Downton Abbey may have only aired for six series, but the time period it covered, 1912 to 1926, was a bleak one for the average Edwardian murderer.
And you could forgive him, or her, for feeling aggrieved.
At the beginning of the century all your run-of-the-mill killer had to contend with while fleeing the scene of a crime was a bobby on foot, or if he was very unlucky, a horse. In 1909 the police started using bicycles, still not too much of a threat to a fit young killer.
But by 1920, the police had caught up (literally) and purchased motor cars, although in many rural locations bikes and shank's pony were still the norm.
Another blow to your harassed Edwardian murderer was the formation in 1901 of the fingerprint branch of the Metropolitan Police. In 1902, Harry Jackson, a 41 year-old Londoner, became the first man to be convicted by the new branch. His thumbprint was identified on a freshly-painted windowsill at the scene of a burglary in South London. The items stolen? A number of billiard balls!
It wasn't until 1905 the fingerprint branch had their real moment of glory. Two brothers, Alfred and Albert Stratton were convicted on the evidence of fingerprints of the vicious murder of Thomas Farrow after a break-in in Deptford in 1905.
From thereon in, things rapidly went from bad to worse for the harassed Edwardian murderer just trying to make an honest killing.
The police, not content with using fingerprints, now started employing radios. The first victim to fall foul of this new fangled trickery was famously Dr Crippen. Obviously infuriated by the police's refusal to play fair anymore, he fled the country in 1910. However, the ship's captain recognised him and sent a radio message back to London. When Dr Crippen arrived in Canada, rather than a land of opportunity for a seasoned serial killer like himself, he found a couple of detectives waiting for him.
At this stage any would-be murderer could plainly see the police weren't going to play fair anymore. The days of gentlemanly conduct between the forces of law and order were over. The gloves were off.
Proving themselves equal to the challenge, two members of a Latvian gang fought back by arming themselves and shooting three policemen during a robbery in Houndsditch. The murderers were surrounded and the 'Siege of Sidney Street' as it became known started. After the police were outgunned, Winston Churchill himself came down and gave the order for the army to be called in.
Six hours after the siege started, the building the two men were holed up in was ablaze and they were both dead. The following year the Metropolitan police purchased a thousand self-loading Webley & Scott pistols.
But it wasn't just firepower your average Edwardian murderer had to fear in this period. 'Womanpower' was taking off and in 1918 Brighton appointed its first female police officers. The Metropolitan force countered the following year by employing their own female officers, although the chief commissioner of the time, Sir Nevil Macready, insisted they didn't employ any 'vinegary spinsters' or 'blighted middle-aged fanatics'.
And the bad news continued throughout these years with the introduction of radios in cars, telephones in police boxes and the formation of the Flying Squad, although I'm not sure it was quite on the lines of The Sweeney at the time.
However, there was one bright light in all this darkness for our embattled murderer. The police went on strike. In 1918 they simply decided they didn't want to catch murderers, or any other kind of nefarious individuals, unless they were paid a damn sight more for doing so.
Was this really their aim, or had they an ulterior motive? You see, their bosses decided to decline any thought of extra cash and the strike continued in 1919.
Perhaps the real explanation for the one and only strike in police history was actually a response to the increasing influence of the media? Newspaper and radio coverage of murder trials became more and more prevalent, big cases attracting the same kind of frenzy as a cup final.
So perhaps the police decided if they didn't give their prey a break, he, or she, would soon be extinct.
And their five minutes of fame in the media spotlight would be gone for good.
Just like the once, proud Edwardian murderer. R.I.P.
Mystery by The Sea by Verity Bright (Published by Bookoutre) Out Now
Spring, 1921. Lady Eleanor Swift, explorer extraordinaire and accidental sleuth, hasn’t had a vacation since she arrived in England a year ago. Being an amateur detective can be a rather tiring business and she is determined to escape any more murder and mysteries. So she books into the Grand Hotel in the fashionable resort of Brighton for some fresh air, fish and chips and, of course, a dip in the ocean. Eleanor is enjoying her view of the waves and trying to find her bathing suit when calamity strikes: a guest has been found dead at her beautiful hotel. The distraught manager, who can’t afford a scandal, asks Eleanor to solve the case as swiftly as possible. Thank goodness she has her partner in crime – Gladstone the bulldog – to help her sniff out the dastardly culprit. But when Eleanor enters the dead man’s room, she receives a shock big enough to make her forget even the finest ice cream sundae. The body is that of her husband, who supposedly died six years ago on the other side of the world. Has he been alive all these years? Why does he have a copy of their wedding photograph with a cryptic message written on the back? If Eleanor can keep herself safe long enough to find her husband’s killer, she might discover that everything is not quite as it seems beside the seaside…
Author Bio
Verity Bright is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing partnership that has spanned a quarter of a century. Starting out writing high-end travel articles and books, they published everything from self-improvement to humour, before embarking on their first historical mystery. They are the authors of the Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery series, set in the 1920s. Follow them @BrightVerity
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