by Dr Angela Buckley | May 17, 2019 | Crime history
When Sarah Hart was murdered on New Year’s Day, the pursuit of the prime suspect became the first ever case in which the electric telegraph was used to capture a killer. On 1 January 1845, Mary Ann Ashley of Bath Place, Salt Hill, a suburb of Slough, spotted a man...
by Dr Angela Buckley | Feb 20, 2019 | Victorian detectives
Detective Jerome Caminada, of the Manchester City police force, was a true Victorian super sleuth and a real-life Sherlock Holmes. A master of disguise and an expert in deduction, he tracked shady characters and nefarious criminals through his city’s dark underworld,...
by Dr Angela Buckley | Feb 13, 2019 | French crime history
One of my favourite crime history heroes is Alphonse Bertillon, the French criminologist who began as a humble clerk and ended up developing a system for identifying criminals that was used worldwide. Alphonse Bertillon was born in Paris on 22 April 1853. Despite his...
by Dr Angela Buckley | Feb 3, 2019 | Victorian detectives
Throughout most of the 19th century, crime detection in county police forces was undertaken by uniformed officers, rather than dedicated detectives. In the Lancashire Constabulary, Superintendent James Bent fully embraced ‘detective duties’, and his adventures...
by Dr Angela Buckley | Jan 4, 2019 | Crime scene investigation
Throughout the 19th century, crime scene investigation was rather haphazard. When a suspicious death was discovered, the local police were usually called to the scene, followed by a doctor. The matter was then referred to the coroner, who organised a post mortem....
