Crime and Calamity in Cholsey: Life in a Berkshire Village 1819-1919

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What was life really like in days gone by? What did local people gossip about after church or in the alehouse? As today, the news and scandal centred on local crimes, personal disasters and the external changes that would affect lives. This book features some of the untold stories of the people and events concerned. They range from the spat between the vicar and his clerk in 1819, to the decimation of local men in the Great War a hundred years later. Most of the crime was minor, but the village also saw assault, rape, arson, infanticide and manslaughter. Even more common was the personal tragedy arising from sudden death, whether by disease, accident or suicide. Some of those who committed crimes were desperate, while others were more a source of gossip, such as the curate who committed adultery with the schoolmistress and absconded from the village after running up gambling debts. These and many other events are related through the fascinating personal stories of our predecessors.