Bromley

1/ Bromley, May 1885 (Attempted Double Murder)

Crystal Palace Suicides

2/ December 1898

The body of a fully-dressed man in a sitting position was found on the grounds of Crystal Palace. The guy who saw him went to wake him up, shook him, but he didn’t wake up. He found a policeman who sent for medical help, but he was dead as a dodo. The corpse had a name; it was George Nunn, a gardener from Sydenham, who had been gone for at least two days. (Poison, Gunshot?)

3/ May 1867

43-year-old Thomas Jennings was with his work-mates picking through the metal of Crystal Palace, which had recently been destroyed by a tremendous fire. He went to the north water-tower, climbed it, waved his cap in the air and shouted “Goodbye chaps!” and threw himself off. You can see one of the tower’s either side of the Palace in the above postcard (I think!) He hit the ground with a thud, as do most things from 200 feet up in the air, and the post-mortem afterwards revealed hardly a single bone in his body that wasn’t smashed to bits. He had been depressed of late often telling his wife that “he felt something was going to happen”. Kept your promise there Thomas!

4/ Bedlam Asylum Suicide, June 1840

A female patient at the Bedlam Lunatic Asylum named White killed herself by hanging from an iron pipe by the strings on her straitjacket. Bedlam has an exceptional record as far as suicides are concerned, with only eight in twenty-five years.

5/ Bethlem Hospital Suicide, July 1847

An inmate of Bethlem Hospital was deemed to be well enough to be employed in the laundry department. This was a poor judgement on someone’s part because they dived into a huge vat of boiling water as soon as the attendants were distracted.

6/ Penge Station Suicide, August 1889

A woman was waiting for a train one evening at Penge Station on the London, Chatham and Dover Railway when she plunged forward as the express train came into the station. The body was a grisly spectacle and was badly mangled, with her head being found yards away from the trunk. Mr John Browning identified it as the body of his daughter, Susan Maria Browning a 32-year-old from Sydenham. A relative in the family had died recently and she had been enveloped in depression and this is the supposed motive for her suicide.

7/ Penge Station Suicide, May 1871

At Penge Station on the Chatham and Dover Railway, Mrs Phillis Naldrett, who was a widow from the Norfolk Hotel in Bognor, killed herself. She had been lodging in Penge and has just come out of an asylum after a lengthy visit. She walked on to the platform when she was alone, even neglecting to buy a ticket; and just as the Chatham train rolled in she jumped between the first and second carriage on to the buffers, where a wheel passed over her body. The brakes were slammed on and she was put on the London Victoria train, to be whisked off to hospital. Unfortunately, she died a couple of days later from her injuries, which were broken ribs, broken arm, and a fractured shoulder.

8/ Bromley Bridge Disaster, December 1882

9/ Blockhouse Station Suicide, Beckenham, June 1890

J.Lathom, of Glenthorne, Queen Adelaide Road, Penge was killed on the level-crossing near the new Blockhouse Station at Beckenham. The driver said that the gentleman ran across the tracks and throw himself in front of the train. He slammed on the brakes but finally stopped 200 yards down the line, far too late to prevent his death. The body was mutilated beyond recognition with his legs barely being connected to the rest of his body.

10/ Bromley, December 1905 (Corpse Found)

An inquest was held on the headless corpse of an unknown man found in the River Thames, just off Bromley. Post-mortem states that he had been in the water for at least eighteen months, but due to the state of the body it was nearly impossible to say how he met his death, or even if foul play was involved at all. A verdict of “Found dead” was returned.

11/ Plough Hill Road, Bromley Common, August 1889

The dead body of a man with black curly hair, and dressed in an Irish tweed suit, was discovered in a wood near Plough Hill Road beyond Bromley Common by a man taking a short-cut. It was decomposed, and when they tried to lift it to take it to the mortuary, the head fell off. The police surgeon thinks that it’s been there three months as a rough estimate, which would make them think that he went in there on Easter Monday and died in a drunken stupor. The road nearby is very well used. The man’s face was totally eaten away by vermin and insects. He had a silver watch and more than £2 in money on his person, so robbery was out of the question. The verdict- “Found Dead”.

12/ Bromley March 1867 (Child Neglect)

13/ Anerley Park, Anerley May 1898 (No.13 and No 15 are still at Anerley Park)

This is definitely one of the saddest stories on this website. A girl of weak intellect went missing on the streets of London, and police and public were keeping an eye out for her. Meanwhile, Mr Morgan, of 15 Anerley Park was looking around his garden when he heard some moans and groans coming from his neighbours shed. Morgan knew that his neighbour was out of the country and had been for a couple of months, so he popped and had a look at what was making the noise. In the shed he found a teenage girl slumped on the floor, semi-conscious, and next to her was a dead baby. He ran to get Dr Carter, and he was unable to do anything for her as she was nearly dead. Police came, but before they got there the poor lass had died, and both the bodies were taken to Penge mortuary. Later on, she was identified as Minnie Eliza Bailey, from Victoria Road, South Norwood. She wasn’t quite eighteen years of age, and she liked to roam and float about the city, rather than stay in one place. This vanishing act had gone on for the last three weeks, and she was painfully thin and emaciated and would have been weak from lack of nourishment. It is a minor miracle that she got into the shed in the first place as she scaled a seven-foot wall while heavily pregnant then stayed in the shed for a number of days, then gave birth. The lack of food, her feeble condition, and the blood loss from the pregnancy, she stood little chance of survival. (Where is she buried?) RIP Minnie.

14/ Anerley Road, Penge August 1882

Norwood police are trying to find out the identity and address of a man whose dead corpse was discovered in an empty house in Anerley Road in Penge. He left no clues to his identity and post-mortem results will hopefully reveal how he died. This is just down the road from where another mysterious discovery occurred a few days ago. (Coincidence/Connected?)

15/ Bromley Murder, August 1889

16/ Prospect Place, St Leonards Row, Bromley, December 1875

The mutilated remains of a child were found at Prospect Place, St Leonards Row. Elizabeth Lewis had been charged with having murdered the child. At 8-30 one evening, the tenants at No 11 Prospect Place heard a strange noise coming from an upstairs room, and when checked it turned out to be a cat chewing on the arm and hand of the dismembered child. It was shooed away, and the limb was taken to Poplar Police Station. Inspector Vamals was on duty and in an amazing piece of police deduction, the cat was detained at the police station and not fed, the theory being that when they let it go, it would go back and feast on the infant. The head was found at No 4, in a rubbish heap in a cellar.

17/ Kent House Station Suicide, Beckenham, August 1896

18/ Bethlehem Asylum Suicide, September 1867

Miss Mary Anne Cornwall was from a decent family in Brighton, but she had become suicidal and was suffering from religious mania. Her family were alarmed at her actions as she had twice attempted to jump from high buildings, so on June 1st, she was taken to Bethlehem Asylum. She tried to kill herself while there and shouted at the attendant “If you don’t kill me or give me arsenic, I’ll do away with myself”. On Thursday she set herself alight and was badly burned and charred on her right side of the body. As her dress was burning she said: “Let me die; the pain of my body is nothing to the pain of my mind”. She died of her burns on Friday. Cornwall had stolen the matches from an attendants room, then self-immolated.

19/ Burnt Ash Lane, Lee, May 1871 (Body in a Garden)

In a pond at the rear of a cottage in Burnt Ash Lane, the body of 27-year-old Anne Surridge was discovered. The preceding morning, a young woman was found in a lane in the same area of Kent, and she was badly mutilated but was rushed to Guy’s Hospital. At different intervals, she was heard to say “Do not kill me outright Emily”, which could be the deceased. This was not the case. Surridge’s parent’s lived in Bird and Bush Road, Peckham, and also of Camberwell New Road. She was working for a family in New Bromley but due to her not sleeping at nights and not being very good at her work the mistress had written to the mother asking her to take her home. The mother went to get her on Wednesday, but she had disappeared a couple of hours previously and she wasn’t seen again until they fished her body out of the pond. Postmortem revealed that she had drowned herself, and letters in her possession indicate that there was insanity in the family genes.