May 14th 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
Weaverham Primary Academy Northwich Road, Weaverham,, Cheshire, CW8 3BD
Angela Brabin, retired solicitor with an MA in History and the author of ‘The Black Widows of Liverpool will talk about the trial of Dr Tomanzie. Dr Tomanzie practised as a Doctor in Victorian Liverpool. Dr Tomanzie performed an abortion on a girl who died and was tried at Chester for her murder. Dr Tomanzie had an interesting past, first purporting to be an escaped slave and lecturing on slavery and the American Civil war. Later he married and practised as a herbal doctor in Derry/Londonderry and became wealthy and a town councillor. By the time he moves to Liverpool he is claiming to have a medical degree and practised under the auspices of the Liverpool Artisans Medical Society. However Angela’s talk concentrates on the trial and the light that it throws on the attitude of Victorians (and later) who of course blamed the girls ‘who got themselves pregnant’ and how illegitimate babies were dealt with and general shame of unmarried mothers.
For more information on Dr Tomanzie see https://www.dib.ie/biography/de-tomanzie-ethens-a10251
Image “The Outcast” from https://victorianweb.org/painting/redgrave/paintings/4.html
Change to July’s Speaker
With great regret and sadness, due to the death of Professor Ian Morison, we have had to change our July talk.
Prof. Morison worked for many years at Jodrell Bank and was a founding member of Macclesfield Astronomical Society.
I think the first talk he gave to us was on the history of the Lovell Radio Telescope. Despite astronomy being an unusual topic for talks to a history society Ian was such an interesting speaker we stretched our remit to include things like the History of the Universe and we had him back several times. He always drew in a good attendance of guests to our meetings and we were looking forward to hearing him speak on “Our Island Universe: the Milky Way and its place in space and time.” in July
We will miss him. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
Steve Warbis of Macclesfield Astronomical Society has kindly stepped in to give an alternative talk.
