Jonathan whicher born

In June of three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. The crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection, ironically destroying, in the process, the career of perhaps the greatest detective in the land.

At the time, the detective was a relatively new invention; there were only eight detectives in all of England and rarely were they called out of London, but this crime was so shocking, as Kate Summerscale relates in her scintillating new book, that Scotland Yard sent its best man to investigate, Inspector Jonathan Whicher.

Whicher quickly believed the unbelievable—that someone within the family was responsible for the murder of young Saville Kent. Without sufficient evidence or a confession, though, his case was circumstantial and he returned to London a broken man. Though he would be vindicated five years later, the real legacy of Jonathan Whicher lives on in fiction: the tough, quirky, knowing, and all-seeing detective that we know and love today…from the cryptic Sgt.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher is a provocative work of nonfiction that reads like a Victorian thriller, and in it Kate Summerscale has fashioned a brilliant, multilayered narrative that is as cleverly constructed as it is beautifully written. Kate Summerscale is the former literary editor for the Daily Telegraph and author of The Queen of Whale Cay , which won the Somerset Maugham Award and was shortlisted for the Whitbread biography award. If so, login to add it. If not, see our friends at Ancestry DNA.

Categories: Notables. Jonathan Whicher - Jonathan Jack Whicher. Son of [father unknown] and [mother unknown]. Profile manager : Sally Douglas [ send private message ]. Profile last modified 21 Aug Created 9 Feb There was also other circumstantial evidence.

The magistrates directed Constance's arrest and gave Whicher seven days to prepare the case against her. Mr Kent provided a barrister for his daughter who dominated proceedings. Constance was released on bail and the case was later dropped. The reaction in the newspapers was sympathetic to Constance and Whicher was heavily criticised. His reputation never recovered. The nightdress was never found and Whicher returned to London. Subsequently the local police conducted a prosecution against Elizabeth Gough, but that also failed.

The baby is taken from the bedroom Constance Kent in later years. Nurse Gough arrested for second time With Mother Superior. The case is a classic illustration of how early investigations were directed heavily by magistrates, of the influence which well-to-do people could exert over local police officers, and of the importance of immediately searching and questioning the whole household at the scene of a crime, regardless of social status.

Later, Constance Kent admitted her crime after a conversation with the Mother Superior at the religious establishment at Brighton where she lived, and went to Bow Street court where she made a confession of carrying out the crime.

She pleaded Guilty and was sentenced to death, but later reprieved by Queen Victoria.