When a young English aristocrat vanished at sea in 1854, his family mourned—except for his mother, who refused to believe he was dead. More than a decade later, a butcher from Australia claimed to be the long-lost heir. What followed was one of the most sensational legal battles of the Victorian era. This week on Historical True Crime, we unravel the strange and sprawling saga of the Tichborne Claimant.
Source Materials:
The Tichborne Trials Archive | Hampshire Cultural Trust Online Collections
The Tichborne case: a Victorian melodrama | State Library of New South Wales
The Mysterious Case of Tichborne and His Stolen Identity - Historic Mysteries
The Man Who Lost Himself: The Unbelievable Story of the Tichborne Claimant
The Tichborne Case - a Case of Identity Fraud? - Brighton & Hove Museums