The Maul and the Pear Tree: The Ratcliffe Highway Murders 1811

Product Information

He first discovered James Gowan, the young apprentice, who was lying on the floor about five or six feet from the stairs, just inside the shop door. The young boy’s skull was completely smashed, his blood was dripping through the floorboards, and his brains had appeared to have been pulverised and thrown about the walls and across the counters of the shop. The Ratcliffe Highway murders and subsequent political infighting, along with the build-up to Ablass turning pirate, are only slowly replaced by detection and a hunt for the killer. Meanwhile the reader must negotiate exposition along the lines of "Aaron Graham is the magistrate of Bow Street in the fashionable West End of town, and as such has some right to consider himself the lead magistrate in London and Westminster, though no such seniority exists in official point of fact and in any case Graham would never be graceless enough to dwell on it." In the time which it took for Jewell to realise that a brace of oyster vendors and the bakery had all closed for the night, however, Marrs’ shop had been broken into. The facts in evidence against Williams were that he had had an opportunity to take the maul, that he had money after the murders but not before, that he had returned to his room just after the killer had fled the second crime scene, and that he had had bloody and torn shirts. Although an attempt was made to identify the maul and ascertain whether any of Williams's shirts had blood stains on them, the courts could not assess forensic evidence and gave great weight to eyewitnesses' statements.

hope they will. Numerous shells adorn these shop-windows shells resting on a bed of moss; some large Some of the history is more interesting than others, but this book was right up my alley. It reminded me of some great mysteries I’ve read over the years and had me thinking of re-reading a few of them, and also reminded me of authors I have yet to try. All three had been bludgeoned to death – using, it was later presumed, a bloodstained hammer which was located in the couple’s bedroom. Sitting down after a hard day’s work, slippers on, guard lowered… for the last 200 years murder has been the topic to which readers turn for comfort and relaxation.”John Williams's arrest would have interested two other people involved: Cornelius Hart and William "Long Billy" Ablass. It is that most famous work, the opium essay, which has paradoxically stood in the way of properly appreciating De Quincey’s many other contributions to literature. In Rebecca Solnit’s biography of Eadweard Muybridge, she describes how the photographer “undermined his vast output of good work with his great work.” Had he never done his excellent Yosemite studies, he might have been known for his less ambitious San Francisco cityscapes, and the Yosemite photos, in turn, have been all-but-forgotten by the later motion studies that changed the world. It’s a phrase that applies even more so to De Quincey. His landmark masterpiece, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, in which he invented at least two genres (the drug memoir, and the narrative of the nocturnal urban flâneur), has guaranteed his fame and immortality, but has eclipsed the other excellent work he produced throughout his life. Fortuitously, the fourteen-year-old granddaughter of the landlord, ‘who slept in the upper part of the house,’ was completely unharmed. The Birdcage pub, frequented by the gang, still stands within sight of the park. 9. The Whitehall Mystery and The Thames Torso Murders The Timothy Marr family at number 29 Ratcliffe Highway(another source says #11 Ratcliffe Highway) was in their shop and residence preparing for the next day's business when an intruder entered their home.It was just before midnight on a Saturday, the busiest day of the week for area shopkeepers. Marr, 24, kept a linen draper and hosier's shop, says de Quincey in his "On Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts," and was a "stout, fresh-coloured young man of 27."He had served for several years with the East India Company on the Dover Castle and now had a young wife, Celia; a baby son, Timothy (14 weeks old)' an apprentice, James Gowan; and a servant girl, Margaret Jewell. All had been living there since April of that year.

It would be absolutely impossible to adequately describe the frenzy of feelings which, throughout the next fortnight, mastered the popular heart; the mere indignant horror in some, the mere delirium of panic in others. Long before Hollywood began catering to our innate fascination with murder, De Quincey was plumbing the depths of our darkest humanity. Today, the former sensation has been largely forgotten, although in 1971, famed crime fiction author P. D. James, working with police historian T. A. Critchley, wrote ‘The Maul and the Pear Tree’ and argued persuasively within for Williams’ possible innocence. Matching these were two related cases which occurred in December 1910 and January 1911; the Houndsditch murders and the Siege of Sidney Street which left three police officers dead and three more seriously injured. Mrs Celia Marr was the next victim to be discovered, ‘lying on the floor dreadfully wounded and lifeless.’ Her husband Timothy was found behind the counter in the shop, ‘bleeding, profusely about the head, with no signs of life.’ And tragically, the couple’s young son was found dead in his cradle in the kitchen.watching with an eagerness curious to contemplate the indications of the wind-watching within time rapacious eagerness of It also touches on the origins and evolution This book has been written to accompany a television series of the same name and does, as a consequence jump around a little in subject matter. The book begins and ends with discussion of an essay - the first being, "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts" by Thomas De Quincey and finishes with an appraisal of "The Decline of the English Murder" by George Orwell. This is not really about crime, as such, although many crimes are discussed - it is about how, especially since the nineteenth century, the British began to "enjoy and consume the idea of a murder." Intimidation alone cannot account for the extremity of the violence, but it could if the negotiation had turned bad and led to the killing of Mr Marr and his shop assistant, and then Mrs Marr too as witness. If there happened to be an unhinged individual with a violent murderous tendency among the group – someone like William Ablass – that alone can explain the murder of the baby. In this context, the Williamsons’ subsequent murder may be comprehended as damage limitation, if somehow they had learnt the truth of the earlier killings.