Talk:Ratcliff Highway murders

Untitled

Check Marr memorial - in St Georges Kbthompson 10:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Williams body

Need to check detail on burial site - current maps shown commercial road/cannon street rd junction 400m from cable street/cannon street road junction, maybe older maps show change? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.201.98.210 (talk) 11:21, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I came to make a comment about that. Surely Commercial Road and Cable Street have always long been parallel - so the two comments don't match. (Unless the body was moved later.) -- Beardo (talk) 12:47, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The Cable Street article has the body found much later - "The last occasion in England when a stake was hammered through a sinner’s heart at an official burial, took place at the junction of Cable Street and Cannon Street Road: John Williams was found hanged in his cell, after being arrested as a suspect in the Ratcliff Highway murders. Local people went along with the claim that he had committed suicide, from guilt of the crimes. At the time, 1812, suicide was considered to be sinful, and justified him being buried upside down with a stake through his heart. His skull was found when new gas mains were being laid in the 1960s, and was on display for many years in The Crown and Dolphin pub opposite." -- Beardo (talk) 12:52, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Spelling of Ratcliffe

The most common spelling of the Highway when citing the murders is "Ratcliff Highway". This may have been the customary spelling at the time. The most common recent spellings of both the district and the road have used "Ratcliffe". For instance, there is a Wikipedia article Ratcliffe Highway that redirects to the article about the modern road The Highway.

There is no redirection for "Ratcliff Highway" even though that is the spelling used in this article.

It may be there is a justification for using the spelling variants, but this should be discussed somewhere on this page and probably the page on The Highway, lest the reader think that Wikipedians are illiterate.

--Dominic Sayers (talk) 14:01, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

It's probably more worthwhile to centralise discussions like this, rather than across a number of articles (where you may obtain conflicting consensus). For the moment, please see my reply at The Highway; it may be worth raising the issue at WP:London. HTH Kbthompson (talk) 14:49, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Stake through the body

Catherine Arnold in her recent book "Necropolis: London and its dead" (Pocket Books 2006, p 187) mentions that the victims were bludgeoned and ripped apart with a chisel and maul. The same hammer was used to hammer the stake home when they came to bury him.

If no-one objects, I will add this to the article

taffthedigger 1/11/10 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Taffthedigger (talk • contribs) 14:31, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Links

I am sorry, but where are links?Зейнал (talk) 00:03, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Typo? or not

This looks to be a typo to me as the adjective isn't apparently in the dictionary. She used the knocker "with unintermitting violence". I take it the meaning is "unremitting". If no-one objects I'll change it. Manytexts (talk) 08:39, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

About the need for more sources

I'm surprised no one has used P.D. James' book, The Maul and the Pear Tree, to provide sources to this article. -- llywrch (talk) 18:38, 7 October 2022 (UTC)