Drew Gray

From dark crimes of passion to shocking tales of grave robbing, gruesome murders, dens of iniquity, Victorian séances and haunted houses – not far beneath London’s everyday bustle and glitter there has long been a fascinatingly rich underworld of criminality, superstition, scandal and macabre debauchery.Explore this rich seam of morbid history, case-by-case, with social historian Dr Drew Gray, a specialist in the history of crime and punishment. Who were the London Burkers, for example, whose ringleader confessed to stealing and selling nearly 1,000 dead bodies to keen 1830s anatomists? What was 'The Whitechapel Tragedy' of 1875, and who was its unfortunate headless victim? Why was there so much public panic about crime in Victorian London, and how did the city’s notoriously rough prisons, courts, workhouses and houses of correction deal with its perpetrators?Dark London brings together the history of the city’s seamier side, picking out the most scandalous, curious and bizarre aspects of London’s shadowy and fascinating underbelly.

The most captivating and intriguing 19th-century murders from around the world are re-examined in this disquieting volume, which takes readers on a perilous journey around the world’s most benighted regions. In each area, murders are charted with increasing specificity: beginning with city- or region-wide overviews, drilling down to street-level diagrams and zooming-in to detailed floor plans. All the elements of each crime are meticulously replotted on archival maps, from the prior movements of both killer and victim to the eventual location of the body. The murders revisited range from the ‘French Ripper’ Joseph Vacher, who roamed the French countryside brutally murdering and mutilating over twenty shepherds and shepherdesses, to H.H. Holmes, who built a hotel in Chicago to entrap, murder and dispose of its many guests. Crime expert Dr Drew Gray illuminates the details of each case, recounting both the horrifying particulars of the crimes themselves and the ingenious detective work that led to the eventual capture of the murderers. He highlights the development of police methods and technology: from the introduction of the police whistle to the standardization of the mugshot and from the invention of fingerprinting to the use of radio telegraphy to capture criminals. Disturbing crime-scene photographs by pioneers of policework, such as Alphonse Bertillon, and contemporary illustrations from the sensationalist magazines of the day, including the Illustrated Police News and the Petit Journal, complete the macabre picture.

A sensational new theory – and an insight into the late Victorian city through an intensively researched social history. Between May 1887 and February 1891, a succession of horrific murders shook Victorian London. During a reign of terror lasting nearly four years, numerous women were attacked. The police at the time believed the killings comprised two distinct sets – with two different killers. Several were attributed to the relatively unpublicised ‘Thames Torso’ series while the majority found their way into the Met’s ‘Whitechapel’ or Jack the Ripper file. Despite the best efforts of contemporary detectives, no-one was ever prosecuted for these crimes and, until now, no convincing suspect has been put forward for both sets of murders. This ground-breaking work has examined new lines of enquiry generated by recent scholarship. With several ‘Thames Torso’ killings now attributable to his hand, ‘Jack’ it seems was culpable in upwards of sixteen assaults – at least thirteen of them fatal. This individual was amply possessed of the three ‘cardinals’ of the murderer – means, motive and opportunity – and the authors offer long-sought solutions to several case conundrums such as the Goulston Street ‘evidence’, the enduring ‘Mad Doctor’ theory and the Pinchin Street ‘cross-over’.