Vauxhall Road and the Elixir of Life ( was The Diary) -longish

[linocow2000]

No: HPFGUIDX 86799

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Shaun Hately" <drednort at a...> 
wrote:
<snip>
> There *does* appear to have been a Vauxhall Road in London. The
name *
does* 
> seem to have been in use as late as 1942.
> 
> And it seems to have been the road either now known as Kennington
Road, 
or 
> Kennington Lane.
<snip>
> On July 17th, 1942, workers demolishing the Vauxhall Baptist Church
in 
Vauxhall 
> Road, London, found a body. It was initially believed to be a
victim of the 
Blitz (the 
> area had been bombed several times in 1940 and 1941) or an old
burial 
from the 
> churchyard, but was later identified as Mrs Rachel Dobkin, the wife
of Harry 
> Dobkin who worked at 302 Vauxhall Road, London. He was later hanged 
for her 
> murder.
> 
<snip>
> 
> I'm just getting confused here - but I am seeing some indication of
the term 
> Vauxhall Road in use in 1942 - best approach, I think, to confirm
would be 
to 
> consult London newspapers about the Dobkin murder.>
<snip>

Now me:

This is a great bit of research Shaun!
I was immediately interested in the reference to the Dobkin murder.
My 
parents used to talk about Keith Simpson, the forensic pathologist
who solved 
the case  whom they remembered from their time as medical students at
Guys 
Hospital. I found a lot more about the case (a famous one at the
time) at the 
website of the Vauxhall Society (http://www.vauxhallsociety.org.uk/
Murders.html), which  refers to:

"badly bomb-damaged Vauxhall Baptist Chapel in Vauxhall Road, 
Kennington (now Kennington Lane)"

so seems like the identity of Vauxhall Road is cleared up.

Abbreviated details of the murder case as follows:

"On July the 17th 1942 a workman who was helping to demolish the
badly 
bomb-damaged Vauxhall Baptist Chapel in Vauxhall Road, Kennington
(now 
Kennington Lane), prised up a stone slab and found beneath it a
mummified 
body. The immediate assumption was that the remains were either of an
air 
raid victim or had come from the old burial ground underneath the
church, 
which had ceased to be used some fifty years before. When the church
had 
been bombed on the 15th of October 1940 more than a hundred people
had 
been killed in the conflagration .... Nor was it the first body that
the workers 
had come upon while demolishing the chapel. Nevertheless, routine was 
followed, and the police were called in......the bones being removed
to 
Southwark Mortuary for examination by pathologist Dr Keith Simpson. 

Simpson immediately suspected foul play.....An obvious attempt had
been 
made to disguise the identity of the corpse. Dr Simpson obtained the 
permission of the coroner to take the remains back to his laboratory
at Guy's 
Hospital for a more detailed inspection. Returning to the crypt of
the 
church......Simpson noticed a yellowish deposit in the earth,
subsequently 
analysed as slaked lime. This had been used to suppress the smell of 
putrefaction, but it also had the effect of preventing maggots from
destroying 
the body. Examining the throat and voice box, Simpson detected a
blood clot, 
strongly indicating death due to strangulation. The next task was to
discover 
the identity of the victim. The body was that of a woman aged between
forty 
and fifty, with dark greying hair, was five feet one inch tall, and
had suffered 
from a fibroid tumour. Time of death was estimated at between twelve
and 
fifteen months prior to discovery. Meanwhile the police had been
checking the 
lists of missing persons, and noted that fifteen months previously
Mrs Rachel 
Dobkin, estranged wife of Harry Dobkin, the fire watcher at the firm
of 
solicitors next door to the Baptist Chapel at 302 Vauxhall Road, had 
disappeared. An interview with her sister elicited the information
that she was 
about the right age, with dark greying hair, was about five feet one
tall, and 
had a fibroid tumour. She also gave police the name of Mrs Dobkin's
dentist, 
Barnett Kopkin of Stoke Newington, who kept meticulous records and
was 
able to describe exactly the residual roots and fillings in her
mouth. They 
matched the upper jaw of the skull. 

Finally, ...the Photography Department at Guy's super- imposed a
photograph 
of the skull on to a photograph of Rachel Dobkin, a technique first
used six 
years earlier in the Buck Ruxton case. The fit was uncanny. 
.............The trial of 
Harry Dobkin opened at the Old Bailey on the 17th of November
1942.... 
Dobkin's counsel........ spent most of his efforts trying vainly to
challenge the 
identification evidence. The prisoner's appearance in the witness box
left the 
jury unimpressed, and it took them only twenty minutes to arrive at a
verdict of 
guilty. Before his execution Dobkin confessed to his wife's murder ,
claiming 
that she was always pestering him for money and he wanted to be rid
of her 
for good." (taken from Vauxhall Society website)

So, first the spooky Phiz illustration and now a notorious murder....
Seems that
Vauxhall Road is a bit of a haunted place... 

Linocow