Explore the stories surrounding crime and justice on Bow Street.
TERROR IN THE BLITZ: the Air Raid Killer
POSTPONED: New date Thursday 29th January 2026, 18:30 (doors open 18:15)
Discover the macabre story of Gordon Cummins, a serviceman who shocked a nation during the Blitz blackouts of 1942 and left an indelible mark on forensic science, criminology, psychology, and history itself. Join former Metropolitan Police DCI Steve Gaskin see how Cummins, aka the Air Raid Killer, went on a rapid killing spree and was brought to justice to face the executioner.
“Not since the panic-ridden days in 1888, when Jack the Ripper was abroad in the East End, had London known such a reign of terror as that which existed in this wartime February, when, night after night, death – fiendish, revolting and gruesome – came to four unsuspecting women in the heart of the Metropolis”
– Chief Superintendent Fred Cherrill
Steve Gaskin was a DCI in the Met, serving at busy police stations in the Metropolis. Notably, he spent a total of ten years investigating drug trafficking and the money generated from crime. He retrained as a criminal psychology lecturer and works with his wife Kate, a former Met officer, and his three daughters.
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: £12.00
Price to attend online: £6.00
QUEER GEORGIANS: A Hidden History of Lovers, Lawbreakers and Homemakers
Thursday 26th February 2026, 18:30 (doors open 18:15)
Mother Clap’s Holborn coffee house is open to all comers, a place of companionship and community, until a tip-off leads to a midnight raid.
Two women, exiled from their families, set up a utopian homestead in a remote Welsh cottage, inspiring a generation of Romantic poets.
The celebrated Chevalier d’Eon, soldier, diplomat and spy, challenges a rival to a fencing match. The sweepstake is not over who will win, but whether the Chevalier is a man or a woman.
In this dazzling work of restorative history, Dr Anthony Delaney has traced the stories of people daring to challenge society’s expectations, unearthing archives and court records to reveal the tragedies and the joys of queer life three centuries ago. Breathing new life into the forgotten and offering radical new interpretations of celebrated figures such as Anne Lister, Queer Georgians is an invitation to view our shared history in a whole new light.
Dr Anthony Delaney has a PhD in history from the University of Exeter, where he is an Honorary Fellow, and presents the History Hit podcast After Dark.
Queer Georgians is his first book.
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: £15.00
Price to attend online: £6.00
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: £15.00
Price to attend online: £6.00
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