All language subtitles for BBC A Very British Murder with Lucy Worsley - 01x01 - The New Taste for Blood.HDTV.x264.MVGroup.English.updated.Addic7ed.com

Murder's the darkest
and most despicable crime of all,

and yet we're attracted to it.

Grisly crimes like these
would appal us

if we encountered them in real life.

But something happens
when they're turned into stories

and safely placed
between the covers of a book.

If you think about people's reaction

to notorious killers
like Dr Crippen,

or to great detectives
like Sherlock Holmes or Poirot,

you'll see that this preoccupation
with murder has a very long history.

In this series, I'll trace
its origins

back to the sprawling London
of the early 19th century,

when newspapers first began
to delight in reporting murder

to a frightened public.

An appetite for sensation developed
as Britain became more literate,

and working-class people
were starting to be able to read.

I'll show how all this had
a huge influence on Charles Dickens,

who turned murder and its detection

into a suitable subject
for literature,

and how the detective writers
who followed,

from Conan Doyle to Agatha
Christie, distanced murder

from sordid reality.

They turned it into an elegant
kind of crossword puzzle,

involving the most
respectable of suspects.

In this first programme,
I want to begin not with fiction,

but with real-life murder,
200 years ago.

Grasmere, in the Lake District.

In 1811, the writer
Thomas De Quincey

was renting a cottage from his
friend, the poet William Wordsworth,

when something happened

to shatter the tranquillity
of this lakeside village.

A young family had been murdered -

not here, but 300 miles
away in the docklands of London.

Yet the news shocked Grasmere,
because this was something new,

a senseless and motiveless murder
by a stranger

of four people, all at once.

In the preceding year, 1810,

there had only been 15 convictions
for murder in the whole of Britain.

De Quincey was struck by the effect
this crime had

on the good people of Grasmere.

"One lady, my next door neighbour,

"never rested until she had placed
18 doors,

"each secured by ponderous bolts
and bars and chains,

"between her own bedroom
and any intruder of human build.

"At every sixth step, one was stopped
by a sort of portcullis."

But De Quincey noticed
something else besides fear

in the reaction to this murder.

There was an element
of ghoulish enjoyment.

He felt that the British

were turning into a nation of
what he called murder-fanciers.

Quincey began to define
what made a good murder,

breathlessly describing
the ultra-fiendishness of the crime

and revelling in the murderer's
"tiger's heart".

The murder that repulsed
and gripped in equal measure

took place in December,

near the church
of St George's in the East,

at 29, the Ratcliff Highway,
Wapping.

The family who lived here
were terribly young.

Timothy Marr was a former sailor.
He was just 25.

His wife, Celia, had recently given
birth to their baby boy,

and they also had an apprentice,
James, who was 14.

On the evening of 7th December,
just before midnight,

the Marr family sent
out their servant, Margaret Jewell,

into the poorly-lit
neighbourhood to buy oysters,

not then a luxury, but a cheap
and nutritious type of street food.

Her journey was fruitless.

There were no oysters
to be had at this late hour.

On her return, she found
that she had been locked out.

Margaret banged on the front door

and called out for the Marrs
to open up.

While Margaret the maid
was waiting to be let in,

she heard a sound inside the house.

She heard footsteps,
and the crying of the baby.

But nobody came to let her in.

She was still waiting
outside at half past midnight

when the night watchman came by.

Their conversation
and Margaret's banging

woke up the next door neighbour,
a pawnbroker,

and it was he who eventually got
access to the house

by climbing over the wall
and coming in through the back door.

The Marrs' next door neighbour
now started to search the house,

and very soon, he came across
the body of James, the apprentice.

His head had been bashed in,

so much so that his brains
were splattered on the ceiling.

Then he found Mrs Marr, Celia.

She was face down, crushed up
against the front door.

Then behind the shop counter,
there was Mr Marr, also face down,

just as dead as the rest of them.

A little crowd had gathered
outside the front door,

so the neighbour now went running
out. He shouted "Murder! Murder!"

These people outside knew the Marr
family, and they had a question.

Where was the baby?

The baby was still in his cradle...

but his throat had been slit.

Into this scene of slaughter
came Constable Charles Horton,

from the nearby
marine police office at Wapping.

After searching the shop,

Horton concluded that no money
had been taken.

He then explored
the rest of the house.

When he reached the bedroom,
he discovered the murder weapon,

a maul, leaning against a chair.

A maul is a special type of mallet
used by ships' carpenters.

It was covered with blood.

The Marrs' shop and home
was now turned into a morgue,

and it was also open to the public.

In the days following the murder,

hundreds of people traipsed through
to look at the bloodstains,

even to gawp at the bodies
which were laid out upon the beds.

All ranks in society came, from
the richest to the very poorest.

This sort of access to a crime scene

would be utterly inconceivable
today.

This parade of neighbours and
strangers through the murder scene

was motivated by fear, by curiosity

and a feeling that they too
should look for clues

and help to solve the crime.

Regency London,
which was expanding rapidly,

had no centralised police force.

Policing relied on night watchmen
and constables,

paid for by local parishes.

Magistrates had to depend
on witnesses

willing to come forward
with information.

The overcrowded streets of the East
End teemed with foreign sailors.

Crime was rising,

but people were more worried
about disease, destitution or war

than they were about being murdered.

But now, locals began to fear
every stranger in their midst.

Without the murderer being
quickly apprehended,

fear would soon turn to panic.

To discover more about the problems
faced by the authorities

in a case like
the killing of the Marrs,

I've come to meet Rosalind Crone

at the Marine Police Museum
in Wapping,

still located in its original
1811 building.

What have you got
there in that big book?

This is what we call a register,

which lists all the constables
who were working

for the Thames River Police,
or the Marine Police,

in the early 19th century.

So if we look down the ledger here,

we can see the name
of Charles Horton.

And he's the man who responds
to the Marrs' murder? He is.

He's the first constable
on the scene.

The Marine Police were employed
specifically

to protect the docks and ships'
cargoes from light-fingered locals.

It was just by chance
that their man, Horton,

was near to the Marrs' shop.

You've picked up the cutlass
that men would have carried for...

Defence? Protection, yes.

And he would have had
a little set of handcuffs, too.

I don't think they were expecting

to capture too many female criminals
through those.

No, you'd slip out of those easily.
Straight on and off.

And they were only one of many.

There were thousands of these small
proto-police forces across London?

Yes. What we've got to remember about
the early 19th century is,

we are dealing with
old policing structures,

as opposed to a police force, which
comes in in about the late 1820s.

So we have, basically,
policing at a local level,

often the parish level,

with the employment
of a small number of constables

and then a larger force of
night watchmen.

We've got to remember that these
constables are mainly reactive.

They're not active.
They're not detectives.

And we are dealing with a murder here
that was particularly horrendous

and pretty much unheard of
among the local community.

This is a really shocking act.

What did people think
of the response of the authorities?

Lacking. They hadn't caught anyone
yet,

and it gave people
a real sense of fear,

but also a sense of anger,

because the authorities looked like
they weren't doing enough.

They hadn't caught the perpetrator.

He was still out there at large,
and could commit another crime.

To find the killer,
the authorities relied on rewards.

In Wapping, the magistrates
first offered a reward of ã50.

Then other parishes
and the Home Office

chipped in to increase this
to ã700, a staggering sum.

How did the news spread outside
the immediate neighbourhood?

How did it get outside London?

When a crime happened,

especially a particularly
notorious crime such as this one,

with fairly salacious details,
news spreads quickly -

first of all through newspapers,

newspapers that are mainly
bought by more affluent people

because they're quite expensive.

A key thing is that you don't have
to be able to read to get the news?

That's right. News is read aloud.

Newspapers are read aloud in
public houses and coffee shops.

Some people in streets would
club together to buy a newspaper

and read it to each other.

The Marrs' neighbours
in the East End

showed an admirable sense of
community in the face of their fear.

Seven days after
the slaying of the Marrs,

thousands lined the streets
to pay their respects.

The funeral cortege made its way
through Wapping

to the parish church of
St George's in the East.

There was a terrible sense of
outrage and shock after this crime.

The victims were killed
in their own home by strangers.

Nobody around here felt safe.

There was also a good deal
of sympathy

for this young, hard-working,
respectable family.

Only two months earlier,

Mr and Mrs Marr had been
at the church

for the christening of their son.

Now, all three of them
were buried in a single grave.

Their tombstone has disappeared,

but their epitaph read
"Life is uncertain in this world".

Though deep in mourning, the East
End was chilled by the realisation

that a brutal murderer remained
at large, and might strike again.

And then, only 12 days
after the killing of the Marrs,

it seemed that the same murderer
visited Wapping a second time.

On 19th December,
a very strange sight was seen

outside the King's Arms pub
in New Gravel Lane.

The lodger who lived
on the top floor of the pub

started climbing out of the window.

He came down a rope
that was made by his bedsheets.

People passing by in the streets
stopped and stared at him,

wondering what was going on.

It became clear
when they heard what he was saying.

He was shouting "Murder! Murder!"

A crowd soon gathered
and forced its way in.

Inside, they found the bodies
of the publican, John Williams,

his wife and his servant.

Like the Marrs, they had been hacked
and beaten to death.

That night, there was pandemonium.

Fire bells were rung
and drums were beaten in alarm.

Volunteers armed with cutlasses
and pistols

searched houses and boats moored
on the Thames.

Even London Bridge was closed.

The desperate magistrates
now demanded

that anyone at all suspicious
be picked up -

foreigners, vagrants,
all the usual suspects.

Valuable time was
wasted on false leads.

And people were starting to grow
angry with the authorities,

who failed to protect
their community

from what now looked like
a serial killer.

But at last, there was
a breakthrough.

A sharp-eyed police constable

noticed a clue on the murder weapon
itself,

not before time, you might think.

He spotted initials on the handle,
JP,

and a woman came forward
to say that she knew who JP was.

It was John Peterson,
a sailor from Hamburg.

But, it has to be said,
he had the perfect alibi.

On the night of the killings,
he had been away at sea.

Another lodger, a 27-year-old seaman
called John Williams,

quickly became the prime suspect,

from no other evidence than
that he'd had access to the maul.

Williams was arrested

and taken to Cold Bath Fields
prison for questioning.

Two days after Christmas,

the prison guards found
his lifeless body

hanging from an iron bar
in his cell.

Because John Williams had committed
suicide,

everybody instantly jumped
to the conclusion

that this was an admission of guilt.

He killed himself
to cheat the hangman.

The police and the magistrates
were delighted with this outcome.

They'd really needed to reassure
Londoners

that the killer was off the streets
and that the case had been solved.

At the same time, though, they had
been denied the proper trial

and execution to provide
a sense of closure.

On New Year's Eve, 1811,

a cart bearing John Williams'
body left the prison

and made its way through the streets
of Wapping.

It was a very public display

that the authorities had at last
got their man.

Shops were shut,
and blinds were drawn.

There is little evidence
that Williams really was guilty,

but scapegoat or not,

his dead body was used
to placate the people of Wapping.

When the procession reached the home
of the Marrs, it came to a halt.

The cart with the murderer's body
was now directly outside their home.

Here's the murder weapon,
the bloodied maul,

positioned by his head.
At this point,

one of the members of the crowd
leaped up onto the cart,

and they twisted his body around

so that he had to look at the home
of his victims.

It was as if the crowd
were forcing him

to confront the consequences
of his actions.

This ritual of punishment ended here

at the crossroads of
old Cannon and Cable Street.

At the end of the procession,
the crowd did find its voice.

There were groans
and cheers and shouts

as John Williams' body was lowered
into a shallow grave

at the centre of the crossroads,

and then a stake
was hammered through his heart.

This was traditionally
what you did to a suicide,

to stop his or her ghost
from wandering around.

But John Williams'
skeleton did go wandering.

A couple of decades later,
gas pipes were installed along here,

and the workmen digging the hole
discovered his bones.

His skull somehow ended up
in the possession of the landlord

at the Crown and Dolphin.

The horror in Wapping reached
all corners of the country

through illustrated, one-sheet
publications called broadsides.

These sold in their hundreds
of thousands.

Newspaper proprietors realised
that sensational killings

could boost circulation enormously.

But fact and fiction became blurred.

By the time the Ratcliff Highway
story reached the Lake District,

the murders had taken on
an almost mythic quality,

a process that did not go unnoticed

by Grasmere's most curious
resident, Thomas De Quincey.

Thomas de Quincey
was a complete oddball.

He was addicted to opium,

and spent a lot of his time
in a sort of crazy, creative dream.

He was an unconventional,
but rather brilliant writer.

Some people think the two
things are connected.

When he was living here
at Dove Cottage, he would produce

the best-known piece of writing
about the Ratcliff Highway killings.

Thomas De Quincey's essay on murder
was basically a great, big tease.

He was setting out to provoke
all the newspaper readers

who had sucked up the details of the
real-life crimes and relished them.

De Quincey claimed that there
was this imaginary murder club

for people who took things
even further.

They were connoisseurs of crime,

and they believed that murder
ought to be elevated

into one of the fine arts.
This was all satirical, of course.

At their meetings, they talked
about their favourite murderers,

and top of the tree
was John Williams,

the most accomplished practitioner
yet of this new act.

"Mr Williams has exalted
the ideal of murder to all of us.

"He has carried his art to
a point of colossal sublimity.

"All other murders look pale
beside the deep crimson of his.

"Leave aside morality
after the deed is done.

"Why not enjoy a good murder?"

De Quincey's satirical musings on
the dark side of human nature

might well have been fuelled
by his heavy,

if not excessive, use of opium.

This amazing thing is Thomas
De Quincey's set of opium scales.

Today, his drug-taking sounds
really squalid and debauched.

But actually, opium
was quite an established part

of 19th-century life.
It wasn't illegal.

You could buy the powder
at the chemist's,

or you might take it in liquid form.

This is tincture of opium.

There's actual drugs in there.

And this is Kendal Black Drop,
a famous local brand.

You might give this to your baby
if it cried,

or to kill the toothache,

which was how Thomas de Quincey
himself got started.

He would take his laudanum,

or tincture, in a glass of brandy,

thereby getting addicted
to alcohol at the same time.

And his consumption
was extraordinary -

8,000 drops a day, we hear,
or a whole ounce.

This isn't opium, it's ginger,
but that's a whole ounce.

He would take that in a single day.

If you did that without being used
to it, it would clearly kill you.

Drug-inspired or not, De Quincey
gives us a fundamental insight

that we all enjoy a good murder,

although sometimes
we're reluctant to admit it.

De Quincey skewered this idea
that we consume murder,

that we judge them, that we like a
good one, with vulnerable characters

and interesting developments.

But if a crime is dull and brutish,
as he said, we damn it unanimously.

And this sense that we enjoy murder

runs from De Quincey's time
right until the present day.

20 years after the murder
in Wapping,

another killing was turned

into one of the 19th century's
most potent stories.

It would be mythologized

and transformed into popular
entertainment

within weeks of the murder itself.

This story played to the growing
obsession with violent crime.

It would be acted out
not in the turbulent East End,

but in the sleepy Suffolk
village of Polstead.

It was here, in 1827,

that a crime took place
that still resonates today.

Maria Marten
and the murder in the red barn.

Maria Marten was the daughter
of the local mole catcher.

She lived on the edge of the village
with her family

and her illegitimate child.

In a much grander house
at the centre of Polstead

lived the man who would kill her.

This is the much grander house
lived in by William Corder.

His father was a prosperous
and God-fearing yeoman farmer.

In some of the stories that later
sprang up around this case,

William Corder was described
as the squire of the village,

but this actually makes him
sound straighter than he really was.

He did have criminal
contacts in London,

and when he'd been at school,

his friends had given him a nickname
that reflected his sneaky ways.

They called him Foxy.

The third character in the story
was the red barn itself,

which stood in a field
just outside Polstead.

There is a very melodramatic
explanation

of the name of the red barn.

As the sun set,
the evening light is supposed

to have turned the barn
the colour of blood,

giving it the reputation amongst
the locals as a place of evil.

So it was an ideal place

for secret meetings between
William Corder and his lover.

They weren't going to be observed.

Friday, 18th May was the last time

that anyone in Polstead
saw Maria alive.

That night, she had a secret
rendezvous with William Corder

under the cover of darkness
at the red barn.

She thought that they were planning
to run off together.

For a whole year, as far as Maria's
parents knew, she really had eloped.

William Corder even wrote to them
saying "I have left her at Ipswich".

Maria couldn't write herself,
he said,

because she had hurt her wrist.

In April 1828, Maria's stepmother
began to have nightmares.

"I have dreamt on three nights
that she was murdered

"and buried in the red barn",
she said.

This apparent intervention by
providence

in the form of Maria's stepmother's
dream

would become an important part
of the story.

Her father now began a search,

and soon found Maria's
decomposing body

in the exact spot
the dream predicted.

The prime suspect was, of course,
William Corder.

He was arrested by the constables
in Brentford, outside London,

where he had set up home
with a new wife.

In the phenomenon De Quincey had
identified,

the sordid red barn murder

now provided excellent raw material
for entertainment.

And in the 1820s,
the most theatrical way

of telling the story of
notorious murders was melodrama.

This stylised form of theatre was
performed here

at the Old Vic in London,

which had opened ten years
before the events in Polstead.

The proper name of the theatre
was the Royal Coburg,

but because of all the gory
murder mysteries they put on here,

everybody called it the Blood Tub.

Let's find out how that murder
in sleepy Suffolk

got turned into
a smash hit melodrama.

Melodramas were a heady mix
of music and acting.

They had sensational plots,

with actors representing good
and evil,

all to a raucous musical
accompaniment.

For a modern audience,
they were rather like pantomime.

To learn how real-life murder

was turned into this wildly
popular form of entertainment,

I've come to meet the actor
Michael Kirk.

Michael, what exactly is melodrama?

I suppose if we were
describing melodrama nowadays,

we would probably describe
it as over the top.

A story of great love,
great passion...and they meant it.

It was very, very important.

The story of a melodrama is,
"If we don't do this, we die."

It's that important.

And did the audience not mind
the basic implausibility?

Because we get coincidences,

we get people seeing things
in dreams, ghosts.

I think they loved it,
because it was so popular.

And they loved to know
what was going on.

They didn't want mystery
or anything like that.

They wanted to know who the villain
was, who the heroine was,

and that was very important. And they
wouldn't just sit there and watch.

They would so much want
to be part of the play.

The catcalls and the mayhem
allowed people to let off steam.

Safe in their seats,

the audience always enjoyed seeing
justice being done,

the murderer being punished
and order restored.

They would expect to jeer
the villain,

cheer the young village maiden.

It would have been
a bloodbath out there.

I think it must have been
every man for himself.

And I actually don't think we ought
to talk about it any more.

We ought to go up there
and give it a go.

So it's time for curtain up
for Maria Marten,

or The Murder In The Red Barn.

Scene the third,
inside the red barn.

Corder, discovered digging a grave.

Villain's music.

SOMBRE MUSIC

All is complete.
I now await my victim. Will she come?

Oh, yes. A woman is fool enough

to do anything for the man she loves.

Hark! It is her footsteps
bounding across the field.

She comes with love in her heart,
a song on her lips.

Little does she think that death
is so near.

William not here?

Where can he be? What ails me?
I feel fear in my heart.

My limbs tremble.
I will return to my home.

Stay, Maria.

William!
I'm so glad that you are here.

You don't know how frightened
I've been.

Did anyone see you cross the fields?
Not a soul.

I followed your instructions.
That's good. Now, Maria,

do you remember threatening to betray
me about the child to the constable?

It was but a girlish threat.

Tremolo fiddles.

But don't talk about that now.
Let's leave this place.

Not yet, Maria.

Look what I have made here.

A grave! William, what do you mean?

To kill you! To bury your body there.

You are a clog upon my actions,

a chain that keeps me from reaching
ambitious heights.

Spare me! Oh, spare me!

It is no use. My mind's resolved.

You die tonight!

Aaagh!

Oh, you wretch!

Oh! May this crime
forever be accursed.

Thunder and lightning.

THUNDER CRASHES

Thank you.

APPLAUSE

It wasn't only in cities and towns

that people could enjoy
murderous melodramas.

They also appeared in the repertoire
of travelling marionette theatres.

The story of the red barn
was being performed at country fairs

even before William Corder
stood trial.

Oh, Maria, hello!
You've come! You've come!

And these belonged to a company
that actually toured East Anglia?

Yes, so we know that this company
performed Maria Marten.

What was it like to go and see
a puppet show?

Oh, incredibly exciting.

Not only was it exciting to see
the characters,

it was also exciting to see
the scenery,

because they had
proper puppet scenery.

It was a miniature version
of being in any theatre.

So this is not for children
and it's not just funny,

these are important points?
Absolutely.

They did a whole range
of different types of plays.

They did everything that was
exciting or amusing the people.

So they did the melodramas
and the murders.

People in outlying rural areas

would have really looked forward
to the marionette theatre coming.

Even from a distance,

you can tell that William Corder
here is the villain.

He's got a very villainous
moustache.

Yes, and he's got glassy,
staring eyes.

Oh, William!
I cannot wait until we are together.

Well, that's what you think, but
I haven't brought you here for love.

I've brought you here,
my girl, to kill you!

Oh, William! Do not treat me so!

Die, woman!

Back in real life, once
William Corder had been captured,

his story continued. He was brought
back to Bury St Edmunds,

the nearest assize town to Polstead.

The trial began on 7th August 1828,

in the Shire Hall
of Bury St Edmunds.

William Corder
initially pleaded not guilty,

but later on, he did confess.

He claimed that he had shot her
in the eye by accident,

and that the gun had gone off
in his trembling hands.

The trial lasted just two days,

and the jury took only 35 minutes
to reach their decision.

Guilty.

On the day of his hanging,

a huge crowd gathered outside
the jail,

in the hope of catching
a glimpse of the villain.

It took William Corder a long time
to die, around ten minutes,

and that was with the hangman
pulling down on his legs.

As the newspapers said,
he died hard.

His body was barely cold

before the story of William Corder

was featuring in street ballads
and alehouse songs.

At the Cock Inn in Polstead,
I'm meeting Vic Gammon

to hear how the story of Murder In
The Red Barn was turned into music.

♪ It's William Corder, it is my name

♪ I brought my friends to grief
and shame

♪ Unlawful passions caused my fall

♪ And now my life must pay for all. ♪

Now, there's a whole lot of William
Corder songs, aren't there,
that's not the only one?

No, I've found about four of them.

There's one really famous one.
The Murder Of Maria Marten

is the one that really circulated
in a large way.

It was a national hit, then?

It was a national hit,
that's a good way to put it.

It's really the interest
in the case,

plus the fact that there
was at that time, the 1820s,

a strong popular singing tradition -

people singing for themselves,
for recreation, for fun -

that meant things like this
were a hit. Well, let's have a sing.

Yes, let's.

♪ Come, all you thoughtless young men

♪ A warning take by me

♪ And think upon my unhappy fate
to be hanged upon the tree

♪ My name is William Corder

♪ To you I do declare

♪ I courted Maria Marten

♪ Most beautiful and fair. ♪

Supposing I was
a servant in London in 1928

and I wanted to learn this song,
how would I go about doing it?

The most likely way
you would learn it

is from a street ballad singer.

There were hundreds of these people,

even in the mid-19th century
in London.

They're not just buskers,

because they would both sing and sell
the ballad at the same time,

and that's the way
you would learn the tune.

We have accounts of large crowds
of people standing

listening to ballad singers.

It's a really good idea,

because if everybody
across Britain is singing this,

it's like a massive
public safety warning,

saying "Don't go murdering ladies
and burying them in barns.

"It will be bad for you.
You will die".

Yes! You can look at it that way,

or you can look at it on the way
that the popular press

both delights in and takes
a sort of distanced view

of gory happenings and so on.

There's both the fascination
and the warning element in there.

They're both quite strong.

The lesson of the song is,
though, don't do it, isn't it?

Although they are taking
a bit of pleasure

in the "bleeding, mangled body".

Shall we try the "bleeding, mangled"
verse? Yeah, I like that one.

♪ With heart so light
she thought no harm

♪ To meet him she did go

♪ He murdered her all in the barn
and laid her body low

♪ And after the horrible deed
was done

♪ She lay weltering in her gore

♪ Her bleeding, mangled body
he buried

♪ Beneath the red barn floor. ♪

That's ridiculously ghoulish!

The blood, the body, the mangling,
ugh!

Murder is not a nice thing, and this
is relishing in that detail.

The voice of an angel.

GLASSES CLINK

Melodramas and broadsides
and ballads

had made Polstead infamous.

Murder tourists arrived,
wanting to visit the village

to see the red barn, and even
to touch the grave of poor Maria.

This board here tells us
that Maria Marten is buried nearby.

She was aged just 25 years.

We can't see her actual gravestone

because it was chipped to
pieces by souvenir hunters,

and there isn't a trace of it left.

As in many a crime story,

the murder in the red barn
shows that we are more interested

in the character and the deeds
of the murderer

than those of the victim.

William Corder's crime
created a weird industry

in what we might call
murder souvenirs.

Anyone who had the cash

could buy one of these ceramic
models of the red barn,

take it home
and have it on your own mantelpiece.

Slightly more exclusive

were knick-knacks made out of
the timbers of the red barn itself.

This is a little snuffbox
in the shape of a shoe.

The items associated with the crime
were more valuable.

These were the actual pistols.
These are what he used to shoot her.

Ascending up the scale
of gruesomeness,

this is a book about William Corder,

written by a journalist
from The Times.

You'd think it was just a book,
until you open up the cover

and you read that
the leather binding is made

from the skin of the murderer,

taken from his body
and tanned by a surgeon

from the Suffolk Hospital.

But top of the tree,
absolutely most gruesome of all,

this is the back
of William Corder's head.

It's the skin from his scalp.

You can see on it the little hairs,

and just over here
is the murderer's ear.

Phrenologists were also keen
to study Corder's head,

because they thought
the lumps and bumps on it

represented the homicidal
aspects of his personality.

What is this?

This is a full 3-D bust
of William Corder, taken from death.

It does bear some of the grim
signs

of his death by strangulation
and asphyxiation.

If you look at the front

where you can see the lips
and the nose are swollen,

that is where all the blood
vessels are bursting in his face.

Here, you can see someone
struggling through death.

Tell me what happened to
William Corder's body afterwards.

He would have probably been left
to hang for about an hour,

just to make sure
he was certainly dead.

Then he would have been
taken down to the Shire Hall,

where basically, they would
have publicly anatomised him.

So I'm getting an impression
of this dead body

being brought into the Shire Hall
over there,

and swarms of people coming to
examine it, all in public? Yes.

Presumably, it would have been

the same sort of grand day out
as the execution.

If you missed the execution,

you could go along
and watch the body being cut up.

It was, in essence,

your chance to see a celebrity
of the nefarious sort.

Would you say that he has
contributed

to the local tourist industry?
Absolutely.

Since he's been on display
here for the last hundred years,

people come in every day saying,

"Have you still got the book
bound in skin?

"Have you got the bit of skin?" etc.

And to be honest,

the likes of the community
of Polstead

still celebrate the story
of William Corder

and the murder in the red barn.

It's really funny to hear you saying
"We celebrate our local murderer"!

I think it's because the story
has gone under so many transitions

to become basically so fabricated
that it is a story.

And I think we're celebrating
the story,

as opposed to the reality
of the nastiness of the crime.

And it has all the bearings
of a great, entertaining play.

The tale of Maria Marten showed

how a crime of passion in rural
Suffolk

could become a national source
of entertainment.

It elevated William Corder

into one of the most notorious
murderers of the century.

20 years later, it would be
a famous murderess

who would similarly enthral
the public.

This attractive
and apparently cold-hearted woman

became infamous for her part

in the crime known as
the Bermondsey Horror.

Maria Manning was living

at No.3, Miniver Place,
Bermondsey, South London,

with her husband, Frederick.

The year was 1849.

Frederick and Maria Manning

were a newly married
couple in their late twenties.

Frederick had been
a guard on the railways,

and then he had failed in business
as a publican

and now he was unemployed.

His wife, Maria,
was much more exotic.

She was Swiss, and she had lived
the high life as a lady's maid.

She had travelled abroad
and stayed in stately homes.

But she too had fallen
on hard times.

Now she was making ends meet
as a dressmaker.

A frequent visitor to the Mannings'
house in Miniver Place

was Patrick O'Connor.
He worked for the Customs,

and he was rumoured to be
a very wealthy man.

The three of them certainly
had a curious relationship.

In fact, it was scandalous. This was
almost certainly a love triangle.

On Thursday, 9th August, Patrick
O'Connor told friends

that he had been invited
to have dinner with the Mannings.

This was the last time he was seen
alive.

Sometime during that evening,
he was ruthlessly killed.

Then, using his keys,
Maria went to his lodgings

and stole his valuables, including
his stock and share certificates.

Four days later,

O'Connor was reported missing to a
now centralised Metropolitan Police.

On Friday the 17th of August,

two police constables got access
to 3 Miniver Place.

They were PC Barnes of the
K Division

and PC Burson of the M Division,
both for the Metropolitan Police.

Inside the house,
they found a state of confusion.

Whatever furniture had been
here had disappeared

and the Mannings were gone.

The constables reported back
that the nest were still here

but the birds had flown.

Their search then took them
into the back kitchen.

The two police constables
had eagle eyes.

In the kitchen,

they noticed that one of
the flagstones was loose
near the hearth.

They soon had it up
and there was O'Connor.

He was naked, he's been trussed up,
he'd been tossed in quicklime

and his dead body was now blue.

The hunt for the murderers
was now on,

led by the newly formed detective
branch of the Metropolitan Police

under inspector Charles Field.

The Bermondsey horror was a chance
for them to prove themselves.

First, Field's men had to
track the Mannings down.

But where were they?

The Mannings had split up
and run in different directions.

It seems that Maria had
gone off first without

the knowledge of her husband,
but with the couple's stolen wealth.

The Mannings had robbed O'Connor
and they'd killed him,

and on top of that, Maria had
double-crossed her husband.

Maria fled north to Scotland

while the hapless Fredrick caught
a steamer to the Channel Islands.

To discover more about how the
detectives were able to trace

the Mannings, I met up again with
Rosalind Crone in south London.

In 1811, when we have the
Ratcliff Highway murders,

there's a slightly chaotic
response from the authorities

but things are very different by the
times of the Mannings, aren't they?

Yes. What we see is a much more
joined-up system of policing,

but more significantly they're
joined by a new detective force.

Now, the Metropolitan Police force
in 1829 are meant to be very much

a preventing crime force,

so they patrol beats and keep a watch
over people and property.

The detective force, founded
in 1842, is meant to detect crime.

It's a slightly different function.

But they're only a small
office at this stage -

about eight man in total in their
office in Scotland Yard.

So we've got this new detective
squad and they're allowed, actually,

to go after the criminals
for the first time.

How did they actually catch Maria?

First of all, the detective sergeant
who's sent out to have a

look at the house, is able to
track down the cab driver who takes

Maria to the station.

He's able to figure out that she
goes to Euston station

and gets on a train
bound for Edinburgh.

Then he's able to use telegraphic
communications to wire up

a message to his colleagues
in the Edinburgh police,

putting out a description of Maria
which they circulate

and are able to track her down.

Maria was arrested in Edinburgh.

Shortly afterwards, Frederick was
apprehended in St Helier.

This was a coup for the new
team at Scotland Yard.

Their success in capturing
the Mannings was the first time

the public became conscious of their
emerging role

investigating homicide.

Beside this square was
the site of Horsemonger Lane Gaol

where the Mannings
spent their last days.

The Mannings became national
celebrities,

especially the dark,
bewitching Maria.

The Times newspaper alone
ran 72 articles on the case, and an

illustrated book about the couple
sold a colossal 2.5 million copies.

What was it that made Maria Manning
so fascinating?

Now, Maria Manning - well,
part of her fascination is,

of course, because she's a woman
and the idea of a female murderess

flies in the face of Victorian
notions of femininity.

But it's also
because she's foreign, and also

because she has been a lady's
maid in some of the grand houses

and dresses beautifully in these
black silk gowns

and she's very attractive.

It seems to me that she's
unacceptably ambitious -

she's not happy to just be
a servant,

she wants to get married to a rich
man, and even better than that

she wants to marry another man that
she didn't actually hook.

She's got two men on the go.
Yes, yes, that's right.

On 25th October 1849, the Mannings,
husband and wife,

were brought to the greatest
theatre in the land.

The Central Criminal Court,
better known as the Old Bailey.

For the ever curious British public,

this latest melodrama was
reaching its climax.

They'd met a new hero,
the detective,

who could hunt down
and capture the killer.

And murder itself had entered
the modern age.

The perpetrators fleeing by train,

the sleuths tracking them
down by telegraph.

The stage was set for the finale
the nation had been waiting for.

Numerous distinguished visitors
would now turn up to watch the show.

There are members
of the House of Lords

and some very grand foreign
diplomats

like the Austrian Ambassador

and the first secretary to the
Prussian delegation.

All the action would
happen in Court Number One.

Maria made the fateful climb
from the cells below

to put in her
most important public appearance.

She was dressed to kill in her usual
close-fitting dress

of fine, black satin.

The charges are read out.

Frederick George Manning is accused
of murdering Patrick O'Connor,

aided by his wife, Maria Manning.

Both of them plead not guilty.

The court heard that O'Connor had
been shot through the eye

and received 17 blows to the head
that had smashed his skull.

There were details to suggest
that this was a premeditated crime.

In the weeks before O'Connor's
disappearance,

the Mannings had bought
a crowbar from an ironmonger

in King William Street, a shovel
from a shop in Tooley Street

and quicklime from a builder
in Bermondsey Square.

And it wasn't the only damning
evidence that Maria faced.

By the second day, she seemed to
be on trial not only for being

a killer, but also for being
a woman.

To save his client from the gallows,

Frederick's defence barrister chose
to blame Maria for the crime.

He demonised her as that most
terrible of creatures,

a female of loose morals,

quite capable of doing
the foul deed on her own.

We're all in the habit,
he says, of associating the female

character with the idea of mildness
and obedience.

The female is capable of reaching
a higher point in virtue than

the male, but when she gives way to
vice, she sinks far lower.

The court deliberated for two days

and then the jury
withdrew for 45 minutes.

When they came back,
it was with a verdict of guilty.

Frederick Manning is given
the opportunity to address

the whole court
but he turns it down.

Maria is given the same chance
and she takes it. She lets rip.

There is no justice
for a foreigner in this country.

I have no protection from the judges
or my husband.

In the middle of this explosive
rant, Maria grabs the herbs,

used as air fresheners in the court,
and hurls them at the judge.

I am unjustly condemned
by the court.

Shameful England.

Maria Manning and her black satin
dress

would cast a really long shadow
over years to come.

She became known
as the Lady Macbeth of Bermondsey

and she inspired Charles Dickens.

He refashioned her as Hortense
the lady's maid, who turns out to

be the killer in Bleak House.

She was immortalised in wax.

Her figure at Madame Tussauds
became so popular that it was

still on display there when I first
visited the gallery in the 1970s.

The case was a sensation of the age.

Yes, there was sex, greed and
treachery, but there was much more.

There was detection by methodical
police work, bringing with it

a new and satisfying
kind of resolution for the public.

The execution of the Mannings
took place on 13th November,

up on the roof of the
Horsemonger Lane Gaol.

This was pure theatre -
a huge crowd was expected,

so three days beforehand,

the surrounding streets were all
cleared and barricades were erected.

On the day, it was estimated
that 50,000 people turned up,

with 500 policemen to
maintain order.

Hangings were getting
increasingly scarce,

particularly for females,
so this double dose of husband

and wife was a complete treat
for execution lovers.

Changes in the law back in the 1820s
meant that the death penalty

was now reserved
only for treason or murder.

Previously, it had been applied to
a whole range of crimes.

So by 1849, a public hanging was
a real occasion,

which is why Charles Dickens chose
to observe this one.

He and a group of his friends rented
a room overlooking the jail

and they held a sort of party
as events unfolded.

Now, Dickens was fascinated by
murder and murderers.

He was also in favour of capital
punishment.

He believed that they should
hang for their crimes.

But what really upset him
on this occasion was the ghoulish

and disrespectful
behaviour of the crowd.

Outside the jail,
the crowd waited for showtime.

They sang mocking songs
and ate commemorative biscuits.

We hear that inside,
in private, there was

a final reconciliation
between Frederick and Maria.

They ascended to the
gallows as husband and wife.

The Mannings were hanged
side by side, on a scaffold

that had been lifted up to give
maximum visibility

and theatricality to the
grim business.

Maria was defiant
and stylish to the end,

wearing her black satin dress
and gloves for her final appearance.

She died with dignity.

The case of the Mannings
was a turning point

in the history of crime.

It had been a case played
out in public,

a ghastly melodrama with the nation
sucking up every gory detail.

But it was also a case
that had been solved

by the new Metropolitan
Police force,

its constables
and especially its detectives.

A new chapter in the history
of murder was about to begin.