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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: The Five Photographs that (You Didn't Know) Changed Everything

The Essay: The Five Photographs that (You Didn't Know) Changed Everything: Episode 5: The Tichborne Claimant

Factual: Crime & Justice

The Tichborne Claimant

Episode 5

Episode 5: The Tichborne Claimant

The Five Photographs that (You Didn't Know) Changed Everything

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, The Five Photographs that (You Didn't Know) Changed Everything, The Tichborne ClaimantClose menu

Exploring how an 1866 photograph of a butcher taken in Australia changed British law.

Jennifer Tucker discusses how an 1866 photograph of a butcher taken in Australia changed British law. The photo was central to a claim for inheritance, known as the Tichborne case.

You won't find this photograph in a glossy coffee table book. It's not art and the person who took it doesn't feature in the Photographers Hall of Fame. But this picture has had an enormous impact on our legal system.
In 1866 a butcher sat for his photograph in the remote town of Wagga Wagga, Australia. Three years later this likeness had Britain transfixed. Jennifer Tucker tells the story of how it was central to the longest legal battle in 19th-century England, and sparked a debate about evidence, the law, ethics and facial recognition that has continued ever since.

Jennifer Tucker is Associate Professor of History and Science in Society at Wesleyan University, USA.

Producer: Rosie Dawson.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Series focusing on historically important yet little-known photographs

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Episode 5: The Tichborne Claimant

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