Bayonet Madness in Batley: A Victorian Double Murder
News of the Times | Episode 1865 | 562
When heartbreak met a bayonet in Batley, the result was a tragedy that shook all of Yorkshire.
In August 1865, 19-year-old Eli Sykes seemed the very picture of respectability — steady, polite, a proud member of Queen Victoria’s volunteer corps. But when the young woman he loved, Hannah Brook, told him no, something inside him splintered.
By nightfall, Hannah and her mother lay dying in their own doorway — stabbed fifteen times with the very bayonet he’d drilled with that afternoon.
From jealousy and delusion to public horror and a courtroom gasping at his calm confession, this is one of the darkest and most chilling crimes of Victorian England.
🕯️ In this episode:
A love story turned lethal
A rifleman’s descent into obsession
A community’s grief, and a courtroom transfixed
And a death so brutal, even hardened reporters faltered
☕ Further Particulars
Elsewhere in 1865, a man faced a far graver Victorian crime — wearing his hat too stubbornly.
What began as jury duty soon spiralled into a courtroom showdown between a Quaker, an exasperated judge, and a hat that simply refused to leave the head it adorned.
A spiritual protest?
A fashion crisis?
Or just the world’s most dedicated haberdasher?
We present it now, as proof that even in the sternest of times, absurdity had impeccable manners. 🎩⚖️
👤 Narrated by Robin Coles
📅 New episodes: Monday, Wednesday & Friday
📚 Related cases from the archive:
1865-1920: Madness, Mayhem and Murder on the Railways | Ep106
https://youtu.be/TgAqhsp3xdY
1865: Dr Edward Pritchard | Ep131
https://youtu.be/w0XXXGnE-6g
1865: The Holborn Horror & Ramsgate Reckoning | EP400
https://youtu.be/0IItRV-ZX-A
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