CHAPTER 2: THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD

BRISTOL: IT’S CRIMINAL is back! In CHAPTER TWO, Show Of Strength’s Creative Producer Sheila Hannon is joined by Dr Rose Wallis, Associate Professor of British Social History, to reveal the dark history behind the Skeleton in the Cupboard…. a tale of love, lust, murder, and the medical profession.

Together, Sheila and Rose explore

• The life and death of John Horwood, the first person to be executed at Bristol New Gaol in 1821
• The often-overlooked story of Eliza Balsum
• The machinations of Bristol’s leading surgeon, Dr Richard Smith (yes, he’s the bad guy)
• Gender, injustice and victim blaming in court
• Trial by media
• The local myths and misnomers that surround the trial of John Horwood (and explode a few)
• The spectacle of public punishment

Beyond the crime and its punishment, this case offers a rare glimpse into the lives of young working people at the beginning of the nineteenth century, ones that are far more familiar than we might imagine. But their afterlives were extraordinary. Join us next time for the Skeleton in the Cupboard part 2

 

Sheila Hannon, Show Of Strength’s Creative Producer, researches and writes the company’s nine (soon to be ten) THEATRE WALKS – true tales of extraordinary people and places in Bristol, Bath and Beyond – and leads several of them.  The story of THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBAORD features in our BLOOD AND BUTCHERY IN BEDMINSTER TOUR see https://showofstrength.org.uk/

 

Guest: Rose Wallis is a social historian of crime and criminal justice based at the University of the West of England. Rose worked with Show of Strength to explore forgotten working class lives with women in HMP Eastwood Park. Their work was recorded to produce From Bristol to Botany Bay: a film reimagining the experiences of ten women transported to the other side of the world in 1817. Rose’s current book project, ‘Reading the book of skin’, explores the lives - and afterlives - of John Horwood and Eliza Balsum.