Daily Sketch dated Thursday April 24th
1924
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The British Empire Exhibition was opened by King George V on
St George’s Day 1924. It stayed open until October then closed for the winter.
It was re-opened in April 1925 and finally closed in October 1925, having
played host to 27 million visitors. Most of the buildings used for the
Exhibition were demolished but the Empire Pool became the Wembley Arena and the
Empire Stadium became the iconic Wembley Stadium until it too was knocked down
in 2002.
Trivia time –
The opening ceremony broadcast was the first time a ruling
British monarch has been heard on the radio.
Jaffa oranges appeared for the first time in Britain at the
Palestine pavilion.
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Mabel Jones, the wife of hotel owner Alfred Jones, had met
Jean-Pierre Vaquier whilst on holiday in France. Vaquier later turned up at the
hotel in Byfleet and stayed for six weeks apparently on business. On March 29th
Alfred Jones had his usual morning drink but died in agony shortly after. The
drink was found to have been poisoned. Vaquier was identified as having bought
strychnine from a local chemist and was arrested. He was put on trial for
murder, convicted and hung on August 12th 1924.
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Broadcasting by the BBC (British Broadcasting
Company Ltd) had only begun 18 months earlier but already stars like John Henry
(real name Norman Clapham) were getting audiences of a million. His on air
‘wife’ Blossom died in 1934 and although they were not married she was buried
using his name. Shortly afterwards Norman committed suicide. You can hear him
on Youtube
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The article covers Henry Kendall Thaw’s life up to 1924
including the murder of Stanford White. It’s well worth having a look at the
material online about the murder so I won’t pre-empt it here. After 1924 he
seemed to have lived a quite life in Virginia and Florida and died of a heart
attack in 1947.
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HMS Birkenhead was a troopship back in 1852
transporting soldiers to British ruled South Africa when she hit submerged
rocks off the South African coast and sank. William Newport was one of about
200 of the approximately 650 people on board who were saved.
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The clown and musician Grock was born Charles Adrien Wettach
in Switzerland in 1880. This break up with his long time partner Max Van Embden
was the first of several but they were working together again by 1927. Grock
worked until 1954 and died in 1959.
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I wonder what would happen today to the parent(s) who left a
loaded shotgun propped up against a kitchen wall where a child could pick it up? Not that anything would have brought Evelyn Hinton back.
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The Dominion of Newfoundland, which included Labrador,
existed from 1907 until it became part of Canada in 1949. Sir Richard Squires
was the Prime Minister from 1919 until he was forced to resign in 1923 after
being accused of using bribes to win the election. He was arrested but this
didn’t appear to hurt his career as he was Prime Minister again from 1928 until
1932.
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No apology offered for showing my favourite cartoon strip
again – Pop by John Millar Watt. See also here
and here.
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