Five Historic things you never thought you needed to know. #6 [Including a bit of the truth about Trolly Lolly and why Bethnal Green could be good for your health]
Five Historic things you never thought you needed to know. #6 William May was a pirate of Henry Every’s ship, ‘Fancy’. He had lost the use of his limbs and was brought ashore on the Comoros Islands. The appearance of three well armed East Indies vessels made the pirates flee, leaving May behind to the mercy of Captain Edgecomb.. Given the choice of being taken to Bombay for trial or left alone on a strange shore May took the Robinson Crusoe option. It was his great good luck that one of the inhabitants had spent some time living in Bethnal Green and chose to look after May till the ‘Fancy’ returned. Five people were hung on 21st September 1715 including Trolly Lolly, (a Name she was committed and tried by) condemn'd for breaking the House of Mr. Christopher Hurt, and stealing thence a Pair of Flaxen Sheets, and other Goods. On 7th October 1944 the Nottingham Evening Post announced ‘ Training of women as engineers by the Ministry of Labour is to stop in a few weeks, a...