Episodes
-
In this new series Lucy Worsley switches her attention from Lady Killers to Lady Swindlers - con women, thieves and hustlers.
This is where true crime meets history - with a twist. Lucy and her team of all female detectives travel back in time to revisit the audacious and surprising crimes of women trying to make it in a world made for men.
In this episode Lucy is investigating the life of Fanny Davies, a thief who will take everything you have, including your trousers. A pickpocket and prostitute, at the age of 20 in 1785 she pulled off the daring theft of a huge sum of money in an Essex pub which turned her into a national celebrity. Condemned to death for her crime, Fanny’s story was taken up by pamphleteers determined to profit from her story, and they embellished her life with tales of highway robbery and aristocratic seduction.
With Lucy to explore Fanny Davies’ story is the Essex-born barrister Alexandra Wilson. They discuss the glamorisation of female criminals then and now. And consider the reasons why a woman such as Fanny turned to a life of crime, finding uncomfortable parallels with women in the criminal justice system today.
Lucy is also joined by historian Rosalind Crone. They visit Southwark in South East London where Fanny grew up and learned her trade as a prostitute and pickpocket, and they travel to Tilbury in Essex where Ros reveals an extraordinary twist in Fanny’s tale.
Lucy wants to know: why did Fanny’s story capture the 18th century public imagination so powerfully? How can we get behind the celebrity criminal to find out what Fanny Davies’ life is really like? And what does Fanny’s story tell us about the lives of female criminals today?
Producer: Jane GreenwoodReaders: Clare Corbett and Jonathan Keeble Sound Design: Chris MacleanExecutive producer: Kirsty Hunter
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4.
If you're in the UK, listen to the newest episodes of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
In this new series Lucy Worsley switches her attention from Lady Killers to Lady Swindlers - con women, thieves and hustlers.
This is where true crime meets history - with a twist. Lucy and her team of all female detectives travels back more than a hundred years to revisit the audacious and surprising crimes of women trying to make it in a world made for men.
This time Lucy is in London telling the story of Madame Rachel - Sarah Rachel Russell - an utterly ruthless Victorian beauty scammer and blackmailer who promises her clients she will make them ‘beautiful for ever’.
Madame Rachel’s exotic salon in Bond Street attracts the rich, and the posh, and – so she claims – the royal family. Her beauty products sell for outlandish prices. But when she turns to extortion and blackmail the full extent of her swindles are revealed.
With Lucy to explore Madame Rachel’s story is the journalist and beauty editor Anita Bhagwandas, author of Ugly: Giving us back our beauty standards . They discover how Madame Rachel preys on the insecurities of women to sell her products, and how her notoriety fuels debates in Victorian England about the immorality of cosmetics and how much control women should have over their finances.
Lucy is also joined by historian Professor Rosalind Crone. They visit the site of Madame Rachel’s salon in Bond Street, and London’s Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey, where Madame Rachel’s career ended in disgrace – and where the truth about what was actually in her beauty products was finally revealed.
Lucy wants to know: is Madame Rachel a pioneering Victorian businesswoman or is she the biggest beauty scammer of her day? And why are women today still in thrall to the beauty industry selling them promises of youth and beauty?
Producer: Jane GreenwoodReaders: Clare Corbett and Jonathan Keeble Singer: Olivia BlooreSound Design: Chris MacleanExecutive producer: Kirsty Hunter
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4.
If you're in the UK, listen to the newest episodes of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
Missing episodes?
-
In this brand new series Lucy Worsley switches her attention from Lady Killers to Lady Swindlers - con women, thieves and hustlers.
This is where true crime meets history - with a twist. Lucy and her team of all female detectives travel back more than 100 years to revisit the audacious and surprising crimes of women trying to make it in a world made for men.
In this episode Lucy is exploring Sophie Lyons, pickpocket, blackmailer and conwoman extraordinaire, known as the infamous Queen of the Underworld.
Born in Germany in the late 1840s, aged 8 Sophie moves to New York, USA. She is taught from an early age to steal and pickpockets, and is in jail from the young age of 12.
She becomes a career criminal, constantly crafting new schemes and disguises to make money. But in her later years, Sophie has a change of heart and encourages others to stay away from a life of crime such as hers. She even writes a book: ‘Why Crime Does Not Pay’.
With Lucy to explore Sophie’s story is Guest Detective, Evy Poumpouras, former NYPD officer, criminal investigator, interrogator, and ex special agent with the US Secret Service. Being a first-generation American herself, Evy discusses Sophie’s experience as an immigrant in underworld New York and how women are drawn into crime to survive.
Lucy is also joined by biographer Barbara Gray, who is writing a book on Sophie. Barbara visits the site of Sophie’s childhood home to tell us about what life was like as an immigrant in 1850s New York. And she explores the veracity of Sophie’s memoirs, asking the question - how much can we trust her?
Lucy wants to know: is Sophie’s reform genuine, or just another scheme to make money? Can a career criminal ever truly give up crime?
Producer: Hannah FisherReaders: Laurel Lefkow and Jonathan KeebleSound Design: Chris MacleanExecutive producer: Kirsty Hunter
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4.
If you're in the UK, listen to the newest episodes of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
Lucy Worsley, historian Professor Rosalind Crone and author and journalist Helen Lewis, explore the lives of four notorious Lady Swindlers.They’ll be discussing underworld boss Tilly Devine, fake heiress Violet Charlesworth, queen of shoplifting Alice Diamond and fake Princess Mary Baker a.k.a. “Princess Caraboo”.These women - through cunning and bravado - carve out notorious reputations and leave unforgettable legacies that we’re still talking about today.Lucy and her guests imagine what our Lady Swindlers lives would look like now. Would they have become internet famous and built personal brands? Or would their audacity led to them being cancelled?They also discuss how our swindlers manipulate perceptions and navigate their world to live the lives they dreamed of, unapologetically. From Princess Caraboo's elaborate cosplay and Violet Charlesworth’s audacious lifestyle to Tilly Devine's criminal empire, the series paints a vivid picture of women who dared.
Producer: Riham MoussaReaders: Clare Corbett and Jonathan KeebleSound Design: Chris MacleanExecutive producer: Kirsty Hunter
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4
If you're in the UK, listen to the newest episodes of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
In this episode of Lady Swindlers, Lucy Worsley meets Violet Charlesworth, an heiress with a taste for the high life. From her family home in North Wales, Violet drives the length and breadth of the country in her expensive motorcars, accompanied by pedigree pooches and dripping with diamonds. Lucy asks: is there more to her than meets the eye?
She is joined by iconic crime writer Denise Mina (‘Garnethill Trilogy’, ‘Three Fires’) and Lady Swindlers in-house historian Professor Rosalind Crone to find out all about Violet’s prodigious spending habit and looming debts.
The whole country is shocked when, late one night in January 1909, Violet loses control of her car on her way home from Bangor. It looks like she’s hit the wall that lines the coast road and shot through the windscreen and down the cliff face, but there is no sign of her body and her family are apparently unconcerned.
Lucy’s investigative trio look at the wall-to-wall media coverage of Violet’s disappearance. They hear from Welsh historian Elin Tomos at the crash site, which is still known as Violet’s Leap, and at the Charlesworths’ house, Bôd Erw in the village of Llanelwy/St Asaph. They consider the new freedoms women were exploring at the beginning of the early 20th century and the idea of the New Woman – independent, educated and openly feminist.
Together, they ask: what motivated this audacious woman? Can we sympathise with her? Was she, truly, a woman ahead of her time?
Producer: Sarah GoodmanReaders: Clare Corbett, Iwan Fôn and Jonathan KeebleLocation Historian: Elin TomosSound Design: Chris MacleanExecutive producer: Kirsty Hunter
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4.
If you're in the UK, listen to the newest episodes of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
Lucy Worsley investigates the career of one of Sydney’s most notorious gangsters, Tilly Devine. Draped in furs and encrusted in jewels, she’s the madam of one of the most lucrative brothel networks the city’s ever seen.
What brings Tilly from south London to Sydney? How does she rise to the top of the city’s ruthless, gritty 1920s gangster crime scene? To track Tilly’s story, Lucy is joined by historian Leigh Straw and Guest Detective Christine Nixon, the first female chief commissioner in an Australian state police force.
Together the team trace Tilly’s crossing from London to Sydney as a ‘War Bride’ and her ruthless ambition to make it in a man’s world. Young Tilly joins a criminal underworld lit up by all night parties, soaked in illicit liquor, and menaced by dangerous brawls. Her ruthless rise to riches doesn’t go unchecked, hot on her heels is police officer Lillian Armfield, specially chosen to join New South Wales’s first female police force. Will the police and the long arm of the law prevail over the Queen of Vice? Will the vicious Razor Wars and Tilly’s bitter feud with her nemesis, female gangland crime boss Kate Leigh, be her undoing?
Lucy and her team of all female detectives find out.
Producer: Emily HughesReaders: Clare Corbett, Jonathan Keeble and Guy Dow-Sainter. Sound Design: Chris MacleanExecutive Producer: Kirsty Hunter
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4.
If you're in the UK, listen to the newest episodes of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
Lucy Worsley and her all-female team of detectives travel back in time to meet con artists, hoaxers and crooks from across the world. Women living extraordinary lives in a world made for men.
In this episode of Lady Swindlers, Lucy meets Princess Caraboo, a woman abducted from palace gardens in Indonesia, traded by pirates and carried away to South West England in 1817. Or so she says…
Lucy is joined in the studio by writer and broadcaster Salma El-Wardany, presenter of BBC Radio London’s Breakfast Show, to delve into this sensational story. Lucy then heads to the village where it all happened to meet Lady Swindlers in-house historian Professor Rosalind Crone.
Together, they follow Caraboo’s journey from wandering vagrant to star attraction. They ask how a woman with no money, no papers and not a word of English could walk into a rural community in Regency England and wind up living in a grand manor house as an honoured guest. They consider her very ‘unladylike’ behaviour: climbing trees, swimming naked in the lake, shooting arrows and gutting pigeons. They reflect on the influence of nearby Bristol, a cosmopolitan city rich on profits from the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans.
The team discuss how we judge strangers, particularly women, and whether desperation can justify deceit. Would we judge Princess Caraboo any differently today?
Producer: Sarah GoodmanReaders: Clare Corbett and Jonathan KeebleSound Design: Chris MacleanExecutive producer: Kirsty Hunter
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4.
If you're in the UK, listen to the newest episodes of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
In this brand new series Lucy Worsley switches her attention from Lady Killers to Lady Swindlers - conwomen, thieves and hustlers.
This is where true crime meets history - with a twist. Lucy and her team of all female detectives travel back more than 100 years to revisit the audacious and surprising crimes of women trying to make it in a world made for men.
In this first episode Lucy is investigating the career of Alice Diamond, the queen of the UK’s most famous all female crime syndicate in the early 20th century. By the age of 18 Alice is leading a gang of incredibly successful professional shoplifters from South East London, known as the Forty Thieves, whose audacious and carefully planned raids on London’s new department stores make them notorious.
With Lucy to explore Alice Diamond’s story is Professor Lorraine Gamman, the founder of the Design Against Crime Research Initiative at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London, which works to reduce shoplifting. Lorraine also has a fascinating personal connection to Alice Diamond through Alice’s apprentice, Shirley Pitts, and she helped Shirley write her memoir ‘Gone Shopping’.
Lucy is also joined by historian Rosalind Crone to visit Southwark in South East London where Alice spends her childhood moving from one set of dismal lodgings to another to avoid the rent man. And they visit another of Alice’s haunts: Marlborough Street Magistrates’ Court, where she faces dozens of charges of shoplifting.
Lucy wants to know: is Alice Diamond a beacon of female liberation or is she just a serial criminal? How were opportunities for women changing in the early 20th century? What does Alice’s story tell us about the lives of women born into poverty then, and asks how much has changed for women today?
Producer: Jane GreenwoodReaders: Clare Corbett and Jonathan Keeble Sound Design: Chris MacleanExecutive Producer: Kirsty Hunter
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4.
If you're in the UK, listen to the newest episodes of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
In this brand new series of Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley we switch our attention to the swindlers, conwomen and hustlers.
This is where true crime meets history - with a twist. Join Lucy Worsley and a team of all female detectives as they travel back in time to revisit the audacious - and surprising - crimes of women who were trying to make it in a world made for men.
Women who stepped outside their ordinary lives to do extraordinary things. What do their crimes and the times they lived in teach us about womens’ lives today? We meet Queens of the Underworld, hoaxers, thieves, scammers and even a fake heiress as we travel back in time and from England, Wales, Scotland, the US and Australia.
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4.
If you're in the UK, listen to the newest episodes of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
In this special episode of Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley, recorded in front of a live audience, Lucy is joined by Professor Rosalind Crone, Lady Killers in-house historian and Salma el-Wardany, writer, poet and BBC Breakfast presenter. They look back at the last three seasons and offer an exclusive preview of the new season, Lady Swindlers.
Lady Killers is where Lucy Worsley and a crack team of female detectives investigate the crimes of women from the 19th and 20th Century from a contemporary, feminist perspective.
Producer: Julia HayballAssistant Producer: Riham MoussaReaders: Clare Corbett and Jonathan Keeble Sound Design: Chris MacleanExecutive Producer: Kirsty Hunter
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4.
If you're in the UK, listen to the newest episodes of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
Lucy Worsley and Rosalind Crone are joined by Helen Lewis, author of ‘Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights.’ They discuss what it means to be a difficult woman and why the airbrushing of feminist history can be problematic.
Together they discuss four of the most difficult women across the Lady Killers series; Mary Surratt, Alice Mitchell, Mary Ann Brough and Maria Manning. Each one commits wild and unspeakable crimes. They are anti-heroines; breaking taboos around sexuality, motherhood and sexual relationships. Lucy, Ros and Helen explore the value of understanding the diversity of women's lives in the past, and how this enables us to get a little bit closer to understanding ourselves.
Produced in partnership with the Open University.
Producer: Emily Hughes. Sound design: Chris MacleanSeries Producer: Julia Hayball.
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4
New episodes will be released on Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. But if you’re in the UK, listen to the latest full series of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds - Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley - Available Episodes: http://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
Lucy Worsley travels back in time to revisit the unthinkable crimes of 19th century murderesses from the UK, Australia and North America.
In this episode, Lucy is joined by Alexandra Wilson, a barrister specialising in criminal and family law and author of ‘In Black and White’, to explore the case of Mary Ann Brough in 1854.
Mary Ann lives in the picturesque county of Surrey, close to London. She’s married to George, who lives and works at the stately home nearby, while Mary Ann stays at home looking after six of their children. It sounds like an idyllic family life. But there are cracks beneath the surface. George suspects Mary Ann of having an affair and even hires a private detective to follow her to see if his suspicions are correct.
After the detective reports back, George confronts Mary Ann and declares he will be starting legal proceedings to take full custody of their children. After he leaves, Mary Ann puts the children to bed, but later that evening she commits a drastic act. She slits the throats of each of her children before trying to kill herself.
She is discovered the next day still alive, fully admitting to what she did. But why did she do it? Was it a cloud of insanity that took over her in a flash? Or was it to stop her husband gaining custody of the children and taking them away?
Lucy Worsley is also joined by Professor Rosalind Crone from the Open University. Together, they visit the village Mary Ann lived in and the stately estate nearby. In the studio with Alexandra Wilson they discuss the circumstances surrounding Mary Ann’s crime and how the custody laws at the time may have impacted her actions. Lucy asks, has the way society treats custody disputes changed since Mary Ann’s time and does it view each parent equally? Produced in partnership with the Open University.
Producer: Hannah FisherReaders: Clare Corbett, Jonathan KeebleSinger: Olivia BlooreSound design: Chris MacleanSeries Producer: Julia Hayball
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4
New episodes will be released on Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. But if you’re in the UK, listen to the latest full series of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds - Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley - Available Episodes: http://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
Lucy Worsley travels back in time to revisit the unthinkable crimes of 19th century murderesses from the UK, Australia and North America.
In this episode Lucy is joined by Cameron Esposito, stand-up comic, actor, writer and host of the hit podcast Queery. They investigate the case of 19-year-old Alice Mitchell who killed 17-year-old Freda Ward in Memphis, Tennessee in 1892 after a stormy and illicit relationship.
Alice and Freda plan to marry and move to St Louis, but when Freda’s family discover their relationship, she comes under enormous pressure to end it.
Alice Mitchell’s subsequent actions caused a nationwide sensation and influenced the way lesbians were perceived by the press and the public for decades.
Lucy is also joined by the historian Alexis Coe, author of Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis, who helps Lucy uncover exactly what drove Alice to kill the woman she loved.
Lucy wants to know what this case tells us about women’s lives in the southern states of America at the end of the 19th century, particularly the lives of LGBTQ+ women, and what it tells us about queer women’s lives in America now.
Today in Tennessee the LGBTQ+ community feels under increasing threat with legislation banning books in schools which portray gay or trans people and bans on drag acts. Lucy asks the drag artist and activist Magical Miss Mothie to find out more from members of the community during their annual Pride festival in the city.
The story of Alice and Freda is complex and disturbing, and it culminates in the destruction of two young lives. But it reminds us that queer people have always been there and always will be; in the teeth of opposition from everyone around her Alice refused to see why she should not live her life with the woman she loved.
Produced in partnership with the Open University
Producer: Jane GreenwoodReaders: Clare Corbett, Bill Hope and Laurel LefkowSound design: Chris MacleanSeries Producer: Julia HayballExecutive Producer: Kirsty Hunter
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4
New episodes will be released on Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. But if you’re in the UK, listen to the latest full series of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds - Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley - Available Episodes: http://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
Lucy Worsley travels back in time to revisit the unthinkable crimes of 19th century murderesses from the UK, Australia and North America.
Lucy Worsley travels to Buckland Brewer, Devon, to investigate the death of a young servant girl on a remote farm. Far from bucolic idyll with roses around the door, this is the location of a grizzly crime where a teenage girl, Mary-Ann Parsons, is found dead, her emaciated body horribly bruised and battered.
Guest Detective Baroness Helena Kennedy, a leading barrister and expert on human rights and modern slavery, joins Lucy to examine the crime. The alleged Lady Killer is Sarah Bird, a young farmer’s wife and the mother of four children. Could she really be capable of this brutal murder?
Together with Lady Killers’ in-house historian Professor Rosalind Crone, the team examines how Mary-Ann Parsons comes to work as a Parish Apprentice at Gawland Farm, and how a toxic culture of abuse becomes the norm. With a wealth of experience in modern slavery, Baroness Helena Kennedy unpicks how people become trapped in domestic servitude today and what it takes to turn someone into an enslaver.
Produced in partnership with the Open University.
Producer: Emily Hughes Readers: Clare Corbett and Jonathan KeebleSound design: Chris MacleanSeries Producer: Julia Hayball.
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4
New episodes will be released on Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. But if you’re in the UK, listen to the latest full series of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds - Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley - Available Episodes: http://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
Lucy Worsley travels back in time to revisit the unthinkable crimes of 19th century murderesses from the UK, Australia and North America.
In this episode Lucy is joined by Evy Poumpouras, former special agent with the Secret Service, where she protected five US presidents as part of the Presidential Protective Division.
Lucy and Evy investigate the case of Mary Surratt, a 42 year-old widow, mother and pious Catholic who was arrested in April 1865 for conspiring to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. He had been shot by former actor John Wilkes Booth while watching a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC. One of the most sensational trials in US history followed, with prosecutors pushing for death sentences for everyone involved in the murder.
Lucy and Evy want to find out why the authorities were so sure that Surratt was involved in the assassination. They want to know what her story tells us about the lives of women at the close of the American Civil War. And they ask what happens when women step outside the domestic sphere and dare to get involved in protest and politics?
To find out more about the background to the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination, Lucy asks Dr Nikki M Taylor, Professor of History at Howard University Washington DC, to go to Ford’s Theatre and to the Surratt House Museum, formerly Mary’s Surratt’s tavern in Maryland. Mary Surratt, she discovers, was a slave-holder and, like John Wilkes Booth, was horrified by Lincoln’s intention to end slavery and enfranchise African Americans.
Mary Surratt is an elusive and divisive woman. Lucy wants to know if she was a devoted mother attempting to make her way in the world - or a hard-hearted conspirator, a slave-holder and fanatical Confederate trying to reignite the civil war.
Produced in partnership with the Open University
Producer: Jane GreenwoodReaders: Bill Hope, Jonathan Keeble and Laurel LefkowSound design: Chris MacleanSeries Producer: Julia Hayball
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4
New episodes will be released on Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. But if you’re in the UK, listen to the latest full series of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds - Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley - Available Episodes: http://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
Lucy Worsley, Professor Rosalind Crone and barrister Nneka Akudolu KC take a look behind the scenes of Lady Killers.
They shine a light on the detective work required to build the cases of these infamous murderesses, how evidence is pieced together, and how we can hear what these Victorian women are really trying to tell us about their lives.
Nneka shares insights into her work specialising in complex crimes: murder, drug trafficking and serious sexual offences, and how she uses evidence to build a case in the courtroom.
Produced in partnership with the Open University.
Producer: Emily HughesSound design: Chris MacleanSeries Producer: Julia Hayball.
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4
New episodes will be released on Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. But if you’re in the UK, listen to the latest full series of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds - Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley - Available Episodes: http://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
Lucy Worsley travels back in time to revisit the unthinkable crimes of 19th century murderesses from the UK, Australia and North America.
In this episode, Lucy is joined by Dr Gwen Adshead, for many years a consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist at Broadmoor Hospital.
They investigate the case of Frances Kidder, a 25-year-old woman unhappily married to a much older man, who is accused of murdering her stepdaughter Louisa in Kent in 1867.
We all know the stories of Cinderella and Snow White – evil stepmothers badly treating their innocent stepdaughters. So when, one evening in August 1867, Louisa Kidder fails to return from a walk with her stepmother Frances across the lonely wetlands of Romney Marsh, Frances has some explaining to do.
Lucy is also joined by historian Rosalind Crone, Professor of History at the Open University. She has uncovered numerous reports from local magistrates’ courts which reveal the violence and discord of the Kidder household. Lucy and Rosalind travel to Hythe in Kent where Frances married her violent husband, to Romney Marsh where Louisa disappeared, and to Maidstone Gaol where Frances awaited trial.
Lucy wants to know what actually happened to Louisa on that August evening. Is Frances a wicked stepmother or herself the victim of a troubled and violent home?What does her case tell us about family breakdown in the 19th century, and how much has changed today?
Produced in partnership with the Open University
Producer: Jane GreenwoodReaders: Clare Corbett, Jonathan Keeble and Ruth Sillers Sound design: Chris MacleanSeries Producer: Julia Hayball
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4
New episodes will be released on Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. But if you’re in the UK, listen to the latest full series of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds - Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley - Available Episodes: http://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
Lucy Worsley travels back in time to revisit the unthinkable crimes of 19th century murderesses from the UK, Australia and North America.
In this episode Lucy is joined by the Right Honourable Dame Siobhan Keegan, the Lady Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, who was one of the first women High Court judges in Northern Ireland.
They explore the case of mother and daughter Jane and Ann Boyd, from a poor family living in Holywood near Belfast, whose lives are turned upside down when 19-year-old Ann is dismissed from her job as a domestic servant because she is pregnant and unmarried.
We worry a lot about lack of privacy today, about the invasiveness of social media, but Lucy discovers that in mid 19th century rural Ireland, in a very religious community, there was absolutely no privacy. The Boyd’s neighbours and extended family were in and out of each other’s houses all day, observing every detail of each other’s lives.
So when Ann goes into labour in the Boyd’s cottage, there is no way that Jane is going to be able to keep her daughter’s baby a secret.
Lucy is also joined by historian Rosalind Crone, Professor of History at the Open University. They travel to the Ulster Folk Museum near Holywood and discover the awful truth about how the shame of illegitimacy drove hundreds of Irish women every year to desperate measures to conceal their unwanted pregnancies.
Lucy wants to know what it was like trying to deal with an illegitimate pregnancy in a highly religious, judgemental society. How did the mid 19th century criminal justice system deal with women like Jane and Ann Boyd, and what might happen to women in a similar situation today?
Produced in partnership with the Open University
Producer: Jane GreenwoodReaders: Grace, Catherine and Margaret Cunningham, Jonathan Keeble, Patrick Kelly-Bradley and William McBrideSound design: Chris MacleanSeries Producer: Julia Hayball
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4
New episodes will be released on Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. But if you’re in the UK, listen to the latest full series of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds - Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley - Available Episodes: http://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
It’s the 14th September 1896, just a short distance from Brisbane, on Australia’s east coast, and the sun is rising on Minjerribah Island, the ancestral land of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait ‘Quandamooka People’. It’s an area rich in Aboriginal culture. It’s also a colonised area, steeped in racism and division, and this is where the murder of six year old ‘Cassey’ takes place.
To investigate this tragic crime and its contemporary resonances, Lucy Worsley is joined by Guest Detective Vanessa Turnbull Roberts. Vanessa is a proud Bundjalung Widubul-Wiabul First Nations woman, a Law Graduate and recipient of the Australian Human Rights Medal for her work around the adoption laws and forcible removal of First Nations children.
Lucy hears that our case begins at ‘Myora Mission School’, an institution set up by white settlers who wish to establish a ‘reformatory’ for Aboriginal children. In reality, it’s part of a wider ‘management’ system aimed at controlling the First Nations population. The children are being trained in domestic duties to work as servants for white families. There’s also evidence that some of the children – including six-year-old Cassey - have been forcibly taken from their homes.
Whilst the children are under the supervision of their matron – a Danish settler called Marie Christensen – Cassey is killed. Marie’s cruel and fatal actions are witnessed by First Nations women Budlo Lefu, Topsy Mcleod and Polly Roberts who bravely speak out on Cassey’s behalf.
Professor Rosalind Crone from the Open University travels to Australia to visit the site of the Mission School and meet local tribal elders.
As the tragic murder unfolds, Vanessa explains that the subject which really underpins everything in this case, is Australia’s ‘Stolen Generations’, the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and communities. Although this began during the earliest days of white settlement, Vanessa – herself, a survivor of the ‘Family Policing System’ – reveals, it is not a thing of the past.
Produced in partnership with the Open University.
Producer: Nicola HumphriesReaders: Paula Delany-Nazarski, Clare Corbett and Jonathan KeebleSound Design: Chris MacleanSeries Producer: Julia Hayball.
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4
With thanks to The Minjerribah Moorgumpin Elders-In-Council and North Stradbroke Island Museum on Minjerribah
New episodes will be released on Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. But if you’re in the UK, listen to the latest full series of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds.BBC Sounds - Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley - Available Episodes: http://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
-
Lucy Worsley travels back in time to revisit the unthinkable crimes of 19th century murderesses from the UK, Australia and North America.
This episode sees Lucy traverse London, hot on the heels of Maria Manning, the so-called Lady Macbeth of Bermondsey, a woman who confounds expectations of respectable Victorian England.
Maria shocked the nation in 1849, when she conspired with her husband to kill her lover, before stealing the dead man’s money and making a break for freedom on the all-new intercity rail network. She’s the inspiration for a key character in Charles Dickens' famous proto-detective novel Bleak House and her fate leads to a pivotal change in the law.
To untangle this remarkable story, Lucy is joined by international literary superstar Kate Mosse, author of historical fiction novels including the Joubert Family Chronicles and founder-director of The Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Lucy also visits the scene of the crime and recreates Maria’s escape across the capital with Lady Killers’ in-house historian Professor Rosalind Crone from the Open University. They uncover a bizarre trail of evidence, including the huge stash of belongings Maria deposited at London Bridge Station as she fled London, which included 28 pairs of stockings, 11 petticoats, a teapot, an apron and several items of bloodstained clothing.
Together, the team ask why the buttoned-up Victorians had such an appetite for grisly tales of lust, crime and punishment. Are the same impulses behind today’s fascination with true crime? Can we respect Maria’s independent spirit and sharp mind, despite what she did? Does she deserve her place in history?
Produced in partnership with the Open University
Producer: Sarah GoodmanReaders: Meena Rayann and Jonathan KeebleSound design: Chris MacleanSeries Producer: Julia Hayball
A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4
New episodes will be released on Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. But if you’re in the UK, listen to the latest full series of Lady Killers first on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds - Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley - Available Episodes: http://bbc.in/3M2pT0K
- Show more
