Historian to give village hall talk about notorious Melton murders

Historian Joanne Vigor-Mungovin will outline the fascinating story about Peppermint Billy at Hoby village hall, on Wednesday January 18, at 7.30pm.

The event has been organised by the Hoby and District Local History Society and anyone is welcome to attend, with non-members paying £2 entry on the door.

Joanne published William Brown and the Tollgate Murders of 1856 last year having conducted extensive research on the gruesome double murder of a 70-year-old tollgate keeper and his nine-year-old grandson in Thorpe Road, Melton Mowbray by William (aka Peppermint Billy), who was from Scalford.

She writes about his life story, including his being sentenced to be deported to Australia in the years before the killings and what led up to them.

William was the last person to be publicly hanged in Leicester.

Her first book, the bestselling Joseph: The Life, Times and Places of the Elephant Man, in 2016, led her to working with Michael Portillo on Channel 5’s Hidden History of Britain television series.

Joanne currently works as a freelance consultant for Historic England and is the archivist for the Leicester Civic Society.

The Hoby and District Local History Society is a voluntary organisation and it brings together people from all walks of life who are interested in the local history of the Leicestershire villages of Hoby, Rotherby, Ragdale and Brooksby and the district around them.

The society was founded in 2013 as part of a village First World War research project for which it received a National Lottery Grant.