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Recent content by Tacitus

  1. Tacitus

    Rippingille Aston Road

    Sue Naval history has been my main interest for about 20 years. Sorry to spoil a good story but I've never heard any of those names as ships in the Nelson era. Not even one of them. Sorry. T
  2. Tacitus

    200 years of Nelson in the Bull Ring

    Thanks for the photos posted already - really nice! Here are a few of mine from Sunday - 2 from the Bull Ring and 3 of the various parties marching up to the cathedral for the salute.
  3. Tacitus

    200 years of Nelson in the Bull Ring

    Hi Maris There is one statue of Nelson that is usually credited as older than the Birmingham one. And that is the one in Montreal, Canada. It is much more like Nelson's Column, being a stone statue on top of a stone column. I can't recall if there was an official "unveiling" but the column...
  4. Tacitus

    You think you've seen it all on ebay . . . and then . . .

    https://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320546326526&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:GB:1123 T
  5. Tacitus

    Help! John Pryse murdered

    I did have to read it a couple of times myself. I just checked it out again and I am sure the petition was in favour of Scott. Apologies if I am wrong. I wonder if he stayed in Birmingham after his release. I would imagine John Pryse's family would have been pretty unhappy with that. T
  6. Tacitus

    Help! John Pryse murdered

    I bet it would surprise quite a few people that even back then a life sentence didn't actually mean life. T
  7. Tacitus

    Help! John Pryse murdered

    Some information here from 20 years later when Scott was released from prison. Amazing to see that for part of his sentence he was imprisoned at Gibraltar. I know I read somewhere that despite the number of people who were hanged many death sentences were in fact commuted. I wonder how all...
  8. Tacitus

    Rippingille Aston Road

    Just out of interest does anyone know the principle behind Rippingille's oil cooking stoves. As recently as the 1970's I remember using a paraffin stove when camping whereby you had to pump it to pressurise the oil and therefore create a powerful flame. Probably not - but I just wondered if...
  9. Tacitus

    Rippingille Aston Road

    From a London newspaper in 1896 (2 years after JD's death) Confirms that his widow continued the business after his death. (Replacement) T
  10. Tacitus

    Does Anyone Know Where This Grave Is ?

    Hopefully the company did pay but many employers would not have been so generous. I remember reading about some firefighters who died in WWII trying to save a factory. The company gave their families just £25 in compensation. When you think what people get nowadays for spraining their wrist or...
  11. Tacitus

    Does Anyone Know Where This Grave Is ?

    Polly At the inquest the doctor gave the cause of death as "suffocation from foul air". It seems that no-one should not have entered the vat until it had been drained and checked. But it had become custom and pratise to override the rules. Huddlestone entered the vat first and was overcome...
  12. Tacitus

    Does Anyone Know Where This Grave Is ?

    I wonder who paid for the gravestone? These men would have been the most basic of manual workers. No compensation, pension or benefits for their families. I imagine a gravestone like this would normally have been way beyond their means. T
  13. Tacitus

    Does Anyone Know Where This Grave Is ?

    Max Sorry can't say where the grave was located. But the circumstance of their deaths was not quite as bad as described. i.e. the two men entered an "empty" vat to clean it. But the dregs had not been drained off and they were overcome by the fumes and suffocated. T
  14. Tacitus

    Sunday School.

    How interesting! I don't recall ever hearing of a "Cradle Roll" for pre-Sunday School babies/toddlers. Perhaps it just operated in certain areas/churches. T
  15. Tacitus

    Rippingille Aston Road

    I don't mean to throw a spanner in the works here but I noted that there was quite a lengthy entry for Edward Villiers Rippingille in the Dictionary of National Biography. And yet it makes no mention of the marriage that supposedly produced EA! That's odd!! But it does seem to answer one...
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