The Victorian Era's Wildest Murder

Summary

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After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal

Episode: The Victorian Era's Wildest Murder

Hosts: Anthony Delaney & Maddie Pelling
Release Date: April 6, 2026

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Overview

This gripping episode delves into one of Victorian England’s most sensational true crime stories—the murder of Julia Martha Thomas by her servant Kate Webster. The crime, known for its brutality, macabre details, and the shocking discovery of a victim’s skull in the garden of none other than Sir David Attenborough in 2010, is unpacked by historians Anthony and Maddie. Throughout, the hosts explore not just the sequence of events, but also the historical context, societal tensions, and long-lasting media myths surrounding the case.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. A Crime Revealed by Modern Excavation

• Setting the Scene (03:43):
  Maddie retells the 2010 discovery: while a digger works in Attenborough’s Richmond garden, workers find a human skull. This revelation sets the stage for a Victorian murder mystery brought into the 21st century.
  • Memorable moment: Maddie’s impression of Sir David Attenborough offering tea as the skull is uncovered (03:43).

2. Victorian Context & Public Fascination with Murder

• Historical Background (06:51):
  • The year is 1879: Queen Victoria is on the throne, Benjamin Disraeli is PM, battles rage as the British Empire expands, and technology advances (the first electric streetlights, famine and unrest in Ireland).
  • The Victorian public is obsessed with grisly crimes; sales of murder pamphlets boom, soon to be eclipsed by Jack the Ripper’s infamy.
  • Quote: “People are becoming increasingly obsessed with murder...a good story can sell up to a million pamphlets.” – Maddie (09:17)

3. The Principal Characters

Julia Martha Thomas

• A widow in her 50s, somewhat eccentric, living alone save for her servant.

Kate Webster (Kathleen Webster)

• Irish immigrant from County Wexford with a murky, possibly fabricated background: claims of marriage to a sea captain and the loss of four children.
• Multiple arrests for larceny, single mother, living a precarious and unstable existence as an itinerant servant in London.
• Quote: “Her backstory is kind of a web of truth and lies, and it’s really murky. Nobody really knows what the answers are.” – Maddie (12:19)

The Power of Victorian Stereotypes

• Descriptions of Kate’s waxwork draw attention to the gendered and racialized ways Irish women were depicted: strong, masculine, even monstrous.
  • Quote: “With depictions of Irish people in the 19th century, you often get this thing where it’s a very heavy browed, very heavy faced, almost ape-like...designed to say we were uncivilized.” – Anthony (18:22)

4. The Murder: Chaos, Myths, and Motivation

• The Crime (24:01):
  • Domestic tension explodes: after a quarrel (possibly fueled by drink), Kate pushes Mrs. Thomas down the stairs, strangles her, and, in a panic, dismembers the body using household tools.
  • Kate’s (likely embellished) confession is read out: detailed, florid, and unsparing in its self-damnation and madness (24:01-26:05).
    • Quote from 'Kate': “I became entirely lost...was helped on by the devil in this vile purpose...I prepared the copper with water to boil the body to prevent identity.” (24:01)
• Critical Analysis of Confession:
  • Both hosts believe the confession has been shaped by media or legal authorities, not an authentic voice from a working-class Irish woman.
    • Quote: “She did not say those words. She just didn’t...That’s not authentic. It doesn’t ring true at all.” – Anthony (26:05)
• Sensational Myths
  • Kate was rumored to have rendered body fat and sold it as dripping to children—a tale likely invented by the pub landlady, but widely repeated.
    • Quote: “We have to take it with a pinch of salt, with a spread of fat.” – Maddie (31:34)

5. Cover-Up and Investigation

• Attempted Cover-up (32:44):
  • Webster dons Mrs. Thomas’s clothes, attempts to impersonate her, and tries to liquidate her possessions by enlisting acquaintances and a pub landlord (also an auctioneer).
  • She enlists a young man, Robert Porter, to help carry a box (containing body parts) to Richmond Bridge and dumps it in the Thames.
  • Suspicion grows but early reactions to the found body parts are muted—medical students’ pranks are an initial theory.
    • Memorable moment: “How badly behaved were medical students in the 19th century that the first thought when you find a dismembered body is you’re like, ugh, hilarious.” – Maddie (35:59)

6. Escape, Arrest, and Media Circus

• Escape and Capture (36:22):
  • Kate flees to Ireland; is swiftly identified and brought back for trial as the murder scene is uncovered in London (unburned bone fragments, traces of fat, bloodstains).
• Media Treatment and Public Fears (37:38):
  • The Victorian press fixate on the immigrant, Irish, and female aspects—Webster is labeled a “savage,” “awful butcher,” “singularly fiendish.”
    • Quote: “The Irish can come into your good British homes and threaten you from your domestic safe space, it’s so insidious. And the media latch on and she’s a woman, so therefore it’s even more [sensational].” – Anthony (38:00)
  • Connections are drawn to anxieties about Irish immigration, female violence, and the sanctity of the home.

7. Legacy in the Present: Discovery of the Skull and Modern Media

• 2010 Discovery (41:28):
  • The skull, with telltale injuries, is found in the old pub’s garden (later bought by Attenborough), identified likely as Mrs. Thomas’s.
  • Modern headlines echo Victorian sensationalism—stories of “cut up and boiled to feed street children” are repeated as fact, immortalizing the myth.
    • Quote: “The BBC, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph all report the drippings story as fact, which is really interesting. And, you know, it is hard to verify, it’s hard to disprove.” – Maddie (41:39)
• Reflection:
  • The hosts discuss how the layering of myth, prejudice, and horror persists even into recent history. The case remains a vivid example of the dangers, social hierarchies, and prejudices that marked Victorian Britain.
  • Quote: “It does tell us so much about the experience of immigrants, the experience of women, the dangers of the hierarchical structure of the home, the tension between domestic servants and their masters and mistresses and how that could turn sour so easily.” – Maddie (42:42)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the macabre Britishness of the crime:
  “It’s essentially a strange excavatory tea party that’s happening. How much more British could it be with David Attenborough?” – Anthony (06:11)

• On Victorian society’s obsession with murder:
  “People are becoming increasingly obsessed with murder…a good story can sell up to a million pamphlets.” – Maddie (09:17)

• Kate Webster’s confession:
  “I became entirely lost…and in fear of being discovered, I determined to do away with the body the best I could. I chopped off the head…” – Kate/Read by Maddie (24:01)

• Media myth:
  “Cut up and boiled to feed street children. Horrific fate of Victorian murder victim whose skull was found in David Attenborough’s garden.” – Daily Mail headline, cited by Maddie (41:39)

• Historical reflection on domestic crime:
  “I’m really interested in what happens when people close the front door… a house of safety becomes a house of horror.” – Anthony (44:01, 44:34)

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Important Timestamps

• 03:43: Maddie re-enacts the discovery of the skull in Attenborough’s garden.
• 06:51: Victorian Britain in 1879—contextual backdrop for the murder.
• 11:28: Introduction to Kate Webster’s background and her murky past.
• 24:01: Maddie reads out Kate Webster’s confession.
• 31:17: Urban legend of the “fat sold as dripping.”
• 32:44: Kate’s impersonation of Mrs. Thomas and attempts to dispose of the evidence.
• 36:22: Flight to Ireland, arrest, and return for trial.
• 37:38: Media’s vilification and use of prejudiced language.
• 41:28: 2010 discovery of the skull and modern-day media coverage.
• 44:34: Reflection on domestic privacy, horror, and the persistence of historical crime beneath our feet.

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Conclusion

This episode masterfully entwines gruesome Victorian crime, class and gender tensions, and the enduring power of myth, all culminating in a modern archaeological twist. Listeners are left to ponder not only the details of the crime, but also the broader social and cultural forces that shaped Victorian—and contemporary—Britain’s reactions to such horrors.

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Transcript

[Anthony]

Looking for more shady and sinister stories? Sign up to History Hit. You can join us to explore the tragic life of the Brontes or discover the chilling story of Burke and Hare. Plus, with your History Hit subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe to start exploring the past

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[Maddie]

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[Maddie]

hello after dark listeners. It's Maddie here. I'm not quite back on the pod. I'm coming to you from my maternity le sleep deprived blur that is being a new mum. I'm so missing After Dark, the whole family and I cannot wait to be back in front of the mic. Now, in the meantime, it's Easter and we're putting out a repeat from the good old days. Today, we've picked a favourite episode, the wildest murder in Victorian England. This is the one about the body in David Attenborough's garden. If you remember that if you haven't heard it, you're really in for a treat. If you've listened before, listen again. It's great stuff. Also, I'm here to tell you that Anthony and I will be live at Conway hall on the 7th of May. We're so excited to be doing this. We're going to be in conversation celebrating the launch of my new book, Truth and Lies in the Age of Enlightenment. Please, please come along. We want to see as many of you as possible. We'll be selling copies of the book. I'll be signing them on the night and chatting after the show. Tickets are on sale now. Link is in the show notes.

[Anthony]

Hello and welcome to After Dark. I'm Anthony.

[Maddie]

And I'm Maddie.

[Anthony]

And today we are talking about a particularly gruesome case. So if there are little ears around, then maybe this isn't the one for them. Or if you're eating your lunch, this also might not be the best time to do that because we're talking about murder, we're talking about 19th century servants, we're talking about dismemberment, and we're talking about a head that appears in the back garden of a national treasure. This is the history that Maddie's just about to tell us of Kate Webster.

[Maddie]

It's 2010 and in the autumn sunshine, a mini digger is clawing at the thick London clay in a back garden in Richmond, a wealthy suburb on the bank of the River Thames, making his way through the lush vegetation of the garden towards the workman. And the yellow digger is the 84 year old homeowner. He opens his mouth and asks in a hushed, husky tone, famous across the world, who'd like a cup of tea? Yes, we are in the garden, as you will be able to tell from my fantastic impression of Sir David Attenborough, friend of gorillas, penguins and legendary presenter of BBC nature documentaries. As Attenborough heads off with the tea order, the digger returns to work, scraping up the thick London sod that holds so many secrets and is about to offer up one more. The digger suddenly pauses. The workmen peer into the hole. There's something strange at the bottom that doesn't look quite right. Something dark, circular. Digging by hand now, they uncover more of it. A cold shiver passes over them. For looking up from the bottom of the hole is the empty eye socket of a human.

[Anthony]

Sam. Hello and welcome to After Dark. I am Anthony.

[Maddie]

And I'm Maddie.

[Anthony]

And at first I thought Maddy was reading the wrong script there. I was like, why are we in a garden? Why is it the 21st century? I don't really understand.

[Maddie]

And why is David Attenborother?

[Anthony]

Well, that was where I did get really confused. And then of course, there was a skull and I was like, ah, of course, it's after dark. We found a skull. It's so bizarre to me that, like, this is such a perfect story in many ways, isn't it? It's like a crime unearthed. It's a national treasure. It's not even Alison Hammond. It David Attenborough. It's the nationalist of all nationalist treasures.

[Maddie]

Were those only the two options?

[Anthony]

Yeah, those are your two. Alison or David. And this is not something I was aware of. I didn't even know that the school was found, let alone the actual history behind it. So this is an interesting way of understanding how crime history, history of immigration, history of 19th century servitude comes into ideas of Britishness now. And, you know, it's essentially a strange excavatory tea party that's happening. How much more British could it be with David Attenborough?

[Maddie]

I don't think there's much more to say to that. I think that's the end of the episode. That's fantastic.

[Anthony]

But it's not the end, is it? Cause take me to the time of the crime. I think, first of all, we'll come back to David. But we're talking 19th century here, right?

[Maddie]

Yeah. And I'm gonna give you the context in just a second. But first of all, I want to say as well that this is about history that is incredibly tangible. Often we talk about darker aspects of history that have happened so far in the past, that they do feel removed from us. And we can still talk about their effects, their victims, in ways that are as critical, as rigorous and as empathetic as possible. But this is us in 2010, being confronted with the evidence of a crime, a vicious, brutal, violent crime. And there's something about that being unearthed in the garden of David Attenborough that just makes it so immediate and so shocking and it sort of catapults it into our national consciousness. I suppose so. Okay, let me give you some context. We are in. We're traveling all the way back to 1879. Obviously, Queen Victoria is on the throne in Britain. Never heard of her. We have multiple episodes on Queen Victoria. So, Anthony, go back and listen to those.

[Anthony]

You are so good at telling people to go back and listen to old episodes. I always forget to do that.

[Maddie]

You literally every episode now we say, Anthony can't remember the episodes, but he truly can't like he really never.

[Anthony]

No. I never have a clue what's going on. I don't even know what's going on right now. Apart from the fact that it says in my notes that there's an Anglo Zulu war going on. So. Going to have to tell me about that.

[Maddie]

Yeah, there is. So there's Victoria on the throne, Benjamin Disraeli as the Prime Minister in Great Britain. There is a war going on between the British and the Zulus in Africa. And this is within the context of a wider British Empire. And the British soldiers there are armed predominantly with very modern weapons. And the Zulus mainly are using spears against them. So there's a sort of inequality and imbalance and a violence going on across the world. Under the British Empire, there are other innovations happening. On the 3rd of February of that year, 1879, Mosley street in Newcastle becomes the first street in the world to be lit by electricity, which surprises me. That's quite late the 18th century.

[Anthony]

Why do you hate Newcastle? Wow.

[Maddie]

Cancel.

[Anthony]

She said that.

[Maddie]

I love Newcastle, actually.

[Anthony]

No, I actually really love it.

[Maddie]

Some great 18th century buildings.

[Anthony]

Yeah, it's quite vibey too.

[Maddie]

Shout out to Newcastle and the northeast of the.

[Anthony]

You've redeemed yourself a half of you.

[Maddie]

Okay. Moving swiftly on. Less happy news in Ireland, there is a famine and there's about to be the land war that year.

[Anthony]

So good transition there. Less happy news, the famine in Ireland. I can laugh at it. I'm Ireland in Ireland. You're safe with me, Maddy.

[Maddie]

Wow. The other thing, and I think this is really relevant to the story that we're about to tell, is that people are becoming increasingly obsessed with murder. Remember, we are only a decade away here from Jack the Ripper, and in this time, the press have really caught on to this public interest and a good murder case, something really shocking that has different implications, that unearths and exposes tensions of class or gender, as so often these violent crimes do. A good story can sell up to a million pamphlets. So this is big business. And of course, the decade later, Jack the Ripper is gonna explode. Explode that completely. Yeah.

[Anthony]

So we have David Attenborough.

[Maddie]

We do.

[Anthony]

We have a skull in the back garden. We now have the context of that kind of Victorian crime era. We know where we are situated in terms of being 1879. We've also heard the name Kate Webster, so I'm not forgetting that. We'll come back to that. But what I guess I want to know next is who owns that school? Sounds like a terrible game show.

[Maddie]

Whose Skull is this time to play.

[Anthony]

Probably shouldn't be joking about that, but go on. Who is it?

[Maddie]

Okay, so, well, we do know. We do know. And before I tell you, we need to establish some geography, I think, here of the site where this skull is found. So we've got the house that now belongs to David Attenborough. He then bought an old Victorian pub that was adjoining his property. It's called the Hole in the Wall. And he buys this pub on the other side of the Attenborough property dynasty that's being expanded in Richmond is the house of a woman in the Victorian era called Julia Martha Thomas. Now, we think that the skull is hers. She was murdered in the year 1879, and her head was never found. The rest of her was found. And we're gonna get into the details of what happened to that because. Spoiler alert. And put your sandwich down. It's not great, but, yeah, we think that the skull was hers. She was a widow. She was in her 50s. She was possibly a little bit eccentric. There's some interesting sort of peculiarities about her life. She lived alone except for a servant, Kate.

[Anthony]

The links all link.

[Maddie]

The links are linking.

[Anthony]

So Kate, then, is. No, nothing of her apart from the fact that she's Irish. We're just handed a card with all the names of Irish people who've done terrible things.

[Maddie]

Before you're allowed to leave the country, you have to memorise all. Here you go.

[Anthony]

These are the ones to avoid. Don't claim them.

[Maddie]

Don't behave like these people.

[Anthony]

Yeah, if you're going abroad, behave.

[Maddie]

Embarrass us.

[Anthony]

So Kate's gone to London, and she's working in London in the 1870s. But who is she? What's the background apart from Ireland? Give us a bit more.

[Maddie]

Okay, so she's from County Wexford. What part of Ireland is that?

[Anthony]

Southeast.

[Maddie]

Okay, southeast.

[Anthony]

I'm from Southeast, too, but not Wexford.

[Maddie]

I don't think you want to claim anything in common with this woman. You're about to find out. Like, let's maybe park that she's from a place called. Is it Culzean? Killen?

[Anthony]

Culzean, yeah. I've never heard of it.

[Maddie]

Well, I'm gonna pronounce it like that.

[Anthony]

I'd say it's Culzean.

[Maddie]

She's Catholic. She's born in 1849. Now, she is a really fascinating person because her backstory is kind of a web of truth and lies, and it's really murky. Nobody really knows what the answers are. So she claimed that she was married to A sea captain called John Webster, and that she had four children. However, she then claimed that the husband and all four children had died, which, of course, you know, 19th century. It's not necessarily unlikely, but seems like a nice clean break. She comes to England in her teens, so she's been in England for a significant amount of time, and she works on and off as a servant in and around London, as many women of her social class would have done. That was a sort of generally accessible career path to many people. She then has a child by a man known only as Strong. And this is in 1874, so. So quite soon before the murder is gonna take place.

[Anthony]

Five Arduinoes, Right?

[Maddie]

Yes. Good maths. They have a child together and he abandons her. And all we know about him is that he's called Strong, which, in my head, I'm picturing, like a Victorian strong man.

[Anthony]

Yeah.

[Maddie]

I don't know.

[Anthony]

I'm picturing Mark Strong, you know, that actor.

[Maddie]

Oh, yeah. He looks exactly like my dad. Like, exactly like my dad.

[Anthony]

Longer, so I don't know.

[Maddie]

No, he really does. It's weird, it's freaky. It was the talk of my wedding, not me getting married, but how much my dad looked.

[Anthony]

That is such a niche thing to be able to talk about.

[Maddie]

Yeah. Weird.

[Anthony]

Well done.

[Maddie]

Moving on. She has this child, he abandons them. She then gets a job working for this Julia, Martha Thomas, next door neighbour to David Ashford. He's not that old. And this is in January 1879. She's working as a general servant. We will get into that later. But this is, as you would imagine, someone who does all the jobs of the house, bit of everything. And it's, you know, real dog's body work. It's tiring, it's nonstop. It's the most menial and the most complex tasks of the house. It's a lot of work. At this point, she is around 30 years old, approximately. Again, the backstory is not necessarily backstorying.

[Anthony]

So not young, but not old. Certainly, you know, would be expected to have some life experience behind her by the time she was 30. In this.

[Maddie]

I mean, as someone in the very early 30s, I would like to be considered young. As old.

[Anthony]

In terms of Victorian. Of course, not old. But in terms of the Victorian.

[Maddie]

Yes. Era.

[Anthony]

She has established herself in womanhood by this point, put it that way.

[Maddie]

Okay.

[Anthony]

Why have you not.

[Maddie]

I know I have years ahead of me to do this. The other thing about her, which is really, really important is that she has been arrested multiple times for larceny. So theft of private property, which just

[Anthony]

to point out at this point. Right. Big jump between larceny and pretty brutal murder, which is where we're heading.

[Maddie]

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, she's from an immigrant class, a working class, where opportunities are not open to her. Obviously, if we are to take her backstory at face value, she has had multiple sexual and romantic relationships. She's had multiple children, presumably all of whom have died, if she had any in the first place. Again, we're not sure. But it's a very unstable life. And it's a life that, like so many in this era and in the centuries before that, is really fluid and moves in and out of different households, different family structures, different work situations. And so you can see how crime and theft as a means to survive might creep in. I've told you a little bit about her, but I now want you to meet her and I want you to look at this image of her, which we'll put on our socials for anyone not watching on YouTube. This is a waxwork done of Kate.

[Anthony]

Oh. So this isn't an image of her per se. It's an image of her waxwork.

[Maddie]

This is a photograph of her waxwork that was created from the life, though, from her. And she was alive during this time when the waxwork was put on display. So, I mean, we'll never know how close it is to how she looked, but I think the way that she's presented here is absolutely fascinating.

[Anthony]

Yeah. Do you want me to describe it in age? Old fashioned?

[Maddie]

I think, seeing as though this is primarily an audio production, it might be helpful.

[Anthony]

Okay, so we have somebody who is. Well, it's a black and white photograph. This woman, Kate, or a representation of Kate, slap bang in the center. Her waxwork is facing us, straight on. It's a very masculine face. It's a very hardened face. And then she's dressed in the trappings of very Victorian womanhood and quite fine clothes. Yeah, I was gonna say she wouldn't necessarily have had these clothes unless she has robbed them. And larceny is part of her thing.

[Maddie]

We're gonna find out.

[Anthony]

Oh, okay.

[Maddie]

So put a pin in that thought because we are gonna come back to that.

[Anthony]

Right, so she's very, very finely dressed. Very unsettling. That's a very determined stare. I get that it's waxwork. It's not necessarily her stare, but they have presented her in this way. It's very, very. The hands, Maddie. I don't know, there's something about the hands that just seem very Very lifelike.

[Maddie]

Yeah. And I suppose we have to remember as well, this is a waxwork created after people knew about her crimes. So there's a heavy dose of sort of sensationalism and making her into a monster. And we're gonna talk about some of the language that's used to describe her in the press as monstrous. There's something very unsettling about the way she's slightly leaning towards us, ever so slightly. And. Yeah, that very direct gaze. If you met her in the street, you would be genuinely unsettled. What do you make of how masculine she is presented as? Cause I think it's very telling of these ideas of Victorian womanhood and violence and them not going hand in hand necessarily. And I think what you're saying about her hands in this image, actually they're very masculine, they're very lifelike, but they're. They're sort of big and strong looking and capable of terrible things, as we're

[Anthony]

gonna find out with depictions of Irish people in the 19th century. You often get this thing where it's a very heavy browed, very heavy faced, almost ape like. And that was very purposeful. That was designed to be the case that we were uncivilized or we were uncontrollable or we were animalistic. And there are elements of that. It's softer because maybe that's that femininity coming through, but there's certainly a heavy brow there. It's worn. It's a worn face. And this is apparently the person, this is apparently the case who is in this lady's house and is being her general servant.

[Maddie]

I have to say, I don't think looking at her waxwork that I would hire her as a servant. Yeah. So she is living in the house of Julia Martha Thomas or Mrs. Thomas, and they live together alone. Obviously. We know Mrs. Thomas was a widow and from the off, Kate really doesn't enjoy her work. She complains about it a lot. And we mentioned that she's a general servant. There is an account that I have here of the kinds of. It's a description of not Kate's duties necessarily, but the duties of a general servant. And this is taken from around the same time. It says she is to cook, slush and butler. She has to be up for the milk in the morning, clean the brasses, wash the steps, light the fires, clean the hall and dining room, lay the table, get breakfast, have the kitchen clean, answer all the knocks in the meantime, and have herself tidy to serve the breakfast and have all the boots polished by that Time. So this is a lot for one person. In a bigger, wealthier household, there would be multiple people assigned to each of these roles.

[Anthony]

So she's in a middle class house, basically. This is not an elite home.

[Maddie]

It's not an elite home and it's, I would say, lower middle class. There's only one servant. Yeah. It's not a sort of socially ambitious household, but, you know, it's wealthy enough to have one servant. They do not get on. Kate is constantly complaining about the work she's got to do. Mrs. Thomas, fair enough, she's paying her for the work, finds that quite annoying. On Sunday 2nd March, in this year, this fateful year, it's a half day holiday and Kate takes herself off to the hole in the wall, which is David Anworth's club. Yeah, exactly. Now, Mrs. Thomas herself has been to church, which interesting sort of class divide there of the different activities of people on a Sunday. I venture a guess at which one we would prefer to do. But anyway, pray, naturally, of course. So an argument is about to erupt. They're both in the house together, obviously Kate's been knocking them back in the pub. Mrs. Thomas is feeling particularly pious. They have this argument and at the top of the stairs, Kate attacks Mrs. Thomas and she pushes her down the stairs. So the body is going down. Well, Mrs. Thomas, at this point, she's still alive, is falling downstairs at the bottom of the stairs. She's still alive, but only just.

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[Maddie]

So we plan for the plot twists.

[Anthony]

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[Maddie]

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[Anthony]

Right. So you have set. We are at a very pivotal point in the story now. We have. Mrs. Thomas has fallen down the stairs. Kate's making her way dastardly towards her, and one might assume she's going to help. But you're. I know, I know. You're about to tell me she's not going to help.

[Maddie]

She's absolutely not going to help. We actually have Kate's words, her confession of what happens next. So I'm going to read that to you in her own words. At first, I thought her a nice old lady that I might be comfortable and happy with. But I soon found her very tiring and that she had many things to annoy me during my work. On the evening of the murder, we had an argument that ripened into a quarrel. And in the height of my rage and anger, I threw her from the top of the stairs to the ground floor below. She had a heavy fall. I felt that she was seriously injured, and I became excited at what occurred, lost all the control over myself. And to prevent her screaming or getting me into trouble, I caught her by the throat. And in the struggle, she was choked and I threw her on the floor. I became entirely lost. And in fear of being discovered, I determined to do away with the body the best I could. I chopped off the head from the body, assisted with the use of a razor. I also used the meat saw and the carving knife to cut up the body. I prepared the copper with water to boil the body to prevent identity. And as soon as I had succeeded in cutting it up, I placed it in the copper and boiled it down. I opened the stomach with a carving knife and burned up as much of the parts as I could. When I used to look upon the scene before me and the blood about to my feet, the horror and dread I felt was inconceivable. I was bewildered and acted as if I was mad. And I failed several times in strength and determination, but was helped on by the devil in this vile purpose. I remained in the house all night endeavouring to clean up the place and clean away the traces. After the murder, I burned part of the body after chopping it up and boiling the body. And I think one of the feet. Okay, that's a lot.

[Anthony]

I want to preface this by saying that in no way what I'm about to say is this trying to excuse what it seems very likely that Kate Webster did. So let's have that as the baseline of the next part of this conversation. She did not say those words. She just didn't. A working class Irish woman who has come over in the 1870s, maybe she did and they flowered it up a little bit. Maybe there is no sense of her in those actual roles.

[Maddie]

I think we can at the very least say that it's been filtered through at the very least different sources. And that the version of her that we get supposedly in her own words is someone who is overtaken by quote unquote madness. She describes being excited, forgetting herself, kind of becoming almost in a different state.

[Anthony]

Well, the devil was present. She's saying, yeah, you know, there's a world in which this is some kind of legal defense. But this is not a working class Irish woman's voice. And that's not to underestimate what working class Irish women could do in terms of articulation. That's not authentic. It doesn't ring true at all.

[Maddie]

To what is ringing true for me is the description of the psychological state. I can imagine there being a world in which she is kind of. She has almost like an out of body experience that she's overtaken by something. But I agree, the language being used and this portrayal of her as monstrous.

[Anthony]

I don't Even know about the psychological thing. I get what you're saying. And there may be a world in which, again, that it's quite useful for a defense to have those things, but it almost seems too coherent. It makes sense of a very grisly action. It tries to join the dots too easily for us, I think. So that's why I'm suspicious about it.

[Maddie]

Okay. Yeah. And I suppose, actually also that she is. It almost not excuses the murder, but it explains it because she's a woman. She, you know, according to Victorian ideals of femininity, she shouldn't be murdering people, let alone strangling them with her bare hands and chopping them up. It's not very ladylike. And so I think from what you're saying, like, maybe, yeah, we can. There's a world in which her being sort of separate from her actions and removed and taken over by the devil kind of makes sense of that. It's like a woman couldn't possibly have done this. So here's a narrative of her being taken over and then she regained her senses and was like, what have I done? This is terrible. Oh, no. Because the other option, it was maybe premeditated, or that she simply had no remorse and just got on with it. I think that's an unlikely palatable.

[Anthony]

I am remembering an older episode here now, based on what we were just talking about, and it's when Professor David Wilson said to us, the criminologist, that people might be familiar with, if not go back and listen to the episode that he's on. But he's like, stop looking for the answers to why. Because the whole thing in these cases is that we can never understand the why. It's not there for us, whereas the why is very much there in that

[Maddie]

it's given to us, it's presented. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think that's legit. We do know, though, she did do these things and that this all took place in the kitchen, which, again, kind of feeds into. It's an inversion of this narrative of domesticity, of, you know, the servant's place being maybe in the kitchen, where you should be preparing food and lovingly for the family that employ you, not dismembering them. She puts at least part of the body into what is called the copper. This is a big metal pot that's used for laundry, usually sort of bricked in at the corner of a room with a fire lit underneath. The smell of this, as you can imagine, was so offensive. And it went on for all day and all night as she was working on this corpse that the neighbours did notice. They didn't do much about it, but they did notice that something strange was going on. She burns some of the bones, she's taking out the intestines. Some of them she puts into a box. She can't fit one of the feet in. She talks, we heard in her words there, if they are her words, that one of them does go into the copper, but there is a foot that she can't fit in. Or again, I think there is at least a sense of disorderly thinking. She's not. This isn't a very professionally executed dismemberment, you know, this is chaos. She's just. She's boiling stuff, she's setting fire to stuff in the grate. You know, she's chopping it up, she puts some in a wooden box and she takes the head in a black bag to maybe take it out into the world and hide it somewhere else. And we know eventually it does end up in the ground and we'll get to where exactly that it is.

[Anthony]

Ted Ladenburgh's house.

[Maddie]

I mean, you're wrong. But wait and see, wait and see. Be patient, have patience.

[Anthony]

Whose head is that, then?

[Maddie]

Oh, my God, it's the same head. Sorry. Go, go, go. Wow. There is a story, a myth, if you like, associated with this moment, this horror. Whether or not it's true, it's hard to tell. The story goes like this. When she was boiling everything in the copper, fat was rising to the top. She skims this off. She then goes to the pub next door, the Hole in the Wall, and she sells it to local children as lard or dripping for them to eat.

[Anthony]

Children in the pub. I guess they.

[Maddie]

It's the 19th century, mate.

[Anthony]

Could have been. Now, Kamir, two things. If that drippings thing is true, if that again, is not the person who gave that description of what she did,

[Maddie]

because it's not in there. It's not in that description.

[Anthony]

It's not in there. But also, they're just not the same person.

[Maddie]

So this story, we supposedly now know that the landlady of the pub herself, once the crimes had been outed and reported in the press, that she put this story about, whether or not she's the original source of it, we don't know, but certainly it would have helped with this. So we have to take it with a pinch of salt, with a spread of fat. Yeah. But horrific to think about. And again, it comes down to, you know, a woman feeding another woman to children. This is. So, as you say, what Is dripping. Dripping is the fat from animals.

[Anthony]

And people eat it just on its own.

[Maddie]

Sure. I think it's quite an old fashioned thing now.

[Anthony]

All right.

[Maddie]

Yeah. I don't know.

[Anthony]

That sounds disgusting.

[Maddie]

Yeah, not the best. I think it's quite tasty on toast. But you don't want to eat a person made.

[Anthony]

No, no, no, no, no, I don't. Do not recommend I put that on the record now.

[Maddie]

So she's done the killing. She's semi disposed of the body chaotically in different ways. You can imagine the kitchen is in a bit of a state at this point. You wouldn't want to be making your beans on toast in there. But of course. Now what? She's killed her mistress. Her mistress has. She's not only dead, she's disappeared. So what's she gonna do? She's gonna impersonate her.

[Anthony]

Oh, good. That seems like a great plan.

[Maddie]

It's just gonna go really well, of course.

[Anthony]

And this is why she was in those fancy clothes.

[Maddie]

Yeah. So she puts on the clothing of Mrs. Thomas. Silk gowns, a gold watch, jewelry.

[Anthony]

Yeah, she was wearing jewelry in that picture.

[Maddie]

Yes. Yeah. She's dressed in the finery of a lower middle class home. She then goes to a family called the Porter family in Hammersmith and they've not seen her for a few years and she turns up and she says, oh, my name's Mrs. Thomas now. I've got married, I'm a widow, I've inherited a house. Could you possibly help advise me on how to sell all of my furniture and belongings in it? Thank you very much. And they're like, this doesn't seem suspicious.

[Anthony]

Yeah, sure.

[Maddie]

Okay. And they introduce her to a pub landlord called Mr. Church. Now, pub landlords in the 18th and 19th century were very often auctioneers as well, and auctions would take place in pubs. The Porters take her to meet Mr. Church, the landlord and the auctioneer, and they go to the house where she takes them through. And she's like, these paintings are people on the walls. They're my ancestors, they're my family. She's like, that piano, I can play that. And they're like, cool. This is. It's quite weird, but, you know, they don't take enough notice of the oddity to stop what they're doing. And they start taking the furniture out of the house. And the neighbours come out and are like, what are you doing with Mrs. Thomas things? And they're like, oh, we're selling it. And suspicion is mounting. She's not caught at this point, Kate. The neighbours don't suspect enough. They haven't added up the horrible smells with the furniture going. But they're like, this is definitely weird. She asks Mr. Porter's son Robert, who's about around the age of 20, to help move the box that has part of the body in. She says, can you help me carry this to the River Thames? To a bridge, Richmond Bridge. This is at night, it's dark at this point. And this 20 year old Robert's like, sure, yeah, that's fine. And when they get to the bridge, she's like, you can go now. I'm just gonna wait for my friend who's gonna come meet me. And he's like, okay, yeah. Do you want help with the box? She's like, no, no, leave it there, it's fine. As he's walking off, he hears an almighty splash.

[Anthony]

Turns around, Kate's got no.

[Maddie]

He's like, weird. I don't know what that was, of course. A few days later, news hits London that a box has been found on the shore of the River Thames. And inside are body parts. Now, I think this is really interesting. Mr. Church, the auctioneer, does put two and two together and he's like, was that your box? And Kate says, no, no, no, that's just the trash media.

[Anthony]

She's really bad at this.

[Maddie]

She's winging it. Like, she's absolutely winging it. But she's like, that's just. That's those trashy penny dreadfuls. That's all it is. They're just making it up. It's fine. What I think is really interesting, because we've seen this before, is that when the box with the body parts is initially discovered, people are like, oh, it's medical students playing a trick. It's a joke, which we've seen in the Thames Torso Murders, another episode. Go back and listen. And I'm sorry. How badly behaved were medical students in the 19th century that the first thought when you find a dismembered body is you're like, ugh, hilarious.

[Anthony]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Maddie]

And that happens again here. But when they start to look at the body parts, they're like, oh, someone has hacked this. This hasn't been done with medical instruments. There's no skill involved here. This is butchering. And so the news does break that there has been a murder. Kate, meanwhile, still hasn't been caught, but she's like, maybe it is time to go back to Ireland. I think it might be time to leave town. So she pops off back to Killan. Killain.

[Anthony]

Killen.

[Maddie]

Killen.

[Anthony]

She's been doing the killing. God, I'm so sorry.

[Maddie]

Nominative determinism.

[Anthony]

Forget about it.

[Maddie]

She just rocks up her uncle's farm and she's like, I live here with you now. And he's like, how was your time in London? Was grand. It was fine. I'm home, everything's normal.

[Anthony]

Definitely didn't kill a woman.

[Maddie]

Definitely didn't boil her and feed her dripping to children in a pub. Nope.

[Anthony]

I'll tell you what I didn't do.

[Maddie]

Yeah. And the uncle's like, cool. The police now make the connection back in London between the body parts. They go to the house, which of course is empty of its furniture, and inevitably they go into the kitchen. There are bloodstains. She has cleaned up a little bit, but there's fat still smeared down the back of the copper where the body's been boiled. There are the remains of bones in the fireplace. She's not done a great job of covering it up. I mean, it's really grim. This is a human being who's been utterly dismantled. It's not great. They are able to tell that this has happened without modern forensics. You know, the evidence is that immediate? Yeah. They obviously go to Ireland to get Kate. They know where she's gone, they know it was her. She's arrested and she's brought back to England for trial. And inevitably the media circus begins.

[Anthony]

Yeah, this is very. It's got all the ingredients for a 19th century media trial. We have an immigrant, we have an Irish person. We have. And, you know, we're on the cusp now of land wars in Ireland. The Irish question is long raging the famine. I mean, Kate's born just at the end of the famine and the idea

[Maddie]

that the Irish can come into your good British homes and threaten you from your domestic safe space, it's so insidious. And the media latch on and she's

[Anthony]

a woman, so therefore it's even more so. You know, these female killers, I mean, Victorians had real. Not just the Victorians, we do too have this real fixation on female killers. So it's like.

[Maddie]

Because it still feels unnatural to us, more so because we're obviously used to numb against male violence. So when a woman does something similar, we find that shocking because it seems unusual to us and, you know, that's a whole other conversation. But the language in the press that's used to describe her is absolutely in line with what you're saying. So she's described as an awful butcher, singularly fiendish. And interestingly, she's described as a savage.

[Anthony]

So there's two things there, right? And we don't need to dwell on it too much, but like, savage was used to describe Irish people in the 19th century. So there's something derogatory going on there. But at the same time, her actions were savage. You know, that butchering is quite savage.

[Maddie]

They're brutal. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think as well, that's a word that's being knocked around in the 19th century British Empire as well and, you know, has colonial overtones not only in Ireland, but across the British Empire.

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[Maddie]

You know what they say. Early bird gets the ultimate vacation home. Book early and save over $120 with VRBO because early gets you closer to the action, whether it's waves lapping at the shore or snoozing in a hammock that overlooks. Well, whatever you want it to. So you can always all enjoy the payoff come summer with Verbo's early booking deals. Rise and shine. Average savings, $141. Select homes only. I want to talk a little bit about the media then, and also the media in our own moment because, of course, we have the story of the body being chopped up, what's left of it being discovered. We know, by the way, that the head. Let's talk about the head for a second. Is carried around in this black bag for quite a while. She even goes to the. I think it's the porters. And takes tea with them. And the head's just in a bag under the table and nobody knows. She's literally carrying it around with her, which, again, I think speaks to her mental state as well. She does, of course, have to get rid of it at some point. Presumably it's gonna start to smell and cause problems. So she goes to the Hole in the Wall pub and she buries it in the pub. Or at least hides it in the pub because cut to 2010, when the work is going on, the head is discovered next to on top of Victorian tiles in the ground. So that's how it's dated. There is a coroner's report done and they conclude that it is most likely the head of Mrs. Thomas.

[Anthony]

Okay, so you're talking about how the press covered the murders in the 19th century. It'd be interesting to see how they covered the discovery in the 21st century.

[Maddie]

Yeah. So what's so interesting is that so much of the myth or the rumor around Kate that was in circulation in the 19th century, so feeding the dripping to the children, that language of her being brutal, of being savage, is absolutely just carried through to the headlines of the 21st century. The Daily Mail headline, when this discovery is made and it is linked to the Kate Webster murder, reads, cut up and boiled to feed street children. Horrific fate of Victorian murder victim whose skull was found in David Attenborough's garden. The Telegraph goes with callous Kate Webster. And the BBC, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph all report the drippings story as fact, which is really interesting. And, you know, it is hard to verify, it's hard to disprove.

[Anthony]

There's a source, isn't there? Like, you almost don't need to prove it because there's a source from the time that says it happened. So you can just report it in that sense.

[Maddie]

But it's taken at face value.

[Anthony]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Maddie]

So it is really interesting. The skull itself has fractures on it, and so it's understood that they possibly occurred when Mrs. Thomas fell down the stairs. And that's kind of how it's identified as being hers, potentially. But, yeah, it's not a light story, but I think it does tell us so much about the experience of immigrants, the experience of women, the dangers of the hierarchical structure of the home, the tension between domestic servants and their masters and mistresses and how that could turn sour so easily. Yes, an interesting one.

[Anthony]

Do you know what I love about these stories? Love is probably a strong word. But you know what interests me about this? One of the things that fascinates me most about all types of history, big, small, working class, elite, whatever it is, is that I am really interested in what happens when people close the front door, when they go into their own spaces, their privacy, what's happening? And we have this very vivid picture that's being painted because of these crimes. And so often crime is the way to discover these things. Of this house in London, where the door is closed, there's two women living together, not particularly unusual, and the tensions between them, the domestic rivalry between them. It's odd to me that Mrs. Thomas kept Kate around. If she was such a nuisance, like, just get rid of her. You're paying her, like, kick her out.

[Maddie]

There are plenty of other young Irish women in London who will work.

[Anthony]

So it's interesting to think of those tensions if they were there, as described in the, in the documentation, that house transforms itself from this workaday, lower middle class London house into a gruesome murder scene. It's the same house and it's the. Those things existing side by side for me are the creepiest, creepiest things. You know, when you talk about like Rillington Place or when you talk about the Crippen murders, it's the house and it's what's. So it's meant to be a place

[Maddie]

of safety and it becomes a house of horror. Yeah. And I think for me it's, it's the immediacy of this, it's the fact that until this moment with David Attenborough, people didn't know where her head had gone. And it was a story that was gonna be lost to history and that it was accepted, that would never be found and that this murder victim would never be properly put to rest. And yet here we are. And it's a reminder, especially in a city like London, where there are so many layers of history one on top of the other, how visceral that is beneath our feet and that beneath the ground is evidence of all manner of human life, good and bad, waiting to be discovered.

[Anthony]

Yeah, no, it's a really, really interesting case. Thank you for sharing it. If you've enjoyed this episode. We have others, of course. We have Amelia Dyer, Maddy Rut. You're gonna have to help me with some of these. We have Jack the Ripper. I'm thinking of other 19th century crimes. What else do we have?

[Maddie]

The Thames Torso Murder. Ah, that's Good is my, I don't wanna say favourite book, but it's a really bleak but important history.

[Anthony]

And we have Palmer the Poisoner, so we've got other murder Victoriana going on in the background if that's what is interesting to you. So you can go and check those episodes out. If you have enjoyed this episode, please leave us a five star review wherever you get your podcasts or a thumbs up on this video if you're watching on YouTube. Until next time, happy listening.

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[Anthony]

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