In 1863, the Dundee Courier and Argus didn’t shy away from exposing the gruesome underbelly of the town’s nightlife. The series of articles titled “The Night Side of Dundee” aimed to show the debauchery and vice prevalent in the town after dark. The author, David Scott, believed that smaller towns, like Dundee, also had an […]
Nestled away in a copy of The Evening Telegraph and Post from late July 1905 is a dark tale of a violent ex-soldier. There aren’t many words, as the railway disaster in Liverpool which claimed 20 lives takes up the vast majority of the page, but what it does say paints a vivid picture of […]
Sometimes fires can be deadly, as we all know, but not always in the way we expect. As we’ve been browsing the newspaper archives we’ve noticed a bit of a trend, with deaths by shock following a fire, including one woman in her 80’s dying after the shock and excitement of being evacuated by a […]
If you have read our previous post on the Dundee Health Report of 1896 into zymotic diseases, you’ll already know that disease was prevalent in our city – just like in any other – with all sorts of nasties just waiting to bump you off without so much as a warning. The Health Report also […]
In March of 1897, the Public Health Department, which at that time was situated in West Bell Street, issued the ‘Vital Statistics’ report for Dundee for the previous year to the town Council’s sanitary committee. In 1896, the population was estimated at 161,620 (in 2014, the estimate was 141,870), with the number of registered deaths […]
Cholera caused more deaths, more quickly, than any other epidemic disease in the 19th century and in Dundee, with no clean water and no real means of sanitation, many people fell gravely ill and died.
When the Scottish Reform Act was finally passed into law in 1832, none were more jubilant than the folk of Dundee. Known as a ‘radical toon’, Dundee is said to have been of significant help to the cause of Reform. Once the news had hit the town, it quickly spread to the Radicals, who prepared […]
Arbroath, 8th October 1826 On 14th April 1827, Margaret Wishart appeared at Perth Circuit Court, charged with the wilful poisoning of her blind sister, Jane, and her newly born son. The charges laid against her were: ‘[having] administered a quantity of arsenic to her sister, Jane Wishart, residing with her in Arbroath, on the 3rd, […]
Law hill, August 2001 As Anne Nicoll walked her parents’ Airedale terrier by the Law on 2nd August 2001, she became the victim of a brutal and senseless killing. Stabbed a total of 29 times, the body of Anne Nicoll had been so savagely mauled that even her bones had been cut. It emerged that […]
Kirriemuir, 1890 In August 1890, the wife of a Kirriemuir landlord, John Webster, fell ill. The local doctor attended the ailing woman and diagnosed gastroenteritis. Within 3 days, Mrs Webster had died, but this did not conclude the matter. Suspicions were rife that something sinister lurked beneath the surface of this cut-and-dried case. John had […]