Sweeney Todd

Man or Myth

“His voice was soft, his manner mild
He seldom laughed but he often smiled
He'd seen how civilized men behave
He never forgot and he never forgave
Not Sweeney
Not Sweeney Todd
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street...”

Maniacal, depraved, sinister? Yes! But true? The story of Sweeney Todd has been well documented over the last two centuries — the Demon Barber has gone from a madman reported in a 19th century newspaper serial to the macabre murderer in Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece musical. Controversy, however, surrounds whether the tale of the razor-wielding psychopath is grounded in fact, or if Sweeney Todd is nothing more than a bogeyman created by the colorful imaginations of the Georgian London populace.

For many people, the story of Sweeney Todd is just that: myth and tall tales. Critics assert that there is no reliable record of the murderous barber. However, crime historian Peter Haining exhaustively researched the available evidence for 25 years and claims that he can prove the existence of Sweeney Todd in his 1993 book, Sweeney Todd: The Real Story of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

By Haining’s account, Sweeney Todd was born in 1748—a time when London was known to be brutally poor and excessively violent. Todd’s parents were alcoholics and one night when he was 13 years old, his parents left the house in search of gin and never returned.

Todd was turned over to the local parish, where he was taught a trade as a cutler, a person responsible for sharpening knives and razors. At age 14, Todd was found guilty of theft and sentenced to five years in Newgate Prison. It was here that he learned his skills as a barber, shaving prisoners for a small fee.

When he was released from Newgate, Sweeney Todd opened up his barber’s shop on Fleet Street. According to Haining, his first reported victim was a “young gentlemen from the country” who fell into conversation with the barber on a street corner. The two gentlemen began to argue and soon after, Todd took out a razor, slit the throat of the young man, and disappeared into the alleys of the London streets. As evidence, Haining quotes the April 14, 1785 issue of The Daily Courant, which reported the murder with terror and fascination.

It was soon after that Todd supposedly began to use the legendary trick barber’s chair. Customers unlucky enough to find themselves on the second floor of Sweeney’s dark shop met their end beneath the floorboards. Todd pulled a lever, which tipped the victims headfirst through a revolving trapdoor onto the cellar floor (there was an identical chair bolted to the other side of the trapdoor to dispel the suspicions of passers-by). He would then descend to the cellar, cut their throats, and strip them of their valuables.

Haining affirms the cannibalistic trait of the legend as well as Todd’s accomplice to the horrific murders. Her name was Margery (some say Sarah) Lovett. She was soon to become Sweeney’s lover, and her pies were soon to become famous around London. After Todd slit his victim’s throat, he would dismember their body, strip away the human meat and deliver it to Lovett’s shop through a series of underground tunnels. It was the victim’s body parts that allegedly gave Lovett’s pies the delicious taste that London loved. The remaining carcass would then be dumped in the tunnels underneath the parish church.

The smell from the parish crypts soon became unbearable (the odor must have been repugnant to be noticed above the festering stench of Georgian London) and the police were called in to investigate. The searches led to the decaying bodies piled on top of each other, supposedly reaching the roof of the tunnel. Haining says that 160 people were thought to have been slain at the hand of Sweeney Todd.

Sweeney Todd was tried at the Old Bailey in 1801, and his trial is said to have generated feverish excitement around London. Todd stood accused of just one murder–enough to hang him, if convicted. The victim’s name was Francis Thornhill. The murder occurred while Thornhill was delivering a string of pearls when he decided to stop for a shave.

The jury deliberated for 10 minutes and Sweeney Todd was found guilty. He was hanged on January 25, 1802 in front of a crowd of 1,000 people. Margery Lovett escaped the hangman’s noose by confessing to the crimes. She then took her own life by poisoning herself while in jail.

Gruesomely thrilling accounts to be sure, but some say that Haining’s findings are completely false. Playwright Christopher Bond, whose 1973 play was the source material for Stephen Sondheim’s musical began his work by telling readers: “Sweeney Todd is pure fiction…No one has ever succeeded in finding a shred of evidence as to the existence of a Demon Barber thereabouts.”

While writing the 2006 BBC television movie, Sweeney Todd, Joshua St. Johnson said, “Researching was very confusing. In the end, it was only by visiting St. Dunstan’s Church, where Sweeney Todd was meant to have hidden the bits of the bodies that didn’t go into pies, that I realized he probably didn’t exist, as there was nothing there referring to it.”

That little evidence exists of Sweeney Todd may be the result of how easy it was to get away with murder in violent Georgian London and not because he was the product of lively imaginings. “Maybe there really was a Sweeney Todd after all — he just never got caught,” admits St. Johnson.

What Mr. Haining imparts as truth is perhaps the result of the day’s tabloids—the popular 19th century “penny dreadfuls.” Alongside vivid descriptions of the decomposing human remains, these newspapers were the first to seize the story of Francis Thornhill’s murder and zealously report Todd’s trial and execution as fact. The strong likelihood is that these accounts were exaggerated in an effort to boost sales. To add to the confusion, news stories commonly traveled by word of mouth as most of the London commonwealth were illiterate. While these stories were asserted as fact, it is probable that news accounts were grossly embellished along the way.

Two centuries into the debate, it is doubtful that the argument of whether Sweeney Todd is truth or legend will ever be known. However, it does seem certain that human nature’s appetite for the unthinkable will always be satisfied by the Demon Barber’s ability to thrill, repulse, and entertain.

To quote The New York Times’ Ben Brantley’s “[Sweeney Todd] burrows into your thoughts with the poisoned seductiveness of a campfire storyteller who knows what really scares you.”

References:
Duff, Oliver. “Sweeney Todd: fact or fiction?” From findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20060103/ai_n15975963.

Haining, Peter (1993). Sweeney Todd: The Real Story of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Boxtree. BBC Press Office.

Gribben, Mark. “Sweeney Todd – Man or Myth.” From www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/weird/todd/index_1.html

Brantley, Ben. Grand Guignol, Spare and Stark. In The New York Times. Retrieved from theater2.nytimes.com/2005/11/04/theater/reviews/04swee.html?ex=1180238400&en=f72ef4b416559f95&ei=5070

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