Tichborne’s grief-stricken mother immediately embraced this man as her son, despite major inconsistencies in his story. Tichborne had spoken fluent French; this man, whom investigators hired by others in the Tichborne family discovered to be an Australian butcher named Arthur Orton, didn’t know a word. Tichborne had been of average size; this man was enormously overweight. Even so, as the dispute was sensationalized by the press, public opinion became hotly divided along class lines, with many of London’s poor taking up Orton’s cause. The passionately debated trials that followed—first in civil court and then in criminal court, where Orton, by now a celebrity, was sentenced to prison for perjury—were among the lengthiest in the history of English law.

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Persons: Tichborne, ’, Roger Tichborne, Arthur Orton, didn’t, —, Orton Locations: England, Australian