There were many theories at the time ranging from murder, to conspiracy, to his fleeing the country but despite police investigations we are no nearer the truth.

Or are we? Hector Tyler, who was a miner at Mapperley pit, has investigated the disappearance himself. His research included interviewing miners, trawling through newspaper articles, studying maps of the workings, visiting libraries and using his own experiences as a miner to come up with a very plausible conclusion.

Apart from Thomas Severn’s disappearance Hector also gives a lot of back ground information about the area around Mapperley, West Hallam and Ilkeston going back as far as the Doomsday book and giving an insight into what it was like to live in a mining community.