Melksham Times Past

A column about days gone by in Melksham by local historian Lisa Ellis

Lost at Sea? The Tichborne Case

Pictured Below: Carl Peter Lundgren

The world was riveted over the story of Anastasia Romanov, the Grand Duchess of Russia, who, along with her family, was murdered in 1918. 

Rumours abounded that she had actually escaped, with pretenders claiming to have survived the execution to inherit the Romanov fortune. But, in 2007, those theories were squashed once and for all when her body was found and identified.

Almost 50 years earlier, a similar and just as sensational quest to inherit a fortune spurred by rumour took place. Easiest explained by an entry on Wikipedia: “Roger Tichborne, heir to the family’s title and fortunes, was presumed to have died in a shipwreck in 1854 at age 25. His mother clung to a belief that he might have survived and, after hearing rumours that he had made his way to Australia, she advertised extensively in Australian newspapers, offering a reward for information.

In 1866, a butcher known as Thomas Castro from Wagga Wagga came forward claiming to be Roger Tichborne. Although his manners and bearing were unrefined, he gathered support and travelled to England. He was instantly accepted by Lady Tichborne as her son, although other family members were dismissive and sought to expose him as an impostor.”

Melksham has a somewhat skewed link to this story.

Sarah Colbourne was born in 1834 and grew up in Coburg Square, a low-income housing area that was levelled in the 1960s to make King Street car park. In 1855 she married Carl Peter Lundgren, 15 years her senior. Sarah moved to Bristol to join her husband, where he was a clerk to a ship builder, Mark Whitwill.

During the elections of 1860, Whitwill ran against Thomas Canning to unseat him as town councillor, a position he held for the past eight years. To help his employer win the election, Lundgren set up a false scenario that accused Whitwill of bribery. His acts were discovered and Lundgren was charged with libel in 1861. Whitwill lost the election.

This did not deter Lundgren, for the following year, he was charged with stealing valuable security and obtaining goods by false pretences. Although sentenced to three years, Lundgren was later found not guilty by proclamation — there was no evidence offered against him.

Lundgren wasn’t done.

EnterJean Luie, appearing at the Tichborne Trial of 1873. The Roger Tichborne imposter was put on trial and Jean Luie was the primary witness for the defence. 

Luie stated that in 1852, he joined a vessel called the Osprey, at New Orleans, as steward.

In February 1854, on a voyage from Staten Island, New York, to Melbourne, a boat containing six men was picked up, one of whom was a person who was afterwards known as Mr. Rogers. He (Luie) attended to him on board the Osprey until their arrival at Melbourne in July, when he left the vessel and went to the diggings for ten months. Afterwards, employed on board various vessels and was in different parts of the world for several years until June, 1873, when he, for the first time, came over to England in the Circassia.

He insisted he had never been in England before that time and accidentally heard of the Tichborne case at a public house and thinking the claimant might possibly be the person he had known as Mr. Rogers on board the Osprey, made inquiries and ultimately saw and recognised the claimant as that person. He further swore that he had never gone by any other name than “Luie” and had never been in trouble in his life, and that since July 1873, he had maintained himself out of his own money and paid his own expenses.

Another witness called was Mary Anne Neale, a barmaid at the King Arms in Melksham, who deposed that she had met Roger Tichborne, who was in the pub with one of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s engineers in 1849. The former engineer now county magistrate for Essex, Charles Sperling, contradicted her testimony and stated that he’d been at the Kings Arms once or twice in 1846 and never knew Roger Tichborne nor any of his family.

Of course, it was all a lie, and Carl Peter Lundgren was taken to court for perjury the following year.

Various witnesses were called to expose the true identity of the man who called himself “Jean Luie.”

Lundgren confessed and named names, but only at the urging through an anonymous letter that promised a large sum of money, a change of name, transport “to a distant quarter of the globe” and leniency from the judge who ironically was related to the Tichborne family.

This story continues to take twists and turns that are too numerous to relay in one go. Next issue, I will get back to Melksham and focus on Sarah, who felt it was her fault her husband ended up in gaol (jail).

Pictured Below: Court Hearing