Criminal Liverpool

Daniel Longman is a young Merseyside-based specialist in true crime. He’s published a couple of books in the past and this month sees the publication of Criminal Liverpool (The History Press), to which I have contributed a foreword.

In the book, Daniel investigates the antics of an alleged brothel in Lime Street, the tragic tale of Frances Wallace, whose mummified remains were found decomposing in the water closet of her Hope Place home, and the horrific tale of the Tuebrook baby-killer, Elizabeth Kirkbride.

One of the stories which I’d never heard before concerns a solicitor called James Wilcox Alsop, a member of a distinguished law firm called Alsop, Stevens. When I started work in the city back in 1980, Alsop, Stevens was the biggest name in the local legal profession; they were based in India Buildings, next door to where I am still based. One of their claims to notoriety is that a former articled clerk at the firm was Herbert Rowse Armstrong, later to achieve fame as the only solicitor to be hanged for murder (though not the only one to have killed someone.)

In my foreword, I mention the recent death of Jonathan Goodman, a master of the true crime genre who worked in Liverpool in the 1960s. It would be good to think that, one of these days, Daniel Longman’s reputation will rival that of Jonathan’s. Keep his name in mind.