Who was Dr Spilsbury?
He may seem larger than life in my books, but Sir Bernard Spilsbury was in fact a real character. The Honorary Pathologist to the Home Office was a major celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s, and his presence on a case was guaranteed to make front page news. People packed into courthouses up and down the land just to catch a glimpse of the tall, handsome, charismatic Spilsbury in his top hat, morning coat and signature red carnation.
And when he stood up in the witness box to present his evidence, juries listened. It’s no exaggeration to say that Spilsbury’s word could mean the difference between life or death. Although the power he wielded may have led to many miscarriages of justice, and innocent men going to the gallows.
According to some, he was a real life Sherlock Holmes, whose use of cutting edge science brought criminal investigations into the modern age. To others, he was cold, arrogant and almost criminally obstinate.
So who was the man behind the myth? Bernard Henry Spilsbury was born on 16th May 1877, the father of a successful wholesale chemist from Leamington Spa. James was determined his eldest son should fulfil his own thwarted ambition to become a doctor. But the family moved around a great deal, and young Bernard’s education was often interrupted (which may have led to his later inability to make friends).
Considering the impact he was to make in the medico-legal profession, Spilsbury’s academic career was uninspiring, to say the least. Thanks more to his father’s wealth and influence than his own efforts, he ended up at Magdalen College, Oxford and then went on to study medicine at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington.
It was here that he developed an interest in pathology – at the time a very unpopular field of medical study. It was also here that he met the man who was to change his life.
Senior surgeon and pathologist Augustus Pepper clearly saw something in the young student that no one else did. He encouraged his studies, and once Spilsbury had qualified, secured him to post of resident assistant pathologist. Spilsbury found himself working alongside Pepper, as well as other brilliant men such as Almroth Wright and William Willcox, who became a lifelong friend.
But Dr Spilsbury might have stayed one of the backroom boys, if it wasn’t for a mild-mannered little American called Hawley Harvey Crippen. The Crippen murder case gripped the nation, and thrust Spilsbury into the limelight. His matinee idol looks and quiet authority in the witness books made him a star almost overnight.
When Pepper retired, Spilsbury took over as Honorary Pathologist to the Home Office. In November 1920 he moved from St Mary’s to Bart’s Hospital in London (since this clashes with the timing in The Camden Town Killer, I’ve chosen to delay this move in the book). Over the next two decades, he was involved in some of the most high profile – and gruesome – cases in the country. With every case, his reputation grew, and in 1924, he was knighted. But his fame and ability to sway a jury proved to be a double-edged sword. There were many apparent miscarriages of justice, where Spilsbury’s prejudice, arrogance and refusal to see anyone’s point of view but his own condemned innocent people to death.
The 1940s saw a descent in Spilsbury’s fortunes. Modern developments in Forensic Pathology meant that his methods had become somewhat outdated. Arthritis in his hands and several strokes also led to an impairment of his previously razor sharp faculties. There were difficulties in his personal life, too. His son Peter, who had followed in his father’s footsteps and became a doctor, was killed during the London Blitz. His son Alan died of TB shortly after the Second World War. Their deaths, along with the loss of his good friend William Willcox in 1941, weighed heavily on him.
On 17th December 1947, Spilsbury left the Langorf Hotel where he was living, collected his Armstrong Siddeley car from the garage where he kept it on Finchley Road, and drove to Hampstead to perform what was to be his last post mortem. Back at the hotel, the manageress noticed he had left his keys behind. He returned his car to the garage, tipped the staff, then went to his laboratory in University College, Gower Street, where he tidied up and destroyed a number of personal papers and photographs.
He had an early dinner at the Junior Carlton Club, and handed his locker key back to the porter. ‘I won’t be needing it in the new year,’ he told him.
Just after 8pm that evening, a hospital technician passing the door to Spilsbury’s lab, smelt gas and noticed there was a light on inside the room. The door was locked. He alerted a hospital watchman, who opened the door with his pass key. Inside they found the body of Sir Bernard Spilsbury. His colleagues attempted to resuscitate him, but Sir Spilsbury was declared dead at 9.10pm. Even in death, he was as precise and uncompromising as he had been in life.
His work might have brought him great satisfaction, but his personal life did not. In my books, Spilsbury is a bachelor, but in real life he married Edith Horton in 1908. They had four children together – a daughter, Evelyn, and three sons, Peter, Alan and Richard. But Spilsbury’s first love was always his work. He would spend long hours at the hospital, or the laboratory he had built for himself at the family home in St John’s Wood. Within 20 years, the couple were effectively estranged, and Spilsbury moved to lodgings in Verulam Buildings, near Gower Street.
During the mid 1920s, Spilsbury took on an assistant, Hilda Bainbridge, a single mother and the widow of a former colleague. It was an unusual step for him, since he was notoriously private and preferred to work alone. But Hilda was at his side from 1921 until her death from pneumonia five years later. Did they have an affair? It’s true Hilda and her young daughter moved to an apartment not far from Spilsbury’s lodgings. She kept a photograph of Spilsbury in her home, and after she died, Spilsbury never sought another assistant. I took some inspiration from Hilda to create the character of Violet, Spilsbury’s fictional assistant. But from the little I can gather, Violet is nothing like Hilda!
