The Case of the Missing Aristocrat | An Actual Tichborne | 4

William Motley says he’s a descendant of the family… But we’ve checked and this time it’s true. He’s even writing a book about Arthur Orton’s outlandish claims. William joins Alice and Matt to unpack the lasting impact of the scandal on his relatives, Britain’s fascination with class, and life as the descendant of nobility. Plus, William tells us about the so-called "Tichborne curse". Listen to British Scandal on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting https://wondery.com/links/british-scandal/ now. Do you have a suggestion for a scandal you would like us to cover? Or perhaps you have a question you would like to ask our hosts? Email us at [email protected] See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alice Levine?

  Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of British Scandal ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.

• 0:16Alice Levine?

  From Wondery, I'm Alice Levine.

• 0:18Matt Forde?

  And I'm Matt Ford.

• 0:19Alice Levine?

  And this is British Scandal.

• 0:34Alice Levine?

  Matt, I don't say this lightly. This has been the family scandal to rival all family scandals, until the next family scandal that we do, of course. This was the story of Roger Tichborne, or should I say of Arthur Orton.

• 0:46Matt Forde?

  And it's an incredible story. A bloke turns up, claims to be the heir to a fortune, swaps up by chatting to the actual heir's servant and by reading a couple of letters, and embarks on one of the longest-running court cases in British history.

• 0:59Alice Levine?

  And all the way through, there were times when I thought, who's bloody got away with this?

• 1:04Matt Forde?

  And he had so many strokes of luck. The same eye twitch, the same scar on the left ankle, and of course, weaponising a violent populist movement to further your own ends.

• 1:13Alice Levine?

  It's just so satisfying when all the pieces fall into place. Yes, we saw shameless opportunism, class snobbery, body confidence issues, and all kinds of skeletons in the cupboards. It really was a British scandal full house. So for this episode, our guest had to be very special. I thought, who better to have on than an actual member of the family itself?

• 1:34Matt Forde?

  Just to check, are we sure this guy is actually a member of the family?

• 1:39Alice Levine?

  You're absolutely right to ask, yep. I've checked his ankles, he definitely is. Today, we are talking to William Motley. He's a blood relative of the Titchbones and is writing a book about his family's history. He joins us next.

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• 2:22Speaker 03

  Hi, I'm Sachi Cole, co-host of Scamfluencers from Audible Originals. Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes let a film crew see everything before she went to prison, or at least that's what she wanted them to think. In our latest episode, we dig into the documentary that has everyone asking, who's really running the con? Listen to Scamfluencers on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:50Alice Levine?

  William, where do you fit in within the Titchborne family?

• 2:54Speaker 04

  My mother was a Titchborne, and my grandfather was the last baronet, Anthony Titchborne.

• 3:01Matt Forde?

  And how does it feel having your family associated with such an infamous fraud?

• 3:06Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, it's been there all my life, so it feels quite natural, really. It's been part of the family mythology. We joke about it, we talk about it, and we put up with lots of inquiries and interest in it.

• 3:19Alice Levine?

  And who lives on the Tichborne estate now?

• 3:21Speaker 04

  My cousin, Anthony, he lived there. He died about five years ago, and his widow and three children live there now. So it's still in the family. They were, I think, the 24th generation living there from when they regained the estates in the middle of the 12th century.

• 3:40Matt Forde?

  Are there any family heirlooms from that time? Are the letters that Roger Tichborne wrote still around? Are there any, for want of a better word, memorabilia from our story still knocking around?

• 3:53Speaker 04

  There are letters, yes, and most of them have been read and poured over by scholars. There's not a lot to do with the claimant at Titchman, because of course, he wasn't a member of the family. There's a lot of his memorabilia elsewhere, and it's still collected quite seriously. Occasionally, bits of Worcester porcelain or commemorative dishes turn up on eBay, and they make a lot of money.

• 4:19Alice Levine?

  As you've said, there's something of an obsession around this story, certainly in the media. Following the claimant trial at the time, of course, what is it about this story that piques people's interest, do you think?

• 4:30Speaker 04

  It's the classic identity problem, and there's the sort of excitement of the fraud. It even inspired an episode of The Simpsons, apparently.

• 4:40Alice Levine?

  That's when you know you've made it.

• 4:43Speaker 04

  I think so, yes. When the trial was going on, everybody went to it. It captured the imagination across the world. I think it's just this idea of somebody getting lost and coming back and trying to prove who he is. Is he the real person, or is he some very clever fraud? I mean, that just makes a very good story.

• 5:04Matt Forde?

  Obviously, these things can happen to any generation. There will always be people trying to swindle wealthy people out of their fortune. Has it made you more wary, more suspicious of people outside the family?

• 5:16Speaker 04

  Not really, no. I mean, today, it's so much easier to establish someone's identity. It's one of the interesting factors of the claimant trial, is that when it happened, establishing identity wasn't very easy. Fingerprint technology sort of came in at just about that time, and there was no DNA or anything like that. And the law, as it stood, meant that the family couldn't just say, he is not Roger Titchman. They had to legally say, he is not Roger Titchman, but he is. Somebody else and they had to establish that he was Arthur Orton.

• 5:55Alice Levine?

  Which seems absurd, doesn't it, to not be able to say, this is not somebody we know. This is not a member of our family.

• 6:01Speaker 04

  And it's difficult because there weren't very many members of the family left. And he'd been gone for twelve, thirteen years by the time he turned up. So there weren't many people who had known him very well. And he'd grown up in France, in Paris. And then he'd come to England to go to school and to get away from his mother, who was rather overbearing. And then he joined the army and then he went off around the world. So it was difficult for people to establish who he was. And establishing an identity at that time was very difficult. And he was coached by Bogle, the servant of Edward Titchman.

• 6:38Alice Levine?

  And that was key intel, of course.

• 6:40Speaker 04

  Yes, very useful intel. It gave him, it enabled him to sort of identify a few people and say, oh, yes, I remember you cousin this or whatever. But the actual close members of the family weren't there because the actual main line was all gone. And all of Roger's siblings were dead by then and his parents. There was virtually no one left.

• 7:01Alice Levine?

  You've said that the the claimant story is part of family law. How was it talked about behind closed doors?

• 7:09Speaker 04

  There's no, no special secrets, I'm afraid. There was always a sense from my grandfather that it would have been rather sad if he really was Roger. But they didn't think he was Roger. I mean, I don't think he was, I'm certain he wasn't. The fact that he couldn't speak French at all when Roger had been brought up in France by his mother and spoke English with a very strong French accent. I think that that's enough to rule him out, frankly, and I'm amazed that he got as much support as he did. But he had a big following and the family were quite frightened of that, I think. And still, when my aunt, my mother's sister died,

• 7:52Speaker 04

  she was buried in the family vaults in the church at Titchman. And at the time, they had to post security guards while it was open because there were people who wanted to get in there and take DNA samples and prove that they were descended from the Titchmans and from the claimant. I mean, this is, we're talking about thirty years ago. There were still people trying to revive the story even then.

• 8:18Matt Forde?

  I'm not suggesting that all families with histories like yours talk to other families of similar means, but out there in the community of people that grew up in these sorts of places, have you ever heard of anything like this happening to other families?

• 8:33Speaker 04

  Not like that, no. It is an unusual story. I mean, the Titchbuns were quite rich in the 19th century, they're not now. A lot of the money actually that the Titchbuns had was spent on defending the court case, which is ironic really. But this is just one of the Tichborne sort of legends. I mean, the family is much older and has had all sorts of stories in the past as well. The Titchbuns are famous really because they've always been at Tichborne. They've never done anything particularly exciting. They married quite well on occasions, particularly people, heiresses with a lot of money, and they just stayed there.

• 9:16Alice Levine?

  Obviously in the story, there are lots of audacious details. There are lots of flukes and theatre and the sleight of hand and clever trickery. But I suppose the bit that is really hard to understand is Henriette's reaction. In the family, how is her conviction explained away?

• 9:38Speaker 04

  Well, she was estranged from her husband, James Tichborne, who was the 10th Baronet. He was a pretty cruel man, I think, and I don't think he treated her very well. And they certainly worked together while Roger was growing up. I think she had a difficult time, but also she was illegitimate. So she was the illegitimate daughter of someone called Henry Seymour of Noyle, who was an MP and a very sort of big figure. And her mother was an illegitimate daughter of the Duke de Bourbon-Conti, the French royal family. And she had money from the Bourbon-Conti

• 10:17Speaker 04

  family, but I think she was very much estranged from parts of French society. There's a wonderful portrait of her as quite a young woman at Tichborne. She looks very pretty and slightly mad. She had lost Roger. I mean, she adored Roger. Obviously, this had festered in her mind. The rest of the Titchman family didn't like her, and she didn't like them. So she was at war with them.

• 10:46Speaker 04

  So it's difficult to know whether she really believed it was Roger or she was deluded or she thought this will this will teach them. I don't know.

• 10:57Alice Levine?

  Fascinating.

• 10:58Matt Forde?

  What do you think drove Arthur Orton to claim to be Roger?

• 11:03Speaker 04

  I think he was somebody who had a perhaps not as strong a grasp on himself and his own identity as he should have done. I think the claimant believed by the end. I think he believed it himself. I think he had fooled himself and adopted this sort of strange, romantic, rather sad identity.

• 11:24Matt Forde?

  I guess there must be part of it that this is a great thrill. What an amazing story to have in your family history. You know, for all the pain it caused, that was a long time ago. No one in living memory really was impacted by it. For you, it must be must be quite an adventure.

• 11:39Speaker 04

  It's a difficult one. About 10 years ago, I found a letter written to my great grandmother by the daughter of the claimant. And she was definitely unwell. She spent time in a mental institution. And she always claimed that she was the daughter of Roger. She was totally convinced. And she she waited with a gun outside the the Titchman home in London. And she tried to shoot my great grandmother. And she threatened to shoot my grandfather, who was a boy at the time. And my aunt remembers my grandfather talking about this. And my

• 12:19Speaker 04

  aunt is still alive. So it's it's just on the edge of living memory still, the threat.

• 12:26Matt Forde?

  There was a strange twist of fate a few years ago when you were elected on to Brent Council for the Lib Dems, was that Arthur Orton's grave was in your ward. So did you go and visit it?

• 12:39Speaker 04

  It was in Queens Park Ward. I was quite surprised by that. I hadn't realised when I was elected that and I went to stand on the the spot, then marked it out for me. There's no headstone at all. It's just an area of grass. That was a bit strange, I must admit. And it is interesting, when he died and was buried there, I've seen photographs of it, about 5,000 people turned out to his funeral. He was a charismatic man, the claimant, and he really had a big following around the country.

• 13:14Matt Forde?

  There might not be a headstone there, but he's a legendary figure. Are there any sort of fans of his that leave flowers or anything like that?

• 13:21Speaker 04

  There's nothing now at all. I don't really know of anything that has lasted, apart from his daughter, who was unwell. I haven't come across anybody who really pushed his claim. His lawyer, Edward Caneely, who was a very strange man, he ran a magazine called The Englishman and The Tichborne Gazette for some time afterwards, raising money after the claimant had been sent to prison. And he pushed the case and he was elected to Parliament too. And he tried to get a bill passed in Parliament on it. And I think when the vote happened in the House of Commons, the division in the House was him on one side

• 14:04Speaker 04

  and every other MP on the other side. I think it's the only time the House is divided, one against everybody like that. He eventually gave up and since then, I don't think anybody supports the claimant as actually being Roger Titchman. There was a claim in the 1920s in a magazine that Arthur Orton might have been an illegitimate son of a maid in the Titchman household who lived in Wapping, which is where the Orton family came from. Now, that is a very curious story, but there's absolutely no evidence for it at all. It's just a nice story.

• 14:45Alice Levine?

  But as you say, Arthur Orton possessed this power of persuasion, which resulted in an incredible and unlikely following.

• 14:54Alice Levine?

  What do you think happened there? That working class support was really substantial. What do you think we can glean from that about British society in the 19th century?

• 15:05Speaker 04

  Well, it's interesting, as Rowan McWilliam has written in his very good book on the story in Victorian social history, it struck at the right time. When there wasn't really any other great cause for the working man in British history in the Victorian era, after the chartists and before the rise of the sort of larger trade union movement. And it's ironic that this great movement of the working class, the working man, trying to claim their rights, was actually trying to establish an aristocrat back to his titles and estates. It doesn't sound like the cause you'd think the English working man would want to support.

• 15:47Speaker 04

  But the romanticism of the story got them going. And the claimant raised a lot of funds for his court case and lawyers when he first tried to sue to get the estates by travelling the music halls and performing and telling the story and raising funds at the time. He also set up something called the Tichman Bond, which was a sort of futures certificate. You could buy it for, say, twenty pounds, and if he won his estates back, it would then be worth a hundred pounds. So it was a sort of junk bond, really, and that alarmed the establishment very considerably

• 16:29Speaker 04

  because the idea might have destabilised the sort of economic structures of the time. It also is likely that the number of them he sold, if he had got his estates back, he would probably have gone bankrupt because I think he'd sold more than they were actually worth. So when the whole trial collapsed, the House of Commons got together and they passed a special act of Parliament called the Tichborne Act. It's very short and it simply says that the infant baronet is the heir to the Tichman titles and that Roger Tichman, even if he is still alive, is legally disinherited. And this was to stop other people coming forward, and there were a couple of other

• 17:14Speaker 04

  people who claimed to be Roger at the time, though they didn't get any traction. So basically, the establishment said, we've had enough of this particular case. They'd brought down the guillotine on it and stopped it with an act of parliament.

• 17:28Alice Levine?

  Yeah, can you imagine? It could have just been claimant after claimant.

• 17:32Speaker 04

  It could have been, yes.

• 17:34Alice Levine?

  Lots of films, though. You need a sequel sometimes.

• 17:37Speaker 04

  Well, I've often thought it would make a fantastic series on one of these streaming channels, because it's such a big, complicated story that goes on and has so many twists and turns. It'd make a very good story, I think.

• 17:54Matt Forde?

  Alice, have you ever wondered why the Mini is so small?

• 17:57Alice Levine?

  The Skir or the Magnum?

• 18:00Matt Forde?

  Well, I meant the iconic British car, because in 1956, Britain's oil supply was suddenly cut off. Petrol rationing was brought in, and the car industry was scrambling around for a vehicle that hardly used any fuel. Enter the Mini.

• 18:14Alice Levine?

  Interesting, but actually not technically British scandal series material.

• 18:18Matt Forde?

  Well, the reason they had to save petrol is because the Prime Minister started a war and lied about why.

• 18:24Alice Levine?

  Okay, scandal siren going off.

• 18:26Matt Forde?

  I'm Matt Ford.

• 18:27Alice Levine?

  And I'm Alice Levine.

• 18:28Matt Forde?

  And our latest British scandal series involves a secret meeting in a French villa, a Prime Minister running on amphetamines.

• 18:34Alice Levine?

  An Egyptian president that everyone fancied, the end of the British Empire, and at the heart of it, a canal.

• 18:41Matt Forde?

  This is the story of the Suez Plot.

• 18:44Alice Levine?

  Follow British Scandal wherever you get your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Audible.

• 18:54Speaker 05

  You stepped out for your morning jog, except it's not your usual morning jog. You started listening to an epic sci-fi book on Audible. Thirty chapters later, you've accidentally run a half marathon. You've lost track of how far you've run, somewhere just past the city limits. You can't stop. You have to find out what happens next.

• 19:13Speaker 05

  Then it's over. The universe seems bigger. You feel different. You feel like you have no idea where you are. Audible. Stories that speak to you.

• 19:30Alice Levine?

  William, can you tell us about the Tichman curse?

• 19:35Speaker 04

  Well, this is one of the strangest aspects of the Tichman family, and it goes a long way back. During the 12th century, Sir Roger Tichman had fought in the Second Crusade, and when he came back, he found the area around Winchester at Tichman massively damaged by the anarchy and the civil war under Stephen and Matilda. And his wife asked him to feed all the tenants and residents of the parishes of Tichman and Cherisham. And he was quite a cruel man, and he was not prepared to do that. So she begged him, and he said he would only do it with food grown on land that

• 20:19Speaker 04

  she walked around while he held a burning torch. So she got off her deathbed and crawled around this vast area called the Crawl's, still there, it's still part of the estate at Tichman. When she got back, she said, "If you don't give out flour and bread to the people of Tichman, there will be seven sons, and then there will be seven daughters, and then the name of Tichman will die out and the house will fall." So they started up this dole, it was called, handing out bread and flour. And there were quite a lot of doles at that time because the country was in a real mess. And supposedly, this was carried on right the way through the Middle Ages into

• 21:04Speaker 04

  the 17th century. At the end of the 18th century, there were riots and there was trouble associated with it, vagabonds turning up from all around the country. The magistrates said that this would have to stop. So it was stopped about 1790.

• 21:23Speaker 04

  There were then seven sons, the Titchman baronetcy went down these sons. The eldest of the seven sons had seven daughters and no heir. The second son died in China. The third son inherited and his young son died. The fourth son inherited, he was James. And his son was Roger. They began to worry at this point, so they started up the dole again. And after that, Alfred, who was Roger's younger brother, was born. So nobody, no male heir to the Titchman family was born during that period. And it meant that the family was very much reduced. All the male heirs had died out.

• 22:08Speaker 04

  So we still do it on the 25th of March every year. All the people of Titchman and Cheriton who want to turn up and we have a large vat of flour. And we hand it out according to a regulation amount. The flour is blessed by the Catholic priest. And we say prayers for the original Lady Titchman who delivered the curse and gave the charitable story.

• 22:33Alice Levine?

  This is a fantastic way to get aristocratic families to be more philanthropic. We just, just dole out the curses. This is, this is how to do it.

• 22:42Speaker 04

  It does get reported on regularly by people who are astonished by it. The fact, more interestingly, is that it's still going on.

• 22:50Matt Forde?

  But shouldn't you dole out something more modern? I mean, you know, flour was, was precious back in the day. Shouldn't it be Haribo or lager?

• 22:57Speaker 04

  During Covid, they nearly had to stop doing it during the lockdowns. It was done at distance with people with a sort of drive through dole. And the, you know, the queues of Range Rovers coming to collect their dole from a, you know, a Hampshire village did sort of suggest that perhaps the situation is not quite as desperate as it was in the 12th century.

• 23:19Alice Levine?

  The demo has changed.

• 23:21Speaker 04

  I think it has, yes.

• 23:22Alice Levine?

  And William, do you believe in the curse?

• 23:26Speaker 04

  I believe in it as part of the family law, yes. I don't think I'm superstitious enough to really go for it. But I do think there have been a lot of Titchmans who have died young. Roger was lost at sea and he was in his twenties. Alfred, his younger brother, who did inherit the title, was twenty six when he died, leaving his wife pregnant. And she gave birth to a boy who became the infant baronet. And he died relatively young, he was in his forties. And his son, the only son, Joseph, was also in his forties when he died. And my grandfather was in his early fifties when he died.

• 24:07Speaker 04

  So the longevity, which used to be a feature of the Titchmans in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, they lived to their nineties, surprisingly. They don't live as long anymore, the Titchmans. And it was very sad. Anthony, he was in his early fifties when he died, leaving the estate to, of course, to his children.

• 24:30Matt Forde?

  I just want to come back to one of the themes of the story.

• 24:36Matt Forde?

  Why do you think the British are so fascinated with class?

• 24:42Speaker 04

  Well, I think that's changed a lot. I think it's because there are a lot of good stories, a lot of eccentrics, and it's entertaining.

• 24:54Speaker 04

  But I think, I think the class structure has largely broken down. I don't think it really changes things anymore.

• 25:03Matt Forde?

  Do you think it's also about maybe a sense of unfairness that no matter what you do, you can't kind of escape where you were born?

• 25:10Speaker 04

  I mean, I don't know. I think you can now escape from where you were born. I, to me, I mean, I'm sort of an old eccentric really, who just lives with my books and my husband and my dog. So I have a perhaps a rather strange outlook on all of this. I mean, I, I would like to think that class doesn't really apply anymore. I'm very much a supporter of the meritocratic society. I mean, I know we've had far too many old Italianians prime ministers recently, but I think things have changed.

• 25:44Alice Levine?

  And William, to be clear, what day do we need to come to collect the flower?

• 25:49Speaker 04

  It's March the 25th.

• 25:51Alice Levine?

  March the 25th, it's going in the British scandal diary.

• 25:54Speaker 04

  So it's, I have to say, you have to be on the parish roll.

• 25:58Alice Levine?

  Oh, there's a register. Okay.

• 25:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm afraid it's not, not a free for all.

• 26:04Speaker 04

  It's the 25th of March because that's Lady Day and of course, in the past, that used to be the first day of the year.

• 26:10Alice Levine?

  Well, if we can find somewhere to move into before the 25th, and of course, register in time, we will see you then for our flower collection.

• 26:21Alice Levine?

  Thank you so much to William for speaking to us. Matt, what do you have for the first full series of 2025? No pressure.

• 26:29Matt Forde?

  Okay. Who would you say is the most divisive figure of the last 20 years?

• 26:34Alice Levine?

  Gwyneth Paltrow? Pierce Morgan? Matt Ford?

• 26:38Matt Forde?

  I think you can make a case for all three, but let me help you. It's someone who helped spark debates about freedom of the press, government accountability, transparency and national security.

• 26:47Alice Levine?

  But we've done Colleen Rooney. Um, Lorraine, or should I say the artist formerly known as Lorraine for tax purposes? No, I don't know. I don't know.

• 26:55Matt Forde?

  Okay. Next week, I will be bringing you the story of the founder of WikiLeaks, the deeply polarising figure, Julian Assange.

• 27:05Alice Levine?

  This is really exciting, although an alarm is going off in my head. Isn't he Australian?

• 27:10Matt Forde?

  Yes, he is, but most of his legal battles were over here. The Guardian exposed the leaks and of course, he spent many years holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy, which he made his home for a very long time and had house guests, including Pamela Anderson.

• 27:24Alice Levine?

  It's almost like you had your arguments ready and what arguments they are. Okay, fine. How could I possibly try and get you on a technicality?

• 27:30Matt Forde?

  I'm so relieved. I don't know what the fallout would have been had you disagreed. Of course, if you subscribe to Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or on the Wondery app now, you can get the whole series at once. Everyone else will have to wait for a new episode each week.

• 27:43Alice Levine?

  Suckers. From Wondry and Samusdat Audio, this is the fourth and final episode in our series, The Case of the Missing Aristocrat. British Scandal is hosted by me, Alice Levine.

• 27:53Matt Forde?

  And me, Matt Ford.

• 27:55Alice Levine?

  For Samusdat, our producer is Chica Ayers. Our assistant producer is Redsey Bernard. Our senior producers are Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitzina. For Wondry, our series producer is Theodora Ludis and our managing producer is Rachel Sibley. Executive producers for Wondry are Estelle Doyle, Chris Bourne, Morgan Jones, and Marshall Louis.

• 28:21Speaker 04

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  A trucker merges onto the I-10 in New Orleans. He checks his mirrors. The lane is clear. And then, boom, impact. A pickup truck, seemingly out of nowhere, scrapes down the side of his 18-wheeler, multiple passengers inside. One man flees the scene. And the driver of the pickup, he doesn't seem all that upset. It didn't feel like a regular accident, because it wasn't. Across the city, truckers are getting sideswiped, all on the same stretch of the same freeway. And behind many of the cases is one person, a Hollywood star. Woman turned personal injury lawyer named Vanessa Moda. This podcast is a story about fake accidents that lead to real consequences and a scheme that ends in betrayal and murder.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  Listen to Over My Dead Body: Operation Side Swipe wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.