Return to Sender: Landywood – Postcards and Post Offices

The somewhat unromantic five-panel picture postcard with scenes from Landywood. WH Smith & Son

Obtaining a postcard that was for sale on Ebay was important for me as one of the pictures on the front depicted the original Great Wyrley and Landywood roll of honour before it was replaced by the memorial gates – and up to this point I had only known of, but had never seen, this short-lived structure. I know next to nothing on postcard history and I became intrigued by the postcard as a whole; therefore, what I wanted to do in this picture-heavy article was two-fold: first, to place the postcard into context as an item and within Landywood Post Office history; second, to do current photographs of the panels on the card and, as the postcard was never sent through the post, to try to pin down when the images were taken… https://wyrleyblog.wordpress.com/wyrley-landywood/return-to-sender-landywood-postcards-and-post-offices/ 

 

 

 

Stourbridge: Justice and Retribution (1813)

This is the final part of the story about the murder of Benjamin Robins, farmer and resident of Dunsley Hall, as a part of a highway robbery undertaken by William Howe in 1812. It covers the events after his capture in 1813 and is seen through the eyes of Howe and the ‘people’ of Stourbridge. It will examine the hearings undertaken by the Stourbridge magistrates, then Howe’s trial, execution, gibbeting and the rumours over the ultimate fate of Howe’s corpse. As with other parts of this article some wider context does need to be provided at times and there will be comparisons with Walter Kidson, who was tried, executed and also ended on the gibbet for a Stourbridge murder in 1773… https://wyrleyblog.wordpress.com/other-places/stourbridge-justice-and-retribution-1813/