Read Online The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder And The Undoing Of A Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale - Free Book Online
Authors: Kate Summerscale
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective, Espionage, History, Biography & Autobiography, Literary Criticism, England, True Crime, London, Biography, Europe, Murder, Great Britain, Detectives, Murder - General, Murder - England - Wiltshire - History - 19th century, Mystery & Detective Fiction, Case studies, History: World, Wiltshire, Law Enforcement, Whicher; Jonathan, 19th century, Europe - Great Britain - General, Detectives - England - London, Expeditions & Discoveries
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wool was scarcer than usual, and the competitive mill-owners of northern England were selling their muslin cheap.
When Whicher reached the Woolpack, on the corner of Red Hat Lane, he paid the porter sixpence and went in. The inn was a compact stone building, with an arch at its centre, which offered rooms at is.6d . a night. Wine, cider, spirits and home-brewed ale were sold at the bar. Whicher may have ordered a drink or two: when in a tight spot, he once told Dickens, 'I couldn't do better than have a drop of brandy-and-water to keep my courage up.'
Jonathan Whicher was born in Camberwell, three miles south of London, on 1 October 1814. His father was a gardener, probably one of the village's many market gardeners, who grew cherries, lettuces, roses and willow for sale in the city. He may have tended the lawns and flowerbeds of the richer residents of the district - Camberwell was studded with the stucco villas and ornamental cottages of merchants seeking an airy retreat from London.
On the day of Jonathan's baptism, 23 October, the curate of St Giles parish church also christened the child of another gardener, and the babies of a shoemaker, a cabinetmaker, two coachmen, a flutemaker and a labourer. In one of the many variants to which his surname was prey, Jonathan was recorded as the son of Richard and Rebecca Whitcher. He was known as Jack. He had an older sister, Eliza, and at least one older brother, James. Another sister, Sarah, was born in August 1819, when he was four. That summer was remembered for its abundance of Camberwell Beauties, the large, velvety, dark-claret butterflies first seen in the area in 1748.
In the mid-1830s Jack Whicher was still living in Camber-well, probably in Providence Row, a small terrace of cottages at the northern, poorer end of the village. The cottages lay on Wyndham Road, close to a mill and backing onto nursery gardens, but in a wretched neighbourhood - 'as proverbial for its depravity as for its ignorance', according to a report published by the local school. Wyndham Road was frequented by shifty types - hawkers, costermongers, chimney sweeps - and by outright villains.
When Jack Whicher applied to join the Metropolitan Police in the late summer of 1837 he was just old enough, at twenty-two, and just tall enough, at five feet eight inches, to meet the entrance requirements. He passed the tests for literacy and physical fitness, and two 'respectable house-holders' of his parish vouched for his good character. Like more than a third of the early recruits, he was working as a labourer when he submitted his application.
On 18 September, Whicher became a police constable. His weekly wage - about PS1 - was only a slight improvement on his previous earnings, but his future was now a little more secure.
The Metropolitan Police, the first such force in the country, was eight years old. London had got so big, so fluid, so mysterious to itself that in 1829 its inhabitants had, reluctantly, accepted the need for a disciplined body of men to patrol the streets. The 3,500 policemen were known as 'bobbies' and 'peelers' (after their founder, Sir Robert Peel), as 'coppers' (they caught, or copped, villains), as 'crushers' (they crushed liberty), as 'Jenny Darbies' (from gendarmes ), and as pigs (a term of abuse since the sixteenth century).
Whicher was issued with dark-blue trousers and a dark-blue long-tailed coat, its bright metal buttons imprinted with a crown and the word POLICE . His division and number - E47, the 'E' for Holborn - was boldly marked on a stiff, buckled collar; beneath this, a leather stock four inches deep encircled his neck as protection against 'garotters'. His coat was fitted with deep pockets in which to stash a truncheon and a wooden rattle. He wore a chimney-pot hat with a glazed leather crown and leather supports down the sides. A fellow officer detailed the costume: 'I had to put on a swallow-tail coat, and a rabbit-skin high-top-hat, covered with leather,
When Whicher reached the Woolpack, on the corner of Red Hat Lane, he paid the porter sixpence and went in. The inn was a compact stone building, with an arch at its centre, which offered rooms at is.6d . a night. Wine, cider, spirits and home-brewed ale were sold at the bar. Whicher may have ordered a drink or two: when in a tight spot, he once told Dickens, 'I couldn't do better than have a drop of brandy-and-water to keep my courage up.'
Jonathan Whicher was born in Camberwell, three miles south of London, on 1 October 1814. His father was a gardener, probably one of the village's many market gardeners, who grew cherries, lettuces, roses and willow for sale in the city. He may have tended the lawns and flowerbeds of the richer residents of the district - Camberwell was studded with the stucco villas and ornamental cottages of merchants seeking an airy retreat from London.
On the day of Jonathan's baptism, 23 October, the curate of St Giles parish church also christened the child of another gardener, and the babies of a shoemaker, a cabinetmaker, two coachmen, a flutemaker and a labourer. In one of the many variants to which his surname was prey, Jonathan was recorded as the son of Richard and Rebecca Whitcher. He was known as Jack. He had an older sister, Eliza, and at least one older brother, James. Another sister, Sarah, was born in August 1819, when he was four. That summer was remembered for its abundance of Camberwell Beauties, the large, velvety, dark-claret butterflies first seen in the area in 1748.
In the mid-1830s Jack Whicher was still living in Camber-well, probably in Providence Row, a small terrace of cottages at the northern, poorer end of the village. The cottages lay on Wyndham Road, close to a mill and backing onto nursery gardens, but in a wretched neighbourhood - 'as proverbial for its depravity as for its ignorance', according to a report published by the local school. Wyndham Road was frequented by shifty types - hawkers, costermongers, chimney sweeps - and by outright villains.
When Jack Whicher applied to join the Metropolitan Police in the late summer of 1837 he was just old enough, at twenty-two, and just tall enough, at five feet eight inches, to meet the entrance requirements. He passed the tests for literacy and physical fitness, and two 'respectable house-holders' of his parish vouched for his good character. Like more than a third of the early recruits, he was working as a labourer when he submitted his application.
On 18 September, Whicher became a police constable. His weekly wage - about PS1 - was only a slight improvement on his previous earnings, but his future was now a little more secure.
The Metropolitan Police, the first such force in the country, was eight years old. London had got so big, so fluid, so mysterious to itself that in 1829 its inhabitants had, reluctantly, accepted the need for a disciplined body of men to patrol the streets. The 3,500 policemen were known as 'bobbies' and 'peelers' (after their founder, Sir Robert Peel), as 'coppers' (they caught, or copped, villains), as 'crushers' (they crushed liberty), as 'Jenny Darbies' (from gendarmes ), and as pigs (a term of abuse since the sixteenth century).
Whicher was issued with dark-blue trousers and a dark-blue long-tailed coat, its bright metal buttons imprinted with a crown and the word POLICE . His division and number - E47, the 'E' for Holborn - was boldly marked on a stiff, buckled collar; beneath this, a leather stock four inches deep encircled his neck as protection against 'garotters'. His coat was fitted with deep pockets in which to stash a truncheon and a wooden rattle. He wore a chimney-pot hat with a glazed leather crown and leather supports down the sides. A fellow officer detailed the costume: 'I had to put on a swallow-tail coat, and a rabbit-skin high-top-hat, covered with leather,
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