Tichborne case

His mother clung to a belief that he might have survived, and after hearing rumours that he had made his way to Australia, she advertised extensively in Australian newspapers, offering a reward for information.

During protracted enquiries before the case went to court in 1871, details emerged suggesting that the Claimant might be Arthur Orton, a butcher's son from Wapping in London, who had gone to sea as a boy and had last been heard of in Australia.

Although most commentators have accepted the court's view that the Claimant was Orton, some analysts believe that an element of doubt remains as to his true identity and that, conceivably, he was Roger Tichborne.

After the Reformation in the 16th century, although one of their number was hanged, drawn and quartered for complicity in the Babington Plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I, the family in general remained loyal to the Crown, and in 1621 Benjamin Tichborne was created a baronet for services to King James I.

As baronetcies are inherited only by males, when Henry Joseph died in 1845 the immediate heir was his younger brother Edward, who had assumed the surname of Doughty as a condition of a legacy.

Feeling harassed and frustrated, Roger hoped to escape from the situation through a spell of overseas military duty; when it became clear that the regiment would remain in the British Isles, he resigned his commission.

The Tichborne family were told in June that Roger must be presumed lost, though they retained a faint hope, fed by rumours, that another ship had picked up survivors and taken them to Australia.

When challenged by Gibbes to reveal his true name, Castro had initially been reticent but eventually agreed that he was indeed the missing Roger Tichborne; henceforth he became generally known as the Claimant.

[47] When this information reached London, enquiries were made in Wapping by a private detective, ex-police inspector Jack Whicher,[48] and the Claimant's visit in December 1866 was revealed.

In 1870 his new legal advisers launched a novel fundraising scheme: Tichborne Bonds, an issue of 1,000 debentures of £100 face value, the holders of which would be repaid with interest when the Claimant obtained his inheritance.

[n 8] After a delay while the Franco-Prussian War and its aftermath prevented key witnesses from leaving Paris, the civil case that the Claimant hoped would confirm his identity finally came to court in May 1871.

[57] In addition to Tichborne Park's 2,290 acres (930 ha), the estates included manors, lands and farms in Hampshire, and considerable properties in London and elsewhere,[58] which altogether produced an annual income of over £20,000,[39] equivalent to about £2,350,000 in 2023.

[n 10] Opposing them, acting on instructions from the bulk of the Tichborne family, were John Duke Coleridge, the Solicitor General (he was promoted to Attorney-General during the hearing),[63] and Henry Hawkins, a future High Court judge who was then at the height of his powers as a cross-examiner.

[64][65] In his opening speech, Ballantine made much of Roger Tichborne's unhappy childhood, his overbearing father, his poor education and his frequently unwise choices of companions.

[74] He caused a sensation when he declared that he had seduced Katherine Doughty and that the sealed package given to Gosford, the contents of which he earlier claimed not to recall, contained instructions to be followed in the event of her pregnancy.

Having ascertained that this decision was based on the evidence as a whole and not solely on the missing tattoos, Bovill ordered the Claimant's arrest on charges of perjury and committed him to Newgate Prison.

[82][83] The Claimant had gained considerable popular support during the civil trial; his fight was perceived by many as symbolising the problems faced by the working class when seeking justice in the courts.

He and Onslow were sometimes incautious in their speeches; after a meeting in St James's Hall, London, on 11 December 1872, each made specific charges against the Attorney General and the Government of trying to pervert the course of justice.

[96] Away from the court he revelled in his celebrity status; the American writer Mark Twain, who was then in London, attended an event at which the Claimant was present and "thought him a rather fine and stately figure".

[97] Altogether, Hawkins called 215 witnesses, including numbers from France, Melipilla, Australia and Wapping, who testified either that the Claimant was not Roger Tichborne or that he was Arthur Orton.

[99] Giving evidence on the contents of the sealed packet, Gosford revealed that it contained information regarding the disposition of certain properties, but nothing relating to Katherine Doughty's seduction or pregnancy.

[98] Kenealy's own witnesses included Bogle and Biddulph, who remained steadfast, but more sensational testimony came from a sailor called Jean Luie, who claimed that he had been on the Osprey during the rescue mission.

[102] His speech was prefaced by a severe denunciation of Kenealy's conduct, "the longest, severest and best merited rebuke ever administered from the Bench to a member of the bar" according to the trial's chronicler John Morse.

[103] The tone of the summing-up was partisan, frequently drawing the jury's attention to the Claimant's "gross and astonishing ignorance" of things he would certainly know if he were Roger Tichborne.

[112] George Bernard Shaw, writing much later, highlighted the paradox whereby the Claimant was perceived simultaneously as a legitimate baronet and as a working-class man denied his legal rights by a ruling elite.

[115] However, he failed to persuade the House of Commons to establish a royal commission into the Tichborne trial, his proposal securing only his own vote and the support of two non-voting tellers, against 433 opposed.

[121] Throughout his imprisonment he had maintained that he was Roger Tichborne, but on release he disappointed supporters by showing no interest in the Magna Charta Association, instead signing a contract to tour with music halls and circuses.

[16] Woodruff's principal argument is the sheer improbability that anyone could conceive such an imposture from scratch, at such a distance, and then implement it: "[I]t was carrying effrontery beyond the bounds of sanity if Arthur Orton embarked with a wife and retinue and crossed the world, knowing that they would all be destitute if he did not succeed in convincing a woman he had never met and knew nothing about first-hand, that he was her son".

[124] In 1876, while the Claimant was serving his prison sentence, interest was briefly raised by the claims of William Cresswell, an inmate of a Sydney lunatic asylum, that he was Arthur Orton.

[131] Woodruff submits that the legal verdicts, although fair given the evidence before the courts, have not fully resolved the "great doubt" that Cockburn admitted hung over the case.