For more than thirty years, from 1870 to the early 1900s, the streets of Manchester and Salford belonged to the scuttlers: teenage gangs armed with belts, bricks and clasp knives. They fought for territory and pride, and for the coveted title of King of the Scuttlers. Some of them were fourteen years old.

This episode follows the scuttlers from a mass street fight inspired by a war on the continent, through the slums of Angel Meadow, to two trials that gripped the city, including the case of a sixteen-year-old sentenced to hang. Along the way, we find what may be Britain's first youth cult, decades before the Peaky Blinders, and a surprisingly direct link to Manchester United and Manchester City.

Were the scuttlers just bad lads, or did the city around them make them what they were? Manchester couldn't agree at the time, and it's an argument we're still having.

Follow Bad Mad and Northern so you never miss an episode, and if you enjoyed it, 5* a rating really helps new listeners find the show.

Thanks lads!

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About the show Bad, Mad & Northern is a history and true crime podcast about the villains, eccentrics and extraordinary stories of the North: murderers and body snatchers, kings and rebels, drowned villages and Cold War secrets. Each episode is carefully researched and told with honesty about the sources, and a healthy dose of northern scepticism.

Meet your host I'm Lucy Sheridan: author, speaker, and proud northerner, recording from an armchair in the Peak District. I've always been drawn to the darker corners of our history, and this show is where I get to share them with you. Pull up a chair.

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Watch on Youtube from 1st October 2026

Website: badandmad.com

Newsletter:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/badandmadpod/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@badandmadlucy

Got a story suggestion, feedback or a correction? Email hello@badandmad.com

In May 1660, Charles II rode back into London to cheering crowds. For the men who had signed his father's death warrant, the celebrations meant something else: it was time to run.

In the second of two episodes, we follow what happened next. We cover the Act of Oblivion and the men it left out, the October 1660 trials, and the grim January of 1661, when Cromwell and others were dug up to face a punishment their deaths hadn't spared them.

We follow the fates of the North's regicides and the generals who refused to sign, visit the legend that Cromwell's body lies hidden at Newburgh Priory in North Yorkshire, and look at plague, fire and a brother's crown. We finish with the world of Robert Harris's novel Act of Oblivion, which inspired this episode.

It's a story about revenge, survival, and how long a king's memory can be.

Missed Part One? Start there for the road to the scaffold!

On 30 January 1649, King Charles I stepped out onto a scaffold in Whitehall. Fifty-nine men had signed his death warrant, and a striking number of them came from the North.

In the first of two episodes, we follow the road to the regicide. It starts with a gate slammed shut at Hull and runs through Marston Moor, the largest battle ever fought on English soil, to a trial Westminster had never seen the like of.

We meet four signatories with Yorkshire roots: Peregrine Pelham, Thomas Chaloner, John Alured and Sir William Constable. And we meet two of the North's greatest generals who didn't sign: Thomas Fairfax and John Lambert.

It's a story about loyalty, conscience and family, and about choices that would follow these men long after the axe fell.

Part Two, on Charles II's return, the Act of Oblivion and the revenge that followed, is out now.

Please follow Bad Mad and Northern on your podcast app, so you never miss an episode, and if you enjoyed it, 5* a rating really helps new listeners find the show.

Thanks lads!

****

About the show Bad, Mad & Northern is a history and true crime podcast about the villains, eccentrics and extraordinary stories of the North: murderers and body snatchers, kings and rebels, drowned villages and Cold War secrets. Each episode is carefully researched and told with honesty about the sources, and a healthy dose of northern scepticism.

Meet your host I'm Lucy Sheridan: author, speaker, and proud northerner, recording from an armchair in the Peak District. I've always been drawn to the darker corners of our history, and this show is where I get to share them with you. Pull up a chair.

****

Watch on Youtube from 1st October 2026

Website: badandmad.com

Newsletter:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/badandmadpod/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@badandmadlucy

Got a story suggestion, feedback or a correction? Email hello@badandmad.com

In 1949, detectives searching a builder's yard in Crawley uncovered fragments of evidence that should not have survived: bone, dentures, a handbag clasp, and tiny gallstones.

Their discovery would unravel the crimes of John George Haigh, later known as the Acid Bath Murderer: a charismatic fraudster who believed he had found the perfect way to erase his victims and escape conviction.

This episode follows Haigh's path from West Yorkshire to the hotels and social circles of post-war London, tracing the confidence tricks, forged identities and escalating murders that led to one of Britain's most notorious trials. It's a story about greed, appearances, and the fatal mistake of confusing the absence of a body with the absence of evidence.

My gratitude to Jade Reilley, my researcher, for such a brilliant job with the case report. To check out her work, please follow her on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/msjadereilly?stkn=MWxmdGhlcTdwZW1vMg%3D%3D

Follow Bad Mad and Northern so you never miss an episode, and if you enjoyed it, a 5* rating really helps new listeners find the show (**hint hint lol!**)

Thanks lads!

Lucy

****

About the show Bad, Mad & Northern is a history and true crime podcast about the villains, eccentrics and extraordinary stories of the North: murderers and body snatchers, kings and rebels, drowned villages and Cold War secrets. Each episode is carefully researched and told with honesty about the sources, and a healthy dose of northern scepticism.

Meet your host I'm Lucy Sheridan: author, speaker, and proud northerner, recording from an armchair in the Peak District. I've always been drawn to the darker corners of our history, and this show is where I get to share them with you. Pull up a chair.

****

Subscribe and watch on YouTube from 1st October 2026

Website: badandmad.com

Newsletter:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/badandmadpod/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@badandmadlucy

Got a story suggestion, feedback or a correction? Email hello@badandmad.com

In this short voice note, Lucy says a heartfelt thank you for taking Bad, Mad & Northern into the UK history charts within days of launch, and previews a properly dark October.

Coming up this spooky season:

• The body snatchers. Burke and Hare were just the tip of the iceberg. This is the whole northern trade in the dead.
• The drowned villages. These are the homes, chapels and graves the North gave up to keep its cities running.
• Dracula (two parts). A shipwreck, a black dog, a clifftop graveyard and Bram Stoker's notebook.
• The Pendle witches (two parts). In 1612, a Lancashire hillside and a trial still argued about four hundred years later.
• Surprise content. It won't be announced. It'll just appear.

New episodes drop every Wednesday, starting with a double drop this week, then two a week through October.

Enjoying the show? Please follow wherever you listen, and share it in your WhatsApp or Facebook groups. It's the biggest thing you can do to help an independent podcast get found.