Richard Osman has done some detective work and discovered his ancestors were amateur sleuths like the characters in his crime novels.
Osman, whose debut The Thursday Murder Club has sold a million copies, has learned that his own relatives were at the centre of one of Brighton’s most notorious murder cases in 1831.
While making Who Do You Think You Are? he found newspaper reports telling how his four-times great-grandfather Gabriel Gillam discovered clothes and a body around two miles outside Brighton.
Initially unsure about what they had found, Gabriel and another man, David Maskell, visited the site several times before realising what they had discovered was the mutilated body of a woman from the town.
Gabriel, his wife Mary and mother Elizabeth also went to the site before informing a peace officer, the closest equivalent of someone in charge of law and order before a police force had been introduced in Brighton.
Osman said: “So that’s an intrepid little band setting off over the fields perhaps to solve a crime. You can just imagine the three of them sat around a table talking this through.
“I find it extraordinary. I write about a gang who investigate things.
“It’s my four-time great-grandmother and great-grandfather and five-time great- grandmother heading off to investigate.
"It’s making every hair on my neck stand up.
“I’ve written about amateur sleuths uncovering bodies. Suddenly there is a real-life case with Gabriel right at the heart of it.”
After digging at the site on Lovers’ Walk, which was farmland at the time, to the north of Brighton, Gabriel and the peace officer uncovered the dismembered remains of a woman, named as Celia Holloway.
Gabriel gave evidence at an inquest in a local pub the next day and was a witness in the court case which led to Celia’s husband John being found guilty of murder.
He was sentenced to death in Lewes, East Sussex, in December 1831.
Osman was shocked and delighted by his discovery. He said: “Gabriel and his wife, Mary and his mother, Elizabeth, they are the poorest of the poor fisherfolk from Brighton. And it is an amazing circus that they were suddenly at the heart of. To think that they were the detectives of the day. And their investigations essentially lead to justice.
“I’m minded to write a detective duo which is Gabriel Gillam and his mum, Elizabeth, solving crimes in 1830s Brighton – that’s just not a bad idea.”
The creator and co-host of Pointless, Osman recently announced he was stepping aside from his TV role to focus on his writing after the success of The Thursday Murder Club and follow-up The Man Who Died Twice.
In Who Do You Think You Are?, he also learned his family were fishermen back in the 19th century and can be traced back to 1757 in Brighton.
Osman, who was born and raised in Brighton, said: “I assumed we weren’t going anywhere too far out of Brighton. The place is very near to my heart.
Who Do You Think You Are? Featuring Richard Osman airs on BBC One, June 9.
