The Parcel of Death: How a Handwriting Clue Solved a Victorian Murder (1873)

The Parcel of Death: How a Handwriting Clue Solved a Victorian Murder (1873)

Horfield, near Bristol, 1873 — a small parcel arrives at a cottage, addressed in a neat feminine hand. Inside: a polite note, a shilling’s worth of stamps, and three teething powders marked Steedman’s. Within minutes of taking one, a healthy ten-month-old child is dead.

What followed became one of Victorian Britain’s most unsettling murder investigations: a case of postal deception, disputed toxicology, forged identities, and a deadly plan undone by the smallest of human details — the choice of stationery, a familiar turn of phrase, and a handwriting expert who spotted what others had missed.

This is the story of how an ordinary envelope unravelled the lives of a Bristol shoemaker and the woman who aided him, ending in one of the last double executions in British history.

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