Brighton

Brighton 

claims to be a very haunted city.

Wherever a town or city develops ghost tours

these claims find their way into the press...

It's now one of the most haunted cities in England.

Well it probably actually is...

My blind basket maker musician ancestor lived In Brighton.

James Duffey, a music teacher in Bristol originally,

who ended his life in Marylebone Workhouse.

And six of his twelve children, I believe it was,

All died in their infancy here.

 They lived in the Laines, not then the hippy fashionable

touristy place that they are now.

I do not want to enter here tales, which come from the 

published blurb of the ghost walk. They are not 

in themselves credentials for hauntings.

I want to tell tales which have origin elsewhere,

which if they verify thise given in the advertising literature

well and good.

We'll start with Henry Solomon, whose ghost is purported to

haunt the old town hall, where the police cells museum is.

He became the town's first chief constable in 1838.

In 1844 he was murdered. On March 14th the police

 arrested John Lawrence, for attempting to steal a roll of carpet

from a shop in St James Street.

Apparently whilst being questinoed there, Lawrence became

agitated, and picked up a poker, which was in the room

- what kind of safety sense did the police then have,

for goodness sake?- and struck Solomon a blow,

which ruptured his skull.

Headline Brighton Gazette 21st March.

Solomon was treated by doctors at the scene, then rushed to his home 

A short distance away, but died soon afterwards.

Lawrence, who should perhaps have thought before he acted,

was executed for the murder, on the 6th April in Horsham, 

That's the story.. now what about the story of the ghost?