The Chilling Walthamstow Mystery That Shocked Victorian London 1888
News of the Times | Episode 509| 1888
London, 1888 — the Ripper loomed large in the East End’s imagination… but just a few miles away, another case was unfolding. One with no mutilations, no blood-stained alleys—just a quiet note, a mysterious bottle, and a young woman who never came home.
When newlywed Annie French stepped into a local chemist’s parlour in Walthamstow, she expected pain relief—perhaps a friendly chat. Two hours later, she was unconscious. The air reeked of chloroform, the till was empty, and William Barber, the nervous chemist’s assistant, had vanished.
Was it a botched procedure? A tragic accident? Or something far more sinister?
Join us as we unravel one of Victorian London’s most haunting and strangely overlooked mysteries—where rumour ran wild, evidence evaporated, and a case of suspected murder was lost in the shadow of Whitechapel’s terror.

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