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The Tichborne Claimant.
Wagga Wagga was brought to the world’s attention during a famous double trial in London during the later half of the 19th Century. The Tichborne Trials as they became popularly known are acknowledged as one of the most notorious impostor cases in legal history. The claimant in the first, and the accused in the second, was a butcher from Wagga Wagga. The Story The Claimant – Who Was He? Arthur Orton, Tom Castro or Roger Tichborne? In March 1853, Roger Tichborne, heir to the old Tichborne title and rich Hampshire estates in England sailed for South America. He wrote home constantly about his experiences until 20th April 1854 the day he sailed for Jamaica, from Rio de Janeiro, Argentina. His ship La Bella never reached port and when wreckage was found it was believed the vessel had sunk with the loss of all hands including Roger Tichborne. Lady Tichborne, Roger’s mother, never believed her son had drowned especially after hearing rumours that survivors had been picked up and taken to Australia. When a clairvoyant in Paris told her Roger was safe on an island she began advertising around the world. In 1866 she received a letter, “My dear Mother……I deeply regret the truble an anxsity I must have cause you by not writing before…..” The writer who claimed to be her missing son was a butcher living in Wagga Wagga under the name of Tom Castro. On 2nd September 1866 the claimant, with his wife, Mary Ann Bryant, and son, left Sydney to rejoin his “mother”. On arrival more than one hundred persons including Lady Tichborne swore he was Sir Roger Tichborne. She accepted and supported him with a 1000 pounds a year but upon her death, in 1868, the rest of the family refused to believe he was the genuine article. The claimant, denied of his inheritance, took them to court in London. The Tichborne case made legal history as it was the longest trial on record. The action lasted 102 days between 11th May 1871 and 5th March 1872. The cross-examination by Sir John Coleridge, later Lord Chief Justice of England, lasted 22 days. Shorthand notes of the evidence filled 5,213 pages. Resisting the civil claim cost the Tichborne family 90 000 pounds! The jury found Castro to be an impostor. He was immediately arrested and put on trial thirteen months later for perjury. That trial lasted for 188 days between 22nd April 1873 and 28th February 1874. The evidence indicated the claimant was neither Tom Castro, nor Roger Tichborne but Arthur Orton, born in 1834, the twelfth child of a Cockney butcher who had roamed the world before ending up in Wagga Wagga. The jury sat for only half an hour before bringing in a vote of guilty. Arthur Orton was sentenced to fourteen years penal settlement. He was released from prison in 1884 and appeared in music halls around England before going to America on a lecture tour opening in opposition to Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show. He returned to London with his second wife, Lily. When he died in April 1898 he had nothing and was buried free in Paddington Cemetery. His coffin was marked Sir Roger Charles Doughty Tichborne. A crowd of 5 000 came to his funeral but none of his family attended. His eldest daughter Teresa Mary Agnes, carried on her father’s campaign to clear his name and was sent to prison several times for threatening the Tichborne family. In a statement in jail in 1924 she said her father had told her he really was Roger Tichborne, eldest son of the 10th baronet, that Arthur Orton had been a companion on many Australian exploits, and that he had shot him dead during a quarrel near Wagga Wagga in 1866. He could not tell anyone this otherwise he would be tried for murder.|
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