[TICHBORNE CASE] “Twenty Years After,” Roger Tichborne was lost A.D. 1854, the Claimant was lost A.D. 1874.

[Title from artist’s caption]. London : Albert Mendelssohn, [1874]. Albumen print photograph of a satirical cartoon (artist’s monogram W.R. in the image), carte de visite format, 103 x 63 mm (mount), recto with the artist’s printed caption to lower margin; verso with wet stamp of ‘Albert Mendelssohn, Publisher, London’; in fine condition.

The case of the Tichborne claimant produced two of the most celebrated British trials of the nineteenth century. In 1865 the false claimant in the case, an impostor called Arthur Orton who was living in Wagga Wagga under the name Tom Castro, claimed that he was in fact the English aristocrat Sir Roger Tichborne, who had supposedly been lost at sea some ten years earlier. Although the massive inheritance had passed in the meantime to Sir Roger’s younger brother and nephew, Sir Roger’s mother, the Dowager Lady Tichborne, refused to believe that her elder son was dead. It was in response to Lady Tichborne’s persistent enquiries for confirmation that her son might still be alive that Orton made his claim to the Tichborne baronetcy through a lawyer. In spite of the fact that he bore little resemblance to Sir Roger and could not speak a word of French (whereas Sir Roger was fluent), Lady Tichborne paid for his passage back to England in order to be reunited with him. Bizarrely, she accepted him as her son, as did several of Tichborne’s old acquaintances. Orton was duly given an annual allowance of £1000. However, following Lady Tichborne’s death in 1868, a group of family members and friends of Sir Roger began to seriously challenge the claimant’s identity. It was discovered that his real name was Arthur Orton, and that he was a butcher’s son from Wapping. In 1871, after a 102 day trial to determine his true identity, Orton was charged with perjury, and in 1874, after another marathon 188 day trial, he was found guilty of this charge and sentenced to 14 years’ hard labour. In his penurious final years, he gave a full written confession, which he strangely later retracted before his death in 1898.

This commercial carte de visite-format satirical cartoon was produced for an eager and fascinated public at the end of the second trial by the London publisher Albert Mendelssohn.

It appears much scarcer than other cartoons in the same format that were published by Mendelssohn at different stages of the Tichborne Affair: Trove locates no examples of “Twenty Years After” in Australian libraries.