The Balham Mystery: The Death of Charles Bravo

Dark Histories

Ben Cutmore

History

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2019

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In April, 1876, Charles Bravo took to his bedroom, rubbed a dose of laudanum into his gums and poured himself a glass of water from the jug on his nightstand. Within minutes of retiring to bed, Charles Bravo fell desperately ill. Within two days, he would be pronounced dead, the victim of Antimony poisoning. Suicide, manslaughter and murder have been cast forward by amateur historians and famous crime writers alike. 145 years on, some have claimed to have solved the mystery of the death of Charles Bravo, but in reality, the truth lies as buried as the characters themselves. Two inquests to the good, the question remains, who killed Charles Bravo? Sources: Ruddick, James (2001) Death at the Priory: Love, Sex and Murder in Victorian England. Atlantic Books, 2001. The Verdict in the Bravo Case (1876, August 12), The Independent, p. 6. The Balham Mystery (1867, May 16), The Daily Post, p.6. Taylor, Bernard & Clarke, Kate (1988) Murder at the Priory: The Mysterious Poisoning of Charles Bravo. Grafton Books, 1988. For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected] or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/6f7e2pt Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Transcript

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0:45.2	In April of 1876, Charles Bravo took to his bedroom, rubbed a dose of laudanum into his gums and poured himself
0:56.0	a glass of water from the jug on his nightstand.
0:59.2	It had been a long day.
1:00.9	How little did he expect the night was about to become much longer?
1:05.3	Within minutes of retiring to bed, Charles Bravo failed desperately ill.
1:09.9	Within two days he would be pronounced dead, the victim of antimony poisoning.
1:15.8	This might seem like just another page in the very Victorian chapter of the Golden Age of
1:19.8	poisoning, but Charles Bravo's death stands tall as a murder mystery that was never solved.
1:26.7	Suicide manslaughter and murder been cast forward by amateur historians and famous crime writers
1:32.1	alike.
1:33.0	145 years on, some have claimed to have solved the mystery of the death of Charles Bravo,
1:39.0	but in reality the truth lies as buried as as the characters themselves.
1:44.0	Two Enquests to the good, the question remains.
	...

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