Forgeries and first editions

In 1934 a book was published concerning rumours that a privately printed first edition of Mrs Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese" dated 1847 was a forgery. An increase in the value of books to collectors in the late 1800s meant that a first edition could get a good price, and literary forgers turned their hands to creating rare versions of published works. Entitled “An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets” and written by Graham Pollard and John Carter, it was hailed in the popular press at the time as being a piece of detective work worthy of Sherlock Holmes.

"Sonnets from the Portuguese" was first published in 1850, but in 1894 a man named Edward Gosse claimed they'd first been printed privately in 1847 and given to friends. Twenty copies of this edition exist and the circumstances regarding their origins were described by three authorities on book collecting: the aforementioned Edward Gosse, and also H. Buxton Forman, and Thomas J. Wise.

However, certain aspects of these volumes aroused suspicion which grew steadily over the years. For a start, none of the “1847” editions of "Sonnets from the Portuguese" had any hand-written message from the Brownings, which they'd certainly add if they were meant as gifts. Plus, it was strange that in the 1913 sale of Mr Browning's books, he had not apparently kept a copy for himself.

Also, there is not one mention of "Sonnets" in Mrs Browning's correspondence until 1850, when she calls them "some new poems" which makes no sense if she'd already had them privately published and given to friends.

Further detective work was needed to support this (and other) circumstantial evidence. By analysing the paper, they found it wasn't made of rags (as a pre-1860 book would be) but of wood pulp, and since it was chemically treated that would put it's probable date of creation around forty years after its apparent publication date.

And the typography used was a mixed font in a style that didn't exist before 1883, and the authors were able to trace it back to the printers who'd created it: R. Clay and Sons. Indeed, the authors found several other “first editions” using this particular font. However, this company did not keep records earlier than 1911, and they would not necessarily be suspected of wrong-doing, since they would have assumed the commissions were for facsimiles, as they'd done previously for the Browning Society, and the Shelley Society.

Illustration showing the old-style overhanging f with the newer version

By now, with the evidence from over a dozen likely forgeries all printed at the same company, it was likely that this was all the doing of one man. Choosing their words carefully, the authors come to the conclusion that whoever it was, they'd been able to pass off fake first editions to T.J. Wise over fourteen years. The book chides Mr Wise for taking these all without carrying out any reasonable inquiries into their origins.

And this is the theme for the rest of the book. As the authors discuss each case, the name Wise keeps cropping up and the reader is unable to finish the book without concluding that T.J. Wise, a great authority on books, was either hopelessly gullible or the forger himself.

In 1933, before the book's publication, one of the authors, Pollard, had gone to visit Wise to explain their suspicions. Carter could not go, since he and Wise had had a previous debate about the life of Byron, and Wise was not the kind of man to take advice from a junior without holding a grudge. Wise did not try to argue against the evidence but couldn't bring himself to agree to Pollard's conclusions.

After this meeting, Wise sent a telegram to a man named Gorfin, inviting him to meet for lunch. Some years ago, Gorfin had bought a number of these now-suspect editions, and Wise offered to reimburse him if he would later testify that he hadn't bought them from Wise but instead from a man named Harry Buxton Foreman.

What Wise didn't know was that Gorfin had already spoken to Pollard and Carter and, while Gorfin didn't have the courage to say this to Wise face to face, he did turn down the offer. In the end, Gorfin sought legal advice and finally got his reimbursement without any strings attached and the volumes were delivered to Wise's lawyers where they were destroyed.

But this was only the start of Wise's counter-attack. He was a man of high esteem, with some powerful friends on both sides of the Atlantic. The publishers of “An Enquiry...” soon found themselves on the receiving end of some friendly advice from influential people regarding the validity of “these wild young men”, and about the risk of libel.

The publishers were especially aware of the risk of libel since, even if they won a case against Wise, the costs would be very high. However, they decided that if Wise was the forger then he would not dare go to court, and these feelings were heightened by the episode with Gorfin and also of Wise's visit to the printer of the forgeries. Mr Wise asked that Mr Clay should give evidence that they weren't printed for him. However, although the ledgers were destroyed, Mr Clay's memory was not, and he remembered clearly that they were for Mr Wise, and would not back down.

So, unable to prevent publication, Wise and colleagues tried damage limitation. They wrote to the Times Literary Supplement (published on 24 May 1934, before the release of “An Enquiry...”) specifically focusing on the argument over when Robert Browning first saw the sonnets his wife wrote. And they also created a new history of those editions in Wise's possession, saying that they hadn't come from W.C. Bennett but from Harry Buxton Forman (a book collector who'd died in 1917). As it later transpired, relatives of Mr Bennett had learnt of the impending publications regarding the nature of the Sonnets, and had contacted Wise threatening legal action if he did not withdraw the story that he received them from the late Mr Bennett. Concerning the date of the paper, Wise claimed that wood pulp had been used to make paper since 1801, and as to the typographic claims he left that to those with “a more microscopic eye than I can boast.”

Some people have remarked that the letter implied that Wise did not fully understand the evidence against him, and so when Pollard replied, he was easily able to knock their arguments aside. There was one other reply to this letter. Maurice Buxton Forman (son of the enigmatic Harry) wrote to support Wise's version of events regarding buying stock from his father.

Then, on 30 June 1934, the Daily Herald ran an interview with Mr Wise, saying that only eight of the accused books were forgeries, and that he suspected Richard Herne Shepherd. This story ran the day after The Times ran an article on the book “An Enquiry...” praising it's thoroughness. Other news outlets, on both sides of the Atlantic, followed suit and although no one named the forger, the conclusion was clear.

Wise returned to the pages of the TLS and wrote another letter (again with the help of colleagues) reaffirming the role of Harry Buxton Forman, and repeating his suspicions about Herne Shepherd. Now Mr Gorfin went public with his version of events, saying that in all his dealings with Wise, he had never heard Forman's name until the meeting with him after Pollard had spoken to Wise about their evidence.

On 19 July, Pollard and Carter had a meeting with Wise's representative, Frederick Page, concerning three minor mistakes in the book that Wise seemed to think required a retraction in the TLS. During this meeting it became clear that Mr Page was having serious doubts about his close friend's innocence. Carter and Pollard explained their case in detail, leaving Mr Page quite convinced of the weakness of Wise's position.

Wise began to retreat to silence, having lost the unquestioning support of Page, and having been told by his solicitors that the book was not libellous. The last public comment was from his wife, writing to the TLS, saying that his doctor had strictly forbidden him “to carry on any public correspondence or controversy”. T.J.Wise never admitted any wrong doing, instead preferred to put the blame on Shepherd and Forman.

The smoking gun, as it were, was found in 1935 amongst the proof sheets of an article written for Literary Anecdotes. These proof sheets had been bought by Carl H. Pforzheimer of New York after the Buxton Forman sale in 1920. In among these sheets was a written exchange between Forman and Wise discussing printing a new 1871 Tenyson. But although Pforzheimer showed this to Carter, he asked that it not be published without his permission. Wise died in 1937, before this document was publicly known, so we will never know his reaction to it.

And the ironic thing is that T.J. Wise's forgeries have, themselves, become collectors items. Now, I wonder if there's anyone out there trying to forge a forgery...

References:

Carter, J., Pollard, G. (1934), “An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets”, Constable and Company Ltd.
N. Barker, J. Collins. (1983), “A Sequel to An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets”, James Price Publishing Ltd.

“Biographical notes: Mrs Browning's “Sonnets 1847””, Times Literary Supplement, 24 May 1934
“First edition forgeries”, The Times, Friday 29 June 1934
“First edition forgeries”, Times Literary Supplement, 5 July 1934
“Nineteenth Century Forgeries”, Times Literary Supplement, 12 July 1934
“First edition forgeries”, Times Literary Supplement, 19 July 1934
“First edition forgeries”, Times Literary Supplement, 26 July 1934
“Nineteenth Century Forgeries”, Times Literary Supplement, 23 August 1934
“Mr T.J. Wise”, Times Literary Supplement, 30 August 1934

Bank Robbers from the London School

On Sunday 9 March 1828, the Greenock bank in Glasgow was robbed. The method was very sophisticated, and the gang must have spent many months familiarising themselves with the bank and its routine. This was quite unusual for a robbery so far north, and since it was similar in method to those further south, people soon attributed it to the "London School."

And the whole plan, for all its complexity, relied on the fact that only one person guarded the bank on Sunday, and he regularly left the bank unattended for the whole of that day. The robbery itself was conducted with such care that no one realised it had been robbed until nine o'clock Monday morning.

They got away with £30,000 pounds which is worth £2m today (using the retail price index. Or an impressive £21m using the average earnings index) and the methods they used wouldn't be out of place in a modern day heist movie. They rented a flat in Glasgow and began their operations in November of the previous year. It was later surmised that, having made copies of keys for the outer doors, they must have spent many months breaking in every Sunday and gaining wax impressions of the locks inside the building.

Having spent many weeks observing from a nearby coffee shop that looked onto the bank, on the Sunday morning one member of the gang (who had never been to the shop) rushed in and asked in some agitation for recent copies of the Times. He claimed he'd heard a friend had died recently, and while the owner of the coffee shop was distracted, the rest of the gang entered the bank.

They even went so far as to block the keyhole of a safe with a ring, so it couldn't be opened and they could be sure of more time to escape before the crime had been discovered.

Once the robbery had been discovered, the bank sent out people to try and trace the gang's movements. They followed the trail as far Doncaster where it went cold. Later investigations uncovered their movements as far as Matlock, but that's as far as they could ascertain. It is assumed they went back to London, to "burrow themselves in the mass of human beings forming the population of the metropolis"

News of the robbery spread and the nature of the notes stolen (issued directly by the Greenock Bank) were communicated. This is probably why the first place the gangs went to after leaving Glasgow on Sunday afternoon was to Edinburgh and Leith, to exchange some of the notes on Monday before the alarm had been raised. In fact, even as late as August, people were being arrested for trying to exchange those Greenock notes that had been stolen.

Taken for britishnotes.co.uk

One suspect, Henry Saunders, was arrested then freed on lack of evidence and then arrested again. In September 1828 he faced trial, but despite all the witnesses placing him in Glasgow and then leaving Glasgow by a variety of coaches, the verdict came back as Not Proven.

Only one man, William Vyse, seemed to be directly implicated in the robbery, as the man who exchanged £5,000 in Greenock notes at Edinburgh. But in the meantime, he had been tried and convicted of receiving stolen notes from another robbery and given a sentence of 14 years deportation. As far as I can tell, he was never tried for the Greenock robbery.

It's certainly not the biggest bank robbery ever, and maybe not the most sophisticated, but I say hats off to anyone who can repeatedly break into the same bank and then when they finally do rob it, no one notices for twenty four hours.


References:
"Robbery of Greenock Bank," The Times, Saturday 15 March 1828
"Further Particulars," The Hull Packet, Tuesday 25 March 1828
"The Greenock Bank Robbery," Royal Cornwall Gazette, Thursday 30 August 1828
"The Greenock Bank Robbery," The Times, Monday 22 September 1828
Relative value of heist calculated using the Measuring Worth website
Bank note image taken from the British Notes website

An Unsolved Mystery in Chiswick

On New Year's Day 1890, a maid living at 31 Linden Gardens, Chiswick, London returned from a trip to Scotland to find her mistress, Margaret Louise Bryden, dead. She was in the back bedroom, which was not her usual bedroom, fully clothed, on her back on the bed with her head hanging back over the edge. Forced into her mouth was some cloth – the bag for her dressing gown.

Front page illustration with drawing of 31 Linden Gardens

Mrs Bryden had seperated from her husband and lived alone with her maid, Margaret Fleming. There were three witnesses who gave evidence about the happenings of New Year's Eve: Ida Trump, a servant living at same house as Mrs Bryden; John Hewett, a plain-clothes policeman who was in the vicinity; and Emily Jane Carter, Mrs Bryden's neighbour.

At half past ten Ida Trump left to post a letter. She met Mrs Bryden at the front door and Mrs Bryden asked that if Ida saw a policeman on the High Street to bring him to the house. Ida did not see one and so returned. When she came back she could hear a man's voice from the drawing room.

Ida was curious to know if the man was a policeman so she waited, and saw a short man in a dark overcoat and oval hat walk down the steps (ie, the steps outside the front door.)

At ten to eleven, PC John Hewett was walking down Linden Gardens when Margaret Bryden asked him to get another policeman since she was alone and nervous. Hewett explained he could not stay with her and this conversation took place "in the front door", according to Hewett. He said that Bryden seemed sober and he left at 10.55

On questioning, Ida Trump said PC Hewett was similar to the man she saw, but felt that the policeman was taller.

Emily Jane Carter said she'd heard voices at eleven o'clock and had seen a man outside, but thought it was a policeman.

No. 31 is in the bottom right corner of Linden Gardens

Initially, the verdict was misadventure and the mysterious death was considered "solved". Mrs Bryden, although just 39 was not in good health and had false teeth, and it was surmised that "the lady had been suffocated by swallowing her false teeth, which were found in her gullet. It is supposed that having swallowed her teeth accidentally, she placed the night-dress case in her mouth, either in order to vomit or secure a better hold of the teeth, and died before she could accomplish her purpose, from suffocation."

There were no marks of violence on the body, her clothing was not in disarray, there was no sign of anyone else having been in the room, and the man that Ida Trump saw must've been the policeman Hewett.

The doctor who'd been on the scene, and who pulled the cloth from her mouth (noticing it needed quite a force to get it free) said the body was still warm and thought that she had died perhaps five hours earlier. However, he also said that there was nothing wrong with her teeth and he failed to notice that they were false.

Dr Dodsworth conducted a post-mortem. He felt that the false teeth were too large to be swallowed and he also thought that the bag for a dressing gown was an odd thing to push into your mouth to try and fish out your dentures. The jury on the inquest returned a verdict of wilful murder. Over three weeks had passed since the crime, and one member of jury was "strongly of the opinion that the police, late as it is, should begin a vigorous investigation, especially in view of certain rumours now prevalent, but which cannot at present be particularised."

Unfortunately, the newspapers did not report on what these rumours were and how the investigation went. It seems like interest dropped off after the inquest's verdict, since I can't find any more references to the case after the beginning of February. The last date that anyone mentions the case is 2nd February, and one of the articles from that day is titled "Is it to Remain a Mystery?"

References
"Strange Death of a Lady," Birmingham Daily Post,, Monday, January 6, 1890
"Solution of the Chiswick Mystery," Daily News, Tuesday, January 7, 1890
"Inquests," The Morning Post, Friday, January 10, 1890
"Mysterious death at Chiswick," The Morning Post, Friday, January 24, 1890
"Mystery at Chiswick," Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, Sunday, January 26, 1890
"Serious Crimes," The Newcastle Weekly Courant, Saturday, February 1, 1890
Front page, The Illustrated Police News, Saturday, February 1, 1890
"Is it to remain a mystery?" Lloyds Weekly Newspaper, Sunday, Feb 2, 1890
Map of Linden Gardens circa 1890 from the website Old Maps

When trousers threatened democracy

Recently I've been interested in "twin years": years which have identical dates. For example, you could use a calendar for 2012 in 1804, 1832 and 1860 (and others). I've been looking at 1792 recently, since it's the first twin year for 2012 after the launch of the Times newspaper so between The Times and The Annual Register, I have plenty of sources about that year.

On the 9th May 1792 someone broke a hole in the ceiling of a toilet under the House of Commons, and stuffed the gap between the joists full of combustible material including some trousers. But the smell of burning was discovered before the fire could really take hold and a disaster was averted. The mistake the arsonist made was to use trousers made of wool, which did not burn well.

Compared to the Gunpowder Plot (with its background of religious intrigue, explosive nature of the attack and the huge loss of life that would've occurred had the attack been a success) this attack is little more than attempted arson, and the perpetrator was never caught, so with no evil wrong-doer for the media to write about and vilify, the event quickly slipped into obscurity.

I suppose that's why we celebrate Guy Fawkes Night and not "That guy who might have been anyone" night.

The Great Cheese Heist

While looking through an archive of some old local newspapers, I came across this small news item in the Bristol Mercury for October 10th 1820. It tells of a robbery where three men, armed with bludgeons, stole a quantity of cheese from a shop.

It's fairly unremarkable, except I started to wonder about the circumstances of the crime. Did they go into the shop with the idea of stealing money, only to find the till was empty. Perhaps then they decided, since they'd come all this way and didn't want to go home empty handed, to demand that the shop-keeper hand over some cheese instead. Using the gruffest, most threatening voice you can use when stealing cheese, of course.

Or maybe the cheese was their target from the beginning. In which case, I imagine the three of them running down Lower Castle Street, lungs bursting with excitement because they've got the cheese!