Books...
I became involved in writing as a result of my interest in genealogy. Research into my family history was started in 1991. The following year the 1891 census was published, and days on end were spent either in the old Public Records Office in Chancery Lane poring over the 1841 - 1891 censuses records on microfilm, or at St Catherine's House in the Aldwych, looking for birth, marriage, and death records.
In 1996 I was investigating the life of my great-great-great-grandmother Ann Hatch. She had had five illegitimate children before she married my great-great-great-grandfather James Chilman. According to the parish records of Sutton in Surrey, the second of these children was baptized by Henry Hatch, the rector of Sutton. I wondered if my Ann and rector Henry Hatch were related and decided to trace both lines looking for a connection. To date, I have not found one, but I did come across a record in an old copy of The Times of the trial of the rector's nephew, Henry John Hatch, for indecent assault. Henry John Hatch was also a clergyman, and had been chaplain of Wandsworth Prison. His trial occupied a few lines in the newspaper, but the following year, when his main accuser, a twelve-year-old girl, was tried for Wilful and Corrupt Perjury, her trial was a press sensation. Nevertheless, apart from those newspaper reports, there was nothing in the literature that I could find on what was clearly a most extraordinary case. I researched Henry's life out of interest, but it soon became evident that having done all of the work, it needed to be written up. The result was Henry's Trials. I might add that I wrote to forty publishers and literary agents; twenty-five replied, but no-one was interested in the book and I decided to publish it myself, using professionals for the layout and printing.
Having narrated Henry John Hatch's story, I became hooked on another affair that had touched the Hatch case. In the press furore that surrounded Henry Hatch, much comment had been made about the need for a Court of Criminal Appeal, and comparisons were constantly made with the trial of Thomas Smethurst. Naturally I wanted to find out more about him, and although two books and several articles on the Smethurst affair already existed, it seemed that a new look was needed, using contemporary genealogical resources, with the account written in narrative style. Smethurst's Luck is the story of Dr Thomas Smethurst, 'The Richmond Poisoner'. This too was an extraordinary case touching on a nearly tragic miscarriage of justice.
A third book, Murder in the Red Barn, was published in July 2015. The provenance of this work was quite accidental. I was made aware of the Red Barn murder from an old book a friend of mine found during a house clearance. I learned that the murderer was arrested in Ealing where I grew up so naturally I was interested, an interest which intensified when I discovered that my academic supervisor lived in Polstead where the murder took place.
Book number four, Reverend Duke and the Amesbury Oliver, is a memorial to my father. Like the Hatch case, it relates a previously unknown incident, which was discovered by my father decades ago when he was doing genealogical investigation.
Click on the links below to see brief accounts of Henry's Trials, Smethurst's Luck, Murder in the Red Barn, and Reverend Duke and the Amesbury Oliver, as well as extracts from each book.
I became involved in writing as a result of my interest in genealogy. Research into my family history was started in 1991. The following year the 1891 census was published, and days on end were spent either in the old Public Records Office in Chancery Lane poring over the 1841 - 1891 censuses records on microfilm, or at St Catherine's House in the Aldwych, looking for birth, marriage, and death records.
In 1996 I was investigating the life of my great-great-great-grandmother Ann Hatch. She had had five illegitimate children before she married my great-great-great-grandfather James Chilman. According to the parish records of Sutton in Surrey, the second of these children was baptized by Henry Hatch, the rector of Sutton. I wondered if my Ann and rector Henry Hatch were related and decided to trace both lines looking for a connection. To date, I have not found one, but I did come across a record in an old copy of The Times of the trial of the rector's nephew, Henry John Hatch, for indecent assault. Henry John Hatch was also a clergyman, and had been chaplain of Wandsworth Prison. His trial occupied a few lines in the newspaper, but the following year, when his main accuser, a twelve-year-old girl, was tried for Wilful and Corrupt Perjury, her trial was a press sensation. Nevertheless, apart from those newspaper reports, there was nothing in the literature that I could find on what was clearly a most extraordinary case. I researched Henry's life out of interest, but it soon became evident that having done all of the work, it needed to be written up. The result was Henry's Trials. I might add that I wrote to forty publishers and literary agents; twenty-five replied, but no-one was interested in the book and I decided to publish it myself, using professionals for the layout and printing.
Having narrated Henry John Hatch's story, I became hooked on another affair that had touched the Hatch case. In the press furore that surrounded Henry Hatch, much comment had been made about the need for a Court of Criminal Appeal, and comparisons were constantly made with the trial of Thomas Smethurst. Naturally I wanted to find out more about him, and although two books and several articles on the Smethurst affair already existed, it seemed that a new look was needed, using contemporary genealogical resources, with the account written in narrative style. Smethurst's Luck is the story of Dr Thomas Smethurst, 'The Richmond Poisoner'. This too was an extraordinary case touching on a nearly tragic miscarriage of justice.
A third book, Murder in the Red Barn, was published in July 2015. The provenance of this work was quite accidental. I was made aware of the Red Barn murder from an old book a friend of mine found during a house clearance. I learned that the murderer was arrested in Ealing where I grew up so naturally I was interested, an interest which intensified when I discovered that my academic supervisor lived in Polstead where the murder took place.
Book number four, Reverend Duke and the Amesbury Oliver, is a memorial to my father. Like the Hatch case, it relates a previously unknown incident, which was discovered by my father decades ago when he was doing genealogical investigation.
Click on the links below to see brief accounts of Henry's Trials, Smethurst's Luck, Murder in the Red Barn, and Reverend Duke and the Amesbury Oliver, as well as extracts from each book.