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The Body In The Cylinder (Liverpool; 1945)

You posted wonderfully informative details, EnolaGaia, despite not being a legal expert of 19th century bankruptcy law!
Even this second chance totally collapsed by late summer 1885, and the Trustees issued another call for creditors in preparation for a total liquidation. The diary entry about a June 1885 appointment and the postcard dated 3 July 1885 may have represented his last chances to continue doing business.
Reading this part of your post gave me the keen sense that he could have suffered a mental breakdown under these conditions, which could make it possible that he had no rational plan at all and just crept into a hiding place after losing the plot.
Then again, if he did just break down and disappear while mentally incompetent, then his family probably would have filed a missing person report, or whatever it was called then, but there was no such record found.

When I first read the title of this thread, I thought, "how complicated could this one get? What a simple scenario. There probably won't be many replies." Was I wrong! This thread is full of fascinating posts and puzzles! Thank you, MorningAngel!
 
In a pair of books containing Liverpool history and lore, author Ken Pye claims some details that aren't mentioned elsewhere. Insofar as Pye doesn't specify his sources, it's unclear how accurate or substantive these points are. The two books (and links to their limited preview access at Google Books) are:

Merseyside Tales: Curious and Amazing True Stories from History (2015?)
https://books.google.com/books?id=8... OR leeds OR "great homer" OR fulford&f=false

Liverpool Murders and Misdemeanours (2020)
https://books.google.com/books?id=i...4Q6AEwJXoECAwQAg#v=onepage&q=Williams&f=false

The text seems identical in both books, but the Google Books preview omits different pages. You need to review both versions to get the maximum view of the available text.

Pye characterizes the initial discovery of the iron tube / cylinder differently that any other commentator I've seen to date. He claims the blitz bombing created a crater which exposed the tube / cylinder, which was already buried underground. It was left lying there for some time before being moved during wartime or post-wartime cleanup.

Pye also states the tube was "seemingly completely sealed at both ends." His characterization of the cylinder as fully enclosed diverges from other accounts and provides the basis for his referring to it as an "iron coffin."

Pye describes Williams' company as "oil traders" rather than dealers in paint. His is not the only account to mention trading in oils, but it's the sole one I've seen that mentions oils as the only type of goods the company handled.

The 2015 copy states that the mystery man's remains were cremated and buried in a Liverpool cemetery (unspecified), and that there's no record of what happened to the tube / cylinder itself.
 
In a pair of books containing Liverpool history and lore, author Ken Pye claims some details that aren't mentioned elsewhere. Insofar as Pye doesn't specify his sources, it's unclear how accurate or substantive these points are. The two books (and links to their limited preview access at Google Books) are:

Merseyside Tales: Curious and Amazing True Stories from History (2015?)
https://books.google.com/books?id=8GoTDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT146&lpg=PT146&dq="williams"+"iron+coffin"+liverpool+OR+leeds+OR+"great+homer"+OR+fulford&source=bl&ots=OI7wi4bzhJ&sig=ACfU3U3A3eeS3olNFwLNN51j8tnCZlx3NA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjN17q9rp3uAhWJo1kKHTyjBNEQ6AEwA3oECAoQAg#v=onepage&q="williams" "iron coffin" liverpool OR leeds OR "great homer" OR fulford&f=false

Liverpool Murders and Misdemeanours (2020)
https://books.google.com/books?id=i-bRDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT168&lpg=PT168&dq=Pye+"Liverpool+Murders+and+Misdemeanours"&source=bl&ots=9oZBE30lpy&sig=ACfU3U0bJcKMWUIL_lCtQqzocGlkODrNGA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiL8_KxrJ3uAhUyw1kKHW1PA44Q6AEwJXoECAwQAg#v=onepage&q=Williams&f=false

The text seems identical in both books, but the Google Books preview omits different pages. You need to review both versions to get the maximum view of the available text.

Pye characterizes the initial discovery of the iron tube / cylinder differently that any other commentator I've seen to date. He claims the blitz bombing created a crater which exposed the tube / cylinder, which was already buried underground. It was left lying there for some time before being moved during wartime or post-wartime cleanup.

Pye also states the tube was "seemingly completely sealed at both ends." His characterization of the cylinder as fully enclosed diverges from other accounts and provides the basis for his referring to it as an "iron coffin."

Pye describes Williams' company as "oil traders" rather than dealers in paint. His is not the only account to mention trading in oils, but it's the sole one I've seen that mentions oils as the only type of goods the company handled.

The 2015 copy states that the mystery man's remains were cremated and buried in a Liverpool cemetery (unspecified), and that there's no record of what happened to the tube / cylinder itself.
I wonder if the home office laboratories, Preston, still have the 'evidence' locked away in some dusty archive somewhere
 
In a pair of books containing Liverpool history and lore, author Ken Pye claims some details that aren't mentioned elsewhere. Insofar as Pye doesn't specify his sources, it's unclear how accurate or substantive these points are. The two books (and links to their limited preview access at Google Books) are:

Merseyside Tales: Curious and Amazing True Stories from History (2015?)
https://books.google.com/books?id=8GoTDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT146&lpg=PT146&dq="williams"+"iron+coffin"+liverpool+OR+leeds+OR+"great+homer"+OR+fulford&source=bl&ots=OI7wi4bzhJ&sig=ACfU3U3A3eeS3olNFwLNN51j8tnCZlx3NA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjN17q9rp3uAhWJo1kKHTyjBNEQ6AEwA3oECAoQAg#v=onepage&q="williams" "iron coffin" liverpool OR leeds OR "great homer" OR fulford&f=false

Liverpool Murders and Misdemeanours (2020)
https://books.google.com/books?id=i-bRDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT168&lpg=PT168&dq=Pye+"Liverpool+Murders+and+Misdemeanours"&source=bl&ots=9oZBE30lpy&sig=ACfU3U0bJcKMWUIL_lCtQqzocGlkODrNGA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiL8_KxrJ3uAhUyw1kKHW1PA44Q6AEwJXoECAwQAg#v=onepage&q=Williams&f=false

The text seems identical in both books, but the Google Books preview omits different pages. You need to review both versions to get the maximum view of the available text.

Pye characterizes the initial discovery of the iron tube / cylinder differently that any other commentator I've seen to date. He claims the blitz bombing created a crater which exposed the tube / cylinder, which was already buried underground. It was left lying there for some time before being moved during wartime or post-wartime cleanup.

Pye also states the tube was "seemingly completely sealed at both ends." His characterization of the cylinder as fully enclosed diverges from other accounts and provides the basis for his referring to it as an "iron coffin."

Pye describes Williams' company as "oil traders" rather than dealers in paint. His is not the only account to mention trading in oils, but it's the sole one I've seen that mentions oils as the only type of goods the company handled.

The 2015 copy states that the mystery man's remains were cremated and buried in a Liverpool cemetery (unspecified), and that there's no record of what happened to the tube / cylinder itself.
In the article frim the mersey press, the bankruptsy order definately describes the business as a 'paint and colour manufacturer'
 
In a pair of books containing Liverpool history and lore, author Ken Pye claims some details that aren't mentioned elsewhere. Insofar as Pye doesn't specify his sources, it's unclear how accurate or substantive these points are. The two books (and links to their limited preview access at Google Books) are:

Merseyside Tales: Curious and Amazing True Stories from History (2015?)
https://books.google.com/books?id=8GoTDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT146&lpg=PT146&dq="williams"+"iron+coffin"+liverpool+OR+leeds+OR+"great+homer"+OR+fulford&source=bl&ots=OI7wi4bzhJ&sig=ACfU3U3A3eeS3olNFwLNN51j8tnCZlx3NA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjN17q9rp3uAhWJo1kKHTyjBNEQ6AEwA3oECAoQAg#v=onepage&q="williams" "iron coffin" liverpool OR leeds OR "great homer" OR fulford&f=false

Liverpool Murders and Misdemeanours (2020)
https://books.google.com/books?id=i-bRDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT168&lpg=PT168&dq=Pye+"Liverpool+Murders+and+Misdemeanours"&source=bl&ots=9oZBE30lpy&sig=ACfU3U0bJcKMWUIL_lCtQqzocGlkODrNGA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiL8_KxrJ3uAhUyw1kKHW1PA44Q6AEwJXoECAwQAg#v=onepage&q=Williams&f=false

The text seems identical in both books, but the Google Books preview omits different pages. You need to review both versions to get the maximum view of the available text.

Pye characterizes the initial discovery of the iron tube / cylinder differently that any other commentator I've seen to date. He claims the blitz bombing created a crater which exposed the tube / cylinder, which was already buried underground. It was left lying there for some time before being moved during wartime or post-wartime cleanup.

Pye also states the tube was "seemingly completely sealed at both ends." His characterization of the cylinder as fully enclosed diverges from other accounts and provides the basis for his referring to it as an "iron coffin."

Pye describes Williams' company as "oil traders" rather than dealers in paint. His is not the only account to mention trading in oils, but it's the sole one I've seen that mentions oils as the only type of goods the company handled.

The 2015 copy states that the mystery man's remains were cremated and buried in a Liverpool cemetery (unspecified), and that there's no record of what happened to the tube / cylinder itself.
I just found this photo, apparently of said body in the cylinder
stein_loulan_4.jpg

In this article
https://www.liverpoolpicturebook.com/2013/03/TheManInTheCylinder.html?m=1
 
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The jaw looks intact.
I just found this report from a reddit article on the body in the cylinder on tje descriptionof the body:

Description of the victim

The remains were found to be those of an adult male who would have been about 6 feet (1.8 m) tall in life. It was thought, in 1945, that the man was aged between 25 and 50 at the time of his death. The body appeared to have been in situ for a long time. The left base of the skeletons skull was missing. The cranium was broken near to the left middle-ear but this did not appear to be due to violence. The head and torso had become detached at some point through movement. A small amount of hair was found still adhered to the skull.

It describes the lower part of the skull, rather than the jaw as being missing.
 
I just found this photo, apparently of said body in the cylinder ...

Yes, I saw that. Unfortunately, nothing in the article refers to that photo, much less claims it is a photo of the cylinder corpse.

I strongly suspect that photo is NOT of the cylinder corpse, but instead represents a photo of an unrelated mummy chosen to illustrate a supine corpse in a confined pose. Here's why ...

- The corpse in the photo is a desiccated mummy, not a largely decomposed corpse.
- There's no trace of the Victorian clothing that clothed the cylinder corpse.
- The pair of slabs to either side are discrete objects and can't be masses of adicopere.

Upon further investigation ...

The filename for the photo is "stein_loulan_4.jpg".

Aurel Stein was a famous archaeologist who explored Central Asian sites (including western China) over a century ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurel_Stein

Loulan is the name of an ancient culture and its capital in what is now western China.

The Tarim Basin is the region within which the Loulan culture lived and dominated. Stein discovered many desiccated mummies in the Tarim Basin associated with the Loulan culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarim_mummies

Here's a photo of a Tarim Basin mummy. Note the very similar slabs used in the burial.

tarim mummies.jpg

SOURCE: https://www.unmyst3.com/2015/04/mystery-of-tarim-mummies.html

Based on all this, I'm pretty confident the photo on the Liverpool Picturebook webpage is actually a photo of a Tarim Basin mummy that was inserted as a substitute image for the corpse in the cylinder.
 
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Yes, I saw that. Unfortunately, nothing in the article refers to that photo, much less claims it is a photo of the cylinder corpse.

I strongly suspect that photo is NOT of the cylinder corpse, but instead represents a photo of an unrelated mummy chosen to illustrate a supine corpse in a confined pose. Here's why ...

- The corpse in the photo is a desiccated mummy, not a largely decomposed corpse.
- There's no trace of the Victorian clothing that clothed the cylinder corpse.
- The pair of slabs to either side are discrete objects and can't be masses of adicopere.

Upon further investigation ...

The filename for the photo is "stein_loulan_4.jpg".

Aurel Stein was a famous archaeologist who explored Central Asian sites (including western Chine) over a century ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurel_Stein

Loulan is the name of an ancient culture and its capital in what is now western China.

The Tarim Basin is the region within which the Loulan culture lived and dominated. Stein discovered many desiccated mummies in the Tarim Basin associated with the Loulan culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarim_mummies

Here's a photo of a Tarim Basin mummy. Note the very similar slabs used in the burial.

SOURCE: https://www.unmyst3.com/2015/04/mystery-of-tarim-mummies.html

Based on all this, I'm pretty confident the photo on the Liverpool Picturebook webpage is actually a photo of a Tarim Basin mummy that was inserted as a substitute image for the corpse in the cylinder.
Good research, i did have my doubts based on the clothing or lack of
 
Pye describes Williams' company as "oil traders" rather than dealers in paint. His is not the only account to mention trading in oils, but it's the sole one I've seen that mentions oils as the only type of goods the company handled.
I'm getting a little confused. Does "oil" refer to petroleum or oil based paints?
 
I'm getting a little confused. Does "oil" refer to petroleum or oil based paints?

I don't know; the documentation is ambiguous on that point. However, at least one account cited Williams trade as being in "oils and paints". The implied distinction between the two product categories would seem to suggest 'oils' didn't refer to oil-based paints.

As noted earlier, Williams' early working life was as a drysalter (vendor of miscellaneous materials). To the extent he may have continued in that trade as well, 'oils' might refer to a variety of substances other than petroleum products.
 
The theory of the body being 'set up' as an alibi for the disappearing T C Williams doesn't seem to hold up - for it to work surely you leave the body somewhere it is going to be found quite quickly? He'd hardly need an alibi years later.

Although of course decomposition would help for the mistaken identification to be made - but by then what would be the point?
 
I've been thinking about Pye's characterization of the cylinder as an 'iron coffin' that was already buried (then exposed by a bomb's cratering). This led me to alternative spin on the story.

First, some basic facts (to the extent we have anything resembling facts at all ... ) ...

The cylinder is variously described as being between 6 and 7 feet long. The (presumably TCW) skeleton was of a man approximately 6 feet tall. The end cap found on one end of the cylinder was held in place by screws or bolts. It's unclear whether the other (open; crimped) end had been open or closed before the cylinder was damaged by a bulldozer during clearance operations. The corpse was nicely dressed in a suit and lying supine on 'sacking' with a sack-wrapped brick apparently serving as a pillow. A 6-foot-tall supine body would take up most of the cylinder's interior with only about a foot to spare.

Second ... Let's take Pye's account as accurate just for the sake of what-if-ing ... The cylinder was already buried and had been exposed inside a bomb crater. It was treated as a piece of debris, but it hadn't fallen from a damaged or destroyed nearby building. It was a found object that someone had placed underground decades earlier.

What if the cylinder was an improvised coffin for TCW? What if TCW had died and his widow and / or son perceived some advantage in having his death remain secret? TCW was financially ruined, in his mid-50s, and under a lot of stress. It's not much of a stretch to imagine he could have popped his clogs (e.g., from a heart attack).

Take a pipe or piece of ductwork. Lay some sacking in it, upon which TCW's respectfully dressed corpse is laid out. Remove the end cap on the cylinder and pull the body in, until the head is scant inches from the end. Place the sack-wrapped brick beneath the head and re-install the end cap (at both ends, if the eventually open / crimped end had also been capped ... ). Bury the improvised coffin at some distance from both TCW's residence and place of business - e.g., dropping it inside an excavation at a nearby construction site.

Why would anyone find it advantageous to secretly bury a deceased businessman facing final liquidation? Could his disappearance have thrown a wrench in the bankruptcy proceedings, and thereby bought someone an arbitrary amount of additional time? Could his second wife and / or son feared his death would expose his personal (probate) estate to seizure along with his business assets?

Having emerged so long after 1945, Pye's account is likely to be as 'spun' or twisted as any of the other post hoc retellings. Still, I have to admit the known facts are eerily consistent with a broken man's death and surreptitious burial. If nothing else, this what-if scenario makes for a more interesting story ...
 
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I've been thinking about Pye's characterization of the cylinder as an 'iron coffin' that was already buried (then exposed by a bomb's cratering). This led me to alternative spin on the story.

First, some basic facts (to the extent we have anything resembling facts at all ... ) ...

The cylinder is variously described as being between 6 and 7 feet long. The (presumably TCW) skeleton was of a man approximately 6 feet tall. The end cap found on one end of the cylinder was held in place by screws or bolts. It's unclear whether the other (open; crimped) end had been open or closed before the cylinder was damaged by a bulldozer during clearance operations. The corpse was nicely dressed in a suit and lying supine on 'sacking' with a sack-wrapped brick apparently serving as a pillow. A 6-foot-tall supine body would take up most of the cylinder's interior with only about a foot to spare.

Second ... Let's take Pye's account as accurate just for the sake of what-if-ing ... The cylinder was already buried and had been exposed inside a bomb crater. It was treated as a piece of debris, but it hadn't fallen from a damaged or destroyed nearby building. It was a found object that someone had placed underground decades earlier.

What if the cylinder was an improvised coffin for TCW? What if TCW had died and his widow and / or son perceived some advantage in having his death remain secret? TCW was financially ruined, in his mid-50s, and under a lot of stress. It's not much of a stretch to imagine he could have popped his clogs (e.g., from a heart attack).

Take a pipe of piece of ductwork. Lay some sacking in it, upon which TCW's respectfully dressed corpse is laid out. Remove the end cap on the cylinder and pull the body in, until the head is scant inches from the end. Place the sack-wrapped brick beneath the head and re-install the end cap (at both ends, if the eventually open / crimped end had also been capped ... ). Bury the improvised coffin at some distance from both TCW's residence and place of business - e.g., dropping it inside an excavation at a nearby construction site.

Why would anyone find it advantageous to secretly bury a deceased businessman facing final liquidation? Could his disappearance have thrown a wrench in the bankruptcy proceedings, and thereby bought someone an arbitrary amount of additional time? Could his second wife and / or son feared his death would expose his personal (probate) estate to seizure along with his business assets?

Having emerged so long after 1945, Pye's account is likely to be as 'spun' or twisted as any of the other post hoc retellings. Still, I have to admit the known facts are eerily consistent with a broken man's death and surreptitious burial. If nothing else, this what-if scenario makes for a more interesting story ...
On reading through a lot of reports there are a couple that suggest the cylinder was a makeshift ciffin and was buried in concrete prior to it unearthing during the blitz, a couple of things make be doubt this theory, the main one being that, from the few images we have of the cylinder there is no evidence of any remnants of concrete on it, having worked in construcrion i know from experience that concrete sticks like sh*t to a blanket and is almost impossible to completely remove off of an item.
 
According to the caption for the last (1966) photo on the liverpoolpicturebook webpage the children's playground in the picture was "...
built over Fulford Street."
Well they needed something to play with once their body in a cylinder was taken away.
 
On reading through a lot of reports there are a couple that suggest the cylinder was a makeshift ciffin and was buried in concrete prior to it unearthing during the blitz ...

The original placement and surroundings of the cylinder are among the biggest sub-mysteries in this story. I've seen accounts that claim the cylinder was first discovered or seen as something 'embedded' in the concrete foundation of a destroyed building or a pipe or duct that ran through a concrete wall in such a building. As noted earlier, Pye seems to claim it was an independent object buried underground (unrelated to any building) and exposed within a bomb crater. Others just vaguely state it was first discovered in or underneath a pile of rubble or debris.

I doubt we'll ever know where it was first seen or what its earliest known surroundings (as of 1945) may have been.

On a related note ... There's variation among the accounts as to when the cylinder first surfaced. The Liverpool air raids began in August 1940, and the heaviest bombings continued through May 1941. The very last air raid was in January 1942.

In the event the cylinder surfaced as a result of wartime blitz clean-up operations, one must wonder when clean-up crews first encountered it. Many accounts attribute the bulldozer's crushing the cylinder to 1945. Some indicate the cylinder was lying around for people (e.g. kids) to see sometime earlier, during the war years.

There's also the issue of whether the place where the cylinder ended up was the same place where it started. It's entirely possible it had been dug out of debris in one place and moved to an intermediate scrap heap somewhere else.
 
I wonder if the home office laboratories, Preston, still have the 'evidence' locked away in some dusty archive somewhere

The Home Office Laboratories branch at Preston doesn't exist anymore. It was merged into the national Forensic Science Service (FSS). The FSS itself was terminated around a decade ago (some sources say 2010, but the final shutdown apparently occurred in 2012).

Legacy files and sampled materials (e.g., microscope slides and fabric swatches) went to the Forensic Science Archive. The archived materials date back as far as the 1930s but there's no guarantee they are comprehensive. Requests submitted to the archives can only get you the relevant case files. It's unclear to what extent any evidence samples were conserved or are available for examination.

https://www.forensicarchive.com
 
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The original placement and surroundings of the cylinder are among the biggest sub-mysteries in this story. I've seen accounts that claim the cylinder was first discovered or seen as something 'embedded' in the concrete foundation of a destroyed building or a pipe or duct that ran through a concrete wall in such a building. As noted earlier, Pye seems to claim it was an independent object buried underground (unrelated to any building) and exposed within a bomb crater. Others just vaguely state it was first discovered in or underneath a pile of rubble or debris.
I'd guess, amid the confusion, general deprivation and mass of other debris, nobody really paid much attention to the cylinder. It may have been one among many. Nowadays, on seeing a half-uncovered cylinder jutting from a floor during (say) building works, we may be curious. Back then, when everything was in a state of flux, half demolished buildings everywhere and rubble on every corner - no one would have even given 'our' cylinder a second glance.

My dad used to tell me about playing on derelict bomb sites after the war. Piles of people's belongings, bricks, general building material - it's hard for us to imagine at this remove.
 
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