This mystery began with a newspaper account of the death of a wealthy Victorian recluse but became a far-reaching investigation into her family, her father’s unsolved murder, a tragic alleged suicide, a suspiciously recovered watch, a possible link to an executed murderer, and the extraordinary private life of a woman who spent decades hidden behind locked doors.
THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE
Cambridge Weekly News, 9 February 1850.
| DEATH OF A WEALTHY AND ECCENTRIC LADY – On Tuesday evening Mr H M Wakley held at the York, New-road, Marylebone a protracted inquiry touching the death of Martha Joachim, an unmarried lady, late of 27, York-buildings, aged sixty-two. The jury proceeded to view the body, but had to beat a sudden retreat until a bull dog belonging to deceased, and which savagely attacked them, was secured. It was shown in evidence that on the 1st of June 1808, deceased’s father, an officer in the Life Guards, was murdered and robbed in the Regent’s-park. A reward of £100 was offered for the murderer, who was apprehended with the property upon him, and executed. In 1825 a suitor of deceased, whom her mother rejected, shot himself whilst sitting on a sofa with deceased, who was covered with his brains. From that instant, she lost her reason. Since her mother’s death, eighteen years ago, she had led the life of a recluse, dressed in white, and never going out. A charwoman occasionally brought her what supplied her wants. Here only companions were the bull-dog, which she nursed like a child, and two cats. Her house was filled with images of soldiers in lead, which she called her “body-guards”. When the collectors called for their taxes, they had to cross the garden-wall to gain admission. Last week, a man named Long, who was her cousin, visited her daily, and left at night. On Thursday week, he refused to leave, as she appeared dangerously ill. She however insisted upon locking him a room, from which he disengaged himself the following morning, and went in search of deceased, whom he found dead on a dirty bed in the parlour. Mr. Norton surgeon, was instantly called in, who said that she had died of bronchitis, and would probably have recovered had she had proper medical aid. The jury returned a verdict in accordance with Mr. Norton’s opinion. After the inquest, the jury, accompanied by deceased’s relatives, examined the house, every window and door of which was bolted and well secured. That precaution she adopted in consequence of thieves having broken into and robbed the house a year back. Her mother’s room, which had not been opened since her death, was forced open and in it was found a strong box containing back stock to the value of £2,900, 62 shares of the Hope Assurance of £50 each, deeds, leases of property and life assurance policies. The room and furniture were in the same state as they were at her mother’s death. |
THE FACTS
Martha Joachim, an unmarried woman died aged 62. After the death of her mother she had become a recluse, rarely if ever leaving the house. Her death led to an inquest because she had been found in very poor circumstances, apparently without proper medical care. Afterwards, the relatives and jury searched the house and discovered her mother’s room, which had apparently remained untouched for 18 years and which contained stocks and shares, deeds and leases of property, and life assurances policies. Who was this extraordinary woman, and what had happened to her?
We identified Martha Joachim’s family. She was born on 29 December 1788 and baptised on 22 January 1789, the daughter of William Joachim and Martha Smith. Her parents had married on 15 February 1787. William was a widower and Martha Smith a widow when they married.
The story of William Joachim, Martha’s father is a mystery in its own right. The 1850 newspaper clipping says that William was an officer in the Life Guards who was murdered and robbed in Regent’s Park on 1 June 1808.
We then found contemporary newspaper evidence which gives us a much clearer picture. William Joachim was described as being of Pratt Place, Camden Town, and was murdered in the fields near the Queen’s Head and Artichoke in Marylebone. Another historical account places him on his way home towards Lisson Grove after visiting the Jew’s Harp Tavern, where he had been watching skittle-playing. A reward of 100 guineas was offered for the apprehension of his murderers.
One of the best discoveries was a contemporary report about a suspected soldier, George Jones. He was a carver and gilder, working for Mr Jewel. He enlisted on 19 May 1808 into the 30th Regiment of Foot
Jones said he had been sleeping in the fields near the Jew’s Harp when he found a pistol. He picked it up and it discharged, blowing off part of a finger. He threw the pistol away. Two labourers subsequently found the pistol and took it to a magistrate. Jones was taken back to the location and identified the pistol as the one he had found and discarded. His story was independently corroborated, including by the woman selling fruit and cakes whom he said he had encountered after injuring himself. The police therefore concluded that his account was satisfactory and he was not detained.
Importantly, the report also said the pistol was not capable of firing the type of projectile which had killed Joachim. George Jones was effectively cleared, so he is no longer a serious candidate for William’s murderer.
The other 1808 suspect was a Woolwich carpenter, and a much more interesting loose end emerged from another contemporary report. An unnamed carpenter from Woolwich, apparently unemployed, had attracted suspicion because he was seen with a substantial amount of money, powder and pistols. He was questioned by Bow Street officers. However, with the assistance of a publican, he apparently convinced them of his innocence and was not detained.
Five years later, in 1813, another murderer came into the story, William Howe. He was executed for the murder of Benjamin Robins. When Bow Street officers arrested him, they found a silver watch among his possessions. After Howe’s execution, a newspaper reported that the watch was William Joachim’s and that Howe had therefore been strongly suspected of Joachim’s murder. This is a fascinating connection — but it needs to remain carefully qualified. We do not have proof that Howe murdered Joachim. Howe was never tried for Joachim’s murder. He was never questioned about it. We don’t yet know exactly how the watch was identified as Joachim’s. It remains possible that Howe had acquired stolen property without committing the murder. So this remains an intriguing but unresolved connection.
Martha was only about 19 when her father was murdered. The 1850 newspaper gives the next extraordinary episode. It says that in 1825, a suitor whom Martha’s mother had rejected shot himself while sitting on a sofa with Martha, and that Martha was covered by his brains. The newspaper says “From that instant, she lost her reason.” And thereafter she apparently withdrew from ordinary life.
But this is one of our biggest unanswered questions. We have not found an independent contemporary report of the 1825 suicide. Everything we currently know about it comes from the 1850 retrospective account. We therefore shouldn’t treat the identity of the suitor, the exact circumstances, or even every detail of the story as independently proven.
Martha’s mother, also called Martha Joachim, died on 9 January 1832. We looked for a will/probate record for her but haven’t found one. So the enormous collection of financial assets discovered in her room in 1850 remains unexplained.
By the time of the 1841 census we have a very revealing snapshot of Martha Joachim. Aged about 50, of independent means, she is living alone at 27 York Buildings. The 1850 account describes Martha as living an extraordinarily isolated existence. She apparently kept the house extremely secure after thieves had broken in and robbed her the previous year. Tax collectors apparently had to climb over the garden wall to gain access. A charwoman occasionally brought her provisions.
Near the end of her life a cousin named Long began visiting her daily. We have not identified him. He may provide a route into Martha’s extended family.
Martha became seriously ill in January 1850. Her cousin Long refused to leave because he believed she was dangerously ill. She nevertheless locked him in a room. He escaped the following morning and found her dead on a dirty bed in the parlour. A surgeon, Mr Norton, gave the cause of death as bronchitis and believed she might have recovered with proper medical treatment. The jury accepted his opinion. So Martha’s death itself was not a murder mystery. The mystery lies in the extraordinary life that preceded it.
We also found an entirely separate thread confirming the family’s long-standing connection with Marylebone. A 1905 Marylebone Mercury article, referring to John Brown’s History of Marylebone, describes a memorial tablet to “W. and Martha Joachim” who had been long-term residents of the parish. It states that they were buried in a tomb on the south side of Paddington Street. The surviving St Marylebone memorial record also identifies Martha Joachim, Spinster, daughter of the above.
A Victorian Woman, Eccentricity and the Private World
Martha Joachim’s story provides an intriguing insight into Victorian attitudes towards mental disturbance, female respectability and eccentricity. According to the 1850 newspaper account, the traumatic suicide of a rejected suitor in 1825 caused her to “lose her reason”, after which she withdrew almost completely from society. Although we cannot independently verify the details of this incident, the account shows how emotional shock could be used to explain unusual behaviour. Martha was never portrayed simply as a “mad” woman who needed to be removed from society; instead, as a wealthy and respectable unmarried woman, she was able to remain in her own home for many years, living a highly private existence.
The case also illustrates the importance Victorian society placed on respectability and privacy. Martha’s eccentric behaviour was extraordinary: she rarely left the house, kept a beloved bulldog and two cats, surrounded herself with toy soldiers that she called her “body-guards”, and secured her house so thoroughly that even tax collectors had to climb over the garden wall. Yet there is no suggestion that she was regarded as morally disreputable. Her wealth, independence and respectable family background appear to have allowed her considerable freedom to live as she wished, provided her eccentricity remained largely behind closed doors.
Finally, the circumstances of her death reveal another aspect of Victorian society: the fascination with the eccentric and mysterious. The newspaper’s headline, “Death of a Wealthy and Eccentric Lady”, and its detailed description of her strange home life turn Martha’s death into a story of curiosity as well as an inquest. The discovery of substantial investments, property documents and insurance policies hidden away in her mother’s untouched room added another layer of intrigue. Martha’s life therefore illustrates a striking Victorian contrast: considerable financial independence and material security existing alongside extreme social isolation. Her story shows how Victorian society could simultaneously be fascinated by eccentricity, concerned about mental and physical welfare, and yet willing to leave a respectable, independent woman largely to her own private world.
CONCLUSION
We’ve gone from one extraordinary 1850 newspaper report to a surprisingly detailed reconstruction spanning 1787–1850, with independent evidence for much of it.
THE SUMMARY IMAGE
THE IMAGINED STORY
A fictional story, created by ChatGPT inspired by the case of Martha Joachim.
The Bodyguards of York Buildings
London, June 1808
William Joachim had always believed that a man should be able to walk home through London without fear of losing his life. He had served with the Life Guards, carried himself with the confidence of a soldier, and lived respectably at Pratt Place, Camden Town, with his wife, Martha, and their only daughter.
On the evening of 1 June 1808, he left the Jew’s Harp Tavern after watching a game of skittles. The summer air was warm, and the last of the daylight lingered over the fields between Marylebone and the roads leading towards home. He had enjoyed the company and was in no particular hurry. His watch rested in his pocket, and he carried money enough to make him an attractive target to a thief.
He never reached home.
His body was discovered in the fields near the Queen’s Head and Artichoke. He had been shot, and his watch and money were missing. The news spread rapidly. William Joachim was known as a respectable man, and the circumstances of his death provoked both horror and indignation. A reward of one hundred guineas was offered for the apprehension of those responsible.
At Pratt Place, Martha Joachim received the news with a composure that alarmed her neighbours. Her daughter, Martha, was nineteen, a quiet young woman who had inherited her father’s dark eyes and her mother’s reserved manner. She stood beside her mother as the dreadful details were repeated, unable to comprehend how an ordinary evening could have ended in such violence.
“Who would do such a thing?” the girl asked.
Her mother had no answer.
The police questioned several people. A soldier named George Jones had injured his finger after picking up a pistol in the fields, but his story was corroborated, and the weapon was judged incapable of firing the shot that killed Joachim. Another man, an unemployed carpenter from Woolwich, attracted suspicion because he possessed money, powder and pistols. Yet no charge followed. The murderer, it seemed, had vanished into the great city.
For Martha, the absence of justice was worse than the death itself. Her father had been taken from her, and the world continued as if nothing had happened. Carriages rattled through the streets, shopkeepers opened their doors, church bells rang, and people laughed in taverns. Only at home did time seem to stand still.
Her mother never spoke of the murder unless compelled. She placed William’s papers in a locked cabinet and kept his portrait in the parlour. Martha, however, began to wonder whether the world was not merely indifferent but actively dangerous. If a respectable man could be murdered on his way home, what protection could respectability offer anyone?
She had no idea that, years later, another event would make the outside world seem even more terrible.
London, 1825
By the time Martha was thirty-six, her mother had become increasingly protective of her. The family possessed comfortable means, and Martha had never been obliged to earn her living. She had received a good education, understood household accounts and could discuss literature with intelligence. She was not a celebrated beauty, but there was gentleness in her face and a quietness that some men mistook for shyness.
One of them was Edward Vale.
Edward, a fictional young solicitor from a respectable family, had known Martha for nearly two years. He was neither handsome nor wealthy, but he was kind, observant and patient. He understood her silences and did not demand that she become more sociable than she wished. When he visited, he sometimes brought a book or a small bouquet of flowers. He never pressed her to speak of her father.
Martha grew fond of him.
Her mother did not.
Martha Smith Joachim had endured too much uncertainty in her life. She had seen her husband murdered, watched her daughter grow increasingly withdrawn, and spent years protecting the family’s money and reputation. Edward’s income was modest, his prospects uncertain, and his family connections unimpressive. She believed that marriage to him would place Martha in a position of dependence and anxiety.
“You are not a girl who can afford to make a foolish choice,” she told her daughter.
“I am not choosing foolishly, Mother. I am choosing Edward.”
“You cannot know what it is to live without security.”
“I know what it is to live without happiness.”
The words wounded them both.
When Edward asked formally for Martha’s hand, her mother refused him. She did so politely, but firmly, explaining that she could not consent to the marriage. Edward left the house pale and silent. Martha followed him to the door, but he turned away before she could speak.
For several weeks, he did not visit.
Then, on a wet afternoon in November, he came unexpectedly to York Buildings. Martha’s mother had gone out, and Martha received him in the parlour. He looked exhausted. His coat was damp, and he held his hat in both hands.
“I have tried to forget you,” he said. “I cannot.”
Martha begged him to sit down. She told him that she loved him, but that she could not defy her mother while she remained dependent upon her. She promised to speak to her mother again.
Edward shook his head.
“You must not suffer for me any longer.”
She did not understand what he meant until he reached inside his coat.
The pistol shot shattered the afternoon.
Martha felt something warm strike her face. Edward fell sideways against the sofa, his hat rolling across the carpet. For a moment she remained seated, unable to move or make a sound. Then she screamed.
By the time neighbours arrived, Edward was dead.
The authorities called it suicide. His family insisted that he had been unstable for months. Martha’s mother, returning to the house, found her daughter kneeling beside the sofa, her hands trembling and her dress stained with blood.
Martha never again spoke of Edward.
Whether grief destroyed her reason, as the newspapers would later claim, or whether something in her mind simply closed against further suffering, no one could say. She became terrified of sudden noises and refused to receive visitors. She would sit for hours in the parlour, staring at the place where Edward had died.
Her mother dismissed the servants gradually, retaining only a charwoman who came when summoned. Martha would not tolerate strangers in the house. She insisted on bolts and bars at the doors, and after a burglary left the rooms disturbed and several possessions missing, she had additional locks fitted to every entrance.
The world had taken her father and then, in a different fashion, Edward. Martha decided that it would take nothing more.
Marylebone, 1832
Martha Smith Joachim died on a cold January morning.
For her daughter, the loss was both devastating and strangely disorienting. Her mother had been stern, sometimes overbearing, but she had also been the last person who remembered William as he had been before the murder. With her gone, Martha felt that the final thread connecting her to ordinary life had snapped.
The funeral was conducted quietly. Martha refused to attend the gathering afterwards and remained at home with the shutters closed.
Her mother’s bedroom was locked. Martha could not bear to enter it. She instructed the charwoman never to disturb anything inside. Her mother’s clothes remained folded in drawers; her writing desk stood beside the window; her papers lay where she had left them. The room became a private memorial, preserved against time.
Martha had inherited sufficient means to live independently. She knew how to manage her investments, and she took a keen interest in the accounts sent by her bankers. But she had no desire to spend her money on fine clothes, entertainments or travel. Her needs were simple: food, coal, books, and the occasional purchase for her collection.
The toy soldiers began as a childhood memory. Her father had kept a small regiment of painted figures in a cabinet, and Martha had played with them as a girl. After his death, she had put them away. Now she took them out, cleaned them carefully and arranged them in rows along the mantelpiece.
She bought more. Infantrymen, cavalrymen, officers with bright uniforms and tiny swords. Soon there were hundreds.
When the charwoman asked why she needed so many, Martha replied, “They are my guards.”
She said it so seriously that the woman did not laugh.
Martha also acquired a bulldog, a formidable animal with a broad head and a suspicious nature. She named him Caesar. Two cats followed, one black and one grey. They were the only living creatures she welcomed without hesitation.
Years passed. The city grew busier beyond her walls, but Martha remained inside them. She rarely went out, and when she did, it was only into the small garden. The neighbours spoke of her in whispers. Some called her mad; others said she was merely eccentric. A few thought her pitiful. Most were too occupied with their own lives to give her much thought.
At No. 28, next door, two elderly sisters, Sarah and Elizabeth Boulton, sometimes watched the darkened windows of No. 27. They had lived in York Buildings for years and knew that the lady next door was wealthy, though they had never been invited inside.
“She must be dreadfully lonely,” Sarah once remarked.
Elizabeth shook her head. “Perhaps she prefers it.”
Neither knew how much truth there was in either statement.
Marylebone, January 1850
Martha was sixty-two when the bronchitis began.
At first she dismissed it as a winter cough. She disliked doctors and refused to send for one. Caesar slept beside her chair, and the cats curled on the hearthrug. She continued to eat little and spent most of the day wrapped in a shawl.
By the end of the week she was feverish and breathless.
Her cousin, Thomas Long, had begun visiting her more frequently. He was a distant relative, a practical man who had long been troubled by the rumours surrounding her isolation. When he found her struggling to breathe, he urged her to let him fetch a surgeon.
“No,” she whispered.
“Martha, you are ill. You cannot manage this alone.”
“I have managed alone for eighteen years.”
“And look where it has brought you.”
She turned her face away.
Long remained with her until late that evening. When she insisted that he leave, he refused. She became agitated and ordered him into a spare room, locking the door from the outside. He was forced to wait until he could find a way out the following morning.
When he reached the parlour, Martha was dead.
She lay on a narrow bed, in a room that had not been properly cleaned for some time. Caesar stood beside her, whining softly. The cats had disappeared beneath a chair.
Long sent for a surgeon. Mr Norton arrived and examined the body. He believed that Martha had died of bronchitis and that proper medical treatment might have saved her.
An inquest followed.
The jurors, accompanied by relatives, examined the house. Every door and window was bolted. The bulldog attacked them until it was secured. Behind the locked door of Martha’s mother’s bedroom they discovered the untouched furniture, the papers, the deeds, the shares and the insurance policies.
There was wealth enough to astonish them.
There was also the evidence of a life lived in fear.
Among the papers, Long found a small envelope bearing Martha’s handwriting. Inside lay a note written years earlier, addressed to no one.
I have spent my life trying to prevent another loss. I believed that if I locked every door, watched every window and allowed no one close enough to hurt me, I might at last be safe. But safety is not the same as living.
There was no signature.
Long folded the note and placed it back in the envelope. He did not show it to the jurors.
The newspapers called Martha Joachim a wealthy and eccentric lady. They described the bulldog, the cats, the toy soldiers and the extraordinary discovery in her mother’s room. Some writers repeated the story of her father’s murder and the lover who had shot himself beside her. Others embellished the details, as newspapers often did.
No one discovered the full truth of Martha’s private thoughts. No one could say whether she had been driven mad by grief, whether she had chosen solitude or simply found herself unable to escape it.
And the question of her father’s murderer remained unanswered.
Years later, a rumour would circulate that a man named William Howe, executed for another murder, had possessed William Joachim’s stolen watch. The rumour would suggest a connection, but no court would ever establish it. The old fields had changed, the taverns had altered, and the people who might have remembered the night of the murder were long dead.
Martha was buried beside her parents in Marylebone.
In the end, her toy soldiers were packed into boxes, her cats found new homes, and Caesar was taken in by a distant relative. The house at York Buildings passed to other hands. The locked rooms were opened, the windows thrown wide, and the dust of eighteen years was carried into the street.
But for a brief time, behind those bolted doors, Martha Joachim had created a world in which nothing could surprise her, no stranger could enter uninvited, and every soldier stood ready at his post.
It had not saved her.
And perhaps, had anyone understood the difference between guarding a life and living one, she might have found her way back to the world beyond her walls.