Tracing Your Boer War Ancestors

Jane Marchese Robinson • £12.99
Pen & Sword

The Boer War took place between 1899 and 1902, just 15 years before the start of the First World War. Some 180,000 Britons , mainly volunteers , travelled 6,000 miles to fight and die in boiling conditions on the veld and atop ‘kopjes’. Of the over 20,000 who died more than half suffered enteric, an illness consequent on insanitary water.

This book is an informative research guide for those seeking to discover and uncover the stories of the men who fought and the families they left behind. It looks in particular at the kind of support the men received if they were war injured and that offered to the families of the bereaved. It explores a variety of research materials such as: contemporary national and local newspapers; military records via websites and directly through regimental archives; census, electoral, marriage and death records; and records at The National Archives.

London Bombed, Blitzed and Blown Up

Ian Jones• £30
Frontline Books

When it comes to being bombed, London is unique. Although it cannot claim to be the most bombed capital city in terms of the weight of explosive detonated it has endured the most varied and unrelenting attack since the discovery of explosives.

From the first Irish Republican bomb in 1867, London and its population have been under almost constant assault. Terrorism features in virtually every decade from the 1860s to the present and has caused much damage, particularly during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

However, by far the greatest destruction was from the air. The Zeppelin and Gotha bomber raids in the First World War being but a foretaste of what would happen in the Second. Then the capital was devastated, firstly by the Luftwaffe’s aeroplanes and then Hitler’s ‘vengeance’ weapons, the V-1s and V-2s. After the Second World War the bombers returned, in the form of the IRA and then the homegrown terrorists of 2005.

Written by a former Explosives Officer who worked for the Counter Terrorism Command of the Metropolitan Police, this is claimed to be the most comprehensive and record of Britain’s capital under attack that has ever been compiled.

The Ripper of Waterloo Road

Jan Bondeson• £20
The History Press

Prostitute Eliza Grimwood’s murder in 1838 is arguably the most infamous and brutal of all 19th century London killings. Unusually for a crime of this early period, the diary of the police officer leading the investigation has been preserved for posterity, and Jan Bondeson takes full advantage of this unique access to a Victorian murder inquiry. Skilfully dissecting what evidence remains, he links this murder with a series of other early Victorian slayings.