6 true crimes that scandalised Victorian England. Part 1

Everyone loves a murder. It’s one of those indelible facts of life; everyone is born, everyone must die and everyone bloody loves a murder.

Our murder obsession feels at its peak with podcasts like Serial now everywhere and documentaries on murderers and their victims littering our Netflix suggestions. But this is far from the first time that untimely and gruesome deaths fascinated people. We can date our love of murder back to…well literally always. It’s something that has just always fascinated people.

Nobody was no more obsessed than the Victorians. They truly loved the macabre, it’s in this era that we see the boom in séances and horror fiction, not to mention the very Victorian after dinner activity of busting opening a sarcophagus to see what was inside (japes) but there was nothing they loved more than a good murder.

True crime Penny Dreadful’s like Famous Crimes luridly detailed present and past crimes and even Punch got in on the action, eagerly sinking its teeth into grisly foul play and ensuring that the crime, trial and often inevitable execution became national gossip.

Without further ado here are some of the most sensational murders that gripped Victorian Britain 

1 . The Bermondsey Horror

In 1847 Swiss ladies maid Maria de Roux met Frederick George Manning. Now Manning was not exactly a catch, he had recently been fired from his job as a train guard following suspicion of theft and wasn’t the brightest BUT Manning told Maria he was due to inherit a small fortune from his mother and so the two were wed.

Maria Manning

Frederick George Manning tried his hand as a pub landlord and failed almost immediately. After selling the pub the couple moved to much smaller lodgings in Bermondsey. This is when Maria found out Fredrick George had lied and there was no fortune. Sadly couples therapy wasn’t an option at the time, nor were quickie divorces – so the Mannings hatched a deadly plot to both save their marriage and ease their money troubles.

Patrick O’Connor had once proposed to Maria and though he was well off she had opted to marry Frederick George Manning knowing he would one day inherit a fortune. Obviously this had turned out to be a lie and Maria now realised she had made the wrong choice…yet she thought that Patrick O’Connor could still be the solution to her financial woes. On the 8^th August 1849 Maria invited O’Connor to dinner. Before his arrival she bought a large shovel.

When O’Connor arrived at the Mannings house, Maria sent him into the kitchen to wash his hands before eating. With his back turned to her, she shot him in the head. Frederick George Manning then came into the kitchen to find O’Connor half dead on the floor and he finished the job: “I never liked him, so I battered his head with a ripping chisel.”

Husband and Wife buried O’Connor and Maria went to the dead man’s house to start collecting his valuables.

Police soon began investigating O’Connor’s disappearance and their suspesions pointed to the Mannings. Realising they were cornered the couple planned to flee. Maria sent her husband to sell their furniture to raise funds for their life on the run. As soon as he had left the house she took everything of value and fled.

Frederick George returned to find his wife had double crossed him, but managed to escape just before the police reached the Manning residence where they quickly found O’Connors body covered in lime and buried under the kitchen floorboards.

Maria and Frederick George fled to Edinburgh and Jersey respectively. They were both caught within days of each other; Maria after attempting to sell O’Connors belongings and Frederick George after his rampant drinking drew attention.

for fucks sake

The couples trial was held at The Old Bailey in London on 25^th Oct 1849 and it was a sensation. Maria was the subject of most of the attention, throughout the trial she was immaculately dressed, elegant and composed. However, this composure slipped once the jury read their verdict; guilty. Maria stood and screamed at the court: ‘You have treated me like a wild beast of the forest.’

Husband and Wife were both sentenced to be hung. This most rare of executions (a woman and the first married couple to be hung together in over a hundred years!) created further fever. A cottage industry was soon set up, with lodgings and horse and cart owners selling standing room tickets to the hanging and at least 2.6 million broadsides (Victorian one sheet newspapers) dedicated to the execution being sold.

On the day of the Mannings execution a crowd of between 30,000 and 50,000 gathered to watch the pair be hung- the biggest crowd ever assembled at an execution in Britain. There was much gossip prior to the hanging as to whether the couple would reconcile on the scaffold and more importantly just what Maria Manning would wear to her execution (times really have not changed…). Fashion lovers were not disappointed and Maria ascended the scaffold “beautifully dressed, every part of her noble figure finely and fully expressed by close fitting black satin”. Maria and Frederick were then hung side by side.

Yet they lived on. Those who had not been able to witness their execution were still able to see the Mannings in waxwork form, with Madame Tussaud’s promising a recreation of the Mannings kitchen (complete with O’Connor under the floorboards!) and a waxwork’s in Manchester advertising its Manning’s-a-likes as able to ‘amuse, delight and highly instruct’.

Maria Manning went on to inspire in the world of literature, most notably Charles Dickins, who having been at her execution became fascinated by the scandalous black satin clad woman and created a character in her likeness, Mademoiselle Hortense (both a lady’s maid and murderer) in his next book, Bleak House.

 

2. Sweet FA

In at number 2 its child murder! (Don’t say I don’t do anything for you- also in advance, sorry this one is pretty bleak)

On the 24^th August 1867 Fanny Adams , her younger sister Minnie and a friend left their house to go for a walk. The group were approached by a smartly dressed man in a black coat who offered Minnie and their friend money to leave and go get sweets, which they did. The man then offered Fanny a half-penny if she would accompany him to ‘The Hollow’, she refused and he picked her up and took her anyway.

Fanny Adams

Several hours later Minnie returned home without Fanny and told their mother about the meeting with the man in the black coat. Worried Mrs Adams, went to look for Fanny with the help of a neighbor, Mrs Gardiner.

Whilst searching they saw a man in a black coat walking back to the village from the direction of The Hollow. Mrs Gardiner accosted him and demanded to know what he had done with Fanny, the man shrugged off her claims “Nothing, I gave the girls money, but only to buy sweets which I often do to children.” The two women remained unconvinced, but then the man told them that he was the clerk to a local solicitor, William Clement, deciding him to be respectable the women let him walk away.

A search party was formed, and they quickly came across Fanny’s remains. Her head was found stuck up on two poles, the eyes missing. It would take several days to find the rest of the body which was dismembered and scattered nearby, her eyes were later found in a nearby river (I said this was bleak…).

Please Victorian newspapers, don’t feel like you should hold back…

That same night an investigation into the murder was launched and the obvious prime suspect Frederick Baker, Clerk to William Clement, was immediately arrested. Baker claimed his innocence, despite his clothes being bloodstained and being found carrying two bloody knives.

Evidence mounted. The entry in Baker’s dairy for the 24^th August read: ‘killed a young girl. It was fine and hot’. Bakers colleagues said that he was missing between 1pm-3pm (the time of Fanny’s disappearance) and left the offices again at 5pm (when he met Mrs Adams and Mrs Gardiner) returning at 6pm when he then mentioned the meeting with the two women and commented that if Fanny’s body were to be found it would be ‘awkward for him’ (truly a master criminal)

The police feared that the local community would attempt to lynch Baker and his initial hearing and trial were carried out at top speed, with his trial starting at Alton Town Hall on Thursday 29^th August, just days after the murder.

The judge urged the jury to take into account Baker’s poor mental health and consider Baker irresponsible for his action through reason of insanity- but the jury took just 15 minutes to convict him, Guilty. The judge had no choice but to carry out a sentence of death.

Prior to his execution on Christmas Eve 1867, Baker wrote to the parents of Fanny Adams and asked for their forgiveness of his crimes that he had committed at: “an unguarded hour and not with malice or a forethought”

The murder of Fanny Adams resonated throughout the country, with the grotesque illustration and write ups of the murder featured across newspaper and broadsides. The murder would also become the subject of many a folk songs and ballad.

Then in 1869 the British Navy introduced a new ration, mutton in a tin. The food stuff was hardly appetizing and sailors started a running joke that the mutton was actually the remains of ‘sweet Fanny Adams’ (truly the height of humor…). These joke continued and soon the contents of the tin became to be known as ‘sweet FA’ this trickled into popular parlance and still today people say ‘sweet FA’ as another term for ‘nothing’. Nice.

I’m sorry, but I did say this one was bleak!

Part 2 coming very soon, hopefully less child murder…

Contagious Diseases Act – The most vital chapter in women’s history you’ve never heard of

 

The Contagious Diseases Act (here by shortened to the CD Acts because as important as it is…it’s one hell of a mouthful) came about in part due to the rapid rise of prostitution in Victorian England. Prostitution was the fourth largest occupation for working women* and it grew along with the boom of the British Empire.

This bombastic empire expansion led to thriving new trading routes and soon British sailors were bringing home ships chock full of tea, textiles and Venereal Disease. Yup you have to take the bad with the good and one of the prices for this exciting new empire? An exciting new STI! Sailors picked up VD from their travels and then spread it back in Britain when they arrived home after a long time at sea and in need of some company…

The disease spread quickly and became an epidemic. Parliament needed to do something to control the situation and fast! So in 1864 they covertly passed The Contagious Disease Bill.

The bill allowed for any person suspected of being a ‘common prostitute’ to be forced into submitting to an internal genital exam by a male doctor.

The law only pertained to women.

The examination was humiliating and painful. It would later be described as ‘surgical rape’. Countless female sex workers found themselves subject to this ordeal.

 

The situation was further worsened as there didn’t need to be any evidence for a woman to be accused and therefore internally examined. This resulted in many women who were not sex workers having to undergo the examination- with both the accusation and their examination now public knowledge these women found their reputations destroyed – they became ‘ruined women’ and their chances for a hopeful future were vastly diminished.

Parliament renewed the CD Acts in 1866 and again in 1869. Increasing the penalty for not submitting to a genital exam to 3-6 months in prison with the possibility of hard labour. This was later raised to 6-9 months to help the women ‘become clean’.

Throughout the acts frequent revisions hardly any of the public knew about it – though it effected 50% of the population, it remained a secret. That was all about to change.

Elizabeth Wolstenholme

In 1869 a meeting about the bill was held Bristol’s Royal Hotel. At this meeting was Woman’s Suffrage Campaigner, Elizabeth Wolstenholme. She was shocked to hear about the CD acts, which had now been in effect for almost 5 years.

Elizabeth saw the CD acts as a violation of woman’s rights and made it her mission to raise public awareness. After leaving the meeting Elizabeth contacted her friend Josephine Butler and asked for her help. Butler was a social reformer and women’s rights campaigner who had previous experience working with and campaigning for the rights of women working as prostitutes.

Josephine Butler

Butler and Wolstenholme toured the country giving speeches about the act- to say this is shocking would be a huge understatement, a woman talking openly in public about sex in the Victorian era was shocking and seen as deeply concerning. Yet the speeches worked. The women sparked something and people started talking and when people started talking they became outraged.

Soon Butler and Wolstenholme formed the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts (LNA for short) and in doing so arguably became two of the first publically known feminists. Though women before them had previously fought against slavery and war, this was the first time in British history that women were fighting for all women’s rights and women’s sexual rights at that.

In 1869 the fledgling LNA published a petition with 124 signatures calling for a repeal of the CD acts. Two years later in 1871 they produced another petition calling for the repeal – when it was handed in to The House of Commons it had to be laid on the floor as there was not a table that was large enough to hold it. Groundbreaking doesn’t even cover it.

The LNA worked tirelessly over many years to end the CD acts, but that wasn’t all Butler and Wolstenholme did – in fact from the start of The Contagious Diseases Act to its end both women did an extraordinary amount:

• 1865 – Elizabeth Wolstenholme along with 11 other women formed the Kensington Society, a discussion group which would lead to the birth of the suffrage movement in Britain.

• 1867 – Josephine Butler becomes chair of The North of England Council for the Higher Education of Women. A council both women work on.

• 1868 – Both Butler and Wolstenholme join the Married Women’s Property Committee which sought to allow wives the right to buy, own and sell property.

• 1875 – Butler tours Europe, giving speeches about sexual rights for women. This creates the International Abolitionist Movement, a group whose aim was to prevent international trafficking and stop state regulation of the sex trade.

• 1882 – Married Women’s Property Act allows married women to retain property following campaigning by both Butler and Wolstenholme.

• 1885 – Josephine Butler succeeded in campaigning for the age of consent to be raised from 13-16, helping to lower the rate of child prostitution.

• 1886 – Wolstenholme’s campaign to improve women’s right to custody following divorce succeeds with the Guardianship of Infants Act

In 1886 The Contagious Diseases Act is finally repealed.

 

*Though a reliable estimate of the actual amount of women working in this field does not exist, we can see that throughout the 1840’s and 50’s the number of women working in prostitution was rapidly growing.

The Princess in the tower, and the skeleton under the floorboards

The excellently named Sophia Dorothea was born in 1666 the only child of the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, who ruled the Celle portion of the Duchy of Brunswick. Sophia’s mother was the Dukes long standing mistress Éléonore Marie d’Esmier d’Olbreuse, who he quickly married after Sophia’s birth.

It was a scandalous start to a life that would see Royal coverups, affairs and murder. With Sophia cementing her place in history as England’s lost Queen.

A miniature of Sophia Dorothea

By the time Sophia reached marrying age she was something of a certified beauty, skilled at a whole host of ‘womanly pursuits’ (i.e music and sewing…) and was funny and smart to boot. Girl was a catch!

Sadly for Sophia, she had no say in who she married. So rather than marrying any of the eligiable suitors who she might have lived happily ever after with, she had to go with her parents first choice -her first cousin George Ludwig.

In addition to being her cousin, George was THE WORST. Rude, loud, and aggressive but not too smart, George was notoriously quick to anger. He was also vindictive and obnoxious.

The only thing going for George was the fact that he was heir to Hanover.

A marriage between George and Sophia would mean that George’s family would rule both Hanover and Celle. So despite the fact that Georges family hated Sophia (due to her low birth) all parties involved were for the marriage.

Well, apart from Sophia. Who when told about the engagement, promptly threw Georges portrait across the room.

To be fair to Sophia, look at George…wouldnt you want to chuck his portrait?

The marriage, unsurprisingly, didn’t get off to a good start.

Sophia struggled to fit into her new world. Not helped by her new mother in law who constantly called Sophia out and bitching about her with the court.

Sophia’s new husband was not any better (like you were expecting him to be…) he was stand off-ish and spent very little time with his new wife, going away whenever he could.

He also created a network of spies so he could know what Sophia was doing at all times – which is super normal and healthy.

By the way, this kind of behaviour is a HUGE red flag and sign to get the fuck out

Yet, somehow the pair had not one but two babies, with George (who later became King George ll of England) both in 1683 and Sophia (later, Queen of Prussia) in 1687. With an heir and a spare in the bag, George saw his job as over.

So George started having very public affairs, notably with two women nicknamed The Beanpole and The Elephant.

To add to this, George was physically abusive towards Sophia.  He would beat her in public and on one occasion nearly strangled her, an act of violence that was witnessed by a room full of people.

That was just what George did it public. We don’t know what went on behind closed doors, but we can imagine.

Sophia with her children

Neglected and isolated, Sophia found solace in an old friend. Swedish Count, Philipp Christoph von Königsmark (try saying that 5 times fast).

The pair had had met in Sophia’s homeland just before her marriage to George. Whilst Sophia had gone to Hanover, Phillip traveled to England, becoming a favourite in the court of Charles ll and creating something of a Casanova like persona – bedding countless countesses (and the odd Duchess).

The rekindled friendship with Phillip was a life line for Sophia. She started to become healthier and happier, something that was noted by Hanovers courtiers. Though they knew George wouldn’t approve of the friendship, the court did. Sophia was overdue some happiness.

But then Philipp and Sophia became more than friends.

The pair were spotted writing each other love messages on the palace windows, and exchanging romantic letters; one notable line from Philipp is:

“I embrace your knees”

This was a very dangerous game. But the pair continued and by 1690 things had gotten serious. With the couple spending as much time together as possible, and using codes and confidantes to communicate when apart.

Philipp Christoph von Konigsmark

In 1692, George’s Dad, the King of Hanover, was shown the couples love letters. Angry, he promptly sent Philipp away to fight with the Hanoverian army – with any leave request turned down.

But Philipp was not that easily deterred. He abandoned the army and rode to be with Sophia.

At this point, George found out about the affair. He confronted Sophia and shouting quickly escalated into violence. Sophia only survived the encounter thanks to servants who pulled George off her

George- Future King and notorious dick

Following this terrifying meeting with her husband, Sophia and Philipp hatched a plan to escape Hanover together and elope.

BUT the plan was quickly foiled – word got round to George and his Dad and the lovers plans were put to an abrupt stop.

Philipp was ambushed, and in an attack that would later be covered up, he was murdered.

Several court insiders would admit on their deathbeds to being involved in the death, but none would say how Philipp died or where his body lay.

Popular legend said Philipp’s body was covered in quicklime and buried under the still bloody floorboards of the castle

Hysterical, Sophia was held under house arrest in her rooms.

George managed to divorce Sophia and she was found guilty of malicious desertion.

Then George ordered that his wive be locked away in Castle Ahlden. Her right to see her children was cut and the only visitor permitted was to be her mother.

Sophia remained captive, locked away in her castle, for 30 years. Until she died in 1726.

But what happened to George? Well George went on and became King of Great Britain and Ireland- King George l, the first of the Hanoverian line.

When he arrived in England he turned up speaking very little English and with his two loyal mistresses in tow- The Beanpole and The Elephant. But rumours of his ill fated wife and her lover continued to swirl. Dogging George until still his dying day.

3 Important Witch Trials In History (that you’ve never heard of)

Superstition made living in Europe around 1560 – 1630 very dangerous for any woman that bucked the norm. Panic was wide spreads and things soon escalated from accusation to execution.

The Berwick witches!

Now this was far from the first witch trial in England- but it was the catalyst for things being particularly burney during the reign of King James l.

In 1590 King James and his new wife Anne of Denmark, were sailing home from their wedding in Denmark to James home in Scotland; when their ship was hit by a terrific storm – though the couple was fine, rumors soon flared up that the storm had been the work of witches determined to murder the newlyweds.

Accusations spread across England, Wales, Denmark and Scotland; with nearly 100 women  in Berwick being accused of forming a coven and bringing about the storm.

Fun fact – in Scotland it was completely legal to torture witches; this little legal loop hole unsurprisingly led to some pretty lurid confessions from the Berwick ‘witches’, including one Agnes Sampson.

Agnes was a healer and midwife for the community and despite sounding like an all around good egg; the elderly woman was accused of being the lead witch in the plot to sink the Kings ship. She was questioned and tortured in front of the King at Holyrod Palace. Initially Agnes pleaded her innocence, but after she was stripped, shaved and beaten…she admitted her guilt.

It had all started so well…

Agnes said that the witches had been called to action by Francis Stewart, 5^th Lord of Bothwell (who had a claim to the throne so long as James remained heirless). To cast the spell that set forth the storm, the witches had gathered in church yards to kiss the devils ‘backside’. They had dug up graves to secure fingers for spells, and in one instance, stolen a cat, christened it, tied male genitals to the cats legs, sailed out to sea, and tossed the poor kitty into the sea (which sounds totally legit)

Agnes was executed, along with other accused witches in Scotland and Denmark.

Following the trials, James wrote and published a pamphlet which scandalously detailed the events of the trial; and in no small way helped to create the panic surrounding witchcraft that would see thousands of innocent people executed.

James l – in no way remembered as a notorious dick

 

The Fulda witch trials

It wasn’t just England who got a little…heated (sorry) over witches. Germany also got involved in the epidemic (after all they are the home of fairy tales!) and my God did the Germans go all in.

The Fulda witch trials took place over 3 years between 1603-1606 and saw over 200 people executed. It was one of the worst and most large scale of the witch trails in Europe during this era.

The trials were triggered by the return to power of Prince-abbot Balthasar Von Dernbach, following 20 years in exile.

Now though he had an amazing name, the good Prince was a bit of a massive dick. Upon coming home he ordered a witch-hunt to cleanse the area (as you do). You see whilst the Prince had been in exile, Fulda had enjoyed a period of relative religous liberalism, and the good Prince was not down with this. So naturally he figured a witch hunt was the best way to ‘cleanse’ Fulda. Nice guy.

The excessive gilding tells you that this man will in no way be remembered as a notorious dick

The most high profile the Prince’s 200 odd victims was Merga Bein.

Merga had been married twice before, but she was independently wealthy herself; the now heir to her two previous husband’s fortunes. This factor seems likely to have played a pretty hefty part in her being ‘cleansed’ by the Prince.

Merga was one of the first arrested. She was accused of being in cahoots with the Devil, of having murdered her second husband and their children and of having taken part in the Sabbath of Satan. Merga was sentenced to be burned at the stake.

However her husband argued that executing her was illegal as she was pregnant. No matter for the good Prince though, he just claimed that the child was clearly the Devils- and so Merga along with over 200 others was executed.

The executions only stopped after the good Prince died. I’m sure all of Fulda was devastated…

3. Hag Riding

Witch trials were still going on in the 19^th century, though less common place. Kind of awesomely though, they tended to be prosecuting the accusers!

In 1875 the town of Weston Super Mare housed one of these trails- which concerned the fantastically named practice of hag riding.

Hag riding was essentially, ‘sleep paralysis’. Much of these claims were just nightmares, but in Weston Super Mare, the claimant was was stabbed in the face and hand as a defense against the dreams.

Hester Adams accused neighbor, Maria Pring of appearing in her dreams to terrify her for over two years, Hester claimed that she lived in fear of Maria (an early adopter of Freddy Krueger based high jinks)

But Hester was an early adopter of, er…knives? (sorry) She decided that the only way to stop the dreams was to draw Maria’s blood… because logic. The elderly woman stabbed Maria in the face and hand, which put a stop to the dreams (again- logic)

Though understandably confused by the case bought to them, the magistrates erred on the side sanity (ish) and ordered that Hester give Maria a shilling and agree to keep the peace (and try really hard to not stab her neighbours anymore).

Thats just 3 notable witch trails that you might not know- or if you do, you might not know that much about.

You see *gets on soap box* the problem with witch trials is that its hard for us to ever know much about the people who were accused. We can only ever have half of the story- because 99.9% of the time we don’t know anything about the people who were accused – these were people who were often poor and lived on the fringes of society, they were easy victims. Often the only direct information we have from them is their confession- which was false and 9 time out of 10 obtained through torture – not great.

It’s important to try and seen the humanity behind the horror.

OK *gets off soap box* sorry about that

Bonus Wicked as way of apology:

Go get her, she’s Wicked

7 Best Hangover Cures In History

Hangovers are as old as history itself. As soon as people worked out how to create and drink alcohol (at least 10,000 years ago, somewhere in the Neolithic period) they were also working out how to cope with the morning after.

From Ancient Egypt and Greece, to the Middle Ages, and even the courts of Kings and Queens, every era has its own hair of the dog, and all of them are infinitely more interesting than the Iron Bru and bacon sandwich that your mate swears by.

1.A Human Skull

Starting strong- our first hangover cure comes from my favourite lover of drunken debauchery, King Charles ll; and it’s a doozy.It isn’t exactly surprising that Charles needed a solid hangover cure (this is the man that drunkenly yelled ‘encouragement’ at the foot of his little brother, James l, bed, whilst the aforementioned was losing his virginity) but the method that Charles used to help abate his headache and woozy stomach was a little, er, un-orthodox.

Respected 17^th Century physician, Dr Jonathan Goddard suggested ‘Goddard Drops’ for the King, which was an elixir consisting of dried viper, ammonia, and the skull of a recently hanged person. Dr Goddard sounds like a delight.

We don’t know how effective Charles found Goddard Drops, I’m going to suggest it probably wasn’t that good- though the ammonia may have helped him to throw up. So if that’s your thing…

2.Eel 

The good people of The Middle Ages were partial to a drink. This was in no small part due to the water being so unclean that it was a much safer option to drink alcohol instead.

Brewing beer had long been popular, but it becomes almost an art form during this period, it’s like craft brewing now, but with less irony. Soldiers returning from the Crusades bought back new knowledge of spices, herbs and mass murder- two of which really helped in creating a new beer boom.

So what did these new beer aficionados’ do to beat the morning after the night before? They ate eels. Now this actually sort of makes sense, eels are jam packed full of good stuff, including protein, calcium, and tons of vitamins!

Unfortunately, that wasn’t why they were eaten. Doctors (a term I loosely use…) of the period believed that once consumed, the eels would become alive when in the stomach, and drink up all the alcohol left inside- a really nice visual image there

3. Soot

‘Mother’s Ruin’(Gin) had started to wain in popularity in Victorian England; as the temperance movement promoted controlled drinking – but you can’t keep a good binge drinker down, and the cocktail soon arrived on British soil which Charles Dickins gleefully wrote about in his American Notes for General Circulation. 

To combat a night of too many Gin-Slings and Timber Doodles (actual Victorian cocktail) people would warm up some milk and then mix in a spoonful of soot; this would be consumed to help with any shakiness and sickness. Though not recommended by me (or anyone) – the charcoal present in soot does actually help to balance acid and alkaline in the stomach, so it might have helped.

It also seems like a much nicer option than another Victorian hangover remedy suggested in The Medical Advisor, which involves pouring vinegar down a person’s throat, and then rubbing it into their temples, which seems less like a hangover remedy and more a really dicky form of water torture.

4. Owls Eggs

The Romans have a reputation for being big drinkers, but for much of the period, that really wasn’t the case. Wine tended to be diluted with water, 1 part wine, 4 parts water, and alcohol was only really consumed during meals. However, feasting could sometimes go on and on, and on and on, and…on; a lot of over indulging on wine and food inevitably leads to a very nasty hangover (think post Christmas…)

Pliny the Elder (above), had just the solution, 2 owls eggs, raw of course. The Great Great Great Grandfather of downing a glass of raw eggs. This would actually help replenish amino acids, so if you can get your hands on owls eggs, then this would actually be pretty useful- good work Pliny!

5. Fried Canary

I spoke to soon. Pliny The Elder wasn’t done. Along with being an esteemed Roman author, naturalist, philosopher and Army commander, Pliny knew that his true calling was developing hangover cures, and that’s how he came up with possibly the greatest idea of his life, defeating a hangover by eating a fried canary.

Pliny was pretty exact on what you needed to do to an unfortunate canary to truly get it’s full benefits and flavour. First one must behead the bird, before fully de-feathering it, then fry it, and add salt to taste before serving.

There aren’t really any benefits to this, its basically a really grim fry up, but it would make a good talking point- should you want to traumatise someone by kidnapping, beheading and then eating their pet. I know what Pliny would do.

6.Coke

Until 1906 Coca Cola contained a pretty hefty dose of cocaine, which made it a very popular hangover cure, because well, that’s going to perk you right up. The cocaine came from coca leaf, which was also prominent in several other products, including Halls Coca Wine, which was was marketed as a ‘great restorative’ (Halls wine is now banned and non-existent, because you know, cocaine…)

Once cocaine became the sort of thing you weren’t allowed to put into your ‘restorative’ products, something else needed to be done to sell them as hangover friendly. Adolphe Jeantet, The Ritz Carlton’s Head Banquet Man (actual job title), had just the thing, and in 1938 his hangover cure took New York City by storm, a chilled bottle of Coca Cola, shaken, and then mixed into a glass of ice cold milk. Delicious? Jeantet’s press agent at the time described the effects of the drink; you drink it ‘take a little nap, and after that you feel wonderful’ –that actually sounds really nice.

7. Crying

Now chances are, depending on the severity of the hangover, you already want to do this, so just let it all out. Kingsley Amis (great name), author of On Drink, suggests that crying is the best hangover cure. Now this particular tip isn’t incredibly historical, On Drink was written in 1972, but I do think it is pretty brilliant.

Kingsley argues that to tackle the physical hangover symptoms, one needs to tackle the emotional symptoms (can you tell this book was written in the 70’s?), he calls this ‘The Metaphysical Hangover’ (yup definitely written in the 1970’s), and the only way to defeat it is by embracing all your feelings, and just having a good cry.

So thats the best that history has to offer your hangover- I hope that it helps, but if not:

I say we listen to Snape