Cowbridge U3A History Group welcomed Ted Richards, Chair of Roath Local History Society, at its September 2021 meeting. The topic of his illustrated talk was "Poisoned", the stories and science behind a number of murderous poisonings throughout history.

Where better to start than with the Romans? The Emperor Claudius was poisoned by his wife, Agrippina, as a means of making her son, Nero, Emperor. A potential rival for power, Britannicus, a son of Claudius, was removed by poisoning, under the direct orders of Nero himself.

Arsenic was the poison of choice for many murderers. It blocks the function of enzymes and can cause symptoms similar to that of food poisoning or cholera.

Napoleon is named as a possible victim of this substance when exiled on St Helena, as traces were found in his body. A possible, innocent cause is that the wallpapers of the time contained substantial amounts of arsenic, and the ones in his rooms became infected with mould, which turned the arsenic into a volatile compound which Napoleon ingested.

Mary Ann Cotton, known as Britain's first female serial killer, used arsenic to murder over 20 people, including several husbands and eleven of her children. The motive was money, as all the victims were named on insurance policies.

She was finally charged with the murder, by arsenic, of a stepson. Her trial was delayed until after the delivery, in Durham Gaol, on 10 January 1873 of her thirteenth child, one of only two of her children to outlive her. Mary was found guilty and hanged.

Ted then recounted two poisoning cases involving solicitors. In 1919 in Kidwelly, Harold Greenwood was accused and acquitted of murdering his wife Mabel by arsenic poisoning.

She became ill and died within hours of eating a gooseberry pie and her husband was known to have purchased weed killer containing arsenic.

Although the jury agreed that a dangerous dose of arsenic was administered to Mabel, they were not satisfied that this had been the immediate cause of death nor how, or by whom, the arsenic had been administered.

The second solicitor, Herbert Armstrong, who had a practice in Hay on Wye, was not so fortunate. He was charged with, and convicted of, the murder of his wife, Kitty, with arsenic, the crime for which he was executed in 1922. Armstrong was the only solicitor in the history of the United Kingdom to have been hanged for murder.

He is also strongly suspected of attempting to poison a rival solicitor, Oswald Martin, with a scone and chocolates impregnated with arsenic.

Cyanide is another well-known poison. An attempt was made to kill the Russian monk Rasputin with cyanide; when that failed, physical means were used. The Nazi Hermann Goring committed suicide in 1946 with cyanide, as did Bosnian Croat General Slobodan Praljak in court in 2017.

John Allan, a former industrial chemist, poisoned his lover with cyanide on a Nile holiday. Allan watched lawyer Cheryl Lewis, 43, die in agony in their hotel room in Egypt, slowly suffocating as a laced gin and tonic starved her of oxygen.

He refused requests from an air stewardess, who attempted to save Cheryl's life, to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, fearing the fumes might endanger him. The motive for the crime? A plot to claim her £400,000+ fortune with a forged will.

The evil money-grabber was lining up his next victim for an identical fate when he was arrested. Allan was jailed for life in 2000.

Cyanide interferes with cellular respiration, resulting in the body's tissues being unable to use oxygen. An antidote, amyl nitrite, is often held in laboratories that work with cyanides, but as this substance is used as a recreational drug, samples often disappear.

Hyoscine was the substance believed to have been administered by Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen to kill (or, at least, incapacitate) his wife, Cora née Turner, who had been a music hall artist. Her "fleshy remains", found buried in a cellar, were identified by a scar.

Crippen is known for being the first criminal to be captured with the aid of wireless telegraphy. He was travelling to America aboard the liner "S.S. Montrose "with his lover, Ethel Le Neve (who was disguised as a boy).

The captain of the ship recognised the fugitives and sent a telegram to the British authorities: "Have strong suspicions that Crippen, London cellar murderer, and accomplice are among saloon passengers.

Accomplice dressed as boy. Manner and build undoubtedly a girl." Had Crippen travelled third class, he probably would have escaped the captain's notice.

Detectives boarded a faster liner, "SS Laurentic", and arrived in Quebec, Canada, ahead of Crippen. He was arrested, stood trial, was found guilty and executed. Ethel was exonerated.

Hyoscine is probably better known as scopolamine, which is used as a medication for treating motion sickness and postoperative nausea and vomiting by blocking receptor sites. Overdosing can cause adverse, even fatal, effects in patients with underlying cardiac disease.

More recent poisonings involved the murder of Bulgarian Georgi Markov with the highly-potent toxin ricin, administered through a spring-loaded spike on an umbrella.

Alexander Livinenko survived for a number of weeks after ingesting Polonium 210 in a cup of tea in a London hotel. He had been poisoned with the radioactive material by the KGB. Polonium 210 is an alpha particle emitter; these radioactive ions are safe outside the body, but deadly if ingested or inhaled.

Polonium was discovered by the Curies and, unfortunately, probably resulted in the death of their daughter through leukaemia.

Kim Jong-nam, son of Kim Jong-il and elder half-brother of present North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was assassinated in Malaysia with VX nerve agent. Two girls, under the impression they were involved in a prank for TV, wiped his face with a cloth impregnated with the toxin.

VX Nerve Agent is an organophosphate, originally synthesised by ICI, which attacks muscles, making them tense until the victim eventually can't breathe.

The more recent poisoning attack in Salisbury in 2018 on Sergei and Yulia Skripal was another Russian- organised murder attempt, this time using Novichok nerve agent. The targeted pair were lucky enough to survive the effects of the potent organophosphate toxin, but Dawn Sturgess was not. She was given a perfume bottle, which had been found in a litter bin in Salisbury, and sprayed some of the contents on her wrist. The scent container was later discovered to hold the nerve agent and Dawn did not survive the exposure.

Finally, to show how topical his talk was, Ted mentioned the poisoning, also with Novichok, of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who fell ill during a flight from Tomsk to Moscow in August 2020. He was evacuated to Berlin for medical treatment and, a month later, discharged. He returned to Russia and is now serving a prison sentence in a corrective labour colony.

Ted's talk was both interesting and informative. Despite the length of this report, the presentation was not long-winded and easily fell inside the usual 45-50 minutes remit that speakers are given.

To end with a fact: Ted Richards claims to be the first man to have drunk a Guinness in all 52 European capital cities. As Sir Michael Caine reputedly said (but probably didn't): "Not a lot of people know that".