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News of the Times - Unlocking the vaults of historical crimeAuthor: Robin Coles
Welcome to News of the Times!Step into the shadowed alleyways and gaslit parlours of the 18th and 19th centuries with News of the Times a meticulously curated journey through historical crime. Each episode draws from authentic reports and court records, bringing you the darkly fascinating tales that gripped Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian Britain.With over 500 episodes and counting, we explore true accounts of mischief, murder, and mayhem from days gone by all delivered with a wry nod and a love for the curious corners of the past. For those with a taste for the peculiar, you may also enjoy our new side project: Volume 1: Slightly Unreliable Memoirs a whimsical collection inspired by the lives (and occasional misadventures) of our research team. Think cravats, crumpets, and the occasional cactus on the lam. Intrigued? Find it here: https://ko-fi.com/s/b406f6f11e Language: en-gb Genres: History, True Crime Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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The Putney Mystery: The Death of Ellen Matilda Franklin (1892)
Episode 633
Tuesday, 17 March, 2026
In October 1892, a young woman arrived quietly at a respectable house in Putney.Within four days she was dead.The death certificate appeared entirely straightforward — embolism, thrombosis, and chronic kidney disease. Natural causes. The body was buried, and the matter might easily have ended there.But suspicion soon began to grow.Within weeks the Home Secretary ordered the grave to be opened, and what Victorian forensic surgeons discovered during the post-mortem revealed that the medical certificate had told a very different story.A doctor and his wife were arrested.An undertaker was accused of helping conceal the truth.And the man believed to have carried out the fatal operation — Dr Richard Freeman — had already vanished.The newspapers soon gave the case a name:The Putney Mystery.Tonight we explore the strange death of Ellen Matilda Franklin — the hurried burial, the evidence hidden inside the coffin, and the sensational Old Bailey trial that followed when Victorian forensic science began to expose what had really happened in a quiet house in Chelverton Road.
