Killing Victoria
Episodes
What to listen to next: The History Bureau
26 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft turns out to be flawed? The History Bureau revisits the defining stories of ou...
Episode Seven: The Wanderer
01 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1882, the threat of assassination was in the air. The year before, Tsar Alexander II was killed by an assassin’s bomb, then in July, American...
Episode Six: The Intruder
24 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In March 1868 Queen Victoria’s son Prince Alfred was at a charity event in Sydney, Australia when an Irishman named Henry O’Farrell walked up behi...
Episode Five: The Soldier
17 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1846 a soldier named Robert Pate moved to an expensive apartment off Piccadilly - one of the most exclusive areas of London. Unlike the first fo...
Episode Four: The Bricklayer
10 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The 1840s were a revolutionary decade. France and Italy had been rocked by revolution; Queen Victoria and Prince Albert feared that Britain might be n...
Episode Three: The Runaway
03 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Seventeen year-old John Bean worked as a newsvendor in London. His disability - an acute case of curvature of the spine – meant that throughout ...
Episode Two: The Bankrupt
27 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Bob Nicholson explores police archives and rarely seen documents to uncover the story of the second assassin - 19-year-old John Francis, who gave u...
Episode One: The Monster
20 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
During Queen Victoria’s 63-year reign, seven young men, many of them teenagers, made the fateful decision to attack her. After each attempt the ...
Introducing Killing Victoria
12 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
During the 63 year long reign of Queen Victoria, seven men took the fateful decision to try to kill her. The seven men were within seconds of changing...