The Trow Ghyll skeleton is a set of human remains discovered on 24 August 1947 in a cave near
Clapham
Clapham () is a district in south London, south west London, England, lying mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, but with some areas (including Clapham Common) extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth.
History
Ea ...
in the
West Riding of Yorkshire
The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...
, England. It was named after a prominent topographical feature located some away. Although the identity of the body has never been ascertained, it has been claimed that they were those of a
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
spy
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ''e ...
. The unexplained death has been described as "the most notable" mystery over a possible Nazi agent in Britain.
Discovery
On 24 August 1947, two friends who were keen
potholers decided to go out looking for new potholes to explore near the famous
Ingleborough Cave. They were Jim Leach (23 December 1920 – 15 March 2000) who was then working as an
electrician
An electrician is a tradesman, tradesperson specializing in electrical wiring of buildings, transmission lines, stationary machines, and related equipment. Electricians may be employed in the installation of new electrical components or the ...
and living at
Great Harwood
Great Harwood is a town in the Hyndburn district of Lancashire, England, located north east of Blackburn and adjacent to the Ribble Valley. Great Harwood is part of the "Three Towns" conurbation along with the towns of Clayton-le-Moors and Ris ...
near
Blackburn
Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the River Ribble, Ribble Valley, east of Preston ...
, and Harold Burgess (1918 – 11 August 2000), then a motor
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...
and living in
Leeds
Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...
. The two were good friends (known as "Jim and Budge") who were members of the
Northern Pennine Club Northern Pennine Club (NPC) is one of the oldest and largest caving clubs in the UK. Founded in 1946, the Northern Pennine Club was one of the caving clubs started by various cavers affected by the politics of the British Speleological Association i ...
and later became business partners.
At about 12:30 pm, they discovered a small hole (subsequently named Body Pot) which was partly obscured by stones. On moving the stones to make the entrance bigger, Leach climbed down about 10 feet where he saw a pair of shoes. Looking round he then saw the skull and the rest of the body, under a large stone (although it was not resting on the body); the remains had suffered advanced decomposition and there was hardly any flesh remaining. Burgess spotted near the body a small bottle of white powder which he assumed to be
flash powder
Flash powder is a pyrotechnic composition, a mixture of an oxidizer and a metallic fuel, which burns quickly (deflagrates) and produces a loud noise, regardless of confinement in some formulations. It is widely used in theatrical and display pyro ...
.
Leach and Burgess returned to Clapham to raise the alarm and later that afternoon returned to the cave with Police Sergeant Nock of
Ingleton; the police stationed a guard outside the cave until the body could be photographed and then removed the following day. The remains were taken to
Skipton
Skipton (also known as Skipton-in-Craven) is a market town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. Historically in the East Division of Staincliffe Wapentake in the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is on the River Aire and the Leeds ...
mortuary and the effects found in the cave were sent to the
forensic laboratory at
Wakefield
Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 109,766 in the 2021 census, up from 99,251 in the 2011 census. The city is the administrative centre of the wider Metropolit ...
. The local community was quickly reassured that foul play had been ruled out as a cause of death.
A second skeleton
By coincidence, a week later on 31 August another skeleton was found not far away at
Gaping Gill
Gaping Gill (also known as Gaping Ghyll) is a natural cave in North Yorkshire, England. It is one of the unmistakable landmarks on the southern slopes of Ingleborough – a deep pothole with the stream Fell Beck flowing into it. After fallin ...
. These remains were unidentified but were found to be those of a man of between 25 and 35 years, who had died two or three years previously, and had been killed in a fall down the cave.
Inquest
The findings of the various checks on the discovery were reported to an
inquest
An inquest is a judicial inquiry in common law jurisdictions, particularly one held to determine the cause of a person's death. Conducted by a judge, jury, or government official, an inquest may or may not require an autopsy carried out by a cor ...
held on 25 November at Skipton town hall before
Coroner
A coroner is a government or judicial official who is empowered to conduct or order an inquest into the manner or cause of death. The official may also investigate or confirm the identity of an unknown person who has been found dead within th ...
Stephen E. Brown and a jury. Leach and Burgess gave evidence of their discovery, and the police witnesses told of how they had preserved the evidence and transmitted it to the appropriate authorities. The main evidence at the inquest was given by the scientific witnesses.
Post mortem examination
On 26 August Professor P. L. Sutherland conducted a
post mortem
An autopsy (also referred to as post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death; ...
examination on the body. He found that the remains were those of a man who was tall, aged between 22 and 30 at the time of death, and that death had occurred at least two and no more than six years before. He was able to rule out broken or diseased bones as a cause of death (none were fractured or broken), although not all of them were present. The bones were entirely separate from each other and the brain had disappeared; his clothes had rotted to the point where it was difficult to distinguish them.
Forensic tests
Lewis Nickolls of the North East Forensic Science Laboratory reported that the man had been wearing a blue shirt and tie, and a grey-blue suit with red and white stripes "about three to the inch". He had a tweedy herringbone overcoat, grey
trilby
A trilby is a narrow-brimmed type of hat. The trilby was once viewed as the rich man's favored hat; it is sometimes called the "brown trilby" in UK, BritainBernhard Roetzel, Roetzel, Bernhard (1999). ''Gentleman's Guide to Grooming and Style''. B ...
hat, and a plum coloured scarf (which would have been over the mouth at the time of death). He also had light brown to auburn hair.
The most interesting evidence dealt with those of the man's possessions which had not rotted away. The glass bottle seen by Burgess turned out not to contain flash powder, but
Sodium cyanide
Sodium cyanide is a compound with the formula Na C N and the structure . It is a white, water-soluble solid. Cyanide has a high affinity for metals, which leads to the high toxicity of this salt. Its main application, in gold mining, also expl ...
, a lethal poison. The bottle was full to the shoulder although it was possible, said Nickolls, to have extracted a lethal dose from it. An unbroken
ampule
An ampoule (also ampul and ampule) is a small sealed vial which is used to contain and preserve a sample, usually a solid or liquid. Ampoules are usually made of glass.
Modern ampoules are most commonly used to contain pharmaceuticals and che ...
of the same material was also found. Of his other possessions, the man had coins to the value of 11 shillings 5 ½ pence, with none of the coins newer than 1939. Nickolls said that the date of death would have been two years after that.
There were two pairs of shoes, one of which had been made in 1938 and the other in 1939. There was a mineral water bottle of a type supplied to hotels in
Morecambe
Morecambe ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster district of Lancashire, England, on Morecambe Bay, part of the Irish Sea. In 2011 the parish had a population of 34,768.
Name
The first use of the name was by John Whit ...
,
Lancaster
Lancaster may refer to:
Lands and titles
*The County Palatine of Lancaster, a synonym for Lancashire
*Duchy of Lancaster, one of only two British royal duchies
*Duke of Lancaster
*Earl of Lancaster
*House of Lancaster, a British royal dynasty
...
and Ingleton, and containing a blue 'crown' top not introduced until 1940. Other items found with the man included a wristlet watch, handkerchief, shaving tube, studs, toothbrush, fountain pen, propelling pencil, compass, box of matches, tablets, flashlamp, and toiletries. The man had a key but the police were unable to identify the lock which it opened.
Identity
When the body was discovered, wide publicity was given and several people came forward to link missing relatives to the remains. The police compiled the suggestions into a list of 18, of which four turned out to be alive, ten were ruled out for bearing no resemblance to the remains, and for the four remaining it was impossible to say whether they were the man. The inquest returned a verdict that there was insufficient evidence of cause of death and to identify the remains.
Mystery
At the inquest, Nickolls had been asked about the cyanide phial and ampule and said that it was used commercially and as a poison for vermin. However, he had to admit that he had not seen the same design before. The legal historian
A. W. B. Simpson, who was living in Clapham at the time of the discovery, later noted that the only known users of such an ampule were spies operating in enemy countries, who had them in order to commit
suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death.
Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or ac ...
in the event that they were discovered.
Simpson claimed that the individual was "plainly connected in some way with the German secret service" and that he was "the most notable .. mystery" over a German agent. He further remarked that "Such enquiries as I have made from persons who ought to know have produced evasiveness".
However, Simpson's claims are not supported by German intelligence documents discovered after the war. According to the British domestic security service,
MI5
MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...
, Germany had sent around 115 agents against Britain during the course of the war. Almost all of these had been successfully identified and caught, with the exception of
Willem Ter Braak – not the body found at Trow Ghyll – who had committed suicide before being captured.
See also
*
List of unsolved deaths
This list of unsolved deaths includes notable cases where:
* The cause of death could not be officially determined following an investigation
* The person's identity could not be established after they were found dead
* The cause is known, but th ...
References
Books
* ''Craven Herald and Pioneer'', 29 August and 28 November 1947
* ''In the Highest Degree Odious'' by A. W. B. Simpson (
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 1992) {{ISBN, 0-19-825775-9
History of North Yorkshire
Unidentified decedents
Unsolved deaths in England
World War II spies for Germany
Year of birth unknown