The London Month of the Dead is my favourite annual festival. Throughout the month of October, there are lots of fascinating talks, walks and workshops on ‘dark’ topics such as exhumation, taxidermy, witchcraft and the plague, all set in suitably quirky locations including cemeteries, chapels of rest and even charnel houses. This year was the second time I’ve given a talk, which was on The Golden Age of Detection: The Dawn of Modern Forensic Science.
Although this time I was presenting in the rather fancy setting of the Century Club, in Soho, the weather was suitably dark and gloomy, with torrential rain. The lights were low and the seats were full. This was the topic of my talk:
The early decades of the twentieth century were known as the Golden Age of Detective Fiction with stories from the pens of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers. In real life, however, murder was even more dramatic, with sinister characters, complex crimes and plenty of plot twists. Join crime historian and author Angela Buckley for a fascinating glimpse into some of the most sensational true crime cases of the early twentieth century and the forensic science that helped solve them.
Angela’s talk will feature legendary detectives and their sleuthing activities, and the pioneering exploits of ‘celebrity’ pathologist, Sir Bernard Spilsbury and his dazzling court performances. It will reveal the groundbreaking advances in forensic science and crime scene investigation techniques in the early 1900s, such as toxicology, blood spatter analysis, fire investigation and victim identification, which brought some of the most notorious killers to justice in iconic historical murder cases, such as the Brides in the Bath Murders, the Crumbles Murder and the Blazing Car Mystery.
I began by summarising the early forensic methods used by Victorian detectives and pathologists, before moving into the twentieth century. The iconic historical crime cases were: the murder of Eliza Barrow by Frederick Seddon; the infamous ‘Brides in the Bath’ murderer, George Joseph Smith; the brutal killing of Emily Kaye by Patrick Mahon; and the puzzling case of the Blazing Car Murder, the perpetrator of which was Alfred Arthur Rouse. In each, I revealed how forensic science had contributed to the investigation and helped lead to conviction.
After the talk, there were lots of questions by the audience, including the criminal justice system, the links with detective fiction, and there was a rather detailed discussion of how the ‘brides’ were drowned in their baths. I had a wonderful evening and it is always a pleasure to take part in such a fabulous festival.
You can find out more about the London Month of the Dead here.