After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Origins of Victorian Murder Detectives

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

We have an image in our heads of Victorian Homicide Detectives, but what was the reality? Who were they? What murder cases shaped their history? What methods did they use? Were they anything at all like Sherlock Holmes?Anthony Delaney takes Maddy Pelling on this journey through the history of the Victorian Homicide Detective.Edited by Tim Arstall, produced by Freddy Chick.You can now watch After Dark on Youtube! www.youtube.com/@afterdarkhistoryhitSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

pool of flickering gaslight etches out a macabre sea. Muddied cobbles with blood-stained clothes shroud a lifeless form. A police whistle blows and heavy hurried footsteps suddenly fill the blackness of the night. Then, into the warm pool of gaslight steps a figure. Here is the supposed hero of the hour, a man to whom legend will surround itself with literary ease. You see, we've got a very specific set of contradictory ideas as to who the Victorian homicide detective really was. Sherlock Holmes, intelligent, mysterious, elite, or the opposite type of man. An uncultured, bigoted, incompetent oath. The last person on earth you'd want to solve any crime, let alone a murder.

So in today's episode, we're trying to piece together the truth behind the stereotypes. This is After Dark and we're asking, what is the real history of the Victorian homicide detective? Hello everybody, I'm Maddie. And I'm Anthony. Now, hold on to your petticoats and your top hats or whatever your Victorian garb of choices. Because we're off to the grimy streets of Victorian London once again. This is a character stepping into the limelight that we have encountered countless times after dark, the Victorian homicide detective.

Scotland Yards Detective Department, which emerged in the middle of the 19th century and was the first police detective department in English history, became iconic mostly through the works of writers like Sherlock Holmes, as we've just heard, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. The idea that someone's job could be to investigate the most serious crimes

was, and arguably still is, fascinating to the point where we often exaggerate the truth about these figures. but what's the real history of the Victorian homicide detective? We're going to be doing this episode in three parts. We're going to be looking at the origin story of this job. We're going to be looking at who the detectives were who fill these boots. And then we're going to finish by looking at the methods that used. Whatho Watson, the game is afoot.

Do you know what? I was really confused there because when you said three parts, I was like, I only have notes from one episode on this. I don't know what's going on. Three parts. Within one episode. Within one episode. Yes. Anthony's panicking that he hasn't asked for a high enough seat for this.

I'm so excited. Okay, Anthony, this is your episode. So can you please give me a little bit of context about the Victorian world that we're in and specifically how the police force emerged within that and what people thought initially of that police force? I find this really interesting because a force of something, some description emerges in 1829, that's established by Sir Robert Peel. People may have heard of this.

It is, you know, called the Met Police, essentially, as we know it today. But it deliberately had no detectives. And this, I find fascinating. And the reason being is because the idea of investigation and going plain clothes undercover was seen as almost too intrusive into people's lives. So what they wanted to concentrate on was the prevention of crime, though that was the theory at least. Yeah, I love this idea that detectives, at least initially, are seen as sort of inappropriate in

that, like you say, they're kind of interrupting people's private lives, they're stepping over the line. But also, I suppose, they behave in a way that's slightly criminal, right? They're sort of underhand, it's very un-British, it's seen as sort of unfair that they're sneaking around, they're getting people to share their secrets and sort of manipulating people. and that of course is the job. That's how they get stuff done. So you have a police force that comes into the city that is set up to deal with some of the crimes that are happening. But of course we're talking specifically in this episode about the homicide detectives that emerge. So murder presumably becomes a big issue in the city and the police force has to sort of

recalibrate itself to meet this threat, this challenge. So what? What? What is going on in the early 19th century in terms of murder that elicits this kind of invention of the homicide detective? Well, we've spoken about this before, haven't we? And that being the emergence of a Victorian press that is more voracious and angry and bloodthirsty. And I suppose we've spoken about this with Bob Nicholson, haven't we, in our episode on the press invention of Jack the Ripper. So you can check that episode out. I didn't. It's in my notes. But there is a string of high-profile murders that come around this time that really are exacerbated in the public imagination because of this press intrusion.

We're talking about the Eliza Davies murder in 1837, Eliza Grimwood, who was a sex worker in 1838. We had a watchmaker who was called Robert Westwood, 1839. And this keeps going, going. And one you've spoken about before, Maddie, the murder of Lord William Russell, who was murdered by. his valet or valet, whichever pronunciation we want to go with. But these are all making headline news in the run up to 1840. And the press begins to develop this narrative amidst all of this crime and murder that's going on of police incompetence. And that's what's coming across in their reporting. Yeah. And this is something that seeps into the cultural imagination as well,

isn't it? I'm thinking we mentioned Charles Dickens as one of the authors who kind of deals with the police on his books at the beginning of this episode. And I'm thinking of inspected bucket in Bleak House. And he's, you know, seen as a sort of slightly incompetent, bumbling fool who's really trying to get to the bottom of things, but only makes things worse. And that's a sort of recurring character at the time, isn't it? So is there precedence for this? Is there a true history to police incompetence in this moment? Or is it simply that they're a new force, they're trying their best, they don't know what they're doing yet. What's going on? Well, I suppose initially I was going to be like, yes, Maddie, there's loads of incompetence here. But actually,

what you just said there about it being a relatively new force and finding their way and not quite understanding what the parameters within which they are operating. Because I mean, they have very little training. But yes, there is a particular case and they are particularly incompetent during this case. And this is really what kind of acts as a catalyst for change. We're talking about a case we haven't spoken about before, actually, which is the murder of a woman called Jade Jones. Jade was in a relationship with a man called Daniel Good, who was a coachman and they have an 11-year-old son together. But as is so often the case in these stories, and we hear this a lot, in 1842, Daniel starts a relationship with another woman. And

as a way to rid himself of his prior obligations, he murders Jade, telling everybody, including their son, that she's just moved on and she's got a new job and she's no longer around, so we don't need to really worry about her anymore. However, not long after the murder, a porn broker sees Daniel selling trousers and reports the theft to the police. Because obviously we know that clothing, and again, we've seen this a lot, haven't we, on these cases that come up, clothing is a very valuable commodity for people in these times. And he's wondering where these clothes have come from, where did he get them from? He knows it's not Daniels somehow.

We're not sure how he knows that. But basically he goes straight to the police and goes, like, look, that guy is selling stolen clothes. So that's how it starts to unravel. Okay, so we have a couple who, well, as well, I'll say they've broken up, but no, the man has left Jade. Daniel's left Jade for another woman, has murdered her, and then is caught stealing clothes and selling them on. Presumably the police are about to become involved. But how does this lead to the discovery that he's murdered? Because that's quite, it's one thing to steal and sell a pair of trousers, but it's quite another to kill someone. Yeah, to leave, doesn't it? So what we have is a police constable is sent to Daniel Goods stables. So they assume they'll either encounter him there or they might be able to find the stolen clothes or some more stolen clothes that he's been selling. But actually what he spots instead is something under a pile of hay that he thinks is a dead pig. Yes. As you can imagine, it is not a dead pig. Daniel is there with him at this

moment. He slams the stable door. He closes the constable inside the barn. So he, He locks the constable inside the barn. It's a really temporary fix, though, that. You've locked a police officer in with the evidence of your crime potentially. I mean, at this point, the police constable still thinks it's a dead pig under the straw, but he's about to find that that's not the case, right? Yeah, and it's interesting, actually, as you say that, because it gives him time to realize, at that point he thinks it's a dead pig.

And then when he locks him in there, he realizes because he gets a closer look, oh, no, this is the torso of a woman, and there's no legs of rhymes. I better look at that in more detail because this is suspicious behavior. Why is he locking me in? Yeah, absolutely. It then takes him, this is where the farcical element, despite the horrendous nature of the crime has been committed, but this is where the farcical nature starts coming in because it takes the constable 15 minutes to break out at the barn. And instead of then trying to follow Daniel Good, he sends for reinforcements. And so he's like, right, we need back up here. So I need more people to come with me to this barn. I still think that's reasonable. I don't. want to be following Daniel Good, having just discovered what he's done to poor Jade. Yeah,

that's true, actually. That's very true. I need a buddy to come with me to do that. Like, I'm not doing that by myself. Actually, I wonder how many police difficulties. We don't know, but more did come to the stables with him, where they found further evidence of murder. They found burned bones. But they do nothing about looking for Daniel then, and here's where it really does get quite bad, for another 24 hours. So, yeah, they don't. They don't. They don't. They don't don't do anything. They just were like, let's go and talk about this now for a while or whatever they do. I don't know what they do within that 24 hours. But they certainly don't go looking for Daniel Good until 24 hours later. Okay. So whatever happens in this 24 hours, skip two, they start

the manhunt. How is that going to go? In the one of the key elements of this, I suppose, and where the far-skill element comes in just before we get onto that manhunt, which does come, is that they would have found him if they tried because he just goes back to the house that he'd shared with Jay J. He just got home, basically. Oh my God. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's like where Jade was staying. So it would have been very easy to find him had they tried. But they didn't. And so then this other disorganized manhun starts. There's dozens of different divisions of the police acting independently. Someone's searching in this area. Others are searching in that area.

Inexperienced constables are failing to really unravel clear leads as in let's go to where we know she was last alive or let's go to where he was last seen before this incident. They don't do any of that. They're just kind of searching willy-nilly all around. And what's happening to the crime scene itself in this moment? Because presumably if they've gone off on this manhunt,

poor Jade's remains are what? Just still in the stables sat there for anyone to interfere with? Still in the stables. And as you can imagine, this has now garnered attention from different parts of the local area. And people are coming, even

there's a quote here it says, vehicles of every description from the aristocratic carriage to the custer monger's cart start to enter the stable yard because they want to see this gruesome site for themselves. It's crazy. I mean, it's not unprecedented in this period.

You know, we know the attraction of a crime scene and this continues through the 19th century. I mean, you only have to look at the 1880s in Whitechaple with Jut Ripper and his victims and the way that people rush to crime scenes, the way they recreate them. Obviously, the photographs in those crime scenes still hold enormous interest.

today, unfortunately. So there's nothing new here, but it certainly, in this case, points to the incompetence of the police in terms of the investigation, finding the very clear primary suspect and also keeping the crime scene safe. I mean, dignity is not even coming into it, is it, let alone the sort of protection of what we would understand now as a forensic evidence. Obviously, they're not thinking of those terms, but, you know, that's still the crime scene. There's evidence there. You mentioned the burned bones. There's the torso. You know, it's a very grisly situation. Please tell me that Daniel Good is eventually

caught for this crime. He is. I'm not exactly sure of the details through which they get him, but they do get him. I mean, he doesn't sound like the smartest cookie in the box. Does he really? Smartest cookie in the box? That's not a saying. But we're going to keep it in anyway. He is caught and actually just a bit of a fluke when he is caught because a railway worker

who had formerly been a police constable just recognises him. He knows people are looking for him and he turns him in, essentially. So Daniel is caught. But it's not detective work or, well, there are no such thing as detectives, but it's not, you know, the groundbreaking forensic thing. But one thing I do want to point out here is when the peelers are put into place initially, it's about the prevention of crime, not necessarily the detection of what's happened. But they failed in that too. Do you know what I mean? Like they're clearly not preventing crime if these types of crimes are happening.

Yeah, this is very reactionary. and then the reaction itself is utter shite. It's interesting to me just a minor note here, but the person who catches Daniel Good is a railway worker who was formerly a police constable. Yes, yes, yes. And you might assume that being a railway worker would be a lowlier employment than being a policeman in this period.

And I think that tells you a lot about the status of the police, the opportunities for advancement, for respect, for standing in your community, that working on the early railways is actually a preferable job. So we have the police. I mean, this is, we've gone here from what, 1829 through to the 1840s. We're coming into the 1850s now. So we're sort of mid-century. What triggers the advent of these first homicide detectives coming in?

Is it simply, as you've explained, the perceived incompetence of the police force and, you know, sort of a lack of any kind of department or training that could specifically deal with these crimes? Is there something else going on with it on? the police. Like what brings this all together and how is the detective invented as we know it now? Well, in many ways it's this case. It's this one thing, this image of a police constable locked in a barn that's just so foolish. That seems like something has to come of this. Now, we've had that buildup of the other crimes I mentioned earlier, the other murders specifically. But at this point, the police and the home office come together and they're like, right, we need to create something

that is going to investigate serious crime. So it's in 1842. that the Met creates the detective department of the London Metropolitan Police, catchy. But what I found so fascinating about this, right, is that initially, imagine being the first people that are put in this position to be those detectives, and there's only eight of them at first. They're all recruited from police ranks. And we know their names. And actually, one or two of them might be familiar to some listeners. I'm looking at the list and I can spot at least one on there. Yeah. Yeah. So we have inspectors, Pierce and Haynes.

sergeants Garrett, Thornton, Witcher, Goff, Shaw and Braddock. So we have the names of these eight men who are the first detectives in Britain. Witcher, of course, the Witcher of the suspicions of Mr. Richard, the brilliant Kate Summer Scale book, which looks at the Road Hill House murder, which I think I'm slightly later in the century, doesn't it? I can't think of the exact day. You know, I drove past there recently through Road. Oh, did you? And it's so wintery when I drove through.

and the leaves on the trees were so, you know, it was so barren and so empty that for the first time I could see the house from the road. I've never been able to see it before and it was, it did give me a little shiver. We've done an episode on that, so go back and listen to that episode. It's fantastic. And indeed, we read Kate Somerskills' Brilliant book on it. I love the idea that there's only eight detectors. Yes, same.

I wonder, has there been a book written about the eight of them together? I feel like that would be a fantastic drama or even a sitcom. It's a sort of sitcom waiting to happen really. It's so interesting how quickly they get into the formalisation of what we understand as detective work now, because they are based at Scotland Yard, which is just off Whitehall Place near the Thames. So when you hear about Scotland Yard even now on the news and you see that sign moving around in the background behind the reporter, there is this concept of them being at Scotland Yard or part of Scotland Yard even then. But it was not a fancy modern building back then.

it was a courtyard used by coal heavers who worked in the wharves. It is full of pie makers and taverns, which, you know, might be quite handy for lunchtimes and all that kind of thing. A police working lunch in the 19th century. It's just several pints and a pie. Yeah. And it becomes, Scotland Yard becomes the nickname for the police detective department. So it's very much branded straight away.

And I think that's interesting that it's almost a bit derogatory, right? The idea of Scotland Yard, you know, it's a little bit laughable. Again, that kind of farcical element coming in. like, oh yeah, they're over there with the pie makers and the taverns and the coal heavers. Like, this isn't a serious endeavour. They don't even have proper offices. You know, they're just sort of lumped in with the working classes of London getting on with whatever they're getting on with. And it's giving slow horses, actually, the more you describe that, it's very that. Like, it's like, oh, God, these guys.

Yeah, but are they going to become a crack team who save the world? I mean, we know that they are involved in big cases. Yeah, well, I mean, it's kind of hit and miss, but that doesn't mean it's kind of hit and miss, but that doesn't mean it's, it's a total failure or anything. They do rebrand. It's a bit later by the time they rebrand. We're into 1878. The detective department is rebranded in the wake of a corruption trial.

And then it gets its name, the criminal investigations department or CID. That might sound familiar. Yeah. So that's where that comes from. So you're telling me that, but, okay, so they're set up in what, 1842. Yes. By 1878, there are, in my notes here it says there are three of them, three detectives that are involved in a corruption trial.

I mean, for God's sake, lads, that's quite a. significant portion of the eight of you who began. It is. But do you know what? You were talking about before this idea that they're in this working class area, that they are amongst that kind of person and people and idea and status in society. It's also because that's where they were coming from. They were coming from laboring or trade backgrounds or they were agricultural workers. Now, they did have to have basic literacy because they were writing endless reports,

even at that time. But they are from a working class background. So to find them within that, but then all of the police were at this time, you know. So they were taken from the police ranks, but they were also taken from the working class. Now, this is one of the things that people were afraid of them for, because they were wearing plain clothes, so as they, detective still do. So there was this idea that they could be moving amongst the everyday populace and you wouldn't necessarily know they were there.

But there was a criteria before he could be a detective, or even part of the police, you had to be fit, you had to be literate. You had to be a man, of course, no women. Yes. And of course, women would have made amazing detectives in this period because they would have been invisible to a lot of the portion of the population. They would have been able to move between spaces that men can't go in. Surely they would have been useful, for goodness sake.

They were used. And there was a book about this, The Mysterious case of the Victorian female detective by Sarah Lodge. Check it out. And actually, producer Freddie, let's have Sarah on to talk about that specific. because that's going to be fascinating. Yes, please. They were often the wives or female relatives of the police officers or the detectives.

They too would go undercover in plain clothes and they would track one to criminals. They'd infiltrate gangs, particularly female gangs. And obviously this is a great risk to them and they're not even officially part of the thing. But they are certainly hired to work with the detective forces on a freelance basis. And presumably, yeah, not on the same wage that the male detectives are on. Don't be ridiculous. Yeah, of course not. Silly me.

One of the things that I love is that in order to be a detective, this was, a male detective, you had to be at least 5 foot 9, which seems quite tall. I mean, I know the myth that everyone was tiny in the past isn't necessarily true, but that does seem, as someone who's about 5'10, you know, it's quite tall. Also, under 35. So quite striking in terms of, you know, you're meant to be in plain clothes, you're meant to be not recognisable, but you're tall and young-ish. That's a good point.

You know, if you want to join, I think it's either MI5 or MI6, you have to basically look quite plain. I know you're not allowed to be too tall or too small and you can't be too good looking and you can't be memorable. Yeah, exactly. I know, you're just so tall and handsome. Exactly. Exactly. I love this idea of the contradictions that are in place because we're talking about people from working class laboring or farming backgrounds, but they also have to be literate, not that people from that background.

were not at this point because they were. But it wasn't necessarily a priority in those jobs. But also, they wanted them to be able to speak German and Greek and Italian and French and Russian. I'm like, Christ lads, like, that's a lot of demands to be putting on a set of people from, you know, different walks of life. It is, but I think it tells you so much about the cityscape at the time in the community that these people are policing, right? That they need to be able to, especially, you know, we're talking about the Met here. These are people who are working in the city of London and around London that you have to, be able to engage with different migrant communities.

Do you have to be able to, you know, track leads across different, yeah, communities, different areas, different locations, different jobs. You need to be able to blend in. You need to be able to communicate. And, you know, that's something that we see in, this is, you know, my undergraduate literature degree coming out now, but it's something we see a lot in Sherlock Holmes, right, this idea that he has the sort of group of young boys who work for him across the city who are sort of invisible to everyone. They are the people who go out and traverse the city and find

little clues for him and report back to him because you need to be able to access those networks that were invisible unless you were part of them, unless you had access to them already. So I think a lot of the requirements here offer people who can move across and through the city without detection themselves. I think that's a really good point. We're going to come back to that point very specifically in relation to Sherlock Holmes in just a little bit actually. But yeah, But the one thing to point out, I suppose, before we go on to a specific murder case, is that they were in this set of eight detectives or one of them was investigating, is that most of their time was spent dealing with burglary rather than murder. 70% of detective cases at the old Bailey from this time are larceny cases. So, you know, it's not all murder investigations or that kind of thing.

It's more work a day usually. Okay. And that's interesting because, you know, we're thinking about them in terms of, this kind of elite force that's set up to deal specifically with homicides, but actually that's not necessarily the case. They're just people who are trained and training all the time in detection of crimes more generally. So we have these detectives who are detecting lots of different crimes, but we're here to talk about murder. We've mentioned Jack Witcher and Hill House. Please, let's talk a little bit more about this specific case, because this is a case that really captures the

public imagination, it captures the cultural imagination, the literary imagination. What happened and why is it relevant to our history here? So let's very quickly just recap some of the details of this case. We're talking about Jack Witcher, of course, who was the detective in this case. He is a labourer, a working class labourer from Camberwell. He begins life in the police as a constable in Hoburn division. So this is somewhere that is, you know, a rough area. He's used to working with some of the most difficult things that are happening to people's lives and he is there on the ground working through them. And he's very much an urban policeman at this point, right? And Road Hill House is not an urban setting. It is not. And so what's happening at

Road Hill House? Well, he is investigating the murder of three-year-old Francis Kent at Road Hill House. He is one of the children that lives in the in the house. This is a very middle-class, upper middle class home, Witcher accuses the boy's half-sister, Constance Kent, and tries to persuade a magistrate to try her for murder, but the case is thrown out. And now that we know what we know about the detective class, not just Witcher,

this is a way in which, even then, 20 years later, detectives, because of their class background, especially when they start to infiltrate middle-class crime and beyond middle-class, they're not taken seriously by the system. And they're going, well, no, no, no, no, no, these are too polite to be dealing with things like murder. So you go back to your grubby little burglaries, you working class person, just deal with those.

Yeah, and there's a feeling that these people have no authority over the upper classes as well. I mean, in the Road Hill House case, you know, it's a real fish out of water situation for Witcher. And as you say, he has this career, sort of inner city career dealing with some of the darkest and sort of lowliest crimes that can be committed. and suddenly he's in a country house dealing with a very different class of people and then accusing one of the daughters of this well-to-do family of the murder of her own half-brother. You know, it doesn't go down well and the fact that the case is thrown out. It really highlights, yeah, the sort of the tensions there, I suppose,

and there's sort of outrage that people felt that a detective could come in and have any say over you whatsoever. I mean, it's really interesting. And he's sort of mocked in the press as well, isn't he? I know Punch Magazine really goes for him and calls him, you know, inspect a watcher of the defective force, you know, sort of a play on words there

and really kind of diminishes him in the public eye that this is someone who has had his authority stripped from him because he's been perceived to overstep the mark, even though in reality he has done some very good detecting work within that case. Yeah, absolutely. And I think what you're seeing there, is this kind of overall societal rejection at a certain class level of what he's doing.

So he gets rejected by the magistrate. He gets rejected by Punch magazine. He gets rejected by the family itself and the other middle class people that are. So he really doesn't stand a chance in this. But it's interesting that you talk about the methods, right? Because we have this idea that, A, it's either bungling and it's, you know, people getting locked in barns

and it's just all a big farce. or we also have this idea which I suppose it's influenced by the Edwardians but is then cast back over the Victorians about, you know, the Sherlock Holmesness of it all and being this really intuitive person

but that's also picking up on scientific clues and you know it's really, I'm breaking down all the facts and it can only lead to this one thing and I've got a map on my wall with strings going from here there and everywhere but actually Witcher does an amazing

job because there is no formal training, really, for police or detectives. It says here in one of their manuals that the superior officer of police available on the spot is to take immediate steps and make all possible inquiries to apprehend the perpetrator and obtain all the particulars for the information of the coroner and magistrate. So it's like basically solve the crime. Do the job of 10 police officers on site in the first few minutes. Yeah. And especially in the Road Hill House case, you know, we're not, we won't give away too much about it, but it's a, it's essentially a locked room mystery. It's a house that's locked up at night when the murder takes place, and so it has to be, you know, sort of very Conan Doyle or, um, I guess the Christie-esque in

that, you know, there's a limited cast of characters, but it's, it's a real mystery that Witcher has to unpick in these difficult circumstances with this prejudice against him. And I suppose it's, I think you're right, what you're saying about this kind of strange combination that people perceive of, on the one hand, detectives having to be logical, that everything is methodical, that they have to work out a method for themselves. They're not really trained in it. They have to, so therefore you have to be a kind of methodical person anyway. You have to have that skill.

But also that there is something intuitive, that you have to have this almost magical sense, extra sense, where you can just perceive what is, what has happened or what the truth is. And of course, that's nonsense. It's hard work and diligence and attention to detail that gets the job done. But I wonder what it would feel like to be a detective in this moment, whether it would be incredibly frustrating that there's this sort of pressure on you to, you know, have this sort of homesy in response and turn up and say, oh, it'll lick your finger, feel the wind, and say, oh, it was the lady three seats down with the knife in the library. her perfume or whatever.

Yeah, exactly. I suppose the good thing for Witcher and the like these early detectives is they wouldn't have been aware of the Holmesian thing just yet, right? Because that comes a little bit later. But what we do see is that despite the fact that the training is essentially shadowing another detective and these are the first detective, so they're not shadowing anybody. But we do see this kind of formalization of procedure starting to come through. So they're information collecting all the time.

They're often disseminating that information then either purposely, publicly, through newspapers in order to get more information that they might be missing. So they'll plan some information and then take, you know, hope somebody comes forward with something else. Or they're passing on information to superiors, etc. But then Scotland Yard detectives themselves start to coordinate plainclothes police patrols. So they are doing what the people were afraid of in one sense. They are moving amongst them hidden.

and, you know, watching their concealed eyes in a way. But there's also this other aspect that they do, which is very practical. And I kind of respect it. And I think it's very necessary. What they start to do is visit prisons just so that they get to know convicts who are due for release. So they're like going, well, there's Martin. And Martin will be out soon and I'm going to keep an eye on him.

Now, in one sense, you might say it's profiling at the same time. But, you know, there are plenty of people. To anyone called Martin out there. Yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry. Yes, okay, they're like, well, you've broken the law before, and now you're going to do it again, and I'm going to keep watching you. But there is method in the, you know, it's problematic, but there's something, at least they're thinking.

They're trying to think of ways to do what they're trying to do. Yeah, and it comes down again to this idea that the detectives had to know their beat, that they had to know everyone on it. And that's, that becomes a very Sherlock Holmes thing later on, this idea that, you know, you pay attention to everyone from the flower cellar on the street corner to the chimney sweep, to the person who clears out the privies to the milk delivery guy, you know, everyone has a place in a role and you know what everyone should be up to. And therefore you can see when they are not performing their usual roles or they've stepped

out of normal societal behaviours in order to commit a crime. So I think that kind of fits with that idea. There's been a lot in here about detectives who have got things wrong or in the case of Witcher, who does a very good job, I think. detectives who have had things put in place against them or been depicted in the press, in the popular imagination is overstepping. Do we have examples in the 19th century of when detectives absolutely nail their job and have a success that leads to a rightful conviction? Yeah, and we've covered this before actually, and it's worth reminding people, it's the Bermansey horror, which it's called,

if you go back through our back catalogue, it's called the Victorian Love Triangle Murder. Basically, if we remember Maria Manning and her husband Frederick George Manning murder Patrick O'Connor and bury his body in quicklime under the kitchen and then his disappearance was noticed. He was quite rich and the police are alerted because people notice he's missing.

The mannings go on the run before O'Connor's body is found under the kitchen slabs. But what works really well in that case was very plain from our research when we were talking about it in the episode we discussed it is that all the different departments start to work really closely

and tightly together on the Bermansy horror case. They're communicating with Edinburgh, so they have people over there, and they find them, and it's relatively quick. In fact, I would say surprisingly quick. And they use telegraph, of course, as well. So they're using modern technology to help them solve this crime. So in that sense, they really are. And this is in 1849. So, you know, we're seven years into, it's these men. So these men are solving that crime too. Tell me this. We've talked a lot about Sherlock Holmes in this episode and the sort of Arthur Conan Doyle approach to detective work. Was there anyone really working like that who could, you know, just say, oh, I smell this lady's perfume, she did it, or, you know, that man's got a bit of mud on the boot of his shoe. He has stolen four pigs and a cart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always think, like, if I get nervous when I think about this, I don't know why, because it's totally irrelevant to my life. But it's like, if ever I was like to write a detective, novel, which I probably never will. But if ever I was, I'm like, I wouldn't be smart enough to do all of

those things that. You know, the way they're always like, I realized how this happened because of this, this, this is. I feel like, I would never even think up that. So I love how you're like, I probably weren't. You're just covering yourself there in case one day you'd deter. Something happens. Yeah, yeah. And you become the biggest crime selling novelist of all time. Then replay this interview. No, well, to answer your question, no. There's no real Sherlock Holmesie stuff going on. It's far more mundane. But I think that's good in a way. They're dealing with, you know, as I said, information gathering. They're putting themselves amongst the criminal class. They are using scientific breakthrough. So footprints are definitely

treated very carefully. They know that that's important scene evidence. And then that can be matched against suspect's shoes. So that's happening straight away. But it's funny enough, Shane was asking me the other day when fingerprints started to come into use. And I wasn't entirely sure, but it's the very early... Why did he want to? to know. What have you done, shame? We were watching something and he was like, why aren't they using fingerprints? And in my mind, I went, oh, they probably weren't using them very much at that point. But that was definitely well into the 20th century. And then we see, okay, it's, it's, you know, it's what, is it 65 years later after the detective department has been set up?

But fingerprinting starts to come into use in 1905. But I thought it would be so much later than that, like well into the 50s or 60s. No, I thought it would be so much earlier. 1905, is it really? Gosh. And it's Edward Henry who is credited generally with introducing fingerprinting into the Met, isn't it? But he, interestingly and importantly to say, he was developing this system when he was working in a colonial police force in Bengal. And actually, there are two, I think, sub-inspectors from that police force called Azizal Hook and Hemchandra Bose, who are involved in the development of fingerprinting. And, you know, they're not really ever credited alongside Edward Henry. So just to get that in there.

Also, how much of an English name is Edward Henry? It's like, oh, God. Just all of the English names going through. Again, apologies if your name is Edward or Henry. I make no apologises. No, I don't. No, look at what that colonial nightmare did. But the first murder case to use fingerprints is, as we say in 1905,

it is the Stratton Brothers murder of Thomas and Anne Farrow. They were murdered. Have we done that one? I don't think so. We should do it. We should absolutely do that one. Yeah, that sounds like an interesting one to do. And that's presumably, one assumes, a case in which the murderers caught out,

or the two murderers are caught out because of the fingerprints they leave behind at the scene, right? Yeah, there is a greasy fingerprint that's left on a cash box that was, the cash was taken out of it, but the box was left behind, and it's eventually matched to Albert Stratton, and then he and his brother Alfred are both found guilty in court and hanged. So the detective departments come in for a lot of slack. They get a lot of rib tickling and worse going on. And then you see even in Witchers case, they're really professionally discredited. So there's a real trend of trying to discredit these people and their work both, you know, publicly and then within more middle class and elite societies.

But there are progressions that are being made. They are solving crimes. They're certainly making waves scientifically. So it's interesting to track all of this, isn't it, when we've talked about so many different murder cases, but actually then to put it into the context of when this detecting, as we know it now started, it's actually emerging at the same time as a lot of these cases are happening, which makes sense in many ways. But you forget that the detectives that are looking at these cases are at the very, very beginning of the whole discipline, let alone of their own careers.

Yeah, and they don't have any of the tools. to begin with that modern detectives have today. And the fact that even fingerprinting is coming in in the 20th century is mind-blowing to me. I would have assumed it was earlier than that. So it's very interesting that there's, on the one hand, we sort of, I suppose we view the 19th century as the golden age of murder, if one could put it like that. You know, there are some really high-profile cases, some incredibly famous cases that have really stayed with us and, you know, became enormous at the time, but are still enormous

today and things that are not solved, that we still debate, again, thinking about, you know, the Ripper, but also, you know, things beyond that that we've covered on this show before. And that actually, the detective department rises to meet that challenge, actually. It exists, it comes into existence out of necessity because of, you know, people have always killed each other, I suppose. There's nothing new happening in the 19th century other than you're getting more crowded cities. There are more people coming into those cities. There are more people living cheap by Jowel.

there's maybe a greater level of inequality and poverty and danger that that then breeds. But they are meeting it as best they can. And I think overall I would say that they do a good job. It progresses into the police force that we know today, which is not without its faults and problems. But in terms of the way that they develop their tactics and this very methodological approach, this very calm, reasonable, logical approach. That is really fascinating to me. And the fact that it only begins with eight men

and a bunch of women who help them as a freelance situation. Maddie, what have you, anything surprised? Well, you said about the fingerprint, but anything else surprising? Or is it as you would have expected from the kind of the 19th century detective? I can see why people will be reticent at the beginning about having a police force of any kind

and certainly of having plainclothes officers who are blending in. But I am surprised, even though I know the story of Road Hill House and Inspector Wichard, that it never fails to surprise me the kind of hostility towards people who are trying to restore some kind of order and, you know, seek out people who'd done some of the worst crimes imaginable. There was that hostility is interesting, I think.

Yeah. What about you? Well, and it's interesting the way hostility continues, right? That there is this idea of ineptitude or corruption. And of course, we have seen many cases in modern examples where those things are definitely happening. So it's interesting to see how that has developed, how it's always been there, but at the same time how there are certain detectives, which are being one of them, who are out there for good reasons, they're getting the job done, they're using all the means at their disposal. And yet still sometimes that

isn't even enough. So it's a nuanced one. But as I say, it's, I'm glad we've done this because it just gives a little bit more depth when we're talking about these cases in the 19th century. It gives a little bit more depth to remember how early on in this discipline that we are. And how there were real people behind the institution that was meant to come and sort out these problems. We focus so often on the killer themselves or sometimes, rightly so, the victims of the crime and recreate their lives. But actually, there's a whole other class of people who's involved in this. and that is the detective and the police force more generally. And there's something so interesting there about the kind of social contract.

You know, we agree to be policed as a society. We agree to hand over power and jurisdiction to certain people who agree to uphold the rules by which we all live and to enforce those. And that it is a delicate balance. It was then, it is now. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

The end. Right. Well, I think that is a good place. to leave this particular episode. If there is anything from this episode that you feel, oh, I'd like to know a little bit more about that. Because actually, there's a lot of cases mentioned there and there's a lot of different individuals.

Like, maybe we should do something on the individuals as well, the eight individuals. We could do an episode and that and see what we could find out there. But let us know. You could do eight episodes. No, I don't have time for that. I mean, I know we're going to have to do eight episodes anyway. It's too busy, ladies and gentlemen.

No, it's not that. I just don't like repeating stuff too often. You know what I mean? If we do like a two-part or that's me. And then after that, I'm like, do we have to do a third episode? on this. That is true. So if there is anything that you want to know that has come up from this episode, then drop us an email at After Dark at HistoryHit.com. You can suggest any other episodes there. I am now going to have my chicken sandwich and soup for lunch. Maddie, what are you going to be doing

for the rest of the afternoon, apart from bouncing on your pregnancy ball? Just bouncing on a pregnancy ball and snacking all day, my friend. I mean, doesn't sound like a bad life to me. It's pretty good. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time and After Dark. Thank you.