HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-02-18T15:31:04.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: He's the Victorian serial killer you've never heard of – and we may now know who he was
items: These are four of the most brutal Victorian murders. Were women really the perpetrators?
items: Murder and vanishing without a trace: the mysterious case of Lord Lucan
items: Hell at Glencoe: what led to the massacre in the Scottish Highlands?
items: Did the Scottish mass-murdering cannibal Sawney Bean actually exist?
items: Antwerp: city of innovation & intrigue
items: How assassinations have changed history
items: Was James VI and I murdered?
items: Murder: a legal history
items: Was King John murdered?

He's the Victorian serial killer you've never heard of – and we may now know who he was
type: item
date: 2026-02-18T15:30:47.000Z
creator: Lucy Worsley
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Death
subject: Historical people
subject: Murder
subject: Victorian crime and punishment
description: By 1889, Jack the Ripper’s grisly murders had sparked terror across London. So when a woman’s headless, mutilated body was found near the Thames, a coded alert was dispatched to police: “Another Whitechapel.” But her killer wasn’t Jack. Lucy Worsley investigates the horrifying crimes of the ‘Thames Torso Murderer’
encoded: In the final years of the 1880s, it truly wasn’t safe for women to venture out alone onto the streets of London. Extraordinary though it seems, there was not one but two serial killers on the loose in the same corner of the capital. We’ve all heard of Jack the Ripper, the notoriously brutal criminal who cut the throats of at least five women in and around Whitechapel – and, in doing so, triggered a firestorm of speculation over his identity that continues to rage to this day. But another murderer was plying his grisly trade along the banks of the Thames. He is the scariest Victorian serial killer you’ve probably never heard of – a man who became known as the ‘Thames Torso Murderer’. Because the Ripper slayings attract so much attention, that contemporary killer has been almost completely forgotten. There may be several reasons for this. The Ripper victims were all identified, the killings took place in a shorter time within a close community, and there were various ‘clues’ and ‘sightings’. In addition, the Ripper was clearly motivated by a hot rage against women. The Torso killer, much colder and better at planning, seems less knowable. Yet though he had a very different character and method, his crimes against women were every bit as shocking. In both cases, studying the evidence for their crimes and the lives of their victims reveals a wealth of information about life on the fringes of society in 1880s London, the most populous city in the world at the time. And now, nearly 140 years since the first of the Thames Torso Murders was committed, the culprit in this very cold case has – to my satisfaction, at least – at last been identified. The evidence I’ll lay out here, which I share in my new BBC Two series, would not stand up in a court of law. But researchers using modern techniques and, in particular, analysing large sets of data, have come up with a compelling theory. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/1362213-2webready…

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These are four of the most brutal Victorian murders. Were women really the perpetrators?
type: item
date: 2025-12-26T16:00:35.000Z
creator: Rosalind Crone
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Death
subject: Historical people
subject: Life in Victorian Britain
subject: Murder
subject: Victorian crime and punishment
description: Women accused of violent murders have often faced assumptions about their motives and disbelief that the ‘gentle sex’ could commit such bloody crimes. Rosalind Crone investigates four cases from the 19th century
encoded: 1. A female bodysnatcher? At a time when selling human bodies to anatomy schools reaped hefty payouts, some desperate criminals killed to get their hands on fresh corpses. Was Elizabeth Ross one such grasping murderer? In the early 19th century, ‘resurrection men’ dug up recently buried corpses to meet the huge demand for cadavers to use in teaching and surgical practice. Others were too impatient to wait for someone to die before snatching a body – and took matters into their own hands. Between 1828 and 1831, William Burke (operating with accomplice William Hare) in Edinburgh, and John Bishop and Thomas Williams in London, were convicted and hanged for murdering numerous people in order to sell their bodies to anatomy schools. Indeed, all of the infamous bodysnatchers of 19th-century Britain were male. It’s certainly conceivable that women were involved in the trade as helpmates – but could they ever have been the instigators, or even killers? Meet Elizabeth Ross (alias Cook), a 38-year-old Irish immigrant in London with a reputation for drunkenness, violence and petty crime. She had once been accused of skinning alive six of her neighbours’ cats, and it was rumoured that she had murdered a 14-year-old girl who went missing while in her care. Elizabeth’s common-law husband, Edward Cook, who worked as a nightwatchman for the parish of Aldgate, associated with resurrection men. Little wonder, then, that fellow parishioner Ann Buton was very concerned when her grandmother, Caroline Walsh – at that time an 84-year-old pedlar – accepted Elizabeth’s offer of cheap lodgings. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/Credit-Wellcome-CollectionEliza-Rosswebready-6e9dca8-e1766488850584.jpg" width="613" height="420" alt="A black and white sketch of an elderly woman wearing a frilly bonnet and a high necked coat" title="An illustration of “the atrocious Eliza Ross” from an 1832 book about London ‘Burkers’ – bodysnatchers – including an accoun…

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Murder and vanishing without a trace: the mysterious case of Lord Lucan
type: item
date: 2024-12-12T09:00:02.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Death
subject: Murder
description: Fifty years ago, the notorious peer disappeared, never to be seen again (officially), following a brutal murder in his Belgravia home. Laura Thompson reviews the case of the gambling earl suspected of killing his children’s nanny Sandra Rivett and attacking his estranged wife – and explores what the cause celebre reveals about social attitudes of the time
encoded: Just before 9pm on Thursday 7 November 1974, the rarefied calm of Belgravia, that oasis of white stucco in the heart of London, was defiled by violence. Behind the stately façade of 46 Lower Belgrave Street, family home of the 7th Earl of Lucan, 29-year-old nanny Sandra Rivett descended from the top of the six-storey house into the basement to make tea. In the darkness, an assailant was waiting. Sandra was bludgeoned to death with a length of piping, bundled into a sack and left on the bloodied kitchen floor. Shortly afterwards, near the top of the basement stairs, another woman – 37-year old Veronica Lucan, the earl’s estranged wife – was similarly battered. She fought off her attacker and, just before 10pm, burst into the Plumbers Arms pub at the end of Lower Belgrave Street. The late-evening customers were confronted with the sight of a small, barefoot woman, her head coated with blood. “Help me, help me – I’ve just escaped from being murdered!” she exclaimed, followed by: “My children, my children – he’s murdered my nanny!” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/11/0008466-2-3975926-e1731582114910.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Sandra Rivett, who was working as a nanny for Lady Lucan when she was attacked and killed in 1974. Lord Lucan vanished the following morning (Photo by TopFoto)" title="Sandra Rivett, who was working as a nanny for Lady Lucan when she was attacked and killed in 1974. Lord Lucan vanished the following morning (Photo by TopFoto)" /> From that moment, the story became public property. Shortly afterwards, police kicked in the elegant door of the Lucan home. There, within the formal interior, they found Sandra Rivett’s body. Upstairs were the three children who had been in her care: Frances, aged 10; George, seven; and four-year-old Camilla. No trace of an assailant was discovered. Quite soon, however, the identity of the man whom Veronica Lucan claimed had “murdered my nanny” would be known to Scotland Ya…

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Hell at Glencoe: what led to the massacre in the Scottish Highlands?
type: item
date: 2022-02-13T07:06:00.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Murder
description: In 1692, government troops shot, bayoneted and burned to death up to 40 Highlanders in a remote corner of Scotland. Why, asks Allan Kennedy, did King William III & II authorise an act of such calculating brutality?
encoded: It was early when the soldiers roused themselves, the dawn still a distant promise. As they mustered in the darkness, they likely could not see much of the rugged valley surrounding them, the narrow river running through its centre, or the forbidding mountain peaks pressing in from all sides. Nor, probably, did they care, for the grim task before them was surely enough to occupy their minds. In the name of William III & II and Mary II, joint king and queen of Scotland, these 120-or-so men (most of whom probably hailed from the Scottish lowlands) were charged with bringing order to a remote corner of the realm. They were to do so at bayonet-point, by visiting exemplary punishment on a group of people that, in the judgment of William and Mary’s ministers, had proved insufficiently enthusiastic in their submission to government authority. As they stood in the winter chill, preparing to begin their bloody work, the troops cannot have known that what they were about to do would forever be remembered as one of the most horrific acts of political violence in British history. For this was Glencoe, home to a small sept of Clan MacDonald, and on the morning of 13 February 1692, it became the site of a massacre. Read more | How glorious was the Glorious Revolution? The soldiers, led by Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, had been quartered in Glencoe for nearly a fortnight. The troops had ostensibly been extracting ‘free quarter’, meaning that the local populace (made up of perhaps 200 families) was being forced to provide them with food and board – a common mechanism in early modern Scotland for punishing people, such as the MacDonalds, who had failed to pay their taxes. All the while, however, the groundwork was secretly being laid for the massacre. Glenlyon received his final orders on 12 February: “Yow are hereby ordered to fall upon the Rebells, the McDonalds of Glenco, and putt all to the sword under 70. You are to have a speciall care that the old Fox and his sones doe…

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Did the Scottish mass-murdering cannibal Sawney Bean actually exist?
type: item
date: 2021-09-16T05:05:00.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Medieval life
subject: Murder
description: Alexander 'Sawney' Bean, an infamous clan leader and cannibal, supposedly wreaked devastation in 16th-century Scotland. Find out more about his true identity…
encoded: According to most accounts, Alexander 'Sawney' Bean was a Scottish farm labourer born in about 1530 in Galloway. Soon after his marriage, and for reasons unknown, Sawney and his wife moved to live in the Bennane Cave. This cavern is over 200 metres deep and the entrance is covered by the sea at high tide. From this lair Bean ventured out to ambush, murder and rob unwary travellers. The bodies were brought back to the cave where they were butchered and eaten. Thus no evidence of the crimes was left. In time his eight sons grew old enough to help him in this work. The sons then had children by the six daughters to give Sawney and his wife 32 grandchildren. The whole clan lived by robbery and murder, eagerly consuming their victims. Eventually a man escaped an ambush and survived to raise the alarm. A force of royal soldiers set out to hunt down the gang of outlaws – who were then executed. However, the tale can be traced back only to London chapbooks more than 150 years after the events they claim to describe. These cheap publications concentrated on lurid crimes, scandals among the nobility and other sensational tales. There is no earlier evidence that Sawney Bean existed, though it must always be borne in mind that absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence. Just because no earlier accounts survive it does not mean that Bean did not exist. However, it is possible that tales of Sawney Bean were based on the story of an undeniably real cannibal-robber named Christie Cleek. Christie was a butcher who became a highway robber in the Grampians in 1341. He equipped himself with a sharp hook on a long pole (a cleek) with which he pulled travellers to the ground before killing and robbing them. He is said to have eaten cuts of meat from his victims when he was short of food. This Q&A was first published in BBC History Magazine

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Antwerp: city of innovation & intrigue
type: item
date: 2021-07-28T11:54:13.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Murder
description: In the 16th century, Antwerp was a global centre of trade, talked about around the world. Michael Pye considers its rise and bloody fall
encoded: In the 16th century, Antwerp was a global city that was talked about around the world – a centre of commerce, trade, knowledge and innovation, plus one of scandal, murder, secrets and intrigue. Michael Pye, author of Antwerp: The Glory Years, considers its rise and bloody fall. Michael Pye is the author of Antwerp: The Glory Years (Allen Lane, 2021) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones

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How assassinations have changed history
type: item
date: 2021-07-23T11:06:49.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: General Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Murder
description: Michael Burleigh discusses some of history’s key political killings, from Julius Caesar to Abraham Lincoln
encoded: Michael Burleigh discusses his book Day of the Assassins: A History of Political Murder, which considers what we can learn from looking at assassinations as a category of political violence. He also talks about some of the key assassinations through history, from Julius Caesar and Abraham Lincoln to the mysterious 1986 killing of the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme Michael Burleigh is the author of Day of the Assassins: A History of Political Murder (Picador, 2021) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon <a href="https://www.awin1.com/cread.php?id=489797&clickref=historyextra-183105&awinmid=3787&p=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waterstones.com%2Fbook%2Fday-of-the-assassins%2Fmichael-burleigh%2F%2F9781529030136%3Fawaid%3D3787%26utm_source%3Dredbrain%26utm_medium%3Dshopping%26utm_campaign%3Dcss%26gclid%3DCj0KCQjw0emHBhC1ARIsAL1QGNcm7zBVFAZ8NbFz9PpeF3rmylhA_sg3RjRpr5bwy1eWBVJ1uIBkuUAaAnr2EALw_wcB" target="_blank" rel="sponsored">Buy now on Waterstones

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Was James VI and I murdered?
type: item
date: 2021-07-08T12:05:00.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Murder
description: As the Stuart king lay dying, rumours swirled that he had been poisoned – and that the perpetrator was his best friend. Alastair Bellany and Thomas Cogswell investigate…
encoded: James VI and I died at Theobalds Palace in Hertfordshire on 27 March 1625. In the weeks afterwards, the official line – from courtiers, preachers and poets alike – was that James had died well, confident in his salvation, firm in his Protestant faith, and surrounded by the men he treasured most: his son Charles, and his favourite, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. It was a comforting story, designed to enhance the monarchy’s prestige while easing the awkward transition from one reign to the next. But already in these early weeks, another, far less comforting, story of James I’s last days had begun to worm its way into contemporary imaginations. This secret history, the unauthorised version of James’s death, would take another 12 months to achieve a definitive form, but the anxious whispers around court in the early spring of 1625 were disturbing enough. Something untoward had happened in James’s sickroom. Someone had violated the strict protocols regulating who was to treat the king, and when. This interference had precipitated a dramatic deterioration in the king’s condition, just when his doctors thought him on the road to recovery. Tempers had flared and strange accusations had been hurled. A royal servant and a royal doctor had been brusquely silenced and commanded to leave the court. The king, it was said, had been poisoned, and the all-powerful royal favourite Buckingham was the man who had killed him. Long dismissed by historians as an implausible falsehood, the allegation that James VI and I had been murdered would haunt English politics for three decades. It did so, in great part, because of an astonishingly successful piece of political writing. In the spring of 1626, George Eglisham, a Scots Catholic poet, physician and polemicist, published The Forerunner of Revenge Against the Duke of Buckingham, a pamphlet accusing Buckingham of murdering several leading courtiers, as well as the king. Copies of The Forerunner arrived in London just before the House…

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Murder: a legal history
type: item
date: 2021-06-22T11:15:21.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Victorian
subject: Period
subject: Murder
description: Kate Morgan chronicles the legal history of murder, discussing the cases that shaped UK murder laws
encoded: Lawyer and writer Kate Morgan chronicles the legal history of murder, and explores the roles killers, victims, lawyers and judges have played in making UK murder law what it is today. She also discusses crimes that shaped the British legal system, from Richard Parker, the cannibalised cabin boy eaten by crewmates, to Ruth Ellis, the last woman hanged in the United Kingdom. Kate Morgan is the author of Murder: The Biography (HarperCollins, 2021). Buy it now at Waterstones: Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Waterstones Buy now on Amazon

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Was King John murdered?
type: item
date: 2021-04-09T08:34:21.000Z
subject: Early medieval
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Medieval kings and queens
subject: Murder
description: In the late 13th century, a rumour swept England that the reviled King John hadn't been killed by dysentery – as the historical record suggests – but an assassin's poison. Why did that alternative version of the king's death gain so much traction? And is it founded on truth?
encoded: In October 1216 the king of England, travelling across country with what remained of his followers, stopped for a night’s rest at the abbey of Swineshead, deep in the Lincolnshire Fens. It had been hard going and he’d lost half of his baggage train in the treacherous fenland. The abbey was thrown into disarray by his arrival. Its residents scrambled to find accommodation and food for the king and his men, painfully aware that King John brought civil war to their doorstep. At the same time as the king demanded hospitality, Louis of France – attempting to seize John’s kingdom at the head of a determined force of rebel English barons – was laying siege to Dover Castle. The French prince had already received the submission of London and Winchester, and besieged the castles at Windsor and Lincoln. John had not faced him in battle, retreating north in the hope of regrouping his forces. The abbot would hardly have wanted to host John, even in better times. The king had a reputation for unpredictable cruelty and malicious spite. It was widely rumoured that he had killed his nephew Arthur with his own hands – certainly the young prince, a rival claimant for the English throne, had died while in John’s keeping. The king had a nasty habit of demanding hostages from his own nobles as a guarantee of their loyalty. In 1208 one noblewoman, Matilda de Briouze, had refused to hand over her eldest son for fear that he would meet the same fate as Arthur. Within two years the family had been destroyed. Matilda’s husband was outlawed and forced into exile, where he died. John arrested and imprisoned Matilda and her son, and starved them to death. Read more: Was King John really that bad? Yes! Sitting at dinner in Swineshead Abbey, John asked a wary monk how much a loaf of bread cost. No more than a halfpenny, he was told, and the king smiled humourlessly. “What good value,” he murmured. “But if I live, in half a year’s time this same loaf will cost as much as 20 shillings. I swear it.” …

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