EXTRACTS from the Chronicle will be featured at Barnsley Book Festival as one author utilises historic newspaper stories to piece together the case of a brutal murder that shocked the nation centuries back.

National press descended upon Dodworth in the summer of 1886 when PC Alfred Austwick, a respected police officer, was shot dead by miner James Murphy.

The hunt for Murphy took six weeks with people from across Victorian society checking the papers regularly for the latest updates.

Now award-winning author Hilary Robinson has collected data from a variety of sources - including early Chronicle stories - to tell the thrilling tale and look into the wider social factors that created this national obsession.

Yet her interest in the murder of PC Austwick came about by accident, as she was originally looking into the World War One soldiers from Lumby - where she lives - who died in the war.

“I discovered this policeman who was murdered and grew up here.

“The British Newspaper Archive is currently in the process of digitising all the newspapers from the 1700s onwards so I looked through for information about him.

“Because his murderer went on the run it became a national story and I was fascinated about how this became such a sensation in a time when communication was limited.”

Her research was supported by local historian Steve Wyatt, and on Tuesday the two of them, alongside BBC’s Andrew Edwards, will be launching the book at Dodworth Library, only a stone’s throw away from where the crime occurred nearly 200 years ago.

“It’s really exciting,” Hilary added.

“I’m really happy to engage people how they used to live - there’s so many lessons to be learned.

“It’ll be great to reflect back on that only a few hundred yards from where this all happened.”