Was Justice Served?

‘It came to my knowledge that Mr Smith was not a man but a woman. Of course I was greatly astonished, and could not permit things to go on in that way...’   On 17 July 1865, a former employee of shoemaker James Giles entered his workshop, pointing a pistol in his face and pulling the trigger with no hesitation. A gun malfunction spared James his life, but the crime unravelled an extraordinary stor...

‘He fired three shots at him, two of which took effect in the head and spine, and he fell to the ground...’   On a spring morning in 1888, an enraged labourer stormed into his workplace, a brickworks, with a small revolver. Striding decisively towards William Berridge - the foreman who had fired him just hours ago - the man fired three shots into Berridge’s leg, head and torso. By midday, he’s in...

‘He found the child dead and saw Dr Burke drop the revolver on the hearthrug and stagger to the side of the room, where he lay down on a seat...’   On a cold February night, in a Barnsley pub, an unimaginable tragedy took place. Inebriated on expensive champagne, a local doctor waved a revolver around wildly. As his terrified wife fled the room to get help, a bullet rang through the air. Its targe...

‘Her dress was bedaubed with blood, and there was blood on the floor. Jealousy is said to be the cause of the crime...’   In the autumn of 1880, David Anderson awoke to find his wife Ann dead in his arms. With a fatal head wound and sheets stained with blood, her cause of death was far from natural. The couple had recently become entangled in a jealous, alcohol-fuelled love triangle with their lod...

If he was not Roger Tichborne, he had committed a deliberate fraud, and supported it by perjury, forgery and the most abominable means...’   In the autumn of 1886, the widowed Lady Tichborne received a curious letter signed ‘Sir Roger Tichborne, your son’. But Roger had perished in a shipwreck off the coast of Brazil over a decade before. The grieving mother welcomed Roger back with open arms – bu...

'She... woke and was horrified to find that her husband was cold. She tried to pour brandy down his throat, and then found that he was dead...’   In the early hours of New Year’s Day 1886, Adelaide Bartlett stirred from her slumber to find her husband cold to the touch. He’d been unwell for some time, but his premature death didn’t seem like an accident. Was he poisoned? Who wanted him dead?   Edw...

‘Save the ghastly corpse, still bleeding from a frightful wound in the head, they had not left a trace of the dark deed which had been but too successfully accomplished...’   In the summer of 1860, a wealthy 70-year-old widow was found murdered at her home in Stepney. She lay in a pool of her own blood, with her scalp pulverised and her petticoats thrown above her head, for four days before being...

Join Jen for a special bonus episode, in which she dives into her own family tree and reveals the fascinating story of her Irish ancestor: Archibald McKenzie. Research by Findmypast revealed that 1 in 6 people have a criminal in their family tree, and Jen's research has led her to uncover the details of Archibald's crimes in historical records and newspapers. Follow the story from a brush with the...

“There were infinite possibilities as to how he might be shot. There was room for conjecture and for difference of opinion in this matter...” On the morning of 10 August 1893, a party of three gentlemen leave for a morning of shooting on the sprawling Scottish estate of Ardlamont. One loses his life in the woods, at the wrong end of the barrel of a shotgun. The survivors – the only witnesses – wer...

“...she asked me to fetch the police, but my husband would not let me interfere... he had threatened to rip her inside out. I said to her: “He is not safe to live with”...” In the early morning of 2 June 1906, a woman is discovered lying dead on the floor of her bedroom. She had gone to bed in good spirits but never woken up. An autopsy revealed a ruptured spleen – an injury which could have been...

“He there saw the deceased lying upon her back on the floor, a pool of blood surrounded her head, her throat was cut, and she was dead...” During an unseasonal storm on the night of 31 May 1902, a young unmarried woman is brutally murdered in the quiet village of Peasenhall, Suffolk. Her death reveals her secret: she is six months pregnant. Rumours have circulated for years about an illicit affair...

“The boy was lying on the bed in convulsions, and the bed was covered in black vomit...” An accidental poisoning or a bid to wipe out an entire family? You decide. Late in the evening of 22 September 1887 in Victorian-era Surrey, a doctor is called to a mysterious double-poisoning at the home of a gardener, Henry Bowles. There he finds Bowles’ wife Hannah and son Edward at the point of death, from...

“I have been watching him for 12 years. He has been hiding, but I caught him at last...” A pre-meditated murder in broad daylight or the tragic result of deteriorating mental health? You decide. In this special pilot episode of Was Justice Served?, Professor David Olusoga OBE joins co-hosts Jen Baldwin and David Wilson to examine a murder hidden within his family tree. On the 10 September 1896, 64...

Discover historical crimes, one headline at a time.    Join hosts Jen Baldwin and David Wilson as they journey back in time to some of the past’s most cryptic criminal cases, brought to you by Findmypast. In each episode, we’ll take a look at the evidence found in historical newspapers and records and try to unpick what really happened.     Listen as we delve into the gory, the heartbreaking, and...