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Trevor Edwards | all galleries >> Sheppey Pictures and Postcards >> Eastchurch > High Street 1925
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High Street 1925

High Street (posted 1925) FW Coopers stores offering Teas.
The motorcycle and sidecar in the background probably belonged to the photographer and featured very often in his pictures.

Interesting head line on the board advertising "Ilford Murder Trial"
A web search brought up this:

Sayers's masterly 1930 novel, The Documents in the Case, is based on the notorious Thompson-Bywaters murder case, which was extensively reported in all the British newspapers. 28-year-old Edith Thompson and her lover, 20-year-old Frederick Bywaters, were arrested for the murder of Edith's husband, Percy. The murder took place in the early hours of the morning of 4th October 1922. The Thompsons were returning home from an evening at the theatre when Frederick came out of the shadows and stabbed Percy with a sheath knife, severing his carotid artery. Edith was heard screaming 'Don't!' as the murderer rushed away in the darkness. Police found bloodstains on Frederick's coat. He and Edith were arrested and charged with murder.

In December 1922, the lovers were tried at the Old Bailey in a blaze of publicity. People queued all night for a seat in court to see the beautiful murderess and her young lover. Newspapers portrayed Edith as a wicked adulteress who would stop at nothing - not even murder. When her passionate love-letters to Frederick were read out in court, the press denounced her as 'the Madame Bovary of North-East London' and 'the Messalina of Ilford'. Edith and Frederick protested their innocence, but the jury found them both guilty, and they were sentenced to death. Edith collapsed in tears. Petitions for clemency were signed by almost a million people, who were convinced of her innocence. However, Edith and Frederick's appeal was turned down. The appeal judges called the murder 'a squalid and rather indecent case of lust and adultery', and seemed to think that it was only a small step from adultery to murder. On 9th January 1923, Frederick Bywaters was hanged at Pentonville and Edith Thompson was carried in a drugged stupor to the gallows at Holloway gaol - the first woman to be hanged in Britain since 1907.


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theresa webb13-May-2012 23:17
my dad had this shop and the shop opposite next to the castle pub in 1972 - 1977.webbs stores was a mace when we moved there and the other one a gardening and pet food store.
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