Archive Sleuth

December, 1851: New York City. In the midst of winter, America’s press and public are gripped by the celebrity scandal of the century. Edwin Forrest, the most famous actor in the country, is pitted in a courtroom battle against his estranged wife, as they accuse each other of adultery. One of them must prevail for a divorce to be granted. As the jury and public rake over every titillating and salacious detail of the failed marriage, the conduct and reporting on the trial provide a striking foreshadowing of another celebrity couple court case that would play out over 270 years later.Archive Sleuth is available on all major podcast apps. Subscribe at https://shows.acast.com/archive-sleuth. For news on future episodes, please follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Please rate and review the show on your favourite podcast app, or on Podchaser. Help keep the show running by supporting me here: https://supporter.acast.com/archive-sleuthResources: Report on the Forrest Divorce Case, digitized by Harvard University Library. Various contemporary newspapers, including the New York Daily Tribune; the New York Herald Tribune; and The Sunday Dispatch, are accessible on the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America resource.Music: Waltz of Treachery by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4606-waltz-of-treachery License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Sonatina in C Minor by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4393-sonatina-in-c-minor License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

October 1941. In the darkest days of the Second World War, Alan Turing and a group of code breakers at Bletchley Park write a letter to Winston Churchill – in desperation. They have achieved the supposedly impossible feat of cracking the German Enigma encryptions. But this breakthrough is in danger of being squandered. 70 years later, I came across Turing’s letter – and Churchill’s handwritten response – in the archives.This is the story of Enigma, the codebreakers, and the letter that helped ensure the success of the most important top-secret breakthrough of World War II.Archive Sleuth is available on all major podcast apps. Subscribe at https://shows.acast.com/archive-sleuth. For news on future episodes, please follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Please rate and review the show on your favourite podcast app, or on Podchaser. Help keep the show running by supporting me here: https://supporter.acast.com/archive-sleuthResources: The Bletchley Park codebreakers’ letter, along with the notes from Winston Churchill and Hastings Ismay, are held in file HW 1/155 at the National Archives, UK. It is digitized in Secret Files from World Wars to Cold War available from Coherent Digital.Music: Waltz of Treachery by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4606-waltz-of-treachery License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Depth Of Focus by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com Sonatina in C Minor by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4393-sonatina-in-c-minor License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

May 13th, 1799. The captain of a Royal Navy sloop writes an urgent letter to his admiral. But this isn’t any captain. This captain is the sailor brother of writer Jane Austen. And the admiral is Horatio Nelson, currently residing in Sicily with the love of his life, Emma Hamilton. This single letter from the archives opens a window onto a moment in time for four remarkable people from the Age of Revolution and Napoleon. The names of three of these people are immortal. The fourth person, Francis Austen, is the thread that links their fascinating stories.Archive Sleuth is available on all major podcast apps. Subscribe at https://shows.acast.com/archive-sleuth.For news on future episodes, please follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.Help keep the show running by supporting me here: https://supporter.acast.com/archive-sleuthResources:Francis Austen’s 13th May 1799 letter to Admiral Horatio Nelson is from item AUS/7, Francis Austen’s Letter Book. Held at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/archive/rmgc-object-492597 Any infringement of copyright is unintended.Jane Austen’s letters quoted in this episode were written to Cassandra Austen on the 28th December 1798 (https://pemberley.com/janeinfo/brablet2.html#letter15) and the 17th May 1799 (https://pemberley.com/janeinfo/brablet3.html#letter18). Music includes:Waltz of Treachery by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4606-waltz-of-treachery License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-licenseSonatina in C Minor by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4393-sonatina-in-c-minor License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

September 7th, 1736: night time. After weeks of plotting, the crew of a British merchant ship anchored in an Italian harbour have murdered their captain and seized his ship for themselves. But the mutineers failed to kill the captain’s cabin boy, who jumped overboard and swam to a nearby ship to raise the alarm. Will the Dove mutineers make it out to the open sea and fulfil their ambitions of becoming pirates? Or have their mistakes insured their downfall? This is the third and final episode of the grisly true story of mutiny and murder aboard the Dove Brigantine.Archive Sleuth is available on all major podcast apps. Subscribe at https://shows.acast.com/archive-sleuth.For news on future episodes, please follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.Help keep the show running by supporting me here: https://supporter.acast.com/archive-sleuthResources:A transcript of the proceedings of the Old Bailey, 24th February 1737, is available to read on the Old Bailey Online. Trial reference: t17370224-2.Articles on the Dove mutiny from 1736 and 1737 from the Newcastle Courant, Caledonian Mercury, Stamford Mercury and Derby Mercury accessed on the British Newspaper Archive.Music includes:Waltz of Treachery by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4606-waltz-of-treachery License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-licenseSonatina in C Minor by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4393-sonatina-in-c-minor License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

September, 1736. The crew of an Italian ship anchored one dark quiet night in Livorno Harbour are startled awake by the frantic cries for help from a man swimming towards them in the water. The man, a cabin boy from a nearby British merchant ship, is being pursued through the darkness by his own, bloodthirsty shipmates. The pursuing men have already killed the cabin boy’s captain, and now they are hell-bent on killing him. This is the grisly true story of mutiny and murder aboard the Dove Brigantine.Archive Sleuth is available on all major podcast apps. Subscribe at https://shows.acast.com/archive-sleuth.For news on future episodes, please follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.Help keep the show running by supporting me here: https://supporter.acast.com/archive-sleuth. Thank you!Resources:A transcript of the proceedings of the Old Bailey, 24th February 1737, is available to read on the Old Bailey Online. Trial reference: t17370224-2.Articles on the Dove mutiny from 1736 and 1737 from the Newcastle Courant, Caledonian Mercury, Stamford Mercury and Derby Mercury availble on the British Newspaper Archive.Music includes:Waltz of Treachery by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4606-waltz-of-treachery License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-licensePassage Of Arms by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.comSonatina in C Minor by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4393-sonatina-in-c-minor License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

This is the story of an early maternity hospital, and the ground-breaking woman who founded it. By the dawn of the 20th century, fatality rates in childbirth in Britain were as high as they had been for hundreds of years. Many women, particularly poorer women, were giving birth without the support of a doctor or trained midwife. Alice Gregory was a midwife who was determined to do something about this. So in 1905, she founded a small but ambitious hospital in a working class area of London, to provide local midwife services and, crucially, to train new midwives for the future. Alice’s and the hospital’s story is preserved in a diary Alice kept during that hospital’s busy first year.Archive Sleuth is available on all major podcast apps. Subscribe at https://shows.acast.com/archive-sleuth.For news on future episodes, please follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.Help keep the show running by supporting me here: https://supporter.acast.com/archive-sleuthResources:Alice Gregory’s personal diary, giving account of opening and early days of Home for Mothers and Babies, 11 May 1905 - 22 June 1906, is held at the London Metropolitan Archives. Reference: H14/BMB/A/06/001Music includes:Waltz of Treachery by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4606-waltz-of-treachery License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-licenseSonatina in C Minor by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4393-sonatina-in-c-minor License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Tens of thousands of men and women from around the world volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), motivated by the chance to finally fight back against the rising tide of fascism. In this episode, we dive into the life and letters of one of those volunteers: John Cornford, the very first British volunteer, who wrote home from Spain to his girlfriend.Archive Sleuth is available on all major podcast apps. Subscribe at https://shows.acast.com/archive-sleuth. For news on future episodes, please follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.Help keep the show running by supporting me here: https://supporter.acast.com/archive-sleuthResources:John Cornford’s letters to Margot Heinemann, reference HEIN/1/1/1, are held in the Margot Heinemann Papers at the Special Collections and Archives, Goldsmiths, University of London.Ralph Fox’s MI5 files (KV2/1376-1377) can be accessed on The National Archives, UK, Discovery catalogue.Music includes:Waltz of Treachery by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4606-waltz-of-treachery License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-licenseSonatina in C Minor by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4393-sonatina-in-c-minor License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In part two of this investigation of a royal scandal from 1810, we dive deep into the witness testimonies to try and work out what really happened on the night King George III’s unpopular son, Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, is found wounded, and his page is found dead. Had the page attacked the duke? Or…. had the duke killed his page? The numerous possible scenarios and motives for the violence kept the press and public busy speculating for decades. Can we finally solve the mystery?Archive Sleuth is available on all major podcast apps. Subscribe at https://shows.acast.com/archive-sleuth. For news on future episodes, please follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.Resources:The Cheltenham Chronicle, the Caledonian Mercury, the Hull Packet, the Lancaster Gazette, Pilot, The Cambridge Chronicle and Journal, The News (London), accessed on The British Newspaper Archive.Thomas Howell Jones print from the British Museum online collections.A Minute Detail of the Attempt to Assassinate His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, on the Internet Archive.Music includes:Waltz of Treachery by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4606-waltz-of-treachery License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-licenseSonatina in C Minor by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4393-sonatina-in-c-minor License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license