The Road Hill House Murder Case

At midnight on 30th June 1860 a 3 year old boy was found dead and  dropped down an outside toilet spoil pit as if to say that was all he was. It was a case that really upset Victorian England to the very core. Newspapers and speeches in Parliament echoed the news through a whole year of stories connected. It was a mystery within a mystery yet not to Mister Whicher.

Road Hill House at that time of case.

Road Hill house in the county of Kent became the first case of murder ever investigated by a new breed of policeman. A detective purely involved in scientific fact and logic. This man was Jack Whicher who really was the start of all detective stories ever told.

When this new department was set up no one ever gave it a thought Whicher was all that existed as the new sort of law man. He was given the case to look at his way and report back. Really he was on his own in history making as none believed in scientific nonsense and fingerprints. A new wave of thinking had come but too soon to be noticed as useful to the police or even to the public.  Whitcher was on his own and times against him but still he got it right and laughed at. He was a simple sort of chap with a great skill he could look at the facts as a jig saw puzzle and fit it all together in his head. A thinking copper was not what the rest of the force seemed to think was useful to a case file. Clues then went by the board and feet walked all over a murder site and destroyed all clues .It was Whicher who knew this well if the rest did not. He was so far ahead of his times that even Sherlock Holmes was based on him. Doyle may have had a lecturer who had insight but Doyle had read all about this case as a medical student.  Then Edgar Allen Poe wrote about his idea of Whicher in a novel and created the worlds first fictional detective named Auguste Dupin,  before Doyle, had his idea of a pair called Sherlock and Watson. If you read up on this you will find Sherlock was called Miley and Watson had not come to mind when Sir Arthur did first put pen to paper. If Whicher had not ventured forth no detective would ever have come to our notice as we know them now.

I recall being read to as a small boy .Auguste Dupin was amazing stuff and eager did I progress onto Sherlock Holmes as another hero of my early days on earth. I was about 6 I think my first book entitled Black Beauty then Children of the New Forest by Marryat I have mentioned before in pirate review. I soon took on Doyle with Holmes and Watson and loved every page I read.  I came across Whitcher through an American lady living in South Wales who told me I had an intelligent face and recommended this book Suspicions of Mr Whitcher as a good read. She must have read me as a book as I bought it same day. Read it six times in four years and researched the subject after wards. I hand this to you with great pleasure as worth reading

Jack Whicher  1860 London UK

The train arrived with Whicher ready to walk that way from the rail station up to Road Hill House.A big imposing gentlemans country house  residence came into view with its plaque announcing the name boldly unto him. The owner, a well to do Government factory Inspector  who had remarried and the dead child, his boy from the new relationship. Samuel Kent snr. had  issue from his first wife. There being two older children from his last attempt at family life in the house. His wife then the heiress of wealth. Now married again to money One William and his sister Constance Kent. They about 16 the girl and bit younger her brother at time of the murder case.

 

After announcing him self to the parents the detective searched the grounds then entered the house via the kitchens door.  He interviewed the family then the servants and after this went out to inspect the outside toilet cess pit for evidence. It took him just a few hours to name the killer or killers as he believed the two other children had murdered the fathers favourite new son. Jealousy he named as the motive and so pointed the finger at the young girl and her brother as guilty.

The father would hear none of this and reported Whicher to the Police Federation. Back in Scotland Yard London Whicher was asked to write a full report of his findings. In this he explained the house had been well secured and locked. No evidence was seen to explain how any could have broken in as the only smashed window had glass outside on the path not inside as would have been the case. There fore it was an inside of house murder. The hatred for the dumping of their mother and the child who made both children second placed gave the full evidence as the work of both children as one alone could not have lowered that dead child down the deep toilet pit without help.

 

Samuel Kent.

He was mocked and scolded and ultimately sacked from his job with lost pension owing to the Mister Kents contacts in high places Whicher was without income and laughed at. However he now became the first ever private eye. His own business and did well at it.

Quickly now our  story moves on. The young girl and her brother now older adult living in Australia free as birds. Her brother became the famous William Saville Kent photographer of wild life and birds. Director of fisheries and author of books. Constance Kent his sister eventually owned up to the murder of her dead half brother. She informed the police that she had some 30 years before killed him alone and then piled him down the outside toilet pit.  In this she saved her brother Williams career and sentence. Her final entered into Londons Holloway jail for women to serve her lengthy sentence. Whicher may have been wrong on the Brother helping as the girl at 16 could have carried a 3 year olds body. He may have based this on help as both children hated the affection given to the child and not to them.

Aged Constance Kent who murdered her half brother and in time may have repented. In her face one can still see the horror of her crime.

Constance Kent  as young woman She was born in 1844 and died aged 100 in 1944

She left for England leaving her hospital for lepers to her best workers and set off for jail at Milford England. Here she did her sentence saying nothing else .She was moved to many jails . On record Jack Whicher was still alive as an old man who must have read this news with pride and thanks that he had proved all wrong. Justice had been done. He was not reinstated nor granted his legal pension from police even so. I have found that Constance Kent faced execution for her crime. If Queen Victoria had not stopped the hanging taking place nothing would have saved her. She served life and was released on good behavior after years of being shifted around prisons.

 

William Saville Kent, brother protected by his sister Constance Kent according to Jack Whicher. I think he was right as he was famous by his own way through life and sister did not wish to destroy him. She took full blame ,eventually through guilt and possibly finding God in her life. How much this brother was responsible is doubtful he may only have known and held doors open.

 

Constance made an ideal prisoner making ceramic tiles that adorn the centre isle in London Saint Pauls Cathedral .in the design included is a small cherub of a fat faced boy with wings each side of head.

Young Saville Kent ,the victim

One amazing historic case worth reading up. Elizabeth Jenkins who wrote Princes in the Tower so well also wrote of Whicher case. So too at that time wrote Charles Dickons about this and many have made a good account in his book called Bleak House, based on this singular case,but the best account is with Kate Summerscale and her book, “The Suspicions of Mr. whicher.” It kept me awake all one night reading the pages that I could not place that account down until the conclusion. To think we have to thank Jack Whitcher for every detective story we read or any Private Eye film we watch as he was the worlds first who none would believe was right and he forged ahead to not only start the first detective business in the world but be proved correct in all he did and in his own life span. An amazing man who knew the truth before any one else.

Thank you all for your time in reading my article and God be ever with us all. Multum et Parvo

Yours gratefully Sir Kevin.

Copyright Kevin Parr. Baronet. August 2018

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The worlds first computer 1st Century BC

 

It has fascinated historians for over a century since it was found in a Roman ship wreck off the coast off the island of Crete in Greece

The year 1900 and the name given to the find is the ANTIKYTHERA MECHANISM

My first connection to this amazing work came in 1976 with marine explorer and famous world diver Jacques Cousteau and his team on British television. He had dived onto the wreak and found bronze cogs ,no doubt that once had been in this clock mechanism at one time before the ship sank. It awakened my interest in such as a mystery as to what this mechanism could be?

Scientist Richard Feynman visited the National Museum of Athens to see  this mechanism close up. He was not impressed with the museum set up but found the device amazing. He records it has cogs and drives and much like a modern mechanical clock work but has really well made slid rule type devices and some sort of mechanical set of mathematical gadgets . It could be the worlds first computer.

Trigonometry was invented by Hipparchus who was born in what today is Turkey in 190BC and taught school on the island of Rhodes. He was one of the first to have known that the earth ran around the sun. It is believed with some facts that indeed this man designed the mechanism we discuss. Who made it is the unknown factor. Greek writing seem instruction on what the device does. Two separate writing styles suggest that maybe it was made in a family shop of metal castings work. The bronze metal inscribed with writing should tell the whole story, yet we are still in the dark.

The fact that this mechanism is so advanced we now are aware that it is a 2000+ year old computer made in Greece and in the end being taken by Romans .The ship sank and all was lost to history. Or was it a gift for Julio Caesar whom in the first century would have had a  very ample celebration.Then all thought ships went from Greece to Rome but now new facts seem to point towards Turkey being the destination of the ship that sank.

It was first discovered by Greek sponge divers in 1900. The equipment made for deep sea diving  was primitive then and killed two men with the bends at 150 feet deep when first discovery caused panic. Later some 2 more divers left with paralysis from the bends.

Marcus Tullius Cicero who spoke of something called the planetarium”sphere of Archimedes “. He went on to say that it was able to display the sun. movements of the moon and planets even the movement of earth. We think he was talking of this same mechanism. Perhaps Cicero himself ordered the ship cargo that sank.

in 1974 Physicist and historian Derek de Solla Price worked on the Antikythera Mechanism until his death in 1983. He never had it worked out fully but so close his papers tell but if he did crack the puzzle he took that to his grave.

we can only guess how it worked and so an element of mystery remains in this case file.

My thoughts are this, perhaps the part that could be missing lays 150 deep on the ocean floor even now. A puzzle without all the parts may be why no one can fire it up and make it work. We know that it did so when made. My theory could even be right. Who knows?

I did enjoy looking back at this case as it is so exiting to think we had all that before Christ lived. why do we go backwards what happened to stop such progress is always interesting for me; at any rate. The craftsmanship of this work is beyond the date we know this was made. It must have been famous as Rome knew of its existence. Greeks told of it and now we have most of it to study more questions than answers appear. That shipwreck is so far down in the sea we need even now a major job to shift through sands and rocks that form the sea bottom all around that wreck. Then try to brig an old Roman vessel back to  us for anything that helps to solve the mystery of what is the worlds first computerized clock that may even record time.

Until the next time. Thank you all for your support. I may only hope that you enjoyed the account case as much as i did writing it for you.

Yours with great respect and faithful service, Sir Kevin

 

Copyright kevin Parr Bt 2018

 

 

Was it suicide,accident or murder that ended poor Amys life.

Amy Robsart  original

Amy from art painting 1800s

Robert Dudley

William Cecil

The death of a fine noble 28 year old woman, in 1560 it made history of a case. The wife of Robert Dudley first Duke of Northumberland  was found dead in her house at base of a stair.We have no idea where this stair was located or how many steps it had as nothing of Cumnor Place near Oxford now remains of it today. It has been passed around so many times as to her real fate and we  have a clear view to see if we but open our minds to logic not maybe that leads to fairy tales.

Doctor Hawley Crippen case file

Born in 1862 Michigan USA to an industrious working family who owned a thriving business young Hawley grew up rich. He had desired to study medicine and left the family home in Coldwater to seek out a student course which brought him to  the University of Michigan and passed all to qualify as  an MD with degree in Homeopathy and so then traveled to Cleveland hospital to further his education. His job chance came in New York office of Homeopathic company drug dept. Here he met his wife an Irish Nurse ,one Charlotte Bell. Within a year their child was born. A boy they named Otto. All was fine and happy days until in 1892 Charlotte died of apoplexy  leaving Crippen stunned and lonely with a child he was finding so difficult to help with the pressures of his job. His parents came to his rescue and took the child over. A life In sunny California was really the best thing leaving their hard working son to make his way in the world.

Some time later Crippen saw a stage play and fell head long in lust with Cora Turner who filled his heart as well as the stage. The real story thus must start here as we must quickly go on to the marriage and what was his end.

Who Really Stole the British Crown Jewels?

We arrive at this place to try all facts to  go against the odds on record d but have been hidden for centuries by those who deny any happenings. Proof I can give you that indeed the crown and many precious ancient items crushed and folded by foot and hammer into portable swag is fact.

The date in question is in the reign of King Charles 11. Yet although we have record of this event buried in the files no trial was ever presented in any court and the villain caught red handed within the Tower of London grounds, vanished from our history records.

The amazing case of Lord Lucans disappearance

Here we are again the the case door. Yes my able friends another fine mystery we have today. It is not history as we know it as it is within living memory of most of us. However it will not fade away no matter how long the world lasts. so shall we look at the simple facts. We all know a murder took place of a young nanny of the family children. We know that the marriage of Lord Lucan and his wife as he lived across the road in a one bed flat whilst she occupied Lucans family address in a very upmarket part of London England.