Baxter's accounts of the telegraph's technology, the prevailing cultural climate regarding murder and poisonings, contemporary forensic methods and Tawell's personal history are all worthy of an engrossing thriller. Baxter does a stellar job of integrating details about the nascent forensic science of the time, questions about the role of expert witnesses in jury trials, and the insatiable public hunger for salacious details about the case." - Publishers Weekly "Australian historian Carol Baxter melds true crime and science in the gripping The Peculiar Case of the Electric Constable. | Telecommunication - England - History - 19th century | Telecommunication - Social aspects."Fans of Erik Larson's true-crime thrillers will be pleased by this gripping account.With a novelist's flair for drama, using details that were painstakingly extracted from the historical record, Australian popular historian Baxter recreates the life of suspect John Tawell. | Murder - Investigation - England - History - 19th century. Includes bibliographical references (pages -382) and index. Tawell was infamous, and his trial helped to secure the telegraph's fame and adoption - a watershed event. It became the sensational murder of the day, involving poisoning, religious scandal, sexual innuendo, and very little hard evidence. The Great Western Railway was experimenting with a new-fangled instrument, the telegraph, so a message was relayed to London: a "KWAKER" man was on the run.
Soon, policemen rushed to the station looking for a suspected murderer - but the 7:42 had departed.
Tawell was struggling financially and emotionally when on New Year's Day 1845 he boarded the 7.42pm train from Slough to Paddington. When he returned home after 15 years, he thought he would be welcomed, a reformed, rich entrepreneur instead he was shunned. Convicted of forgery, he was transported to Sydney, where he opened Australia's first retail pharmacy and made a fortune. John Tawell was a sincere English Quaker but a sinning one. Xv, 391 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations 22 cm The peculiar case of the electric constable : a true tale of passion, poison & pursuit / Carol Baxter Book Bib IDīook, Online - Google Books
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