The Fatal Cup

Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (1794-1847) was a talented writer and artist, but also a notorious dandy, profligate and swindler, transported to Australia for audacious frauds on the Bank of England to pay for his excesses. He was accused of far greater crimes, those of poisoning his sister-in-law, after insuring her for a huge amount, and possibly killing his mother-in-law and uncle - all to pay off his huge debts. This biography draws on scores of documents previously unpublished and looks at the evidence again - to conclude that it was Wainewright's scheming and determined wife who plotted the insurance frauds and administered the 'fatal cup' as it was described in court.

It charts the progress of the foppish dilettante from his bookish family origins to a a brief unsuccessful army career, through a period of severe mental illness, to artistic life in London, where he knew Hazlitt, Coleridge and other Romantics, contributed to London's leading literary magazine, painted Byron and exhibited at the Royal Academy. It goes on to detail the profligacy that led to his downfall. It provides new evidence of his years of exile in France, to which he fled to avoid arrest for his bank frauds, and the extraordinary inept attempts of the British Government to have him extradited.

This book also provides:

• Expert opinion - the views of a consultant psychiatrist on the pathology of Wainewright's mental illness in 1815, which could have precipitated his descent into crime.

• New evidence - as to the guilt of his wife and the fate of her and their son.

• Photostats - of original documents, such as his last-minute offer of confession to the Home Secretary, never seen before.