Kitty Fisher was born in 1741 as Catherine Maria, the impoverished daughter of a corset maker. She caught the eye of Admiral Augustus Keppel, who introduced her to London society. (Other sources suggest General Anthony Martin may have been her first patron.) She began her life in the capital as a humble maid, but the…
In 1888, a series of brutal murders unfolded in the deprived district of Whitechapel, resonating far beyond London. Details of the horrific attacks, attributed to a single, ruthless assailant nicknamed Jack the Ripper, made headlines across Europe. The case, involving at least five murders of local prostitutes, remains one of the most chilling and unsolved…
John Christie was born in Yorkshire in 1898, the sixth of seven children. He grew up in a household dominated by an abusive father and an overprotective mother and sisters. Withdrawn and disliked at school, he developed into a hypochondriac with sexual dysfunction and a deep-seated hatred of women. At fifteen, he left school and…
In the very heart of old London, at Smithfield, stands the city’s oldest church – St Bartholomew the Great. Stone, cold and silent, it is surrounded by a long-forgotten graveyard, its ground rising noticeably higher than the surrounding paths. This thick layer of earth, heaped up over centuries to make room for successive generations of…
