Poor Things

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GLASGOW GREEN, 1880. The circle surrounds the spot where Lady Victoria Blessington drowned herself: also the bridge from which she leapt; the wharf where Geddes saw her drown; the Humane Society House where Godwin Baxter examined her corpse.

ENTRACE TO PARK CIRCUS FROM THE WEST END PARK

ORIGINAL PLAN OF THE CIRCUS AS IT STILL STANDS

The Stewart Memorial Fountain with Glasgow University to the left, Park Circus right.

The Midland Hotel, St Pancras, where Bella and Wedderburn spent the second night of their elopement.

Lansdown United Presbyterian Church, where a wedding ceremony was interrupted on Christmas Day, 1883.

The kind of cab in which General Blessington planned to abduct his drugged “wife”, Bella Baxter.

AUCTIONING LOOT IN MANDALAY AFTER BURMESE EXPEDITION “‘Thunderbolt’ Blessington believes that the common soldier who preserves the peace of the Empire deserves more than mere wages.”

KING PREMPEH’S HUMILIATION: “One of the Governor’s demands made after the Ashanti rebellion was that King Prempeh should make abject submission in accordance with native custom. The King removed his crown and sandals, came forward with the Queen Mother to perform the act of humiliation, and reached the platform on which was seated Sir Francis Scott, General Blessington and Mr Maxwell. They knelt and embraced the Englishmen’s legs and booted feet, while the Ashantis looked on with astonishment at their King’s abasement.”

Events in General Blessington’s career as shown and reported in the Graphic Illustrated Weekly News.

MURDER IN NORTHERN INDIA: “The punitive expedition against the Lushai Hill tribes has found the gun of the late Lieut. Stewart in the grave of the Chief Howsata. It had been reported from other villages that if Howsata had murdered Lieut. Stewart, the gun would be in the Chief’s grave. This was opened. Howsata’s embalmed body was found lying with the gun beside it: conclusive proof that General Blessington had been right to burn the homes of the guilty tribesmen.”