Theresa Doughty Tichborne

"I have just seen the announcement of the approaching marriage of my cousin, Joseph Tichborne. I have asked you to use your influence to make them give me some of the money they stole from us, but you do nothing. It is nothing to you if I starve, as long as you and your wife can give parties and flaunt about with people who, if they knew the truth, would be ashamed to know you. You cannot hide any more, for I am making you an accessory before the fact by telling you that I am going to shoot that girl rather than Joseph shall marry her and they shall live on my money. I am going to do it. Now hide, and pretend you think I don't mean it."

A second letter, in the same handwriting, was also produced which warned 'Colonel Stratton Bates' that 'the ladies of his family' should not attend the wedding and would 'be safer elsewhere'. and at trial, later that month, it was revealed that she had 'for years past... annoyed the Tichborne family' and 'to members of which she had sent begging letters' which 'verged on blackmail'. Sir Joseph's father, the late Sir Henry Tichborne, had 'charitably given the accused £25, which she had accepted as an acknowledgement of her connection with the family' and, following this, she had asked Sir Joseph 'to give her £10,000 and she would not worry him any further'. The following year, as 'Theresa Alexander', she was successful in her application to the court to have her sister stand surety on her £100 twelve-month good behavior bond.

1924 arrest In September 1923, Theresa appeared at the Clerkenwell Police Court charged with 'publishing a defamatory libel concerning Sir Joseph Tichborne'. She had previously been charged with 'writing a letter threatening to murder Sir George Lewis, the solicitor' and would be, the prosecutor stated, shortly facing 'fresh charges... of demanding money by menace'. Upon her release she was given a twelve-month good behavior bond with £300 of her own money and two sureties of £100 each. She was unable to find the sureties and was returned to jail. Her late father's visit to find the Orton family in Wapping in 1866 had only been 'carried out for the purpose of discovering if the family had been apprised of the murder'.