The Richmond murderess

Illustration from a contemporary publication

*disclaimer: some of the details are quite gruesome

Nine years before the Jack the Ripper murders, the nation was shocked by the gruesome murder of Martha Julia Thomas by her cleaner Kate Webster, on Park rd in Richmond.

In the aftermath of the murder, Webster stayed in Thomas's house for two more weeks, posing as her landlady and selling her belongings, eventually fleeing to Ireland.

After remnants were found in the Thames, these were identified as the missing widowed Thomas. Webster was apprehended, and her trial held in the Old Bailey. There was so much interest around the case that the Crown Prince of Sweden, Gustav IV, attended the hearing with other celebrities.

During these, gruesome details were revealed: Webster pushed Thomas down the staircase, dismembered her body and boiled the parts, before disposing of these.

Found guilty and sentenced to death, Webster claimed pregnancy, but this was dismissed after a physical assessment. She was executed in Wandsworth Prison, by hanging (with the recently introduced Long Drop). A wax effigy of her was displayed in Madame Tussauds's Chamber of Horrors.

The body of Thomas was buried in Barnes Old Cemetery in a forgotten location, but her skull was never found. In 2010 naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough had some work done in his Barnes properties, on the site of the Mayfield Cottages, where the murders took place.

A skull was dug up and taken to the Coroner, who confirmed this was from the Victorian period and its low levels of collagen, confirmed it was the skull of Martha Julia Thomas.

A sad if not gory tale, but it had much wider implications including the perceived lack of deference of servants towards their patrons, and how Webster's lifestyle had been conducive of such wicked behaviour.