The Tichborne Claimant - by Rohan McWilliam (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The extraordinary case in 1874 of the Tichborne Claimant generated the longest trial, to that point, in British legal history. Was the stout manclaiming to be the vanished Sir Roger Tichborne really who he said he was; or was he Arthur Orton, a butcher from Wagga Wagga in Australia? Was he the public school educated rightful heir to a landed estate or an ill-educated fraud? Why, if he was a fraud, had the dowager Lady Tichborne recognised him? And what was the truth about his tattoo?

The trial mesmerised the British public and led to furious debate, to the extent that several newspapers were devoted entirely to the case and a Tichbornite candidate won a seat in Parliament. The case divided the nation along political, religious and social lines, and the campaign for justice for the Claimant proved a focus for political activism between the defeat of the Chartists and rise of the Labour Party.

Review Quotes

'[McWilliam] tells the story with a lucid command of narrative and an understated wit.' - London Review of Books

'McWilliam has done a wonderful, thoughtful and imaginative job, and in so doing has thrown up some welcome challenges to the way that we think about political and social history. His understanding of why the Tichborne story remains puzzling even after his painstaking reconstruction forces us to continue asking difficult questions about the connections between politics and emotion in an emerging mass culture.' - Journal of Victorian Culture, 2009

Mentioned in History Today, July 2009