Autograph letters signed to Alfred Swaine Taylor about a murder Cambridge 1850

TAYLOR, Alfred Swaine (recipient). Two autograph letters from Cambridge working class women concerning a suspected murder in the family, addressed to Professor Taylor of Guy’s Hospital. Cambridge, October 1850.
 
Two autograph letters, 4 pp. in total, written in brown ink on folded paper, each with original postal folds, penny red stamp (cut and affixed to one), and a Cambridge circular postmark dated 31 October 1850. Minor wear, and loss to one caused on opening, but all fully legible. Overall, very good.
 
Both letters, in the hands of two Cambridge women, concern the suspicious death of a relation. One, signed “Flower Salmon, Wingell Laundress of Jesus Collife [College] Cambridge,” reports that her “relation did not earn his death by fair means,”. The accompanying letter, from a cousin, adds that Mr Taylor should “insist upon the body of a man being taken up,” implying the writers sought a post-mortem or forensic opinion.
 
Addressed to Professor Taylor of Guy’s Hospital, London, these letters were intended for Alfred Swaine Taylor (1806–1880), the pioneering toxicologist and father of modern forensic science, whose authority in medico-legal investigation was widely recognised after the Tawell poisoning case (1845).
 
Written at the height of Alfred Swaine Taylor’s public renown following the trial, they reflect the new interest in science as a path to justice — with the public appealing directly to him for help.