Rating:
Tichborne Claimant 1998 [DVD] John Kani, Robert Pugh, Stephen Fry, Robert Hardy and Sir John Gielgud
“Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.” – Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
The Tichborne Claimant affair was the celebrated 19th-century legal case of Arthur Orton, who claimed to be the missing heir Sir Roger Tichborne. In April 1854, Sir Roger Charles Tichborne was homeward bound from South America, when his ship was lost at sea. When the news reached her, Roger’s mother refused to believe he was dead. She inquired all over the world, and in November 1865, heard from a Sydney lawyer claiming that a man fitting the description of her son was living in Australia.
The supposed Sir Roger was actually Arthur Orton ( Note: there is some evidence he could have been the illegitimate son of Roger’s father James). Aside from a superficial resemblance to Tichborne, he did not fit the description well; however Lady Tichborne was desperate enough to accept him as her son and sent him money to come to her.
Orton was seemingly reluctant to go at first, however, a former family servant, Andrew Bogle, accompanied him on his trip to Britain. He arrived in London, December 1866 and visited the Tichborne estates. When he travelled to the Paris hotel where Lady Tichborne was living, she recognised him as her son. She even handed him Roger’s letters from South America, and she gave him an allowance of £1,000 a year.
After Lady Tichborne’s acceptance, other members of the Tichborne family were outraged, and unsurprisingly declared him an impostor. They found many discrepancies when Orton tried to fit his own South American experiences to those of Sir Roger.
When Lady Tichborne died in March 1868, Orton lost his most prominent supporter. It was unfortunate also for the cause of truth, for she died before she could testify in the witness box. By this time, Orton owed a significant amount of money. (He sold “Tichborne Bonds” in music halls to pay the legal costs when he tried to claim the inheritance.) The rightful heir at the time, Henry Doughty-Tichborne, was only two years old. The claimant, in the eyes of the public, had become a `cause’..
Continue reading Tichborne Claimant-1998 DVD