- 19 minutes ago
First broadcast 23rd September 2013.
The rise of popular interest in murder, focusing on the murder of Maria Marten in the Red Barn, Polstead, Suffolk, UK.
Lucy Worsley - Self - Presenter (as Dr Lucy Worsley)
Rosalind Crone - Self - Lecturer in History, Open University
Michael Kirk - Self - Actor and Theatre Director
Cathy Haill - Self - Curator, V & A Museum
Vic Gammon - Self - Newcastle University
Alex McWhirter - Self - Moyse's Hall Museum, Bury St Edmunds
The rise of popular interest in murder, focusing on the murder of Maria Marten in the Red Barn, Polstead, Suffolk, UK.
Lucy Worsley - Self - Presenter (as Dr Lucy Worsley)
Rosalind Crone - Self - Lecturer in History, Open University
Michael Kirk - Self - Actor and Theatre Director
Cathy Haill - Self - Curator, V & A Museum
Vic Gammon - Self - Newcastle University
Alex McWhirter - Self - Moyse's Hall Museum, Bury St Edmunds
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:08Murder's the darkest and most despicable crime of all, and yet we're attracted to it.
00:17Grizzly crimes like these would appall us if we encountered them in real life,
00:22but something happens when they're turned into stories and safely placed between the covers of a book.
00:31If you think about people's reaction to notorious killers like Dr. Crippen,
00:36or to great detectives like Sherlock Holmes or Poirot,
00:39you'll see that this preoccupation with murder has a very long history.
00:47In this series, I'll trace its origins back to the sprawling London of the early 19th century,
00:53when newspapers first began to delight in reporting murder to a frightened public.
01:00An appetite for sensation developed as Britain became more literate and working-class people were starting to be able to
01:08read.
01:09I'll show how all this had a huge influence on Charles Dickens, who turned murder and its detection into a
01:16suitable subject for literature,
01:18and how the detective writers who followed, from Conan Doyle to Agatha Christie, distanced murder from sordid reality.
01:27They turned it into an elegant kind of crossword puzzle involving the most respectable of suspects.
01:36In this first programme, I want to begin not with fiction, but with real-life murder, 200 years ago.
01:44PIANO PLAYS
01:45PIANO PLAYS
01:45PIANO PLAYS
01:47PIANO PLAYS
02:14Grasmere in the Lake District.
02:17in 1811 the writer Thomas the Quincy was renting a cottage from his friend the poet William Wordsworth
02:24when something happened to shatter the tranquility of this lakeside village a young family had been
02:32murdered not here but 300 miles away in the docklands of London yet the news shocked
02:38Grasmere because this was something new the senseless and motiveless murder by a stranger
02:45of four people all at once in the preceding year 1810 there had only been 15 convictions for murder
02:54in the whole of Britain the Quincy was struck by the effect this crime had on the good people of
03:01Grasmere one lady my next-door neighbor never rested until she had placed 18 doors each secured
03:11by ponderous bolts and bars and chains between her own bedroom and any intruder of human build at every
03:20sixth step one was stopped by a sort of portcullis but the Quincy noticed something else besides
03:30fear in the reaction to this murder there was an element of ghoulish enjoyment too he felt that
03:38the British were turning into a nation of what he called murder fanciers the Quincy began to define
03:45what made a good murder breathlessly describing the ultra fiendishness of the crime and reveling in
03:53the murderers tiger's heart the murder that repulsed and gripped in equal measure took place in
04:00December near the church of st. George's in the east at 29 the Ratcliffe highway whopping
04:11the family who lived here were terribly young Timothy ma was a former sailor he was just 25 his wife
04:20Celia had recently given birth to their baby boy and they also had an apprentice James who was 14
04:32on the evening of the 7th of December just before midnight the ma family sent out their servant
04:38Margaret jewel into the poorly lit neighborhood to buy oysters not then a luxury but a cheap and nutritious
04:46type of street food her journey was fruitless there were no oysters to be had at this late hour
04:56on her return she found that she'd been locked out Margaret banged on the front door and called out for
05:03the Mars to open up while Margaret the maid was waiting to be let in she heard a sound inside
05:12the house
05:13she heard footsteps and the crying of the baby but nobody came to let her in she was still waiting
05:23outside at half past midnight when the night watchman came by their conversation and Margaret's banging woke up
05:31the next-door neighbor a pawnbroker and it was he who eventually got access to the house by climbing over
05:38the wall and coming in through the back door
05:49the Mars next-door neighbor now started to search the house and very soon he came across the body of
05:56James
05:56the apprentice his head had been bashed in so much so that his brains were splattered on the ceiling then
06:03he found mrs. Ma Celia she was face down crushed up against the front door then behind the shop
06:09counter there was mr. Ma also faced down just as dead as the rest of them a little crowd and
06:16gathered
06:16outside the front door so the neighbor now went running out he shouted murder murder these people
06:23outside knew the ma family and they had a question where was the baby
06:31the baby was still in his cradle but his throat had been slit
06:42into this scene of slaughter King Constable Charles Horton from the nearby marine police office at Wapping
06:50after searching the shop Horton concluded that no money had been taken he then explored the
06:57the rest of the house when he reached the bedroom he discovered the murder weapon a mall leaning
07:08against a chair a malls a special type of mallet that's used by ships carpenters it was covered with
07:22blood the Mars shop and home was now turned into a morgue and it was also open to the public
07:29in the days
07:30following the murder hundreds of people traipsed through to look at the bloodstains even to gawp at
07:36the bodies which were laid out upon the beds all ranks in society came from the finely dressed to the
07:44very poorest this sort of access to a crime scene would be utterly inconceivable today this parade of
07:53neighbors and strangers through the murder scene was motivated by fear by curiosity and a feeling that they
08:01too should look for clues and help to solve the crime Regency London which was expanding rapidly
08:08had no centralized police force policing relied on night watchmen and constables paid for by local
08:16parishes magistrates had to depend on witnesses willing to come forward with information the overcrowded
08:23streets at the East End teamed with foreign sailors crime was rising but people were more worried about
08:30about disease destitution or war than they were about being murdered but now locals began to fear every
08:36stranger in their midst without the murderer being quickly apprehended fear would soon turn to panic
08:48to discover more about the problems faced by the authorities in a case like the killing of the Mars I've
08:54come to meet Rosalind Crone at the Marine Police Museum in Wapping still located in
09:00its original 1811 building what have you got there in that big book okay well this is what we call
09:11a
09:12register a waterman's register which lists all the constables who were working for the Thames River police or
09:17the marine police in the early 19th century so if we look down the ledger here we can see the
09:23name of
09:23Charles Horton and he's the man who responds to the the Mars murderer he is he he saw the first
09:30constable on the scene the marine police were employed specifically to protect the docks and ship's cargoes from light-fingered
09:39locals it was just by chance that their man Horton was near to the Mars shop picked up the the
09:46cutlass that men would have carried for defense action yes yes that's right
09:50and he would have had a little set of handcuffs yes that's right yeah I don't think they were expecting
09:55to capture too many female criminals
09:57no no no slip out of those quite easily straight on and off and they were only one of many
10:03there were thousands of these small proto police forces across London is that right yes it was so what we've
10:09got to remember about the early 19th century is we're dealing with kind of old policing structures as opposed to
10:14kind of police force which comes in about you know the late 1820s
10:19so we we have basically policing at the local level often the parish level you know the employment of a
10:26small number of constables and then a larger force of night watchmen we've got to remember that these constables they're
10:33mainly kind of reactive they're not active they're not detectives they're not meant to be and we're dealing with a
10:39murder here that was particularly horrendous and pretty much unheard of you know among the local community this is a
10:46really really shocking act
10:47what did people think of the response of the authorities lacking they hadn't caught anyone yet and it gave people
10:53a real kind of sense of fear but also a sense of anger because the authorities look like they weren't
10:59doing enough they hadn't caught the perpetrator he was still out there at large and could commit another crime
11:13the mars neighbors in the east end showed an admirable sense of community in the face of their fear
11:22seven days after the slaying of the mars thousands lined the streets to pay their respects
11:28the funeral cortege made its way through whopping to the parish church of saint george's in the east
11:38there was a terrible sense of outrage and shock after this crime the victims were killed in their own home
11:46by strangers nobody around here felt safe
11:50there was also a good deal of sympathy for this young hard-working respectable family
11:57only two months earlier mr and mrs ma had been at the church for the christening of their son
12:03now all three of them were buried in a single grave their tombstone has disappeared but their epitaph read
12:11life is uncertain in this world
12:32so deep in mourning the east end was chilled by the realization that a brutal murderer remained at large
12:40and might strike again
12:48and then only 12 days after the killing of the mars it seemed that the same murderer visited whopping a
12:55second time
12:58on the 19th of december a very strange sight was seen outside the king's arms pub in new gravel lane
13:05the lodger who lived on the top floor of the pub started climbing out of the window he came down
13:10a rope that was made by his bed sheets
13:12people passing by in the street stopped and stared at him wondering what was going on
13:17it became clear when they heard what he was saying he was shouting murder murder
13:26a crowd soon gathered and forced its way in
13:29inside they found the bodies of the public and john williamson
13:33his wife and his servant like the mars they'd been hacked and beaten to death
13:41that night there was pandemonium fire bells were rung and drums were beaten in alarm
13:48volunteers armed with cutlasses and pistols searched houses and boats moored on the thames
13:53even london bridge was closed the desperate magistrates now demanded that anyone at all suspicious be picked up
14:00foreigners vagrants all the usual suspects
14:05valuable time was wasted on false leads
14:10and people were starting to grow angry with the authorities who failed to protect their community
14:16from what now looked like a serial killer
14:22but at last there was a breakthrough
14:24a sharp-eyed police constable noticed a clue on the murder weapon itself
14:29not before time you might think
14:31he spotted initials on the handle
14:33jp
14:34and a woman came forward to say that she knew who jp was
14:38it was john peterson
14:40a sailor from hamburg
14:42but it has to be said he had the perfect alibi
14:45on the night of the killings
14:47he'd been away at sea
14:51another lodger a 27 year old seaman called john williams
14:56quickly became the prime suspect
14:57for no other evidence than that he'd had access to them all
15:04williams was arrested and taken to cold bar fields prison for questioning
15:15williams was arrested and taken to cold bar fields prison for questioning
15:32the police and the magistrates were delighted with this outcome
15:39they'd really needed to reassure londoners that the killer was off the streets and that the case had been solved
15:46at the same time though they'd been denied the proper trial and execution to provide a sense of closure
15:58on new year's eve 1811 a cart bearing john williams's body left the prison and made its way through the
16:05streets of wapping
16:30when the procession reached the home of the mars it came to a halt
16:35the cart with the murderer's body was now directly outside their home
16:41here's the murder weapon the bloodied maul positioned by his head
16:46at this point one of the members of the crowd leapt up onto the cart
16:50and they twisted his body around so that he had to look at the home of his victims
16:55it was as if the crowd were forcing him to confront the consequences of his actions
17:04this ritual of punishment ended here at the crossroads of old cannon and cable street
17:11at the end of the procession the crowd did find its voice
17:15there were groans and cheers and shouts as john williams's body was lowered into a shallow grave
17:22at the center of the crossroads and then a stake was hammered through his heart
17:26this is traditionally what you did to a suicide to stop his or her ghost from wandering around
17:31but john williams's skeleton did go wandering a couple of decades later gas pipes were installed
17:39along here and the workmen digging the hole discovered his bones his skull somehow ended
17:45up in the possession of the landlord at the crown and dolphin
17:55the horror in wapping reached all corners of the country through illustrated one sheet publications
18:01called broadsides these sold in their hundreds of thousands
18:08a newspaper proprietors realized that sensational killings could boost circulation enormously
18:18but facts and fiction became blurred
18:22by the time the ratcliff highway story reached the lake district
18:26the murders had taken on an almost mythic quality
18:30a process that did not go unnoticed by grassmere's most curious resident
18:34thomas de quincy
18:39thomas de quincy was a complete oddball
18:42he was addicted to opium and spent a lot of his time in a sort of crazy creative dream
18:47he was an unconventional but rather brilliant writer
18:51some people think the two things are connected
18:54when he was living here at dove cottage he would produce the best known piece of writing
18:59about the ragcliff highway killings
19:05thomas de quincy's essay on murder was basically a great big tease
19:09he was setting out to provoke all the newspaper readers
19:13who'd sucked up the details of the real life crimes and relished them
19:18de quincy claims that there was this imaginary murder club
19:22for people who took things even further
19:24they were connoisseurs of crime
19:27and they believed that murder ought to be elevated
19:29into one of the fine arts
19:31this was all satirical of course
19:33at their meetings they talked about their favourite murderers
19:36and top of the tree was john williams
19:40the most accomplished practitioner yet of this new art
19:46mr williams has exalted the ideal of murder to all of us
19:50he has carried his art to a point of colossal sublimity
19:55all other murders look pale beside the deep crimson of his
20:00leave aside morality after the deed is done
20:04why not enjoy a good murder
20:07the quincy skewed this idea that we consume murder
20:12that we judge them
20:13that we like a good one with vulnerable characters
20:16and interesting developments
20:18but if a crime is dull and brutish
20:20as he said
20:21we damn it unanimously
20:24and this sense that we enjoy murder
20:27runs from de quincy's time
20:29right until the present day
20:37twenty years after the murder in wapping
20:40another killing was turned into one of the 19th century's most potent stories
20:47it would be mythologized and transformed into popular entertainment within weeks of the murder itself
20:59this story played to the growing obsession with violent crime
21:04it would be acted out not in the turbulent east end but in the sleepy suffolk village of pulse dead
21:12it was here in 1827 that a crime took place that still resonates today
21:18mariah martin and the murder in the red barn
21:25mariah martin was the daughter of the local mole catcher
21:30she lived on the edge of the village with her family and her illegitimate child
21:36in a much grander house at the center of pulse dead lived the man who would kill her
21:42this is the much grander house lived in by William Corder
21:46his father was a prosperous and God-fearing yeoman farmer
21:50in some of the stories that later sprang up around this case
21:54William Corder was described as the squire of the village
21:57but this actually makes him sound straighter than he really was
22:01he did have criminal contacts in London
22:03and when he'd been at school his friends had given him a nickname
22:06that reflected his sneaky ways they called him Foxy
22:21the third character in the story was the red barn itself
22:26which stood in a field just outside pulse dead
22:32there's a very melodramatic explanation of the name of the red barn
22:36as the sun set the evening light is supposed to have turned the barn the colour of blood
22:42giving it the reputation amongst the locals as a place of evil
22:49so it was an ideal place for secret meetings between William Corder and his lover
22:54they weren't going to be observed
22:59Friday the 18th of May was the last time that anyone in pulse dead saw Mariah alive
23:05that night she had a secret rendezvous with William Corder under the cover of darkness at the red barn
23:11she thought that they were planning to run off together
23:22for a whole year as far as Mariah's parents knew she really had eloped
23:27William Corder even wrote to them saying I have left her at Ipswich
23:32Mariah couldn't write herself he said because she'd hurt her wrist
23:38in April 1828 Mariah's stepmother began to have nightmares
23:43I have dreamt on three nights that she was murdered and buried in the red barn she said
23:50this apparent intervention by providence in the form of Mariah's stepmother's dream
23:55would become an important part of the story
23:59her father now began a search and soon found Mariah's decomposing body
24:05in the exact spot the dream predicted
24:13the prime suspect was of course William Corder
24:17he was arrested by the constables in Brentford outside London
24:21where he'd set up home with a new wife
24:24in the phenomenon De Quincey had identified
24:28the sordid red barn murder now provided excellent raw material for entertainment
24:38and in the 1820s the most theatrical way of telling the story of notorious murders was melodrama
24:45this stylized form of theatre was performed here at the Old Vic in London
24:50which had opened ten years before the events in Polstead
24:54the proper name of the theatre was the Royal Coburg
24:57but because of all the gory murder mysteries they put on here
25:01everybody called it the blood tub
25:04let's find out how that murder in sleepy suffer got turned into a smash hit melodrama
25:14melodramas were a heady mix of music and acting
25:17they had sensational plots
25:19with actors representing good and evil
25:22all to a raucous musical accompaniment
25:25for a modern audience they were rather like pantomime
25:30to learn how real-life murder was turned into this wildly popular form of entertainment
25:36I've come to meet the actor Michael Kirk
25:38so Michael what exactly is melodrama?
25:42melodrama well I suppose if we were describing melodrama nowadays
25:45we would probably describe it as over the top
25:48a story of great love great passion
25:51and they meant it
25:54it was very very important
25:56the story of a melodrama is
25:58if we don't do this we die
26:01it's that important
26:02and did the audience not mind the basic implausibility
26:06because we get coincidences
26:08we get people seeing things in dreams
26:10we get ghosts
26:11I think they loved it because it was so populist
26:16and they wouldn't just sit there and watch
26:19they would so much want to be part of the play
26:24they would expect to jeer the villain
26:29cheer the young village maiden
26:32it would have been a bloodbath out there
26:34I think it must have been every man for himself
26:37and I actually think I don't think we ought to talk about it anymore
26:40I think we ought to get up there and give it a go
26:45so it's time for curtain up for Mariah Martin
26:48or the murder in the red barn
26:55team the third inside the red barn
26:58Corda discovered digging a grave
27:00villain's music
27:03all is complete
27:05I now await my victim
27:07will she come?
27:07oh yes
27:09a woman is fool enough to do anything for the man she loves
27:15hark
27:16tis her footsteps bounding across the field
27:19she comes with love in her heart
27:21a song on her lips
27:23little does she think
27:25the death is so near
27:30William not here?
27:33where can he be?
27:34what ails me?
27:36I feel fear in my heart
27:39my limbs tremble
27:41I will return to my home
27:43stay
27:44Mariah
27:46William
27:48I'm so glad that you are here
27:51you don't know how frightened I've been
27:54did anyone see you cross the fields?
27:57not a soul
27:58not a soul
27:59I followed your instructions
28:00that's good
28:01now Mariah
28:03do you remember threatening to betray me about the child to constable Aeus?
28:08it was but a girlish fret
28:14tremolo fiddles
28:15but don't talk about that now
28:17come on let's leave this place
28:19not yet Mariah
28:20look
28:21what I have made here
28:26a grave
28:28William
28:28what do you mean?
28:31to kill you
28:32to bury your body there
28:35or a clog
28:37upon my actions
28:38a chain that keeps me from reaching ambitious heights
28:42spare me
28:44oh spare me
28:46tis no use
28:47my mind's resolved
28:48you die
28:49tonight
28:51oh
28:54you wretch
28:57oh
28:59may this crime
29:01forever be accursed
29:04thunder and lightning
29:07thank you
29:14back in real life
29:16once William Corder had been captured
29:18his story continued
29:19he was brought back to Bury St Edmunds
29:22the nearest Assize town to Polstead
29:27the trial began on the 7th of August 1828
29:31in the Shire Hall of Bury St Edmunds
29:34William Corder initially pleaded not guilty
29:37but later on he did confess
29:39he claimed that he'd shot her in the eye by accident
29:42and that the gun had gone off in his trembling hands
29:49the trial lasted just two days
29:51and the jury took only 35 minutes to reach their decision
29:57guilty
29:57guilty
30:00on the day of his hanging
30:02a huge crowd gathered outside the jail
30:05in the hope of catching a glimpse of the villain
30:08it took William Corder a long time to die
30:12around 10 minutes
30:13and that was with the hangman pulling down on his legs
30:16as the newspapers said
30:18he died hard
30:23his body was barely cold
30:26before the story of William Corder was featuring in street ballads and ale house songs
30:35at the cock inn in Polstead I'm meeting Vic Gammon to hear how the story of murder in the red
30:41barn was turned into music
30:47it's William Corder it is my name
30:53I brought my friends to grief and shame
30:57unlawful passions caused my fall
31:01and now my life must pay for all
31:07now there's a whole lot of William Corder songs aren't there that's not the only one
31:11no I've found about four of them
31:13there's one really famous one the murder of Mariah Martin
31:16is the one that really circulated in a large way
31:19it was a national hit then everybody in Britain was singing their song
31:22it was a national hit I think that's a good way to put it
31:24it's really I think the interest in the case
31:28plus the fact that there was at that time the 1820s a strong popular singing tradition
31:33people singing for themselves for recreation for fun
31:37meant things like this were a hit
31:39well let's have a sing
31:40yes let's do that
31:41come all you thoughtless young men
31:46a warning take by me
31:49and think upon my unhappy fate
31:53to be hanged upon a tree
31:56my name is William Corder
32:00to you I do declare
32:02I call to Mariah Martin
32:07most beautiful and fair
32:11supposing I was a servant in London in 1828
32:13and I wanted to learn this song
32:15how would I go about doing it?
32:16the most likely way you would learn it
32:18is from a street ballad singer
32:20there were hundreds of these people
32:22even in the mid 19th century in London
32:25they're not just buskers
32:27because they would both sing and sell the ballad at the same time
32:32and that's the way you would learn the tune
32:36we have accounts of large crowds of people standing
32:39listening to ballad singers
32:41it's a really good idea it seems to me
32:43because if everybody all across Britain is singing this
32:45it's like a massive public safety warning
32:47isn't it?
32:48it's saying don't go murdering ladies and burying them in barns
32:51it will be bad for you
32:52you will die
32:53yes I mean you can look at it that way
32:56or you can look at it on the way that the popular press
33:00both delights in
33:02and takes a sort of distance view of gory happenings and so on
33:07I think there's both the fascination and the warning element in there
33:10they're both quite strong
33:22melodramas and broadsides and ballads had made Polsted infamous
33:27murder tourists arrived wanting to visit the village
33:31to see the red barn and even to touch the grave of poor Mariah
33:37this board here tells us that Mariah Martin is buried nearby
33:43she was aged just 25 years
33:46we can't see her actual gravestone because it was chipped to pieces by souvenir hunters
33:51and there isn't a trace of it left
33:57as in many a crime story the murder in the red barn shows that we're more interested in the character
34:03and the deeds of the murderer than those of the victim
34:08William Corder's crime created a weird industry in what we might call murder souvenirs
34:14anyone who had the cash could buy one of these ceramic models of the red barn
34:20take it home have it on your own mantelpiece
34:24slightly more exclusive
34:26were knickknacks made out of the timbers of the red barn itself
34:30this is a little snuff box in the shape of a shoe
34:33the items associated with the crime were more valuable
34:37these were the actual pistols
34:40these are what he used to shoot her
34:44ascending up the scale of gruesomeness
34:46this is a book about William Corder written by a journalist from the times
34:51you'd think it was just a book until you open up the cover
34:55and you read that the leather binding is made from the skin of the murderer
35:01taken from his body and tanned by a surgeon from the Suffolk hospital
35:07the top of the tree absolutely most gruesome of all
35:12this is the back of William Corder's head
35:16it's the skin from his scalp
35:18you can see on it the little hairs
35:21and just over here is the murderer's ear
35:32the tale of Mariah Martin showed how a crime of passion in rural Suffolk
35:37could become a national source of entertainment
35:40it elevated William Corder into one of the most notorious murderers of the century
35:45and 20 years later it would be a famous murderess
35:50who would similarly enfrawl the public
35:53this attractive and apparently cold-hearted woman
35:56became infamous for her part in the crime known as the Bermondsey Horror
36:05Maria Manning was living at number 3 Miniver Place, Bermondsey, South London
36:09with her husband Frederick
36:12the year was 1849
36:16Frederick and Maria Manning were a newly married couple in their late 20s
36:21Frederick had been a guard on the railways
36:24and then he'd failed in business as a publican
36:26and now he was unemployed
36:29his wife Maria was a much more exotic character
36:33she was Swiss and she'd lived the high life as a lady's maid
36:36she'd travelled abroad and stayed in stately homes
36:39but she too had fallen on hard times
36:42now she was making ends meet as a dressmaker
36:46a frequent visitor to the Manning's house in Miniver Place
36:49was Patrick O'Connor
36:51he worked for the customs
36:53and he was rumoured to be a very wealthy man
36:57the three of them certainly had a curious relationship
37:00in fact it was scandalous
37:02this was almost certainly a love triangle
37:07on Thursday the 9th of August
37:09Patrick O'Connor told friends that he'd been invited to have dinner with the Manning's
37:14this was the last time he was seen a lie
37:20sometime during that evening he was ruthlessly killed
37:23then using his keys Maria went to his lodgings and stole his valuables
37:29including his stock and share certificates
37:32four days later O'Connor was reported missing
37:36to a now centralised Metropolitan Police
37:41on Friday the 17th of August
37:44two police constables got access to number 3 Miniver Place
37:48they were PC Barnes of the K Division
37:51and PC Burson of the M Division
37:53both of the Metropolitan Police
37:55inside the house they found a state of confusion
37:58whatever furniture had been here had disappeared
38:01and the Manning's were gone
38:03the constables reported back that the nest was still here
38:06but the birds had flown
38:09their search then took them into the back kitchen
38:13the two police constables had eagle eyes
38:16in the kitchen they noticed that one of the flagstones was loose near the half
38:21they soon had it up and there was O'Connor
38:24he was naked he'd been trussed up
38:27he'd been tossed in quicklime
38:29and his dead body was now blue
38:33the hunt for the murderers was now on
38:36led by the newly formed detective branch of the Metropolitan Police
38:41under Inspector Charles Field
38:43the Bermondsey horror was a chance for them to prove themselves
38:48first field's men had to track the Manning's down
38:52but where were they?
38:54the Manning's had split up and run in different directions
38:58it seems that Maria had gone off first
39:00without the knowledge of her husband
39:02but with the couple's stolen wealth
39:05the Manning's had robbed O'Connor and they killed him
39:08and on top of that Maria had double crossed her husband
39:13Maria fled north to Scotland
39:15while the hapless Frederick caught a steamer to the Channel Islands
39:20to discover more about how the detectives were able to trace the Manning's
39:24I met up again with Rosalind Crone in South London
39:31in 1811 when we have the Radcliffe Highway murders
39:34there's a slightly chaotic response from the authorities
39:37but things are very different by the time of the Manning's aren't they?
39:40yes, what we see is a much more joined up in a system of policing
39:43but more significantly is they're joined by a new detective force
39:46now the Metropolitan Police force in 1829
39:49are meant to be very much a preventing crime force
39:53so they patrol beats and they keep a watch over people and property
39:57the detective force that's founded in 1842
39:59are meant to detect crime, a slightly different function
40:02but they're only a small office at this stage
40:05about eight men in total in their office in Scotland Yard
40:08so we've got this new detective squad
40:10and they're allowed actually to go after the criminals for the first time
40:14how did they actually catch Maria?
40:16first of all, the detective sergeant who is sent out to have a look at the house
40:20is able to track down the cab driver who takes Maria to the station
40:29he's able to figure out that she goes to Euston station and gets on a train bound for Edinburgh
40:38then he's able to use telegraphic communication to wire up a message to his colleagues
40:42the Edinburgh police putting out a description of Maria
40:46which they circulate and are able to track her down
40:51Maria was arrested in Edinburgh
40:55shortly afterwards, Frederick was apprehended in St. Helia
41:00this was a coup for the new team at Scotland Yard
41:03their success in catching the Mannings was the first time the public became conscious of their emerging role
41:10investigating homicide
41:22on the 25th of October 1849 the Mannings, husband and wife, were brought to the greatest theatre in the land
41:30the Central Criminal Court, better known as the Old Bailey
41:40for the ever curious British public, this latest melodrama was reaching its climax
41:46they'd met a new hero, the detective, who could hunt down and capture the killer
41:52and murder itself had entered the modern age
41:56the perpetrators fleeing by train, the sleuths tracking them down by telegraph
42:01the stage was set for the finale the nation had been waiting for
42:08numerous distinguished visitors would now turn up to watch the show
42:12there were members of the House of Lords
42:14and some very grand foreign diplomats like the Austrian ambassador
42:18and the first secretary to the Prussian delegation
42:22all the action would happen in court number one
42:39Maria made the fateful climb from the cells below to put in her most important public appearance
42:46she was dressed to kill in her usual close-fitting dress of fine black satin
42:58the charges are read out
43:00Frederick George Manning is accused of murdering Patrick O'Connor
43:04aided by his wife Maria Manning
43:07both of them plead not guilty
43:14the court heard that O'Connor had been shot through the eye and received 17 blows to the head that
43:21had smashed his skull
43:23there were details to suggest that this was a premeditated crime
43:27in the weeks before O'Connor's disappearance the Mannings had bought a crowbar from an ironmonger in King William Street
43:34a shovel from a shop in Thule Street
43:37and quick line from a builder in Bermondsey Square
43:41and it wasn't the only damning evidence that Maria faced
43:45by the second day she seemed to be on trial not only for being a killer but also for being
43:51a woman
43:53to save his client from the gallows
43:56Frederick's defense barrister chose to blame Maria for the crime
44:00he demonized her as that most terrible of creatures
44:04a female of loose models
44:06quite capable of doing the foul deed on her own
44:09we are all in the habit
44:12he says of associating the female character with the idea of mildness and obedience
44:19the female is capable of reaching a higher point in virtue than the male
44:24but when she gives way to vice she sinks far lower
44:30the court deliberated for two days and then the jury withdrew for 45 minutes
44:36when they came back it was with a verdict of guilty
44:46Frederick Manning is given the opportunity to address the whole court
44:50but he turns it down
44:52Maria is given the same chance and she takes it
44:56she lets rip
44:58there is no justice for a foreigner in this country
45:02I have no protection from the judges or my husband
45:09in the middle of this explosive rant
45:11Maria grabs the herbs used as air fresheners in the court
45:15and hurls them at the judge
45:17I am unjustly condemned by the court
45:23shameful England
45:27Maria Manning and her black satin dress
45:30would cast a really long shadow over years to come
45:33she became known as the Lady Macbeth of Bermondsey
45:37and she inspired Charles Dickens
45:39he refashioned her as Hortense the ladies maid
45:43who turns out to be the killer in Bleak House
45:46and she was immortalised in wax
45:49her figure at Madame Tussauds became so popular
45:53that it was still on display there when I first visited the gallery in the 1970s
46:02the case was the sensation of the age
46:05yes there was sex, greed and treachery
46:09but there was much more
46:11there was detection by methodical police work
46:15bringing with it a new and satisfying kind of resolution for the public
46:33the execution of the Mannings took place on the 13th of November
46:37up on the roof of the Horsemonger Lane jail
46:40this was pure theatre, a huge crowd was expected
46:45so three days beforehand the surrounding streets were all cleared
46:49and barricades were erected
46:51on the day it was estimated that 50,000 people turned up
46:55with 500 policemen to maintain order
46:59hangings were getting increasingly scarce
47:01particularly for females
47:02so this double dose of husband and wife
47:05was a complete treat for execution lovers
47:09changes in the law back in the 1820s meant that the death penalty
47:13was now reserved only for treason or murder
47:17previously it had been applied to a whole range of crimes
47:21so by 1849 a public hanging was a real occasion
47:26which is why Charles Dickens chose to observe this one
47:33he and a group of his friends rented a room overlooking the jail
47:37and they held a sort of a party as events unfolded
47:40now Dickens was fascinated by murder and murderers
47:44he was also in favour of capital punishment
47:47he believed that they should hang for their crimes
47:49but what really upset him on this occasion
47:53was the ghoulish and disrespectful behaviour of the crowd
48:01outside the jail the crowd waited for showtime
48:04they sang mocking songs and ate commemorative biscuits
48:11we hear that inside in private there was a final reconciliation between Frederick and Maria
48:18they ascended to the gallows as husband and wife
48:27the Mannings were hanged side by side
48:30on a scaffold that had been lifted up to give maximum visibility
48:35and theatricality to the grim business
48:39Maria was defiant and stylish to the end
48:42wearing her black satin dress and gloves for her final appearance
48:49she died with dignity
49:00the case of the Mannings was a turning point in the history of crime
49:04it had been a case played out in public
49:07a ghastly melodrama with the nation sucking up every gory detail
49:13but it was also a case that had been solved by the new metropolitan police force
49:18its constables and especially its detectives
49:22a new chapter in the history of murder was about to begin
49:26in the history of crime
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