William Dove & The Wizard

The mid 19th Century newspaper headlines saw no shortage of cases involving poison. Unsurprisingly, given the relative ease of obtaining such deadly materials, a long narrative of death, whether by accident or design, formed throughout the period and still today the Victorian period is often characterised as something of a heyday for poisons and poisoners. From time to time, salacious stories of a murderer utilising these violent compounds broke out and captured the public's attention, stacking up a list of names of cold, calculated criminality. In 1855, William Doves name was added to the list after he killed his wife, Doves name drew attention over many of his fellow poisoners, however, when it was uncovered that he had killed her after taking advice from a local wizard, had sold his soul to the devil at a young age and later went on to write a letter to the Prince of Darkness in his own blood, inviting him to collect on his side of the bargain. ---------- SOURCES The Leicester Journal (1856) Execution of William Dove. The Leicester Journal, Friday 15th August, 1856.  Sheffield Daily Telegraph (1856) The poisoning of a Lady By Strychnine, At Leeds. Sheffield Daily Telegraph, Thursday 13th March, 1856. The Morning Post (1856) Serious Charge Of Slow Poisoning From Strychnine, At Leeds. The Morning post, Monday 10th March, 1856.  Davies, Owen (2005) Murder, Magic & Madness: The Victorian Trials of Dove and the Wizard. Pearson Education Limited, UK Davies, Owen (2008) Cunning-Folk in England and Wales during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Rural History, Volume 8, Issue 1, April 1997, pp. 91 - 107 Davies, Owen (2007) Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History. Hambledon Continuum, UK      ---------- If you'd like to send in a submission for the Christmas Campfire episode this year as I mentioned at the start of the episode, the email address to send to is: social@darkhistories.com For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at contact@darkhistories.com or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.            Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices