‍Lady Flora Hastings

‍

‍SEX in a Victorian horse carriage; a pregnancy that wasn’t; Queen Victoria’s personal hatred; and a Lady-in-Waiting’s bloated stomach sparked a newspaper scandal that rocked the Government and turned many of the British public against the Monarchy.

‍

‍Lady Flora Hastings, was a story of terrible injustice festered by the Queen, that ended in tragedy and headlines in the Press that shamed the Royals. Victoria was booed when out riding, hissed at Ascot and mocked with cries of “Mrs Melbourne!” A reference to her fondness for the Prime Minister Lord Melbourne.

‍

‍When Flora died the inscription: “Killed by scurrilous rumours” was engraved on her tomb.

‍

‍Flora was one of the daughters of the Marquess of Hastings, Governor of India. She was brought up at Loudon Castle in East Ayrshire and became a Lady-in-Waiting at the court of Queen Victoria.

‍

‍In January 1839, when Victoria had been Queen for just 18 months, unmarried Flora, aged 28, travelled back to London from her family home in Scotland, accompanied by Sir John Conroy, controller of her family’s household. She had been bilious for some weeks, and in pain with a swelling of the stomach.

‍

‍In London, Flora went to see Victoria’s court physician Sir James Clark who prescribed medicines of rhubarb and camphor, which had no effect. But the swelling had been noticed by the Queen’s ‘ladies’, who gossiped to her.

‍

‍Victoria recorded in her journal how “exceedingly suspicious” Flora’s figure looked, and that she had no doubt that she was … with child! My doctor cannot deny the suspicion.”

‍

‍According to Victoria, the father was Conroy, whom she hated. He and Flora were known to go on carriage rides in the evenings and in Victorian times carriages were often used for illicit love affairs as couples trotted around London streets at night with the blinds down having illicit sex.

‍

‍Victoria called him a “monster” and “devil incarnate”, who, it was also rumoured was her own mother, the Duchess of Kent’s lover. The tangled web then thickens.

‍

‍The Queen had grown up hating Conroy who limited her freedom as a princess and sought to keep her under the influence of her mother and himself when she was living in Kensington Palace, a tense and scheming household he oversaw. It was known as his “Kensington System.”

‍

‍The young princess was much closer to her governess, Baroness Lehzen, than she was to her manipulative, politically ambitious mother, the Duchess and these two women despised each other.

‍

‍The pregnancy rumours were ammunition for Victoria. Her ‘ladies’ were convinced that Flora should be privately married’ and begged her to confess her sordid affair. When she refused, Clark heatedly told her that the only way to prove her innocence was to submit to a thorough medical examination’

‍

‍Victoria banned her from court unless that took place, which led to leaks to the Press and the beginning of stories in the gossip columns.

‍

‍Flora had no option. Two doctors were involved, Clark and the Hastings’ family doctor. One of Victoria’s ladies, Lady Portman, whom Flora called “my accuser”, was also present, and Flora’s Swiss maid, who was in tears throughout the brutal proceedings.

‍

‍But after the examination, the doctors found there were no grounds for believing she was pregnant or ever was. She was a virgin. Clark was fired and the news broke out making the front pages. The Hastings family demanded a public apology.

‍

‍Then a turn for the worse. Flora was finally diagnosed as having a stomach tumour and liver cancer. That’s why her stomach had been swollen all along. She was too late to get treatment.

‍

‍Dying Flora sent a letter telling her story to her uncle who was so angry he sent it to the editor of The Examiner who published in full. It ended: “Goodbye, my dear uncle. I blush to send you so revolting a tale, but I wished you to know the truth, the whole truth — and you are welcome to tell it right and left.”

‍

‍The story dominated the Press for over a week, with Flora’s mother joining in with quotes to The Morning Post. Victoria, who was blamed for the whole affair, was furious and wrote in her journal that she wished could ‘hang the editor and the whole Hastings family for their infamy.’

‍

‍Flora, meanwhile, began to lose her hair and became dreadfully thin. By June she was so ill she could no longer leave her room.

‍

‍Victoria saw her a few days before her death, and said she was “as thin as anybody can be who is still alive, literally a skeleton. I said to her, I hoped to see her again when she was better, upon which she grasped my hand as if to say, ‘I shall not see you again’.”

‍

‍At 2am on the morning of July 5, 1839, Flora died, aged 33. She had insisted on a postmortem, and for its results to be published in every detail, to demonstrate — as it did —  her innocence to the world. It was.

‍She also asked for a portrait painting of her to bear the inscription: “Lady Flora Hastings - done to death by slanderous tongues.”

‍

‍YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH
YOU… OH YES YOU CAN!

‍Did you know that Press reports revealed Queen Victoria insisted on taking as much jewellery as she could to the Afterworld. She was buried in her white wedding gown with rings on every finger; necklaces; bracelets and brooches … ‘as much of my trinkets you can get on my body!’ In case she needed help, a plaster cast of Prince Albert’s hand and his dressing gown, were buried with her. Let’s hope Albert didn’t mind but a lock of Scotsman John Brown’s hair, his photograph and clump of heather were in there too.

‍

‍HOW A CHIEF SUB SAVED SCANDAL
PAPER FROM FINANCIAL DISASTER

‍IN 1888, when it came to sensational stories, readers didn’t have to look further than The Star, publisher T.P O’Connor’s new hard-hitting newspaper that left others out in the cold for scandals, manhunts and murders.

‍

‍It didn’t hold back from putting people in the dock and forming its own opinions on the edge of libel laws of the time. And the Case of the Leather Apron was no exception. But this time the paper faced the possibility of massive damages and only the action by the Chief Sub saved it.

‍

‍In the week of September 4, 1888, The Star’s growing readership was treated to a series of articles that left little doubt about the danger posed by one man who walked the streets of Whitechapel, an evil and sinister character nicknamed the Leather Apron, much loved by his neighbours.

‍He was a family man named John Pizer, a Jewish boot maker, who was attracted to prostitutes. The Star branded him “a crazy jew” upsetting the Jewish community of the East End and stirring up racial tensions. And this time the paper really went to town.

‍

‍The paper described him as “a vicious, grotesque dwarf known for his sadism, ill temper, and cruel persecution of women. He had a large head and face, a coarse beard, and discoloured teeth, just like Quilp in the Dickens’ novel The Old Curiosity Shop and went around in a leather apron.

‍

‍“He has stalked Whitechapel for a long time preying on unfortunates who ply their trade after twelve o’clock at night,” a reporter wrote. “He has kicked, injured, bruised, and terrified 100 of them who are ready to testify to the outrages.

‍

‍“He carries a razor-like knife, and two weeks ago drew it on a woman called Widow Annie as she was crossing the square near London Hospital, threatening at the same time, with his ugly grin and his malignant eyes, to “rip her up.” Already dead bodies represent that threat carried out.”

‍

‍The Star continued with its sensationalising of the Leather Apron until the murder of Jack the Ripper victim Annie Chapman, on September 8, 1888, which gave its reporters an even more lurid story with which to regale readers for a washed leather apron had been found in a backyard, close to where Annie had been murdered. Was Pizer The Ripper?

‍

‍Newspaper sales on all titles soared but The Star boasted: “PHENOMENAL SUCCESS! Our average daily circulation for the week ending September 14, was 190,033, more than any other evening newspaper in London!” The Star had only been in existence only a few months.

‍

‍Pizer, aged around 40, was finally arrested at home with his family but was able to provide cast iron alibis for the nights of the local murders including on one occasion being with a police officer watching a house blaze. The police quickly ruled him out as a suspect, and he was released without charge, with an apology.

‍

‍On his return home, he was greeted with enthusiastic shouts of welcome from his friends and neighbours, who were universal in their sympathy for the ordeal he had been through.

‍

‍According to The Daily Telegraph: “his sister declared that Pizer was not a man to commit murder, and she was accustomed to trust her children to his charge.”

‍

‍It was quickly becoming apparent to the Star reporters that few people who knew him had a bad word to say about him.

‍

‍This was now a nightmare for Star proprietor O’Conner. The title faced the danger of Pizer bringing a successful and substantial libel action against them.

‍

‍The Star quickly began back-pedalling and called his arrest ‘a police blunder.’

‍

‍“The detectives searched his house with unusual diligence,” it said, “but could find positively nothing against him. This is not surprising considering that he is not the Leather Apron, at least not the Leather Apron who has been the terror of the women of Whitechapel.”

‍

‍The day was saved by the paper’s Chief Sub-Editor, Ernest Parke, who in what O’Connor described as a “dexterous expedient” invited Pizer to his Stonecutter Street offices before lawyers could get to him.

‍

‍Parke a kindly and popular journalist with a good sense of humour persuaded Pizer to accept £50 in full settlement of any claims he might have against the newspaper.

‍

‍“The man was reasoned with sweetly, before a lawyer could get the chance of telling him what wealth beyond the dreams of avarice might be his by the simple process of issuing a writ for libel,” one of the editors said.

‍

‍He added: “While Leather Apron was thus cozened, a small pile of gold sovereigns was arrayed within his vision, and jingled within his hearing, with the result that he took away with him gold in full settlement of any claims he might have against the paper in respect of the deplorable theory.”

‍

‍Pizer died of gastroenteritis in the Royal London Hospital, aged 47, in 1897.

‍

‍TERRY MANNERS

‍

‍1 September 2025