It's Halloween and the perfect time of year to be a little morbid!
In the England Project, we have wound the clock back 165 years to October 31st, 1858, when a tragedy unfolded in Bradford, Yorkshire, in northern England.
It was a Saturday evening and a local market stall was busy selling sweets. The peppermint humbugs, in particular, were popular with kids and their families, at a price of 1½ pence for 2 ounces.
Unbeknown to everyone, the sweets contained more than sugar and peppermint flavouring. Arsenic had accidentally been substituted for one of the ingredients -- and each sweet contained enough of the poison to kill two people.
The full extent of the tragedy unfolded the next morning, when reports spread that two boys, aged 9 and 14, had died suddenly after eating the sweets. Throughout the day, more reports flooded into the Bradford police office and, within days, 21 local residents had died and more than 200 others had fallen ill after eating the deadly sweets. The public outcry became a catalyst for tougher laws on the sale of poisons and food safety in the United Kingdom.
The Bradford Sweets Poisoning is the theme of this year's England Project Halloween Challenge. We have been creating, improving and connecting WikiTree profiles to remember victims and others involved in the tragedy.
You can read more about the England Project's Halloween Challenge here.
Happy Halloween!
Ian, England Project
