Charles Bravo
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Charles Bravo was a British lawyer who was fatally poisoned with antimony in 1876. The case is still sensational, notorious and unresolved. It is also known as The Charles Bravo Murder and the Murder at the Priory.
It was an unsolved crime committed within an elite Victorian household at The Priory, a landmark house in Balham, London.The reportage eclipsed even government and international news at the time. Leading doctors attended the bedside and all agreed it was a case of antimony poisoning. The victim took 3 days to die but gave no indication of the source of the poison during that time. No-one was ever charged for the crime.
[edit] Background
The case revealed Charles Bravo as controlling, mean, violent, and a bully. The marriage was imbalanced where power was concerned. His wealthy wife had had a scandalous past with an extramarital affair and was the widow of a wealthy husband who had died in mysterious circumstances. She was out of favour with her family and socially and although the same age (30) as her husband, he was a respected upcoming barrister. Further, she opted from the start to hold onto her own money, an option provided by new laws in England at the time. She had position and money and he had ambition.
Their relationship was stormy and the poisoning occurred four months into the marriage. In a BBC docudrama, Julian Fellowes investigates the suspects; the household, Florence herself, her former lover Dr James Manby Gully, the housekeeper Mrs Cox and the likelihood of suicide. It also portrays Charles Bravo as a particularly crushing Victorian husband, totally lacking in feeling to staff, animals and his wife, his unreasonable treatment going beyond even the social expectations of the submissive woman in Victorian society.
A hypothesis is that Charles Bravo was slowly poisoning his wife with small cumulatives doses of antimony (she had been chronically ailing since shortly after their marriage). It theorises that he wanted to control her fortune from the start and this was one way he would get his hands on it. When treating himself with laudanum for toothache before bedtime, it proposes that he inadvertently used the bottle of antimony to medicate himself.
The housekeeper Mrs Cox reportedly told police Charles admitted using the poison on himself when they were alone together, later changing her statement in the dock to deflect suspicion from herself to Florence.
His death was long, lasting from three (Fellowes) to more than four days (Ruddick) and painful. It was particularly notable that he did not offer any explanation of his condition to attending doctors, suggesting he had some personal implication to hide, not being the type to protect others.
[edit] Aftermath
The household broke up after the trial ended and the twice widowed Florence moved away, dying of alcohol poisoning two years later.
[edit] References
- Murder in the UK The Bravo Case
- The History Channel Charles Bravo
- BBC 2005 period docudrama A Most Mysterious Murder: The Case Of Charles Bravo, by Julian Fellowes.
- Ruddick,James Death at the Priory Atlantic Books (2002) ISBN 1903809444 .
