Read Online Bloody London: Shocking Tales from London’s Gruesome Past and Present by Declan McHugh - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Declan McHugh
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Snow could see that as a result of these independent and logically elegant enquiries, one particular pump, the one outside 40 Broad Street (now 41 Broadwick Street) was implicated. The water from this particular pump had an excellent reputation: it was regarded as the best in the area. Snow, however, managed to convince the authorities to try an experiment and the next day the handle of that specific pump was removed, preventing people from using its water supply. The serial killer was immobilised (although its power to strike had already been diminishing).
Even now Snow’s theory was not immediately accepted and it took a further investigation before he was proved to be right. In the meantime the deadly pump was unchained again and used for 12 more years!
The further investigation found that of nearly 300 people questioned who did not use the Broad Street pump, only twenty had been stricken by the disease. The original outbreak was found to be connected to the death of an infant at 40 Broad Street – the house next to the pump –whose diarrhoea had seeped into the drinking water with dire results.
John Snow died at the age of 44 having sold precisely 56 copies of his book on the spread of cholera – but in 2007 workers in the medical profession voted, through the British Medical Journal , for sanitation as the most important medical breakthrough of all time.
THREE UNSOLVED LONDON MURDERS
The High Holborn murder
On the morning of Tuesday 15 August 1949, a cleaner ran out screaming from the Adelphi Secretarial Agency in High Holborn, close to Holborn Town Hall. She had just discovered the murdered body of the owner, 36-year-old Daisy Edith Wallis. Ms Wallis had only been renting the back room on the third floor for 3 months. She had been the victim of multiple stabbings by a vicious double-edged knife but the knife itself was missing. Cuts and gashes on her hands and arms showed that she had fought her attacker, but to no avail. Her handbag was still beside her body and it had not been rifled through which meant that robbery was unlikely to have been the motive. In any case, the Agency would not have been a promising target for robbery.
The pathologist identified the time of death at around 6–7p.m. the previous evening. That in itself was very strange because it would have been a time when many people would have been still in the building, or passing it, and therefore a very risky time to commit a murder.
People who had left fingerprints found in the office were systematically eliminated from the enquiry. Only one print could not be traced but whoever left it had never been in trouble with the law because it wasn’t on record.
One possible clue was that two people had separately seen a small Italianate looking man, aged about 25–30, running through an alley near the office at approximately the time of the murder, and a chemist nearby had treated a man of similar looks for cuts on his hands.
Miss Wallis proved to be hard to find out about. She had been quiet and efficient and also discreet about her private life. She lived at home with her parents. She had not stood out while shopping or attending any one of the arts-related clubs she belonged to. Her diary was combed but gave no further clues.
With no weapon or motive, and despite 700 interviews of everyone in the diary or in the office filing cabinet, the police investigation ground to a complete halt and has remained that way ever since.
Marie Bailes: an unsolved child murder
On 30 May 1908 the body of a 6-year-old girl, Marie Ellen Bailes, was discovered in an underground public toilet at St George’s Road, Elephant and Castle. Her parents had reported her missing the day before, 29 May. On the 29th she had unaccountably left St John’s Roman Catholic school in Islington by herself telling a friend that she was going to go home. She never reached home.
The toilet attendant at St George’s Road said he’d been cleaning the steps
Snow could see that as a result of these independent and logically elegant enquiries, one particular pump, the one outside 40 Broad Street (now 41 Broadwick Street) was implicated. The water from this particular pump had an excellent reputation: it was regarded as the best in the area. Snow, however, managed to convince the authorities to try an experiment and the next day the handle of that specific pump was removed, preventing people from using its water supply. The serial killer was immobilised (although its power to strike had already been diminishing).
Even now Snow’s theory was not immediately accepted and it took a further investigation before he was proved to be right. In the meantime the deadly pump was unchained again and used for 12 more years!
The further investigation found that of nearly 300 people questioned who did not use the Broad Street pump, only twenty had been stricken by the disease. The original outbreak was found to be connected to the death of an infant at 40 Broad Street – the house next to the pump –whose diarrhoea had seeped into the drinking water with dire results.
John Snow died at the age of 44 having sold precisely 56 copies of his book on the spread of cholera – but in 2007 workers in the medical profession voted, through the British Medical Journal , for sanitation as the most important medical breakthrough of all time.
THREE UNSOLVED LONDON MURDERS
The High Holborn murder
On the morning of Tuesday 15 August 1949, a cleaner ran out screaming from the Adelphi Secretarial Agency in High Holborn, close to Holborn Town Hall. She had just discovered the murdered body of the owner, 36-year-old Daisy Edith Wallis. Ms Wallis had only been renting the back room on the third floor for 3 months. She had been the victim of multiple stabbings by a vicious double-edged knife but the knife itself was missing. Cuts and gashes on her hands and arms showed that she had fought her attacker, but to no avail. Her handbag was still beside her body and it had not been rifled through which meant that robbery was unlikely to have been the motive. In any case, the Agency would not have been a promising target for robbery.
The pathologist identified the time of death at around 6–7p.m. the previous evening. That in itself was very strange because it would have been a time when many people would have been still in the building, or passing it, and therefore a very risky time to commit a murder.
People who had left fingerprints found in the office were systematically eliminated from the enquiry. Only one print could not be traced but whoever left it had never been in trouble with the law because it wasn’t on record.
One possible clue was that two people had separately seen a small Italianate looking man, aged about 25–30, running through an alley near the office at approximately the time of the murder, and a chemist nearby had treated a man of similar looks for cuts on his hands.
Miss Wallis proved to be hard to find out about. She had been quiet and efficient and also discreet about her private life. She lived at home with her parents. She had not stood out while shopping or attending any one of the arts-related clubs she belonged to. Her diary was combed but gave no further clues.
With no weapon or motive, and despite 700 interviews of everyone in the diary or in the office filing cabinet, the police investigation ground to a complete halt and has remained that way ever since.
Marie Bailes: an unsolved child murder
On 30 May 1908 the body of a 6-year-old girl, Marie Ellen Bailes, was discovered in an underground public toilet at St George’s Road, Elephant and Castle. Her parents had reported her missing the day before, 29 May. On the 29th she had unaccountably left St John’s Roman Catholic school in Islington by herself telling a friend that she was going to go home. She never reached home.
The toilet attendant at St George’s Road said he’d been cleaning the steps
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