Vulgar History Podcast
Belle Elmore and the Music Hall Ladies Guild (with Hallie Rubenhold)
April 9, 2025
Hello and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women’s history comedy podcast. My name is Ann Foster, and today I’m so delighted with the author interview that you get to hear, maybe as delighted as I was to get to do this author interview. So, I got to speak with author Hallie Rubenhold, whose name you might be familiar with because she wrote… Well, she has a new book coming out, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about, but where I first really came across her name was her previous book, The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, which was an outstanding book. It came out several years ago, and it’s really up there for me just in terms of, like, women’s history books.
What I found really moving about that book was it was looking at each of these women’s lives and really not taking anything for granted, who they were. You know, there’s so many people who with the victims of Jack the Ripper where it’s just kind of like, “Oh, well, they were sex workers,” or like, somehow it’s just kind of like they deserved it in some way. She really looked at who these women were, how they got to the point where they were sleeping on the street of Whitechapel at the time that Jack was there. Each part of the book, she tells a woman’s story, and then it stops; she doesn’t talk about their murder, she doesn’t get into, like, who was Jack the Ripper or why were they killed? She just tells these women’s stories. And that’s that. And I found the book so good and so interesting in that way, and it completely changed the way that I think about that era and those crimes.
So, I was really excited when I saw that she had a new book coming out. It’s a historical book, and it involves a crime, so I think fans of true crime would like it, but I also think fans of history would like it because she’s really approaching it as a historian. It’s called Story of a Murder: The Wives, the Mistress, and Dr. Crippen. The cover of the book is this very evocative, interesting image of a music hall performer, of a woman from circa 1910 with a lot of expression on her face. She looks really interesting, you want to know her story. And that is the person we’re going to be talking about on the episode today, which is the woman who… So, The Story of a Murder. The person who was murdered is a music hall performer named Belle Elmore. She was murdered by her husband, Dr. Crippen.
But, I mean, she didn’t enter this world as a future murder victim; she entered this world as a person with lots of interesting things about her. And she’s honestly such a lovely, interesting woman. Just, you know, I wish in some ways that this was a story of like, look at this cool woman and all the things she did; she was this vaudeville performer… That’s part of this book. And then, of course, she is murdered. But then you get to see how the friends that she had made, the other music hall vaudeville performers, how they really rallied around her and forced the police to investigate it. They were there every step of the way to ensure that her husband was caught and found guilty of this crime.
So, like, this book is a lot of things. It’s a history book about, kind of like, a place and a time, which is mostly London in 1910. But then it’s also about the ways that women’s lives unfolded in this era, because along with Belle Elmore, to me, the main character of the book, the main character of today’s podcast, Belle Elmore, who does become the murder victim, but we also talk about Ethel Le Neve, who is her husband’s typist/mistress/next wife. The book also talks about Dr. Crippen’s first wife, Charlotte, and just kind of seeing the different ways that these different women did their best to thrive and to follow and to pursue their dreams in an era where there wasn’t… There was more opportunity than in some eras, less opportunities than in other eras.
Anyway, it’s such a book! There’s so much in it. And I was like, okay, you know, I’m just having this short conversation with Hallie. What do I want to focus on? And what I really wanted to talk to her about was Belle’s story and the story of her and her friends. And that’s really what we’re going to focus on. So, I really am excited for you all to hear this interview. I could not be more excited to have been able to have this conversation. And so, please enjoy this conversation with author, historian Hallie Rubenhold.
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Ann: I am so delighted today to be joined by the author of Story of a Murder: The Wives, the Mistress, and Dr. Crippen. It’s Hallie Rubenhold. Welcome, Hallie.
Hallie: Hello!
Ann: I’m so excited to talk to you about this book. I’m such a fan of yours. I read your previous book, The Five, which recast the whole story of looking at the women who were killed by Jack the Ripper. Part of what I loved about that book is each story ends, and you don’t talk about the murder at all; all you do is focus on the women. And in this book as well, I really like the way you stay in the moment with the victim of this murder, Belle, and just really focus on her life because she wasn’t living her life, future murder victim, like, she was a person living her own life. What I would love to have you talk to people about is just who this woman was, who Belle really was, what you learned about her from your research.
Hallie: Well, I mean, first of all, I think it’s really important to kind of start with what was said about her. One of the things that made me really want to write this book was reading about what was said about her. It’s really horrifying just how victim-blamed she was for her own murder. I mean, it’s absolutely shocking throughout the 20th century what people were saying; that she was this horrible shrew, she was a harridan, she was sexually unfaithful to her husband with everyone, she was an alcoholic, she was brash, she was kind of covetous. She was just, like, the worst example of womanhood you could ever imagine. And because she was the worst example of womanhood you could ever imagine, she had to be punished. She became like this avatar for everything that was horrendous and hideous about the modern woman.
So, she just became this hate figure in true crime. As I was reading that, I was just thinking, this is so unbalanced, and this is so bizarre, and I’m sure this cannot be true. But I think one of the things, it’s always important to bear in mind, I never set out to go and prove something. You know, you have to stay with a completely open mind as a historian when you’re examining the source material. There may have been people who didn’t like Belle, nobody’s a perfect human being! So, of course, I have to be completely open to that. But what was said about her was so shocking and so disproportionately awful that I knew there was another story, and I was completely right that there was a completely different story.
The story of Belle was, well, first of all, I tried to make her into a human being, which she was! She’s not just a victim or a woman who was asking for it; she was a person. She was born in Brooklyn to a mother who was a German immigrant and a father who was what would be called a Prussian immigrant. He was from the border of Germany and Poland, and his last name was Mackamotski. And her first name, [chuckles] they called her Kunigunde, which is a German name, but they soon realized that that was not the sort of name that American tongues could get around pretty quickly so her name was changed to, they called her Concordia, they called her Corrine, they called her Cora. Cora stuck.
She was raised, she was brought up in a Brooklyn tenement, and her father died when she was very young, and her mother remarried a man called Frederick Mersinger, who was German, and they had a very large family. When she was about 16, she went out to work, she was about 16, 17 years old. She went out to work, and she worked for a family, a man who was fairly wealthy. His name was Charles Lincoln, and he was a stove manufacturer, and he was also involved in kind of forwarding the notion, the new ideas around central heating as well, which is how he made all this money, and he had recently diversified into acquisition of property. Now, that’s important because around the time that Belle started working for them, he had committed his wife to an asylum indefinitely and attempts were made to take all of her property. She was quite a wealthy woman, and she had property in Massachusetts. So, Belle was working for him at the time, and we don’t know if the relationship was consensual or not, but she soon found herself pregnant by Charles Lincoln.
Ann: And she’s 16 or so at this time.
Hallie: About 17, yeah. 17. So, he puts her in her own lodgings, obviously. This is a problem because he demonstrates no desire to marry her, but he’s also entangled; his wife isn’t dead, she’s in an asylum, and it’s decided, well, that she needs an abortion. Now, she has an abortion. At the time, it is highly, highly illegal in the state of New York and all over the United States to have an abortion; you can go to prison for 20 years for even attempting an abortion on a woman who may or may not even have been pregnant. But doctors were willing to perform these procedures on women for the right amount of money. There was a man called Dr. Jeffries who performed this on Belle, and he was assisted by another doctor called Hawley Harvey Crippen.
In the wake of this abortion, Dr. Crippen—who was older than her; he was in his thirties at the time, and she was about 18—Dr. Crippen and Belle started to have a relationship.
Ann: And this is, just pause. This is the strangest beginning of a relationship to me.
Hallie: Oh, absolutely! I mean, it’s very weird. But you know, this is, obviously, a very different time. Doctors were regarded with, you know, being a doctor was enormously prestigious. People listened to what doctors said, and also, his whole approach was he was very solicitous and very kind towards women and very charming. People said that, you know, he had this sort of charming allure, even though I don’t think (and you can look at his photograph) that he was particularly attractive; he was a very small man with a huge kind of walrus mustache and big glasses. But what women found attractive in the late 19th century was a very different thing, I think, from what most of us would find attractive now, because women were taught to be, you know, acquiescent and to be submissive to men and, you know, a man was supposed to be a provider and he was supposed to take care of you and he was supposed to do everything for you. Well, what could be a better example of that than a medical doctor who was going to take care of you?
So, they ran away, they went to Jersey City. New Jersey had different laws surrounding marriage at that time; you didn’t need to get a marriage license, you could just elope and get married, which is what they did. And that is how the marriage started.
Ann: And also, the fact she is still… They were not courting for years, especially they eloped. So, he’s in his thirties, she’s a teenager, and this is when they get together. I think in her story, like you see a lot today, too, just sort of like, an older man and a very young woman. The older man might like the younger woman because she’s so impressionable, like, you can sort of train her to be the sort of woman you want her to be. And then as she matures and develops her own independent personality, the man kind of sours of her. And I see that in this relationship for sure.
So, they move around. But can you talk about… He did not want children, and she wanted children and what he did about that?
Hallie: Yeah. Well, this is the thing that, you know, I mean, Crippen… So, Crippen had had a wife before he was married to Belle, and her name was Charlotte Belle. She was an Irish immigrant who became a nurse. They were married for about four years, and she had a son by him called Otto, and then she just died, suddenly, of what he claimed to be a stroke. On one hand, that was actually was written on the on the death certificate. But he told the trade journals, you know, the medical journals, he provided an obituary for her, and he said that she died of a heart attack. So, that was kind of strange. This was in Salt Lake City. She died and was buried within 72 hours in the dead of winter when the ground was still frozen, and she was basically dumped into a pauper’s grave with no grave marking at all. You know, so what on earth was going on there? You know, it’s entirely possible that he did murder her as well. But it’s very hard to find any actual substantial evidence that really kind of points to that absolutely. However, he had one child, and he quickly handed that child off to his parents to raise and didn’t want any more.
So, when he married Belle— Belle really wanted children. She was raised, you know, Victorian women were raised to want to be mothers; that was their main, primary function they were told in life was to get married and have children. However, he didn’t want any more, so he came up with an excuse for Belle to have her ovaries removed at the age of 21. And the unfortunate thing was, you know, both her mother and her sisters both subsequently said there was absolutely nothing physically wrong with her at all; she didn’t have painful periods, she didn’t have any problems. And in fact, after the ovaries were removed, Crippen said they were healthy. What she did actually have also was a prolapsed uterus, and that was never dealt with. So, at the age of 21, she’s suddenly thrown into what’s called surgical menopause without any, obviously, HRT. I mean, you can imagine how much she suffered as a result of this, psychologically suffered, and she found the surgery extremely traumatic. She talked about it for the rest of her life.
Ann: And then she had this unfulfilled maternal instinct. She’s a person who really wanted to have children, but also, she was raised, like, in the tenement and everything, like you said, around a family, around a huge support system. Being with Crippen, she found herself, not only she didn’t have children but she didn’t have anyone around her. She was quite lonely. So, can you explain how they wound up in England, where she was even more isolated?
Hallie: Yeah. Well, I mean, so Crippen, at the time, was… He had started his career, he had really, you know, he had wanted to be a legitimate doctor, bearing in mind that the field of medicine that he chose was homeopathy, which at the time was considered a legitimate alternative to orthodox medicine. He also, at the time, had a speciality, a specialism in obstetrics and gynecology, as well as in the eye and the ear. So, he was he was kind of trying to make a name for himself as that and then eventually he gives up on that—we don’t know why something rather mysterious happens at some point—and he picks up with a man called James Monroe Munyon, who was this incredibly successful patent medicine salesman, you know, I mean, snake oil, complete snake oil salesman who made a ton of money. Really, from that point, you know, Crippen just kind of spirals into medical fraud, actual stock fraud, Ponzi schemes, as we would call them today, all sorts of fraud, and that’s how he earns his living.
So, at this time, when he was working for Munyon, Munyon sent him to London to open up a branch of Munyon’s remedies there. And following Belle’s ovariotomy, as it was called, and having been robbed of the opportunity to have children, I think it’s just an astonishing, astonishing thing for her to do for a woman of that time who would have, you know, completely thrown herself into her husband’s career. She decided she was going to become an opera singer, and she took opera lessons. She really, really worked at this and, you know, he supported that ambition. And then, when they moved to London, she realized, “Well, it’s going to be rather hard for me to break into opera here.” However, she had been told that music hall, vaudeville, was much easier. So, she reinvented herself again and said, “Well, I’m going to go on the stage and be a musical performer now.” And she really, like, every single time she decides to do something, she just throws herself into it. Absolutely. You know, she’s complete gusto. She loves what she does.
You know, she wasn’t a bad… This is the thing. There’s a lot of mileage that’s been got out of, like, taking potshots at Belle and saying, “Oh, she’s a terrible, terrible singer. She was ridiculously bad.” There’s absolutely not one iota of evidence that she was bad. In fact, I found quite the contrary looking at reviews that said she got ovations, and she did encores. And but, you know, like much like Hollywood today or anything, it’s incredibly hard to break into the music hall, you know, and not everybody soars to the heights of Mary Lloyd or Dan Leno or all these people who were incredibly famous that we remember today. She was just another music hall performer.
After several years, she wasn’t making the name for herself that she wanted to and then she switched again into working for a professional charity called the Music Hall Ladies Guild, which was a charity run by women for women in the music hall who’d fallen on hard times; who couldn’t pay their rent, couldn’t pay their doctor’s bills, needed coal for their fire, needed clothes for themselves and their children. She raised money for them, and she became the treasurer of the Music Hall Ladies Guild. That is where she really found herself and found, you know, found her métier. She loved it, and she raised a load of money for those who were in difficult times.
Ann: And she also found the circle of, sort of, found family among these women. Like, she found such true, genuine friendships there. It was really lovely to see how she found a purpose for herself, like, that when she couldn’t be a mother, but she found a way to care for people, but she found these people, she found these friends. That’s such a lovely… I heard you on another podcast where you said that’s kind of her happy ending that landing in this place.
Hallie: Yeah, completely her happy ending. And, you know, what’s so nice is like, obviously, you know, Belle wants to be famous, and she wants to be celebrated. Well, the interesting thing is, she ends up spending all of her time around these incredibly famous people, and she’s embraced in their circle, and so is Crippen. They throw parties, they go to balls, and they go to the Sanger-Ginnett wedding, which is really, really amazing, where they… These two circus families because circus was encompassed into the Music Hall as well, circus acts. And there’s this incredible wedding at the Sanger family farm, where they house all the animals during the winter. You know, there are giraffes and lions and monkeys at this incredible wedding that’s covered in the newspaper. So, she’s living her best life; she’s having these incredible experiences with these incredibly famous people who are her closest friends.
Ann: And she also gets an award for being so good at this.
Hallie: Yeah, it’s wonderful. I mean, it’s interesting that, like, shortly before she dies, she is honoured… Every year, the Music Hall Ladies Guild have this dinner, and they honour their, kind of, I was going to say, like employee or member of the year. That year, it was Belle, for everything that she had done for them. She was awarded that night with this bracelet, and I love it. I just think, like, you know, if we did merch, like, having a gold bangle with the words “To the Hustler,” on it would just be the greatest thing. So, she was given this bangle that said “To the Hustler,” and, you know, a bouquet of flowers and, you know, and a framed letter of appreciation and a box of gloves, you know, ladies’ gloves. She posed for her picture, and it was in all of the, you know, it was in The Era and, you know, in all the trade magazines and the trade papers. So, she was really celebrated, and people knew who she was. And it was in many ways like a happy ending because in a couple of months’ time, she would be murdered.
Ann: And that photograph is in the photo section of your book, and she just looks so happy. It’s such a lovely picture of her.
Hallie: Yeah, it feels like a happy ending in that way. I mean, her life ended needlessly early and under terrible circumstances. But, you know, to have had that triumph shortly before her death, I think, was really wonderful.
Ann: And so, her good friends, the music hall ladies, Belle goes to them, suddenly they are told by her husband, “She’s gone to America. She’s just left without saying goodbye. She’s gone.” And the ladies are just like, “Mmm, something’s off. Something’s wrong.”
Hallie: Totally. Yeah. I mean, this is the thing is like, you know, it’s the women who were saying, “Wait a minute.” Crippen was saying, “Oh, well, Belle’s gone to America. There’s basically this family emergency. She had to go.” And the women, her friends, were like, “Well, this is completely out of character. This is totally out of character. She calls us every day.” You know, they exchanged letters and postcards every day; they had telephones, they called each other; they sent telegrams to each other. You know, if one or the other was going on a ship and going somewhere, the others would see them off and they’d send them flowers, this was the traditional thing. But she was so close to her friends, and then she just disappears? From that, they knew there was something wrong.
I mean, imagine, like, your closest friend who messages you all the time, just like, suddenly, you know, they have to go to Cape Town, and they haven’t sent you a message at all, they’re not answering any of your messages. And you would think something was really, really wrong, and that’s exactly what Music Hall Ladies Guild thought. They knew something was wrong, and they started asking questions.
Ann: I love this part. I think I saw in one of the articles, one of your interviews, this has been optioned to be a series, this story. And this part of the story, I was thinking to myself before I knew that I was just like, this needs to be a series because I want to see these women and all the all the attempts… Like, they go to the police, the police don’t pay attention to them, they hire a kind of private investigator. Her friends are determined to get to the bottom of this, and it’s such a… I mean, it’s a testament to how much they cared for her and how much they loved her. And it’s also just, like, a really good tribute to the power of friendship and how Belle really was embraced by this community.
Hallie: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is, you know, the lengths to which these women went is really, really impressive. You know, as you said, they pursued Crippen. They went knocking on his door. You know, they followed him down the hallway; bear in mind, his offices and the Music Hall Ladies Guild offices were a couple of doors down the hall from each other because Belle had been the one who had secured the office space for them. So, they’re on top of him all the time, asking questions and following him around, going to his house. As you said, you know, they hired a private detective who trails him, can’t find out anything. They go to Scotland Yard; Scotland Yard dismisses them because they’re just, you know, bohemian ladies. You know, and you know what those sorts of women are like.
And then finally, it’s not really until Lillian Nash, who was the superstar performer. She was American and, you know, she traveled both sides of the Atlantic all the time with her husband, who was her manager. It wasn’t until John Nash and Lillian Nash and John Nash, especially, went to Scotland Yard and said, “Look, this is this is a real problem. Our friend is gone.” That’s Scotland Yard is like, “Okay, well, a man’s talking now. We’re going to listen to him.” Chief Inspector Walter Dew was put on the case. And, you know, Walter Dew took his time because, again, he wasn’t hugely convinced that, you know, these bohemian people tend to do unorthodox things, and maybe she has just kind of run off somewhere. So, he just started interviewing people. And then eventually he interviewed Crippen, and it was after he interviewed Crippen that he realized, “Hmm, something’s amiss here.”
Ann: So, at that point, I mean, the police are involved, the investigation ensues, her body is discovered. And just to basically, the most damning thing is that Crippen and his mistress, who we haven’t talked about, or wife at this point, Ethel, they dramatically flee town, which is as well as an omission, like, basically an omission of guilt. Once they know that they’re going to be caught, they kind of leave. And you write it very well in the book; people can read about the chase and going across, and then he’s captured in Newfoundland, I think, in Canada.
Hallie: He’s captured in in Quebec.
Ann: In Quebec. Right, right.
Hallie: Oh! Where are you?
Ann: I’m in central Canada, in Saskatchewan, but I’m from the East Coast. I’m from the East Coast. I was excited to read about Quebec and about Newfoundland. Oh! Canada’s in the story.
Hallie: Yeah, Canada’s really in the story. And Canada’s in the story again when… Well, we haven’t talked about Ethel, but Ethel makes her return to Montreal and Quebec City and Toronto.
Ann: I was just— I’m always excited… Well, this story, like, it’s going to all parts of the US; they’re in California, they’re in New York, then they get to England and then Canada. It’s people are crisscrossing. But just to get back to the music hall ladies. Basically, Crippen is caught. Ethel, his wife, such mistress, such typist, they’re caught. They’re put on trial, and the music hall ladies show up there. They testify at the trial.
Hallie: Yes. So, this was also… I mean, there’s another way in which they participate. I mean, they are there all the way through, which I think is amazing. So, Crippen and Ethel, you know, they abscond together, they get on a ship. But the important thing is they are actually disguised as father and son. And so, you know, Ethel is running around in boys’ clothes and with her hair cut short. You know, that’s quite a dramatic and shocking thing itself, and the entire world is, you know, this story has broken and everybody’s following it.
One of the interesting things is when it was decided that they were on a ship. Now, the president of the Music Hall Ladies Guild, Isabel Ginnett, was at the time in New York, they were touring in the United States. So, she led a campaign stateside to try to catch Crippen if he was on one of those ships. So, she got Belle’s sisters, who were living in Brooklyn together, and they created, like, this dragnet. And every day they would go down with the police to the ports and, like, examine all the people getting off the ships to see if they could recognize Crippen, you know, day, after day, after day. And then, of course, it was discovered that they were on the ship and the ship was bound for Quebec, so they called off that particular part of the search. But Mrs. Ginnett then got on a train when Crippen was caught in Quebec, got on a train and was there to positively identify him and also to identify all of Belle’s jewelry, which he had taken with him. So, she was needed to be as someone who could positively identify all the stuff.
But then this carries on, obviously. The women during the trial played an incredibly important role in that they testified. They wanted to ensure Crippen’s guilt, and they all testified at the trial. What I really like about this is at this time, you have to think that women were not allowed to practice as barristers, solicitors were not allowed in the police force, were not allowed to participate in the justice system at all. So, the closest they could get was being a witness at a trial, and it was so interesting how many women… And this is one of the things that got me really curious about the story in the first place was I realized how many female witnesses there were in Crippen’s trial. I mean, it was a huge number of women who testified and, you know, they all played a really important role in this. They also played a really important role in identifying her remains, which was incredibly grueling for all of them, and they all talked about the psychological impact of that on them; Lillian Nash had to take sick leave from performing. You know, they were really traumatized by the whole experience in general.
But then they also fought— Well, they paid for her burial. They paid for her headstone, you know, for her funeral, for everything. And then, finally, they got the law changed. So, in the UK, in England at the time, and it was a real omission in the law, it was possible for someone who had killed their spouse to then inherit their property and then pass it on to whoever they wanted to pass it on to. So, obviously, Crippen was found guilty of murdering Belle. He could and he was due to inherit all of her property, and he was going to then bequeath it to Ethel, who was really kind of behind a lot of the plans. And the Music Hall Ladies Guild said, “Absolutely no way is this going to happen.” So, they challenged this in court, and they got the law changed so if you murder your spouse in the UK, you cannot claim their property.
Ann: These women, I’m so impressed by them. Everything that you talk about in your book, and then you just explained here just the perseverance. You described Belle as, you know, when she decided to do something, she went all in, and her friends were the same; when they decided, like, they’re going to get this guy, they’re going to prove she was murdered, they’re going to prove that her husband did it. And they, all of them, were just so committed to on both sides of the Atlantic. It’s just such… I mean, obviously, this sort of story, of a murder and the tragedy of it, but I found this part so moving and so heartening, especially the part that they eventually got this law changed. I just think it’s great in a time when, as you described, like, women… All they could do is testify and just lobby, and they did so extremely successfully.
Hallie: Yeah, exactly. I know it’s really, really impressive. You know, it also took an enormous personal toll on all of them. You know, they were quite traumatized. They said they remembered this for the rest of their life. They were exhausted, they got sick. You know, I mean, you know, you can’t underestimate this. You know, there was an enormous personal cost involved in this as well. This wasn’t just like… You know, if Belle was this terrible person that these journalists and writers would later assert she was. And the reason they did that was because the only testimony, the only story they were drawing from was Crippen’s description of, like, how he and Belle didn’t get on. Now, Crippen was a proven liar. He perjured himself on the stand numerous times; he was a snake oil salesman, he was a conman, he was a grifter. And so, people just took his story and just said, “Oh, well, he must be telling the truth. His wife was horrible. What he was doing was he was defending himself.” Should he be found guilty, what he was seen to have done, you know, could be considered having killed her in out of duress, you know, that he was this henpecked husband, and therefore they might not have given him the death penalty. But that wasn’t what they found. You know, the evidence against him was utterly compelling, and the jury convicted him in less than 30 minutes.
But this story remained because it was a really good story. You know: Man murders impossible woman. But she was loved, and if she wasn’t loved, her friends would not have fought for her the way they did.
Ann: And then I think part of the legacy of her story is that Ethel, who you talk about a whole lot in the book—we don’t need to get into her today, although she did show up in Canada, as you mentioned. Canada, in this era, there’s a lot of criminals hiding here. I’ve talked about this on some other episodes. But Ethel was found not guilty, and because she really presented herself as like, “Oh, I’m just this young woman under his thrall. I didn’t know what he was doing,” et cetera. And then she shared her story, which was also very unflattering to Belle, and that’s part of where, sort of, the legacy comes from as well. Right?
Hallie: I mean, the two criminals, the two people involved in the murder, tell the story of Belle Elmore, and that’s what sticks, you know? So, it’s interesting. I mean, Ethel’s story, not to go into it, but just to say Ethel is like the foil to Belle in this story. Again, these are two actually very complex women, and Ethel’s story is very complex and very multilayered, and she was… I find her a fascinating, fascinating person, very dark person. But Belle and Ethel are sort of like opposites, are foils in many ways.
Ann: And it does also, I mean, Ethel is very young also when Crippen meets her, and so you kind of see like, oh, he likes a young, malleable woman.
Hallie: He does.
Ann: And he’s not so much fond of a mature woman with a fully formed, you know, frontal lobe or whatever.
Hallie: But he likes these—and I’m saying this with air quotes—“girls.” You know, he likes “girls.” But what he also likes, what’s really surprising, he likes women with really strong personalities. So, although Ethel, you know, Ethel portrays herself as a wallflower; she’s a slight, quiet, you know, reserved, and as she is described, slightly hysterical woman… Oh, she is not that at all. There is something else underneath, which is like a lioness, and that comes out. It comes out a lot. And Belle is incredibly strong, is an incredibly strong woman. Even his first wife, Charlotte, you know, to have done what she did, she had two careers before the age of 30 in the Victorian era, when women did not have careers. You know, she had started her life as a teacher and then became a nurse and immigrated under terrible circumstances from Ireland to the United States and started her life over again in New York and then out west. And my god, you know, what sort of, like, incredibly tough character do you have to be to do that? Resilient and… I mean, all of these women, the resilience is extraordinary, and that’s one of the things that made me really want to write this story.
Ann: This is part of where I’m glad that you’re the one who wrote this story because of the way that you focus and you give all three women their complexity and their humanity and really digging down to, like, prove what they were really like, how they moved through the world. A lot’s been written about Crippen before. But what you bring to this, what’s new and what’s different is, well, especially Belle, just kind of like explaining who she was. I love that the cover of the book is just her that just to show this is the story of her, a person, a vivacious, lovely person. Like, it’s I wouldn’t call this a true crime book at all.
Hallie: It’s a history book with.
Ann: Exactly.
Hallie: Yeah, you know, I say this in the introduction, and I’m a historian, I’m a social historian. And what I find, what has actually brought me to true crime, is not the crime itself. It’s the amount of documentation that a crime throws up for a historian and the incredible insight you can get from the paperwork about how people live their lives.
Ann: Well, thank you so much for joining me on this podcast. It’s really such a treat to talk to you. I’m such a fan of your work, and I think this book is just brilliant, and I hope that this interview gets a whole lot of people—a whole lot more people, lots of people are already reading your book—but even more people read your book, hopefully from our conversation.
Hallie: Thank you so much. Thank you.
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So, again, could not recommend this book anymore. It’s such a good read. In addition to everything we got into in this episode, which I hope, you know, entices you don’t read the book, because that’s, like, one plot strand in the whole thing, because the book also gets into how this crime was solved, more details about all of the women’s lives. It also talks about kind of how the crime probably happened and the aftermath, and it’s involving stuff, and we mentioned in the episode, like, we’re in New York City, we’re in California, we’re in London, we get to Quebec, I think Toronto is there at one point. It’s crisscrossing back and forth over the Atlantic. But just the way that the crime, the way that Hallie describes the way that kind of the suspense of, you know this is going to happen, but how is it going to happen? Then the investigation, the chase for Dr. Crippen; it’s all so cinematic and really, I’m so happy that it’s going to be adapted into a TV series, because I think, even more so than a movie, a TV series, you can really get into all these really cinematic moments that happen. Hallie tells it so well. If you can’t tell, I am obsessed with this book, and I love it, and I think it’s great. Story of a Murder: The Wives, The Mistress and Dr. Crippen, it’s available all over the place. So, it’s available in the UK, Commonwealth Territories, it’s available in North America, hopefully other places as well. And I really recommend you read it. If you read it, let me know what you think.
So, in terms of this podcast, I am excited to let you know also that… So, starting next week, we’re going to be diving back into our Marie Antoinette season. What is this? It’s like Season Seven, Part Three, I guess. It’s the women of the revolution. Starting next week, we’re going to be looking every week for the next several weeks about different women revolutionaries, women who are involved in the French Revolution, on the Revolution side. It’s a complex thing and I think it’s gratifying to me that some of the same people we’ve talked about before in both the American Revolution parts of the season, as well as in when we were looking at what was happening in France, like Lafayette is showing up, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges is there, obviously, Marie Antoinette comes up a bunch. But the season is kind of starting to… all these disparate parts of the Marie Antoinette season are kind of starting to get closer to each other. I’m making a gesture with my hands you can’t see; I’m moving my hands slowly closer together with my fingers outstretched. Eventually, the fingers are going to all interconnect.
So, this part of the series, I’m really excited to tell you these stories as well, because, again, a lot of these women, kind of like Belle Elmore, what they actually did has some overlap with what they’re remembered for doing, but not entirely overlap. Like, a lot of them got sort of lost in these myths and legends of these female revolutionaries. We’ll be looking for the next several weeks— I don’t want to say exactly because I keep finding more revolutionary women I want to talk about, but it’s going to be at least six or seven weeks. That’s starting next week. Although, I will say, coming up on Friday, it’s going to be another Canadian Heritage Minute episode and… Well, I’ll have a special announcement in that episode. So, Friday, Canadian Heritage Minute with a special episode about the Canadian Heritage Minute(s). And then next Wednesday, women of the Revolution get ready. It’s… There’s a lot of heads being chopped off that we’re going to be talking about on this podcast coming up really soon.
And so… Actually, I’m going to say one more thing, which is that after we finished recording, I was telling Hallie about my book that I have coming out next year about Caroline of Brunswick, Rebel of the Regency, and how it kind of… The way that Belle Elmore was presented and was kind of often popularly thought of as just this, kind of like, messy, annoying woman who kind of deserved to be murdered, it reminded me so much of the legacy of Caroline of Brunswick, who’s often, until my book comes out, still thought of as this kind of smelly, annoying mess. Anyway, so she and I were just commiserating for a bit about how women’s stories are so often just fall victim, especially women who are outspoken or who step outside the norm. Maybe there are people who support them during their life. But after they die, their legacies can often be handled by the men who hate them and the patriarchy that doesn’t want to remember that women like that ever existed. So, anyway, just another connection between that book and my book.
If you want to know the latest, what’s happening, things are happening. Preorders are going to be happening soon for my book, Rebel of the Regency. The way that you can get updates on that and everything else that I’m up to, like in-person appearances where I’m going to be going to Toronto this summer, you can get all the news about that in my mailing list newsletter. So, if you sign up for my mailing list, I send out an email once per month. It’s not overwhelming at all. It’s kind of like the top hits of what I’m up to because I know I’m up to a lot. If you just want to know the major breaking news, you can sign up for your Vulgar History news, your Ann Foster news, your Canadian Heritage Minute(s) news, go to VulgarHistory.com/News, I put the link here in the show notes as well. So, you can sign up for that if you just, if nothing else, that’s the way that you can keep up with what I’m up to. I also have a Substack, VulgarHistory.Substack.com, where I’m kind of busy at the moment. I’m on a petite hiatus from Substack while I finish, like, writing my book. But anyway, that’s where I post essays about women from history. It’s usually something like every other week, there’s a thing there that you can read.
You can also, if you want even more updates from me, not just the once-a-month email, you want more, you want all the details. So, I have a Patreon. So, how Patreon works is basically you subscribe to get my updates. If you do that, like, you can become a free member, and then what you’ll see there is I post questions there, I post some audio things there, I’m going to be posting some… I have been posting free episodes there for everybody who joins the Patreon, just updates about me and my book and what’s going on. I just did an “Ask Me Anything” a couple of weeks ago with questions from people from the Patreon. And I think I’ll be doing an “Ask Me Anything” probably every month or so, just because there’s so much to tell you, and I want to share all this information with people who want to hear it. Also, just because of, you know, I’ve talked about this before, but like, just social media in general, it’s kind of like, everyone’s a different social media. And then you’re just like a victim, a victim of the algorithm. Do people see the things you post? Not always.
Anyway, so if you actually want to know what I’m up to, you can join my Patreon for free. Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter. And if you’re like, “But then do I have to go to the website every day?” It’s like, no, you’ll get updates, either in the app or just in your email when I post something there. If you want to bump things up, where if you pledge for $1 or more a month, you will get early, ad-free access to all episodes of Vulgar History. And if you’re like, “But I don’t want to have to go to the app to listen to the podcast,” you don’t! Because once you join it, you can connect Patreon, your paid or free membership, with wherever you listen to your podcasts on. If it’s Spotify or Apple Podcasts or YouTube, whatever, you can connect those so that the podcast episodes just land in your little podcast thing without you… Well, I mean, you have to make the connection, but once that connection is done, which is easy to do, they just live there early and without the ads in the middle, and beginning, and end, and also early.
If you pledge by $5 or more a month on the Patreon, you also get access to the whole back catalogue of bonus episodes; Vulgarpiece Theatre, where I talk about costume dramas, So This Asshole, where I talk about awful men from history. I will say, as I’ve been reading about women from the French Revolution, I’ve got two new So This Asshole candidates who I will be yelling about. And so, So This Asshole episodes probably pretty soon because these guys keep showing up and just fucking up all these women’s lives. Anyway, and then also when you join the $5 or more a month category, then you also get access to our Discord, which is just a big group chat for people who are into this podcast and into history and talking about shows and just having a nice time, basically. It’s another way. Like, I love to find ways to stay in touch with the Tits Out Brigade and the Discord I find is a really nice place to do that. That’s available for people who join the Patreon at $5 a month or more.
If you’re looking for some jewelry, we do have our brand partner, Common Era Jewelry, which I know a lot of people are being mindful these days about where the products that they purchase are coming from and that sort of thing. And so, I saw Torie, the owner of Common Era Jewelry, was posting their stuff is manufactured all in America. So, if you’re in America, who knows? The tariffs shouldn’t be affecting this. It’s all made there. So, this is a 100 percent women-owned business using 100 percent recycled gold. Their gold pieces are all made to order, so there’s no waste. Like, she’s only making things when people order them. Pieces are made entirely in New York City. Everyone involved is health care and good wages. Even the packaging is made by a lovely little family-owned business in Chicago. And it’s not just like, “Oh, wow, what a nice company.” It’s beautiful jewelry as well.
So, Torie makes these beautiful designs that are inspired by women from history and also from just kind of like the vibes of history, especially the Common Era, classical era. So, I’ve talked before, they have gorgeous designs inspired by women from history and myth. They also have a new Zodiac jewelry collection inspired by an obscure 17th-century alchemical manuscript, “Reimagining Zodiac jewelry through the lens of ancient alchemical wisdom.” Their pieces are beautiful. They’re available in solid gold as well as a more affordable gold vermeil. I will say that the Zodiac collection, last time I looked, because I have been on this myself for personal reasons, the gold vermeil is it’s not quite there yet, but you can go on a waitlist for the Zodiac jewelry in gold vermeil. Vulgar History listeners can always get 15 percent off all items from Common Era by going to CommonEra.com/Vulgar or using code ‘VULGAR’ at checkout. That’s 15 percent off everything at Common Era by going to CommonEra.com/Vulgar or using code ‘VULGAR’ at checkout.
If you want to support this show by getting merchandise, that is available at VulgarHistory.com/Store takes you to our recently redesigned store. So, it’s still… TeePublic is like the company that does it, but now their site is called the Dashery. And it just kind of looks nicer. It’s a bit easier to browse. I find like it’s just kind of like, here’s all the designs. You click on the design, and then from the design, you can choose which product you want, like a sticker, do you want a T-shirt, whatever? That’s for Americans, VulgarHistory.com/Store. If you’re outside the U.S., the shipping is better, and that includes Canada. Like, VulgarHistory.com/Store is great for people who are in America. Literally any other country in the world, including that island just off the coast of Australia, where all the penguins live, who have to pay the tariffs now, VulgarHistory.Redbubble.com is your friend there.
If you want to get in touch with me, go to VulgarHistory.com. There’s a little contact me form, and that sends an email to me, and then I will read your email. But you can also send me via DM on Instagram. And you can follow me on Bluesky and Instagram and Threads, and LinkedIn. I don’t know. And this is where just like what’s happening? What is social media? Follow me on Patreon. Frankly, that’s where I’m posting the most stuff.
Anyway, if you’re in Canada, there is an election coming up. And I want to make sure that my vote counts as best it can. And by which, I mean, for me, I’m supporting anyone who is not Pierre Poilievre. And so, if you want to figure out kind of where should you vote, should you vote for the NDP, should you vote for the Liberal Party? Like, how is your riding leaning? Like, which makes sense if there’s not a vote split. So, if you go to SmartVoting.ca is a website where you can type in your postal code and it’ll kind of look at your riding and kind of how the polls are going to help you decide who to vote for because as we’re all seeing in the world right now, it’s really important to vote and to vote for someone who you think is going to support the things that are important to you. For me, that’s anyone other than Pierre Poilievre is who I want to vote for.
Anyway, so Friday, we’ve got a Canadian Heritage Minute and a special Canadian Heritage Minute special announcement. Next week… Next week. French Revolution. Liberté, sororité. Just heads are going to get cut off. These women are like, we’re all, you know, sans-coulottes, which doesn’t mean what it means. It means no knickers, but you’re wearing long trousers. To me, it just really sounds like people are out there Winnie the Pooh-ing it, not wearing pants. So, we’re going sans-coulottes. We’re going tits out, we’re going elbows up. So, I’ll talk to you on Friday for the Canadian episode. And then, next week, we’re getting back into the French Revolution. And everybody should really, really, really, really read Story of a Murder: The Wives, The Mistress and Dr. Crippen by Hallie Rubenhold. And I’ll talk to you all next time.
Vulgar History is hosted, written, and researched by Ann Foster, that’s me! The editor is Cristina Lumague. Theme music is by the Severn Duo. The Vulgar History show image is by Deborah Wong. Transcripts are written by Aveline Malek. Find transcripts of recent episodes at VulgarHistory.com.
References:
Buy a copy of Hallie’s book from bookshop.org
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