A Grim Almanac of Bristol

A Grim Almanac of Bristol is a day-by-day catalogue of 365 ghastly tales from the city’s past. There are murders and manslaughters, including the case of Thomas Buller, who was killed in 1875 by a man who was married only that morning, and Sarah Skinner, who was thrown out of a window in 1847. There are bizarre deaths, such as the mother who mistakenly fed her child rat poison instead of teething powders, and the deaths of a man and his wife from a gas leak, both of which occurred in 1861. There is an assortment of disasters which include devastating fires, such as the destruction of the Merchant Venturers’ College in 1907 and the fire in a city hat shop in 1876, which claimed the lives of the proprietor and two of his children, not to mention mining disasters, rail crashes, explosions, shipwrecks, cases of cruelty and neglect and a plethora of uncanny accidents. Generously illustrated, this chronicle is an entertaining and readable record of Bristol’s grim past. Read on... if you dare!