Jane – Britain’s WW2 ‘secret weapon’!
Was a Rochester woman – Chrystabel Leighton-Porter of 115 City Way, Rochester, was the curvaceous model for ‘Jane’ who, during WW2, appeared six days a week in a strip cartoon […]
St. Barts – A dark period in its history that delivered a “burning injustice to women”
The following describes what, by today’s standards, was a very dark period in the history of St. Barts – part hospital, part ‘prison’ – but it may have also strengthen […]
Armistice 1918, the Bells of Rochester Cathedral announce the Peace.
News of the Armistice reaches Medway – at 11:30 am on 11 November 1918, the Bells of Rochester Cathedral rung-out to announce Peace. The Armistice with Germany had been anticipated […]
St. Barts, Rochester, 1078 to 1864
The making of a ‘new model hospital’ – with ‘buried treasure’? I have heard many people mistakingly say that St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, at Rochester, was the oldest hospital in the […]
Rochester MP’s campaign ends flogging in the British Army
In 1880 the principled opposition of Arthur Otway, MP for Rochester, brings flogging in the British Army to an end. Arthur Otway was the MP for Rochester from 1878 to […]
A Slave Trader with Medway Connections
The brutish life of a ‘reformed’ slave trader This is an account of John Newton (24 July 1725–21 Dec 1807) – a man who was press-ganged at Chatham, who was […]
