The Bastendorffs’ home was considered one of the few respectable boarding homes in Victorian London...until the discovery of a corpse unleashed a sex scandal and murder mystery that has still gone unsolved. Who would want to murder the quirky, old Matilda Hacker? And how had no one discovered her corpse for so long?

Sources:

Gamber, Wendy. “Boarding and Lodging Houses.” Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, 2017. https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/boarding-and-lodging-houses/

Gamber, Wendy. The Boardinghouse in Nineteenth-Century America. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).

Graham, Ruth. “Boardinghouses: Where the city  was born.” Boston Globe, January 13, 2013. https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/01/13/boardinghouses-where-city-was-born/Hpstvjt0kj52ZMpjUOM5RJ/story.html

Griffiths, Arthur. Victorian Murders: Mysteries of Police & Crime. (Charleston: The History Press, 2010).

“HANNAH DOBBS.” The Proceedings of the Old Bailey: London’s Central Criminal Court, 1674 to 1913. Old Bailey Online, June 30, 1879.

Hester, Jessica. “A Brief History of Co-Living Spaces.” Bloomburg CityLab, February 22, 2016. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-22/a-brief-history-of-co-living-spaces-from-19th-century-boarding-houses-to-millennial-compounds

Kohn, Kari. “Boardinghouses of Yesterday and What they Mean for Today.” NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management, December 30, 2013. https://marroninstitute.nyu.edu/blog/boardinghouses-of-yesterday-and-what-they-mean-for-today

McKay, Sinclair. The Lady in the Cellar: Murder, Scandal and Insanity in Victorian Bloomsbury. (London: White Lion Publishing, 2018).

The Merthyr Telegraph. May 30, 1879.

Monmouthshire Merlin. December 12, 1879.

O’Neill, Joseph. The Secret World of the Victorian Lodging House. (Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 2014).

“SIWERIN BASTENDORF.” The Proceedings of the Old Bailey: London’s Central Criminal Court, 1674 to 1913. Old Bailey Online, November 24, 1879.

South Wales Daily News, May 22, 1879.

South Wales Daily News, November 10, 1879.

The Western Mail. May 19, 1879.

Music: Dellasera by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com