The Murders on the Ratcliffe Highway: London, December 1811

In December 1811, London was horrified by two murderous attacks on families in Wapping district within twelve days, claiming seven lives. Wapping was then a major port area full of docks and warehouses, businesses catering to the seafaring trade and sailors, full of low taverns, and brothels. It was a derelict and often violent neighbourhood, but it had never experienced anything like what happened in 1811.

The first attack took place on December 7, at 29 Ratcliffe Highway (now known as The Highway). The victims were three members of the Marr family and an apprentice who lived in a flat behind the Marr's linen draper’s shop. 

At sometime around midnight, an intruder entered the home and brutally bludgeoned to death Timothy Marr, his wife Celia, their four weeks old son, and the apprentice, James Gowan. A blood-stained maul (pictured below) found on the premises with the initials JP or IP was assumed to be the murder weapon. The Thames River Police investigated but could discover neither motive nor suspects.

On December 19, a second murderous attack took place nearby at the King’s Arms, a tavern at 81 New Gravel Lane (now Garnet Street). After a constable had heard cries of “Murder!” a crowd gathered at the premises, where they found a lodger, John Turner, descending from an upper floor using a rope of knotted sheets. 

Turner was crying and nearly incoherent. Inside, the crowd discovered the bodies of the owner, John Williamson, his wife Elizabeth, and a servant, Bridget Harrington. Their skulls were crushed and throats cut. In a bedroom upstairs, they found the Williamson’s fourteen-year-old granddaughter fast asleep. Amazingly, she had heard nothing. Turner said he had been awoken by cries of murder. He claimed to have seen a man downstairs before fleeing out the window. The man Turner described was tall and stocky.

Bow Street Runners and constables from other districts joined the investigation after the second attack. (London did not have a centralized, professional police force until 1829). The press and a panicked public were clamouring for a quick arrest of the killer(s). Within a few days, the police arrested three men as suspects. One of them, a sailor named John Williams (or Murphy) was a lodger at a Wapping public house, The Pear Tree. (Image: John Williams, post-mortem sketch).

On December 24, the investigators learned from another lodger that the maul found at Marr’s shop belonged to a third lodger, John Peterson, who was at sea, and that Williams could easily have had access to it. Other discoveries led them to focus on him. Four days later, Williams hanged himself in his cell. The courts quickly ruled him the murderer. But curiously, he did not fit Turner’s description of the man he had seen in the King's Arms. Williams was slender in build and of medium height. All the evidence against him was circumstantial.

Home Secretary Richard Ryder, elated by the “solution” of the case, ordered William’s body to be publicly paraded through the streets of Wapping, and buried at the crossroads of New Road (now Commercial Road) and Cannon Street Road. The aim was to reassure the public that the murderer was indeed dead. On New Year’s Eve, the body was removed from the prison on a cart and followed by a huge procession estimated to be around 180,000 persons. The procession was the subject of many contemporary images.

The marchers stopped before the houses of the victims before proceeding to the intersection named. A stake was driven through William's heart and he was placed in an already dug grave. At the time, suicides could not be buried in consecrated (church) ground and the stake was supposed to prevent his soul from wandering.  

Debate continues today about whether Williams was indeed the killer, or merely the unfortunate scapegoat of authorities eager to appease the public clamor and panic. Other suspects have been considered, but the true identity of the Ratcliffe Highway Murderer remains a mystery, much like the identity of the Whitechapel Murderer, Jack the Ripper.

Further Reading: T.A. Critchley and P. D. James, The Maul and the Pear Tree: The Ratcliffe Highway Murders, 1811. London, 1971.

Cracking the Nazi Enigma Machine and the Birth of the Computer

I visited Bletchley Park recently, the code/cipher breaking center where the Nazi Enigma cipher machines were cracked. The picture above is a replica of Alan Turing's "Bombe" machine that helped crack the ciphers. About 200 of these were built during WWII, but all were destroyed after the war. Fortunately, the blueprints survived and engineers built this one, and it works! One of the staff demonstrated for us how it worked. It did not actually decipher the Enigma machine messages, but provided the key to deciphering them much more quickly than previous methods.

Below: Statue of Alan Turing at Bletchley Park. Nearby is an apology from Gordon Brown, when he was Prime Minister in 2009, for the government's prosecution and chemical castration of Turing under a now repealed sex crime law.

Work on code and cipher cracking began at the mansion at Bletchley Park (below), a Victorian Era structure built by a London stockbroker. His children sold it to the government in 1939 for 7000 pounds (that was a helluva lot more then, but still cheap). 

The initial staff was about 200. That grew to over 8000 during the war, and many other buildings and huts were built on the grounds, some of which can be visited. Some of the scenes in film the "The Imitation Game" were shot in the mansion, including the bar scene, below.

under the Official Secrets Act, personnel at Bletchley were forbidden to speak to anyone about their work there, even after the war. One couple who married after leaving Bletchley had no idea that the other partner had worked there until the 1970s, when both were invited to a reunion of Bletchley workers.

Illustrating Executions in the American Revolution: Major John Andre and Isaac Hayne

The three illustrations below are of two executions that took place during the American War for Independence. The first two are said to record the execution of British Major John Andre, whom the Patriots hanged as a spy at Tappan, New York in October 1780. Andre was captured in civilian clothes after a secret meeting with Benedict Arnold, to arrange Arnold's switch to the British side. 

Oddly, the Patriot officer presiding over Andre's hanging in the first illustration is in a redcoat. In the second, the mistake, if that's what it was, is rectified. He is wearing a blue coat, though a lighter blue than Patriot soldiers normally wore.

The last image is supposed to record the hanging of Colonel Isaac Hayne of South Carolina in Charleston in August 1781. British cavalry captured Hayne attempting to kidnap General Andrew Williamson, sometimes called the southern Benedict Arnold. Williamson was a Patriot officer who had also defected to the British (although later he claimed to have been spying on them). The charge against Hayne was treason. He had taken the loyalty oath to the Crown after Charleston's surrender in 1780 and later rejoined the Patriots. 



The three illustrations are virtually identical, except for changes of uniform colors. Even the flags remain the same. It is likely that neither artist was present at either execution, but the artist of Hayne's hanging surely copied the artist of Andre's. Perhaps it was even the same artist.

Andre himself was a bit of an artist, and was good at working to a deadline (pun intended) The night before his execution he penned the self-portrait below.

Tipu's Tiger: The Famous Automaton of London's V&A Museum

London's V&A (Victoria and Albert) Museum in South Kensington is a treasure house of delightful curiosities. For me, none is more intriguing than a musical automaton depicting a "European" (actually a British soldier in The East India Company army) being mauled by a tiger.  

Known as Tipu's Tiger, it was created for Tipu Sultan of Mysore (ruled 1782-1799).  

Tipu adopted the tiger as his personal symbol. He used it on his soldiers' uniforms and weapons and on many objects in his palace and his capital, Seringatpatam. His personal epithet was "Tiger of Mysore." He said he would rather live two days as a tiger than a hundred years as a sheep.

Tipu spent much of his reign fending off attacks by the British East India Company, which sought to add his domain to its conquests on the subcontinent. He managed to prevail until 1799, when an East India Company army besieged and captured Seringatpatam. Tipu was killed defending his city. 

The invading army divided up the plunder according to rank, as was the custom. Tipu's Tiger was sent to London as a curiosity. It was displayed at the Company's museum in Leadenhall Street for many years. It was acquired by the V&A in 1880. (Image: East India Co. Museum, Leadenhall Street. Tipu's Tiger can be see at far left).

Tipu's Tiger is a musical automaton. A hand-operated crank on the side of the tiger powers its movements and a bellows that produces sounds resembling a tiger's growl and the man's cries. The man's left arm moves up and down in a gesture of helplessness. A panel in the tiger's side conceals a small pipe organ on which tunes can be played. French advisers were present at Tipu's court at the time and may have aided in the automaton's construction.

V&A information on Tipu's Tiger: https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/tipus-tiger

The Church that Inspired the Tiered Wedding Cake: St. Bride's Fleet Street

London's St. Bride's Church on Bride Lane, just off Fleet Street, has a tower that looks like a tiered wedding cake. You might think that the cake inspired the spire, built to the design of Sir Christopher Wren. It was the other way round. The spire inspired a local baker to design a wedding cake that looked like St. Bride’s tower. The name of the church no doubt helped with the inspiration. Spire, spire, please inspire.

Although the current version of St. Bride's, like many London churches, was built after the Great Fire of 1666, a church has been here since Anglo-Saxon times, possibly earlier. Part of a Roman street can be found in its crypt, along with other artifacts and a detailed history of the church and surrounding area. 

St. Bride’s was once known as the printers’ church. The church contains a memorial to Wynken de Worde, the first man to set up a printing press on Fleet St., in 1500. Many other printers followed, and newspapers began to be printed there in the 18th century. 

In Victorian times Fleet Street became synonymous with the newspaper press, and St. Bride's became known as the journalists' church. The interior was largely destroyed by enemy bombing during the Blitz but has been beautifully restored. Today the church contains a memorial to journalists killed in the line of duty, many quite recently. It is well worth a visit.

London's Iconic Newgate Prison, 1188-1902

For centuries, Newgate Prison was a London landmark and almost a synonym for incarceration. It stood on the site of a gate in the Roman Wall for more that 700 years. It was located just to the south of the equally old St. Bartholomew's Hospital, at the corner of today's Newgate Street and Old Bailey. The first Newgate Prison was built in 1188 and looked something like this:

It was rebuilt several times, including by Christopher Wren (who else?) after the Great Fire of London in 1666. The last version, pictured below, was erected in 1782. It was designed by another prolific architect, George Dance the Younger.

"New" Newgate became the scene of public executions the following year, when they were moved from Tyburn (near today's Marble Arch) to outside the prison gates. The authorities made the move because the traditional processions to Tyburn and the hangings attracted large and boisterous crowds, and sometimes produced riots. 

Nevertheless, large crowds also gathered to watch the hangings at Newgate. They often paid large sums for good observation posts. Hawkers sold "confessions" of the condemned as well food and drink to the crowds. Public executions were much like modern sports events, except everyone knew in advance who was going to lose. 

 

That sort of entertainment ended in 1868, when the authorities removed the executions from the public gaze altogether. Henceforth, they took place inside the prison walls. An illustration by French artist Gustave Dore of the prisoners' exercise yard around that time captures the grimness of life in Victorian Newgate.

Newgate closed in 1902 and was demolished. It is now the site of London's Central Criminal Court, which was moved from its earlier location nearby. It has long been known as the Old Bailey after the street it fronts upon.  A statue of Justice upon its roof announces its purpose, if not always its results.

Famous prisoners of Newgate included Ben Jonson, Daniel Defoe, alleged pirate Captain William Kidd, Casanova, and William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania. Of this group, only Kidd was executed, but he was hanged at Wapping Dock on the River Thames, as was the custom with pirates.

London's Fascinating Fleet Street: Printers, Prisons, Publishers and Pubs

London's Fleet Street starts at the bottom of Ludgate Hill, a street atop which sits St. Paul’s Cathedral. Fleet Street derived its name from the nearby River Fleet, which today runs underground beneath Farringdon Street and New Bridge Road. 

Fleet Street was once the center of England's printing trade and later became a metonym for its newspaper industry. 

Just north of Fleet Street beside the River Fleet, lay the Fleet Prison which incarcerated people for debt from medieval times until the 19th century. Alas, it is no longer there.

Just south of Fleet Street Henry VIII erected a royal residence, Bridewell Palace. After his death his heir Edward VI gave it to the City of London. The City Fathers used it for a house for punishing “disorderly women” and a school for young lads, an interesting juxtaposition. One can only wonder about the curriculum. 

The boys moved out later and Bridewell became a general house of correction. Eventually all such establishments became known as “bridewells.” All that is left of the palace is the gatehouse, which boasts a relief portrait of Edward VI, a king whose main claim to fame was dying young and being replaced by Bloody Mary.

One of the most popular spots on Fleet Street is just a short walk down a lane on the north side of the street: Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. The pub, as its sign tells you, was “Restored in 1667,” the year after the Great Fire of London. It seems to have been untouched since. It’s dark, with all sorts of little nooks and crannies for drinking, plotting, and whatever. And lots of history.

Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Conan Doyle, Tennyson, and other literary figures are among those claimed as "regulars." Dr. Samuel Johnson of dictionary fame lived at nearby Gough Square and is said to have popped in here occasionally with friends, such as his biographer James Boswell and the writer Oliver Goldsmith.

Goldsmith is buried next to nearby 12th century Temple Church, built as the spiritual home of England's crusading Knights Templar. The church gained some recent fame from the novel and film The Da Vinci Code.

Another nearby church, St.Bride's, has a fascinating history as well. An earlier church was destroyed during the Great Fire of London in 1666. 

Sir Christopher Wren, who designed nearby St. Paul's and many other rebuilt churches after the fire, designed the current St. Bride's. Its steeple and name later inspired the layered wedding cake! 

St. Bride's was once known as The Printer's Church because Fleet Street became the center of the city's printing industry. It is now known as the Journalists' Church and contains an altar dedicated the memory of journalists killed covering various conflicts around the world. The crypt contains remains of a Roman street and a small museum.

Johnson’s house at Gough Square is open to the public. It is well worth a visit. Johnson was a fascinating, idiosyncratic fellow. Pictured below is his house and a statue of his cat Hodge.

Inside the house is a portrait that some believe to be of Francis Barber, a former slave who Johnson basically adopted and educated at his own expense. At his death, Johnson left Barber a large sum of money.

To the west of Gough Square are many buildings related to the law. The ancient law schools and courts are nearby. At the end of Fleet Street, where it becomes The Strand, stands the massive neo-Gothic pile of the Royal Courts of Justice (Opened, 1882). 

On an island at the end of Fleet Street lies St. Clement Danes church, made famous by the nursery rhyme, “Oranges and lemons say the bells of St. Clements.” It sounds nice until you get to the last couplet: “Here comes a candle to light you to bed, And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!” [Image: St Clement Danes]