Sketch of the Coombes family home at 35 Cave Road, Plaistow, published in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper on 21 July 1895, four days after the arrest of Robert and Nathaniel Coombes.

The Thames Iron Works, the West Ham shipbuilding company at which Robert worked as a ‘plater’s boy’ in June 1895, and (below) the Japanese battleship Fuji Yama under construction at the yard that month.

Newspaper sketches of Robert and Nattie Coombes, aged 13 and 12 respectively, in July 1895.

Robert and Nattie’s mother, Emily; their father, Robert; and their friend John Fox.

Mary Jane Burrage, a friend of Robert and Nattie’s mother; the boys’ aunt Emily; John Hewson, chief cashier of the shipping line for which their father worked; and Detective Inspector Mellish.

A match at Lord’s cricket ground in the summer of 1895 (above left), and a newspaper sketch of W. G. Grace at Lord’s on 8 July, when Robert and Nattie watched him bat for the Gentlemen.

The young adventurer Jack Wright, the hero of one of the ‘penny dreadfuls’ found in the back parlour of 35 Cave Road, and (right) another of the sensational stories in Robert’s collection.

Holloway gaol, north London, in which Robert and Nattie Coombes and John Fox were held in the summer of 1895, and (below) a cell and galleries at Newgate gaol, in the City of London, to which they were transferred for their trial in September.

Street view of Newgate gaol, with the dome of St Paul’s in the background, and (below) Birdcage Walk, the passageway along which prisoners were led from the prison to the Old Bailey courthouse.

Robert Coombes and John Fox and Nattie Coombes in the Old Bailey on 16 September 1895, and the dagger and truncheon produced in evidence.

The Old Court in the Old Bailey in the 1890s, with the dock on the left, the judges’ bench on the right, and the jury box by the windows at the back.

Speculative reconstructions of the crime and its aftermath, published in the Illustrated Police Budget on 27 July 1895 (main image) and the Illustrated Police News on 3 August 1895 (inset).

The gatehouse to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, photographed in 1910, and (below) the upper terrace of the asylum, with Block 2 on the right.

David Nicolson (above left), superintendent of Broadmoor from 1886 to 1896, with Richard Brayn, his successor; an asylum terrace in the early 1900s (above right); and (below) a plan of the male quarters in 1902 – Block 2 is in the bottom right-hand corner.

The Broadmoor cricket team in 1905 – none of the players is identified, but Robert Coombes may be the man sitting on the grass second from left.

Dormitories of the Salvation Army colony overlooking the Thames at Hadleigh, Essex, in the early 1900s, and (below) a plan of the colony in about 1912.

An Australian training camp in northern Egypt at the beginning of the Great War, and (below) the 13th Battalion band soon after its formation in Australia in November 1914. Robert Coombes is probably the soldier in spectacles in the back row, third from left.

Gallipoli, 1915: Anzac troops attacking the Turks (top); an Australian recruitment poster (above); and stretcher bearers on the beach (right).

Australian troops on the Western Front in October 1917, and (below) the 45th Battalion band in northern France in March 1918 – Robert is in the front row, holding a cornet, behind the biggest drum.

Robert Coombes in the late 1930s or early 1940s and (below) a photograph taken in 1928 of the Orara river, near which he lived.