TOBY PORTER outlines its story.

Deptford had already been historically infamous for the killing of one of England’s greatest playwrights, dramatist Christopher Marlowe in 1593. It also sparked the first murder trial in Britain using fingerprint evidence.