Edalji

One of my ancestors has become somewhat better know than he ever expected. This was my grandfather John Campbell who, for most of his life was a policeman. As an inspector in the Staffordshire Constabulary he was involved in the arrest of George Edalji (pronounced 'Ay-dal-ji') at his office in Birmingham in August 1904. I think he was also involved in collecting evidence, but I have no family records or anecdotes about his involvement. He later became a superintendent in Handsworth. 
    This case becoame notorious when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle took an interest, writing newspaper articles about it, later campaigning successfully for George's release and a government pardon. 
   Below I show a contemporary picture of Inspector Campbell (in plain clothes) speaking to a bicycling constable.

There are two books entirely devoted to the case:
The Story of Mr George Edalji (Grey House Books, 1985), mainly a reproduction of Conan Doyle's newspaper articles, edited and with an introduction by Richard and Molly Whittington-Egan;
Arthur & George (Cape, 2005;  Vintage, 2006) by Julian Barnes. This is a historical novel, so not entirely reliable (see my article 'Making up History’, in the Spring 2007 issue of The Skeptic on my ARTICLES page).
   There are also books that mention the case:
pp 166-179 in Compton Mackenzie's On Moral Courage (Collins 1962);
The Real World of Sherlock Holmes, by Peter Costello (Robinson, 1991);
The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle, by Russell Miller (Harvill Secker, 2008).

The case has been written about and dramatised. On 12 Dec 1987 BBC Radio 4 broadcast the play Conan Doyle and the Edalji Case. in which John Campbell was played by Anthony Jackson, but with an inappropriate Scottish accent (my grandfather had a local accent). On 25 Dec 2005, BBC4 aired a TV documentary about the case. 
   David Edgar has turned Julian Barnes's book into a play, which was performed at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre from 19 Mar to 10 Apr 2010 and at the Nottingham Playhouse from 22 Apr to 8 May 2010. The script of the play and a copy of David Edgar's Guardian article (13 Mar 2010) has been published in a booklet published by Nick Hern Books Ltd (2010).

According to Mike Harley, a local writer, John Campbell did most of the work on the case and, for some time, was at odds with his superiors  over the question of the perpetrator. Compton Mackenzie claims that Inspector Campbell 'knew who was guilty of the mutilations and he decided to arrest him'. I don't know how CM could know that and it seems that he's borrowed from ACD's writings. The whole police investigation appears to have been bungled and I don't like to think that my grandfather was responsible. I like to think that he was conscientiously doing what he was told to do by his superiors.