In fact, some people took the time in the months following the Williams burial to inspect the case more closely and concluded that two, perhaps three, perpetrators must have been involved.Another man from the ship had returned to his rooms at around the same time as Williams had.He was detained but later freed.These suspects, who were allowed to answer for themselves only vaguely, may have been very good suspects indeed.However, the investigation was so uncoordinated and so filled with irrelevant testimony while ignoring productive leads that there was little chance of achieving real justice. Bishop and Williams also confessed to a string of additional crimes, whilst a Covent Garden porter, Michael Shields, was allowed to remain at liberty, based on the testimony of his co-conspirators that he had only been involved in deliveries, not murder. At 07.30 Svaara and Sokoloff were alerted to their predicament. The front door was banged loudly and pebbles were hurled up at the anarchist’s window. They answered with several shots. Detective Sergeant Ben Leeson collapsed gravely wounded. Like Bryant and Woodhams, he recovered but was invalided out of the police force.

and never says nothing to us. S'elp me Cot, vot vith railvays an' Sailors' Homes, there'll soon be no living in An inquest was held two days later at the Jolly Sailors’ public house, also on Ratcliff Highway, where the jury returned a verdict of ‘Wilful Murder, against some person or persons unknown, on each of the bodies.’ Also present in the property were Marr’s wife Celia, the couple’s recently born son, also named Timothy, and James Gowan, Marr’s apprentice. In the early hours of 3rd January a long file of police officers wound their way through the silent streets of the East End to Sidney Street, which runs from Commercial Road in the south to the junction of Whitechapel and Mile End Roads to the north. The officers had not been told what their mission was but they knew that it was dangerous because the married men had been excluded. Some were armed but their weapons, antique revolvers, tube rifles and shotguns, were more suited to a museum than a gun battle.John Williams's arrest would have interested two other people involved: Cornelius Hart and William "Long Billy" Ablass.

I also love my Brit-Box-(Worsely has a television version of this book currently airing on this service) and Acorn TV subscriptions too. Great crime series- from dark and gritty to light and cozy. point of fashion, have outdone the ladies of the West, the latter having still retained a vestige of what the former have And even a month later, Bell’s Weekly Messengeron 19 January 1812 reports how‘The public mind continues naturally alive to every farther search and discovery respecting the late horrible murders.’ John Williams became a main suspect in the case after the maul that had been used in the Marr family murder was linked to a sailor who lodged at the Pear Tree Inn, where Williams also stayed. He had the opportunity to take the maul, whilst his behaviour after the murders was seen as suspicious, and his clothing was reported to be torn and bloody. A principal suspect in the murders, John Williams (also known as John Murphy), was a 27-year-old Irish or Scottish seaman and a lodger at The Pear Tree, a public house on Cinnamon Street off the Highway in Old Wapping. Williams' roommate had noticed that he had returned after midnight on the night of the tavern murders. Thomas De Quincey claimed that Williams had been an acquaintance of Timothy Marr, and described him as: "a man of middle stature, slenderly built, rather thin but wiry, tolerably muscular, and clear of all superfluous flesh. His hair was of the most extraordinary and vivid colour, viz., a bright yellow, something between an orange and a yellow colour". The Times was more specific: he was five-foot-nine, slender, had a "pleasing countenance," and did not limp. Williams had nursed a grievance against Marr from when they were shipmates, but the subsequent murders at The King's Arms remain unexplained. [3]Finally, a man named Williams was arrested. Before he could be questioned, he killed himself in his cell. The authorities were only too happy to accept this as an indicator of his guilt, and proclaimed the case closed. It was, insofar as there were no more murders of this type, and thus far Shepherd's story is true. The author invents a policeman with detective abilities, some years before either existed. Then he steps into even more imaginative territory, creating a parallel story of Billy Ablass, a young man who in 1564 goes to sea with the Elizabethan adventurer John Hawkins. After a slaving expedition, Ablass finds himself on a Caribbean island where the indigenous people, their lives destroyed by the conquerors, lay on him a curse that will dog him for ever. The following stations are located on or near The Highway, all in Transport for London's fare zone 2: In the 19th century, the highway was lined either side with small shops, pubs, tenement buildings and narrow, dark alleyways. At night, the area was rife with vice and crime. ‘ Ratcliffe Highway‘ is a traditional song with lyrics containing a warning to any sailors who plan to go for a drink at an alehouse on Ratcliffe Highway. Returning about half an hour later, having been unable to buy the oysters, Margaret found ‘the shop shut up, and the door fastened.’ Ringing ‘violently at the bell,’ no one answered, and instead the attention of a nearby watchman was gained.

In writing these episodes over the last month retelling the story of the Ratcliffe Highway Murders, I am primarily indebted to the conscientious work of P.D.James and T.A. Critchley in their shrewdly written book The Maul and the Pear Tree published by Faber & Faber, which stands as the definitive account, and I strongly recommend it to all who wish to learn the fuller story. In 1811, the systematic approach to crime solving that we recognise today – of suspects, clues, motive and alibi – was simply not in existence. Yet P.D.James and T.A. Critchley succeed in organising the arbitrary random scraps of evidence that survive into a coherent picture on the lines of our modern approach, and creating an exciting narrative in the process. They suggest that John Williams himself could have been an eighth victim – despatched by the killers in a staged suicide to shut him up and prevent their detection. Though to my ears this sounds overly contrived, after studying this story, I understand that it is irresistible to speculate upon a mystery that remains one of the greatest unsolved crimes in our history. You must read the book and draw your own conclusion. Despite his insistence that he was innocent, Williams was remanded to Coldbath Fields Prison, also known as the Clerkenwell Gaol, where another suspect was also incarcerated. The police were still not sure how many men were involved and confined three suspects in all.There are two notable folk songs called Ratcliffe Highway; one is a traditional folk song ( Roud 598; Ballad Index Doe114; Wiltshire 785]. The other, Roud 493, also called The Deserter and famously recorded by Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention, concerns a young man who is pressed-ganged into the navy on the Highway. New Scotland Yard can still be found close to Westminster station, the best view of the Victorian buildings being from Derby Gate. In December, 1811, all London was convulsed with terror at the tidings of the horrible slaughter wreaked at 29 Ratcliff Highway and 81 New Gravel Lane, and soon, from the Prince Regent’s table at Carlton House to the tap-room of the lowest dram-shop in Wapping, the hideous subject engrossed all. Finally, here's a short video clip of Iain Sinclair discussing the murders in 1999 whilst wandering around St George in the East: Victorian London - Districts - Streets - Ratcliff Highway Victorian London - Districts - Streets - Ratcliff Highway

If you want to get a sense of the feel of the time, Puma Court off Commercial Street was used to film scenes relating to the first set of murders for the third series of the ITV series ‘Whitechapel’, broadcast in 2012, and has changed little since the 19th century. value on land, are absolutely helpless at sea ; Swedes and Danes by time score-good mariners all of them; a few Russians, house in view, and so we proceed till we arrive at the commencement of New Gravel-lane. "All this is Long before Hollywood began catering to our innate fascination with murder, De Quincey was plumbing the depths of our darkest humanity. He first discovered James Gowan, the young apprentice, who was lying on the floor about five or six feet from the stairs, just inside the shop door. The young boy’s skull was completely smashed, his blood was dripping through the floorboards, and his brains had appeared to have been pulverised and thrown about the walls and across the counters of the shop.Those who had seen the corpses testified and the surgeon who had examined them also gave his report. The jury returned a verdict of willful murder by a person or persons unknown. It also touches on the origins and evolution