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Il magnifico Spilsbury ovvero gli omicidi delle vasche da bagno
Bessie Mundy, Alice Burnham e Margaret Lofty sono tre donne che hanno una cosa in comune: sono zitelle e cercano disperatamente un marito. Ognuna di loro incontra uno sconosciuto dalla chiacchiera facile, rimane incantata dalle sue promesse e lo sposa. Ma per tutte e tre il matrimonio diventa presto un'esperienza letale. La nazione si rivolge a un giovane patologo forense, Bernard Spilsbury, per capire se dietro la morte di quelle giovani donne, che lì per lì sembrano annegate in seguito a un attacco epilettico, non si nasconda invece uno o più assassini. Dotato di un fortissimo carisma personale e di una fiducia nelle proprie conoscenze scientifiche che lo sosterranno nel corso di parecchi processi celebri, fino a farne un beniamino dei giornali dell'epoca, Spilsbury esegue le indagini con grande cura e, avvalendosi della pur scarsa tecnologia disponibile all'epoca, intuisce che le morti delle tre donne sono da attribuirsi a un unico colpevole. La Prima guerra mondiale è da poco iniziata, Londra è sotto la minaccia delle bombe degli Zeppelin, ma l'intera nazione è assorbita dal processo delle "Spose nelle vasche da bagno". Le storie di quegli omicidi riescono persino a scacciare l'orrore della guerra dalle prime pagine dei giornali: rappresentano un male ordinario e insidioso, che avviene in tranquille cittadine di mare, nel sereno svolgersi della vita coniugale, nell'intimità della casa....
278 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2010
15 people are currently reading
753 people want to read
About the author
Jane Robins
8 books121 followersJane Robins began her career as a journalist with The Economist, The Independent, and the BBC. She has made a specialty of writing historical true crime and has a particular interest in the history of forensics. She has published three books of nonfiction in the UK, Rebel Queen (Simon & Schuster, 2006), The Magnificent Spilsbury (John Murray, 2010), and The Curious Habits of Doctor Adams (John Murray, 2013). More recently, she has been a Fellow at the Royal Literary Fund.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
July 22, 2023
The Brides in the Bath was a term used to identify a series famous murders that took place in England in the early 1900s which were initially deemed accidental. The author sets the stage for each murder and we learn a bit about each victim, their social situation, and how they were talked into "marrying their murderer, George Smith. So far, so good.
But the author added sections about WWI, the Zeppelin raids by Germany against England, and other events that didn't seem to have any connection with the main story. This slowed down the narrative and appeared to be padding which was not necessary. It caused me to give the book a lower rating. That may seem petty but I was put off by it. Overall though, it was a rather interesting history of one of England's most famous crimes.
BTW, if you are wondering who the "magnificent Spillsbury" of the title is, he was the physician who examined the remains of the victims once the "accidents" were identified as murders. His testimony in this case and several other high profile murders were instrumental in convictions.
But the author added sections about WWI, the Zeppelin raids by Germany against England, and other events that didn't seem to have any connection with the main story. This slowed down the narrative and appeared to be padding which was not necessary. It caused me to give the book a lower rating. That may seem petty but I was put off by it. Overall though, it was a rather interesting history of one of England's most famous crimes.
BTW, if you are wondering who the "magnificent Spillsbury" of the title is, he was the physician who examined the remains of the victims once the "accidents" were identified as murders. His testimony in this case and several other high profile murders were instrumental in convictions.
August 31, 2016
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...
In 1910, 30-year-old spinster Bessie Mundy was desperate to find a husband. No easy task at a time when young men were heading to the colonies in droves, leaving a surplus of unmarried women behind. Poor Bessie wasn't particularly attractive but she did have the advantage of having an inheritance. A cynic might think this was what attracted handsome, charismatic Henry Williams to her. And when, after making her will in her new husband's favour, she subsequently died in her bathtub, a cynic might even think nefarious deeds were afoot. Unfortunately for the future wives of Williams, aka George Smith, the inquest jury weren't cynical enough, and found her death to be accidental.
Meanwhile, also in 1910, Bernard Spilsbury was beginning to make his name as a forensic pathologist in the Crippen case. Amidst the gloopy yuckiness that was all that remained of the corpse found in Crippen's basement was a small scrap of skin, with what looked like scar tissue on it. Spilsbury used this to positively identify the corpse as Crippen's missing wife Cora, and despite the best efforts of the defence, he was unshakeable in the witness box. Crippen hanged. Top defence barrister Edward Marshall Hall later claimed that, had he been defending Crippen, he'd have made a case in court that would have over-ridden Spilsbury's evidence and got Crippen off.
These three men, Bernard Spilsbury, George Joseph Smith and Edward Marshall Hall would eventually face each other at the trial of Smith in what became known as the case of the Brides in the Bath.
Robins tells her tale well, widening out from the specifics to look at the society of the time. She discusses the place of women, still indoctrinated to see marriage as the only fulfilment even if they had enough money or skills to survive alone. With the relative shortage of men, which would only worsen when WW1 commenced, Robins shows how women would resort to advertising for husbands in the newspapers, often mentioning their financial worth as an incentive. If successful in finding a husband, she would then become almost entirely subordinate to him, regardless of his behaviour. Divorce was still scandalous and hard to obtain – in fact, Robins uses Marshall Hall's suggestion of how he would have defended Crippen to show that often juries would be sympathetic to those who murdered intolerable spouses as the only way to be shot of them. Vulnerable women were easy prey for men like Smith, who preferred to inherit from his dearly departed wives rather than working for a living.
The other main strand is the growing importance of the expert witness in criminal trials, especially pathologists. Robins shows that it was sometimes as much a matter of how well the evidence was presented that could sway juries, since they often didn't understand the technicalities of the science. Spilsbury was tall and good-looking with a commanding presence and an unshakeable confidence in his own expertise – a nightmare for defence lawyers to break. Again in the case of Smith, Robins cites Marshall Hall, who pointed out that, had Smith been rich, he'd have been able to hire expert witnesses of his own, but in the days before legal aid the field was left open to Spilsbury acting on behalf of the prosecution to give his evidence more or less unrefuted. Robins also shows that some of the evidence that Spilsbury gave as definite fact doesn't stand up to subsequent advances in science. The courtroom takes on aspects of theatre with Marshall Hall and Spilsbury vying to win over the audience by the quality of their performance, with truth becoming something of a victim of the process.
So, much of interest in the book and Robins writes well, holding the reader's attention even through some of the necessarily detailed (and occasionally gruesome) forensic stuff. However, there are a couple of weaknesses too, which stopped me from enjoying this one as thoroughly as I did her later book, The Curious Habits of Doctor Adams: A 1950's Murder Mystery. Firstly, a lot of the information that she gives us about Smith's murders must, I think, have come from the records of the trial, so that, when the book actually gets to the trial, it becomes very repetitive of much that has gone before.
Secondly, and more importantly, Smith murdered three women in an identical way, shortly after marrying them. The sheer fact of a man losing three wives by drowning in bathtubs after they had made out wills in his favour was surely more than enough for reasonable doubt to disappear, without any need for forensic evidence. He had only got away with it for so long because no-one had connected the cases. Once connected, and with the judge ruling that evidence regarding all three deaths could be introduced into the trial regarding the murder of Bessie, it hardly required a brilliant prosecution to prove his guilt. The fact that the jury convicted after just 22 minutes of deliberation would seem to confirm that. Therefore, it seemed to me that Spilsbury's evidence as to the specific manner of death, however interesting and however well presented, was actually incidental to the case. I rather wished Robins had chosen a different case where the conviction was more dependent on the scientific evidence, or where some doubt existed as to guilt.
Robins finishes with a brief run-through of Spilsbury's subsequent life and career, and left me wishing this part has been expanded. It's largely a matter of subjective opinion, but for me the book would have been improved by concentrating more on Spilsbury's work in general than on this one specific case, which, however sensational, was from a detection point of view rather straightforward.
However, I still found enough in the social aspects of the time and the conduct of trials and use of expert witnesses to make this both an enjoyable and informative read, and I look forward to seeing where Robins heads next. 3½ stars for me, so rounded up.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
In 1910, 30-year-old spinster Bessie Mundy was desperate to find a husband. No easy task at a time when young men were heading to the colonies in droves, leaving a surplus of unmarried women behind. Poor Bessie wasn't particularly attractive but she did have the advantage of having an inheritance. A cynic might think this was what attracted handsome, charismatic Henry Williams to her. And when, after making her will in her new husband's favour, she subsequently died in her bathtub, a cynic might even think nefarious deeds were afoot. Unfortunately for the future wives of Williams, aka George Smith, the inquest jury weren't cynical enough, and found her death to be accidental.
Meanwhile, also in 1910, Bernard Spilsbury was beginning to make his name as a forensic pathologist in the Crippen case. Amidst the gloopy yuckiness that was all that remained of the corpse found in Crippen's basement was a small scrap of skin, with what looked like scar tissue on it. Spilsbury used this to positively identify the corpse as Crippen's missing wife Cora, and despite the best efforts of the defence, he was unshakeable in the witness box. Crippen hanged. Top defence barrister Edward Marshall Hall later claimed that, had he been defending Crippen, he'd have made a case in court that would have over-ridden Spilsbury's evidence and got Crippen off.
These three men, Bernard Spilsbury, George Joseph Smith and Edward Marshall Hall would eventually face each other at the trial of Smith in what became known as the case of the Brides in the Bath.
Robins tells her tale well, widening out from the specifics to look at the society of the time. She discusses the place of women, still indoctrinated to see marriage as the only fulfilment even if they had enough money or skills to survive alone. With the relative shortage of men, which would only worsen when WW1 commenced, Robins shows how women would resort to advertising for husbands in the newspapers, often mentioning their financial worth as an incentive. If successful in finding a husband, she would then become almost entirely subordinate to him, regardless of his behaviour. Divorce was still scandalous and hard to obtain – in fact, Robins uses Marshall Hall's suggestion of how he would have defended Crippen to show that often juries would be sympathetic to those who murdered intolerable spouses as the only way to be shot of them. Vulnerable women were easy prey for men like Smith, who preferred to inherit from his dearly departed wives rather than working for a living.
The other main strand is the growing importance of the expert witness in criminal trials, especially pathologists. Robins shows that it was sometimes as much a matter of how well the evidence was presented that could sway juries, since they often didn't understand the technicalities of the science. Spilsbury was tall and good-looking with a commanding presence and an unshakeable confidence in his own expertise – a nightmare for defence lawyers to break. Again in the case of Smith, Robins cites Marshall Hall, who pointed out that, had Smith been rich, he'd have been able to hire expert witnesses of his own, but in the days before legal aid the field was left open to Spilsbury acting on behalf of the prosecution to give his evidence more or less unrefuted. Robins also shows that some of the evidence that Spilsbury gave as definite fact doesn't stand up to subsequent advances in science. The courtroom takes on aspects of theatre with Marshall Hall and Spilsbury vying to win over the audience by the quality of their performance, with truth becoming something of a victim of the process.
So, much of interest in the book and Robins writes well, holding the reader's attention even through some of the necessarily detailed (and occasionally gruesome) forensic stuff. However, there are a couple of weaknesses too, which stopped me from enjoying this one as thoroughly as I did her later book, The Curious Habits of Doctor Adams: A 1950's Murder Mystery. Firstly, a lot of the information that she gives us about Smith's murders must, I think, have come from the records of the trial, so that, when the book actually gets to the trial, it becomes very repetitive of much that has gone before.
Secondly, and more importantly, Smith murdered three women in an identical way, shortly after marrying them. The sheer fact of a man losing three wives by drowning in bathtubs after they had made out wills in his favour was surely more than enough for reasonable doubt to disappear, without any need for forensic evidence. He had only got away with it for so long because no-one had connected the cases. Once connected, and with the judge ruling that evidence regarding all three deaths could be introduced into the trial regarding the murder of Bessie, it hardly required a brilliant prosecution to prove his guilt. The fact that the jury convicted after just 22 minutes of deliberation would seem to confirm that. Therefore, it seemed to me that Spilsbury's evidence as to the specific manner of death, however interesting and however well presented, was actually incidental to the case. I rather wished Robins had chosen a different case where the conviction was more dependent on the scientific evidence, or where some doubt existed as to guilt.
Robins finishes with a brief run-through of Spilsbury's subsequent life and career, and left me wishing this part has been expanded. It's largely a matter of subjective opinion, but for me the book would have been improved by concentrating more on Spilsbury's work in general than on this one specific case, which, however sensational, was from a detection point of view rather straightforward.
However, I still found enough in the social aspects of the time and the conduct of trials and use of expert witnesses to make this both an enjoyable and informative read, and I look forward to seeing where Robins heads next. 3½ stars for me, so rounded up.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
April 28, 2012
This was excellent. The story of George Joseph Smith's life and crimes is interesting enough by itself (I wrote about him in a guest entry for the blog Executed Today), but Robins also did a good job putting the story in its proper historical context.
Women were supposed to be wives and mothers, and the general belief was that if a girl wasn't married or at least engaged by the time she was in her mid-twenties, there was something wrong with her. It was also very difficult for a single woman to support herself. Due to World War I, emigration to the colonies, and the fact that more females survived infancy than males, there was a shortage of men in Britain. (Kind of like how it is in present-day China, except the other way around.) All of this meant that women were desperate to marry, and "old maids" like Margaret Lofty, Bessie Mundy, and Alice Burnham could be talked into marrying a near-stranger within weeks, or even days, of meeting him. Anything was better than being single forever. Even Alice, who was at 25 still relatively young, and who had a thriving career as a nurse, thought that. They were the only women he killed but they were not his only victims; Smith made a living out of talking desperate spinsters into marrying him, robbing them of whatever cash and valuables they possessed, and then walking out and vanishing from their lives. He bigamously "married" at least eight women.
The book is not just about crime and women's studies, though: people who are interested in forensics will get a lot out of this book as well. Bernard Spilsbury was a celebrity forensic pathologist (yes, really, that is not an oxymoron) and his testimony was the crux of the prosecution's case. The book talks about other famous murder cases which he helped investigate. Yet he has become a controversial figure: looking back a century later, we can see that many of Spilsbury's methods were unscientific and he was often just plain wrong. This was not because the man was incompetent or lazy -- he was a very intelligent man and a dedicated scientist -- but simply because it was the nineteen-teens and his field was in its infancy.
I am very glad I read this book, not only because it was a great read but because it turns out I made some errors in the above-mentioned Executed Today entry I wrote about George Joseph Smith, and with the book I will correct them. If you want to know more about Spilsbury, there are a couple of biographies of him including:
Colin Evans's The Father of Forensics: The Groundbreaking Cases of Sir Bernard Spilsbury, and the Beginnings of Modern CSI
Douglas Browne's Bernard Spilsbury: His Life and Cases
Andrew Rose's Lethal Witness: Sir Bernard Spilsbury, Honorary Pathologist
Women were supposed to be wives and mothers, and the general belief was that if a girl wasn't married or at least engaged by the time she was in her mid-twenties, there was something wrong with her. It was also very difficult for a single woman to support herself. Due to World War I, emigration to the colonies, and the fact that more females survived infancy than males, there was a shortage of men in Britain. (Kind of like how it is in present-day China, except the other way around.) All of this meant that women were desperate to marry, and "old maids" like Margaret Lofty, Bessie Mundy, and Alice Burnham could be talked into marrying a near-stranger within weeks, or even days, of meeting him. Anything was better than being single forever. Even Alice, who was at 25 still relatively young, and who had a thriving career as a nurse, thought that. They were the only women he killed but they were not his only victims; Smith made a living out of talking desperate spinsters into marrying him, robbing them of whatever cash and valuables they possessed, and then walking out and vanishing from their lives. He bigamously "married" at least eight women.
The book is not just about crime and women's studies, though: people who are interested in forensics will get a lot out of this book as well. Bernard Spilsbury was a celebrity forensic pathologist (yes, really, that is not an oxymoron) and his testimony was the crux of the prosecution's case. The book talks about other famous murder cases which he helped investigate. Yet he has become a controversial figure: looking back a century later, we can see that many of Spilsbury's methods were unscientific and he was often just plain wrong. This was not because the man was incompetent or lazy -- he was a very intelligent man and a dedicated scientist -- but simply because it was the nineteen-teens and his field was in its infancy.
I am very glad I read this book, not only because it was a great read but because it turns out I made some errors in the above-mentioned Executed Today entry I wrote about George Joseph Smith, and with the book I will correct them. If you want to know more about Spilsbury, there are a couple of biographies of him including:
Colin Evans's The Father of Forensics: The Groundbreaking Cases of Sir Bernard Spilsbury, and the Beginnings of Modern CSI
Douglas Browne's Bernard Spilsbury: His Life and Cases
Andrew Rose's Lethal Witness: Sir Bernard Spilsbury, Honorary Pathologist
March 6, 2022
Ho decisamente un debole per i libri di true crime: e questo volevo recuperarlo da mesi perché ha tutti gli elementi che mi tengono incollata alle pagine,omicidio,premeditazione, ambientazione storica in gran Bretagna, emancipazione femminile. Mi è piaciuto la suddivisione dei capitoli,molto chiara e procedurale, a volte il narratore devia un po' da quello che è il resoconto cardine, ma queste deviazioni a mio parere aggiungono elementi riguardanti il periodo storico e il luogo del tempo degli omicidi. Mi aspettavo un colpo di scena finale che però non è arrivato,una spiegazione scientifica a cui non avevo pensato riguardo all annegamento di queste tre donne e invece alcune domande restano ancora aperte,e credo che ci saranno ragionevoli dubbi negli anni a venire. Consiglio questo testo a chi come me è attirato dalla psicologia criminale,dalla medicina legale e (perché no) dai racconti gialli. Ma non aspettatevi un romanzetto scorrevole: è una fotografia di tre matrimoni finiti con assassinio,l analisi approfondita di un processo che richiamò diversi testimoni e che fu famoso soprattutto per la gelida compostezza dell'accusato.
May 15, 2020
Tre stelle e mezzo
Il magnifico Spilsbury ovvero gli omicidi della vasca da bagno di Jane Robins (Einaudi) è un libro che mi ha fatto fare un tuffo nel passato. Da ragazzina infatti ero appassionata di storie di cronaca nera. Sono anni ormai che ho abbandonato quel genere di letture eppure questo (complice anche la meravigliosa copertina) mi ha convinto e non sono minimamente pentita.
Il magnifico Spilsbury non è un romanzo, oltre ad essere una storia vera, è l'appassionante racconto della nascita dell'affermazione della patologia forense.
I personaggi all'interno de Il magnifico Spilsbury sono realmente esistiti, a partire dalle tre povere vittime: Bessie Mundy, Alice Burnham e Margaret Lofty. Cosa hanno in comune? Sono signore insicure che sembrano destinate a rimanere zitelle... commettono tutte lo stesso errore: sposano un uomo all'apparenza premuroso ma dispotico che le metterà contro la propria famiglia e ruberà loro soldi e gioielli.
Ma in questo libro c'è molto di più, è la fotografia dell'Inghilterra del Novecento. Il magnifico Spilsbury è un anatomopatologo che viene etichettato dalla stampa come Sherlock Holmes, chiamato come testimone ai processi per dare il suo parere scientifico, incarnerà quel ragionare analitico e rassicurante dell'investigatore uscito dalla penna di Conan Doyle.
RECENSIONE COMPLETA: www.lalettricecontrocorrente.it
Il magnifico Spilsbury ovvero gli omicidi della vasca da bagno di Jane Robins (Einaudi) è un libro che mi ha fatto fare un tuffo nel passato. Da ragazzina infatti ero appassionata di storie di cronaca nera. Sono anni ormai che ho abbandonato quel genere di letture eppure questo (complice anche la meravigliosa copertina) mi ha convinto e non sono minimamente pentita.
Il magnifico Spilsbury non è un romanzo, oltre ad essere una storia vera, è l'appassionante racconto della nascita dell'affermazione della patologia forense.
I personaggi all'interno de Il magnifico Spilsbury sono realmente esistiti, a partire dalle tre povere vittime: Bessie Mundy, Alice Burnham e Margaret Lofty. Cosa hanno in comune? Sono signore insicure che sembrano destinate a rimanere zitelle... commettono tutte lo stesso errore: sposano un uomo all'apparenza premuroso ma dispotico che le metterà contro la propria famiglia e ruberà loro soldi e gioielli.
Ma in questo libro c'è molto di più, è la fotografia dell'Inghilterra del Novecento. Il magnifico Spilsbury è un anatomopatologo che viene etichettato dalla stampa come Sherlock Holmes, chiamato come testimone ai processi per dare il suo parere scientifico, incarnerà quel ragionare analitico e rassicurante dell'investigatore uscito dalla penna di Conan Doyle.
RECENSIONE COMPLETA: www.lalettricecontrocorrente.it
March 30, 2011
In June 1915 Britain was at war, and yet a different story filled the front pages of the newspapers and captured the public imagination. The story of the trial of George Smith. He stood accused of marrying a young woman and then drowning her as she bathed. On three occasions.
The three young women were swiftly dubbed “the brides in the bath”, and it is they, not George Smith and not the Magnificent Spilsbury, who are at the heart of this book.
Bessie Mundy. Alice Burnham. Margaret Lofty.
Three very different women, but all three feared that they had been left on the shelf, and wanted nothing more than to secure a husband. That was the greatest possible achievement open to them.
But the losses of war and a history of higher male infant mortality meant that potential husbands were in short supply. Maybe that’s why neither Bessie nor Alice nor Margaret resisted when their new husband pulled them away from their family and friends, insisted they make a will, encouraged them to take out life insurance…
Jane Robins makes each of their stories compelling, and paints the picture of the society that they lived in perfectly.
Yet at the same time there is something timeless about their stories. Bessie, Alice and Margaret all wanted to be loved, wanted someone to put them first. And now, as then, that desire can make women vulnerable.
It took some time for their deaths to be linked. But Alice’s father was suspicious, and so was the landlord in whose house Margaret died. And eventually the diligent Inspector Arthur Neil would put together a case and make an arrest.
He uncovered George Smith’s history too. Seven marriages. Women manipulated and then abandoned. A chilling, and horribly believable, picture of a psychopath was painted.
By the time of the trial the police had 121 witnesses for the prosecution.
But an important question remained. Three deaths had been ruled to be accidents by coroners, without any suggestion at all that there had been foul play. How had he done it?
The crucial evidence came from one of a new kind of expert witness - a forensic scientist. Bernard Spilsbury, of London’s St Mary’s Hospital, had drawn attention when he gave evidence at the trial of the notorious Dr Crippen. At George Smith’s trial he drew conclusions from goose-flesh and a clutched bar of soap, and put forward a theory of “sudden immersion.”
George Smith was convicted on the strength of that evidence and executed on 13 August 1915.
Jane Robins tells the stories of the trial, and of Spilsbury’s rise, simply and clearly. It is clear that she has done a great deal of research, and she uses it well.
She makes it clear that the evidence is flawed, and that far too much credence is given to expert opinion.
Impossible to forget though the extraordinary similarities between the three deaths: women taken to distant lodgings, where their husband made certain that a bath was installed, and then pressed to visit a local doctor with complaints of a minor ailment, and encouraged to take a bath while their husband ran an errand …
The moral dilemma of what to do when you have a firm belief of guilt but there are unanswered questions, and maybe insufficient proof, looms large.
There were so many questions, there was so much to think about, and yet the book concluded with the story of the rest of Spilsbury’s career, and his eventual decline as the world moved on.
That unbalanced things for me. The social history, the extraordinary case, the stories of the three women and the man they married were enough, and they should have been the main focus. The forensic scientist’s story was interesting, but it came from a different angle. Two possible books fought for attention and only one could win.
And so I have to say that The Magnificent Spilsbury and the Case of the Brides in the Bath is flawed, and maybe not quite as good as it could have been.
But it is still fascinating, informative, thought-provoking, and definitely well worth picking up.
The three young women were swiftly dubbed “the brides in the bath”, and it is they, not George Smith and not the Magnificent Spilsbury, who are at the heart of this book.
Bessie Mundy. Alice Burnham. Margaret Lofty.
Three very different women, but all three feared that they had been left on the shelf, and wanted nothing more than to secure a husband. That was the greatest possible achievement open to them.
But the losses of war and a history of higher male infant mortality meant that potential husbands were in short supply. Maybe that’s why neither Bessie nor Alice nor Margaret resisted when their new husband pulled them away from their family and friends, insisted they make a will, encouraged them to take out life insurance…
Jane Robins makes each of their stories compelling, and paints the picture of the society that they lived in perfectly.
Yet at the same time there is something timeless about their stories. Bessie, Alice and Margaret all wanted to be loved, wanted someone to put them first. And now, as then, that desire can make women vulnerable.
It took some time for their deaths to be linked. But Alice’s father was suspicious, and so was the landlord in whose house Margaret died. And eventually the diligent Inspector Arthur Neil would put together a case and make an arrest.
He uncovered George Smith’s history too. Seven marriages. Women manipulated and then abandoned. A chilling, and horribly believable, picture of a psychopath was painted.
By the time of the trial the police had 121 witnesses for the prosecution.
But an important question remained. Three deaths had been ruled to be accidents by coroners, without any suggestion at all that there had been foul play. How had he done it?
The crucial evidence came from one of a new kind of expert witness - a forensic scientist. Bernard Spilsbury, of London’s St Mary’s Hospital, had drawn attention when he gave evidence at the trial of the notorious Dr Crippen. At George Smith’s trial he drew conclusions from goose-flesh and a clutched bar of soap, and put forward a theory of “sudden immersion.”
George Smith was convicted on the strength of that evidence and executed on 13 August 1915.
Jane Robins tells the stories of the trial, and of Spilsbury’s rise, simply and clearly. It is clear that she has done a great deal of research, and she uses it well.
She makes it clear that the evidence is flawed, and that far too much credence is given to expert opinion.
Impossible to forget though the extraordinary similarities between the three deaths: women taken to distant lodgings, where their husband made certain that a bath was installed, and then pressed to visit a local doctor with complaints of a minor ailment, and encouraged to take a bath while their husband ran an errand …
The moral dilemma of what to do when you have a firm belief of guilt but there are unanswered questions, and maybe insufficient proof, looms large.
There were so many questions, there was so much to think about, and yet the book concluded with the story of the rest of Spilsbury’s career, and his eventual decline as the world moved on.
That unbalanced things for me. The social history, the extraordinary case, the stories of the three women and the man they married were enough, and they should have been the main focus. The forensic scientist’s story was interesting, but it came from a different angle. Two possible books fought for attention and only one could win.
And so I have to say that The Magnificent Spilsbury and the Case of the Brides in the Bath is flawed, and maybe not quite as good as it could have been.
But it is still fascinating, informative, thought-provoking, and definitely well worth picking up.
July 29, 2010
As England was heading into and then in the beginning years of World War I, within the short space of three years, three women, all of whom had married George Joseph Smith (who used multiple aliases) died while taking a bath. Each individual death had been legally attributed to natural causes after proper inquests, the doctors finding no evidence of foul play. But early in 1915, Detective Inspector Arthur Neil from the Kentish Town police station was going through his workload and came across an official memo, attached to which were two newspaper cuttings. The first was headlined as "Found Dead in Bath, Bride's Tragic Fate on Day After Wedding;" the second as "Bride's Sudden Death in Bath. Drowned After Seizure in a Hot Bath." It seems that the father of the now-dead Alice Burnham, who had married Smith in 1913 and died in the bath during her Blackpool honeymoon, had seen a news article about Margaret Lofty, a young, newly-married woman who drowned in her bath in Highgate, and brought the similarities between the death of his daughter and Margaret to the attention of the Aylesbury police. They brought it to the attention of Scotland Yard, who sent it to Neil. As official investigations proceeded, and the story became public, another police department informed Neil of yet a third possibility, that of Bessie Mundy, who had also been found dead, again drowned during a bath.
Jane Robins recreates and analyzes the case, drawing from a multitude of modern and contemporary sources. One by one she takes the reader through the three victims lives, how they came to meet George William Smith, and why the women may have been drawn to him, considering that this man was such bad news. Interwoven with their stories, Robins sets the stage in terms of historical context, including contemporary social attitudes and psychology, current events, the current state of police procedure, and traces the science of forensic pathology, which was still in its early stages as a tool for crime solving. She introduces her readers to Dr. Bernard Spilsbury, a forensic pathologist whose work on the Hawley Crippen case of 1910 helped to send Crippen to the gallows after his return from his interrupted escape to Canada. Spilsbury returns to the stand again as a prosecution witness, with his professional theories about what happened in the cases of the Brides in the Bath. As in the Crippen case, his opinions also led the jury to a verdict of guilty and to a death sentence for Smith. But was Spilsbury's opinion accurate? Was it indeed reflective of what had actually happened to these women? Would his evidence hold up in a modern court of law?
The Magnificent Spilsbury is a pleasure to read, both in terms of the period and because of my absolute fascination with historical true crime. It's quite obvious that Robins did a great deal of research, poring over old trial records, letters, documents, police records as well as examining relevant modern sources. Her constant interweaving of contemporary events and writings allows her to analyze her findings, rather than just setting them all down in a purely factual manner, always asking questions and putting forth a great deal of effort to answer them. She's also able to bring the case and the principals involved to life through her writing, especially Smith and the women he victimized. My only complaint is that at times there may have been a bit too much period detail, as in the three pages of discussion about zeppelins, that proved to be a bit distracting, causing me to want to skim and move along to get back to the story at hand. But overall, it's a very good book and one I would definitely recommend.
Jane Robins recreates and analyzes the case, drawing from a multitude of modern and contemporary sources. One by one she takes the reader through the three victims lives, how they came to meet George William Smith, and why the women may have been drawn to him, considering that this man was such bad news. Interwoven with their stories, Robins sets the stage in terms of historical context, including contemporary social attitudes and psychology, current events, the current state of police procedure, and traces the science of forensic pathology, which was still in its early stages as a tool for crime solving. She introduces her readers to Dr. Bernard Spilsbury, a forensic pathologist whose work on the Hawley Crippen case of 1910 helped to send Crippen to the gallows after his return from his interrupted escape to Canada. Spilsbury returns to the stand again as a prosecution witness, with his professional theories about what happened in the cases of the Brides in the Bath. As in the Crippen case, his opinions also led the jury to a verdict of guilty and to a death sentence for Smith. But was Spilsbury's opinion accurate? Was it indeed reflective of what had actually happened to these women? Would his evidence hold up in a modern court of law?
The Magnificent Spilsbury is a pleasure to read, both in terms of the period and because of my absolute fascination with historical true crime. It's quite obvious that Robins did a great deal of research, poring over old trial records, letters, documents, police records as well as examining relevant modern sources. Her constant interweaving of contemporary events and writings allows her to analyze her findings, rather than just setting them all down in a purely factual manner, always asking questions and putting forth a great deal of effort to answer them. She's also able to bring the case and the principals involved to life through her writing, especially Smith and the women he victimized. My only complaint is that at times there may have been a bit too much period detail, as in the three pages of discussion about zeppelins, that proved to be a bit distracting, causing me to want to skim and move along to get back to the story at hand. But overall, it's a very good book and one I would definitely recommend.
July 15, 2022
Libro che, a suo tempo (è uscito in Italia nel 2011), la Einaudi posizionò chiaramente in scia a un altro titolo pubblicato qualche anno prima,
Omicidio a Road Hill House ovvero Invenzione e rovina di un detective
di Kate Summerscale: stessa collana, copertina simile, titolo che ha assonanza con l'altro, anche qui un caso di cronaca nera inglese di tanto tempo fa usato come punto di partenza per esplorare la società del tempo.
I richiami sono evidenti, e con me funzionarono, visto che Road Hill House all'epoca (2011) mi piacque molto: letto però finalmente, dopo ben dodici anni dall'acquisto, questo saggio della Robins, mi sembra che sia tutto sommato la versione un po' sbiadita del predecessore. La vicenda di questo serial killer che tra il 1912 e il 1915 convinse tre povere donne a sposarlo e poi le uccise tutte in modo molto simile per denaro (e moltre altre ne sedusse e truffò, ma fortunatamente per loro senza conseguenze fatali) è ricostruita in modo piuttosto avvincente, ma da essa non mi sembra che si giunga ad approfondimenti sulla società del tempo particolarmente interessanti. Più che il focus sull'ingresso in scena nei processi della medicina legale, che apparentemente è il tema principale che la Robins vuole trattare (il "magnifico" Spilsbury del titolo è il perito dell'accusa), erano interessanti gli accenni alla pressione sociale sulle "zitelle" per trovare marito, i dibattiti sollevati dal caso sul potere che l'assassino (uomo "virile") riuscì ad esercitare sulle sue vittime (donne "naturalmente" portate a sottomettersi). Un esempio di popular history corretto ma non particolarmente memorabile.
I richiami sono evidenti, e con me funzionarono, visto che Road Hill House all'epoca (2011) mi piacque molto: letto però finalmente, dopo ben dodici anni dall'acquisto, questo saggio della Robins, mi sembra che sia tutto sommato la versione un po' sbiadita del predecessore. La vicenda di questo serial killer che tra il 1912 e il 1915 convinse tre povere donne a sposarlo e poi le uccise tutte in modo molto simile per denaro (e moltre altre ne sedusse e truffò, ma fortunatamente per loro senza conseguenze fatali) è ricostruita in modo piuttosto avvincente, ma da essa non mi sembra che si giunga ad approfondimenti sulla società del tempo particolarmente interessanti. Più che il focus sull'ingresso in scena nei processi della medicina legale, che apparentemente è il tema principale che la Robins vuole trattare (il "magnifico" Spilsbury del titolo è il perito dell'accusa), erano interessanti gli accenni alla pressione sociale sulle "zitelle" per trovare marito, i dibattiti sollevati dal caso sul potere che l'assassino (uomo "virile") riuscì ad esercitare sulle sue vittime (donne "naturalmente" portate a sottomettersi). Un esempio di popular history corretto ma non particolarmente memorabile.
May 5, 2020
Appassionante, soprattutto per l'affascinante ricostruzione storica.
I true crime d'epoca solo gli unici che riesco a leggere, in buona parte perché mi permettono di scoprire dettagli d'ambiente e di vita quotidiana che non conosco; ma qui è subentrata anche moltissima malinconia, all'idea di queste donne in surplus, talmente disperate da accettare di sposare un perfetto sconosciuto dopo pochi giorni.
I true crime d'epoca solo gli unici che riesco a leggere, in buona parte perché mi permettono di scoprire dettagli d'ambiente e di vita quotidiana che non conosco; ma qui è subentrata anche moltissima malinconia, all'idea di queste donne in surplus, talmente disperate da accettare di sposare un perfetto sconosciuto dopo pochi giorni.
May 1, 2016
Bessie, Alice and Margaret were just three of the women that George Smith, either under his own name or under a variety of aliases, married. But they were the three unlucky ones for they did not survive; others, including the first wife who he kept returning to, were lucky enough to do so.
Blackpool, Bath and Highgate were the locations where Smith settled down, albeit briefly on each occasion, with his new wives. They rented accommodation but Smith always insisted that the rooms they had taken had access to a bath. The respective landladies thought there was nothing unusual in this, presumably thinking that the couple wanted to bathe to keep clean. However, that was not the case.
Very soon after each marriage each of the three ladies were insured and wrote out their wills and each was discovered drowned in her bath. And on every occasion Smith had seemingly been out on an errand and on his return he was to discover each spouse dead in the bath. Doctor's visits, mainly for spurious headaches, had preceded the deaths and it did seem as though accidents had happened. Indeed, in the first instance that was the official verdict after the inquest.
But when newspaper reports of the second death. with striking likenesses to the first, were published questions were raised and this started Scotland Yard investigations into the mysterious gentleman, whose description seemed to match each time there was a death. Then there was a third 'Brides in the Bath' incident with the husband once again resembling the man involved in the first two deaths.
Bernard Spilsbury, the leading pathologist of the day, was called in and when Smith was eventually tracked down and captured, his evidence was instrumental in attaining a conviction for murder. But were all the facts as presented by Spilsbury quite correct? There were those who thought not and with later hindsight his views were rather severely questioned. But by then it was too late Smith had suffered the ultimate penalty for his crimes, death by hanging even though he claimed his innocence to the end.
Jane Robins presents a thrilling account of Smith's life and crimes together with illuminating chapters on Spilsbury's life and career, an in-depth study of drowning, plenty of background on the forensics of the cases and some first-hand reminiscences by Inspector Neil, who led the Scotland Yard enquiry.
While it reads as a thriller it is almost unbelievable that the authorities took so long to come to the conclusion that foul play was involved; some doctors even continued to believe that the incidents were a series of coincidences and Smith was not guilty!
Blackpool, Bath and Highgate were the locations where Smith settled down, albeit briefly on each occasion, with his new wives. They rented accommodation but Smith always insisted that the rooms they had taken had access to a bath. The respective landladies thought there was nothing unusual in this, presumably thinking that the couple wanted to bathe to keep clean. However, that was not the case.
Very soon after each marriage each of the three ladies were insured and wrote out their wills and each was discovered drowned in her bath. And on every occasion Smith had seemingly been out on an errand and on his return he was to discover each spouse dead in the bath. Doctor's visits, mainly for spurious headaches, had preceded the deaths and it did seem as though accidents had happened. Indeed, in the first instance that was the official verdict after the inquest.
But when newspaper reports of the second death. with striking likenesses to the first, were published questions were raised and this started Scotland Yard investigations into the mysterious gentleman, whose description seemed to match each time there was a death. Then there was a third 'Brides in the Bath' incident with the husband once again resembling the man involved in the first two deaths.
Bernard Spilsbury, the leading pathologist of the day, was called in and when Smith was eventually tracked down and captured, his evidence was instrumental in attaining a conviction for murder. But were all the facts as presented by Spilsbury quite correct? There were those who thought not and with later hindsight his views were rather severely questioned. But by then it was too late Smith had suffered the ultimate penalty for his crimes, death by hanging even though he claimed his innocence to the end.
Jane Robins presents a thrilling account of Smith's life and crimes together with illuminating chapters on Spilsbury's life and career, an in-depth study of drowning, plenty of background on the forensics of the cases and some first-hand reminiscences by Inspector Neil, who led the Scotland Yard enquiry.
While it reads as a thriller it is almost unbelievable that the authorities took so long to come to the conclusion that foul play was involved; some doctors even continued to believe that the incidents were a series of coincidences and Smith was not guilty!
February 11, 2025
Solid historical true crime. Keeps up a good pace, doesn't get bogged down in scene setting, but has enough detail to understand what's what and who's who. The author makes some points about social conditions and feminism and WWI etc., but doesn't beat you over the head with some thesis. There's about 250 citations, a multi-page bibliography, and an index. This is really, truly, all I ask.
The crimes of George Joseph Smith (nice perfectly generic name) themselves and the investigation aren't really all that interesting, other than the OCD-like specificity of his MO. He three times seduced a woman, extracted as much cash as possible, took her on a honeymoon, then had her make a will leaving him everything, took out a life insurance policy on her, and had her complain to a doctor of headaches and fainting/fits. Once all that was done, he drowned her in a bath, and disappeared into the night. His sheer cheapness rises almost to the level of hilarity: he haggles with morticians and demands the cheapest coffins and unmarked graves for his wives, he returns the bathtub he purchased for the first murder and ends up never paying a penny for it. Even when he returns to his "actual" (technically bigamous) wife after the first murder, he only tells her that he got 1000 lbs. when the actual inheritance was over 2000.
That wife, Edith Pegler is a strange piece of the puzzle. While he was clearly a habitual and compulsive criminal, he apparently treated her decentlyish? Relatively to murder, anyway, which she was seemingly not in danger of. He did keep coming back to her even though there was no money in it, and he had no trouble seducing women (yet again reminded of the strong serial killer/chad::mass murderer/loser dichotomy). What, if anything, was she to him? Unlike a lot of serial killers with a normie wife, he didn't keep up a normal life with her, spending months at a time away on nebulous business, and constantly moving their place of residence. His fixation on Canada is also strange, given that his first wife ended up emigrating there. Did he ever actually go there?
The Spilsbury half of the book is as, or maybe even more interesting, briefly covering a few cause celebre murder trials he was involved in during his rise to celebrity pathologist, and a brief sketch of his life after the Smith trial. The author drops a bombshell in the last page that genetic analysis of the remains from the Crippen case have proved not only to not be those of his missing wife, but are in fact male. While it seems more likely than not that he did kill whoever was buried under his house, who the hell was it? What on Earth happened to his wife if she wasn't buried there?
The crimes of George Joseph Smith (nice perfectly generic name) themselves and the investigation aren't really all that interesting, other than the OCD-like specificity of his MO. He three times seduced a woman, extracted as much cash as possible, took her on a honeymoon, then had her make a will leaving him everything, took out a life insurance policy on her, and had her complain to a doctor of headaches and fainting/fits. Once all that was done, he drowned her in a bath, and disappeared into the night. His sheer cheapness rises almost to the level of hilarity: he haggles with morticians and demands the cheapest coffins and unmarked graves for his wives, he returns the bathtub he purchased for the first murder and ends up never paying a penny for it. Even when he returns to his "actual" (technically bigamous) wife after the first murder, he only tells her that he got 1000 lbs. when the actual inheritance was over 2000.
That wife, Edith Pegler is a strange piece of the puzzle. While he was clearly a habitual and compulsive criminal, he apparently treated her decentlyish? Relatively to murder, anyway, which she was seemingly not in danger of. He did keep coming back to her even though there was no money in it, and he had no trouble seducing women (yet again reminded of the strong serial killer/chad::mass murderer/loser dichotomy). What, if anything, was she to him? Unlike a lot of serial killers with a normie wife, he didn't keep up a normal life with her, spending months at a time away on nebulous business, and constantly moving their place of residence. His fixation on Canada is also strange, given that his first wife ended up emigrating there. Did he ever actually go there?
The Spilsbury half of the book is as, or maybe even more interesting, briefly covering a few cause celebre murder trials he was involved in during his rise to celebrity pathologist, and a brief sketch of his life after the Smith trial. The author drops a bombshell in the last page that genetic analysis of the remains from the Crippen case have proved not only to not be those of his missing wife, but are in fact male. While it seems more likely than not that he did kill whoever was buried under his house, who the hell was it? What on Earth happened to his wife if she wasn't buried there?
September 6, 2017
Brought in a charity shop, I picked this book up with the thought of it being a whodunit type murder story. But I was rather surprised to find out that that it was retelling of the real -brides in the bath - murder case back in the early 1900's, back dropped by the tragic Titanic tragedy and WW1. We follow through the three deaths that George Smith committed, Bessie, Alice and Margaret. Each women taking by the appeal of Smith's appearance and smooth ways of talking.
Jane Robins writes British history in such a way, that it is almost poetic in the way she describes each murder and the way Smith worked his magic on such moveable women. Included within the book is a brief detailed look in to the Crippen case, which today is one that remains remarkable and almost unsolved since DNA evidence in 2007 proofed the scar tissue believe to be that of Cora Crippen was in fact belonging to a male source.
A very well written documentation of a brief period of time during British History and murder when scientific evidence was still in the early stages, with many people believing that it was not good. I would recommend anyone who was interested in either British history or even just true crimes, this is the book for you.
Jane Robins writes British history in such a way, that it is almost poetic in the way she describes each murder and the way Smith worked his magic on such moveable women. Included within the book is a brief detailed look in to the Crippen case, which today is one that remains remarkable and almost unsolved since DNA evidence in 2007 proofed the scar tissue believe to be that of Cora Crippen was in fact belonging to a male source.
A very well written documentation of a brief period of time during British History and murder when scientific evidence was still in the early stages, with many people believing that it was not good. I would recommend anyone who was interested in either British history or even just true crimes, this is the book for you.
June 5, 2012
I actually picked this book up at a recent bookcrossing meet up here in Birmingham, telling myself grumpily that I didn’t need any more books and I really shouldn’t be taking anything else home with me. Well I am glad I ignored that inner voice – because I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
The Magnificent Spilsbury is an enormously readable historical true crime book. Well written and researched it is a truly fascinating page turner. A must for fans of historical murder mysteries and Sherlock Holmes stories, for although this is a work of non-fiction it sits perfectly alongside such fictional works.
With her descriptions of boarding houses, courtrooms and the sad desperate plight of women who remained unmarried in their thirties, Jane Robbins brings the Edwardian period to life. In 1910 a woman named Bessie Mundy married a man calling himself Henry Williams. Bessie was the first of three women who “drowned” in their baths. Henry Williams was in fact George Joseph Smith – a seemingly cold calculating man who preyed upon young women desperate to escape their single lives. When family members of his other wives Alice Burnham and Margaret Lofty read about the tragic death of a bride in her bath they were suspicious enough by the coincidence to contact the police. Inspector Neil was sure that although each husband went by a different name – they were in fact the same man – and it didn’t take him long to prove it. The police though, then, as now needed the help of forensic scientists to gather evidence and understand their findings. Forensic science as we think of it though was in its infancy – and Jane Robins does an excellent job in detailing how forensic science had at that time in England been successful, and where it had fallen down.
Bernard Spilsbury – later to become Sir Bernard Spilsbury was already a rising star of the forensics world when George Smith was meeting and marrying Bessie Mundy. Setting his work, the justice and forensic world in context – Jane Robins relates some of the events surrounding the case of Dr Crippen – a case in which Spilsbury was one of the expert witnesses. Following the case of the brides in the bath – Spilsbury became an almost legendary figure – his testimonies as an expert witness in court virtually uncontested. Seen by the newspaper reading pubic as a real life Sherlock Holmes – he was even involved in a WW2 conspiracy to send inaccurate information to Hitler. Spilsbury certainly had a remarkable career, and I am sure that modern forensics owes much to him. However in her afterword Jane Robins charts the sad decline of the legendary Spilsbury – and raises a few questions about his science.
This book was certainly as gripping as any historical thriller – maybe more so – as it is a true story. I found myself fully investing in the lives of Bessie Mundy, Alice Burnham and Margaret Lofty – the photographs of these sad young women really helping to bring them to life.
There does seem to be a lot of these types of book around now – is there a genre for historical true crime? I suppose there must be – I have to admit I have added one or two others to my Amazon wish list – for possible kindle download later this year – they could easily become my new guilty pleasure.
The Magnificent Spilsbury is an enormously readable historical true crime book. Well written and researched it is a truly fascinating page turner. A must for fans of historical murder mysteries and Sherlock Holmes stories, for although this is a work of non-fiction it sits perfectly alongside such fictional works.
With her descriptions of boarding houses, courtrooms and the sad desperate plight of women who remained unmarried in their thirties, Jane Robbins brings the Edwardian period to life. In 1910 a woman named Bessie Mundy married a man calling himself Henry Williams. Bessie was the first of three women who “drowned” in their baths. Henry Williams was in fact George Joseph Smith – a seemingly cold calculating man who preyed upon young women desperate to escape their single lives. When family members of his other wives Alice Burnham and Margaret Lofty read about the tragic death of a bride in her bath they were suspicious enough by the coincidence to contact the police. Inspector Neil was sure that although each husband went by a different name – they were in fact the same man – and it didn’t take him long to prove it. The police though, then, as now needed the help of forensic scientists to gather evidence and understand their findings. Forensic science as we think of it though was in its infancy – and Jane Robins does an excellent job in detailing how forensic science had at that time in England been successful, and where it had fallen down.
Bernard Spilsbury – later to become Sir Bernard Spilsbury was already a rising star of the forensics world when George Smith was meeting and marrying Bessie Mundy. Setting his work, the justice and forensic world in context – Jane Robins relates some of the events surrounding the case of Dr Crippen – a case in which Spilsbury was one of the expert witnesses. Following the case of the brides in the bath – Spilsbury became an almost legendary figure – his testimonies as an expert witness in court virtually uncontested. Seen by the newspaper reading pubic as a real life Sherlock Holmes – he was even involved in a WW2 conspiracy to send inaccurate information to Hitler. Spilsbury certainly had a remarkable career, and I am sure that modern forensics owes much to him. However in her afterword Jane Robins charts the sad decline of the legendary Spilsbury – and raises a few questions about his science.
This book was certainly as gripping as any historical thriller – maybe more so – as it is a true story. I found myself fully investing in the lives of Bessie Mundy, Alice Burnham and Margaret Lofty – the photographs of these sad young women really helping to bring them to life.
There does seem to be a lot of these types of book around now – is there a genre for historical true crime? I suppose there must be – I have to admit I have added one or two others to my Amazon wish list – for possible kindle download later this year – they could easily become my new guilty pleasure.
December 12, 2010
In the summer of 1915, the British public experienced a temporary, if morbid, diversion from the horrors of World War I. George Smith, a middle-aged serial bigamist who was accused of drowning three wives for their money between 1912 and 1914, stood trial for murder. The Fleet Street dailies christened it the Brides in the Bath case.
Smith targeted spinsters who were considered past marriageable age. Their gratitude at finding a husband in a world unfriendly to single women weakened their instincts and made them willingly give him control of their assets. After marrying Bessie Mundy (1912), Alice Burnham (1913), and Margaret Lofty (1914), he rented lodgings with a bath and had each wife make out a will and purchase life insurance, in both instances naming him as the beneficiary. Once all papers were signed, he convinced them that they were ill enough to see a doctor. Then Smith allegedly drowned them while they were soaking in the tub, using the recent doctor’s visit to suggest that the women had fainted from ill-health and died accidentally.
The inquests on all three women each absolved Smith of wrongdoing, but his use of the same modus operandi –a bathtub drowning in a boarding house- finally aroused the suspicion of Alice Burnham’s father. But Smith’s conviction was not guaranteed, especially since three inquest juries had seen fit to turn him loose. The Crown turned to eminent forensic scientist Bernard Spilsbury, whose talent for collecting and accurately assessing post-mortem evidence was unparalleled. His testimony withstood the barrages of the eminent Sir Edward Marshall Hall, who represented the defendant, and sent Smith to the gallows in August 1915.
The Magnificent Spilsbury and the Case of the Brides in the Bath skilfully intertwines the new century’s most sensational domestic murder case to date and the evolution of scientific principles in murder investigations. Spilsbury asserted that George Smith had murdered the three women by suddenly grabbing and lifting their legs, forcing their heads under water and preventing any outcry that other lodgers might hear. His medico-legal testimony at the trial likened him to the deductive literary hero Sherlock Holmes, and the awestruck jury found Smith guilty.
But was he?
Author Jane Robins points out that Smith was an undisputed bigamist, but was he actually a murderer? He had married several women between 1908 and 1914, some of whom testified at the trial, and while he maltreated and robbed all of them, only three died. While the powerful similarity between the deaths of Bessie Mundy, Alice Burnham, and Margaret Lofty make his guilt probable, Robins debates whether he would have been executed if tried today. It’s an interesting question- perhaps a skilled defense lawyer would have raised enough reasonable doubt in a modern courtroom to gain Smith a lesser sentence.
Smith targeted spinsters who were considered past marriageable age. Their gratitude at finding a husband in a world unfriendly to single women weakened their instincts and made them willingly give him control of their assets. After marrying Bessie Mundy (1912), Alice Burnham (1913), and Margaret Lofty (1914), he rented lodgings with a bath and had each wife make out a will and purchase life insurance, in both instances naming him as the beneficiary. Once all papers were signed, he convinced them that they were ill enough to see a doctor. Then Smith allegedly drowned them while they were soaking in the tub, using the recent doctor’s visit to suggest that the women had fainted from ill-health and died accidentally.
The inquests on all three women each absolved Smith of wrongdoing, but his use of the same modus operandi –a bathtub drowning in a boarding house- finally aroused the suspicion of Alice Burnham’s father. But Smith’s conviction was not guaranteed, especially since three inquest juries had seen fit to turn him loose. The Crown turned to eminent forensic scientist Bernard Spilsbury, whose talent for collecting and accurately assessing post-mortem evidence was unparalleled. His testimony withstood the barrages of the eminent Sir Edward Marshall Hall, who represented the defendant, and sent Smith to the gallows in August 1915.
The Magnificent Spilsbury and the Case of the Brides in the Bath skilfully intertwines the new century’s most sensational domestic murder case to date and the evolution of scientific principles in murder investigations. Spilsbury asserted that George Smith had murdered the three women by suddenly grabbing and lifting their legs, forcing their heads under water and preventing any outcry that other lodgers might hear. His medico-legal testimony at the trial likened him to the deductive literary hero Sherlock Holmes, and the awestruck jury found Smith guilty.
But was he?
Author Jane Robins points out that Smith was an undisputed bigamist, but was he actually a murderer? He had married several women between 1908 and 1914, some of whom testified at the trial, and while he maltreated and robbed all of them, only three died. While the powerful similarity between the deaths of Bessie Mundy, Alice Burnham, and Margaret Lofty make his guilt probable, Robins debates whether he would have been executed if tried today. It’s an interesting question- perhaps a skilled defense lawyer would have raised enough reasonable doubt in a modern courtroom to gain Smith a lesser sentence.
Read
August 8, 2011I reviewed this book for a major book seller pre-release and as a lover of true crime, I really enjoyed it. However, thats not to say that a non-crime fan would not enjoy this read as Robins gives a facinating insight into Britain 100 years ago, and manages to write true crime in a novel-like way making some of the scientific (in the Georgian sense of the word) content much easier to digest.
The lives of Bessie Mundy, Alice Burnham & Margaret Lofty are explored in some depth by Robins, showing the innocence and desparation of women from an era when marriage was the making of a woman and thus not finding a husband seen as a smear upon ones character. In this context, it is easy to see how these women were taken in by what Robins describes as a charming yet slightly sinister character that was George Smith. The exploration of these characters and the research that Robins has clearly done really do draw the reader into the world, and understand the manner in which these women came to meet their death.
Also, as someone who is interested in forensic science and pathology, the discussion of the scientific techniques used by Bernard Spilsbury is intruiguing and it really shows how far science and technology has come in the space of a century. The methods used by Spilsbury are highly primative and would certainly not stand in a modern court. I really is a facinating, yet slightly concerning,
insight into the birth of modern forensics.
There really is a lot to like about this book. The simple style used by Robins make it read almost like a novel, and the connection that Robins makes with other well known cases (such as Dr Crippen) and world events occurring at the time, really puts this book into some context giving not only a great account of a case which shocked Britain when it was committed, but also an insight into the world as it was, giving this book a social history edge which is really interesting.
The only thing I felt this book lacked slightly was more of an insight into Spilsbury himself. Although his methods and techniques were highly regarded in his time, there is little discussion in the book as to the mentality and thoughts of a man who really did change the face of
forensic science which really would have made this an even better read for me.
A really good read, no matter what your usual taste
The lives of Bessie Mundy, Alice Burnham & Margaret Lofty are explored in some depth by Robins, showing the innocence and desparation of women from an era when marriage was the making of a woman and thus not finding a husband seen as a smear upon ones character. In this context, it is easy to see how these women were taken in by what Robins describes as a charming yet slightly sinister character that was George Smith. The exploration of these characters and the research that Robins has clearly done really do draw the reader into the world, and understand the manner in which these women came to meet their death.
Also, as someone who is interested in forensic science and pathology, the discussion of the scientific techniques used by Bernard Spilsbury is intruiguing and it really shows how far science and technology has come in the space of a century. The methods used by Spilsbury are highly primative and would certainly not stand in a modern court. I really is a facinating, yet slightly concerning,
insight into the birth of modern forensics.
There really is a lot to like about this book. The simple style used by Robins make it read almost like a novel, and the connection that Robins makes with other well known cases (such as Dr Crippen) and world events occurring at the time, really puts this book into some context giving not only a great account of a case which shocked Britain when it was committed, but also an insight into the world as it was, giving this book a social history edge which is really interesting.
The only thing I felt this book lacked slightly was more of an insight into Spilsbury himself. Although his methods and techniques were highly regarded in his time, there is little discussion in the book as to the mentality and thoughts of a man who really did change the face of
forensic science which really would have made this an even better read for me.
A really good read, no matter what your usual taste
May 5, 2022
I like true crime books set in the past, because they not only relate interesting criminal cases, but also give an image of the historical period.
The Magnificent Spilsbury and the Case of the Brides In the Bath was a good example of this. The book focuses on the "Brides in the Bath" trial and on Bernard Spilsbury, a forensic pathologist, who played a key role in the case.
While the murder case was interesting, what I most enjoyed about the book were the chapters which focused more on Spilsbury and his type of work. Very good were also the chapters which talked about the court cases, and how the scientific evolution of the time changed how they were conducted, from a more "artistic" approach to a more scientific way. Despite the fact that sometimes the conclusions were completely wrong! Indeed, while I was reading Spilsbury's theories I sometimes thought they sounded too fantastic, but I still felt fascination for this man, who was extremely popular at the time and was regarded as the "real Sherlock Holmes".
The Magnificent Spilsbury and the Case of the Brides In the Bath was a good example of this. The book focuses on the "Brides in the Bath" trial and on Bernard Spilsbury, a forensic pathologist, who played a key role in the case.
While the murder case was interesting, what I most enjoyed about the book were the chapters which focused more on Spilsbury and his type of work. Very good were also the chapters which talked about the court cases, and how the scientific evolution of the time changed how they were conducted, from a more "artistic" approach to a more scientific way. Despite the fact that sometimes the conclusions were completely wrong! Indeed, while I was reading Spilsbury's theories I sometimes thought they sounded too fantastic, but I still felt fascination for this man, who was extremely popular at the time and was regarded as the "real Sherlock Holmes".
April 5, 2011
The infamous 'Brides in the Bath' murders of Edwardian England, gripped the country and brought to its attention one Bernard Spilsbury; Home Office pathologist and the 'father of modern forensics'. This book relates the story of the murders, the people involved in bringing the murderer to justice, and the burgeoning role forensic science was beginning to play in criminal trials of the time.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book; it's so well written that it reads like a piece of superb detective fiction that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would be proud of. Of course, it ISN'T fiction, which makes the story all the more fascinating and compelling. Each chapter is dedicated to either one of George Joseph Smith's victims, or to such things as Spilsbury's forensic work; the police investigation into the deaths; the social unrest of the time (the War, the Suffragette movement), and even the Dr Crippen case is covered briefly. It reminded me a little of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale, but whereas I felt that that got bogged down in places by unnecessary detail, this was sharp and succinct and I whizzed through it in no time. A hugely entertaining and fascinating read.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book; it's so well written that it reads like a piece of superb detective fiction that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would be proud of. Of course, it ISN'T fiction, which makes the story all the more fascinating and compelling. Each chapter is dedicated to either one of George Joseph Smith's victims, or to such things as Spilsbury's forensic work; the police investigation into the deaths; the social unrest of the time (the War, the Suffragette movement), and even the Dr Crippen case is covered briefly. It reminded me a little of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale, but whereas I felt that that got bogged down in places by unnecessary detail, this was sharp and succinct and I whizzed through it in no time. A hugely entertaining and fascinating read.
April 17, 2010
A well crafted factual rendition of the birth of forensic science in England. The author presents this historical novel jammed full of fact in an easy to read and immensally interesting way with almost no bias or subjectivity, Allowing the readers mind to wander and interpret as they wish.
While reading this book I could easily imagin these events actually happening and found it hard to put down. Captivating
While reading this book I could easily imagin these events actually happening and found it hard to put down. Captivating
February 18, 2011
The mysterious case of the Brides in the Bath, women who died suddenly after they were wed. Interspersed with a kind of biography of Bernard Spilsbury, the man considered the 'Father of Forensics'. Simply written with little sensationalism, the author presents the facts and explores the advancement of science in crime fighting. Interesting read.
February 22, 2011
Very good factual accoumt of the crimes, the trial and Sir Bernard Spilsbury's involvement.
November 16, 2019
Published first in 2010, 'The Magnificent Spilsbury and the case of the Brides in the Bath' is a true-crime account of a series of murders around 1910-1914 involving, as the title suggests, newlyweds drowned in the bath. The book concentrates on the work of Doctor Spilsbury, an early practitioner of forensic medicine, and a tenacious Police Inspector Neil. Neil recognised the possible link in the deaths due to their similar characteristics, combined with a similar description of the husbands of each of the brides. Happening at a time when 'The Strand' magazine had made detective fiction so popular, the tale highlights also just how the case caught the public imagination when it came to trial in 1915, notwithstanding the fact that the news was by this time full of accounts of massive bloodletting on the Western Front. All of these points come across well, together with many others - the author has crammed a lot of information into a short book. Fascinating yet never gratuitous, this is a thought-provoking read.
April 19, 2020
Saggio che racconta come la medicina legale abbia cominciato a entrare nelle aule di tribunale attraverdo l'indagine del patologo foresense Bernard Spilsbury sugli omicidi delle vasche da bagno. Nel capitolo finale, l'autrice riguarda a quell'indagine e alle conclusioni con le conoscenze odierne, ben più evolute della scienza di allora. Sebbene sia un argomento interessante, viene trattato in modo asciutto, non troppo coinvolgente; soprattutto la prima parte eccessivamente ricca di dettagli sui costumi dell'epoca, in particolar modo su cosa ci si aspettasse dalle donne, e su altri delitti, raccontati per presentare l'antefatto alla situazione in cui si sviluppò la vicenda di Spilsbury, risulta quasi dispersiva.
December 24, 2020
Terribilmente pedante: l'autrice riempie le pagine con un mare di dettagli inutili e digressioni storiche interessanti, che però rallentano ulteriormente la narrazione.
La mediazione dell'autrice è inutile, se non è in grado di raccontare l'essenziale, ma riporta quasi interamente le carte processuali.
Si ha solo l'impressione che voglia mostrarci quanto bene si è documentata.
Ottimo invece il capitolo finale, in cui sostanzialmente si smonta la mitica infallibilità di Spilsbury, inquadrandola bene nella fiducia che all'epoca si aveva negli scienziati carismatici, a prescindere dai reali progressi e conoscenze della medicina e della scienza.
Traduzione impeccabile.
La mediazione dell'autrice è inutile, se non è in grado di raccontare l'essenziale, ma riporta quasi interamente le carte processuali.
Si ha solo l'impressione che voglia mostrarci quanto bene si è documentata.
Ottimo invece il capitolo finale, in cui sostanzialmente si smonta la mitica infallibilità di Spilsbury, inquadrandola bene nella fiducia che all'epoca si aveva negli scienziati carismatici, a prescindere dai reali progressi e conoscenze della medicina e della scienza.
Traduzione impeccabile.
June 23, 2017
This book was very interesting and I enjoyed reading it. It sort of told of the development of the field of forensic. I was especially intrigued because due to weather I was unable to see the play reenacting the murders of the three women in bathtubs; I am sorry I missed the play. The book also gives a glimpse into the mindset of a cold blooded killer. A fascinating bit if information was that early in the 19th century, in Paris, autopsies were public...and many people went to see them as if they were a circus show!
July 26, 2018
Jane Robins ricostruisce la vera storia del dottor Spilsbury, dai primi casi fino a quelli più clamorosi come quello delle Spose annegate nella vasca da bagno. Sullo sfondo, la ricostruzione meticolosa dell'Inghilterra del tempo, una società che cambia, il movimento femminista delle suffragette, e la guerra che incombe minacciosa.
Anche se non sono una lettrice appassionata di gialli e di ricostruzioni processuali, ho trovato questo libro molto interessante per l'accuratezza dei dettagli, sia quelli più attinenti alle persone sia a quelli del periodo storico.
Anche se non sono una lettrice appassionata di gialli e di ricostruzioni processuali, ho trovato questo libro molto interessante per l'accuratezza dei dettagli, sia quelli più attinenti alle persone sia a quelli del periodo storico.
October 22, 2018
The tale of serial killer George Joseph Smith, pathologist Bernard Spilsbury, and the genesis of forensic science is a captivating one. I especially enjoyed the alternationg chapter layout, never a dull moment.
A good historical transcript and overview filled with interesting details and information.
Read for personal research. I found this book's contents helpful and inspiring.
Overall, a good book for the researcher and enthusiast.
Related News Article: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/ar...
A good historical transcript and overview filled with interesting details and information.
Read for personal research. I found this book's contents helpful and inspiring.
Overall, a good book for the researcher and enthusiast.
Related News Article: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/ar...
April 27, 2023
Questa è una storia vera, di true crime, scritta in maniera lineare e chiara e allo stesso tempo coinvolgente. Ma è anche il racconto dell’affermazione del ruolo della patologia forense nelle aule dei tribunali. E ancora, è una splendida fotografia dell’Inghilterra dei primi anni del Novecento, della cultura e della vita dell’epoca. Infine, è la storia della carriera di un uomo, che pur con mezzi scientifici limitati si è saputo distinguere e imporre come perito e professionista di indiscussa fama e capacità, segnando uno spartiacque tra un prima e un dopo.
July 29, 2018
Un bel saggio/cronistoria sull’entrata in scena della figura del medico legale. Una panoramica storica che si basa prettamente sul serial killer delle vasche da bagno, ma che si spinge anche più indietro e affronta varie tematiche riguardanti l’entrata della prova scientifica nella pratica forense. Molto interessante.
March 2, 2023
The book was good, but was unfocused. Did not focus on Spilsbury or forensics as much as I thought it would, it was like a regular historical murder with some reference to the doctor and his role in forensics.
January 17, 2018
very interesting
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