Littlechild's Obituary

A NOTED DETECTIVE.

Mr. John George Littlechild, who has died at Matlock (Eng.), aged 75, was formerly a well-known detective at Scotland Yard. Perhaps the most famous case in which he was concerned was that of the four detective-inspectors and the solicitor who were charged with conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice, in connection with the great turf fraud on a French lady, the Comtesse de Goncourt. This was in 1877. Three of the detectives and the solicitor were convicted and sentenced each to two years' hard labour. Littlechild was also concerned in dealing with the outbreak of Fenian dynamite outrages in London, with the Phoenix Park murders, and with the case of Oscar Wilde. He rose to be Chief Inspector at the "Yard," and retired a good many years ago.

Source: The Register, Wednesday 18 April 1923, page 12