Sarah Wise

The Italian Boy murders took place in a tiny district called Nova Scotia Gardens, though that name never actually appeared on any map. The 1838 parish map below only marks it as “Garden Grounds” – just north of Crabree Row,… Continue reading →

By the time of the Italian Boy killings, the secretive nature of anatomists and goings-on in dissection rooms was being widely criticised. Public opinion towards science would be improved, many said, if doctors would only be more open and honest… Continue reading →

Disgusted by what had become of the site of John Bishop’s murder house (see Part 1 posted on below) banking heiress Baroness Burdett Coutts decided, in 1852, to buy the land and construct a market building (below left) and tenements… Continue reading →

The murder of Carlo Ferrari spawned a number of plays – he arose out of his grave for performances throughout the 19th century. The Pavilion Theatre was in Whitechapel, and this playbill dates to September 1862. Below that, the Britannia… Continue reading →

London at the time of the Italian Boy killings was awash with all manner of unmentionable filth. A letter was received by The Lancet in April 1831 from an angry septuagenarian who lived in the countryside. He was no longer… Continue reading →

Bunhill Fields burial ground in the City Road (near the Old Street roundabout) is one of the best-preserved in London – a beautiful park with the graves and memorials of London religious Non-Conformists, including William Blake, John Bunyan and Daniel… Continue reading →

Tracy Williams came along to a talk I gave and afterwards told me that she had ancestors who had lived in Nova Scotia Gardens, the site of the Italian Boy killings. She wrote out the following for me – the… Continue reading →

Yet another depiction of Nos 2 & 3 Nova Scotia Gardens, this time, from a cheap broadsheet published during the murder trial in 1831. The mug-shots have been re-used from a previous production and are nothing like the villains in… Continue reading →

Let the Liverpool Mercury of 20 May 1825 explain. Tweet

By the 1820s, it was uncommon for a surgeon to be arrested and prosecuted for doing his own bodysnatching – usually only the hired hands, the resurrectionists, got caught and did time in gaol. But this Sunderland story, from the… Continue reading →