The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder And The Undoing Of A Great Victorian Detective (39 page)

xxi
'the prince of detectives'.
In
Scotland Yard Past and Present: Experiences of Thirty-Seven Years
(1893) by Ex-Chief-Inspector Timothy Cavanagh.

xxi
'shorter and thicker-set' . . . smallpox scars.
In 'A Detective Police Party',
House-hold Words,
27 July 1850.

xxi
William Henry Wills . . . of the Detective police.'
In 'The Modern Science of Thief-taking',
House-hold Words,
13 July 1850. Dickens probably contributed to the writing of this piece. For details of the journal and its contributors, see
House-hold Words: A Weekly Journal 1850-1859 Conducted by Charles Dickens - Table of Contents, List of Contributors and Their Contributions Based on The House-hold Words Office Book in the Morris L. Parrish Collection of Victorian Novelists
(1973) by Anne Lohrli.

xxii
The only clues . . . his eyes were blue.
From MEPO 21/7, Metropolitan Police discharge papers.

xxiii
A Great Western Railway . . . less than an hour.
From
Black's Picturesque Tourist and Road and Railway Guidebook
(1862);
Stokers and Pokers; or, the London and North-Western Railway, the Electric Telegraph and the Railway Clearing-House
(1849) by Francis Bond Head;
Paddington Station: Its History and Architecture
(2004) by Steven Brindle; railway timetables in the
Trowbridge Advertiser
of January 1860.

CHAPTERS 1, 2 & 3

The narrative of these three chapters is drawn mainly from newspaper reports of the testimony given to the Wiltshire magistrates between July and December 1860, affidavits made to the Queen's Bench in November 1860, and the first book about the case,
The Great Crime of 1860: Being a Summary of the Facts Relating to the Murder Committed at Road; a Critical Review of its Social and Scientific Aspects; and an Authorised Account of the Family; With an Appendix, Containing the Evidence Taken at the Various Inquiries,
written by J.W. Stapleton and published in May 1861. The newspaper sources are the
Somerset and Wilts journal,
the
Trowbridge and North Wilts Advertiser,
the
Bristol Daily Post,
the
Bath Chronicle,
the
Bath Express,
the
Western Daily Press,
the
Frome Times,
the
Bristol Mercury, The Times,
the
Morning Post, Lloyds Weekly Paper
and the
Daily Telegraph.
Some details of furnishings are drawn from newspaper accounts of the auction of the contents of Road Hill House in April 1861.

CHAPTER 3

38
On a visit to the country . . . house is his castle." '
In
The King of Saxony's Journey through England and Scotland in the Year
1844 (1846) by Carl Gustav Carus.

38
The American poet . . . privacy of their homes.'
In
English Traits
(1856) by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Quoted in
The English Home and its Guardians 1850-1940
(1998) by George K. Behlmer.

CHAPTER 4

43
It was still light . . . green as grass.
From weather and crop reports for July in the
Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette,
2 August 1860.

43
the railway station's narrow platform.
Rowland Rodway, formerly Samuel Kent's solicitor, was leading a campaign to improve the facilities at Trowbridge railway station. The platforms were dangerously narrow, he argued, there was no raised walkway across the line, and no waiting room. The
Trowbridge and North Wilts Advertiser
of 21 July 1860 reported on the campaign.

43
Trowbridge had made money . . . muslin cheap.
History of Trowbridge and surroundings from
The Book of Trowbridge
(1984) by Kenneth Rogers;
John Murray's Handbook for Travellers in Wilts, Dorset, and Somerset
(1859); and photographs and maps in the Trowbridge local history museum. Reports of wool trade in
Lloyds Weekly,
15 July 1860.

44
Wine, cider, spirits . . . at the bar.
From an advertisement in the
Trowbridge and North Wilts Advertiser,
4 August 1860.

44
'I couldn't do better than have a drop . . . courage up'.
In 'A Detective Police Party',
House-hold Words,
27 July 1850.

44
Jonathan Whicher was born . . . outright villains.
Details of Whicher's family from the St Giles baptism registers in the London Metropolitan Archives (X097/236), and the marriage certificate of Sarah Whicher and James Holliwell. Camberwell's history from the
London and Counties Directory 1823-4, The Parish of Camber-well
by Blanch (1875),
Camberwell
by D. Allport (1841) and
The Story of Camberwell
by Mary Boast (1996).

45
When Jack Whicher applied . . . good character.
Whicher's referees were John Berry, a house painter of 12 High St, Camberwell, later of Providence Row, and John Hartwell, also of Camberwell. From MEPO 4/333 (a register of recruits to the Metropolitan Police) and the census of 1841. Police entrance requirements and procedure from
Sketches in London
(1838) by James Grant.

45
Like more than a third . . . submitted his application.
The other constables were former butchers, bakers, shoemakers, tailors, soldiers, servants, carpenters, bricklayers, blacksmiths, turners, clerks, shop workers, mechanics, plumbers, painters, sailors, weavers and stonemasons. From
Scotland Yard: Its History and Organisation 1829-1929 (1929)
by George Dilnot.

45
His weekly wage . . . a little more secure.
Police rates of pay from Parliamentary Papers of 1840, at the British Library; for comparative pay to labourers, see 'The Metropolitan Police and What is Paid for Them',
Chambers's Journal,
2 July 1864.

45
The 3,500 policemen . . . sixteenth century).
There was one policeman for every 425 inhabitants of the city. Figures from
Sketches in London
(1838) by James Grant. Nicknames from
The London Underworld
(1970) by Kellow Chesney and
London Labour and the London Poor
(1861) by Henry Mayhew, Bracebridge Hemyng, John Binny and Andrew Halliday.

46
Whicher was issued . . . sideburns instead.
Details of police uniform from:
Mysteries of Police & Crime
(1899) by Arthur Griffiths;
Scotland Yard: Its History and Organisation 1829-1929
(1929) by George Dilnot;
Scotland Yard Past and Present: Experiences of Thirty-Seven Years
(1893) by Timothy Cavanagh.

46
At a time when all clothes . . . degree of stupidity.'
In 'The Policeman: His Health' by Harriet Martineau,
Once a Week,
2 June 1860.

47
Andrew Wynter . . . neither hopes nor fears.'
In 'The Police and the Thieves',
Quarterly Review,
1856. Another commentator, James Greenwood, echoed this: 'So long as the common constable remains a well-regulated machine, and fulfils his functions with no jarring or unnecessary noise, we will ask no more.' From
Seven Curses of London
(1869). Both quoted in
Cops and Bobbies: Police Authority in New York and London, 1830-1870
(1999) by Wilbur R. Miller.

47
Whicher shared . . . King's Cross.
From the census of 1841.

47
This was a substantial brick building . . . recreation room.
From the John Back archive at the Metropolitan Police Historical Collection, Charlton, London SE
₇
.

47
All single men . . . publican on the route.
Regulations from:
Policing Victorian London
(1985) by Philip Thurmond Smith;
London's Teeming Streets 1830-1914 (1993)
by James H. Winter; and Metropolitan Police rules and orders in the National Archives. Details of a policeman's day from:
The Making of a Policeman
: A Social History of a Labour Force in Metropolitan London, 1829-1914 (2002) by Haia Shpayer-Makov; 'The Metropolitan Protectives' by Charles Dickens in
House-hold Words,
26 April 18 51; and works already cited by Grant, Cavanagh and Martineau.

48
four out of five dismissals, of a total of three thousand, were for drunkenness.
The estimate of Colonel Rowan and Richard Mayne, the Police Commissioners, given to a parliamentary select committee in 1834. See
The English Police: A Political and Social History
(1991) by Clive Emsley.

49
Holborn teemed with tricksters . . . burgled houses.
Slang from
London Labour and the London Poor
(1861) by Henry Mayhew et al. and
The Victorian Underworld
(1970) by Kellow Chesney. Thieves acting as decoys from
The Times,
21 November 1837.

In 1837, the year that Whicher joined the police force, almost 17,000 people were arrested in London, of whom 107 were burglars, 110 housebreakers, thirty-eight highway robbers, 773 pickpockets, 3,657 'common thieves', eleven horse stealers, 141 dog stealers, three forgers, twenty-eight coiners, 317 'utterers of base coin', 141 'obtainers of goods by false pretences', 182 other fraudsters, 343 receivers of stolen goods, 2,768 'habitual disturbers of the public peace', 1,295 vagrants, fifty writers of begging letters, eighty-six bearers of begging letters, 895 well-dressed prostitutes living in brothels, 1,612 well-dressed prostitutes walking the streets, and 3,8 64 'low' prostitutes in poor neighbourhoods. From
Scotland Yard: Its History and Organisation 1829-1929
(1929) by George Dilnot.

49
The entire police force . . . June 1838. The Times,
30 June 1838.

49
Already the police were familiar . . . an asylum. The Times,
23 December 1837.

49
Jack Whicher's first reported arrest.
From
The First Detectives and the Early Career of Richard Mayne, Commissioner of Police
(1957) by Belton Cobb and
The Times
of 15 December 1840.

50
There had been outrage . . . infiltrated a political gathering.
The agent was Popay, the gathering Chartist - see
Scotland Yard: Its History and Organisation 1829-1929 (1929)
by George Dilnot. Peel had assured the House of Commons in 1822 that he was dead against a 'system of espionage'.

50
Magistrates' court records . . . buy him off with silver.
Court records in London Metropolitan Archive - references WJ/SP/E/013/35, 38 and 39, WJ/SP/E/017/40, MJ/SP/1842.04/060.

50
The Metropolitan Police files show . . . under two inspectors.
Details of the hunt for Daniel Good and the formation of the detective division from MEPO 3/45, the police file on the murder;
The First Detectives
(1957) by Belton Cobb;
The Rise of Scotland Yard: A History of the Metropolitan Police
(1956) by Douglas G. Browne; and
Dreadful Deeds and Awful Murders: Scotland Yard's First Detectives
(1990) by Joan Lock.

50
('Dickens later described . . . bags his man').
In 'A Detective Police Party',
House-hold Words,
27 July 1850. Thornton was born in 1803 in Epsom, Surrey, according to the census of 1851. He was married to a woman seventeen years his senior, with whom he had two daughters.

51
Whicher was given a pay rise . . . bonuses and rewards.
Information on pay from Metropolitan Police papers at the National Archives and from parliamentary papers on police numbers and rates of pay at the British Library - 1840 (81) XXXIX.257.

51
'Intelligent men have been . . . in 1843. Chambers's Journal
XII.

52
In the London underworld . . . classless anonymity.
The term 'Jacks' is cited in
The Victorian Underworld
(1970) by Kellow Chesney. Detective officers also became known as 'stops', according to
The Slang Dictionary
published by J.C. Hotten in 1864, and as 'noses', according to Hotten's dictionary of 18 74. The 18 64 edition included some of the London detectives' own lingo: to 'pipe' a man was to follow him; to 'smoke' was to detect, or to 'penetrate an artifice'.

52
The first English detective story . . .1849.
In
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal
of 28 July 1849. This magazine published eleven more stories by Waters between then and September 1853. The twelve were issued as a book in 1856.

52
'They are, one and all . . . speak to.'
From 'A Detective Police Party',
House-hold Words,
27 July 1850.

52
George Augustus Sala . . . questioning them.'
From
Things I Have Seen and People I Have Known
(two volumes, 1894) by George Augustus Sala. More recent commentators, such as Philip Collins in
Dickens and Crime
(1962), have seen the novelist's relations with the detectives as faintly patronising.