Eugene Aram

Eugene Aram: The Self-Taught Scholar Who Hid a Murder for Thirteen Years

Eugene Aram had almost no schooling and no money. He taught himself Latin, Greek and Hebrew, then Arabic, Syriac and the Celtic languages, and he glimpsed a truth that later became part of the bedrock of linguistics: that Celtic belongs to the same family as Latin, Greek and English. He was also convicted of murder, and before he died he admitted his guilt. In February 1745 a Knaresborough shoemaker named Daniel Clark vanished. More than thirteen years later, bones were dug up, an accomplice talked, and the schoolmaster teaching Latin to boys in Norfolk was taken back to Yorkshire in custody. On 6 August 1759, at York, he was hanged.

A Gardener's Son With a Hunger for Books

Aram was born in 1704, probably in September, at Ramsgill in Nidderdale, Yorkshire. His father, Peter, was a gardener on the Newby estate of Sir Edward Blackett. The boy had a basic education and little else. A clerk's post in a London counting-house, found through the Blackett family, ended when he caught smallpox and came home.

Back in the dales he studied relentlessly, taught himself Latin and Greek and opened a school at his birthplace. On 4 May 1731, at Middlesmoor, he married Anna Spence of Lofthouse. By 1734 the family had moved to Knaresborough, where Aram kept a school and added Hebrew to his languages.

The Shoemaker Who Vanished

Daniel Clark was a Knaresborough shoemaker who had recently married. Early in 1745 he began obtaining silver plate and other valuables from local tradesmen on credit, saying his marriage had brought him money. During the night of 7 to 8 February 1745 he disappeared, and the goods disappeared with him.

Suspicion settled on two of his friends: Aram and a flax-dresser named Richard Houseman. Some of the missing goods turned up in Aram's garden, and he abruptly paid off his debts. The evidence was not enough to hold him. That spring he left Knaresborough for London, leaving Anna and their children behind.

Thirteen Years on the Move

For more than a decade Aram drifted through England as an usher, the assistant master in a school. For a time he worked as a copyist for a London law stationer. He kept studying: French, Arabic, botany, heraldry and the Celtic languages. He began gathering material for an ambitious work, a comparative lexicon of English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Celtic. By early 1758 he was usher at the grammar school in King's Lynn, Norfolk.

A Linguist Ahead of His Time

Aram's surviving notes contain a genuine insight. He argued that the Celtic languages were related to the other tongues of Europe, and he rejected the common belief that Latin was simply derived from Greek. He also stressed the value of place names as evidence for the history of words.

He was not alone, and he was not finished. The Welsh scholar Edward Lhuyd had made a similar case about Celtic earlier, with little notice. The point was not put on a scientific footing until James Cowles Prichard's *The Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations* in 1831. Aram's fragments also contain fanciful comparisons between Celtic and Hebrew. He was a brilliant amateur who never completed the book that might have made his name for the right reasons.

Bones on Thistle Hill

In August 1758 a labourer digging for stone near Knaresborough uncovered human bones. The old case came back to life. Houseman, brought face to face with the remains, said: "This is no more Dan Clark's bone than it is mine." His certainty invited the obvious question: how did he know? Under pressure he turned King's evidence, accused Aram of the killing and led officers to St Robert's Cave, outside the town, where a second skeleton lay buried.

That August two constables sent from Yorkshire arrested Aram at the school in King's Lynn. He first denied knowing Knaresborough or Clark at all.

Defending Himself at York

The trial opened at York on 3 August 1759. Houseman, formally acquitted, became the Crown's witness. Without counsel, Aram read a prepared defence that was printed and reprinted for more than a century. He argued that a man of his studious life was an unlikely murderer, that Clark's death had never been proved, that circumstantial evidence was treacherous, and that old bones turned up all over England, not least in caves that had once sheltered hermits. It was a learned and fluent performance. It did not sway the judge, and the jury found him guilty.

Three Days to the Gallows

He was sentenced to death, with his body to be hung in chains. In the condemned cell he confessed to two clergymen. He named Houseman as the chief actor and gave a motive: he believed Clark had been having an affair with his wife. The night before his execution he attempted suicide and was revived. On 6 August 1759 he was hanged at the York Tyburn on the Knavesmire, aged 54. His body was carried to Knaresborough and hung in chains, as the sentence required.

A Skull on Display

Aram's remains did not rest. His skull passed from owner to owner and in 1838 was put forward in arguments over phrenology, the Victorian pseudo-science of reading character from the shape of the head. It was later held by the Royal College of Surgeons, which transferred it to King's Lynn in 1993. Today it is on show at the Stories of Lynn museum, a few feet from where his schoolroom stood.

How a Killer Became a Romantic Hero

Within a century the usher had become a legend. Thomas Hood's ballad *The Dream of Eugene Aram* pictures him haunted by his secret among his pupils at Lynn. Edward Bulwer-Lytton's novel *Eugene Aram* (1832) went further, recasting him as a noble scholar undone by circumstance. Henry Irving played him on the London stage in 1873, and the silent screen followed. With each retelling the killer grew more sympathetic. Daniel Clark almost disappeared a second time.

On Screen and in Print

• The Dream of Eugene Aram (1829), ballad by Thomas Hood, first printed in *The Gem*, the literary annual Hood edited.
• Eugene Aram (1832), novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, published in three volumes in London by Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley.
• Eugene Aram (1873), play by W. G. Wills at the Lyceum Theatre, London, with Henry Irving as Aram.
• Eugene Aram (1924), British silent film directed by Arthur Rooke, based on Bulwer-Lytton's novel, with Arthur Wontner as Aram.

Why Eugene Aram Is Called a Genius

Because the mind was real. A gardener's son with almost no schooling taught himself at least half a dozen languages and saw, in an age of guesswork, that Celtic belonged with the languages of Europe. That is why he appears on Geniuses.club. It is also why his story is a warning, not a tribute. Daniel Clark was a working man who went out on a winter night and never came home, and for thirteen years one of the men responsible taught Latin to children. At York, Aram's learning was put to work arguing that a scholar could not be a murderer. He was both. His intellect explains how well he spoke in his own defence. It explains nothing about why Clark died, and it excuses none of it.

Achievements

• Born to a gardener and given only basic schooling, he taught himself Latin, Greek and Hebrew, then Arabic, Syriac, French and the Celtic languages.
• He was hanged at York on 6 August 1759 for the 1745 murder of Daniel Clark, a Knaresborough shoemaker, after an accomplice led officers to Clark's remains thirteen years later.
• Argued that the Celtic languages are related to the other languages of Europe, a point not set on a scientific footing until James Cowles Prichard's book of 1831.
• Rejected the common belief of his day that Latin was derived from Greek.
• Planned a comparative lexicon of English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Celtic, left unfinished.
• Conducted his own defence at York with a written speech on the fallibility of circumstantial evidence, printed and reprinted for more than a century.
• Became the subject of Thomas Hood's ballad The Dream of Eugene Aram (1829), Edward Bulwer-Lytton's novel Eugene Aram (1832) and an 1873 stage play starring Henry Irving.
• His skull is displayed at the Stories of Lynn museum in King's Lynn, a few feet from where he taught.