The Balham Mystery: Who Poisoned Charles Bravo?

This week, Rach takes us on a wild romp through Victorian south London with the mysterious death of Charles Bravo – a seemingly respectable barrister who died in agony from antimony poisoning in his plush home near Tooting Bec Common. Was it suicide? A medical accident? Or did someone in the house have very good reason to want him gone? We unpack the tangled mess of coercive control, scandalous affairs, and courtroom chaos that surrounded the case – all while having a good old chat about St Patrick’s Day hangovers, questionable leprechaun museums, and Rachel’s blacklisting from a certain food delivery app (justice for Rach). Grab a cuppa (or a baby Guinness), it's a good one.

Sources used in this episode include: 

https://london-overlooked.com/charles-bravo/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bravo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0PFklzKtiw

https://www.streathamsociety.org.uk/blogs--posts/the-balham-mystery-murder-of-charles-bra

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016pq1

https://www.darkhistories.com/the-balham-mystery-charles-bravo/

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/charles-bravo-the-curious-case-of-the/id1180202350?i=1000660087725

https://www.coldcasejury.com/case01/evidence.asp

Thanks for tuning in! If you loved diving into the dark corners of South London with us, don't forget to hit that subscribe button to never miss an episode of "Sinister South."

Also, follow us on Instagram @SinisterSouthPodcast for sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, and more cheeky banter, or www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk. Remember, every crime tells a story... and South is the best side of the river...

Produced and hosted by Hannah Williams & Rachel Baines
Mixed & edited by Purple Waves Sound (A.K.A Will)

Transcript

Ep 11 - Charles Bravo

Hello. Hi. I'm Rachel.

I'm Hannah. And this is the Sinister South podcast, a audio treat for you about bad things in south London. I love it.

I also love the use of the walk and comma. Very good. Very good.

Oh, for those eagle eared amongst you. If you, if you've been handed in our home, Hannah did not do our homework. Oh, listen, life's long.

And then it's hard and then you die. And sometimes compromises have to be made in I could either not get fired. Yeah.

And be able to have some sleep. Yeah. Or I could have written a case.

Yeah. And when you're working in an environment like this with a Taipei who's, you know, the best by force or by talent. Just the best.

You know, you come along and have to have a case ready. I did have a case for you. This was my, this is my Sunday morning treat to myself when the children woke me up at an ungodly hour off.

I mean, it wasn't that bad. It was six o'clock. But it was six o'clock in the morning on a Sunday.

Yeah, that's bad. Very, very unacceptable. And I could not go back to sleep.

So I just thought, fuck it. And I sat downstairs. Well, they watched Harry Potter.

And I wrote a couple of cases. Nice. So, yeah, so nice.

I've got, I've got the story for you. Yeah. So those that die hard hand fans.

I'm just going to say, there's going to be like, I would say three-quarters of the audience that go, what the fuck is there again? Fuck you. So, yeah, you've got me again telling a story. I've got a historical one today, though.

That's good. I like it. But before we get into all that, how the devil are you, other than being incredibly busy and sleep deprived? Yeah.

All right. Good. Good.

Like works. It's frustrating and it's busy, but it's actually quite, I'm working on a project where it's really tangible. So I'm seeing things happen as I'm going through, rather than kind of a bit when you're in like project management T kind of world.

Sometimes you can do stuff and it's theoretical and it's over there. And then you leave that project or the contract comes to an end or whatever. So you never actually sit into fruition and kind of look back and go, I wonder if that ever happened or whatever.

So it's quite nice to actually have something really tangible this time. Nice. Yeah.

But that's boring. Other than that, Happy St Patrick's Day for ages ago. I know it's been.

I was really annoyed that I'd kind of completely forgotten it was St Patrick's Day. And then when you sent me that really lovely photo of you, I was like, I really want to put this up, but it was yesterday. And I don't know if I messaged her.

She might be like, no, no, don't shave me. So we didn't do it. But it is a really lovely photo of you.

I kind of just want to share it for the sake of it. Thanks, babe. Yep.

I allowed Victor to capture my image. She did. And it's a really, really, you look fucking fit.

Thanks, babe. That's very nice of you to say. I was pissed.

Lots of baby Guinness, as well as large Guinness. It was, yes, it was a family outing. Yeah, nice.

A horrific hangover. Bless. But, yeah.

Well, to be fair, it's like when, because this is, I think we feel like we should explain to the Trevor's. For those of you who don't know, Hannah actually does have Irish heritage. She is Irish.

Yes, yes. So it's not just like, we're not just jumping on the St. Patty's bandwagon. She's actually allowed to be like, no, no.

This is my day. This is my holiday. To be racist.

Oh, I know. It's, it's, no, it is, yeah. You are Irish.

Yeah, but I'm not like Irish Irish, so, because I don't want to be, you know, you don't want to be one of those Americans. Yeah, I'm actually my cousin's dog. That was a very good New York accent.

Thanks, babe. But, yeah, there is Irish in my heritage and that must be celebrated at any given opportunity. Exactly.

Exactly. I think it says a lot about you as a person. Oh.

Okay. I'm just going to leave it hanging. It can be interpreted however people wanted to be.

Okay. Fine. Obviously, it means that you've got a lot of little small men in green coats who give you loads of points.

Now you're being racist. What's wrong with you? Murder Most Irish are never going to like another one of our things ever again. Well, they know I'm joshing.

Did I ever say joshing? Yeah, apparently. I don't know what's happening. Did I ever tell you about the time that when I was in Dublin, we accidentally stumbled across the leprechaun museum? Oh, my God, it was amazing.

We went to Dublin. Will and I long, long time ago in our mispent youth. And we went to, we spent all of the time in Temple Bar, because obviously.

Tourists. Yeah, exactly. And we stayed in the generator hostel, which was lovely, if not ever so slightly overpriced.

We did the Guinness factory and tried to pretend that neither of us had ever worked in a pub. So we didn't know how to pour a Guinness and then volunteered to be the people who would pour the Guinness and just did it perfectly. And they were like, oh, it was like, yeah, we wacken up up this one.

But I still had my little certificate. I brought it home. It lived at the Fox for a long time.

Jesus. There we go. But now, and then we randomly were wandering around.

We were trying to find Fippa McGee's because I had an Irish friend, Sharon, who had worked with a previous job, but hi, Sharon, on the very bizarre off charge. You're listening. But she said, you've got to go to Fippa McGee's.

It's amazing. Amazing bar. I've had a wonderful night in Fippa McGee's.

And then the next day, I was like, right, we've got to do something that doesn't involve alcohol, because I know. But it was genuinely, I was like, at this point, I am just sweating, Jameson's. So we need to do something.

And we were having a wonder. And we found this little doorway that just in a very unassuming looking place. And it said Leprechaun Museum.

And I jokingly said, let's do that. We walked in. And oh my God, it was the best museum I think I've ever been to in my life.

It was proper like you could walk through. It looked very unassuming. But actually underneath it, it was like this big cavernous thing.

It was very immersive. And it was amazing. So everyone's in Dublin.

If it's still there, go and see the Leprechaun Museum. Because it's awesome. There you go.

That's my little, there we go. There we go. And how are you? I'm all right.

I'm all right. I've got a slight update to give you. Okay.

On something that's been happening in my life. Mm hmm. So that is absolutely fucking not absolutely not.

No, that made me feel a bit ill just even the joking thinking about it. I think it's one of those things like, you've come so far around that like thing, that actually I'm more likely to get pregnant than you are now. That's not going to happen.

Nope. No, no, no. With my lot, they're lovely.

I don't need any more. Thank you. No.

So those of you who have been listening for a while will maybe remember my beef with a little company that we named now Monge. So there's somebody saying now Monge fucking ourselves. Yeah.

So basically I won with the band. Got my money back for the food that never arrived from the restaurant that was very obviously not a real place and had gotten into the routine of doing the emails and all the rest of it. Anyway, the very lovely people in that West gave me my money back.

Great. Wonderful. Went to go on to now Monge to order some food the other day from reputable source that I am aware of and have eaten from many times before.

I went on and it would not like it allowed me to access the app, it allowed me to log in. It wouldn't let me pay for anything. So at first I was like, okay, is there something dodgy just going on? Like, I'll use PayPal.

I know mask and all that. But like, let's just use PayPal. I didn't like that.

Then I tried to use my card again. Didn't like that. And it was just, it just kept saying failed.

It's like, okay, maybe there's something going on. So I said to Will fine. Just like, just see if we can put it on yours or transfer the money to you.

So he goes on to his now Monge account and ordered the food and realized that he had my card saved on his account and he pressed it and then went, oh, no shit, because that's, it's not working. Oh, no, it worked on Will's account. They'll have your money.

They have blocked me. For blacklisted from now Monge. For blacklisted from now Monge.

So no matter, but like, my card is absolutely fine if it's used on Will's account, but they have just like decided that that account not allowed. No, because I had the audacity to demand that they gave me back the money that they stole from them. More for them because you have 20,000 email addresses.

Oh, I do. It's like they can't keep you away. They will never be able to keep me away.

Although why do you use now Monge over any of the others? It was mainly because at first there wasn't the delivery charges of now Monge. That was the original point. And it's just been that that's where most of the local restaurants were on there.

Although, like, I am much more aligned with the delivery. I was trying, I was really desperately trying to think of Sudenheim. Sudenheim? Sudenheim? God, you don't spend too much time on me.

No. But for them, and I got as far as post-lue, but that's not right. No.

I would deliver and rue, and I was trying to do post-lue. I would have just gone food-a-roo. Food-a-roo? No.

Everybody knows who we're talking about. Yeah, I know, but it's a fun game. It's a fun game.

All right. Go on. What's Uber Eats then? Very food.

Oh, no. It's got to be something like tax avoidant swallowing. Sure.

Sure, sure, sure. She's made herself. She's very happy with herself.

Well, that one. There was a little clap. I can't.

Oh, dear. Tax avoidant. Yeah.

Tax avoidant swallowing is also my stage name. My drag name. Oh, dear.

So, yeah. So, I've been blocked on now, Mom. There you go.

Which is hilarious. That is so funny. Also, though, knowing you and knowing how much of a goody two shoes you are, there's probably a part of this that's eaten you alive.

Someone doesn't like me. There is a small part. When I first realized it, I was like... It wasn't... I was upset.

It was a genuine, like, the audacity. Do you not know who I am? Exactly. I have a reasonably successful podcast.

Thank you very much. Oh, the other thing that I wanted to mention to you today was, for those of you, we are not sponsored and we are also nowhere near big enough to ever be invited to any of these things. But crime con, right? Right.

So, I follow them and sinister self-fullism on Instagram and they've recently done a true crime camp. Sorry. I'm just having a massive drink of wine.

Massive, massive ravina gulp there. Love it. They do a true crime.

They do like the true crime cruise and they have a big convention in America. They've also got one in the UK. But they've recently been doing a true crime sleepover, like, camp thing in Florida.

I mean, I wouldn't go to the States right now, regardless, even if I could afford it. But I'm so jealous of the amount of content that I've seen from this true crime camp. Well, like, they're being shown how to do, like, this is how we would forerenzically on earth a skeleton.

And this is how we would do it. Jesus Christ. I am so jealous that, like, that is eating me alive.

Every time I see any of the content creators, like the big podcasts who were doing it, I'm like, how? Oh. I need to, I need to do it. And so then I thought, ah, there's a crime con in London.

There's also one in Manchester. Maybe I could get us tickets to go to the London one. Because then we can go and speak to some of the podcasters.

We can find out how they do their marketing and get more than 165 people on Instagram. Thank you. And, you know, all I'm saying is the number of downloads we've got.

There's does not translate at all. Anyway, at least you're really chill about it. I'm really chill.

I'm so zen, but I was looking into it. Do you know how much the tickets are for crime con in London? No. 236 pounds.

Oh, my God. Now, if it's 2.30, I'd have paid it. But that's six quid takes the issue.

I mean, it really does. I think they class that as the admin fee, but, um, two days in London for like walking around an expo where you're then going to be charged 85 pounds for anything you even look at. Madness.

Madness. Although if anyone is going, or if anyone who is listening works for crime con. And maybe there's the someone that's pulled out from the podcasting thing.

And I could just have a table with just me going, hi, can't be my friend. You fucking mad. I'll do that.

You. Okay. I just can't.

I can't pull cut out of you. No, that's still in an exhibition hall. Are you okay? You fucking dizzy.

Come on, Han. No. What's worse than the idea of people seeing a photo of you online? I don't know.

Standing in an exhibition hall trying to sell my wares to people. I'm happy to do that though. I would totally just go and be like, yeah, you're right.

Come and buy some swag. No. Rachel, what if they look at me? We also did have a phone call earlier today.

I was one of the people that I work with who I'm happy. They also listened to the podcast. Hi.

You know who you are. And I'd mentioned that you were here and she did this funny little squeal. And they went, I'm perceiving you.

No. No. It was very funny.

Although one at a time I could probably deal with. So if we ever do a life show, we'll have to perform it. However, if any seats, the venue holds, we'd have to do that many nights.

I'm just at one person at a time. I'm going to tell you now, I don't feel like that's something that could work. But then we could say like, oh, we did a hundred and fifty-date tour.

I mean, we could do that to one person every night. Would you not? Could I not just get you? Like, if I put you behind a screen, like in witness protection or something? Maybe. Look at the thunder.

Get the Patreon launched. Oh, for fuck's sake. And then I can pay for some therapy to allow you to be perceived.

We don't have time. Fair, fair, fair. We do not have time.

You know, and as you want to take a break from the podcast and pick it back up in 2035, when I might have worked through 35% of my issues. Oh, dear. Dear, dear, dear.

Well, yeah. Even you walked in here this morning. You're like, oh, you look nice.

I was like, shut up. You did? You did look very nice. Shut up.

You did look very nice. I'm going to keep saying it until you are confident. No.

No. Oh, dear. Right.

Shall I move away from this perception? Yeah. I'm really hot. Shall I tell you a story? It feels sick like I'm samben.

It's sick like this. Totally, directly at it. Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear.

Oh, also one last thing before we get started. We had a really nice little message on Instagram this week from a lady who lives in Canada. Who was saying that 40 years ago she lived in South London.

Now she's in Canada, and she's stumbled across us and she's listening, so hi! Hi to Canada! Which is cool. That's lovely. Yes, and that leads me quite nicely into the start of my story, if you want me to kick off.

Why not? Shall I give it a go? Cool, so trigger warnings all over the place for this one. It is historical, but there are quite a lot of mentions of lots of different things. Domestic violence, coercive control, abortion and child loss, substance abuse, sexual assault and well death.

Because a romp then. That's a real romp, a real romp. Yeah, all the sources will be in the show notes as usual.

I think that's all the housekeeping I need to do. Yeah, cool, cool. Right, you ready? You're confident? Consider me trigger warned.

Perfect, right. On the 18th of April 1876, in a grand home on the edge of Tutingbeck Common, a desperate cry shattered the silence. Charles Bravo, a well-to-do barrister with ambitions far beyond his means, was in agony.

His body was failing him, racked with the slow and merciless effects of poisoning. Three days later, he was dead. The culprit, Antimony, a substance used to treat horses, and more darkly, a known poison.

The perpetrator. Well, it's another one of the most enduring mysteries of Victoria in England. Oh, for fuck's sake.

It's called The Murder at the Priory, which is what it kind of became known as in the press at the time. And it is one of the most notorious cases of the time. But then, as I say, with everything that's historical, they always say it's the most enduring.

Yeah, I'm serious. I'm going to tell you about Charles Bravo. So he was born Charles Delaney Turner in St. Pancras, London in 1845.

Great name. He's good in it, Delaney. Charles was a man of ambition, privileged, and calculated charm.

His father, Augustus Charles Turner, died when Charles was relatively young. And his mother, Mary, later remarried a man called Joseph Bravo, who was a wealthy merchant. And then Charles took his last name.

From an early age, Charles was groomed for success. But despite this, his career was not particularly exciting or prestigious. He attended Trinity College in Oxford, where he studied law.

But while this was kind of like giving him the right credentials, and he obviously had the intelligence to get into Oxford, as I say, like, there wasn't a lot of success that came off of his law career. I think he assumed he would be a much bigger deal than he actually was. After Oxford, Bravo pursued legal training at Middle Temple, which is one of London's four ins of court.

And he qualified as a barrister in 1870. But unlike a lot of the other people that he was training with, like, he didn't have any independent means. So he didn't have any inheritance that he could draw upon.

And he wasn't working because he was training. So his stepfather, Joseph, who was very wealthy, by all accounts, he had supported him financially. But he kind of put some very strict limitations on what he would have Charles.

Yeah, exactly. And he expected Charles to make his own way, rather than living off the family fortune, which, you know, fair enough. Yeah.

So yeah, as I say, Bravo, his career was fine. He took on cases, but he was not seen as a star barrister in any way. And he couldn't really, because of the financial situation, he couldn't really buy his way into the interesting cases, which a lot of lawyers at the time were doing.

So he had to kind of build sort of relationships with people. And then that obviously meant it was a slower burn. So when he thought he should have been more successful than he was, it was because like he was having to work almost twice as hard as some of the others.

Right. And yeah, so it was a bit of a rough career trajectory for him, despite the fact that he was obviously intelligent enough to become a barrister. Like outwardly, Charles presented himself as an honorable and respectable gentleman.

But it said that behind closed doors, he was very controlling, very entitled, and prone to very temperamental outbursts. Oh, dear men. I know, right.

One of the best kept secrets of Charles's past was that he had actually fathered an illegitimate child, a daughter named Katie, with a woman who we know very little about, because why would we? She, you know, had a baby outside of wetlock. But unlike many men of his class who might have provided for their illegitimate offspring discreetly, he made absolutely known efforts to acknowledge or support his child. And yeah, that was just kind of like one of the things that was kind of pointed out quite a lot in the documents was that like, yeah, he was not, he may have been a fine upstanding gentleman outwardly, but he definitely wasn't, who's a prick.

Yeah. It's giving very Edmunds, you delicate, yeah, vibes, yeah. So yeah, as I say, most of the people who knew Charles said that he was a Victorian gentleman, he was the perfect Victorian gentleman externally.

But he was also apparently very deeply influenced by his and I quote, a domineering mother, who could be cold, calculating and ruthless. And this apparently passed on to her son. He had a temper and he was very often seemed to be like people were a bit frightened of him if they were in his sort of internal life.

So like housekeepers, people like that were always saying that he was very, very close to anger. And that he was quite, yeah, he was a man to be feared, which is not great. So because he had these ambitions to be like, he was really, really ambitious.

And he wanted to be a much better barrister than he was. But he also knew that his legal career alone would not provide the status that he believed he was entitled to. So he had kind of two options, really.

It was marry into money or somehow off his stepfather and take will inherit all the money. Okay. And I think that the domineering mother position maybe meant that the latter was not the way to go.

So marrying into money, it is fine, which leads us into a lady called Florence. Florence Bravo, as she eventually becomes known, was born Florence Campbell on the 5th of September 1845 in Darlinghurst, Sydney, Australia. She was born into a family.

Now, if Charles Bravo's family were well off, Florence's family were bullrich. They were, they had like immense wealth. They had really high social standing, everyone who knew who they were.

And they were incredibly well respected. Okay. And Florence was the eldest daughter of Robert Terceus Campbell, another brilliant name.

Wow. And he was a successful land speculator and merchant and his wife Anne, who's previous name. I love it because I've got a knee and knee or which just sounds like just noise.

Oh, so I want to be a land speculator. I'm going to get into a land speculator, isn't it? Because I have in my head just looking at something being like, I think that's mud, basically. Yep, that's paving slab.

I'm a land speculator. You are, you are. So the Campbell family, although they were living in Australia, they had Scottish ancestry and Robert's business acumen had made him one of the, well, made them one of the wealthiest families in Australia.

And I'm doing a very brief land speculator side quest. So a land speculator is someone who buys land with the intention of selling it later at a higher price to make a profit. So that's much less fun than my version.

I know. I was also a bit like, isn't that just an everything spec, everyone speculates. Is that just a speculator accumulate? Do indeed.

Yeah. So instead of using the land that you own for farming or construction or for living on, this is someone who is essentially a developer. Yeah, just flip houses, kind of thing.

Yeah. So that is what Robert Campbell did. And that's how he accumulated all his wealth.

And in the 19th century, land speculation was a really common way for wealthy individuals to build their fortunes and to solidify their wealth. Okay. Which I suppose is exactly the same as it is today, really.

But this was particularly common in colonial territories, like Australia was at the time. Robert made his wealth by purchasing really large areas of land in Australia when it was only sort of like, it was the Victorian times where everyone was kind of going over there to, I was going to say colonize, it is colonize, there were people there already. It was they didn't discover Australia, there were that anyway.

But yeah, so they went and essentially purchased all this land off of the aboriginals, held on to it until the demand rose and then sold it on for stupid amounts of money. However, it could also be a risky investment, because if the land value didn't rise as expected, then they could lose a lot of money. Robert Campbell made his fortune initially, in order to have the money to speculate on the land.

He was essentially buying and selling gold and was involved in the Australian gold rush, which apparently was a thing. I didn't know. Yeah, I didn't know Australia had a gold rush.

Good for it. So when Florence was a child, the Campbells were part of the colonial elite, does I say living a life of comfort, prestige and influence. And her early years were shaped by this privilege and a strict social expectation.

So like many daughters of wealthy families, she was educated privately, she received lessons in elocution, which apparently I also need to trip up on. Elocution, French, German, music and needlework. And she also apparently developed a lifelong love of animals, particularly horses.

That will come into play later. So in 1852, when Florence was seven, the Campbells left Australia for England, and they were apparently, this was because they were seeking and I quote, a more sophisticated and socially prestigious life. So they took their eight children, a governess and three servants, and they settled first in London before acquiring a country estate in Berkshire called Busket Park.

And they did all of this in 1859. Busket Park was a grand 3500 acre estate that was meticulously restored by Robert Campbell at great expense. And it was here that Florence spent her teenage years growing up in an environment of wealth and refinement.

She attended balls, social gatherings, and was very well liked. However, she was also considered to be headstrong, independent and accustomed to getting her way. I like her.

I know. So despite her very privileged background, this kind of independent strong, strong-willed nature was accompanied apparently by an emotional fragility, as was described at the time. And this was most notably seen when it came to marriage and reputation as I think this was for all Victorian women.

Florence was first married to a man named Alexander Ricardo, who she'd met during a family trip to Canada in 1860. So while Florence was considered to be young, beautiful and lively, Alexander was said to be handsome, charming and aristocratic. Despite this, Florence's parents were initially concerned about the Union, but didn't stand in the way.

And they were married on the 21st of September 1864, so four years after meeting, when Florence was just 19 years old. And this was in a really lavish ceremony at Busket Park, which was attended by British High Society. And the Bishop of Oxford was among those who officiated the wedding.

And then this is a little bit from a Victorian newspaper at the time that said, the bride were a cascading white gown and was accompanied by nine bridesmaids. And apparently nine bridesmaids is considered a lot of bridesmaids. I had nine bridesmaids on my wedding.

Yeah, I did. Yeah, you did. Moving swiftly on.

Yeah. So the the match between Alex and Florence was seemed to be like, on the outside, everyone just assumed it was a perfect match. They were both very wealthy.

They were very connected. And they both, by all accounts seem to be quite in love. It was, it was one that kind of, it wasn't a rushed marriage.

It wasn't an arranged marriage. They'd been courting for four years, all seemed well on the surface, fine. But this is a true crime podcast.

So that's not going to last, is it? It's just about to say, here we go. Here we go. So I'm going to do a short Alexander side quest.

Now, lie me. I know we're going all over the place this week. Alexander Ricardo was the only son of John Lewis Ricardo.

I don't believe there's any connection. But he was John Lewis Ricardo was a wealthy businessman and former member member of Parliament for Stowe Contrent. There we go.

His mother was Lady Catherine Ricardo, knee duff. Again, more noises. Nada.

Who was from aristocratic Scottish lineage and his uncle was the fifth Earl of Fife. Say that 10 times faster. And then also, like just to show how connected he was, his great-grandfather, David Ricardo, was a famous economist whose theories influenced British financial policy.

Wow. So a very high caliber of person. Yeah.

Alexander had a privileged upbringing and a comfortable inheritance, but he lacked focus or ambition. He had served as a lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards, but this is a regiment that's mainly known for its prestige, rather than any real activity on battlefield. It's where they put, it's a bit like, I mean, I'm probably going to have people come for me about when I say this, but it's a bit like, you know, Prince William and Prince Harry.

Oh, they're in the army. Are they? Well, hang on. No.

I don't know. On the front line. Well, you know, because they're heirs to the fucking throne.

It's stupid to put your heirs in danger, wouldn't it? But they got in helicopters and stuff. They did get into family dangerous. I don't know why I'm being a royal autologist.

Don't care. But yeah, so he was, while he was in the army, he was kind of- any of his actual activities. So soon after Alexander and Florence were married, they ran into some serious problems.

The main one being that Alexander, this very charming, well-to-do gentleman, was also a lying, cheating alcoholic. He had a mistress in London that Florence discovered shortly after their wedding. She found out that this woman existed, and he was frequently seen with other women in hotels and gentlemen's clubs.

Some of them were said to be sex workers, others were said to be just women that he found and liked. He was apparently a very heavy drinker. He spiraled into binge drinking, and that led to violent outbursts.

He was very verbally abusive, and at times physically violent towards Florence. For fuck's sake, men! In 1869, five years after their wedding, Florence was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She wrote to her mother, begging for help, but her father refused to allow a separation, insisting that it would be, and I quote, morally offensive and socially ruinous.

Because those things are much more important than your daughter's happiness. Of course. However, Florence's health and sanity were deteriorating, like she was not coping with this situation, and she was eventually sent to the spa town of Mulvern in 1870 for treatment.

And it was here that she met a man who would change her life, and this is not Charles. Oh my God! This is a man named Dr. James Manby-Gully. Oh! Got some names in this.

Really has. So Dr. James Gully was a highly respected physician. He was one of the leading hydrotherapists in England, and he treated really high-profile people, such as Charles Darwin, Alfred Tennyson and Florence Nightingale.

Bloody hell! So a hydrotherapist, for those of you not in the know, which I was not, is a medical professional who uses water-based treatments to help patients with various health conditions. Hydrotherapy, also known as water therapy, involves using water at different temperatures, pressures and movements to treat pain, injuries and chronic illnesses. Okay.

In Victorian Britain, this was a particularly popular form of medical treatment among the upper classes as an alternative to traditional medicine, and they used to do things that sound to me absolutely awful. They used to do things like cold water immersion, where they'd be submerged in cold baths or streams to shock the system, and apparently that's meant to improve circulation. Oh, everyone's doing it on TikTok.

Oh, I just don't know, no, no, no. The idea of a cold bath, an ice bath, absolutely not. Absolutely not.

No. The idea doesn't turn me off, but I just, I don't have a strong enough character. No, I would literally, I think it would be like a toe, or be in it, and then I'll be done now.

I tried. I've got loads of circulation in that toe. Although when I wash my hair, I do, at the end of the washing process, do turn the shower to cooler to seal my hair follicles or whatever I meant to do.

Interesting. That links into this one because hot and cold showers where alternative temperatures were believed to stimulate the immune system. So ending, it may secure your hair follicles, and it may also help stimulate you in some way.

Okay. Wraps and compresses where patients were wrapped in wet sheets to reduce via that or inflammation. That sounds fucking disgusting.

I know being damp. Laying there. But like, I swear, like I've seen period dramas where they do actually put like wet towels on people.

It's just very odd. And then there were certain spars that promoted the healing properties of mineral rich water, which could be drunk to help heal digestive and nervous disorders. Have you been to Bath? Have you, I've been drunk there.

I've not drunk the bath bath water. It's, um, disgusting, in my opinion, but I met with someone who loved it. Interesting.

I've not actually ever been to the baths at Bath. I've just been in Bath. It was very interesting.

I stayed there when I did a couple of nights there, way back when we first started dating. And, um, it was really lovely city. Really nice.

Oh, Bath's amazing. But yeah, we just didn't, we just didn't get around to go and see the bath doing the baths. Yeah.

So although modern hydrotherapy is now more commonly used in physiotherapy and rehabilitation, e.g. warm water pools for arthritis patients. Victorian hydrotherapists, like Dr. Gully, claimed that their treatments could cure everything from nervous breakdowns to tuberculosis. Bloody Oh, I know.

Very good. So Dr. Gully, who was 37 years older than Florence and already married, Oh, no, fell deeply in love with her. And the feeling was 100% mutual.

What? No. Mm hmm. She's at the verge of a nervous fucking breakdown.

Yeah. She's been sent there. No, I'm not having it.

She was a vulnerable person. Yes. But her and her man has preyed on.

Oh, it's, oh, it's, yeah, the feelings mutual that by all accounts, genuinely, by all accounts, it was very much a mutual. I know what's best for Florence. Okay.

I mean, as we go through, I think she could have done with the Hannah. Yeah. So we'll say Dr. Gully was said to be kind, intelligent, and supportive, offering Florence the care and attention she had never received from Alexander.

And under his guidance and treatment, she regained her health and confidence. By March of 1871, Florence did actually separate from her husband, which was rare and scandalous for a Victorian woman. And this was all thanks to Gully's encouragement.

Shortly after they separated, Alexander Riccardo was found dead at a hotel in Cologne, Germany, having drunk himself to death. Oh, God. Florence, now a widow at 26, inherited 40,000 pounds, which would be the equivalent to just under four million.

Nice. Today. Oh, and fly.

Exactly. Which meant that she was now incredibly independently wealthy. Yes.

Her affair with Dr. Gully intensified after her husband's death, but it also became the talk of Victorian society. Because in 1872, Florence and Dr. Gully were caught in a, and I quote, compromising position at the home of her solicitor. Why would you go to the hospital today? Genuinely.

I've no idea what the hell that's about. Come on, man. I'll put kind to the solicitor's office.

I've never rolled about. The solicitor's just sat there like a solicitor, client confidentiality, this is fine. I mean, okay.

Yeah. So. To process.

Oh, dear. Florence's parents were horrified by the affair, but also by the fact that it had become public knowledge. Yeah.

And the scandal was social suicide for both parties. So this was not just against Florence. Dr. Gully was forced to retire due to the backlash.

I mean, he is like 106 by this point, isn't he? So I think he was in his late 50s. And then it got even worse. Florence became pregnant with Gully's child and fearing further public disgrace, she underwent an abortion, Oh, no.

Which in Victorian times, yeah, I wasn't saying, Oh, no, yeah, because I'm anti-abortion. No, no, no. And this isn't going to be healthy or good for you.

No, no, no, no, no. Not only did she undergo a Victorian abortion, this was allegedly performed by Dr. Gully himself. And as we could have all predicted, the procedure went badly.

And Florence was incredibly ill. And it was later that Florence stated that her companion and housekeeper Jane Cox was the woman who actually saved her life and looked after her during this time. So Florence, who was Jane Cox Florence met Jane earlier in the 1870s through mutual connections.

And Jane, who had been widowed in 1869, had been living in Jamaica with her family, but returned to England where she worked as a governess in the first down area of the stratum. Okay, Jane was older, cautious, and highly intelligent, while Florence was described as impulsive and emotionally fragile. And following the abortion, Florence realized that she had no future with Dr. Gully.

And she ended the affair in 1873. But the scandal left a permanent stain on her reputation. Florence moved to South London shortly after the abortion.

And she rented the Priory, which was a grand house near Tutingbeck Common. Determined to start anew, she hired Jane to come and work with her as her housekeeper and companion after all of the care that she had taken of her when she was ill. Jane became Florence's most trusted, confident she protected her from scandal, helped her manage the household.

And the two women became very close with some speculating a quasi maternal connection because Florence had essentially been dropped by her parents because of the scandal. Okay, we like Jane. We like Jane.

Jane looked after Florence as if she were one of her own. However, in 1875, Jane introduced Florence to Charles Bravo. Oh, Jane.

Now she did this because she believed that a respectable marriage would help Florence to rebuild her reputation. And she had connections to Charles' stepfather, Joseph, and she thought that Charles would be quite a suitable match. He was a barrister.

He came from a well-to-do family. And Florence is exactly what he's looking for. Exactly.

So this moves us into the marriage of Charles and Florence. I need to find another word that I start every paragraph of. Florence was in dire need of a fresh start.

She had spent the last two years in social exile. Her past affair with Dr. Gully was still whispered about in circles and despite her completely severing ties with him, and there's no evidence that after she called off the affair that they ever spoke again. Okay.

But because it didn't happen, because it happened, everyone still spoke about it. So she decided that a connection to a respected man with a good background would help her regain her reputation. And Florence wasn't the only one who saw this union as a get out of jail free card.

Charles was not a wealthy man, as we've said, and he had to rely on support from his stepfather, who was very frugal as far as Charles was concerned. And so he thought that marrying Florence was his best chance at financial stability. He wasted absolutely no time.

He pursued Florence aggressively, was said to be incredibly charming. He was very good looking by all accounts. And as we said earlier, he had a very outwardly genteal manner.

He presented himself as honorable, upright and devoted, which was the very opposite to the reckless, scandalous men of Florence's past. And Florence genuinely thought that Charles was bravo made his intentions clear from the outset. And he basically said that he wanted it to happen soon.

Yeah. So in late 1875, he had proposed and Florence accepted despite only having known him for a few months. Their engagement was rushed.

And by the 7th of December, 1875, they were married in all Saints Church in Kensington. Wow. But even before their wedding, warning signs had appeared.

Florence had been very open about her past. She admitted her affair with Gully to bravo. And at first, he had seemed to be very understanding, quite magnanimous, saying that it had been like a noble act for her to confess it to him.

Right. But his true feelings were made brutally clear when he discovered that Florence had absolutely zero intention of handing over control of their fortune to him for God's sake. So they get married.

Charles goes to live with Florence at the Priory. As soon as that happened, he tried to take control of the finances. And Florence made it incredibly clear that this was not happening exactly.

And she also had backup from the government because the Married Women's Property Act of 1870 had come into force, which had granted Florence. For the first time, women now had the right to retain control of their own wealth, even if they were married. And so because she didn't have to anymore, she had absolutely zero intention of surrendering any of this to her husband.

Now, this 100% infuriated Charles, who had only expected to have total authority over their finances as was typical for the time. But Florence, basically, because she'd had such a bloody awful experience. She's learned exactly.

She was like, absolutely, you know, I'm going to be the master of my own destiny from now on. Thank you. Charles demanded access to her money, arguing that as her husband, he should be in charge.

He wanted to dictate the household expenses. He wanted to fire servants that he deemed to be necessary. And he wanted to make the investment decisions.

But because she stood firm, they ended up living a marriage where it was just constant tensions erupted into arguments. And but there's words that, although Florence was standing her ground because of her experiences, she was quite a vulnerable woman. Yeah, yeah.

And I mean, she's been through a lot and she's only, what, 26, 27. Yeah, exactly. She's not even 30 yet.

And his relentless pressure began to take quite an emotional toll on her again. Bravo's obsession with Florence's past soon turns their marriage into a battlefield of suspicion. He was obsessed with her former affair with Gully.

He constantly questioned her loyalty. He accused her of secretly longing for Gully despite the fact that as I say, she called off the affair that said, no, right? And she never spoke to him again by all accounts. But he was 100% certain that she was seeing him again and his paranoia escalated to the point where he would monitor her movements and social interactions.

God, I mean, you could fast forward this and this could be a case that's happening now. It is, it does not change. It doesn't matter that this was over a hundred years ago.

Man, man, man. But one of Bravo's biggest grievances was Florence's drinking. So Florence had developed a habit of drinking wine and spirits.

And it was gone, Florence. It was deemed because this was a, it was a coping mechanism. Yeah.

Yeah. Hey, we've been there. Don't have to tell me.

I know. But Bravo used this against her. He frequently belittled and scolded her for drinking too much.

And she, and he did this purposefully in front of people. So again, fast forward 100 years. Specifically in front of servants and guests, where he knew that it would be embarrassing.

Yeah. And determined to assert his dominance, he began dismissing servants that he saw as disloyal to him, replacing them with those who would only answer to him. He viewed Jane Cox in particular as a threat given her deep loyalty to Florence.

And he attempted to strip Florence of her independence. He essentially wanted her vulnerable, dependent and obedient. Yeah.

Within weeks of their marriage, Florence suffered a first miscarriage, which is believed was Bravo's child. Just months later, she had a second. Many historians believe that these miscarriages were a result of stress, malnutrition, and potential physical abuse at the hands of her from rape.

Charles, they believe that this happened because Charles wanted to produce an air quickly so that there would be a permanence. I'm going to say, yeah, she can't leave him. She can't leave him.

No cash. Exactly. Others have also suggested that this was just another way of controlling her.

Yeah. And that Charles wasn't actually that fast about an air. But he was attempting to make her completely dependent on him.

And he was initiating the miscarriages by slowly poisoning her with antimony. So the symptoms of chronic antimony, which are weakness nausea and miscarriage, aligned with Florence's rapidly declining health in early 1876. And by April of 1876, just four months into their marriage, Florence was isolated unwell and trapped in a marriage that was quickly becoming a waking nightmare.

The once charming Charles had revealed himself to be a controlling insecure and violent man. Florence was now weaker than ever and left to endure his possessiveness, his cruelty, and his escalating attempts to break her spirit. And then on the night of the 18th of April, 1876, everything changed.

On the evening of 18th of April, the priory Florence and Charles Bravo's grand home near Tooting Beck Common, if I haven't said that three times already, followed its very usual routine. Dinner was served in the household's formal dining room. And this was attended by Charles Florence and their housekeeper Jane.

They ate bloater on toast, which is a sounds delightful. I know, apparently, it is a type of smoked herring dish, which was popular at the time, and lamb with spinach and eggs. I'll say I like that.

There you go. Bravo drank three glasses of burgundy, a habit not unusual for Victorian gentlemen, while Florence and Jane drank champagne and masala wine. Nice.

Apparently, this was a habit of Florence's which Charles resented and continuously criticized because he's allowed three glasses of wine, but she is not God forbid. While conversation at dinner was not recorded, household tensions had been building for months, and Bravo had taken over the running of the house. He had gotten rid of a lot of the staff.

He'd not quite managed it with Jane yet, but he had got rid of a lot of the others who were loyal to Florence. And yeah, he was still kind of monitoring movements and everything else. And his jealousy just kept being a frequent source of conflict.

But by all accounts, the evening itself, whilst there were some spats apparently at dinner, it ended with no dramatic confrontations. There were no shouting matches, and the household retired to bed as usual. As the household settled into silence, Charles went into his bedroom, and there's a quite a useful looking blueprint of the house that I'll put on Instagram.

So you can see that their rooms are right next to each other, but they are very separate rooms. Charles went into his bedroom, seemingly in good health, but at some point in the night between midnight and 2am, he awoke in severe distress. He had become violently nauseous, vomiting repeatedly.

His body was racked with pain. He was said to be gasping for breath. He staggered from his bed, rushed to an open window and began retching violently.

He called out desperately Florence, Florence, hot water, hot water. His cries aroused the household, and it was actually Jane Cox, okay, who was the first to come to his aid, and Mary Ann Keiber, who was a maid, was sent to wake Florence, who had not immediately responded. And there's lots of kind of like, well, why didn't she immediately respond? The woman's been drinking and asleep, like you don't any in a different room.

When Florence entered Charles's room, she found him writhing in agony. His skin was clammy, and his breathing was incredibly laboured. A servant was dispatched to fetch Dr George Harrison, who was the family's physician, but he was not immediately available.

She's busy in the Beatles. He is, yeah. In the meantime, Jane attempted to administer some home remedies, including administering mustard and hot water, which was in an effort to induce vomiting, although it was kind of like, he was already vomiting.

So if he wasn't- But there more to get the point in that kind of thing. Yeah, that sort of thing. Now, despite his distress, Charles was actually very conscious and compassionate.

Seleucid. Yes. But despite all this, he never actually explained what he thought had happened.

He didn't accuse anyone. There was nothing that he said that roused any suspicions. He didn't accuse anyone of poisoning him.

He didn't say if he had taken something himself. He just continued to suffer. Okay.

By the morning of the 19th of April, multiple doctors had arrived, including Dr Roy's Bell, who was Bravo's cousin and a surgeon at King's College Hospital, and Sir William Gull, who was a well-known physician, and he was also the personal doctor to Queen Victoria herself. But despite this, Bravo's suffering continued for three days. Now, these mounds are dick, but- But that's harsh.

It's not fun. He experienced severe dehydration, violent convulsions, and excruciating pain as the poison attacked his organs. By the 21st of April, 1876, Charles Bravo succumbed to the illness and was pronounced dead at the age of 31.

Great day. It's a very good day in late years. It's my birthday.

We did something about your birthday last week as well as coming up. It's big deal. It is very big deal.

It's in the public consciousness. So what killed Charles Bravo? As Charles- Jane Cox. Yeah.

As Charles lay dying, some of London's most eminent doctors were summoned to the priory, as we've just said. Within hours of examining him, it became clear that Bravo had been poisoned with antimony, which is a slow-acting yet excruciatingly painful toxin. And if you believe some of the historians that we spoke about earlier, it's the same toxin that they think essentially caused Florence's miscarriages, right? But how had he ingested it? There were no obvious signs of suicide.

There was no letter. There was no confession, no clear evidence of murder. So the medical investigation into his death became sort of like a proper- this is where the battle kind of played out.

And it was a battle of professional opinion. Each doctor seemed to have a different idea of what had happened to Charles. So William Gull, as I said, he was one of the most famous and but also very divisive medical figures at the time.

He was a physician in ordinary to Queen Victoria, and this title apparently means that he was considered one of the most elite medical minds in England. He was brilliant, but apparently very controversial. He was known for unyielding opinions, which often clashed with his fellow physicians.

He had previously treated the Prince of Wales for typhoid, which is what secured his royal reputation, but he was also seen to have sometimes incredibly radical opinions on medicine and diagnosis. So I, in my head, I see him as a bit of a Victorian house. Yeah.

So that is that type. Fine. When Gull examined Bravo, he put forward a theory that many were surprised by.

He said that Bravo had poisoned himself. He said that Antimony was sometimes used in small doses as a purgative and a treatment for digestive issues. Right.

And Gull believed that Bravo had mistakenly ingested too much, thinking he was taking a common emetic, which is a substance to induce vomiting. So in other words, it was an accident. We'd unwittingly done it.

Yeah. That's what this this doctor looks like. Other people because Bravo had no history of taking Antimony for this particular purpose.

There were no surviving records that showed he purchased it. And he was a man in the prime of his life. Why would he have needed to be purging himself was the question.

So the idea that he had poisoned himself, either deliberately or by mistake, was dismissed by many, one of them being Dr. George Johnson, who challenged Gull's theory directly. And he was another highly regarded physician and he was later knighted in 1892. Unlike Gull, Johnson was not convinced that Bravo had done it to himself.

He conducted his own examinations and said that it was a case of deliberate poisoning by another person, which to me would seem more likely. Yeah. He said that the amount of Antimony found in Bravo's system was excessive and would have been far more than an accidental overdose.

His symptoms were consistent with chronic poisoning, suggesting that he may have been receiving small doses over time and that the poison had to have been administered in food, drink or medicine, meaning that somebody else likely put it there. I've mentioned this Antimony a fair bit now. Yeah.

So I thought I would just tell you what it is. Okay. It's a highly toxic metal compound that's commonly found in Tata Ametic, which is a substance used in horse care and was also found in some Victorian medical treatments.

In the 19th century, it was used in small doses to induce vomiting and to cleanse the digestive system. It was a common ingredient in veterinary medicine, particularly for deworming horses. And it was also fatal in large overdoses.

It caused severe internal damage. And Charles exhibited classic symptoms of severe antimony poisoning, including uncontrollable vomiting and nausea that the poison had irritated his stomach lining so much that he was retching and essentially retching up his stomach. He had severe dehydration and muscle spasms.

He was unable to retain any of the fluids that he was given. He had crippling cramps and weakness. He had intestinal failure.

The poison had burned through his digestive track. And this is not a fast acting poison. So if you think of something like cyanide, like that is kind of it's over and done with.

Yeah. Antimony does not do that. It lingers in your system.

It causes this prolonged suffering and then eventually you die of organ failure. So because of this and because of the and this is part of the reason why Dr. Johnson assumed that it had been chronic and it had been taking place over a long time because of the damage to his organs. They said that there was just absolutely no way that it could have been a sudden act.

It was it was calculated. The death of Charles Bravo may have might have remained a private tragedy whispered about in elite London circles if not for the media frenzy that followed. The case had all the ingredients of a Victorian scandal, a wealthy widow with the troubled past, a mysterious and agonizing death and a household full of secrets.

In 1876, the Victorian press was obsessed with scandal and sensation and the Bravo case provided both in abundance. Newspapers like The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Illustrated Police News eagerly covered every aspect of the case. Reports painted Florence as a morally dubious woman, reviving old gossip about her affair with Dr. Gully and the potential of Antimony being used was widely discussed.

The public was riveted, eager for updates, rumors and dramatic court testimonies which transformed the death into a full-blown national obsession. There were a couple of inquests into the case. The first one was in April of 1876, just days after brother's death, and this was meant to quickly establish the cause of death and determine if a crime had been committed.

However, it left more questions than answers and was immediately criticised for being incredibly inadequate. There we go. The inquest was held at the priority itself rather than in a neutral courtroom and this was seen as unusual and it kind of gave the impression that proceedings were being controlled by the household.

Yeah. And although testimonies were heard from Florence, Jane Cox and a number of other servants, there was little effort made to probe deeper into any of the inconsistencies or motives and there was no cross-examination of any key witnesses. While doctors confirmed that Charles had been poisoned with Antimony, there was no inquiry into how the poison got into his system, who had access to it and given her status as a widow of high social standing, albeit one that was considered quite scandalous, Florence was treated incredibly gently, she wasn't fully interrogated, she was seen very much as the grieving widow and this led to public outrage because of course it did.

Yeah. The jury returned an open verdict at this inquest, ruling that Charles had died from poison but without determining how will buy whom. Yeah.

Almost immediately the verdict was announced and outrage erupted. The daily telegraph openly criticised the inquest calling it unsatisfactory and incomplete. People questioned why no suspect and there were a number doing the rounds had been named.

After all, a man had died in agony for three days and yet the inquest offered no explanation as to why or how. The verdict of open death was widely mocked. The press and public demanded a stronger ruling either a suicide accident or murder.

Right. Pressure mounted on the authorities to reopen the investigation which led to a second inquest in July of 1876 and this one was far more detailed public and damning. The second inquest became a national scandal and it exposed our favourite things.

The deep social prejudices the Victorian society had specifically around gender double standards and questionable medical practices. There we go. Unlike the first inquest which as I say was held very discreetly at the priori.

The second inquest took place at the Bedford Hotel in Ballom which was a larger and much more public venue which meant that people could actually go and watch the proceedings. Right. They were highly sensationalised.

They drew huge crowds and intense press coverage and people gathered outside the hotel every day eager for the latest developments. This wasn't a murder trial. No one had been arrested but the atmosphere was very similar to a criminal prosecution with one figure at the centre of it all.

Well there we go. If the first inquest had been inconclusive the second inquest turned into a character assassination of Florence Bravo. The jury was all male and Florence who had been treated with kindness as we say.

When the first inquest this time was interrogated for three days. Wow. She faced brutal, deeply personal questions mainly around her past affair which was dragged into the spotlight again despite it having ended long before childhood death.

Much of the questioning had little to do with Bravo's poisoning and instead focused on Florence's morality, drinking habits and sexual history. At one point Florence refused to answer further questions about Dr Gully, tearfully appealing to the jury. She said, that attachment to Dr Gully has nothing to do with this case, the death of Mr Bravo.

I have been subjected to sufficient pain and humiliation already and I appeal to the coroner and the jury as men and Britons to protect me. The audience reportedly reacted sympathetically but the coroner allowed the relentless questioning to continue. Florence once a wealthy and respected widow left the courtroom, a broken woman publicly disgraced.

Jane Cox, the Bravo's housekeeper and Florence's closest confidant, was also called to the stand as a crucial witness because she had been like the first person to reach Bravo on the night and she had administered mustard and hot water to induce him to vomit more. She initially told doctors that Bravo had admitted to taking poison himself but later changed her testimony saying she was unsure of what he had meant. That's as far as you got.

During the inquest, Jane's loyalty to Florence was scrutinised. Some thought that she had far too much influence over her mistress and may have acted independently to protect her. Her testimony was inconsistent which led some jurors to suspect that she knew more than she'd been letting on.

Also interrogated was Mary Ann Keiber, who was the young housemaid at the priory. So while Jane was the first person to administer help to Charles, it was actually Mary Ann who was the first person to see him staggering about in pain and she was sent to Wake Florence to get help. So it was like she saw him, Jane was there, Jane sent her to get help.

Her testimony contradicted that of Jane Cox's in a number of places, particularly about the exact moment that Charles called out for water. She cast doubt on Cox's version of events, raising questions about why Florence had been so slow to react on the night, despite it being suggested that Florence had been drinking heavily during the evening. Frederick Rowe, who was Charles' personal butler, was also questioned, particularly about Bravo's drinking habits and what happened at dinner that night.

He confirmed that Charles had consumed three glasses of burgundy, however, when asked about the remaining wine, Rowe couldn't account for it. Some speculated that Charles had been poisoned via his wine but there's no definitive proof that was found. Jane's too clever for that.

Exactly. The second inquest also featured a battle between those attending doctors who we spoke about before, neither could provide concrete evidence for their assumptions and conclusions. And then members of Charles' family, including his stepfather Joseph, attended the inquest and they were pushing for a verdict of murder.

However, they, again, they had no direct evidence either, they couldn't offer the hearing anything new, but Joseph Bravo was said to be incredibly angry that Florence hadn't been charged, believing that she was hiding something. But beyond the accusations, the family couldn't present any concrete proof of foul play either. Yeah.

One of the most surprising emissions, I say this, I think it was surprising to the court, I don't think it's surprising to normal people. Okay. From the inquest was Dr. James Mambigali.

So they assumed that given his past relationship with Florence and his expertise in medicine, that he would be questioned, but he wasn't because he had nothing to do with it. By the end of the inquest, the jury ruled Charles Bravo's death as willful murder, but they did not name a suspect. Now we get into some of the theories.

Charles Bravo had no known enemies outside the priory. He was charismatic. He was charming.

Yeah, it was all behind closed doors. Exactly. However, there are four compelling theories which are regularly cited, despite lack of conclusive evidence for any of them.

I know what mine is. I know. Each suspect had a motive, opportunity and access to poison, but each suspect had it's like they also had a lot of things that didn't really capture them.

So we start with the obvious one, Florence Bravo, the abused wife who struck back. Florence's marriage to Charles had turned into a nightmare, as we've already discussed. On top of the emotional and financial control, as we said, some have speculated that Charles had forced himself upon her, treating her as less of a wife and more as an asset.

And let's not forget that some historians have suggested that Charles may have been secretly poisoning Florence to keep her weak and independent. So if Florence had discovered that, might she have turned the tables, I think, likely? As Charles's wife, Florence had unlimited access to his food and drink. If she wanted to poison him, she could have easily done so.

However, if Florence had poisoned Bravo, why did he never accuse her? Yeah. He was conscious for three days before he died. He was fully aware of what had happened to him.

And some, like, so it's almost like if he thought it was her, he would have said something. That's the sort of... But also, person he was, if it was her as head of the household and all of that, like, why would you let it get out? Well, exactly. Why would you call for doctors? Exactly.

It seems very bizarre, I suppose, because there's staff that she didn't have influence over now. Yeah, potentially. Theory number two, Jane Cox.

Yeah, she's mine. The protective housekeeper who took matters into her own hands. So Jane Cox, as we said, had been by Florence's side through the worst years of her life, including her affair with Dr. Gully, a scandalous social exile and her illness after a difficult abortion procedure.

Jane's loyalty to Florence was unquestionable, but Charles saw her as a real threat. A, as we said earlier, had threatened to dismiss her, not only cutting her off from financial stability because she would lose her job, but also from a woman who Jane had, well, had come to love as a daughter. If Bravo was poisoning Florence, Jane would have noticed the signs, and many believe that she may have acted preemptively to stop him from doing the same to Florence.

As housekeeper, she had complete control over the household, including access to Charles's food, drink and medicine. If she had wanted to introduce Antimony into his system, she would have easily had the opportunity. Her testimony changed multiple times during the inquest, but she was never formally accused or charged.

Also, there would have been guilt there because she introduced them. Yeah, it was Jane. I have to agree with you.

Theory number three, Dr. James Manby Gully, the scorned lover seeking revenge. So why would he kill him? Well, Dr. Gully's affair with Florence had destroyed his reputation, forcing him to withdraw from public life into grace. He was said to have sacrificed everything for Florence, only for her to end their relationship and to go on to Mary Bravo.

Some speculate that Gully was still humiliated and angry and that he could have decided to eliminate Charles in retaliation. What to either like, Oh, break her heart or to then frame her for something. Yeah.

It's also very well known that Charles had hated Gully, viewing him as a stain on Florence's past. No one likes her other half's exes. Exactly.

I'm regularly brought him up with his wife as a way to belittle and humiliate her. So the other flip side of this is, one, could he have done it to frame her and make her upset? Two, could it have gotten back to Gully that Charles was treating Florence in this way? Because it's been speculated that Gully never really got over Florence. Right.

And so would he have killed him to get back? Would he have killed him because of his love for her? Yeah, and because of his treatment of Florence, like he deserved to die because of it. As a doctor, Gully had knowledge of potions, potions, potions, potions and spells. He had a cauldron.

Well, he does work with hydrotherapy. So he had a knowledge of poisons and the ability to obtain Antimony very easily. But he had absolutely no access to the primary.

There is no evidence. And it would have been fucking huge news if he had. Yeah.

Yeah. He had. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that Gully had any contact with Florence after her marriage or after they split up.

How would he have poisoned Bravo if he wasn't there? And unlike Florence and Jane, Dr. Gully had nothing to gain from Charles's death. Like if anything, all that happened with the death of Charles Bravo was that Florence got pulled into the limelight again, which means that the whole affair will come back out. Exactly.

And that's not going to do anyone any favours. No, exactly. It's definitely not Gully.

So he was never formally investigated or questioned, but it just seems that he was kind of tried in the court of public opinion and was the centre of Victorian gossip. And then the final one is a bit out of left field. George Griffiths.

He is a dismissed coachman with an eerie prediction of all the theories. This is perhaps one that seems, it's just a bit like weird, weird. So George Griffiths is a former coachman at the priory who was dismissed by Charles shortly before Florence and Charles's wedding.

He had been working for Florence and he was then fired on Charles's orders, which meant he was out of a job. But because he was a coachman, he had access to Antimony, which was used to treat horses. So on the day of Florence's and Charles's wedding, Griffiths was apparently overheard stating he won't live four months and Charles died four months later.

While it's spooky, there is zero evidence that Griffiths, who by this point had moved away and was living in Herne Bay, had any contact with anyone in the household before Charles's death and after his dismissal. I think we can just put it down to coincidence if it even happened to if it was overheard, it could have been he won't live for months. They'll be inundated with things to do.

Like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's just like, oh, look, he liked a horse. He must have been him.

No, this leads us on to my last bit, which is where are they now? Well, spoiler the war, don't you? What? And she heard they are all dead. That's where they are now. Apart from Jane, who's eternal.

But what I obviously mean is where what happened to the key players in the story after the second inquest ruled Willful murder. So Florence's story didn't get any happier. I'm afraid for a flow.

While the second inquest did not find her guilty of any action against her husband, society, 100%. She was socially condemned, abandoned by friends and no longer welcome in respectable circles. She fled south London for South Sea, a quiet seaside town where she lived under an assumed name, trying to escape the stigma that followed her.

She turned to alcohol again. And by September 1878, just two years after Charles's death, she was found deceased from alcohol poisoning at the age of 33. Babe, a funeral.

It's just Rob Salt in the wound. She was buried in St Mary's church in Busco near her family home at midnight, which was highly unusual practice, possibly done to avoid public attention. That's sad.

I feel sorry for Florence. I mean, look, we're going to get ourselves in a thing here where sometimes when we talk about the cases, like even last week with Osborne Brooks, you know, no one deserves to die. If you're doing a bad thing, like, so I'm not sitting here and being like, wait, I'm glad Charles is dead or whatever, like, no, he shouldn't have been poisoned or accidentally taken poison.

He should be dead. Yeah. Just because I'm a prick doesn't mean that that's okay.

But just she's like, she's not to victim in this. Like, everything's just fucking blown up in her face. In that case, she might have made some questionable choices.

Yeah. But just cash can't catch a break. She really can't.

She cuts a really sad figure, bless her. After enduring public scrutiny and having her testimony questioned, Jane Cox vanished from public life. It is unclear what happened to her after the inquest.

Some speculate that she left England, potentially returning to Jamaica, while others believe she retreated into quiet and anonymity. Regardless, Jane, who was once Florence's closest confidant friend and surrogate mother figure was never heard from again by Florence. But did she? Did she rescue her? Yeah, I reckon Florence got more money than she can do anything with.

Yeah. Florence the pader. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Thanks for bumping him off love. Go and have a nice life. Love you.

Enjoy. Yeah. Dr. James Mambi Gully, once a respected physician, never recovered from the scandal of his affair with Florence.

So I think it's fair to assume he had nothing to do with Bravo's death. His affair was dragged back into the spotlight, which ruined any chance of professional redemption. The medical world turned its back on him, and he lived the rest of his years in disgrace.

By the time of his death in 1883, he was a forgotten figure, his brilliant career destroyed by Victorian moral outrage. Moral of the story, maybe don't get busy with the mistress at her solicitor's house. There you go.

Through no time moved on the mystery of Charles Bravo's murder has never faded. It's become a fascinating study of Victorian justice, misogyny, and societies obsession with morality over truth, and has inspired writers, historians, and crime enthusiasts for over 100 years. There are loads of references to this in dating back to sort of like 1956.

More recently, James Roddick's death at the Priory, Love, Sex, and Murder in Victoria, England, looked at the theory around Florence Bravo, but explained that Florence's abusive marriage and deep-seated gender biases of the time were the reason for it, and he, like us, says that he thinks it was Jane. Beyond true crime accounts, the Bravo case has also influenced fictional storytelling, so Agatha Christie, as I mentioned, she's repeatedly referencing it in her works, so in ordeal by innocence and elephants can remember, she explores themes of wrongful accusation, buried family secrets, and the lasting saying of suspicion, which draw clear parallels to Florence Bravo's ordeal, and Poirot himself, Poirot, Poirot, acknowledges the Bravo case in the novel The Clocks, noting that he had his own theory about who the true killer was in that case, but true to Christie's, she didn't actually say who Poirot thought it was. And then outside of crime fiction, echoes of the Priory murder can be seen in works like Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which is a brilliant book if anyone hasn't read it, and although this isn't directly based on the case, it explores a claustrophobic household overshadowed by a poisoning deep-seated resentment and the isolating power of scandal.

There we go. So yeah, over time, new theories have shifted the focus away from these simplistic notions of guilt and innocence, and they've looked at the psychological motives of the household. There's been recent true crime podcasts, I'd be remiss not to mention them, and historical deep dives that have looked at it, so one of the podcasts is called Macabre London, and it looks at the case from a psychological angle, pulling apart all the possible motives was Florence a Woman at Breaking Point, all of that sort of stuff, or did Bravo himself somehow bring about his own death, and then Dark History is which you've mentioned before, not the one with Bailey Sarian, we covered that one, digs into the failures of Victorian medicine and law, and asks whether the doctors misread the signs and whether forensic at the time were good enough to catch a poisoner.

And then there's BBC, BBC Sounds Lady Killers, with Lucy Worsley, which tackles the case from a gender perspective, questioning whether Florence Bravo was ever really judged on the facts, or if the scandal of her past were enough to condemn her in the court of public opinion, would a man in her position have faced the same level of scrutiny? So theories continue to evolve, but the truth remains elusive, but was this a crime of passion, an act of calculated revenge, or an accident misunderstood by history, the only certainty is that someone in the priory knew the answer, and they took their secrets to the grave. There you go, that's Charles Bravo! Boom! Well done babe, that was expertly told. Thanks, you know I love a bit of a historical report.

Yeah, no I liked her. It was Jane, but she said it was Jane, she said it was 100%. Yeah, I love the fact that it's like, oh yeah, he's slowly killing himself.

Why? Why? Why? That doesn't make any sense. He wants money, he's killing her to get her money, because then she dies, it all transfers to home. Yeah, he's poisoning her, Jane finds out about it, not on her, not on my watch, right? Off you go.

Bye. Yeah, hoisted by your own, exactly. But then I suppose the question is, like if he was dying and he knew that, and he kind of caught on that Jane obviously knew, because he knows his antimony, if he's been poisoning, why wouldn't he have said anything? And here's the question that it's like, well I don't want to, I don't know, is there still this kind of like potential, well if I live through this, I don't want people realizing I was poisoning my wife.

It's interesting. But the pryry as well, I don't know if I mentioned it, it's on two-team bit common. What? Yeah, it's just on the edge.

It still stands, it's a very grand house, it's very like, it properly does look a little bit like a castle. It's quite cool, so I'll put a picture of that up as well. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, so that's the story of Charles Bravo.

I loved it. Thanks babe, very welcome, very welcome. So suppose all that's left is all the nice bits.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, still that. Yeah. Yeah.

We have everything. Yeah. We have the Instagram.

We do. So this is our pod. We have the email address.

So this is our pod at gmod.com. It could be podcast. Try both, one of them will work. We have TikTok at So this is our pod.

We have a Facebook group that we're not, we're not owners of, but we do like to lurk, lurking occasionally, which is Trevor's unite, yeah, yeah, yeah. Start by the lovely new, hello, hello. We have a website.

I've already done that one. So this is our podcast. There we go.

There we go. We have bank account details. We do.

We also have a Patreon that is still not live, William. I just can't even feel like the Trevor's haven't done enough of the ticketing yet. No, because I haven't told them to yet.

Oh, true. To be fair, he's got to the first of April. Okay.

You're burning through time, mate. I'm looking at her. She means business.

But yeah, there'll be, there'll be a Patreon. And if anyone is going to a crime con in June of 2025, as they say, in all of the adverts that I hear from it, there was that in 2025 in 2025, 2025, if anyone is going, or if anyone knows the organizer and can get us a free slot, let me know. It's mainly just because I want to go and see who I can fangal over.

That's the other thing I didn't mention. I could fangar. I got so excited.

We got one of our posts on Instagram. Oh, my God. Yeah.

Got liked by the Generation Y podcast, which is insane, because I love them. And they were one of the podcasts that got me into true crime. That and obviously cereal, because that's what everyone, every millennial got into it with.

It was that followed by Generation Y, and then ocular. And like, I'm just so the day that Curio Rachel tag us is something stop is going to be the day that I would die. We've had murder my star ratio, absolute phenomenal.

And the reasons we started this, then we've had now we've had Generation Y, who am I? You're so animated. I'm so excited by it. Do you know how big Generation Y are? And they've found us.

They don't even follow us. They just like the post. How did they find the post? Instagram serving some shiz.

I don't know. I have no idea. But yeah, like, we don't follow them either.

So it's very bizarre. Wow, wow, wow. This is one small step.

Roll me over in my solicitor's office and call me Fred. Call me Jane. Yeah.

How curious. I know he's brilliant, isn't it? Yeah. So if we get something from ocular, I will we'll both cry.

By that time, will we you? Well, I tell Rachel that I'd gone to the dog show. I went to a dog show. Okay.

No, I went to the same one that she was meant to have gone to. So she went she announced on the when I was when they did the crossover with guilty feminist, and she said, Oh, this weekend, I'm going to Lewisham to a dog show. And I we then went to see her.

And at the bar, she was there and you did your thing where you went. It's Rachel. And I then did my thing, which was, I'm going to be overly confident for the both of us.

Yes. And was like, Oh, did you end up going to the dog show in Lewisham? She was like, No, I didn't actually get to make it. I was like, Oh, I was there.

It's good. And we had a little chat about Lewisham and dog shows. And then she went off and did her show, which was brilliant.

It was fabulous. What was that? Was that the people's princess one? I think it was. Yeah.

Fucks that noise. Sound of someone dragging a body across the floor outside. I don't know if that was picked up, but that was quite sad stuff.

Anyway, let's leave you lovely lot to it. Next week, there will be a Hannah episode. Yeah, fine.

Fine. Fine. Fine.

There will be. There will be. And let's hope that there are no technical issues in this.

It'll be fine. We'll all source it. Right.

All right. We love you. We do.

And we'll see you next week. We will. Bye.

Bye.