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2025 in review – part one
By Christine Swan As has become my custom every year, I end it by reviewing my travels and significant events. January is usually a month of unpredictable weather so I tend not to stray…
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Christmas in Rosebery Avenue revisited
By Christine Swan When I was very small, I lived with my family in Whitecross St, in the heart of the City of London. At some point my dad acquired an elevated position in…
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Looking over my shoulder
By Christine Swan Next week I will be another year older. This is always a time of reflection but one conversation this week made me consider all of the incredible achievements that I have…
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Elizabeth Passingham – “Umbrella Bet”
by Christine Swan This week, I decided to focus on Isaac Crudgington’s wife, Elizabeth Passingham, as she had featured in at least one of his audacious crimes. The more I read, the more I…
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Isaac Crudgington -Desperate ruffian
By Christine Swan Sometimes, it is hard to know where to begin. During my family history research, which has extended over twenty years, a name leaps out from the page, and conjures an image.…
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Henry Welch Apthorp – butcher
By Christine Swan As I have discovered with other families, my Londoner roots did not begin there. On my maternal side, the name Apthorp has a long history. Up until a few years ago,…
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A visit to Delft
By Christine Swan During the recent half term break, I visited the Netherlands as another of my flight-free, European forays. I had wanted to visit Delft because I had discovered an ancestral link in…
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A trip to Rotterdam
By Christine Swan During the half term break, I had planned another trip to the Netherlands for a break, but also to visit Delft, where the Blanchet family lived four hundred years ago. I…
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William Nelson Sloper – World War I soldier
By Christine Swan It is at this time of year that we remember those who served their country during various conflicts, including, the supposed war to end all wars, The First World War. My…
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The hearth is where the heart is
By Christine Swan As a small child, we had one coal fire in our rented house, and no central heating. I remember my bedroom being freezing during the wintertime, and I disliked walking across…
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A wander around Hammersmith and Chiswick
By Christine Swan When I was studying biology at the University of London, our electron microscopes were located in a mundane office building in King Street, Hammersmith. We took the Tube, and trudged the…
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Simon Pettet – ceramicist
By Christine Swan In May 2023. Dennis Severs’ House was transformed for a few weeks for an exhibition of Simon Pettet’s beautiful reproduction Delftware ceramics. It was a sad time in my life but…
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Awful Rigours and Wretched Pay 