The Story of Jacob's Post

On Wednesday 22 October at 2.30 pm in the Village Hall, DHP will host a talk about the 18th century murder at the Royal Oak on Ditchling Common given by Professor Tony Kushner of Southampton University whose years of painstaking research have resulted in his recently published book, ‘The Jewish Pedlar’. Book your place here: £5.00

It’s evening at a remote Sussex pub in 1734 and a vicious triple murder has just taken place. Jacob Harris – a Jewish pedlar, smuggler and possible highwayman – stands accused of slitting the throats of the publican, his ill wife and a female servant... but what were Harris' background and motivations to lead to such a crime? (more)

Copies of Professor Kushner's book will be on sale at the talk at a specially discounted price of £15.00 (rrp £25.00).

'Had you been walking down the High Street or out in the countryside in the early 1900s and chanced to encounter a rather demure middle aged lady wearing a long dress of muted colours and a large hat, the last thing that would have crossed your mind was that over the next twenty years she would develop into one of the most prolific and versatile authors in British history; that she would become an acknowledged authority on Sussex ... This was Esther Meynell...'

Extract from the Ditchling Character Talk on Esther Meynell by Tom Dufty

Photo: Esther and Joanna Meynell, North End Ditchling, c 1919 reproduced with kind permission of the Meynell family