A bona fide skeleton in the closet...

» WE often joke about all the things we might find when we start looking into our family trees, but it’s not often that you find a literal skeleton in a literal cupboard.

But that’s what happened to Mary Halliwell from Leigh in Lancashire more than ten years ago when she started looking into her family tree.

Her great-great-great grandfather on her mother’s side came from Bitton and she discovered that he was one of John Horwood’s brothers.

She found out more with the help of the Bristol & Avon Family History Society and then she and a cousin travelled to Bristol to see the book (nowadays in M Shed).

The pair also visited the Bristol University Medical School where she was shown the skeleton, hanging from a brass hook in a cupboard with the rope around its neck.

The pair were astonished to then be told that the skeleton was theirs to do with as they wished.

At 1.30pm on April 13 2011, 190 years to the minute after he had died, the skeleton of John exhorted his fellow prisoners to take warning from him, for that his sins had “brought him to his present unhappy condition”.

Horwood, according to the paper, made a full and absolute confession of his guilt, and stated that he had led a life of crime.

Richard Smith was part-owner of the newspaper, and regularly wrote for it.

Mary Halliwell with John Horwood’s skeleton

Horwood was laid to rest alongside his parents in the graveyard of Christ Church, Hanham.

She later said that she was convinced that Smith was responsible for both deaths.

“By throwing that stone John put Eliza into the doctor’s hands.

“He messed up her treatment and then encouraged her to make allegations against her attacker.

“Once the allegations were in the hands of the magistrates Smith personally took out the arrest warrant and had John arrested.

“He questioned him at Eliza’s bedside, carried out the post mortem examination on Eliza’s body and gave evidence as a prosecution witness at his trial.

“He categorically – and without leaving any room for doubt – gave the cause of death as an abscess on the outer table of the skull and convinced the jury the blow from the stone thrown by John had killed her.

“Once Smith had his claws into John Horwood that poor youth stood no chance of justice.” » M Shed is hosting a free Zoom talk by Dr Rose Wallis of the University of the West of England this Thursday, April 18, at 6pm titled Reading the ‘Book of Skin’: The Life and Death of John Horwood. The talk is free, but donations are welcome and places have to be booked before 2pm on the day. For details see https:// tinyurl.com/3c5hs89z