KAREN CHARLTON
  • Home
  • Author
  • The York Ladies' Detective Agency Mysteries
    • The Mystery of Mad Alice Lane
    • Smoke & Cracked Mirrors
    • Dancing With Dusty Fossils
  • The Detective Lavender Mysteries
    • The Heiress of Linn Hagh
    • The Sans Pareil Mystery
    • The Sculthorpe Murder
    • Plauge Pits & River Bones
    • Murder on Park Lane
    • The Willow Marsh Murder
  • Detective Lavender Short Stories
    • Death At The Frost Fair
    • The Death of Irish Nell
    • The Piccadilly Pickpocket
    • The Mystery of the Skelton Diamonds
  • Catching the Eagle & February 1909
    • Catching the Eagle
    • February 1809
  • Seeking Our Eagle
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Events
  • Genealogy
    • James Charlton Senior (1700-1770)
    • John Charlton (1746-1818)
    • 'Pious John' Charlton (1769-)
    • James 'Jamie' Charlton (1774- )
    • The mysterious William Charlton
    • The Family Tree: Ten generations
Welcome to the official website of historical novelist KAREN CHARLTON

Researching a two hundred year old mystery…

6/5/2011

1 Comment

 

Researching a two hundred year old mystery…

Picture
Morpeth market and gaol tower c.1890
We started researching my husband’s Charlton ancestors when our daughter was born in 1994.  There’s something about having children which not only makes you look forward to the future but also makes you curious about where you all came from. We knew that the little stranger in our arms was the latest in a long line of Charltons but who were those shadowy figures in history that had passed down her surname and contributed to her genetic makeup?  What were their stories?  We wanted to give our children a history which was uniquely theirs.

In August 2004, we made an amazing discovery. I was chatting on a genealogy message board when a very helpful stranger gave us the following extract about hubby’s Great-great-great-great- Grandmother:

                “In Heddon on the Wall baptism register there is recorded the baptism on 27th of July 1815 of Mary, the daughter of Priscilla Charlton
. A note in the register says “mother a married woman: her husband transported.”

We were stunned. Transported?  If hubby’s 4x great- Grandfather had been a convicted felon, what had he done?

I was also amused.  My mild-mannered husband was descended from a notorious criminal.  It was good to know his ‘respectable’ family had a skeleton in the closet. 

Being eternal optimists, our first instinct was to Google ‘James Charlton, Kirkley Hall.’  Unbelievably, it paid off. 

There is an article called ‘Liberty is Sweet’ on  wearside.online which tells a potted version of the story.   James Charlton was controversially convicted of stealing over £1,157 from Kirkley Hall in 1810.  However, our surprise quickly turned to indignation: James was found guilty mainly on the testimony of a condemned horse-thief with whom he shared a prison cell in Morpeth gaol.  This treacherous cad gained his own freedom and escaped hanging as a result of turning King’s Evidence against his cell mate.  Our ancestor was framed.   The mystery of the burglary at Kirkley Hall had never been properly solved.

I had always dreamed about writing an historical novel and now the perfect plot had just fallen into my lap.  But how to uncover the rest of the story?

Our first attempt at research was a failure.  We contacted wearsideonline.com and politely asked them where they obtained their information.  The foreign owners of the website replied, quite rudely, by telling us to: “go and read some books.”

However, since this shaky start we have been bowled over by the kindness of strangers.  People have gone out of their way to help us gather what information there still remains about this two hundred year old mystery.  A woman I had never met found us the records of the prosecution case at The National Archives.  A professional genealogist, who was also researching shady Regency criminals, contacted us and helped us solve the mystery of what ultimately happened to James Charlton.  

We made several visits down to The National Archives ourselves; gleaned valuable information from the helpful folks at the Ponteland Local History society and spent hours trawling through two hundred year old newspapers in the Gateshead Central Library. 

Sometimes the research was fun and formed part of an amusing family day out.  Although, after a few years, the kids started complaining about the number of graveyards we visited.  My son also recently informed me that our trip to see the ‘family pile’ – Morpeth Gaol – was a sobering experience for an eight year old.

Picture
More Charlton villains case the joint at Kirkley Hall.
Once we all turned up on Open Day at Kirkley Hall (now an Agricultural College.)  The staff happily gave us access to their own information about the burglary in 1809 but strangely enough, they were unwilling to let us roam freely around the hall.  We can imagine the frantic whispering:  ‘Quick – lock up the silver!  The Charltons are back!’   

We enjoyed a drink and toasted hubby’s beleaguered ancestor in every public house mentioned in the court case documents.  As James Charlton sipped brandy and gambled away his meagre wages in most of the pubs in Ponteland, the pub crawl took quite some time...  ;) 

Bit by bit, the story came together.  By January 2009, I decided I had enough information to start writing the novel – and then the hard work began.  A Literature degree and a lifetime of teaching English is not a guarantee that you can turn into an author overnight.  It has been a steep learning curve and I am still learning.  Turning this Regency miscarriage of justice into a historical ‘who-dunnit’ quickly became an obsession.  For twenty months I spent every spare minute hammering away at my keyboard.  By the summer of 2010 I finally completed Catching the Eagle. 

Or so I thought.  The editing and revising process has been gruelling.

I posted the first 20,000 words on ‘Authonomy’ in November 2010 and again, thanks to the helpfulness of strangers, the revision and the editing continued - and will do so until I find an agent/publisher for Catching the Eagle.


1 Comment
Bradley
2/6/2011 12:21:44 pm

Such rich family history and what fun to explore the sites where it all took place. Best of luck with the book Susanna!

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    For an occasional newsletter containing news, events and other information from historical novelist, Karen Charlton, please subscribe to the mailing list below.

    Archives

    January 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    April 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    November 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    February 2014
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011

    Categories

    All
    Articles
    Book Reviews
    Catching The Eagle
    Crime Fiction
    Dancing With Dusty Fossils
    Death At The Frost Fair
    Events
    Favourite Authors
    February 1809
    Genealogy
    Getting Published
    Guests
    Having Fun
    Historical Fiction
    Literary Awards
    Marketing
    Murder In Park Lane
    Musings On Life
    News
    Non Fiction
    Non-Fiction
    Northumberland
    Plague Pits & River Bones
    Reading For Pleasure
    Research
    Sales News
    Seeking Our Eagle
    Smoke & Cracked Mirrors
    Stephen Lavender
    Talks And Workshops
    The Border Reivers
    The Death Of Irish Nell
    The Detective Lavender Series
    The Gemma James Mysteries
    The Golden Age Of Crime Fiction
    The Heiress Of Linn Hagh
    The Missing Heiress
    The Mystery Of Mad Alice Lane
    The Mystery Of The Skelton Diamonds
    The Piccadilly Pickpocket
    The Sans Pareil Mystery
    The Sculthorpe Murder
    The Willow Marsh Murder
    The York Ladies' Detective Agency Mysteries
    Writing In General

    RSS Feed