Explore the stories surrounding crime and justice on Bow Street.
CONTROLLING WOMEN: the Story of London’s First Female Police Force
Thursday 19th March 2026, 18:30 (doors open 18:15)
Violence against women is out of control. The conviction rate for rape is so low that most survivors think it pointless to report it, or live to regret doing so. Ruthless trafficking gangs run a flourishing criminal sex trade. Women have no confidence in the Metropolitan Police. Does it sound familiar? These stories are in the newspapers on a regular basis. But here the year is 1914.
In the fitful, fateful summer of 1914 five women used the chaotic conditions of war to try force through a groundbreaking reform. They included a militant suffragette and friend of Christobel Pankhurst; the widow of the former Bishop of London who had once campaigned against women having the vote; an aristocratic anarchist who could trace her roots back to the Nortman conquest and a journalist born in the East End slums to a single mother in the workhouse infirmary. Their cause was female police officers and this is their turbulent story.
Sandra Hempel is a former Times journalist and a contributor to other national media, including The Guardian and The Mail on Sunday. Her previous books include the award-winning “The Medical Detective”, the story of the fight to unearth the secrets of disease that killed millions across the globe, and “The Inheritor’s Powder”, a Victorian true-murder mystery, which was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. She also lectures and appears on radio and TV.
Timings: doors open at 18:15. The event begins at 18:30 and lasts approximately 75 minutes, including a Q&A.
Conditions of entry: this event is recommended for anyone over the age of 16 years.
Price to attend at the Museum: from £15.00
Price to attend online: £6.00
THE HUNT FOR ROGER CASEMENT: Rory Carroll at Bow Street
Wednesday 25th March, 13:00 (doors open 12:45)
Join us in welcoming Rory Carroll to Bow Street on the eve of his highly anticipated new book release. In A Rebel and a Traitor, Carroll combines historical rigour with narrative verve to tell the story of the hunt for Roger Casement, a British diplomat-turned Irish nationalist and fugitive who sought to forge a new nation in the middle of a war, and the mercurial spy chief who sought to destroy him by any means. After a relentless pursuit led by the British intelligence officer, Reginald ‘Blinker’ Hall, Casement was brought to Bow Street before his trial for high treason. Ticket holders can expect to get a flavour of this story of empire, patriotism and sexuality – and the danger of writing things down – in a building intimately connected with Carroll’s protagonist and the history of Anglo-Irish relations more broadly.
Rory Carroll has been a foreign correspondent for the Guardian for 20 years and is now based in his native Dublin as the paper’s Ireland correspondent. He is the author of Comandante: Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, and Killing Thatcher: the IRA, the Manhunt and the Long War on the Crown.
Booking essential as places are limited.
Timings: doors open at 12:45. The event begins at 13:00 and lasts approximately 60 minutes, including a Q&A with the author and book signing.
Conditions of entry: this event is recommended for anyone over the age of 16 years. Please note that this is a standing event and there will be no seated tickets available. Due to the nature of this event, it is not possible to attend via Livestream.
Price to attend at the Museum: £7
ARM OF EVE: Investigating the Thames Torso Murders
Thursday 23rd April 2026, 18:30 (doors open 18:15)
Join us for an evening with Sarah Bax Horton, an award-winning true crime writer with a genealogical connection that drew her into the world of Ripperology. Sarah will be discussing her latest book, Arm of Eve, in which she upends the assumption that Jack the Ripper was the first modern serial killer on the streets of London. Before him was another murderer who hunted from the River Thames – one arguably more sadistic and mercurial – who has always lurked in the Ripper’s shadow.
In this talk, Sarah discusses her own investigation and how she used modern criminal profiling to come up with her own suspect – a known criminal who knew the Thames like the back of his hand. She also gives a behind-the-scenes insight into her involvement in the BBC’s recent three-part documentary series, Lucy Worsley’s Victorian Murder Club.
Sarah Bax Horton is an award-winning true crime writer whose great-great grandfather was a Metropolitan police officer in Whitechapel’s ‘H’ Division. Her book Arm of Eve: Investigating the Thames Torso Murders (The History Press, 2024) won the ‘Ripperology Books And More’ Book of the Year award in 2024.
Booking essential as places are limited.
Timings: doors open at 18:15. The event begins at 18:30 and lasts approximately 75 minutes, including a Q&A.
Conditions of entry: this event is recommended for anyone over the age of 16 years.
Price to attend at the Museum: from £15.00
Price to attend online: £6.00
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