The Maul and the Pear Tree: The Ratcliffe Highway Murders 1811

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The Timothy Marr family at number 29 Ratcliffe Highway(another source says #11 Ratcliffe Highway) was in their shop and residence preparing for the next day's business when an intruder entered their home.It was just before midnight on a Saturday, the busiest day of the week for area shopkeepers. Marr, 24, kept a linen draper and hosier's shop, says de Quincey in his "On Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts," and was a "stout, fresh-coloured young man of 27."He had served for several years with the East India Company on the Dover Castle and now had a young wife, Celia; a baby son, Timothy (14 weeks old)' an apprentice, James Gowan; and a servant girl, Margaret Jewell. All had been living there since April of that year. The Birdcage pub, frequented by the gang, still stands within sight of the park. 9. The Whitehall Mystery and The Thames Torso Murders a chronometer; is jewelled in no end of holes ; is engine-turned, and to be sold, as a matter of philanthropy, for merely The Ratcliffe Highway murders brought to public attention the limited abilities of London's fragmented police forces, and were one of the factors that led toward the formation of the Met in the years to come. Two hundred years later and Ratcliffe itself has disappeared (although, in another of Google Maps' curious quirks, it's still listed as an area of East London). Yet in a city that often seems fixated on the macabre, the brutal nature of these crimes, and their unsolved nature, has propped the mystery up over the centuries.

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( October 2023) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) James Gowan and Celia Marr lay dead on the floor, bleeding profusely; Timothy Marr was found behind his counter in a similar state. The four victims were given a memorial service, then buried beneath a monument in the parish church of St. George in the East, where the infant had been baptised three months earlier. When the maul was cleaned on Thursday 19 December it appeared that some initials were carved into the handle, perhaps with a seaman's coppering punch: "I.P." or "J.P." Those who were working on the case now had a way to try to trace the owner. On 28 June, Dinah Angel arrived at 16 Batty Street, Whitechapel, looking for her daughter-in-law Miriam who had failed to uphold an appointment to meet. His Royal Highness [the Prince Regent], for the better apprehending and bringing to justice the persons concerned in the said atrocious murders, is hereby pleased to offer a Reward of One Hundred Pounds to any one of them (except the person or persons who actually perpetrated the said murders), who shall discover his or their accomplice or accomplices therein, to be paid on the conviction of any one or more of the offenders, by the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of his Majesty’s Treasury.

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John Williams's arrest would have interested two other people involved: Cornelius Hart and William "Long Billy" Ablass. According to Dean Nicholas in Londonist , all were brutally killed in London’s East End, long before London even had the Metropolitan Police (the Met). No one would ever be held accountable for the crimes that terrorized London in 1811. In December 1811, a series of brutal murders took place in the Ratcliffe Highway area. Like everyone in the East End, William James and his family would have been caught up in the drama, which caused panic amongst the local population and made the news across the country.

It is no surprise, then, that with the sensation that the murders caused, that every vaguely suspicious person was regarded as the culprit of the terrible crimes. Lucy Worsley, OBE (born 18 December 1973) is an English historian, author, curator, and television presenter. John Turner, a lodger at the King’s Arms pub, was escaping from an upstairs window, crying and shouting and either partially or wholly naked depending on the source. It was clear that something dramatic had happened within. The Ratcliffe Highway murders and subsequent political infighting, along with the build-up to Ablass turning pirate, are only slowly replaced by detection and a hunt for the killer. Meanwhile the reader must negotiate exposition along the lines of "Aaron Graham is the magistrate of Bow Street in the fashionable West End of town, and as such has some right to consider himself the lead magistrate in London and Westminster, though no such seniority exists in official point of fact and in any case Graham would never be graceless enough to dwell on it." All were found guilty and sentenced to death, although in the event May’s punishment was converted to transportation to modern-day Tasmania.When John Williams’ body took its final journey, there was concern over whether the level of public sentiment might boil over into violent unrest, however, in the event the occasion was, for the most part, marked by solemnity. Indeed you can, at least from the outside. 46 Lower Belgrave Street still stands, and is easily distinguishable not only from the number but as the only nearby house without columns flanking the entrance.