by Jan Bondeson
NOTES
Preface
1. There are copies of this uncommon book at the British Library, at the Bodleian Library, at the Yale University Library and at the University of Kansas Libraries; the Marx Law Library at the University of Cincinnati and the R.G. Menzies Library of the Australian National University have incomplete sets of the penny issues.
2. Work on this book was mainly done at the old Newspaper Library in Colindale, at the British Library, at the National Archives, and at the National Library of Scotland.
Chapter 1
1. Notable biographers of Queen Victoria include L. Strachey, The Illustrated Queen Victoria (London 1987), D. Creston, The Youthful Queen Victoria (London 1952), E. Longford, Victoria R.I. (London 1987), and S. Weintraub, Victoria (London 1987).
2. On the media image of the young Queen Victoria, see the articles by J. Plunkett (Critical Survey 13 [2001], 7–20 and Media History 9 [2003], 3–18), and his book Queen Victoria, First Media Monarch (Oxford 2003), 133–9.
3. J. Bondeson, Queen Victoria’s Stalker (Stroud 2010), P.T. Murphy, Shooting Victoria (London 2012).
4. J. Bondeson, The London Monster (Stroud 2005), P.D. James & T.A. Critchley, The Maul and the Pear Tree (London 1987).
5. C. Reith, A New Study of Police History (Edinburgh 1956), 121–245, J. Lock, Dreadful Deeds and Awful Murders (Taunton 1990), 7–70, G. Mason, An Official History of the Metropolitan Police (London 2004), 9–15, C. Emsley, Crime and Society in England (Harlow 2006), 221–52, also the articles by S.H. Palmer (History Today 27 [1977], 637–44), P. Lawson (History Today 38 [1988], 24–9), R. Paley (Criminal Justice History 10 [1989], 95–130) and S. Inwood (London Journal 15 [1990], 129–46).
6. On the Donatty murder, see Annual Register 1822, 43–5, on the murder of Elizabeth Jeffs, see Annual Register 1828, 308–17, and Illustrated Police Budget 13 January 1906.
7. C. Reith, A New Study of Police History (Edinburgh 1956), 121–245.
8. The Times 21, 24 and 25 August 1830, Morning Post 30 August and 24 November 1830.
9. J. Lock, Dreadful Deeds and Awful Murders (Taunton 1990), 15–24, S. Wise, The Italian Boy (London 2005).
10. On the murder of Mr Shepherd, see The Times 31 December 1832 and 17 and 19 January 1833, Morning Chronicle 18 December 1832, Hull Packet 25 December 1832, Illustrated Police News 23 and 30 April 1904, and J. Lock, Dreadful Deeds and Awful Murders (Taunton 1990), 25–7.
11. On the murder of Catherine Elms, see The Times 6, 7 and 11 May 1833, Morning Chronicle 7 and 27 May 1833, The Standard 6, 7, 11 and 16 May 1833, and Illustrated Police News 28 November and 5 December 1903.
12. On the Greenacre case, see C. Pelham, The Chronicles of Crime, Vol. 2 (London 1887), 428–53, R.D. Altick, Victorian Studies in Scarlet (New York 1970), 37–40, M. Fido, Murder Guide to London (London 1986), 163–5, and J. Lock, Dreadful Deeds and Awful Murders (Taunton 1990), 28–31.
13. L. Picard, Victorian London (London 2005), 255–61, J. White, London in the 19th Century (London 2008), 295–321, J. Flanders, The Victorian City (London 2012), 393–424.
14. L. Picard, Victorian London (London 2005), 255.
15. T. Henderson, Disorderly Women in Eighteenth-Century London (Harlow 1999), 52–75.
16. M. Ryan, Prostitution in London (London 1839), 88–211.
17. S. Mumm (Journal of Social History 29 [1996], 527–46), A.E. Simpson (Social and Legal Studies 15 [2006], 363–87).
18. On Waterloo Bridge and its history, see B. Cookson, Crossing the River (Edinburgh 2006), 201–21, P. Matthews, London’s Bridges (Oxford 2008), 109–20, and the papers by E.J. Buckton & H.J. Fereday (ICE Journal 3(8) [1936], 472–98) and L.J. Nicoletti (Literary London 2(1), March 2004).
19. On the growth of North Lambeth, see Vol. 23 of the Survey of London, G. Gibberd, On Lambeth Marsh (London 1992) and H. Rennier, Lambeth Past (London 2006).
20. Notes & Queries 8s. 5 (1894), 316.
21. J. Hawkes (ed.), The London Journal of Flora Tristan (London 1984), 81–110.
22. J. White, London in the 19th Century (London 2008), 295.
Chapter 2
1. Of the extant short accounts of the murder of Eliza Grimwood, the best are those by W. Long (Dickensian 83 [1987], 149–62), J. Lock, Dreadful Deeds and Awful Murders (Taunton 1990), 34–9, and J. Oates, Unsolved Murders in Victorian & Edwardian London (Barnsley 2007), 13–19. The murder has also been briefly discussed in Famous Crimes Past and Present (5(61) [1904], 207–9), G.B.H. Logan, Guilty or Not Guilty (London 1928), 261, and R.D. Altick, Victorian Studies in Scarlet (New York 1970), 48. The account by B. Cobb, The First Detectives (London 1957), 123–42, contains many errors and inventions. In recent years, the Grimwood case has been briefly discussed by M. Spicer (True Detective, July 2009, 8–11), R. Crone, Violent Victorians (Manchester 2012), 102–4, L. Worsley, A Very British Murder (London 2013), 83–4, and J. Adcock (http://john-adcock.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/who-murdered-eliza-grimwood.html). The case has also been discussed in a modern novel, R. Gowers, The Twisted Heart (Edinburgh 2009), albeit without anything new or interesting being deduced.
2. The Strand Theatre was constructed in 1832, at the site of an existing panorama. It was condemned and rebuilt in 1882, and demolished in 1905. Today Aldwych Underground station stands on the site. See the article by P. Hadley (London Passenger Transport 12 [April 1984], 588–93). There does not appear to be any illustration of what it looked like back in 1838, although I found a photograph of it in 1905, just before it was pulled down. J. Oates, Unsolved Murders in Victorian & Edwardian London (Barnsley 2007), 14, reproduces a postcard of another Strand Theatre in Aldwych. Constructed in 1905 and also known as the Waldorf Theatre, it is today the Novello Theatre.
Chapter 3
1. The earliest accounts of the murder of Eliza Grimwood were in The Times, 28 May 1838, Morning Post 28 May 1838 and Morning Chronicle 28 May 1838.
2. Morning Post 29 May 1838, Morning Chronicle 29 May 1838.
3. Old Mother Hubbard, whose cupboard was bare.
Chapter 4
1. These dramatic scenes were detailed in The Times 11 August 1835, 8 June 1836 and 14 April 1837, and Morning Post 14 April 1837. On the career of Inspector Field, see also P. Collins, Dickens and Crime (London 1965), 206–11, and the articles by W. Long (Dickensian 83 [1987], 149–62 and Dickens Quarterly 30 [2013], 43–54).
2. C. Dickens, Three Detective Anecdotes: ‘The Pair of Gloves’, originally published in his Household Words 1 [1850], 457–60.
3. NA MEPO 3/40.
4. Ibid.
5. The Times 28 May 1838, Morning Post 28 May 1838, Morning Chronicle 28 May 1838.
6. These quotes are from Bell’s New Weekly Messenger 3 June 1838 and The Globe 4 June 1838.
7. Morning Herald 7 June 1838.
Chapter 5
1. The York Hotel at No. 80 Waterloo Road was a well-known local landmark that stood into the late 1940s before being demolished.
2. The first day of the inquest was described in the Morning Post 29 May 1838, Morning Chronicle 29 May 1838, The Standard 29 May 1838, The Sunday Times 3 June 1838, Weekly Dispatch 3 June 1838 and Weekly Chronicle 3 June 1838.
3. Weekly Chronicle 3 June 1838.
4. NA MEPO 3/40.
5. The Globe 29 May 1838, The Times 30 May 1838, Jackson’s Oxford Journal 2 June 1838, anonymous article in Dublin University Magazine 81 [1873], 273–80.
6. These details, and the Grimwood family tree, are supplied by The Globe 29 May 1838 and 18 June 1838, as well as by the ‘Grimwood & Grimwade One Name Study’ homepage kept by Maggie Driver (http://archive.is/zBEI) and various searches in the FreeBMD and Ancestry databases. There is a discrepancy between Eliza’s presumed date of birth, given as 15 December 1807, and her age of death on her death certificate, given as 26 years. Either Eliza had made use of the female prerogative of lying about her age, or the ‘Elizabeth Grimwood’ born in 1807 died young and another unrecorded ‘Eliza’ was born in 1812. Eliza had a brother Samuel w
ho died as a teenager in 1815, but her other brothers Thomas, Charles and Richard all married and had families of their own. In 1842, when Richard Grimwood was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Windsor, he presented himself as Eliza’s younger brother to gain compassion – see Windsor and Eton Express 25 June 1842.
7. Namely New Newgate Calendar, Vol. 2 (London 1864), 81–6 and 97–101.
8. The Observer 17 June 1838, Morning Post 18 June 1838. Eliza had four older sisters, named Frances, Harriett, Sarah and Marianne. The unmarried Charlotte, who died in 1843, is likely to have been the ‘cripple’, but no sister of hers is recorded to have predeceased her, so the story of the suicide may well be a newspaper invention.
9. The Observer 17 June 1838, Bell’s New Weekly Messenger 24 June 1838.
10. The second day of the inquest was described in the Morning Post 1 June 1838, Morning Chronicle 1 June 1838, The Standard 1 June 1838, London Dispatch 3 June 1838, and The Examiner 3 June 1838. The strangely named surgeon Mr I’on published an account of the post-mortem appearances in Lancet i [1838], 399–400, which was liberally quoted in the daily newspapers – see The Globe 31 May 1838 for an example.
11. NA MEPO 3/40.
12. Eliza Grimwood’s funeral was described in Morning Post 2 June 1838 and Bell’s New Weekly Messenger 3 June 1838.
13. The Globe 2 June 1838.
14. NA MEPO 3/40.
15. H. Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1 (London 1864).
16. One handbill on the Grimwood murder is kept by the John Johnson collection at the Bodleian Library, and I have another in my collection, both are reproduced in this book. There may well be others in various private collections.
Chapter 6
1. On the capture of Owen, see The Times 2 June 1838, Morning Post 2 June 1838, and Morning Chronicle 2 June 1838.
2. The Times 4 June 1838, The Standard 4 June 1838, The Globe 4 June 1838.
Chapter 7
1. On the third day of the inquest, see The Times 5 June 1838, Morning Post 5 June 1838, Morning Chronicle 5 June 1838, and The Globe 5 June 1838.
2. NA MEPO 3/40.
Chapter 8
1. NA MEPO 3/40.
2. The Globe 8 June 1838.
3. The Times 8 June 1838.
4. NA MEPO 3/40.
5. The Examiner 24 June 1838.
6. On the fourth day of the inquest, see The Times 9 June 1838, Morning Post 9 June 1838, Morning Chronicle 9 June 1838, The Globe 9 and 10 June 1838, and Weekly Chronicle 10 June 1838.
Chapter 9
1. NA MEPO 3/40.
2. The Standard 12 June 1838.
3. NA MEPO 3/40.
4. The Cavendish letter is reproduced in Morning Chronicle 18 June 1838.
5. On the apprehension of Hubbard, see Morning Chronicle 12 June 1838.
6. Freeman’s Journal 15 June 1838, York Herald 16 June 1838.
7. Morning Post 12 June 1838.
8. On the examination of Hubbard at Union Hall, see The Times 12 June 1838, Morning Post 12 June 1838, Morning Chronicle 12 June 1838 and The Globe 12 June 1838.
9. NA MEPO 3/40.
10. The Times 14 June 1838, The Standard 14 June 1838, Morning Post 15 June 1838, Morning Chronicle 15 June 1838, The Globe 15 June 1838.
11. Reproduced in Morning Post 23 June 1838.
12. On the apprehension of M’Millan, see The Standard 15 June 1838.
13. These macabre details are from The Globe 14 June 1838 and The Observer 18 June 1838, and this scandalous auction is also mentioned by C.E. Pearce, Unsolved Murder Mysteries (London 1924), 55.
14. The Times 14 June 1838.
15. The Times 18 June 1838, Morning Post 18 June 1838.
16. NA MEPO 3/40.
17. The Times 19 June 1838, Morning Post 19 June 1838.
18. The Times 20 June 1838, The Examiner 24 June 1838.
19. The Times 21 June 1838, The Observer 24 June 1838.
20. On the Duke of Brunswick, see Anon., Le Duc de Brunswick (Paris 1875), O. Böse, Karl II, Herzog von Braunschweig und Lüneburg (Braunschweig 1956), The Mirror, May 1845, 407–11, and London Review July 1863, 62–3.
21. H. Goddard, Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner (London 1956), 109–25.
22. The Standard 19 and 22 June 1838.
Chapter 10
1. Morning Post 23 June 1838.
2. The Examiner 24 June 1838, NA MEPO 3/40.
3. The Observer 24 June 1838, Freeman’s Journal 27 June 1838.
4. The Examiner 24 June 1838.
5. C. Dickens, Three Detective Anecdotes: ‘The Pair of Gloves’, originally published in his Household Words 1 [1850], 457–60.
6. On Skinner as a murder suspect, see NA MEPO 3/40, W. Long (Dickensian 83 [1987], 149–62), The Times 4 and 9 July 1838, and Morning Chronicle 4 July 1838.
7. The Times 4 and 6 July 1838, Morning Post 4 July 1838, The Examiner 8 July 1838, London Dispatch 8 July 1838.
8. NA MEPO 3/40.
9. On the examination of Skinner, see The Times 9 July 1838, Sheffield Independent 14 July 1838, and The Champion 15 July 1838.
10. NA MEPO 3/40.
11. Household Words 1 [1850], 457–60.
12. On these transactions, see The Times 6 July 1838, Morning Post 6 July 1838, and London Dispatch 8 July 1838.
13. Morning Post 4 July 1838.
14. The sad story of Eliza’s little dog is in Morning Post 5 July 1838, Champion 8 July 1838, and Bell’s New Weekly Messenger 8 and 15 July 1838.
Chapter 11
1. The ‘Golding’ and ‘Foreign Jew’ stories never reached the newspapers, but are in NA MEPO 3/40.
2. The Standard 14 and 17 August 1838, London Dispatch 19 August 1838.
3. The Standard 20 March 1839.
4. The Times 1 and 4 April 1839, Morning Chronicle 1 April 1839, The Operative 7 April 1839.
5. The Examiner 25 August 1839.
6. NA HO 44/35, ff 384, 385, 392, 393, 396.
7. On Hill, see The Times 25 and 28 August, 8 and 15 September 1845, and Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper 7 September 1845. The original material is kept at NA MEPO 3/40.
8. On the Duke of Brunswick, see Anon., Le Duc de Brunswick (Paris 1875) and W.H. Whitehouse, Charles Duke of Brunswick (London 1905). On the duke’s interest in the murder of Eliza Grimwood, see The Globe 19 June 1838 and The Times 22 June 1838.
9. On the duke’s libel suits and other activities in London, see H. Goddard, Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner (London 1956), 109–25, The Jurist 10 [1847], 387–9, and The Times 25 June 1845, 30 January 1846, 24 April 1846, 1 May 1846, 26 June 1848 and 14 June 1850. The duke later lived in a grand mansion in Paris, where he built a vault for his enormous collection of diamonds, with electric alarms, hidden revolvers and a strong box suspended by four chains. When the vault nevertheless was burgled, and valuable gems stolen, the ‘Diamond Duke’ was distraught, although the thief was later arrested and most of the loot recovered. He left his fortune to the city of Geneva on the condition that they built him a grandiose memorial monument; it can still be seen at the Quai du Mont-Blanc in that city. The duke’s illegitimate offspring were far from pleased with this decision on the part of their eccentric parent, and kept up litigation on the subject as late as the 1930s.
10. On Lunischall, see The Times 6, 9 and 12 September 1853.
11. G.A. Sala, Twice Round the Clock (London 1862), 242, and Echoes of Year 1883 (London 1884), 346. Sala had quite a fascination with the Grimwood murder, and also mentioned it in My Diary in America, Vol. 2, 13 (London 1865), in his memoirs The Life and Adventures of George Augustus Sala (London 1898), 356, in Belgravia 23 [1874], 294, and in Sydney Morning Herald 29 March 1884. See also J.C. Trewin (ed.), The Journals of William Charles Macready (Carbondale IL 2009), 181.
12. Freeman’s Journal 14 October 1857, Morning Chronicle 19 October 1857; see also Morning Post 5 November 1857.
13. York Herald 28 January 1860.
14. Morning Post 11 April 1863, London Reader, Augu
st 1863, 496. On the murder of Emma Jackson, see J. Bondeson, Rivals of the Ripper (Stroud 2016), 31–48.
15. The Times 15 December 1863, Morning Post 14 December 1863, The Standard 15 December 1863.
16. Freeman’s Journal 23 September 1873.
17. W.F. Peacock, Who Committed the Great Coram Street Murder? (London 1873). On the murder of Harriet Buswell, see J. Bondeson, Rivals of the Ripper (Stroud 2016), 121–54.
18. The Standard 1 April 1869, Reynolds’s Newspaper 20 October 1878.
19. Evening Star 4 March 1876, Memphis Daily Appeal 31 July 1881, New Zealand Herald 16 March 1929.
20. Dublin University Magazine 81 [1873], 273–80.
21. Daily Telegraph 6 September 1888, on the Monster see J. Bondeson, The London Monster (Stroud 2003).
22. Irish Times 9 October 1888.
23. Essex Herald 28 September 1838.
24. Daily News 18 August 1864.
25. E. O’Donnell, Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter (London 1928), 216. On O’Donnell, see R. Whittington-Egan, The Master Ghost Hunter (London 2016).
26. Famous Crimes Past & Present 10 (125) [1905], 174.
Chapter 12
1. Household Words 1 [1850], 457–60.
2. It might of course be speculated that the brothers Grimwood had bribed Owen to perjure himself and that one of them was identical to the man who had been seen giving Owen money. But Owen certainly seemed crazy enough to have staged the entire thing himself, nor does it make sense for the brothers to hire such a drunken, volatile creature.
3. Morning Post 22 and 27 November 1838.
4. New Newgate Calendar Vol. 2 (London 1864), 137.
5. The Times 28 August 1845. There is no William Hubbard listed as an US immigrant from 1838 until 1848.
6. Morning Chronicle 8 March 1841.